Aug. 27, 2015 Show with Joe Thorn and John Divito

Iron Sharpens Iron Opens With Proverbs 27:17 and the Day’s Guests

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own.

Questions. Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Due to technical difficulties, the audio for the first 30 minutes of this broadcast suffered digital corruption. During this time as you listen, you will notice an unpleasant stutter effect.

We would like to apologize to you, our listeners and to the guest Joe Thorne for this difficulty. However, much of the first 30 minutes is understandable and the topic will be valuable to the patient listener.

So the decision was made to include this program in its entirety as part of our podcast. Now let's join Chris Arnton and his guest for today's program. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and.

The rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 27th day of August 2015.

And I'm very happy to have back as a returning guest on Iron Sharpens Iron, Joe Thorne for the first hour. Joe Thorne is going to be discussing his book, Note to Self, the Discipline of Preaching to Yourself.

And then in the second hour, we have John DeVito of the Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky. And he is going to be discussing during the second hour, African Pastors Conferences, which is an organization directed by my friend Conrad Mbewe, who is probably the greatest preacher, the most powerful preacher I have ever heard in my life.

And I'm very honored that he, over the years, since about 1995 or so, has become a good friend of mine. And I have heard him preach probably six times in person and other times via sermon audio and the old cassette tapes and CDs and so on.

But you don't want to miss the second hour as well as we interviewed John DeVito. And I just want to introduce to you right now the brother who I mentioned at the outset of the program, Joe Thorne, whom we're going to be discussing, Note to Self, the Discipline of Preaching to Yourself.

Joe Thorne is the founding and lead pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois. Did I say Illinois? And he is an active blogger at joethorne .net and has written for Founders Journal. And he has written other books other than what we are discussing today.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron, Sharp, and Zion again, Pastor Joe Thorne.

One time. Last time. I'm hoping for more of the same.

I am as well. And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away in the event that you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Joe Thorne regarding his book, Note to Self, the Discipline of Preaching to Yourself.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as always, please provide your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

And we understand that there are occasions when folks have personal and private matters that they do not want to disclose their identity when they ask questions in those matters. So we respect your privacy, and we will allow you to remain anonymous.

But please only remain anonymous if it's something of a personal and sensitive nature. Joe Thorne, before we get into the book, once again, for our listeners who may not have heard your previous interview, if you could let our listeners know about the church where you pastor.

Joe Thorne We planted Redeemer, and I grew up in a ministry shortly after my conversion, and we've been able to plant three other churches through college town. The recent one that we're getting going is in Naperville, about,.

I don't know, 30 minutes away from here. And once again, if you want any more information about the church where Joe pastors, Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, you could go to Joe's personal website, joethorne .net.

There's no E at the end of Thorne, it's just joethorne .net. And I just want to announce before I forget, since you mentioned the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, that this Monday we have Dr. Al Mohler on our program.

And we are very excited and enthusiastic to have him on our show for the very first time. And he's going to be discussing his book that just recently came out in response to the Supreme Court decision on legalization of same sex marriage.

And we're looking forward to that very much. And so mark your calendars and get your questions ready. In fact, you can start emailing your questions right now if you want to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com obviously distinguish in the subject line who the question is for, whether it's for our guests today or for Dr. Mohler. But I just have to read a couple of these excellent commendations that you received for the book.

And a couple of these brethren have been guests on iron sharpens iron in the past. And in fact, Tom Nettles is going to be my guest just in about a week or so on his new book about Charles about Charles Adams Spurgeon, the great 19th century prince of preachers from London.

Tom Nettles says, I am thoroughly engrossed with Joe Thorne's personal meditations on preaching the gospel to oneself. He combines a clear biblical knowledge with an excellent grasp of doctrine from a historical reformed perspective and is able to press home a rich application of each aspect of truth to the development of personal holiness.

These applications are not trite, but arise from knowledge of the church's best soul doctors. My wife and I have been reading this each evening and have profited greatly. Each chapter can be managed in less than five minutes provides an evening's worth of rich reflection.

As I said, that's Dr. Tom Nettles, professor of historical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And one more from a former guest on iron sharpens iron that we hope to have back Chris Braun's pastor of the red brick church in Stillman Valley, Illinois, who also is an author.

He wrote a book called unpacking forgiveness that we did at least two interviews on the old iron sharpens iron program. Chris Braun says Joe Thorne has written a series of devotions that are concise and clear, but also profound and penetrating.

This is just the sort of resource that frazzled and people like this pastor need to read to come back to center and be refreshed by the wonder of the gospel and the beauty and majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, those are pretty profound words for this book. Note to self, the discipline of preaching to yourself. And Joe, let me start off by asking you why the need for this book? Why did you write it and explain something about it?

We were hearing a lot of that. And while I was happy to see a play, again, this idea, which is so disappointed that there wasn't much clear really need. So I wanted to write a book why it's important, and then model it for them.

They could actually have a tangible have an introduction that would extend. And you use a phrase called new Calvinists.

That has been a phrase coming up a lot the last few years. And not without criticism, both from Calvinists and non-Calvinists. If you could tell us something about what you mean by a.

New Calvinist. Well, there began, we know that this came in their very point because of returning now to intense among evangelicals. So it does appear, but these, they are new, they might know really just looking the maybe the also included could be the wine and cheese Calvinists who just.

Like to sit around and speak ethereally and smoke pipes and not necessarily criticizing those activities. But I'm saying that they really don't roll up their sleeves and get down there in the streets and do a lot of heavy evangelism and so on.

The thing that's really excellent phrase that C. Samuel Storms, who I hope to get on this program. I've never had him on the program and I hope to very soon. But I love the way he describes this book as a no holds barred appeal to expose our lives to the searing searchlight of scripture and to let its voice speak to the way we formulate our beliefs and relate to other people and think about God and make choices in the course of our daily life.

And do you think that having said that, that and brought up that description, do you think that the old adage, do as I teach, not as I do, is a sad reality where people who really need to preach to themselves because they think that their audiences really need the information that they have really a lot more than they themselves need it.

And they are living in such a way that is really unbecoming of a preacher, teacher, or minister of the gospel of any kind. Yeah, absolutely. I think.

If we are not exposing God's spirit in conjunction with the word, right, where we feel the weight from the gospel and the delight in walking in God's ways, unless we're regularly experiencing that, inheriting information to people, we are not preaching the part that has been changed.

And so yeah, this is very much about getting back to the idea of men and women. We are not.

Wagging fighting others. Amen. And let me repeat our email address. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. One of the things that you brought up that is very misunderstood, not only misunderstood today, but it really has been misunderstood for centuries.

And there has been much debate over it. And that is when you refer to the preaching of the law and gospel. You have people who are on the side of legalism, who might even be bordering on Judaizers or perhaps or even truly guilty of that.

And then you have other people on the other side of that. Who may be teaching a gospel that breeds licentiousness, true antinomianism, lawlessness, where they say that all that God requires is that you follow the leader and go up an aisle and recite a prayer and invite Jesus in your heart.

And then you basically have a free one way ticket to heaven and you never need to worry about your spiritual state again. And then repentance, of course, is a good thing because you really want to be a good testimony to others and lead them to Jesus too, but it's really not required.

And then you just have people who misunderstand what you mean by preaching the law and gospel because they do also teach the urgent need of repentance, but they have a theological concept that misunderstands what you are truly speaking of.

They may wrongly accuse you of reviving Old Testament laws that have been fulfilled or accuse you of being a Judaizer. If you could explain the preaching of the law and gospel.

We're not going to be different types of talking about here. Our God, his commands, right? We find him in the Big Ten. We talk about the law as if it's a bad thing, the apocryphal command. Everyone has to, in answering what the law does, the reformed tradition has long settled this.

It would be easy for people to go, the way I put it with this, when you're looking at the commands of God, it's designed to do three things. Do not lie,.

Amen. Now, how is this book a manual basically to strengthen the discipline that one has in their own life of preaching to themselves? I mean, what you said there as a description of what should be preached is something that most reformed pastors are fully aware of, that they must preach this to others.

And of course, we have an excellent book that was written in the seventies by Walt Chantry, Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, that was lamenting the lawless gospel that had become to contaminate and had already contaminated the church and still does.

But in regard to it being a discipline to preaching to yourself, if you could be more.

Specific about that. Well, ongoing, intense application. It is not a new idea. I think the best way to do it is to not think about it. Yeah, this has been nicknamed experiential or.

Experimental Calvinism, correct? And what you said before is unfortunately something that has been a caricature of Calvinism that is not without warrant that there are Calvinists who have a dead orthodoxy, a cold, dry academic approach to theology and truth.

And basically, this is a call that you have written to a more vibrant and personal faith that even some reformed folks have mocked the idea of the overemphasis on personal relationships with Christ. And obviously, those can be distorted when one is not a active participant in the body of Christ.

But we can't drift too far in either direction, can we? I mean, there are sins on both sides of the spectrum when.

It comes to avoiding personal relationship and exalting it. And we have to go to a break right.

Now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Joe Thorne, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. And please include your first name, city and state of residence and country of residence if you live outside the USA.

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Introducing 1031 Sermon Jams. Sermon Jams. But now for the good news that sounds like sweet music in the hell-bound sinner's ears especially if you're like me and you know that you don't need Romans 3 to remind you of how wicked you are.

If you would like to learn more about 1031 Sermon Jams, visit us at our website at 1031SermonJams .com or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned.

Us in, we are speaking with Joe Thorne who is the author of Note to Self, the Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. And if you have any questions for our guest, you can email us at chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com. We do have a listener in Newville, Pennsylvania, Susan, who wants to know, I strongly believe that a woman is not to preach in a church with a mixed audience where there are both men and women present.

But your book is titled The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. Can I personally as a woman benefit from reading.

This? Absolutely not, but many women. As an energetic and lawyer on a Sunday in a church certainly must preach. Either this one or the follow-up calls we're talking about.

Well, we have a surprise for you, Susan, in Newville, Pennsylvania. You are getting a free copy of Note to Self, The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself by Joe Thorne, compliments of the publishers Crossway Books who have sent us three copies to give away.

So since you are one of the first three whose question we read on the air, you will be expecting that soon, God willing. You should be expecting that soon, I mean, God willing. And you have chapters in this book under the headings of love and rejoice.

Those are words that are perhaps the most wrongly used words in the church today. They have really been redefined by a lot of feel-good theology that is out there from some of the pastors of megachurches and elsewhere, or those who want to be pastors of megachurches.

And, you know, Joel Osteen is probably the key figure in people's minds when they hear about a preacher of love and rejoicing and little else. How is your approach to this in your book different from that type of pablum that we hear.

From pulpits today? And the other things that we have here, or one main chapter that I'd like.

You to address, is a very unpopular subject when it comes to modern day theology, and that is fear, the concept of fear. And that obviously is not only very often neglected today from pulpits, the whole concept, I mean, people are actually told that you are in great error if you are teaching and challenging Christians to fear God in any way.

And, of course, there have been those who have been extremely guilty of fear-mongering on the other end of the spectrum. You have fundamentalists and even many Calvinists who really harp on fear and wrath to an exaggerated proportion.

And when I say exaggerated, not that God is not to be greatly feared and that his wrath is terrifying, but, I mean, as far as the time that occupies their preaching, they sometimes have been known for preaching all wrath and fear and have not balanced that with the freedom that the gospel brings and the joy and so on.

But if you could respond on that.

Yeah, yeah. Reactionary and reductionistic. And we see somebody beating up on people,. Michael is more careful and nuanced as we're talking about these truths. There is no sentence that can say, I do not fear the Lord and be a Christian.

Now, you might actually be a Christian, but you are in error in saying that, because the scripture in Shad is, and every Christian has experienced that conversion as God was convicted of judgment, and that's a good thing, because that is something that precedes or coincides with regeneration and saving faith.

As a Christian, there remains an abiding fear of the Lord, which is not a dread of his judgment. I'll do my best to explain. It is a couple. We are not afraid of God anymore, because we know that we've been reconciled through the blood of Jesus.

Our sins have been forgiven. So we're no longer afraid. It comes with someone and justly destroys it to love you. We're afraid of God as much as it is a true sense of awe for who God has revealed himself to be, not only as a righteous judge, but also as loving and forgiving.

I think you have to concept of the fear of the Lord that means more than respect. It should still take our breath away. It should still cause us to take our sins seriously, not because we're afraid God's going.

To zap us. There are, as you know, as being a pastor, I'm sure, Joe, that there are many people whose lives, even decent, good, repentant, obedient Christians who battle with serious depression because sins that they have committed, perhaps before their rebirth, or perhaps even while they were Christians, plague them.

They lose sleep over them. They are being robbed of joy. And no matter how they seem to cry out to the Lord to be given peace over these sins that have scarred them emotionally and mentally and spiritually, and yet you encourage people to remember your sins in this book.

If you could explain that in light of what I just said, and what's the remedy for the problem that I mentioned. Sure.

But the remedy for that, I think, is the most important thing for them to recognize is, A, I know the law here. They don't need more law. They are feeling they have not really, not meaning that they haven't been saved.

I mean, like, they are not experiencing the reminders. Now, yes, you are forgiven, washed away. He also calls you a member of his time. I was on, about anxiety and how people get messed up, and particularly about our, we think we will never lose sight and something that we need to deliver.

Remember my sins of my so much crazy stuff before my conversion, and I've made so to beat myself up and not to make myself feel. I remember those sins. The gospel is, say, God, help me. It's not just so that we can see it and stop, and that we will go at a problem.

It's about seeing the glorious.

Do you think that when Revelation 21, 4, I believe, when John says that he, Jesus, will wipe every tear from their eyes, do you think that is because they are, those that are standing before him are fully aware of the sins that he has forgiven them for?

Yeah, well, you know, I think on that path, totally sadness and heaven, I definitely don't think that it just means that we will never cry. We may in that case,.

The way the tears that you have, you have two chapters, Jesus is big and Jesus is enough. That is definitely something that we all need to remind ourselves when we're going through trials and anything that is bringing us into despair and perhaps even to the point of our forgetting our first love and so on.

If you could comment on that.

When I was writing, I mean, I wrote that back in like 2010. We tend to favor and we neglect the other. A friend of sinners is my friend, and this is a wonderful truth, but he is bigger than that. He's not just a friend.

He's also able to look at, at on, on hook. I like the shepherd that guide me and protect me.

Amen. And I think that we, the world needs to be reminded about this concept that you've just mentioned, especially it seems like during Christmas time when they only think of Jesus as this helpless, meek and mild baby in a manger.

And that's their, that's when they really love Jesus. Jesus, that's the Jesus that's not going to pour wrath on them. And that Jesus that just wells up tears of sentimentality and so on. But the, the, the God, the God, or the Christ of the modern gospel is a very tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, God, God, God, God, God, God, a God that cannot accomplish his missions to save those whom he chose to save.

Right. And, uh, you're going AW a pink on me. Well, that, that brings me to another chapter. Uh, God does not answer to you. You could explain.

And so we developed together and, and theology, theology sometimes becomes a way in which we expect God to answer who you are. They were smart enough to not say that out loud thing that we can tether our theology to God.

And the way that might be, he does not answer to whatever. We, we have a, an anonymous listener in Albuquerque,.

New Mexico, who says that, uh, she has a very close loved one who thinks that he is saved, but she is fairly convinced that he is not a true believer. Would this book be an appropriate gift.

To this person? Not yet. No can be yours. It's going to get onto it. But the reason either one of the law gospel dynamic Christ satisfies. And if one thing we know is true, that this is nothing.

But an ongoing, we do have a listener in white Plains, New York, uh, Bob, who asked the question, I come from a background that was very legalistic at one point. Uh, and my life was filled with fear and the constant, uh, wonderment.

If I would lose my salvation, uh, I am now, uh, starting to believe in grace alone, but have been accused by others of having a antinomian gospel. Can you please explain further what that is? Because I do not want to believe in anything that's heretical on the right or the left.

We brought that up before, but if you could maybe, maybe, uh,.

Reiterate that the law, if it exists, it doesn't exist. The reformed tradition, one of them, because they know punishment is going to come. There's one thing that the law does, even the law of God. Second thing that the law does is that it prepares our heart.

It can, it is used by God to prepare. God will not unjustify you. He will not unredeem you. Uh, once you were just, that is not antinomianism. You deny whose salvation is secure. You know that God's law to earn God's.

Favor. Well, thank you so much, uh, Joe and, uh, both the anonymous listener and Bob and White Plains. You're going to be getting free copies of Joe Thorne's book. Uh, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a guest once again on Iron Sharpens Iron and for enlightening us all.

And I look forward to having you back in the very near future,.

God willing. And, uh, any final words in a minute or so? Well, I, no, seriously. Yeah, sure. Uh, have a, have a, have a real good time. We'll stay real quick. Great. And your,.

Your website is joethorne .net. Yes. And that's no E at the end of Thorne, joethorne .net. Well, thanks. English E. That's right. Well, we thank you so much and God bless you, brother. All right, you too, brother.

And if you stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to be joined at any moment with John DeVito joined by John DeVito, who is going to be discussing, uh, the African pastors conferences, which is an organization directed by Conrad and Bayway.

One of the most powerful reformed Baptist preachers living today, uh, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others as well. Uh, and actually he's just one of the most powerful preachers of any kind today, but, uh, don't go away.

We're going to be talking with John DeVito about this right after these messages. And if you have any questions, as always go to, or send an email to Chris Arnson at gmail .com. Chris Arnson at gmail .com.

Joe Thorne on Note to Self, Preaching to Yourself, Law and Gospel, and the Fear of the Lord

We'll be right back. I'm James white of Alpha.

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This is Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in our second hour today on Iron Sharpens Iron is a discussion with John DeVito. John DeVito is a former Mormon who was saved in college. He is a graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and a member of Heritage Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky.

In addition to his preaching and teaching ministry, John has served as the administrator of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. John is married to Jennifer and has four children and God has previously given John a number of opportunities to serve Christ in Africa and he loves providing the hope of the gospel to the lost as well as the encouragement of the gospel to the saved.

John has been asked to serve as the conference manager for African Pastors Conferences. He will fulfill a critical role in overseeing and managing more than 40 conferences each year as well as in teaching and helping pastors to shepherd churches.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, John DeVito. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. Yeah, the pleasure is all mine brother and my audience's as well.

Tell us first of all, tell us something about, before you even get into your personal testimony, which is obviously something that we can't overlook. Sure. Coming from Mormonism to faith in Christ, the true Christ of the scriptures, not the Christ of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Yeah. And tell us something about, first of all, Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.

Well, Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary was started to know that he wanted, well, he actually wanted to pursue doctoral studies for the ministry to begin what was then known as Kentucky. Over the years, God has greatly blessed that ministry.

Dr. Waldron, again, had received his Ph. About a year ago, decided that we wanted to change our name to Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary to let people know that this is more than a residential study center here in Owens, all seeking to be equipped.

Well, that's something that we have to.

Remind our listeners about from time to time, because there are a lot of people who want to go into the ministry who are looking for seminaries, and there seems to be a dearth of them that are teaching the truth.

I'm not saying that they're not out there. Obviously, yours is. But just let's repeat the website of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary before I forget to do it later, because I want people that have contacted me on several occasions asking for recommendations for seminaries from guests that I've had and so on, if you could give that contact information.

Sure. It's www .cbtseminary .org. Many seminaries today, there can be a minimalistic tendency in terms of doctrinal, are coming from a Reformed worldview, which I think provides consistency.

And before I forget, I also want to remind our listeners that someone that you are obviously aware of, being a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, this Monday we have the honor of interviewing Dr. Albert Moeller, who is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he is going to be discussing his new book that he wrote in response to the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage and the culture that exists that would enable something like that to happen.

So I hope that you mark your calendars for this Monday, August 31st, and we will have Dr. Moeller on. And please start sending in your questions for him as soon as possible, because we're probably going to be receiving a lot that day, and the earlier we get them, the better.

We'll further guarantee that your question is read. Well, tell us something about your upbringing. Were you raised Mormon, or did this happen later in your life? Tell us.

Something about this Mormon connection of yours. Sure. Well, no, I was, both of my parents were married and sealed in the upbringing for a Mormon. I was baptized at the age of eight. I received the Aaronic Priesthood.

The temple recommends, so I was, and so, you know, had a typical upbringing in the LDS Church. By the time I reached high school, like a lot of youth, frankly, I just became very interested in worldly things.

So I started working more, not going to churches consistently, not caring as much about... When I reached 18, when you're raised in the Church, the natural thing to assume is that you're going to go on your mission, right?

The two-year mission, where how Christ, she needs to know the gospel. I'd been raised to study what could refute it. So I really wanted to move from being a Mormon agnostic to almost becoming a Mormon apologist.