October 24, 2024 Show with Jerry Johnson on “Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Documentary ‘Amazing Grace: The History & Theology of Calvinism'”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 24th day of October 2024.

I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest who I absolutely love to interview, and judging from the responses

I get from listeners, whether it be in emails or texts or on social media, there's a growing number of listeners who love when

I interview this guest as well. His name is Jerry Johnson, an old friend of mine going back quite a number of years.

He is a world -renowned Reformed apologist and documentarian, and today we're going to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a documentary that has been used of God for 20 years to bring people into a much deeper understanding of the doctrines of sovereign grace, also known as Calvinism and Reformed theology, even has brought many by the grace of God to fully embrace these doctrines, who at one time were hostile toward them.

And I'm discussing specifically the documentary titled

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jerry Johnson.

Thank you, brother. I do appreciate it, sir. Well, I can't believe it's been 20 years.

Yeah, that did fly by like everything seems to be doing, especially the older I get.

When you set out to create this documentary, what did you have in your mind that made you believe this was a much -needed documentary to add to all of the resources that Calvinists already had in their arsenal in order to better explain these glorious truths that we know and love to others?

What was the compelling factor in your mind? All right, let me do this. Let me go back to when

I came to Christ. I want to mention that I did not have what you would call a traumatic testimony.

It was kind of goofy if you actually think about it. Tracy and I had been married for about two years, and we had our first son, our oldest son.

And I was upstairs in his bedroom kind of playing with him. I was probably six, six thirty at night.

And Tracy was downstairs in the kitchen making dinner. And I can remember my mom used to make me go to church when

I was a little kid. I didn't want to go to church. I want to watch cartoons or go on and play with my friends.

I didn't want to go to church. But she made me go, and so I would, begrudgingly.

And I can remember one time hearing a pastor or a preacher at that church saying,

Fathers, if your children go to hell and they never hear the gospel of Jesus Christ in your home, you're going to be partially responsible.

And I can remember him sitting there playing with this little baby. He was probably like a month old.

He wasn't even that old. And all of a sudden, those words came rushing back to my mind.

I hadn't thought of them in years because I wasn't a great sinner. I mean, I, my pursuits were beer and girls.

That was it. I mean, I wasn't a bad kid. I never got arrested. I didn't do drugs, but I liked beer and girls.

And that's all I did. And all of a sudden, these words come rushing back to me.

And I can remember praying at that moment. Father, I don't know how to be a dad.

Help me. And I went downstairs and I told

Tracy about it. And, you know, she was like, Oh, that's so sweet.

Why pick it fast? PTA, you know, going to church, things like that.

It was just a perfect little nuclear family. But after about three weeks, she realized

I was serious. Now, I don't want you to get me wrong. Tracy was a CNA Christian, her family, just like mine,

Christmas and Easter. That was it. And she realized that about three weeks later,

I was serious. I wasn't joking around. I had read the whole

New Testament and probably a third of the Old Testament, and I couldn't get enough of the word of God.

And we had, my parents had gone to a Pentecostal church, so we started going to a

Pentecostal church because that was all I knew. And we went there for a while.

And I mean, the pastor is a good guy. I still talk to him periodically.

And the people of the church were good. But I found a passage or I came across a passage in Philippians 2 .13,

where Paul is talking and he says, and you being dead in your sins and trespasses, have he quickened us altogether, having forgiven you all of your sins.

Right? And I can remember sitting there thinking, because up until that point, I believed if you sinned and you died in your sins, that's what the church that I went to told, if you died in your sins, you were going to go to hell.

And I can remember a thought hit my mind, because that was in the past tense, having forgiven you.

And all of a sudden, it hit my mind, how many of my sins were in the future, when

Christ died. And it was like, all of a sudden, all these passages fell in my head.

And I went to tell the pastor how I was excited. And I went over to his house, and he was sitting at his desk, and he had his arms folded.

And I was sitting there explaining it to him. And I thought he'd be excited, too. And he said, you know, you sound like a

Baptist. And about a month later, I was. So I had gone to this

Baptist church. The pastor was a really good guy. He and I became very fast friends.

We remained friends up until his death. And I will never forget, he went to Southwestern Seminary.

And I can remember we were up in Chattanooga, and we stopped at a Crystal's for lunch. And I thought

I would ask him, because I didn't want to sound ignorant. What had happened is, I was at a general, because at that time,

I served with a ministry called Watchman Fellowship. They were a countercult ministry.

And I had done a lot of stuff, studying things out. And we were at this national conference for Watchman Fellowship in Birmingham, Alabama.

And what they did was they put up staff with different people. The guy who headed the

Alabama office, Craig Branch, they put us up at members or elders of his church.

And he went to Briarwood Presbyterian, Briarwood PCA. And I was put up at the house of this guy named

Louis Henderson. Now, funny enough, Louis had just had a hernia operation.

So Louis was, he was pretty incapacitated.

All he could do was sit in his easy chair and pretty much wait for me to come back.

And then he wanted to discuss theology all night. Well, I like discussing theology.

So Louis and I hit it off real good. And it's about the third night, he asked me if I believed in total depravity.

And I didn't know what total depravity was. But it sounded like something I should believe in.

So I said yes. And anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks,

Larry and I are in Chattanooga at that Crystal's. And I said to him, Larry, what does total depravity mean?

And Larry said to me, oh, that's that Calvinistic doctrine that believes that God, there are some people that want nothing to do with the kingdom of God, but God drives them kicking and screaming into the gospel.

And there are other people that want to get in, but God won't let them. That's a doctrine of the devil.

You don't want to believe in that. And you know, that was fine with me. That was a good enough answer.

I am not kidding you. Larry and I that same day, got back to the church.

And we went in his office and sitting on the desk were two copies of a book called

Southern Baptist and the Doctrine of Election. And I thought it was a joke.

And they were in cellophane. They had never been opened. And I'll tell you a little story about that.

And I said to Larry, what are these? And he goes, I don't know. And I said, would you mind if I take one?

And he goes, no, go ahead. So I took it and I went home. And about 930 at night, my phone rang.

And it was Larry. And he said, hey, are you reading that book? And I said, yeah,

I'm about two thirds of the way through it. And he goes, well, I'm about halfway through it.

And I go, what do you think? And he said, you tell me. And I said, I asked first, brother.

And he said, I think I'm a Calvinist. I said, me too.

Now, I tell you that story because years later, after Amazing Grace came out, the guy that wrote that book,

Robert Self, called up and wanted to get a copy of Amazing Grace. And he told me his name.

And I said, wait a minute, are you the same Robert Self that wrote that book, Southern Baptist and the

Doctrine of Election? And the guy goes, yeah, that was me. And I told him that story. And we both had a laugh over it because they had sent out one copy to every

Southern Baptist church. And somehow our church got two.

And we just thought that was funny because of God's providence, he sent us two.

And so anyway, I wasn't a Calvinist right away.

I was probably progressed, you know, three -point Calvinist, four -point

Calvinist before I finally came along to all five points. And let me say this,

I don't mean this to be insulting to anybody, but if you do not believe in all five points, then you are an inconsistent

Arminian. There is no such thing as a four -point Calvinist. If you don't believe in all points, then you don't believe in any of them.

And I know people may object to that, but it is the truth because I can destroy the whole system if you destroy all four points.

You mean all five points? Yeah, all five points. You have to be all five points.

Yeah, you've been saying four. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, you have to be all five points.

My bad. I wish I could blame it on not enough coffee, but I got coffee right here.

So anyway, so here

I am. It's probably Tracy and I, we have lived in Georgia. We move back down to Florida, and I start going to a

Presbyterian church there, a PCA church, and I won't get into all of that.

But I can remember one time, and let me just say this, because I thought this was a great quote, because what happened is after I read that book by Robert Self, I started reading a lot of Spurgeon sermons—or

Ralph Self, I'm sorry. No, no, it's Robert Self. You're right. It is Robert Self. And just to let you know, he was an interim—I think that's the correct word

I'm looking for—he was an interim pastor at the church where I was a member on Long Island while we were looking for a permanent replacement for the pastor at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merritt.

So I've known Bob Self for years. Yeah. How long ago was that? That would have been,

I think, the, I don't know, somewhere around 2010.

Yeah, that was probably about the time I spoke with him. But anyway, so, all right,

I read it. I was going to tell you the Spurgeon quote. Spurgeon said, to admit yourself wrong yesterday proves yourself wiser today.

Amen. And I thought that was such a great quote that I can remember praying,

Lord, never let me be afraid to say I was wrong. Amen.

You know, so that is one of the things. Well, come forward.

I was a Calvinist during the 1990s, of course, and Eric Holmberg and I had become friends in 1990.

And so, yeah, we were friends, and I'm talking about I went to his house, he went to my house, we went on vacation together.

And about 1997, I came up with this idea of doing a documentary because Eric had already done numerous documentaries.

And I thought Eric was a very good communicator. And Eric kind of did the, yeah, that's fine, you write it.

Well, I didn't think I was worthy to write something like that. So, it was kind of put on the back burner.

And then around 2002, I've really got this, sorry for all the

Mormons out there, I got this burning in the bosom to do it, you know, and I called up Eric because I actually had two friends at that time, who were documentarians,

Brian Barkley from New Liberty Video. And he did a lot of videos, he did an excellent one on the history of the

Bible called The Forbidden Book. And then Eric Holmberg, but I actually,

Brian wasn't a narrator. But anyway,

I said to Eric, you know, I really think we should do something on Calvinism.

And Eric was like, yeah, that sounds pretty good. Maybe we should. And then probably three months later, he called me back and he said, you know what,

I believe you're right. Let's do it. And I said, hey,

I've got a bunch of churches that will give $1 ,000 to help pay the cost of production and everything.

I didn't take any money into production. In fact, I gave money, you know, and I said,

I got a bunch of churches that will do it. And he said, you know, that's good.

Now, let me tell you this, because this happened also. I was sitting there thinking about the questions that we needed to ask the people that we're going to interview, because we identified the interviews, or the interviewees,

I'm sorry. And I've got all of them into my church. I went out, we went to a hotel that had breakfasts.

And on both of all breakfasts, we had a big banquet. And we were going to go over the questions that needed to be asked.

And I seriously thought this would be like maybe a 45 -minute video.

But I can remember this one guy kept saying, his name was Keith Blankenship.

We're going to open up more doors and leave questions unanswered if we do it for 45 minutes.

And I said, you know, we're right. And we came up with 52 questions.

And I thought, man, that's a lot. And just a side note here, when

I interviewed Dr. G. James Kennedy, I thought he might give us like 15 minutes.

And so, I thought I'm just going to ask him the questions on evangelism, which was at the end of the list.

And Dr. Kennedy, because I had given him the questions before him, probably a month before him.

And he, we got into the room, we started filming, and he goes, hey, why didn't you ask me question number one?

And I said, well, I didn't think you would have time to answer those. That sweet man gave us two and a half hours answering all those questions.

And just a real funny note, we're down to like the last three. And he looks at his watch and he goes, uh -oh,

I'm in trouble. And I'm like, why? And he goes, because it was five o 'clock on a Friday.

And he goes, I'm supposed to go to dinner at 530 with my wife and a bunch of friends.

And he hadn't even gone home to shower or shave or anything. So, we asked him those three questions real fast.

And then he sprinted out the door. Unfortunately, like, what was it?

Probably five years later, he had that massive heart attack. And I was talking with one of the elders in this church.

And he said he had taken him someplace, I don't remember where. And Dr.

Kennedy and him were driving by, or a rich Presbyterian. And Dr. Kennedy said to him, hey, that's a nice looking church.

He didn't even recognize it, you know. Wow. Yeah. In fact, I was just having a conversation with one of the speakers on your documentary today, this afternoon,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. Dr. Moorcraft's a good guy. Yes. Currently pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

And he told me, I had always known that Dr. Kennedy died of a heart attack, but I did not know the more frightening details of this.

But he had a pacemaker, and he was heating up coffee in a microwave, and the microwave interacted with the pacemaker, which gave him the heart attack.

Oh, really? Really? I didn't know that either. You know, I didn't know that either.

I knew he had had a heart attack. And I went to non -seminary. I went to non -seminary because of Dr.

Carol Beister and Dr. D. James Kennedy, you know. And that was the reason

I went there. So I knew a lot of their ministers and the head of their Christian school and all that.

And so I knew a lot of things that were going on. But supposedly, after he had the heart attack, he couldn't remember much.

Right. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break right now. If anybody wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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We'll be right back after these messages. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Morecraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Morecraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

Dr. Morecraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank since they're one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

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Hanover Presbytery built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

He sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother

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Yeah. You know, every year, it seems like I forget her birthday is coming up, and then

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Don't forget to mention Chris Armsend of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. We're now back with Jerry Johnson, one of the creators of the world -renowned, highly acclaimed documentary

Amazing Grace, The History and Theology of Calvinism. This is a two -part, two -DVD set that contains over four hours of content, and it features such prominent and gifted and brilliant defenders of the doctrines of Calvinism, including the late

D. James Kennedy, Tom Nettles, Tom Askell, my very dear friend

Joe Moorcraft, the late R .C. Sproul, Walter Bowie, Tom Nettles, and the late

Ken Talbot, and the late Walt Chantry, who at one time was the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania for 40 years.

He was pastoring there. But the documentary is hosted and narrated by Eric Holmberg, and I think it is very important that we, in full disclosure, mention something that a listener,

Branton Burleson, lead pastor at Grace Baptist Church of West Asheville, North Carolina, had mentioned to me.

I already knew this, and so obviously does Jerry Johnson, that Eric Holmberg has sadly and tragically converted to Roman Catholicism.

Yes, thank you, Pastor Branton, for that information, but we did already know that.

And I am so thrilled to hear that you were able to communicate with us, even though that the

Asheville, North Carolina area was one of the hardest hit areas during the recent flooding that occurred after the hurricane.

And I'm not sure how badly West Asheville was hit, but Asheville was certainly one of the targets of the hurricane.

And if you'd like to come on the program at some point, Pastor Burleson, to give us any kind of testimony of what you and your fellow congregation experienced during that time, get in contact with me, and we can discuss having you on the show.

But if you could, Jerry, tell us why you think that even though the host, the narrator,

Eric Holmberg, of this wonderful documentary, even though he has abandoned the precious truths that he emphatically and strongly and powerfully advocated, during the four hours of content on this documentary, he's abandoned it all and now vehemently opposes it and then rejects it.

Why is this documentary still something that should be put into use by sovereign grace -believing pastors and congregation members alike?

All right, well, let me say this. Right now, you can watch it for free on either

Rumble or YouTube, all right? So, it's not in a DVD format anymore.

It's digital, and all you have to do is put in Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism, either in Rumble or YouTube, and it'll come up, and you can watch it there.

So, let me, if you don't mind, before I answer that question, because I do want to answer it, but I wanted to make one comment about Dr.

Kennedy. Because I would send him the chapters whenever anything was done,

I'd send him one on the history. I will honestly say he didn't make any comment on that. He just wrote me back and said, oh, this is good.

But on the one on total depravity, he wrote back, and he said, that is the best explanation of total depravity

I've ever read. And I thought that was great that he would say that.

Now, he never said it about any of the other chapters, but he said that about total depravity.

So, I do want to let people know, I write more like a technical journal, and Eric wrote more of a journey, if you will.

And so, that's where I believed our street came in. We used to say I was the left brain, and Eric was the right brain, and together we made one brain.

And Eric would send me back what I had written after he had rewritten it, and I was like, wow, that is really good, because he took you on a journey.

Eric does have his degree in English, and he's a very good writer and also a very good speaker.

Now, to address the latter part, what the listener or the viewer will get in Amazing Grace is kind of my journey, all right, how

I had to go through everything and deal with it. There really wasn't a lot of Eric -isms in there, that's what

I call them. There were a few, but the theology is pretty much what

I struggled with. And of course, it's classic reform, reformational theology pretty much is what it is.

So, even though Eric has gone into the Eastern Roman Catholic Church, I mean, it's not his necessarily as much as it is my journey.

So, I wanted to let your listeners know that. It is unfortunate that Eric went into the

Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Roman Catholic Church. He had been blown around ever since I knew him by just about every window of doctrine.

So, he had stayed Reformed for a long time. He had actually been a member of Dr.

George Graham's church. He was also featured in the documentary. Yes, he is.

And I haven't talked to George about him going into the Eastern Roman Catholic Church, or I should say

Eastern Catholic Church, because even though they are under the authority of Rome, they kind of do their own thing, if you will.

Yes, they are the Eastern Right Catholic Church. I've heard them described as they do things in a unique way, and they are not to be confused with Eastern Orthodox.

Like, I initially, when I heard about Eric's conversion… So did I, brother.

Yeah, so did I. But I will tell you, the last time I talked to Eric, because I didn't want to get into it with him, because, you know,

I just didn't want to get into it with him. He knows better. But his rationale, if I may, and like I said,

Eric has been… I've known Eric beyond the… defended Kenneth Copeland.

I know he defended Kenneth Hagin in the past. He was part, or he was

Maranatha Campus Ministries International when he was young, the founders of that,

Rose and Bob Weiner, I believe is their name. They went into the United Pentecostal Church International, which was

Jesus -only, and although Eric never went into that, he did defend them.

And so, there were little signs that, you know,

I noticed throughout the years that I saw. And when he became

Reformed, I hoped he was going to settle down, but he was Reformed for about 20 years, and that is really the longest

I ever knew him to be in one denomination. Now, but what

Eric said to me on the phone was, we were talking, and I love John Chrysostom.

I think he's great, but I don't believe he's infallible. And you had sent me that quote by him, and I don't know if you remember it.

I'll say it for your listeners, because I love that quote, but John Chrysostom said, if you knew how quickly people would forget about you after you died, you wouldn't seek in this life to please anybody but God.

And I mean, John, I love it.

I put a quote that I had read by R .C. Sproul years ago, and I thought it was good.

I'm going to try to quote it here, but I'm probably going to slaughter it, so forgive me, but you'll get the gist of it.

Church history is not a rule, but it is a guide.

If you come up upon an interpretation of Scripture that has escaped the notice of every other single

Christian for 2 ,000 years or has been championed by universally recognized heretics, then the chances are pretty good that you had better abandon your interpretation.

So I put that in the Amazing Grace documentary, and Eric, we were talking last time we talked.

He said to me, a lot of these guys went to their death for what they believe, and that's great.

I mean, it's not great. I'm sorry they died, but what

I'm saying is a lot of people went to their death. There were even heretics that went to their death, and the thing is, the

Scriptures are our rule, not church history, not the leaders of the church, and this is something that has always bothered me.

Can you imagine a Christian, a new Christian, one week old, and you're taking advice from him on the interpretation of Scripture?

It seems to me that the longer the church goes on, the more that they will develop and become knowledgeable.

Not a brand new baby Christian, and I look at church history like that.

You have your early church fathers, but they were wrong about many things. Now, I'm not saying they weren't

Christians. I'm just saying we've got to make sure and measure. I've heard it said that Luther believed in Mary's perpetual virginity.

Well, the thing is, that's great that Martin Luther believed it, but the Scriptures never say that, ever.

So, he has no proof. It was probably a cultural thing, because everybody believed that at the time, so I'm sure

Martin Luther, that was the issue he wasn't dealing with at the time. Yes, and even

John Calvin said that was an area he did not care to venture into.

I mean, it's just the fact that you would have something like that, and these guys, you have to understand, especially

Martin Luther. Not only was he a Roman Catholic, but Roman Catholicism was in the water.

It was in the food. It was in the way you slept. It was everything, and he probably lived 30 years after the

Reformation, and I'm sure he didn't have time to get all of the

Roman Catholicism out of his system. I can remember a few years ago,

I was at Knox Theological Seminary, and the registrar there, great guy, his name was

Jim Dietz, and Jim would have some guys on like a Thursday morning come over from his church.

There were like four of them, so they had five in this Bible study, and they were having problems with a passage, and he asked me if I could help.

It was before classes started, and I said, yeah, let me see it, and I said, so what is your understanding, and he gave me his understanding, and I said,

Jim, the problem is you're still looking at that passage like a dispensationalist, and he goes, wow,

I never thought of that. I still look at a lot of passages like a charismatic

Pentecostal, and I have to, I'm sitting there thinking, man, how do I exercise that thing, if you will, out of my system, out of my brain, and thankfully, the

Lord shows me many times the way to do that, and you know, but it just happens.

You don't become a Christian, and then all of a sudden have everything in a perfect uniformity.

It takes time. You have to study, you pray, you do not disassociate yourself with the body of Christ, with the fellowship of believers.

You go to church, but it will take years, and getting back to the original point, because I went down a rabbit trail there, but getting back to the original point, church history is a guide.

It is never the rule. Scripture is the rule. And of course, it's nonsensical to say,

I'm going to become Catholic because Chrysostom was so convinced of his beliefs that he was willing to be a martyr.

Number one, he was not a Roman Catholic, as we know

Roman Catholicism today. He believed many things that never would have been dreamed of.

There were many things at the Council of Trent that he never would have dreamed of believing.

And the second thing is, there were many Calvinists who were martyrs by the very church that Eric joined when he left the

Doctrines of Grace. Yeah, I will say there are a lot of church fathers that I have respect for on some things, but I don't have respect for them, or I don't listen to everything.

Aurelius Augustus, I love Aurelius Augustus. I love his Confessions.

I've read them, and City of God was a great book. But Augustine said, and he was called the

Doctor of Grace, and many of the things when the

Genesis movement, which was post -Reformation, happened, a lot of the writings of Genesis were condemned.

And we stopped counting. I told Eric, I stopped counting, but 101 of his sayings that he got directly from Augustine were disparaged by the

Roman Catholic Church. But they loved to claim him and their heroes as one of their popes.

And the thing is, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Catholic Church, and I thought

Luther pointed it out very well, that many of the councils and creeds that they had at that time contradicted each other.

Man, Augustine was never a pope. He was a bishop, but he was never a pope. Yeah, I know that they claimed him as a pope.

Really? I never heard that. I believe they did. They claimed him as a leader of the church, but I may be wrong on that.

Yeah, a doctor of the church in one of the most brilliant minds, but I don't think that they ever declared him as a pope.

But anyway, they might not have. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Beat me up. But we have to go to our final—I'm not in our final,

I'm sorry—our midway break right now. If you have a question for Jerry Johnson, submit it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Dr.

Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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History and Theology of Calvinism, send your questions to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, at least. City of Cleveland. Yes. So let me say something, because now

I could blame it on I was out of coffee. I meant to say

Augustine was made saint. I don't know why I said Pope. I meant saint. Man, it's all your fault.

You didn't bring me coffee. I'm sitting there making my

Coke, and I'm like, I can't believe it. I thought he was made a saint. Oh, man, I said

Pope. I meant saint. Of course, you and I know that any born -again believer in Christ is a saint.

Yeah, we do. Amen. Well, you know, how did you go about selecting those that participated in this documentary and to repeat who they were?

The late D. James Kennedy, Tom Nettles, Tom Askell, Joe Moorcraft, the late

R .C. Sproul, the late Walter Bowie, Ken Talbot, the late Ken Talbot, and the late

Walt Chantry. How did you go about selecting those men?

All right, let me say this in this kind of tongue -in -cheek. Ken Talbot was a friend of mine, and he told me if I didn't put him on the video, he would beat me up.

So that's how I put him on it. Then what I did was Ken Talbot and I got on a phone call, and we identified people we wanted on the video.

Now, I will tell you this, because we got James R. White on the second video,

The Marks of a Cult, and I can remember when I was interviewing him. He didn't say it in so many words, but it was kind of like,

I wish I'd been on Amazing Grace. And I said, James, I did contact you.

And he was like, what? And I said, I contacted your ministry, but I never heard back.

And he goes, bummer. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to get a hodgepodge of people.

We even talked with a guy that was a Methodist preacher, but it was a

Calvinist Methodist. Most people forget that the Methodist church started as really a

Calvinistic movement because of George Whitefield. And Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones was a

Calvinist Methodist. Yeah, and so we wanted to get him on.

Unfortunately, he agreed to go on, but then he backed out for whatever reason.

Yeah, I don't know what it was. Could have been health. It could have been not a good time to interview him.

I don't know what it was. But we got Baptist Presbyterians. We also wanted to have an

Anglican, but we couldn't find an Anglican. I mean, we talked with a couple because we wanted to get that guy out of, is it out of Texas?

Dr. Curtis Crenshaw. Oh, yeah. And he was given permission by his bishop to be on it.

But the problem is we ran out of money and we couldn't fly to Texas to interview him.

So we got people and we really believed that the anchor of the interviews would be

R .C. Sproul. That would help us get the word out there. And so the funny thing is, the

Ligonier Ministries, when we first approached them, they turned us down. And so I thought, well, we'll get

Dr. R .C. Sproul Jr. You know, and I'm at Junior's house because I was a good friend of his and I was at Junior's house interviewing him.

And his dad called up and said, what are you doing? And he goes, well, I'm being interviewed for this documentary on Calvinism.

And no kidding, Dr. Sproul goes, well, why wasn't I invited? And he said,

Dad, you were. The Ligonier Ministries turned him down.

They never let him know. And that was on a Saturday.

On Monday, I got a call back from his from Ligonier Ministries.

And they told me that Dr. Sproul came in there Monday morning and was kind of upset that he wasn't told about it, that they just said no.

And in their defense, he probably got a lot of offers to be on a lot of videos.

And they have to turn down some sometimes. So but anyway, we had already been to Florida and we had just enough money to go for one more trip.

And so we went ahead and went down there for him. Now, let me tell you this.

I was kind of of the opinion that D. James Kennedy. Let me say it this way.

I really didn't care if he offered to be on it or not, but I was

PCA and he was kind of a elder statesman, if you will, in the

PCA. And I thought we ought to extend the invitation to him at least.

And I was I'm not going to say I was disappointed. Like I said,

I didn't care if he wanted to be on it or not. I wanted to get R .C. Sproul on it. But Kennedy went ahead and wrote back and said, yes,

I'll do it. I was like, all right. So we'll have to go down there. That guy was the best interview

I ever had. Oh, he was phenomenal. And I'm glad he's in heaven. So he doesn't hear you're saying that you didn't care if he was part of it or not.

He probably already knows. But anyway, we sat down and seriously, folks,

I would say something to Dr. Kennedy. I read a scripture out of the Bible. He would say it back to me in Greek.

The guy was that good. I mean, just off the cuff. He was brilliant. And I can remember leaving or reach

Presbyterian Church that day, myself and the guy that was filming it.

And I was sitting there saying, praise God for Dr. Kennedy. What you got a lot of times on his radio program or his television program was really melt toast because he wanted to get people into the church.

But he didn't want to feed the giraffe. He was kind of feeding the sheep.

And but the man was intelligent as all get out. He had like seven doctor degrees.

And the guy was just brilliant. And I did. I sat there all night. Myself and James Gillette, who was the guy filming the

Amazing Grace. We went to Bennigan's that night to have dinner. And all

I could say throughout dinner was praise God for Dr. Kennedy. He was a brilliant man.

And let me tell you this, because he told me this story. And I don't know if you all heard it. It was probably about 1974.

And he was speaking to his youth group at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. There were much smaller church at that time.

And there was a young man in who had visited the church.

And he was dating a girl that was in the youth group. And Dr. Kennedy was talking about the doctrines of grace.

And this kid wanted to argue and argue and argue with him.

He stayed there till like 1030 at night arguing with Dr. Kennedy. Well, Dr.

Kennedy didn't think much of it. Years later, the young man became more

Calvinistic, actually a five -point Calvinist. And he was saying to Dr.

Kennedy, they had met again. And he said, do you remember that kid? And Dr.

Kennedy goes, well, yeah, I do. I remember that kid. He wanted to sit there and argue and argue.

And he kept me there all night. And the guy goes, well, I was that kid. It was

Dr. Al Moore. Wow. So that was one that was arguing with him.

But he told us that when we were sitting down, and I thought it was funny. And by the way, if I have the years wrong,

I think it was 1974. You'd have to ask Dr. Mueller what year it was.

Well, I'm thrilled that you, being a Reformed Baptist myself, I'm thrilled that you included not only

Presbyterians, but Reformed Baptists in this documentary. Yeah.

And I will tell you, Tom Askew, who is superb.

I love Tom. He's a good guy. President of Founders Ministries, in case people are wondering.

I'm sorry. Tracy and I went on a mission trip to China with Tom and his wife,

Ghana. And we did that and went around and saw a bunch of churches and everything.

We even saw a Christian seminary. We went over there. And I told him, I said, because usually if seminaries asked me if they could use the

Maze in Greece, I would say, yeah, and here's the study guide to go with it.

Use it as much as you want. Because really, my idea was to really—I didn't care about making money off of it.

I really cared more about getting the message out. Now, I do understand that there were a lot of people that had to be paid.

A lot of things that were done that was changed to his job at the time. There were a bunch of people, that was

Eric Holmberg's job at the time, they had to be paid. So it wasn't like it was, you know, here it is, three.

We had to edit it. We had to put it together. I spent over two and a half years writing the script, you know.

And believe me, transcribing those interviews, that was time -consuming.

And then I would have to let James Gillette know, hey, you look at Walter Bowie's interview,

I would see the time on the video. Because at that time when I wrote it,

DVD hadn't really come into its own. So everything back then was on VHS tape, all the interviews we did.

And I would give him the time on the interviews and use this segment.

And I would have to write out what he said. And I would say, you know, it starts at 1742 and it goes to 1625.

And James would have to get the clip that way. So it was very time -consuming.

People don't realize how time -consuming it was. Okay. We have a question from CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, who wants to know, did the speakers of your documentary deal with the most common objections to Calvinism by its opponents?

I mean, I believe it did. Because remember, we wanted to start it out, we were thinking about a 45 -minute video.

It ended up being four hours and 20 minutes. So hopefully we covered a lot.

Is it exhaustive? Probably not. I would actually say no. There are people that have written large books on the subject.

And so we did try to hit every point. We tried to answer objections that we knew would come up.

And let me say this. I know there are a lot of people out there that their reason for opposing sovereign grace, free sovereign grace, is because they think it makes us puppets and God a puppet master.

We do not believe that. We would reject that also.

We're not puppets. God is not a puppet master. People ask me, does man have free will?

And that is the wrong question. What they're asking is, does man have a will?

Yes, man has a will. But like Martin Luther wrote in his book, Bondage of the

Will, is our will free to do, choose whatever it wants to, or is it in bondage to a simple nature?

And the first chapter we did on the theological section was on total depravity.

And when I came to grips with that as a young Christian, and I saw that Christians were not sick, but dead.

And you might remember in the documentary, I'll call it the wounded man theory or the dead man theory.

If man is only wounded, then the Arminian gospel of free will would make sense.

But the Bible doesn't teach that. It teaches that man is in bondage to a simple nature.

He is dead. He's a slave to sin. The very imaginations of his thoughts are evil continually.

So I always ask the question, given the opportunity to choose between good and evil,

God or Satan, the gospel or not the gospel, what will fallen, fallible, finite man, who is a child of the devil and in bondage to a simple nature, always choose?

And I mean, always choose. Well, all of a sudden the Arminian will go, wow,

I never thought of it like that. You are a walking corpse. You are dead.

You can have no life. And this one illustration, which we, it didn't make it into amazing grace, but I thought it was good.

The Arminian believes that man is drowning in a pool. The Calvinist believes that man has already drowned.

Man is at the bottom of the pool. He's not kicking and screaming and trying to stay afloat.

He is drowned. His eyes are closed. His ears are full of water.

He can't hear anything. He is dead and he needs to be resurrected.

Now on that issue, we believe that God sovereignly makes somebody by his grace born again.

And all of a sudden they can see, they can hear, and they hear the gospel, that eternal call or internal call,

I'm sorry, internal call, and they come to Christ. Why doesn't God do that for everybody?

I don't know. Why does he only choose some people again? I don't know.

I know why he doesn't choose us. And Dr. Kennedy said it on the video.

He doesn't choose us because we are holy or righteous or noble or rich or pretty.

He calls us foolish. He calls us sheep. I heard a comedian one time say, you know why

God calls us sheep? Because sheep are the stupidest animal God ever made.

So he calls us sheep, and that's what we are. We need a shepherd.

And just to clarify, many people who are enemies of the doctrines of grace,

Calvinism, they think that we are teaching that otherwise neutral or good men are being forced against their will to be evil, and that people who

God chooses to save are being forced against their will to believe in Christ and follow him.

And that is not true. God chooses to save some out of the mass of humanity who are all made from one lump of the same lump of clay.

He chooses to save some, gives us a new heart, and we joyfully and willingly believe in Christ, and we follow him voluntarily and willingly.

And those who sin and those who reject Christ do so because that's what they desire to do.

They're not being forced against their will. It gives them pleasure to reject

Christ and sin and remain in their sin. So nobody's being forced against their will.

And in fact, I remember years ago, a very good friend of mine who's Roman Catholic, Bob Posh—I hope you're listening,

Bob—he used to have parties over his house. I miss those really badly, but he moved to Colorado, but he used to live on Long Island just like I did.

And he used to have parties at his house, and his sole purpose of having these parties was to invite

Roman Catholics and evangelicals over his home to eat, drink, and argue. And Bob and I were always the last two left in the house going back and forth, defending what we believed and refuting what the other believed.

And I can remember Bob saying to me, one of the reasons

I hate your beliefs is because you believe God turns us into robots. And I said, well, explain that.

He said, well, if you don't have the freedom to either accept or reject

Christ, that means you're a robot. And I said to him, okay, what is your greatest goal in life,

Bob? Is it to go to heaven after you leave this earth? He goes, yeah, absolutely.

I said, can you sin in heaven? Absolutely not. So your greatest goal in life is to be a robot for eternity?

You just said before that if you don't have the free will to either accept or reject

Christ, you're a robot. And you just said that nobody can sin in heaven.

Therefore, they can't reject Christ. So they must be a robot then. And after pausing and scratching his head, he said, maybe we can sin in heaven.

Yeah, I've used that argument before. They want to go to a place where they can't sin, and you would think that heaven would be their hell.

I mean, how can they say that? They're talking out of both sides of their mouth. It's like if you ask an

Arminian, why do you believe in free will? Now, the sharp

Arminian will say, well, because it's in the Bible. All right, fair enough.

Are you obligated as a Christian to believe what's in the Bible? And they go, yes.

So you believe in free will because you have no choice. It's just a round and round circle that go around.

And I, as an Arminian, I will tell you this. It was just before I became and embraced a more

Calvinistic understanding. I was debating a Church of Christ guy over the issue of baptism.

We were live on the radio, and this was probably like 1991. And he was a big guy, you know.

And I asked him, if God said to you, why should

I let you into heaven? What would you say? And he said, well, I would tell him

I was because, and they say it like that. And I said, so you have something to boast about.

You did something that your neighbor didn't do. And he said to me, well, what would you say?

And I said, I got to understand at this time, I was still a free will Arminian, you know, flirting with the doctrines of grace.

And I said to him, I would say I believe. And he said, well, doesn't that give you grounds to boast on?

And I realized he was right. It did. It gave me grounds to boast.

Why did I believe? Because God chose me to believe. Why did God choose me to believe?

I don't know. And he also gave you the gift of faith. Yeah. Well, I believe that's part of the grace of God that he regenerates us.

In the documentary I call Amazing Grace to History and Theology of Calvinism, I draw this illustration.

Suppose you took a blind man to an art gallery and you told him you would purchase the piece of art that he found the most beautiful.

That would be ridiculous. The guy can't see. He's blind.

He's got to be given new eyes before he can choose anything.

So did I choose Christ? Yeah. But the motivation of why I chose

Christ, because if God hadn't given me the gift of faith, the regeneration,

I would have never chosen him. Not in my fallen state. Amen.

And we have to go to our final break. And once again, if you have a question, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back. James White of Albany Mega Ministries here.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

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I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother,

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Oh, and make sure that you tell them you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And never forget, folks, that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is also paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &

Associates. If you're the victim of a very serious personal injury, accident, or medical malpractice anywhere in the

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Associates from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Jerry Johnson, world -renowned

Reformed Christian apologist and documentarian, and we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Amazing Grace, the

History and Theology of Calvinism, an extraordinary documentary that was available on two

DVD discs at one time, over four hours of content. Now it's available on YouTube and Rumble, you said, right,

Jerry? Yes, sorry. And if you have any questions, this is your final time to submit those questions to Jerry at ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at city and state, and country of residence.

And let's see, we have Quentin in Manhasset Hills, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, have you personally gotten to know any of the viewers of this documentary that became believers in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace as a result of viewing it?

Man, that is a great question. When we first came out with it,

I would say probably five years even after, we would get calls into our office, and let me tell you about one

I had, and I wish I could remember the name of the church, but there were a lot. There was a guy that was part of the

Disciples of Christ, and he watched the documentary and ended up going to Westminster and Philadelphia.

But the one that stands out in my mind, I had this pastor call me up, and he said,

I wanted to tell you a story I thought would really interest you. And I said, okay, go ahead.

And he said, I have this lady, she's like 67 years old in the church.

She's been going to that church her whole life. And I mean, her whole life, she was a little girl in that church.

And he said, I've been pastor here, if I recall, probably like 12 years.

And he showed the Amazing Grace documentary. He was already Reformed, and he was

Reformed when he got there. But a lot of the church members were not.

And he showed that documentary, and for about three months, he said, this woman never called up with questions about the

Bible. But after that video, she started calling him at least every week and asking him questions.

And she was a widow. And finally, one day, he asked her, what happened?

And she said, we watched that documentary, and I never realized how big

God was. And I thought that was interesting, how big

God was. So I'm hoping we kind of give people a glimpse of that, that God was bigger than the

Arminian God ever could have been. Because the Arminian God is a lonely old man in heaven, wringing his hands, hoping people will follow him as a man of salvation.

But the biblical God, which I believe is what we call the sovereign, free grace

God, is bigger than that. He's not anticipating or sitting there on his chair, hoping people will follow his plan.

He has got a plan, and he has got a people, and he has redeemed them.

Praise God. We have Twyla in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

And Twyla says, Would you agree with me that one of the beauties of this documentary is that it causes the viewer to bring their preconceived notions and presuppositions that are claimed to be biblical views, and shows that when you take biblical truth to its logical conclusion, you are always going to find that conclusion in the doctrines of sovereign grace?

Yeah, I would agree. When I came to the understanding of the doctrines of grace, everything that I had read before—let me tell you this little story.

This isn't about Reformed theology, about kind of. I was at Knox Seminary.

We had a professor, Dr. Thaler White, great guy. And Dr. White was a graduate of Dallas.

And I can remember, we would take a book of the Bible, and we would go through it.

And so, on this specific course, we were taking the book of Galatians. And Dr.

White's orte, or modus operandi, if you will, before the class started, he would read the whole book.

And when he got to the end of chapter 3, I said, Dr. White, I've got a question.

And he goes, go ahead. And I said, how could you, as a student of Dallas Seminary, read

Galatians chapter 3 and come away still with your distinction between the church and Israel?

And he got very solemn. He looked down at his Bible. He looked back up, and he goes, honestly,

Mr. Johnson, we ignored those passages. I think a lot of times

Armenians will do that. I had lunch with a man at my job.

This was probably like 1997, real good guy.

And we went to lunch because he had heard that I embraced those doctrines of Calvinism, which he considered so bad.

And we ordered our food, and he asked me a question.

And I said, well, how do you deal with Ephesians chapter 1? And he stopped there for I bet a good 20 minutes telling me what

Ephesians chapter 1 could mean. And I looked back at him, what he got done, and I said,

Greg, that's great, but now what does it mean? And he said, honestly,

I have no idea. And so I do believe they have a lot of presuppositions going into it.

They think, I had this guy one time, this was after the documentary was made.

He died in the war in India, and he started going to our church, Draco Valley Presbyterian.

He was a good guy. I'm not denying he loved the Lord, because I really believe he did.

And he came up with this passage. I don't even remember where it was, but it didn't say anything about free will or choosing or anything, but he built that onto it, into it.

And I can remember he goes, see, you got to choose. And I said, it doesn't say that.

You're saying that. It doesn't say that. You have these presuppositions, this already internalized view of what it means, and you're dumping the content into the passage.

That is not what the passage says. And he was like, you know, you're right.

It doesn't say that. Anyway, he stopped going to church. I didn't mean to run him off, but I guess

I did. We could only help you return to a good church with a new heart.

Well, I want you for the next three minutes to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners about Amazing Grace, the

History and Theology of Calvinism. What I would say to people is find it on YouTube, because now it's free.

You can watch it for free. Send the link to everybody you know, God in the world, wherever it is, and just ask them to watch it with an open

Bible, an open heart, an open mind, and see the sovereignty of God, that God is sovereign.

He is the author and finisher of our faith, of our life, of everything, and realize that God is a big

God. So, that is the key thing I would ask them to do, and they could find it on Rumble or YouTube.

Amen. I know that you are retired from the documentary industry and so on, or the documentary ministry, but any inclination that you might roll up the sleeves and dive in once again for at least a magnum opus documentary?

Actually, this was before Eric Holmberg went into the Eastern Roman Church.

We had an idea of doing Amazing Grace II, and I'm not inclined to do it, but the idea of Amazing Grace II was we were going to take the five solos of the

Reformation—Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide—man, I'm going to sing your moment.

Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Scriptura.

Oh, that's it! Sola Christus, Sola Gratia, and Sola Deo Gloria. We were going to take the five solos of the

Reformation and do them in such a way, really a juxtaposition, if you will, of the way the

Church of Rome was preaching back when Luther and Calvin were around, and also today, how much of the

Church has surrendered those solos and kind of do a distinction and explain them out.

So, that was our idea, and we were unable to do that because, I will tell you, at that time,

I did not know how to market something along the lines of a digital download, and that was my problem.

Amazing Grace or Apologetic Tribe and Nicene Council, we closed down in 2013, and I didn't know how to make that change to digital download.

I just didn't. And now I do, but yeah, I have no desire to do that.

You told me that one guy, Les Lanphier, I would love, because his documentary is very good, but I would say he ought to pick that up, and I would encourage him to make

Amazing Grace 2. I'll help him out however he needs, but be at the forefront.

I don't want to do that anymore. I'm getting too old. I've had a stroke, and right now

I just like playing with my dolls. Well, we're out of time, brother, and I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior. Please don't forget that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio needs your financial support.

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