August 21, 2024 Show with Dr. Joseph C. Morecraft III on “The English Reformation of the 16th Century”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 21st day of August, 2024.

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Before I introduce to you my guest and our topic for the day, I want to remind all men in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next free biannual

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon, which will be held Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m.

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to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. We are featuring, for the very first time ever,

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Dr. Joe Boot, who is a world -renowned author, conference speaker, and founder and president of the

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Ezra Institute. Not only is your admission free of charge and your opportunity to hear what will no doubt be a powerful and edifying message from Dr.

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Boot, free of charge, and your time of rest, relaxation, refreshment, fun, fellowship, and feasting, all free of charge.

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On top of all that, everybody gets a free heavy sack of brand new books personally selected by me and donated by generous

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Christian publishers all over the United States and United Kingdom. And if you would like to attend this free

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Pastors Luncheon, if you are a man in ministry leadership, whether you're a pastor, an elder, a deacon, a parachurch leader, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

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and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. Please give me not only your name, but the name of your church or parachurch ministry, its location, and the number of men who will be joining you.

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Let's try to beat the record that we broke on our last

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Pastors Luncheon. We had over 250 in attendance when Dr. Joel Beeky of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was our keynote speaker.

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So let's try to even top that amazing number of people who attended.

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That's Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is

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Perry County, Pennsylvania. I hope to see many of you men in ministry leadership there. Well, I'm absolutely thrilled, as I always am, whenever I have this frequently returning guest on the program.

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His name is Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III. He is definitely no stranger to the listeners of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, especially if they listen regularly, since he is on so often, and he's on so often, because he is just a phenomenal guest.

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And that's not only my opinion, but a growing number of you in the audience are recognizing that fact and letting me know about it.

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Dr. Moorcraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the author of the eight -volume commentary on the

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Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity. And today he's going to be addressing the

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English Reformation of the 1660s, what the American church in the 21st century can learn from it.

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It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend, Dr. Joseph C.

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Moorcraft III. It's always an enjoyment to be with you, Chris.

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Well, why don't you remind our listeners about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia.

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Cumming, Georgia is the county seat of Forsyth County, which is just outside the northern edge of metropolitan

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Atlanta. The church is about 10 years old. We started with about 25 people.

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And now on Sunday, we have anywhere from 55 to 75. And we continue to grow.

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We have many young adults that are aggressive and zealous and always active in advancing the kingdom of God and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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We are a member of a small denomination called Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery, that has 20 or so churches all over the country.

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We are thoroughly committed to the inerrancy of Scripture, to the keeping out of the Great Commission.

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And our doctrinal statement is the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, written in the 1640s.

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Our people come from every kind of background. We are very involved in evangelism and world missions.

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And it is a joy to be the pastor of this people. Amen. Well, if you live in the

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Cumming, Georgia area, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones who do, or if you're just passing through that area and you want to visit a solid church on the

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Lord's Day, you can visit their website to find out more about them and to get directions,

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HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. Also if you want to find out more about the 8 -volume commentary on the

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Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity, which has been written by my guest,

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Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, you can go to WestminsterCommentary .com, WestminsterCommentary .com.

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And for all of Dr. Moorcraft's books, booklets, and other things about him, go to ComprehensiveChristianity .com,

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ComprehensiveChristianity .com. And God willing, we will repeat that information later on in the program.

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And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away in the event that they have a question for Dr.

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Moorcraft. It is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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As always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

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Well, as I've already announced, our theme today, by your selection, is the

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English Reformation of the 1660s and what the

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American church in the 21st century can learn from it. That is a tight window of history, the 1660s.

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And if you could, obviously, let us know why this period of time is so important for even

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Christians over—or a little less than, I should say—400 years later.

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Well, it is—the whole area from the 16th century through the 17th century are the two centuries that defined what

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America would be in its earliest days. And if we don't understand what went on in the 16th and 17th centuries, the 1500s and the 1600s, we will never understand what we were meant to be.

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And I love history. It has been my life. I read books on history all the time.

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I have 40, 55 lectures on the history of the church from the 1st century to the 18th on sermonaudio .com

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that can be had for nothing, of course. There's 25 more lectures on there on John Calvin and his friends, the people of that is -day that we don't normally think of.

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So those are all available on Sermon Audio. I might say one other thing really quickly. We found something we didn't know we had this week.

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We found hundreds and hundreds of MP3s and CDs of sermons and lectures.

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And we found scores and scores of books that I have written. And they're all available for free.

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Wow. If you will call the number at Heritage Presbyterian Church, the lady that will answer the phone will tell you all about them.

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Wow. But anyway, history is one of the most important things we can study.

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History, Christians for a long time, up until the late 20th century, had just neglected their history.

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And as a result, we made a lot of mistakes. We were swayed by our enemies. Christians in the last half of the 20th century and today, by and large, most of them see

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Christianity as a pond that is full of the shallows that what we believe in practice in Christian churches today, the way it always has been done, which, of course, is in error.

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That Christianity is a river that has been flowing for hundreds and hundreds of years.

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And we have forgotten to study that river. And as a result, we have become stagnant.

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We have become polluted. Our little pond is full of mosquito larvae.

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And it's covered with algae. And if you drink it, you'll die.

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So it's very important for Christians to understand the theology of the

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Bible and the history that that theology created.

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I want to begin with two introductory remarks. The first is a sentence by a man named

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Houghton in Daubigny's introduction in his book, The History of the

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Reformation in England. And he said this, He who does not know what has happened in his past will forever remain a child, that is, immature, undiscerning, led by emotions, no understanding about his place in the role of God's kingdom.

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And so most Christians, they are children because they don't understand what has happened in the past.

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How do we come to where we are today? Why are things so bad in the

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United States today? Why are things that are good, good in the

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United States today? We must understand our past or we will forever remain a child.

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The second thing is I want to read a definition of history for you. It's Isaiah.

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And it's in the 25th chapter of Isaiah and the first verse. Oh, Lord, thou art my

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God. I will exalt thee. I will give thanks to thy name.

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Here's the definition of history. For thou hast worked wonders, plans formed long ago with perfect faithfulness.

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So history is the record of the wonder -working power of Almighty God, carrying out his eternal plans with absolute perfect faithfulness to his word.

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Let me say it one more time in case somebody's taking notes, which I hope they are. That history is the record of God's wonder -working power, carrying out eternal plans long ago with perfect faithfulness to his word.

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A person that doesn't know history doesn't know God. He may read the Bible a lot, may go to church a lot, but he doesn't know history.

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He's not going to make much about what he reads the Bible. It's going to be superficial, shallow, and more influenced by the reigning philosophies of our day than by that word.

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The more you understand history, the more you'll love God, the more you'll appreciate his greatness and his power, and that he moves all things along by his powerful word.

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Christ holds all things together. So history, as somebody said, is his story.

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It's the story of the omnipotent power of God carrying out his plans in perfect faithfulness to his word.

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And I'd like for us to talk today about one of the most important eras in the history of our church and in the history of Christianity.

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In the fifth century, Augustine and his writings were used by God to bring about a great revival that we still experience.

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His books still sell by the thousands in the 21st century, and they were written in the fourth and the fifth.

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Before Augustine, the Greeks had no appreciation for history. They didn't care about history.

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They had no place for the history of individuals and their philosophical thoughts. And so as a result, the church backslid from its early days.

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So then Augustine writes his book on the city of God, his book on confessions, and many other books, and recovered history, recovered the importance of the individual.

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And since that time, people have appreciated what history means.

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There was a book that was on the New York Times bestseller for months called

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How the Irish Saved Christianity. Wow, I actually purchased that book as a gift for someone, and I've got to get my own copy and read that.

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Well, the first half is all Augustine. How the Irish Saved Civilization, that's the name of it.

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And so as long as Augustine was the dominant force in the church of that day, there were great things that were happening.

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And then about the 12th or 13th century, people quit reading

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Augustine and started reading a man named Thomas Aquinas. Augustine's premise was, on the basis of which he wrote everything, was you cannot understand anything in all of life without the word of God, that the

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Bible is the all sufficient word and it is the basis for all knowledge in all areas.

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As long as the church believed that, there was strength.

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But then with the coming of Thomas Aquinas, the church left Augustinianism and started believing, well, you need the

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Bible for some things, but you don't need the Bible to understand everything.

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And so with that, you have the Middle Ages that went on for a thousand years where the church just abandoned its roots in scripture, betrayed the people it was supposed to shepherd, lost any biblical vision.

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Of course, I'm talking about the medieval church, the Roman Catholic church. And it stayed under Thomas Aquinas' influence.

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So the word of God was not the supreme authority in all areas of life. Human reason was.

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And so eventually that darkness got deeper and deeper. With the Enlightenment, the

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Renaissance, first of all, the Renaissance said, well,

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Mr. Aquinas, if you don't need the Bible to understand some areas of life, you don't need the

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Bible to understand any area of life. And so the Renaissance was a complete betrayal of Christianity.

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Wow. And made man the reason of all things, the measure of all things.

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So the basis of knowledge was human reason. And it threw aside

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Christianity. It no longer believed in divine revelation. And then

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God raised up some great preachers in the 16th century.

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In the 1500s, God raised up men that shook the

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West. Back to its roots. So one of those men,

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John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, said, I'm just an Augustinian. In other words, he said, we're going to go back over the head of the

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Renaissance, over the head of Thomas Aquinas, and go back to Augustine and the

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Bible, and reemphasize the fact that the word of God is the supreme and final authority in all areas of life and knowledge.

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And with that, you have the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Europe had been in darkness for a thousand years.

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It believed what the Roman Catholic Church taught. And so it was really in darkness for a thousand years.

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In fact, could we pick up right where you left off there when we come back from our first commercial break?

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Just don't forget that we have arrived at the point where the world has been in darkness for a thousand years.

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And if you are listening and have a question of your own, send it to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

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ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state of residence and country of residence.

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We'll be right back with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III right after these messages. Don't go away. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland.

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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

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

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Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

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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

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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,

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

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

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That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Or call 678 -954 -7831.

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That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

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Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.

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Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

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Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

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We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

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We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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Christ. This is Pastor David Rees of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

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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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Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com

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So go to royaldiadem .com and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Dr.

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Joseph C. Moorcraft, the third pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and also author of the eight -volume commentary on the

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Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity. We are discussing the

32:51

English Reformation of the 1660s, and right before the break, you were talking about how the church beginning to identify more with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas over that of Augustine, you believe plunged the world into a period of darkness that lasted a thousand years, and this was also largely due to the replacement of the

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Bible and the understanding of the populace with the brilliance, wisdom, and ingenuity of men.

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And if you could be also more specific about the time period, when you say a thousand years of darkness, what time frame are we talking about?

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We're talking about right after Augustine's death, which was in the early part of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century.

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Okay. After darkness came light. Post -Tenebrous

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Lux. Yes, sir. And light came from men that God raised up to go back to the original, to go back to the word of God, to go back over the heads of the

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Renaissance people and the Thomas Aquinas people and the Roman Catholic Church and go back to the pure fountain of the word of God.

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And it accelerated with Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg, Germany, and a printer printing them in German and setting all of Europe, Northern Europe on fire.

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How the Reformation got to England, that's where we want to talk about today. How the

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Reformation got to England is a fantastic story of the utter sovereignty of God's grace.

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England had in the, before the 16th century, there were several men that God used to prepare them for it.

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One was the Christians on the island of Iona, Scotland, off the southwest coast of Scotland in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th century.

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And that little group of people on an island three miles long and one mile wide had universal influence.

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They were attacked by the Roman Catholic. They were attacked by the

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Vikings. And so they fled to the mountains of Scotland and maintained their church through all of those centuries.

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They didn't come under the supremacy of the Pope. And then in about the 13th or 14th century, a man named

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John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English and raised up an organization of evangelists called the

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Lollards to take the English Bible and the Gospel to all of England.

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And the first people to follow them and to be influenced by them were these

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Culdees, these ancient cultic Christians who'd been hiding out in the mountains for centuries trying to maintain the faith.

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So they were influenced by John Wycliffe and the Lollards. Now when you said cultic, did you mean

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Celtic? Celtic, C -E -L -T -I -C. Oh, that's a relief. We got to get that straight.

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And that would be a shame if I was misunderstood. And so then

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God raised up a man named William Tyndale. And whereas Wycliffe translated the

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Bible out of the Latin Vulgate, Tyndale translated the

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Bible out of the Hebrew and Greek. And that's the beginning of Reformation.

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Henry VIII was king of England in the first part of the 16th century.

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Henry VIII was a tyrant. I think probably the worst and most wicked king

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England had ever had. He was a bloodthirsty tyrant. And I say bloodthirsty because he would burn at the stake

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Wycliffe's followers. And he outlawed William Tyndale's Bible.

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But he basically, God used him to bring revival to England in that Henry VIII wanted to get a divorce.

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He was married to a woman and he fell in love with another woman named Anne Boleyn. Fell in love with her and he wanted to, how can he get rid of his first wife,

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Catherine? He's got to get rid of her, but the Roman Catholic Church doesn't believe in divorce.

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So he tried to get, he tried to get the Pope's permission. The Pope wouldn't give him permission. He tried to get permission from all kinds of leaders,

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Roman Catholic leaders throughout Europe, and they wouldn't give it to him. So he said, okay, forget you.

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So he left the Roman Catholic Church so that he could divorce his first wife and marry the second.

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And of course, when he got divorced, he got excommunicated by the Pope. So he started the

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Church of England, which was Roman Catholic in all of its doctrines, except it did not recognize the supremacy of the

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Pope. The new Pope, so to speak, the new head of the church was

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Henry VIII. And the English monarch has been the head of the

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Church of England ever since that time, but only with one exception, and that is

39:32

Oliver Cromwell. But he declares himself head of the church, and if you don't agree with that, you get burned at the stake.

39:46

He even burned at the stake one of his dear friends, Thomas More, who would not renounce the supremacy of the church.

39:54

And so he was a bloodthirsty killer. And he married this woman.

40:02

Somebody lied about her, told him she was unfaithful. So he had her beheaded so he could marry somebody else.

40:15

So there's six wives in Henry VIII's life.

40:23

The last one outlived him, but he killed two or three of them.

40:33

So he was lecherous, self -centered. He wrote a book on, before he left the

40:41

Roman Catholic Church, he wrote a book defending the Roman Catholic faith, and the

40:47

Pope gave him a great honor for doing so. Yeah, he was called Defender of the Faith by Rome.

40:53

Sir? He was called officially by the Pope the Defender of the

40:58

Faith. Correct. And so, England is free from the

41:07

Pope's influence. And so that gave a little bit of freedom to the people that were followers of Luther and Calvin to preach and to spread the

41:26

Reformation faith. Henry VIII's Archbishop of Canterbury was a man named

41:37

Thomas Cranmer, one of my heroes. For the life of me,

41:42

I'm not sure why he liked Thomas Cranmer because Thomas Cranmer was a solid

41:48

Calvinist. Yes. But he held the highest position in the

41:53

Church of England, and Henry VIII depended upon him a great deal.

42:01

And the only reason Thomas Cranmer did not lose his head in all this stuff is because he compromised and said that the king could get a divorce.

42:15

But the priests of the Church of England couldn't preach, fortunately, because they didn't believe the truth.

42:25

So Thomas Cranmer took advantage of his situation and wrote a book of sermons and had

42:36

Henry require that all the priests in the Church of England preach his sermons every Sunday. So even though these priests didn't know anything, totally ignorant of the

42:48

Bible and Christianity, every Sunday, in church after church all over England, Thomas Cranmer's Reformed sermons were read by these preachers.

43:02

Wow. And so you see the sovereignty of God, how the Reformation began to spread in England, even though Henry was no friend of its doctrine.

43:14

And it spread by God in His sovereignty using this lecherous, bloodthirsty man.

43:21

Also, he had William Tyndale killed because he didn't like Tyndale's English translation of the

43:30

Bible. Tyndale's last prayer was, Lord, open the king of England's eyes.

43:40

One year later, Henry required that at least one

43:47

English translation of the Bible must be in every church. They just didn't put

43:54

Tyndale's name on it. So William Tyndale caused the

43:59

English Bible to spread all over England. Thomas Cranmer caused the Word of God to be preached by people who didn't even believe it.

44:09

And so it began to spread. Henry died.

44:17

The next in line was to be his daughter Mary, whom history calls

44:24

Bloody Mary. Mary was a devout Roman Catholic.

44:29

She believed every doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. She believed in the supremacy of the

44:36

Pope. And so the Protestants in England were trying to think of everything they could do to keep

44:43

Mary from being the next monarch of England, although she was supposed to be, by law, being

44:51

Henry's daughter. So they conspired and realized there was another more distant heir to the throne, a young woman by the name of Jane.

45:08

History's called her Lady Jane. Excuse me,

45:14

I'm getting ahead of myself. After Henry died, Henry had daughters, and he was always trying to get a son, and he had one.

45:24

And so Henry died, and his son became the king of England. His name was

45:31

Edward VI, and Edward VI was a

45:37

Protestant. He was a godly young man. One of his teachers was

45:43

Cranmer, one of his teachers was John Knox, and Edward VI was a godly

45:48

Calvinist. Sickly. Died in his teens. But under him, the gospel and the

45:58

Reformed faith and the Reformation spread like fire. Edward VI would get these great

46:05

Reformed scholars from the continent of Europe and bring them to England to teach the preachers and other people.

46:13

He got Martin Boucher, who was a great German Reformer but hadn't been heard of much today, one of my favorite

46:20

Reformers. He got Martin Boucher to come to England, and Martin Boucher, the

46:27

German, had written a book in English called The Reign of Christ, in Latin called

46:35

The Regno Christi. You can buy that book still today at places like Barnes &

46:41

Noble, Westminster Press, places like that. It's called Melanchthon and Boucher, but it's worth getting just to read the last part,

46:52

Boucher's book called The Reign of Christ, what the purpose of that book was, was to teach the king of England how to bring reformation to every area and institution in England's life by means of the law and the gospel.

47:16

It is a great book. It's a great book to read.

47:21

He taught the king how to apply the laws of the

47:26

Old Testament and New Testament to the state and nation of England.

47:33

He taught them the implications of the lordship of Christ and of the gospel for the institutions and people of England.

47:46

And that book had such an impact upon Edward VI that it caused

47:53

Edward to try to reform the whole educational system of England.

47:59

He had an Italian reformed person with him. His name was Peter Marger Vermillion.

48:07

He was a brilliant scholar, and he had him come to England and teach.

48:15

And you say, well, how in the world did people that are Italians and Germans teach these English -speaking people?

48:21

Everybody spoke Latin. Everybody read in Latin. And so he brought these scholars there.

48:30

God raised up more English preachers. And so the

48:35

Bible was greatly accelerated, and the reformation was greatly accelerated under Edward VI.

48:44

But he was sickly, and he didn't last long, and he died in his teens.

48:51

Now the problem is, who's going to succeed Edward VI?

48:59

The next one by law to follow was Mary. The ministry's called

49:06

Bloody Mary because she burned all the hundreds of Protestants in the state. But her name was

49:15

Lady Jane. She was a distant cousin. She had a distant claim on the throne.

49:25

She was a young teenager. And so the Protestants in England convinced a dying

49:34

Edward VI to appoint his cousin Jane to succeed him as queen of England.

49:47

So she became the queen, and she was of the reformation.

49:56

She could read the Bible in Greek, and she loved the writings of the reformers, and she was a godly young woman.

50:07

But she was king for only nine days because Mary was the more powerful of the two.

50:17

Mary had great lords supporting her who had armies.

50:26

And so Mary got all of her support together and dethroned

50:32

Jane and eventually had her head cut off.

50:40

There's a great movie that's basically historically correct called Lady Jane. Her name was

50:46

Lady Jane Grey. Talon thought she was a very godly young woman.

50:54

One of the Roman Catholic archbishops came to her two or three days before she was to be beheaded.

51:01

She was in prison. And the archbishop said to her,

51:07

Your Majesty, even though I am a Roman Catholic and you are a

51:15

Protestant because of your godliness, I expect us to meet each other in heaven.

51:27

Lady Jane Grey said to the archbishop, I will never see you in heaven.

51:33

Wow. For you will be in hell. Wow. So she was a courageous young woman.

51:42

And after nine days, there's two or three good books on Lady Jane Grey. There's the movie called

51:49

Lady Jane. And so Mary Stewart follows her.

52:03

And as I said, Mary was a... Mary, not Stewart, Tudor. Mary Tudor was a devout

52:11

Catholic, hated Protestants. And so she would begin her mission of purging the

52:18

Church of England of all Protestants. I think we should pick up where you left off there so I don't have to interrupt you mid -sentence.

52:30

Okay. Because we have to go to the midway break now. And please be patient with us, folks.

52:35

The midway break is always a little longer because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this show every day, they are compelled by the

52:46

FCC to localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio geographically to Lake City, Florida, where they're located, and they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air on their end.

53:01

We, on the other hand, on our end, simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

53:08

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers, keeping in mind that our advertisers and the finances that come through them are what keep

53:27

Iron Trip and Zion Radio on the air. Please never forget that. And also, obviously, use this time to write in your questions to Dr.

53:34

Joseph C. Moorcraft III, to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:41

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Joe Moorcraft after these messages. ♪♪♪

53:52

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

54:02

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the

54:10

Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr.

54:16

Joseph Moorcraft. It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

54:30

Dr. Moorcraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

54:41

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

54:49

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

54:58

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Moorcraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.

55:05

Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you. This is

55:40

Darrell Bernard Harrison, co -host of the Just Thinking Podcast, and the NASB is my

55:46

Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, and the

55:53

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Kent Keller of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Andrew Rappaport, the founder and executive director of Heritage Striving for Eternity Ministries, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Mark Rimaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Greenbrier, Tennessee, and the

56:19

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Christopher Cookston, pastor of Prineville Community Church in Prineville, Oregon, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Matt Tarr, pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

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57:17

Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group, and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program.

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That's securecommgroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor,

57:52

Doug McMasters, of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

58:01

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

58:08

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

58:14

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

58:20

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

58:28

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.

58:40

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

58:47

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

58:56

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

59:06

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.

59:25

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

59:33

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly

01:00:04

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Subscribe to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, New York.

01:00:52

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. If you love

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

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That's L -Y -N -BrookBaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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01:09:33

Before I return to Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III and our conversation today about the

01:09:39

English Reformation of the 1660s,

01:09:46

I have some important reminders for you. Folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please,

01:09:54

I'm begging you, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:10:00

click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

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If you prefer snail mail, mailing a physical check to a physical address from your local post office the old -fashioned way, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click

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Support at ironsharpensironradio .com, where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:10:29

If you want to advertise with us as Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia does, where my guest is the pastor, well, as long as whatever it is you want to advertise, whether it's your church, parachurch ministry, your business, private practice like a law firm, medical firm, a special event, whatever the case may be, as long as whatever it is you want to advertise is compatible with what

01:10:54

I believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible because we are just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

01:11:04

So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

01:11:11

Also, I always want my listeners to remember, no matter how desperately and urgently we need your financial support,

01:11:19

I never want members of my audience to give your own church where you're a member less money than you normally give your church on the

01:11:30

Lord's Day because you want to bless us with a financial gift. In other words, never cut in to the finances that you have set aside specifically for your

01:11:40

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The Bible is extremely clear that we are primarily responsible to use

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We're primarily to use that money to support our church where we are a member and our family.

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And providing for this radio show is obviously not a command of God. But if you do love this show and you're financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family, you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and even trivial purposes.

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Well, if you love this show, don't want it to disappear, please share some of that money with us so that we don't go off the air.

01:12:38

Go to www .ironsharpensironradio .com, click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. I also want to remind our listeners that the church where I was formerly a member before I moved to Pennsylvania, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, is having their

01:12:58

Courageous Marriage Seminar this Friday and Saturday, August 23rd and 24th.

01:13:05

And if you would like to register, go to www .gracereformedbaptistchurch .org, www .gracereformedbaptistchurch

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.org. The Courageous Marriage Conference features bestselling author,

01:13:17

Dr. Joe Rigney, and I hope as many of you as possible will attend this special conference.

01:13:26

And I've been told that if you cannot afford the registration fee, if you call

01:13:32

Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, they may be able to work something out where they give you a discount or even less than that.

01:13:43

So please go to www .gracereformedbaptistchurch .org, find out more about the conference this

01:13:49

Friday and Saturday, and also register. And last but not least, if you are not the member, not a member, of a biblically faithful,

01:14:00

Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, no matter where you live in the entire world,

01:14:10

I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience in all parts of the planet

01:14:19

Earth find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live, that are doctrinally sound.

01:14:27

And that may be you too, no matter where on the planet Earth you live. I may be able to help you find a church even close to you.

01:14:35

It is possible, as I've done many times. So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:14:41

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:14:47

Joseph C. Moorcraft III on our conversation on the

01:14:52

English Reformation of the 1660s. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:15:00

Before I go to any listener questions, I want you to pick up where you left off. It had to do with the execution of Lady Jane Grey, who was a faithful Protestant.

01:15:13

And she was executed at the demand of Bloody Mary, who was a

01:15:22

Roman Catholic. And if you would please pick up where you left off. Yes, sir.

01:15:28

There's one person that I need to mention that's in the midst of all this. And that is the great

01:15:33

John Knox. Yes. When people think of John Knox, they think of a Scottish reformer.

01:15:39

And he was a Scottish reformer, but long after he passed middle age. In his early years and middle age years, he was a great

01:15:48

English reformer. He was the teacher of King Edward VI, continued to minister even under Mary.

01:15:57

And yet he realized that she was burning at the stake, the great

01:16:03

Protestant leaders. So he fled England, even though he didn't want to. His friends made him flee.

01:16:09

And he went as a Marian exile. Hundreds of Marian exiles were those

01:16:14

Calvinists that fled England under Bloody Mary, went to Strasbourg, where there was the first English, English Puritan church in Strasbourg.

01:16:25

But he didn't stay there long because they wanted an Anglican liturgy and he didn't want an

01:16:32

Anglican liturgy. So he went to Geneva. Calvin was there as a teacher and a preacher.

01:16:39

So he started an English Puritan church in Geneva, and he studied under John Calvin.

01:16:48

And men in the congregation of that English Puritan church in Geneva were the ones that translated the great

01:16:55

Geneva Bible upon which the United States was built.

01:17:02

The United States, everybody should have a Geneva Bible. It predates the

01:17:07

King James Version. And that's another story we're going to get to in a second, I hope. So he stayed there in Geneva for a while until he realized it was safe for him to go back to England.

01:17:21

And then he did. So Bloody Mary has killed Lady Jane. Bloody Mary has also had the great

01:17:31

Thomas Cranmer burn the stake. You remember that was her father's dear friend and Archbishop of Canterbury.

01:17:43

I think that Thomas Cranmer, by the way, led

01:17:49

Henry VIII to Christ on his deathbed. Yes, I've heard that. Henry was dying.

01:17:57

And of course, Thomas Cranmer would not leave his side. At the old time,

01:18:02

Thomas Cranmer, great Protestant that he was, would witness to him and present the gospel to him.

01:18:12

And it was obvious that Henry wasn't going to live long, so Thomas Cranmer said,

01:18:19

Your Majesty, give me some sign that you believe in Jesus.

01:18:27

And so the great Henry VIII squeezed Thomas Cranmer's hand.

01:18:34

And Cranmer understood that as being, yes, I am a Christian now. So we may see

01:18:39

Henry VIII in heaven. So Thomas Cranmer, Bloody Mary had to get rid of because of his powerful influence.

01:18:52

He was an old man. And so they threatened him with being burned to the stage if he did not renounce his

01:19:00

Protestant faith. That scared this old man so much that he wrote down on a piece of paper that he was renouncing his

01:19:14

Protestant faith. But they said,

01:19:20

You renounce your faith or we'll kill you. They decided to burn him at the stake anyway.

01:19:26

Well, I heard that he renounced his recantation of Protestantism first. Yeah, that's a great story.

01:19:34

So he's standing there ready to be tied to the stake. And they said,

01:19:42

Now we want you to renounce your Protestant faith publicly before these all witnesses, before we burn you to the stake.

01:19:52

Thomas Cranmer said so many words, I renounce my renunciation. I'm a

01:19:59

Protestant, but I still believe what I've always believed. So right before they tied him to the stake, he took his hand and he stuck it into the flames because that was the hand he renounced the faith with.

01:20:19

And he kept his hand there as a cursed hand that betrayed Christ and held it in the flames until it burned off.

01:20:29

And then they tied him in the flames and burned him to death. So he was a great, great

01:20:37

Christian martyr. So Mary didn't reign long, praise the

01:20:45

Lord. She burned to the stake about 300 Protestants. She had a miserable death.

01:20:52

She had some kind of condition, tumorous condition. She always wanted a baby.

01:20:59

And this condition had all of the symptoms of pregnancy. So she would get all excited about having a baby and lo and behold, it was just a disease.

01:21:12

So she died a miserable woman. And then she was replaced by her great sister

01:21:21

Elizabeth, half -sister. Elizabeth was the

01:21:28

Queen of England and was one of the greatest of all the monarchs. She reigned throughout the last half of the 16th century.

01:21:44

She did not persecute the Protestants. And so the

01:21:49

Reformation continued to spread under her. Her concern was simply to keep her crown and keep the head upon which that crown sat.

01:22:03

Because her mother was beheaded, she had to behead her cousin

01:22:11

Mary, Queen of Scots, for a plot to try to assassinate

01:22:16

Elizabeth. So she lived in fear that she could be beheaded.

01:22:22

And so she did everything she could, compromised everything she could, to keep her head in the crown that sat on it.

01:22:31

Wasn't she technically Protestant, though? I think she was nothing.

01:22:38

Okay. I think she was not Roman Catholic, but I think she identified with the

01:22:44

Protestants because that's where her power was. Right. And also she needed the

01:22:50

Protestants because the great enemy of England in the last half of the 1500s, the great enemy of England was

01:22:59

Spain, which was Roman Catholic, and they had the powerful navy.

01:23:07

And she was afraid that the Spanish navy, the Spanish Armada, was going to come against England to destroy the

01:23:18

Reformation. So that was the intent. So the

01:23:25

Spanish Armada came to the shores of England in all its might, and England gathered all of the ships and boats of whatever kind it could, and it withstood the assault of the mighty

01:23:45

Spanish Armada and got into the assault with a great storm that almost wiped out the whole armada.

01:23:56

Many ships were sunk. Many of the Spanish sailors had to wind up on the shores of Ireland, and that's why a lot of Irish people have olive skin and dark hair because of their

01:24:10

Spanish background. So the Spanish Armada was defeated.

01:24:18

The kingdom of England was saved. Elizabeth continued to appoint

01:24:24

Protestants to places of power, and then she died just after the 17th century began.

01:24:38

Now, before we get to that part, in 1536, a young Frenchman by the name of John Calvin wrote one of the greatest books ever written in French, not only because of its theological content but because it was the first great book to ever be written in French, and it has a history in French literature apart from its theological influence, and that was called

01:25:18

The Institutes of the Christian Religion. When he first wrote it, it was only one short volume.

01:25:24

If you can find it, get it. It was reprinted 20 or so years ago, 30 or 40 years ago, and it's great to read.

01:25:32

He kept revising The Institutes of the Christian Religion until close to his death, close to 1560, and so it's now two volumes, and everybody that's a

01:25:46

Christian should get those two volumes. And you could get it at cvbbs .com. I thought I'd throw it out there.

01:25:52

All right, that is great, and read it. It's Institutes or Fundamentals, Institutes of the

01:25:59

Christian Religion. It was translated into English. He'd first written it in Latin and French.

01:26:06

It was translated into England in the late middle 16th century, and it went through at least nine editions by 1611 when the

01:26:19

King James Version was translated, and I own a copy of the original 1611

01:26:27

Institutes of the Christian Religion. Wow. And if you want to get 20 ,000 years off purgatory, come to my house and touch it.

01:26:34

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. So Calvin's Institutes had a great influence on the creation of Puritanism.

01:26:47

Puritanism is what grew out of the original Protestant Reformation in the middle 16th century.

01:26:57

Puritanism dominated the late 16th century and throughout the 17th century in England.

01:27:05

Puritanism had some of the greatest men in the history of the church as preachers in it, and Puritanism had as its goal a clean sweep of England.

01:27:19

It wanted to sweep out of England's church, out of England's society, anything that wasn't solidly based upon the word of God and that recognized the kingship of Christ.

01:27:32

They wanted to make a clean sweep of everything and purify everything, hence

01:27:38

Puritan. Purify everything in England, doctrine, economy, politics, particularly church life.

01:27:52

And for a century, they continued to advance the

01:27:59

Reformation in every area of life, but we'll come back to them. So Elizabeth dies.

01:28:08

She's not married. She has no children. So she appoints her cousin,

01:28:18

James Stewart of Scotland, to be the king of England.

01:28:25

James Stewart had already been king of Scotland, and he was called King James VI of Scotland.

01:28:34

So now at about 1603, something like that, he becomes the king of England and Scotland, and as the king of England, he is

01:28:43

King James I. King James' mother was

01:28:49

Mary, Queen of Scots, whom John Knox and the rest of the

01:28:55

Scottish Reformed people found enough evidence on her to be convicted of murder and trying to replace

01:29:06

Elizabeth, and so she has her head cut off. James I is her son.

01:29:13

He never forgave the Calvinists. Even though as a young boy, the great Calvinists, like Knox, were his teachers, and he had an understanding of Calvinism, but he had a high view of the king.

01:29:33

He believed what his ancestors taught, that the king is the head of the church and that the king is above the law.

01:29:45

His will is the law in church and state. Whatever he wills is law.

01:29:52

The church's doctrine, the church's liturgy, the church's government, everything must be in submission to the head of the church who is the king.

01:30:04

The thing about James I is he was not only a dictator.

01:30:12

He not only hated the Scottish Presbyterians, many of whom he had sent to South Carolina as slaves on plantations, and they died in obscurity there.

01:30:28

Some musicologists did a study of Negro spirituals with the tunes the

01:30:35

Scottish Presbyterians sang the psalms by, and they saw a clear relationship.

01:30:42

So these godly old Scottish Presbyterians that James would send into slavery and obscurity taught the various African slaves on how to sing their music.

01:30:57

So the great weakness of James is he was a blatant homosexual.

01:31:03

He was not afraid to talk about it. Wow. He always had some fellow homosexual on his arm, and when he was asked to fend it from the

01:31:17

Bible, he said, Jesus, that is

01:31:22

John, and I have my Buckingham. Wow. I didn't know it was that blatant because King James -only advocates tend to say that was old myth.

01:31:36

No, I guarantee you it was not. King James was married to this woman and had children, but he was famous then as well as now.

01:31:48

For his homosexuality, and he, if you want to read a great book on the

01:31:54

Reformation and on James, get the book called The Great Christian Revolution by Arthur Scott.

01:32:02

The Great Christian Revolution by Arthur Scott. And if you want to get a whole biography of James I, which goes into all of this stuff, get

01:32:15

Arthur Scott's biography of James I. So Arthur Scott, The Great Christian Revolution, and Arthur Scott's on James I.

01:32:33

So James I would try to get the Scottish Church to submit to his

01:32:39

Anglican liturgy, his Anglican doctrine, and to submit to his supremacy as the head of the church.

01:32:51

And of course the Scottish Church wouldn't do it. There was a lot of persecution during those days.

01:32:59

James sent Anglican bishops to be bishops in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which of course was intolerable.

01:33:09

And I would like to spend more time on him, wicked as he was. I told you that the

01:33:17

John Knox congregation in Geneva had translated the Bible into English and called it the

01:33:24

Geneva Bible. And it was the most popular Bible in England. It was the first study

01:33:31

Bible, in fact. The translation, you would think, was written, if you didn't know better, you'd think it was written in today's

01:33:40

English. It didn't have the high Elizabethan language of the later

01:33:47

King James. It was more in the language of the common man. And it had footnotes in the south margin and in the bottom margin explaining various books, various paragraphs, various verses in the

01:34:02

Bible. And so it spread. It taught people the reformed faith.

01:34:08

And King James didn't like it. So King James outlawed the publication of the

01:34:15

Geneva Bible in England. And so they published it in Europe and would send it to England.

01:34:26

And so King James says, I want a Bible that does not have the

01:34:34

Calvinistic footnotes of the Geneva. I want a Bible that's not written in the common man's

01:34:41

English, but a Bible that has high Elizabethan language that would fit into an

01:34:46

Anglican liturgy. Now King James only, people don't realize that. That the

01:34:52

King James was written in the style it was to be used in the Anglo -Catholic liturgy.

01:35:00

And so he got the best Greek and Hebrew scholars in England to write him a new

01:35:06

Bible. And translate it into English, get rid of the footnotes.

01:35:13

And so he got the best scholars available, providentially all of whom were Puritans. And so they translated the

01:35:22

King James Version, which is one of the most accurate versions you can buy today. I hate the title,

01:35:28

King James Version. But nevertheless, it is one of the most accurate translations of all the

01:35:37

New Testaments that's available today throughout history. And so when they handed the new

01:35:44

King James Version to His Majesty, these men's translator said,

01:35:50

Your Majesty, you will love this translation because the word tyrant and tyranny did not occur anywhere in it.

01:36:01

And so it took a long time for the

01:36:06

King James Version to replace the Geneva Bible because they loved it.

01:36:14

And even before it replaced it, they came out with a copy of the

01:36:20

King James Version with Geneva Bible footnotes. And that spread for a while.

01:36:29

But eventually, after generations, the

01:36:34

King James Version did replace the Geneva Bible, even though it was the

01:36:40

Geneva Bible that the Puritans and the pilgrims brought to this country and built our country on.

01:36:47

It was not the King James Version. It was the Geneva Bible. And to commemorate that, there is a

01:36:56

United States quarter. I own some of these.

01:37:04

There is a United States currency. It's a silver quarter.

01:37:11

It was produced in 1921. On one side, it commemorates the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony.

01:37:25

On one side is the Mayflower.

01:37:33

And on the other side is William Bradford, governor of Plymouth, holding a

01:37:40

Geneva Bible. Wow. And that's American currency. Wow.

01:37:47

You'd have to pay a pretty penny to get it. But look on Google and places.

01:37:57

See if you can find one. It is well worth having. And you have some of these, right?

01:38:05

Yes. And what is your address again? That will get you more years of purgatory.

01:38:12

Now, I'm telling people on your show things I possess that are worth a great amount of money.

01:38:21

Just to be on the safe side, I also want to assure your listeners that I own pistols.

01:38:27

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

01:38:33

So, King James lives until about 1925.

01:38:40

1925. I mean, excuse me, excuse me, 1625. And by the way, pick up where you left off because we have to go to our last break.

01:38:50

Now? Yeah, we have to go to our final commercial break, so pick up where you left off. Okay, go. All right, folks, please don't go away.

01:38:58

We're going to be right back after these messages. Puritan Reformed is a

01:39:04

Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

01:39:13

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

01:39:20

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

01:39:34

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

01:39:40

Christ. This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

01:39:46

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

01:39:54

Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com

01:40:04

O hail the power of Jesus' name.

01:40:12

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

01:40:19

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

01:40:24

Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

01:40:40

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

01:40:47

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

01:41:00

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

01:41:10

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org That's gracechurchatfranklin .org

01:41:18

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

01:41:24

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ, today and always.

01:41:58

I'd like to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the Internet where folk won't be led astray.

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

01:42:11

And yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the

01:42:17

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com I'm Dr.

01:42:57

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

01:43:07

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

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For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church go to hopereformedli .net

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That's hopereformedli .net or call 631 -696 -5711

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That's 631 -696 -5711 Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough you know

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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.

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Doug McMasters here, former Director of Pastoral Correspondence at Grace to You the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

01:48:56

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

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

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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.

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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

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

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

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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.

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I want to remind you quickly of this weekend's The Courageous Marriage Conference at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York featuring their keynote speaker best selling author

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01:52:51

we're now back with Dr. Joe Moorcraft and Dr. Moorcraft we may have to turn this into a two part interview but when we went to the commercial break you were just about to talk about the death of King James yes sir let me tell you one more thing in his life that will take the rest of the time during when he was alive in 1619 one of the most important meetings in the history of Christianity took place in Europe the reformation had spread all over Northern Europe transformed

01:53:33

Northern Europe but there was a group of people that on the surface acted like they believed in the great doctrines of reformation but in private they would spread false doctrines and that was led by a man named

01:53:52

Arminius and his followers were called Arminians and whereas the reformation faith was

01:54:01

God centered believed that man is a slave to his sin until he is set free by the regenerative power of the

01:54:11

Holy Spirit these people were man centered and they took

01:54:16

God out of the center of theology and placed man and so in 1619 at a place in Holland called

01:54:28

Dort D -O -R -T these men were brought to account before all of the reformed churches of Europe all the reformed churches had representatives there all the reformation churches except France because the

01:54:47

Catholic kings of England of France would not allow the Calvinists to go to Synod or Assembly of Dort so this was representative of the whole world of the reformation except for Lutherans of course and they brought these

01:55:10

Arminians before the whole assembly they tried to get

01:55:15

Arminius himself there but when they called him to meet before the whole assembly he died of a heart attack and so his followers were there and then they called upon his followers to answer for what they believed they were arrogant and of course their answers were shallow and wrong in their interpretation of scripture so the

01:55:45

Synod of Dort representing all the world of reformation in Europe found him guilty of teaching false doctrines had all the preachers expelled from the ministry and Holland went even farther and had all of the

01:56:05

Arminian preachers expelled from citizenship to Holland and they were trying to cleanse the church of this cancer of Arminianism and the whole church the whole reformed church of Europe I want to impress you with that stood against them but what

01:56:30

Arminius and his people believed what the entire reformed church of the reformation centuries condemned as heresy is the most popular theology of evangelicals today in the 21st century so what most evangelicals believed in the 20th century as to what the gospel is was condemned by the entire reformed church of the 17th century in Europe as heresy it shows you how far we've fallen yeah in fact most but one last point sure you remember how

01:57:17

God used in his sovereignty somebody as tyrannical and lecherous as Henry VIII to bring reformation to England guess who called the senate of dork who was that?

01:57:34

James I huh that great tyrant and pervert James I called upon the reformed churches of to condemn what

01:57:47

Arminius was speaking wow God is a sovereign

01:57:52

God hallelujah and brother we are out of time and we never even came close to 1660

01:57:58

I don't think so I think my wife was supposed to tell you the 16th century oh okay well

01:58:08

I'll have to make sure that we correct that I'm talking about next time alright and by the way

01:58:14

I want to make sure that our listeners have all the websites affiliated with you heritagepresbyterianchurch .com

01:58:22

is the website for Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming Georgia that's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com

01:58:30

and then we also have the website of your or for your 8 volume commentary on the

01:58:38

Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity that website is westminstercommentary .com

01:58:45

westminstercommentary .com and for all of Dr.

01:58:51

Moorcraft's books and other writings and anything connected with him in a broader scope go to comprehensive christianity .com

01:59:02

comprehensivechristianity .com I want to thank you so much Dr. Moorcraft for being such an absolutely superb guest as you always are

01:59:10

I look forward to your return to the show and once again I thank you and your lovely wife and your congregation from the bottom of my heart for your generosity that you always extend toward Iron Sharpens Iron Radio keeping us on the air through your financial support

01:59:25

I can never thank you enough brother It's an honor and folks

01:59:31

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.