June 13, 2023 Show with Bill Shishko on “The Church Before the Modern, Watching World”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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. 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.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon, 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. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 13th day of June 2023.

The Haven in Commack and the Joy of Reformed Worship

And I am so thrilled to have back on the program a dear old friend, one of my most favorite guests to interview, someone whom I have known since the infancy stages of my new birth in Christ in the 1980s.

His name is Bill Shishko, and he is the pastor of the Haven Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Comac, Long Island, New York. And today we're going to be addressing the theme, The Church Before the Modern Watching.

World.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Bill Shishko.

Hey, Chris, good to be with you again.

Oh, I am thrilled to be interviewing you again. And I was so thrilled to visit for the very first time the Haven in Comac, Long Island, New York, during my most recent visit to Long Island. I have many, many, many times over the years joined you for worship at the church where you formerly pastored, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, is actually a place that God used to help me cut my teeth on Reformed theology as a new babe in Christ.

And I continued to visit there for decades and was thrilled to hear that after your retirement from the OPC in Franklin Square congregation, that you have returned to the pastoral ministry and have planted the Haven.

And what I can't even formulate the words to describe how blessed I was and how the moving of my heart. I love the way that you worship there. It is sort of a liturgical worship, but it is in no way dry and robotic and dull.

It is filled with passion and the enthusiasm with which the congregation responds sorely is involved in that liturgy, which is not just one brief segment of the service, like many even Reformed Baptist churches have on occasion, they usually don't do this every Lord's Day, but on occasion they'll have a responsive psalm or something like that.

But you have that throughout, a thread throughout the service. And I just, it was a wonderful experience.

Praise the Lord. It was wonderful to have you there with us. My boys say, Dad, you're counterintuitive. Right now I'm 71 years old, involved in a church plant. I'm busier than I ever have been in my life, but we're having a wonderful time at the Haven.

God has been so good to us there.

Amen. It was so great also to see people that I have known since the 1980s who were actually members of the church where I was saved in the 1980s. And so glad to see that they are now at the Haven. What a great time of rekindling friendships.

Why don't you just give our listeners a little bit more of a description of the Haven?

Yeah, the Haven is located at 16 Oak Lawn Drive in Comac, New York. What a blessing. Last year we were, this is a small mission church. We're still in our early stage, earliest stages, but we were able to purchase a building that had been owned by a brethren group called Cleft of the Rock Bible Chapel.

The story of how that worked out is quite remarkable, but we found when our officers met with their remaining elders, that was in, let me think, my, my, my, it was October about a year and a half ago, that in most things we were in total agreement.

And as a result, they were going to give us the church and almost two acres of land right on Veterans Highway. But we'd agreed in advance that we wanted them to be able to continue their support of their missionaries.

So they agreed on a price. I mean, remarkable was it was $425 ,000 for the building, the apartment that's above the church facility, two acres of land. We were able to get a loan from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church loan fund that worked on the facility.

And it was actually a man, you know, Joe Matone, who was a contractor. He and his crew took that building on like a baby and over six months just transformed it and brought it up to date. And we've just finished actually renovating the apartment because we have an intern with.

Us.

So that's, that's, that's the sort of structural thing. And you're right about the worship language, like dry, robotic, formalistic. Those are no, no words for us. We, we take seriously that worship engages the whole person and our worship services are organized, but they're delightful.

We really enjoy what it is as a body to be hearing the word of God and then to be responding as a body. You see the liberating, in the right sense of the word, the liberating benefit of the regulative principle where your whole worship is governed by the word of God.

So it was a delight to have you there, Chris. You have so many brothers and sisters that know you and love you.

Well, I really appreciate it being there. And what a beautiful area of Comac that is as well. In fact, I visited the Cleft of the Rock Bible Church many years ago. It was probably in the eighties when I visited there for some event that they had.

But I am so glad that that building is being continued to be used for the glory of God. If anybody wants more information about the Haven in Comac, Long Island, go to thehavenli .com, thehavenli .com, and hopefully I'll remember to repeat that before the program is over.

Now, I know that our subject today, The Church Before the Modern Watching World, came about because of material that you used for lectures that you gave at the Machen Singles Conference Center in McDowell, Virginia, on Memorial Day weekend, Machen being, obviously, for those of you who know anything about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the founder of that fine denomination, J. Gresham Machen, who has become an actual hero to many people in and out of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Christianity and Liberalism, Francis Schaeffer, and the Need to Reach a Watching World

But why don't you tell us about how that event came to be and why this material is such a part of your passion that you wanted to discuss it today?

Yeah, well, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Chris, I think this year is the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Dr. Machen's volume, Christianity and Liberalism, which was quite incendiary, actually.

When it came out, Dr. Machen said that liberalism, which is kind of mainstream Protestantism that denies the authority of the scripture and so on, he was bold enough to say what is true, that liberalism and theology is not a different form of Christianity, it's not Christianity at all, because it denies the supernatural at every point, whether it's the denial of the inspiration and inerrancy of the scriptures or the miracles of Christ or the miracle of Christ himself, born of a virgin, and that book actually is what launched, so to speak, the fundamentalist modernist controversy of the 20th century that didn't just impact Presbyterians, but every mainline denomination.

So that is really a classic book. It's such an honor to be part of the denomination that the Lord used Dr. Machen to found in 1936. The Machen, it's technically called the Machen Retreat and Conference Center, but brash New Yorker that I am, I began the conference by saying, I don't believe Christians retreat.

A strategic withdrawal, that's fine, Jesus was withdrawing himself regularly, but I don't believe Christians retreat, so I called it the Machen Conference Center, but it's nestled in this beautiful area to the west of the Shenandoah Mountains in McDowell, Virginia, and they had 42 singles for that conference and some adults that they were allowed to tag along, and I was burdened for that, Chris.

I am, at this stage in my life, I'm deeply concerned that Reformed churches not get in a Reformed ghetto and that they really get out there and bring the word of God to people, and even as Dr. Schaeffer was concerned in 1970 when he gave these original, I believe they were addresses, I mean, I read them as books, the church before the watching world and the church at the end of the 20th century.

He was also very burdened that the Evangelical church of his day and the Reformed church of his day be reaching out, especially to young people who are asking questions. That drove me. It's interesting, last week you had Dr. Reynolds on.

That's right.

Who got the privilege of living at La Brie. I had the opportunity to go there, but the Lord just wasn't able to work that out financially and in other ways, but Dr. Reynolds' pilgrimage, so to speak, and mine are remarkably parallel, and we're just both so thankful to Dr. Schaeffer.

But anyway, I wanted to build, especially on his work, the church at the end of the 20th century, although that's in tandem with the church before the watching world, and that's what I did at the conference in five messages.

In fact, I want to let our listeners know that after this live broadcast is over, if you want to hear the interview I conducted with Dr. Gregory Reynolds on your father's La Brie, Reflections on the Ministry of Francis Schaeffer, which is his new book, just type in to the ironsharpensironradio .com search engine, Reynolds, R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S, and all of Dr. Reynolds' interviews will come up, and that would be at the very top.

It was conducted on June 7th, and I hope that you enjoy it. When you just mentioned a reformed ghetto, it reminded me of a conversation I had yesterday, last night. In fact, someone that you know, who was my pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania for the last six years, John Miller, he just preached his final message for us because he accepted a call to Redeemer Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia, and he had his final sermon last night, and we had a time of refreshment and a farewell fellowship for him, and I don't know if you know Jim Eshelman.

Oh, I do. I've known Jim for many years.

Yes, in fact, I was actually confusing Jim with somebody else. Leon Blosser was who I had the conversation with last night. Leon Blosser has been a figure amongst Reformed Baptists going back to the 60s.

He knows Arabic. He actually taught Arabic at Dickinson College, but he said to me, in reference to my pastor's luncheons that I have twice a year, where you have spoke, he said, you know, you're one of the only Reformed Baptists that I know that has an event like your luncheons where you are introducing the doctrines of grace to pastors from all different theological perspectives, and you're breaking out of this isolationism of Reformed people, and you're being used of God to introduce these men to books that never would have otherwise bought the books because they get them for free, and also to hear men of God like you, Bill, preach at these events.

So that just came to my mind because he used the term a Reformed ghetto, which we have to stop that mentality of Reformed ghettos. Right. And, well, the theme that we have today, as we already mentioned, is the church before the modern watching world, and your messages built on Romans chapter 12 verses 1 to 2.

The first message was on not being conformed to this age. You were quite blunt that we are living and seeking to minister to a culture under God's wrath. Can you develop that.

For us a little bit? Yeah, and I'm just building on what Dr. Schaefer said. These, the material that, well, I went through a lot of Dr. Schaefer's material, but the two things in particular that were somewhat foundational for what I did, Dr. Schaefer said exactly the same thing, because that's exactly what Romans chapter 1 says.

If you want a commentary on our culture, it is Romans chapter 1, people worshiping and serving the creature more than the creator, and God giving them up. But that section in Romans 1 and verse 19 begins with the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of those who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

And the point Dr. Schaefer made, as I made, it's so important, is if we are light about that truth, then we cut off what is a main portal to dealing with our culture. A wrath of God, there is God giving people up.

It's not speaking of the wrath of God at the last day. We're still in a period in which there's God's mercy in the midst of His wrath. But we are given up, and all of those horrible things that you read in Romans chapter 1 are exactly the things that we see in our culture.

It's interesting that in Romans 1, Paul particularly singles out sexual perversion, men with men doing with one another that which is unseemly in women the same. And then he says, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of error.

And I think, Chris, it's part of the soft peddling of the power of that chapter when people say that the sexually transmitted diseases that proliferate wherever there is sexual perversion, let alone the psychological confusion and emotional upset and so on, these are things that are the direct consequence of that sexual perversion.

But even that is because God has given up our culture to idolatry. That's why as that first message went on, I dealt with iconoclasm, is that over against the idols of our age, Christians must be those who see certain things as idols and call that out.

Some of the ones, I mean, so many that come to mind, one is scientism in which legitimate science, legitimate science is basically the best theory that you have given the data that's before you. Scientism takes that and turns it into a religion in which you believe these things as faith commitments.

That would be an example. An idol is something that you look to to make you happy or to bless you or to give you security or whatever. And there's any number of these, that first message dealt with that.

And I, at the very end of each message, I had a keyword and that was iconoclasm. You have to stand at all the points that I make with young people, especially one of the challenges in this age, we're dealing with insanity in our culture.

I mean, I don't have to delineate it. You've discussed it on your program. And when a person so assumes to himself, supposedly, the right of deity, that he or she can self-identify in a way that is definitive in a culture, that's insanity.

And we have to learn to be able to say that in our culture without sounding arrogant and haughty. Some Christians can be quite frankly, very non-Christian in the way they communicate those things. And then others will dance around these things and capitulate to them.

We cannot and we must not, we must declare this is a culture that is experiencing various aspects of God's wrath. And there's where the gospel comes in because God's wrath against his people is taken.

By Christ on the cross. Amen. And when you were mentioning the insanity of those that identify as a female, if they are biological men and vice versa, it's the only thing I can think of right now. The only phenomenon that ever in my life, we are being told to immediately without any kind of investigation or probing, take these people at their word and believe them.

So we're to let biological males who think they're women into women's public restrooms, into locker rooms and all these things. Oh, if they say that they're a woman, we got to believe it. And I've never even experienced that kind of phenomenon before,.

Where I believe. Yeah. I mean, here's where fidelity to the scriptures is so important. The language it's used in Romans 1, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. God gave them over to a debased mind.

Those are powerful words. A debased mind is a mind in which if you think of the mind as currency, it's lost its value. And that is what we see. And again, without being haughty, I mean, as people who know that we're saved and kept by grace, the last thing we should be is proud.

But without sounding proud and haughty, we've got to say these things in our culture. And especially for young people today, if they're not taught how to do that, and there's not some opening up of what that means, and Romans 1 gives us the data for that, not to be conformed to this age, we're losing.

We're losing a tremendous opportunity to bring.

Light into darkness. Well, we are going to go to our first commercial break right now. And if you do have a question for Pastor Bill Shishko on our theme, The Church Before the Modern Watching World, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N 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. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with.

Bill Shishko after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

Here. I'm very excited to announce that my long-time friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, The Sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Vody Balcombe, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.

Go to g3nin .org, that's g3nin .org, and enter promo code G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 discount. Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on The Sovereignty of God.

Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there. Go to g3min .org and enter.

Promo code G3ISIR for your 30 discount off the registration fee. I'm Brian McLaughlin,.

President of the SecureComm Group, and an enthusiastic supporter of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program. The SecureComm Group provides the highest level of security, close-circuit television, access control, and communication systems for Manhattan's top residential buildings, as well as churches, commercial properties, municipalities, and more.

We custom install exactly what you need to protect yourself, including digital recording, off-site viewing, and connectivity from most smart devices. From simple code-activated systems to the latest technology using facial recognition, the SecureComm Group has it.

We also provide the in intercom and IP telephone systems. In addition, we provide superior networking platforms. We'll create, maintain, and secure your local network. Whether it's a Wi-Fi or hardwire network, we'll implement the latest secured firewall, endpoint solutions, and cloud backup.

I would love to have the honor and privilege of helping protect the lives and property of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners and their associates. For more details on how the SecureComm Group may be of service to you with the very latest in security innovations, call 718 -353 -3355.

That's 718 -353 -3355. Or visit securecommgroup .com. That's securecommgroup .com. This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group, joining Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.

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. Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image kings.

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

This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona. Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth. Puritan Reformed Church. Believe.

Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with, or switching to, the NASB.

I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford,.

Virginia, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jesse Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word.

Of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in Southlake, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of.

Choice. I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York,.

And the NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the NASB and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place.

Your order. Here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, praise God for the generous monthly financial.

Support of Royal Diadem Jewelers. Educated by and affiliated with the American Gem Society, Jewelers of America, and the Gemological Institute of America. For the perfect custom-designed engagement ring or any one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications, Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered.

No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step by step through every stage of the process and even hold a high-tech internet virtual visit using state-of-the-art jewelry design technology to serve you.

They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you. From rough design to digital model, to photorealistic image, to wax prototype model, to the finished product, they're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way.

This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed and well beyond your expectations. Visit royaldiadem .com, that's royaldiadem .com today. Sterling Vandewerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife Bronnie, his business partner and manager Brian Wilson, and the entire family thank you all for listening to, praying for,.

And supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget folks, royaldiadem .com.

Is still offering this mind-blowing opportunity for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Anybody who purchases jewelry valued at $100 or more from royaldiadem .com will ensure that we at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio get 100 of the profits from that sale if you mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when making your purchase.

Whether you are purchasing a piece of jewelry that they already have in stock at royaldiadem .com, or if you're having a custom design piece of jewelry created like an engagement ring, like taking your church logo, your parachurch ministry logo, your denomination logo, or your seminary logo, and turning it into a piece of jewelry like a ring or a pendant for a necklace or anything else that your imagination and creativity can conjure up.

They will take what is in your brain and turn it into a physical piece of jewelry that will absolutely blow your mind. It will take your breath away. I've seen firsthand the mastery and the craftsmanship that they pour into every piece of jewelry that they create.

And I can assure you that you'll be satisfied because they work with you every step of the way on making sure that everything is that is being done is exactly according to your specifications. So please, if you have any intention on buying jewelry or having a custom design piece of jewelry created, please go to royaldiadem .com soon because we have no idea when they're going to pull the plug on this offer where we get 100 of the profits from the sale.

That's royaldiadem .com and make sure you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with my dear friend Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven in Comac, Long Island, New York, and we are discussing the church before the modern watching world.

I think that I will read the first two verses of Romans chapter 12 because you will be involved in that for most of the remainder of our discussion. Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2,. Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove that what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. So that is what we are going to be, this is at the core of what we are addressing for the remainder of the program.

And I don't know if you have finished in your description of the first message that you gave, and if you are complete, I will move on to the.

Second message. Yeah. Yeah, the only thing I'd add, Chris, to what I said, it's a very important word for Christians, and it's the word antithesis. I wouldn't throw it around, but it's an important thing that at every point between believers and unbelievers, there is a radical difference of understanding, of interpretation in every way, and that we must maintain.

Interestingly enough, if we're really going to communicate with the world, then we need to demonstrate how diametrically opposite of the world the Christian faith is. What we'll deal with now as we go on, these would be messages 2, 3, and 4 and 5, shows that it is precisely this difference, when it's communicated properly, that enables us to really minister to the world.

But that's.

Where we're going to go with this, I'm sure. Now, before I move on to the second message that you gave, you used the word, before the break, iconoclasts. And from my recollection of church history, that was a group of Protestants during the Reformation that, even in opposition to Luther, began to smash icons and statues and wanted to purge the church of that kind of thing.

But what do you mean by that? Isn't that a bit strong?

C .L. Yeah. Now, I'm not talking about it like that, but I'm talking about when the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10, casting down every high thought and imagination that lifts itself up against the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what I'm dealing with.

That's the kind of root idea of iconoclasts. Let me give an example, Chris. I know you've addressed it on your program, this whole issue of our nation. Is it a Christian nation? Are we part of Christendom?

What about Christian nationalism? And I don't want to get into all those debates because, frankly, there's nuances to them. But when Christians, for example, put their nation above the kingdom of God, that needs to be stood against.

It doesn't mean we don't love America and appreciate America and so on, but there's always that idolatrous tendency, and there's where iconoclast, icon, would basically mean an idol. There's always that tendency to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.

Another one, and we could go on and on. You could do a whole program just in this. Our culture, Chris, I don't need to convince you of this, the idol of our culture, even within the broader evangelical community, the idolatry is the idolatry of self.

How can I feel happy? How can I grow in grace? How can I be prosperous? I don't know what it is, but God has really displaced, has been displaced by man. It's that kind of icon or idol that needs to be opposed and brought down in the way we think and the way we act.

I mean, some of the other ones I mentioned, the technology, come on. I mean, we're looking at AI as basically an equivalent of God. AI is an interesting thing because we live in a culture that can't understand its own story, and AI, artificial intelligence, is fascinating.

There's no two ways about it, but it becomes a God replacement in that this technology is used to give the story that really only God can give. But yeah, all of these messages are important, but a holy iconoclasm in that sense, standing against those things that would be God replacements in our culture, that's what I'm.

Getting at. Well, in the second message, you spoke about being transformed by the renewing of your mind, as our text even says in Romans 12, and your key word was orthodoxy. What does orthodoxy mean? I'm constantly finding myself when I mention a congregation like yours, the Haven, which is a congregation in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

People automatically think, what is this, a Scottish version of Eastern Orthodoxy? What's an Orthodox Presbyterian Church? Well, what are specific elements of orthodoxy that you developed in the message?

The orthodoxy simply means straight teaching, and that's been kind of an issue for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church right from the time it adopted the name, and I get that, especially coming from Greek Orthodox background.

In fact, when I was converted, about the only thing that was good about that later was that I became part of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Greek Orthodox family figured there's some hope for me, but it's a good word, and we ought to preserve it.

What I was getting at, Chris, in the being transformed by the renewing of your mind, now you're looking at things positively, and over against the idols of our culture, we need to hold truths that really stand against that culture in specific ways.

One, I just adopted the title of Dr. Schaeffer's book, God is There, and He is Not Silent. Having a robust view of what we call general revelation, and the heavens declaring the glory of God, and the firmament showing its handiwork, that's not going to tell us about salvation, but we need to stand against the atheism and agnosticism of our culture with a robust view of general revelation, and certainly special revelation.

For that, Chris, I always begin with Christ, what we call the great elephant in the room of human history. This is the Word made flesh, and for a culture that is saying, how can we even know God rather than being on the defensive?

In fact, very interesting, when Paul says in Romans 1 that the unbeliever is without excuse, the word he uses in the original is the unbeliever is without an apologetic. The unbeliever is without a defense of his position, and that's just the opposite of the way we think.

We feel we're on the defensive with different things, doesn't mean we should be mean and hateful and aggressive, but holding out the ones, the doctrines that I presented, being transformed by the renewing of your mind, God is there and He's not silent.

The second, which is so crucial, what Dr. Schaeffer called the manishness of man for the humanity of humans, the fact that you're dealing with people who are not machines, they're not robots, they're not artificial intelligence, we're not somehow bits and bytes in a matrix, we're dealing with the image of God.

That gives us a tremendous inroad in our culture where people don't even know how to define themselves. How interesting it is, they'll want to define, as it were, their gender, they don't even know what it is to define themselves as humans.

So that community was the third one I developed, although we'll deal with that more in the third message. And then the importance of the end of all things. I love to tell people, Chris, that kind of the metaphor for our culture is the airline pilot that comes on and he tells the passengers, well, I've got good news and I've got bad news.

The good news is we are making tremendous time. The bad news is I have no idea where we are. Really, and pitifully, that is our culture. Where did you come from? Why are you here? Where are you going?

Those would be the basic things. The God is there and He's not silent. The humanity of human beings, the fact that God has made us for community, and the fact that there's a purpose in all things, those are things we must put front and center if we're going to really intersect with our culture and not be defensive about them.

Now, these elements of orthodoxy, why are they important for the church before the modern watching world, as your title implies? And is the modern world watching the church, or are they ignoring the church?

How are they watching?

Oh, definitely. On that last point, absolutely. You think that the world doesn't—and by the world, again, we're talking about a world system that's against God. We're not talking about Washington, D .C. or New York City or Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

We're talking about a mindset that is against God and that infiltrates itself into the way people think and speak. And you think the world is not paying attention to the church, but let scandals come in the church, and my, the world is quick to point it out.

So yes, the world is watching, and I believe, Chris, that my personal opinion is we are on the cusp of the world watching for a different reason. This—our world system does not have ultimate answers. It can posit certain things that are opinions, but it really has no GPS to connect itself with unchanging things, above all else, God himself.

And because of that, I strongly believe the world—I don't know if they'll call me the world system, but people in the world are going to be looking to the church for honest answers to things. I think that this was the impact of the late Dr. Tim Keller.