December 12, 2016 Show with Terry Burlingame on “When God’s Will & My Will Disconnect (continued)”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet earth listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 12th day of December 2016.

And Iron Sharpens Iron is now officially declaring that we are in chapter 11. No, I'm not talking about the financial hardship chapter 11, although we are in financial hardship.

I'm talking about chapter 11 of the book that we began addressing months ago by our guest

Terry Burlingame and Terry Burlingame is going to be revisiting or returning to the book that he has written,

When God's Will and My Will Disconnect. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time.

What am I saying for the very first time? I am just discombobulated today, Terry, because of my rushing around dealing with Gmail problems.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back again to continue in our study of When My Will and God's Will Disconnect.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back, Terry Burlingame. Well, thank you, Chris. It's definitely an honor and a privilege to be back with you.

Yes, and I think I may have even butchered the title of your show the second time I announced it. It's When God's Will and My Will Disconnect, correct?

That's correct. The God comes first, correct? Oh, and that's right.

It is God's will that I need to be concerned about, and my will needs to take a back seat to that.

Amen. And by the way, for those of you who don't already know, write down this new email address for Iron, Trump &

Zirin for those of you desiring to ask questions of our guests from now on until further notice.

The email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net, and Comcast is spelled

C -O -M as in Michael, C -A -S -T dot net, chrisarnson at comcast .net.

We've been experiencing some difficulties with Gmail, so use that address until further notice, perhaps even permanently.

And as I always do, or typically do at any rate with my guests, especially because we have new listeners joining the

Iron Sharpens Iron audience, it seems every day, or close to every day,

I'd like you to give a little bit of your own personal background, the religious atmosphere of your childhood, if any, and how the

Lord brought providential occurrences into your life to draw you to Himself and save you.

Well, thank you, Chris. I'd be happy to. I was raised in a home that had some

Christian principles early on in my life. I went to church during my junior high, high school years.

Church was an occasional practice. Holidays and maybe some other times during the course of the year, but we had moved into a new area when

I was in the seventh grade and really just stopped going to church. When I was a senior in high school, near the end of my senior year,

I went to a service and the Lord convicted me of sin and my need for a Savior. I'm heading down the wrong track, and so I committed my life to Christ at that point in time, accepted

Him as my Lord and Savior, was born again, knew at that time that my life had been changed, and knew also at that point in time the

Lord was calling me into ministry and so went to a Bible college, following that in a seminary to train for ministry.

Thought at that point in time it was going to be pastoral ministry. The Lord redirected us for a career and went to the

U .S. Army chaplaincy and served as a chaplain in the Army for a career, retiring in 1997.

Then I did pastor for 10 years here in Michigan before I retired from that position about 10 years ago.

I've been working at the Biblical Counseling Center and have a further degree received from Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia in pastoral counseling, doctor of ministry degree, a number of years ago now, about 20 years ago now.

And if you could, you brought to my attention that in the past I had given the wrong website address for your counseling center.

If you could give us the correct one. Yeah, I work at the Biblical Counseling Center in Jennison, Michigan.

The website for the center is bccmi .org.

Just simply bcc, Biblical Counseling Center, m -i for Michigan, dot org.

And so that's where I do serve part -time now and counsel there.

And we have a ministry that really reaches to people in all walks of life and help people, seek to help people in all problems of life and through the scriptures, through Biblical, from counseling

Biblical perspective. Great. Well, we have been going through this book of yours,

When God's Will and My Will Disconnect. For our listeners who are discovering this book for the first time, they did not hear any of our previous discussions, if you could please let our listeners know something about the premise of this book and explain the title.

Sure. Thank you. The title, When God's Will and My Will Disconnect, comes out of the account of Joseph in Genesis.

There are about 13 chapters given to Joseph in his life from the time in Canaan with his father and brothers, his transportation, we could say, to Egypt as a slave and as a prisoner and then as a ruler.

And what I look at when I was reading through this section of Genesis a number of years ago now,

I began to think that Joseph very likely made some very definite choices in his life.

Joseph appears to be a very godly individual, having made right choices to maintain his faith and to believe that God was at work in his life and through his life.

And so looking at the story of Joseph, I saw there were likely 15 decisions that he made at one point in time or a process of his life of his very character that he was committed to doing what was right.

And so I looked at these 15 decisions or these 15 choices and said, these are choices that I need to be aware of in my own life.

Choices that when things don't go the way I anticipate them to go, when it seems that God's will is very disconnected from what my will is and what

I think should be happening, how do I respond to that? What are some of the choices that I need to make?

And the very first choice really becomes foundational for all of them, where it says I choose to accept that I'm not in control, that God is in control and circumstances will happen that are beyond my control.

That's a very foundational choice for the believer to say, I'm not in control,

God is. And I need to trust him that what he does and how he is working is good.

And he will work things together in such a manner as is pleasing to him, will bring glory to him and is good for me, and will be for my benefit, even when

I don't see it or understand it. And so putting these choices before us in various situations and areas of our life,

I believe that it's important for us to consider, how do we respond when things just are not going as we anticipated them to go in our lives?

And once again, let me repeat our new email address. If anybody has any questions, it's chrisarnsen at comcast .net.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at comcast,

C -O -M as in Michael, C -A -S -T dot net. And what were the specific circumstances in your life that actually led you to want to write this book to begin with?

Well, you know, at the point of changing my life, I've been pastoring for 10 years after the military career.

And I was, I was really during my devotional reading of scriptures, that I began seeing these things from Joseph, and from the kingdom of scriptures, obviously from Joseph, and begin to look at my own life.

That I was in a different place in life than I'd ever been before. I was no longer on active duty in the military.

I was no longer pastoring a local church. And so I was really looking at my own life and the situations that I was confronted with, circumstances

I was going to deal with. How did my life now, in a different phase, in a different chapter of my life, how was

God working? What was He doing in my life? And so that was part of that which prompted. Another part of which prompted in my life, in the writing of this book, was we have a son,

Jonathan, who is severely impaired with autism. And Jonathan is almost 42 years old now, still does not speak, is able to do many things for himself, but needs 24 -hour supervision, care and supervision.

And so this is not the son that we had anticipated 42 years ago. And so I began to look and say, well, you know, how come?

You know, we pray, and we pray before he was born, and we anticipated God working in his life.

We named him Jonathan Haddon, the gift of Jehovah, Haddon after the famous pastor of England, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and had expectations.

But Jonathan is very different than what my expectations might have been as a young man in his 20s, anticipating the birth of their first child.

And so it was very different than what I anticipated. But seeing, you know, 42 years later,

God's worked in ways that we could never have imagined in our lives, as well as through our lives, and then through Jonathan, different than what we anticipated, but he's at work.

He's accomplishing his purpose, and we pray that through our lives, he's being glorified. And so seeing

Jonathan, seeing that point in changing my life when this book came about, seeing other instances in our lives that have happened, prompts us to say, what kind of choices do we make?

How do we deal with those circumstances and situations that are very different from what we would want to have happen?

You know, I gave a copy of your book to one of my former pastors,

Doug Totter. He is one of the pastors at Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, and he has a daughter with autism.

So I told him the background of why you wrote the book, and he just received it very recently.

So I hope that is a blessing to him as well. Well, we are in Chapter 11, as I said.

But this is, as I said, has nothing to do with being on the verge of bankruptcy. Although I am experiencing financial difficulties, as I always remind, or I should say,

I try to remember to remind my Iron Trump and Zion listeners as much as possible, to please let me know if you are aware of anyone who would like to sponsor this program.

But other than that, the Chapter 11 that we left off in, last time you were a guest on the program, we were discussing,

I choose to forgive others, as a part of this whole series of issues under the umbrella of when

God's will and mine will disconnect. We may have already started that topic, but it is a very deep topic, so it does not even matter if we have already addressed some of that issue.

We could spend nearly a year or maybe even more than a year every day discussing that.

But if you could begin with an explanation of what you mean by that in your book.

Well, forgiveness is a choice. We can become bitter, angry when offended by someone else when we believe that someone else has done something that has thwarted our plans or our desires, and that can become very, very difficult for us.

And maybe what happened in us or because of someone else's actions has totally changed the course of life for us.

And we can say, I don't want to forgive. I'm not ready to forgive. I can't forgive at this point in time.

And if I never see that individual or that person again, that in a sense will be fine with me. But we look at it from a

Christian perspective, that's not an option for us really. We are called to, commanded to, be a forgiver of other people.

Looking at Joseph's life, we see him as a forgiver of his brothers, forgiver of a cupbearer, forgiver of other people, and he's an example for us.

Christ talks to us about forgiveness. And when approached by his disciples about forgiveness, he said, you know, how many times should you forgive?

Well, the answer is 70 times times seven is what he gave to them. And I don't think he was meaning that you start counting how many times you've forgiven someone.

I don't think that was his intention. I believe his intention is, you just keep forgiving.

Forgiveness is not an option. You continue to forgive as long as you are able with the breath of life to forgive.

And we look at our great example, Jesus Christ and his forgiveness of us. And he forgives completely.

And how many times do we repeatedly sin or sin throughout a course of a day or a week or a month, a year, and our

Savior forgives us, cleanses us, devolves sin, and presents us as righteous and holy before the

Father. And I think we have to be very careful when we say, I'm not going to forgive or I can't forgive.

As a believer in Jesus Christ, one, we're commanded to forgive. And then also, we are enabled by his grace to forgive.

And we need to look at how we do that so that we don't fall into the sin of bitterness and anger, which really will thwart what

God wants to accomplish in our lives. That's the gist of what that's talking about.

I then go through, and Chris, and talk about the commitment that we make when we say,

I forgive you. And I can go through that now if you want me to or if you have something else first. Chris No, you could go right ahead, explain.

David I say when we are forgiving someone, that there needs to be a fourfold commitment that we make.

One, we commit to not repeatedly bring up the past.

To not hold that sin against the other person. To say, you know, if I'm forgiving, if I have forgiven you for what you've done,

I'm committing that I'm not going to bring that up tomorrow. I'm not going to bring it up next week. I'm not going to repeatedly bring that up, because I have forgiven you of that offense.

And forgiveness is part of healing relationship. Now, relationship cannot be fully healed unless that person comes to us and has to be forgiven.

And then we forgive and relationships can be healed and strengthened. But I'm called to not hold that against someone

I forgive. Chris Now, you brought up something interesting in some of your definition of forgiveness itself.

And perhaps before I even go into what I was going to say, if you could give me right now and give our listeners a definition of forgiveness.

Sure. Well, forgiveness, one thing, it's very different than saying,

I'm sorry. Saying, I'm sorry, demands nothing. If I've offended you, and I just simply say,

I'm sorry, Chris, I don't demand anything of you. You don't demand anything of me. It's just saying, well,

I'm sorry, whatever happened and okay, let's move on with life. And forgiveness, there is a a removing of the offense is one way to say it.

I choose not to hold that offense against you. I have forgiven you. I have, when

Christ forgives us, He cleanses, He washes away, He removes that offense.

And so we remove that offense from a relationship that's going to, if we don't, will cause bitterness and difficulty later on down the road for me as well as for other people.

So one word, if I could say would be removing of the consequences, or not consequences, removing of an offense against me,

I'm not going to hold that against another person. Okay, I think that, if I'm not mistaken, a very highly respected biblical counselor, who

I'm sure you know, and perhaps admire, I don't mean necessarily, you know him personally, but you know of his work,

Dr. J Adams. He has been a guest in this program. It's been quite a while, but he wrote a book published by the same publisher, actually, that published your book,

Calvary Press, From Forgiven to Forgiving. And I think that Dr.

Adams, from my recollection, agrees with most, if not all of how you define forgiveness.

But he would say that because of that, the things that are essential elements of genuine forgiveness include that the person who you are forgiving realizes that he needs to be forgiven, requests forgiveness, and demonstrates repentance.

And there are many Christians, even theologically reformed Christians, that disagree with that.

Dr. John MacArthur, unless he has changed his mind, who is a modern -day hero of mine, he thinks that we have to forgive people, even if they don't ask for it, even if they don't think they need it, even if they continue sinning against us, unrepentantly.

Now, obviously, as you were quoting the scriptures before, we're supposed to forgive 70 times 7, but I'm not 100 % sure, and perhaps you could tell us how you exegete that, if that means we're just supposed to be repeatedly forgiving people for the same exact sin that they are not repenting of purposefully.

But anyway, let's go back before you even answer that. Are you aware of that controversy between Dr.

Adams and John MacArthur, for instance? Oh, absolutely. And I am a student of both of these men, and have high respect for both of them, but I think

I would tend here to agree with John MacArthur. And for this reason,

I look at myself in my relationship with the Lord, that when

I know I have sinned, and I know I have offended him, I'm responsible to come before him and ask for his forgiveness.

But I also know, and I know that when I do that, I repent, I turn from that sin, that my

Lord forgives. He cleanses me of that. But I also recognize that there are things in my life that happen that I do that I'm not aware that I have offended him.

He still forgives me, if he will someday present me faultless before the Father.

And so based on that, I look at other people when they have offended me and say, I need to forgive them.

Because if I don't forgive, there's going to be that swelling of bitterness within me against another person.

I need to be able to not hold that sin against them. And if it's repeated, to recognize that the sin is not just against me, but that sin is against God, and God will hold that individual accountable.

I don't want to have that burden of not having forgiven someone, when my

Lord says, forgive us, I have forgiven you. And that's complete forgiveness. Now, I'm pretty certain

Dr. Adams would agree with you completely about people being unaware of sins that they've committed.

In fact, Jesus on the cross, that's one of the very things he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

But obviously, if someone has sinned against you, and they don't even know it, then you have not fulfilled your obligation from Matthew and other places in the scripture to approach them and let them be aware of how they've offended you.

But one of the things that has me a bit confused about that issue, if we were to take your position on it, and Dr.

MacArthur's position on it, are we not to hold a sin against a brother or a person that does not repent of it, because it may bring about danger into not only our own life, but the lives of our loved ones.

For instance, you're not going to say, well, that person is a child molester.

That person has molested my children before, but I forgive that person.

And therefore, I'm going to let him babysit or welcome him into my home and not even bring up the issue.

Obviously, that would be horrific. That would be horrible. That would be sinful of me to be lacking in my protection of my own children and family, if you could.

That's true. I've got to be very careful with that, that there are consequences to sin.

And I think there's a difference here that I cannot ignore consequences when there's been offense, when there's been sin, such as the one you just mentioned.

And I think one of the things that strikes me is relationship and forgiveness.

I can forgive when someone has not asked me to forgive them. But in order for relationship to be restored, in order for there to be healing in a relationship, say between a husband and a wife, there's got to be the acknowledgment of sin, repentance and confession, the seeking of forgiveness, and then the act of forgiveness to restore that relationship.

When I recognize that I have sinned against my wife or against someone else, and in order for that relationship to be restored,

I need to be willing to ask forgiveness and admit the fact that I sinned.

I did the wrong thing. And seek forgiveness from the Lord as well as from the other person. Then relationship can be restored.

But when there is not the repentance, I can still choose to forgive. So I don't have that hovering over me and not falling into an act of bitterness and anger towards that person because of my disdain for what they did.

You mentioned the child molester. You know, awful, awful crime, violation of an individual.

And if it's my child, you know, there can be that great animosity that swells up within me towards the other person and anger towards that individual and wanting to take vengeance upon them of some sort.

I've got to step back and say, you know, that person is a sinner in need of Christ as Savior and does not realize, likely, the extent of their sin.

Me holding that against them is not going to help anything. I can choose to forgive and not hold that against them and leave the judgment up to God and move ahead with my life and move ahead with the life of my child and pray that God will use this somehow in their life to draw them to repentance and draw them back into faith with Jesus Christ.

You know what I'm saying? Yes, but obviously, just to make it clear, though, you would carry through with consequences, severe ones, for an individual who has done something like that because, first of all, you're not even dealing with just your own body, mind, or heart being hurt.

You're talking about someone else, namely innocent, helpless children, in that scenario, anyway.

And so, therefore, your actions don't involve just you. They involve your children, the victims.

And so, obviously, I'm assuming that you would be very...wanted to make it clear that you would, in a case like that, when the lives and health and well -being and safety of others are involved, severe consequences often have to be followed through with, even though the person has...even

if, on occasion, if the person has repented and asking for forgiveness in certain circumstances, but surely when they have not repented.

Am I right? Absolutely. There's always consequences to sin, whether it is legal consequences or relationship consequences or financial consequences.

There's consequences to sin, and those cannot necessarily be erased. And someone has to be held absolutely responsible for sin that they commit.

In that situation, we dare not say nothing. We must make sure that that individual...that's

a legal offense, not just a personal offense of something said. But now we're talking about a legal offense as well as an awful offense against an individual, against a family, and so on.

We're going to our first break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, remember our new email address is

ChrisArnzen at Comcast .net, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at C -O -M, as in Michael, C -A -S -T dot net.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Dr. Terry Burlingame. And when God's will and my will disconnect right after these messages, so don't go away.

I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests, Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to.

Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,

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Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

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Thanks, Todd, I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the full two hours today is

Terry Burlingame, and we are talking about his book, When God's Will and My Will Disconnect.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net,

our new email address, chrisarnson at comcast, C -O -M as in Michael, C -A -S -T dot net.

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Obviously, since we'll be talking about a subject that lends itself to someone perhaps having a very personal, private, intimate matter that requires they remain anonymous, or at least compels them to remain anonymous to feel more comfortable, we will obviously grant your request.

But please only remain anonymous if it's about a private matter. And before I return to my guest,

I just want to remind our listeners about a few of the upcoming events that we have going on with Iron Sharpens Iron.

First of all, on Thursday, January 12th, right around the corner, we're having our next

Iron Sharpens Iron pastor's luncheon. This is a free luncheon for men in the ministry, and I'm sorry that we cannot accommodate wives.

This is a men's luncheon, and it's going to be featuring as our guest speaker

Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and this is going to include a sumptuous gourmet lunch.

Every pastor is going to leave with a very sturdy, heavy sack of brand new books that have been donated by almost every single major Christian publisher in the

United States and the United Kingdom, and there'll be a fun time of fellowship, obviously, as well.

This is going to be held at the Carlisle Vault, a catering hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that has been extremely gracious to us with the price.

In fact, we're really only paying for the cleaning crew after the event, and if you want more details about how you can attend this or your pastor can attend, our email address again is chrisarnson at comcast .net,

c -o -m -c -a -s -t dot net, and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

Also, the very next night, Friday, January 13th at 7 p .m.,

we are having the Iron Sharpens Iron Great Debate between Dr. Tony Costa, who is the speaker at the luncheon, and also

Roman Catholic apologist Robert Syngenis of Catholic Apologetics International.

They are debating on the theme, Mary, Sinless Queen of Heaven or Sinner Saved by Grace.

That's Friday the 13th of January, 7 p .m., at the Carlisle Theater, and for more details on that, also email me at chrisarnson at comcast .net,

and that's chrisarnson at comcast .net, and the tickets for that event are $5, unlike the pastor's luncheon, which is absolutely free of charge.

The debate requires a $5 ticket because we have to pay a lot of money for traveling expenses to pay for the whole, for the theater itself, and all the things that go along with having an event like this, flyers, posters being printed, etc.,

and so we hope to hear from you soon with your email about your interest in attending that.

And also, keep listening to the weekly radio program hosted by my friend

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. He has a weekly program that I arranged for him called

A Visit to the Pastor's Study. That's being aired every Saturday, 12 noon

Eastern Time to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE 540

AM, if you live in the New York Tri -State area, but you can hear it via live streaming anywhere in the world at wlie540am .com,

and that's A Visit to the Pastor's Study. And last but not least, I have an update that many of you may not be aware of in regard to the

G3 Conference. The G3 Conference itself that you've been hearing advertised by Todd Friel and Dr.

James White on this program is from January 19th through the 21st, but on the day before the conference at the same place in Atlanta, Georgia, the conference center where the conference is going to be held,

Dr. White is going to be debating Roman Catholic apologist Trent Horn from Catholic Answers on the theme,

Can a Christian Lose His or Her Salvation? That's going to be on January 18th, and for more details go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com, or you could go to the Alpha and Omega Ministries website aomin .org,

aomin .org. Before I go to one of my listeners in Ada, Ohio, I have a question of my own for Terry Burlingame before we move off of the subject of forgiveness.

I have wondered about this issue for a long time, perhaps even more so after reading Dr. Adams' book,

Terry, and one of the things that seems, and perhaps you could clear this up, one of the things that seems to be contradictory in involving giving wholesale forgiveness even to those who do not ask for it or demonstrate any kind of repentance, it seems to be inconsistent with the way

Jesus Christ himself forgives, because if he forgave that way, hell will be empty for all eternity, and if you could comment on that.

Hello, Terry? Yes. Yes, did you did you hear my question? I'm sorry. Yep. Oh, I'm sorry,

I was pressing a mute button that I shouldn't have been pressing. If you could continue,

Terry, I'm sorry. Okay. I believe the difference is that when we're talking about salvation, we're talking about after salvation.

For salvation, there has got to be repentance. In order for me to be saved, there must be repentance of sin.

I must acknowledge the fact I'm a sinner before the Lord, and that must take place, and so that there, repentance is absolutely a necessity.

In relationship following salvation, there is that the understanding that I don't always know when

I sin, and Christ forgives, and we're told by Paul, he says, you know, forgive. We're commanded that you be forgivers of one another, and I go back to Joseph, Chris, and this is where that started from.

I look at Joe's relationship to his brothers. I don't see anywhere where his brothers ever asked for forgiveness.

They have an acknowledgement among themselves of their sin. After their father's death, they come to him and said, our dad asked you to forgive us, but we have no indication that Jacob ever did that, but they never confessed sin to Joseph, but Joseph, from the very beginning, when his brothers have returned to or come to Egypt seeking grain, never indicates holding animosity, bitterness, anger towards them, but recognizes that God has been at work, and he is there for a purpose.

They meant it for sin. They did it for evil, but God had taken this and worked this situation a powerful way for his glory and for their good, and Joseph had no need to hold that against them because he saw

God's hand working. I believe that when we see, when we recognize that someone has sinned against us, what do we gain by not forgiving them?

What do we gain by holding that up against them? I don't need to do that.

By forgiving them, I really free myself of potential bitterness.

I free myself to serve in a joyful way my Lord, believing that he will hold people accountable, that he will, he's the judge, and that person who has not sought forgiveness from me, that person will be held accountable for that, but I don't want to be in that position to say, you know, they don't come to me,

I'm not forgiving them. I don't see that as a biblical model in my response to someone who's sinned against me.

Now, as we said earlier, for relationship to be healed, there's got to be repentance, and there's got to be forgiveness.

Both those things need to take place between a brother and a sister, a husband and a wife, or co -workers, or whatever that situation might be, for the healing of relationship.

Yeah, I guess that would explain why people go to hell, because there is no relationship between, there is no parental relationship or relationship as sons and daughters to God if there is no repentance.

So, I'm assuming that's one of the reasons why unrepentant people will be in hell, because otherwise, as I said, hell will just be completely empty.

Yeah, absolutely, because they have never acknowledged their need for a Savior. They've never acknowledged their sin before a holy

God. They've never recognized the fact that they are rightfully to be judged because of their sin, as all of us should be, but thankfully

Christ, in his grace and mercy, has forgiven us as we've come to repentance and faith.

And by the way, I would hate to get a nasty letter from Dr. J. Adams saying that I'm misrepresenting him in any way.

I want to make it clear that he does not believe Christians have any liberty to hold grudges against people who have sinned against them.

He believes firmly that we have to love our enemies, do good for our enemies, and things such as that that the scriptures command, but he just categorizes the actual term forgiveness in a different way than many, if not most, evangelicals do today.

So, I want to make that clear that he is not saying that it is completely acceptable for Christians to hold onto bitterness and hatred against those that have sinned against them.

He would say that that is wicked behavior. So, we do have

Dave in Ada, Ohio, and I'm not sure if it's Ada or Ada.

Maybe somebody can correct me once and for all because Dave never has corrected me either way. Dave asks, my question is, can my will really be done in matters of salvation?

I know his will is always done and he is sovereign. Isn't his will always done in all things, even if we can't see it for or even think so?

And I think this calls on your part, Terry, for a definition of God's will because there are different aspects of it, are there not?

There are. And I believe that what

Dave, you're asking is, do I have any choice in doing anything?

Is that the way you take that, Chris? If I were to summarize that question that Dave is asking, if everything is done by God's will, do

I have any choice of making any will? Do I have any will at all to be considered in this?

Yeah, I am kind of getting that gist from Dave, and of course he can send another email to clarify himself.

And I think that there may be a blurring of the distinction between God's prescriptive will and his decreed will.

In other words, everything that comes to place, if you are theologically reformed like we are, we believe that everything that occurs, even the most horrible atrocities that have occurred, are according to the sovereign decree of God, but his prescriptive will says that murder is a damnable wicked sin and adultery and fornication and all these things are against his will in that sense.

Yes, and I think I need to be a little careful of not trying to figure some things out, recognizing

I do not have the mind of God. God says that he will work all things together for good to those who love him, and those are called according to his purpose.

He says he is sovereign over all things, and that he is in control of all things, and he's working through every situation of life.

He wastes nothing that happens. But I have to recognize that I am fully and totally responsible for my actions, my attitudes, my thoughts, my responses to life situations, and I've got to seek to have my attitudes, my responses be in line with Jesus Christ.

I need to follow him and pattern my life after the instruction he gives to me in his word.

I'm fully responsible for that, and I have to be careful not to be hung up on it and say the fact that, well, hey, that's

God's will, and I guess that was the way it was supposed to be when

I said or when I did when that happened or when I wanted this to happen. We've got to step back and recognize we are responsible for our attitude.

We're responsible for our responses. We're responsible for how we live, for our righteousness, or our choice of wickedness, and recognize that God is going to do what

God does, and he tells us he is sovereign over all that exists, and he's working all the details of our lives together in a remarkable way to accomplish his glorious purpose, and I've got to hold the fact that when things don't go as I anticipate and expect that they should go in my will or my determination or my thought process, that God has a greater plan than what

I do. Praise God. Thank you,

David in Ada, Ohio.

It's not as easy said as you may think. Ada, Ohio. Ada, Ohio. People are going to think I'm speaking in tongues, and he's saying it.

We have Sterling, Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker in Greensboro, North Carolina, and he says,

Chris, thanks again for a good show. This question of unilateral forgiveness is a long -studied problem of mine.

I, like you, disagree with Dr. MacArthur. I can't believe I said that and agree more with Jay Adams.

The problem really rests on where we get our definition of forgiveness. The doctrine of sin begs the work of forgiveness for sin.

If God defined forgiveness as unilateral forgiveness, and we live in his creation, then this is the progress of forgiveness.

One, God's decreed sin, atonement, and forgiveness before the beginning of time.

Two, God created time, and we were created and born into time.

Three, we sinned in Adam and personally. Four, we are informed by sin, by the word of God, and convicted by truth, by the work of the

Holy Spirit. Five, repentance is called for by God. And six, forgiveness and atonement are parts that logically follow the recognition of sin, the desire to repent, the actual repentance, and the enjoying of repentance.

Do you or the author know of a formal work on this subject?

I don't know if that was too much for your mind to absorb over the phone and everything there,

Terry, but if I could repeat anything, just let me know. I appreciate his careful thought.

As far as a formal work, you know, I can't respond necessarily to that right at the moment, but what you've done,

I think your name was Sterling, in approaching this, again, we have to be very careful when we say unilateral forgiveness, because we're not looking at the fact of God unilaterally forgiving all people of all sin over all time.

That's not the point that I hope to make.

What I recognize is the fact that when there is offense between people, what benefit do

I have in holding that against them? And better for me to be able to move on and, you know, if they have not repented, if I've approached them and they do not repent of sin, to say,

I'm not going to hold that against them, that's God's responsibility, and I'm going to move ahead free of bitterness or anger that I might have against them, that might conjure up inside of me against them, and recognize that there's other things that God has me do.

I don't want to be robbed of the joy of life because of what someone else has done.

You know what I'm saying? I don't want someone else's action against me to control me because I've not been willing to forgive them.

I want to be able to move ahead, and I think that's what Joseph did. He did not let the actions of his brothers control his life.

There were some things that happened that were out of his control, that, you know, being in Egypt, being in prison, and so on, he had no control over that.

But those actions did not control his attitude, his heart, his relationship with the

Lord, his relationship with other people. He continued to do that which he believed to be right before the eyes of God.

Yes, and I think that I'm pretty certain Dr. J. Adams would agree with a lot of what you said because, as I was saying earlier,

I know that he would not believe that we should let the sins of others against us control us.

And I think that one example in some degree that fits that is

Jonah. He didn't even want to evangelize those wicked folks over in Nineveh, right?

I mean... Yeah, he had no desire to do that. He ran, you know, from doing what

God had called him to do. He deserted, so to speak, and tried to avoid doing the will of God.

But God got a hold of him and brought him back and said, no, you need to go.

You need to go. And Jonah, in the midst of that great fish, we see in Jonah chapter 2,

I believe it is there, where he prays and the fish spews him out. And he realizes that he had sinned against God.

And he follows through. He goes to Nineveh. And he gets upset because God forgives.

You know, because God looks at the people, they see their heart, their call for repentance, and he forgives them.

And Jonah gets upset. I have this belief, though, that Jonah, again, after chapter 4, asks for forgiveness from the

Lord. And I say that because I believe Jonah wrote the book.

And I don't think he would have written it had he remained in bitterness against God's work at the people of Nineveh.

And I think he wanted us to recognize the importance of following through in God calls us and not ignoring

God's will and the importance of forgiveness, of our forgiveness and the forgiveness of other people in relation to the

Lord. Yeah, obviously, that whole story is a perfect example of how sin has consequences, and very often extremely serious ones.

The man was swallowed by a giant fish. So he didn't get off scot -free without chastisement when he was in the midst of his unrepentance.

Yeah, when you think of it, though, that God uses those extreme measures to get our attention, to bring us to that point of repentance and forgiveness, uses that extreme measure in order to help us recognize we have sinned.

And we need to come back in a right response, a right attitude before the

Lord. Yes, I can even say how thankful I am that I underwent church discipline years ago when

I had sadly returned to the sin of habitual drunkenness.

I had allowed the trials of life to get the better of me and chose to anesthetize myself through alcohol.

And if I had not been under the loving discipline of people who cared enough about not only my physical life but my eternal soul,

I might very well have died. I might not even be here talking to you right now.

So that's another just tangible way that I personally have benefited from there being chastisement in the midst of my sin.

And I believe that obviously you do as well, that the Scriptures teach that God chastises those whom he loves.

Yes, and praise the Lord. It's of His grace, Chris, of His grace that you're able to even testify how good in your life.

So thankful for that. And we have to go to, oh I thank you for that by the way, and we have to go to our next break right now if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Terry Burlingame.

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And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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I choose to serve others. So think about that one brothers and sisters and ladies and gentlemen.

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That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned in our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is

Terry Burlingame. We are discussing his book, When God's Will and My Disconnect, and if you subscribe to World Magazine, turn to page 18 for our full -page ad for Iron Sharpens Iron.

Beautiful full -page ad in there, thanks to the creative genius of Micah Burke, the official graphics designer for Iron Sharpens Iron.

We appreciate his volunteering in that capacity for us, and you may not even have to purposefully turn to page 18 because as God's providence would have it,

World Magazine inserted their subscription envelope right through the binding on where page 18 is.

So if you hold, if you cradle the magazine in your hands, it flips open to page 18 whether you want to go there or not, and I am so thankful that God has providentially done that.

I don't know if World Magazine intentionally did that or not, but I just was blown away by that amazing act of God's providence that that envelope acts as a bookmark to our full -page ad in World Magazine.

But if you'd like to join us on the air right now with a question for Terry Burlingame regarding his book,

When God's Will and My Will Disconnect, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and we are now in chapter 12,

I Choose to Serve Others. If you could give us the premise for that. Sure. I choose to serve others seeking a right focus in situations.

People think about life is not all about me and getting what

I want and doing what I want and having things for me.

Rather, God made us to honor and to glorify him, and he made us to serve others.

I look at Joseph, once again as we look throughout this entire book, look at Joseph was a man who served.

We don't have a lot of detail about his young life, but from what we do know, he served his dad.

When his dad told him to go look after his brothers, he served his brothers. When he was taken to Egypt, he served in Potiphar's house.

When he was in prison, he served in prison. He did it well when he was in Pharaoh's court.

He served with an attitude of excellence in the provisions he made for not only those of Egypt, but for others throughout the region as well as for his family in Canaan.

Joseph, it appears, had a desire of selfless service.

Christ had selfless service. He did not come to be served, but he came to serve.

We need to look at our own lives and say, how do I serve?

How do I serve the Lord? How do I serve other people? Is my life one that is focused on me and what

I want, or am I focusing on how he might use me in ministry and service, no matter whether it be formally or informally?

Is he using me in that regard? I think about Paul's words to the church at Philippi, where he said, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, or have this attitude that Jesus Christ had.

He had an attitude that his life was to serve, was to serve as he walked upon the earth, to serve as he went to the cross, and now to serve, as you see, at the very right hand of the

Father, serving as an intercessor for us before the Father.

So that's the premise of this chapter, that God has made us and called us to serve, and there are some principles that I look at with that, and I'll just mention those briefly, and then we can perhaps talk some more about that.

Sure. God has made us to serve, he's made us to serve where we are.

As I was saying, first we see he's made us to serve, and wherever we are, he's made us to serve in that place, and in that place,

God has also been teaching us to serve. He's showing us how we can faithfully serve him, equipping us to serve.

And as a believer in Jesus Christ, having been made new, I believe

God opens our eyes to see people where they are, opens our eyes to be able to serve, recognizing people in need and how he has enabled us, and then makes it possible for us to be usable in his hands and useful to other people.

God designed us not for self -serving, but really to be servants of others.

In Ephesians chapter 2, it says you've been joined together into a holy temple.

You're built together as a dwelling place for God. We're members together of the body of Christ, a household of God, fellow citizens, part of that church of Jesus Christ, each one doing our own part in these places there, that we might be able to serve him.

Each one of us being gifted and enabled by God for a very particular work, for a particular ministry, for a particular service in the lives of other people.

So I need to ask, how am I doing here? Is my life focused only on me, or am

I focused on other people? Am I focused on what God has for me, how he wants to use me?

So there's somewhat the premise of that chapter. Yeah, and the whole scene that we have in that whole story of Joseph is quite remarkable how he resisted temptation when we have

Potiphar's wife attempting to seduce him sexually, and I get the clear implication that she was probably very physically attractive because he had to flee from her.

And so much in a hurry that he even left his garment behind. And I think that this is a lesson to be learned for men who are listening to this.

Men very often have this ridiculous, fallacious, and wicked notion that if we are real men, we are to be ready and raring to go at every opportunity to engage in a sexual activity with an attractive woman.

And David realized that that would be such a height of betrayal, not only especially and foremost, first and foremost, to God, but even to his master there in the prison.

And he fled from this woman. If you could comment further on that. He fled because he had a commitment.

He had made a commitment to God. He made a commitment to Potiphar, and that commitment was to serve.

And he had a commitment of purity that there was, he was not going to allow impurity to overcome his life that would detract from his usability in the eyes of God.

And I think that's something we need to always keep in mind, Chris, that the things that I do, my attitude, my actions, my words, my relationships, are those such that would hinder me from serving the

Lord, from serving other people. Are those things that would hinder me from being open and honest in relationship with others.

Those things would hinder me from being able to honestly, with integrity, stand before other people to help them and encourage them when

I have sin that has gripped my life and my heart. No, I said,

I need to be free from that. And we go back to one of the earlier chapters, I need to confess my sin, repent and claim

God's forgiveness for myself and recognize that my temptations of sin, if I fall to those things,

I'm hindered. And you look at Joseph, had he fallen to Potiphar's wife, had he perhaps, maybe he was, maybe he was not attracted to her.

Now, we're not told that piece of the story. But had he fallen to her lustful lurings, how the story would have changed.

What could have happened to him? He might not have just been thrown in prison, he might have been beheaded. And God would have raised up someone else to do what he called

Joseph to do. And so we need to recognize that if my responsibility is here as a servant of the

Lord Jesus Christ, as an instrument in God's hands, I've got to be very careful that I don't detarnish the instrument that he has made for purpose.

Amen. And in chapter 13, we now move on to,

I choose to accept my emotions. Okay, let me turn the page here.

Choosing to accept my emotions, honoring God and honoring others as well.

Emotions, our emotions are strong. We have all kinds of emotions that flow through us, you know, whether the emotions of sadness or anger or gladness or hope or grief or just a happiness that we have.

Those emotions can control us. Those emotions can destroy us.

They're really part of, but emotions are a part of our makeup, a part of God's creation in our lives.

He gave us the ability for emotions. And I put down in the book, I said, denying emotions is denying who we are as God has made us.

But letting our emotions guide us can lead to an unstable life that they're likely to change with day or event.

Emotions can't be my guide. I've got to have my basis for life based upon the truth of God's word, not on my emotions.

My emotions change day after day with events and circumstances, with weather, whatever it might be.

But recognizing our emotions and keeping perspective can be used to help others in their trouble or growth.

Recognizing my own emotions can be used to help others in their emotions and their struggles that they have.

And accepting our emotions when they surface, resulting in our own difficult circumstances, can help us gain a proper outlook regarding God's continued working in our lives and through our lives.

So I need to choose to accept the emotions I have. And I list here in the book, and I don't know how much of this you want to go through at this point, that there's a number of emotions that I see

Joseph probably grappling with at various times. And how do you respond to those things?

And we can see the underlying thing, he always responded in his emotions in a manner which was, at least from what we know in Scripture, pleasing to the

Lord. Now the first one I mentioned here is the emotion of grief. What was he feeling when he was in that pit thrown there by his brothers?

You know, what was he feeling when he was dejected, rejected, or rejected by his brothers? What was he feeling when he was with his captors on that train going to Egypt?

There had to be, you know, thinking there had to be emotions of grief and of sadness that overflowed in his life.

How do you respond to those things? We don't see him sulking.

We don't see any evidence that he just sat in a corner, curled up in a fetal position, believing it all was lost and there was no hope.

But rather, even in those tremendous emotions were likely going through his life at that point in time, we see once arriving in Egypt, responding very well when he's in Potiphar's house and doing what he was placed there to do with an attitude that was pleasing to the

Lord. One of the other emotions that we see, a natural emotion, would have been anger.

You know, how angry might he have been? Could he have been at his brothers? How angry might he have been at the cupbearer?

And the cupbearer says, well, I'll remember you when I've restored the position. And he didn't.

You know, what was the emotion that was going through Joseph at that point in time?

Well, if he would have given his way to anger and bitterness, someone like we talked before, what would have got him?

I think we always need to ask that question when that emotion of anger rises within us.

It's like, well, is my anger righteous or not? Am I angry right now for that which

God would be angered at? Did I have a righteous anger? And I think that probably 98 % of our anger is not righteous.

But I think we also need to ask the question, what's my anger accomplishing? Is my anger doing anything of benefit right now?

You know, and anger that Joseph may have had while he was in prison and he was struggling, that would have solved anything, would have helped anything.

And so I think there had to be a choice at some point saying, I'm not going to allow anger to control.

I'm going to seek to be free from anger and move forward. And there we go back to a couple of chapters earlier,

Chris, we talked about forgiveness. I'm not going to hold that against the cupbearer and let him control my life, even from a distance, but rather I'm going to move ahead and see what

God has for me next. Now, having said all that, do you not believe that every

Christian should, when it is appropriate, and then maybe, well, not even maybe, it's definitely not easy to always determine when it is appropriate and when it's not.

But don't you think that it is important that Christians on occasion, when appropriate, demonstrate righteous indignation or righteous anger over things that are horrible and wicked, especially when others other than ourselves are the victims of this wickedness, that we have to stand up and that pastors have to be more bold from their pulpits and being righteously indignant and angry about certain things in this world that are in violation of God's principles and word?

I think you're absolutely right. And that's being angry about what God gets angry about.

And God is angry about sin. God is angry about wickedness that prevails in the world.

God is angry when he sees how people respond and react to each other in an unrighteous way.

But I think so often, a root of our anger comes when we don't get what we want.

When things don't go as we expect them to go, when things aren't great, so to speak, or our picnic, or when a bill comes we hadn't expected, or we were negligent in doing something, we get angry, or someone pulls out in front of us, and we're driving, we have to put the brake on a little bit harder, or can't get through the light quite quick enough.

Are you monitoring me? Only kidding.

I think that as Christians sometimes rule us, and we become so angry at those things we have no control over, and are really not a matter of that impending wickedness like you talked about earlier, but it's just about us.

And we have to be careful that that emotion of anger does not rule and control us.

And even those things that God becomes angry at, and we become angry at those same types of things, how does our anger display?

How do we use that anger? Do we just become angered, or do we use that to motivate us in a positive way of righteousness?

We use that to motivate us to do something that we can do in response to that horrific situation.

We do have David again in Ada, Ohio, and David asks a question that goes back to our discussion on forgiveness.

Can I actually will myself to forgive, or do I forgive by God's grace given to me for forgiveness of others?

That's a good question, Dave, and I would say yes. That it's only by God's grace that we're able to forgive, and we have to make that choice.

Right. We have to choose, and that's the tough part of forgiveness. It's a choice that I make, and that's not necessarily a feeling

I have to forgive someone. It's not necessarily this emotion that comes over me to forgive.

It's a choice I make to say, this is the right thing to do, and God calls me to.

He commands me to. I read in scriptures where I'm to forgive as Christ forgives.

I pray even in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6 where he taught us to pray.

Forgive me as I forgive others. We are called to make that choice to forgive.

Not always easy by all means, but the choice that made, and when we make that choice, can free us then to honor and to serve and to glorify

God as he's called us to. Amen. Yes. Finally, Dave, is it by God's grace that as we are under the submission of God's work in our lives and the submission of the work of his

Holy Spirit within us, do we, are we able to honestly forgive?

And by the way, Chris, I do believe it's pronounced Ada. Okay, thanks. I appreciate that.

And right nearby here, so. Oh, okay. Ohio as well. And yeah, there are people, perhaps they are new to believing in the doctrines of sovereign grace, otherwise known as reformed theology or Calvinism, or they're on the outside looking in, and they wrongly think that just because we are monergists and believe that God is receiving a hundred percent of the glory for our salvation and that he alone has regenerated us by his grace when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, that does not mean that we sit back like robots in the process of our sanctification and how

God uses us somehow as a marionette or something. And when it comes to our sanctification, we are actively involved in it, aren't we not?

We are called to obey him and we are called to discipline ourselves and be disciplined by those in authority over us in the church and so on.

And this is at times a very arduous and laborious task in our lives, depending upon what circumstances you're talking about.

Am I right? Absolutely. And that's the whole point here of we have to make those choices.

We're responsible. We cannot in salvation just simply sit back and let the world go by and say, well,

God will do what he's going to do and wants to do in my life. And I'm just going to go about until a lightning bolt hits me or whatever it might be to change the course that I'm on.

No, we are called to make choices that are in harmony with God's word and the disciplines of the

Christian life to honor him, to please him, so that we can be usable by him for his glory.

We are called to recognize that he is God and he is God alone. And we are called here, we're placed here to worship him, to serve him, and to see how he works in our lives for the benefit that we might be able to more fully in glory, worship and serve and enjoy the freeness from sin and the freeness to be in his presence.

Yes. Amen. And we are going to our final break right now. And when we return, we are moving on to the subject of I choose to celebrate with others.

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That's linbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and this is our final half hour of today's interview with Terry Burlingame, and we are discussing his book,

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I Choose to Celebrate with Others, and Terry, I cannot help but immediately think of the prodigal son, when he, after living a life of debauchery and rebelling against his godly father and squandering his inheritance, which he wanted even before his father died, when he came crawling back to his father, he didn't even need to do that, because his father saw him from a distance and ran to him and celebrated the son's return, and the household was celebrating except for the brother.

He chose not to celebrate the brother who had been in many ways at least outwardly faithful to his father and was feeling slighted, was feeling jealous that he had never had a celebration like that for himself, and he had never abandoned his father, whereas the brother that did do that has this huge party going on, but if you could comment on that.

Celebrations are part of our lives in so many ways, and you know, that celebration you just mentioned was the amazing acceptance of the father of his son, having forgiven his son, seeing him come back home, and just rejoicing that this son who was lost, his son who was dead, has come back, and recognizing the joy of restored relationship.

The other son didn't celebrate because his focus was on himself, but he might lose.

He had worked and toiled and did not feel like he'd received the same recognition that he was selfishly concerned about what he would or would not get, and all the attention being given to this wicked brother of his, but there was reason for celebration because the one who had left in selfishness came back in repentance and humility, and what a delight to see that example of us before our

Savior, how He celebrates our returns as angels rejoice in Heaven when one man repents, you know, and to see the celebration, however that takes place over repentance centers, how we must also then celebrate when we see

God's work in the lives of hearts of people, changing people and drawing them to Himself, that celebration, the joy that we can have in life, and I think that too often,

Chris, we get focused on what's in it for us, sometimes as the brother or sometimes not as the brother, but just kind of avoiding the celebration of God's work because we're more concerned about what's happening in our own lives, and we're focused on our activities or our events or our relationships and fail to be able to see the picture of God's faithful and gracious working, and so it's all critical.

I think that celebration is such a critical thing that we need to look at, and going back to Joseph here once again,

Joseph, seeing his brothers, I see him celebrating, celebrating that what

God did. Now it all makes sense, you know, the dreams make sense, the agony makes sense, the prison, the being brought to Egypt and the sermon, everything seems to make sense now, and to be able to celebrate what

God had done and to rejoice with his brothers that God had been at work and go tell my father,

I want to celebrate with him, bring him here, that we can celebrate together God's wonderful and gracious working, and so often through Scriptures, we are given the examples of celebrating, celebrating

God's magnificent work, and we need to stop and just take time to think, stop to take time to look at what

God's doing and celebrate and give, celebrate with other people that God's been at work.

We have an anonymous listener from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says, don't you think though very often we have to be very careful about when and where and why we are celebrating with others, especially in this day and age when people are celebrating things that are an abomination to God, such as same -sex marriages so -called, and perhaps when homosexual couples adopt a child or something similar.

I know that we are not to be pharisaic and have a holier -than -thou attitude and look down upon them in self -righteousness, but we are also called to be holy and to not give the appearance that we are celebrating evil.

Am I right on this? We can never, should never, celebrate evil. Never celebrate that which is against the commands of the

Word of God. Never to celebrate that which is blatant sin before God.

Other people may celebrate. They may celebrate that action, that gay wedding, for instance, as you mentioned, and say, isn't this a wonderful thing that these two people are brought together and look at their joy and their happiness.

We can't celebrate that because that is absolutely contrary to the

Word of God. We can never celebrate sin. What we want to do is celebrate those things that God celebrates.

He celebrates restorations. He celebrates salvations. He celebrates the work in people's hearts and lives to bring glory to His name.

We celebrate how we see Him working, whether it was, you know, you go back and look at examples of how the people celebrated when they crossed the

Red Sea and the Song of Moses, horse and rider thrown into the sea, they celebrated because they saw

God at work accomplishing His purpose. As far as being careful when, where, why, we celebrate absolutely.

But we celebrate for the reasons of righteousness. We celebrate with His people that which

God is doing. We celebrate anywhere, and in a sense, we can celebrate in church, we can celebrate at home, we can celebrate at work, we can celebrate with family or with friends, but that too, celebrating those things which

God celebrates, which are righteous and right in His eyes. I don't have to understand all of the design of God to celebrate.

I don't even have to enjoy trials of life to celebrate, but I can always celebrate that God's at work, whether it be through my trials or removal of my trials.

I can celebrate that God is at work, and when I see those particular unique things happening,

I can have great joy and bring others around me to celebrate the work of God. We do have another anonymous listener in Pennsylvania who says,

I have friends who I love dearly who are godly Christian people, but I disagree with them on certain things such as celebrating weddings and other special events with people of other religions.

These friends of mine say that they will never go, for instance, to a wedding that is being performed in a

Roman Catholic church or a synagogue or a mosque or some other house of worship that is not

Christian because they say that we are sinning by being involved in a non -Christian ceremony, but I go to these events because I'm not actually practicing a non -Christian right or actually being involved in a religious act that is an offense to God.

I am just observing a wedding or other special occasion and celebrating the positive and godly aspect of what is occurring.

Are my friends right or am I right? Well, that's a good question. I would say that when we look at, say, you have a wedding between two

Jewish individuals and you go to their wedding, in essence,

I think you can celebrate marriage. You know, that's God's design. Amen. And it's between a man and a woman, and they're bringing these two people together, and your being there with them and rejoicing the fact that they are married may be a testimony or witness to them in some way.

We don't know how that might be, but what we're celebrating is God's work, you know, bringing two people together who have committed themselves to marriage, and that's a good thing.

I can celebrate a good thing. If it's a marriage between a believer and one who is not a believer, that's more difficult to celebrate, because that is contrary to the

Word of God, because here we have two people who are unequally yoked, and it says to the believer not to unite with one who is not a believer.

And so we can't celebrate that so much, because there is definite sin involved. So I think there's a difference.

When we see sin involved, there's not a reason to celebrate. If there's not sin involved in that wedding, for instance, and bringing two people together in marriage, although the ceremony may not be scripturally correct, they may, you know, whether it be a

Catholic ceremony, a Jewish ceremony, or a ceremony of another faith or religion, is contrary to what

Bible teaches, and they are practicing rituals or rites which are contrary to Scripture.

That we don't celebrate. But the fact that there's a marriage, there's a wedding, there's a marriage, there's a union of a man and a woman, that's

God's design. Does that help?

Does that make sense? Oh yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I'm even thinking of myself, I have gone and will continue to go to Roman Catholic weddings and funerals and things like that, but I won't, for instance,

I obviously will not receive their mass, and nor do they want me to.

You're not supposed to receive the mass if you're not a Roman Catholic, even according to their rules.

And obviously if I went to a Hindu wedding, I'm not going to bow before an idol or something. In fact,

I can even remember specifically at my mother's funeral, my mom made a clear profession of faith that left me rejoicing and completely satisfied that she was truly trusting in Christ alone for his finished work, for her salvation, before she departed this earth.

And I am convinced that she is in glory with him. But my dad was still

Roman Catholic at the time, and therefore he had arranged a Roman Catholic funeral for her.

And my family asked me to get up and say some words from the pulpit in this

Catholic church, which I did, but I did not do what they instructed me to do.

They had a woman there in the church who was basically a guide to how to conduct yourself at a

Catholic funeral. She wanted me to genuflect before the sacristy where they have the host, because they believe that Jesus Christ is physically present in there, and I would not do that.

I just stood there. She genuflected next to me, but I did not follow suit and imitate her.

I just stood there and then went up to the pulpit and read scripture and said what I had to say.

But I think that that basically can give a differentiation between participating in an event like that without actually being involved in an unbiblical rite of some kind.

I think that's an excellent illustration Chris. We don't have to submit to that which is ungodly, but we can participate or celebrate that which is in harmony with His Word.

And whether it be reading scriptures as you did at a funeral, you are bringing forth

God's Word to a group of people who are there and giving testimony, you know, of Jesus Christ in your very presence and in the words that you said.

And there's an opportunity of service, there's opportunity of witness that you have in a situation where others may not see it, but you have that opportunity given to you and by all means be able to take that and see how

God might use it. That's good. Yes, and of course sometimes these questions are going to, we're going to disagree with our brothers from time to time on when to be involved and when to go to an event, like for instance a common thing that Reformed people have to deal with, like for instance

Reformed Baptists wonder at times should I go to the baptismal service of an infant by even a godly

Presbyterian brother who agrees with me on 99 % of all things that, you know, in matters of soteriology and theology.

And on the flip side you may have Presbyterians who are wondering should I go to see this brother or sister get baptized as a believer when

I know already they have been baptized as a baby. So, you know, you're going to have some differences of agreement on giving outward approval to what's occurring in an event like that when you're celebrating it.

And so there is that carefulness has been done and I'm not about to judge someone who says they will or they won't go in a situation like that.

But one of the things I ask myself is well what's the benefit? Is there a benefit for me going?

Is there a benefit not for me, but is there a benefit in me going? Can I be used by God in some way in that place?

Can I, can somehow be an encouragement in truth or in righteousness? Can I might have a relationship with somebody else that may make something different in their life?

I know that that couple that baptized in that infant has been there that day in a very significant time for them.

Does that open a door for a relationship to be able to share truth if they're not believers even if they're being baptized in a

Catholic church for instance? And so I want to ask the question is there, could

God use this, you know, in some way in my being there? And not necessarily rejoicing in what that they're doing, but recognize the fact they want to have a family which is doing the right thing, but perhaps they're doing it wrongly.

It gives an opportunity for relationship and the teaching of the truth. Now another thing that divides

Christians when we celebrate certain things, and I've had this come up with friends and brothers and sisters on a number of occasions.

Obviously as you know there is a disagreement among faithful brethren, even among some well -known folks that we would highly respect.

There's a disagreement over remarriage after divorce, and you have sometimes dear couples getting married where one or both were previously divorced, and the person is filled with either guilt or they have a hesitancy to be involved in the celebration because they personally are convicted that there should be no marriage after a divorce.

What is your comment on a situation like that? Well the comment is that's tough.

Well I'm assuming you would believe that it is it is wrong for us to do something that we think is sin, even if we're wrong.

Yeah, you know, to be able to bless in a sense a marriage where you know there is sin involved in that couple coming together in marriage.

You have to be very careful that you are not in a position of condoning a union between a man and a woman when it is really an adulterous union based upon the

Word of God, and there are those who would interpret that differently. Good people of the

Word would interpret it differently, and so I don't want to be judgmental on them, but I would say, you know, look at what the

Scripture says about marriage, and if it's not a biblical union, have to be very, very careful.

But not just say, for instance, to stay away and not go, but to explain carefully the reason you're not going so that the couple has an opportunity to hear what you believe is wrong and sinful in that relationship, that union.

Here, not too long ago, I was counseling a couple that it was a second marriage for one of them, and I think they really wanted me in some way to condone their marriage, and some premarital counseling, and I had to say to them, you know, this is wrong.

You really had an unbiblical divorce, and having an unbiblical divorce, you cannot anticipate

God's blessing in marriage. You can anticipate there will be difficulties, and they were coming to see me because I don't think they liked what

I told them. Well, I'm assuming, by the way you phrase that, you do believe that there are biblical divorces and that some marriages after divorce would be legitimate.

That's actually correct. I know John Murray had that view, and there are many Reformed and other godly biblical

Christians who believe that on certain circumstances, marriage after divorce is completely acceptable.

I would say that of the numbers of divorces that happen today, a very small minority is actually biblical divorce, though.

The large majority is unbiblical divorce because someone does not like what's happening.

Are they dissatisfied with their husband or their wife or some, you know, circumstances took place which has drawn them apart rather than drawn them together, and I think the far majority of divorces are not in harmony with God's Word.

Well, if you could close our program with two minutes of why you choose to glorify

God. Okay, we can do this probably in 30 seconds. Whatever you do, word or deed, do all to the glory of God.

You know, whether we're in church, whether we're at home, whether we're alone, whether we're with people, we should always have that focus.

Is this pleasing to God? Is this going to exalt the name of our Lord? Is this going to detract from who

He is? How does, you know, glorifying God fits with that first one, and these are kind of like bookends of everything else.

I have to believe that God is sovereign, and I'm not in control that God is, and He's working a way that I don't necessarily always understand, but in all things,

I need to bring glory to God, delighting in glorifying Him, choosing to glorify

Him, exalting His name, worshiping Him, because He is God. He is

God of glory. He is God overall, and He is my God through His grace and mercy and love expressed in the person of Jesus Christ.

Amen, and by the way, it's been a long time since I've been Roman Catholic, so I misspoke about my wording used earlier.

It's the monstrance that holds the consecrated hosts in the Catholic Church, and there may be another term as well that I'm forgetting.

I said sacristy, but I don't think that that's right. But anyway, it has been such a pleasure having you back on the program,

Terry, and I really look forward to having you back. You have been truly a wealth of information, and this is one of the few times that a book by one of my guests has demanded quite a number of returns as a guest to discuss the one book, because it's a multifaceted and very deep book that you have written.

And how can our listeners get a hold of When God's Will and My Will Disconnect?

I know that the Calvary Press is the publisher of that book. It's available on Calvary Press, it's available on Amazon, other

Christian book websites, some local bookstores I'm sure can get it if they don't have it.

And of course, you can get it from cvbbs .com, cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com.

And as far as the Biblical Counseling Center of Jennison, Michigan, I have bccmi .org, bccmi .org,

and that's for Biblical Counseling Center of Jennison, Michigan, mi being for Michigan.

Thank you so much, Terry. I look forward to having you back. Thank you for everybody who listened, especially those who wrote questions.

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.