February 1, 2017 Show with Interviews from the 2017 G3 Conference! Part 3: Les Lanphere, John Crotts, Toni Brown, Mike Wieszchowski, and Andrew Rappaport

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 Arnson.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet Earth, listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this first day of February 2017, and we are going to be resuming the airing of pre-recorded interviews that I conducted while live at an exhibitors booth at the G3 conference held January 19th through the 21st at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, Georgia, hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church in that area, and I was so thrilled with that event, as I have told many of you.

I was so thrilled not only to interview men that I had first met there at the conference for the first time and interviewed them face-to-face for the first time, having had interviewed them previously on the phone, but also interviewing some folks for the first time ever, and also meeting many of you who are the listeners and even having the opportunity to interview a handful of you.

So this is the third segment that we are airing featuring the interviews that I conducted there, and I eventually intend to air all of the interviews that we recorded, so be patient as we try to squeeze those other remaining interviews during live broadcasts that I'll be conducting over the days and weeks ahead.

Les Lanphere on the Calvinist Documentary

But the first interview that we are going to be playing today is an interview that I conducted with Les Lanphier, who is the creator of the film Calvinist. That's the full title of the documentary film Calvinist.

So here is that interview with Les Lanphier, and I hope that you thoroughly enjoy listening to it, and if you want to take note that... Chris Arnzen here again at the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and I have with me a brother who is involved in a new film coming out called The Calvinist.

Yeah, Calvinist, yeah. Without the the. Just Calvinist. And brother, if you could introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us something about how you came about to develop this.

Film. Sure, yeah, my name is Les. I have been sort of... I've been doing a podcast with a friend for about three years, and we have sort of a pretty good circle of young, reformed guys, and I found myself...

I've worked in the film industry in the past, movies like Transformers and Smurfs, but in post-production, and I found myself in a place where I was unemployed, and I like film production, and I love Calvinism.

So I started a Kickstarter and said, you know, if you guys want this movie to be made, and I made a budget, and then the budget was tripled by the end of the, you know, I got three times as much money as I asked for, so it's clear that people like the idea.

And so for the past six months, I've been traveling all over the country, just interviewing my heroes, so it's just been an amazing experience, a huge blessing. Hey, great. And Les, how do you.

Pronounce your last name? Lanphier. Okay, because isn't that... Was it Jeremiah Lanphier, who was a.

Part of the New York City Revival in the 19th century? Yeah, it's a Huguenot name originally, so I got... Any relation to him? I don't, I don't think so. I don't, I don't know. So tell, this.

Film, is it more of a documentary, or is it involved actors, or how is it, how is this? Yeah,.

It's a documentary. It's basically, I mean, I was a product of the young restless reform movement, you know, Mark Driscoll, and John Piper, and all that. So, and I know that there's a huge group of people out there that have the same experience, like we watched a Paul Washer video, and it blew our minds, and that either saved you, or made you a Calvinist, you know.

So we just have, I just know a bunch of people have the same sort of experience we went through, and I just think it's a fascinating story about how God took this, I mean, just a generation that you'd think is ADD, and loves video games, and does, and hates the truth, and all of a sudden became very interested in this.

Old theology that's offensive to people, Calvinism, so. Yeah, it does militate against the natural man's sensibilities. It, the, the concept as, I can't remember the priest's name in, in Boy Town, the famous movie with Spencer Tracy, Spencer Tracy in the role of the priest, but I remember him saying at one pivotal point in the movie, there is no bad boy, that concept of the goodness, the innate goodness of humanity that is only tainted by external forces and experiences.

Oh yeah. That seems, the Doctrines of Grace has turned that upside down. Absolutely. Yeah, and there's,.

You know, we just have this, just every, there's no such thing as truth, everybody's entitled to their own opinion, sort of, and then, you know, even like gender and stuff now, so the way this, the culture, and the way our, even our generation has been going is just, is just insane in their worldview, and I just think it's so amazing, and counterintuitive, and countercultural that, and you know, this is maybe a controversial thing to say, but I think to some degree Calvinism became cool, and like, why did that, why in the world would that happen?

And there's all the dangers that come along with that of, you know, let's, and that's kind of what I want to say in the movie, is let's not let this just be a trend, because that would be, that'd be the worst thing in the world.

Like, let's actually let this impact our hearts, let's find ourselves in confessional churches. So that's really the, the mission of the movie, is to encourage these young guys to actually become reformed.

Don't just take your five points, put them in your pocket, go back to your non-denominational church, and nothing changes. So the primary intention then would be,.

Not that, not that it would be exclusively for this, but the primary intention would be for those who are already professing to be reformed or Calvinistic, to improve the way that they live out that faith, rather than evangelizing both the lost and Arminians with these truths.

It's.

Primarily intended for those already professing Calvin. Yeah, I think it's gonna serve all those purposes. I do think you could bring this movie to somebody who doesn't like Calvinism. It's gonna explain the doctrines of grace, it's gonna run through all these, all these things, and it's gonna hopefully do it in an entertaining way, and, but, and along with that, an approachable way.

So you're gonna see, like, why your buddy is a Calvinist now. And so you don't just think he's this crazy person that joined a cult. It's like, oh, okay, this is rational. You know, the church has very bad theology over the past 30 years, especially, and we just got tired of it, and we went back to biblical doctrines, and it's gonna show scripture and where these things came from.

So I think it will serve that purpose, but, and maybe that'll be even the bigger purpose it serves, but my mind is, I know what I would want to see in a movie about this topic, and I'm hoping other.

People will enjoy watching that as well. Those of us who have been Reformed long enough know about a classic documentary called Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism, that Eric Holmberg produced and directed, along with Jerry Johnson, and that has become a vital tool in sharing the doctrines of grace with others, and I can't speak highly enough about that documentary.

How.

Would you compare and contrast what you're doing to that documentary? Yeah, so I was watching that documentary a lot when I started the process of this one, and I've seen it before. When I first became a Calvinist, I was obsessed with it.

So I think there's a segment of this movie that would be a modern version of that, because there is, there's gonna be like literally just doctrine at specific points, but then on top of that, it's a human interest piece.

Also, you know, you're learning about these people and their testimonies, and how the churches they were in, and yeah, and you also just get to hear the heroes of the faith talk about the Reformation, and some of the greatest living theologians that were willing to speak to me.

Well, I know that one of them is Dr. James R. White. Yeah. Alpha Omega Ministries has been a dear friend of mine since 1996, or 1995 is actually when our friendship began over the phone. Yeah.

Tell us about some of the others. So while I was in Arizona with James White, I got Jeff Durbin. I know Jeff Durbin's been on your show. Oh yeah. And also Joe Thorne, I think he's been on your.

Show as well. Oh yeah, definitely has. Joe Thorne has rescued me on a number of occasions by his willingness to be available even with a matter of minutes notice. Yeah, Joe's always ready to go to.

A radio show. Yes, we got Ligon Duncan, R .C. Sproul, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Challies. Oh man, I'm forgetting. I had nine people picked out at the beginning when I was doing the Kickstarter still, and as I've been traveling, I've ended up interviewing 30, more than 30 theologians, teachers, rappers, Shailene, Timothy Brindle.

So that's another way this movie will be different than some of the more traditional movies that have been on this topic. I want to explore how hip-hop has been a tool that God has used to distribute Reformed theology in just ways that nobody would expect, but it's been impactful.

There's a song by Shailene called Atonement Q &A, and it is literally a catechism in the form of a hip-hop song, and I have it memorized, and my kids have it memorized, and you're actually reciting theology because of hip-hop songs.

So God has just done incredible, unexpected things in this movement. And before.

This all came about, obviously you had to be someone who reached a point in his life where you came to embrace these truths. Tell us something about your own background, your upbringing, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances the Lord used in your life to draw you to himself and to this discovery of these things that we hold.

Dear called the Doctrines of Grace. So I didn't grow up in a Christian family. So when I was 19, I was into drugs and stuff like that, and my friend saw that I was super depressed, preached the gospel to me.

So I had a very dramatic conversion experience, but I had no church context to enter into. It was worse than Arminianism. I don't even know what you would call it. It was like the IHOP sort of churches.

Really, really bad. But so over the years, we ended up at the best possible popular kind of church you could be in, which was Calvary Chapel. And as James White often points out, Calvary Chapel makes more Calvinist than anybody, because they encourage you to read your Bible, but they deny the Doctrines of Grace.

So when you come across these things about election and you bring them to the pastors and they want nothing to do with it, you start to, wait a second, something's not matching up here. So I was really big into the sinner's prayer.

I was doing a great job at Calvary Chapel, converting people through the sinner's prayer. And then one day, one of my friends walked up to me and said, hey, you know, the sinner's prayer doesn't save anybody by itself, right?

And I was like, ah, get out of here. So he sent me a Paul Washer sermon. I knew what Calvinism was. I hated it. I argued against it. He sent me this Paul Washer sermon about weeping for the souls of the lost.

And Paul Washer said, you are not saved by walking down an aisle. You are saved when God takes out your heart of stone and gives your heart of flesh to supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a person.

And just the way he explained it blew my mind, my mouth hung open, and all of the links. So he got me on irresistible grace and he got me on total depravity all in that one sermon and all the links and the changes.

It was like a bear trap closed around my leg. I just became a Calvinist immediately. And it messed with me for a week. I walked up to my wife and said, I think I'm a Calvinist. And she's like, oh, boy, because all she'd heard is all the.

Negative things. And she said, you'll know for sure when people start hating you. Yeah, and that.

Happened. Yeah, I got kicked out of that church pretty quickly. Well, I'd like you to conclude.

The interview by letting our listeners know how they can view this documentary. I almost said.

The Calvinist. Calvinist. Well, it'll be out this summer. If you go to calvinistmovie .com, I'll be continuing to update information there. The trailer just launched today. So the trailer will be available.

And yeah, you'll be able to buy it on DVD and stream it.

Great. Somehow. Well, Les Lamphere, it's been an honor and privilege to have you on RN Sherpa's Iron. And I look forward to your return after the documentary is out and we can.

Perhaps discuss it even further. Thank you so much. I've arrived. I've been on RN Sherpa's Iron.

Well, I'm honored that you have that high view of what I'm doing. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. God bless you. Thanks again. Yes, that was a great tribute. He even told me that prior to the interview, I have arrived, I have been invited to appear on the upper echelon of Reform Broadcasting, RN Sherpa's Iron.

That was quite a kind and perhaps undeserved compliment. But I'm going to go to a break earlier than I normally do, because I want to try to keep my next interview intact without cutting into the middle of it.

I want to keep it, I should say, as one whole without interruption. So we're going to go to a station break right now. And we'll be right back after these messages with an interview with John Kratz. And I hope that you enjoy that interview with author and pastor John Kratz.

John Kratz on Faith Bible Church and Biblical Counseling

So don't go away. We will be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. And now we are going to hear an interview I conducted with Pastor John Kratz of the Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia.

He is also an author. I have interviewed him a number of times previously on Iron Sharpens Iron. And this is the first time I interviewed him face to face. And it was a joy to do so. And so sit back and relax and enjoy the interview with Pastor John Kratz of Faith Bible Church.

Chris Arnzen here again at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. And I am here with Pastor John Kratz, who is pastor of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, which happens to be the congregation where some former members of my former church where I was a member before I moved from New York to Pennsylvania, including the parents of one of my most recent former pastors, Pastor Mark Grimaldi of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island.

His parents, who are precious, dear friends of mine. Absolutely. That have filled my life with a lot of memories, precious memories of laughter and fellowship. But Dale and John Grimaldi are members there.

And I know that Tim Daly, who's a retired police officer,.

Member there. And Pastor Mark's brother, John. That's right.

Is also in his family. And Vinnie Greco and his wife. And I'm sure there are others that I can't think of right now. But I know that those in my audience who have been listening to Iron Sharpens Iron back to the old days of New York may remember that I have interviewed Pastor John on a number of occasions.

And first of all, why don't you tell our listeners something about.

Faith Bibles Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia? Well, we're we are trying to be faithful. We're on the about 30 minutes south of the Atlanta airport and about have about 350 on the Lord's Day. And just a very simple, clear, seeking to be faithful to God's Word, preaching through books of the Bible is our main diet.

And we have a really neat counseling ministry as well that the Lord has raised up, having Martha Peace as part of our church for many, many years. Published author. Yes. And so we've become an ACBC the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors.

We are an official training center. And so we have a number of our people that try to use God's word to help people with their problems. And here in the south, one of the distinctives of our culture is many, many people are churchgoers.

Many people think of themselves as Christians, even though they might not be in strong churches or they might not even attend church. Like, for example, if I went to the coffee shop nearby and said, who's a Christian?

Many, many hands would just shoot right up, which is so different than other parts of the country and and certainly other parts of the world. Well, consequently, if you say, hey, we're a church that offers free counseling from the Bible, many people say, oh, well, yeah, that's for me.

I need help with my problems. And and so if you can help me for free, that would be great. And it has proven to be a wonderful gospel opportunity.

Wow. I can imagine. So, yes, what you said about the Bible belt reminds me and I know those who listen regularly to my program perhaps have heard me repeat this before, but I just can't help but remember a funny conversation I had with an old preacher from Mississippi many years ago, back in probably the 90s, when he during the conversation realized that was from New York.

He said in this very deep, gravelly voice, New York, you got it easy. All you got to do is get people saved. We got to get them lost and then get them.

Saved. Yes, yes. There's some truth to that. Of course, he was a Calvinist, so he didn't really.

Mean he had to get anyone saved. He couldn't. But it was just a humorous way of phrasing it. Right. But and you are also a published author. Yes. Of a number of books. Tell us something.

About those books. Well, I wrote a book. My first one was more like a little booklet, Mighty Men, The Starter's Guide to Leading Your Family, kind of the nuts and bolts of spiritual leadership. And I wrote one called Craftsman that Shepherd Press published, which is Christ-centered proverbs for men.

So many of my books are more conversationally written as opposed to scholarship, heavy duty ones, because I just want guys to read books that will help them. And so that's kind of take some themes from proverbs and applies them.

Then I wrote Loving the Church, trying to help people see that that as a Christian, we should have a passion for the local church. And I wrote a book with Martha Peace called Tying the Knot Tighter that PNR published 19 areas of marriage with little reminders and application questions that a couple could take on a marriage retreat.

I know of some couples using it for premarital counseling, and some people don't need they don't need the big thick book. They just need to be reminded of what they already know. And so that's what we tried to do with that.

And then a couple that are less known in the bite-sized biography series that Evangelical Press published. I did the one on John Newton, which was just a joy for me to get to do a little study of his life.

Fascinating story, writer of Amazing Grace. For those of you who are unfamiliar with John Newton. Yes, he was a he was a former slave trader that became a pastor and never got over how God was gracious to him.

So Amazing Grace wasn't just a one hit wonder. It was really the theme of his life and ministry there in only England and then down later for many years in London, which I hadn't really realized. I had always heard about him out about 90 miles from London with William Cooper and some of those stories out in the country.

But even more even longer part of his ministry was was in the heart of London, just preaching the gospel in a simple way for many years of faithful service. And then the one other book that I wrote is kind of an exposition of Acts 17.

It's called Upsetting the World and it's trying to motivate myself and others toward evangelism, taking initiative in evangelism. Let's look at Paul's ministry in Thessalonica, Berea and then Athens and then make some applications for our lives and church.

Look at the way he took initiative there in the marketplace. How is Paul's situation in Athens similar to ours? And what could we do to take a step out in sharing the.

Gospel of Christ? And what specifically were you speaking on at the G3 conference? I spoke on.

Graciousness. So how can we cultivate graciousness in our hearts while maintaining a passion for the truth? So many people here at the G3 conference are going to be very high on the passion for truth side.

And as the old expression of the cage stage Calvinist, you know, where we ought to be locked up for a couple of years. We're so excited about the doctrines of grace. Zeal without wisdom, usually. That's right.

That's right. Well, I wrote the book on that. I was that before it was a trending topic when I first came to the doctrines of grace. And so over these past 20, 25 years, God has worked slowly and carefully in my heart to help me to become more gracious as I hold still tenaciously to the truth and want to cut it straight and be precise.

And yet do it in a loving way. Yes, it is ironic that many of us, perhaps all of us in some degree or another, who love and cherish and believe and understand and proclaim the doctrines of grace, we sometimes, sadly, react to those things in the very opposite way that those teachings should drive us.

We, some of us, have become more proud than others. But unfortunately, there is a reputation that we who are theologically reformed, Calvinistic, that there is an arrogance and there is a pride when the very doctrines are supposed to humble us to dust, realizing that nothing in us is attractive to God in the realm of goodness or worthiness.

And of course, that stereotype may be exaggerated by the opponents of these things. But as with many things, stereotypes exist for a reason. And there are those among us who excel in that sin of pride more than others.

But it does exist, which is why you, I'm sure,.

Had one of the reasons that you even spoke on that issue. Absolutely. Yeah, I started by comparing it to if you had a situation in your life where you really had a need to learn something from someone.

So whether it be how to be a better mom, or whether it be how to improve your golf swing, and you got to have good one-on-one time with somebody who could really help you. Like if you were here in Georgia and Bubba Watson came by and said, I'm going to spend the afternoon perfecting your golf swing, but we're going to be in really close quarters.

But then suppose that expert came with all of their wisdom and insight, but had a horrible, horrible breath. You need to talk to them. You need to get up close and work on this area of their expertise.

But it's so bad, you were repelled. You're trying to tell me something right now. Not at all. Not at all. Just an illustration. But you know what I mean. All you can hear, all you can think about is, I've got to get away from this guy or this lady.

And yet they have wisdom and insight that you need to hear. And I made the comparison. That's sort of how it is when we are abrasive, and harsh, and arrogant, and condescending as we interact with one another with the truth.

We use God's truth like a hammer, and everybody is like a nail. And I'm going to correct you. I'm going to speak the truth and let God worry about the results, as opposed to being like Christ, full of grace and truth.

So sometimes we have to say a hard thing. Sometimes a brother or sister needs a rebuke, or somebody is falling into sin. We've sought to be gracious, and now like Christ, we have to kind of call them out.

But even behind that ought to be a gracious intent. We're trying to rescue you from your sin. We're trying to help you. We're not trying to belittle you, or look down upon you, or win the argument. Our goal ought to be to be a blessing to the people we interact with.

And I'm afraid for many years, I was more trying to win, instead of trying to be a blessing.

Yes, and I think that this proclivity that many of us in the Reformed faith have to look down upon those that don't see things the way we do, forgetting ourselves that it was only by God's grace that we even believe anything that we believe.

I think we have to remind ourselves that all men who are sinned, all men who sin, and that includes all men, yes, whatever their proclivity may be, it taints that area in their life, that train of thought with sin and makes it worse.

For instance, the proclivity that most theologically Reformed people seem to have, which is a good thing, is a meticulous nature about truth and doctrine. We want to make sure that what we are believing and teaching others is accurate from the Scriptures.

We want to be very careful and meticulous, and we don't want to misspeak or diminish the severity or the importance of things that we find in Scripture. But sometimes meticulousness and some might call fussiness or what have you, when it's mingled with sin, and as I said, we're all sinners, that could make us less patient with others.

It could make us prone to mock others, perhaps, look down on them. And we also forget that that person, even though they may disagree with us on the five points of Calvinism or other things, they may have an area in their own walk with Christ or even as an innate part of their theological system that has a superiority to something in our own life that we have a blind.

Spot to. Absolutely, absolutely. I completely agree that it seems to be something of an unintended consequence for our passion for truth and our precision. If we're not careful, it can have kind of the dark side of coming across in that harsh, unkind, critical way.

How many of us took years to fight with the Lord before we came to the doctrines of grace, and then we expect our brother to get it in two weeks when it took us two years? Ought we not to be as patient with them as the Lord was with us in some of these ways?

Yes. One of my illustrations was the church in Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2. So the Lord commended them for their passion for truth. You test these false apostles. You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans.

We don't know much about the Nicolaitans, but they were obviously bad guys in the first century. And the Ephesian elders, the leaders, the members of the church confronted that sin, hated that sin. The Lord himself says, I also hate these things.

So there's a very, we don't ever want to diminish our passion for the truth. But of course, in that very context is where Jesus says, but I have this against you. You've left your first love. Now, most of us have heard sermons that talk about, they lost their love for the Lord.

But if you consider where Jesus goes, he says, now you need to repent and do the deeds you did at first. That could well indicate, and I think it does, that it's not just talking about a love for the Lord, but a love for other people.

Well, if that's the case, what Jesus is saying is, I commend you for your passion for truth. But if you don't repent for your lack of love for the Lord and for people, then I'm going to come and snuff out your lampstand.

Now, there's many things in Revelation I don't know about, symbols and things like that. But at the very end of Revelation 1, he tells us what that symbol means. The lampstand means the church itself.

So in this major city of Ephesus, Jesus said, it would be better to have no church than to have a church filled with rabid tigers who are passionate for truth, but are eating one another. They're not showing love for one another.

That's a sin we need to repent of. So you might think, wow, isn't being passionate for the truth in this day and age of squishy, as Wayne McElwain, sloppy agape everywhere, and just nobody cares about anything with truth, isn't that enough?

And the answer is no, it is not enough. We must have the corresponding graciousness that goes with it. So when we minister, we speak the truth, absolutely, but we speak the truth in love as we seek to build one another up and even correct.

One another. Perhaps we could conclude this discussion with your counsel, advice to fellow believers in sovereign grace, although not necessarily exclusively those of us who believe in that system. But I have noticed, and perhaps you've noticed the same thing, that one of the greatest areas of disappointment amongst theologically reformed Christians is that perhaps we take our rightful rejection of the modern ecumenical movement too far.

And many of us have brought that mindset to such an extreme that the pastors within our churches and perhaps even many of just the members in general don't even want to associate in any kind of fashion in gatherings or in opportunities for either fellowship or just informal gatherings of some kind with those that we disagree with theologically, those who may be charismatic or Arminian, those who may be from a host of different theological points of view.

And we wonder, or I wonder sometimes, how is it that these men who believe what they believe, meaning the reformed Christian, they believe what they believe is so vital and so precious and so true, and it's as if they want other Christians to hear, understand, and embrace these things by osmosis without any of our patience and activity with them, involvement with them, friendship with.

Them, if you have any... Well, I think it just made me think of John Newton again, the man who never got over God's grace to him. Remember that quote at the end of his life? I don't remember much. I remember that I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.

Well, that attitude was pervasive. And so although Newton chose to stay within the Anglican structure of his day, this is the day of Whitfield and Wesley in the 1700s. He chose to stay there because he thought it would give him a greater platform for ministry in England at that time, even though he would agree with our concerns about much of what was happening even then within the Church of England.

But he was so kind and had so many friends outside of the Church of England, including Baptists. And when William Carey was preparing to leave for India, he wanted to stop and have some time with John Newton when he was in London.

And that kind of spirit, I think, is great. It's a great one to follow. And even though that means we'll have to rub up against some people that might do things or say things a little bit different than us, do they have the gospel right?

Do they have gospel sweetness? Well, there needs to be a place for us to share a meal at the table with brothers and sisters like that. And I think we benefit and I think they benefit. Proverbs 13 20, one of my favorite Proverbs, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

My modern translation is you become like the people you hang around. If you are around gospel sweet people and you have a chance to influence them and in those areas, they're strong by God's grace. They help us as well.

And hopefully in God's providence, we will all help each other make it across to the eternal city together.

Amen. Well, Pastor Kratz, if you could let our listeners know about your contact information,.

How they can find Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg. Yeah, sure. Our website is faithbiblechurch .us. So kind of a simple one. And my email right there is jkratz at faithbiblechurch .us. C-R-O-T-T-S.

Correct. And so we're on the south side of Atlanta. So if you're passing through the big Atlanta airport, which I hear you have to change planes even when you go to heaven in Atlanta, but you know, come see us.

We would love to have fellowship with you.

Well, it's been a pleasure and an honor and a joy to have you on the program today.

Thank you so much, Chris. All right. God bless you.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Pastor John Kratz of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, as much as I did. And now we're going to go immediately to an interview with a listener, a longtime listener of Iron Sharpens Iron, Toni Brown.

And I hope that you enjoy listening to her as well. This is Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio again here at the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. And we have right now Toni Brown, who is a listener of Iron Sharpens Iron, who is also here in attendance at the G3 conference.

It's great to see you here, Toni.

Good to see you and nice to finally meet you. Put a face to that voice, that very, very, very definite commanding voice that we love.

Thank you. And tell us how you actually discovered Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Well, actually, there's lots of Christian radio. You know this. But what I was looking for was something that's a little bit deeper sometimes, a little bit, the guests, you know, it's not, I guess, depth.

Depth as far as Scripture, digging into Scripture, digging into theology, having those, a lot of your guests in different areas, you can tell are very knowledgeable and really sought God's truth in these different subjects.