December 29, 2022 with Geoff Thomas on “Becoming Fishers of Men”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 29th day of December 2022, as we quickly approach the end of this year, 2022.

I am so thrilled to have as a returning guest someone who has been a favorite guest of mine for years and has also, judging from the emails

I get, a favorite guest among our listeners here in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience all over the world. His name is

Reverend Jeff Thomas, and he, beginning in 1965, served for over 50 years as pastor of Alfred Place Baptist Church of Aberystwyth, Wales.

He's the author of many books, and we are going to be addressing the theme,

Becoming Fishers of Men. We're also going to be promoting a conference coming up in the not -too -distant future where Jeff will be speaking, and that will be the

Here We Stand Conference on the Five Solas of the Reformation. This is actually a conference of the

Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology, and I am so thrilled to be,

God willing, attending this event, and other featured speakers at this event will be

Kevin DeYoung and Richard D. Phillips. Richard has been a guest on this program many times.

And we're also going to be talking about a couple of books, new books coming out by Jeff Thomas that should be available in print in 2023, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Jeff Thomas.

Greetings brother, can you hear me? I think you've... Jeff Thomas Yes, thank you very much.

I'm delighted to be on the program again and to be with you and to speak on this subject of fishing for men and women.

And I want to do it in two halves, really.

The young Peter, the 20 -year -old, the fisherman, and the great call that came to him and how that transformed his life.

And then the old Peter, writing in his letter 40 years later, maybe, and giving us counsel of how to fish for men.

And so I'll do it in that way. Great. And this is also the theme of a book that will be available in 2023, am

I right? Yes, that's right. Yes, Grand Rapids is going to bring it out again.

So that'll be wonderful. And that would be Reformation Heritage Books? Exactly.

And you have another book coming out in 2012. And you have a second book coming out in 2023 by Evangelical Press, and that's

Knowing the Cross, is that right? Knowing the Cross, yes. Well we will keep our audience updated as to when those books will actually be available because I know that it will not be for months away, but time does fly, especially when

I've passed the age of 60, that time seems to fly by too fast.

Well if you'd like to start on this theme, this grand theme, Becoming Fishers of Men. Okay. Jesus in Luke 5 has spent the night getting up very early and praying about the disciples he's going to call.

Should he call Peter, John, yes, some rather obscure people that we hardly know,

Judas, he rolls it out, he's earnest, interceding.

He wants to call these men to be fishers of men, and then having settled that issue,

God assuring him, he goes down to the shore, and the crowd gather around him, and he talks to them.

They can't hear. He doesn't do a miracle then. He doesn't clear the earwax out of their ears.

He doesn't make the ground under his feet soar up.

He doesn't increase the volume of his voice wonderfully so that they can all hear.

He notices there are two boats, and they're empty, and he asks then that Peter should go out a little bit into the deep and then drive the boat into the shore, and he stands in the prow of the ship, and he faces the crowd, and they all spread out, and there's a good sounding board with the water and the sand, and they listen to him.

So there he is. He doesn't give a sign yet. There's no miracle yet, but he notices the men have been fishing all night, and now they're repairing their nets.

They're broken. They're torn. They're full of weeds. They've worked all night, and they've got nothing, and so now before they can go home and go to bed, they've got to repair the nets.

It's a picture of futility because Peter's fishing wasn't a hobby to get away from his wife, but he was there working to raise money for the family by selling the fish in the market.

You might think that was a good time for Jesus to call

Peter to be a fisher of men because it would be our inclination.

You know what you're in for? Many disappointments, much frustration, pessimism, hard graft, a perfect time to call them.

It would steal Peter for the life of discipleship, plodding away, dashed hopes.

You remember Ernest Hemingway's last book, The Old Man and the Sea, and how this man catches the biggest marlin, and as he's sailing home, the sharks send his blood and they tear out chunks from the marlin.

He's got, when he finally gets home, just the skeleton of the biggest marlin. The futility of human life.

You live and then as you're about to get your retirement, you die.

The business you're in, the law changes and all your profits go.

And so Jesus doesn't order the miracle then.

What he does is to say, put out into the deep, let down your nets for a catch.

It's a command. And Peter protests, all night we've been fishing and we've caught nothing.

And he's exhausted. And he gives Jesus a chance to change his mind.

But Peter doesn't stop there. But he says, at your word, at your word,

I'll go out. How important is that? It's all important. If you decide that something

Jesus says is OK, and other times it's not OK, then you're the

Lord, not him. But here is the word made flesh.

Here is the one who says, I and my father are one. And so he goes and he takes

Jesus with him in the boat and they cast out the nets.

And as a result, they have an immense catch. They've never seen anything like it. Peter's the fisherman.

Peter's the local man. Peter, with his father before him, has spent years in Galilee.

Jesus is the landlubber. His father is a carpenter. Landlocked Nazareth is his home.

Peter knows all about fishing. Let Jesus be the inspirational speaker.

But Peter, let him be the master of fishing. But he submits.

He bows down to Jesus' command. And as a result, the nets are breaking and help is needed.

It filled one boat. It fills two boats. Here is the Lord of this miracle.

Peter sees it as never before. Here is omnipotence.

Here is the one Jehovah in the Old Testament who, in Psalm 8, he commands the fish of the sea.

Psalm 95, there in his hands. Psalm 148, praise the

Lord. From the earth, you great sea creatures. He's in control of continents and oceans, the heavens, the atom, the virus.

You remember in 1 Kings 4, we're introduced to Solomon, who was so wise. And we are told in 1

Kings 4, he knew all about fish. But a greater than Solomon is here. He controls the debts.

And he can send a great fish to take

Jonah to do his will. And he can send

Peter to catch a fish. And there's a coin in its mouth that pays the debt for the temple.

And here's a Lord, then, who is watching us. And he controls everything, the breath in our lungs.

Exhale, inhale. It's all of him. The sparrow that falls, the fish of the sea.

He commands all the fish of Galilee to swim here and plunge into the nets of Peter.

Here is omnipotence incarnate. Here is the messianic king.

You remember in Numbers 11, Moses is leading the children of Israel into the desert. And they don't have food.

And they are longing for the delicious fish of Egypt. The fresh fish from the

Nile, the salt fish from the Med. And Moses is in deep distress.

What can I do with these people? You told me to nurse them.

They're too many for me. And all they are getting is manna Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all the days of the week, manna.

Moses says, would they have enough if all the fish of the sea were caught for them?

And that question of Moses is answered here in Luke's gospel. Jesus comes and look, all the fish come.

They flow into his nets. And before he calls

Peter to be a fisher of men, he shows his power to him. He shows he's the

Lord of creation. He's the messianic king that Moses spoke about. So what's your response to this now?

What do you think of this mighty

Jesus Christ? You know, what was Peter's response? How he reacted?

He didn't say, oh, the fishing business never been so good since I've got Jesus in the boat with me.

He didn't say that. I'm way ahead of competition. I'm going to be wealthy.

I'm going to make a killing in the market today. He didn't say that. Many prosperity preachers are saying things like that.

You get Jesus with them and you're going to be rich. But Peter didn't react like that.

He collapsed. He's overwhelmed because he knew who was in the boat with him.

Who are you dealing with? You're dealing with the creator. There, with a wriggling, jumping fish,

Peter collapses. Depart from me, for I'm a sinful man. You see this response?

We feel we're sinful. We feel we're not able to be any assistance of the

Lord because of our past, because of our weakness. But here is

Jesus who came not to call the righteous, not to seek for the righteous, but sinners to bring them to repentance.

God in the boat, the God of mercy, Jehovah Jesus, the promised one there in the boat.

Peter falls before him. That's our posture before the maker of the universe.

Adam hides. Abraham falls at the great trees of Mamre.

Job says, I despise myself. Isaiah says, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips.

John on Patmos falls before him. God is light. And so Jesus shows himself to Peter before he says to him,

I will make you a fisher of men. Jesus shows he didn't come into the world to judge and condemn, but he came to save.

He came to save sinners. It was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved,

John Newton says. And it's grace that teaches Peter to fear the living

God. And Jesus says, don't be afraid. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek.

Blessed is the man who in the temple beats his breast and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Today, the surgeons of the word are not cutting deeply enough. The cancer of sin is not being removed.

So this is a moral universe. What you sow, you're also going to reap.

This Jesus, he says, but don't be afraid. Come to me and I will give you rest.

And so here is this Jesus. This Jesus who comes and he provides fish for the needy, and he's calling us to be his disciples.

He's going to provide all we need excessively, abundantly, according to his riches in glory.

And that's have to be our expectations when he calls us.

He gives this sign of blessing. And you remember how he made good this sign to Peter.

He threw out the net on the day of Pentecost. Three thousand men were drawn to God.

God sent Philip to Samaria. One man, a full net, Samaria transformed.

Paul went, one man to Corinth. Corinth had a thousand people who were teachers of the word soon.

Martin Luther transformed Germany. Spurgeon transformed

London. For that, John Patton went to the New Hebrides, scarcely a single fish.

But when he finished, there was scarcely anyone outside the net. And so it's been today in many parts of the world, in Korea, in Zambia, we see it.

Many converts. Think of the day when someone threw out a net and caught you.

It's such an encouragement to go where he sends, to do what he says, to fish when he says fish, and do it expectantly, expecting to sink under the weight of blessing.

Don't measure the grace of God by statistics, but measure the grace of God by the power of this king, by the attractiveness of his kingdom.

I will make you fishers of men, he says. That is the promise.

The precept to us, catch men. The prayer, Lord, make me a fisher of men.

So that is the first thing I want to say to you about how Peter first met the great fisher of men and was called to be a fisher of men himself.

Praise God. And we're going to go to our first station break right now. If anybody has a question for Jeff Thomas on this grand theme of becoming fishers of men, our email address is

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

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

USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, such as a pastoral question that you may have for Jeff, since he has spent the vast majority of his life here on this planet as a pastor.

So we will accept pastoral questions as well. And if one is a personal and private question, you may remain anonymous.

It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jeff Thomas and our theme,

Becoming Fishers of Men. I'm Dr.

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Jeff Thomas, before we go back to the second half of what you wanted to discuss on being fishers of men, we do have a couple of audience questions that I'll read to you.

We have Ramon in Metro Manila in the

Philippines, and he says, Back in my college days,

I shared the gospel to fellow students by using tracks to break the ice.

I experienced rejection a lot from people who didn't want to listen. I experienced opposition only a few times from atheists and people who were very devoted to the religion they grew up with.

But nowadays, witnessing is becoming very hard. Sometimes people gang up on you and bombard you with questions and statements that question the reliability of the

Bible and the character of God. So what advice can you give us when we are fishing in rough waters, or to put it another way, what do you do when the fish you are catching are piranhas trying to bite you?

Do you have an answer or answers? Very good, yes.

The more you fish, the better a fisherman you will be, because there are only half a dozen sections of questions that people raise, historical, emotional, challenging the

Bible. And you get used to meeting these questions and you've got your answers prepared.

So the more you fish, keep on giving out your tracks, keep on being there and smile and be sweet to people and show affection for them and don't let them get under your skin and compliment them on their strong opinions.

But tell them you've got a better message than they have.

Be sweet and loving and never give up, never give up, always keep on, always.

Now, would you also, as far as the piranhas who are biting you, would not

Matthew 10, verse 14, be wise advice, especially since it's

God -breathed, whoever does not receive you nor heed your words as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet.

Isn't it true that we can't become enslaved to trying to win certain people to Christ?

Not that we are to never return to them with the gospel, but at a specific moment, if we are just going nowhere and getting nothing done and being attacked by a sea of anti -Christian individuals who are using a machine gun method of firing questions at us so quickly that we can't even answer them.

It is a dangerous, dangerous time to be promoting.

By the way, Jeff... It's a dangerous time to be... You're breaking up for some reason,

Jeff. Are you doing something different? I will... I've not done anything.

Are you able to hear me now? Yes, I hear you perfectly well now. Okay, well, it isn't easy.

If you're going to stand in the open air and you're going to confront... Yeah, for some reason you keep breaking up.

I don't even... Obviously, it's a technical issue and I don't know why it's happening. Are you there,

Jeff? There were two women who were speaking to a friend of mine preaching in the open air, and they asked, did you have a

Bible? Yes, he says, we have Bibles so we can give you. And he gave a Bible to the one woman and she tore it to pieces and walked away.

That was the horror that he was confronted with, and he walked quickly after her and said, you must give an account for what you've done to the

Word of God. That's all he could say. Amen. And in the long run, we know that all we do is plant and water the seeds that we planted.

Only God can give the increase. So as long as we are obeying

God's command to evangelize, we should not take it overly personally and be too overcome with depression and insecurity, anxiety, that we're doing something not as polished as we could.

Because it's God that brings a new life to the dead, lost sinner, not us.

Quite so. Well, thank you so much, Ramon. Keep listening and keep spreading the word about the show in Metro Manila and beyond.

I'll have one more audience question before you return to your message on Becoming Fishers of Men.

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, who asks, do you have any ideas as to why the

God -breathed scriptures refer to evangelism as being fishers of men and not hunters of men?

Is there a real difference in the analogy that would make fishers more of an appropriate allegorical way of describing evangelism?

Well, that's a very good question. Thomas Boston has a wonderful little book on being fishers of men.

And he talks about the skill and the patience and the persistence that is required in fishing, and the wisdom that you have to use and the knowledge that you gain how to catch them.

And so the Lord Jesus, he had four men,

Peter and Andrew, James and John, who were all fishermen and leading men amongst his disciples, amongst his apostles.

And it was very natural then for him to relate to them of a subject that they knew so well.

If they'd been hunters, I'm sure he would have used the hunting analogy successfully.

But as he was dealing with fishermen, then when he was speaking to centurions, then the

Bible talks about being a good soldier of Jesus Christ. So the metaphors relate to the various callings.

Doctors and nurses have the healing image of what the gospel does to us.

Laundry workers are confronted with the Golgotha laundry that's opened up for sin and uncleanness.

So you approach, in all these ways, the people that you are praying about and are seeking to help as vividly as you can.

Amen. That's an excellent answer, I believe. And the only other thing that I might add to that is that unless you're using a rod and reel, which the disciples were not doing, net fishing, as they were doing, is catching many fish at the same time, whereas hunting is usually a sport that involves one animal that you may be hunting for hours or days.

And you may not even successfully kill that animal, but if you do, it's typically one animal that you're getting.

So that's the only thing that I could think of as far as how the analogies differ. Well, I'd like you now, in the time we have remaining in the first half of the program, to return to your theme, your grand theme of Becoming Fishers of Men.

Right. Well, now, here is the old Peter, gnarled, wise, white -haired, and he writes two letters at the end of his life.

And in the one letter, he's talking about fishing. And this is what he says, be always ready to give a reason for the hope that you have.

And he tells us how we are to speak. But let me begin by referring to the hope.

That is the theme of our message. Our testimony is positive.

It is affirmatory. It is consolatory. It is optimistic.

I can't understand how a man can go into the pulpit and rant about the failings of politicians and send a congregation home angry at the end.

That is not preaching. We are facing a culture of despair with a heavy weight of gloom and despondency.

They tried music and entertainment and relationships and alcohol and drugs, and they are without hope from all those things.

Many of the young don't have jobs. Many men and women have failed marriages.

They know nothing of the consolations of Christianity and the promises of God.

They are prisoners of economic pressure and atheistic philosophies and a worldview that terminates with death.

But my friends, we have a message of wonderful hope.

There's a graffiti on a Belfast wall that is their life before death.

They were in such despair, the men who wrote that graffiti up.

I've written a book called You Could Have It All, and it's full of encouragement of the wonderful consolations and comforts that we have, that the love of God is boundless, that grace is free, that Jesus says, you're the light of the world.

He didn't say you are the traffic wardens of the world or you're the police of the world, but we are the light of the world.

And I beg you always to remember this. So this basic perspective that you give a reason for your hope that there is forgiveness because of what the

Lamb of God has done for us on the cross. There is hope because of the great promises that God has made, that he will work all things together for good to them that love him, and that he will supply all our needs.

And especially when we come to the valley of the shadow of death, Christians won't walk through it alone, but hand in hand with the one who will accompany them.

It is for us not the end. It is for us the beginning. It is not for us that we are leaving the land of the living.

We are leaving the land of the dying to go to the land of the living forever and ever.

Give them hope, Peter says. The two reasons why we have hope, give them the reason firstly because of the resurrection on the third day.

It didn't occur in a book of theology. It didn't occur in a dream.

It occurred in reality. Women saw him. Men saw him. He ate and drank with them.

He said to Peter, handle me, touch me. This isn't a ghost. And their lives were transformed.

Those men who once were behind a locked door, now they are full of confidence, standing before thousands of men at the temple or going into Samaria, and they're speaking because they have such great, great hope.

So being a good witness starts in our hearts. It starts with our own trust in the

Lord, our belief in him. We have a mighty influence that drives us on.

Our God is so good to us. He meets our needs.

He hears our prayers. He overlooks our sins. He lavishes his kindness and his love upon us.

You know these things. You who are listening to me today, don't you have in your own experience answered prayer?

Wasn't there a time in your life where you were desperate and you cried to God and God helped you in a time of need, and your strength was made perfect in weakness, and your fears were never realized, and what blessings

God has poured down upon you? Don't you have a living experience of the goodness of God?

Isn't that an ongoing existential foundation for your faith?

I've cried to God, and he's answered me. You remember Elijah on Mount Carmel and all the prophets of Baal?

They're like the men that our brother from the Philippines has just been talking to us about, full of hatred and full of confidence in their own gods, and crying and crying, but no answer coming to them.

But Elijah cried to God, and immediately God answers because he is the living

God. And in that moment, the whole nation of Israel found a reason for hope.

And this is our great encouragement, that we have a message of hope.

I have good news for everybody listening to this message, everyone

I meet. I have a Savior for you. I have forgiveness of sins for you.

I have life everlasting for you, and that is our great message of hope.

And we have an anonymous listener who says, when

I have relatives and friends over for the holidays who are not Christians, inevitably subjects will come up that start arguments among us in varying degrees of intensity.

Should I not bring up the precious truths of the gospel during these times of gathering, or should

I handle the situation differently instead of participating in an argument over them?

Yes, yes. You know, you want to say a couple of things about that.

You want to say God doesn't want us to be people who are only interested in religion.

I think that's important to say. We're interested in people and their plight and their families and their children.

And we remember their birthdays and the anniversaries of their tragedies, and we sympathize with them and we care for them.

And that is enormously important. Our Lord and Savior, He wept with Mary and Martha at the death of their brother.

And so you are a whole person, and when you're with your family, you have a long -term relationship.

You're not sitting for an hour in a bus or on a plane with them, and you only have a short time to speak.

You are planning a lifetime in which you act in an appropriate, caring way.

You will give a testimony to the goodness of God, and you will say to them,

I couldn't have survived that time. I can only get by with the strength that God gives me.

And then you go on to something else. Just be wise, be sober, be kind and loving.

And you have the same Heavenly Father as I have, and we all make mistakes. When there are students who are converted,

I say it's enough for you to go to church on a Sunday who've never gone before.

It's enough for you to have a Bible at the side of your bed that your mother, when she makes your bed, notices you're reading the

Bible and you're going to church. It's enough for you to offer to wash the dishes and tidy up your room and show her that a positive change has taken place before getting involved in arguments and accusing your parents of not being

Christians. You know, be sensible, be sweet, be the best boy, the best girl you can be to your parents, the best wife you can be to your husband, that without the word,

Peter says, you can win them when they see your godliness and your meekness.

So, the answers are there in Scripture to a questioner like you.

The Lord help you. Amen. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now.

And as always, the midway break is just a little longer than the other breaks in the show because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, is required by the FCC to localize geographically all of their programming, including

Iron Trip and Zion Radio, to Lake City, Florida. They do so with their own public service announcements and other local things.

So while they do that, simultaneously we are airing our globally heard commercials.

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information provided by our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully contact them.

And we hope that that often means you will buy their products, you will use their services, you will support their parachurch organizations, you will visit their churches.

But when you can't do any of those things, there is one thing that you definitely can do.

You can contact our advertisers and merely say, thank you so much for sponsoring

Iron Trip and Zion Radio. That is, if indeed you do love the show and are grateful that there are people, there are organizations and businesses and churches and parachurch organizations that love this show so much that they share some of the money that God has blessed them with us so that we can continue to exist.

If you're really happy and thankful and grateful about that, please let our advertisers know.

That should go a long way when they make decisions on renewing advertising contracts, increasing the spending on their advertising contracts, et cetera.

So please write down the information for as many of our advertisers as you can and also send in your questions to Jeff Thomas, chrisorenzen at gmail .com,

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

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away, we'll be back with Jeff Thomas and becoming fishers of men right after these messages.

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?

So often we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study God's word in those smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.

It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the word of God and is built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the

Bible. Hi there, my name is Jordan Tew and I am the Executive Director of the Baptist Publishing House.

Our ministry is dedicated to providing local churches with sound Bible study resources.

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May God bless you. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Before I return, Jeff Thomas, I have a couple of very important announcements to make.

First of all, if you love this show folks, you don't want it to go off the air, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

If you prefer snail mail, the old -fashioned way, mailing a physical check to a physical address, well there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com

where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you want to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you desire to advertise is compatible with what we believe, you don't have to believe identically with me, but you need to be promoting something that is at the very least compatible with what

I believe, then please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

We are just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

Please always try to remember, I never want my listeners to give their own church where they are members less money in order to bless

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially with a gift. Never do that. Never cut into the money that you have set aside to give to your own local church every

Sunday in order to bless us. I never want that to happen and I also, if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, please wait till you are more financially stable and back on your feet before you give us a financial gift.

The two things that are very clear in the Bible about finances that we are commanded to do are providing for our churches and providing for our families.

Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show, you don't want it to go off the air, and you have extra money collecting interest in the bank, you have extra money for benevolent recreational and trivial purposes, please share some of that money with us so that we can continue to exist if you really do love the show.

It's ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, no matter where on the planet earth you live, if you are not a member of a

Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, well,

I have extensive lists spanning the globe and I have helped many people in my audience from all parts of the world find churches near them that are

Christ -honoring and biblically sound, sometimes even within just a few minutes of where they live. That may be you if you are in that predicament where you are not a member of a good solid church.

If that is the case, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jeff Thomas on the theme that we are discussing,

Becoming Fishers of Men. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Well, Jeff, if you could pick up where you left off on Becoming Fishers of Men. Okay, then he says always, always be ready.

So how can we always be ready? Well, he goes on to explain this in 1

Peter 3 15. He says, in your hearts set apart

Christ as Lord. There's no way you're going to be an effective fisher of men unless Jesus Christ has a special, unique place as your

Lord, as your friend, as the one you love more than anyone else in the world.

Fishing for men is not a matter of technique. It's not a matter of method. It's not a matter of knowledge or experience or skill.

But something far more fundamental, it is this. Are we right with God?

And if we're not, there's no possibility that we can be a fisher of men.

And the reason we know, the reason why we're incapable of witnessing or incompetent in witnessing or disinclined to witness is not that we haven't done a dramatic course on how to witness or we are not swift -witted enough in speaking.

The reason we are not effective is because we're not right with God.

And so you have to go back to the part where your relationship with God went wrong.

And you have to find that out and confess it and sort it out.

You know, Wordsworth once gave a famous definition of poetry. Wordsworth said, poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.

The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Well, you can dispute whether that's what poetry is, but that is something essential for Christian witness.

It's spontaneous. It's an overflow of great feelings in your heart to someone who is very, very special to you, someone you love more than anyone else.

You have joy in him. You have gratitude that your sins are forgiven. And implicitly in love for this

Savior, you're going to speak spontaneously. And you will find yourself doing that.

A man was walking past me, talking to this woman. And he said,

Oh my God. And immediately I turned and looked him in the eye and said,

Oh, do you know God? And the smile disappeared from his face.

And on he walked. But remembering what I had asked him.

So it's not a question of getting your methods right. But it's a question of getting your relationship with God right.

And the reason why Spurgeon and Dr. Lloyd -Jones were such great fishers of men was not simply because of their intellect or their natural ability in speaking.

It was because of a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings of love for God.

They'd set apart the Lord in their hearts. There was a bond.

There was a wonderful growing relationship between the Saint and the

Savior in our hearts. We've set him apart. That's the first thing. If you are to be always ready to give a reason for your hope.

And then there's a second thing, having a good conscience. He says, 1 Peter 3, 15, keeping a clear conscience.

And again, it's not a word about methods. It's much more fundamental than that.

You've set apart Christ as your Lord and you've got a clear conscience. You make sure that there's nothing between yourself and God.

Some unconfessed sins, some unmortified practice of yours that you're not putting aside.

You're watching programs on the internet which are harming your whole life and you've got to stop doing it.

There is a tension. There is a quarrel that you have with a neighbor over a fence, over parking.

And now you can't speak to him about Jesus Christ because you haven't a good conscience.

So, my friends, that's what we have to do. We have to ask ourselves, am

I wrong with God? Am I withholding from another person because I'm ashamed of things that I've said and done and I need to apologize?

Keep your conscience right with God. Deal with the sin.

Ask for its forgiveness. And that's the second thing. So, always be ready.

Sanctify Jesus Christ to a special part in your life and then you keep your conscience clear.

Those are the things that he begins with. And then there is a very interesting verse in the book of Proverbs, chapter 15 and verse 28.

The heart of the righteous studies to answer, weighs its answer.

The heart of the righteous then weighs its answers, thinks before he speaks.

We're defending the faith and it's not enough to blurt out the first thing that comes into your mind.

But you've got to know the scriptures. You've got to know the book of Proverbs. You've got to know elementary duties.

You have to gird yourself with truth. The first thing the Christian soldier puts on is the belt of truth.

And you have to ponder the word and assimilate it and swallow it.

And it has to be in you. It has to be immense in its influence over your emotions and over your thinking.

It's one of the great reasons why you have to sit under the best ministry you can listen to every single

Sunday. That's not a pleasure that only a few

Christians should have. Every Christian should have it. Study so that you can answer.

Know what you believe, why you believe. Be able to tell people the reason for your faith.

So three things I've said. Set apart Christ as Lord, if you want to be a fisher of men.

Have a good conscience, if you want to be a fisher of men. And study to know the answer so that you know from the

Bible what it teaches about Jesus Christ and about you and your sinfulness.

Amen. And we do have another anonymous listener who said, and this is something that typically comes up on the show from the audience when we deal with evangelism and preaching and so on.

The question is, isn't it far too often a problem in the body of Christ that pastors, evangelists, and even individual

Christians get far too consumed and focus far too much on numbers that come to Christ under their evangelistic ministry?

Aren't we to be patient and know that it is God who brings the increase?

That's a very important observation and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

There was a time when people had some idea of who Jesus was and he was going to lead them to a wonderful revolution and kick out

Rome and they would be a proud and mighty kingdom again. And then they listened more to him and they found out that that wasn't the sort of kingdom.

The reign was a reign of grace and love and mercy and deliverance from the domination of their sinfulness and that Jesus Christ was

Lord. Not Judaism and Jerusalem, but Jesus Christ was the way and the truth and the life.

And many, many left him. His congregations dwindled because he was faithful in what he said to them.

And Jesus even turned to Peter and the other disciples and he said sadly to them, are you also going to leave me?

And Peter said to him, well to whom? Is there another Jesus?

Yeah. Who have we got to turn to? You have the words of eternal life and you have the power of eternal life.

You raise the dead. You speak and the winds and waves obey you. You cast out demons.

Who else do we have? When John the Baptist was doubtful and in prison and sent messengers saying, are you the one that should come or do we seek another?

Jesus sent a message back to him. The blind see and the lame are walking and the deaf are hearing and the poor of the gospel preach to them.

And these are the marks then of the kingdom of God having come, having come powerfully.

There's no one else. There is only the Lord Jesus. And so that means people who hoped we would be a very different flamboyant personality in the pulpit found our teaching of the

Bible then irksome and unprofitable and they left us.

And many have left me in 50 years in Aberystwyth, but others stayed and others became fishers of men.

And I say even so, father, for so it seemed good in my sight. Teach me not to be one who tickles the ears of my hearers, but one who always wants to please my savior by faithfully preaching the word that he has given me to preach.

Amen. Thank you, Anonymous, for the excellent question. We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and she says,

I know that women are forbidden to be teachers in a church where they are instructing men and have the freedom to teach women and children, and women are not to preach or have authority over men.

But are there any other restrictions that I may be missing when it comes to women evangelizing the lost outside the walls of the church in particular?

I don't think there are any other restrictions than those that you have stipulated. I know a woman in a church in Reading where she has the grace, the gift of inviting people along to church, bringing them along, welcoming people when they're there, sharing her faith with them, with students and women, and sharing, speaking to men.

You know, Priscilla spoke to Apollos, didn't she? They thought he was a wonderful preacher, but he didn't know exactly the understanding of the message of Jesus Christ.

And so she invited him around to come to their home and have a meal and talk together in the home about the

Gospel and explain to him the Word of God more thoroughly. And oh, that we had 10 ,000 women like that in the

British Isles who would be so willing to share their faith and so willing to pray for their unconverted members of their family and their work.

You know, the women gather together in the open plan office and they open the daily paper and they turn to the horoscope section and they giggle and they laugh and they say, oh

Mary, a tall dark man is going to come into your life today, and they all giggle. But the next day, they read them again because they've got no other teacher.

But then they see one girl and they say, did you have a nice weekend? And she'd say, oh yes,

I was in church on Sunday. We had a wonderful message from a Welshman who was preaching there.

And oh, I was so helped. And you always liked her. And now you ask more and more questions.

Oh, were you in church yesterday? And you don't know that she and her friends are praying for you.

And one day she will say to you, would you like to come along to church on Sunday?

We have a special meeting. We have a baptismal service, something like that. And you went.

And when you went and sat there in the church and listened, you felt you were coming home.

And that was through a good fissure of women who brought you in.

And so, oh, no, we don't want you in the pulpit preaching. God hasn't given you the authority to do that.

But we want you to share your faith with all who in providence he brings into your life.

Amen. Now, there have been people over the years who have sent in questions during a program of mine where we are talking about women's roles in the church.

And there are a minority of Christians who I believe far exceed, like the

Pharisees did, restrictions in the scriptures and prohibitions.

And they would even say that a woman should never write a book because a man, or at least should never write a book where men are invited to read it and learn from it because that would be teaching a man.

And there are even some extremists who don't believe that we should sing the hymns written by women.

I was standing next to a man years ago in a church during a conference.

And when he realized that the hymn we were all singing was written by a woman, he threw the hymnal on the floor.

And also, if a woman is evangelizing, let's say she's on a lunch break and she's evangelizing a lost colleague or a lost neighbor who's a man, and the man starts rattling off things that he thinks are true about the

Bible, and the woman is correcting him. Are any of those violations of a woman's role in evangelizing and teaching in the scriptures?

I agree entirely with you. So you believe that those are all extreme concepts?

Certainly they're extreme. Certainly. Great. Well, I'm glad you agree.

We have to go to our final break right now. It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks in the show.

But since we are rapidly approaching the end of the program, if you have a question, I would strongly urge you to send it in immediately because we will be over before you know it.

So send in the questions to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jeff Thomas after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402 or visit linbrookbaptist .org.

That's linbrookbaptist .org. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. We are now back with our guest for our final segment.

We have Jeff Thomas discussing the very important theme, a central theme of the

New Testament, being becoming fishers of men. And if you have questions, send them to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

And if you could, introduce our audience to the final elements of what you want to say today,

Jeff, in regard to the theme, becoming fishers of men. Jeff Thomas Well, I want to say one more thing, and it's this, that you are to be spirit -dependent

Christians. The Lord says, give no thought to what you shall say.

He wasn't warning against studying or reading or learning, but we shouldn't be tense and anxious about witnessing, and we shouldn't try to have prepared responses to every foreseeable situation, because the situation will come in forms you haven't foreseen, and there are no prepared answers.

But the answer is learning to depend on God. And in moments of crisis, he will give you words to answer.

He will tell you what to say. And that's the great fact.

All around us, there are people who blurt out things that we, in our hearts, are saying, like Nehemiah prayed that he would have the right words to say to the king about the situation in Jerusalem and the need for him to go there and help the people.

So those are the things. Always be ready. Always sure you have your right with God and a good conscience.

Always be those that have put on the girdle of truth, and you know what you believe and why believe it.

Go forth depending on the Spirit of God, and then you witness.

You witness, Peter says, you fish for men with gentleness and respect.

You witness to men with fear, fear that you know

God is holy, and you might get things wrong. And you are not frightened of them, but frightened that you let down your

Saviour by what you say. So Paul preached in fear and weakness and much trembling.

He wasn't afraid of men, but he wanted to present fully and lovingly repentance for the truth and trust in his

Lord Jesus Christ, and with meekness or gentleness. So you can never fish for men feeling that you are in some way naturally superior to them, better than them, more noble than them.

But you believe what John Newton said, There but for the grace of God go

I. So if you are occupying a position of moral superiority in your witness, then you become condescending, and you become paternalistic, and you forget that you are a sinner too, that you deserve nothing, but that God has been good to you, and you are meek.

You consider yourself, when you correct a person who's going astray, you don't think about yourself as being a super Christian, but you think about yourself as an ordinary believer whose only hopes are in the

Lord Jesus Christ. So how we witness? We witness in holy fear, and we witness in a spirit of meekness.

So do you tonight, this afternoon, do you have this hope?

Do you have God? Are your lives going round and round meaninglessly, or are you going somewhere?

The Christian life was called the way, because the

Christian is conscious, he's on his way to glory, he's on his way to see

Jesus Christ. Do you have that hope? Do you have that assurance?

Do you want other people to have that hope? Do you testify repentance towards God and faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ, that that is the foundation of what you want to tell people?

Paul was very anxious that they believed his witness, that they responded to it, that they made a decision.

Here was Christ before the bar of world opinion, and Paul didn't want the jury to be impressed by the world's scholarship, or the world's economists, or politicians, or their theorists.

He wanted them to make up their mind by taking in the man who rose from the dead, the man who preached the

Sermon on the Mount, the man who millions of people have had their lives changed because of him, and he wanted them to believe upon him.

He wanted them to come to this decision. Well now, are you holding it fast?

Are you growing in grace? Are you keeping the standard flying?

Are you, as you go out in the morning, thinking, I wonder what good works has

God prepared for me from before the foundation of the world that he expects me to do today, and he will give me the power to do them?

Do you think like that, whether you are sitting on the bus going to work, or whether you are meeting an old friend and greeting him and explaining to him how your life is going?

Are you people then that are always praying, make me a fisher of men?

I will make you fishers of men if you follow me. Keep following the

Savior and asking him to prepare you more and more for this great holy work.

Amen. We have a question for you from Robert in Westchester County, New York, and Robert asks,

I am fully on board with my Reformed brethren that it is a horror to witness what has been called seeker -sensitive preaching and worship services, where the actual content of a sermon is altered to be more appealing to the lost, or the worship service, including the music, is designed to appeal to the tastes of the lost.

So please don't misunderstand what I am going to say. What I am about to say is that I think that far too often

Christians, all they do is teach and preach, especially to strangers, and they don't bother to get to know individuals, know what their hobbies are, know what their favorite sporting event may be, so that we can be involved in those things with these people to grow in our friendships with them so that they will be more receiving of our message.

As harsh and as hard as the Word of God may be to a sinner, they may be more at least willing to listen if we go fishing with them in a literal sense, and hunting with them, and go to a football or a baseball game.

Am I off base here? That's wonderful. I agree wholeheartedly with you.

I stand very impressed with my wife every week, every

Friday. She gets on a bus and she goes across London and visits an old

German lady there. She takes CDs. She takes chocolates to her.

She sits with her and speaks to her and comes back to me and says, oh,

I didn't speak very well about Jesus Christ today. I don't think she still understands what she must do to be saved, but she loves listening to your sermons, so I'll keep going.

I'll keep witnessing to her. She is a wonderful fisher of men and women, and all you say, my dear friend, is resonant within me of what we should all be thinking of how we can reach out and see the opportunities and seize them, and with our lisping, stammering tongues say a word for our

Savior. He doesn't let a word fall to the ground. Amen.

Well, if you could now just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air.

Right. You know what I've been saying, how the call came with a display of the mighty power of Jesus that he could have omnipotence manifested at the side of the lake in the fish that came into the nets, and then he said,

I'm going to help you. I'm going to make you a fisher of men, and after his long life of fishing, he then tells us how we should always be ready and that we should know the truth and that we should speak with meekness and gentleness and the fear of the

Lord, and that we should then cultivate a relationship with the

Holy Spirit to help us, and that those are the ways in which we will become increasingly better and better fishers of men and women.

There's no other way. That is the way that the Lord has told us in his holy word.

Amen. Amen. I want to thank you so much, Jeff Thomas, for as always being such a wonderful guest.

I want to remind our listeners, if they have any interest in visiting the church where you pastored for 50 years, which is now pastored by your grandson, if they happen to already live in or nearby

Aberystwyth Wells or they're vacationing there or they're there on business or visiting someone, the website for that fine historic church is alfredplacechurch .org.

alfredplacechurch .org. If you want to order any of Jeff Thomas's books, and they are published by a variety of publishers, you can get them all in one place from that wonderful place that actually sponsors this program,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, C -V as in victory, B -B for Bible book,

S for service, cvbbs .com, cvbbs .com,

and you can type in Jeff Thomas in the search engine.

He spells his first name G -E -O -F -F. You might even want to spell his first name

G -E -O -F -F -R -E -Y because of the fact that the titles may be listed under that name.

So please go to cvbbs .com and mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, also another sponsor of ours,

Solid Ground Christian Books. They have books that include

Jeff as an author and also books that Jeff has written endorsements for because he loves them so much.

If you go to solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com, and type in Jeff Thomas in the search engine, those books will come up.

And just remember his first name is G -E -O -F -F. And I also want to remind you folks that while the offer still lasts from our friends at Royal Diadem Jewelers, where they are giving us at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio 100 % of the profits from any sale to an

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener who mentions Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, please,

I urge you to, if you care about the existence of the show and you want to bless yourself with a piece of jewelry or bless someone you love with a piece of jewelry as a gift, whether it be an item that they have in stock already at royaldiadem .com

or something that you're having customized, if you want to have it done before Valentine's Day, I urge you to go to royaldiadem .com

as quickly as possible. Royaldiadem .com. And again, remember to mention that you heard about them from Chris Orenson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Well, I want to thank not only Jeff Thomas, but I want to thank all of our listeners today, especially those who took the time to write.

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.