January 24, 2024 Show with Joe Morecraft on “The Importance of Reading the Old Testament”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
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This is Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 24th day of January 2024.
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I want to start off the program by thanking, again, all of my listeners who have been praying for my health after I had a scare on Saturday night, believing
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I had a stroke. Turns out it was Bell's Palsy, a far less serious situation, but it's still annoying and is still giving me a comparatively minor bit of trouble eating, drinking, and even speaking.
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Thank you so much, Brian, for your continued faithfulness and support and love for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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But today we have a returning guest who is not only one of my very favorite guests to have on the show, but it appears he is also the favorite of a growing number of listeners in my audience.
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I'm speaking of Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and he is also the author of the eight -volume commentary on the
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Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity. Today we're going to be addressing the importance of reading the
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Old Testament and hearing it preached, a warning against the heresy of Andy Stanley, who urged
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Christians to unhitch the Old Testament from the Church. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend,
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Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III. It's always an honor for me, too, Chris. Thanks.
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And I also want to thank you again and your elders at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, for very recently renewing your annual advertising contract with us, which is highly coveted and greatly treasured.
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So, thank you so much. Well, first of all, before we get on to our theme, let our listeners know about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia.
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We are a small but growing congregation in Cumming, Georgia, which is the county seat of Forsyth County, about 40 miles from the heart of Atlanta.
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We were founded about 9 or 10 years ago. We are members of the
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Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery, which is a small denomination, but which is thoroughly dedicated to the original
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Westminster Confession of Faith, to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, and to the carrying out of the
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Great Commission. Our people come from all over the place. We have various backgrounds.
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They come from various cities, various denominations, various races, and we praise the
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Lord for them and their devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have a lot of them listening today.
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Oh, praise God for that. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about this fine church that we love to promote, this fine church located in Cumming, Georgia, Heritage Presbyterian Church, the website is
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HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,
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and that will be repeated at the end of the program,
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God willing. Well, as I've already mentioned, we are going to be addressing the importance of reading the
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Old Testament and hearing it preached. And this is a warning against the heresy of Andy Stanley, who urged
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Christians to unhitch the Old Testament from the church. And I understand that you wanted to start the program by actually covering some issues in the
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New Testament in the Book of Romans. Yes, sir. I have spent a great amount of time asking myself, what happened to the church in America?
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At one time, the church in America was a great church, the most powerful force for good, for the
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Bible, for Christ, for the historic Reformed faith, the most powerful in the whole world.
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And now it is one of the most powerful instruments of evil in the
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United States. That's what happened. And I have come to the conclusion several years ago that what happened is
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Christians quit reading the Old Testament. Preachers quit preaching on it.
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Christians quit studying it. It doesn't have any real important place in Christians' lives today.
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They don't realize that the Old Testament, starting with the books of Moses, that the
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Old Testament is the foundation of everything we have. You have people today who say, well, we're a
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New Testament church. And I tell people, well, I'm sad to hear that because I'm not a
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New Testament Christian. I'm a Bible Christian. I believe we can't understand the
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New Testament. We can't understand the gospel. We can't understand Christian ethics.
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We can't understand what's going on in this world unless we start with a basic understanding of the
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Old Testament. And there is a text that every Christian should memorize that tells us that very thing.
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And if a person has his Bible there, he can turn to Romans chapter 15 and start reading with verse four.
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And I'm going to read about five or six verses. For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the
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Scriptures, we might have hope. Now may the
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God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, that with one accord, you may with one voice glorify the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.
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For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers and for the
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Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy. That has a world of theology in it.
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If we could only get to the point of it. Paul says, here's why you should read the
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Old Testament. Whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction.
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He's talking about the Old Testament, obviously. And he's saying, whatever was written in the
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Old Testament was written for our instruction on this side of the resurrection of Christ.
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And we're ignorant. We don't know what the Old Testament says. We're ignorant of its history.
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We're ignorant of its theology. And largely because preachers don't preach on it anymore.
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And also preachers, like the one you mentioned, deliberately try to wean their people off of the
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Old Testament by saying that Christians are going to be relevant in the 21st century.
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They have to, quote, unhitch themselves from the Old Testament. And can you imagine a preacher saying that in the face of what
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Paul said when he said, for whatever was written, whatever, whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, our instruction to teach us so that if we unhitch ourselves from the
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Old Testament, some of the most important instruction that God gives his people, we're going to miss out on.
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We're going to misinterpret the New Testament. And there are certain great blessings we're going to miss out on.
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What Paul said here, if we study what was written in earlier times, we will receive through that instruction perseverance, encouragement, and hope.
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And we need perseverance. That means endurance. We're going to have to fight a lot of battles.
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And we have to continue to fight the battles even past the point of weariness. We need encouragement.
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Sometimes it's easy to be depressed and to be down in the doldrums and have a defeated spirit.
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And we certainly need hope. Because if we give up on hope in this culture and base what we do on what we see, then we will be of no relevance in the modern world.
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So it says here if we listen to the instruction given to us from the Old Testament, we will find that we will have encouragement, endurance, and hope.
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And if we don't have those things, if we are in the doldrums, if we're already always depressed, if it's easy for us to give up in the midst of the battle, if we're not always encouraged, there's a good reason for it.
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We don't read the Old Testament. And then it also says here that the reason that we get these great blessings from reading the
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Old Testament is because God gives them to us. Here in verse 4, it says that the instruction of the
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Old Testament brings perseverance and encouragement and hope. And then in verse 5, it says that God is the one who gives perseverance and encouragement and the like.
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And so it's God himself that works through the Old Testament, not just man.
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And then there's another important thing here. It says that we get as we study the
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Old Testament, and that is this, that we will not only receive the things that I've mentioned, but we'll be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, that with one accord, you may with one voice glorify the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If there's one thing the church needs today, it's unity and a sense of oneness.
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I mean, it's embarrassing to see how many different denominations there are in the world today.
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It's different. It's embarrassing to witness the non -Christians, and then they ask, what about this or what about that?
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And they'll receive 100, 200 different answers from people who have different doctrines and different viewpoints and different worldviews.
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And why is there such fragmentation in the church today?
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Because the church does not read the Old Testament. You look at those Christians who spend more time in the
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Old Testament and the New Testament, who spend more time in the Old Testament than the average
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Christian, and you'll find the most unity there. That's what I found. That if you want
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Christians that are of one voice, testifying to the same truths, of one mind, in one accord, same doctrine, same worldview, the greatest unity that I can find in the church today is among those people who read and study the
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Old Testament. And there is a very important doctrinal reason why the
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Bible brings these things to us, and it is spelled out in verse 8.
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It says, for I say, now I'm going to change the translation of some of these words because I think there's a clearer way to translate verse 8 into English, so don't try to find this in your
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New American Standard Version. All right, this is a more crap version. Verse 8.
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For I say that Christ has become the administrator of the
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Abrahamic covenant, which sign is circumcision, on behalf of the faithfulness of God that never changes, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and for the
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Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy. So the reason that Old Testament is so powerful in our lives and does things that only
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God can do is because the one that brings all these blessings out to a person that studies and meditates on the
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Old Testament is none other than the mediator of the covenant himself, who represents the faithfulness of God, and whose goal is to accomplish, confirm, put into effect all of the promises of God to His people anywhere in the
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Old Testament. And ultimately, he's working that not just the
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Jews, but also the Gentiles may glorify
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God. And then he quotes about seven or eight verses from the Old Testament, proving
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God's intention is to save the Gentiles and not the
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Jews. Now, what's a Gentile? Well, technically, a Gentile is a non -Jew.
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You have Jews, and you have non -Jews, which are Gentiles. But the way
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I like to translate Gentile is everybody else, that God's at work to save the
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Jews and everybody else, all non -Jews. And he does it as we read and study and give ourselves to the
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Old Testament and the New Testament, the entirety of the Word of God. So verses like this excite me.
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I see churches like our church. There's a deep unity in it.
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There's a deep concern for evangelism in it. In our little church, we spend thousands and thousands of dollars every year to get the gospel all over the world.
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There's a deep unity. There is a deep love for the Old Testament. I just finished a hundred sermons there on the book of Genesis.
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And last Sunday, I started a new series on the book of Exodus. And you can tell the difference in a person's life.
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A person that unhitches himself from the Old Testament is a person that unhitches himself from the
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New Testament because he can't understand the new without the old.
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So if you look in your church and you see things that are weak, you don't see growth.
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You don't see unity. You see discouragement. There is one reason for it. You're not reading the
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Old Testament. Your preacher is not preaching from the Old Testament. And obviously, we have to clarify because there is heresy that even exists in our day and age where people attempt to bind upon the believer today in the new covenant, ceremonial laws, and other things in the old covenant that were bound upon the people of Israel exclusively, but today to do so would be
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Judaizing, especially if you are connecting disobedience to an old covenant ceremonial law as somehow aiding in one's salvation, if you want to comment on that.
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That's exactly right. And you wouldn't know that if you hadn't read the Old Testament. If you don't read the
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Old Testament, you're not going to know. There's laws you're to obey and there's laws that passed off the scene with the tabernacle.
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You're not going to know that. You're just going to believe what people tell you. I did a very important study
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Sunday morning for our people. It was on Moses and Jesus in the New Testament. What the
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Bible says and the relationship of the two. And it's astounding.
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And one of the most dramatic verses is the story Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus.
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The rich man was in hell. Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom.
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And the rich man cries out from hell and says,
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Abraham, I have five brothers that are not saved.
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And I don't want them to perish in this flame. Find somebody that has been raised from the dead.
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That's significant. And send them to my five brothers. And Abraham says a shocking statement.
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He says, they have Moses and the prophets. If they don't listen to them, they'll never listen to the one whom
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God raised from the dead. Amen. So there is an essential unity between Christ and Moses, the
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New Testament Jews. Their problem was not that they believe the
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Old Testament. The problem was they misread the Old Testament and they thought that they could be saved by obeying the law of Moses.
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Which was never true in the Old Testament, which has not been true and never will be true.
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So their problem was not that they were reading and believing the Old Testament. The problem is they were misunderstanding it and misapplying it to the whole thing of salvation.
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Amen. Now, I was thinking about something today. And I preached, like I say, for a hundred sermons on Genesis.
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Now I'm starting on Exodus. After that, probably Leviticus and so on.
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I think another reason that modern Christians did not read the
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Old Testament is they've never been taught how to read it.
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Their preachers have been unfaithful. Their preachers have warned them that there's a great chasm between the
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Old and New Testament, just like there was between the rich man and Lazarus. There's a vast chasm between the two.
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The Old Testament, this confessation, the Old Testament God versus the New Testament and the
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New Testament God. They've discouraged people from reading the
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Old Testament. They don't know its history. They don't. Jesus said, the
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Book of Moses, Psalm, the Book of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms all speak of me.
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Now, those were the three great divisions of the Old Testament and still are.
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The five Book of Moses, the Prophets and the Book of Psalms and other poetic books.
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They wrote of him. So everywhere we go in the Old Testament, we should look for Christ.
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We don't even know what that means. We think it means find the allegories, the secret behind the word meanings about Christ.
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That's not what he meant. Christ in the Old Testament, the angel of the
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Lord that came to all the patriarchs throughout the patriarchal period was the pre -incarnate
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Christ himself. The Bible says in John 1, in the beginning was the word.
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The word was with God and the word was God. And the only way God has ever communicated himself is through the word.
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So what are we supposed to do? We are supposed to understand the scriptures the way the scriptures meant to be understood.
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And so we read them, first of all, to find out what they're about. The Book of Genesis is about God's covenant.
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A covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and on over to Moses, and on over to David.
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And then when we come to the New Testament, we find that these covenants were not annulled or done away with in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, but that they were all unified and fulfilled in him.
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And now we have the privilege of believing the promises, being afraid because of the threat, and gladly out of faith in Christ, obeying those laws other than the ceremonial rituals.
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I recommended one time to a young architect. I just led him to Christ.
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He'd never read the Old Testament before. He was highly intelligent, well -educated.
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And I told him much of what I'm saying now, that he's got to get into the
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Word of God, but you're not going to understand the New Testament unless you understand the Old Testament. And you've got a long time to catch up.
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You better be in a hurry to start understanding the Old Testament. So here's what
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I want you to do. I want you to take that book that you gave your little children, written by Catherine Voss, on a
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Bible storybook. And I want you to sit down. I want you to read the whole thing backwards and forwards.
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I want you to get a good view, not just a glimpse, but I want you to get a good, solid understanding of what's going on in the
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Old Testament. And that's the quickest way I know. Now, a lot of these Bible study books aren't any good, but Catherine Voss, who was the daughter of Johannes Voss, the grandson of Gerhardus Voss, of great reform fame.
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Catherine Voss of the U .S. wrote, I think, the best Bible storybook for children.
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And you don't have to tell people you're reading a Bible storybook. But if you want the fastest way to get a good, solid view of the
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Old Testament, I'm talking to mature men or women, whoever, read that book.
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And then as you read it, go back and try to understand what each book is about. I wrote,
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I preached a series of sermons and then wrote on them. You can get this,
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I think, maybe even free at comprehensivechristianity .com.
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It's called something like, Going Through the Bible in a Year. And I preach,
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I write a survey of what each of the books of the
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Old Testament teach. Their background, their emphases, to whom they're written.
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And I write a basic introduction to each of these books. And then
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I preach one sermon on each book of the Old Testament. That's all about Gildee.
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It's just preaching one sermon. So after you've read Catherine Voss, go to sermonaudio .com,
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maybe, if you want to hear him preach, or Comprehensive Christianity and get that, it's about a seven or eight volume set of paperback books or on Kindle.
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Explaining each book of the Old Testament, how it relates to Christ, how it relates to all the books before and after it.
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And then I preach on the main text of the book. There's no shortcuts.
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I wish I could offer you, after saying what I said about the church is weak because we haven't read the
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Old Testament. I don't want to leave the impression that all you have to do now is take a pill and you'll have the knowledge and understanding.
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There are no shortcuts. This is going to take time. It's going to take effort.
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It is going to take prayer and diligence, but you will never regret it, and your children will never regret it.
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Amen. And we have to go to our first commercial break right now. If you have a question for Dr.
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Joe Moorcraft, please submit it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
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As always, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Please only remain anonymous if you are asking a personal and private question.
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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Joe Moorcraft after these messages. I'm Dr.
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Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the
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Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Moorcraft.
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It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.
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Dr. Moorcraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.
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For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.
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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,
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heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Moorcraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.
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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.
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soon because we have no idea when they're going to pull the plug on this offer where we receive 100 % of the profits from the sale.
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royaldiadem .com, mention Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And we are now back with my guest,
39:05
Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia.
39:11
We are discussing the importance of reading and hearing the
39:17
Old Testament preached. If you have a question, our email address is chrisarendsen at gmail .com.
39:24
chrisarendsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.
39:30
And by the way, Dr. Moorcraft, I don't want to get too far off the main subject, but I've never heard anyone say this other than myself, and I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back.
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But do you see as I do in that text that you cited earlier from Luke 16, 19 through 31, where you have the rich man in hell and he is crying out to Abraham, I beg you,
40:02
Father, that you send him, meaning the raised Lazarus, to my father's house where I have five brothers in order that he may warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
40:20
But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. But he said,
40:25
No, Father Abraham. But if somebody goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
40:32
But he said to them, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.
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I'm the only one that I am aware of who has gleaned from that, among other things, a very powerful added support to the doctrine of total depravity.
40:56
And it really militates against the Arminian or the non -reformed person's understanding of the will.
41:03
Because why wouldn't somebody rising from the dead persuade someone if an
41:09
Arminian's understanding of the will is correct? Very good. I mean, that story that Jesus told corrects so many things that we believe in the modern church today.
41:23
That it's only Christ who can give the faith to believe in Moses. It's only
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Christ and the Spirit that can give faith to believe in one who's raised from the dead.
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And we have such a truncated gospel today. And we have our preachers a lot to thank for that.
41:42
An old man told me one time, and of course our seminaries, our seminaries today are shot.
41:49
And I had an old country man one time tell me, he said, Joe, you can't get the mud out of the stream until you get the hogs out of the spring.
42:01
And we got to change these seminary professors. And he is exactly right.
42:08
There's very few professors and they don't teach these young guys how to preach. They themselves, if you could look at all of the new heresies for conservative reform churches.
42:24
Now you got heresies in liberal churches, but there's a whole group of new heresies over the past couple years that's aimed at conservative reform
42:37
Baptists, conservative reform Presbyterians try to change us. And every one of those heresies have at their heart discrediting for one reason or another, the
42:52
Old Testament and Old Testament covenant, the
42:57
Old Testament law. They try to drive a wedge between the
43:04
Old and New Testament by saying that the Old Testament is in another dispensation.
43:11
It's written to another group of people. It presents another gospel.
43:21
And we, for instance, the covenant of Moses, the covenant of Moses is just a restatement of the covenant of works to Adam.
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God told Adam, you obey me and you'll be saved.
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And so these conservative celebrity Calvinists say that's basically what
43:49
Moses is saying. Obey my law and you'll be saved. But that's not what he's saying.
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Let me give you a quick outline of the three main points of the Mosaic covenant, which is also the main point of the book of Exodus.
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The first 18 verses of the chapters of the book of Exodus are about redemption.
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The redemption of God's people from Egypt. The celebration of that redemption in Passover.
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Redemption is deliverance from sin and death. And the bringing of those redeemed people into new relationship with God.
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The second section of Exodus is chapter 19 through 24.
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And it has to do with sanctification. And now that Israel is a redeemed nation, here is how she should live.
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So there's the Ten Commandments and the practical applications of the
45:02
Ten Commandments. And I like to ask people this simple question.
45:08
Which came first? The crossing of the Red Sea or the giving of the law on Mount Sinai?
45:16
Obviously, the crossing of the Red Sea came before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai because the law was given to a redeemed people.
45:24
Not to redeem them, but to one that's already been redeemed. If the law of God was given before the crossing of the
45:35
Red Sea in the Exodus, that would mean we have to be saved by law and meet the qualifications of law before we can be redeemed.
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But the Red Sea, praise God, and the crossing of the Red Sea and the redemption of Israel out of Egypt came before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.
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And then the third section of the book of Exodus from chapter 25 through chapter 40 is on reconciliation.
46:11
It's on the building of the tabernacle. So the first third is on redemption.
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The second third is on sanctification. The third section is on reconciliation.
46:25
Where in that picture do you find legalism? When somebody says the book of Exodus is just about law, that tells me they have not read the
46:35
Old Testament. They've not read the book of Exodus. That the book of Moses is centered on Christ is simply the outgrowth and development of the covenant theme of the book of Genesis.
46:50
I like to point out to my people that the first word in the book of Exodus is not what the
47:01
English versions say it is. The first word in the
47:06
Hebrew Exodus is and,
47:14
A -N -D, W -A -W in Hebrew. So you have the book of Genesis, the story of the covenant of grace, and then it ends in a grave.
47:30
And everybody says, well, that's so discouraging. Yes, until you realize that was a grave of a king who was going to be buried in the promised land.
47:40
And so you have the fulfillment of the promise of the covenant of Abraham as the way that Genesis ends.
47:48
And then the way Exodus begins is and, furthermore, we develop and advance that great theme in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
48:00
So people who say that the Old Testament is concerned with laws and the
48:08
New Testament is concerned with grace don't know what they're talking about, number one.
48:14
But it shows their ignorance. And I wouldn't say that to too many people because it's proof that you haven't read the
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Old Testament. And so when they say that there's a dichotomy, that the
48:28
Old Testament is to a different group on a different theme than the
48:34
New Testament, and the New Testament is an entirely different covenant, entirely different than any covenant in the
48:45
Old Testament, they're simply saying what they were taught to say by some preacher who had a dispensational view of the
48:55
Old Testament. Amen. And we do have a listener who
49:02
I will give his full name, unlike what I usually do. Matthew Ware has been a guest on this program.
49:12
And he is also the Director of Child Evangelism for Child Evangelism Fellowship of Redding and Berks County, Pennsylvania.
49:27
And he is also a speaker for a group that invited you, Dr. Moorcraft, to speak at one of their conferences.
49:35
They're known as MARS, M -A -R -S, the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society. Well, in fact, back in the 1960s,
49:45
I used to go to this ghetto in Bristol, Tennessee, and work for Child Evangelism for two years.
49:52
Oh, wow. Well, Matthew Ware asked this question, and I just had it in front of me, and I got to look for it.
50:03
Let's see here, Matthew Ware's question. Given the current ignorance of the
50:08
Old Testament that is in much of the evangelical church today, would you recommend that pastors prioritize preaching through the
50:17
Old Testament books over the New Testament books? Well, they are the same message, but Jesus is more glorious than Moses.
50:30
But they both preach the same gospel. So that is a hard question to ask.
50:35
I don't know the nature of His congregation. I pick texts
50:42
I'm going to preach on because I see certain needs in my congregation that need to be met.
50:51
So that is a difficult question to ask, answer. But I'll make this point.
50:59
And that is, more than likely, evangelical and reformed preachers spend more time preaching out of the
51:08
New Testament than the Old. And therefore, for a while anyway,
51:17
I would spend more time preaching on the Old Testament because the more your people understand the
51:23
Old Testament, the more they're going to understand and love the New Testament.
51:29
And like I said a while ago, when you unhitch yourself from the
51:35
Old Testament, you're unhitching yourself from the
51:41
New Testament as well. Well, thank you, Matthew. I think this may be,
51:46
I may be mistaken, but this may be your first question that you've submitted to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
51:52
And if so, please make sure I have your full mailing address because you have just won a free
51:57
New American Standard Bible. So please email that to us right away so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,
52:08
can ship out to you that free Bible. And we want to thank nasbible .com, the publishers of the
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New American Standard Bible, for providing an unlimited supply of free
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NASBs to give away to first -time questioners. I also want to plug
52:25
Child Evangelism Fellowship of Reading in Berks County by giving their website, cefberks, and that's b -e -r -k -s .com,
52:37
cefberks .com, and also the website for the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society is midatlanticreformation .org,
52:44
midatlanticreformation .org. We're going to our midway break right now, folks. Please be patient. It's longer than the other breaks.
52:52
Please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can provided by as many of our advertisers as you possibly can so that you can more frequently and successfully contact our advertisers, keeping in mind that they are a primary reason, under the grace of God, of course, that we exist as a radio program.
53:16
So please make sure that you are letting our advertisers know how much you appreciate them spending money in order to keep
53:26
Iron Trip and Zion Radio on the air. Even if you can't spend money in responding to our advertisers, you can't buy their products or use their services, please at least contact them and thank them for sponsoring
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Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and also send in your questions to Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III on the
53:44
Old Testament and its importance to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com
53:51
gives the first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back, don't go away. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.
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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,
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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.
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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.
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Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
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Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.
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Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the
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Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great
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Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the
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Reformers, Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.
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Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity. For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit
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HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, that's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,
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or call 678 -954 -7831, that's 678 -954 -7831.
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If you visit, have them Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener, and a toy in County Kildare, Ireland, send you.
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Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.
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Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.
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and please always mention that you heard about them from Chris Ornson of Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio Before I return to my guest,
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Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III and our discussion on the importance of reading the
01:09:02
Old Testament and hearing it preached we have some important announcements to make
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If you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful doctrinally solid, theologically sound church like Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia I have extensive lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe and I have helped many people in our audience all over the world find churches even sometimes within minutes from where they live and I may be able to help you find a church too if you just submit to me your request
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That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III on the issue of the importance of reading the
01:12:03
Old Testament and hearing it preached ChrisOrenson at gmail .com Give us your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence
01:12:11
Let's see here We have a question from Cindy in Findley, Ohio and she says
01:12:21
Good afternoon, Pastor Moorcraft and Chris First let me say, Pastor Moorcraft You are in my top two of favorite guests on Chris' show
01:12:31
It's always a pleasure to tune in and especially to hear you I have recently acquired many
01:12:38
Facebook friends who are Hebrew roots or Torah observant This is a genre of quote, quote,
01:12:48
Christianity This genre of Christianity is very diverse as they do not have a central hub so to speak and so their thinking and understanding can vary
01:13:00
However, from my understanding it is increasing in popularity There are so many nuances to explore but one thing
01:13:08
I would like to focus on is this I appreciate the zeal of these people to learn and embrace the history and origins of Christianity I know they are devout
01:13:22
Christians who like to participate in some of the festivals and such not as a means of obtaining or maintaining righteousness but just to have a better Christian understanding of the
01:13:34
Judeo -Christian faith One main focus when I'm speaking to these people is to emphasize the keeping of the law does not bring righteousness
01:13:43
I have heard it said by some Hebrew scholars who defend Christianity against Torahism that to observe
01:13:52
Old Testament Sabbaths or festivals is permitted but not required It is obviously not required but could you also speak on the permitted part and I'll pick up the rest of her questions after that because she's got a really long list here
01:14:10
Well that's a good question and I have found the Christian churches that hold the view
01:14:16
I do not practice even just as illustration any of the ceremonial rituals of the
01:14:24
Old Testament neither Passover nor any of them for various reasons but the main reason is
01:14:34
I don't want to leave the impression that well let's put it this way
01:14:41
Paul says that the ceremonial rituals like Passover and the others in the
01:14:51
Old Testament are shadows and we have the substance in Jesus so I don't need
01:15:02
Passover anymore the way I get our people to understand Christ in Passover is
01:15:07
I preach on it I don't use it as an illustration
01:15:14
I don't think we're supposed to do it in worship whether it's an illustration or what but I think we must focus on the point that even though there's no dichotomy and there's no wedge between the
01:15:29
Old Testament and the New Testament and between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant the
01:15:34
New Covenant in Christ is infinitely more glorious 2
01:15:39
Corinthians chapter 3 infinitely more glorious so I don't want to go back to anything
01:15:46
I don't want to get our people to want to go back to see the old rituals of the
01:15:51
Old Testament we can read about them we can preach about them we can study them but I don't want anything to minimize or to lessen the greater glory of the
01:16:07
New Covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ now that is not to say that there's nothing in the
01:16:18
Old Testament that we should be practicing today there is all kinds of things when
01:16:25
God gives a law a moral law to his people that moral law is to be obeyed until God says it no longer needs to be obeyed and so we have the
01:16:37
Ten Commandments we've got all the practical applications of the
01:16:43
Ten Commandments in the case laws of the Old Testament all of those are to be practiced all of those are to be obeyed the ceremonial rituals the underlying principle in all of those rituals is still true we don't need the rituals anymore but the principles are still true we still need a priest to get us to God we still need a sacrifice in order to have our sins forgiven so those basic gospel principles illustrated in the ceremonial laws of the
01:17:26
Old Testament are still applicable even though the ceremonial rituals themselves are shadows of the greater glory of Christ now what most
01:17:39
Christians don't realize today is I was talking to a man
01:17:47
I ran for Congress several years ago and the liberals and the socialists oh they didn't like me at all really?
01:17:56
yeah right and they said you're a legalist you're a
01:18:03
Christian and you're a legalist you believe in the laws of God the Bible and all those things I said now wait a minute I only have three to six hundred laws and I'm not going to make any new ones and they're all in the
01:18:19
Bible huh but you socialists in the federal in the book that illustrates all of the things coming out of the executive office you have thousands of new laws every year right in the congressional record which is what all the laws that comes out of Congress every year you have thousands of more and every year you have thousands and thousands boy
01:18:51
I only got three or six hundred who's the legalist? that's right I'm not going to make any more
01:18:57
I don't want any more but you're going to enslave us with your laws all the time and that's why we've got to point to these ignorant socialists and liberals and ignorant
01:19:08
Christians we're not the legalists right they say well it's terrible to force people to obey your laws
01:19:17
I do not have any laws to obey it is God's law contained in Holy Scripture that we and all human institutions are to obey
01:19:29
Amen and when we do that when we limit ourselves to laws based upon the law of God we have far more freedom than somebody who has to obey thousands of new laws every year
01:19:49
I was one funny story there was a professor of a major fundamentalist seminary who was in a public debate with a friend of mine and the issue was are
01:20:10
Christians obligated to obey the various case laws of the
01:20:17
Old Testament other than the Ten Commandments and the professor of the seminary said a
01:20:26
Christian today is not obligated to obey any of the laws of the
01:20:34
Old Testament my friend stood up and said I'm going to make the point that my opponent does not believe what he says since he's a
01:20:48
Christian he said that the Christians are not obligated to obey the laws of the
01:20:54
Old Testament I don't believe he believes what he says well the seminary professor said to him
01:21:01
I don't know what you mean and so my friend said well there are several laws that are from the
01:21:09
Old Testament that are repeated in the New Testament are you saying we're not supposed to obey those laws from the
01:21:18
Old Testament that are repeated in the New Testament so the professor cleared his throat said well let me clarify my position
01:21:28
I don't believe that Christians are obligated to obey any laws of the
01:21:34
Old Testament unless they are repeated in the New Testament my friend said to him in front of his audience
01:21:42
I still don't believe that you believe the point you're trying to make well now that frustrated him and so the professor said
01:21:53
Mr. so and so I'm trying to get to agree with you and I have changed now to the point that Christians do not have to obey the laws of the
01:22:04
Old Testament unless they are repeated in the New Testament and my friend said we don't believe that and the professor said what do you mean he said well there is a law in the
01:22:20
Old Testament that forbids bestiality that forbids having sexual relationship with animals but that law is not repeated in the
01:22:33
New Testament so are you telling me that it would be okay for your pastor to copulate with a goat he said that's what
01:22:48
I'm saying why are you kidding me so when they get to that point you see where that weaker view of the
01:22:58
Old Testament gets you right it gets you to perversion immorality irrationality and death yeah that shows to me that that man may have been when he was backed in the corner just didn't want to admit he was wrong that's exactly right exactly right and in fact there was a
01:23:20
Christian who wrote a book trying to support that professor's idea to some extent and he actually included in the book that if it is not the law of the land to make incest illegal if it's not against the law where you live to marry your sister a
01:23:54
Christian can in good conscience marry his sister that's where he wound up with his theology isn't that pathetic oh yeah
01:24:03
I mean once you start saying that the world laughs at us yeah
01:24:09
I mean the world really laughs at us and that's why I say that if we unhitch ourselves from the
01:24:15
Old Testament we're unhitching ourselves from Christianity and from the
01:24:21
New Testament the ceremonial laws we don't obey them anymore because we got the real thing in Christ but the principles they illustrate are still in effect you have to have a priest a mediator between yourself and God you have to have a substitutionary sacrifice to have your sins forgiven but those were just illustrations and shadows of the real thing in the
01:24:56
Lord Jesus Christ Amen I want to emphasize one other thing too
01:25:02
I don't want to skip over this my church is made up of all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds all kinds of denominations
01:25:17
I've never seen a congregation more united in the truth I have never seen a congregation where there is greater oneness of accord and where the voice of confessing the faith is more unified
01:25:40
I've been to many churches of my life but I have the churches that have been the more unified that have been accepting of people even though they do come from different backgrounds those churches that are more unified and more accepting of people are those churches that read the
01:26:12
Old Testament those churches that have a more unified view of the faith a broader and deeper understanding of the faith and a greater oneness with each other are those churches that love to hear the
01:26:34
Old Testament preached as well as the New I mean that's a very important thing to emphasize by the way you can finish your thought but I just wanted to have you ask
01:26:47
I wanted you to clarify as far as Cindy from Findley Ohio's question have you ever experienced an encounter with people from these groups known as Hebrew Roots or Torah Observance I've never come in contact with people that use those labels but I have met a lot of people who hold similar views because of the dispensationalism of their preachers
01:27:35
I have yet to have one person answer that question do you have any suggestions as to how
01:27:42
I can better respond I have numerous scriptures that I quote to them rather than just my opinion and it just boils down to the fact that they do not understand the connection between the
01:27:53
Old and the New they say they want to follow Jesus so they do what Jesus did
01:27:59
I usually respond Jesus had not died and resurrected yet and quote
01:28:04
John 6, 29 where Jesus said this is the work which God requires that you believe on him who he has sent very good that is true and I've found that a lot of these people who talk about their
01:28:22
Hebrew Roots or of completed Jews that they don't have any idea what the
01:28:32
Old Testament taught and what they believe is not what the Old Testament teaches when I lived in another county near where I lived was an allegedly
01:28:45
Christian synagogue called the House of Halil and they had a lot of people go several hundred people
01:28:55
Messianic Jews so to speak went and the services were a couple hours long there was very little similarity between the content of the preaching in this church and the content of the preaching in the
01:29:14
Old Testament because they don't know what the
01:29:19
Old Testament believes these completed Jewish synagogues are dispensational they are anti -law they misunderstand the law they have a lawless gospel and after two hours the culminating event in the worship service is everybody stands up and salutes the
01:29:49
Israeli flag I think that is not only blasphemous
01:29:58
I believe it is treasonous there is very little relationship between modern
01:30:09
Judaism and the Old Testament one time I was at a seminar put on by the
01:30:15
ACLU and whenever the ACLU needed some extreme right wing
01:30:22
Christian they'd always ask me to go and I would always go and I was usually the only conservative
01:30:31
Christian there and they would mock me and all that stuff but that was okay so in the midst of one discussion a
01:30:42
Jewish Rabbi stands up and says a few words and so I say to him
01:30:50
I say Rabbi so and so it's encouraging to see you here because even though you're
01:30:59
Jewish and I'm Christian we should have more in common than anybody in this room because I believe the
01:31:11
Torah of Yahweh is essential to public justice and this
01:31:18
Rabbi's face flushed red and with this distinctive and angry
01:31:24
Yiddish accent he said you have misunderstood
01:31:29
Judaism Judaism is not a religion of the
01:31:34
Torah it is a religion of the Rabbis and then
01:31:40
I said sir well we have nothing in common you're a humanist and I'm not so people today should understand that there's very little relationship between modern
01:31:54
Judaism and the Old Testament yes in fact I don't know if you've read it but Baruch Maoz who
01:32:00
I've had on this program he is a native Israeli Reformed Baptist and he wrote a book
01:32:08
I really much prefer his original title it was called Judaism is not
01:32:13
Jewish and he was bringing up the very things that you were talking about today it's called Come Let Us Reason Together a
01:32:21
Friendly Critique of the Messianic Movement but I much prefer Judaism is not
01:32:26
Jewish but you could get that I would prefer that too because it is misleading and you can get that at solid -grandishbooks .com
01:32:36
solid -grandishbooks .com and ask for Come Let Us Reason Together by Baruch Maoz B -A -R -U -C -H
01:32:46
M as in Michael A -O -Z and thank you
01:32:52
Cynthia we really have to move on I know that you still had more you wanted to ask about but it was much too long for this program let's see here we have
01:33:05
I believe a first time listener his name is
01:33:10
Brandon and he lives in New Ringgold that's here in Pennsylvania he lives in Ringgold Georgia I don't know how close that is to you well it's long it's about two and a half hours for me but he's a member of my church well thanks for joining us today
01:33:31
Brandon and Brandon says in the Older Testament was there parity between those who were natural born
01:33:39
Israelites and those who were grafted in or were non -ethnic peoples which were grafted in reckoned as a separate category that is a good question too but I'll answer it this way and I'm going to answer it even more
01:33:56
Sunday morning in the sermon in Exodus you know one of the important things about the first chapter of Genesis is that Exodus is a fulfillment of the great promise to Abraham that there would be this awesome fertility among the
01:34:17
Jews that their number would grow greater than the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore and so when the
01:34:28
Hebrews came to Egypt they came with seventy some people when they left in the
01:34:36
Exodus they left with three million people now where did all those people come from well the
01:34:45
Hebrew people themselves were very fertile but when it says that Abraham had seventy people with him it doesn't count all of the slaves and workmen that were employed by him which was some three or four hundred more and they were very fertile but also it included convergent
01:35:11
Egyptians that these Hebrews converted Egyptians to Christ and so they let's put it this way the covenant people were not ethnically pure that is the word
01:35:31
Israel is not a racial name it is a religious name and so as time went on other peoples like the
01:35:47
Gibeonites other people joined with the Hebrews and became one and there was no second stage
01:35:58
Hebrews they were all one in Christ because Israel is not the name of a political unit it is the name of a people religiously connected by covenant
01:36:19
Amen so that is a very good question in fact
01:36:25
Abraham was a Gentile that's exactly right he was not a
01:36:31
Hebrew and he is the father of the Jews yes sir he is well we have to go to our final break if you have a question that you would like to ask as well send it pretty quickly because we are running out of time to chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:36:46
chrisarnson at gmail .com city and state and country of residence we will be right back don't go away
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Welcome back, and I want to remind our listeners of a couple of things. You've been hearing the ads for the
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and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. And Dr. Joel Moorecraft, before we go on to any more listener questions,
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I really want you to get at the heart of what you want our listeners to most remember about this topic today, and then we can proceed and take as many listener questions as we have time for.
01:50:52
I want preachers to preach all the
01:50:58
Bible and only the Bible. I want them to understand that the promise of reformation took place when these great preachers of the gospel preached the entirety of the scriptures.
01:51:12
I pray that the members of the churches that are listening will love the
01:51:17
Old Testament. The more they love the Old Testament, the more they'll love Christ. I wrote two little books.
01:51:24
I'm not the greatest writer in the world, but I try to put the fodder where the cattle can reach it. And one of the books is called
01:51:32
How to Study the Bible Biblically, and it is written for the average
01:51:40
Christian to teach them how to understand the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament law, prophecy, everything.
01:51:49
And it is only about 50, 60 pages long, and you can get it for paperback or for Kindle from comprehensivechristianity .com,
01:52:03
I think. And then I have about 25 lectures for preachers called
01:52:12
The Reconstruction of Preaching, because I believe that's the secret, the spearhead of the change of America is the preaching of the
01:52:22
Word of God. And I think our biggest fault and our biggest failure is that preachers don't know how to preach the
01:52:30
Word of God. So, I gave these 25 lectures at a conference from a seminary that no longer exists, and I think you could get
01:52:44
The Reconstruction of Preaching. I know you can get it from sermonaudio .com in audio tape, and you ought to be able to get it also from comprehensivechristianity .com.
01:52:59
Great, and we also have Jerome in Hollis, Queens, New York, and Jerome says,
01:53:08
What do you think of people who carry around a New Testament alone, the miniature versions of the
01:53:17
Bible, and sometimes it will be the New Testament and the Psalms? Well, Francis Nigel Lee was one of the greatest scholars of the late 20th century.
01:53:28
He was a South African, and he said this that has some hyperbole in it.
01:53:35
He said the New Testament is a short commentary on the real Bible, and so I think that those who carry around New Testaments are depriving themselves of the people they want to listen to with the whole
01:53:53
Bible. You can't understand the New Testament without the Old. Now, do you think it's wrong, though, for someone who has just as much appreciation of the importance of the
01:54:07
Old Testament as you do, but on occasion, just because they can fit it in their pocket, they walk around perhaps into a hospital or wherever, and they not only may read something from this miniature
01:54:21
Bible at someone's bedside, they may give it away. They may give many copies away.
01:54:27
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If they can only give out the Gospel of John, I'm for giving out the
01:54:36
Gospel of John, if that's all they can do. Amen. And let's see here.
01:54:43
We have Phillip, who is located in Aqua Bog, Long Island, New York, and Phillip says,
01:54:53
Do you think that a part of the reason why many Christian pastors, evangelists, and ordinary members of churches stay away from the
01:55:04
Old Testament as far and as often as possible is because they are embarrassed by some of the harder -to -understand things that took place there, including
01:55:17
Israelites wiping out whole tribes and peoples? Go ahead.
01:55:25
I think that is true. There's no reason to be embarrassed, since it is the Word of God, but I think that is true.
01:55:33
But just bear in mind that God does not do anything wrong or unjust or unkind.
01:55:41
Everybody that He destroys deserves it. Nobody that He saves deserves it.
01:55:49
So, I think that's a very good observation. But we can't be embarrassed at anything the
01:55:56
Word of God says, because we're putting ourselves and our standards above those of the living
01:56:02
God. And I think we should conclude with you bringing laser focus upon those things you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.
01:56:17
Well, the focus—one time I preached to a bunch of preachers, press -stream preachers.
01:56:25
It was the last time I was ever in that denomination, and the room was full of press -stream preachers.
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And I asked them, and I said, how many of you all know the verse that says,
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I determine to know nothing among you but Christ crucified?
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And they all raised their hands and said they knew that verse. And then
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I said to their embarrassment, there is no such verse in the Bible. There is no verse in the
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Bible that says, I determine to know nothing among you but Christ crucified.
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The verse says, I determine to know nothing among you but Christ, comma, and Him crucified.
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As important and as central as the crucifixion of Jesus is, the central focus of Scripture is not the work of Christ.
01:57:30
It is the person of Christ, of the divine human person of Christ.
01:57:38
We don't have any crosses in our church, and so we had a minister that says, why don't you have a cross in your church?
01:57:46
And we said, because we're not cross -centered. We're Christ -centered. But the focus of our preaching and our teaching and the focus of Scripture is the living, reigning, glorious person of the
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God -man, Jesus Christ. And that's, I think, where we need the church to have a better understanding of the gospel.
01:58:14
Amen. Well, let me make sure our listeners have your websites. First of all, if you live in or near Cumming, Georgia, or you're passing through, or you have family, friends, and loved ones in or near Cumming, Georgia, and you want to recommend a great church, the website for Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia is heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,
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heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. And also, if you want to order or investigate the eight -volume commentary that has been written by Dr.
01:58:48
Joseph C. Moorcraft on the Westminster Larger Catechism, you can go to westminstercommentary .com,
01:58:59
westminstercommentary .com. And the last website that has all the information you need for Dr.
01:59:07
Moorcraft's ministry and writing is comprehensivechristianity .com,
01:59:13
comprehensivechristianity .com. Dr. Moorcraft, once again, please extend to your elders and your congregation my deepest heartfelt thanks for your belief in this ministry and so much belief that you share a great portion of your monies with which
01:59:33
God has blessed you with Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Where should we add more? Well, you are very generous as it is, and it is not according to the size of your congregation,
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I can say that. And I thank God for you. I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater