October 13, 2016 Show with Geoff McIlrath on “Why Jesus? The Continuing Relevance of Jesus in the 21st Century” PLUS Michael Gaydosh

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on 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 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

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

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 13th day of October 2016 and today we have as our guest for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Jeff Mickelroth and he is founder of Castle Ray Fellowship in Belfast, Northern Ireland and we're going to be discussing his book,

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Why Jesus? The Continuing Relevance of Jesus in the 21st Century and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Jeff Mickelroth.

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Hi Chris, thanks so much for having me on your show, I'm delighted to be with you. Well it's very much my pleasure and I'm sure will be the pleasure and privilege of our listeners today and I hope that I pronounced your name correctly.

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It's Mackelroth. Mackelroth, okay, I will remember that hopefully throughout the program but I did pronounce

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Castle Ray correctly, correct? You got that right and Mackelroth apparently means son of wrath.

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Wow. I think that relates to my past, not my present. Okay great and by the way

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I want to thank Murray in Kinross, Scotland who just confirmed that our broadcast is loud and clear in the

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UK today. One of our listeners or one of our faithful listeners in the UK, Murray in Kinross, Scotland who's actually a

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British transplant to Scotland and we were somewhat concerned that some technical difficulties were going to raise their ugly heads today during the broadcast because yesterday we unfortunately had to postpone our interview due to technical issues but thank you

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Murray in Kinross, Scotland and I hope that these technical difficulties remain absent for our interview.

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Well before I even go into your book, Why Jesus? The Continuing Relevance of Jesus in the 21st

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Century, published by Christian Focus, I want to hear something about your own personal background, your upbringing, the religious atmosphere of your home if any, and how the

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Lord drew you to himself and saved you. Yeah, well

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I'm 51 years of age now and I was brought up, if you know anything and I know you do

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Chris, but if you know about Northern Ireland and the decades of the

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Troubles, I was very much brought up in that as part of that generation.

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In fact my father was a serving police officer in the

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Royal Ulster Constabulary. Yes and so was my former guest that I just mentioned earlier,

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Philip DeCoursey, when I mentioned him to you off the air earlier, he was a constable.

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Yes, that's right, I knew that as well. Well my father was a serving police officer so we grew up, one brother one sister, we grew up very much shaped by security was an issue and it was just a difficult time in Northern Ireland and it did colour life in that way but my upbringing was what

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I would say was very typical on the Protestant side of the community.

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I was, as a child, brought along to church. I was, you know, encouraged on a

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Sunday afternoon, much against my will, to go out to Sunday school and, you know, in those years and I, to be honest,

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I despised it. I found it thoroughly boring and, you know,

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I cannot remember anything really of significance that I learned from the

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Bible that I can't really go back to that time and say that it was something that shaped me and, to be honest,

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I became a Christian when I had just turned 15 years of age and it was absolutely out of the blue.

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I know that many people, when they're explaining their journey and coming to faith in Christ, they can see a sort of a progression, an evolution of things happening in their lives.

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My story was that I conspired with some friends in my school at 15 years of age to plan a holiday to Paris in the summer and the responsible person who planned the trip was actually only 17 years of age and somehow,

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I still can't understand it, but my parents consented and allowed me to go with about 13 friends to Paris for two and a half weeks and I can tell you that my agenda as a 15 year old boy was absolutely nothing to do with finding

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God. In fact, I was determined to pack in as much sin as I would now call it as I possibly could and when

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I was away, the person, the 17 year old guy who organized the trip,

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I found out was a Christian and he, in the course of that two and a half week period, he started to talk to me about the

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Bible. He explained the gospel, which I honestly don't think I had really heard explained to me in my life up to that point and it blew me away.

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I just was captivated by this message of the love of God and Jesus Christ and I can remember vividly saying to the guy, look, this is wonderful.

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I want to respond to this message and he said to me in front of two or three of my friends, he said, look

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Jeff, if you sense God calling you now, you need to call upon Jesus Christ and I said,

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I looked at him and I looked at my friends and I said, look, I'm embarrassed. I want to go somewhere by myself and do that.

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So I made my way to the bathroom in that hotel in Paris and at 15 years of age,

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I committed myself to Christ, having probably heard the gospel for the first time meaningfully.

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Wow. And that was, yeah, I mean, I try to encourage people.

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Sometimes, you know, they say, oh, I'm not going to, I find it so difficult to speak to, you know, so -and -so.

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They seem so far away from God. You know, they don't seem interested at all. I did not have any thought of God in my head at all and in the space of two or three days,

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I was completely turned around. So that's how I came to Christ and I would love to say,

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I would love to be able to say that from that point forward, you know, I came home from Paris and I, no,

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I came home from Paris and I went along with the guy who had pointed me to Christ.

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I went along to his church and it was very different to anything that I had experienced and, you know, it really disturbed me.

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And I came home and I panicked and I thought, have I, what have

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I got myself into here? And for two years, I, you know, I just went back to my friends, my circle of friends, the things

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I was doing. In fact, honesty would demand that I say I actually got worse in the way

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I was living. And then a couple of years later, a young girl who was in my class at school, who is now my wife, um, she spoke to me and she challenged me, uh, in the way that I was living.

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And I did something that is the most radical thing that anyone can ever do.

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I took the Bible in my hand and I started to read it seriously. And, you know,

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I had an appetite and the more I read, the more, uh,

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I grew in confidence and everything changed because, uh,

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I started to read the Bible for myself to study it, to talk to others about it.

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And well, that was, I was 17, 17 and a half at that stage. And from then on, you know, that, uh, well,

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I believe I've kept heading in the direction that the Lord, the Lord would have me by his grace.

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So that's a little bit about conversion and the immediate aftermath there, Chris. Well, praise

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God. Uh, by the way, in case some of our listeners were unfamiliar with the term, the troubles, the time of the troubles in regard to Northern Ireland, that was referring, uh, in reference to the conflict between the

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IRA and Protestants in Northern Ireland and Catholics and Protestants in general, uh, in that area of Ulster and in the

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UK in general, because there were obviously terrorist attacks in London and other places that took place.

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But, uh, the, um, you said that, uh, that the, the, the church that you began going to was radically different from the one of your upbringing.

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What, uh, was the, what were some of the differences and what, what would, if you don't mind sharing your denominational affiliation when you were being raised in Northern Ireland?

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Sure. Uh, uh, the church that I was, uh, brought up in, uh, was a

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Presbyterian church. Uh, the gospel was not preached in my early years there.

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I delight to say that today that same church is absolutely thriving, uh, has an evangelical minister, a body of elders, uh, they are committed to expository preaching.

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It is one of those quite unusual stories where, uh, some, a pocket of believers stuck it out, uh, and they have seen an incredible transformation in that church, which, which, uh,

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I rejoice in, but it was, uh, liberal, I would say, you know, you heard

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Shakespeare quoted, you know, maybe as much as the Bible, you know, maybe a lot of sort of moral preaching, you know,

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I mean, my parents, uh, would have very much been off, you know, you look, don't do anybody any harm, you know, be, be a good person.

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That was sort of the general upbringing. Um, and so that's why

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I say, now I may well have had, uh, a godly Sunday school teacher as a child or whatever.

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As a young boy, I was more interested in playing football and doing other things. So, you know,

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I don't, I just can't remember that, but I, when I, uh, when

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I was in Paris and my friend, the guy who'd organized the trip, he shared the gospel,

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I was converted. I then went with him to his church, which was, I now know, although I didn't know the terminology then, but it was a very charismatic setup, and I had gone,

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I can still remember this very clearly, I went in my suit, dressed up, you know, very formally, and, uh,

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I was only in, and people were speaking in tongues, and, and I didn't even know what this was.

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So I, I think this, this service lasted for an hour and a half, and I came out, and my friend came over to me and said, well,

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Jeff, what did you think of that? And I can remember, just opening my suit jacket, and my shirt was completely drenched in sweat.

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That is how uncomfortable I felt, and I just said, this is not for me.

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You know, I did not feel that people were in any sense thinking about what the

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Bible taught. It was a lot of emotion and a lot of very foreign experiences, and it totally unnerved me.

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Now, I'm not saying that I blame that, but that's the reason why, for the next two years,

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I did not walk with Christ my Lord.

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I'm not saying that, but it was not helpful, but it's not the sole explanation for that.

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I can't pass all the blame on to that, but that's, so a nominal, uh, sort of church in many ways in the early years, and then an exposure to a very charismatic church, and then when

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I was 17, and this young girl in my class invited me along, uh, it was then, it was what

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I would call a conservative Baptist church, and, uh, you know, there were maybe some things that appeared very antiquated, even for me 30 years ago, but they did open the

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Bible. They did share the gospel, and I just, uh, you know, I just so thrived in that situation and really enjoyed that, and it was so formative for me.

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Well, praise God. Well, tell us now something about how you came to be a founding member of a church,

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Castle Ray Fellowship in Belfast, and tell us also something about that congregation. Yeah, okay, uh, it's one of those, uh, stories, the beginning of the church, uh, it comes out of I was attending, uh, and actually working for that same local, uh, conservative

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Baptist church, and over the space of, uh, four and a half years,

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I was working with them and their commendation. This is now, uh, I was, you know, now 24 years of age.

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I'd finished university. I'd worked in the bank for three years and banking, and then I worked with them for four and a half years with their commendation, uh, largely involved in outreach, and in that time the

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Lord was very gracious, and we saw quite a few people come to know the Lord, and who were added into the church.

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Now I'm not talking huge numbers, but within the context of that church, it was very significant, but sadly, again, honesty demands that some of these folks, in fact, all of these folks,

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I think, who were coming in were not coming from, uh, church backgrounds.

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You know, they were people who, um, did not have the sort of the history, the heritage, uh, they didn't dress in the way that the other people who attended that church dressed.

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They didn't talk in that way, and they didn't have a different language, maybe, when they began to pray, and those sorts of things.

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So there was a, there was a difficulty, uh, I think, with some people just understanding where these people were coming from, and it became tense.

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It became tense, and we actually, um, we had a sort of a youth mission, and we had people involved in that, and we had a lot of unsaved people there, but issues like dress and stuff were becoming, you know, flash points, and so we decided that, in the overall interests of Christian Unity, it would be wise for us to withdraw, and we had absolutely no plans whatsoever to begin a new church.

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In the area in Belfast that I live, when we started this new works 22 years ago, someone said to me, did

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I realize that within a one -mile radius, there were 49 evangelical churches, and in actual fact,

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I now know that individual was wrong. There were considerably over 50.

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A lot of small church splinters break away, you know, a lot, but a lot of evangelical churches, and we did not want to start yet another church, and so we had a group of new converts who, you know, some of them maybe only, uh, saved a matter of months, and there was this difficulty, this tension in the church, and we thought, right, we need to get these folks relocated into a church situation that can cope with them and that they can integrate into, and that was our plan, just to do that.

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We met for a couple of weeks just on a Sunday morning in our house here, and there were too many people for a house situation, and I remember phoning the local council, and saying, look,

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I have a situation here. Would there be a local community center to where I am, where a group of Christians could meet for two or three weeks, and the council official who

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I was speaking to said, look, I'm very sorry, but all our facilities are in use, and I don't remember leaving my details, but later on that afternoon, that individual phoned back and said to me, we've just had a phone call, a group that were using the community center right beside you.

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They've just phoned and say they don't need it anymore. Would you like it? So I said, yes, that'll get me out of a hole here, and a stopgap measure, and so for the next few weeks then, we started to meet on a

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Sunday, and it just became very apparent that the Lord was in it.

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There was a tremendous togetherness among the people, and they were comfortable to bring their family members along as well, and it was actually after just over a year of that, we decided, look, we better give ourselves a name here.

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You know, we are now meeting together, and it was from that we just took the name of the locality,

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Castle Ray Fellowship, and we have been going now over two decades, and I've been there the whole time, and I can say that we have a wonderful body of believers who try to be real, not to play church.

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They involve themselves in world mission, big picture stuff.

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They love each other, and they are committed to understanding the

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Word of God, and it is a very fresh situation to be in.

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I sometimes say I know some of my peers, some of, you know, who are in churches that, you know, maybe have, they have the building, they have the budget, they have the numbers, they have the programs, but, you know, it can be sort of maintaining the status quo, and people, you know, can be playing church, and I thank

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God for the freshness of the situation that I'm in, for the reality that exists among the people.

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So, that's a little bit about how the fellowship came into existence, and it's sort of the

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DNA, if I could put it that way. Excellent. Just out of curiosity, I know that churches disagree on when, how, why to use labels, but I know that, for instance, our friends at Christian Focus, they would publish a lot of things by folks who share my theological convictions of Reform Theology and Calvinism.

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I was just curious where your congregation, Castle Ray, might be on those issues.

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Yeah, I mean, I would say that we would have a mix of people, a mix of views.

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We absolutely believe in the sovereignty of God. We believe in election.

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We believe in the great doctrine, the great Reform doctrine, and, you know, we are an independent fellowship, but we would have great relations with other churches who would, you know, be

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Reformed in their theology and absolutely committed to the fundamentals of Scripture, you know.

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And that's really where we're at on that, Chris. Well, praise

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God. And, well, you have written this book, Why Jesus?

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The Continuing Relevance of Jesus in the 21st Century. It is interesting that Jesus does continue to have great relevance in the 21st century, and so does a counterfeit of him, because during public discussions in the media, you will very often hear unbelievers judge

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Christians by a standard that is related to a fictitious

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Jesus, a Jesus of their own imagination or the Jesus of Hollywood and greeting cards, who is really nothing more than a mild -mannered, passive guru of self -sacrifice and humility, and really does not demand repentance of anyone.

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That is typically the Jesus that the non -believer or even many of those who profess to be believers will bring up in the media and say, of course, you really are not living up to your namesake as a

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Christian because you are judging other people for not believing in his deity, for not believing in the necessity of embracing him as Savior, and you are nothing but a hate -monger and a bigot because the

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Jesus that I know and love does not behave that way. Well, the Jesus that they know and love very often is just a

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Jesus that never existed, other than perhaps someone named Jesus, but not the

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Jesus that was born of a virgin and is the second person of the

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Godhead. If you could tell us what was the driving motivation behind writing

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Why Jesus? Yeah, and I concur with everything you've said.

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So many people think they are rejecting Jesus, but many people are rejecting a distorted

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Jesus. They have never really encountered the true Jesus, and Christianity is

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Christ, and, you know, the appeal of Jesus Christ properly understood, seeing him as the expression of the glory of God, he has his own explanation.

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He has a magnetism in that way that draws people to him, and our job as Christians is to help people to see the true

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Jesus as revealed in Scripture, and that was motivation in writing the book.

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I hope that I understand something of the times that I live in and where people around me are at, and I thought it would be great if something could be written that is not intimidating, that would introduce a person to the

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Jesus revealed in the Bible. And so I thought, right, let's go for some big reasons that are presented in the

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New Testament of why people need to consider Jesus. And, well, there are five reasons in the book why

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Jesus, because he came as promised, because he reveals God perfectly, because he died for our sins, because he rose again from the dead, and because he is the appointed judge.

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And, you know, and I think if people can be helped to interact with those truths, they will have an encounter with the real

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Jesus. And so that was the genesis of the book. I mean, at the end of the day,

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I believe that Christian outreach ultimately comes from overflow in the life of a believer.

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We are so personally fulfilled, satisfied, captivated by Jesus Christ and the riches of Christ that we've got to share him with others.

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And the book was just one way for me of doing that.

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I actually, I didn't set out to write a book originally.

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I was just doing a series of evenings presenting the truth of Jesus Christ.

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Our fellowship was coming up to its 20th anniversary, and we just had these meetings, and the

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Lord was gracious to us. And after that, someone suggested to me, he said, look, you know, it would be good if that was written up in some form.

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And that was the trigger to then, you know, actually, okay, maybe we need to put this down in book form.

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I had absolutely no idea at that time that the likes of, you know, Christian focus would take an interest in it.

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That was an exciting journey that I did not foresee. But just,

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I used, we have a wonderful men's outreach work, and there was one guy in that outreach work, a friend of mine, who's not a believer, but he is open enough to engage, you know, to come along to something that we arranged and to sit very respectfully and listen to the gospel being explained.

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And I used him as I wrote, I thought, keep connecting with your audience here.

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Is this comprehensible? Does this relate? Does this connect, communicate with him?

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And I hope for that reason that the book is conversational in tone, as I said, not intimidating.

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It's not trying to be something that it's not. It's not some sort of attempt at an academic tone.

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It's not that there are no footnotes in the book.

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It's just over 100 pages long. It could be read in an hour and 15 minutes, but it brings a person to consider

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Jesus as revealed in the Bible. Amen. That's what it's about.

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And we'll go through some of those five reasons when we come back from our first break.

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If you'd like to join us with a question for our guest today, Jeff McElroth, did

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I say it right that time? That's good. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Jeff McElroth, our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. And we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Jeff McElroth right after these messages, so don't go away.

32:42

Chris Arnn's in here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia. And here's my friend, Dr. James White, to tell you why.

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Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. I hope you join me at the G3 Conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church at the

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Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

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Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Balcombe, Conrad M.

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Bayway, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

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G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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

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Iron Sharpens Iron exhibit booth while you're there. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

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Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

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He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

33:58

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

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Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

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Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.

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We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com. That's solid -ground -books .com

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and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am

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I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

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I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a

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Reformed Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

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We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

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That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostle's priority, it must not be ours either.

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We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

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You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

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TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org,

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that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

36:07

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today for the first hour is

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Jeff McElroth, who is the author of Why Jesus? The Continuing Relevance of Jesus in the 21st

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Century, published by Christian Focus. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Before I return to our interview, I just want to remind you that on Thursday, October 27th, the

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Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania is having their annual Reformation Conference.

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In fact, one of the speakers is a fellow Ulsterman, originally from Northern Ireland, Mark G.

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Johnston, who is currently the minister of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Cardiff, Wales.

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He and Dr. Sinclair Ferguson are going to be speaking and preaching at this

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Reformation Conference Thursday, October 27th, 7 to 9 p .m. It's absolutely free of charge, and there will be refreshments served.

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For more details, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org. Grace Baptist Carlisle, which is spelled

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C -A -R -L -I -S -L -E dot org. And if you come to the conference, please let the folks there know that you were sent there by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

37:43

And by the way, Jeff, do you know Mark G. Johnston, originally from Northern Ireland, now in Wales?

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I'm sorry, I had you accidentally unmute there for a second. What did you say?

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No, I'm sorry, I haven't heard of that particular brother. Yes. So many exports for the kingdom of God.

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Well, he is indeed a wonderful brother in Christ, and I'm looking forward to hearing him speak.

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In fact, his father was also a constable in the

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Royal Ulster Constablery. Is that how you pronounce it?

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Constabulary. Okay. I am going to be butchering your language probably for the next half hour, and I apologize.

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But we do have a listener who has a question for you,

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Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas. She says she's enjoying the conversation very much.

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How is the gospel, both Presbyterian and charismatic, growing after 20 years?

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How is the gospel doing since the refugee crisis, the

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Islamic refugee crisis? And I'm sure she's speaking specifically about the

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UK because of the fact that she's asking you that question. So if you don't mind asking his best as you can.

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Yeah. Before I even come to here in Northern Ireland, I had the great privilege just at the start of August, we took a team out from our fellowship to Germany to work with refugees, a couple who we are involved with through European Christian Mission.

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We went out to help them run a sports camp for refugees. That was the thing that brought us together.

40:01

And my reflection on that time was,

40:08

I mean, we were sitting daily with people, a lot of people who had made that horrendous boat journey from Libya, across Libya and Africa, across to Italy, just horrendous.

40:23

I'm sure people have seen the scenes on the news, the amount of lives lost and undoubtedly the human misery that we encountered, people so fearful for their future.

40:41

And what was so striking as a Christian was not minimizing for one minute the hurt and the hardship for all those people caught up in this, but it is so obvious that God is stirring people groups together, people who otherwise, you know, would maybe never even come in contact with the gospel.

41:10

We had the most amazing time. I had the privilege on the last evening of that sports camp of speaking to, you know, a group of people from so many nations.

41:25

And I was speaking on the revelation and people from every tribe and nation and tongue gathered around the throne of God and off the land.

41:36

And as I looked at those people, I had this, just this feeling of, this is like the preview of that day.

41:45

There were Christians there. There were, we saw three ladies not connected to each other, three ladies all from Iran come to know

41:56

Christ in that week. And so the refugee crisis is terrible.

42:03

The suffering is very real, but in it all,

42:10

God is undoubtedly drawing people to himself.

42:17

And I was really impressed by some of the German evangelical churches.

42:24

They have received a million refugees. And, you know, there, and it's, you know, politically that's difficult.

42:33

That creates economic challenges and all that. And, but Christians are reaching out to these people.

42:40

They're showing them compassion and they are sensitively sharing the hope in Jesus Christ with them.

42:46

So that's just one reflection of what is happening maybe in a more

42:51

European setting. In Northern Ireland itself, there has been very limited numbers of refugees coming.

43:03

There have been some, there are some Syrian folks who have come into the country, but you're talking maybe 60 people in one batch.

43:11

It's not a big thing. What we do have in Northern Ireland and in the UK generally, is we would have a lot of economic migrants, people who are coming to the

43:25

UK to, you know, just to better their English, to earn money, to send money home.

43:34

And that has also been an incredibly fruitful venture in the gospel for Castle Ray Fellowship, for myself, in our home on a

43:47

Saturday evening for a year and a half there, we had a Bible study for foreign nationals, for folks who've come in from other countries.

43:56

And it was tremendous. A lot of people coming from Eastern Europe, from the former communist countries, where maybe the religious background was either, you know, either suppressed completely, or it was people coming from an

44:10

Orthodox or a Catholic background. And we had some

44:16

Saturday evenings where for two and a half hours, we would sit with an open Bible and just, you know, read and answer questions and ask the folks questions.

44:28

And the Lord was good. And we saw people come to Christ. And an actual fact,

44:35

I was in Krakow about a year ago, to go out to a

44:41

Polish believer, a guy who we'd seen come to Christ, he then went back to his country, and we were able to go out there and link up with him.

44:50

He was attending the local Baptist church in Krakow, and we got to meet his family, and it was just wonderful, you know.

44:57

So there are real challenges with what is happening with the refugees.

45:05

There is real suffering, but thank God we can see in it that the gospel is bearing fruit.

45:15

And that also I help Linda on that. Amen. That's great news to hear.

45:24

In spite of the negative aspects of the news, the other question that she was asking, and now she assumed you were

45:33

Presbyterian, but you may be more Baptistic. I'm not sure of that aspect of your fellowship.

45:39

But if you wanted to broaden that to the doctrines of grace, your estimation of the the spread of the doctrines of grace, the gospel of grace, and also she asked about the charismatic movement, and I guess you could give pros and cons about that.

45:59

And then I do want to move on to some of the core issues in your book after you address that.

46:07

Yeah, I mean, I think we would be more Baptistic and sort of on the spectrum as to where we would be.

46:14

The charismatic end of things is certainly there's a lot of activity and a lot of numerical growth within charismatic churches.

46:28

And they, I would say that they are very active in outreach.

46:38

And just, you know, sometimes some of the more established churches can be, it sounds awful, but they can be right, but they can be dead right, if you know what

46:52

I mean. And there can be sometimes an orthodoxy in doctrine, which is not necessarily accompanied by a vitality.

47:04

And then you see, maybe on the other end of the spectrum, you can see quite a lot of life and energy, but maybe some difficulties in doctrine.

47:16

And that would really be, I would say, the evangelical landscape in Northern Ireland.

47:22

And there's maybe not just so many churches and believers in the middle who take seriously the doctrines of grace and a commitment to the

47:38

Bible, and yet have a life and a joy and an engagement with the lost world.

47:46

And so, you know, that probably would be my perspective on the evangelical landscape in Northern Ireland.

47:56

Well, thank you, Linda. And Linda has added a little very gracious note.

48:04

We are giving away free books, by the way, to those who are submitting questions, free copies of Why Jesus by our guest,

48:14

Jeff McElroth. And Linda attaches a note that I can share this with another listener, and she is going to buy one.

48:23

So I just urge you, Linda, if you're going to buy one, go to CVBBS .com,

48:30

one of our sponsors. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who has a very large selection of Christian -focused books at CVBBS .com.

48:42

They're one of the primary warehouses in the United States that carries

48:48

Christian -focused books. So if you go to CVBBS .com, you can order that book from them.

48:54

And please mention that you heard about this book, Why Jesus by Jeff McElroth from Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio.

49:02

And I'd like to go through as many as we can, and then, of course, we can just have you back if we run out of time before you get to all five.

49:09

I'd love to have you back already, I know that. But Why Jesus? Because he came as promised, if you could address that.

49:20

Yeah. And obviously, what I'm getting at there is that, you know, Jesus did not just appear in a vacuum.

49:29

He did not appear in our world unannounced. And by that, I'm not referring to the fact that there was the star that directed the wise men and the shepherds, the angels who terrified the shepherds.

49:42

I mean, God has, through his prophets, saying that this

49:51

Deliverer, this Rescuer, would come, this One who would save his people from their sins, who would restore them into Him.

50:02

God has flagged it up again, and again, and again. And so, back to your point,

50:12

Chris, when you said about people, do not, they come up with their own Jesus. They have their own ideas of Jesus.

50:18

And we need to get them back to the Biblical Jesus. And the Biblical Jesus, he is one who steps into prepared history.

50:27

God has spoken. And I think that this is one of the most underused apologetics by Christians.

50:38

I think it's a symptom of growing Biblical illiteracy, that Christians are not competent in the

50:47

Word of God. But if we can, if we can persuade someone to be open -minded, to allow you the opportunity, but if we can sit down with them and show them some of the prophecies in the

51:03

Old Testament concerning this Deliverer to come, and then take them to the

51:09

New Testament, I think that is one of the most powerful things that can be done. And I'm speaking very personally here.

51:16

I referred earlier to the fact that when I was 17, I took the Bible in my hand and started to engage with it, seriously, for the first time in my life.

51:27

And I can remember, it was around that time that someone gave me a little book.

51:34

It's called Betrayed. It was the story of Stan Pelkin, I think was the name. Oh yes, yes.

51:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, someone gave me that book. I was reading a lot of that stuff. At the back of that book, there was just a little,

51:49

I think it was just one page. And it was just, check out these prophecies from the Old Testament.

51:56

And I remember getting it, and I spent, and I didn't go to bed that night. I was so, you know, this was new to me.

52:04

And I just went, this is here. These were written centuries before. And I can see the prophecy and the fulfillment.

52:11

And that left its mark on me, and it's been one of my pleasures over the years, is to continue to explore, you know, the volume of prophecy, the precise detail of that prophecy, and how it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

52:28

And so that's the first of the five reasons is, you know,

52:33

Jesus came as promised. And I have sat with so many people over the years in conversation, and I have watched them, you know, with the light coming on.

52:46

You know, Isaiah, seven centuries before Jesus, reading Isaiah 53 with them, and just mouths falling open, and even a disbelief that, you know, this wasn't written by Christians, you know.

53:05

So that I think is a very powerful apologetic.

53:12

And I would encourage my Christian brothers and sisters to, you know, become familiar with, you know,

53:21

Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, you know, those are the staples in many ways.

53:26

But arm yourself, I take a few of them, in that, you know, the betrayal of Jesus, the birth of Bethlehem, just to explore those a little, and to have them loved.

53:39

And when someone gives you that opportunity to say, you know, what do you make of the fact that Jesus fulfilled all these prophecies?

53:52

And they'll probably give you some, you know, can we be sure they were written centuries beforehand?

53:59

Yes, we can. And we can explain why. And at the end of the first chapter,

54:05

I take six common objections, and they are actually drawn from personal experience, you know, talking with people, and that's the type of thing they say, and how do we respond?

54:17

And I would want to add, Chris, as well, that, you know, as I say, this book is not trying to be something that it's not.

54:26

There are magnificent volumes out there on apologetics.

54:32

This is apologetics life. This is introductory stuff, just here and there. We explore some things, get the big issue, and turn the tables on your friend graciously, and say, oh, you're excellent.

54:49

Micah talked about Bethlehem, where this one would come forth, whose days are from, you know, the beginning.

54:58

How do you explain that? And I just find it very fruitful, and both with believers, unbelievers, and believers,

55:08

I see Christians, when they explore the prophecies and see themselves in Christ, that book becomes the

55:17

Word of God in their estimation. You know, this can't be human invention.

55:25

This is, God has spoken in history, and His Son has stepped into history, and He fulfills all those word pictures, and He is a perfect match, and it drives you to a certain conclusion that this is the promised deliverer.

55:45

Yeah. Well, amen. Well, I really want you now to just conclude what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners, because we are closing the program in just about a little over three minutes now, and I would love to have you back on the program to address the entirety of the book, or as much as you can, in a one - or two -hour interview the next time you're on.

56:11

But for now, if you could just conclude with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners. I have a joy in Jesus Christ, because I have met the true

56:27

Jesus, the one revealed in the Bible. We have an amazing message to bring to lost people around us, and if we can just get a few fundamental points that we can have.

56:48

It's not about being clever. It's not about having all the answers, but if we can just get enough of the wonder of Jesus Christ that He did come in fulfillment of all

57:04

God's promises, that He has revealed God perfectly, fully, finally, that He died in our place under God's judgment, that He rose again triumphantly.

57:19

If we can get that into our hearts and minds, we will be used by God to bring hope to people who have no hope.

57:32

And if that's what people can take away, that would be just wonderful. Well, thanks so much,

57:39

Jeff, for taking the time to be on our program today. I definitely want you back on the program.

57:46

I know that your website for our listeners in the UK, if perhaps they're near where you are in Belfast, we do have listeners in Northern Ireland, that website is www .CastlereaghFellowship

58:00

.com, and that's spelled C A S T E L R E A G H FELLOWSHIP .COM,

58:08

www .CastlereaghFellowship .com, and that's www .CastlereaghFellowship .com.

58:15

And I want to thank our friends at Christian Focus Publications for providing us with books today, the majority of which we'll be giving away on your next interview,

58:27

God willing, if you'd like to be involved in another interview. That would be marvelous.

58:33

Great. Well, their website is ChristianFocus .com, ChristianFocus .com, and that would be primarily for our listeners in the

58:41

UK. If you'd like to order any Christian Focus Publications, if you live in the

58:48

United States, go to www .CVBBS .com, that's

58:53

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com.

59:01

And I don't know if you have any other contact information that you care to share, Jeff, but that's up to you.

59:09

Yeah, at the back of the book, there is a Why Jesus email address. If anyone has any queries or wants to even tell us how the book is being used, it's always wonderful to hear that.

59:22

We know that it has been used internationally, and it's fantastic. So that's in the back of the book.

59:28

Great. Well, we look forward to having you back on the program, and I will at some point, either this evening or tomorrow, get in touch with you by email to let you know the dates that we have available for your return.

59:42

That's marvelous. Thank you so much for that. It's a real privilege, Chris. God bless you. God bless you, too, brother.

59:48

And I hope that all of you listening stay tuned, because coming up in a matter of moments, we have

59:55

Mike Gaydosh, one of the sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, is going to be joining us.

01:00:03

He is also founder of Solid Ground Christian Books. Their website is solid -ground -books .com,

01:00:12

and we're going to be finding out other things that are now available in print that perhaps have been rescued from oblivion buried beneath the years that Solid Ground Christian Books has unearthed, sometimes from centuries ago, that have been long forgotten.

01:00:32

And we thank the Lord for the contribution to the church that Solid Ground Christian Books is for bringing us some very priceless gems in literature back into the hands of Christians in the 21st century.

01:00:49

But if you'd like to join us with a question for our guest, our second guest for today,

01:00:54

Mike Gaydosh, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:01:01

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01:03:01

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round Bible conference and retreat center nestled on the

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01:04:28

I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

01:04:34

Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,

01:04:47

Iron, Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

01:04:53

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

01:04:59

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

01:05:08

Protestant Reformation with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.

01:05:16

We hope to see you there. Learn more at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

01:05:24

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

01:05:29

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. My guest for the second hour is

01:05:36

Mike Gaydosch, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, one of the sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and also he is going to be with me and Todd Friel and James White and a bunch of other folks at the

01:05:50

G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, God willing, the 19th through the 21st, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Mike Gaydosch.

01:06:01

Well, thank you. I was just talking to Rich Pierce about that conference, and Rich, of course, works with James White, and we both decided that the best thing for us to do is to be able to get as far away from the

01:06:15

Iron Sharpens Iron Booth as possible. We're going to see if they can maybe put down in the basement or somewhere that would be as far away as possible.

01:06:29

Just kidding, just kidding, Chris, we would love to be with you. Sounds like Todd Friel is a piece of work.

01:06:38

I look forward to being able to meet him as well. Well, I'll tell you, I'm excited about being able to be with you again today and the opportunity to be able to share some of the things that the

01:06:49

Lord is doing at Solid Ground, some of the books that we're working on, some of the books that we just got out, some of the books that we've had out for a while, and just the opportunity that God is giving us to be able to go around the country.

01:07:01

I'm going to be heading down to Florida next week. I'm going to be heading down to Florida for a conference that's being held in Jacksonville with Keith Foskey.

01:07:11

You met Keith, Chris? Yes, and Keith has been on the program too. That's right, that's right, and he is hosting a conference down there.

01:07:19

This year I think it's a Monday and a Tuesday. In the past it's been

01:07:25

Thursday, Friday, Saturday. This year it's going to be on a Monday and Tuesday. It's whatever the

01:07:31

Monday and Tuesday is of a week from this Monday and Tuesday. Then I'm going to be leaving there to drive up to North Carolina where I'm going to the

01:07:41

National Family Integrated Church Conference where some of the same people that he just rattled off that are going to be at G3 are going to be speaking at, up in Asheville, North Carolina at Rich Crest Conference Center.

01:07:57

So I'm going to be in Florida, and then I'm going to be driving up to Asheville to be able to spend the weekend up there.

01:08:04

Oh great, and please send my regards to Pastor Keith Foskey. I know that he is going to be on the broadcast again in the near future,

01:08:12

God willing, and always enjoy having him on the air. I was also delighted to hear that through your invitation an old friend of mine,

01:08:24

Pastor Andrew Montoro, Andy Montoro, who is now retired from pulpit ministry and pastorate, and he is now a member of the church where Keith Foskey pastors.

01:08:40

Oh wow, great. Oh, you didn't even know that, huh? No, I didn't. And that was through your invitation to Andy to the last conference.

01:08:48

That was the James White conference that we were at in Jacksonville, Florida. Well, for those of our listeners who are discovering

01:08:58

Solid Ground Christian books for the first time, never heard you on the program before perhaps, give a brief summary of your publishing ministry and let us know what you want to highlight today.

01:09:12

Well, Solid Ground began almost 16 years ago. I just moved and relocated from Long Island.

01:09:20

I had actually begun publishing Christian books when I was pastoring a church on Long Island. It was called

01:09:26

Calvary Press, and then when I relocated down to Alabama in 2001, in the spring of 2001,

01:09:36

Solid Ground was born, and I began to bring back into print books that had been out of print for a long time.

01:09:43

The first book we did was called A Pastor's Sketches by Ichabod Spencer, which has gone through several different printings and is now available in a nice double hardcover volume.

01:09:53

We also did Mothers of the Wise and Good by J. Bess Burns. That was another one of our earliest titles, as well as Golden Hours by Elizabeth Prentiss and Legacy of a

01:10:05

Legend by Edward Payson. And we did some booklets, booklets by Peter Jeffrey, Seeking God, and John Angel James, The Duties of Church Members to Their Pastor, and we were off and running.

01:10:19

We've now published over 350 titles. The biggest project we ever did was the 22 -volume hardcover

01:10:27

Smitesone set of the collected works of Thomas Manton. Most people who have seen it or have purchased it or have received it have said that it's the finest set that has been published probably in 150 years.

01:10:45

Unfortunately, they're now gone. We don't have any more in stock, so we're very sad about that, and it's not likely in my lifetime we'll ever see another set quite the way we did that.

01:10:57

And that's, for those of our listeners unfamiliar with the Smitesone books, that is the highest quality of binding, is it not?

01:11:05

It is, yes, it is. And there are some editions of Manton that are available today, but they're not done in the same quality as the one we did.

01:11:16

I'm not just saying that because I did it, it's just the fact that that was a very, very, very special thing that we did.

01:11:27

I'm very thankful the Lord allowed us to do it. It was a well over $100 ,000 project and significantly larger project than we had ever done before and have ever done since.

01:11:40

Especially with e -books now being such a big thing, I don't know that it'll ever be able to be done that way again.

01:11:51

It's just too expensive. And now with e -books coming in, the number of people who really want to get their hands on a hardcover set like that, sadly, are becoming fewer and fewer.

01:12:02

There are still some dinosaurs around like me, but unfortunately the younger generation, for the most part, not totally, but for the most part, the younger generation prefer the electronic books.

01:12:15

And so I just, again, I don't know that that'll ever be available again that way.

01:12:21

Well, I was personally honored by the news that Solid Ground Christian Books is coming out with a leather -bound edition of James White's biography of me, is that moron my brother, and I'm truly blessed by that news.

01:12:40

Yeah, we definitely need to put that in some form that's going to last for a long time. Yeah, that's another reason why

01:12:49

Rich and I decided we want to be on the other side. We're not too sure about what's going to be happening on your side of the

01:12:58

G3 conference, but I tell you, that should be an exciting conference.

01:13:04

I'm really excited that Pastor Josh has asked me to become a part of that, and it's really an honor that he is allowing me to come.

01:13:15

And I'm just hopeful that I don't say anything today that's going to cause him to change his mind. Well, I want to thank

01:13:23

Pastor Josh too, because he is providing a free exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio there in exchange for Iron Sharpens Iron's promotion of this conference.

01:13:36

And I want to thank Linbrook Baptist Church on Long Island for sending me out to Atlanta, Georgia.

01:13:44

Maybe they just wanted me as far away from them as they possibly could. At least it wasn't your home church in Carlisle that sent me.

01:13:53

That would make me nervous, especially if they gave you a one -way ticket, that would be a concern. But that's great.

01:14:02

You and I are both from Amityville, Long Island, and we are very familiar with Linbrook and very excited to know that they're supporting your work.

01:14:13

And a number of churches—the church out in Wading River, I know, has been supporting your work.

01:14:18

Ron Glass has been supporting your work for a long time, and it's been a real blessing to you.

01:14:24

Yes, and one of the things that I find quite amazing about Pastor Ron Glass that shows his

01:14:31

Irenic spirit and his grace is that he loves this program so much that he is one of the key sponsors of it, even though I do not share his dispensational understanding of biblical hermeneutics.

01:14:47

But he is a thoroughgoing five -point Calvinist and a strong believer in the doctrines of grace, so he chooses to overlook that difference and sponsor the program, and I'm very honored that he does so.

01:15:00

Yeah, that's a very gracious act on his part, and it says a lot about his character, and that's very encouraging to hear.

01:15:09

Yes. Well, let us know about what you first want to highlight. Let me highlight a couple of things that Ray Rhodes has published.

01:15:19

I think you know Ray. Yeah, in fact, I've had him on the show, and a member, a fellow elder of his,

01:15:26

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Jarrod is now attending

01:15:32

Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle. He has a year stay here working with the

01:15:38

United States Army War College, which is in Carlisle. Yeah. And I think he's got about seven or six or seven months left in that year project that he is working on, but he is attending

01:15:51

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle for that time. Oh, that's great. Well, the books that I'd like to feature in the opening segment here is a trilogy of books that Ray wrote, and they're focused on family worship.

01:16:08

And we know that there are a lot of books that have been written encouraging people to do family worship.

01:16:14

What Ray has done is he's gone a little bit further than that, and has actually given a model for family worship, and he has divided it.

01:16:23

The three books that I've published for him so far are the family worship for the Reformation season, and that's for the month of October.

01:16:32

And what he does is he takes every day of the month, and he will give some hints and guidance as to how to walk through that particular worship time.

01:16:48

He has scripture reading. He then has an historical glimpse, and then he will have some theological questions and thoughts, and then a time of prayer.

01:16:59

And he does a really masterful job of putting together these thoughts, and particularly the one that I'm looking at,

01:17:08

I have in my hand right now, is family worship for Thanksgiving season. And Ray has just done a wonderful job.

01:17:15

He has so much information that he's given about Thanksgiving, and the place of Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day 1789 by President of the

01:17:22

United States of America, a proclamation, and then he has the proclamation of George Washington.

01:17:29

And there is just a whole bevy of scriptural and historical information found in this volume.

01:17:38

He also has one that said for the Reformation season, which takes you through October, right up until the end of October, October 31st, which is

01:17:45

Reformation Day. And then he also has one for the Christmas season, which was actually the very first one he did.

01:17:52

And even those who are not really, you know, not prone to celebrate

01:17:58

Christmas as a holiday, it is still, it's a wonderful work that focuses on the

01:18:04

Incarnation. It's not so much focused on Christmas Day as, you know, as a special day, but more focusing upon the

01:18:12

Incarnation of Christ and the salvation that he has brought to us. But it's intended for families with smaller children, but even children as they grow.

01:18:22

It can be investigated in several different levels. The volumes right now are on special sale for $5 a piece.

01:18:30

And it's a nice volume, really beautifully done. The one

01:18:35

I have in my hand here is about 135 pages of five and a half, eight and a half size, beautiful cover.

01:18:41

And it's a really good economical way to be able to get something to walk through the scriptures with your family.

01:18:50

And especially this is helpful for the heads of households who don't feel very comfortable leading their family in worship.

01:18:57

What Ray kind of does is he walks you through each step that can be done. And it takes away a lot of the nervousness and anxiousness from either a father or a mother who is responsible to lead the family in worship.

01:19:13

Now, some folks might be scratching their head about your comments regarding Christmas.

01:19:19

Well, today would be a tiny minority, I'm assuming, but there are some

01:19:25

Christians and even some that share our theological convictions on the doctrines of grace that do not celebrate

01:19:34

Christmas as a holiday or holy day, not because they don't believe in the

01:19:39

Incarnation, of course, but because they believe that that specific holiday has too much attachment not only to Rome, but also to materialism and greed and all kinds of things that that holiday has unfortunately morphed into, especially in the greater population.

01:20:01

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think that, and so being sensitive to that, we understand that there are those who are, you know, wouldn't maybe not even be interested.

01:20:11

But I think that they would need to understand that the focus is not upon December 25th as the special holiday.

01:20:20

We all know that that is not the exact day Christ was born. We don't know what day he was born, but certainly there's some value, a great deal of value,

01:20:29

I believe, in celebrating and explaining and understanding the importance of the Incarnation of our

01:20:35

Lord. And so, you know, that's all that he seeks to do during that month.

01:20:42

So yeah, the only thing that we know for certain is that one of the greatest living individuals ever born of woman, that date of birth was

01:20:50

February 14th, 1962. That must be you. Yeah, yeah.

01:20:58

Oh yeah, that's actually, that's actually, that's a good lead -in for my next, what I was going to say. Earl Blackburn is working on a book for me, dealing with, it's basically biblical evangelism, thoughts on biblical evangelism and engaging the culture.

01:21:18

And he's been working on that for quite a while, and we're hoping to have it done sometime next year. And he wanted to know if he had just gotten, if I had just gotten a copy of his newest book, which is a book he has published for Christian Focus, I believe it is.

01:21:34

And it's a book on the 50 great events in Christian history, the 50 most influential events in Christian history.

01:21:45

And I immediately asked him, I said, did you include the day that you and I met for the first time?

01:21:55

And he said, he just laughed, he said, I can't believe you said that. He said, Tom Lyon, a pastor in Tacoma, Washington, he said exactly the same thing, which is pretty scary.

01:22:07

Well, Tom and I were both collegiate wrestlers, and we're both getting a little old and senile in our old age.

01:22:12

It's not surprising that we would be asking a question like that. But unfortunately, no, your birthday and the day that Earl Blackburn and we met is not included in the 50 most important events in church history.

01:22:26

So, but anyway, be that as it may, one of the books that I published by Earl Blackburn that has been a steady seller ever since he published it was a book entitled

01:22:36

Jesus Loves the Church, and So Should You. And I think that it's an important book because not just because of the title, but because there is so much, even to this day, there is just so much, people will make a distinction between Christ and his church to the point where they'll say, well,

01:22:57

I love Jesus, but I can't stand the church. Well, I mean, we can understand that to a degree, the church is certainly flawed.

01:23:05

But at the same time, we know that Christ loved the church, and he gave himself for the church.

01:23:11

And the purpose of the church is to bring glory to God, it is to bring sinners together. And many times people, they get all bent out of shape because their church is imperfect.

01:23:22

And yet you realize that the church is, it's a hospital for sinners. It's, that would be like walking into a hospital and being upset because everybody in there is sick.

01:23:32

Well, yeah, that's why there's a hospital. The hospital is there because people are sick.

01:23:38

And I think that when Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress, you know that when he first, when

01:23:45

Christian first enters into the narrow way, the first place he is sent is to the house of the interpreter.

01:23:53

When he goes to the house of the interpreter, the, do you remember what the first picture of the seven pictures is in the house of the interpreter?

01:24:02

No, I can't remember right now. It is a picture of a, it says a very grave person had a, there was a picture on the wall of a very grave person who had, his eyes were lifted to heaven.

01:24:16

The best of books was in his hand. The law of truth was upon his lips. The world was behind his back.

01:24:22

He stood as one who pleaded with men and a crown of gold that hang above his head. And, and Bunyan then goes on and says,

01:24:31

I have showed you this picture first because the Lord of the place where you are going has authorized that is only this man who is to guide you in all the way that you are to go to the celestial city.

01:24:46

And the description he gives, that sevenfold picture that he gives is a picture of the true pastor.

01:24:53

And the very first thing that a new Christian needs to find is a true pastor, a shepherd who is a shepherd after God's own heart.

01:25:03

And the next thing that he, after he, after he is, leaves the house of the interpreter, he then proceeds on to, uh, to the, to, to seek the cross where the burden that was on his back falls off itself down the hill and rolls into the empty sepulcher and is never seen again.

01:25:23

And as soon as he leaves there and goes over the hill difficulty, the next place he ends up is in the palace.

01:25:29

Beautiful. Well, the palace beautiful as a picture of the church and, uh, and what, what

01:25:35

Earl Blackburn does in this book so brilliantly is he lays out the importance of the local church and the value of the local church, the importance of the membership, the requirements of membership and the duties of church members.

01:25:49

And, um, and it's just a wonderful, very practical book. We've had many, many churches through the years that have ordered dozens of copies in order to be able to use with their pre -membership class.

01:26:01

And, uh, and it's, it's a book that even, it's not necessarily a book that's, that would only be a value, uh, valuable for Baptists because we've had many

01:26:10

Presbyterian churches that have used it. And we have endorsements by Pato Baptists as well as Baptists.

01:26:16

And so that, that is a very, very important and very valuable book. In fact, if you could, uh, send my regards to Pastor Earl and tell him that I would love to have him on the program to discuss that book.

01:26:29

I had tried on several occasions to get him on the broadcast and he was recovering from surgery,

01:26:36

I believe, or some kind of medical issue. And, uh, so now that I believe he is back in, uh, full strength or at least, uh, yeah, he is, he's doing well physically.

01:26:47

And he did tell me that he's running out of excuses to give you. He doesn't have to have any more surgeries.

01:26:55

I think a couple of surgeries were a little bit iffy. I think he just had them to give a reason why he couldn't appear.

01:27:03

And I'm not sure he would be happy of your, uh, inflection of the term, uh, or the word physically.

01:27:11

He's doing good physically. I'm implying that there's other things going on. Let me be perfectly clear.

01:27:19

He's doing very, very well in every way that I can imagine. He's, uh, he's a dear friend.

01:27:24

I love Earl and he is actually, um, he, I, I missed him this year at a conference, the

01:27:30

Southwest Founders Conference in Mansfield, Texas. He wasn't able to attend this year. So that was, I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to spend time with him.

01:27:39

I usually only get to see him once a year, maybe twice at the most, but this year so far, we haven't been able to connect yet.

01:27:45

One thing that I really love about him is that he dispels the myth that no

01:27:51

Reformed Baptist pastor could possibly have a sense of humor. Oh, yes, he does have a sense of humor.

01:27:58

And in fact, most of the men, most of the men that I know who are Reformed Baptists do have a very good sense of humor.

01:28:04

They just never show it or they show it. They definitely don't show it from the pulpit.

01:28:10

I think that, and, and I understand that. I think that, I think that, that humor, um, humor has its place.

01:28:18

Yes. And I think even at times, even at times,

01:28:23

I think that, um, that the pulpit is not necessarily off limits for humor as long as it's within bounds, as long as it's appropriate.

01:28:30

Right. Now I didn't mean to imply that behind the pulpit Earl was a standup comic or anything.

01:28:36

I'm just talking about in, in public banter, like, uh, during a break at a conference or whatever it might be.

01:28:42

Um, he's a very funny guy. Uh, in fact, uh, one of the funniest people that I've ever met in my life that, you know, personally, uh,

01:28:52

Ed Moore, uh, he, uh, is hilarious, but he very rarely, uh, uses humor from the pulpit.

01:29:01

In fact, I don't remember ever hearing him use humor from the pulpit, other than perhaps when he's making introductions of people in the audience.

01:29:09

Like if he sees me in the audience or something. Well, yeah, then it would be appropriate. But we're going to go to a break right now.

01:29:16

And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, we do have already a few listeners waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

01:29:24

Our email address is chrisarnsonatgmail .com chrisarnsonatgmail .com.

01:29:31

Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages, so please don't go away.

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

01:34:51

This is Chris Arnzen, and my guest for the last half hour and the previous half hour has been and will continue to be

01:34:59

Mike Gadosch, whose ministry you just heard about on that ad, Solid Ground Christian Books, solid -ground -books .com,

01:35:08

and we are discussing the fruits of his publishing ministry, things not only that have been brought back into print, some of which have been long forgotten by the church and are now being very vibrantly blessed by, but also even new contemporary authors who have been brought into print through Solid Ground Christian Books.

01:35:32

Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

01:35:38

We do have RJ in Westchester County, New York, who asks, why is it that some of these wonderful books that you have republished fell into obscurity, knowing of their great value and great depth and great biblical insight?

01:36:00

The best that I've been able to come up with in terms of the reason why some of these great books from the 17 and 1800s stopped being reprinted was,

01:36:11

I believe, the fundamentalist controversy that began to emerge in the early 20th century with the

01:36:22

German liberalism, with the various strands of liberalism that was coming on.

01:36:32

It appears that for some reason, these great books got set aside, and they were lost for two generations.

01:36:41

And like, for instance, A Pastor's Sketches by Ichabod Spencer, the first book I published, that had been reprinted probably 25 times in 50 years, from the time it was first published in 1851.

01:36:56

And the last edition that I could find, until my edition came out in 2001, was around 1900.

01:37:05

And so all of a sudden, at the turn of the century, some of these older works just stopped being republished.

01:37:13

There may be other reasons. I don't know. Obviously, there were world wars that were going on, and perhaps because of shortages, they may have also fallen.

01:37:25

There may be other reasons as well. But I do think that in some ways, there was somewhat of an anti -intellectualism that rose up in the early 20th century.

01:37:37

I haven't been able to find anything definitive to explain it, but I'm very thankful that the

01:37:43

Lord has used solid ground, as well as many other, well, not many other publishers, but there are several publishers that have been reproducing these works.

01:37:52

Banner of Truth, of course, founded in 57, I believe, 56, 57. They have brought back a lot of works, and they continue to do a great job.

01:38:04

Don Kistler, who founded Soledad Gloria, did mostly Puritan works. I do some

01:38:09

Puritan works, but not nearly as many. I do a variety of things. In fact, there's a book that I have in my hand right now that I love.

01:38:16

It's called Our Sovereign God. It is subtitled Addresses from the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, 1974 to 1976.

01:38:27

These were actually the first three years that James Montgomery Boyce began that famous Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:38:36

These first three years, some of the addresses in here are just absolutely unsurpassed.

01:38:44

Some of the titles of these sermons that are found in this book, the first part is

01:38:51

Part 1, The Sovereign God, an Introduction. John Stott's message, The Sovereignty of God the

01:38:57

Son. Roger Nicole did a sermon, The Five Points in God's Sovereignty, and he also did

01:39:02

The Doctrines of Grace in Jesus Teaching. Stuart Sachs did God's Sovereignty in Old Testament Names for God.

01:39:10

Then Part 2 was Knowing the Sovereign God, and you can imagine who did one of those was

01:39:15

J. I. Packer on Knowing God. Wonderful, wonderful address. Then Robert C.

01:39:22

Sproul. You probably know him as R. C. Sproul. He did a sermon,

01:39:28

Why We Do Not Know God, and then the Why We Must Know God, and then there's

01:39:33

Ralph Kuyper, The Key to Knowing God, and then R. C. Sproul again in Part 3,

01:39:39

Discerning the Will of God, James Montgomery Boyce, Disobedience in God's Sovereignty, Sproul, Prayer in God's Sovereignty, Kuyper, Witnessing in God's Sovereignty, Nicole, Optimism in God's Sovereignty, and then

01:39:53

Sovereign God and the Church by Stott, and then finally R. N. Soly, Deo Gloria.

01:40:01

This is just a great, great book, and the endorsement I have on the back says, 30 years ago as a young Christian, this book came into my possession, and it had a profound impact upon my life.

01:40:12

There's no way to know how much these addresses have helped shape my view of God and His grace, but I am certain that my life, my family, and my ministry have been richer for having read them again and again.

01:40:23

I was thrilled to have the privilege of bringing these addresses back to a new generation of believers who wrestle with the very issues dealt with in this book.

01:40:31

May the Lord of Glory use these words to help His struggling children understand the value of these great and glorious doctrines.

01:40:37

And I wrote those words, and that's on the back cover, and that's just a wonderful, wonderful book.

01:40:44

In fact, Robert Brady of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals just brought that book up during a meeting that we had in Lancaster, Pennsylvania just about a week and a half or so ago.

01:40:57

Really? Yes. Wow. Did he know that I'd republished it? Yes, he specifically brought that up because he knew of my connection with you, and he knew that you were my first pastor and so on.

01:41:06

Oh, wow, that's great. You know, that is, I tell you, it's been one of the disappointments to me that that book has not done better than it has.

01:41:14

I've tried to promote it several different ways at several different times, and I'm not sure why it hasn't done as well, but I'll tell you, those messages are absolutely superb, and it deserves to be read.

01:41:29

Another book I'd like to mention, I don't think I've ever featured this on Iron Sharpens Iron, is a book that is entitled

01:41:36

Christ in Song, subtitled Hymns of Emmanuel from All Ages.

01:41:42

And this is a volume that was compiled by Philip Schaaf. You probably have heard the name.

01:41:50

Yes, he comes up a lot in debates between James White and Roman Catholic apologists. Well, there you go.

01:41:56

And I know that Philip Schaaf was a church historian, and what he did is he did a great service to the church by gathering, he did something

01:42:07

I've never seen before, and it's beautifully, beautifully done. He arranged this volume of hymns, and the hymns actually go back to as early as the 300s.

01:42:21

And he has arranged the book into two parts. The first part is called Christ for Us, and the second part is

01:42:30

Christ in Us. And what he did is he organized these hymns around the different themes.

01:42:41

Like Christ for Us, he has a series of hymns that are on the

01:42:46

Advent. And the first of the hymns in the Advent was written by Ambrose, who is most notable for his ministry to Augustine, when

01:42:59

Augustine came to faith. And this is a hymn called O Thou Redeemer, written by Ambrose from 397.

01:43:07

And then he has a whole series of hymns that were written on the

01:43:12

Advent, and they're all listed according to the year that they were actually written. And Isaac Watts has one,

01:43:21

Paul Gerhardt, then there's Horatius Bonner in 1856, and then there's another series or section on the

01:43:30

Incarnation. And once again, you have hymns from 450, from 405, 397, the

01:43:39

Latin hymns from the 700s, and then all the way up again until you have

01:43:44

Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, Philip Doddridge, on up to Horatius Bonner yet again,

01:43:50

Alfred Tennyson, G. W. Bethune. And then he's got another series on the infant

01:43:57

Savior with the Virgin Mother, and a series of sermons from there.

01:44:02

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote one of those, you know, of course, she's better best known for Uncle Tom's Cabin.

01:44:10

And guess what? You know who's related to Harriet Beecher Stowe? You. No, Reverend Buzz Taylor, my

01:44:19

Oh my goodness. My former co -host. The guy that used to come on the radio with you. Yes, but he had to return to his full -time job after.

01:44:27

Actually, he had to do something where he could make money. He was not going to get rich working with you,

01:44:32

I know that for a fact. Then the next series is on the Epiphany, the appearing of our

01:44:39

Lord. Then you have another whole section on Christ's life and example. And then a large section on the

01:44:44

Passion of Christ, which goes away. The first one goes back to Fortunatus from 600.

01:44:51

And just, you know, on and on and on. It's an amazing, amazing volume. I've never seen anything like it.

01:44:58

It's got the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ, then Christ in glory, his intercession and reign,

01:45:06

Christ judging the world. And that's just the first half. That's 310 pages.

01:45:12

And then the second part is Christ in us. And then Christ in us, we have the love and loveliness of Christ, Christ our refuge and strength,

01:45:21

Christ our peace, faith in Christ, union with Christ, the holy communion, love and gratitude to Christ, forever with Christ, and praise and adoration of Christ.

01:45:32

And again, every one of those sections is divided according to the date in which the hymns were written.

01:45:39

And there are just hundreds and hundreds of hymns, many of which people will never have seen before.

01:45:47

And you know how I found this book? Actually, I didn't find it. It was actually a gift to me from Dr.

01:45:53

Mike DeMaio. You know Mike? Oh, yeah. It's been years since I've seen Mike. Yeah, Mike is a dear friend.

01:46:01

And he had somehow come up with an old copy of this book. And he gave it to me one time and asked me to take a look at it and see if it was something that I could use.

01:46:11

And sure enough, it is a wonderful, wonderful book. And we've seen that book go all over the world.

01:46:20

It is just an amazing book. And anybody involved in church music, anybody who's involved in even just family worship could utilize this book in a wonderful, wonderful way.

01:46:31

Great. We do have an anonymous listener in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who writes,

01:46:39

I have truly cherished Christian books, both from the past and present, written by female authors.

01:46:48

I wonder at times, though, if this is a violation of the scriptures that prohibits women from being teachers of men, since I am learning from these female authors.

01:46:59

Should I lay these anxieties to rest? Yeah, I think so.

01:47:07

I think that what Paul is talking about, of course, in the scriptures is, in the church, we know that there is a significant place that the women have in the church, but not a teaching position as an elder, a pastor.

01:47:25

They're not to be placed in positions of teaching over men. And I think the books that I've read that have been helpful to me from women aren't books on theology, necessarily, though I know there are women who have written some very helpful books on theology.

01:47:40

But like Stepping Heavenward, as an example, by Elizabeth Prentice, it's a tremendous book that would help a man to understand the way a woman thinks.

01:47:53

That particular book, Stepping Heavenward, by Prentice, wasn't just written for women.

01:47:59

It's a book that certainly has been primarily used of God to encourage the hearts of women.

01:48:05

But I've always encouraged men to pick that up and read it, because it will help you to understand the way a woman thinks, and what she goes through, and the struggles that she has.

01:48:16

In fact, that was like a perfect segue, because I had two books that I was going to look at next, and they're both written by a woman,

01:48:26

Frances Ridley Havergal. Frances Ridley Havergal was an absolutely brilliant woman.

01:48:35

She wrote hundreds and hundreds of hymns, and she was just an absolutely, incredibly gifted woman.

01:48:45

She had thorough training in linguistics. Her scholastic achievements included proficiency in several modern languages, in addition to Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

01:48:59

She had devoted herself to Bible study. She memorized the entire New Testament, as well as the

01:49:06

Psalms, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets. She was a woman who died at the age of 42, never married, and on her tombstone is engraved her favorite text, 1

01:49:18

John 1 .7, The Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son Cleanses Us from All Sin. I published two of her books.

01:49:25

They're books for children. They're devotional books for children. The first is called Little Pillows and Morning Bells.

01:49:34

The Little Pillows book was intended for children to have this read to them before they go to sleep at night, and providing them a little pillow for their head.

01:49:44

Then the next volume, which is contained in the same book, it's a double volume. The second volume is called

01:49:51

Morning Bells or Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. Havergal has just some beautiful, beautiful devotional thoughts for children.

01:50:03

She says here in the introduction, she says, Most of the readers of this little book will have already read

01:50:09

Little Pillows. Those were given you to go to sleep upon night after night, sweet, soothing texts that little hearts might rest upon.

01:50:17

But in the morning, we want something to arouse us and to help us to go brightly and bravely through the day. So here are morning bells to waken up the little hearts and to remind them that we must not only rest in Jesus, but walk in him.

01:50:30

If the motto of Little Pillows might be come to Jesus, the motto of Morning Bells might be follow

01:50:37

Jesus. May he who loves the little ones bless this tiny effort to help them to follow him day by day.

01:50:45

Then there's a second volume that I published by her, which has turned out to be actually the last book that she ever did.

01:50:54

It was entitled Morning Stars, Names of Christ for His Little Ones.

01:51:00

We're told just a week before my dear sister died, I took her letters upstairs.

01:51:06

Her pretty kittens Trot and Dot were playing on her bed. She was too ill to care about her letters, but was so pleased to get the first page of this book.

01:51:15

She looked at it carefully and with her pencil corrected mistakes. Then she was anxious every reader should have space to add the verses and asked me to write about it.

01:51:24

May I say that she hoped you would read one chapter every day. My dear sister intended writing another book for you,

01:51:31

Evening Stars or Promises for the Little Ones. But though she is gone, the promises are left.

01:51:38

Will you not search them out in your Bibles every evening and just say as she often did, this promise is so bright and it is for me.

01:51:47

What she did in this book, the unique thing she did in this book was whenever she would put a passage of scripture, she would quote a passage of scripture and she would have the book, the chapter, but then she would leave space for the verse because she wanted the children to read that chapter to find the verse and then insert the verse into the book itself.

01:52:12

I was able to purchase an old copy, a first edition, and the child used the pencil and it filled in every one of the verses and there are probably a couple of hundred verses at least that are in this book.

01:52:29

It's really a beautiful book on focusing on the names of Christ. Christ our

01:52:34

Head, our Commander, our Leader, the Unspeakable Gift, our

01:52:40

Intercessor, our Passover, our Shepherd, our Substitute, our

01:52:45

Physician, our Master, our Redeemer, our Friend, the

01:52:51

Messiah, the Prince of Peace, etc. And Havergill was an incredibly brilliant woman, incredibly disciplined in her life.

01:53:04

I had the privilege when I was staying with Peter, Jeffrey, and Lorna one time of being able to go over and see her home in Wales.

01:53:10

And just an incredible woman and I'm so thankful to God that I had an opportunity to be able to bring these books back into print after so many years.

01:53:21

By the way, RJ in, actually not RJ, the anonymous listener in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, if you give us your full name and mailing address since you're a first -time questioner, you'll receive a brand new

01:53:37

New American Standard Bible, a beautiful edition with an embossed cross on the cover, compliments of the publishers of the

01:53:44

New American Standard Bible who have been sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron since we first began broadcasting in 2006.

01:53:52

So we thank them for their... Now I have a question. I have a question, Chris. Yes. How in the world do you know that anonymous is the first -time caller?

01:54:02

Because I can recognize the fact that it's the address and everything. Wow. Absolutely brilliant.

01:54:10

I could be wrong, but it just looked like a totally foreign address and email address,

01:54:18

I should say, and so on. Okay. And we do have a listener in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, Linda, who says, please ask

01:54:29

Brother Michael Gaydosh, founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, to place these books in a special section of their website, like old books, if possible.

01:54:40

That would make it easier to locate them. Now, obviously, most of your books are old books, so it'd be better,

01:54:48

I guess, to reverse that if you had a section for contemporary authors or something, new authors, living authors.

01:54:55

Well, we couldn't do living authors because, you know, you'd have to keep changing them. But you follow the drift there.

01:55:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that's a good idea. I know that our website leaves quite a bit to be desired, and I apologize for that.

01:55:11

We have to do a better job at being able to get people to be able to find the things that they're looking for.

01:55:21

One thing that a person can do is, when they click on the categories of books on our page, it says categories, and then you have this drop -down menu.

01:55:32

The first several are the SGC books, SGCB books, and you'll see

01:55:39

American Heritage Classics, American Tract Society, Baptist Classics. Whenever you see things like that,

01:55:46

Baptist Classics, well, you know right away that these are older works. We have Christian Classics. Again, those are all older works.

01:55:55

And so Puritan Classic reprints, well, obviously, those are older works. Richard Newton's children's titles, those are all older works.

01:56:04

You could do a 20th and 21st century section. Maybe that's the way you could do it, just separate them.

01:56:09

Yeah, yeah, there's probably a way that I can do that. I think that the categories of books, for instance,

01:56:15

I just clicked on what is called the classic reprints, the solid ground classic reprints, and I clicked on that, and there are dozens and dozens of books, and these are all older works.

01:56:28

You got The Power of God Unto Salvation by Warfield, Shorter Catechism Illustrated by White Cross, Doctrine of Justification by Buchanan, Lord of Glory by Warfield, Sermons to the

01:56:39

Natural Man and Spiritual Man by Shedd, Still Hour by Phelps, and many, many others as well.

01:56:47

So they are there, and they are organized. All of those, wherever you see classic reprint, and you know that those are the older works.

01:56:59

So, I mean, that would be the simplest way, just to stay right there under SGCB books and look for the

01:57:07

Baptist class. You know, anything that has classic in it is going to be an older work.

01:57:13

Okay, we have a very good question that will have to be our last question. Our friend Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island says, what is your most cherished book that you have ever printed at Solid Ground?

01:57:28

Now, obviously, A Pastor's Sketches is going to be one of them, but if you could bring up another one, perhaps.

01:57:37

Yeah, well, I think that the Baptist Confession of Faith that we have done, the 1689

01:57:42

London Confession of Faith, has been a very important volume that we've done. We did David Charles, a pastor in Ohio, is the one who recommended that we do...

01:57:51

He asked me if I'd ever consider doing a leather edition, and I said no, and we gave it a shot, and got really blessed.

01:58:02

And we have a beautiful leather edition, and also a nice paperback edition of the 1689

01:58:09

London Baptist Confession and the Baptist Catechism, which also includes the appendix on baptism.

01:58:16

And I would say probably that has been, to me, although there have been... Honestly, there have been so many, it's really difficult for me to put my finger on one particular one.

01:58:27

But let me say this, I forgot, I wanted to just take a minute to introduce your writers, your readers, to your listeners,

01:58:33

I'm sorry, to a volume that I'm working on that should be out within the next two weeks, and it's called A Complete Body of Divinity by Thomas Watson.

01:58:43

And this particular edition that I'm doing, A Complete Body of Divinity, it's going to be a hardcover edition, and it is the edition that Spurgeon had published in 1878.

01:58:55

It has Spurgeon's memoir of Watson, and then it has Spurgeon's appendix on baptism at the back.

01:59:04

And Spurgeon stated that he wanted to leave the book, The Body of Divinity, exactly the way the author wrote it, but as a

01:59:13

Baptist, he felt that he needed to add an appendix on baptism to be able to put forth his position while leaving

01:59:22

Watson's position as it was, as it came from his own pen. And so that is going to be available sometime within the next two or three weeks at the most.

01:59:33

And we are out of time, and that website is solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.

01:59:40

Thank you so much, Mike Adosh, for being our guest today, and I look forward to your return. Thank you. And I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:50

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to receiving your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.