December 20, 2022 Show with Will Dobbie on “From Everlasting to Everlasting: Every Believer’s Biography” (Part 2)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports

legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

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

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have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living

on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday

on this 20th day of December 2022 as Christmas Day

rapidly approaches.

I had such a phenomenal time yesterday interviewing Will

Dobby, who is pastor of Emanuel Church of Knoxville, Tennessee, on his book,

From Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography.

That's such a phenomenal time that I wanted to have him back very quickly, and that quick date

is today, and we are conducting part two of our

discussion on From Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography, and

it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back very quickly to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Will Dobby.

Great to be back, Chris.

Thanks for having me.

And if you could, once again, for the sake of our listeners who did not hear you yesterday on Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio, tell our listeners about Emanuel Church of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Sure.

We are a little baby church, about three months old.

We planted out of Providence Church, west of Knoxville in East Tennessee, and

like I think I said yesterday, you know, we're not impressive.

We kind of embrace and rejoice in not being impressive, because that means that the focus

stays on God who is impressive.

We love special needs families.

We love college students, and we love going through the Bible verse by verse.

So that's us.

And you are theologically Reformed and Baptistic.

Correct.

And if anybody wants to find out more information about Emanuel Church of Knoxville, Tennessee, go to

enox .org, that's E -K -N -O -X .org, and God willing,

we will be repeating that later on in the program.

Well, we already yesterday went through some major themes of your book.

Act one involved life plans, which

included such titles as the God who agrees, the covenant of redemption, the God who

knows, which involves his foreknowledge, the God who chooses, which involves the

doctrine of election.

And we also went through most of the major themes in act two,

which is under the heading of life begins, and that included such themes as the God who

arranges, which is his providence, the God who creates the conception and physical

life, the God who proclaims the general call, the God who calls from within, the inward

call, the God who gives spiritual life, regeneration, the God who grants repentance,

and the God who grants faith.

Today we are going to be entering into more of the themes under act

three of your book, life from the cross.

We've already discussed the God who satisfies wrath, or his wrath,

and that is known as the doctrine of propitiation, and the God who

declares righteousness, or the God who declares righteous, I should say, the doctrine of

justification.

And today we're going to pick up on the God who sets free, which is the doctrine of redemption.

And why don't you explain exactly what you

mean and what the Bible means, more importantly, about this concept of redemption.

There is great ignorance in regard to what happened during those

six hours on a Friday two thousand years ago when the King of Kings

and Lord of Lords, Christ Jesus, the Messiah, hung on a

cross to have the wrath of his father poured out upon

him as a substitute for his people and

to ensure the redemption from sin and from the penalty

thereof and the enslavement thereof of his people.

So why don't you pick up why even the word redemption is used and anything else that you

find of great value in this very glorious theme of redemption.

Yeah, thanks Chris.

You put it beautifully yourself, brother.

When Jesus was spending those hours on the cross he was redeeming us, that is to say he was setting us free.

He was paying the ransom for our sin with his blood.

You know, I think in verses like Mark 10, 45, even the Son of Man came not to be served but to

serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And at the heart of this idea of redemption is freedom.

Think of Jesus again in places like John 8 where he says, you know, everyone who practices sin is a

slave to sin.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

And Jesus set us free through that penal substitutionary atonement that we discussed yesterday.

And I mean this doctrine goes deep.

He set us free from a number of things.

He set us free from our guilt.

He set us free from God's condemnation for our guilt.

He set us free from futility that, you know, Peter talks about in 1 Peter 1,

you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, ways in which they tried to

get rid of their.

Guilt.

They tried to redeem themselves and it's all futile.

And yet Jesus did that for us.

We no longer have to frantically try and make ourselves forgiven or sinless or escape God's.

Wrath.

That's futile when we do it ourselves and Jesus set us free from that futility.

So those are some of the pathways in which Jesus has redeemed us.

And they fuel, they make secure this amazing future way in which we're

going to be redeemed.

Paul, looking forward to the new creation, talks in Romans 8 about the redemption of our bodies.

So we're going to be free from the effects, the consequences, the scars of sin and

fallenness in this world.

And we're going to enjoy a magnificent new creation that has been set free from the curse of the fall.

Ever since Genesis 3, and that will involve our own bodies as well as everything else in the world that's coming.

So it's a doctrine about freedom, really.

Yes, that's what you mentioned, the physical aspect

that will eventually, ultimately make itself manifest

in the glorification of our bodies.

We will no longer be in exactly the same bodies that we are in now.

We'll be raised to at the very last day and we

will be given a glorified body that is no longer plagued with

pain and disease and all sorts

of maladies and difficulties.

This is one of the glaring, horrible

denials of the hyper -preterists who claim that the future

holds no such promise of a bodily resurrection of the dead, of

those who follow Christ.

Of course, everybody's going to be raised from the dead, even the reprobate, those who have never

repented on this earth and died in their sin without any redemption paid for

them and they will be judged and cast into the lake of fire.

But those of us who are his children, we

wait for this glorious day, do we not, when our bodies will be

perfect and glorious and be reunited with our spirit and we'll spend an eternity in

heaven with these bodies, if you want to comment a little bit further on that.

I just, as I get older and keep studying the Bible more and more, keep

pastoring, I see increasingly how incredibly

future -oriented the scriptures are and that's not something we should be ashamed of.

You know, Jesus himself, for the joy set before him, Hebrews tells us, endured the cross and

that is just a fundamental way for us to be able to keep enduring and persevering ourselves

by looking at the joy set before us in the future, which will make it all worth it.

So yeah, I would want to say we need to boast in the future, not underplay it or deny it.

It's one of the main things that keeps me going.

And of course there is another heresy that is more dominant today

than the hyper -preterist heresy, which is really comparatively a tiny handful of

folks in the world.

The Word of Faith movement, they teach that the cross

promises and ensures physical healing on this earth and

if anyone is not healed of an ailment or even has it to begin

with, that reflects a lack of faith on their part and that is a very dangerous and

evil heresy, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

I mean, Isaiah does say that by his stripes we are healed but Isaiah is writing,

you know, the prophetic poetry and the context of Isaiah as well as the tenor of the

rest of Scripture makes clear that he doesn't mean necessarily physically God can heal,

but that is not the promise there.

And what we are redeemed from, as I said earlier, is our guilt.

Ephesians 1 talks about how in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

We're redeemed from, like I said, God's condemnation for our guilt.

Galatians 3 talks about Christ redeemed us from the curse, for it is written,

Cursed is everyone who's hanged on a tree.

Well, he took that curse from God, that condemnation for us, and he's redeemed us from futility.

If the cross and sufficient faith necessarily leads to a

nice life, Paul wasn't a very good Christian, was he?

I think suffering is an amazing gift and an opportunity and, I mean, there's another chapter later on.

We'll come on to suffering later, but no, we're not promised

whatever we want, name it and claim it.

Yeah, of course, in fact, all of Christ's apostles, with the

exception of the false one, Judas, who committed suicide, all of them, except for

John, were executed.

So that kind of fairy tale where all things will go well for us if we're

faithful enough is just that, a fairy tale.

And even John didn't exactly finish his days in a nice hotel.

He was in a penal colony on Patmos.

So amen.

You're right.

Well, another area that involves

much misunderstanding, even amongst those who are

professing Christians, we hear all the time in the media by

people who give lip service to Christianity, especially during this time of year, or

perhaps Easter.

We will hear people that should know better, that claim to be evangelical, that claim to be

members of Bible -believing churches.

When you see them very often on conservative

television networks, they will very often make the statement that we are all God's

children.

If we were all God's children, why is God adopting anyone?

He certainly doesn't adopt every single person.

And so why don't you pick up on this glorious teaching of adoption, that

without it, none of us could ever call ourselves children of God?

Yeah, absolutely.

On the previous chapter, Redemption, the book does have

multiple very practical applications of these doctrines.

I realize we can't cover everything.

We've got to keep moving for time.

But yeah, all theology is meant to be lived and loved, it's not just theory, it's not just academics,

and adoption matters.

And you're right.

We are all made in God's image.

That is not the same as saying, and Scripture never does say, we are all God's children.

And that is the beautiful miracle of the cross, that having fulfilled the necessary

propitiation and justification and redemption, the final step is that God is then able to

scoop us up out of the spiritual orphanage in which we languished and bring us home.

And I mean, it just leads to inestimable privileges.

It means, for example, we get to speak to the creator of the universe as our personal.

Father.

Jesus begins the Lord's Prayer, and he's teaching his disciples how to pray, our father.

It's like a stunning way to address God.

It's mind -blowing that he can call him our personal father.

We get the Spirit's inward witness, causing us to know God, not to speak to him, but know him as our

father.

Paul in Romans 8 talks about how we've received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,

Abba, father.

A beautiful onomatopoeic child's tender way of referring to their daddy, Abba.

Another privilege would be that because we have this good father, we receive good gifts from him in

response to asking him.

He's not stingy or absent or passive or harsh or inept.

He's our perfect daddy, and he loves to hear our requests.

And then when they're for our best, he loves to grant them.

We get this amazing eternal future inheritance from our father, and we talked about the

redemption just now.

And we get to have the discipline and the refinement of a wise and loving father because he's

our father, not an impersonal force.

We're not being pitched about at the whim of a pitiless universe.

We're in the intentional, perfectly, perfectly

gauging hands of our father so that when tough things happen, it's just not

an iota too hard or too easy.

It's just what we need at that time, whether it's to humble us or refine us or save us from

something that would otherwise have happened if he hadn't stopped us in our tracks.

We should be grateful for his discipline because it's the discipline of a loving father.

And then one I particularly love is that because of this adoption, we gain a worldwide family of

brothers and sisters, not the whole of humanity, including those who defy and reject our loving father, but

genuine brothers and sisters, fellow Christians.

And so, yeah, what's not to like about this amazing truth of being

welcomed into God's own family?

Yes, and that very crucial aspect of the Christian life about

the fact that we have brothers and sisters who were made such by God

himself.

We have to be very careful as not to treat brothers and

sisters in Christ harshly.

Not that we're given liberty to

treat even the reprobate with unbiblical harshness

and returning evil from evil or anything like that.

But we are to even hesitate for a greater period

on how we respond to our brothers and sisters who may sin against

us or perhaps we have sinned against them and have been reluctant to ask them for

forgiveness.

And we really have to contemplate seriously if we are holding on to a grudge,

if we are holding on to hatred, we have to remember that we are doing this towards someone

for whom Christ died.

That's right.

And we are in the reform faith.

We believe he died specifically for his children, our brothers and sisters, not a nameless

faceless sea of humanity.

But if you want to add to anything about that.

Absolutely.

He didn't die hypothetically.

He died definitely, as in definite atonement.

When my 12 -year -old beats up my 8 -year -old, my 12 -year -old has to face my wrath because

I'm my 8 -year -old's father.

And we just better be careful how we treat our brothers and sisters because they're not just our brothers and sisters.

They are the sons and daughters of the terrifyingly powerful and holy God of the

universe who, you're right, gave his son for them.

So we better be careful.

On that theme of gaining a worldwide family of brothers and sisters, I'm just so

struck by Jesus' words about two -thirds of the way through Mark's gospel, around chapter 10.

He says that there's no one who's left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or

lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time

houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands as well as, you know, in the age to

come, eternal life.

So, you know, Chris, you and I, we didn't know each other from Adam before we were on this radio show yesterday.

No human reason why we should have anything in common, show each other any kind of kindness.

And yet, you know, we're brothers.

I'm a crazy weird foreigner from a strange country of England.

Culturally, we're very different.

And, you know, we have this bond.

We're in the same family.

That's precious.

Amen.

In fact, hosting this program has been used of God to develop quite a number of

friendships between me and crazy weird Brits on the other side of the

pond.

And, of course, I think I'm actually crazier and weirder than they are.

But I also want to remind our listeners, they might think to themselves,

these guys are going through these glorious, vital, mind -blowing themes very

quickly.

We could spend a week on each of these.

But because of the fact that my guest, Will Dobby's book, From

Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography, contains so many important themes of

the Scripture, if we're going to cover all of them in any kind of

fashion, we are, at least for these first two interviews

that we have done and are doing, we're basically giving

a cursory examination of the central themes.

And then people can go investigate in further depth each one of them.

And, in fact, we've done programs on this.

We've done interviews on this program that have taken two hours or more, sometimes

more than two days, to discuss each of these subtitles.

But I just thought I'd let our listeners know that we are not being

indifferent towards these very important themes when we speed through them

with a reasonable effort to not be too

speedy.

But we do want to cover as much of the book as possible.

I think part of my heart in the book was to put some of these magnificent truths

within reach of people who may not know Greek or Hebrew or have been to seminary or maybe

have a lot of education.

I do believe that even the most profound of God's truths

are accessible, should be made accessible to all.

And so, like I say, the heart of this book is to make these very deep things

accessible.

A day is given to each of these truths.

In the introduction, I recommend people may want to take two days on each of these truths.

And there are illustrations, applications, footnotes for further study.

But isn't it great that even these most profound things can be enjoyed by all believers?

Amen.

One issue that you cover in this

third act of Life from the Cross, the God who cleanses, positional

sanctification.

There is a lot of confusion and division in the body of Christ as

to exactly what that means, what the whole concept of sanctification entails.

We have those even in the evangelical camp and even in the fundamentalist camp.

And I have to clarify, not everyone who is a fundamentalist would say this, but

there are certainly a significant number who basically

will teach that sanctification is an option.

It is not something that will with certainty occur in the life

of a justified and regenerate individual.

They will accuse us of believing in works righteousness just because we

insist upon sanctification as an evidence of genuine justification and

regeneration.

But if you want to pick up on that, the God who cleanses, positional sanctification.

Chris, just tell me which day you're looking at.

Where are you looking at in the book?

Day 17, which is under Act 3 of Life from the Cross.

The God who cleanses, positional sanctification.

Okay, I'm afraid I am looking at a slightly different version.

I have Day 17, the God who prays.

Wow.

This is on the Christian Focus Publications website.

They must have improved it.

Your listeners should get the better updated version than the one I'm looking at.

I wrote this over a year ago.

I mean, sanctification is, yeah, I was very confused by this

for a few years, and the helpful distinction I found was between progressive and

positional sanctification.

Progressive sanctification is the truth that, by God's will, we

strive to grow in spiritual maturity and godliness.

1 Thessalonians 4, Paul says, We ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, as

you receive from us how to walk and please God, you do so more and more.

So growth for this is the will of God, your sanctification.

Not to be confused with our positional sanctification.

Sanctification means cleansing.

And, you know, when we're justified, we are declared not guilty.

We're set free.

We're redeemed.

We have a different status.

God's wrath against us has been propitiated.

So we're in a different position.

We're clean.

Is that what you were getting at?

Yes, and basically there are opposite heresies when it involves

sanctification.

There are those in Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the cults

who make justification and sanctification synonymous, and there are

those within professed evangelicalism and even fundamentalism who

go to the other end of the spectrum and make sanctification something that is a very nice

thing that occurs in the lives of some who are truly born again, but it's not a guarantee.

And to insist that it's a guarantee in their minds is a works

righteousness heresy.

Well, we're not advocating perfectionism.

Sanctification, our perfect cleansing, is a status.

It's one that, tragically, we sometimes deny and contradict by our actions when we sin.

Our perfection will come in eternity to come.

And also we want to be quick to say that we're not saved by

pursuing progressive sanctification.

We're saved by grace.

We're saved by our faith, not our works.

And this comes back to something we talked yesterday, the difference between imputed and imparted righteousness.

God's imparted righteousness is seen as we pursue progressive sanctification, ongoing spiritual growth.

We're not saved by it.

We're saved by imputed righteousness, the status wonderfully placed on us, which is

100 of God and not at all of us.

And we have to go to our first break right now.

And when we return, we will discuss another glorious subject, the God who rose,

resurrection.

This is an essential theme of the scriptures, which teach us that

if we reject the fact that Jesus Christ physically

rose from the dead, we are not even truly Christian.

So make sure that you stick around for this very important doctrine when we return from the first break.

If anybody has a question, our email address is chrisanzen at gmail .com.

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

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They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you.

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Visit royaldiadem .com.

That's royaldiadem .com today.

Sterling Vanderwercker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner

and manager, Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for,

and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And don't forget, folks, royaldiadem .com is still going to give

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio 100 of the profits from any sale

from royaldiadem .com.

And we are going to be the full beneficiaries of any sale for $100 or more,

whether it's a piece of jewelry that's already in stock on their website, royaldiadem

.com, or if you're creating a new piece of jewelry, whether it's a custom -designed

engagement ring, or whether you're turning your church logo, your seminary

logo, your parachurch ministry logo, whatever the case may be, if you're turning

anything that your imagination conjures up into a piece of jewelry, like a pendant for a necklace, a

ring, or some other piece of jewelry, we are going to get 100 of the profits.

And, of course, this is for a limited time.

We don't know when they're cutting off this opportunity for us.

So please, as soon as you can, visit royaldiadem .com.

Even if you're not necessarily interested right now in purchasing jewelry, maybe you will be after you visit that website.

And please, always mention that you heard about them from Chris Ornson at gmail .com

and Chris Ornson at Iron Shepard's Iron Radio, because without

mentioning this program, we are not going to be receiving 100 of the profits from

the sale.

So you have to include us in your conversations with royaldiadem .com.

And we are now back with our guest today.

This is the second day in a row where our guest, Will Dobby, has been with us.

He's the pastor of Emanuel Church of Knoxville, Tennessee, a Reformed and Baptistic congregation.

We are addressing Part 2 of From Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's

Biography.

And if you have a question, and we do have some folks waiting to have their questions asked already, but if you want to get in

line, our email address is chrisornson at gmail .com.

Chrisornson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Just before I go into the next very important theme of the Resurrection, I

wanted to read an endorsement for this book you have written by someone that I

highly regard, and that's putting it mildly.

And I'm sure many, if not most, of my listeners highly regard this individual.

I have interviewed him several times, looking forward to interviewing him again.

His name is Derek Thomas, Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South

Carolina, Teaching Fellow of Ligonier Ministries and Chancellor's Professor at Reformed Theological Seminary.

Pastor Derek says, Will Dobby has produced a marvelous one -month

-long daily devotional examining God's plan and execution of redemption.

From Everlasting to Everlasting works through the ordo salutis with theological and pastoral skill

that is bound to bring insight and refreshment, a triumph.

I believe that Derek made a little error, or whoever copied his commendation made an error,

I'm assuming he meant 12 -month -long.

He says one -month -long.

And I'm right in my correction there, right?

Well, it's a month long because it's 30 days.

So you get one chapter for every day.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

So very short chapters there.

For your listeners there, the chapters are three, four pages long each.

Okay, so I was the one in error there.

Okay, well, of course, when it comes to who's in error, me or Derek Thomas, it's always going to be me.

Except on baptism.

But anyway, so now let's pick up

where we left off.

We were about to enter into the glorious theme of the resurrection, which is

not only a beautiful theme and a magnificent theme, but an essential theme, a required theme

for sinners to believe and embrace and to trust in

as a part of the gospel message if they are to be identified as genuine Christians.

So if you could pick up there.

Yeah, no, I think that's right.

And I do think it's so important to keep the resurrection in the context of the cross.

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, I resolved to know nothing but Christ, not Christ and him

raised, but Christ and him crucified.

The Corinthians were all enamored by humanly impressive things and spectacular things.

Paul wants to take them back to the cross.

It's at the end of the cross when Jesus, as we talked about yesterday, a listener sent in that excellent

question.

It is finished.

Tetalesta in Greek, where Jesus gave that roar of triumph.

Mission accomplished.

He didn't step out of the tomb and shout it is finished.

He shouted it at the end of the cross.

And the point of all that is to say that the resurrection demonstrates things.

It shows things.

It proves things.

It authenticates things.

It was the cross that achieved things.

And the resurrection shows that the cross was effective, shows that the cross worked.

And it authenticates a number of things.

I list about 10 in this short chapter.

I don't know if you want to touch on any of them, but, yeah, it's

just a cause for hope and joy and comfort and courage and, you

know, all of these good things.

We have a listener who is remaining anonymous.

The listener says, I am remaining anonymous because I have great disagreement with members of

my own church over the matter over which I am about to ask.

There are Christians who say that as long as someone believes in the death,

burial, and resurrection of Christ, they are a true Christian.

Those are the essential elements of the gospel.

Therefore, if they believe in the true gospel, they are saved.

But that is a very short summary, however,

of essentials, in my opinion, that we must embrace because it doesn't even include the

concept of the Trinity, the concept of the deity of Christ, et cetera.

How are we to respond to people who make the claim, if you believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ,

you are saved?

And, of course, even more than that, more than the listener said, there are people who claim to believe those

things that are living the lives of a devil who have no evidence

that they are genuinely born again.

And even as James says, you believe in one

God, you do well.

Even the demons believe that and they tremble.

So how do we respond to people who say, that's the gospel.

If you believe in that, then you're good to go.

That's such a good question.

And I love the way in which, well, first of all, I love that your listener has remained anonymous

in accordance with your advice, Chris, when a question is of this nature because they want to guard and protect, where possible,

the unity of their church.

I also love the way in which the listener effectively answered their own question with that second part of

James focusing on the nature of belief.

Do we believe in the sense that it's intellectual ascent?

Because if so, that's not in itself saving because demons and Satan know the truth.

They don't believe it in the sense that they don't love it and trust in it and follow it.

So when Christians say someone is saved if they believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus,

depending on the context, I would probably charitably assume that by believe, they mean believe in a good sense, not

in a bad, deficient sense of James.

It is also crucial, though, salvation does hang upon, you know, which Jesus you're believing in.

Even if it's in a good sense, is it a Jesus of another strand of so -called Christianity that

denies things like salvation by faith alone, penal substitution, re -atonement?

You need to be believing in the right Jesus, the Jesus of the scriptures.

Now, this makes something else pop into my head.

There are many people in my audience who request

church recommendations and I will do searches for churches

as close to them as possible.

And when there is none on the actual lists I have, I do deeper research.

And sometimes, very frustratingly, a church, when it says, what do we believe?

And sometimes it will just say the Apostles Creed.

Now, as wonderful a statement of faith as that is, don't you think

that it is too far a minimal

expression of core beliefs of Christianity and doesn't really go into further

depth about the gospel in a sufficient way?

Because a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical Protestant and a Calvinist can all agree

with the Apostles Creed, but obviously we believe that the

alones and the solos of the Reformation are actually

essential for salvation when it comes to especially sola

gratia and sola fide.

And so therefore, we are not in harmony with Rome, just because we both claim to

believe in the Apostles Creed, if you could pick up there.

That's an interesting question.

I think it's a balance between not wanting to say too little or

give an impression that you're watered down or liberal or prizing unity above truth,

and at the same time, on the other hand, not wanting to exclude seekers or people with

unhelpful theology or confuse people before they've even given you a hearing.

So on Emmanuel's website, for example, we say a lot more than the Apostles Creed.

We are specific as to our own beliefs.

But then to go even deeper into things like what we believe on

sexuality and marriage and gender, those kinds of things, that's not

the front and center.

That's not in the shop window.

So we are sent to things like the Chicago Statement of 1978 for the inerrancy of Scripture, the Nashville

Statement of 2017 on gender and marriage.

But I want people to come for the warmth, come for the heat, and stay for the light.

I don't want to put them off before they leave.

I want a chance to persuade them from the pulpit and in conversation, for them to at

least give me a hearing, instead of just reading something on the website and not

giving us a chance.

We have to go to our midway break right now, folks.

Please be patient with us.

It's still longer than normal break.

If you have a question, send it in to chrisorensen at gmail .com, chrisorensen at gmail .com.

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

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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

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May God bless you.

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

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show

he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

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

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

Moorcraft.

If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming,

Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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

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

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If you visit, have them.

Joe Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, send you.

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Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions,

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Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing 6th grade.

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast.

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This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church

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Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa

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Ironsharpensiron Radio first launched in 2005.

The publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnzen is doing is

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

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your gift -giving needs with Christmas coming up and Valentine's Day and wedding

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Purchase frequently, purchase generously, always mentioning that you heard about them from Chris Orns and on Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio.

Before I return to Will Dovey, our guest today, and our discussion on his book

that we are addressing from Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography, I just have a couple more

very important announcements to make.

If you love this show, folks, you don't want it to disappear, please go to IronSharpensIronRadio

.com, click Support, then click Click to Donate Now.

You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

If you prefer the old -fashioned way, using snail mail, sending a physical check to a physical

address, well, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click Support at

IronSharpensIronRadio .com where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And if you want to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, you don't have to believe

identically with me, but you need to be promoting something that is compatible with what I believe, well,

please send in your email to ChrisOrnsInAtGmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

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

And please remember, as I try to remember myself to tell you every day, never

cut into the money that you have set aside for your weekly giving to the church

where you are a member in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

Please never do that.

In other words, don't give your own church, where you're a member, less money than you're accustomed to in order to give us a

financial gift.

Also, if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, please wait until you are more financially stable

and back on your feet before you send us a financial gift.

Two things that are clear in the scriptures about finances is that we are commanded to give

and provide for our churches and our families.

Providing for this radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you do love the show and you don't want it to disappear,

and you do have extra money collecting interest in the bank, you have extra money for benevolent,

recreational, and trivial purposes, please share some of that money with us.

If you really do love the show and you don't want us to go away, go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support,

then click, click to donate now.

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically

sound, doctrinally solid church, like Emanuel Church of Knoxville, Tennessee, no matter where

you live on the planet Earth, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I

may be able to help you find one, sometimes even within minutes of your own home, as I have done for many people in all

parts of the world in our audience.

Just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I Need a Church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Will Dobby.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N

at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence,

if you live outside the USA.

I just want to, before I ask Will another question, I want to read a

commendation for his book, written by someone who should be no stranger to Iron Truck and Zion Radio's

audience.

I have interviewed this brother.

His name is Tim Challies, and he writes, this is an abbreviated version of his

very lengthy endorsement.

It was a joy to open Will Dobby's From Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography,

and I find it is a book about the ordo salutis, or the order of salvation.

This is another of those topics that was once written about often, but is now written about seldom, too

seldom, I fear.

The ordo salutis is how theologians describe the order by which God saves his people.

Beginning with election, it proceeds through calling, regeneration, conversion, justification, reconciliation,

sanctification, and perseverance, before culminating in glorification.

It is a stage -by -stage roadmap, from eternity past to eternity future.

It's a pathway marked out for us by God, consisting of multiple steps, some

sequential and some simultaneous.

No matter how wild or random life may seem, this is the trail along which he is leading us.

It will ultimately guide us home to unimaginable joy.

What a powerful endorsement that is.

So we are now back with our discussion on this book that Tim Challies just raved about,

and let's see where we are in our stages of the book

that you have set out for us.

We are actually now into the God who prays, Christ's intercession.

If you could pick up right there.

Thanks, brother.

I said this on your show yesterday.

Forgive me for repeating myself, but in over 30 years of being a believer, I

have never heard a parachurch say what you've said about, do not come into your local church giving.

I do think that's remarkable.

And I hope your listeners realize this is not just another typical parachurch, but one that

loves the local church.

So, yeah.

May you be honored for that, brother.

Well, I appreciate that very much.

Thank you, brother.

No, I mean it.

Act four of the book, The Christian Life, is really beginning with the fact that Christ

is praying for us.

I don't know about your prayer life, Chris.

Mine leaves much to be desired.

I haven't prayed enough today.

But just imagine if you could hear Jesus himself praying for you in the next room.

Well, we can't hear him, but scripture assures us that that is exactly what's happening.

Places like Romans 8 talk about Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, he was raised to us at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us.

You get it in Hebrews 7, Hebrews 7, 25.

He's able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make

intercession for them.

What I love so much about that Hebrews 7 verse concerning Jesus' intercession

for us is that because of his intercession, he's saving to the uttermost.

The Greek word there is panteles, pan meaning all, teles where we get the word

teleological from, to.

So to the all, to the uttermost.

And the point is completeness.

Because Jesus is constantly applying himself, the

benefits of the cross to us, we're saved to the uttermost.

I'll just read a couple of sentences from the book.

There is not one microscopic sin concealed in one minuscule crevice in your heart,

which Jesus' salvation -applying prayers for you miss.

Conversely, there is no towering mountain of guilt in your life too great to be swept away by Jesus'

prayers for you.

Isn't it wonderful that Christ is constantly, I think Dane Ortman put it like this, hitting refresh on the

benefits of the cross for us as he applies them to us, praying to the Father for us.

Amen.

And we have a listener question that really

hits to the heart of what you have just said.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who

says, I do dearly love my Presbyterian and Paedo -Baptist brothers and sisters,

but many, if not most of them, believe that when they are baptized, even as

infants, they are truly placed into the covenant of Christ, whether or

not they are of the elect.

They believe that reprobates are truly in the covenant if baptized in a Trinitarian formula,

and can still fall away from Christ.

Have you ever heard a satisfactory explanation from our brethren who believe this, and yet

believes that Christ is interceding in prayer for those very people that they

claim can fall away permanently and eternally?

You and I pray prayers that may not get the answers that we want.

That is not the case for the second person of the Trinity.

His prayers always get answered.

His prayers get answered, and if he intercedes for us, as Paul says,

the Father will not deny him.

Puritan Abraham Wright said, God himself hath appointed such an intercessor to whom he

can deny nothing.

I mean, there are deeper questions regarding the covenant community, and whether a

child underage, before they have the witness of things like their conscience and creation, so a tiny infant,

is covered by the faith of their parents.

That's probably not something we've got time to get into now, but someone is not saved by

being baptized.

I think it's a very unhelpful distinction to distinguish between big E elect and little E elect.

And the elect, once saved, always saved.

Now, later in the book, we're going to come on to exactly that perseverance, and the point is that once saved, always saved, as long as

you really were once saved, which will be shown by the fact you're living for Jesus today.

But if you really were once saved, as authenticated by the fact you're living for him today, then yes, there is no

falling away.

Well, R .J., guess what?

You have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing, and I think I failed to tell

the anonymous listener earlier

that he or she has also won, from Everlasting to Everlasting, every believer's

biography, compliments of Christian -focused publications, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley

Bible Book Service, who will actually be shipping it out to you, at no charge to you or to

us.

Thank you so much for your generosity, both Christian

-focused publications and cvbbs .com.

The God Who Speaks, The Word, pickups there a very

central theme, not only of the scriptures themselves, but of Christian theology,

and even of the Protestant Reformation.

That great watchword, pillar, battle cry of sola scriptura,

that no human tradition, nothing outside the canon of God -breathed scriptures,

could possibly be our inerrant and infallible guide as the Church.

So if you could pick us up where you left off.

Yeah, I mean, it's foundational, isn't it?

It's why we know everything we said on the two -hour radio program yesterday and everything we're saying now.

And, you know, the Bible is self -attesting.

It argues itself for itself being the highest authority, and in a sense, yes,

that is syllogistic, or rather circular logic, sorry.

But if something is the highest authority, then, by definition,

that would have to involve circular logic.

Otherwise, anything else that appealed to as an authority for it being the highest authority, that other thing would be

the highest authority.

So we shouldn't be embarrassed that we believe the Bible is the highest authority, because it says so.

It is self -attesting, and there's lots of corroborating evidence for that as well.

I mean, the staggering internal perfect consistency

across maybe 40 different authors out of many very different cultures over different centuries in

three different languages.

You've got its unerring historical accuracy.

It's a total urban myth and fake news to say that the Bible is full of contradictions.

And in my experience, if you ask people to be specific, they quickly turn out to be

very ignorant.

And, of course, those who do propagate that myth that it's full of contradictions have a massive vested interest in doing

so, because if it's not, then they would have to repent, hand their lives over to Christ, and that's impossible

apart from God's grace.

You've got its record of fulfillment of many prophecies made centuries before.

You've got its influence on human history unequaled by any book ever written.

You've got the way it's transformed hundreds of millions of human lives throughout all different

times and cultures in history, continuing up until today.

You've got its unparalleled beauty and profundity as a piece of literature.

So there's just some of the corroborating things that I don't lean on too heavily but are reassuring about

the fact that the Bible really is the living, supernatural, ultimately authoritative Word of God.

And then apart from its authority, other aspects of its nature that we

take coming out of it as we read it are its complete inerrancy, its complete

clarity, its complete necessity.

It's not an optional extra, not a bonus.

It's indispensable to us.

It's complete sufficiency.

It doesn't tell us everything we need to know, everything we want to know.

Sorry, it doesn't tell us everything we want to know, but I enjoy the light -hearted child's

acronym, remembering the function of the Bible, B -I -B -L -E.

Do you know this, Chris?

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

I just find that helpful.

So, I mean, it's just a magnificent guide.

God has so graciously given it to us.

It's radically changing lives and eternities as it has done around the planet and for centuries.

And it's trustworthy.

Amen.

And the flip side of the coin of the God who speaks is the God who hears.

And there are many heartbroken people listening to this, I'm sure,

who either are listening live or will eventually listen to the recording of it, who are going through

a great time of grief and sorrow.

Even one of our sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, has lost a member of their family just recently,

and today was the viewing and burial.

But they can rejoice in knowing that this dear sister who passed on to glory

is gazing into the eyes of her Savior and would never trade places with any of us on this planet.

But nonetheless, we who are remaining on this earth when we lose loved ones,

it could be a time of great grief and sorrow, especially during Christmas season and other

great, wonderful, precious times of celebration throughout the year.

And some people, their sadness may be compounded

because they keep praying to God for matters, perhaps to have

victory over their grief, perhaps to find a spouse because they're so

lonely, or whatever the case may be.

How do we reassure them that God is a God who hears?

I think that flows out of the chapter we've just looked at, because the Bible says so.

To say that God hears doesn't mean he always necessarily says yes.

He didn't say yes even to the Apostle Paul, when Paul begged three times

for that thorn to be taken out of his side.

And then even Christ himself in the Garden of Gethsemane says, Father, if there's any other way,

please.

And yet there wasn't a yes from the Father.

There wasn't a, okay, here's another way, because Jesus then ends that prayer.

Yet not my will, but yours be done.

So I would urge brothers

and sisters struggling with tragedy over unanswered prayers, not to assume that

when God says no, or when God says wait, that means he doesn't exist, or that he doesn't love them,

or that he's not powerful.

In fact, good and loving parents often have to say no and wait.

If I didn't say no to my sons, I would be incredibly cruel and abusive.

If they were asking me to eat nothing but chocolate for all of their meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.

So, yeah, yes can sometimes not be

what is best for us.

And even when we go through great pain, we can know that God is working

for our good, and that he's experienced the ultimate pain himself, and that he will one day wipe away

every tear.

Prayer is not about getting yes from the cosmic vending machine.

Prayer is about, it can involve getting wonderful yeses, but prayer is about

advancing the kingdom of God by a means that God has ordained, namely us

asking him so that he then acts, because he gets glorified when we come to him and depend on him.

Prayer is about exercising and building our faith.

Prayer is about experiencing our personal relationship and fellowship with God.

Is that helpful?

Yes, it's helpful to me.

I'm sure it's helpful to people listening as well.

We have an anonymous listener again who asks about this

very thing.

This anonymous listener says, I have been telling a dear friend who is not a believer

that God will not hear his prayers until he truly trusts in Christ

with all humility and genuine repentance.

The person has responded to me that if God is truly omniscient, he certainly would

hear his prayers no matter what state of life he may be currently in.

How do we distinguish between those two kinds of hearing?

The hearing of a genuine child of God crying out to his father, or the

hearing of those who are unrepentant, and yet since God is

omniscient, he knows every word that comes from their mouths.

Chris, you have amazing listeners.

They ask excellent questions and then answer them themselves.

I think that distinction at the end is just very helpful.

There is a valid distinction.

We see it in Scripture between hearing in the sense of accepting and answering versus hearing in the

sense of being aware of.

God is totally omniscient.

He hears the breathing of every grasshopper, let alone the prayers of every human being, whether or not they're

regenerate.

That doesn't mean he hears in the sense of engaging, answering.

Other stuff has to happen first, such as that person.

He can answer and engage with unbelievers, but

for us to have a truly meaningful, rich prayer life, indicative of a genuine relationship with him,

we shouldn't expect to be able to enjoy that until we have repented and believed by his grace.

Now, a caution about that is that there

does exist people out there who may

understand what we're saying, and they think because they are such great sinners that they

don't even bother praying because God will never listen to me.

I've been such a wicked person.

In this case, we would be talking about the person that

is too fearful to pray, embarrassed to pray because they know

they're a sinner and they won't even cry out to God to rescue them.

We have to be careful about how we define what our listener was

asking about, don't we?

Absolutely.

To the person who's fearful, I would commend them.

They should have a right fear of a holy God, but they should honor him if they fear him

in a healthy way, and honoring him means coming to him.

To the person who has embarrassment and shame, as you said, I would say, look, Jesus died on the cross to take your shame.

The way to dishonor Jesus and make things even worse, have even more stuff to be more shameful about, would be not to

go to Christ with repentance and faith.

And as for needing faith to be able to pray to God, I would say to

that person who wouldn't consider themselves a Christian, I would challenge them.

Try and pray.

Try and pray to God.

Try and mean it.

If you can, if you find yourself doing that, guess what?

That could well be the spirit at work in your life enabling you to.

Amen.

We do have a listener from the Philippines

who has sent you a question.

Ramkar, I hope I'm pronouncing it.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's the email address.

Ramon asks, and Ramon, by the way, if you could also let us know

in a separate email where in the Philippines you are from.

I would love to know the city.

But Ramkar asks, how important is it to believe in and affirm

the Bible's inerrancy?

Very good question.

I think we're saved by faith alone.

We're not saved by believing in the Bible's inerrancy.

And yet it would be very, very difficult to be saved

while doubting the Bible's truth because it is by the Bible that we know that we're saved by faith alone.

The Bible inerrantly tells us that.

I think best case, a Christian is going to be dysfunctional, unhealthy, massively under

-realize their potential and effectiveness for the kingdom.

That's best case.

If they doubt the Bible to be the word of God, I would fear for them.

But nonetheless, we are saved by faith alone.

And would you not say, though, however, that a

person should be viewed as suspect as to the

genuineness of their conversion if they for years, I mean, even outside

of a babe in Christ, somebody who is untaught, somebody who is a novice, immature in

the faith, if they continue declaring the word of God cannot be trusted as

infallible, we really have to wonder and immediately say to ourselves, this person cannot

be a true child of God.

Not that that belief saves them, but to continue in

teaching that would give you a flashing red light as to where they are spiritually.

Yeah, massively.

Absolutely.

I would say that because I would expect it would be just a very bizarre,

incongruous, self -contradictory situation if a person is a truly born -again child of God and yet

isn't being convicted supernaturally by the Spirit that the Bible is the living, true

word of God.

Ephesians 6 describes the scriptures as the sword of the Spirit.

And if they have the Spirit, as all believers do by definition, I would absolutely fear for their

salvation if there was that

incongruence.

And of course, I'm sure you would agree that if it is a teacher saying this, a minister, an

author, a so -called evangelist declaring to the world that the Bible is filled with

errors, we should dismiss that person as a heretic.

A hundred percent.

And they are storing up great judgments against themselves.

Teachers will be more harshly judged, says James.

Once you come to a conclusion that the Bible is not inerrant, who are you to teach

anybody about what it contains?

It becomes worthless.

It becomes a matter of man's personal opinions.

You become just another, just what I was going to say, you become just another voice with its own opinions.

Yes, the Episcopal Bishop Spong, who unless he repented unbeknownst

to me, is in hell, used to tell people that he loved the Bible,

has loved it from his youth, has memorized great portions of it, but he also

publicly declared that if you take it literally, you are among the most evil of people.

And in his very

flawed, to put it mildly, opinion, that to take the Bible literally meant that you were

a hateful bigot and all kinds of things.

Yeah, that's tragic.

We do believe that the Bible is full of multiple different genres of literature.

I wouldn't say the whole Bible is to be taken literally.

For example, you know, there is poetry in the Psalms.

We're told that the mountains skip like rams, that the trees clap their hands.

Well, trees don't have hands.

But the parts of the Bible that are meant to be taken literally, those self

-consciously historical accounts, such as the Gospels, such as much of the Scriptures, yes,

absolutely.

We must take it literally, those bits literally.

We must take it as being true in the way it demands to be taken.

Well, thank you so much, Ramon, for listening all the way there in the Philippines at

a very early hour of the day.

And he clarified that he is from, and I'm probably going to mispronounce this,

Taguig City, T -A -G -U -I -G, which is in Metro

Manila.

And we hope that you visit us often with questions for our listeners.

I'm always thrilled to hear from people during the show for the first time, and perhaps even especially when

they are from overseas and from unexpected places.

Yeah, me too.

And I much look forward to meeting you, Ramon, and all the other listeners on the other side.

It would be great to get to know each other face -to -face and hear each other's stories.

Amen.

Well, we're going to our final break.

It's going to be a lot more brief than the previous breaks.

If you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages.

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Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you.

Welcome back, and I just want to once again address Ramon in the

Philippines.

Although we cannot ship out copies of the books written by

our guests to overseas countries outside of the USA, or even

Canada, for that matter, and Mexico, etc.,

if you do have an American friend

or a church with whom you have communication and trust, then we can ship it to them

for you if they would be willing to mail it to you.

Or if you just want to give it as a gift to someone who is an American citizen,

we can ship it there if you provide the address.

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, ships out all of our winners,

their free books and Bibles, and they would be quickly going into bankruptcy

if they were to be shipping everyone who is listening overseas, who sends in

questions because of the fact of the astronomical shipping fees that are

related to that.

So let us know if you have an American individual or church where you would like

us to ship a copy of Bill Dobby's book.

If anybody has a question, actually, I don't think we actually have any time left for

additional questions because we're going to be over before you know it.

But if you could, just pick up where you want to end the program today

because we're going to be out of time very soon.

Will, can you hear me?

I can.

Yes, just pick up where you would like us to finalize the program.

Sure.

Well, I'm supposed to be selective since time is short.

Two out of the remaining days that really stick out at me as being important waypoints on this journey

God has us on from eternity past to eternity future would be death

and the new creation.

I think death is one of the most important parts of the Christian life.

I view my role as a pastor as heavily involving training people to die well.

So a lot of life is about learning to die well because, of course, for us as believers, it is not this terrifying

trap door to the unknown and to hell.

It's the opposite.

It's this glorious gateway into God's presence.

And, you know, the Bible has a lot to say about death.

It's very honest that death is unnatural.

It didn't exist when God made this creation.

It won't exist when he makes the new creation.

It's not in our factory settings.

It's like a virus that kind of found a way in later.

And, you know, we get places like Romans five where Paul saying sin

came into the world through one man and death through sin.

So we shouldn't cave in to cynicism or

gloomy resignation.

Death is not normal.

It didn't exist at the beginning and we're soon going to be free from it.

It's also inevitable.

As surely as the sun is going to set on you and I tonight, Chris, we will one day die.

And that means we shouldn't be naive about death.

We shouldn't be in denial about it.

You know, Peter, in 1 Peter 2, calls us sojourners.

In other words, we're just very brief visitors passing through this world.

We shouldn't live for this world.

Put our eggs in the basket of eternity to come.

And then thirdly, Scripture is realistic and honest that death is painful.

You know, just ask Jesus at Lazarus's graveside.

We don't have to whistle in the dark.

But the important thing, fourth, is that death for us is impotent.

It's been defanged.

You get Paul rejoicing in 1 Corinthians 15.

Death, where is your victory?

Death, where is your sting?

And we have victory over death through Jesus.

So, you know, those are some of the key truths we need to know about death.

Amen.

And by the way, we just received an individual who is here in the

States.

Name and address where Ramon would like us to send.

The last free copy of the book that we have to offer today,

From Everlasting to Everlasting.

And we thank you, Ramon, for submitting such an excellent question.

And we will ship this out to your friend Jordan, or I should say, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service

will ship it out to your friend Jordan as soon as possible.

And I hope he notifies you when he gets that book in the

mail.

Well, now if you could, Will, just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds

of our listeners today before we run out of time.

Sure.

Let me also say I love your listeners, Chris.

Good on you, Jordan, for passing on that book.

I might have to become one of your listeners myself going forwards, Chris.

You have a great listener.

This book is, if there's anything good about it, it's simply that it's trying faithfully to

pass on the message of the book, the Bible, which is that no matter how

wild or crazy or confusing or fearful life may seem, God is in control.

He loves us.

He is sovereignly guiding us down a perfect pathway that he has designed step -by -step leading from eternity past

when the members of the Trinity covenanted within themselves to save us all the way through to eternity future and the new creation when every tear

is going to be wiped away.

And by following his path, by his grace, we will access massive reservoirs of

comfort and strength and hope and joy and peace.

So praise God for the fact that he's a God of order and that there is an order to our salvation.

Praise God.

Amen.

Well, this bit of news should please my guest, Will Dobby.

Tomorrow we have on the program somebody who Will knows.

We have my dear friend for quite a number of years, Pastor Keith Foskey,

will be on the program.

He is pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

He's also the host of the Conversations with a Calvinist podcast, and he had

Will as a guest on the program prior to Will's coming on here on Iron Trip and Zion

Radio.

And Keith is going to be discussing the proper place for comedy

and humor in the life of a Christian, and so that should be a fun time with

Pastor Keith who is an extremely funny person in addition to being a very biblically literate

and passionate believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

So mark your calendars for that interview tomorrow.

Also, I want to make sure that our listeners have all the information that they need to get a hold

of Will Dobby.

First of all, once again, Emanuel Church of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Their website is enox .org, E -K -N -O -X .org, so don't

forget about that.

Also, if you want to read up on the book that we have been discussing today

that has been published by Christian Focus Publications from Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography,

go to christianfocus .com, christianfocus .com, and

when it comes to you actually purchasing the book, I would rather that you actually purchase it from our

sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

cvbbs .com, because, of course, Christian Focus Publications will still benefit from that since

they are the ones selling cvbbs .com, their books.

And make sure that when you order it that you mention that you heard about this book from Everlasting to

Everlasting from Chris Orensen and Iron Troutman's Iron Radio.

Also, I'd like to remind our listeners that an ad that you hear every day on this show

for the Historical Bible Society, that organization has been founded and

is run by a dear friend of mine, Dan Buttafuoco, who is also

a serious personal injury and medical malpractice attorney.

He is in association with attorneys in every state, all 50 states of the United

States, and no matter where you live, if you are the victim of a serious accident or

injury or medical malpractice case, please contact Dan at 1 -800

-NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, and make sure you mention, it's very important that you mention Iron Troutman's Iron

Radio.

Dan has been extremely generous to us and has just sent us a very

generous gift on top of his annual advertising contract for Christmas.

And so we thank Dan from the bottom of our hearts for his faithfulness.

And also, don't forget about RoyalDiadem .com.

If you purchase jewelry before they cut off the offer from them, valued at $100 or more, we will get

100 of the profits.

That's RoyalDiadem .com.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write.

I especially also want to thank Will Dobby.

I look forward to his return to the program.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a

sinner.