August 21, 2025 Show with Nick White on “One Pastor’s Journey Out from Independent Fundamentalism into the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace”

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

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse 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 two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 21st day of August 2025.

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Just a brief note, if you haven't heard already, today,

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Dr. James Dobson, formerly of Focus on the Family, later to move on to his own ministry and radio podcast,

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Dr. Dobson went home to be with the Lord at 89 years of age.

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And in spite of any of my serious differences with Dr. Dobson theologically and ideologically,

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I know that he was a strong proponent of the self -esteem movement within Christianity and borrowed more from secular psychology in his approach to Christian counseling than biblical counselors that I personally know and highly esteem.

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At the same time, there is no question that Dr. Dobson contributed much positive things to the body of Christ at large through what he did.

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And believe it or not, you may not know this, but one of his wife's favorite preachers is

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Dr. Joel Beakey. So that was quite a nice surprise to hear that.

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But please pray for the Dobson family as they mourn the loss of their dear loved one.

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But today I have a first -time guest. We have dealt with this subject before, but I don't think we can ever deal with it too often.

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And I'm excited to talk about it today. My guest today for the very first time is Nick White, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York.

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And he's going to be addressing one pastor's journey out from the independent fundamentalist mindset into the doctrines of the sovereign grace of God.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio for the very first time,

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Pastor Nick White. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on.

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It's a privilege to be here. And before we go on to our conversation at hand, why don't you tell our listeners something about First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York, and tell us about the geographic details of where Hamburg, New York is.

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Yeah. So First Baptist Church of Hamburg is a 215 -year -old church.

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It is a church that has been founded with this town here. We're in the south towns of Buffalo, New York.

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And so we're just right there in the suburbs in the south of the city of Buffalo and Niagara.

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And in the general area, there's about 1 .2 million people between Buffalo and Niagara and that Erie County kind of region.

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And, yeah, we're just we're preaching the gospel here in a dark blue state and seeing the

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Lord do great works in people's lives. And Christ is still calling his sheep home even here in a liberal

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New York. And so we're thankful for that. Well, now that I know that you are in Buffalo or in that area, you have no excuse not to come to my

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon on September 18th, featuring

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, our keynote speaker. I say that because even though it is being held here in Pennsylvania, I've got two pastors coming from your area all the way from there to Pennsylvania.

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One is Mark Hamilton. Do you know Mark? I do. Yeah, he's a good friend. Oh, wow.

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OK, well, he's coming. And Pastor Samuel Farag, who is in the

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Rochester area, is driving to Buffalo to meet Pastor Hamilton.

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And they're coming to Pennsylvania together. So I'm looking forward to meeting both of them.

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Actually, I've met Pastor Mark Hamilton at one of the last

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National G3 conferences in Atlanta, Georgia. So that's going to be a sweet time fellowship.

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So if anybody wants more information, by the way, for First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York, go to FBCHamburg .com,

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FBCHamburg .com. Well, this is a tradition that we have on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, where we always have first -time guests provide for our listeners their salvation testimonies of how they were raised, in what kind of religious atmosphere they were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. And our entire conversation today is really going to be hinged on that story.

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It's just going to be a longer story than most of our guests tell, because it is the entire theme that we are addressing of your journey out from the independent

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Fundamentalist Baptist movement into the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

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And I do want to give a caveat. I in no way intend to broad -brush

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Independent Fundamentalist Baptists by what we are going to say negatively today.

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I know that they are not a monolithic group. The Fighting Fundies is a nickname that they have earned for a reason.

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They are involved in a lot of—in fighting, as are Reformed Baptists and other Reformed Christians.

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And I have grown to know and love a number of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastors, some of whom who remain my friends.

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I was responsible for helping to orchestrate a radio program in New York City and the surrounding boroughs back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

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When I worked for WMCA Radio, 570 AM, a

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Salem media affiliate, which is the largest Christian radio network in the world.

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But I helped orchestrate the Fundamental Baptist Forum, which was hosted by a diverse group of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastors.

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And they did not all see eye to eye and everything. And I used to attend some of their meetings to continue to discuss strategy and other things regarding the program.

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And there would definitely be some heated arguments going on because of their disagreements.

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But it's time for me to shut up for a while and to hear your story going all the way back to your upbringing in your home.

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Sure. So I was born and raised in a Christian home. I grew up going to church.

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The church that we attended was an Independent Fundamental Baptist church. That's just the world that I always had known growing up.

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And I made a profession of faith when I was five years old.

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I asked Jesus into my heart. I did what I was told to do and prayed, you know, the prayers

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I was told to pray. And my family, my parents, they wanted me to be raised in a godly and Christian home.

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They were doing the best that they could with everything that they were taught. And I just kind of grew up the rest of my teen years thinking that life was just about me and I was in a

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Christian community. And so when you're in that kind of community and you're not yet a true convert, you've not yet really been regenerated, you tend to just see things as, well, this is the way it is and I want to get along in this world.

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And whatever I have to do to do that is what I'm going to do. And so if I dress the part and talk the part and act the part.

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And so I was a comparatively good kid in that regard. Never had a crazy sowing my wild oats kind of season, but just was very self -obsessed.

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Had no desire to glorify God in my life. But I loved to hear the kind of preaching that we heard.

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And it was very sugar sticky, kind of shock jock, grandstanding preaching.

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Very personality driven and centered. And so I, of course, my flesh was attracted to that.

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And I wanted to be a preacher because of that. I wanted to stand up and I wanted people to see my personality, laugh at my jokes, hear my stories, think that I was a great speaker or preacher.

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I had all the wrong reasons for wanting to go into the pulpit ministry. And so I eventually went to Bible college and went for the purpose of being trained for pastoral ministry.

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I went for one year to a very small independent Baptist college in Kentucky, in Louisville.

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And during that year, I just kind of ran into a brick wall.

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I was failing classes. I was finding myself to be really irresponsible, silly.

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I had come to grips with the fact that I was not as spiritually sharp as I thought I was.

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And I took a year off from school. And during that year,

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I believe that is when the Lord really began to draw me to himself. And I came to know

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Christ as my Savior. I, for the first time in my life, actually cared about God getting glory.

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And for the first time in my life, it wasn't about me. And there was a great change in my desires.

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I started to seek after God in my day -to -day walk with him.

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And I believe it was at that point that I was regenerated by the Lord. I can't pinpoint the exact day, the exact time, but I can tell you that it was during that season where I truly began to want to live for God and for his glory.

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And so that's kind of how I would say my conversion went about. Then I ended up going back to Bible college, a different one.

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So that kind of jumps into the rest of the story there. Perhaps you could give us a little bit more details on the kind of independent

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Fundamentalist Baptist upbringing you had, because as we already mentioned at the outset of the program and even before the program during our private conversation, independent

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Fundamentalist Baptists are not monolithic. By very nature of being an independent

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Fundamentalist Baptist, as are most

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Baptists, there are Baptists in denominations, but many Baptists, including

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Reformed Baptists like myself, we think congregations are to be independent and autonomous.

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And the only leadership we have on earth are elders being led by the

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Holy Spirit into the Word of God, which is inerrant. And our only head is

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Christ himself. So we don't have a hierarchical denominational structure outside the local congregation.

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Of course, we also believe in the value of cooperation amongst like -minded pastors and churches, and we think that is very important as well.

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And I'm speaking of specifically Reformed Baptists, now confessional Reformed Baptists, because I know typically independent

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Fundamentalist Baptists do not practice or believe in the plurality and parity of elders, although some might.

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But a couple of the things that you just mentioned,

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I was wondering where your family was when it comes to things like even your own testimony of when you believe you were truly converted by the grace of God.

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You noticed a change in your heart, and you're wanting to glorify

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God above all else and not yourself. Those seem to be elements of repentance that you're hinging to salvation itself.

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And therefore, since some—and I have to emphasize some independent

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Fundamentalist Baptists to say that repentance is an essential element of salvation, they believe that is absolute heresy.

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They wrongly and slanderously confuse that with the teaching that human deeds and efforts help merit being born again, which no one who is theologically

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Reformed believes that at all. We don't even believe our faith is evoked from our own heart.

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We believe that that's a gift of God. So repentance is just an evidence of being saved and not something that helps us become saved.

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There seems to be a lot of confusion over things like that. And the other thing that popped into my head immediately is when you said,

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I don't know the day or the hour where I believe I was saved,

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I have met some independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastors who think that's an essential element of truly being saved.

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If you don't know the day and the hour, you're not really saved and that kind of thing. But if you could tell us more details about your particular breed or brand of independent

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Fundamentalist Baptist. Sure. So I belonged to the

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Hyles Anderson kind of sort of the Lord type of world, and bounced between really those two.

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And even in that world, there are micro divisions of different sects of independent

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Fundamental Baptist. But for the most part, if not entirely, my whole upbringing was involved.

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Every church we were a part of was a Hyles type, sort of the Lord type. And what that means is, yes, it's

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King James only. Yes. Very heavy on like bus ministry where you send buses out to pick children up and you have crazy kind of promotions to try and build the church with a lot of pragmatism for church growth.

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And with that goes the kind of manufacture type conversion where we convert people.

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We take people and we humanly engineer their conversion. We make them Christians and we have the decisive power to change our own hearts.

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And so in that regard, yeah, there was no such thing as repentance as far as repentance from sin.

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The way that we always define repentance was it simply, I used to not believe and now

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I do. And so that's my repentance. The only sin you really need to repent of is the sin of unbelief.

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So you now, you know, are repenting of the fact that you once did not believe in Jesus.

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But now, you know, since you do, you've repented of that one sin, but not really the other things.

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And so that's kind of what I believe. And frankly, when I was truly converted, I had repented.

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But I even at that point did not think that that had anything to do with saving faith, if that makes sense.

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I still theologically had not yet developed the understanding of what true conversion was because of what we were always taught.

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But it wasn't until I came to understand the way the Scripture talks about conversion, where I can look back in hindsight 2020 and say, that's when

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I was regenerated. That's when the best I can tell, there was true repentance exercised.

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And so I think that even in that moment, I didn't know I was actually saved. Like I didn't go around telling everybody, oh,

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I'm saved now. I thought I was saved because I did what I did at five years old. So it wasn't until later

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I could even pinpoint that and figure that out theologically. Yeah, and there is a lot of that that is self -contradictory and strange and baffling, because it's ironic that independent fundamentalist

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Baptists who are known for having high standards of conduct and morality, who have strict codes on how someone must dress, act, and behave to be members in good standing or be even members at all of a local congregation, even to the point of going above and beyond what the

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Word of God requires of us. It is strange that they would have such an abhorrent understanding of requiring repentance.

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It really makes little to no sense. And I do know of independent fundamentalist

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Baptists who are on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to insisting upon repentance as a sign of true conversion.

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But did any of this begin to baffle you on why those two things could coexist?

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A constantly declared and hammered list of do's and don'ts being drummed into the listeners in the pew, and at the same time being taught to believe in repentance as being necessary for salvation, is in and of itself a damnable teaching that makes absolutely no sense to me.

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Yeah. Well, it's interesting you make that observation, because one further observation you can make is that many of those exact kind of churches never practice church discipline.

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And they are not consistent. I mean, even growing up for me, I cannot remember more than maybe two or three times where real church discipline had taken place.

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And I think if you just look at it practically, if they were to consistently practice church discipline, they would have to hold all of those standards that they say are level with first -tier issues of the faith.

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They would have to be consistent enough to church discipline everybody who violated what they believed was required by the

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Word of God when it was not. And so it's almost the strange other side of the coin as antinomianism, that the antinomian church doesn't practice church discipline, because if they did, they'd have to discipline everybody because they don't obey what the

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Word actually does to you. On the other hand, the legalist, they can't practice church discipline, because if they did it consistently, they'd have to church discipline everybody because they can't follow everything that Scripture doesn't teach.

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And so it's a really interesting parallel between the two. I think it's just there's a lot of attraction, and there's an allure to certainty, to where, well,

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Scripture doesn't speak to that exact issue, how long a dress should be, or how old a song should be, or how syncopated music should be, but there's a lot of allure to saying, well, what if we could find a way to make

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Scripture say that? And that level of certainty, I think, to a lot of people, they find that very, very attractive, because it just,

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I mean, it makes the Bible say some things that shed some more light on things that leaves them less work to do in making application with Scripture.

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And so, you know, it's hard to necessarily pinpoint the motive, why that seems to be an issue in a lot of churches.

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They stress repentance, but it's not a repentance that is tied to salvation. It's more of a repentance in what they would say being right with God.

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You need to get right with God. You can be saved and not be right with God. And that's just,

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I believe that's a faulty view of justification. And so, you know,

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I just think it's a theological error, and those theological errors have great practical ramifications to them.

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Yeah, what I mentioned to you before the show started, that one of the great self -refuting contradictions that many independent fundamentalist

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Baptists possess over this is they think you are lost, you are damned, you are unregenerate if you teach and believe that repentance is necessary for salvation.

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And yet, what are they saying, in essence, without saying the words?

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They are saying, you need to repent of that belief, or else you're going to hell.

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So no matter where you try to hide from that, if you're backed in the corner, you have to admit then repentance is necessary for salvation.

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It really makes no sense. Yeah. Go ahead. No, you could grab ten guys—one of the big problems is you could grab ten different independent

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Baptist pastors who would say, we all agree. And then you ask them, just pin them down and say, give me a theological definition of repentance, of conversion, of regeneration.

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What's justification? And you might get ten different answers. And I think the reason is often because there's not a big emphasis on systematic theology, on having definitive understanding, having a framework, a theological framework to work under.

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And so you've got really guys who are all over the board unintentionally because they have never really been trained or taught how to think about what the

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Bible says about that issue in its entirety. And so there's a great lack of clarity,

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I believe, on some of those issues. So even if you were to ask them about repentance, I'm not quite sure if you would get a really good answer from a lot of guys.

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Now, there are those that you mentioned who would be the exception to that. But for the most part, in my experience, people seem to kind of be all over the board on that issue, even in its definition.

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Now, I remember the Fundamental Baptist Forum. As I said, there was a mixture of guys who are independent fundamentalist

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Baptists. Some of them, although they were not theologically

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Reformed like myself, some of them could conduct the program very exegetically.

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And I would be pleased and edified by hearing them examine the

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Scriptures over something in areas over which I agreed with them. But there was a lot of other men on the program that I never heard open up the

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Bible and actually exegete passages. It was really hobby -horsing of favorite topics.

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They were topics, you know, about what we were mentioning, the length of women's skirts, the length of men's hair, and rock and roll music being of the devil.

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And, you know, you could go on and on and on like that with all these things. And by the way, folks,

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I'm not saying that it's never appropriate, especially when you are conducting expository preaching and you're coming across the text that involves modest dress or the prohibitions of cross -dressing, men dressing like women, women dressing like men, and that kind of thing.

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But there was an obsession by some over those hobby -horse issues that I could not help but wonder if the people in those churches were ever really being convicted about their sin.

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Because what about the sin of pride? What about, you know, the other sins that may be not on the top 10 list to oppose by independent fundamentalists?

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If you're only talking about what people are typically doing outside the four walls of your own church, are you really going to stir congregants to live holier lives in their own congregations?

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Am I making sense? Yes. So, yeah.

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The big problem, I think, that you find in the preaching—and so maybe this kind of adds a little bit more to my background—the kind of preaching that we heard was never that kind of exegetical verse -by -verse preaching.

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I was really a total stranger to that in my early days until later on when

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I was an adult. I really was then finally introduced to what expository preaching is. And so what we always heard was just that.

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Here are some rules, these first -tier issues. We were always cutting the branches off.

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We were never dealing with the root issues of sin. And we were never getting to the heart of the issue.

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It was always the externals of what movies you were watching. Or, you know, I've heard people preach against watching

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Nacho Libre. I've heard people preach against listening to certain classical music because the artist was somehow influenced by Satan to write that classical music.

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And you can invite demonic oppression into your life by listening to that classical song.

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And so it was just a lot of that kind of moralism and externalism.

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And nothing ever addressed to the actual heart of the issue. And as you know,

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Chris, that never leads somebody to be a more holy person ever. It never brings about a change because it is totally devoid of the gospel and of the cross.

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Yes, and that would be another area over which the brethren that I know would argue was music.

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Because even the strictest of independent fundamentalist

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Baptists don't agree on every jot and tittle when it comes to musical preference. And there would be arguments over some people wanting to play during the program country gospel.

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And while some thought that was completely acceptable for your old -time religion, some would say, it sounds like honky -tonk music to me.

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You know, so there would be—you would rarely find just complete harmony.

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And it somewhat amused me when I would visit some churches where the melody that the pianist was playing for their hymn singing sounded indistinguishable from the saloon music in Westerns.

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You know what I'm saying? The melodies and the way that they played the piano.

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So when you're trying to be hyper puritanical when it comes to music,

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I think that can be a very difficult road. But at the same time, in fact, when we come back from the break, maybe you could mention some things that you think are things we could benefit from from your independent fundamentalist

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Baptist days that perhaps should be believed and practiced by those outside of those circles.

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And I, for one, even though I may have personal music tastes that would include some electric guitar rhythms and so on,

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I don't want that kind of music in a worship service because I think any music that distracts from congregational worship is dangerous.

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I don't even like it when churches have a lot of trained, beautiful singers who might be singing in a fashion that even an independent fundamentalist

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Baptist would love to hear. But it becomes entertainment even if it's old -fashioned music.

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But anyway, we could pick up on that element of your story when we come back from our first break.

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If you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

33:29

You may remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

33:51

James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the Free Pastors Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government.

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith. And we gather around the Lord's table every

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

38:40

Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, this is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

38:47

And we are interviewing today Pastor Nick White of the

38:54

First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York. And our theme is

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One Pastor's Journey Out from the Independent Fundamentalist Mindset into the Doctrines of the Sovereign Grace of God.

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Our email address, if you have questions, is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence you are.

39:15

Welcome to Remain Anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And before the break,

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Pastor Nick, I'd ask you to mention some things that might be more prevalent amongst independent fundamentalist

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Baptists than the average Christian or church. But you think they are not something to be or things to be abandoned and rejected or avoided, but things to be embraced.

39:46

Yeah, I can give you three things. I would say first, the emphasis on the

39:51

Bible is something that maybe to a degree where it actually hurts them.

39:58

The emphasis on the Bible is actually one of the things that led me out of the independent fundamental Baptist world.

40:04

But they are so big on the Bible, now specifically the King James Bible. But I have never in my life ever questioned, you know, with a outspoken position, the inerrancy of Scripture.

40:18

I've never had a problem with that doctrine. The authority of Scripture was always something that I just believed and held to.

40:27

So, I mean, I would say that I, to this day, still hold tightly to those doctrines and those truths.

40:34

And like I said, that became a guiding star for me to get out of the fundamental world because of adhering to the

40:43

Word of God. I would say another thing would be evangelism. Their passion for preaching the gospel to the lost, for going out to each house in the community and preaching the gospel to the people, that is something that I've still taken with me as a

41:01

Calvinist and even at our church right now. We had started recently to go door -to -door with the gospel of Christ and giving the true gospel to people in our community.

41:13

So that fire has not been doused at all. In fact, when I embraced the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, that only fed into the fire.

41:22

That fanned the flames of my evangelistic zeal. So I would say the emphasis on Scripture, evangelism, and then passion in preaching.

41:33

Now, it can get a little extreme with some guys where they're kind of hooping and hollering about, and it can become grandstanding.

41:42

But I have found a lot—and again, just as we're not trying to broad -brush people in the fundamental world,

41:49

I'm not trying to broad -brush anybody in the Reformed world. But I've come to find out sometimes a lot of churches, a lot of pastors, their preaching can be very substantial but lacking passion.

42:02

And I'm not just meaning that they don't yell. I'm not expecting every preacher to get loud. But there's no weight or, you know, force or thrust in some preaching that I hear.

42:14

It could be more of a lecture. Yes, more of a running commentary. And so, yeah,

42:21

I mean, I would say that that's a little bit of something that I've taken with me. And when people listen to me preach, maybe they can tell where I come from, because I do get pretty passionate when

42:32

I preach. So, you know, I think all of those things, whether it's the emphasis on Scripture or evangelism or passion,

42:38

I've had to crystallize and even refine when I came to the doctrines of grace.

42:43

But those are things that were instilled in me that I have not thrown away. Yes. And although I am not the—what's the word

42:59

I'm looking for? I'm not anywhere in the orbit of being a clothing dictator.

43:10

Of course, all Christians should dress modestly. You should not be dressing provocative sexually, whether you're a man or a woman.

43:26

Right. But I know independent fundamental Baptist pastors who want everyone to always be wearing a jacket and tie at worship.

43:39

Some of these men, when they go to informal gatherings of pastors, will still have the jacket, dress shirt, and tie on and will look down on you if you don't.

43:53

And they'll make comments about it. But at the same time,

43:59

I think there is something to be said that if you want to help a church promote a spirit of reverence in the midst of the people, that dressing like you just crawled out of bed,

44:20

I think, is something that just demonstrates laziness.

44:27

It demonstrates a lack of concern about what other people think, especially if they're visitors, to partake in biblical worship.

44:39

And they see somebody in their sweatpants or shorts with flip -flops or slippers.

44:49

I've seen that. I've seen people come to church barefoot, not in the congregation where I am now, but in other churches.

44:58

There is something about the promotion of demonstrating reverence in the way you dress.

45:06

Am I making sense? Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, put your shoes on.

45:15

And you don't have to wear a shirt that looks like you were changing the oil of your truck while wearing it.

45:26

And I'm not talking, by the way, I'm not talking about for people. I think that it's a sin to be judging anyone who is demonstrating their poverty or revealing their poverty by the way they are dressing.

45:46

That's specifically condemned in the Bible, that we're not to play favorites with people because they are dressing in fine, expensive clothes and looking down on the one who is obviously poor by the way he or she is dressed.

46:06

I'm not talking about that, but I knew financially well -off people that would show up to church barefoot and, you know, that kind of thing.

46:17

Before we go to our midway break, we'll bring up some of the providential circumstances that led you to start hearing and or reading the truth about the doctrines of grace that made you start to question the things you were being taught, the things that you were repeating in those independent fundamentals by the circles.

46:47

How did you begin to hear about these things, the doctrines of grace? So, yeah, we were taught growing up that the doctrines of grace, they were not the doctrines of grace.

46:58

They are the doctrine of demons. That's how we were taught, that Calvinism was a satanic doctrine, that John Calvin was a heretic.

47:10

And so we were very hostile towards anything that was Calvinistic.

47:16

But at the same time, we were always taught about men like Spurgeon.

47:22

We were always hearing good things about Spurgeon, always heard good things about George Whitefield.

47:28

And Jonathan Edwards has a sermon, as you know, every one of us Reformed people know, Sinners in the

47:33

Hands of an Angry God. And yet, Sword of the Lord published that sermon and has that sermon.

47:39

I think you could still go on their website and buy that sermon. And so there was kind of this moment in reading some of these men more broadly.

47:48

As I got older, as I got out of Bible college, I went and was sent out of a fundamental church to go start a church in Boston, Massachusetts.

47:58

And we were there, and I was trying to start a church the way that a

48:03

Southern independent fundamental Baptist church would do that, with all the gimmicks and the programs.

48:08

And I was getting desperate because it wasn't working. You're not going to have much luck doing these gimmicky kind of promotions in a place where you've got

48:18

Harvard and MIT in your backyard. And it wasn't working for us. We weren't seeing the kind of growth that we were expecting.

48:26

So I resorted to reading a lot, and I'm reading more about Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield and men that I was always taught to look up to.

48:33

And I'm coming to find out these guys are Calvinists. These guys are heretics. They are denying that whosoever will may come.

48:44

And so I was kind of having an identity crisis because I'm thinking, well, if we were always told great things about these guys and I'm now finding out they're

48:53

Calvinists, well, maybe I should stop reading that. I don't have anybody left.

48:59

Nobody left except for people up to like the 1970s. And that was called the old past.

49:06

That's what we're taught. That's the old past. The old past I'm finding out now is 50 years old. And I was starting to just get a little bit concerned.

49:18

And so that kind of that that blended the edge for me of Calvinism. I started to realize that Calvinists are not really that bad.

49:26

Now, I'm still not one at this point, but I just I I wasn't going to dogmatically say anymore that if someone was a

49:34

Calvinist, they denied the gospel, they preached another gospel, and they didn't believe in evangelism. Because I was finding out very quickly that many of the greatest evangelistic movements that have happened in the world were led by Calvinists, five point card carrying

49:48

Calvinists. And so I had stopped sharing that sentiment with the group that I grew up with.

49:56

I would say that the biggest catalyst to helping me get out of the mindset that I was in into a mindset of understanding true conversion, which that's what led me to the doctrines of grace, was understanding what true conversion was.

50:12

And it happened when my wife came home two years into our church planning days and she tells me in tears that she has been lost the whole time that we've known each other.

50:25

Wow. And she tells me that she needs to be saved. Now, we met in Bible college.

50:32

I thought she was a believer. She dressed the part, did the part, the part.

50:39

I never had a question in my mind that she was not saved. She would do her

50:45

Bible reading sometimes. She would try to be faithful in prayer and she went to church.

50:52

She even counseled teenagers during my Bible college days. She taught a Sunday school class for teen girls.

51:01

And here she is now. It's Black Friday, by the way. This isn't a Sunday service. She comes home on Black Friday while shopping.

51:08

She comes home in tears. And I'm like, what's happening? While she was in her car, the

51:14

Holy Spirit had overwhelmed her with her guilt before God. And she came home and told me,

51:22

I need Christ. I've been lost this whole time and I need Jesus. And so in one sense,

51:28

I'm thrilled. This is great. I'm so glad you're getting saved. But in another sense, I was so confused.

51:35

Because she prayed the prayer when she was six years old. She did all the things that we tell people to do to get saved.

51:43

And she's not saved. And so it wasn't clicking. And I was just already at that point drowning in so many other questions.

51:52

Because I have friends who are changing their theology and they're not going into the doctrines of grace.

51:57

They're going the other way, saying you can lose your salvation. And I'm so desperate for answers.

52:03

And I'm starting to question the sources of my information in the fundamental world more and more.

52:09

Because as I mentioned, the Lord sells sinners in the hands of an angry God. I come to find out they edited out the

52:15

Calvinistic portions of the sermon in the publication. So I am now doubting and questioning even the people that I've learned church history from.

52:26

And I was in a position of spiritual depression. Here I am.

52:31

I am a so -called pastor. I can't give a definitive Bible answer to so many of the questions that are racing in my mind as to what true conversion really is.

52:44

And what it is that I should really believe about church history. And then on top of that, how do

52:50

I answer my friends who are changing on their theology? And then on top of that, I am trying to humanly manufacture and build with my own hands the church of Jesus Christ in a place like Boston, Massachusetts.

53:05

And I came very close to quitting in the ministry. Well, if you could pick up right where you left off when we returned from our midway break.

53:12

Sure. If anybody wants to join us, our email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least.

53:18

City and state and country of residence. You may remain anonymous over personal and private matters.

53:24

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of the Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother,

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Chris Arnzen, in the highest esteem, and I'm thrilled that you're listening today. I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for Reformed Christian literature for decades now,

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Oh, and make sure that you tell them that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

56:28

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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Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

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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 in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

56:59

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

58:23

And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church in Franklin.

58:55

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

59:03

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

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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 Arnson and the

59:29

Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

59:41

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the

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Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

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

59:59

Knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com,

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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

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

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

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Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

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Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the

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Reformers, Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.

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Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity. For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

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That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, or call 678 -954 -7831.

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That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

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

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

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website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

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Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

01:04:07

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invidio, and thanks for listening. at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

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And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the

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First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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For many things that the

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01:08:05

Tell them Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. Welcome back.

01:08:12

Before I return to my fascinating conversation with Pastor Nick White of First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York, and his journey out from the independent fundamentalist mindset into the doctrines of sovereign grace, before I return to that,

01:08:30

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01:09:47

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01:11:01

And last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally sound, theologically solid, like First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York, I have extensive lists spanning the entire globe of biblically faithful churches.

01:11:17

And no matter where on the planet you live, I may be able to help you find a church that's biblically faithful, just as I have done with many people all over the world in the

01:11:28

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience who are without a biblically faithful church home. So if you are in that predicament, please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:11:38

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Pastor Nick White on his journey out of independent fundamentalist

01:11:51

Baptist mindset into the doctrines of sovereign grace. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:11:58

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if it's a personal and private question.

01:12:05

And we do have one of those personal and private questions that I'll go to momentarily.

01:12:11

But first, I want you to continue your thought, Nick, that you began to reveal before the break about your depression that was beginning to mount upon you due to the man -centeredness of your faith.

01:12:27

Yes, so I was drowning in theological questions and issues, and I was starting to doubt as to whether or not

01:12:37

I was truly called to pastor or to preach. I felt like a failure.

01:12:43

I was bearing on my shoulders the responsibility, it seemed, to build

01:12:49

Christ Church with my own hands. That is not a weight that any of us have been tasked with bearing.

01:12:56

And so it was a really hard, hard season. And so out of desperation,

01:13:03

I started to go outside of the spheres of influence that I had always known just to find some answers.

01:13:13

And so I did something I would never recommend to anybody who's listening, and that is

01:13:18

I used Google. And I just typed in into Google search bar a sermon on salvation.

01:13:24

And that's a risky thing to do, but thankfully, providentially, God had the first sermon that showed up was a, like, one -hour sermon from John MacArthur on salvation.

01:13:40

And I had always heard bad things about John MacArthur, but I had recently seen some tweets from some other fundamentalist pastors that actually had recommended some of his material.

01:13:50

And so I looked into him a little bit more, and I gave that sermon a listen. And that was my true first experience with expository preaching.

01:14:03

I'd never heard verse -by -verse preaching like that. It was so foreign and different than anything

01:14:10

I've ever known, and it blew me away. It literally blew my world wide open.

01:14:15

And I immediately realized, like, this is what I've been missing.

01:14:21

This is exactly what I had not had in my ministry and even in my life. So I had decided

01:14:28

I'm going to do whatever it takes to learn how to do this, how to preach the Bible verse -by -verse, and I am going to stop doing what

01:14:37

I've been doing on Sundays, which is I'd come Saturday night, I'd put a message together as quickly as I could, and I'd have my own thoughts,

01:14:45

I'd base it largely off of my own creativity, the message, and then I'd just preach it and hope that it would go well on Sundays.

01:14:54

I decided instead I'm going to now start preaching through books of the Bible. And I started preaching through the

01:15:01

Gospel of John. And it is not John Calvin that changed my mind on anything.

01:15:09

It's not a book that was written by any Reformed author that changed my mind. Reading and preaching verse -by -verse through the

01:15:17

Gospel of John convinced me of the sovereignty of God in salvation.

01:15:22

Amen. It was nothing else. Yeah, and that Gospel is so rich in the doctrines of grace.

01:15:29

Even there are Reformed publishers like Chapel Library who print that all in a booklet on its own, the

01:15:41

Gospel of John. It's so rich in the doctrines of grace. Yeah, so I mean,

01:15:48

I was preaching through the Gospel of John, and you're being confronted with the realities of true faith.

01:15:54

I mean, John's Gospel is written so that you may believe that Jesus Christ is God. That's the whole purpose for this book, that you would believe.

01:16:04

And so it's natural that John would address, what is saving faith then? He even does that in his first letter. And so in that book you have examples of false faith.

01:16:13

John 2 is one of the first ones, if I'm remembering correctly, where people say they believe on Him, but Jesus doesn't believe them.

01:16:21

He doesn't entrust himself to them. And so I'm starting to really develop a right understanding of true conversion and nominal faith and spurious faith, what that actually is.

01:16:33

And with my wife's conversion just happening, I am now realizing that the way I've been preaching the

01:16:38

Gospel has been wrong because it's been missing the key element of repentance from sin.

01:16:45

And so I started to preach repentance from sin, and one Sunday I just made it known to the church that I have been wrong for not preaching this issue and that I'm going to preach out of Matthew 7.

01:16:59

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, depart from me. I never knew you, that whole chapter, that passage.

01:17:04

And I preached that. Nobody got saved in my congregation, but they knew. They knew where we stood and where we were headed.

01:17:12

Well, that night I was receiving phone call after phone call, and it's about 3 in the morning, and I didn't know that I had received those calls until the next day.

01:17:22

And I checked my phone, and my sister, who was, if I'm remembering correctly, 19, maybe 20, she made a profession when she was very young.

01:17:31

Well, she live -streamed that sermon that I preached, and the Lord used that sermon from Matthew 7 to convert her truly.

01:17:41

And I'm just seeing one thing after another, God using various things to just drill into me the reality of the miracle of conversion, that it can't be something that we as humans manufacture, and that it has to be something

01:17:59

God does in somebody's life. And so that became the big issue for me. I still not yet fully developed my

01:18:06

Calvinism, the doctrines of grace, but I was there on conversion, that I was missing repentance, and that that really needed to change.

01:18:15

And so with time, I eventually had to split from the sending church that I had.

01:18:20

I had to leave that church plant that we had started. We lost a lot of our support because we split from that sending church.

01:18:28

And then I ended up in another independent Baptist church in New Hampshire, and I was still

01:18:34

King James preferred, not King James only anymore. I was still teetering on the issues of predestination and election, but I was all in on the issue of true conversion and repentance.

01:18:49

And so I come to this church in New Hampshire, and I was there preaching through the Gospel of John and the book of Acts, and preaching through the

01:18:58

Gospel of John, getting through John 3, John 5, John 6, John 8.

01:19:03

And it just hammered into me the realities of the sovereignty of God and salvation. And I had nowhere else to go but to just preach those truths.

01:19:13

And it eventually led me to resign from that church due to the differences in belief, and that's what eventually led us here to Hamburg.

01:19:22

And so that's kind of the story in a nutshell. There's a lot of little things in the middle of it, but really, that which led me to the doctrines of grace was the

01:19:32

Bible itself and preaching it verse by verse. Amen. Well, we have an anonymous listener.

01:19:40

And by the way, let me just remind our anonymous listeners—I failed to say this earlier— that if you want to be anonymous, make sure you put in the subject line anonymous, because I almost read this listener's first name, since it's in her email address.

01:20:04

And then I see, please keep anonymous below that. So I'm glad that I caught that.

01:20:10

But this anonymous listener, I recognize one of the false teachers that she mentions, but not the second.

01:20:20

She says, Hi, Pastor Nick. I have seen you call out false teachers such as Todd White and Dan Mohler.

01:20:28

That's the one I never heard of. Dan Mohler. And I heartily applaud you for it.

01:20:33

I find clear examples of Todd's heresy, but Dan's I find harder to pinpoint.

01:20:42

The elders at my church love Dan Mohler and have even recommended his sermons to me.

01:20:51

What specifically can I show them to clearly illustrate Dan's heretical beliefs and teachings?

01:20:57

Thank you so much. God bless you. So I'm not entirely sure who

01:21:04

Dan Mohler is. Maybe when I called out Todd White, Dan Mohler was partnering with him in that meeting.

01:21:12

And if that's the case, I would simply just say he's not reliable because of the company that he keeps with men like Todd White.

01:21:22

So I can't I can't speak to that because I'm not quite sure who Dan Mohler is.

01:21:27

She's probably confusing that name with Al Mohler. And although I have had my own disagreements over the years with Al Mohler, he is a sovereign grace believing

01:21:38

Baptist, and I would not call him a heretic. No, I wouldn't call him out at all. I have no qualms.

01:21:45

I mean, there's things I disagree with him, but I certainly never called Al Mohler out either. Yeah, so maybe

01:21:53

Anonymous, you can go back into any kind of emails or resources that you have to make sure of the name that you are intending to highlight in your question, because our guest today,

01:22:19

Nick White, has a very high regard for Al Mohler. And neither one of us know who

01:22:24

Dan Mohler is, if such a person exists. And there there is likely somebody somewhere.

01:22:33

But anyway, if you want to get back to us with another email, that'd be fine. And by the way, since you are a first -time questioner, please send me, and your identity will not be revealed on the air, but please email me your full name and mailing address because you have won a brand new

01:22:57

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:23:08

We'll be shipping that Bible out to you. All right, and we have another listener,

01:23:19

Gil, and Gil is from Concord, North Carolina.

01:23:26

And Gil says, you mentioned at the beginning of the program that First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York is over 200 years old.

01:23:36

Have you ever traced back to its origins what they originally taught? Because during that period of time in history, the majority of Baptists did believe and preach boldly the doctrines of sovereign grace, with few exceptions.

01:23:55

Yes, so the history of this church, it was very—I mean, it was your typical gospel -preaching

01:24:02

Baptist church. I have looked into some of the history of this church and not really found much on the doctrines of grace.

01:24:11

The emphasis on the doctrines of grace, I think, is a little more recent to this congregation, to this church.

01:24:17

Even 200 years ago, have you gone back that far? Yeah, so I have been told the story on how this church came to be and how they started it.

01:24:27

And I would not be surprised if they taught the doctrines of grace, but it wasn't significant enough in the records,

01:24:35

I guess, to be able to definitively say whether or not they taught it. Or maybe it was so commonplace that they didn't think a point needed to be made of it.

01:24:45

It could be, yeah. There's a reason why the denomination Free Will Baptists had to call themselves that, because that was an oddity.

01:24:56

Right. Well, thank you, listener.

01:25:04

And one thing I want to—before I go to any more listener questions, I want to have you go through some of the primary things that—I mean, you've already mentioned some crucial areas that you believe needed to be abandoned when you came to know the truth of Scriptures regarding the gospel, how the gospel is to be communicated, the main elements of the gospel, and that all our praise, honor, and glory, 100 percent of it is owed to God alone for our salvation.

01:25:45

What are some of the things that were prominent amongst your leadership, the people in your congregation, and in the circles that they traveled that you realized were an error and needed to be fled from?

01:26:04

Yeah, I would say—I mentioned earlier one thing I appreciate is that they really emphasize the

01:26:11

Bible, and then I mentioned to the side that that's actually one of the things that helped me out, was because of the conviction

01:26:19

I held to Scripture. I was growing more and more concerned with how the

01:26:24

Bible was being handled in the pulpit. I mean, have always been taught that we ought to have high standards, and it was amazing to me the contradiction that was in the fact there were so many high standards for dress and music, but where the standards seemed to be the absolute lowest in many of the churches

01:26:47

I was in was at the pulpit. The standards seemed to be the lowest in how the

01:26:53

Bible was actually being handled from the pulpit, which to me, that ought to be where the standard is the absolute highest, because we're dealing with the

01:27:01

Word of God. I would say that that was one of my biggest issues. Many of the sermons

01:27:06

I was listening to preached, as you mentioned earlier, was just kind of a jumping point for them to talk about whatever came to their mind for about 45 minutes—stories and jokes.

01:27:17

There was little exposition happening. Many times, the passage being preached was taken out of context.

01:27:23

I had to listen to conference preaching, where the pastor would say, what kind of preacher would

01:27:30

Jesus come and hear preach? It was a sermon about John the Baptist and Jesus coming to John the

01:27:37

Baptist, and somehow he got out of this text that Jesus came to listen to John the

01:27:42

Baptist for whatever five reasons this preacher came up with, because John the Baptist was this caliber of a preacher.

01:27:50

There was so much conjecture in it, and so little of it was derived from the text, that even when

01:27:57

I was not yet fully developed in the doctrines of grace, I was very concerned with the level—or the lack thereof, the low level,

01:28:06

I guess I should say—of the exposition taking place from the pulpit and the way that the Scripture was being handled.

01:28:12

I would also say that one of the big issues for me was

01:28:17

I wanted to be in the IFB because I thought we had the monopoly on the ceiling of biblical fidelity.

01:28:25

I truly believed we had it. We figured it out. This is it. There's no more biblical way than this.

01:28:32

We've got the ceiling, so -called. And the way I try to illustrate it is I came to realize that I was staring at a drop ceiling in the

01:28:42

Sistine Chapel. I was looking at this ceiling thinking, this is as high as it goes.

01:28:47

And when I started to understand that the ceiling actually went much higher and was much more beautiful than what

01:28:54

I've always known, it was hard for me to go back. Now my mind is opening up to the truths of church history and how far back these truths actually go and just the realities of the doctrines of grace being woven all throughout those ages and being so fundamental to the way that God had worked in past years and in causing great movements to occur.

01:29:21

I was really starting to doubt and question a lot of things I was taught as what

01:29:27

Scripture was actually teaching and just putting the two together wasn't working. So, I mean,

01:29:33

I was starting to see through the drop ceiling. And once you see through the drop ceiling, you're not satisfied with the drop ceiling itself anymore.

01:29:40

And I realized since the ceiling went much higher, I wanted to be where I could be the most faithful to Scripture.

01:29:49

And I couldn't stay in the independent fundamental Baptist movement as a whole because of that.

01:29:55

And so just my conviction was if I'm going to preach the supremacy of God in the salvation of sinners, and if I'm going to preach the

01:30:05

Word of God as it is truly written, and I'm going to be faithful to that. And if I'm going to preach the nature of true conversion,

01:30:13

I couldn't stay any longer in that world. And so that was really one of the big things for me when my wife and I were deciding what's the next step for us.

01:30:24

And it just came to be, we need to leave. We just need to take our step out and just trust the

01:30:29

Lord with the rest. It's interesting from that story you just told about the fundamentalist

01:30:36

Baptist pastor who preached that Jesus went to hear John the

01:30:43

Baptist preach because he was such a gifted preacher. Well, it's kind of interesting that in Mark 1, verse 4, we read,

01:31:00

John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

01:31:08

Yeah, he was missing that sixth point in his outline.

01:31:13

He didn't talk about that. He just didn't come to hear him preach repentance. Let's see here.

01:31:23

We have Coral in Cooperstown, New York, and Coral said,

01:31:32

One thing that I have discovered in my associations with independent fundamentalist

01:31:38

Baptists is that very often there is a spirit of pride and arrogance rather than humility.

01:31:48

And when the gospel is being proclaimed to the lost, it is not being preached by one who claims to have needed that same gospel because of his own wretchedness, but it is as if this preacher is innately superior to the wicked people that he is yelling at.

01:32:12

And of course, we don't want to broad -brush that. I know some gentle, humble, wonderful brethren who are independent fundamentalist

01:32:21

Baptists, but anyway, I'm sure that I know that that description exists, but if you want to say anything.

01:32:28

Yeah, I would agree. I would second what you said. I do know some really humble and God -fearing brothers in that world who preach the gospel and try to do so humbly.

01:32:40

I understand what she's saying. I've heard preaching like she's talking about, and to the defense of even the fundamentalist world,

01:32:51

I've heard the same kind of preaching in Reformed churches too. So I think it might be more of a pitfall for some of the fundamentals due to the legalism.

01:33:02

Legalism tends to lead to some arrogance and to that kind of pride, but yeah,

01:33:10

I think it's everywhere. And I, like you, love thundering sermons.

01:33:20

I love powerful preachers who raise their voices and not give the appearance that they're yelling at you, but they're raising their voices.

01:33:34

They are speaking with urgency as if these things are matters of life and death, heaven and hell.

01:33:42

I love that. But one thing that annoys the living daylights out of me, and I know it exists amongst some

01:33:49

Reformed pastors, but I think to a lesser degree, the way that independent fundamentalist

01:33:56

Baptists imitate each other in the manner with which they preach. And I've been at conferences where I know men preaching who are natives of my native state,

01:34:11

New York, and they're preaching with an accent that doesn't exist in New York.

01:34:16

You know what I'm saying? It gives an artificial fake sound to the message that is just as fake as Hillary Clinton trying to impress a

01:34:32

Black audience with her horribly fake accent that she uses, which sounds much closer to white

01:34:43

Appalachian people than it does to Black. Folks. But anyway, so am

01:34:48

I making sense there? Yeah. No, they call it hacking or hollering.

01:34:55

Yeah. Where they end their words even with an ah. Like, I went to church.

01:35:01

Yeah. That kind of stuff. Yeah. It's the culture,

01:35:06

I think. And that's what they think preaching really is. I mean, to me, a lot of that can just fall into showmanship more than it is real preaching.

01:35:17

And don't you think that anytime there is something intentionally artificial about a way that a man is presenting the gospel, it's dangerous?

01:35:30

Oh, yeah. There are a lot of people who may be catching on to the artificialness of it, the fakeness of it, than these preachers are aware of.

01:35:41

Yeah. It's clear that that's not how that guy talks when he's not preaching. I mean, and so he almost changes his personality almost in order to preach.

01:35:51

Or not even almost. Right. Yeah. And certainly that can cause people to cast doubt on the credibility of the message itself when the messenger is coming across as inauthentic.

01:36:08

And, yeah, if you are excited about what you're preaching, it's got to be real. It's got to actually be you being excited, not you kind of manufacturing your own kind of excitement to where you plan on getting a certain way and being aroused in a certain way while preaching to make people more emotionally involved.

01:36:30

I think, yeah, that's a form of manipulation, and it can be dangerous. Let's see here.

01:36:37

We have Larry. Larry is located in Aquabog, Long Island, New York.

01:36:47

And Larry says, Yeah, that's a good question.

01:37:10

And it's one I don't have an answer to. I mean, I think it changes per person. I think it also depends on what you mean by independent fundamental

01:37:20

Baptist, because some people will say, well, I'm independent and I hold to the fundamentals and I'm a

01:37:26

Baptist. So that's what I mean when I say I'm an independent fundamental Baptist. And if that's the case, well, then so am

01:37:33

I, because I hold to the fundamentals of the faith and I'm independent and I'm a Baptist. But that doesn't mean

01:37:39

I am that kind of an independent fundamental Baptist. I think it just depends on what you mean by that.

01:37:45

I think you have to weigh through your convictions. And if you can preach the doctrines of grace and not preach the legalism that tends to be commonly found in that world, then,

01:38:00

I mean, praise God. And if that's not an issue and you can still be in the church that you're in, that's great.

01:38:07

But you do have to be aware that name comes with baggage. And so for me personally, the reason why we chose to step out is

01:38:14

I could not identify with what we knew that world to be. And I knew that that would come with some unnecessary baggage in ministry and it would cause people to perceive us with a lack of clarity.

01:38:26

And I just knew that that was going to be a disagreement for us with several other brothers who kept the same name.

01:38:33

So for us, we couldn't. But I think, again, it just depends. I know some guys who are in that world and still preach the doctrines of grace.

01:38:41

They're open about it. They use the King James, but they're not King James onlyists.

01:38:47

They're King James preferred. And they get along fine. They're a lot more lonely than the other guys.

01:38:54

So I guess it's just a matter of how many friends you want. Yes. And when it comes to the

01:39:03

King James Bible, I have dear Reformed friends who are

01:39:10

King James preferred, like Dr. Joel Beakey, who's been a friend of mine since the 1990s, and others in his denomination, the

01:39:20

Heritage Reformed congregations. And there are others who are King James preferred.

01:39:27

What I find dangerous and distasteful is when it becomes superstitious.

01:39:34

And they clearly, in my opinion, from my experience with many people who are

01:39:40

King James onlyists, it is superstition. And there is something about the antiquated

01:39:51

Old English that has supernatural qualities to it.

01:39:59

Because there are men who have no interest at all in seeing a translation taken from the same

01:40:10

Textus Receptus and using modern

01:40:15

English for it. There is something that is—sometimes it's creepy.

01:40:23

I mean, I've heard preachers who say, if you think you are saved by the preaching of the gospel through any other translation, you are not saved.

01:40:34

You are lost. You actually have to hear the gospel preached in and from the

01:40:40

King James Version. And there are some on the extreme levels of insanity who will include foreign missions that people in other parts of the world need to hear or learn

01:40:55

English first and then hear the Bible preached from the King James Bible. Now, this is where you get into levels of insanity, of superstition, of heresy.

01:41:10

Because you would even have to, if you're going to be logically consistent, depending upon what orbit of King James onlyism that you're in, you would have to believe that God, by His Holy Spirit, re -inspired

01:41:26

His Word. And for some reason, amongst a group that is predominantly

01:41:31

Baptist, not exclusively, but predominantly Baptist, for some reason, the

01:41:36

Holy Spirit chose the Church of England to bring about this Bible. And a bunch of Calvinists, yeah.

01:41:44

Yes. And to use terms such as baptized, which could have—the word immersed could have been used.

01:41:55

We could go on and on with the wording that, like, for instance,

01:42:01

I have still never met an independent fundamentalist Baptist who's a bishop. And I'm sure there are some out there that call themselves a bishop or their congregations call themselves a bishop, call their leaders bishops.

01:42:16

But, you know, that kind of thing where it's not even matching the way you function. Are you in agreement with me?

01:42:24

Yeah, well, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the King James only position is really just—once you start to see the logical fallacies in that, it's really easy to get out of it.

01:42:36

I mean, I know James White wrote a book on the issue. King James only controversy. Yeah, that's a really good one.

01:42:42

But frankly, I mean, you don't even need that much to be convinced outside of that kind of double inspiration position.

01:42:49

Now, the textus receptus issue is a whole other issue. But as far as King James onlyism, that God re -inspired the word, that's fairly easy to debunk.

01:43:00

It's just a matter of a couple of questions. By the way, if anybody wants to look up the debate that I arranged and hosted with Dr.

01:43:10

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, author of the King James only controversy, and a textus receptus only advocate at Church of the

01:43:22

Living Christ in Loisville, you can email me at chrisorensen at gmail .com

01:43:30

for the information on that. I don't have it right, readily available to you on my fingertips, but I believe you can type in the search engine of YouTube, James White versus Van Cleek.

01:43:50

I can't remember Pastor Van Cleek's first name right now.

01:43:56

Maybe somebody listening knows that name. But he is a Reformed Baptist, just like James White, but is a textus receptus only advocate.

01:44:08

And that really can be just a more academic approach to King James onlyism, because in English -speaking countries, they advocate that you only use the

01:44:23

King James. You're in serious error if you don't. And they have no ambition or interest in seeing the publication of a modern

01:44:34

English version based on the textus receptus. So there again is this strange, superstitious attachment to Old English.

01:44:48

Right, yeah. And I've talked to some of those guys. And again, it's just a matter of some logical questions and asking them, did

01:44:58

Jesus speak with that kind of language? Was it not sufficient back then when

01:45:04

Jesus spoke? What about the apostles? They weren't preaching in English.

01:45:10

They weren't preaching in that kind of language. And yet God still used it to save people.

01:45:16

And so has God changed in how he saves people? I think it's just a matter of, again, a couple of just basic questions.

01:45:24

And it's very easy to poke holes through the issue. By the way, I just found it myself, the debate, the textus receptus debate,

01:45:34

Dr. James White versus Dr. Peter Van Cleek. And Van Cleek is spelt

01:45:40

V -A -N, separate word, K -L -E -E -C -K. So I thought that was an interesting debate.

01:45:48

Unfortunately, Pastor Van Cleek got a lot more heated than I have any use for in debates that I've arranged, because it detracts from the issues being debated and becomes personality driven.

01:46:06

And Dr. White was able to refrain from acting in kind, and I believe maintained a godly composure and manner in the way he conducted himself.

01:46:23

But if anybody wants to see that, I believe you'll be blessed by it or educated, at the very least, and edified.

01:46:33

But before we go to our final break, I want to make sure that we haven't overlooked a crucial area of your journey out from independent fundamentalist mindset into the doctrines of sovereign grace.

01:46:50

No, I mean, I think just when it comes to the main issue, it's just the supremacy of God was brought into the center of my theology and everything else just fell into place.

01:47:02

All right, we have time for one more question before the final break.

01:47:18

Luke in Rockville Center, Long Island, New York wants to know, I have met independent fundamentalist

01:47:24

Baptists who insist that the word Baptist be in the name of a church in order for it to be viewed as a true church.

01:47:32

Were you from that background? Yeah, so yeah, the

01:47:37

Baptist Briders kind of people. Well, not necessarily. I have met just your run -of -the -mill independent fundamentalist

01:47:46

Baptists who are not Baptist Briders, who are not landmark

01:47:52

Baptists. In fact, there was an argument at one of the meetings of the

01:48:04

Fundamental Baptist Forum where there was an attempt to restrict participants in that show who were not identifying themselves in the name of their church as Baptist.

01:48:18

And I remember during the heatedness of the conversation, the pastor who was advocating for only churches with the word

01:48:31

Baptist in their name being allowed to participate, he said, well, it's time we stopped talking about what men think and stick to what the

01:48:39

Bible says. And I just slowly raised my hand and said, excuse me, but where in the

01:48:45

Bible does it say that you have to call yourself a Baptist? But I interrupted you.

01:48:52

You were going to talk about the Baptist Briders who think that they can trace their pedigree as a

01:49:00

Baptist all the way back to Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah.

01:49:08

And I think what tipped me off that way is that the wording, it's not a true church unless it's a

01:49:14

Baptist church, because that tends to be the kind of language that you hear with the

01:49:19

Baptist Brider group. And if that's not what he's referring to, or maybe

01:49:24

I misheard the question. Yeah, I mean, I've heard that kind of stuff, that kind of language.

01:49:32

It, again, goes in with taking secondary, even not even secondary, very peripheral issues and making it a first -tier issue.

01:49:40

Yeah, I can remember there was by some, not all, please, again, we have to always remind ourselves to make it clear we're not broad -brushing.

01:49:50

There are some independent fundamentalist Baptists that I've met that get irritated by pastors of Bible churches because they use that term

01:49:59

Bible church rather than Baptist church. And yet they claim to love

01:50:05

Spurgeon, who was pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. There's no

01:50:10

Baptist word in that name. In fact, I think it was in centuries past, even including

01:50:22

Spurgeon's day in the 19th century, it may have been even more common for Baptist churches in England, not to use specifically the name

01:50:33

Baptist. They had different ways of describing themselves. Anyway, we are going to take, after we return from our final break, a question from Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

01:50:49

And so hold on tight, Cindy, we'll get to your question. And if anybody else wants to join

01:50:55

Cindy before we've run out of time, send in your question as quickly as possible to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:51:03

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

01:51:14

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a very personal and private matter.

01:51:23

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

01:51:35

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01:51:43

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Historical Bible Society, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the

01:52:30

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

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01:53:10

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

01:53:20

This program is sponsored by Hope PR Ministry. Hope PR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.

01:53:32

We are dedicated to sharing Reformed Biblical content every Wednesday and Friday.

01:53:39

Tune in for sermons, lectures, and interviews exploring distinctive Reformed doctrines.

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If you are looking for Christ -centered content, simply search Hope PR Ministry on your favorite podcast platform to begin listening today.

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Hope PR Ministry also offers Morning Meditations, a daily podcast featuring

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Reformed devotionals designed to nourish your soul. Start your day with these spiritually enriching messages by tuning into Morning Meditations wherever you get your podcasts.

01:54:22

I'm Adam Wolford, CEO and President of Lebanonville Credit Union, and we're excited to be part of the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio family.

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01:55:35

Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, President of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Program.

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SecureComm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties, and much more.

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That's SecureCommGroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor,

01:56:11

Doug McMasters of New Hyde Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

01:56:19

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

01:56:26

In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

01:56:32

God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

01:56:38

I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the Word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

01:56:46

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

01:56:58

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

01:57:05

Bronx in New York City. For details on New Hyde Park Baptist Church, visit

01:57:11

NHPBC .com. That's NHPBC .com.

01:57:17

You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

01:57:24

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New Hyde Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's Word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

01:57:43

God bless you. Okay, we've got time for one last question from Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

01:57:52

And Cindy asks, Good evening, Pastor White and Chris.

01:57:58

Did Pastor White ever perceive that members within the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Group tend to secretly question their own salvation because they are always focusing on themselves rather than Christ?

01:58:13

Yeah, 100 percent. This is actually why so many people get so -called saved so many times, or they'll use the verbiage they rededicate their life to the

01:58:24

Lord. Many, many, many people I know have been saved multiple times, so -called, and baptized multiple times because of that constant doubt that is given.

01:58:38

It's so, yeah, very self -centered, and that's just a common reality.

01:58:43

I think it can be a reality in the Reformed world as well, what Puritans call morbid introspection, where we can so become focused on our own fruit.

01:58:53

We become professional fruit inspectors. And so, you know, you see some of that even on the Reformed side for different reasons.

01:59:01

I think, yeah, the big issue is, you know, did you pray the prayer? Did you really mean it when you prayed it?

01:59:06

That tends to be the thing that is asked. Do you remember the exact moment in time?

01:59:12

Chris, you even mentioned that. And if you don't, then you're not saved. And so I just think, yeah, it's an unbiblical view of conversion.

01:59:20

When you believe that conversion is some kind of, you know, formula that you throw together yourself, that you make happen, it's no wonder that you would doubt whether or not you're truly saved.

01:59:32

Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure that our listeners know, again, that your website is

01:59:37

FBCHamburg .com. FBCHamburg .com. That's for First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York.

01:59:45

I want to thank you for doing such a wonderful job, Pastor Nick. I want to thank everybody who listened. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater