June 3, 2016 Show with Donald R. Miller on “Milestones in Biblical Understanding: Keys to Unlock Scripture”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet earth listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron wishing you all a happy Friday on this fourth day of June 2016, the very first day, the very first Friday in June of 2016 and I am very excited about our program today because I am being joined by someone whom

I have never interviewed before and I'm looking forward to getting to know him on the air since we barely had any time to even speak in a preparatory fashion beforehand but I think sometimes those kind of spontaneous interviews are the better ones and I am speaking of Donald R.

Miller who is a retired Presbyterian pastor and he actually was the pastor at one time of my frequent co -host

Reverend Buzz Taylor and first of all let me welcome you into the studio and on to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time,

Reverend Donald R. Miller. Well thank you, glad to be here. I'm a bit caught by surprise but I'm looking forward with anticipation also.

Yes and my very frequent co -host Reverend Buzz Taylor is sitting right next to him and why don't you greet the audience,

Buzz? Well hello, now Chris since Don just got to town, we have a lot to catch up on so you can go take a nap now.

I mean unlike you who is usually napping during the show, I mean it's my turn.

Okay well go ahead there, Buzz. Well yeah Don, this is almost a re -hello because he just got to town.

In fact, I'm sure you can tell a little bit about what actually brings you here but Don was my pastor when

I lived up in Maine. We were starting a church in my living room and I remember seeing a little clip in the paper out of the

Heidelberg Catechism and it had your church's name attached to it and as a result

I thought well I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. Of course it was about a 45 -minute drive to get down to the church but I wasn't going to reinvent the wheel so I said well let's go check this church out.

I don't need to start one if there's another Reformed church in the area so we went down to the church. And what was the church?

Well the church first of all when we went down there was closed because I know this is embarrassing.

They knew you were coming Buzz. Well this is embarrassing to say to a Mainer but the church was canceled because of snow that day so we were the only ones that showed up.

So that was the Emanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church. And that was in Auburn, Maine you said?

Auburn, Maine yes. That's correct. And what specific kind of a Presbyterian church was it?

Well it was a part of a small sort of mom -and -pop

Presbyterian church. It was called the Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly.

That still exists right? Yes. Doesn't Don Kistler, isn't he a member of that? He could. I'm pretty sure he is.

And Ken Gentry? I don't remember Ken Gentry being a part of it at that time.

Okay. But the key person lives in Lakeland, Florida and it is closely associated with, as close as you can get an association, with Whitfield Theological Seminary.

Oh Ken Talbot. Ken Talbot. Thank you for that. In fact I've been trying to get

Ken Talbot on my show since 2006 and something always conflicts with his schedule and I know he really wants to be on the show because he actually shipped me his books.

Calvinism or actually it's Arminianism, Calvinism and Hyper -Calvinism or Calvinism Arminianism.

I don't know what the order is but you know the book. But Buzz, if you wanted to let us know more about how you two met and so on.

Well as I mentioned we went to the church and it was closed the first week and then we got a call from Don.

He had heard we'd talked to him on the phone and he apologized for not being there and worked out to our advantage because when he showed up the next week he took us out to dinner.

But we attended the church, I don't lose track of the time, but most of my time up in Maine Don was my pastor.

As your listeners know when they heard my testimony before you know I was around the block theologically for a number of years and I had just settled into Reformed Presbyterian thought when

I discovered the church there which was why we were starting a church in my living room. So like I said we didn't reinvent the wheel.

We found a nice little church there and not only were ministered to but we had a chance to minister there in the

Sunday school and music and so forth. So Don are you the one

I should be blaming for screwing him up so much mentally? It's his fault, it's his fault yes. Only partial.

And before we go on with your testimony because I'm dying to hear your own testimony of how you not only came to the saving faith in Jesus Christ but also how you became

Reformed and so on. But I just wanted to make a little clarification here.

When Buzz, when you said that you had finally settled on Reformed Presbyterian theology that is not to be confused with the denomination the

Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America who are the covenanters and sing acapella exclusively and are exclusive psalm singers.

No no that was not speaking in an organizational sense but more in a descriptive sense. Right. Yeah well it was as he said the

Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly. Right. Yeah I typically will say

Reformed and Presbyterians. Yes. Avoid that okay yeah it sounds good.

I'm still learning from him see. Yeah and I do have friends though in the RPCNA and I've heard some very powerful preachers from that group.

Ted Donnelly is one. Well you're talking to one right now too Don was one of them. I'm talking about the covenanters.

Oh oh I'm sorry. No I was never a covenanter. One of us is napping.

And it's not me not yet anyway. So tell us something about Don if you don't mind me asking how old a man are you and tell us about when your

Christian journey began. Well I'm 82 years old. Wow praise God I would never guess that.

But I was in a conversation with a man today that accused me of being 54.

That's great. And he and he looked at my son and who is 62.

You know you're old when your son is 62 and accused him being 90. Well so I don't know what to say about that anyway.

The Lord is so you have a blind friend now huh. The Lord is gracious. Look I came to the

Lord in 1961. I had struggled so hard to become an engineer and I was an electrical engineer with the

General Electric Company in Lynchburg Virginia. I've been there. My very first girlfriend when

I became a born -again Christian lived in Lynchburg Virginia and taught at Jerry Falwell's elementary school.

Well this is ancient history. That Candler's Mountain where Liberty University is today was only populated by the

General Electric Company. Later on it expanded and of course

Jerry bought property and began his ministry up there. And now the very building in which

I labored is the Thomas Road Baptist Church. They had moved it out of the city from Thomas Road to Candler's Mountain to this big complex they call

Liberty University. But that's back in the days when Jerry Falwell had only 800 in his

Sunday school. Yeah that's when the Dead Sea was just sick. But the thing is is that I was eager to be an engineer.

I loved being an engineer. I loved being I was a design engineer.

I loved being able to create circuits and this is back in the day before transistors were developed.

It was back in the day when we had to design all our circuits around vacuum tubes and amplifiers were humongous.

They were heavy because of the iron the transformers and all that. And just if I can briefly interrupt you, what theological background were you raised in?

I wasn't. Was a agnostic atheist or nominal or? Nominal is the closest you can come and that comes from my mother.

Nominal what? What was she? She was she was a congregationalist but she attended a lot of Baptist churches and would take me and drop me off.

But in my early years none of that took effect. And so I buy my wife and I settle in outside of Lynchburg and I'm down in the basement because one of my other aspirations is

I wanted to be an amateur radio operator. And I'm down in the basement building a transmitter.

Hmm. Well I should have said something first. I'm down that's true

I was in the basement when this event took place but prior to this this godly

Baptist man next door saw how how heathen and pagan

I was and he witnessed to me and witnessed to me. He took me to his church.

He took me to a to a revival meeting and I just simply said,

Lo, Lo please just leave me alone. And so he left me alone and I'm down in the basement.

This is about a month or two later and while I'm in the basement two men knock on the front door and my wife lets them in.

They're two Methodist men. And so I come up and I sit down with them and they asked me if I went to church.

I said no no no no I'm not a believer. Well we think you ought to come to our church.

And I looked at them and I said okay. So I got into the church and they pressured me to join uh and they said

I think we think you ought to be a member of this church. Even though you weren't a professing Christian? Well they wanted me to go through that process.

They did ask me these questions but it just shows you how you can be posed to proper questions and think you are answering them correctly and yet be devoid of belief.

At any rate they said we think you ought to join and I said okay. Then they wanted me to be um they found out

I was an engineer and that meant I knew the whole alphabet.

So they wanted me to be a Sunday school teacher. So I take this adult class and I found an award bible that I had received as a kid.

You know the kind it cost maybe a dollar back in the day. Yeah right. A king james version wonderful but had no notes no footnotes no marginal notes no references just a handful of wonderful pictures and that was it.

And I blew the dust off it and put it to work as I began to teach the class and I had the

Sunday school material and I had the bible. And I'm preparing the lessons and I see the scriptures and I am hit with the reality that this is two different these are two different things.

The description that was in the material was different from what I was seeing the scriptures to say.

Yeah. So I would bring this out in class and class became quite controversial and then it grew it grew.

But all of this as an unbeliever. Now one day one delightful baptist man and if he happens to be listening

I want him to know that I still remember his name. His name is Hugh Preston. Beautiful man.

And he didn't quite know how to evangelize me but he looked me in the face and he says you need to get saved

Miller. That's what he said. That was the extent of the evangelism. And I loved it because what

I have left out which I will now provide is that in that short period of time through exposure to the word

I came under a heavy conviction of sin and as far as I was concerned what

I I found that I had no hope. I mean I was a lost cause.

I was condemned by the scriptures and when he told me Miller you need to get saved the holy spirit made that sound encouraging.

And so while I was sort of an infidel during the day when I got home I would sit on the couch and go through the scriptures.

And one day I'm in Romans chapter 6 and I'm reading about dying with Christ being baptized into his death and then rising again to newness of life in him.

And the holy spirit made that so real to me that I popped off the couch and went into the kitchen and told my dear wife

I just got saved. And it has that that has not been reversed in any way in any way since.

Just just how God uses some of the simplest things but not apart from his word.

And I knew I was a theological zero. I mean you didn't want to be around me. My neighbor asked me.

He saw that there was a change. He also worked at General Electric and so we had a lot of contact.

And he looked at me and he says Don't you sin anymore? And I looked at you know

I thought about this thing and I said no I don't think so. Well he didn't talk to me for a year.

He knew that was a lie. I didn't. I just felt so clean. In fact those early days my feet didn't touch the ground.

But I have to tell you something. I was a Calvinist in the making. Because I knew that if Jesus Christ died for one person that one person was me.

Bad theology because he died for all his elect. But that's that's how.

So I've never over the years had any problems with assurance. And I didn't know that the

Lord was going to call me into ministry but he was preparing me. And I'll wrap this up by just pointing out the very first issue.

Would you like to guess what the first issue was? The first issue that the Holy Spirit brought me after being united with Christ is the authority of scripture.

Yes. Never realizing that I was going to spend the rest of my life defending the scriptures.

Amen. And so that's how we got started. And how old were you at that time?

Well it was 1961. I was born in 1933. I was 28 years old.

And so did you join the Baptist Church at this time that this evangelist was or this pastor was evangelizing you?

No I remained in the Methodist Church and became a lay preacher.

But I didn't remain there long because I found myself almost immediately surrounded by a cubby of Calvinists.

In the Methodist Church? No no no. Oh. At work. Oh okay. But my you see my life was so wicked that when it became known that I was professing faith in Jesus Christ that one of the engineers, a mechanical engineer, a godly man who mentored me and to whom

I am most grateful for his advice and guidance, he would take me down the halls and introduce me to brother so -and -so and brother sister so -and -so and all the way down the line introducing me to the believers within General Broderick, never once saying this is brother so -and -so.

It took him a month to accept that God had begun to work and he's a Calvinist. Isn't that silly?

Now you don't have to reveal details of your life that you're not comfortable with revealing but when you consider yourself such a wicked man obviously all of us before regeneration are desperately wicked yes and all of us are deserving of help but were you like notorious in the town that you lived in for being some kind of a overtly wicked person?

Not in the town necessarily but certainly on the job. I had a very foul mouth, a very wicked mindset, nuancing all kinds of things.

I'm embarrassed to go into it but I'm not afraid to go into it. It's just that I hate to reflect on it.

Well you were a typical worldly man. I was a worldly man and I would tease women and I can't say on the air because on the one hand folks will say that's awful.

On the other hand they'll go and do it themselves. I'm not going to give them that opportunity. Sometimes the things you shouldn't do people will imitate and you've mentioned so I won't go there.

Well you had some other struggles since then. Do I recall a story about one of your books that flew across the room once?

Well those are the early days. Being surrounded by these goofy

Calvinists you know they were in fact the very first question that this engineer asked me was and I don't know why but he asked me he says do you think

God ought to save all of the savages in Africa? And I thought about that and I thought about that I said well it's only fair.

Any which way. He started off that way but I found myself picking up this book.

You know what it is. It's by Steele and Thomas. Yes. The Five Points of Calvinism.

I think it's defined documented and defended and I start reading this these verses in these different sections of it and I got so angry

I threw that thing across the room and broke the spine or the spine.

And now he's got this old book literally laced together. With knit and I have it on the shelf to remind me of that and but I went for years collecting data concerning the tulip and all of this and one day it just popped and I was a budding

Calvinist and I became a full -blown Calvinist. That's been a long long time.

I've been a Calvinist since no doubt 1963 or 64. Yeah that's interesting.

I have heard from a couple of folks I know pastors that I know who were

Arminian and when they were being taught the doctrines of grace otherwise known as Calvinism by friends or acquaintances of theirs

I know at least two of them who were given books and threw the book against the wall in rage.

One of them was A .W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God. Oh yes. And this one man said that it fell behind a bookcase or under his bed or something and he just remembered like crawling through the dust after the curiosity built up after he'd thrown the book.

Days later he crawled and got the book and read it and the rest was history.

But for the benefit of those listening who are not theologically reformed once in a while I get new listeners who don't even know what that is.

Why don't you give a summary of that? What is Calvinism or reform theology in summary form?

Okay I'll make it as quickly as I can. I'll use Spurgeon as an example.

If you were interviewing Spurgeon, but I'm not Spurgeon, but if you were interviewing Spurgeon with the same boundaries set he would have said it's just simply the gospel.

And it is. It is what the scriptures tell us about God's absolute sovereign choice of sinners to be his people.

It's the only theological system I know of that gives a hundred percent of the credit and praise honor and glory to Jesus Christ for our salvation.

Whereas almost every Christian will say that. Yes. But if you dissect what they believe they don't really believe that.

Or they may even in their heart of hearts believe it but they on paper or in their profession will reject the fact that God is the author and finisher of our faith in reality because he is the one that gave us faith.

He is the one that first brought us to life and regenerated us and gave us new birth before we even believe.

I remember you Don explaining to my dad when he was down visiting up to Maine visiting once that you were specifically referring to the five points of Calvinism he said one of the interesting things about those is they not only are logical but each one is biblical and he said you were pointing out to him that any other system that you look at you can follow your logic and sooner or later it's going to take you away from the scriptures.

That is so good. Well that came from you. That makes it even better.

No what I have tried to convey to others is that the concept in the mind of the

Calvinist is found in scripture. His conclusions are found in scripture and the logic that takes him from the initial data to the conclusion that logical process is also found in scripture.

Why anyone would accept anything that had less than that is what we respond to with great wonder sometimes.

But listen part of what I have in my book there is this chapter called what is the gospel.

Let me announce the fact that you did write a book because I failed to announce that in the beginning. One of the reasons that we have

Reverend Donald R Miller on the program today not only because he was at one time our co -host

Reverend Buzz Taylor's pastor but he also is the author of at least one book and the book that we are going to be discussing today is milestones in biblical understanding keys to unlock scripture.

And if you could go on with the point that you wanted to make. Well what

I have in my 10th chapter is entitled what is the gospel.

I have five things and I share them with others but I don't find that others are grasping it or willing to jump at it.

But let me read to you so that you we can make a tie between this and what we were discussing previously about the nature of Calvinism and it being the gospel.

I point out as preachers love to do with alliteration I chose the letter

M. First of all the gospel is God's everlasting mission to establish his righteous kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

That's number one. That's mission of the church. But number two it's God's good message.

Here goes his good message of his covenantal intention to populate his kingdom with elect sinners whom he saves through the atoning work of his anointed son the

Lord Jesus Christ. Thirdly it's God's ordained means and I'm using that to point out how it is

God chooses the gospel to save the lost okay. So that it's number three

God's ordained means to concentrate his saving activity which he accomplishes by the energizing work of the

Holy Spirit. Then four it's God's holy mandate to sinners to enter his kingdom by repenting of their sins and entrusting their lives to his enthroned son the

Lord Jesus Christ. And then finally it took me years I started off with three and now

I have five and if you see me next month I might have a number six but here's number five.

God's great might the gospel is the power of God unto salvation

Paul says in Romans. So I had with that dog on me I included that.

Five God's great might which he exercises to initiate and sustain the salvation he brings to those who amen.

And we're going to be picking up more on that when we return from our station break and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Reverend Donald R Miller our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com don't go away we'll be right back after these messages.

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Iron Sharpens today. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said give yourself unto reading the man who never reads will never be read he who never quotes will never be quoted he will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own you need to read solid ground christian books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the prince of preachers to heart the mission of solid ground christian books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world since it's beginning in 2001 solid ground has been committed to publish god -centered christ exalting books for all ages we invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com

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hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives welcome back this is chris orange and if you just tuned us in our guest today is the reverend donald r miller and uh mr miller left electrical electrical engineering in 1966 to go to seminary in answer to the lord's call to the ministry in 1970 he was graduated from westminster theological seminary and ordained by the orthodox presbyterian church and began 35 years of pastoral ministry in maine he also pursued the u .s

naval reserve chaplaincy for 21 of those 35 years he retired from the naval chaplaincy in 1991 and in 1995 he received an lhd degree from whitfield theological seminary for ministry in a difficult field in 2005 he retired to virginia with his wife of 52 years for six years he served as a ruling elder in the presbyterian church in america and he is presently assisting an independent congregation pursue a more biblical basis for its life and ministry and teaching the bible in a local jail as a volunteer and we are discussing uh reverend miller's book milestones and biblical understanding keys to unlock scripture and right before the break uh you were basically outlining uh the the gospel of jesus christ with five uh pertinent elements and this was not the five points of calvinism but it was five biblical elements that you derived from the scriptures that are that are in your book and um being a reformed christian obviously seems to be very important to you and while we don't want to come off as sectarian or proud or arrogant or look down our noses at those who disagree with us because we are accused of that very often and the irony is that the last thing that calvinism should do to anyone is make them proud exactly um but why is this theology uh so very important in your heart mind and soul uh other than unfortunately we've all met them no matter what theological system you may find yourself there are those people who view themselves uh um as as basically being more intelligent or they may have more biblical insight than their friends and neighbors and they take pride in the denomination or theological camp that they're in because they they look at the as this they look at it as some kind of a exclusive club or something but obviously we're not supposed to be viewing it that way but there are having said all that there are things that really make there are things about reformed theology that make our lives and our relationship with christ so much richer than we remember prior to understanding them i like the way you think chris my what anyone who knows me knows that uh don has an analytical mind no one has ever accused me of being brilliant i have the ability to slowly grasp the truth i didn't do that listeners that was your pal buzz he does it he does it quite frequently actually but what i'm trying to reach for here is the fact that that my gift is to try to explain what others already know very well but sometimes go right over our heads i really am concerned about helping christians learn i go out of my way to provide handouts i will you know sit down with them this book is nothing more than a book that is designed to help people pick up on some of the things that i found most helpful to me to unlock the scriptures now i want to say this though concerning and this has a this has this adds to the flavor that you added in your introduction and that is this is that when i teach the scriptures i want to use as much as possible the language of scripture theologians i consider myself a theologian you too are both theologians but i can a theologians have a tendency to try to give description to things by using extra biblical language and i'm not against that in the sense that it is necessary to understand these things we talk about the active obedience of christ and this you know the passive obedience of christ well that is just an effort by the theologians to talk about christ's life and his death okay with regard to the law but what i want to do more than anything else is to make sure that the language of scripture is used in our communication why because i want these folks to be bereans you remember how the bereans said that they were the ones who were more noble than those in Thessalonica, Acts 17 11, who were so interested so desirous to know what the say that they would even question what paul said yes i've been using that analogy quite a lot lately in having conversations with my roman catholic friends and i don't think that a roman catholic can really ever truly be a berean it is the actual system that they are a part of doesn't allow it no it cuts them off from scripture and it and it makes them reliant on what they are told right and that in other words it's it's like and then listen this happens in evangelical christianity also the church is filled with people who just want to be told what to believe they don't want to search for themselves they want to be told what to believe right and and for the catholic listening who says all right i'm not cut off from scripture i have a dozen bibles in my house and i read them every every day but uh the thing is that when you come to an understanding of what the bible teaches it it has to be something that has been defined by rome in order for you to embrace it as truth exactly but also we talk about the authority of scripture how it it is supreme when you start taking some other document and placing it alongside like the roman church does with tradition um it doesn't take long before that document that is brought alongside is raised above scripture and now scripture has to be seen and interpreted through those things okay but what i'm reaching for is just something as simple as this i want them to study the scriptures and you know something when they're reading the scriptures they're going to read what it actually says that's what don says yes that's what don said okay that's what don said so that i want them to see that it was in the scriptures now you can't always do that we we often have to put things in our own words and we do have to appeal to other things that are most helpful yeah we're supposed to exegete the scriptures that god has commanded that there be preachers and that that doesn't mean that they just get up to a pulpit and just alone read the bible no no they have to explain the sense thereof drawing on the old testament i think it's numbers explaining the sense thereof but today i think you mentioned somewhere along about the status of the church today the status of the church today is that they don't understand the gospel and what has been presented as the gospel has found at its very center the will of human beings yes i'm sorry when you go to the scriptures and you'll find at the very center of the gospel is a will ah but it's god's will okay so they're two different approaches to presenting the gospel um this is this has really become an idol i think in the minds and hearts of many professing christians this free will uh they cannot uh fathom that there are christians that believe that man's will prior to him being born again is enslaved the world the flesh and the devil exactly and um they cannot see the truth even though paul clearly states it like in one place for instance in romans 8 8 we cannot even please god in the flesh and if believing repenting and believing in christ are pleasing to god well how can you do that as a dead sinner you have to be obviously first alive you have to be born again first and and obviously the the what the accusation will be frequently by those who reject what we believe is they think what we are saying is that someone becomes born again and they walk around as some kind of a zombie in limbo without faith for years and then all of a sudden later they believe no we believe that every born again person has faith that there is uh with as long as he has the ability to articulate it uh he will have faith and his life will be marked with repentance although everyone who remains on this earth is a sinner until we enter glory but we are not slaves to it exactly um are you familiar with um a modern preacher whose name is paul washer yes love paul washer he and his indictment of the church yes brings all these to the surface and um that's why i give so much emphasis to well to another subject which is related to it and that is that we have gotten away from the pauline gospel yes and i try to communicate to to my students that if you will take careful note of how paul was saved and how he was commissioned and how he was sent off i call it the arabian arabian bible college he came back with a gospel and he defends that gospel to his galatian readers he also will say in the book of romans according to my gospel according to my gospel that he was given the task of interpreting the redemptive events of our lord not that peter was a heretic or anything peter was a theologian also but the primary responsibility of explaining the gospel was given to paul that's why we have 13 or 14 books of the 27 written by him you understand what i'm saying that we have all this evidence staring us in the face and knocking on our hard heads and saying yeah and you see the gospel today and it is that we know of is often disconnected from the pauline gospel yeah well it's uh if i can say it this way what you were saying before you want to use the language of the scriptures exactly the gospel today is disconnected from the language of scripture in general and i'm amazed in the evangelicalism the biblical illiteracy that actually exists we draw our conclusions from the tv preachers and so forth we just people do not know what does the bible you know the first question we should ask is well at least what does the text say you know you know it's one thing to interpret it differently but people don't even know what it says anymore yeah i have a brother who uh and i'm sure he doesn't mind me saying this on the air he's pretty open about his views and disagreements with me and he whenever i bring up a text from one of paul's epistles that has something to do with something that he believes in and paul is condemning it he will say that i'm not paulist and i have reminded him many times not only does that make no sense because you can't believe in any of the scripture and rely upon it as god's breathed word if you just pick and choose whatever you want but if you throw out paul he is the one that is most clearly explaining that we are saved by grace alone and that if you want to start relying on something else you're not going to be very secure in going to heaven if you are trusting in anything else but the grace of christ exactly and that happens because people don't understand that that paul is doing nothing more than explaining what his lord taught him to tell yes so that you can't come along and say and i've seen preachers do this even on television how they they think that paul is harsh but kind and mild and meek lord jesus right listen to him as if somehow his message and paul's message are different right they're not he is commissioned by that same lord and answers i am a servant of jesus christ how many of his letters does he open that 13 of them a slave or a bond servant of the lord jesus apostle of the lord jesus yeah oh no but yeah don look at that that is so fundamentally wrong what they do yeah look at some of the accusations you hear like i know you were very involved in speaking about uh uh male and female issues in the body of christ and um so forth yes but what do you hear paul was a male chauvinist what does that do to the doctrine of inspiration you know when you realize that if you were under divine inspiration who's the male chauvinist yeah you're right about that and of course paul gets accused of that because of statements he he made in first corinthians 7 you know and in my first in my first writing of this book which began in the 70s let me just throw this in okay i let it sit i had about nine chapters and last year dear beth listen if you met my wife you wouldn't want to have anything to do with me she is so precious oh yeah yeah and she and by the way she's my bride of 62 years now as it stands but she came to me and said don you've got to publish this book so i listened to my wife and i got busy with it and i dropped that particular chapter for some reason but built on it and now there's 18 chapters in there but dear ones this this this notion that that we can go around and make statements like that it isn't just a slam on the authority of scripture or the inspiration of scripture it's a slam against the god of the scripture yes and when paul is very often referred to as the uh most clear in his condemnation of all different types of wicked behavior like homosexuality and so on the thing that people forget is that grace is not amazing until you realize how wicked you are exactly and salvation is not nearly as remarkable as the scriptures teach it is in fact it's not really remarkable at all if we are somehow worthy of it and to you know as the scriptures also say he that for who is forgiven much loveth much when you really realize the depth of your sin and depravity and what you've been delivered from that just makes you rejoicing in the lord all more abundant and beautiful and and uh so therefore we need the bad news before we ever can really appreciate what good news is well now chris i'm going to be the first person to quote your first and only sermon he just preached his first sermon a couple months ago even though i've been a christian for 30 years involved in debates and everything else but you know moderating and things but he he just preached for the first time and uh it's just not fair to know so much the first time you preach because when i first preached i didn't know anything it was the worst message i ever heard some things never change but but uh he was talking about uh ephesians 289 and he was it was a at a mission in in harrisburg and i like the way you put it there chris when you said it's you can probably reiterate it a lot better than i can uh it isn't like somebody had just been pardoned a murderer been pardoned grace isn't just uh oh i know what you're saying yes well and then by the way i didn't originate that i've heard that from my own pastor i think that my very first pastor when i was was saved but um grace is more than just unmerited favor yes yes that's it it's ill merited favor undeserved yes and and uh because well the example you used was not just forgiving somebody who what murdered your family but no i what i said was thanks for quoting me correctly i said if i gave the the guy that was sitting in the front row at that mission a hundred dollars that would be unmerited favor i just handed them a hundred dollars and he didn't do anything that would be totally different if i if i uh if someone in that room had raped tortured and murdered everyone in my family and then i as he uh torches my house on he accidentally gets trapped in the house and i go into the burning flames and carry that person that had just raped tortured and murdered my entire family and burned my house i carried him out of there and then on top of that donated a vinyl vital organ to him so that he could survive that would be more what the grace yes of christ's sacrifice for us okay and and i've said many times not quite as eloquently as that illustration but grace really wasn't amazing until i understood reformed theology and of course uh there are arminians that i have met that if they start to write down what they believe they uh mess it up yeah but if they are just if you judge their appreciation for their salvation by their life and their work their their own praise of christ and their prayers uh there are arminians that i think appreciate the grace of christ more than some stodgy stoic dried up calvinist in spite of their theology i've heard the same sentiment expressed in a slightly different way that when we're down on our knees we're all counted yes it's the one we get up on our feet that we can then feel our own strength and and and so forth yes i don't know if you know who uh john riesinger is oh yes john riesinger many years ago he was telling me that he had become a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace and was a member of an arminian church and he despised his arminian pastors preaching so he would find himself while the minister was preaching he would just sit there and read his bible and but then when he as soon as he heard his pastor say now let us bow for word of prayer he would close his bible and listen intently because he said the man prayed more like any calvinist that he had ever known more more relying on the sovereignty of god than any calvinist that he ever know yes yeah deep down the spirit makes that happen bringing bringing us to realize that this salvation that we have in its presentation in its implementation in its in our own personal experience with it is all to be measured on his terms this is his planet this is his universe we are his children and it's his heaven or his new heavens and new earth of which we will be a part here on earth he's the one who determines all these things and he has paid the price he's indeed entitled to that and more do you think that uh a lot of what is being preached today that is most popular the most popular televangelists and so on and even the best -selling authors typically are those who are basically saying that people should become christians because of how radically their lives here on earth will be improved their marriages their uh happiness their their health i mean it depends on what kind of evangelist you're listening to or reading but if you're if you're in the unfortunate circumstance of being in the midst of a word of faith pentecostal or a name it and claim it heretic you will be wealthier and healthier uh with certainty if your faith is strong enough that kind of a thing i don't buy that it's a good thing somehow it doesn't surprise me no listen listen i i teach two nights a week in a prison and i tell these men i i'm not i'm not here just to give you some cute little bible lessons you know the prisons really love our coming in because they have now testified to us that our presence there has reduced the violence in the prison by 70 percent i think about that that's staggering well i say to them you're going to have a heavy load on you when you leave here you're going to have to fight the fact that other people are going to deal with you prejudicially but i want you to understand that the only way you're going to be able to bear up onto this is to have have received by the power of the spirit the truth of the gospel and and to experience the true regenerating power of god in you otherwise it's it's it's going to be tough it's going to be almost unbearable in many many ways and i find that these men are not used to someone saying that to them we have to go to a break right now but i do want to pick up on your experiences in prison because i just want to make sure i heard you right did you hear from the warden or someone that your ministry's presence in the prison has reduced the violence 70 percent not just me i'm pointing to myself but our it's called southeastern correctional ministry okay it is an established ministry in 22 facilities down in that southeast corner of virginia oh great well we'll hear more about that when we return from the station break and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

chris arnson at gmail .com we'll be right back iron sharpens iron radio is sponsored by harvey cedars a year -round bible conference and retreat center nestled on the jersey shore harvey cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400 for generations christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at harvey cedars each year thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about god's word an additional 9 000 come annually to harvey cedars as families couples singles men women pastors seniors and missionaries 90 miles from new york city 70 miles from philly and 95 miles from wilmington and easily accessible scores of notable christian groups frequently planned conferences at harvey cedars like the navigators intervarsity christian fellowship campus crusade and the alliance of confessing evangelicals find harvey cedars on facebook or at hcbible .org

hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives thriving financial is not your typical financial services provider as a membership organization we help christians be wise with money and live generously every day and for the fourth year in a row we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the ethosphere institute a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics contact me mike gallagher financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433 again 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the thriving we know we were made for so much more than lending faith finances and generosity that's the thriving story paul wrote to the church at galatia for am i now seeking the approval of man or of god or am i trying to please man if i were still trying to please man i would not be a servant of christ hi i'm mark lukens pastor of providence baptist church we are a reformed baptist church and we hold to the london baptist confession of faith of 1689 we are in nofolk massachusetts we strive to reflect paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how god views what we say and what we do than how men view these things that's not the best recipe for popularity but since that wasn't the apostles priority it must not be ours either we believe by god's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of christ in truth and love if you live near nofolk massachusetts or plan to visit our area please come and join us worship and fellowship you can call us at 508 -528 -5750 that's 508 -528 -5750 or go to our website to email us listen to past sermons worship songs or watch our tv program entitled resting in grace you can find us at providence baptist church ma .org

that's providence baptist church ma .org or even on sermonaudio .com providence baptist church is delighted to sponsor iron radio welcome back if you just tuned us in our guest today on iron sharpens iron is reverend donald r miller we're discussing not only his life and testimony and reform theology but we're also discussing his book milestones in biblical understanding keys to unlock scripture and if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com and right before the break don you were discussing a prison ministry that you were involved in if you could let our listeners know even how you started to be involved in prison ministry well i've been visiting a particular facility in our area that has a population of inmates of the incarcerated ones and i've been doing that for two years it's been in the back of my mind for a long time but it took the spirit to to open it up in a most pleasant way a little over two years ago and so i have been spending about four hours a week dealing with individuals and of course when you when you begin to minister in a prison you find that there are in abundance a number of people who who will simply go along with your efforts to to teach the word out of wrong motives who are manipulators who are really trying to get you to help them to get you to do this or do that for them but i i they they find that that they don't want to stick around with me because i'm too serious about this business i'm too serious about getting into the depth of the scriptures and really exposing them to the passages of scripture that the spirit uses to save people and i have found that there are a multitude of people who honestly now can actually say that they are thankful that they are in prison because it has brought them finally to a point where their lives are being turned around and and when i have them gather with me we can have a in -depth study of scripture we can have great fellowship and great coaching and mentoring opportunities that often bring me uh to leave those evening sessions with my feet not touching the ground oh yeah and i come home and and dear vev wants to know everything i said you know how wives are so you gotta say it twice yeah well i don't go that far i give a summary you know what i mean i'm a man you know i i can't escape that fact but at any rate the point the point is is this is that i come away sometimes saying you know i have taught in churches people in churches that were less attentive less sincere and less uh convinced of their need for the word yeah and i tell them sometimes i just love pick you up take you to my bible study this week that's not meant to be ornery but it smacks of it i realize but it is a joy to minister in christ's name in a prison that is welcoming you now somehow we don't know how they measured it but somehow they have they have a way of measuring the effect of our ministry and that's what produced this statement to us that by the staff the administration of this facility that the violence was reduced 70 percent by the ministry's involvement in the prison exactly wow well in addition to prison ministry um why don't you tell us a little bit about you had a trip to india some just a few years ago right mission trip and and when you were describing that to me it was amazing how hungry they were for the word listen folks i'd love to take you to india three years not three years in a row but three years i went to india to train bush pastors listen i'm talking about bush pastors i can remember during a lunch period there was a map on the wall map of india and this this bush pastor came up to pastor donnie says said this is where i live i had to walk four hours to get to a road to get us here now think about that now when i was present i taught theology to bush pastors and i found that they have a deep knowledge of scripture they just haven't had the opportunity for someone to coach them in such a fashion as to connect the dots and when you are talking to them about whether it's worship or the plan of salvation i'm talking about the order of salvation that we find in romans 8 28 29 uh you find the pages flipping and i'm telling you this i could say anytime what verse is it and it will tell you the verse they know their bibles they just have not been taught how to systematically arrange these things or connect the dots as i said a moment ago and the thing is this i was so impressed with them that one day i remember i took i'm an ornery guy i i take liberties sometimes that others just are not willing to take and i sort of tried to father them uh to mentor them and i i said to the class i said to them through an interpreter by the way you have to work through an interpreter i said tell them that uh i know that god loves india and so he says that and they talked to him and he says they said why i said because you're here and he says because you're here and they all do this almost simultaneously i mean in concert for those who are listening he's waving his arm like no no no no no no no no that's not he's he's waving his arms like uh some women do when they say oh no you didn't no no this was this this is a great moment in my life where they simply in unison said no and they they don't know much english but they know that word and it comes right out and i said what's the problem and he asked them and he says no the god the proof that god loves india is because you're here they say well talking about me and here is this whole fogey of a pastor no kidding so there it was a delight to do that i mean incredibly hot and you have to be very careful about things i mean i i have i have taught in uh in a little presbytery they're presbyterian churches in india it's called the presbyterian church of india like we have a pca and there's a pci and while we're having these teaching sessions murders are being committed down the street and the reason i know that is not because we hear it and we hear it is shooting it's just that the leader of the group went off to do business and he couldn't find a taxi of course they don't have taxis they have rickshaws they call them maybe you've seen pictures of the little three wheel job you know it's got one wheel up front that they steer by and the two rear wheels are of course driven by the motor that's in there couldn't find one who would take him back to that church that's how it is so guys there's there are great there's a great need there but i want you to know god is that work in india praise god is christianity still though comparative to hinduism and sikhism yes uh a tiny tiny minority well i don't know how tiny it is it has all the semblance of getting larger and larger there's a seminary now there uh and of course when i say christianity i'm speaking of biblical i understand yeah but uh no these these fellows uh it's just they're they're just so delightful and and and you get into conversation with them and they're just their love of the lord their love of the word is just like anything that we experience here by the way i just wanted to let you know that an anonymous listener in eastern suffolk county long island says her uh son is in prison and she wants to know if there's any new york affiliate of the ministry that you are involved in uh unfortunately no okay but i'm sure that there there are they are other ministries just as effective up there and uh if she's really she needs to perhaps contact the administration of the particular prison to find out if any such programs are allowed there listen what we're able to accomplish in virginia i i i'm not here to tell you that it's possible for that to happen in other parts of the states especially in new england okay i mean there is a hostility to the gospel oh yeah in new england it's the burdover region remember oh yeah okay and um in fact um going back to the uh the discussion on prisons and your ministry in prisons um i have been told by a couple of people who became born again believers in prison and one of the uh most difficult things they faced were not uh being worried about the violent prisoners uh and so on the the other inmates it was the liberal apostate chaplains in the prison that that forbid them from speaking the truth to the congregation or that kind of a thing uh one of one individual that i know uh he said that this chaplain was having drag queens singing the choir and you know even had people who were muslims getting up and praying and things like that from the podium okay well i'm sure that things like like that happen um and of course here in virginia maybe uh further down south it happens less frequently i don't know no we well i'm i'm about to say yes you're right about that but i don't have experience in the prisons in the north so i have no authority to discuss that or to even comment on it all i can say is what's going on where we are and it is out of this world yes i would say it's it's the pattern that that we have set could be duplicated elsewhere if they would think of it but realize this that our particular ministry is strictly non -sectarian evangelical christianity if a person is uh is muslim we have no authority to address their needs in fact we did we don't really have the ability to address the needs of orthodox christians i'm talking about eastern orthodox i was confronted by one recently now i found that that we were not functioning as a typical chaplain you see if you become a chaplain then you have to address the spiritual needs of all the different groups without compromise but you have to do that our mission does does not involve that and it is it has its own boundaries and so we steer them to a particular administrative officer uh in the administration who has the rosaries and the korans and other materials for those other faiths so please understand it's a very limited ministry it's uh and in any uh the solid statement of faith and any true bible believing minister of the gospel or even christian uh ordinary christian for lack of a better term they uh are able to present the needs to any muslim hindu roman catholic or atheist they may not be the needs that the person thinks they need that's correct but they need the gospel and uh obviously only christ can meet those needs but uh we can uh be his servants and present those needs and of course we can meet physical needs when when i had a i had a muslim uh his name was irfan irfan irfan and he wanted to be a part of our study and i found out and i drew close to him but he was conscientious he listened he didn't offer any problems uh he wasn't disruptive in any way i found out in talking to his wife that she says he really loves you don uh but i have to tell you he's not a practicing muslim well he continued on with us and because we got into the gospel we got into the gospel next thing he knew we knew he rebelled against it and he broke out a prayer rug and every time we came in to have a study he would break out his prayer rug and bow down and go through the typical things that a that a muslim does just yeah we drove into that the gospel okay sorry about that i'm afraid i was not an aroma a sweet aroma of the life this sounds almost like yesterday's program doesn't it chris made him a better muslim oh he took my mother theresa well yeah i i don't know if it made him a better muslim or not well he was probably just in his rebellion against the gospel wanted i'll show him yeah that's exactly right well i i tried to present things so that you see the gospel has barbs the gospel is meant to be an offense yes it is not just foolishness to the to the unbeliever but it is an aggravation and this man used to be live in maine used to live in holton maine oh really yeah but you know people don't really understand this a lot it seems that when you're presenting the gospel you know we often like to quote you know the the word will not return void it's going to accomplish that which it's sent forth to do exactly we think if a person doesn't get saved it returned void no uh it it could be for the further condemnation of as much as it can be for the salvation of a soul absolutely absolutely well but i want to definitely make sure that we get to address more of your book before we run out of time and what was the initial reason other than your wife pushing you to to get a book published that you had been working on for years what was the initial reason that you felt a need for this particular book to be in the hands of the christian christians and the lost alike actually well it's it's just a simple thing it's not at all complex i just simply uh started to to take note of the things that i had learned that helped open up the scriptures to me and i just simply was moved to want to put it in a form that i can share with others in fact as you go through the book you'll find some some thoughts some thoughts some concepts which don't originate with me i'm not putting them forth because i generated them i couldn't putting them forth because i found them you know and i want to share them that's the whole idea let me see if i got this this uh accurate here because i i see in my own life you know i trust that through the weekly preaching of the word and getting into the word myself and studying and so forth that you know god is continually uh working his sanctification in me but yet when i think back over my whole christian experience it wasn't that steady growth that i was the most aware of is was i came to the realization of a truth and bam you know there was massive growth uh there were there were certain milestones if i can put it that way along the way where i understood it and it really revolutionized my understanding of the scriptures is that what you're taking are those things that happen in your life that wow this really helped me to understand and you're putting together saying i can save you a lot of years by putting them all together in one in between these covers precisely boss precisely yeah one thing that you address i mean there's a lot of subjects in here a lot of them that would each stand on its own as a uh program but one thing that is there's a lot of confusion surrounding it today is uh what is the church and you have a lot of people today who don't think the church is necessary because in some ways uh it has become like an over reaction to old -time catholicism that uh salvation could only be administered uh to people through the priesthood and therefore the church was very very vital in the salvation of sinners and and you had the reformation uh with the uh the the the pillars of the reformation uh being uh grace alone through faith alone christ alone uh by the scriptures alone to the glory of god alone and uh people have taken those truths uh and unfortunately gone too far away from the concept of the importance of the church which is an ordained body that god commands that we attach ourselves to or that we become attached to and that we submit to the elders and so on of those churches or our local church but if you could comment on what is the church and why is it important because you do have a lot of people who think as long as they pray and they listen to their favorite preachers on the radio or watch them on tv and uh as long as they uh you know follow jesus in their own special way uh out in the woods and smelling the flowers and you know that kind of thing they don't really think that they need to be a part of a church that's pretty rampant actually uh and uh in fact even amongst catholics uh who used to have such a scare tactic about being a part of the church most catholics that i know today are completely nominal i mean they go to christ they go to mass as they call it on easter and christmas and maybe some other special days but if you could uh tell us about the is the church and why is it important well um have you heard of this quote that came from saint augustine saint augustine is reported to have said that you can't call god your father if the church isn't your mother and while that is not a quote from anywhere in scripture it does point out in his mind how necessary church membership is that's why i've written uh one of the chapters is on the the necessity of church membership we we think sometimes because modern especially modern american christianity it's me and jesus and the bible alone yeah there is no concept that faith uh involves the gifts of others and it involves the commitment that i should have to share my gift with others not just submit to the gifts of others but that there is a mechanism a means of grace that is is neglected we have so personalized of the christian faith that i think that it hardly has a right to call itself the christian faith for it it separates itself from the mechanism that is ordained of god it is the body of jesus christ and of course it can be described in a multitude of ways and i'm afraid i have to say especially in the presence of buzz that i left one out that he possibly would have added had i consulted him and that is is to realize how strongly uh the scriptures lay out especially in in revelation 21 how this new heavens that came down out of this this new city the new jerusalem coming down out of heaven is is the bride of christ and let's pick up on that uh after we take our final break and this will be your last opportunity if you have a question for reverend don miller our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

chris arnzen at gmail .com we've got about a half hour left in the broadcast so we look forward to hearing from you if you have a question uh don't go away we are going to be right back with reverend don miller and our discussion of milestones in biblical understanding keys to unlock scriptures linbrook baptist church on 225 earl avenue in linbrook long island is teaching god's timeless truths in the 21st century our church is far more than a sunday worship service it's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant it's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement it's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing we're a diverse family of all ages enthusiastically serving our lord jesus christ in fellowship play and together hi i'm pastor bob waldeman and i invite you to come and join us here at linbrook baptist church and see all that a church can be call linbrook baptist at 516 -599 -9402 that's 516 -599 -9402 or visit linbrookbaptist .org

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that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio welcome back this is chris orange and if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes we have been interviewing donald r miller who is a retired presbyterian pastor and he has written a book milestones and biblical understanding keys to unlock scripture and uh in studio with us also is reverend buzz taylor who used to be a member of reverend don miller's congregation and if you'd like to join us on the air we have about 25 minutes left or so of the broadcast so you could join us at chris oranzen at gmail .com

chris oranzen at gmail .com and if you could return to the importance of the church that we were discussing before the break and you were pointing to revelation 21 i believe okay it's just that there is a wealth of knowledge within the scriptures about the church what am i saying something as simple as this that we need to develop a biblical doctrine of the church that is what does the bible say about the church not what we think a church might do and be because well just let me slip this in uh as you will see on the back of the book i am assisting that is by my presence and by sharing my gifts in a church that has brought a wonderful godly reformed and presbyterian pastor into its midst and in a bible study he will bring out these truths of scripture and and a person in the church will say do you do you mean to tell me that we have been doing it wrong for 150 years and the dear pastor leans over his little podium and he says yes but it is the case and it's a church that has some of the most wonderful christians i've ever seen in it but they have more committees that have nothing to do with ministry it's more of a social club and they have more committees and no prayer meetings so that it is it is it has been in isolation from other churches and from contact with other thought about what the church is and this poor i say poor this wonderful young pastor of is taking on the task and he has been on more than one occasion so pressed as to wonder whether he has a future there or not as he presents the truth but we've prayed hard and now we have the signs of people saying you know something it really does say that doesn't it the things that i try to stress though in the book is this first of all that the church is an organized society that's kind of old -fashioned language i realized not we don't often think of us as a society but that's the way we used to talk an organized society of christians that is a definite visible grouping of christians in covenant with one another under god which secondly let me uh repeat our email address while uh don's looking up something the pages are stuck chrisarnson at gmail .com

is our email address chrisarnson at gmail .com if you have a question that you'd like to ask uh while we have about 25 minutes left or so okay we may not go far with these thoughts but they're they're the basics of how you get started if you're trying to reach a church and trying to develop a biblical view of the church within the church in other words to get the church back on track yes okay it's a church that affirms that the word of god the holy bible is the source of its life and understands that right living proceeds only from a right understanding of scripture or right doctrine we think that we can we can pursue orthodoxy in our actions without being orthodox in our beliefs in fact it's very often said that our nitpicking about orthodoxy in our doctrine is what is dragging us and thwarting our being vibrant uh loving christians exactly but listen guys the scriptures do not open up a way for us to to be orthodox in our practice if we are not orthodox in our doctrine okay and that's why and by the way we don't say enough of this and i say a lot about this in the chapter dealing with the pauline gospel and its distinctives is that when we look at the at a paul's one of paul's epistles like the book of romans for example we see that in the first 11 chapters was we have what we call the doctrinal content and we go into ephesians and there's a certain range that is we say is doctrinal we go into galatians the same thing listen the gospel isn't just contained in the doctrinal portions it's contained in the expression of the gospel that is put into practice in the following passages to the end of the book so that when we start talk about how husbands are supposed to act how parents are supposed to act fathers children masters slaves you know it's that sort of thing that that all of that is expression of what is the the living out of the doctrines that were given in the first part of the book so we've separated practice from doctrine and that's the way it comes yes buzz wants to ask a question well i just uh you know before the clock uh gets too close here to the end um your book is called milestones plural okay so uh we're talking here about the church and i understand we could go on the whole show about each one of these things but uh to some of our listeners milestones would be a miles davis album so what are some of the milestones that you're talking about what are some of the things that you've come to subjects that you've come to an understanding of that have helped your knowledge of the scripture okay first let me say this because this will make it more relevant in my introduction i tried to point out that false teaching and a false presentation of the gospel puts millstones around the necks of god's people and i'm sort of played with the words a little bit there yes and i went from millstones tomorrow i like that i get it okay i mean i accept any this sort of buzz for the first time act like a 13 year old girl it very disturbing but anyway you see what i'm saying but no it's it's the church it's the gospel and you can also break all those things down but um yes there are uh you could spend a lot of time talking about rules of interpretation um i i try to bring out in the first chapter for example what my what my professor at seminary said to me and he said don and uh your your handling of this exam illustrates that you are looking at the scriptures and grabbing a hold of what they sound like they're saying instead of digging to find out what they really say so there's a hermeneutical principle don't just read into something what it sounds like it's saying that's that's eisegesis we're supposed to be exegetical take it out of scripture and the rest of it is simply applying the principle of read the scriptures take it seriously examine all of the testimony all of the data of scripture concerning these things a lot of mistakes are made because people don't understand how prophecy is fulfilled a lot of mistakes are made because people don't understand the role of a prophet a lot of mistakes are made simply because we don't understand certain things for example i'll take you out of the book into the prison we're we're going through the book of luke in this one hour one prison cell i'm talking about an open bay where they are free to all the books are open and they can come over to a stainless steel picnic table and we sit around and we study what what i'm trying to draw attention to here is that we need to be able to look at the scriptures squarely to come to the realization that god has made provision for us and that we need to apply ourselves pardon me i've lost the thought there um who can help me get back on track here repeat your last line and perhaps it will jog uh something well whatever it is it happens to 82 year olds you know you're sitting you're sitting from a stainless steel table discussing the scriptures we asked but i was taking you to them because i wanted to illustrate a principle and then somebody stole it i like to refer to that as my train of thought derailed well then that's what it's a preacherly sort of thing but when you're my age it is also oh yes i remember a grandfather quote that you were making years ago was that i'm not getting old i am old yeah i all i can say today is i'm getting older but let's shove that stuff this is a context of the prison that you were in yeah well listen it'll driving them to the scriptures though is the important thing exegesis instead of an eisegesis that is correct okay as we're going through luke i got it as we go through luke i take pains to point out to them what does this teach us about jesus he's given this parable he's addressed the strides the pharisees he's looked at them he's talked with them and it does appear that he is a bit brash with them don't you think and you keep on going and he gets now to actually threatening them and he says you know something and this is all before he was entering jerusalem he says i want you to know that this jerusalem is the jerusalem that slew all of the prophets and there are some of you standing here they're going to see god come in judgment and this is the chapter before let's say that was like luke 20 luke 21 what happens in luke 21 well the same thing that happens in matthew 24 or or mark 13 it's the mount olivet discourse and what they don't see and we have to i think it's important to teach them is that jesus he came to die for our sins but he was going to come within the lifespan of those who heard him to bring judgment upon israel and people don't understand that i talked to people in ad 70 they don't understand it but you don't have to go out and find flavius josephus and read about it or go to daniel and read about it you see it in the gospels yes but you've got to be alert to what's going on here oh my yes you see what i'm saying and if that ever gets through your head that jesus is coming and is going to come again very soon and bring an end to this whole age this whole administration because something wonderful and better is on the horizon that's why as you read in the book of there's an overlapping of the two agents you know yes we have to put the purity of the gospel and the wondrous work that jesus did in dying for us but there are three still offering sacrifice you know don you're what you're talking about here is not some tangential thing in the new testament it is the story of the new testament that's right the dissolving of one covenant at the time the other is winding up and what happens to those of the old covenant as a result so that there is a measure of the ministry of christ that can be labeled the days of vengeance yes yes now if that is not taught all manner of understanding of of daniel of the mount olivet discourse of the book of revelation there there will go off in different directions and end up with results that are not in harmony with one another that is at the heart of evangelism to especially orthodox jews because your average nominal jew wouldn't have necessarily an concern about the sacrifices of the old covenant but the jew today has no sacrifice that's correct they have nothing to atone for what they do every single day in regard to sin and and according to their own teachings in the hebrew scriptures that that is gone now uh and that's why we need the sacrifice of christ everybody jew and gentile every nation tribe tongue and people go ahead oh i was just going to add this that's why romans 9 10 and 11 are so yes yes they're not an appendage to the gospel it shows that god has a plan both for jews and gentiles that the gospel is for all not for one they're not two plans of salvation there's not one plan for the jews and another plan for the gentiles in fact paul takes great pains yes and as he does he takes you back to deuteronomy yes all of that was explained to the jews the first time before they even entered into the promised land we'll take it a step further back if you don't mind and go all the way back to genesis 3 15 exactly okay you know when i came to christ it was i was appalled by the so much of the uh preaching at that time that left out repentance now i'm finding it just as appalling to try to present to christ without presenting abraham isaac jacob all the promises throughout the old covenant as we call it the scarlet thread that ties all together how can you present christ and you know what we were saying before i was saying uh what you referring to was the story of the new testament it is the story of the scriptures and that story is pretty much unknown today in the church everything it's like you said earlier it's jesus me and my bible and uh nothing to do with thousands of years of context behind that that is correct and that's why i have a chapter on the distinctives of the pauline gospel yes one of the distinctions of the pauline gospel is to show us that the gospel is covenantal in form yes and that this covenant takes us back to the expression of the covenant of grace in the old testament in god's dealings with abraham a christian cannot have a right understanding of faith if we don't understand abraham's faith yes and to understand that we are to have the same kind of faith for he is the father of all the faithful we cannot understand our relationship in the sight of god and being declared righteous justified if we are not justified under the same circumstances for the same reasons by the same god as he is the god of abraham isaac and jacob and nobody teaches this stuff nobody is interested in this stuff but how on earth can you understand the gospel apart from it when paul goes to remedy the situation in galatians remember in the book of galatians he takes them back he says you have a problem you jews you hebrew christians who are trying to corrupt the church i cultivated and raised and he was a hebrew of hebrews exactly but the thing is he's saying to them when you look backward you know who you see you see moses but you should look beyond moses to abraham and that's what he points out to them in galatians 3 the law which came 430 years after the promises cannot disannul the promises and people don't know today that the abrahamic covenant buzz your microphone keeps rubbing against your uh okay sorry you're running out of time here but the thing is that i'll make it quick is that we don't understand that this gospel um is that our understanding of what we call the gospel and its ingredients is rooted in what god had done with abraham that's why in romans 4 he says well let's go back and look at abraham do you know something was he circumcised before he believed no he was circumcised after why so that he could be the father of all who believe who aren't circumcised and but at the same time to be the father of those who not only are circumcised but who believe but now that is not to say that circumcision wasn't important was circumcision important ask moses on his way to egypt exactly when god sought his life because his own son wasn't circumcised so you know the sacraments are very very important but they are but you see it this that sacrament is tied to abraham not moses yes and and you know you tell people today you're talking about a covenant of grace i will be your god and you will be my people exactly and we that's all there needs to be more we don't need more that is what we have that's what we're a part of we are the people of god and we come into a long history of the people of god exactly and it shows that god has had a plan that's been going on for a long time exactly and we just it isn't just in genesis 3 15 you're right about or having to go there but it goes back before the foundation right yes amen well i want to make sure uh that uh we fully hear from you in summary what you most want etched on the hearts and minds of our listeners when before we run out of time uh what you primarily want them to know not only about the book you've written but also what you want them to be thinking about when they rest their head on their pillow tonight well that's a hard question chris i think in my typical arminess i would say first of all i would remind them that there is a final exam and there's a whole lot on that exam that you might not consider worth your efforts to study and i would like to to personally encourage you to realize that god well jeremiah 29 23 and 24 it says it now end with that let not the wise man glory and his wisdom let not the mighty man glory in his might nor let the rich man glory in his riches but let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me hmm that i am jehovah who exercises loving kindness and judgment and righteousness in the earth for i delight in these things amen and the uh the the reason why people need to see the understanding truth is because god has obviously revealed it in his word for a reason amen and people are uh mock those who insist upon uh doctrinal uh correctness and theological purity and so on uh they look upon uh christians who speak a lot about the importance of theology and doctrine as ivory tower eggheads that rob christianity of its joy and vibrance and love and unity especially and i think that a great analogy would be if if a man is courting a woman and they're sitting at a dinner table and she begins to tell this man very important facts about her life and he says i really don't want to talk about that at all i just want to gaze into your eyes and look and appreciate how beautiful you are i really don't want to uh learn anything about you your likes your dislikes your life story that would be obviously a highly insulting thing for a woman to hear uh something that may make her throw her napkin down on the table and walk out of the restaurant never to discuss or to to uh speak with this person again and when you think about how that is magnified uh billions of times over infinitely more important is how we should be fascinated and hungry and thirsty to continually learn more and more and more about god and if we really loved him that's the way we would be behaving absolutely well put chris the emphasis that you make is this not on our terms but his terms and she wanted to be loved on her terms not his terms right that's right right and uh and also we also have to be very careful that there is truth in those that uh that make the accusation of of people who are very concerned about theology sometimes they sometimes we can be very sectarian and sometimes we can be very arrogant and that should never be a part of our makeup uh and but the thing that is very clear is as much as we want unity and we love unity it can't be at the expense of truth am i right amen and how can our listeners get a hold of milestones in biblical understanding keys to unlock scripture how could they get a hold of the copy of your book lawrence and noble amazon .com

a christian book descriptors and there may be others that i don't know about it was sent out to five thousand churches in five thousand stores so it i don't know to the extent of how it gone the company has really had a good plan for me and i appreciate it very much but the easiest thing is uh barnes and noble amazon .com

christian book distributors and do you care to leave any contact information or should people contact you through buzz reverend buzz or well i my email address is is this what you're asking yes not afraid at all all lowercase d b m i l l e r 33 that is as in don and bev miller 33 db miller 33 at charter .net

db miller 33 at charter .net and of course you can always go to iron sharpens iron radio dot com and you can send me an email uh chris oranson at gmail .com