August 4, 2017 Show with Scott Clements on “It’s Happened Before: Has America Repeated Australian History? (Lessons to be Learned from the Decline of Australia from Right to Left)”

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

on this fourth day of August 2017, and hopefully we are

going to be joined by a first -time guest today.

I don't know if he's having problems with his phone, but he said he was trying to get through, and I don't know

what is going on here, but our number is,

if you're listening there, actually I'm not going to give our number.

I'll have everybody in the world calling me, but

we are supposed to be joined by Scott Clements, and Scott Clements

is hopefully going to be providing an interesting story here.

We are going to be hopefully discussing, It's Happened Before, Has America Repeated Australian History?

Lessons to be Learned from the Decline of Australia from Right to Left, and

Scott Clements is an Australian lay preacher.

He is a church planter of the Kuma Reform Bible Church of Kuma, South Wales,

Australia, and he actually contacted me

this morning and said to me, hey, would you ever care to do a

discussion on how America has mirrored, in some ways, the

decline of Australia from right to left, and since it just so happened that I providentially

was without a guest today, I took Scott up on his

offer, and I don't know if he's going to be joining us.

I think that he may be having phone problems joining us from Australia.

This is a first time that I can recall such a thing happening, but what I'm going to do

is I'm going to go to a station break, and

if we are not joined by Scott Clements when we return from the break, we will come up with another idea.

So keep us in prayer as we seek to rectify the situation in some way,

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Welcome back, and I think that we have been joined by Scott Clements.

Are you there, Scott?

Yeah, Chris.

How are you?

Well, thank you.

Thankfully, it's not a telemarketer that we have on the line here.

I get calls from those guys sometimes from America, too.

Well, thankfully, God apparently wanted us to have this interview, since we've been able to rectify the

situation here with the phone lines.

And as I was mentioning earlier, we have as our guest today, Scott Clements, Australian lay

preacher, a church planter of the Kuma Reform Bible Church of Kuma,

New South Wales, Australia.

And we're going to be discussing the theme, It's Happened Before, Has America Repeated Australian History? Lessons to be

Learned from the Decline of Australia from Right to Left.

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Scott Clements.

Hi, great to be here.

And in the studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

And it's good to be here.

And it's good to have you on, Scott, because I was just trying to figure out what I was going to get to do for the

rest of the two hours, what Chris was going to have me do, you know, unexpected.

So you came in right on time.

He's allowing you to speak.

He's turned your microphone up again.

Well, it as it turns out, Reverend Buzz Taylor is actually an Australia file.

Yes.

Or an Aussie file.

I don't know how you would say it.

But he is a boomerang enthusiast, not only knows how to throw a boomerang

competitively, but actually makes boomerangs.

Yeah, I've made and sold many, many boomerangs.

And so I've always been very intrigued with Australia because of that.

I love kangaroos.

And it's just a place I've always wanted to go, but I've never been there.

So let me tell you, you don't love kangaroos after they've destroyed your automobile.

Oh, I can imagine. Yeah.

When it comes to crossing the road, they're suicidal.

They're like kamikaze pilots.

Oh, kind of like deer and elk and everything up here.

Yeah.

By the way, you...

To boomerang, the only time I ever threw a boomerang, I was a young fella that was at primary

school and it did come back, but it didn't come straight back to me.

It came back past my left hand shoulder and hit the kid behind me in the head.

Yeah.

Well, I used to compete with them.

The Buffalo, where I grew up, Buffalo Museum of Science used to have workshops on boomerangs, the little sport

boomerangs.

And so I got involved with them back then.

And I never traveled with it.

We've had people travel to Buffalo to compete, but it was a lot of fun.

It was a very fun hobby.

And it's just kind of cool to make something that behaves in such a mysterious way.

Well, obviously much more fun than talking about it.

Anyway, Scott, I guess...

I can see you've never thrown a boomerang before.

Just one more thing, though, that I need to assure everybody in the world that's listening.

They do come back if you throw them right.

It's okay.

Yeah, they do come back.

Yes, yes.

And this young man that was hit in the head behind you by your boomerang, I guess that would have been a great

opportunity to ask him if he believed in the sovereignty of God.

I was not a Christian at that point.

I was for punishment and I was wondering how many times I was going to be hit with the...

Well, I want to hear something about not only where you're from in New South Wales, Australia,

but also about your story of conversion before we even get to the subject at

hand.

First of all, tell us about Kuma, New South Wales.

Is that near the bush or is that in a city area or what is that area like?

You would definitely call it rural.

The map of New South Wales.

On the east coast of Australia, you'd find Sydney pretty much in the dead center of that east coast of New South

Wales.

If you went southwest from Sydney, around 350 miles perhaps,

you would find Kuma.

Kuma is Canberra, Australia's capital.

It's about 60 miles away.

Kuma is the gateway to the Snowy Mountains or the capital of the

Snowy Mountains.

Australia has a small alpine region

and probably 20 or 30 miles from those mountain ranges, which get

snow every winter.

Oh, by the way, something I forgot to mention.

You didn't hear this because you had not yet connected with us, but I played at the very beginning of the program,

Down Under by Men at Work, a bit of a clip of that song.

Can you believe it?

Although my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor, is an Ozzie -phile, he had never in his

life heard that song.

Can you believe this?

That just got played to death when I was young.

That's why I was surprised he never heard it, because it was played to death.

But anyway, tell us something about the religion of your youth, if any, and how the Sovereign

Lord got a hold of you and providentially drew you to himself and saved you.

Kept sure

phenomenally angry as a baby.

I think larger than my grandmother, more than anything else.

But they themselves had no Christian.

Very much an empty ceremony.

The primary schools and tried to

teach me from

the very

start, didn't do so.

If you get, I

was an

atheist.

So how did our Lord providentially introduce you to true Christianity

and lead you to himself?

Well, you see, I met a girl.

That's always a good way for it to start.

Yes, yes.

A very, what I'm trying to think of, gracious nature,

a lovely person.

And I was smitten and wanted to, I wanted to

date her.

I wanted to go out with her.

And she was willing to see me on a social basis, just, you know,

we were not dating as such.

But the third week that, or the third weekend after I'd met

her, we'd had a meal, we'd walked their dogs along the beach the following weekend.

The third weekend on Sunday morning, she telephoned me at 10 past nine and said, we're going

to church and I'm picking you up in 15 minutes.

Be ready.

And she hung up.

And she did turn up at my door and did, I was pretty annoyed about

it, to be honest.

I didn't want to go to church, but I was probably the nicest girl I'd ever met.

And she dragged me along to church and there I sat, a very

unhappy boy, didn't sing.

I stood up and everyone stood up.

I sat down and everyone sat down.

She drove

me back to where I lived.

She said, and what did you think of that?

And I kind of exploded at her.

I said, that was a load of rubbish.

Because I don't even understand why you'd want to be there.

She said, have you ever read the Bible?

And I said, no.

Funny thing is, in the back of my mind, I'd always wanted to know what was in the Bible,

just as I'd never, you know, I was curious to know what it said.

And she said to me, okay, if I give you a Bible, would you read that Bible?

And I said, yeah, I will.

And so she gave me a Bible.

And I set myself the target for reading two chapters every morning and two chapters every

evening, starting at Genesis and working your way forward.

So when did the light go on and you finally fell to your knees and called out to Christ.

In repentance and faith?

It took months.

I don't know if you've been

in that, but I started to ask myself and Samuel,

and I was deeply upset.

So I wanted him to be the faultless hero.

And he sinned with Bathsheba and had Uriah put to death.

And I was deeply upset with that.

And I remember asking myself, why does this even bother

you?

The other thing that I'd have to say, if someone ever comes to the Bible as a novice, not knowing

any scripture, and just reads the Old Testament, there are two things that become crystal,

usually walk hand in hand.

And God hates

sexual

uncleanness.

If I had a religion, my religion was heavy metal, particularly the band Iron Maiden.

And I lived in a house full of memorabilia and stuff, the Iron Maiden.

And also, I won't say too much about it, but as

many men of my age who consider themselves big atheists and single, I had a cupboard full of

pornography.

And so around the unit, he says, you know,

if there is a God, He really is not happy with me.

And then anyway, long story short, then, continuing to read on through the Bible, I got to Psalm 91.

And Psalm 91, towards the end of the Psalm,

when God starts to speak, and He says, call upon me.

And I remember it was a Saturday night, I was home alone,

and I read that one.

It was as though there was nothing else.

He will call upon me, and I will answer upon

God.

I had to call upon God.

And I did fall to my knees at the side of the

bed, and I started to pray.

Great, praise God.

Well, were you, eventually led to a specific.

Congregation where you became a member before you ever came around to planting the church

where you are a member now, the church?

Go ahead.

With that girl, I started to attend the church that

she started.

I know you had that denomination in the

USA.

Yeah, although today, there's a lot broader spectrum

of people under.

That umbrella than there was years ago.

But the old school, classic Church of Christ, the Campbellites, were

those that might appear very much like your average evangelical church, but they believed

in the necessity of baptism by immersion for salvation, for the forgiveness of sins.

Correct, yeah.

And strictly a cappella, although there is a division among them,.

Some use music.

Yeah, well, here in

Australia, you're a baptismal regeneration,

although baptism is certainly important in their operation.

They're congregational.

I'd call them like evangelical and Arminian.

Earlier, they do have, certainly did have a band playing

Servant, the girl who gave me the Bible.

And naivety,

I assumed that everybody was like me, and

not necessarily, you know, I sort of found some things

out.

But I knew reading forward in the Bible, no

one could come to the Son unless he was drawn by the Father.

To me, that made perfect sense.

I remember reading the chapter and sort of sitting back and thinking, okay, so that's what happened to me.

So that really worked,

and I

couldn't have defended the

position.

Yeah, well,.

It is interesting that I've told this story on the air before, but years ago

when I worked for WMCA 570 AM radio in New Jersey,

I had been approached by an elderly Jewish journalist

who wanted to buy two hours of time from me, airtime, to have a debate with a

fundamentalist Baptist.

And I sold him the airtime.

And when I was listening to the program live, the Jewish

journalist, who by the way, identified himself as a student of the New Testament, even though he did not

believe in the claims of Jesus Christ, nor in the gospel of Jesus

Christ, he considered himself an expert on the New Testament.

He had read it a hundred times or more over.

And he actually said to the fundamentalist Baptist during the debate, so let me get this

straight.

You believe that before the foundations of the world, God chose a certain people

to save them and save them alone, bypassing all others, and that all others will

go to hell because they have not been chosen by God before the foundation of the world to

receive eternal life.

And the fundamentalist Baptist said, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't know me very well.

I'm not a Calvinist.

You're talking about Calvinism.

And this Jewish journalist said, what's that?

He said, well, Calvinism is what you're talking about.

You're describing unconditional election.

I don't believe in that.

And he goes, what?

I don't know what this Calvinism stuff is.

I'm talking about your Bible, the New Testament.

This man just came to the conclusion that that's what Christians in general, if not all Christians,

at least serious ones who took the Bible to be an inerrant scripture.

He believed that we all thought that God unconditionally elected a certain group of people before

the foundations of the world.

Why not?

Well, you've got to do all sorts of verbal gymnastics.

So what eventually led you into a more biblically sound church?

Oh, that, I, you know,

there was a prison.

I was ignorant, and unfortunately, the person I asked was as ignorant as I, and they said, oh, look, I think...

Well, if only that were true, there would have been thousands of covenanters that were never martyred.

But anyway...

And yet, you know, the only Anglican churches that I knew were in...

I didn't even bother looking into them.

I did many, many years, to be

honest.

My wife and I sort of came to reformed convictions and bumbled through a few churches

that were not at all reformed and couldn't work out why it was all going wrong.

You know, I mean, interestingly, it's sort of the thing that made it plain to me in

the way that I finally worked out that it was all going wrong was when I read Arnold Dalymore's two -volume...

Yeah, that's supposed to be one of the best, for certain.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and that's sort of how I came to that book was, to me, it's kind of providential.

I mean, I found a book in a friend's house called Why Revival Parries by

Leonard Ravenhill, and I had no idea of who anyone was, but I read his book, and

in his book he spoke of two people, David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards.

And the next time I was at the Christian book on special in a table in the middle of the

bookshop, the diary of David Brainerd, edited it and

read it, and I certainly did pick it up, buy it, take it home and read it.

Almost life -changing in itself to me, but by the banner of truth.

And, you know, I read the whole banner of truth for me.

Next time I go to the bookshop, if it's banner of truth, I'm buying

it.

Bookshop, and I found a whole lot of books, and I had no idea that I was buying.

I bought the two volumes, Dalymore's two -volume

works of Jonathan Edwards, a Murray book that I could

find,

Revival

and

Revivalism, and

digested it.

I'm on and picked up a biography of wits.

I read through the two volumes, Dalymore's explanation of

the...

I finally realized what was going wrong for my wife

and I.

We're trying to fellowship.

So, how eventually did you come about to be

one of the planters of the Kuma Reformed Bible Church of Kuma, New South Wales, Australia?

Um, I

mean, it's a corner of

Australia.

I'll run the

numbers by 85 ,000

population, and

this

incumbent

set of, you

know,

church preaching the

Gospels.

Now, I won't go

into all the

details,

but it just...

Great.

And if anybody wants to find out more about the Kuma Reformed Bible Church of Kuma,

New South Wales, Australia, they could go to the sermon audio website, sermonaudio .com,

sermonaudio .com, and I'm assuming if you just type in the word Kuma, C -O -O -M -A, that your

church will come up, and probably the only church that would come up, I'm assuming.

Yes, yes, definitely the only one from Kuma.

Well, we are going to be discussing, when we come back from the break, it's happened before, has America

repeated Australian history, lessons to be learned from the decline of Australia from right to left?

If you have a question that you would like to ask of my guest, Scott Clements,

our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail

.com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of

the good old USA.

And if you are asking about a question or an issue that is

personal and private, that compels you to remain anonymous, we will give you

that liberty to remain anonymous.

But other than that, if it's just a general question about theology, doctrine,

history, about the subject, in regard to the subject we have at hand today,

the lessons to be learned from the decline of Australia from right to left, please at least give us your...

Left to right, you mean?

Excuse me?

Left to, oh yeah, right to left, sorry.

Yeah, I know you are from the land down under, so maybe everything is reversed.

Some things go in the opposite direction here.

But if you are just asking about that, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you just.

Tuned us in, our guest today is Scott Clements, Australian lay preacher and a

church planter of the Kuma Reformed Bible Church of Kuma, New South Wales in Australia.

We are talking about It Happened Before, Has America Repeated Australian History?

Lessons to be Learned from the Decline of Australia from Right to Left.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at

gmail .com.

And before I even go into the subject, how did you come to discover Iron Sharpens Iron Radio?

Because I know that you have listened for quite a while and on a rare occasion have took the time to

write a question.

Oh, I think I heard about it when James White on The Dividing Line mentioned

that you were restarting Iron Sharpens Iron, whenever that was, it must have been two or three

years ago now.

2015 is when we relaunched it.

We started it originally in New York in 2005, 2006.

Yes.

Well, I'd never heard of it before 2015, but James White on The Dividing Line mentioned it a

few times and gave it a recommendation and that was enough to get me interested and.

I've been listening ever since.

Well, I really appreciate that.

And right now it's about 6 .30 in the morning in Australia on

Saturday, the 5th of August, correct?

That's correct.

I'm a day ahead of you.

Well, I thank you for being up so early to.

Conduct the interview.

I was going to say I'm always awake at this hour.

Okay.

Well, tell us something about the theological

climate of Australia that may be too broad of a question because here in America, the theology

may be largely reflective of a particular city and a particular state and

there's really a wide range of a theological atmosphere

depending upon where you live or visit here in the United States.

But what can you tell us about Australia in the 21st century, what you are familiar with

anyway, what's surrounding you?

And other places you may have visited within your own continent.

An American would find that Australia is larger than the

USA.

We don't really have anything like a Bible Belt, although we do certainly have some areas that you would

say the churches are better than in other

areas, a much lower key

thing here in Australia.

Just general, the Sydney

metropolitan area where the Sydney Anglicans, the Diocese of Sydney is, I mean, they are a

very evangelical diocese, very much a Reformed diocese, you know, not that anyone could claim to

be perfect, but they are certainly there and certainly

in many parts of Sydney, the Northwest Bible Belt, jokingly,

although every Bible Belt you don't get anything like, you know, over 50 church attendance

in those areas, but certainly there are more church attenders there than other parts of Sydney.

And to the north of New South Wales, it would probably be far more Christian than many other parts of the nation.

But generally speaking, you know, you're looking at a continental

landmass that's pretty much the same as the continental USA,

but our population is only 20 million people.

Once you get outside of the cities, you know, people are few and far between in many ways, the

towns are far, and within those towns, there are many, many,

Australia, on the

decline here, cultural Christianity has been very much.

Abandoned, it was abandoned.

And what would be some of the competing religions outside of.

Christianity that are in existence there in Australia?

You know, we have Islamic

immigration

into it, and they are

quite happy to propagate their religion.

Also, you'd find,

you know, the other

ranges.

Well, you came up with the theme today, in regard to

it's happened before,.

Has America repeated Australian history.

Lessons to be learned from the decline of Australia from right to left?

Tell us about specifically, what Australia was like before the

decline that you.

Describe.

Well, if you go back to 1950s, rates

in Australia for the whole population was something like 44%.

In other words, Christianity, Australia is a

Christian nation, you come through to 1980, and church attendance

rates had dropped to 24%.

And the generation, and when you speak in

that way, there are obviously Australia, the generation that turned

away from the church, you know,

they basically, they were taken to church, they got away from the

church, they swallowed the beetles, and

you know, and they wanted nothing to do with established

religion, full stop.

By the way, I heard that in Australia, if you actually swallow a beetle, you could choke to death very easily, because of the size

of the beetles.

Sorry about that.

All right.

Yes, I know what you're talking about.

When you say that there was a very high rate of church attendance, what would have been the dominant

denomination or church that you're talking about?

Definitely Anglicanism.

Now, would the Anglicans be, I know that the Sydney or Australia Anglicans, at least today,

are very Protestant, they're Calvinistic, they're low church.

Would that be the dominant type of Anglican you're talking about, or would it be the Oxford movement, Romish,

very high church and Catholic Anglicans, Anglo -Catholics, basically?

Unfortunately, outside of the Sydney diocese is a mixed bunch.

I actually honestly was speaking to an Evangelical Anglican minister Wednesday,

and he said to me, you know, and we were just talking about one thing or

another, he said, you know,

outside the Armidale diocese

there are ministers,

which is a whole lot of solid

theology and solid church.

So, the timeline seems to be

very reflective of what has occurred here in the United States of America, but there

seems to have had a greater impact by the left upon Australia

than has occurred even here.

I mean, obviously leftism has infiltrated every

sphere of life here in the United States, and we are on the brink of being a

socialist nation, but you are actually already impacted

by socialism in a far greater way than we are, correct?

Yeah, I would say so.

You know, a man named Frost

became

the Prime

Minister of

Australia,

he

won an

election, and

a politician

with

the

marriage law, and he crossed

the country with.

Those three.

Oh yeah.

And as far as like socialized medicine and things like that,

what is your personal experience with that?

Because sometimes I hear, especially when I'm hearing from people in the UK,

there's an interesting phenomenon with the UK.

I don't know if you have had the same experience with people that you have had dialogue with from the

United Kingdom, but there are some elements of the

leftist socialist governments in the UK

that even some theologically conservative Christians, who might even believe identically

with me in regard to my being a Reformed Baptist and so on, that they seem to be

not at all troubled by that, and they even are in favor of things like gun

control.

They view America as being, you know, a nation of gun

crazed people who just can't wait to shoot anything moving that looks

suspicious.

Go ahead if you could.

Yeah, well, Australia, the mid -80s,

Australia very much saw a child of Great Britain

shopping with my grandparents.

They were looking for a new color TV, and they were specifically looking for brand that was made in

Britain, and they would not buy any other brand than the brand that was made in

Britain, of Inferior.

If you're

playing

in the

sandpit,

you'll probably find that they're playing with each other and talking in mock American accents.

That's, oh it's true, that's the influence of American.

So when they're playing, they're talking in American accents.

I remember one of my sons, particularly, I used to get, I keep

saying to him, drop.

Well, going back to the question as far as your personal opinion about how you think

socialized medicine and things like that are

helping or hurting the society,.

What are basically your own thoughts on that?

I'm definitely in the unpopular minority in Australia.

I don't think that it's a good thing, and I don't think society, any

time you create from the government and that this

thing that you're supposedly getting for free from the government is your natural born right, you are

encouraging nothing other than irresponsibility.

System is,

it's needed when

it's needed.

Anyone can afford it.

They pay on top of their taxes for private health care they need from the

privately owned hospitals.

We're going to be.

A break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for our guest, Scott Clements, our

email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at

gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA,

and of course you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter that you are

asking about, and God willing we will be right back right after these messages with Scott Clements,

so do not go away.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to a visit to the pastor's study every Saturday

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen if you just tuned us.

In.

Our guest today for the full two hours with about an hour to go is Scott Clements, Australian

lay preacher and a church planter of the Kuma Reformed Bible Church of Kuma,

New South Wales, Australia, and we are discussing It's Happened Before, Has America Repeated Australian History?

Lessons to be Learned from the Decline of Australia from Right to Left.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen

at gmail .com.

And before I return to our discussion, I have some important announcements to make in regard to

some special events that are coming up that are being orchestrated by some of the Iron Sharpens

Iron sponsors and supporters.

First of all, the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, in

cooperation with Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship, present the Gospel of the Reformation, a

500th anniversary celebration, and this will be held Friday, September 29th and

Saturday, September 30th, featuring, as far as guest speakers are concerned,

my dear friend Dr. Tony Costa, who is the Professor of Apologetics and

Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and joining him will

be Pastor Caleb Bunch, Pastor Bruce Bennett, Pastor Dave Corson, and more.

If you would like to join me at this conference, I do intend to be there, God willing,

call the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York at

area code 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614, and you can also visit the

website of the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island at

wotchurch .com, that's W -O -T, which stands for Word of Truth Church dot

com, wotchurch .com.

Then on the following day, Sunday, October 1st, Dr. Tony Costa, who I just mentioned, will be

preaching at the 11 a .m. service at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, Long

Island, New York.

For more details, call 631 -696 -5711,

631 -696 -5711, or you can visit the Hope Reform Baptist Church of

Medford, Long Island, New York's website, which is hopereformedli .net,

hopereformedli, standing for longisland .net, hopereformedli .net.

Then, coming up in November from the 17th through the 18th,

the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their QuakerTown Conference on Reformed

Theology at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in QuakerTown, Pennsylvania.

The theme is for Still Our Ancient Foe, obviously a reference to Satan from the classic

Reformation hymn by Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress, and the speakers at this conference

include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

If you would like to be at that conference, where I also intend to have an Iron Sharpens Iron radio

exhibitors booth from November 17th through the 18th, go to alliancenet

.org, alliancenet .org, click on Events, and then click on QuakerTown Conference on

Reformed Theology.

Then, coming up in January from the 17th through the 20th, the G3 Conference

returns to Atlanta, Georgia, and I do intend to have an exhibitors booth there as

well, God willing, thanks to Pastor Josh Bice and the wonderful folks at

Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, who are running this conference.

G3 standing for Grace, Gospel, and Glory.

This time around, the theme will be Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of

Discipleship.

On the 17th of January, it will be exclusively a Spanish -speaking edition of the G3

Conference, and then from the 18th through the 20th, the conference will be exclusively in the English language,

and speakers include Stephen Lawson, Vody Balcom, Phil Johnson, who we just had on the

program yesterday, Keith Getty, H .B. Charles Jr.,

Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Krueger,

David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace.

If you would like to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com, and please, if you are either registering for any of these

events or if you're just contacting these organizations running these events because you want more information,

please, when you contact them, let them know that you heard about the events from Chris Arnzen and

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

And now, again, I have to do that uncomfortable task, perform that

uncomfortable task of begging you for money.

The sponsors, the advertisers that have kept this program running ever

since its inception and some ever since we relaunched have urged me

to come to you with public appeals for donations.

For years, I had never made one single public appeal back in the old days in New York,

but things are desperately urgent right now in regard to finances.

If you want us to remain on the air, if you enjoy what you hear, if it's become a part of your regular habit of life,

if you are blessed by this program, then please seriously consider donating to us by going to

ironsharpensironradio .com, ironsharpensironradio .com and clicking on support.

You'll have a mailing address where you can mail a check for any amount made payable to Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

And of course, as I keep repeating, I never want anybody to siphon money out of the regular giving they are

accustomed to provide to their church where they are a member.

And if you're not a member of a bible -believing church, you should be and you need to repent of that and do

what needs to be done to find one and join one and put yourself under the headship of elders of

that congregation.

And also, I don't want to take food off of the dinner tables of families that are struggling to make ends

meet, but if you are capable financially to obey God in those two areas,

two commands that are certainly in scripture that you provide for your church and your family, then by all

means, if you're blessed above and beyond your ability to do those two things, please consider

sponsoring and helping Iron Sharpen's Iron to remain on the air.

And if you'd like to advertise with us, whether it is your church, your parachurch, your business, your

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whether you're a pastor or a parachurch leader, please send me an email to chrisarnson at

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Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And as long as what you are advertising is compatible with the theology expressed on Iron Sharpen's

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

And now we are back to our discussion with our guest, Scott Clements,

Australian lay preacher and church planter of the Kuma Reform Bible Church in Kuma, New South Wales,

Australia.

We have been discussing It's Happened Before, Has America Repeated Australian History?

Lessons to be Learned from the Decline of Australia from Right to Left.

And we do have a couple of, we have already several listeners, actually.

We have another Scott.

This Scott is from Bryan, Ohio.

I've got to be a good guy then.

And Scott says, America's decline has been much like a boulder rolling down a

hill, gathering speed and with seeming no end in sight.

Dr. D. James Kennedy, Francis Schaeffer, and others warned this country repeatedly.

Even Alexander Stolzenitzen was laughed to scorn in the 1970s.

Am I wrong to say America's path to destruction is in large part due to the failings of churches

preaching the gospel?

Well, I don't think that anything good can come from churches failing to preach the gospel.

But your comments, Scott?

Oh, look, churches preaching the gospel,

you know, what did he give us?

He gave us preaching, he gave us prayer, and he gave us love, whether we like to think of it or not.

And we were put in the world to be preaching the gospel.

You know, our help is not going to come from political parties and our help is not going to come from

anyone and any other place than the throne room of heaven and by the power of our almighty God.

And churches should definitely be preaching the gospel.

We've failed to be salt and light in our society.

And we must, we understand all these things are under the sovereignty

of our God.

But even so, that doesn't deny our own responsibility.

And our own failings.

And I'm assuming that you would say that that would be echoed in Australia, this question was specifically

about the United States, I believe, but...

Oh, look, you know, certainly.

When I spoke of Christianity in

Australia, Australia was,

sadly, very...

We have some strong areas and some

strong and faithful institutions and some strong churches,

denominational terms across a large swathe of the country.

There was no good and everything will be, you

know, sugarcoat the story kind of theology that was...

Now, you mentioned the phrase cultural Christianity.

If you could define that for our listeners, because I think there can be very good things and very

harmful things in regard to cultural Christianity, but if you could comment with your definition.

Okay.

It's kind

of a hard thing

to define

in a way.

Cultural Christianity,

we're talking about whether or not people are regenerate,

but we're talking about

whether or not the

commandments

control, you know,

when you've got...

Right.

...ever been regenerated, you've got nothing but problems.

Right.

But, you know, as

a means of general grace...

Yes, that's why I brought up the two -sided coin or the two -edged sword of cultural

Christianity, because of the fact that here in America, obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is the

Bible Belt, where you have a cultural respect,

by and large, although that is really rapidly deteriorating and evaporating, but you

have the idea that there is a...

At least for over a century, there has been a

recognized public reverence for things related to God and the Bible

and for church and, you know, things that were deemed to be right

and wholesome, but then you had, on the other side of the coin, people thinking they were right with God,

thinking they were truly Christian or born again, just because they were raised in a Baptist

or evangelical home, or just because their daddy and their granddaddy and their great -granddaddy were

preachers.

They think that they're saved.

And, of course, you had one of the worst blights in American history,

taking place predominantly, or for a longer period of time, on Southern soil, and that

being slavery and so on.

So, you have that problem.

And, of course, even for centuries in Great Britain, I think that the term Christian was

synonymous with being white.

And British.

You know, it was just...

Oh, for sure.

You know, look, it's not all good, and, to be honest, certainly

no, and, you know, I'm not even sure I want it now,

but the existence of cultural

Christianity is

Christianity.

You have enough people of genuine Christian faith who are exercising an influence throughout

society.

Well, thank you, Scott, Brian, Ohio,.

And keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and spreading the word in Ohio and beyond.

We have Linda...

Excuse me?

Oh, sorry, I was just going to say one thing to Scott.

I have said in sermons, having

a barbecue and a few beers along the way that we're going to go off the edge of.

That same cliff.

I don't know why I'm laughing at that, but just the way you praised it.

We have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, speaking of the Bible Belt.

Please ask Brother Clements how Christian media is today in Australia compared to 20 years ago,

both in radio and television.

I heard one minister say that he couldn't...

He could...

I'm sorry.

I heard one minister say that he would not read a book unless God told him to,

and it greatly saddened me.

I remember ministers from 40 plus years ago who spoke of revival going on in this country,

many worship and scripture songs which impacted Christian church music around the world.

May God richly bless the remaining Christian works in Australia and the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio ministry

around the world.

Thank you very much, Linda, in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.

If you could comment on Linda's comment and question.

Christian radio networks in

Australia, they're not the network in America.

Well, the Trinity Broadcasting Network is the most notorious.

Well, beyond that even, we had the Sky Angel for a while that was satellite programming with

tons of channels, and you couldn't watch anything.

Yeah, I just noticed a new channel appeared on my TV the other day called SBN, and it seems to be Australia's

attempt at TBN.

Perhaps using the word S, the letter S for Satan, to be more honest about it.

Yeah, well, look, I think it's supposed to stand for spiritual, but yeah, and there's

not really a Christian media here in Australia, stations, as I

said, and a Christian radio network, and that's actually a big difference between the

media in the

New Wing media outlet.

There is no genuine.

Honestly, count on one hand, the number of

journalists, and that's on one hand.

It's incredibly, you

get almost

Yeah, well, we're not that far away from that.

I was going to say, we're not that far different either.

Although there is, we do have a remnant of conservatives.

Well, you know, just like I was involved in a local station here, and we had a

doctrinal statement that was very, very basic

because we wanted to minister to the widest number possible, and I couldn't believe that

people still complained about how divisive it was because of things like the authority of scripture

and the deity of Christ and so forth.

What has happened is we've, for the sake of that cultural evangelicalism that

we have in America, we had to jettison a lot of our

cargo, and the monster that we have created in the wake of that

has now started to consume the rest of the church to the point where I'm hearing comments

like very derogatory things against the organized church and

religion, and when I hear those things, I'm like, do these people realize what they're actually saying?

I mean, what's the opposite of the organized church is the disorganized church, isn't it?

I mean, but the whole idea is if it's part of church history, if it's part of what used to

be, it's got to be bad and got to be torn down, and that's Marxist.

Oh, for sure.

I mean, every generation seems to think that they're the only ones that understand anything,

you know, such as the shallowness of their education these days, that they're willing to cast everything off.

They think that no one's ever actually understood anything until they open the book.

Yeah.

We have, oh, by the way, thank you, Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.

Please continue listening to Iron Trump and Zion Radio and keep submitting questions to us.

Keep spreading the word about our program in Texas and beyond.

Always a joy to hear from you and to receive your very, very encouraging emails

about this program.

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York asks, Are you familiar with J. Gresham Machen's book,

Christianity and Liberalism?

Machen, of course, was the founder of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and

the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Do you think that the church has a part to play in engaging the culture with the gospel and keeping it

from backsliding?

Yes.

Well, I

have to enlarge it again because Tyler's question was microscopic.

The font.

Is microscopic, so I'm enlarging the...

Let's see.

Do you think that the church has a part to play in engaging the culture with the

gospel and keep it from backsliding?

Well, I don't know if that culture can backslide because a culture is not redeemed or

regenerate or...

I can't, as I

see it sometimes,

how do you engage the culture

that they

want to hear your

message and they're most likely going to reject your message and

really don't

understand what someone means when they say engaging the culture.

I'm sorry.

I think what they mean, I mean,.

Of course, there could be a multitude of different ways people intend that

phrase to be understood, but the people that would be closest in a theological

identity that I have would mean that whatever it is in life that you do,

whether you are a pastor, whether you are a doctor, whether you are a

lawyer, whether you are a musician, whether you are a painter or a sculptor or a

housewife, whatever it is, that you are to have

that sphere of life where you have been placed and the gifts that you have been given, you're to

be doing those things that are involved in that role in life that you have to the

glory of God and you are to using your gifts and your role in

life to lead others to Christ in some fashion, that you are to

redeem the world of music, you are to redeem the arts, you are to redeem

every area of life that has perhaps become.

Polluted or taken over by Satan and his minions.

Okay, if I don't believe

we're supposed to form supposed little utopian Christian

communes where only good people go, we are supposed to be out there in the world mixing it with the world

from one day to the next, and as we

kind of by the indwelling here

to be different

people in the eyes of the world, they should be different about us.

Yes, and Tyler actually sent in a clarifying email, sorry for the confusion, what

I meant to say was should we confront the culture with the gospel in hopes that they will be converted,

well I assume he means those in the culture around us.

Of course, a Christian is always to be doing that, of course.

Yeah, I think now that it sounds like he's getting at the idea of prophetic proclamation, and

you know that's one thing the Church has to do, we have to speak prophetically to the

people, we have to

prosecution a God,

and you know it's a terribly hard thing to do with love, but you have to do it, you have to,

you're not helping anyone by telling them that it's okay, God likes you just the way you

are, you don't have to change a thing about your life, and there's not really any such hell, they're going

to end up in the same hell, and you'll end up in hell with them because you're dead.

And of course, sometimes Christians,.

Perhaps well -meaning, they sin by robbing their employers of

time that they're being paid to do a specific task by sitting around and evangelizing their co -workers,

that's not what we're talking.

About, right?

I mean, we're never...

No, no, you're supposed to, you're actually supposed to be the best employee that your boss has.

I love the little story of interviewing a Baptist

maid, and he asked her, what's changed about you since you've been

converted?

And she said, now when I'm sick, I roll up the carpet and I clean the floor under the rug,.

And I fill it around the rug.

Amen.

Yeah, and we are to...

It doesn't specifically mean that we were to constantly be proselytizing when we're doing our jobs,

even if we own the business, but we are to conduct the business as a Christian.

I mean, some people seem to compartmentalize their Christian life, and

they are a lawyer just like any other secular lawyer or doctor or whatever it is that they're

doing, and they seem to leave their Christianity on a shelf until

Sunday, and they wind up deceiving those around them

just like every other secular person, they wind up inflating unnecessarily their prices

just like any other secular business, they wind up having a cutthroat mentality in regard to

competition, just like secular businesses and corporate executives

may be prone to have.

This is where we are to be behaving like Christians and not losing our

Christian identity and our morality and our integrity just so we can be competitive with

the world.

You know, with anyone who asks

this sort of reason for that, that means that people actually have a reason to ask you to

quit.

You know,

that's where

you always end up.

They're going to see

something about us, but

like

an American girl actually went to my wife

and she said why,

where she was

working.

Yes, in fact, my late wife Julie, she was a charge nurse

in, of all places,.

A nursing home for nuns, and the nuns loved her,

and they saw a stark contrast between her and many of the

workers in that nursing home who treated the patients, the residents,

with great rudeness, with physical roughness,

you know, when they're removing them from a bed to change the or whatever it is to, you

know, they sometimes were physically, I'm not saying that they were beating these people, but they were sometimes just very

rough, not concerned about the physical discomfort that they might be going through, yelling at them

and being very rude and nasty, and they saw such a contrast in the way my wife

behaved with them, and they, whenever I would visit her at work, the way that these

women would in their wheelchairs flock around her, and she had opportunities

to present the gospel to them, what happened with those moments of evangelism

and kindness and compassion and love that she demonstrated, only God may know that, but

it was just a, it was precious to see that.

And I think, Buzz, you had something to say.

I wanted to say to Tyler also, you know, I just have a little bit of trouble understanding how we could

possibly take the Great Commission seriously without in some way confronting the culture.

Right.

But I think it is being done to a large degree.

I mean, like, for example, Chris, you've had debates, you've organized debates and things.

We have this program, we are confronting the culture, there's probably at least a handful of unsaved

people who are.

Listening to this.

At least one in this room.

Well, I wasn't going to bring up your name at this point, Chris.

But you know, there may be a number of people who listen to this program and get kind of hot under the collar because of some of

those things that are said, but there's a difference.

Actually, it's more.

The Christians that get hot under the collar.

Yeah, no, this is true.

But you know, the thing.

About it is, though, you know, I think we are, to a large degree, confronting the culture.

We're confronting a culture that perhaps isn't listening, but there's a difference between what's going on

through the church.

And for example, you get a lot of these loose cannons out there that like, you know, go picket drive -ins and things like that,

you know, that obviously, they're confronting the culture with a

look of obnoxiousness, if I can put it.

That way.

Well, we're going to be coming back.

We're going to be coming back from our final break in a moment.

And when we return, Scott, I would like you to basically give any kind of warning to

those here in America that may be perhaps even secretly admirers of

Bernie Sanders.

They think that a more socialized America would be a more kind and compassionate America

that is really going to help those who are less fortunate, those who are poor,

those who are physically ill or disabled.

They may have this idea in their mind that it's better for the government to be the big daddy

than it is to receive charitable help and assistance in other

avenues or from other avenues.

And perhaps you could start with that.

And then I'd like you also, when we return, to give your opinion, as honest as you could be as an

outsider from a land down under, of

how you view the United States of America, both good and bad.

And we will get to all of that, God willing, when we return from this

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Sorensen.

If you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes and the next 20 minutes or so to go, our guest

has been Scott Clements.

He will continue to be our guest and discuss for the last 20 minutes.

It's happened before.

Has America repeated Australian history lessons to be learned from the decline of Australia from right to

left?

If you have a question, I would strongly urge you to submit it immediately because we are running out of time.

Our email address is ChrisSorensen at gmail .com.

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

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA unless you are

remaining anonymous because of its personal and private nature.

And if you could, Scott, if you could give us your own warnings

to Americans who think that the grass is always greener on the

other side of the fence.

They think that there's something really of value to this

socialization of medicine and in many other spheres of life

where the government is their big provider, their big daddy, their sugar daddy.

And if you could just comment from your own experience and your own

opinion what you see in Australia and give our listeners here in America a word.

Of warning about their perhaps misled desires.

I think Australian

churches handed basically

when people who had trouble turned up at a church seeking help, but the truth is they

were.

When people turned to the church for charity, when the people and they got that

had an entrance to help them out

and to give them the

gospel.

And as long as

the government provides what they want, and that is basically just free money

or what they consider to be free money.

They have no interest in any

other

alternative in

a society.

I don't care.

As long as I've got enough money to buy the carton of beer every Friday, I don't care.

Or enough money to buy the other chemicals that they may be using.

I can just bury myself in a mountain of porn or

whatever it might be, computer games, you name

it.

And what you see and when you look at

the kind of genuine

by the attitude, I can

dull the pain.

The handouts produce

thumbs down and heaven is for heaven.

The new heavens are going to be great and wonderful.

Who tries to tell you and now.

Praise God.

And is there anything specific that you are aware of where getting medical assistance, getting

particular surgeries or whatever the case may be, is in any way

inferior because it's under the rubric of socialized medicine?

Or what can you say about specific things like that in regard to the turn to the left that Australia has

experienced?

What you usually see in government -sponsored health

care, I wouldn't want to say that the doctors

aren't as

good or out of

money.

Any kind of

private health

insurance, opt for

the private health insurance to get

us out

of that

government

scheme.

Because

if they're painkillers.

Wow.

Well, now I'd like you to give us the opinion of someone

from the outside looking in, an Australian looking at the United States of America, looking at the church

in the United States of America and what your opinion is overall.

Right.

Both good and bad.

Yep.

Sure.

In Australia, looking towards America, first of all, I'd say I love what he's good about

trying

to think

of the

right

word.

American

influence

without

impact

building on

top

there.

We have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, I mean, no

disrespect for your guest, but I have seen great mischief

spiritually and theologically come out of self -ordained maverick churches that were

planted by no one than the ones who actually were involved in forming the church

with no oversight from any solid biblical established church.

Does your guest realize that this is a phenomena indeed, and that there are great dangers in

planting a church without any supervision or oversight from an established church?

We go for oversight and

consultation.

I mean, and

I

answer, apparently,

well, if you don't do

it yourself, it's not going to be done.

Apparently, you know, there are a lot of qualified men coming out of seminaries.

You know, a nice

well of many other country towns here in Australia.

Well, they're not.

No, they're not called to minister in

those.

Don't imagine that I wouldn't.

Have been.

Well, thank you, BB, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

Thank you for asking your question respectfully and keep spreading the word about the program in

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and beyond.

Well, I'd like you to make sure that you have at least five minutes

uninterrupted to basically give a summary of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners

regarding the subject we've been addressing today.

Okay, you've actually, since

you have

some numbers, you can actually, you can actually fight this

war in Australia.

I'm sorry to say the war is over and we're trying to rebuild from, you know, somewhere down near ground

level.

With regards to anyone in America, pray for the gospel preaching ministers of

Australia.

It is so easy here, and that you're not

making a speaker.

I'm sure

many ministers feel isolated and

alone in America, too.

You know, most Australians, with discouragement, we wonder, we

wonder when

Master's Seminary came

out here to

Australia.

We have a question from CJ from Lindenhurst,.

Long Island, New York, who says, are there any indigenous Australian preachers that

you can recommend that we listen to, other than yourself, on YouTube,

sermon audio, or other avenues on the internet that perhaps

many people here in the United States are totally unaware of?

The hard one

here in Australia, indigenous is at the moment the politically correct term for the Australian

Aboriginal, and I only actually know one Australian Aboriginal preacher,

which is in many churches.

Go for it

online.

I'm sorry

while

I'm talking.

And while you're looking that up, I know that we've had on this program David Olde, O

-U -L -D, who is one of the Sydney Anglicans.

Yes, that's Michael Potagilad.

I'd give a recommendation for them.

They're not on sermon audio, but you could find them online.

I'm not finding the website that I'm looking for.

I'm.

Sorry.

Well, people can always contact you at any contact information that you care to give to our

listeners before we conclude the program.

Simply, if you find us on sermon audio.

And click on the contact link there, that'll get an email into me, and I'll certainly be answering.

Any emails that come my way.

Well, how can our listeners, how can our Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners best pray for you

and the congregation at Kuma Reform Bible Church of Kuma, New South.

Wales, Australia?

From one

day to

the

next, you're making not a speck of difference, and to

be honest, if I can do wonderful things, I'd be inclined to want to throw in the towel.

And that's not just for us.

I mean, that's for any gospel preaching church in Australia.

We feel God, and I

don't mean that in any charismatic way.

I mean that in general, in a genuine great awakening

way.

You know,

I pray for your nation and the Christians

of your nation.

I pray that they are preserved from what looks to me like onrushing

disaster.

Yes, and I appreciate the.

Fact that you listen to this radio program and pray for Iron Sharpens Iron radio, and it's always good

to hear from you, and I do occasionally hear from you and hope to hear from you more often with questions

for guests in the future that we have on the radio.

It's just amazing to me that the modern technology that God has blessed

humanity with, this program here coming out of

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is listened to by people globally, over

20 countries, and that I know of 49 states of the 50

here in the United States.

Well, we may be going back to 49 soon with California leaving, right?

If that actually happens, and I'm going to reserve my public comments about that.

But I know that, as I said earlier, I know that people can

contact Kuma Reform Bible Church, they can hear your preaching by going to

sermonaudio .com, sermonaudio .com, and if you type in the

search engine Kuma, C -O -O -M -A, you will most certainly get the Kuma

Reform Bible Church come up, and that church alone, I'm assuming.

And if you could, any other contact.

Information that you care to give?

That's

kumareformedbiblechurch

at gmail .com, and Kuma.

Is spelled C -O -O -M as in Michael, Kuma Reform Bible

Church at gmail .com.

Well, Scott, it has been such a pleasure having you on the program.

I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing you today, and I really appreciate, again,

your reaching out to me.

The value that you place upon Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has

definitely moved me, and I hope that we have interaction for a long time to come, and who knows, maybe

even meet each other face -to -face at some point, this side of heaven.

That would be good.

It would be wonderful.

Well, thank you, Reverend Buzz Taylor, for being my co -host again today.

It's been my pleasure, thank you.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in.

I hope that you all have a very safe and blessed and refreshing weekend and Lord's Day,

and please, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, prayerfully seek one out.

Contact me if you need help in locating one.

I have contacts with solid churches all over the United States and all over the world, actually.

But I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a

far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guests next week on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.