March 24, 2023 Show with A.M. Brewster on “An Open Forum with a Biblical Counselor”

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

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

legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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

issues facing the church and the world today.

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

sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

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

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

with your own questions.

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

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

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this

24th day of March 2023.

I'm thrilled to have back on the program a recurring guest who is typically now

featured on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio twice per month, and I'm thrilled about that.

He is such an excellent guest, an insightful guest, and a wise guest.

His name is A .M. Brewster, and he's president of Evermind Ministries, a biblical

counselor, author, podcaster, and conference speaker.

Today, we are going to be conducting something very unusual on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

The closest thing that we've done to this was the pastor's

roundtable that we used to conduct on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio every Friday

when we were broadcasting out of New York on WNYG and WGBB.

And I think that it would be a great idea to revive the pastor's roundtable, and what

we would do is we'd have three or four pastors on a panel that would answer any questions

that were submitted to them from our audience, and it always turned out to be

a very fascinating and exciting day for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Today, we are only featuring one guest to field your questions, and as I said already,

he is a biblical counselor.

His name is A .M. Brewster, and you can submit any question that you'd like in regard

to questions you have in your life that would require

or at least would be wise to seek a biblical

counselor's advice and counsel for, and we are opening up

those questions for you today.

Anything that's been burdening you, if it's just a

general question about what the Bible has to say about a specific issue, please

give your first name, city, and state, and country of residence, but as I would expect, there might be

many of you who do not want to reveal your identity because the questions you're asking are very

deeply personal, intimate, and private, the kind of questions that you would ask a counselor in the privacy

of his study, so you may feel free to remain anonymous if,

indeed, your question is personal and private.

But first of all, let me welcome back to the program A .M. Brewster.

Thank you very much, and I have to say that even though this topic or this discussion was

kind of my idea, I have to say that it's still a little scary.

I know that your listeners are erudite.

I know that they are theologically intelligent, and I'm very interested to see what

kind of questions we get today.

I have a friend, Andrew Rappaport, I think—.

Was he on the show, Chris?

Oh, Andrew's been on my show several times, and in fact, Andrew, to

date, is the only guest I've ever had on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio who turned the tables

on me, and he interviewed me.

That's awesome.

That's great.

In fact, I just spoke to him last night, as a matter of fact.

Nice.

Well, the reason I bring him up is that he hosts this show where he says we can answer any question you

have about the Bible, but he always stipulates that I don't know is an

appropriate answer.

So Lord willing, I won't have too many I -don't -know moments.

I'm glad that you did clarify that, though, because I would ask if Andrew would field questions on

humility.

Yeah, yeah.

He would, because he'd have to say, I don't know.

Andrew, if you're listening, I'm just kidding.

Tell us about Evermind Ministries.

Sure, yeah.

If you go to evermindministries .com, you will see four different ministries, and each of those

four ministries focuses in on a different facet of our lives.

Evermind was created in the early 2000s to keep God's truth at the center of the human experience,

and our human experiences really are multifaceted.

So one of the first of the Evermind Ministries that was created, Evermind actually started off as a blog.

It was very general, just dealing with what the Scripture says about lots of different stuff, but the first official ministry that was

created as a part of Evermind Ministries was Truth, Love, Family, and I really was

emphasizing primarily on parenting, and so I had a podcast called Truth, Love, Parent.

I still have a podcast called Truth, Love, Parent, over 500 episodes, and that was the

very first of the Evermind Ministries, and again, parenting and family and things like that.

And then the next one that was created was called The Year -Long

Celebration of God.

That also has a podcast that goes along with it called The Celebration of God, and that is a focus on

worship and personal discipleship.

Worship being defined as everything that we do in our lives, not just singing songs on a Sunday,

and how we can better worship God, better know and understand and submit to Him this year than we did

last year.

It uses the low moments, the everyday things that we experience in our lives, as well as the holidays

on the Christian calendar to help us to worship God better.

The next one that was created was AM Brewster Ministries, that kind of just is the catch -all for my traveling and my speaking.

People have conferences or they invite me to speak to a group of people in their home.

Whatever the case may be, that's kind of the ministry that handles that.

And then the last one, the newest one to date, is Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship.

So each of the other Evermind Ministries has had a counseling ministry as part of it.

People have been reaching out to me at TruthLoveParent .com for quite some time now to do biblical counseling with

them.

But I realize that, you know, obviously there are a lot more questions and difficulties out there than just parenting and family questions, and

so Faith Tree was created to be the go -to place for people who are looking for help

in the struggles of their life, whether it's crisis counseling, as we might call it, or just personal discipleship.

Because I have found, and it's sad to say, that the Church, and I'm just going to use that term very

broadly, the Church is not discipling as well as it should.

I will tell you that many people who come to me for biblical counseling really aren't in crisis.

They're really not looking for help on a specific issue per se, as they are,

they want to be discipled.

They want to grow as a believer, and they want to have personal accountability in that.

And oftentimes, what starts as crisis counseling or starts as kind of this nebulous looking for help ends

up turning into discipleship.

And I tell people, I said, you know, the best place to get this is in your local body of believers.

You need to be talking to your pastor.

You need to be talking to mature men and women.

And I say, you know, you don't need to be coming and talking to me unless you don't have those resources in your church.

And I'll tell you, so many people have a very difficult time finding those resources in their church.

And so Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship is there to help those people who unfortunately

don't have those resources available to them.

And those are the four of the Evermind Ministries, part of the family, as it were.

And again, if you go to evermindministries .com, you can see it's a growing website.

It's growing slowly, but you can learn more about each of those.

And the last thing I'll say is that, as most of your listeners know who've heard me on the show before,

our main website was truthloveparent .com.

So if you go to truthloveparent .com forward slash iron, you can see not only all of mine

and Chris's previous conversations, but you can also see, get a bunch of resources that

deal with the topics that we discussed.

So additional resources from me and from other sites that will help you if you'd like to know a little bit more

about a topic, or like if we talk about something today, if we answer a question today, I will try my

best to get some resources onto that website specific to that question so that you can learn a little bit more

about it.

Yeah, and I hope that after this show is over, many of you will go to truthloveparent .com

forward slash iron and scroll down to where it says, welcome Iron Sharpens Iron listeners.

And there's a whole list of links to click to hear all of the interviews

I've conducted with Aaron.

So this is a very quick and easy way.

You could do the same thing at my website, but this is easier because it's only including Aaron's

interviews.

So I hope that you will take advantage of that.

Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address.

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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

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

And if it's a personal and private matter, you may feel free to remain anonymous.

And in fact, we already have several questions that have come in since the show

began.

And all of them are anonymous.

Fantastic.

The first anonymous question says, when it comes to an adult

child still living under the roof of his or her parents, when that

child meets someone they want to marry, when is it, if ever,

correct and appropriate and God -honoring for the child to

disobey the parents who may forbid that child from marrying the person

that this child intends to marry?

And I'm talking about when there is clear evidence that the reasoning the parents are

prohibiting this marriage are not biblical reasons.

I think that's a very good question.

Yeah, fantastic question.

Lots of layers there.

And in fact, the listener didn't mention whether or not the parents were Christian themselves.

So that adds to the...

The mystique.

Yeah, because you may have parents who are bigots, and it might be a white girl who wants

to marry a black man who is an outstanding Christian, but because he's black, they don't want to

marry him.

You know, it could be a whole host of things like that.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, I'd say that I think the easiest way to approach this question, because I get a lot of questions from people, you know,

adult children, right, living into my home and so on and so forth, and children of various ages living under my home, and how do we handle all this?

The reality is, is that scripturally speaking, okay, the concept of adult is a

mildly subjective one.

I'll just start this right off the bat.

And I actually, my family, we tend to follow a little bit more of a historically traditional or

we could argue maybe a biblical, culturally biblical perspective on adulthood.

Both my children, when they hit the age of 13, had an adulthood ceremony, manhood ceremony for my son,

womanhood ceremony for my daughter, historically, over the millennia.

There were no teenagers.

Young people were considered to be an adult around the ages of 12 or 13.

We see people starting families, ruling countries, having businesses in these teen years.

And so I think that we in America have our bar set too low.

Oftentimes when people say an adult child, they're talking about somebody older than 18.

But I say all of this to say that it is a subjective concept, okay?

It is subjective.

Now, you might be able to argue legally within the United States, this person's 18 years old, therefore they legally are allowed to

do certain things, and that's fine, okay?

But biblically speaking, I believe that really you have a couple different possibilities

for the question of authority.

Do I have authority in this person's life, regardless of their age?

I'm going to leave the word adult out for a moment, and I'm going to say, regardless of their age, do I as

a parent have authority in their life?

I do have, from God, inherent authority as their parent, okay?

Because I'm a parent, it doesn't matter whether I'm a good parent or not, a saved parent or not, because I'm a parent, God has given me

certain inherent authority in my child's life, and he commands them to obey me, okay?

That's how it goes.

Now, obviously, I cannot command my children to disobey, to sin, all right?

And anyone who would try to command me to sin, I have to obey God's authority over their authority, and I can say that to them, no,

respectfully, lovingly, but no, I'm not going to do that.

That's appropriate in any situation.

We obey God rather than men.

Other than that, though, my children have to obey me.

That's God's expectation for them.

Now, there's going to come a time, this questionable time, which is kind of subjective for everyone, is when do I no

longer have inherent authority in their lives as their parents?

The easy one that we point to is when a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.

It's a clear time when they're no longer under my inherent authority.

They are still to honor me as an elder, but no longer do they have to submit to

me and obey me as a parent, okay?

So that's a clear one.

I also do believe that there's biblical justification for the idea of a parent giving

their child a blessing, and to say to them, you are no longer under

my inherent authority.

I'm giving you permission to go and to start your own life, and so on and so forth.

And I think that, again, there is biblical precedent for that, depending on the child's age.

Now, my child is 13.

My children are both over the age of 13, and they're functioning as adults.

I have not given them that blessing, though, okay?

My son is going to be 16.

My daughter actually is still 13, and I have not given them the blessing and is still under my authority.

So, okay, so a couple things I've said here.

First of all, it doesn't matter their age.

Parents have inherent authority until at what point they release that inherent authority

over their child, and that can come at almost any time that the parent deems it worthy.

Now, let's just say, hypothetically speaking, because the question came an adult child, right?

The question came in that way, and it says, well, the adult child is still living under the parent's roof,

okay?

Well, that changes things ever so slightly.

It puts them into another category.

Let's just be honest.

If I'm renting from a complete stranger, they have every right to

dictate to me what I am and am not allowed to do on that rental property within reason.

In fact, they can really dictate whatever they want, and if I don't like that, I can move out.

I can not rent there, right?

But if they tell me no loud music after 10 p .m., if they tell me, you know, whatever they want to tell me, right?

So whether the child is, quote unquote, a child or an adult, I always tell everyone involved in the situation,

if you have, speaking to the child, if you have chosen to live in their home,

then you are putting themselves under a different form of their inherent authority.

They are the homeowners.

They are the landlords.

And though they may not be functioning necessarily as your parental inherent authority, they are functioning as

your landlord inherent authority.

And it would be completely appropriate.

I've told many parents, if you have an unsaved young adult living in your home, it's completely appropriate to

require them to go to church.

It's completely appropriate to require them to engage in biblical counseling.

It's completely appropriate to require them to be home by a certain time, to not have certain people over to

the house, a certain, you know, conduct and whatever else.

That is 100 % appropriate to expect that it is your home.

You're not just going to invite a bunch of drug dealers to come, you know, slum around in your house if they

want to.

No, you don't have to invite those people into your home.

And just because it's your child and just because they're 18 doesn't mean that they can do whatever they want in your home.

That's completely inappropriate.

So therefore, I would say that, yeah, if you're going, if you're the child and you're going to put yourself under the authority of

the parent in their home, whether you're paying them rent or not, it's completely appropriate for you to

agree to live by their standards for your life.

And if you don't want to do that, you can move out, okay?

So I would say that.

Now, those are the two main categories so far of looking at this, but there is a third.

And the third one is this.

Even though a parent may lose their inherent authority at a certain age or by giving it away in a

blessing or the person getting married or whatever the case may be, every single born -again believer, and this only

applies to born -again believers, excuse me, every single born -again believer has inherited authority

from God.

We have all been commanded by God to speak the truth into each other's lives.

God's truth and God's love for his glory, okay?

That is what we've all been commanded to do.

Therefore, even if, let's just say that my son has reached a certain age, he's 18, 21, whatever the case may be, I've given him my

blessing to live outside of my home so he's not living in my home anymore, and he's making bad choices.

I have the responsibility from God to go to my son and say, thus saith the Lord.

I'm going to rebuke you, admonish you, correct you.

I'm going to do whatever is necessary to show you the truth.

I'm going to Matthew 18 you, right?

I'm going to James 5, verse 21 you in an attempt to help you to see the truth.

And it doesn't matter if you're my child or you're my friend or you're a complete stranger.

If you're a Christian and another Christian is coming to you with God's inherited authority saying thus saith the Lord, this is what he

requires you to do, you do have the responsibility to submit to that person because that person is only

being a voice piece for God.

You're submitting to God based off of the encouragement from that individual.

So there's lots of different possibilities for what the questioner was asking to your

statement there, Chris.

Yeah, I mean, if it's a bigoted, unsaved family who is telling this

young lady she's not allowed to marry a man of a different ethnicity, well, there are a couple different things that would

apply to that.

One, has she been given the blessing from her parents to be out from underneath their inherited

authority?

Even if she has been, she's still living underneath their inherited authority in the home.

And so there is a lot of reason to argue that the most Christ -honoring thing she can do because God

is still sovereign, right?

He turns the heart of the king like he turns the rivers of water to trust the Lord in saying I'm still in this position

and I can't say that it's a sin to not marry this man.

Yes, we could argue that it's a sin to be racist and all of that, but this person is not telling you to be racist.

This father or this mother is telling you, do not marry this man.

And you cannot argue from the scriptures that that is a sinful thing.

You may really want to marry him, but you know what?

You're under their inherited authority.

That's what you need to do.

However, if you're out from under their inherited authority, obviously, like I said, the question was very robust, multi -layered, lots of different

possibilities, and I think I've probably already gone too long, but hopefully one of the things that I said has hit on

at least how you need to approach the question.

If you are a professing Christian and you are the child, whether you are under their inherent authority or inherited authority,

if they're coming to you and they're saying I have significant concerns about whether or not it's going to glorify God for

you to marry this person, you have better listen.

There's wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

It doesn't make them right, but it makes you humble enough to listen to them.

If you are under their inherent authority, either as parents or landlords, well, you know,

maybe you need to reevaluate that position, right?

So there are lots of different things to think about.

Chris, what do you think?

Well, I can't argue with anything that you said.

Obviously, though, I believe that if a person, an adult person, is

living on their own, they, as a Christian, have the liberty

to disobey an ungodly prohibition from their parents because that is ungodly,

to try to prevent a child from marrying someone that they love who

is an outstanding Christian, somebody who's giving every

evidence that they are submissive to God and even submissive to their local church,

their elders, and somebody who is very clearly in love with the Lord and

has a life that is marked by

godliness and repentance and so on, for them to say, I don't want you marrying

that man because he's black or because he's Italian or because he's Latino or,

you know...

Or because he's reformed.

Well, you know, that is an interesting question and that we could bring up when we return from the first break, that last

one, because I recently had a guest, Dr. Joe Moorcraft,

and that brings it into a different realm when two

people are getting married who are polar opposite in their theology, even within Christianity.

I mean, obviously, if you're both Christians, you're not really polar opposite, but, you know,

you have to be real diligent to pray about a marriage where

you have a different view of believer only versus infant baptism,

whether you believe, you know, in the doctrines of reformed theology or, you know, if you're a five -point

Arminian, you know, we could go on and on with the differences.

And that could be a recipe for disaster when you have two different ideologies

being represented in a marriage and then you have children to raise.

So that actually, even though it was funny that you said that, I think that that's a different

element to add into the question.

But everything that you said seems to be very reasonable and biblical to me.

And I thank you, Anonymous.

And we're going to our first break right now, and let me ask you a question before I go to the break, Aaron.

You did say any question.

I received, while we were speaking, a question that is theological in nature, it

has nothing to do with what might come up in a biblical counseling session.

Is that okay as well for you?

Yeah, we'll hear it out.

I believe that everything in the scriptures has practical application and relevance to life, so we'll see what we can do with it.

Okay, Gregory in St. Kitts, West Indies, your question will be asked.

And if anybody else has a question, if you want to get in line behind the people who are already

waiting, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

outside of the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a person, one private matter.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

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a minimum of $100 or if they're getting a customized piece of jewelry

created like an engagement ring like taking your church logo for instance

or your parachurch ministry logo or your seminary logo or your denomination

logo and you're turning it into a physical piece of jewelry.

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how gorgeous and breathtaking this is.

But whatever it is that you want to create we will get 100 of the profits if you

mention IronTroopensIronRadio now this is a limited time offer but we don't know when they're going to pull the plug.

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Royaldiadem .com mention Chris Arnzen of IronTroopensIronRadio.

We're now back with A .M. Brewster.

He is a biblical counselor and we're discussing today or we're conducting I should say an open

forum where you the listener may ask any question you desire and

Aaron will answer that question to the best of his ability.

And we before I go to our listener in St. Kitts there were two other anonymous

listeners that wrote before he did.

One of the anonymous listeners says I know of a church whose minister

was forced by his fellow elders to step down because of the sins

of his adult daughter who was not living in the household.

I told this person that I disagreed with that completely because of the fact that the person was not living in the

pastor's household and the pastor is not responsible anymore to make sure that

his children are living godly lives.

What are your thoughts on this?

That's a great question.

I think even more important than this question though is that if you were to have a piece

of jewelry made with my logo because I live in the south it would probably have to be a belt buckle just

saying well I'm sure they'll do that too.

Oh yeah.

Great question.

I think this is an important one.

I had a discussion with my I've moved around a lot, I've moved 22 times in my life.

I've had a number of pastors, one of them and I were talking a long time ago about

a pastor who's, you know, because you get that typical idea of the pastor's kids, right,

often times sometimes seen as being the least well behaved kids in the church.

Whether that's true or not, it has definitely become the stereotype.

Makes you wonder.

So the question I had for him was what do you do when you've got this really fantastic pastor

who's got this loose cannon in his house and what he pointed out was and I took it to heart

and I went and I studied it and I could definitely see where it was coming from.

Is the qualifications for a pastor, specifically from 1

Timothy 3 -4 says that that he manages his household well

so there's that this idea of managing being to have charge over to rule over the house well

and then keeping his children under control which is a very interesting

concept we're talking about in the Greek here two different words to give us this idea of

being under control.

The second word though, the control has to do with obedience subjection, submissiveness

and then keeping his children under control with all dignity this is a seriousness a

graveness a I'm reading here what Vine's Expository

Dictionary says it is a venerableness, it's a really good word.

So with that said, if we have a man who has an unruly child, even in his own home,

is he not allowed to be a pastor because his child is disobedient.

And this particular pastor friend of mine was pointing out the fact that obviously no parent can control their child.

There's not a single parent on the planet.

I mean even God with the children of Israel they rebelled against him all the time.

Does that mean he failed as a father?

Does that mean he failed as a God?

Obviously not.

So the responsibility really goes to what is this man doing?

Is he managing his household well?

Are his expectations in place?

Are the consequences in place?

Is he managing the household the way he should.

And if he is doing that correctly and yet his children are still rebelling that's not the

same as if the man were not managing the household.

Well now with that said I think that the conclusion to which your listener has come is

accurate, I mean if this person is out from underneath their inherited authority and they're living their

life the way however they want to hold the pastor, to hold the parent responsible

for those choices is a dicey, very interesting thing to try to do

to remove him from the pastorate because of that I will say however, obviously when these questions come in we never have

all of the details and I don't know how that pastor parented

when that child was still under his authority, I don't know if he kept his house.

Well, if he kept his children under control with dignity.

I don't know if he did that.

I also don't know if the thing in which this child is currently living

was taught and encouraged in the house.

I don't know let's just say we have a mixed audience here, no doubt

some of your audience members think it's completely wrong all the time to drink alcohol and some of them potentially think it's okay to drink

alcohol as long as you don't get drunk.

Well, what if this pastor raised his children that drinking alcohol was not a sin, drunkenness was a sin.

And now everyone's looking at this girl's life and she's out from underneath her father's authority and

yet she's a casual social drinker.

Well, if they have an issue with that they're going to have an issue with what he taught her to do.

I don't want to muddy the water here, I also just want to recognize as a biblical counselor.

I recognize that I don't always have the full picture and so I like to speak into all the possible things that could also be

going on in the background.

I think your audience member came to a good conclusion.

So basically what you're saying is that you can't really give a simple yes or no answer to that because you have to know

what's going on there.

I'm going to say a simple yes that if the pastor is

submitting to God's word, if he is following all of the commands

expected of him and his child is off the rails it would be inappropriate to remove him from the

pastorate simply because of the free will choices of his children out from underneath his authority.

Yeah, I even knew a pastor who's actually in eternity with Christ right now who

became a pastor in his late forties and he had at least one

adult child that was already living outside of his home when he became a pastor and that

that child apparently was involved in some kind of scandalous sin but thankfully

his church did not even bring up his removal because they recognized that

this had nothing to do with his upbringing, the child's upbringing or anything like that.

That's completely.

Appropriate, yeah.

Alright.

Let's see, we have another anonymous listener who has a question

and the anonymous listener says, I contacted you some time ago with the same

question for a different guest and I was wondering what Mr. Brewster's answer

would be.

Is it ever appropriate for a Christian woman who is married to an unbelieving

husband to give in to the husband's insistence that the children

do not accompany her to church.

Oh yeah, powerful powerful question, I'll tell you some of the most difficult questions to navigate

even biblically are the ones that involve husbands and wives, authority structures and so on and so forth.

So here I would I'm going to try to simplify this as much as possible.

Alright, I said earlier in regard to authority that nobody can ever command me to sin.

Okay, so if you hold to the belief that biblically speaking your

children, let's just say again, I don't know, are they born again?

Maybe they are, maybe they're not, maybe they're young and they haven't committed their life to Christ yet, I don't know, but let's just say

hypothetically they're born again, and therefore you hold to the position that God commands your

born again children to assemble regularly with his local church.

If you believe that that is God's expectation for your born again children then for your husband

to say they are not allowed to go to church would be him commanding them to

disobey God's law and then therefore you and the wife and the

children would not necessarily need to submit to that command.

Obviously call it civil disobedience, call it biblically.

Whatever the case may be, you still need to do it the right way.

Obviously if we're doing it for selfish reasons, self -motivated reasons that's idolatry, if we're not

being loving as we do it, that's a sin.

So obviously we're not jerks about this we need to make certain that we are disobeying their sinful

commands in a Christ -honoring way but that's one extreme on one side, I want to go ahead and bring up the

other potential extreme the children are not born again, therefore they do not have

God's command on their life to assemble with the body of believers, in fact I'm sure many people listening would argue

that the church is not for unbelievers, the church is for the equipping of the saints to go and do the work of the ministry which includes

being salt and light in this world, evangelizing and leading people to the Lord.

So if that were the case and the children are not born again then it would be hard to argue that it

would be sinning against God by breaking his direct commands to not take the

children to church.

That's another possibility.

So it really does come down to, again, the unique situation of the family it

does come down to really, I'm going to say, how you interpret the Lord's commands on this.

Yes, there are people who live in countries where the government has said you are not allowed to

assemble as believers and they risk jail and death to do so, and so they should so they

should but whether or not your children have God's expectation on their life that

they must attend a local body of believers, I don't know exactly.

Is that fair, Chris?

You think I've seen both potential sides of it?

As far as I can see, I think you're doing.

A great job and so thank you Anonymous, and

by the way, I just want to mention if any of our Anonymous listeners if they live in the United States, that is

our first time questioners, you have won a free New American Standard Bible, and

that will be shipped out to you by our sponsors Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CVBBS

.com absolutely free of charge to you and to us, and I'm sorry

in regard to those who live in Canada South America, overseas and so on

we cannot have the Bible shipped to you because the fee for doing so would be astronomical if we were

to send everyone in our audience that lives in a different country

Bibles when they submit questions it would just be too high of a cost for CVBBS .com to

fulfill those requests.

So please accept our apologies by the way, and also let me add to that if you're a first time questioner and

you have a friend or a loved one in the United States that you would like the Bible shipped to, we

can accommodate that request.

Let's see here, well I am going to go to

Gregory in St. Kitts in the West Indies and you may have to

split your question up because we're rapidly approaching our midway break, his was the

theological question that has absolutely nothing to do with biblical counseling but you said that was okay with you.

Gregory asks, or says, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 1

through 3 said to the Corinthians that when he had preached to them when they were

unsaved that he preached to them Christ died for their sins while they were

unsaved.

How is it that Paul preached to the unsaved Corinthians that Jesus died for their sins since the

Bible teaches particular redemption.

Ah, well I have an answer for that, but I'm going to let you answer that first.

Yeah, he said 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 3, is that correct?

Yes, okay, let me go ahead and start by reading that out of the New American Standard.

Now I make known to you brethren the gospel which I preached to you which also you received in which also

you stand by which also you are saved if you hold fast the word which I preached to you,

unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

So I just, just out of all fairness based off of the question, I would say that what he presented is not actually happening

here.

He's saying I'm making known to you brethren the gospel which I preached to you, past tense which you received, past tense in which you

stand, past tense by which you are saved, past tense.

So I don't know, unless I'm misunderstanding the question, Chris that he's saying anything about having

preached the gospel to people who were unsaved and saying that Christ died for their sins.

Well, I could just add to that even if he were even, and right now I don't have the time to go to the

text before our break but even if Paul or some other author of the

God -breathed scripture was preaching to Christians that Christ

died for them while they were unsaved and still enemies of Christ that's because

even all of the elect at some point are lost

all of the elect, except there have been historically some unusual, or at least one that we know

of, unusual circumstances where it's quite evident that John the Baptist was saved in the womb but

for the elect in general we're made out of the same lump of clay that the reprobate are made from,

so when Christ died for even the elect he died for people who were

damned in their sins prior to their regeneration, so that does not at all

conflict with particular redemption or limited atonement or definite atonement but that's all I have to

say about that if you want to add anything, Aaron, when we come back from the break, you can do so thank you so much,

Gregory and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the West Indies and beyond we're going to our middle

break right now and as you know, if you listen regularly the middle break is the longer break in the show, because Grace

Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break because the FCC requires

of them to localize the show to Lake City Florida geographically with their own public service

announcements and other local things that they air in the middle of the show, while we simultaneously are

airing our globally heard commercials.

Please use this time wisely, write down as much of the contact information that our advertisers provide so that you can more

frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers, because we depend on our advertisers to

exist but also use this time to send in a question to ambruster at chrisarnson at

gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com, if you just tuned us in, you may ask any question on any topic

of A .M. Brewster and he will seek to answer that question the best he can according to what

the scriptures teach.

Don't go away, we are going to be right back after these messages with more of A .M. Brewster in our open forum.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here, I'm very excited to announce that my long time friend Chris Arnson of Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National

Conference that's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching

teaching, writing about and defending in live public debates for most of my life The Sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott

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It's such a.

Blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

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

he really loves hearing interviewed,.

Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

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

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

Moorcraft.

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

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

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

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

Dr. Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism.

Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

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If you visit, tell them Joe Roiland, Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener from Ottawa in County Kildare, Ireland.

Sends

you.

This is Pastor Bill.

Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron

Sharpens Iron radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to

clearly declare the whole council of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of

our Lord Jesus Christ.

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

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes,

or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will

join us some Lord's Day in worshipping our God and Savior.

Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org.

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

Lord, God, Savior and King Jesus Christ today and

always.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American

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

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

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

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

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

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They all require training, assessments and certifications.

But do you know what requires no training at all?

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My name is A .M. Brewster.

I'm the president of Truth Love Parent and host of its award winning podcast.

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Before I return to my guest today, Biblical Counselor A .M. Brewster and the open

forum we are conducting where our listeners may submit any question on any topic

I just have a couple of more important announcements to make.

First of all, folks if you love the show, go to ironsharpensironradio .com click support, then

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

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I also want to remind all men in ministry leadership that the Iron Sharpens Iron Free

Pastor's Luncheon, the next one that we are having, is coming up right around the corner in just a matter of a couple of

weeks.

Thursday, April 13th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., the next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastor's Luncheon

will be held at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, featuring two guest

speakers, Dr. William Webster, who is a pastor in Battleground, Washington, and he is also a

Banner of Truth author, and Rev. David T. King, who is a co -author of Dr.

Webster's and also a pastor in Katy, Texas.

And this is a free event.

This is the brainchild of my precious late wife, Julie.

I always call her Jewelry for some reason.

My precious late wife, Julie, who came up with this idea in the 1990s, knowing

that I have an unusually large percentage of friends who are pastors, and so we began

these luncheons even before I had the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program, and I continued to conduct these

free pastor's luncheons after she went home to be with the Lord for eternity in loving memory of her

and in tribute and honor to her.

Not only are you going to be fed physically and spiritually for free at this luncheon, but you'll

also leave with a very heavy sack of free, brand -new books selected by

me personally and donated by Christian publishers all over the United States and United Kingdom,

and so that is an added factor of why you should find no

excuse not to be there.

So, if you want to register for this free pastor's luncheon on Thursday, April 13th, send me an email to chrisarmson at gmail

.com and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

The three days following that, Friday the 14th of April through Sunday the 16th of April, those same

two speakers, Dr. William Webster and Rev. David T. King, will be speaking at my three -day Bible

conference, also free of charge, at a different church, Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The theme is The Gospel, Removed by Rome, Rescued by the Reformers, and Rejected by

Modern Evangelicals.

If you want to register for that free three -day Bible conference, send me an email to chrisarmson at gmail .com and put

Bible conference in the subject line, and you can also, if you're going to both events, put luncheon and Bible conference,

and let me know how many people intend to join you at both of these events.

It's chrisarmson at gmail .com.

Finally, if you are not a member of a biblically sound church, no matter where you live on the planet Earth, I have extensive

lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe, and I may be able to help you find a church, no matter where you live, as I have

already done with many people in the Iron Trip and Zion Radio listening audience.

So if that is the case with you, you are without a doctrinally sound church, send me an email to chrisarmson at

gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to A .M. Brewster on any subject

whatsoever, and he will attempt to answer that question to the best of his ability.

It's chrisarmson at gmail .com.

Chrisarmson at gmail .com.

And I wanted to just follow up in conclusion to what I

was saying to Gregory in St. Kitts, West Indies.

The text that I didn't have time to read before the commercial break is Romans chapter 5 verses

8 through 10.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still

sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of

God through him.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son, much more

having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

And there's a text that clearly reveals that Christ died for

individuals who were lost when he died for them.

That in no way contradicts limited atonement, definite atonement, particular redemption.

Because as I was saying before, before the break, every member of God's elect

has been rescued out from a lost condition or made from the same lump of clay as the reprobate,

and therefore when he died, he died for us when we were still sinners.

And I don't know if you want to add anything to that, Aaron, before I go on to my next listener question.

No, great job answering that.

Not add anything to that, but I did want to remind everyone if they go to TruthLoveParent .com forward

slash iron.

I mentioned it last time.

I've had some people sign up last time, but we have a brand new online course called A Family United

in God.

That course is $50, but it's being offered for a limited time at a 50 % discount for only $25.

But for the Iron Sharpens Iron family, if you go to and use the link

there at TruthLoveParent .com forward slash iron, you can get an additional $15 off, which means,

after all that math, you're only paying $10 for this Family United in God

online course.

So I encourage you guys to check that out.

I know we're talking a lot about families today and so on and so forth, so I wanted to remind your audience of that.

Great.

We have Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

When looking for a Christian counselor, should you try to find one you don't know,

therefore unbiased, as opposed to one you do know?

Say, for example, your own church has a counselor on staff.

That's a very interesting question that I never even thought of asking before.

To add quickly, just something brief by myself, I think you should know about them

rather than just picking any Christian counselor because, as Aaron knows full well,

there are wackos out there that call themselves Christian counselors.

There are heretics who call themselves Christian.

But anyway, go ahead.

Well, it is an important question.

I don't want to get lost in the weeds and the semantics.

I will say, though, that generally speaking, if a person is referring to themselves as a Christian counselor,

that tends to put up some question marks in my mind.

People like that, not all of them, but people like that tend to see

far greater value in man's philosophies and methods and psychological whatnots in

their counseling.

Sometimes some Christian counselors, the best they'll do is slap a verse on what is otherwise a Freudian or

Jungian or Skinnerian philosophy.

Whereas, generally speaking, not always the case, but generally speaking, your biblical counselor, someone who calls themselves a biblical counselor,

tends to not use those psychological jargon and man's philosophies in

their counseling.

Again, not to say that every person who calls themselves a Christian counselor does that, just something to look out for.

However, the question you're asking is a very valuable one, and to be completely honest, I think it's interesting, we

are generally far more free to talk to a complete

stranger about our deepest, darkest, ugliest parts than we are

the people in our lives with whom we are the closest.

And I don't want to step on any toes, but I'm going to, because, generally speaking,

that is a prideful response.

It just is.

We feel safe talking to a stranger because we don't have to interact with them on a regular basis for the most part, because

they are detached from my everyday life, because they don't know the same people that I know, so on and so forth.

Whereas, if we were to tell our pastor, who we see every week and who preaches in our church,

that we regularly look at pornography or we have a gambling problem,

or so on and so forth, the pride in us doesn't want them to know that.

Honestly, that really is what I have found tends to motivate most

people who kind of just pale at the idea of talking to someone

in their church who is equipped and who is mature enough.

Now, you brought up a very interesting thing, you know, this person, this third party is not biased.

Well, again, that I don't think is necessarily a wise place

from which to start.

To assume that somebody in your church may be biased is not to give them the benefit of the doubt, not to hope all

things and believe all things lovingly as 1 Corinthians 13 would have.

Now, they may be biased.

If they are biased, then they're sinning, and if they're living in sin, specifically as they relate to you, no, they would not be the best

counselor for you.

All of that to say, what we want to do is I believe the best counselors, and this is from a guy who

I'm a biblical counselor, and most of the people with whom I meet are not from my church.

Many of them are, but not all of them, right?

I always tell these people the single best biblical counselors that you can have are the ones who are in your church, the

people who do life with you, the people who can be there physically, who you can call on the phone and they

can show up at your door, who can go shopping with you if it's while shopping you're experiencing temptation.

Those people who are there in the trenches with you, life on life, and your local body of believers, those are the best.

Unfortunately, our churches, as I mentioned earlier, oftentimes the people in the church are not

equipped to do this.

They're not as mature as they should be.

They do allow bias, and they do allow these types of things, priority issues, to get between them and you.

They're not loving the way they should.

They don't know the scriptures the way they should.

They don't know how to disciple the way they should.

Oftentimes, the church discipline, which is, again, not

something you do when you want to kick someone out of your church, but church discipline is really about church reconciliation.

That's not happening in our churches the way it should, so unfortunately a lot of biblical counselors, people that

are not in your church, probably know how to do those things better than the people in your church, and that's sad.

It shouldn't be that way, but if you have someone in your church who knows you, who knows God's Word, who

loves God, who loves you, and is equipped to help you work through these questions and these

crises in your life at the most of this moment, they will be the best people to which to turn.

And since Seth used his name and gave us his city and state, we want to remind our listeners that we don't

know if Seth was asking this about himself personally.

He was maybe just asking on behalf of somebody else, so we don't want people to start wondering, I

wonder what Seth is seeing a counselor for?

In fact, anybody, no matter how godly and faithful their life is,

it would be wise for them to seek counsel on occasion from a biblical counselor.

That doesn't always mean bad news.

But I want to make Seth and you hopefully laugh at my...

I'll have to describe it, so you'll have to use your imagination.

My second favorite one -panel comic that I've ever seen in my

life.

You've got a picture of the scene where there's a man sitting behind a desk and

the little sign on the desk says counselor.

And you see a man and a woman, presumably a husband and wife, sitting on the other side of the desk.

The counselor looks exactly like the man,

presumably the husband.

The husband is disheveled looking, unshaven,

he has a loosened tie, a cigar hanging out of his

mouth, and he's holding a can of beer.

And the counselor looks identical to that.

The caption at the bottom of the one -panel comic is, so what's your problem, lady?

And I'll tell you the other, my favorite one -panel comic some other time.

But I hope you got a laugh out of that, Seth.

We have an anonymous listener who says, this is a long one,

good afternoon Chris and A .M. Brewster.

So many Christian parents have children, and I am speaking of adult children who are either

wayward or non -Christian.

In my case, it is a typical situation of a son who, as a child, went forward in

a fundamental church and made a profession of faith, however, has never had an interest in

godly things, so it is evident that he is unconverted.

Now, after many failed engagement relationships and strained relationships with children,

he is finally admitting he has screwed up, as he puts it, and is asking for

counseling, even agreeing to meet with a pastor.

His aim at this point, as far as I know, is to work on himself,

quote, quote, but yet has not made mention that he is seeking God

other than to fix himself, quote, quote, to regain an estranged relationship.

Although, as a parent, I greatly desire his happiness, my desire and prayer

over the decades has been that he would love and serve God.

More than anything, I desire his salvation, and not just that, but that he would love God

and serve Him with a joyful and grateful heart.

I have witnessed to him, on many occasions, receiving mostly indifference,

never anger.

When speaking to him, how do I balance these two aspects?

Number one, the fact that the problems he has created in his life are a result of his

rebellion against God, but number two, show compassion at the same time for the

sorrowful position in which he finds himself.

I want to direct him toward Christ, but not as a means to fix his life.

His soul is my main concern, and also his happiness, but to a lesser degree.

I don't know if that's too much for you to.

Remember, Aaron, but...

Well, I'll say, first of all, my heart goes out to you.

I'm very sorry that you've had that experience.

It is not easy for a parent.

Second, I am behind you 100 for your desire for your son,

definitely.

That is exactly what it should be.

Thirdly, and you probably weren't expecting this before I get to the actual question, to be honest, a lot of people

who seek out biblical counseling, even professing Christians, people who are generally born again, oftentimes that is

a subtle, idolatrous motivation that they have.

They're hoping to avoid consequences.

They're hoping to make their lives more comfortable.

That is always a temptation for everyone who recognizes that they're in the wrong to

truly have a pure motivation of, I am sitting against God.

I need to get this dealt with for no other reason than my God deserves it, and I need to obey Him.

That is a very mature response, and I love working with those counselees, but I'd have to say the vast majority of them, to one degree or

another, they are looking for the icing on the cake, the better life that they're going to have, and so on and

so forth, which tends to be very distracting.

To your question, though, I think the question you're asking is actually applicable to any and all

ages.

Regardless of how old your kids are, if they are not born again, regardless of whether this person is your child or

not, I think that what I'm about to say is true.

As we seek to be salt and light in this world, we are commanded in Ephesians 4, 415,

the main verse for truth, love, parent, speaking the truth in love, right?

We are to grow up into Christ, who is the head.

Now, that's talking specifically within the context of the church and how we speak to each other and build each other up, but that's also how

we need to speak to everyone in our life.

We need to speak honestly, truthfully, but we also need to do so lovingly.

I think I may have told this story on your show before, but just as an illustration of this, I once had a

friend, I was the dean of students at a school in Illinois, and a friend told me, he

said, Aaron, I don't understand it.

I see parents go into your office and these parents are livid at you.

It's like they want to punch you in the face, and then 30 minutes later you guys are coming out and you're hugging and crying.

It's like, really, what do you say to these people?

Because he was a teacher, he had upset parents and whatever else.

And I told him, I said, David, it's really difficult to be mad

at somebody who, in that particular context, who genuinely loves your children.

Biblically, Christ honoringly loves your kids.

Even if they come to different conclusions than you do.

And when you see that genuine heart that they want God's best for your children, it's so hard to be angry at them.

And that's true in every category.

It's hard to be angry at someone who you believe genuinely, legitimately loves you.

So, to love someone is not necessarily a feeling.

To love someone is to want God's best for their life.

And I have found that in situations like this, the best thing you can possibly do is just speak the truth

in love.

Now, I can't give you a script.

I'm going to say something in a minute.

You might think that's an example.

I'm not saying you should script this out.

I know that each relationship is unique and different.

I can say things to people in a certain way that I would not suggest their parents say it to them, or their spouse say it to them,

because of the relationship and so on and so forth.

But an example of what I'm talking about is just very simple.

I used to have this conversation all the time at Victory Academy for Boys at Home for At -Risk Teens.

I would tell them, I really appreciate your desire to want to deal with this issue in your

life, whatever it is.

It makes all the sense in the world that you want to do that.

Of course, you've suffered pain because of it.

You've seen how it's hurt other people, and you've gotten consequences in your life.

And I really appreciate the fact that you want to work on this.

And I'm going to do the best that I can to help you to grow in this area.

And what comes next is simply just letting them know.

I said, but I want you to know you'll actually never have true success in this area of your

life if you're doing it in your own power and to your own glory.

God created you to worship Him.

God created you to function within the power of the Holy Spirit.

And you can never do anything.

You can never be as awesome as you possibly could be in any area of your life or spiritual or whatever

in any area of your life detached from a relationship with Him and the power of the Holy Spirit.

So my greatest goal for you, because I love you, and I want you to be everything that God

created you to be, my greatest desire for you is that you first and foremost have a relationship with Him.

Not so that you can accomplish everything that you want to accomplish, but because you recognize the fact that He created you

and He wants to save you and He wants to rule over your life, which is completely His prerogative.

So I just have a very honest conversation.

I'm not going to refuse to help them in any way that I can, but they will always know

that they will always know what is best for them, because I'm going to tell them, and they will always know that that's

what motivates me, because that is the best for them.

I love them.

I want God's best for their life, and obviously why would I want anything less than that?

And people are like, well, Aaron, that's just a lot of words.

And you're right.

That's exactly what it is.

And so is sharing the gospel, and so is preaching, and so is teaching, and so is admonishing.

We speak the truth in love, and then we let God do the work that we can't do.

We let His scripture make that difference, and we do that consistently, repeatedly, over and over

and over again, trusting Him to do the work that we can't do, which is changing them.

And I will say, too, as a biblical counselor, you'll hear quite frequently among biblical counselors that you can't

counsel an unbeliever.

And by that I mean I cannot give you the truth you need from God's Word to be the person you're supposed to be if

you do not have a relationship with God.

That's impossible.

However, I do not shy away from if an unbeliever comes to me who wants, quote -unquote, help in

their life, I will take them up on that.

Why?

Because I use every opportunity I can to be evangelistical, to take this struggle in their

life and use that to show them their need for Christ.

Very honest with them, too.

I say, hey, listen, I can give you some tips and some hints, but this is never going to have the impact on your

life that you want it to because you're trying to do it in your own power.

So speak the truth in love and keep bringing them to that.

Show him, prove to him that you genuinely truly love him, want God's best for his life, and even if he'll disagree

with you, I believe it'll be pretty difficult for him to hate you for it.

Amen.

We have another anonymous listener, and this anonymous listener is bringing

up my one -panel comic.

Uh -oh.

The listener says, although I thought that Chris Arnzen's comic was funny,

there is a reality that I think is disturbing.

Although the comic was addressing an obvious bias that the male counselor had

towards the husband in the counseling situation, I have become privy to

a reality that I was wondering if A .M. Brewster has seen and if he has a

response to it.

It seems that it has a epidemic proportion of counselors out

there who always seem to favor the wife in any situation

that a couple seeks counseling over.

Do you think that I am out of touch with the reality, and if not, do you have an answer for this?

Okay, so as Chris is reading questions, right, I'm listening, I'm trying to hear where it's actually coming from,

but also trying to figure out if I can be one step ahead to where it's going so I can be thinking of an answer,

and I was torn.

I was expecting any number of directions for this question, and I'm glad that you presented the

way you did, because yes, I think your observation, there is accuracy.

Now, I can't say statistically the majority or the minority of people who do this,

but I will tell you that it's been impacted by our society at large ever

since the early 1900s with the suffragette movement and so on and so forth, and women's rights, which by the way,

that's great, fantastic, praise God that women can vote, but ever since then, the

first and second and third wave, feminism and how all of that has grown, it's basically

become impossible for men to criticize a woman in any way, shape, or form,

even if it's completely deserved.

In fact, it's gotten to such a point where women basically are not allowed to criticize each other.

All that women can ever do with each other is the girl power thing and tell each other how wonderful they are, and you

go sister, and I've always said that Father's Day messages are like you dirty bums, get your act together, and Mother's

Day messages are like, oh, you're all angels, and that really is it's unfortunate because it's not

godly, but that is a product of the culture in which we live where we have taken more

cues from the culture than we have from God's word.

Now, I will say, as a male counselor, and I work with women quite frequently, we always have the checks and the balances in place,

whether it's another woman in the room or whatever the case may be, and I will say that

I always recognize the difficulty that I have when I have to tell a woman that her

husband is right.

It's very easy for her to see me as just another guy, another husband siding with her husband, and so it's

very important for me to show her from the scriptures.

It's also really important to have another woman there, whether my wife or someone else, who could just speak the words

and say, hey, listen, sister, your husband's right in this point, right?

It is a very difficult thing for me to navigate, oftentimes, because women are not interested in being

told that they're wrong, specifically by a man.

So, yes, your observation is an accurate one.

It should not be.

The reality is, if we're sinning, regardless of our sex, God's word needs to speak into that, and

it doesn't matter if the person's a female or a male.

If they're coming to me as a brother and sister in Christ and saying, Aaron, you're in sin, I need to submit to that.

It's that inherited authority again.

They're speaking on behalf of God.

I'm submitting to God, not to them.

It doesn't matter what their sex is.

I'm not saying that women should be pastors.

No one would go that direction.

And I think that far too many women have given into the feminism of

our age, and they are just not interested in being told they're wrong, and I think

it's easy for far too many pastors and counselors to basically beat on the guy, and to give

the woman the benefit of the doubt, or to just assume that she can't be wrong.

They wouldn't ever say that, but you're right, that's how they function.

Well, we're going to our final break right now.

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

If you have a question that you'd like to ask yourself of A .M. Brewster on any topic,

send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We're going to be right back with A .M. Brewster.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching,

teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, The Sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott

Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

And there's more great news.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration

fee.

Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code

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Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the G3

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Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor Booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while

you're there.

Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for

your 30 discount off the registration fee.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a longtime partnership with our friends at

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I'm Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureCom group, and an enthusiastic supporter of Chris Arnson's

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Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing kingdom -building, devil -fighting church.

We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

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We sing the psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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We are dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a Reformed Baptist perspective to beginners in the faith as

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession

of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening.

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

Do you know what they all have in common?

They all require training, assessments, and certifications.

But do you know what requires no training at all?

Becoming a parent.

My name is A .M. Brewster.

I'm the president of Truth. Love. Parent and host of its award -winning podcast.

I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s.

And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in

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That's why Truth. Love. Parent exists.

We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents God called and created them to be.

We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of

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Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com.

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

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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

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

I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity.

He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions, while always defending the key

doctrines of the Christian faith.

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

where folk won't be led astray.

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

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

And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer

and in finances.

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

Sharpens Iron financially.

Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would.

All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com, where you can click support.

That's ironsharpensironradio .com.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American

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It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been

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NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina,

and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice.

Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.

Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them

from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com to place your order.

Scott Brown here.

I hope you can join me and Chris Arnzen at the Chief End of Man Conference in Ridgecrest,

May 4 -6.

The Chief End of Man Conference is a national conference of church and family life which exists

to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture.

At this conference, you'll hear Paul Washer, Joel Beakey, Scott Aniel, Josh Bice, and lots of other

great preachers, some of my favorite preachers.

And also we're having a pre -conference, it's a singles conference, May 3 and 4, just before our big

national conference.

I hope you can come.

For more information, go to churchandfamilylife .com, churchandfamilylife

.com.

Hope to see you there.

And that churchandfamilylife .com conference is in North Carolina.

My friend Scott Brown failed to mention the state when he mentioned the city.

And he will be submitting a new commercial next week, God willing, with the state included.

I also want to remind our listeners, you've been hearing ads for the Historical Bible Society, the

Ministry of Attorney at Law, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, and the law firm of Buttafuoco Associates.

I want to remind you that very fact, that he is a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney.

He does not only operate the Historical Bible Society.

So if you or someone that you know or someone that you love is in need of

an attorney due to a serious personal injury or medical malpractice case, no matter where in the United States

you live, he handles cases in all 50 states.

Call him at 1 -800 -NOWHURT, 1 -800 -N -O -W -H -U -R -T.

And you can also visit the website of 1 -800 -NOWHURT .com, 1 -800 -NOWHURT .com.

He has been a sponsor of this program ever since it first launched in 2005 and has sponsored nearly

every special event that I have arranged, including debates and this upcoming pastors luncheon and Bible

conference.

So please contact Dan Buttafuoco no matter where you live in the United States if you are in need of a serious

personal injury attorney or medical malpractice attorney.

We're now back with A .M. Brewster.

We have another anonymous listener.

The anonymous listener says, I have been frequently told when it comes to a problem

in the marriage, even if it comes to ending the marriage in divorce, that

both sides are always to blame.

While I recognize that every single human being is a sinner, and that would include

any married couple where both the husband and wife are sinners, I do not agree that it is

always because of a problem on both sides that a marriage ends in divorce.

I believe that many times there is clearly one guilty party and one

innocent party, and I am repeating, not without sin, but still innocent for the reasons that

the divorce came about.

What is your guest's opinion?

Chris's guest's opinion is that you are 100 percent right.

However, I will throw in a caveat, and that caveat is this, as you already mentioned, everybody

sins, but the most important responsibility we have before we ever deal with the sliver

in someone else's eye is to make certain that we're looking for the log in our own.

As I teach Biblical conflict resolution and reconciliation, the very first thing that I encourage everyone to

do is some real self -inventory.

Pray, you know, search me, O God, show me if there be any wicked way in me.

Submit to counsel, ask questions to be able to address whatever sin we may

have done that has added to the current situation, regardless of whatever it is.

But you are 100 percent right.

It doesn't always take two to tango, and sometimes the sin in a relationship really

is one -sided.

That happens all the time.

Thank you, and we have time for one last question.

Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania, who says, a very well -known Reformed

author, with whom I agree, likely on the vast majority of issues, wrote something in one of

his books that I totally disagree with.

He said that whenever a wife commits a sin, it is always ultimately the

fault of the husband since he is her head, and he is supposed to be

washing her with the water of the Word and making her, through their relationship,

more committed to godliness.

I disagree with this.

What does your guest think?

So, I think he was taking a biblical concept and extrapolating it out too far.

A lot of the questions that have been asked today have all fallen under the same delusion that we have any level of

control whatsoever over anybody else.

I'm always telling parents this.

You cannot change your children.

I tell people who come for counseling, if you're coming for counseling because you want to change this other person, I refuse to meet with you.

The only person you can change is yourself.

So, to hold me responsible for my wife's sins is inappropriate.

My wife was the one, hypothetically speaking, my wife is the one who sinned, right?

But at the same time, you know, there is a responsibility that authorities have.

I am supposed to be washing my wife with the water of the Word.

I am her head to that degree, and I think in the same way that

any employer—I don't want to reduce marriage down to an employment analogy—but any employer needs to take full

responsibility for the actions of his employees.

I think a husband and a father needs to take full responsibility for the actions of his family.

He's trying to lead his family well.

He's trying to do the best that he can.

He's trying to grow, recognizing that he can always do better.

And so, therefore, he does as an authority, as the head, in the same way Adam and Eve.

You know, Eve sinned first, right?

Adam sinned second, and yet it was in Adam that all sinned.

I do believe that there is a headship there.

However, to your point, I think that the author was wrong, if that's exactly what it was he said and what he believed.

He would be wrong in that, because my wife, my kids, my friends, any number of people

can choose to sin, and that's just their choice.

And I really had no part in that.

Well, I had a blast, Aaron.

I don't know about you.

I thought that was—.

It went well.

Yeah, it went really well, and especially since I did not receive any of the questions before the show began.

I was starting to get nervous about that.

But we got a lot of questions.

So I would love for you to return, perhaps to do that again, but of course we will address any topic that you

would like to.

And I want to thank our listeners today.

I want to remind you of the website, truthloveparent .com forward slash iron,

truthloveparent .com forward slash iron.

I want you to have a wonderful, safe, happy, healthy, and Christ -honoring weekend in Lord's Day, and I

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

than you are a sinner.