October 30, 2017 Show with Josh Buice on “Tracing the Birth of America Back to the Protestant Reformation” AND “The New Calvinists”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you a happy Monday on this 30th day of October 2017.

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I'm so delighted to have one of my favorite guests back on the program today. His name is

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Josh Bice. He is senior pastor at Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia.

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He's a blogger at deliveredbygrace .com and director of the annual

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G3 conference, which is coming up in just a few months, January 17th through the 20th, the 17th being an all

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Spanish version of the conference and the 18th through the 20th being all in English. But today we are not only going to be discussing the conference a little bit, but primarily our theme is going to be tracing the birth of America back to the

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Protestant Reformation. And then we want to spend a little time towards the end of the program getting a sneak preview of Pastor Josh's new book on the

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New Calvinists. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Josh Bice.

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Delighted to be with you, Chris. And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

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And it's great to be here. And you really think we're going to accomplish all that within two hours? Yeah, I think that we can do it.

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All right. And if anybody would like to join us, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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

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

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USA when you're asking a question. And you may remain anonymous if it is about a personal and private matter.

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So we will certainly allow you to not bring attention to your identity if it is about something that is intimately private and personal.

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But otherwise, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. Well, first of all,

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I know that you've already done this a number of times, but Iron Sharpens Iron Radio seems to be gaining new people in the listening audience every day.

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So if you could let our listeners, especially for the sake of those who have never heard you on this broadcast before, let our listeners know something about Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia.

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Absolutely. Praise Mill Baptist Church is a Baptist church that's located just west of Atlanta, Georgia.

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It's 175 years old. We just celebrated that anniversary a couple of weeks ago.

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So I've been serving here as the lead pastor of the church for just over seven years.

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My wife and I both grew up here as children, and then I went away to study at seminary and then pastored out of state for a number of years before, in God's providence, being called back here to serve the church where we grew up as children.

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So just privileged to serve these people. And yeah, just a great church.

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Praise God. And for those of you listening who might be trying to Google, you might immediately think that it's spelt

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P -R -A -I -S -E, Mill Baptist Church, as if it is a praise mill.

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But it's P -R -A -Y -S, named after someone involved in the founding of that church.

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If you could explain that again briefly. Yeah. So a man named Ephraim Pray came here, settled in this particular area from Maine.

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He had inheritance money from his father, and there was no church close by. And so in those days, he would have had to travel by horse and buggy or something of that nature.

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And so he donated a piece of land and donated the lumber from his sawmill that he was running there, a lumber mill.

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And so the church was constituted, and they wanted to name the church after his name, but he refused, so they named it after his mill.

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So they still included his name in the name of the church. That's an interesting way of getting around it.

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And of course, one of the things that I am excited about is the upcoming

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G3 conference. This will be, God willing, my second G3 conference, manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio there.

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And it was such a joy the last time. I was so pleasantly surprised to meet so many people who listened to Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio that I had never heard from before.

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These were not people that had sent in questions, although I had met a number of those folks too, finally face -to -face, people who had contacted the program since its inception, and I had never met them physically prior to that.

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But there were so many people that told me how much they loved the program, and I didn't even know who they were. I can still remember a black brother from England shouting across the room, you may know who he is, his name is

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Kofi. I did not know who he was then, but he yelled out in a thick British accent,

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Brother Arnson, Iron Shopper's Iron! And he was just one of many people who told me how much they loved the show.

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And also, subsequently to being there, those great folks at Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida have added me to their lineup, and they had, as you know, an exhibitor's booth there as well.

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Yeah, very good. In fact, we often find that there are so many different relationships that have crossover connections, and so it's just really a wonderful reunion in many ways each

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January. So tell us about the G3 Conference. I know it stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory, and tell us about why you started these and something of the history of them, and also, obviously, tell us something about the one that's coming up in January.

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The G3 Conference was started out of a desire to have a theology conference, not a pep rally for Christians or anything like that, but a theology conference in the

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Atlanta area. This was in the year just prior to 2013.

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We really started praying about it in 2011, and we started the conference in 2013.

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We thought it would be a local area conference, but as people registered, we learned very quickly that God had other plans, because He not only caused the first annual conference to sell out, and a waiting list was established, and we had people showing up and college students sleeping in their cars in January, but what happened was we noticed that people were registering from all over the country, and even outside of the country.

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So what we thought would be just a local area conference, the

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Lord changed into something of a national conference, and so that was year one, and it's been that way all through year five, really.

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And again, year five, we moved to a convention center so that we would have additional space, and so the conference has grown, but I'm often asked, you know, by pastors and other people, how did we accomplish this, or could we maybe lay out some blueprints so that people can see, you know, the secrets behind the

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G3 conference, and really, I just have to be honest, we prayed, and God really raised up this conference for His glory.

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Amen. Well, I'm going to ask an audience question right away, because it has to do with the G3 conferences.

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We have a first -time listener, and I hope I'm not mispronouncing the name of the city, but it looks like Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, N -A -N -A -I -M -O.

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I can't even think of another way to pronounce that, but no doubt there is a different way to pronounce it, but Janice in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, says, my name is

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Janice, and I have a question for Pastor Josh. Can you share with us a humorous and or moving experience that you have had at any of the previous

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G3 conferences? There are many memories I could share with people, but I guess one of the most interesting things that I've been able to be a part of was a few years ago when we had the conference here on our church campus, we had a

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Bible group here that has historic Bibles and documents from church history, and they were all on display in the exhibit hall, and I went up to the group, and I said, you know,

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I said, I really want to lead off the conference tomorrow in the first session.

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I'm going to be preaching about the importance of the Word of God, and I just wanted to know if maybe you could come up and stand beside me in the pulpit and hold up this first edition, you know, 1560

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Geneva Bible, and the person looked at me and said no, and I was shocked.

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I thought, well, you know, I thought that they would at least come up there and stand beside the pulpit with me. And they said,

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I have something even better than that. And I said, well, what's that? And they said, you can actually take the 1560

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Geneva Bible into the pulpit with you and preach from it. And I was delighted, yeah,

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I was delighted, overjoyed to take that Bible, that Bible of the Reformation, into the pulpit and just be able to preach from that text.

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It was a tremendous joy. Yeah, in fact, I'm looking at it right now, I actually took it with me. I'm only kidding.

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Yeah, you probably do have a copy of it, but I'm talking about the actual...

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Yes, I know. But one of the other things, you know, I've been able to see happen through the

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G3 is that each year when Paul Washer comes and preaches, again, we've had lots of different conversations and memories to share through the years, but one thing that sticks out is that people will line up to talk to him, and he sat in the sanctuary literally until the early hours of the morning to just, you know, speak to these people that have traveled to listen to the sermons preached.

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And instead of just trying to say, you know, I'll talk to you tomorrow, or send me an email, or something of that nature, he literally just sits there and will talk to anyone that wants to spend time there until the early hours of the morning, and that's something very unique that you don't see with a lot of the other speakers.

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So that sticks out as a memory, but what I guess one of the early memories was year number one, the conference sold out.

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We were very new at doing these conferences and really didn't know what to expect. We had a waiting list established for people to get into the conference, and there were college students that showed up in the parking lot and were sleeping in their cars.

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And it was January, it was cold, and so I went and told them that, you know, you're not going to sleep in your cars, and so I opened up my house, brought them to my home, and just allowed them to sleep there so that they would have a room, you know, somewhere where they could get warm.

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But, you know, really good memories, and just to see our church serving, and serving people from all around the country and outside of the country as a ministry is just a wonderful treat, a wonderful joy.

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Amen. And I got to tell you that right now I am only three people away from having interviewed everybody on your speaking roster.

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The only three people that I have not yet interviewed on that very long roster are

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Votie Balcombe, and I've met Votie on a couple of occasions, and he keeps promising me he'll be on the program.

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It just hasn't happened yet. Keith Getty and H .P. Charles Jr. Those are the only three that have not been on Iron Trip and Zion, and I'll let our listeners know again this list of speakers.

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Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcombe, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .P. Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bryce, James White, Tom Askle, Anthony Matheny, and Michael Krueger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

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So I've had all of them except for the three I mentioned. So perhaps anything that you can do to help me get them on would be appreciated.

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But it's, and all of them have been fascinating. I think the most recent interview

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I had for the first time with one of those speakers was David Miller, and what a joy that was.

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He is quite a brother, and I look forward to having him back on the program many times. Yeah, David Miller is just fantastic.

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Always fun to talk with him. Well, as I mentioned at the outset of the program, our theme today is tracing the birth of America back to the

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Protestant Reformation. And what was it that began your investigation to connect these very world -shaking, monumental events?

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Because even the birth of America had ramifications outside of our own shores. So if you could, let us know about the connection and how you started to become interested in, and how you found out there was a connection.

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Yeah, well, I mean, again, just study of church history is always intriguing to me. But here recently,

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I was speaking on a Reformation tour all through Germany, and as I was speaking on this tour,

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I was also having conversations with different people, and one of the individuals had invited me to speak at another event where he asked me to address this very issue.

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And so I just wanted to, as I'm thinking through these things, and as I've thought through the connection, it's quite intriguing.

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But at the foundational level, you might say an overarching aspect to it all is the providence of God.

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As we think about America's founding history, and as we think about the Founders and how they arrived here, the

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Separatists, the Puritans, as we think about these issues, they can all be traced back to a definitive moment that happened, as we're going to celebrate that moment tomorrow on Reformation Day.

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500 years ago, when Martin Luther walked down those cobblestone streets of Wittenberg, and he nailed his 95

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Theses to the castle door there, it wasn't as many people believe, you know, out of protest.

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He's really just trying to engage in a local debate. He's trying to have a conversation. He had no

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Facebook. He had no iron sharpens iron to go on and on. I mean, he literally had no

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Twitter, he had no social media, so his social media of the day was the front door of that castle church.

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And so he posted that document and, you know, wanted to have this conversation.

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Some of his theology students, because you see, Luther was a professor of theology there in Wittenberg, and some of his theology students took that document, which was really not an outright protest, but more or less a debate, debatable issues over the sale of indulgence.

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He was challenging the authorities over that. Absolutely, he was challenging them.

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And so they took this document, and they went, and they took it to a printer. Now, you have to understand how the providence of God is working here.

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Just a few years before, there was a man named Gutenberg who took a wine press, and he transformed this wine press into a movable -type printing press.

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So for the very first time now, you have this movable -type printing technology that's been instituted, and so now books are easily printed, documents are easily printed in a very professional manner, and they can be spread about in such a way that people can get their hands on these documents very quickly.

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So this is, this is, you know, technology that just revolutionized the world.

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And God used a Catholic, by the way. Gutenberg was a Catholic. He was raised a

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Catholic, and he died a Catholic, but yet God used him to invent a technology that would be used to spread and to spark this

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Reformation. So Luther's documents spread about, and people started having this conversation more widespread than Luther ever thought would happen, and so eventually, through different chain of events, there would be this spark of what we now know as the

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Protestant Reformation, and it would begin to spread well beyond Wittenberg, and it would go to various different cities.

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So that's 1517. I really don't believe that Luther was converted until 1519.

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Now, there are others that take an earlier date. James White, I know, is one of your favorite guests.

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He and I have this ongoing spirited debate. He takes an earlier date of Luther's conversion.

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I take a later date. I believe it was 1519. So 1520, there's no doubt at this point

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Luther is converted. He receives this papal bull from the

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Pope himself that's calling him a wild boar that's loose in God's vineyard, and he's calling

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Luther to recant. And so he's given Luther 60 days. This papal bull comes with the official red seal.

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It signifies it's from the Pope himself, but Luther waits until the end of that 60 -day period.

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He goes out to the city, to the edge of the city of Wittenberg, takes a group of students and others with him, publicly reads this papal bull, and then does the unthinkable.

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He burns it. He burns it right there outside of the city gate of Wittenberg, and so now what you have is you have a line that's being drawn in the sand.

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So what started out as an internal conversation locally there in Wittenberg sparked into a widespread open debate that then was now after Luther's conversion, he's writing and preaching and stating things that are very confrontational to the

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Roman Catholic Church at this point. And so now there's this desire of the

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Pope to call this man down, and so when he refuses to stand down, instead he publicly defies the

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Pope by burning this document in the streets. Well, now there's a clear division that's taking place here.

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So you move from this burning of the papal bull there in 1520 to the year 1521, where there was this imperial diet, this very important meeting that was to be held in the city of Worms.

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Luther is invited there to stand trial, and his friends said to Luther, they said, listen, we can't go to Worms because it's too dangerous.

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There are already, you know, anti -reformation protests that are being held in the streets where they're burning

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Luther's books. So his friends thought that soon he would be joining his books in the streets in the flames.

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So at this point, Luther, he really just looks to his friends and he says, listen, if we have to go through the gates of hell to arise in Worms, we will stand to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And so he doesn't just slide into Worms, as many people have made it known throughout history, he literally preached his way to the city of Worms, and he arrived there in a covered wagon, and on the very day that he was to stand trial, two guards were dispatched down to his place of residence where he was staying, and they were to escort him to the bishop's palace.

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Well, when they arrived, the city streets were just abuzz. Everyone wanted to get a glimpse of this monk who was standing up in, you know, to this

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Roman Catholic church and the pope himself. So there were people that, of course, hated

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Luther that were in the streets. There were people that were thrilled with Luther, that were just amazed. He's like the first Christian celebrity, if you will, at this point.

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And they marched him up the street. They had to slide him in a back alleyway into a back door to get him into the room where the imperial diet was being held.

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And so as he's walking in, he's dressed in his humble monk's attire, and as he's coming in,

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Charles V is seated there, the emperor himself, and he looks and he sees

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Luther coming, and he says to himself, he kind of mumbles this, he said, I will not allow him to make a heretic out of me.

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Wow. So the interesting thing was, at this point, Luther is told to remain silent until he was called upon to speak, and then when he was, you know, eventually called upon to speak, it was quite clear that it was going to be a different scenario than Luther thought.

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I mean, he sees this table and all of his books there. He thought he was going to be debating justification by faith alone or something of that nature, but at that point, they called upon him and they said, are these your books, and will you recant of everything?

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And it was at that point that Luther knew that it was going to be a different meeting, and so he considered his answer.

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He did say, these are my books, but he asked for additional time to consider his answer, and as you well know, the following day at six o 'clock, they brought him back to stand before the same hierarchy, all of the leaders, and they went through the same routine again, but this time they thought maybe this monk's going to come in, he's going to apologize for this whole scene, and he's going to recant, and this whole thing of the

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Reformation is just going to go away. It's just going to slide off into history, but when they called upon Luther to speak, they knew at that moment that the monk was not planning to stand down.

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Instead, he speaks up with bold confidence, and he refuses to recant.

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He says, you know, basically that he is bound by the Scriptures, he is quoted in his conscience, is captive to the

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Word of God. He said, I cannot and I will not recant of anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

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I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. May God help me. Amen. Now, at that moment, they're crying out for blood, they're calling for his life, he's taken immediately out of the bishop's palace, and that was the definitive mark of the

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Reformation at that point. If the 1517 mark of the 95 cc sparked it, and if the papal bull being burned in 1520 was the line being drawn in the sand, the

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Diet of Worms was the explosion of the Reformation, because that's where Luther was saying, in essence, to Charles V and to the

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Roman Catholic Church, I am standing here on the Gospel, and you're standing on something else, and it's not the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's where the Reformation literally exploded. Well, praise

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God. Well, we're going to be finding out the connection between this earth -shaking historical event that transformed the landscape of Europe in the 16th century, and which has ripple effects continuing to this day.

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Uh, we are going to find out the connection between that and the history of the founding of the

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United States of America after these messages. If anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

26:34

and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. You may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you were asking.

26:46

And I have some exciting news that Pastor Josh Bice has just let me know about.

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Everyone who registers for the G3 Conference through midnight tomorrow and enters the special promo code,

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Iron Sharpens Iron, no spaces between words, will receive a $45 discount on registration.

27:08

So enter the promo code, Iron Sharpens Iron, with no spaces in between.

27:13

And by the way, does it matter if the I's in Iron and the S in Sharpens are capitalized?

27:20

Uh, yes, it does. It's case sensitive. It's case sensitive, so spell it like you would if you were writing the title of my program,

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Iron Sharpens Iron, with all lowercase except for the I's in Iron and the

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S in Sharpens, and you will get a $45 discount. So thank you very much for that,

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Pastor Bice, and I hope that all of you listening make note of that, and that gives you an extra boost and extra motivation to want to come to this conference.

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You really don't want to miss this conference. If any conference you want to go to, it would be this one.

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If you need to sacrifice going to other conferences, this is the one that you should be at because it's really something that you will remember for a long time to come.

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I'm confident of, judging from my last experience at my first G3 conference this past January.

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But we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Josh Bice after these messages from our sponsors, so don't go away.

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Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

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And here's another shout -out to Pastor Bill Shishko of a visit to the

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Pastor's Study and of Reformation Metro New York, and of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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He was our guest speaker, our keynote speaker, at the last

33:21

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon, which took place this past Thursday.

33:27

And Reverend Buzz Taylor, wasn't that a blessing, that luncheon? Oh yeah, sure was. Met a lot of people there. It was wonderful.

33:33

Yeah, we had about 100 people show up, which is what we expected due to the registrations that were coming in.

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More people showed up than registered, which seems to be always the case. But that's fine.

33:47

We did have enough food for everybody and beverages and all that. But what a wonderful time of fellowship.

33:53

And I thank all of those publishers out there who donated so many wonderful books to be given away for free at this event, including our friends at Ligonier Ministries who donated quite a number of books in the

34:07

Reformation, hardback, really beautiful, expensive books, all free of charge.

34:13

And of course, we had Steve Bloom, State Representative of Pennsylvania, who was our guest of honor.

34:23

And he's now running for Congress. He is a fine, unwaveringly faithful Christian. He is not somebody who just tries to fake a

34:32

Christian faith to appease a certain segment of society to win votes. He is the real deal and a member of a

34:39

PCA, Presbyterian Church in America, congregation here in the area, in Mechanicsburg, to be exact.

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It was so great to see him there. And pray for Steve as he's running for Congress because there was a firestorm of feminists' attacks on Facebook after our event.

34:59

A lot of angry women out there because they were not invited to this exclusively male pastor luncheon.

35:06

And there were, last I counted, over 200 comments, the majority of which were nasty comments.

35:14

But there were some people coming to my defense, including Sisters in Christ who were coming to my defense.

35:20

But anyway, I just thank God that the event was such a wonderful, wonderful event. And I did promote, by the way, while I was hosting that event to the

35:28

G3 Conference coming up this January in Atlanta, Georgia. And for all of you listening to the program, don't forget that the website to go to is

35:38

G3conference .com. G3conference .com. And if you put Iron Sharpens Iron in the promo code area, all one word,

35:51

Iron Sharpens Iron, but the words, it's case sensitive. So the I's in iron and the

35:58

S in sharpens must be capitalized. The rest lowercase, but you'll get $45 off for your registration.

36:07

And I hope to see as many of you as possible in Atlanta, Georgia this January 18th through the 20th.

36:14

And of course, on the 17th, as I said earlier, is a Spanish speaking edition of the conference.

36:19

We are speaking now with Pastor Josh Bice, Senior Pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia, blogger at deliveredbygrace .com,

36:30

and director of the annual G3 Conference that I just mentioned. And we have been addressing and will continue addressing tracing the birth of America back to the

36:38

Protestant Reformation. And at some point later on, we'll be getting a sneak preview of Pastor Josh's new book on the

36:44

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

36:50

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Pastor Josh, it looks like the

36:56

Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say. Well, yes, as long as Pastor Josh is telling us that he believes the

37:02

Reformation exploded in 1521, do we have an anniversary date for that? Yeah, I think that we'll probably end up having some, you know, further conversation about that as church historians, once you press that, you know, upon us in the upcoming days.

37:21

All right. Well, we do have a listener, another first -time listener, Mel in Shelby, North Carolina.

37:30

Mel says, I grew up in the IFB movement, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, I'm assuming that means, right?

37:37

I'm assuming. I have family who are expressing concern for me and my family, as we have purposefully sought out a

37:47

Bible church that is reformed in their soteriology. My question is regarding their recent expressions as to why

37:55

Luther and Calvin are celebrated, who while defending justification by faith alone, also were sacerdotal and persuaded other believers instead of celebrating

38:07

Baptist forefathers who seemingly had more fully separated from Romish doctrines.

38:13

How do I study church history in a balanced way? And are there indeed Baptists who should be celebrated during the

38:20

Reformation? I am listening to James White's sermons on church history. Any other suggestions?

38:28

Well, I mean, I think that you have a good point. I think that the point you raised about studying church history and being balanced is the key.

38:38

Here's what we must understand is that these reformers that God raised up, He raised them up out of the shadows, if you will, of this popish, deformed gospel of the

38:54

Roman Catholic Church. But here's what you also have to understand is that it would be extremely unbalanced for us to raise up Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, John Huss, who is a pre -Reformation reformer,

39:11

Wycliffe, and the list goes on and on. For us to raise these individuals up and make them out to be, you know, heroes in an unblemished way.

39:22

We need to understand that these people that we know from church history, we know them because of their commitment to the gospel, their commitment to honor

39:31

God, but they were very much sinful, wretched sinners that needed a

39:37

Savior. And so the way that I like to point it out is like when I'm talking to Roman Catholics, I like to point out the fact that Mary herself needed salvation through Christ alone.

39:51

And that she was not somehow beyond sin or beyond the stain of sin.

39:57

We see that even in Mary's own prayer where she calls Christ, you know, her

40:03

Savior. And so as we think about those very issues, we need to look to the

40:10

Reformation with a proper lens and see that Luther and Calvin and these reformers were very much men who were sinful, and they needed

40:19

Christ as their Savior. So did they say foolish things? Did they say things that, you know, we wouldn't necessarily celebrate?

40:29

Absolutely. I mean, did they have doctrinal positions that we would not agree with?

40:34

Absolutely. So we need to be balanced, and so that's the key. Now, listening to James White's, you know, church history talks and things of that nature, you're going to hear him reference even some

40:46

Anabaptists that we could learn from, that we could celebrate their commitment.

40:51

And often we look back and we see almost conflicting issues happening.

41:00

You see, you know, that some Anabaptists were persecuted by followers of Luther, you know, years later.

41:08

And so we have to make sense of these things, and we have to be balanced. We have to be willing to say that not every single issue of Luther or Calvin or any of the reformers that were, you know, not in line with the gospel or, you know, somehow out of bounds, we shouldn't celebrate those things.

41:27

We should be balanced, and we should be willing to say that Luther was not an unblemished man.

41:32

He was in many ways, especially beyond 1525, I mean, Luther was in many ways just a mixed bag, and he said some very troubling things about the

41:44

Jews as well. So I think we have to be balanced when we come to church history. I do, however, perhaps you agree or disagree with me,

41:53

I'm not sure. I do disagree with our listeners' description of Luther and Calvin being sacerdotal.

42:03

First of all, they did not believe in a new covenant priesthood, and they did not believe, although Luther maintained baptismal regeneration, which you and I would strongly disagree with, he did not believe in priests having some kind of a supernatural power to transform the elements of the

42:25

Eucharist, even though Lutherans maintain a view where Christ is truly present in, above, and around the elements, something that I don't even understand what they're talking about.

42:38

But they do not believe that those are elements to be worshipped. They do not believe that the

42:43

Mass, if you will, is a perpetuatory sacrifice, and of course

42:50

Calvin was even farther away from those views, believing in the spiritual presence of Christ in the

42:57

Eucharist, but not in any sense like Luther did. So do you think that they could be rightly described as sacerdotal?

43:06

No, absolutely not. I don't think so. I think that Luther and Calvin, I think that they're standing firmly against transubstantiation.

43:16

I think they're standing against the idea that there is a fresh sacrifice of Jesus Christ on that altar.

43:24

However, like you mentioned, Luther did, you know, embrace an idea that has become known as consubstantiation, so that the presence of Christ is there in, around, or beneath the actual bread and, you know, on the table.

43:45

And so we have to think about what does he mean by that? Now Luther himself would come to say that he disagreed with the idea of consubstantiation, but if you read the definition of what he's saying, it's very close to consubstantiation.

43:59

And you're right to say that Calvin moved beyond that. He was well beyond Luther on this particular issue, but neither one of those men stood in a position that would be linked with Rome on the subject of transubstantiation, that there is this transforming of the elements into the actual body and actual blood of Jesus Christ on that altar.

44:27

So yeah, I would have to move beyond that. That's one of the things that was so troubling to the

44:34

Reformers when they came to faith out of the Roman Catholic Church and system, is they looked to the cell of indulgences and transubstantiation, and as we move on in this discussion and talk about the connection of America's birth to the

44:50

Reformation, there are men who were burned in the streets as a result of this

44:56

Reformation movement, not just for their translation of the Bible, but because of their unwillingness to embrace the doctrine of transubstantiation.

45:06

So I don't believe that these Reformers were at all sacerdotal in their conviction. And lastly, not to belabor this one question that the listener had, but he also claims that Luther and Calvin were involved in persecuting other believers instead of celebrating

45:27

Baptist forefathers. Now, I know that Luther sinned grievously in the area of not offering safe passage to Anabaptists, and that the throne in Germany was involved in very harsh, brutal persecution of Anabaptists.

45:50

And Calvin was involved in, at the very least, condoning the execution of Michael Servetus, who was a

46:00

Unitarian, and also a militant anti -Trinitarian. He wasn't some passive person minding his own business.

46:07

He was somebody that, after being threatened on many occasions, continued to come back to Geneva to spread his heresy.

46:14

Not that I believe that that warranted the death penalty, nor do I believe that any heretic is worthy of being executed for that alone.

46:27

And I think most Christians today share that view. But to call

46:33

Luther and Calvin persecutors of those of other religions, and specifically

46:38

Baptists, that would be an error on this listener's part too, wouldn't it?

46:44

I absolutely agree it would be an error. I do believe that, you know, there were troubling issues that might surround, you know, the way that they treated such as Luther, you know, in the way that he spoke of Anabaptists.

46:58

He had a tongue that was not always in check. He had a, you know, that was part of, you know, the ongoing sanctifying work of the

47:10

Holy Spirit in his life that never really reached a level of great sanctification.

47:17

Unfortunately, he would say things about people like Anabaptists and whatnot. But Calvin, on the other hand, he is oftentimes, you know, linked to this serratus issue, and what we have to understand is that the church in Geneva in Calvin's day was very much linked with the civil authorities and, you know, that there were issues that are at play in that particular time period that we would not have in our own context, especially here in America, with the freedom of worship that's completely disconnected from the civil authorities.

47:55

And so when Calvin is consenting to his execution, we might not agree on the issues with his consenting, but what we have to understand is it wasn't

48:06

Calvin himself that's murdering the man. He's literally under the authority of the civil authorities for his actions, and Servetus basically was a

48:17

Spanish theologian who was very much standing out of bounds theologically with the

48:24

Gospel, so he was a heretic. And so, you know, again, I think that we have to be balanced when we read church history.

48:33

We don't need to let Luther and Calvin off on everything, but we need to be careful that we don't charge them with sin or with a crime that they certainly did not commit.

48:45

Yes, and I know that Calvin wrote a harsh treatise against the

48:50

Anabaptists, but he did not, to my memory, call for their torture and execution or anything like that.

48:58

And, in fact, he was begging the Genevan authorities to execute

49:04

Servetus mercifully and not by burning him to death as they did. In fact,

49:11

I heard a new spin on that. I heard for the first time in my life by some scholar very knowledgeable of Calvin that he believes that the

49:22

Genevan authorities did that on purpose to actually make Calvin look bad because they were opposed to Calvin on certain fronts.

49:32

I know that there were many people in Geneva upset with him because he was instrumental in transforming

49:38

Geneva from an immoral sewer to a place of infinitely greater outward piety and reverence and so on.

49:50

And there were a lot people who I think may have been losing money because of that, but have you heard that theory?

49:57

Because I just heard it very recently. Yeah, I have heard that theory and I don't know, you know, what to make of it, but I do know this much.

50:05

I do know that Calvin actually requested that Servetus be executed in a more humane fashion such as beheading.

50:15

So it could be considered torture, but they refused to listen to Calvin. So, you know, we have to be careful not to, you know, look to Calvin or just read something on some blog site and just hold that to be the definitive truth of the matter.

50:30

I think we need to be very careful there. Well, thank you, Mel, in Shelby, North Carolina.

50:36

And since you are a first -time listener, or should I say questioner, because you may have been listening for years for all

50:42

I know, but since you're a first -time questioner and you're from the United States, you receive a free

50:49

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB and also compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com,

51:01

that's CVBBS .com. And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for being faithful supporters of Iron Trip and Zion Radio and for shipping out all of our winners and our audience their free books,

51:12

Bibles, DVDs, and other things that they win by submitting questions. We apologize to our listener in Canada, but the offer of the free

51:21

Bibles is exclusively for United States residents because of the shipping costs. And we know that the

51:27

CVBBS .com ships out a lot of books and Bibles, so the shipping costs would really mount up to a very, very costly level.

51:38

In fact, it probably is already, but it would be really magnified many times over if we were shipping books out to Canada and overseas.

51:48

So we apologize for that, but perhaps someday we could start including Canada and other countries on the winners list.

51:57

And we're going to go to our midway break right now. This is a longer break than normal. Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida requires that we take a 12 -minute break in between the two hours on the show.

52:12

So please be patient with us. And why don't you register for the G3 Conference while you're waiting for us to come back?

52:19

Go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com, and enter as a promo code,

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I's in iron and the S in sharpen. So that's IronSharpensIron as the promo code to get the $45 discount on registering for the

52:43

G3 Conference. And don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back after these messages with more of Josh Bice and his connection between the founding, the birth of America and the

52:57

Protestant Reformation. So don't go away. God willing, we will be right back. IronSharpensIron welcomes

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That's chefexclusive .com. Welcome back.

58:09

This is Chris Orenson. And before we return to our discussion with Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church and the founder and director of the

58:20

G3 Conference, which is coming up in January from the 17th through the 20th, the 17th being a

58:27

Spanish -speaking edition and the 18th through the 20th being the English version of the conference.

58:33

Before I return to Pastor Josh, I just have some important upcoming announcements to make.

58:40

First of all, next month, November 17th through the 18th, the

58:46

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology at the

58:55

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. I intend to be there myself with the

59:01

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth, possibly the Rev. Buzz Taylor may be there with me if he has time to fit that in his schedule.

59:09

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

59:15

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

59:22

Reformation hymn by Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress. And if you'd like to register for the

59:29

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org.

59:35

That's alliancenet .org. Click on Events, and then click on Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology.

59:43

And then coming up after that is the aforementioned and long -awaited G3 Conference, January 17th through the 20th.

59:53

January 17th, once again, is exclusively a Spanish -speaking edition of the conference, and the 18th through the 20th is in English.

01:00:01

And the theme this January is Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.

01:00:07

Speakers include Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcombe, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B. Charles Jr.,

01:00:13

Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Matheny, and Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

01:00:23

If you would like to register for this conference, go to g3conference .com, and put

01:00:30

IRON SHARPENS IRON as a promo code to get a $45 discount.

01:00:36

That's IRON SHARPENS IRON, all in one word, no spaces, all lowercase letters except for the two i's in the two irons and the one s in sharpens.

01:00:49

That's IRON SHARPENS IRON. So put the promo code in as if you are writing IRON SHARPENS IRON as a title for my program, but do not have any spaces in that promo code.

01:01:03

And I hope that as many of you as possible can join me at this conference. I would love to see you there at the

01:01:10

IRON SHARPENS IRON exhibitors booth. And I'm going to be interviewing a lot of people, God willing, like I did last time.

01:01:16

And in fact, this time around, I'd also like to include a lot of interviews with IRON SHARPENS IRON radio listeners.

01:01:24

So I would love to sit down with many of you who enjoy this program and have helped keep it on the air with your gifts.

01:01:35

And in fact, that leads me to my next part of the program, which is my least favorite part of the program because it makes me feel uncomfortable.

01:01:44

Although I'm not ashamed to do it, I just don't feel comfortable doing it. But the advertisers that have kept this program on the air through their hard -earned money by purchasing advertising to keep

01:01:59

IRON SHARPENS IRON radio on the airwaves and on the internet and continuing its blessings to you, the listener, these advertisers have urged me for quite a long time to make daily public appeals for advertisers and also for new benefactors or donations.

01:02:24

And for a long time, I resisted these requests, but I backed down a couple of months ago and have, as you may know, started to make these daily appeals for donations because we are in literal risk of going off the air because we are so behind in our finances right now.

01:02:44

We are facing a financial crisis like IRON SHARPENS IRON radio has never known in the history of the program.

01:02:51

So if you really want this program to remain on the air, you don't want it to disappear, if it means a lot to you, if you love it, if you love the topics and the guests, then please consider going to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:03:02

clicking support, and then mailing a check for any amount you can afford to the address that you will see when clicking support.

01:03:12

And as I always try to remind you, please never siphon money out of your regular giving to your local church where you are a member.

01:03:22

Please never take food off of your family's dinner table if you're struggling to make ends meet.

01:03:28

Those two things are clear commands of scripture, clear commands of God that you must provide for your family and your church.

01:03:36

But if you're blessed above and beyond your ability to financially obey those commands, then please consider, if you love this program, please consider donating to IRON SHARPENS IRON radio.

01:03:50

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click on support, and mail us a check made out to IRON SHARPENS IRON radio.

01:03:57

And if you want to advertise with us, whether it's your church, your parachurch organization, your business, your corporation, your professional practice, whether you're a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, a chiropractor, well send me an email and put advertising in the subject line.

01:04:14

Just send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and I will discuss with you launching an ad campaign.

01:04:22

I would love to do that because we definitely need your advertising dollars and we will be happy to accommodate you on an ad campaign as long as whatever it is your advertising is compatible with the theology expressed on IRON SHARPENS IRON radio.

01:04:37

It doesn't need to be identical, it just needs to be compatible. And in fact, you could even be a

01:04:43

Presbyterian pastor wanting to advertise your church, even though I'm a Reformed Baptist. I would love to hear from you with your request for an ad campaign and we would love to launch one with you as soon as possible.

01:05:03

But now we are back with our guest, Josh Bice, who is pastor of, the senior pastor of the

01:05:11

Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia. He is a blogger at deliveredbygrace .com

01:05:17

and director of the annual G3 conference that we've been talking about. We are discussing tracing the birth of America back to the

01:05:24

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

01:05:35

And we also have in studio the Reverend Buzz Taylor, who's my co -host. And it's great to have you back,

01:05:42

Buzz. And let's see, oh, we have a clarification from Mel in Shelby, North Carolina.

01:05:53

He says, thanks so much, Chris, for taking the time with my question. I just wanted to clarify that these are not my accusations, but the common things that are thrown around as facts in the independent fundamentalist

01:06:07

Baptist movement. So that was what he was saying.

01:06:12

He wasn't saying that those were his opinions. So I thought I'd clarify that for our friend

01:06:17

Mel in Shelby, North Carolina. And by the way, Mel, we still have not received your full mailing address for the

01:06:24

New American Standard Bible, unless you're afraid to get that NASB because you're out of an IFB background.

01:06:32

Maybe you haven't shed that part of it yet. They're not poisonous, trust me.

01:06:37

They're not poisonous. In fact, they're very nice Bibles. I'm really impressed.

01:06:43

What are you kidding me? Nice? They're the best Bibles out there. They help support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and they're the finest translation on the planet

01:06:50

Earth. In fact, I know quite a number of scholars who will actually tell me that even though that the

01:06:58

NASB may not currently be the biggest seller or most popular in that sense

01:07:03

Bible, they will tell me, and I am truly not making this up or exaggerating,

01:07:09

I have heard that it is the favorite amongst a number of scholars. I'm talking about even the leather covers.

01:07:15

They're beautiful. Even the faux leather covers are really nice.

01:07:21

You would swear they were leather. But anyway, that's not what we're talking about right now.

01:07:28

And let's go back to your investigation as to the connection between the

01:07:34

Protestant Reformation and the founding of America or the birth of our nation. Absolutely.

01:07:42

Well, in the previous conversation before the break, we left off with Luther's explosion at the

01:07:49

Diet of Worms. When he leaves Worms, he is kidnapped by friends and taken to this fortress, this castle called the

01:07:58

Vartburg Castle. And it would be there that he would have the safety to engage in a very important work that was at the heart of the

01:08:08

Reformation. In fact, if we say that the explosion of Worms at the

01:08:14

Diet of Worms is what really just pressed the Reformation forward, I think that what happened in the year 1522 as Luther is hiding out in this castle, what took place there really is the engine behind the

01:08:32

Reformation. And it's the translation of the German New Testament by Luther from the original language into the common man's language in Germany, the

01:08:45

German language. And so in 1522, Luther brings the people their

01:08:50

Bible. And he labored really while he was at the castle there at about the rate of about 1 ,500 words per day to get this

01:09:00

Bible completed. So now suddenly the Reformation is moving forward and the

01:09:06

Bible is being brought to the people so that instead of hearing the Latin mumblings there in the cathedrals, now you have open

01:09:16

Bibles and you have pulpits and you have men who are standing there and they're preaching the gospel on the

01:09:24

Lord's Day in the common man's language, which was it just revolutionized worship.

01:09:32

And so you have people who are now leading their families and devotions in their homes with open

01:09:37

Bibles. Now there's the spark of congregational singing. All of this came as a result of the

01:09:44

German Bible. And so this was tremendous as it relates to the movement of the

01:09:50

Reformation. So now just a few years later, you have a man who's meeting with a small group in Cambridge.

01:10:00

He's a British man and he's again in Cambridge meeting with a group of people in what's called the

01:10:09

White Horse Inn. It was a tavern. And he's meeting there with a group of men and they're having these conversations because they're reading the works of this man named

01:10:19

Martin Luther and they're trying to consider whether or not he is speaking the truth.

01:10:25

And so they're gathering and they're just sitting around, they're hanging out, they're reading the works of Luther, and soon these

01:10:34

Catholic priests are becoming Christians. They're leaving the

01:10:39

Roman Catholic Church. And one of these individuals was a man by the name of William Tyndale. Now William Tyndale would be used as a wonderful tool by God who would go off eventually and he would have a similar desire as Luther.

01:10:56

He would commit his life to the translation of the English Bible. So now you have

01:11:03

Tyndale who's standing on the shoulders of Luther and he translates the New Testament into English so that what happened in 1522 with the

01:11:13

German New Testament sparks what happened later in 1526 with the

01:11:19

English New Testament. And so as these English New Testaments are placed in cotton bales and they're sent down the

01:11:28

Rhine River and they make their way into England, I mean this was all under the providence of God bringing this about.

01:11:36

So eventually we know the story. Tyndale is hunted down, he's found, and he's eventually tried and he's burned at the stake.

01:11:47

But before they could destroy all of his works, there was a man by the name of John Rogers who took his

01:11:54

Old Testament work that wasn't yet complete and he went and completed that work, finished out the translation of the

01:12:02

Old Testament, printed two large letters at the end of Malachi, WT, in memory of William Tyndale, attached

01:12:10

Tyndale's New Testament to it, and that was what we know as the Matthew Bible.

01:12:17

And eventually there would be another work that would take place there in Geneva.

01:12:22

You have all of these people who are fleeing persecution and they're coming to this the city of Geneva because years earlier the city of Geneva had voted in the

01:12:34

Reformation, and so these people are fleeing there for safety, and one of those men that was there at that time who came there for that very purpose was a man by the name of John Knox.

01:12:47

So here in Geneva you have this hotbed, if you will, of Reformers that are being trained for the ministry, that are training missionaries and sending them out, and they're also engaging in another very important work which was called the work of the 1560

01:13:04

Geneva Bible. And so it would be that Bible, the first study Bible.

01:13:10

You have the writings of the Reformers in the footnotes and in the margins, you have illustrations, you have a well -organized

01:13:19

Bible that was the world's first study Bible in English, and then it's eventually used all throughout

01:13:27

England. And so you have 1522, the German Bible by Luther, you have 1526, the

01:13:35

English Bible by or the New Testament by Tyndale, you eventually have

01:13:40

John Rogers finishing out the Old Testament work with the Matthew Bible, and then eventually the 1560

01:13:45

Geneva Bible. Now all of this to put into perspective what happens is the

01:13:51

Reformation continues to ebb and flow and move throughout England. So now you have the separatists who are standing against the teachings of the

01:14:03

Church of England. And so in a different way than the Puritans were, the Puritans, you have to remember, were trying to purify from within in much the same way that the

01:14:12

Reformers like Luther were trying to reform what had been deformed within the

01:14:18

Roman Catholic Church before it eventually exploded into an external movement. So now you have the separatists who take their families and they get on a boat and in 1620 they sail to the

01:14:31

New World on the boat known as the Mayflower. And when they got off of that boat onto the soil of the ground that we now call

01:14:40

America and they planted churches, they took with them off of that boat this

01:14:46

Bible that we call the 1560 Geneva Bible, the Bible of the Reformation. So eventually, 10 years later, you have the

01:14:54

Puritans in 1630 that make their way over and they join the separatists and they begin to grow and they begin to expand with the planting of churches.

01:15:04

And so all of this would eventually be the building blocks, if you will, of the founding of America.

01:15:12

And all of this can be traced right back to what happened 500 years ago tomorrow on October 31st, 1517, as Luther made his way to the castle church door and nailed that 95 theses there that would be the initial spark.

01:15:30

So all of this is connected. So why did the separatists come to America? Why did they come to this New World that we now know as America?

01:15:37

Why did the Puritans come here and give up the purification from within? Why did they come?

01:15:44

It was all because of this tsunami of the Reformation that eventually pressed them across the ocean to this

01:15:52

New World. So would there be an America without the Reformation? I don't believe that the

01:15:58

America that we know today would be in existence if it were not for the work of the

01:16:04

Reformers that God was raising up and bringing them from the shadows, if you will, and taking us back to the

01:16:12

Word of God in this what we call a recovery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:16:18

Amen. And by the way, speaking of that door of the castle church in Wittenberg, didn't

01:16:24

I just see a photograph of you and your wife standing in front of it? Oh absolutely.

01:16:30

Just about a little more than a month ago, my wife and I were in the city of Wittenberg. We had the wonderful privilege of worshipping in the castle church there.

01:16:42

James White preached that particular session. Right from Martin Luther's pulpit.

01:16:50

Yeah, yeah. I mean, literally Luther is buried beneath the pulpit. So it was just a wonderful thrill.

01:16:57

Just a few days after that, I actually preached in the church in Eisleben where Luther was born and the city in which he died.

01:17:07

And the very church in which he preached the last four public sermons, I was able to preach in that very church.

01:17:14

So it was a thrill. Praise God. Well, we have some more listener questions.

01:17:22

Let's see. We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says, isn't it true that the teachings of John Calvin were utilized by the founding fathers of America to actually formulate their understanding of a free republic?

01:17:45

I don't mean all of the founding fathers, but a certain group of them who took Calvin's thoughts and ran with them.

01:17:56

Yeah, I would say that there is evidence that points to that very idea that the founding fathers of the nation eventually were influenced by the

01:18:07

Reformers. I mean, there's no doubt that the founding fathers of America were influenced tremendously by these

01:18:15

Reformers, such as Luther, such as Calvin. So how much, you know, again, we don't know.

01:18:22

Here's what we do know. America itself was never founded as a quote -unquote

01:18:28

Christian nation. It was founded by many Christians, and it was influenced by many

01:18:35

Christians. But not all of those founding fathers whose signatures we find on the governing documents of this nation, they were not all

01:18:46

Christians. Some of them are called Christians in textbooks and throughout history, but many of those men were theists, and many of those men were men that we would not embrace as brothers in Christ.

01:19:00

I know this for certain. The Puritans would never have embraced many of those founding fathers as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:19:12

Well, thank you, Ronald, and please keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

01:19:22

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, and Arnie says, how do you respond to the common

01:19:32

Roman Catholic claim that it is the Reformation that brought anarchy into Christianity and ultimately resulted in all of the cults that have sprung up, like the

01:19:46

Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and others, due to their breaking free from any authority of Rome?

01:19:56

Yes, so the issue is the authority, and so they want to hold that the seat of Peter, the seat of the

01:20:06

Pope, is the actual authority of the Church, and that's completely unfounded.

01:20:12

It is absolutely not true. Again, we go back to the Reformation, and we ask ourselves, what is the

01:20:19

Reformation, and it was a return to the true gospel. So you can't blame the

01:20:27

Reformation for the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses or the cults.

01:20:32

There were certainly anti -gospel movements back in history as well that predate even those particular organizations, but what we have to understand is that when we look at the

01:20:43

Reformation, we see that the Roman Catholic Church had absolutely deformed the gospel, so the

01:20:51

Reformers are trying to reform what had been deformed, and they're bringing us, they're driving us back to the

01:20:58

Scriptures. They're driving us back to the gospel of Jesus Christ. When it was made clear that the

01:21:04

Roman Catholic Church would not move back and repent of the sale of indulgences and all of these evil practices, again, when the people are getting the

01:21:14

Bible in their own language, they start to revolt. This is where the Reformation started to really gain momentum, is when the people are reading the

01:21:24

Word of God and hearing the Word of God in their own language. They're saying to themselves, we've been lied to.

01:21:30

We have absolutely been duped for all of these years. And so the

01:21:37

Reformation is a recovery of the gospel. It's not an anti -authority movement.

01:21:43

You have to understand, we understand when we read the Bible that we see that authority is given to the local church, and which is to be overseen by these elders who lead the church, and then there's this idea of church discipline that comes into play.

01:22:02

We see that taught by Jesus himself in Matthew 18. So we do believe in authority, we just don't believe in an unbiblical hierarchy such as the

01:22:12

Roman Catholic Church, and so the Reformers were absolutely right to do what they did to bring us away from that movement and a movement to the gospel itself.

01:22:21

Now, could you not say that freedom always has negative baggage, and that freedom is not the thing to blame?

01:22:31

It's just a necessary, unfortunate consequence of giving people more freedom to live and believe as they choose without fear of persecution.

01:22:43

I can think of one example right now, uh, in Russia right now, uh, homosexuality is a crime and therefore it is most likely,

01:22:55

I'm assuming, a lot less easy to live out openly a life committed to homosexuality and flaunting that lifestyle and celebrating it than it is here in the

01:23:09

United States where you see homosexuality applauded and celebrated on nearly every major television and radio network and printed publication and internet program and you just have a society these days swarming with people celebrating that.

01:23:29

Now, that is an unfortunate thing that we see that happening in the United States, but I do not want to have a government that is more forcefully in control over the behavior of its citizens like Russia is right now.

01:23:45

I mean, am I making sense here, what I'm saying? Yeah, you know, I agree with that.

01:23:50

Here's the deal, we have to come back to this question, why is it that the Roman Catholic Church, why were they burning people in the streets?

01:23:58

We have to return to that question. I think it's a very valid question to consider in this 500th anniversary year.

01:24:05

We have to go back to the reality that the Roman Catholic Church was, they were competing for authority, and they knew that if the

01:24:14

Word of God came to the common man in their own language, and so you're talking about the beauty and the, you know, the value of the

01:24:25

New American Standard Bible you were talking about earlier. Again, having the Bible in a reliable translation that we can utilize, that people can have in their homes, and they can read with their children, and disciple their families, and hear on the

01:24:42

Lord's Day preach in an elevated pulpit. Hey listen, this was an issue that was striking at the authority of the

01:24:52

Roman Catholic Church itself. They wanted to have control of the Bible, that's why they did not want the

01:24:58

Bible to be translated in the common man's language. So what they said, by their own authority and by the tradition of the

01:25:07

Church, was to be the authority. But we believe that the Word of God is the sufficient word.

01:25:14

We believe that the Word of God is the authoritative word. That's why the Reformers, out of the

01:25:20

Reformation, emerged this idea, this foundational issue of the five solas, sola scriptura.

01:25:28

In other words, we believe that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice, and it's not the traditions of the

01:25:37

Roman Catholic Church, and it's not the Pope, and it's not the authority of the

01:25:42

Roman Catholic Church. It is the Word of God itself, and so at the heart of the Reformation is this movement to the

01:25:50

Word of God, the sufficient Word of God. Well, we're going to go, I think

01:25:55

I put too many syllables in that statement. We're going to go to our last station break right now, and if you'd like to join us with a question,

01:26:07

I would do it now because we're rapidly running out of time. So please send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:26:14

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city, and state and country of residence if you live outside the

01:26:22

USA, and only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private question. Pastor Josh, I just forwarded you a question emailed to us from Joe in Slovenia, and it's rather long, so I figured it would help to have it right in front of you so when we get back from the break, you can have time, you will have had time to read that over and answer it more adequately since it will be right in front of you.

01:26:51

And if anybody else wants to join us, as I said, shoot us an email now or forever hold your peace. chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:26:58

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with the conclusion of our discussion with Josh Bice on tracing the birth of America to the

01:27:10

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01:35:21

Well, we are back for our final 25 minutes or so of the program with Pastor Josh Bice, Senior Pastor of Praise Middle Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia, blogger at deliveredbygrace .com

01:35:34

and Director of the Annual G3 Conference. We have been talking about tracing the birth of America back to the

01:35:41

Protestant Reformation. And before we conclude that subject and move on to a new book that Pastor Josh has written on the new

01:35:50

Calvinists, I wanted to read the question that has already been submitted by our friend

01:35:57

Joe in Slovenia. He says, During recent Reformation celebrations organized by nominal evangelicals that I witnessed,

01:36:05

I've noticed a trend toward emphasizing the meaning and significance of the term Protestant toward etymological understanding of what the word means positively instead of negatively.

01:36:18

Specifically, they were suggesting that Protestant historically meant one that was pro -testimony.

01:36:25

That is, for testifying to what we believe instead of protesting against heresy.

01:36:31

Is this an exercise in revisionist history compared to what actually happened historically?

01:36:37

Was not the original significance of the term Protestant related to the princes who protested against Charles IV's attempts to force them back into the

01:36:47

Holy Roman Empire without acquiescing to their demands for Roman Catholic Church reform?

01:36:54

Thank you brothers for focusing on Reformation. Yeah, so I would just simply state that I do think that you can make some errors here when you start to, you know, go that direction with the idea of the origin of the word

01:37:15

Protestant, what Protestant means to protest against. It does have a negative connotation to it, but when you go back to the

01:37:24

Latin, you do find that it's probably coming from a Latin word, protesteri, which literally means to hold forth or to hold a position, right?

01:37:36

So that's the origin of the word Protestant, but what are they holding forth?

01:37:42

That's the question. They're holding forth a position, a testimony on the gospel, which therefore makes it a negative testimony against the

01:37:53

Roman Catholic Church. So the idea that it's a pro -testimony was simply not founded, really, in the idea of Protestant movement, but again, the origin of the whole

01:38:08

Reformation itself was not initially a protest. It was an internal reform movement, but it was not possible, so therefore it eventually became an external movement that we know today.

01:38:23

So holding forth a position that's against the position of the Roman Catholic Church to bring us back to the true gospel that the

01:38:34

Roman Catholic Church had deformed, and that's what we know as the protest of the

01:38:41

Reformation. Thank you, Joe, in Slovenia, and we have a question from Josh, just like you, in Aquabog, Long Island, New York, and Josh says,

01:38:52

Do you think it is wise for those of us who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace to continue using the label

01:39:00

Reformed when the term actually meant, according to the original

01:39:06

Reformers, that there was an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church? Today, those who are heirs of the

01:39:14

Reformation are not attempting to do that, so shouldn't we stop using the term

01:39:19

Reformed and rather just stick to other labels like sovereign grace, etc.?

01:39:26

Why do we continue using this word when our attentions are far from trying to reform the

01:39:34

Church of Rome, which we believe to be apostate and blasphemous and heretical?

01:39:41

Yeah, I think that the actual use of the title Reformed Theology, again, it's just a stake in the ground to give us a reference point.

01:39:52

So we're going back to the Reformers' teachings who, you know, looked back to the teachings of Augustine, who looked back to the teachings of the

01:40:01

Apostle Paul, so it's a chain link, if you will, to, you know, put us in a certain place in history theologically.

01:40:09

So I'm not really against using, you know, the title Reformed Theology or a reformed position of salvation, because I do think that it's helpful to have a stake in the ground, just like a confession of faith does at times, but again, it's all about context.

01:40:28

So if you're in a specific location where people have baggage connected to Reformed Theology and it's going to be problematic for you to use that terminology, then by all means, use

01:40:42

Doctrines of Grace, you know, if that's what you choose to do. But I don't think that using the title

01:40:49

Reformed Theology is somehow incorrect in the sense that we're trying, or stating, if you will, that we're trying to reform the

01:40:58

Roman Catholic Church, because we certainly know that we're not doing that. But I think it just places us really on the shoulders of these

01:41:05

Reformers who have gone before us who are not to be worshipped, but at the same time, we're taking us back to the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:41:15

So in many ways, I love that title Reformed, but I do understand what the gentleman's asking.

01:41:21

And again, I think context is the key, and we need to be able to point people back to the history, but also say, hey, have you thought about using the title

01:41:32

Doctrines of Grace or something of that nature? Well, thank you, Josh. Keep spreading the word about Iron Trump and Zion Radio in Aqua Bog, Long Island, New York, and beyond.

01:41:44

And that, I'm also immediately, what has been brought to mind here is those that object to the term

01:41:53

Calvinist, they will say Calvin himself would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that there were heirs of his theological movement that were calling themselves

01:42:04

Calvinist. But I use these terms, as I'm sure you do, as very helpful theological nicknames.

01:42:13

They help, I think, not only provoke stimulating conversation with other

01:42:20

Christians and those particularly that disagree with us, but it separates us from the pack, if you will, to be more clear as to where we are standing.

01:42:35

Like, for instance, I know a lot of Christians who refuse to call themselves Arminian, and they will say,

01:42:42

I simply like to call myself a Bible Christian. I'm like, well, so do the

01:42:48

Jehovah's Witnesses. So do a lot of people. In fact, there is a,

01:42:54

I think I mentioned it earlier, there has been a protest to my all -male pastor's luncheon that I had last

01:43:04

Thursday by a number of local feminists who are angry and furious, accusing me of some kind of misogyny and bigotry and that kind of thing.

01:43:13

And some of these women and men who are feminists were identifying themselves as Bible -believing

01:43:21

Christians as well. So I mean, you know, isn't it helpful to use labels at times, even though it's not going to settle the issue because people have stereotypes as to what those labels mean, and you have to clarify what you believe, but at least it's some kind of a helpful nickname, isn't it?

01:43:39

Yeah, I think so. I really do. But again, in the context in which I serve here in the

01:43:44

South, in Georgia, within a context of Baptist churches and evangelical circles that I, you know, associate myself with, there's a lot of baggage where people have been, you know, taught off things about, you know, the doctrines of grace.

01:44:01

And so the term Calvinism stirs up anger in some people because all they've ever been taught is that Calvinism is somehow an anti -missions movement, when at the heart of Calvin's own theology in Geneva is this explosion of gospel missions where he's sending out missionaries who many of them died for their faith.

01:44:23

And so the idea of confusing hyper -Calvinism with Calvinism is always a struggle.

01:44:31

So in some cases, you know, I think it's just extremely important if people, when they have a theological conversation, if they could just choose to use the same dictionary and put that at play when they're having a conversation, because oftentimes

01:44:48

I find that when having a theological conversation, people will associate you with a false understanding of that theological position rather than using the same dictionary of terms that you're using.

01:45:03

So terms do matter, definitions do matter, and it's extremely unhelpful to call someone a heretic if they claim to be a

01:45:13

Calvinist. And I find this all the time, it's really astounding to me. You have Baptists and you have

01:45:19

Evangelicals sometimes that will actually say things like this, well, if you're a Calvinist, you're a heretic.

01:45:27

And then you hear them, you know, five minutes later, quote Spurgeon. And you say,

01:45:33

I don't understand what you're doing. You know, Spurgeon himself was a Calvinist.

01:45:38

He called Calvinism the gospel. And so, again, terms matter.

01:45:45

I think that titles matter. I think that these theological words do matter.

01:45:51

But again, we have to be careful not to misuse those terms or to, you know, somehow use them against someone.

01:46:00

So again, I'm talking to someone who's not a Calvinist. I want to be careful not to necessarily call them an

01:46:07

Arminian, because they might not be an Arminian. They might just be an anti -Calvinist, for instance, but they don't hold to the full positions of an

01:46:17

Arminian. So I think we have to be careful when we're classifying people and putting them in specific, you know, categories, theologically speaking.

01:46:26

We have to be willing to use the same dictionary when we're having these conversations. Okay, great.

01:46:32

Well, now you have written something that is going to be, God willing, brought into print very soon.

01:46:39

It is a book on the new Calvinists. It has also been labeled the

01:46:46

Young Restless and Reformed Movement. If you could please define what that means.

01:46:54

Yeah, absolutely. So something that's been a passion of mine for the last several years is this growth of the resurgence, if you will, of the doctrines of grace, a big view of God, the sovereignty of God in salvation, and what we call

01:47:13

Calvinism that's really been exploding within the young population throughout

01:47:19

America and even beyond the borders of America. And so it's been labeled by different groups and individuals and different books as the

01:47:31

Young Restless Reformed Movement. Colin Hansen has been identified with that title.

01:47:37

And then you have Time magazine that calls this group, a few years back, the

01:47:44

New Calvinism Movement. And so, again, you have to wade through all of these theological nuances and these titles, but basically to summarize it, it's this explosion, this resurgence of an interest in this historic position where you see the founders of America held this position, you see the

01:48:07

Reformers like Luther and Calvin and Knox and all of these people held these positions, you see the founders of the

01:48:15

Southern Baptist Convention, they held this position, you see the Presbyterians, you see all these others who hold dear to these convictions, but in many ways, there's been a disconnect from a lot of the younger population throughout the last, say, 100 years or so.

01:48:33

And now, suddenly, over the past several years, you've seen this explosion of an interest where people are starting to be disinterested in the shallow, superficial worship, the shallow songs that have come our way through the contemporary

01:48:49

Christian communities, the shallow preaching that's more or less just a topical sermon over superficial felt needs of people, and now there's this hunger for something weighty, something of true meat theologically.

01:49:08

And so these people have been connected through media, through the internet in many ways, through the preaching of men like Paul Washer and John Piper and various other individuals who have been writing extensively on these things, these doctrines, and so now they're starting to connect well with it, and they're looking not just to opinions, but they're opening their

01:49:30

Bibles, and they're seeing these very things taught in the Word of God that have been silenced for so long in the pulpits, and so there's this explosion.

01:49:40

So this book that's coming out, I really took it on as a project as the editor.

01:49:47

I did contribute in the first chapter, but you have Conrad and Bayway, Tim Challies, Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, and myself who are writing on these various subjects, addressing the

01:50:01

New Calvinism movement, and we're complementing the movement where we can complement it, but at the very same time we felt a need to critique it, because there are certain areas that need to be critiqued.

01:50:15

For instance, when it comes to the New Calvinism movement, you see a lot of people who are very much interested in the doctrines of grace, they're very much interested in studying theology, but many of these people, not the leaders per se, but many of these people, you know, that the

01:50:32

Young Restless Reformed, if you want to use that category, that title, they might sit in at a coffee shop on the

01:50:40

Lord's Day and listen to some sermon on YouTube, rather than being very much connected to a local, tangible, visible

01:50:49

New Testament church, under authority, exercising their gifts within the context of a community of brothers and sisters who have been saved by Jesus Christ, baptized, and are working together to further the mission of Christ.

01:51:06

And so again, you have that disconnect, and you have some Christian liberty issues where people are, you might say, more interested in their tattoos, or the way they dress, or whatever, you know, it might be, rather than the depth of the doctrines themselves.

01:51:24

So one of the passions that I have is to say amen to this resurgence, because in many ways, as Stephen Lawson has pointed out, the

01:51:34

Reformation has always been about the Young Restless and Reformed. I mean, if you have a college movement at the

01:51:41

Whitehorse Inn with William Tyndale and these others who are reading Luther's works, I mean, look, it's always been coming as a result of these young people who are zealous for theology.

01:51:53

But one of the passions we have is this. We don't want people to be attracted to this movement because of the peripheral issues, because of the dress, the edgy style, the tattoos, or anything like that that you see that's oftentimes being used by this group to attract their friends into it.

01:52:17

So it's almost like a reverse pragmatism in many ways. So what we want to say is amen to the resurgence, but let's be careful here.

01:52:27

Let's make sure that the ebb and flow of this new Calvinism movement is actually a movement that's driven by the depth of theology and the

01:52:36

Spirit of God, rather than the attraction to these peripheral, sometimes edgy, things.

01:52:44

And so that's what the book entails. It's published by Christian Focus. It's right now, as we speak, being printed, and it's going to be available early in 2018 at the

01:52:58

G3 conference. And so again, if you come to the conference, I believe you'll be able to get your hands on a copy of the book.

01:53:04

Yeah, I would like to obviously at some point dedicate a full two -hour program to this because it is an important subject.

01:53:13

And one of the things that I had spoken about with Tom Askell, who has been a guest speaker at the

01:53:25

G3 conferences, we were discussing this very subject quite a while ago.

01:53:32

And one of the positive things that he brought up was a resurgence among the new

01:53:38

Calvinists of complementarian gender roles in the church and in the home.

01:53:44

Apparently, according to Tom, although there might be a lot of modern things that make older traditional

01:53:52

Calvinists uncomfortable with this movement, the thing that's refreshing is, according to Tom anyway,

01:53:59

I don't know if it's your experience, is that there seems to be perhaps a much stronger emphasis on male headship than there has been in quite some time, especially from a new movement.

01:54:09

That is absolutely true, and I do believe that to be the case. And again, that's one of the things in the book, from the very beginning, in the opening pages that I touch on, and I want to say amen to that.

01:54:23

We are very grateful for this strong vein of complementarianism that we see in the new

01:54:29

Calvinism movement. And the thing that I have been involved in, pretty much as long as I have been a

01:54:42

Christian, is interaction with my friends and brothers in Christ, who are from the independent fundamentalist

01:54:54

Baptist background that we were talking about earlier, because of the fact that one of our listeners came out of that movement.

01:55:01

But I think that there is a lot of very biblically faithful material and godly, wonderful men in that movement.

01:55:18

I don't think that we should be throwing out the baby with the bathwater with independent fundamentalist Baptist and others in that ilk.

01:55:25

Obviously, there are some that are really majoring on the minors and are very harsh and nasty and so on.

01:55:36

I'm not speaking about them. It's a wide movement, as you know, being from the South and having the church background that you have.

01:55:44

But one of the things that I try to do is I try to evangelize them, for lack of a better term, even though I believe that they're saved men.

01:55:56

I try to bring to them the doctrines of sovereign grace, which many of them despise.

01:56:01

Not all of them, but many of them do. And some of the things that are hurdles for them to overcome are things that are occurring in the

01:56:12

Young Restless and Reform movements. They have a very hard time with Christian rap being brought into the church and all kinds of things like that.

01:56:20

And the piercings and the tattoos, as you were just mentioning. How do you respond to that kind of thing? Well, first of all,

01:56:27

I would just simply ask, name one church that's actually using Christian hip -hop on Sunday mornings.

01:56:33

Right. So, again, you may or may not agree that that type or that genre of music has any redeemable value at all.

01:56:44

That's a conversation worth having. But to suggest that it's being brought, per se, into the church,

01:56:50

I don't know of any church, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know any church that's actually using hip -hop and replacing the hymns of the church history, like A Mighty Fortress is

01:57:04

Our God, for instance, with some type of song from Trip Lee or Lecrae.

01:57:10

I just don't know of any churches doing that. So you're saying, as I have said, even the rap movement or the hip -hop movement is a wide spectrum.

01:57:23

And when it was boiled down to its essence, it's really just poetry. And where you depart from a biblically faithful method of communicating a biblical truth is when you have the sinful elements of the hip -hop culture attached to a

01:57:47

Christian hip -hop artist's persona and stage presence in music, like, for instance, the arrogance and pride, the misogyny, the wealth, the—what's the word

01:58:05

I'm looking for—the greed or the flaunting of wealth and that kind of thing, which some

01:58:12

Christian hip -hop artists might actually continue to wear the baggage, if you will, of some of the world's most evil hip -hop artists.

01:58:22

So I think that's where the main thing that is a problematic issue with me. And I agree with you that there's a big difference between something that is being used as an outdoor means of evangelism or entertainment and something that's being used for a worship service.

01:58:40

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Well, we are out of time now,

01:58:46

Brother Josh, and I want to make sure once again that our listeners have the G3 Conference website. It's G3conference .com.

01:58:53

G3conference .com, if you want to register, please make sure you use the Iron Sharpens Iron code to get the $45 discount.

01:59:02

It's Iron Sharpens Iron, all in one word, all lowercase except for the two

01:59:08

I's in the two irons and the one S in the sharpens. And the website for Praise Mill Baptist Church, for those of you living in the

01:59:19

Douglasville, Georgia area or intending to visit there, is PraiseMill .com. That's P -R -A -Y -S -Mill .com.

01:59:27

And of course, the blog that Pastor Josh runs is DeliveredByGrace .com.

01:59:32

DeliveredByGrace .com. Any further information you care to give? Yeah, absolutely.

01:59:38

I mean, that's the website. You can find our church, our conference, G3 Conference, and we look to see you in January.

01:59:47

We look forward to serving you, and again, it's been a privilege to be on the show today, Chris. And I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater