September 28, 2018 Show with Josh Miller on “Why the Reformation Still Matters”

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

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

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 28th day of September 2018.

And I'm delighted to have back on the program a friend of mine, Pastor Josh Miller, who is pastor of preaching and teaching at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and we're going to be addressing the theme of a conference that he is hosting featuring

Mike Abendroth on October 6th and 7th, Why the Reformation Still Matters.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Josh Miller. Hey Chris, thanks.

It's my joy to be with you, not only on a personal level, just to connect with a friend, but also to talk about truths and topics that are precious to us and precious to the

Church. Amen, and it was a great time sharing fellowship with you at the

Firehouse Subs here in Carlisle, who happened to be the ones that sponsored my most recent

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon, and it was a great time of fellowship with you, and I am looking forward to many more times of fellowship that the

Lord enables us to have, including on October 6th and 7th. I am really determined to be out there for this conference.

I love Mike Abendroth. I've had him as a guest on this program a number of times to discuss the various topics that he has written on, and I am excited about this conference.

Well first of all, Pastor Josh, why don't you let our listeners know about Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Yeah, so Grace Bible Fellowship Church, we are part of a smaller denomination,

Bible Fellowship Churches, about 65 churches. We have about 10 church plants in addition to those 65 particular churches.

Most of the churches are here in Lehigh Valley and Central Pennsylvania, some in Delaware, New Jersey, New York, but mostly in Pennsylvania.

But history of the denomination, briefly, we came out of kind of an Anabaptist Mennonite movement, and God, by His grace, led various leaders within our family of churches to virtually rewrite our doctrinal statement back at the end of the 50s and the early 60s, and adopted a

Calvinistic understanding of the application of salvation. Even our polity changed, our local church polity, to becoming

Elder Rule in the local churches, moving from some more lay preaching to actually having called and paid pastors, and in different forms and polity that our denomination changed in the middle of the 20th century.

But yeah, we have grown theologically and numerically since that time.

But that's kind of a brief introduction, and our church in Harrisburg has actually been in existence coming up on a hundred years,

I think, officially in 2020, we will celebrate our 100th anniversary here in the area.

Wow. What was the church theologically a hundred years ago? So it was, by default,

Arminian. Now, as far as having a doctrinal statement, it was probably fairly loose, but it would have been your classic

Anabaptist Arminian, with a strange kind of an

Episcopal -type government, where you have a hierarchical structure, but really getting part of the changes there in the middle 20th century was getting authority back to the local church.

The highest office in our church, in our family of churches, is the local elder, and we see that defended in Scripture, and so those are some of the distinctions and some of the differences from who we were prior.

Well, tell us something about Mike Ebenroth, who is going to be your speaker for your

Reformation conference on October 6th and 7th, God willing, on the theme, Why the

Reformation Still Matters. Tell our listeners something about Mike, for those of our listeners who haven't heard him on my radio program.

Yeah, so Mike is a pastor up in the Boston area,

Independent Bible Church up there. He hosts a radio show called No Compromise Radio.

I am actually not sure what radio station, if any, that he broadcasts on, but it's a fairly popular podcast that he has.

He's a graduate of the Master Seminary and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He is just a preacher at heart, a local pastor, and has demonstrated a consistency and a fire to defend the truth.

And as a student, I know in church history and in preaching, and so we were excited to have him.

I actually have not personally met Mike, we've obviously corresponded now via email and phone conversations, but I'm looking forward to meeting him for the first time when he gets here.

I was familiar with his ministry over the last couple years, which led to us inviting him to be a part of our conference.

Yeah, just to let our listeners know a little bit more about Mike, he has written a number of books including

Jesus Christ, The Prince of Preachers, The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Things That Go Bump in the

Church, Discovering Romans, Sexual Fidelity, and Evangelical White Lives.

I think that I've interviewed him on all of those, if not most of those books. And the church where he is the senior pastor is

Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. And if anybody wants more information on the podcast, they can go to NoCompromiseRadio .com,

NoCompromiseRadio .com, and I'm hopefully going to have Mike on the program before the conference.

I don't know that for certain because he is traveling all over the place speaking at other conferences, but I hope that he carves out a two -hour chunk of time, or at least an hour, before your conference so we can bless our audience again with his wit and wisdom.

Yes, yes. He does have both. Yes, he does. Let me give our listeners our email address if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for our guest today,

Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And once again, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Well, the theme of the conference, as we've already said, is why the Reformation still matters.

We have all kinds of listeners in the Orion Sherp and Zion Radio audience. The vast majority,

I believe, at least the ones that communicate with me and my guests, are believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

They would be fully aware of what the 16th century Protestant Reformation was all about, and they would be familiar, at least in a cursory level, on the main characters of the

Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, John Knox, and others.

But if you could, tell us in your mind, or from what you know, what is the

Reformation that you're still, that you are speaking of in this theme, that still matters?

Well, certainly formally, and when you speak of the Reformation of the Capilar, you're speaking of the movement in the 16th and 17th century, where there was a reclaiming of gospel truth, the rightful authority of Scripture.

It can be summarized in many ways. You mentioned the doctrines of grace, some would summarize it that way, others may summarize it with the unifying principles of the five solas of the

Reformation. That is, you know, sola scriptura, and the authority of Scripture alone.

Sola fide, that we are saved by faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sola gratia, that our salvation is the result of God's, ultimately the result of God the

Father's unmerited favor dispensed toward the solus Christus, that He is the only mediator, that is,

Christ between God and man. And then soli fideo gloria, that we live our life and all that it is for the glory of God alone.

So some of those are the unifying principles of the grand

Reformation of the 16th and 17th century. But answering that question, why the

Reformation still matters, we can answer that on a few different levels. We can talk institutionally about still the theological divide that exists between the

Catholic Church, the institution of the Catholic Church, and Protestant belief, and you can certainly fill a conference with those distinctions, and those distinctions will continue to exist as long as, you know, you have the

Council of Trent and the various Vatican's that are still in place within the Catholic Church.

There will always be those theological distinctions between the institution of the

Catholic Church and Protestant faith. But as a pastor, you know, my concern in why this topic is, is because I still see some of the practical issues that were around at the

Reformation still at stake and still binding many within even the evangelical

Protestant churches, even those within my own congregation.

And so at the pastoral heart, that really wants to take up this topic. I guess you could say more specifically, you know, why did the truths of the

Reformation still matter? And that's kind of what the conference is taking up and really is at the heart of my desire to teach and preach and continue to proclaim the gospel.

Yeah, this is a lot more serious than a lot of people think, and I'm sure you agree with me.

This is a lot more serious than even a lot of people within the

Reformed circles that we both have fellowship in and whom we communicate with and associate with at times.

There are especially, I think, many Presbyterians, even more than Reformed Baptists, who would fall into the category of modern -day ecumenists when it comes to Rome.

And of course there are many non -Calvinist denominations who perhaps are even more aggressively involved in the modern ecumenical movement.

And it's ironic how ecumenism or the ecumenical movement used to be the darling exclusively of the liberals, the more liberal elements of the

Roman Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant liberal churches and, dare

I say, even apostate churches. But for quite a number of decades, perhaps even mostly through the influence of Billy Graham, ecumenism or the ecumenical movement has been introduced into conservative

Bible -believing evangelical circles, those that believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

Yeah. Those who say they believe in the true gospel, and I believe that many, if not most, of them actually do believe in the true gospel, which makes their ecumenism with Rome more puzzling.

It seems that people are basing their ecumenism, and you could correct me if I'm wrong or you can add something to this, it seems as if a lot of the conservative

Bible -believing Christians who want us to have ecumenical relationships with Roman Catholics are seeing a need for this in a day and age when we are so incredibly outnumbered by secular humanists and those in liberal -leaning religions when it comes to these social and moral issues that are plaguing our societies globally.

The gender confusion that has reached mind -boggling and insane proportions where little children are being given hormones to change their gender and people are marrying other people of their same gender even though we have had people in the presidency as liberal as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who at one time vociferously opposed same -sex marriage.

So it's interesting how quickly these things are spreading and morphing. So these ecumenists within the conservative evangelical movement are saying, look at our

Roman Catholic friends, they are our brothers and sisters and we should claim them as such and we should link arms with them because they share with us an abhorrence of abortion, they share with us an abhorrence of same -sex marriage and other things, and of course that's a broad -brushing statement because there are

Roman Catholics that are in favor of those things. But if you could respond to your own comment or your own thoughts on why there are many who have lost or abandoned the concept that the

Reformation still matters. Yeah, wow, that's a lot there. But yeah, on a noble level, let me say initially that I think the motive to be a preservation of sorts in our society, those are good motives.

When you're talking about social and political involvement, I myself have been a part of protesting abortion movement.

I have been down to local abortion clinics on a regular basis and have done kind of street evangelism and street counseling and stood side -by -side with Catholics.

Now I will concede that there's a different message when it comes to when I encounter somebody and I'm counseling them than the typical

Catholic person that I am standing next to. And so I think that there is a place for that as far as protecting dignity and protecting virtue.

I think the Church can bless our community in that way. But you're right, when a way of life and a standard of living becomes primary and you see the encroachment of worldliness and humanism as the greatest threat because it is threatening my way of life, my comfortability, then theological distinctions become secondary to the pragmatic reality of trying to preserve my comfortable way of life,

I mean, my conservative comfortable way of life. And so you're absolutely correct to say that there has been a pragmatic motivation to make those theological distinctions secondary.

The irony is that most conservative evangelicals will not,

I mean there are some that do, but most would not extend the arm of fellowship so far that they would include in that pro -life

Orthodox Jews, pro -life Mormons, pro -life

Muslims, and of course they may be involved in secular activities in opposition to those things like abortion and same -sex marriage, political activities, but they're not going to be typically having joint worship services.

Now there are some of our dispensationalist brethren that have such a high emphasis on extending love to the

Jewish people that they have really either masked or completely abandoned the concept that Jews, just like every other people group or individual on the planet, need

Christ for salvation. I like it, for instance, whenever I see the commercial for the

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they're feeding starving

Holocaust survivors in other parts of the world and so on, and yeah, I'm all in favor of that, but what kind of message are you leaving these dear people on the brink of death other than feeding their bellies and clothing them?

Those are absolutely wonderful and right things, just as we read in the epistles of James.

We're not just to tell people be warm and filled and, you know, let them go on their way starving to death and naked, but there needs to be an emphasis on the gospel, and it seems that just as the liberals had their social gospel of feeding the poor and doing other activities that are very worthy and noble and good and right and necessary, they've exchanged those things for the gospel itself.

We have conservatives, for the most part, exchanging the gospel for using as a litmus test of Christianity, whether you are pro -life, whether you are opposed to same -sex marriage, and whether you are opposed to perhaps licentious living like addiction to mind -altering substances and so on and other things, but if you could comment on that as well.

Yeah. The issue at hand still, as a church, with the central message is to preach, you know, repent, but the kingdom of God is at hand.

I mean, what is our ultimate focus? Is it an eternal kingdom or is it an earthly kingdom?

And those are sometimes, you know, difficult questions to ask, but always at the center of our ministry, at the heart of our ministry, is seeing souls made right with God.

How can we know God and how can we be made right with him? Those are the questions that will then create the divide between what is true and what is false, what is eternal, what is temporal.

And we must continue to ask those questions and hold out the truth. Yeah. Certainly, you give the glass of water, you give the food, you give the benevolence as the

Lord grants you opportunity. But practically, you know, stop short of and be very cautious of linking arms with those who promote,

I'll use Paul's language, the teaching of demons. I mean, there's no way around that. Yes, and our

Roman Catholic friends, at least the ones that I have, and I probably have more religiously minded

Roman Catholic friends now as a conservative

Bible -believing Calvinist Protestant than I did when I was a Roman Catholic.

I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and was an altar boy, went to Catholic school for eight years, remained a

Catholic until my late teens, but not in any... the older I got as a teenager, the less serious...

the less seriously I took the Roman Catholic Church. Although, always believing that God existed, always believing that Jesus Christ existed, not in a saving way, just in a factual way.

I never came to deny the existence of Christ or anything like that. But my friends as a

Catholic in my teen years and early 20s were predominantly nominal

Catholics, just like I was a nominal Catholic at that point. But the friends that I have now, their feelings will be hurt, typically, and they might get a little angry and sometimes very angry, depending upon the person or the situation.

When I inform them, I love them, I think highly of them, at times

I will even make sure that they are aware. I think that they, as individuals, are superior to me in many aspects of life, because I have

Catholic friends who are, you know, living what appears to be stellar lives in areas where I have personally failed and so on.

You know, there are just... we cannot deny, as Bible -believing Christians, as born -again individuals, that we are not the greatest husbands in the world at all times.

We are not the greatest siblings or children or friends or neighbors or citizens.

You know, we cannot claim that kind of superiority, because many times we fail miserably in those things. And you even have unbelievers at times, living more faithful lives according to those different roles and functions.

But I tell them, you are not my brother in Christ, or my sister in Christ, because you have a different gospel.

I am trusting in the finished work of Christ alone. You are not. You are trusting in not only

Christ's death, but you are adding to that the things that you do. You are adding to that the things that Mary and the saints have done.

You are the treasury of merit, as they call it. You are adding your own personal suffering in purgatory as a means to be purified and made ready for heaven.

So tell me about your own particular circumstances with that dilemma.

We have these people that we love who claim Christ, but because the gospel is different, we cannot claim them as brothers and sisters.

Yeah, I think you articulated the dilemma very well. I mean, it is an emotional discussion, and it comes down to those very same theological distinctions that you made, and what is your ultimate hope?

I mean, when you're talking about the central Catholic understanding of the application of salvation, when you're talking about, yeah, you talked about purgatory, and in continuing in a measure to earn your way into heaven, it steals glory from the

Lord Jesus Christ and His completed work. And this is why one of the great pastoral issues coming out of the

Reformation was comfort for the believer and comfort for the saint.

You know, one of the great documents of the Reformation, the Heidelberg Catechism, written just a few decades, well, in the middle of the 16th century.

But it was just, it was so pastorally concerned with wanting to give the true

Christian comfort, and for the Catholic, there is the true Catholic, faithful Catholic, there is no real soul comfort.

You are living a performance -based religion, and you are consistently trying to measure up to the

God's standard of righteousness. Now, there's an infused grace that they say empowers you on to righteousness, but it is still a merited righteousness, not one that is given to you by the grace of God in faith alone.

And it's only in that posture of receiving justification, that is, the declaration of being made righteous before God, by faith alone, that we can live in true comfort and joy with our

Maker. I've just been doing a little devotional here at the church on Wednesday evenings with a group of guys, but you know, just focusing in on Titus 2, 11 and 12 there, where it speaks of the saving grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness.

And we just had a wonderful discussion about the distinction between being trained by God's grace versus being trained in a performance -based system.

And that's what it comes down to, that's the issue. Are you a part of the family?

And in that family comes confidence. For now, we are trained. We haven't arrived at the ultimate level, but we are being trained and disciplined.

But it's in the realm of grace. It's under God's grace.

It's part of His family. He will never disown us in Christ. And even, yeah, so does that answer your question?

I'm about to preach a sermon and take an offering here. Well, you never need to hold back preaching a sermon on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, because I have a couple of guests that always wind up doing it, and I actually love it.

So you never have to hold back from that. But we have to go to our first station break right now, and once again, if anybody wants to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. We'll be back with Pastor Josh Miller of the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Also, we have right now, we are returning to our guest today, Josh Miller, Pastor of Preaching and Teaching at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

We are discussing the theme of an upcoming conference that he is hosting, Why the Reformation Still Matters.

This conference features Mike Ebenroth, who is Senior Pastor at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts, and he's the author of Jesus Christ, the

Prince of Preachers, the Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Sexual Fidelity, Evangelical White Lies, and other books.

This conference on Why the Reformation Still Matters will be held Saturday, October 6th and Sunday, October 7th at Grace Bible Fellowship Church on 1250

Colonial Road in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the website, if you want more details, is gracebfc .com.

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forward slash conference, gracebfc .com forward slash conference.

You can also call 717 -652 -5229. 717 -652 -5229.

We are now back with our guest, Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and if you could,

Josh, what in your opinion and from your knowledge of not only theology but church history, what are the primary ways that the

Church of Rome and Bible -believing Reformational Evangelical Protestantism are still separated by a chasm of difference?

It is amazing that there are brilliant scholars on both sides who would say that the

Reformation no longer needs to exist. They will say that it has come to an end merely because persecution has flamed out, that we can live in harmony together, that we all love

Jesus and we, along with the Eastern Orthodox, stand against many of the social ills that we were talking about before, then there's no need for a

Reformation. I can understand your average person thinking that, but a biblically literate person and especially a

Bible scholar and theologian, that amazes me. It amazes me when somebody who

I still consider in many ways a hero, and I know that many of, if not most, of my

Reformed brethren also consider this brother a hero of the faith from the 20th and 21st centuries, and I'm speaking of J .I.

Packer, it is utterly breathtakingly and palpably baffling that J .I.

Packer would have an ecumenical mindset with Rome, since he clearly articulates in great painstaking detail the gospel of grace, and the importance of it, and so on, and yet he signed the

ECT document, he writes endorsements for books written by Roman Catholics like Peter Kreeft, and it's just amazing, but if you could chime in yourself on this.

Yeah, I mean, at the heart of the Reformation, the theological issue of justification by faith alone, that it still needs to be articulated, and it needs still to be held up as a distinctive between gospel truth and the truth that the

Catholic Church promotes. Certainly the authority of the Church, what is the nature of the

Church, an issue, the authority of God's Word presiding over that of creeds and councils, and the traditions of the

Church. So was it the Council of Trent that stated that all saving truths are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions?

I mean, that still is the stance of the Catholic Church, so when it comes to the authority of the

Church being in, you know, ultimately the priesthood, or ultimately the

Pope, or is it the Word of God? So those are still issues, theologically, that remain, but even practically, there's some major issues that I come in contact with fairly regularly, is the nature of unity, and Christian unity.

You mentioned that before, how you've seen some of your friends just willing to compromise theologically for an external unity, and so, you know, under the

Catholic teaching, you know, they really defend an institutional continuity, you know, from bishop to bishop, and trying to trace that line all the way back to the

Apostles, where the Protestant Church would hold to a gospel unity, a gospel continuity, a true

Church that holds up as a pillar and buttress of the truth. And that's where our unity lies.

So those are some still distinctions. Yeah, you mentioned the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, was that back in the 90s, but still we have, yeah, that influence is still alive and well.

Yeah, and unless people look at us as just Bible nerds who are being

OCD on steroids, or behaving like we have

OCD on steroids, and we are just nitpicking, we are being ridiculous, isn't it because of what the

Bible teaches about the gospel, and especially I'm thinking of places like Galatians, where if the

Apostle Paul took so seriously the notion that the

Judaizers' insistence on just adding one thing to the gospel, from what we understand,

Paul does not give us a detailed explanation of the heresies of the

Judaizers. The only thing that we know of is that they wanted to insist that Gentiles be circumcised before being added to the faith, and for all we know, and I think we are safe to assume, the

Judaizers believed everything else that Paul believed, or most of what he believed, except that.

And that alone got the Apostle Paul so infuriated and enraged and righteously indignant that he declared those people spreading the the doctrines of the

Judaizers as false believers, they were to be anathematized or accursed to hell, is basically what he meant, and I think he took a little softer stance on those in the church that were at least temporarily duped by the

Judaizers because he called them brethren. He has harsher words for the teachers themselves.

But this is really, when I have had conversations with some of my Catholic friends who I love, and you know, to be perfectly honest there are

Catholics that I know whose company I enjoy much greater than some of my own brothers and sisters in Christ.

I'm just being honest, there were some of them are just such wonderful people and such fun people and you know you might have the same interests or whatever and it's just a joy to be with them, but when when they get upset or hurt that I say you're not my brother or sister in Christ, I say

I cannot be nicer than the Apostle Paul. And you shouldn't want to be nicer than the

Apostle Paul either when he says that if anyone brings to you another gospel other than the one that we have taught, which is no gospel at all, let them be anathema.

And so how am I supposed to respond to this other than the way that the

Apostle Paul did? Because if I'm responding to that in an unbiblical way, that's wrong.

Yeah, and it certainly takes a measure of wisdom and biblical discernment, because on the surface, and we can come along and, you know, reading into the situation there in Galatia, you mentioned the

Book of Galatians, but very well somebody could say, come on, circumcision's a secondary issue. I mean, this isn't even a primary issue.

We're not talking about 1st Corinthians 15 here with the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. You're making circumcision out to be a major primary issue when it's just a secondary issue.

Paul, we can we can get along here. But you know the strong language you've already alluded to it in Galatians, where he eventually gets to the point where he says, you know,

I wish they would emasculate themselves, those who preach this. But because it was the...

Unless that slipped by some of our listeners, he was, I believe, somewhat tongue -in -cheek

Paul, that is, saying that he would rather them have castrated themselves. Right. But the language is meant to be striking, the theory of which he is taking this issue, which on the surface many might say was a secondary issue, but the power that they were vesting, the importance that they were vesting into this act, this ritual of circumcision, was, in a sense, than preaching another gospel.

And it was stealing glory and the completed work of Christ and the fullness of Christ.

You know, that's the... Galatians 3, which you've mentioned already, but the, you know, who has bewitched you into this teaching.

So on an interpersonal level, with relationships or family members or friends,

I think that there's some wisdom in demonstrating caution and not quoting

Galatians 5 .12 there, with, you know, emasculate yourself. But there is moments where you will have opportunity to be clear and to articulate and explain the gospel, that you believe a different gospel if the work of Christ is not ultimately and finally sufficient for salvation.

We have another Josh, this one in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who has a question for you.

Thank you, Pastor Josh, for appearing on Iron Sherpa's Iron, and thank you, Chris, for always having great guests on this wonderful program.

My question is, should we, those of us who know the true gospel and are born again and reformed, work alongside with those who are

Catholic, Muslim, or Mormon to bring about positive social change in society?

Very good question, and I know that I think that the question would be answered differently according to the context of working alongside them.

Like, for instance, every single time you vote, you are working alongside Catholic, Muslims, Mormons, atheists, and others who are trying to bring about some kind of earthly change in the political arena.

So in that sense, you're always working with them. But if you could answer that question more fully than I did.

Yeah, yeah, I would just continue that a little bit, and this is such a matter of wisdom, you know,

I would counsel Josh to involve the Church leadership in seeking their counsel and how to best go about this.

But like I have mentioned at the outset of the show, there's opportunities that I have joined up in the sense of, you know, protesting various abortion clinics and different counseling with those of the

Catholic religion. I personally would stop short of sitting on a platform publicly, demonstrating myself in a leadership position that would provide confusion, and I just answer this, it might be a little too personal to help

Josh, but that would provide confusion to my people that I shepherd. That may be a little subjective of an answer, but that's one thing that I evaluate.

I mean, I would not stand publicly in a way that would flatten out the distinctions that I have theologically, which

I hold as ultimately important. But gone to the March for Life in DC, you know, those sorts of things you mentioned, even on a level of voting, we're somewhat joining with a preservation of culture and of virtue as best we can.

I hope that helps. Yeah, and our, well, he's my friend, I don't know if he's a friend of yours, but I'm sure you know him,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. He, years ago, was heavily involved in some kind of a pro -life organization that featured both

Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics, and possibly others, and he had to, he voluntarily did, but when

I say he had to, his conscience would not enable him to remain, because they told him that he was prohibited from evangelizing the

Roman Catholics that were a part of the marches and other things that they were doing.

He would witness Roman Catholics praying over their rosary beads, praying to Mary and the

Saints, and obviously he couldn't remain silent when he's in close proximity to those folks, and also giving the public a false understanding that he may be

Roman Catholic himself, or that he tolerates that kind of false, idolatrous worship.

So I think where the line has to be drawn, and I'm assuming from what you said you would agree, is that when it comes to areas of religious activity, spiritual activity, and worship, that's where we have to say, wait a minute, you know, we cannot exchange pulpits with those with a false gospel, although we should,

I think, feel very free to accept invitations to speak from behind the pulpits of false churches, as long as we are not told what we can and cannot say.

I think we can evangelize them that way, but as far as having ecumenical gatherings where we are praying and worshiping together,

I think that would be absolutely prohibited from a faithful Bible -believing Christian.

And certainly on a church -wide basis, like as a pastor I have invitations to have our church be a part of various movements or gatherings in the city to promote various moral upstanding and defending various movements, conservative movements, and I shy away from having our church name or my name alongside any other, you know, body that I would think is preaching and teaching a false gospel for those reasons.

Yes, and I think that also comes into play, and I know that even people in my own congregation, people who are

Reformed Baptists may even have different opinions on this, but there is even a very serious reason to give pause and think carefully before accepting an invitation to things like the baptism of a baby in a

Roman Catholic Church, to other religious activities, the confirmation of a child in a

Roman Catholic Church. There are some who say you should feel free to go there as a witness to the gospel if you make it clear to the family,

I do not agree with what is happening, but I just want to show my love toward you. There are some who will say no, even being there is showing your support, but we have to be very careful whether we go to those things or not go to those things, we have to be very careful that we make our position clear to those who are present, and especially,

I'm amazed when I have seen evangelicals I know who at Roman Catholic funerals have gone forward to receive the

Mass, and I've said to them, what are you doing? You're not Roman Catholic. Oh well, I'm just receiving the

Lord's Supper, and I'm like, well that's not the way they view it. They view it as a perpetratory sacrifice, a non -bloody sacrifice.

They believe that those elements are the body and blood of Christ, that they are to be worshipped as Jesus himself, and you can't just think whatever you want to think when you're doing that.

In fact, they don't want you to take that unless you are a believer that that is the literal body and blood of Christ.

Well not only that, but to partake in that context, you're also declaring your fellowship to those you are partaking with.

As we partake in the ordinance together, you are declaring your fellowship one with another as well.

So that creates a whole nother issue. Well thank you so much Josh in Mechanicsburg.

I think you may be a first -time questioner to our show, and if you send me your full mailing address in Mechanicsburg, you will receive a free

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and we give those to all of our first -time questioners.

So make sure you email that to us so that CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to us.

And we hope you continue to listen to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, spread the word about the show, and also contribute questions to us from time to time as much as possible.

We would love to hear from you. Well we are going to go to Rose in Harrisburg after our station break with her question.

In fact, why don't I ask the question now and you can answer it when we return. We're gonna go on a very long break because of the requirements of Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida. They require of us a longer than normal break in between our two major segments because they air their own commercials and public service announcements in order to localize

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida. So we will be going to that longer break in a moment.

But here is the question from Rose in Harrisburg. I really enjoy listening to Mike Abendroth on No Compromise Radio.

Would you please ask Pastor Miller what topics Brother Mike will be speaking on at the conference coming up?

And if you could just have that list handy and then you can answer that question when we return for Rose in Harrisburg.

And by the way, Rose, I believe you may be a first -time questioner too. So please send us your full mailing address so that we can also have a new

New American Standard Bible shipped out to you by cvbbs .com. So don't go away.

God willing, we are going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Tired of box store

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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.nyc. Have a great day. One sure way all

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For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a

Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostle's priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org,

that's ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. James White here, co -founder of Alpha Omega Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnzen will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January 17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme,

A Biblical Understanding of Missions. Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Vodie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, yours truly, and many more.

I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to G3conference .com,

that's G3conference .com. Hello, my name is

James Renahan and I'm the president of IRVS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. The Word of God says, if a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good thing.

Do you have the desire to serve Jesus Christ in pastoral ministry? Twenty years ago, the

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It's been a wonderful partnership. Now we have advanced our school into an independent seminary offering a full program of courses leading to the

Master of Divinity degree. This is IRVS Theological Seminary. We believe that the scriptures of the

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S's in the middle. I hope to hear from you soon. God bless you. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled, Consider the

Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many

Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for 1 million dollars or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the

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I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.

Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Shepard's Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patti Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

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That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com. That's CVBBS .com.

Let Todd and Patti know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And you can call

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to 4 30 p .m. Eastern Time at 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

Mention Chris Arnzen and Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio and order a minimum of $50 or more of merchandise and you will receive not only the book, the journalable, that is a very difficult word to say, believe me, the journalable,

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You'll get that absolutely free and you'll also receive free shipping on your order of $50 or more when calling or ordering online at CVBBS .com

and mentioning Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Before we return to Josh Miller, the pastor of Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we just have a few special events that we need to announce.

The first of which is the event that we've already discussed a bit, the Reformation Conference being held at Grace Bible Fellowship Church on 1250

Colonial Road in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Why the Reformation Still Matters featuring

Mike Ebendroff, senior pastor at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts, and author of a number of books including

Jesus Christ, The Prince of Preachers, The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Sexual Fidelity, Evangelical White Lies, and more.

The conference is being held October 6th and October 7th, which is a Saturday and Sunday, and for more details you can go to gracebfc .com

forward slash conference. That's Grace BFC, which stands for Bible Fellowship Church, dot com forward slash conference, gracebfc .com

forward slash conference. You can also call them at 717 -652 -5229, 717 -652 -5229.

I intend to be there myself and would love to meet you there. If you are in attendance, please make sure you approach me and say hello to me.

I would love to meet those in the Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio audience where if they were to attend, and I typically meet them all over the

United States when I go to different events. Also, we've got to let you know about the event taking place next month.

Well, actually it's almost next month. It's November 9th and the 10th, and that is at another

Grace Bible Fellowship Church, this one in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and that's the

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology. The theme is the glory of the cross, and the speakers include

David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn. I intend to have an

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio exhibitors booth present at that conference, so please greet me during a break if you attend.

For more details on this glory of the cross conference sponsored by the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology.

Last but not least, the event that you've been hearing advertised very frequently on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, that is the

G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory. It's going to be held this year,

January 17th through the 19th, which is a Thursday through Saturday, and it is going to be held at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

They are expecting between four and five thousand people there, so I would urge you not only to attend, but I would urge you to register for your own exhibitors booth that you can man right alongside

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, or at least in the near vicinity, and the speakers at this monumental conference include my friend

Dr. James R. White, John Piper, Stephen Lawson, Voti Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, the most powerful preacher alive on the planet

Earth today, pastor of Cobata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and Chancellor of the

African Christian University, Tim Chalies, Phil Johnson of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you, he's the executive director there,

Josh Bice, the founder and director of the G3 conference, Todd Freel of Wretched TV and Radio, Stephen J.

Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries, and more.

For more details on registering to attend, and also to register for an exhibitors booth, if you'd like, go to G3conference .com,

G3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love this show, you don't want it to disappear, please go to IronSharpen'sIronRadio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now. You could donate instantly that way, through debit or credit card.

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At IronSharpen'sIronRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. You can send in a check the old -fashioned way, via snail mail, to the address that appears on the screen.

If you do not have a church where you are a member, and you are looking for a Bible -believing church, a faithful church to the

Holy Scriptures, then please email me, and I will help you find, when I've lists of faithful churches all over the globe.

You are living in enmity with God, if you are living in rebellion against God, if you are not at least prayerfully seeking for a

Bible -believing church near you. So, please get that rectified in your life very soon. If you'd like to advertise with us, send me an email to ChrisArnsen at gmail .com,

and put advertising in the subject line, as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign, because we truly do, desperately need your advertising dollars in order to exist.

And use that same email address, ChrisArnsen at gmail .com, to send in a question to Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as we discuss why the

Reformation still matters. That's ChrisArnsen at gmail .com, ChrisArnsen at gmail .com. And Pastor Josh, we had

Rose in Harrisburg with a question about what is Mike Ebengroth speaking on at your conference, and she also corrected me, she said, no,

I've been a listener to Iron Sherpins Iron Radio for years, and she's written in before as well, so I don't know why

I thought she was a first -time questioner. I apologize, Rose, but if you could respond to her question.

Yeah, so the conference, as you mentioned, starts Saturday, October 6th. Our doors will open at 12 o 'clock for people to peruse the bookstore that we will have there, but our first session's at 1 o 'clock, and Mike Ebengroth will be speaking on the topic,

Why the Reformation Still Matters, and specifically, The Assurance of Salvation. The second session for Saturday is

Why the Reformation Still Matters, and then the subtitle is The Bondage of the

Will. On Sunday, obviously, we don't want to take you away from your regular place of worship and fellowship.

Ah, yes you do, yes you do. I'm sorry, what's that? I said yes you do,

I'm only kidding. But if you're, yeah, if you have to travel to Common, you'll be in the area on Sunday away from your regular worshiping body.

Sunday morning for the Sunday school hour, he'll be doing a biographical sketch on Martin Luther, part one, and he will do, then, part two in the evening, on Sunday evening, which will be at 630 p .m.,

and then for our corporate worship time, he will be preaching from Romans chapter 1, 16 through 17,

Not Ashamed of Justification by Faith Alone. So the topic's covered Assurance of Salvation, The Bondage of the

Will, and Justification by Faith Alone, under the title Why the Reformation Still Matters.

And just a little bit about the spirit of the conference. It really, the impetus behind it was to bless the local body here at our church.

So it's here for laypeople, we want to bless the local church. We just started it last year as kind of a celebration of the five -month anniversary of the

Reformation, and invited in my friend, and you mentioned already, but Phil Johnson came and did a weekend with us, and it was just a blessing, and we had the structure in place as far as the budget, and the committee set up to plan it, so we said, hey, let's do it again, and we are excited that this could be something that could develop into something further and really bless our congregation and those who are able to join us.

But it's free, there's no charge, so if you can only come for one session, if you're in the area and want to come for a session, feel free to do that.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but there will also be a question -and -answer time on Saturday.

We'll close out our time together on Saturday with a question -and -answer time. Great, and I did personally so much enjoy the time with Phil Johnson that you had last year.

I was there for the entire conference, really enjoyed not only the event, but fellowshipping with Phil personally, and I have gained,

I believe, a number of new listeners for Iron Sherpan's Iron Radio from the pastors that were in attendance, because I've heard from some of them from time to time.

So I'm looking forward to this next event, and hopefully we'll be there, God willing.

We have a question from Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania. Just out of curiosity,

Josh, how far is Perry County from Harrisburg? Well, that's the next county north of us, so you know, you can, 10 -12 miles, you're into Perry County, and we have actually members from our church that come down from Perry County.

Okay, because I am somewhat of a newcomer or a new resident of Pennsylvania.

I've been here since 2014, so I'm not very familiar with how a lot of the distances work, but Arnie in Perry County says, you mentioned that Mike Ebendroth will be speaking on assurance at your conference on the

Reformation. It is indeed a puzzling fact of history, however, that Martin Luther himself did believe that a genuine born -again believer could lose his or her salvation.

Do you have any response on how Luther could believe such a thing, in addition to baptismal regeneration, and yet claim the solos of the

Reformation that we all share in common as children or heirs of the Reformation?

Yeah, in some ways I guess that is new to me. I have to do research on my own to see exactly how

Martin Luther articulated that. Yeah, he did, the listener is correct. I've spoken with enough

Luther scholars to know that those are realities, including

Karl Truman and others. Yeah, and I guess just how to respond to that, how we would respond to anybody else,

I guess, who could believe that you could lose your salvation, is, you know, passages of Scripture that defend the certainty and the security of the believer in Christ.

Certainly 1 John chapter 5 comes to mind, you know, these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life.

I'm preaching through John 17 and maybe it's stereotypical of the pastor to answer every question with the passage he's currently preaching through, but John 17 deals predominantly with the security of the believer for whom

Christ is praying, those whom the Father has given to him, and the eternal security that the believer has there.

Certainly we know the Reformation distinction. When we start talking about eternal security, we do want to nuance that and qualify that a little bit.

We're talking about the perseverance of the saints, that the true saint will persevere through trial and in obedience, obviously empowered by the sanctifying work of the

Spirit in their life, but it will not, that preservation will not be apart from the will of the believer.

That there will be labor, there will be difficulty, there will be real temptation. The warning passages in Hebrews chapter 6 and Hebrews chapter 10, those are real warning passages, and the faithful take those to heart.

Those are one of the means by which God preserves those who are his, is by reminding them and charging them in faithfulness and reminding them of the threat of damnation that is real.

Yeah, we have to constantly do damage control, we who are thoroughgoing

Calvinists, that is, we have to do damage control when we are discussing the gospel with either

Roman Catholics or even members of cults like the Mormons, like Jehovah's Witnesses, other cults, who will say, well

I know for certain you guys who are Protestants are totally off the mark biblically because you believe you can live any way you want and you will go to heaven.

And unfortunately many of our brethren or professing brethren on the landscape of evangelicalism do believe that.

Even Charles Stanley in his book on eternal security wrote that you could become a born -again

Christian and then within minutes or even seconds become an atheist and that will not affect your eternal stance before God.

Obviously we believe that if somebody is born again they will not become an atheist. We don't believe, we don't believe in the permanent apostasy of the elect that could never happen.

A good tree will bear bear good fruit. Right. Those who are truly Christ's will live, not perfectly, they will live lives that have been littered with sin but we will still be marked out with being a people of repentance by getting up, dusting ourselves off, praying to God for forgiveness, repenting of our sins, moving on, and so on.

We're not going to wallow permanently in the sins unrepentantly. Am I right on that? Oh, absolutely.

You know, when you get in, you know, you mentioned Charles Stanley, but when you get into the amount of weight that's placed on a verbal articulation of belief, no matter at what stage, what age, and not seeing that backed up with a transformation of life, that verbal articulation should be questioned.

I mean, even we're challenged in the New Testament to question and to challenge our faith, or to see if we are in the faith.

And yeah, that's why that word perseverance is such a helpful term that we will press on in obedience.

We believe that we are new creatures in Christ and that there should be a demonstration of that in a person's life.

Now, sanctification is a slow road in the slow, stumbling walk in the same direction.

I say sometimes to my people, sometimes you're merely facing the right direction. You don't feel like you're moving.

But looking in the right direction is a demonstration of where you know that your hope is, but you're absolutely right.

There has to be a demonstration of salvation. This has ecclesiastical implications as well.

When you start talking about life in the Church, when you start talking about Church discipline, how can you legitimately discipline somebody from a

Church, and following Matthew 18, you are declaring at the congregation, we can no longer testify to your salvation.

Like, how can you do that if you don't have some standard of transformation, an expectation of a demonstration of a

Christian life? So I think there's all sorts of implications when you water down the

Gospel to merely a verbal declaration and not a life transformation.

But again, there is a call for much grace, and walking alongside people and helping them see their sin, and in growing in righteousness.

Well, the very fact that we who are Reformed, Five -Point Calvinists, Sovereign Grace Believers, however you want to phrase it, the very fact that we still revere

Martin Luther as a great hero of the Church, is proof that we do believe in a biblical ecumenism, because we share a

Gospel with Martin Luther in spite of any disagreements that we had or have with him.

And Martin Luther is sometimes a very hard person to pin down because of the fact, you got to keep in mind, he was one of the first to actually be a significant figure in the

Reformation and the break from Rome. There were others before him who were burned at the stake while still remaining in the

Church of Rome and simultaneously protesting against their heresies.

But Martin Luther never wanted to leave the Church of Rome, and his departure theologically from the

Church of Rome was gradual, and not everything that Rome held to was abandoned by him.

And he wasn't a systematic theologian as was, or as much of one, as was

John Calvin certainly. Right. And so you have a much sharper break from Rome with John Calvin, with John Knox, with Thomas Cramner and others.

And even more so, we who are Baptistic or Baptists, confessionally Reformed Baptists and others, we believe that we even broke further away from Rome than even our

Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed brethren, because we abandoned even more of what we think are trappings of Rome like infant baptism.

Right. Yep. Thank you Arnie and Perry County. We hope to see you at the

Reformation Conference, Why the Reformation Still Matters, at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. If you want to call them for directions and other details, call 717 -652 -5229 717 -652 -5229 or go to gracebfc .com.

Grace B as in Bible, F as in fellowship, C as in church .com forward slash conference.

That's October 6th and the 7th. We are going to our final break.

It's a much briefer break than the last one, but if you'd like to ask us a question, please send in your question immediately before we run out of time.

Our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we'll be right back. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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This is Chris Arnzen and this is the last segment of today's interview with Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

We have been discussing the theme of his Reformation Conference, Why the Reformation Still Matters. And that Reformation conference is being held

Saturday, October 6th and Sunday, October 7th featuring guest speaker Mike Abendroth.

Call 717 -652 -5229 for more details 717 -652 -5229 or go to gracebfc .com

forward slash conference. That's gracebfc for Bible Fellowship Church dot com forward slash conference.

And we do have a listener. We have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who has a question for you.

How do you respond to those of our dear Pato Baptist brothers and sisters in Christ who say that we cannot be right as Baptists because the vast majority of the brilliant minds of the

Reformation exegeted the scriptures as to convince them of infant baptism.

We are on unsafe ground when we come up with the idea of the baptism of believers only, excluding infants.

Yeah, that's a pretty direct statement. I don't know that I have encountered a Pato Baptist that has spoken that directly, but...

I have. Okay. Well, that's... So, yeah, certainly not denying the claim, but there's certainly much to agree on as far as if they believe the true gospel.

Certainly with my Pato Baptist friends and even fellow pastors that are

Pato Baptist, not at our church, but pastor friends, you know, we celebrate the truth of the gospel.

I guess it's somewhat connected to the comment, the question that was asked about Martin Luther, and time has,

I guess, proven and tested Luther's faithfulness at the heart of the gospel when it came to justification by faith alone, but you certainly try to engage in a collegial way.

As far as arguments against Pato Baptism, I mean, that's probably another interview, and then why

I have convictions regarding Credo Baptism or Believer's Baptism. But I can only answer,

I guess, personally how I engage is just in a collegial way, and certainly have had colorful conversations when it comes to that, and certainly

I wish that we could agree on this issue. I was actually just commenting this morning to somebody, it's part of the

Great Commission is to baptize. I just wish we can get at least the Great Commission in agreement, or be in agreement about what to do with the

Great Commission when it comes to those who hold to the doctrines of grace and hold to the primacy of God's Word in the gospel.

So yeah, I don't have a step -by -step how to engage other than, depending on the relationship you have with them as those issues come up, and trying to answer distinctly, directly, understanding your own convictions.

Reminded of Paul's instruction in Romans 14, where there was a division about days of worship and what to worship on and food to eat, you know, even counseled them to be even more convinced in their own mind of their position.

And I think through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as you submit yourself to the Word of God and become even more convinced that the

Lord will seal His truth upon your mind, and it's one of the blessings of this type of disagreement, is that we are driven to our authority, the

Word of God. And hopefully those friends that are Pedobaptists hold up the

Word of God as the ultimate authority, and it can, in your discussions, it can even be a time of worship, and seeing that you both are submitting to the truth of God's Word.

There are implications to that, though, that are undeniable. The Pedobaptist versus Cradle Baptist, and that are heartbreaking,

I think, not to overstate it, but when you think of what constitutes the nature of the

Church, I think that Pedobaptisms and those who hold that are confused on that issue.

Who's a part of the Church, then? Do those who are

Pedobaptists, I know some would say that once you're baptized you're a part of the Church community, now do they then come under Church discipline if they are an ongoing unrepentant sin?

There's confusion on that, I think. Yeah, there's even confusion amongst

Pedobaptists. They are not all a monolith. There are Pedobaptists who, in many respects, often teach and behave like Reformed Baptists, and I hope

I'm not insulting Dr. Joel Beakey by putting him among that group, but Dr. Joel Beakey agrees with Reformed Baptists that children of Christians are a mission field, and that we are to view them as lost until they demonstrate from their belief and their lives that they have been born again, not the other way around.

Many Pedobaptists will assume or presume their children are born again, even from infancy, until they demonstrate that they are in rebellion against God, and there can be a very stark contrast in the way family life is conducted and the way children are evangelized as a result of that.

And as I said, they don't all agree with each other on that. Right, right. I don't know if your listener could benefit even from reading the

Westminster Confession of Faith on baptism, and that language in that confession is just fascinating to me, that they can move from the first two paragraphs and then conclude that infant baptism is a legitimate demonstration or symbol of what takes place in the life of a person.

Yeah, I'll just leave it at that, we don't have time to go through that confession, but you can check out that and see the language that's used there.

And my favorite method of convincing Pedobaptists of credo or believers -only baptism involves a dark basement, a chair, and a roll of duct tape, but I won't go into that right now.

Just kidding, of course. What I like to say when I hear Pedobaptists, or even others who say, well, how can you believe in credo or believer -only baptism when the great minds of the

Reformation, like Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and Knox and Cramner, all unanimously believed in pedobaptism,

I often respond, well, that's why I don't believe in Sola Luther, or Sola Calvin, or Sola Zwingli, or Sola Cramner, or Sola Knox.

I believe in the Sola Scriptura, just as they did. They were just, I believe, more inconsistent with that great watchword of the

Reformation, that battle cry, that pillar of the Reformation, Sola Scriptura, that the Scriptures alone are our sole, inerrant, and infallible authority and rule of life for the

Church. And as much as we love not only our our pedobaptist heroes of the past, and also our pedobaptist friends of the present, and how much we have learned from them, and even have them preach from our pulpits, we disagree with them on their consistency with Sola Scriptura on that end.

Yep, yep. And so we can say we honor them by being pedobaptists, because we are upholding

Sola Scriptura, a doctrine that they fought for, and many gave their life for.

Well, I want you to have five minutes uninterrupted right now to etch on the hearts and minds of our listeners what you want them most to remember.

Oh, well, certainly from the topic that we have opened up here, why the

Reformation still matters, I mean, my heart certainly is for those trapped in Catholicism, and having seen the beauty of salvation that has been completed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and to be received by faith alone.

But part of my burden, and maybe even a greater burden of my heart, is to see the necessity for Reformation in the modern

Church, in the modern evangelical Church, where the same issues that were necessary to be fought for back in the 16th and 17th centuries seem to be rising up again when you're talking about areas of biblical authority and sufficiency, when you're talking about areas of mysticism,

I mean, how the Lord communicates to us and speaks to us, and these things are issues within the evangelical movement that I think are really compromising the local

Church and undermining the authority of God's Word in even more subtle ways, because they carry the language of truth, but subtly are undermining the necessity of the preached

Word, which the Reformation recovered the pulpit in many ways. And so that's really what was driving this conference, and the reason for it was certainly the theological distinctive between Protestant faith and the

Catholic religion, but also the need for the modern

Church to be reminded again of what we are built upon and what we are to uphold.

We have one more question that we have time for. Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania says, how do you use the absolute and utter liberalism of the current pope to witness to Roman Catholics as to the fallacy of their belief in papal infallibility?

That's an excellent question, because I do bring that up to my Catholic friends, and I tell them, how on earth can you view that man as a faithful shepherd when he is not only an apostate from biblical

Christianity from a Protestant perspective, but also an apostate from Roman Catholicism? He would certainly have been executed by, or the execution would be called for on his part by those gathered at the

Council of Trent. The schism that is developing within the Catholic religion now between, you know, progressives and traditionalists is, from my vantage point, is interesting, to say the least, to watch, and what is being defended by the progressives, because they don't want to lose their position to the traditionalists.

And the traditionalists within the Catholic religion are, you know, they're forced to defend the seat of the pope because of their theology, but not defend virtually a word that he says.

And even more than the pope is this whole sexual scandal. I mean, this is enormous.

I don't know if your listeners are familiar with Stephen Wedgworth. He's a

Presbyterian pastor from Canada, but his works, his writings on and exposing this is remarkable.

But it really comes back to the issues, again, back at the

Reformation, where those who could not defend themselves, they were being taken advantage of.

And the Catholic religion is still duping the masses and taking advantage of those who cannot defend themselves.

Back then, it was indulgences to fund the building of St. Peter's Basilica.

Here, it's sexual crime and taking advantage of the weak and the helpless and using a system to cover it up, which is undeniable.

And you're right, Catholics have to answer to that. And we're beginning to see why there was a

Reformation to begin with. Yes. And of course, the frequent reply will be, well, the pope is only infallible when he declares something ex cathedra.

Well, that still doesn't solve the problem of him being completely unreliable as a faithful shepherd and as a guide that you could rely upon when he has even abandoned much of Catholic theology, let alone biblical.

And the average Catholic is not going to know the difference. And so this is definitely a matter for a future discussion.

And by the way, please give me Stephen Wedgworth's contact information for a future interview. I want to remind our listeners that you can go to gracebfc .com.

That's Grace, B for Bible, F for Fellowship, C for church .com forward slash conference for the

Reformation Conference at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Why the

Reformation Still Matters featuring guest speaker, Mike Ebendroff. You could also call 717 -652 -5229, 717 -652 -5229.

That's Saturday, October 6th and Sunday, October 7th. Pastor Josh Miller, if you could just hold on the line so I could say a proper goodbye to you off the air.

And I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who wrote in questions. I hope you all have a blessed, safe and happy weekend and Lord's Day.

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.