August 1, 2017 Show with Armen Thomassian on “Prayer in the Life of a Spiritual Giant” AND “The Importance & Privilege of Corporate Prayer”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now here's our host, Chris 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, wishing you a happy Tuesday.

And today is the first day of August in 2017, and I am so delighted to have returning to the program somebody that has quickly become one of my favorite preachers.

I have to be very careful what I say about my guest today because he is a very humble man and has already lovingly rebuked me for lofty praises that might go to his head, so I have to keep a rein on my tongue when giving compliments to this brother because he's very gifted, and I'm delighted to have him back on the show.

His name is Armon Tomassian. He's a former atheist, and he's currently pastor of Calgary Free Presbyterian Church in Alberta, Canada.

He's one of the speakers at the upcoming For God and Truth conference in Trinity, Alabama, and today we are discussing the importance and privilege of corporate prayer, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Armon Tomassian.

Thank you, Chris. It's a privilege to be here. And in studio with me is my co -host, the

Reverend Buzz Taylor. And good afternoon. It's good to be back. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own about prayer, in particular about corporate prayer, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. And if you need to remain anonymous, because the matter over which you are asking a question is personal and private, and you do not desire to reveal who you are,

I understand that. And especially with a subject like this, that could be a natural tendency for someone to have a personal and private question.

Well, we will honor that request. And we will not identify you. So you need not fear about that.

But if it's not about a personal and private matter, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

Before I even go into the subject at hand, the importance and privilege of corporate prayer, we already have heard your personal testimony of salvation.

So anybody listening, after this program is over, if you want to hear a little bit more about Pastor Armin Tomasian's salvation testimony, you can go to the

Iron Sharpens Iron website and click on the past programs or podcasts, which is in the top right corner of the website.

And you will be given a search engine where you could type in Armin, A -R -M as in Michael, E as in Edward, N as in Nancy, A -R -M -E -N.

If you type that in, Armin Tomasian's interview will come up and you'll be able to hear that.

But I would like to, for our first time listeners, our new listeners, I should say, who have not heard you last time, because every day, brother, we are getting new listeners contacting me every single day now.

It's amazing what the Lord is doing with the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program. But for those of you listening who are unfamiliar with Pastor Armin Tomasian, I'd like you now,

Pastor, to give your description of the Calgary Free Presbyterian Church of Alberta, Canada.

Okay, brother. The church I'm a pastor of,

I've been here just two and a half years. I got here in January 2015.

The church has been here in Calgary as a part of the Free Presbyterian Church, which that denomination began in Northern Ireland in 1951.

And then in the late 70s, it reached into North America, particularly in Toronto, first of all.

And there was a church established there, and then laterally in Greenville, South Carolina. And then this church started around the early 80s or so.

And this is my first pastorate. And the church I came to had had a little bit of a rocky period, and they'd been without a pastor for just over five years.

And they came here really to try and, by God's grace, revitalize and encourage the little flock that were here, and to minister to them, and to bring a reformed, separated, clear preaching testimony to Calgary.

There are a couple of good churches, decent churches in the city, but for a city of 1 .3 million, it's very sparse with regard to decent, reformed, biblically separated, really,

I suppose, truly biblical. I don't know the best term to use for all of your listeners, but where you hear the

Word of God preached unadulterated, and it's not just that you're hearing the truth. Sometimes it's not just what is being said, but what's being left unsaid at times.

And we came here just to do God's work in this city, and the Lord's been pleased to bless us in a small measure in the last two and a half years.

But it's a very needy area. Yes, and I happen to love the preaching of the

Brethren in the Free Presbyterian denomination. I obviously haven't heard all of them, but every single one

I can think of that I've ever heard preached has always been a great blessing to my heart, and typically known for power and biblically orthodox content, obviously.

And you mentioned something that might need a little bit of a definition. You said that your church stands for biblical separation.

And one of the things that I have appreciated about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and the

Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster is that I think you strike a correct balance with that.

There are some who talk about the need for separation and describe themselves as separatist fundamentalists who go,

I think, way overboard and wind up condemning very sound Brethren in Christ, men for whom

Christ died, some of whom have a great word and ability to proclaim it in our day and age.

But I have seen that the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and Ulster has had enough of the humility that needs to buffer separatism, if that's a word

I could use, or separation. And for instance, this conference that you're speaking at coming up later this month includes men not from the

Free Presbyterian Church in North America. And I, as you know, have gone to the

Foundations Conference in New York City, where probably the majority of men are from the

Free Presbyterian Church in North America, but you also have folks from other denominations, the

Presbyterian Church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Reformed Baptists, and others involved, where some separatists might not be involved in such a gathering.

If you could comment on what I just said. I think the issue is always a very delicate one.

I think because, Chris, it's so delicate, the inclination is to ignore it as if it's not a matter that we need to worry about, that me as a

Christian, I as a Christian, or as a church, or as a denomination, that we don't have to consider separation at all, that we don't want to be like that.

But there are clear calls in Scripture to come out, to try the Spirit, see whether they be of God, realizing there are those that go out from us because they were not of us, and different scriptures that no doubt come to our minds as we think about the topic.

It is a real issue, and it is a delicate issue, and so I don't think any man always gets it 100 % correct, but there's always been, in the fiber of our denomination, a realization that it is something that's biblical, and we can't join hands with those that are the enemies of God, and there is a balance as well.

Of course, some men will see things differently in that area, some will be more comfortable with certain people than others, and less comfortable, and their consciences, of course, will play into that.

So it's one of those areas in the church that while it is a real issue, and it can't be ignored, at least as far as I see, yet it's also an issue where we need the discernment, the wisdom of God, and a sense of charity as well, even in all that we do, and so I'm just glad I'm part of a body that believes it, that understands it is biblical, and yet I'm sure

I'm new in the ministry, I'm not one of the long seasoned preachers in our denomination, so I'm sure they have much more experience to talk about some of the challenges on these lines, but at the same time, it has been something we've tried to strike a balance in,

I think, Chris, and we maybe get it right and wrong as individuals at times, but it's a real issue, and we know that there are those

Satan comes as an angel of light, there is deception, there is deceit, there is a real, always the working of Satan, both outside the church and trying to work inside the church, and I think of that Psalm 127, where it says about, except the

Lord build the house, the labour and vain that build, except the Lord keep the city, the watchman wake us but in vain, and there's a need for the

Lord to watch in all church affairs, and give us all, those of us who are watchmen, discernment, so that we protect the sheep.

I think it was Calvin that said about having the pastor have to have two voices, one for the sheep and one for the wolves, that in some degree is touching on that necessary issue of we are to be separate from certain, those who call themselves

Christians that are not of the Lord. Yes, and it is especially something that should be a part of every

Bible -believing church in some measure, because we're living in a day and age when the lines that have separated the heirs of the

Reformation from the Church of Rome for 500 years are being blurred more and more as each year goes by, and there are those seeking unity with Rome on the basis of basically being kind and compassionate and loving, and they think that they're being loving when they discard truth or put it in a lower level of importance, but that's really not love, that's not true love, it's not the love that God has, and it's not biblical love.

That's right, that's right, and it's a real problem because we live in a time where not only, and I'm sure it's always been an issue, that there are those within the church who overstate their understanding of love, but I think also the cultural change in which there is the postmodernism and the flexibility that there's nothing that's really true or dogmatic anymore kind of plays into this spirit where we just accept everyone and anything, and as the world outside accepts everything except biblical

Christianity, it seems within the church there's the same spirit where we need to be more accepting, and Rome hasn't changed.

I mean, the terminology sometimes changes, the approach sometimes changes, but if there's going to be any give, it will only be on one side, and the

Church of Rome is only trying to engulf, excuse me, engulf and bring in and deceive, and we see this.

I don't want to get sidetracked, but obviously those who maybe are aware of some of the more charismatic influences, we see them being sucked in by the glamour and appeal and invitation of the

Roman Catholic Church, and that then being kind of filtering in to evangelicalism in a very dangerous way.

Yes, there is a facade that Rome has that they welcome fellowship and ecumenical relationships with Protestants who they call their separated brothers, but their agenda is always to seduce those outside of Rome into membership under her fold, and it's interesting that when you use a term like separatism, immediately people think of very strict fundamentalism, but there is a sense where everyone who is in any kind of a religion or church has a form of separatism that's either correct or incorrect, because you have liberal churches that would never in a million years let you get behind a pulpit and preach whatever you believe that the

Lord is leading you to preach from his word. Obviously they're even practicing a form of separatism, it's just an incorrect separatism, and the

Church of Rome even, because those who are evangelicals from any other religion that rejects their idolatrous dogma of transubstantiation, you cannot receive their

Eucharist, nor should you, so there is always going to be some form of separatism somewhere that's just going to be either biblical and correct or unbiblical and incorrect.

Yes, that's right, and it shows that there's a disingenuous spirit sometimes in trying to unify what can't be unified, and I'm just thinking of Genesis 1,

God divided the light from the darkness, he did that, and if we're children of light there's a certain sense in which there's no fellowship with the unfruitful work of darkness, but rather reprove them, which is sometimes the hardest part that some say, okay, well, we'll not sit down with them, but then there's also the aspect of reproving them, which isn't always well received, but we need balance, we need discernment, rather, as you're well aware, because of the errors of maybe hyper -separation, if you want to use that kind of term, then it drives people into the danger of becoming too all -inclusive, and so that's why we always need to be led by the

Spirit. Amen, and one of the unique things, we've said this before, but one of the unique things about the

Free Presbyterian Church denomination is that you are probably, unless there's another group that I'm unfamiliar with that practices the same thing, you're the only

Presbyterian denomination I know of that permits Baptistic pastors to remain in the denomination or be a part of the denomination and practice exclusively believer -only baptism or credo baptism, and if someone believes in pedo -baptism and they want to have their infant baptized, you would just call upon another pastor from a church where that is his conviction, am

I right? That's correct, yeah, it is. I don't know, I don't want to use the term unique in case it's not correct, but it's certainly not very common.

The vast majority of our ministers would be of believers, baptism, persuasion.

There's just a few who are pedo -baptism, and we try to just facilitate where we can, keep each other, esteem each other highly in the

Lord, even with these differences as well. Yes, and so the Presbyterian aspect of the name is entirely in regard to church polity, government.

Well, you are going to be speaking, God willing, at a conference this month that I want our listeners to know about as well.

In fact, one of the three speakers is somebody who has been a guest on my program several times, and I absolutely love to interview him, and that's

George Grant. But George Grant, Pastor John Weaver, who I have not yet had the privilege to interview, and you will be speaking at the

For God and Truth Conference from August 16th through the 19th, and this is being held at the

Trinity Free Presbyterian Church in Trinity, Alabama, and they're located on 1280

Old Highway 24 in Trinity, Alabama, and if you'd like more information on that conference, you can go to forgodandtruth .com,

forgodandtruth .com. Tell us something about this conference and about your participation in it.

Well, I'm not exactly sure of what year the conference started, but it's part of our denomination, obviously.

It's being held in our church in Alabama, where the minister is Reverend Myron Looney, and they take a theme every year, and they invite speakers to come and preach, and I wasn't aware of it until I was invited to it last year.

Thank you. Everything is new to me in North America, so I'm not familiar with everyone whenever I first came over here, but last year, very kindly, the church down there invited us to come and participate.

Well, obviously, you were well -received, if they're having you back. Well, yeah, I mean, you never know, do you?

If you're never asked back, you wonder how you're received. You're better not thinking about it too much, but we appreciated the invitation to return and preach this year.

I have to say, actually, the conference down there, I've been at a few now, down there last year was perhaps the greatest blessing to my own soul of all the different conferences and things

I've been a part of. There just was a real sense of family, of unity, of joy, and the fellowship even between the preaching.

Maybe it was just me, I don't know, and I had my wife and children with me on that occasion. That might have helped, but I was so revived last

August when we were down there with Brethren, and I'm really encouraged with the Word.

There was one or two messages that were really powerful. One of them by Mr. Grant really hit home, and one of them by Mr.

Weaver. Both of those men were there last year as well. I can't talk too much about the connection there.

I don't know much about it, but those men have been there preaching to those Brethren before. There's a real family.

It's a small, just a local church conference to encourage the people of God, and they open it up and invite anyone who wants to come and join with them.

There's just a real sense of community there. You have to be there. I'm sure we've had it in different places, but there really was a sense of Christian community and warmth, and the whole thing, the preaching combined with just the fellowship with the

Brethren there last year, I came home very, very refreshed and very blessed. Well, praise

God for that, and again, I strongly recommend to any of you who desire to go to this conference,

I strongly recommend you to attend, if at all physically possible, because of the fact that not only is

Dr. George Grant, I think, one of the most gifted men still alive in the 21st century, quite a brilliant man and a phenomenally gifted communicator, but my guest today,

Armin Tomasian, I do not throw around compliments lightly or easily, and I think that he is truly a uniquely gifted brother in Christ, and I was totally blessed, very powerfully blessed at the recent

Foundations Conference in New York City, where Armin was one of the pastors, so I strongly urge you to go there if you can possibly get to Alabama on a train, plane, or automobile, or dropping from a parachute, or however you can get, and I strongly urge you to get there, and again, the website is foregodandtruth .com,

foregodandtruth .com, and you could also add to that forward slash conference dash 2017, forward slash conference dash 2017, and the only way you're going to know how to get there, or where this conference is being held, is if you click on the brochure at the bottom, because that is the only place that right now, anyway, has the location of Trinity Free Presbyterian Church in Trinity, Alabama.

In fact, the brochure that comes up is last year's last year's brochure.

It's not even the 2017 brochure, but it's the same location though, correct? It's Trinity Free Presbyterian Church in Trinity, Alabama.

Yeah, that's it, and I'll just add in, brother, as well, that I hadn't met

Brother Weaver or Grunt before, and John Weaver is a very powerful preacher as well.

One of his messages really, it was just quite memorable, Mr. Grunt, his life.

He would make you tired just hearing what he's involved in. It's phenomenal.

It really is. I don't know how he does it. I don't know where he gets the energy, how he gets that kind of output, both with literature and Christian schools and missionary stuff.

It's just, it's amazing. Very much kind of influenced by Thomas Chalmers, it seems, from what

I can gather. Yeah, that's what we interviewed. The last time I interviewed Dr. Grant was on that very theme of Thomas Chalmers.

Yeah, yeah, he's very gifted. And I thank God that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has a wonderful commendation by Dr.

George Grant, among many others, that he wrote for us after his interview, which is now on the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio website.

So if you're listening, Dr. Grant, thank you very much for that wonderful endorsement. And Armin, if you think of it the next time you speak with John Weaver, if you could pass on my interest in interviewing him to him,

I would love to get him on the program, judging from your commendation. I would love to have him as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

If I don't say it's because I've forgotten, brother, but if I remember, I will mention it. Well, hopefully

I'll remember to look him up after the show today and possibly get the wheels moving on that.

Instead of having to interrupt you mid -sentence, I'm going to go to a break right now, our first break.

And then when we come back, we will begin our discussion on the importance and privilege of corporate prayer, which is actually one of the messages you will be delivering,

God willing, at the For God and Truth conference in Trinity, Alabama. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question regarding prayer and specifically regarding corporate prayer, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back, God willing, with Pastor Armin Tomasian and the importance and privilege of corporate prayer.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsin. If you just tuned in today, our guest for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

Armen Tamassian, who is the pastor of Calgary Free Presbyterian Church in Alberta, Canada.

Not Calvary like the cross of Christ, but Calgary like the location in Canada, C -A -L -G -A -R -Y,

Calgary Free Presbyterian Church, Alberta, Canada. He is one of the speakers at the upcoming For God and Truth Conference in Trinity, Alabama, and today we are discussing the importance and privilege of corporate prayer.

If you'd like to join us for the question for Armen Tamassian, our email address is chrisarnsin at gmail .com.

And before, or I should say during the station break,

Armen, Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host, reminded me that we both have met

Reverend Myron Mooney. In fact, Reverend Buzz Taylor went to school with him. Yeah. He went to Bob Jones University with him.

The one thing I will never forget about Myron is if you met him, he remembered your name.

Same guy. And well, Myron is the host pastor of the

For God and Truth Conference. He is the pastor of Trinity Free Presbyterian Church in Trinity, Alabama.

That's why I mentioned his name. That's why the Reverend Buzz brought up his name in the station break.

But we are talking, as I said, we are talking about the importance and privilege of corporate prayer.

If you could define for us corporate prayer, Armen, that may seem like a very basic question for many of us, but there are people who listen to my program who are either new

Christians, some of them are not Christians at all. So perhaps you could even describe or define what you mean by that.

Maybe I should begin with what is not, Chris. And I do that because I always understood, at least as far as the length of time

I've been a Christian, I thought everyone knew what corporate prayer was, what it is to have, for example, a prayer meeting.

Some time ago, one of our ministers, he's pioneered a church in Mexico City.

He was once part of a church somewhere in the United States. He said that the prayer meeting, as far as he understood it, until he came into the

Free Presbyterian Church and he started to go to Greenville, the church in Greenville, South Carolina.

They came into the church, if I remember correctly, he said they came in and there was a kind of piece of paper.

As they walked in, they would put their prayer request on the piece of paper. Then they would sit down and the service, they would sing and the minister would lead.

And then in the background, this was kind of being put together and printed out for everyone.

I think the minister prayed over each prayer request before they left, and then they gave out a sheet to everyone as they left, and everyone went home with the sheet.

But they didn't actually pray together. And that was what a prayer meeting was.

That's how he thought. That's what he thought prayer meetings were, until he walked into Faith SPC in Greenville and the people came together.

A message was brought, or a word, a devotional message was brought by the minister.

And then collectively, the body began to pray. They bow their heads and one person begins to call upon the

Lord. Maybe sometimes the minister might point out one or two men to begin, or he might just leave it and you get some of the elders or whatever.

They begin to pray audibly. Everyone is in agreement, following in the prayer.

Then when he finishes, someone else takes up and they pray. Corporate prayer, brother, is, for those listening, it is a coming together of the body of Christ, reflecting their unity in Christ in the petitions that they offer to God.

That there's a single -mindedness that the Christian has, together with every other Christian, that allows them to come, whether there's three, or whether there's thirty, or one hundred, or five hundred.

They can all come together and the Scriptures and the Spirit of God have united them in Christ in such a fashion that they can call upon God in a united way.

And you get then that reflected, especially in the book of Acts, where it says they were of one accord and that reflects that sense of unity, of singleness of purpose, calling upon God for things that he has revealed it is his will to give from his word.

And then they are calling down that blessing from heaven itself and uniting together.

That where they gather together in unity, there the Lord commands the blessing,

Psalm 133. I don't know if that helps give some clarity of what it's all about.

And in fact, I'm sure you would agree with me that another thing that it would not be is something that's extremely popular today and it has been extremely popular for decades, and that is these very large ecumenical prayer meetings that involve people from all, not only all,

Christian, allegedly Christian denominations, but even other religious groups outside of Christianity.

You can think of things that occurred at major stadiums and ballparks after national tragedies, like after 9 -11, where you have gathered together religious leaders from all different religious systems.

And at the National Cathedral in Washington, D .C., after 9 -11, I can remember you had a gathering of people from all kinds of religions.

And it is one of my saddest moments hearing

Billy Graham, when he had such an opportunity at that gathering, he did preach the gospel, but he diffused it of its power when he said before he proclaimed the gospel, this is for the

Christians in the audience. And therefore, those that were outside the body of Christ immediately were put at ease.

They were able to relax and realize, well, I'm not going to be insulted by this message,

I'm not going to be offended by it, because this is not a challenge or a call to me to repent, this is for Mr.

Graham's disciples and his religion. But I'm sure you would agree with me, that is also not what you mean by corporate prayer, that we could just gather with any group of people and pray to allegedly the same

God with them. No, no, absolutely not. I mean, I think what comes to mind scripturally on that is that after the threat that came to Peter and John, they went to their own company.

They went to a company of people that they were united with in their understanding of the gospel and of their approach to God.

And you cannot take away doctrinal truth and theological understanding from prayer.

The very ground upon which we pray, the authority upon which we pray, has to be united around the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And if you take that out, and I think that that person of whether Islam, Buddhism, whatever it might be, is calling upon the same

God, you're not a Christian and you don't get Christianity. It's only by Christ, the approach of the

Father, there's no other name under heaven. And so we come with an understanding of who

Christ is in his person and what he has done in his work, that the ground of the atonement, the blood that was shed, is the merit, is the authority, is the right for a sinner to approach to God.

And the assumption is that when the body of Christ comes together, they're all coming unified on that approach.

And so you can't involve others who don't agree with the only way to God through Jesus Christ to have a different understanding of even who

God is. I mean, it's just a nonsense again. It's a disingenuous attempt to unify humanity on grounds where there just cannot be any unity.

Yeah, you're praying to different gods in reality when you're in a gathering like that. I am all in favor of the

President of the United States, whoever that president may be, dedicating a certain time for a national day of prayer, but what

I am opposed to is when people, when Christians gather publicly with members of apostate churches or non -Christian religions to pray with them.

That's where I would draw the line and believe that it's heretical and unbiblical.

And for years I have conducted public moderated debates with evangelical

Protestants and Roman Catholics, and at times there have been people on both sides of that issue who have said to me, why don't you start the debate with a prayer?

And what I always say is, no, I'll start the debate with a moment of silence so that people can pray to God silently, but because I do not join with my

Roman Catholic friends in prayer because they are outside,

I believe, of the body of Christ. I mean, I know that there are some regenerate Catholics who are truly born again, but as a church, they are outside of the body of Christ.

And they could be praying to Mary, for all I know, or some other saint. But so this importance of corporate prayer, why is there something unique and perhaps something that is superior about corporate prayer than me sitting on a tree stump in the woods praying to God alone?

There's a danger maybe of putting them against each other in the sense of private prayer and corporate prayer are enemies.

Of course, that's not the case, Chris, just in case anyone misunderstands.

It's just to come together, there obviously have to be the times where you enter into the closet, you have your time alone.

I mean, that's expressed through Scripture. You know, you get very clear language, even from,

I'm thinking of Genesis chapter 4, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, that as true salvation is expressed in a simplified fashion as communion with God.

And the first thing we do really when we're regenerate is we call upon the Lord, whosoever shall call upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. There is a call that comes up from the regenerate heart towards the living and true

God through Christ. And we do it individually, of course we do. Wherever that might be, in our bedrooms, by our bedsides, in our offices, in our cars, wherever we can, we seek

God and there's certainly a place and a need. And we could go off and just point out the tremendous need for more personal, private prayer, but corporate prayer is reflecting a necessity.

And we might say that it's something that we see through the Scriptures in different ways.

Old Testament, you can think, where Jesus quoted from Isaiah saying, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.

There is a sense in which when we gather in this place, when we gather in the place of worship, there is a calling on to God together for all nations, for the lost, for all men.

And then in the New Testament, obviously, again we see different ways in which we see the importance of coming together to pray.

I'm thinking of the time where the Lord Jesus was in prayer and the disciples are there gathering around him and one of them comes and says on behalf of the rest of them,

Lord teach us to pray. There's a sense in which they are there with him. I think also of the time whenever in the

Garden of Gethsemane, we learn from John chapter 18 verse 2 that Judas knew exactly where to find

Jesus. He knew exactly where he would find him because he often resorted thither.

He often went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. That was his pattern. And he took his disciples with him.

He took them with him, not to pray with them in the sense that we pray with each other because we have to confess our sins.

Christ never had to do that. But there's a sense in which he gathered them around himself to learn the importance of praying and to pray together.

So he said on that occasion in the Garden of Gethsemane, there's the eight on the outside and then the three who are brought in,

Peter, James, and John. But they're praying together and they're meant to be watching and praying. And so we see that.

And then in the book of Acts, of course, whenever they were told to tarry in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high, there's no question in the mind of the disciples that he meant tarry together.

It doesn't say that and one might look at that tarry in Jerusalem. Well, we all go back to our homes.

We linger around Jerusalem and we pray for the Holy Spirit to come in our closet. But that was not how the disciples and the apostles understood that.

They understood it very clearly that they're to tarry together until ye be endued with power from on high.

And so we find them in the upper room, Acts 1, 14, and they're gathering there to pray with the woman.

And then Acts 2, of course, you see the product of that. And then through the book of Acts, again,

I mentioned Acts 4 earlier, where they went to their own company, the end of Acts 4, and they pray.

Think of Acts chapter 12, where Peter, James is beheaded, Peter's imprisoned, and a prayer was made of the church unto

God for him. The church came together to pray, Acts chapter 12. Acts 13, again, where the church at Antioch are trying to figure out, we need to send missionaries, we need to reach the world.

What should we do? Who should we send? And they're praying and fasting together when the Holy Spirit says, separate me,

Saul and Barnabas, for the work we're on to, I have called them. And on and on it goes through the book of Acts, this coming together to pray.

So even by the pattern in the life of Jesus with his disciples, in the life of the church in the book of Acts, we see the importance, and we might even say the power, of collective prayer unto

God in a unified fashion for certain things that either God has promised, or certain times of great need, or even just in general, through this pattern of coming together to pray, the hour of prayer as they had it in the early church.

We have our hours and seasons to come together to pray. We have a number of listeners already who have sent in questions.

Let's see, we have Gordie in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,

Chris mentioned on a recent show how your preaching, he's talking about you, seemed to hearken back to the days of the great

Puritan preachers. After listening myself, I must concur. What influence have the

Puritans had on your preaching and prayer life, and has the Valley of Vision been a resource you have found helpful?

That's Gordie in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. What was that bit about the resource at the end there,

Chris? The Valley of Vision. I don't know if you've ever seen that book. That is a book by Banner Truth has published it.

I don't have it, so it hasn't had any direct influence. The Puritans, you know,

I just recently read Richard Stibbs there while I was on vacation, a bruised read, but I haven't read vast quantities of the

Puritans. I wouldn't say I'm an expert in the Puritans. I think what comes through,

Chris, is, this might be controversial a little bit, but when you become absolutely convinced about what

Scripture requires the Christian to be, the Puritans were serious about their

Christianity. There was no messing around. There was no trying to dilute the plain teaching of Scripture, and they took very seriously their call to be a

Christian and the requirement and what is required of every Christian. And they preached that, and that becomes very evident, and that's why it was transforming to the entire society, that you couldn't get out, you couldn't get away from Puritan preaching and walk out the door and just ignore it.

You fell on one side or the other. You were either a friend of the Puritans or an enemy, and you were, you had this compulsion in their heart to lay before men and women the duty of the

Christian as well as the privileges that we have as believers. And I think that maybe, and I could be wrong here, but as a believer

I've always had a tremendous sense, I'm 15 years a Christian now, I've always had a tremendous sense of weight with the

Christian life. Now that might seem kind of contradictory, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, and I understand there's a freedom and a relief from the burden of our sins, and they're gone, and they'll never be remembered against us, and they're as far as east as from the west, and so on.

I know that. But there also comes, if any man follow me, let him deny himself and take up the cross, and there is this weight that comes with the

Christian life, and I live under that weight all the time. What are my duties?

Where, how can I better be a better Christian? And I'm being involved, working out my salvation with fear and trembling, and I think that just comes through,

Chris. I mean, I'm kind of working off the cuff here because I've never really thought about being, kind of sounding like I was influenced by the

Puritans, but the men of our denomination have always preached that way. Alan Cairns, and I mentioned him before the last time, his ministry having a very profound impact, his pulpit ministry having a profound impact on my own, and that comes through there, this sense of duty as a

Christian as well. And because I live under that, I think it just comes through in my own preaching, and that's what the

Puritans have as well, a real sense of duty as well as the glories and the wonders and the privileges and standing of the

Christian in union with Jesus Christ. But it doesn't come without a sense of responsibility, and I think that maybe just comes through,

I don't know. Amen, and thank you, Gordie, and Mechanicsburg keeps spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we have

Joe in Slovenia. I actually forwarded Joe in Slovenia's question to you moments ago, and I will have you answer it when we return from the break.

We have an elongated break right now, it's about 12 minutes long because the FM radio station in Florida, Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires that we have a 12 -minute break between our two segments so that they can air local things.

But you can have time to mill over the question from Joe in Slovenia, but I'll read it now.

I hope that my overall experience with corporate prayer isn't the norm. However, I'm afraid it must be because I don't hear of significantly different situations in otherwise healthy churches.

Mostly what I've experienced is that the corporate prayer meetings in local churches tend to be overly focused on intercession for physical needs such as illnesses, not that praying about physical needs in general or illness in particular is illegitimate.

But those things are generally most exclusively the topics of concern.

Is this a fairly common description of what is typical? If so, is moving the congregation to deepen and broaden their prayer into petitioning on behalf of specific lost people and such other topics like personal, corporate, and national revival simply a matter of pastoral leadership or are there other more complex issues you could highlight and discuss for us?

Thank you and I'm praying regularly for you. That's Joe in Slovenia. Very good question and we're going to go to a break before our guest

Armen Tomassian answers that question. If you would like to join those who have already submitted their questions and have a question of your own asked and answered by our guest, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back, God willing, with Armen Tomassian and more on corporate prayer.

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God or am

I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

We are in 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 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

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That's nasbible .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

Pastors' Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

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

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastors' Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about an hour to go, is

Armon Tomassian, pastor of Calgary Free Presbyterian Church in Alberta, Canada. He is also one of the speakers at the upcoming

For God and Truth conference in Trinity, Alabama. Today, we are addressing the importance and privilege of corporate prayer.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, unless you are remaining anonymous for a personal and private matter.

Before I return to our discussion, I have some important events to announce by some of our sponsors.

This week, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held August 3rd through the 5th.

That is, I believe, the day after tomorrow, or actually it's tomorrow, through the 5th of August at the

Deering Center Community Church. What's today's date? It's the 1st. Oh, today's 1st, so it is the day after tomorrow.

It is the day after tomorrow. So, it is from the 3rd through the 5th of August at the

Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine, and speakers include

Don Curran, who is the Eastern European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society in Radford, Virginia, which was founded by Paul Washer, my friend

Pastor Mack Tomlinson, who is an author, and he is also the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

In fact, one of the books that he authored was a biography of Leonard Ravenhill that I just mailed to our guest

Armin Tamasian fairly recently, titled, In Light of Eternity, The Life of Leonard Ravenhill.

And also speaking at that conference is

Jesse Barrington, who's been a guest on this program, pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, the sister church of Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, who has a radio station that airs

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio every day, twice a day, in a pre -recorded format, and Pastor Nate Pikowitz, who is the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmonton Ironworks, New Hampshire, and he's the author of Reviving New England and also

Why We're Protestant. If you'd like to register for this conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, and register for the Fellowship Conference New England.

And then coming up after that, next month, I'm very happy to announce that a, well actually, let me, before I go to next month, let me go to this month.

So later on this month, as I've been saying before, our guest, Pastor Armin Tamasian, is one of three speakers at the

For God and Truth Conference, and that conference is being held later this month, and it features such speakers as Armin Tamasian, Dr.

George Grant, and John Weaver, and that's being held from the 16th of August through the 19th of August at the

Trinity Free Presbyterian Church of Trinity, Alabama. And if you would like to find out more information about that conference, go to forgodandtruth .com,

that's forgodandtruth .com, and you'll find out more information about the 2017

For God and Truth Conference. And then next month, coming up in September, I'm so delighted to announce that my friend

Dr. Tony Costa, many of you have heard Dr. Tony Costa on this program.

Dr. Costa is the Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and he was involved in a debate that I orchestrated here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with Roman Catholic apologist

Robert Syngenis on Mary. Basically, it was on the theme,

Mary, was she a sinner saved by grace or a sinless queen of heaven?

Well, Dr. Tony Costa is going to be speaking at the

Word of Truth Church for the Gospel of the Reformation 500th anniversary, and that is being held from Friday, September 29th, through Saturday, September 30th, and there will be other speakers involved in that as well, including

Pastor Caleb Bunch, Pastor Bruce Bennett, and Pastor Dave Corson. And if you would like to attend the

Gospel of the Reformation conference, call area code 631 -806 -0614, that's 631 -806 -0614, and make sure that you tell them that you heard about that conference on Iron Sharpens Iron radio, and please also send greetings to Dr.

Tony Costa. In fact, I may be at that conference, God willing. I'm going to do my best to be in attendance at that conference, so I pray that that can all fall into place and that can happen.

The very next day after that conference, uh, Dr. Tony Costa is going to be preaching at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island at 11 a .m.

So if you'd like more information about Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, go to hopereformedli .net,

hopereformedli .net, or you can call 631 -696 -5711, 631 -696 -5711.

And then, uh, coming up in November, we have, uh, the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals conference. The Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology is being held at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The theme is, For Still Our Ancient Foe, obviously referring to Satan from the line in Martin Luther's classic

Reformation hymn, A Mighty Fortress, and that's November 17th through the 18th at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

Speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant. To register for that conference, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, click on Events, and then click on Quakertown Conference for Reform Theology or on Reform Theology.

And then, we have the G3 conference, Returning to Atlanta, Georgia, the

G3 conference, Standing for Grace, Gospel, and Glory. Their theme this year, or should

I say in January, uh, their theme is Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship, and speakers include

Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcombe, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .P. Charles Jr.,

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

If you'd like to register for the G3 conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

and the 3 is the number 3 in that website, g3conference .com.

And now I have to, uh, do something that makes me very uncomfortable, but I have to beg you for money.

The advertisers who have kept Iron Sharpens Iron Radio airing since its inception have urged me to make public appeals for donations and new advertisers.

I went for years without making a single public appeal for donations, but we have reached an urgent point in our history where we desperately need more funding to remain on the air.

If you have been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, if it has been, become a part of your regular habit of life, if you really love the program, well, if you have been blessed by God above and beyond your ability to provide for your local church as you always have done, and your home, those two things are commanded by God.

Supporting my show is not commanded by God. But if you've been blessed above and beyond your ability to support your church and your home without dipping into the coffers of either, please consider supporting

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Go to ironsharpensironradio .com and click on support, and then you'll see an address where you can make a check made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and you can mail that to that address you'll see.

If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to ironsharpens, I'm sorry, to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line. As long as whatever it is you're advertising is compatible with the theology expressed on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I would love to speak with you about advertising.

And now we have returned to our interview with Pastor Armand Tomassian, and we are discussing the importance and privilege of corporate prayer.

Before the break, we had Joe in Slovenia ask a question.

I'm going to return to that question once again, and I'm going to read that question on the air for you again, for those of you who don't remember what he said, or if you are tuning in late.

Let's see. Dear Brother Chris, I hope that my overall experience with corporate prayer is not the norm.

However, I'm afraid it must be because I don't hear of significantly different situations in otherwise healthy churches.

Mostly what I've experienced is that corporate prayer meetings in local churches tend to be overly focused on intercession for physical needs such as illnesses.

Not that praying about physical needs in general or illness in particular is not legitimate, but those things are generally, almost exclusively, the topics of concern.

Is this a fairly common description of what is typical? If so, is moving the congregation to deepen and broaden their prayer into petitioning on behalf of specific lost people and such other topics like personal, corporate, and national revival, etc.,

simply a matter of pastoral leadership, or are there other more complex issues you could highlight and discuss for us?

That's Joe in Slovenia. Armand Tomassian? Thank you, Chris, and thank you to Joe for that question.

It opens up a whole, well, a number of avenues really to deal with, and I think he's touched on something that will resonate with a lot of listeners today because it is such a common experience.

I think his experience is typical for many nowadays to come to prayer meetings and pray about Aunt Jenny's sore toe and Mrs.

Smith's kind of egging back or something like this, which is fine, but maybe doesn't really get to the heart of the real needs that are present in our day, and that kind of discourages people from even coming to prayer.

I have a quote here that I just picked up recently listening to a sermon, a recent sermon by Dr.

Alan Cairns, and I'll just read this out before I give something of my own ideas of an answer to the question.

He says this, which resonates with the typical experience that Joe has mentioned.

He said, there is a deadness in our prayer meetings. It used to be there was a pleading with God in prayer, a passionate pleading with God, a holding up of the promises of God, where the prayer meeting wasn't all taken up with health and wealth.

I believe in praying for the sick. I believe in being compassionate to the needy. Men and women, there's a greater burden.

Our land is going to hell. Our nation is under judgment. Our churches are facing the greatest challenge they've ever faced since the days of the

Reformation, and we are at our weakest point. We need to get through to God. There has to be a pleading, a yearning, a burning out in prayer, the burden that Knox had when he looked at Scotland and he cried,

God give me Scotland or I die, end quote. And that shows that even within the

Free Presbyterian Church, there can be this experience of deadness in prayer, and I want to try and address and hopefully be helpful to Joe.

Maybe especially if there's any pastors listening and thinking, how can I get my prayer meeting out of this kind of rut of just praying about these kind of temporal issues?

I think there is a way to rectify it. There is a way to try, by the grace of God, to lead out of that.

And our brother touched on whether or not it was pastoral leadership. I think that mostly is the need for pastors to lead the prayer meetings, spiritual leaders to lead the prayer meetings, to understand exactly what they're all about and what they're trying to do.

Whether there's more complex issues, he mentioned that. Obviously there's an assumption of unity.

If there's no unity, you're not going to get anywhere. When he's dealing with revival and dealing with that, there has to be an understanding.

In fact, we can even point there as to rectifying this. The church needs to understand that there is such a thing as revival, and so the pastor needs to educate his congregation on revival, on the outpouring of the

Spirit of God, personal revival, corporate revival, community revival, national revival, whatever you want to say.

He needs to educate his church. Otherwise they're not going to pray about that. They're not going to get the burden.

So that would be point number one in trying to lead congregations and prayer meetings out of this kind of focus on the temporal and physical needs to educate the congregation on revival.

Teach on revival. Lead in your prayers in the Sunday service. When you pray at the prayer meetings, when you lead in prayer, pray for revival yourself, and the people will begin to get educated on what they're meant to be praying about.

The second thing I would say is to preach at the prayer meeting, if you do preach, to preach to lead the people into prayer.

Some of the problems we faced, and it was Alan Cairns that actually pointed this out to me before I came to Calgary, and I sat and talked with him for a few hours about different things, and just to pick his brains and so on, and he brought this up, and he said, look, when you go there, don't have a

Bible study and then a time of prayer. Bible studies don't naturally lead to prayer.

They don't naturally lead the people into prayer, and he had a unique gift where he would barely prepare at all, and he would just get up and sometimes not even know what he was going to say, and just ask the

Lord to lay a passage in his heart, and get up and just pass a few comments. But all the comments were designed to lead the people into prayer, into crying out to God.

And so, while we may not be as gifted as he is, when we prepare, think of a devotional message that leads naturally into prayer, where there's an end to it, where you drive a point home to the people to get to seek

God, to call upon God for these things. So first educate in the Bible, then preach to lead into prayer rather than a

Bible study. Forget the Bible study. Just cast it aside. Don't worry. Preach to lead into prayer if you want to see the people pray all right in the prayer meeting.

Thirdly, focus the vast majority and tell the people to focus the vast majority of their prayers on the eternal.

Just get them to think of that in terms of what's eternal and what's temporal. It's not that you cast all the temporal out.

You may be doing a building project, you need God to provide, you may be maybe some other thing, there may be someone who's very ill, needs prayer, that's fine.

But the vast majority of prayer has to be on the eternal, and getting the people to think like that.

Souls are dying, they are perishing, your loved ones are going to hell. You have an opportunity here to name them, to have this entire body unitedly call upon God to bring them to church, to bring them to a hearing of the gospel, soften their hearts and save their souls.

So that's the third thing. The fourth thing would be to encourage the people to pray only one or two burdens.

Nothing will kill a prayer meeting like someone who thinks they have to pray around the world.

We've all been there, we've all sat there and been kind of wishing that they would just just be quiet.

It really is not helpful, and I think of an illustration that Spurgeon used to try and help with this.

I think it was him, I hope I'm right here. But he imagined, he got the people to imagine there was 10 meals that needed hammered into a wall, and all meals were kind of lined up.

He said you don't, one person doesn't come along and kind of tap one meal and then move to the next, and tap that meal, and then to the next, next, and then go back to the start and do the same.

You take one meal and you drive that meal home, and then you go to the next one. He said if every person just took one meal, just took one burden and drive that matter home, then the prayer meeting would be much better off, because we're all praying anyway.

When you pray for that person to come to church and to be saved, everyone's praying.

No one has to mention it again unnecessarily, or waste time praying for a burden they don't even have in their hearts, but they're praying because they think everyone expects them to pray about it.

Focus on one or two things. The best prayer meetings we've had in this church, when I've specifically encouraged that again and reminded the people, just take one or two burdens.

Focus your mind. What is your burden? When I was in the church, my church, and just a regular person sitting in the pew,

I had one or two things that I was burdened about, and every Thursday at the prayer meeting, if I prayed,

I prayed about the youth that were gathering on the Friday night, the God's blessing would be there, and the open air on Saturday.

Don't pray about everything, just one or two things. That's the fourth thing. And then the fifth thing would be to have prayer meetings for specific services, for specific things, like have a revival prayer meeting, a prayer meeting for revival, a separate prayer meeting, maybe a monthly prayer meeting or something, where you say, this is all we're going to focus on.

We're just going to pray for the revival of this church, and that's it. Everything else is out.

It's illegal. You're not allowed to pray it. We're only praying for the revitalization of this church, and really hammering that home and saying, this is what this prayer meeting is for, and trying to fill that in.

So I think those five issues, and educate on revival, preach at the prayer meeting to lead into prayer instead of a

Bible study, focus on the eternal, encourage just one or two burdens, and then having prayer meetings for specific things, like revival, will help generate,

I think, more of a lively and focused and purposeful prayer meeting. Well, thank you

Joe in Slovenia. Keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and spreading the word about the program in Slovenia and beyond.

We have Daniel in San Jose, California. Can you ask your guest to explain the state of the church that only has a few people gathered together for corporate prayer out of an entire church, or just the state of a church that won't gather in corporate prayer, and I'm assuming he means at all.

That's Daniel in San Jose, California. Yeah, we're speaking in generalities, and I just think there is a lack of burden to pray.

To be honest with you, Daniel, and everyone listening, I think people aren't praying at home for the most part.

I mean, people are praying. They have their prayers, if that. There are many good people, and they have a time of prayer, but we have lost.

There is a general, and I'm And when you live your life without a sense of burden, you will not understand or really grasp the need to be at a prayer meeting to pour out that burden with others.

You just won't, and even if you do go to a prayer meeting, you'll be but you will not feel that real burden to cry out to God because you don't have a burden.

There is a real problem. The preaching is part of it. I think pastors are largely prayerless.

I mean, it's not that they don't pray, but I think you mentioned that book you sent to me, brother, by Ravenhill.

Thank you to you and to Mack for that. I will really revel in that book, but if anyone has any familiarity with Leonard Ravenhill, they will know that his idea of tithing our time in prayer, and I've been challenged with that afresh in my own life, thinking about him being on to something there, tithing our time in prayer, and pastors,

I don't think we're doing this. I really don't. I think I speak for the vast majority that men are preparing sermons that are ununctioned.

They're without the blessing of heaven. They are doing sufficiently so they don't get fired or get challenged.

They're just kind of going along with it, but there's a lack of power, of zeal, of burden, of desire.

There's just a want, and that is feeding from the pulpit into the pew, and people just don't have a burden to come together, and even when they do, it's kind of cold.

That is the general state, and I think the need is to begin in the leadership with us as pastors to really analyze, do

I know anything of seeking God? Am I preaching with a burden? Am I a burdened man?

If not, why on earth not? Look at the state of things. There's something wrong, and we need

God to revive the pulpit. Thank you, Daniel in San Jose, California. The Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to ask or say.

Yes, one of the problems that I ran into as a was I many times felt that if I had prayed what really needed to be prayed,

I would be quickly removed from my church because of,

I mean, how can you pray about things that are important if it's not politically correct to do so? I mean,

I would be the kind of guy that would have prayed for Clinton to be removed from office and things like that, and I used to tell people, you know, don't just pray, bless the president, bless his children, give him wisdom when you might have somebody who is not the slightest bit interested in wisdom.

What do you do in a situation like that where you want to pray about things that are vital, but you don't dare?

Brother, I'm the wrong person to ask. I will pray anyway.

I mean, I won't even think about it. If there's something that is burdening my heart, the kind of thoughts about those here before me, they don't even enter in.

I suppose there's a sense in which we need to be careful that we're not getting fleshly and we're not kind of just expressing certain personal things, but again, if we can focus on real eternal matters and pray things that are really real and scripturally just real,

I think is the best term. I would just pray out our hearts, and if someone has a problem with it, there's nothing you can do, and if they kick you out, well,

I don't know. I haven't got to that point. I've certainly said things and done things already that if I was in a church that wasn't with me,

I would be out already. I have issued rebukes, and I have said things that this church has taken, and taken very graciously, but I'm the worst person to ask.

If it's in my heart, it comes out, and there's not a lot of filter with me, so maybe others could give a better answer to how to not say things that will get you fired or something.

I don't think I'm very good at that. We have a question that I already...

Actually, it's a series of questions that I forwarded to you from Murray and Ken Ross Scotland, and we'll have you answer as many of those as we have time to answer or as much time as you have to answer when we return from the break, and if anybody else would like to join

Murray and Ken Ross Scotland with a question of your own, do it now because we're running out of time.

We've only got less than a half hour left now. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Armin Tomassian and Corporate Prayer. I am

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzin, and if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes and for the next half hour to come, our guest has been and will continue to be

Armin Tomasian, and our topic is the importance and privilege of corporate prayer. And before the break, we had a series of questions submitted to us by Murray in Kinross, Scotland, and the first of his questions is, why pray at all if God's will is always accomplished?

That's something that either typically all of us who are

Christians hear at times from unbelievers, and also something that we Calvinists hear from our

Arminian brethren who are asking it either in sarcasm or thinking, wrongly thinking, that they can tie us in knots and refute what we believe in regard to the doctrines of grace.

But if you could comment on Murray's question, why pray at all if God's will is always accomplished?

Yeah, thank you for the questions, Murray, or maybe not thank you. We'll see how we get on here.

I think that first question, Chris, the best way that I understand it, it's very simple, really.

Someone asked, why pray if God is sovereign? The best response to that to ourselves or to someone else is, why pray if God is not sovereign?

If he's not sovereign, then you can have absolutely no assurance that he has the ability or power to answer or give what you're asking for.

So the only basis for prayer is understanding that God is sovereign and has the power to answer.

If he's not sovereign, then you have no confidence, and prayer is a waste of time, because there's no basis upon which you can be assured he is able to give what you ask for.

That's the easiest way, I think. Yeah, it's always fascinating to hear an Arminian pray,

Lord, please open the eyes of my lost family member. Please give them a new heart.

Please open their deaf ears, unstop their deaf ears, so that they can hear the gospel and they can respond.

You can hear those kind of prayers all the time. Yeah, give them a new heart. Right. Every man's a Calvinist when he's on his knees.

That's right, and in fact it was very ironic to, several years ago, the then president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, he preached a sermon of why

I was predestined not to be a Calvinist, and he thought he was being clever with that, and after a ranting of a very vehemently anti -Calvinist message for about a half hour, filled with mockery and caricatures and so on, after he was finished, the late

Jerry Falwell approached the pulpit, thanked the president of his university for the wonderful sermon that he preached, and then began to pray like a

Calvinist. It's just utterly amazing how they cannot see the contradiction that they wind up speaking when they're on their knees.

But Murray in Kinross, Scotland also says, are prayers necessarily more effective the more often they are repeated?

I would say no with conditions. The emphasis of Scripture, as far as I understand, and I'm happy to be corrected here, is not on repetition, it's on persistence.

Obviously the Lord dealt with vain repetition, but where he encouraged what he focused upon with the widow and the unjust judge and that kind of emphasis of men ought always to pray and not to faint and so on, is to be persistent.

So there is a repetition and persistence, but it's not a sense that we just repeat and repeat and repeat, but it's more the burden being expressed and continually coming, and that we repeat because that's an outworking of a persistence that will not let

God go except he blesses or gives the matter answers in the way that we're seeking. And Murray's next question is, how should unanswered prayers be interpreted?

Obviously that should go situation by situation, I'm assuming. Yeah, it's a huge topic, really, unanswered prayers.

Books have been written on that topic and sermons preached, but basically there's different ways of looking at it.

Yeah, like is there faith? Do we really trust in God in the matter?

But whenever we know that something hasn't been answered, as far as resting our minds on a certain matter, knowing we've stopped

God, we roll back onto Romans 8, 28, don't we? All things work together for good to them that love

God, them who are the called according to his purpose. And we realize that the lack of answer to prayer in that matter is helping conform me to the image of God's Son.

And so we rest in God's infinite wisdom and that he is too kind to his children to be cruel in any matter.

So Romans 8, 28 would be a general answer to that question. And yes, and hinged on Romans 8, 28, wouldn't you say that it's because God knows what is best for us, and in spite of how we think the answer yes would be best for us, for any certain prayer we might offer to him, he knows

Yeah, that's it. I mean, he knows and he is being kind in every blessing given and every blessing, apparently, what we think is a blessing, being restrained from us.

He knows. He sees the big picture. We might want to constantly pray to get out of poverty.

Why am I constantly struggling to make ends meet? Why is this so difficult? Why are things so hard?

But he knows that should things be reversed, that that would be the worst thing for us, as far as our spiritual walk, and we just couldn't handle abundance or whatever.

Or God is using us just as a testimony. It's not so much that we can't handle riches, but we are a testimony of proving

God day by day, trusting in him, and our life is speaking to those around us of that childlike trust that God provides all of us.

He knows. He sees his end goal as his own glory, as well as our good, but uppermost, his own glory.

So we have to, by faith, rest that unanswered prayers, however we interpret that, is for his glory, which is ultimately what we're seeking for anyway.

Murray asks, do passages such as James chapter 4 verse 2, you do not have because you do not ask, and Matthew chapter 7 verse 7 through 11, ask, seek, knock.

How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?

Highlight a conditional will of God by which he has determined to grant certain good things to us, which he has desired for us, only if we earnestly seek him in prayer.

Yeah, this is huge. I wouldn't call that conditional will that God has a conditional will in that sense.

God knows what he's doing in all things, but there is a sense in which this brings in the kind of the difficulty of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

And I say difficulty, not that there's a difficulty with God. There's a difficulty in finite man comprehending how this all works, when there's a sense in which certain things are presented to us, and that they seem conditional, and that we're trying to navigate this.

Well, if God's sovereign, he'll give it, but then we are responsible. How do you reconcile that? Of course, as the

Virgin famously responded, I don't have to reconcile friends. God knows what he's doing in using both man's part in prayer, as well as his part in prayer, and working all for his glory and for his purpose.

And it's clearly that there are certain things when we pray, there are certain, you know, you have not because you ask not.

That's, you know, a certain aspect of things as well, like our lack of faith is addressed.

Let not that man, you mentioned James 4, earlier in James, that we're to not ask with wavering, not doubting, because that man will not receive anything from the

Lord. There's obedience involved. I'm thinking of 1 John 3, verse 21, where John says,

Beloved of our heart, condemn us not. Then have we confidence toward God. There's an element of confidence toward God.

And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments. So obedience plays a part, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

And there's a lot in there that I could get into, but I'll just, I'll restrain myself at this time.

But I think the best thing is that we take all of Scripture, and we see what it's putting upon us, we fulfill that, and trust

God that in every thing he will give the answer that most glorifies him and does us good.

And Murray's last question is, Is there also an unconditional will by which

God rejects some prayer requests, rendering them ineffective? I would say there's certainly some prayer requests that have no place to be prayed, some requests that have no place in the

Christian, and that they are going to be ineffective in the sense that that request will never be granted.

You think of those that Jeremiah was told not to pray for, and so on. So, yeah, in a certain sense, yeah, there's things that will be rejected outright and will never be answered.

Well, thank you, Murray and Kinross Scotland. Please keep spreading the word about the program Iron Sharpens Iron in the

UK and beyond. We have Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana.

How would you help someone learn to pray in corporate meetings? Did you learn by listening mostly?

Is it wrong to be anxious about praying out loud? How to learn?

Be at prayer, be in the prayer meeting, every prayer meeting you can be in. I have a kind of,

I have a rule, I have a principle that I live by that I would encourage others to think about.

We don't really live in a day of principles and kind of holy resolutions, but I have one, and that is if there's a prayer meeting that I can be at, a public prayer meeting that I can be at, that I have a certain responsibility to be at because I'm a part of the church or whatever, or someone asks me to a prayer meeting,

I will be there unless it's impossible. I will always be at a prayer meeting if I can be there, and even no matter how you were feeling, just be at the prayer meeting if at all possible.

So the best way to pray is to learn to pray, is to be with those who are the most mature and listen to them pray and even talk about prayer with those who are more mature.

And I think I learned not just from corporate prayer meetings, but those prayer meetings that no one wants to go to, those are the prayer meetings you want to be at.

The prayer meeting that's at six o 'clock in the morning or at, you know, 10 until two o 'clock in the early hours of the morning, those are the prayer meetings you want to be at.

The one that's least well attended because it's at those prayer meetings you find the people who really know what it is to pray.

And go there and pray with them and meet with God with them and you will learn to pray.

And then obviously pray more yourself and open the Bible and open in the

Psalms particularly, pray through the prayers of the Bible, Daniel's prayers, Ezra's prayers, so on.

Pray through those prayers, let them get into your own being and just see how certain parts of their prayers will grip your heart and you'll start to argue before God.

And we're just out of a weekend of prayer at our church, so it's a bit of a first -time thing for us where we had prayer from seven o 'clock on Friday night, just left open -ended and it ended at midnight.

And then we met on Saturday and we were fasting from 2 p .m. until 10 p .m.

and then between the services on the Lord's Day, so from about 2 o 'clock to 5 .30

or so, praying and just be in prayer meetings. And then the anxiety, the anxiety can also be mixed with pride, a sense that we might feel.

So be assured, everyone in a prayer meeting that's sincere wants to hear you pray and they want to hear you weep.

And if you're worried about crying, don't worry, just get over that anxiety and if there's a little bit of pride, feeling that you can't do it, get over that as well and just pour out your heart and keep it brief and God will teach you how to pray more and more.

Yeah, in fact, I've heard, I don't know how accurate the statistic is, but I've heard very often that public speaking is one of the most terrifying things that the majority of people, at least in the

United States, are fearful of. So that you would not be alone in your in your fear or anxious or anxiety,

I should say, around praying out loud. But that, as Pastor Armen said, is something that you have to get beyond through prayer.

And thank you, Aaron, and please keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Indianapolis and beyond.

We have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, and I don't know why he specifically lists these three figures, but he says, can we greatly learn from the prayer lives of Andrew Murray, John Knox, and Leonard Ravenhill?

We already heard you raving about Ravenhill, but if you could, to the best of your ability, answer

Tyler's question. Yeah, basically, yes, we can learn. It's as simple as that.

Be acquainted with the prayer warriors of the past. Be acquainted with men who have become known.

And whenever you hear a man's name mentioned in context of prayer in a sermon or in a book, but it's not elaborated, search out that man, find out more.

But don't get lost in looking at other men's lives without mimicking, without copying.

We become experts in these men, in our heads, and we won't walk the path they've walked.

And that's all in vain. If we know everything about Knox's prayer life, Murray's prayer life,

Ravenhill, E .M. Bounds, whoever, and don't walk the path they've walked, have we really learned anything?

We become hearers only, and not doers. So, yes, learn. Yes, implement.

And may God use whatever means He can to stir us to prayer. Yes, and it's interesting that two of those names, although they would be in some areas of theology and doctrine and practice in opposition to classic

Reform theology, Andrew Murray and Leonard Ravenhill, at the same time, great men of God within the

Reformed camp have still revered them and have loved many things that they've written or preached on.

And in fact, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, although he was critical of Andrew Murray, apparently he and his wife loved to read

Murray, I don't know at what point in their daily day -to -day lives they were drawn to read

Murray. I don't know if it was after their dinners or wherever it was. I heard recently, and I did an interview with someone who is thoroughly knowledgeable on Charles Spurgeon, how much he and Susanna Spurgeon loved to read

Andrew Murray in spite of theological differences. And I agree with Spurgeon there. I think we are in great danger if we throw the baby out with the bathwater, if we say,

I don't agree because he's, you know, Arminian or something, and I'm just going to toss him out,

I can't learn anything from him because, well, it is a critical issue, you know, so tereology and so on, but I think we are in dangerous ground if we say

I cannot learn anything from John Wesley or Andrew Murray or Leonard Ravenhill or whatever.

That's very, and I don't think it would be healthy for the Church to get to that point. Thank you.

Tyler keeps spreading the word in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York and beyond about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York wants to know, for those who have to work during the days and hours when the

Church that they are members of have their corporate prayer meetings, how can we find alternatives and how can we respond to our brothers and sisters who may be well -intentioned but at some time heap guilt upon us when there's nothing that we can do about it in regard to our employment?

Well, this is difficult, slightly difficult, in the sense that it's very easy to make excuses for ourselves that we can't be somewhere when we could, and I'm going to assume it's absolutely impossible to be there.

I have, for example, there's a young man who comes to our prayer meeting and he could be working, he wants to work, he wants to earn and earn and earn and work hard and he will work through the day and into the evening, but when it comes to our prayer meeting on a

Tuesday evening, he's there and he won't take work, won't do work, because that's something he offers and he comes to seek

God with the congregation. That's just one example. So, if there's an understanding you absolutely cannot be there, you don't have to answer every critical, every criticism about you or what you think is a judgment because you're not there.

Go and ask for another prayer meeting. Seek, maybe there's a few of you that are in the same boat as it were, and say, you know, can we meet on a

Friday night or can we meet before work somewhere or is there something else?

And then talk to the leadership of the church, see if there can be a means in which they can encourage another time that will allow those that are unable to be there, though they desperately want to be there and work around that.

Work around it. Prayer, oh there's such a need for prayer and if you can, your heart and desire to be there,

I think would be expressed by being at every prayer meeting you can be at and if it's impossible to be at any, then asking is there some way that I can meet with people that have a similar schedule to mine and aren't able to get to prayer that we can seek

God together. Thank you, CJ, and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio and Lyndon Hearst, Long Island and beyond.

And I'd like you to have about four minutes now, Armen, to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we leave this program.

Just, I would say to everyone listening that prayer is very much a lost art, both personal prayer, family prayer, and corporate prayer.

And if you're not really giving yourself to in those three areas, then it needs to change.

It needs to change. You need to be in personal prayer. You need to be communing with God.

You need to be setting aside time. You need to be spending those hours, not hours necessarily, but those seasons in prayer.

And in times, and I might just say this, in times of desperation, when your child is going astray and something's falling apart in your life,

I get this as a pastor. People come and say, pray for this. And they're desperate. There's something burdening their hearts, and they're really sad.

They've just heard tragic news about a marriage in their son, their daughter -in -law or something, and they're really desperate.

But they come to me to pray when they're the one carrying the burden. And you need to learn in times of real burden to get alone with God and section off time in your life when you bring that matter to God in prayer.

When you pour out that burden, instead of just talking about the sad news of a divorce that's imminent or a child that's a prodigal or something, get alone with God.

I have a mentor of mine, an elder in my church from where I'm from, and they had seven children.

One of them was walking away from God, not interested. And he came one time and he said, I'm moving out of the house.

He came one Sunday evening, asked his church and said, I'm moving out of the house. His father and his mother fasted that week.

They sought God with all of their hearts, because they knew as soon as he would move out of the house, his life would get worse.

And they set aside time, and they sought God that week. And they didn't say a thing. They just cried to God.

And the next Sunday evening, he came back, or again, he said,

I'm not going anywhere. And shortly after that, he was converted to Christ as well.

And his life turned around and married a Christian girl. Praise God. Yeah, but it was a discipline,

Chris. And this is what we need to learn, setting aside time to cry to God personally. Then as a family, every single day, as much as possible, setting aside time to pray with our wives and our children, briefly, not long, 15 minutes, in and around that, sufficient, read a bit of scripture, pray.

And then at church, you need to be praying in your church. And instead of pointing the fingers, instead of saying everyone's dead, when it's like that, be part of the solution.

Set your mind to be on fire, because fire begets fire. Catch the burden, get the vision, pour out your heart before God, and God will have others who come alongside you.

But be part of a body who pray. And yeah, that's what

I would leave with your listeners, really. Give yourself to prayer more than anything else. So many conferences, so much, so many sermons listened to, so many books read, so little prayer.

And we all know it, and we need to repent of it, and by God's grace, turn it around. Well, thank you so much,

Pastor Tomasian, for being our guest today. And I look forward to having you return. In fact, if you could hold on the line after we go off the air,

I'd like to schedule another interview with you, if you wouldn't mind. I'll hold on, brother. Thank you as well. And if anybody would like to visit the

Calgary Free Presbyterian Church of Alberta, Canada, whether you already live there, or you're visiting there, or perhaps you have loved ones who are either visiting there or living in that area, go to calgaryfpc .ca.

That's Calgary, C -A -L -G, as in George, A -R -Y, F -P -C for Free Presbyterian Church, dot

C -A. And regarding the conference that's coming up later this month, the For God and Truth conference, go to forgodandtruth .com,

forgodandtruth .com. I thank the Rev. Buzz Taylor for being my guest, my co -host today.

I thank everybody who listened and wrote in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater