July 20, 2015 ISI Radio Show (Now 2 Hours!) with Pastor Steve Camp on “Christian Music: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (Part 2)

Iron Sharpens Iron

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

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

00:08

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

00:16

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

00:23

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

00:32

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.

00:46

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.

00:57

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Well, good afternoon,

01:06

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of all humanity living on the planet Earth via live streaming.

01:13

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 20th day of July 2015.

01:21

For those of you who are expecting to hear Dr. Carl Truman of Westminster Theological Seminary discuss his latest book on Martin Luther, Dr.

01:31

Truman had to move his interview to this Wednesday, that's

01:36

July 22nd, 4 to 5 p .m., and following right on his heels after that for the second hour will be

01:44

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square discussing creation ordinances.

01:53

So Carl Truman will start with Martin Luther, and Bill Shishko will conclude with creation ordinances this

02:00

Wednesday, July 22nd, but I'm so happy that the guest that I began our discussion with last

02:07

Friday on Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly, Steve Camp, is available today to continue that discussion for two hours on the very first two -hour edition of Iron Sharpens Iron ever in the history of our broadcasting.

02:23

Although there was a brief period when we went to 90 minutes on Saturdays years ago, this is our first two -hour broadcast, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you,

02:37

Christian recording artist, Grammy award -winning songwriter, and pastor of Cross Church in Palm City, Florida, Steve Camp.

02:45

Hey, thank you, Chris. You know, I didn't realize this was the first two -hour

02:51

Iron Sharpens Iron, so boy, what a privilege. I hope you and I can fill the time profitably and in a fine seat of those listening.

02:59

This will be great. Well, one of the beauties of interviewing you, Steve, is that I ask a question and I sit back and relax and drink coffee for 10 minutes.

03:11

I realize that brevity is not one of my spiritual gifts, but it is a joy to be here today.

03:18

Well, believe it or not, being a host of a radio program, especially one that's two hours now, that is definitely a blessing and not a curse, because the curse is pulling teeth with the guest who is giving very brief answers on questions.

03:35

So I'm very delighted that you have a lot to say, and you can take your time saying it as well.

03:41

Oh, that's great. Well, thank you again for the other day, and man, we had several people that had sent me encouraging notes and so forth, so I'm so grateful for that.

03:54

Yeah, and I assume that you thought you were only on for the half of the show last Friday, if you didn't know that we went to two hours today, because we were only on for an hour last

04:03

Friday. Yeah, and I'm grateful in God's providence. Karl Truman is a wonderful brother and very gifted.

04:12

I enjoyed his participation in the Shepherds Conference at Grace Community. I was not privileged to be there, but I heard it online, and I thought

04:20

Karl did a wonderful job on this issue of the inerrancy of Scripture and a great historical treatment of it.

04:26

If people listening, you can go to grace2u at gty .org there at Dr. MacArthur's ministry and pull up messages from the

04:35

Shepherds Conference, and I would encourage you to listen to Karl. It wasn't a biblical exposition, but it was a wonderful historic walk through redemptive history on how men of God have defended this issue of inspiration and errancy and infallibility, and he was quite gifted and humorous at the right points as well.

04:58

It was a joy to hear him, so I'll look forward to listening, dropping in and listening to his portion with you on Wednesday, but I'm delighted this worked out in God's providence to speak with you today.

05:08

I'm going to give our email address right away for anybody who has a question on Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

05:15

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

05:22

Keep in mind this is a live program, so if you want your question to be read on air by Steve Camp, or should

05:29

I say the answer to your question given live on air by Steve Camp, then please email them as soon as possible so we have time to read the question if they are appropriate and applicable to the subject at hand especially.

05:47

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Just to give a brief overview of what we already addressed last time, we were mainly concerned with the lyrical content of Christian music and how you believe that it has definitely come to a downfall the last 20 years at least, if not much longer than that, but especially perhaps the last 20 years or 25 to 30 years.

06:20

And we also addressed how although the melodies and rhythms to Christian music are more subjective than a crystal clear objective answer on that, there is certainly inappropriate music that could be played behind Christian songs, especially during a worship service.

06:49

Am I basically getting the summary correctly, or do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, no, that's right.

06:55

You know, worship, when people think of a worship service, they usually think of primarily music when we think of worship as opposed to being the entirety of the service.

07:08

In other words, our prayers, the sharing of the Lord's elements in the juice and the bread as we serve communion or baptism, you know, whether it's the fellowship of the saints or church restoration, the preaching of the word, all of these things together, you know, it's the

07:31

Acts 2 model there, Chris, where they continued in the Apostles' teaching, that's scripture in fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer.

07:41

There you have the elements of spirit -directed worship, but also they did outreach to the community.

07:48

They cared for the needs of the poor. They ministered to the widow and the orphan. They were there speaking in culture from a biblical worldview to the needs of the day.

07:58

And then that spirit -directed welfare, but then also that last two verses in Acts chapter 2,

08:05

Luke records for us, it says that the Lord added to the church daily such as were being saved, and there we see spirit -directed witness.

08:14

And so we have worship, welfare, and witness. We have upreach, outreach, and inreach.

08:21

And it's a wonderful thing to see that happen, that as Reformed believers in Jesus Christ, we believe that God will draw

08:31

His people, that He's chosen before the foundations of the world. But at the same time, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the

08:39

Word of Christ. We must go and tell. The Spirit of God does not regenerate in a vacuum. He uses the preaching of the

08:46

Word, the witness of the Gospel, done by people to the highways and byways of life.

08:52

And part of that work that's being done in worship is music, and it's the ministry of the

09:00

Word. This is a familiar passage, I'm sure, to most listening, and especially to you, brother.

09:06

But in Colossians 3, we get a kind of a marriage of these things. When Paul says in verses 16 and 17, let the

09:13

Word of Christ dwell in you richly, literally means to take permanent residence in you, teaching and admonishing one another.

09:23

That word admonished there is nephiteo. Maybe some of the listeners are familiar with the counseling ministry, nephetic counseling.

09:33

It means to counsel or warn, give comfort. It even means to stir up, in other words, to stir up fallow ground, a word of admonishment, a word of exhortation as well as warning.

09:47

So to teach, to admonish one another, and with all wisdom, that's applied truth to the need of the day, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

10:01

And Chris, there I think we have such a great view of music in the context of the local church.

10:07

The psalms, that's literally the psalms. All of them, all 150 psalms, and then the hymns, the language of tradition, and then the spiritual songs, the language of our new day of music.

10:20

And it leads us in thankfulness in our hearts to God. So we're to speak to one another. We can teach and admonish one another with the use of music in all of those things.

10:31

So to give you an example, Chris, yesterday in our worship service, you know, we began with a wonderful third day classic,

10:39

God of Wonders. We love that song. And then we went into a great song that we made into a worship chorus,

10:49

We Delight, by Cateman's Call. And then for our reflection time of coming out of God's Word, we did 10 ,000

10:58

Reasons by Matt Redmond. And then, you know, we closed our service with a great hymn of faith,

11:06

How Firm a Foundation. And then ended with the little chorus, Our God is an

11:12

Awesome God. So we tried to use all of those things. Now, we didn't sing the psalm yesterday, but every

11:19

Sunday we read from the psalms. So people hear the psalms. I preach out of the

11:26

Book of Ephesians currently, primarily New Testament. We get to sing hymns and spiritual songs.

11:33

And we have a time of corporate prayer and then fellowship afterwards. And we really try to do

11:39

God's work as a Reformed Congregation biblically before Him. So music can be used in that.

11:45

And it erupts with our hearts being thankful to the Lord. Just like Paul and Silas demonstrated, even while in prison at midnight, they were singing a hymn of praise.

11:56

So music is an expression of our worship and joy. It can communicate God's truth in unique ways.

12:04

And just like the psalms speak to all of life and primarily about the character of God, our music can speak to all of life.

12:11

But we want to make sure it's based on biblical truth and not antithetical to the teachings of Scripture.

12:17

Well, would you say that the biggest problem that you hear in Christian music, or should

12:24

I say contemporary Christian music, is that it is largely based on the feelings that people get by worshiping

12:35

God or in their mind worshiping God rather than anything more weighty than that.

12:45

And it's often also man -centered about what we receive rather than giving

12:50

God the glory, if you follow what I mean. Yeah, I understand. I think it's well the way you said it.

12:56

I guess here's the issue, Chris, is that those who are privileged, the musician priests or the chief musician, as the

13:04

Bible would call them, those who go out—and we're not talking about the journeymen or the entertainer, the craftsman who plays guitar or drums that maybe is using that as a wonderful vehicle to earn their craft, to earn their wage, to support their families.

13:20

They're using their musicianship in that way in being witnesses to others in that venue, just as an attorney would or a teacher would or, you know, an investor.

13:31

Think of all the professions that are out there. Whether you're involved in landscaping or pouring concrete, you want to be a witness to the

13:37

Lord in whatever vocation the Lord's called you in. But those who are privileged to represent the Lord in ministry, in using music biblically as it was in the

13:47

Old Testament temple and in worship to God in the New Testament church, we should be galvanized by mission and not by ambition, by mandate and not by accolades, and by love for the

14:01

Master, not by the allurements of this world. And so what we need to have are musicians that are not only gifted musically, but as David said in 1st

14:13

Chronicles, that they were trained not only in the craft of the music, but also they were skillful in how they handled the law of God.

14:24

I think this is so vital. Again, as we talked last week, music is such a powerful tool by divine design.

14:33

You know, again, if you have a well -crafted song, within a few minutes people can listen to it. They can hum along with it.

14:38

They may have even memorized the chorus of a song. And it's a perfect vehicle to memorize

14:45

Scripture, to point people to Christ. I think Martin Luther said his second favorite book besides the

14:51

Scriptures was the hymnal. Why? Because he could take great truths, theological truths, like in A Mighty Fortress is

14:58

Our God, put them in a common vernacular of a song, and though people maybe didn't have in his day their own copy of Scripture, they could sing those great songs and learn about the greatness of God and the gospel of Christ and worship.

15:13

Well, here, the issue today is that Christian artists primarily don't have to pass some sort of test of ordination to be a musician -priest, to use music as a vehicle.

15:28

I think it would be so helpful. As you know, we have to be ordained as elders, as pastors, as deacons within a church.

15:35

Why not make that role of musician -priest an elder function of a church?

15:40

Because it's leading in worship. You're taking the truth of who our Lord is and you're applying them to song.

15:47

Now, the problem and my concern is, in these days, is that musicians by nature, songwriters, primarily work from an aspect of feeling rather than truth.

16:00

Pastors primarily work from an aspect, or at least they should, from the teaching of the truth of God's Word and not first and foremost their feelings or emotions.

16:10

So what you have in Christian music, and there's nothing wrong with it, you have primarily testimony songs, as opposed to what the great hymn writers of the church would write, like on Christ the

16:22

Solid Rock I Stand, or on songs like All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name, or Crown Him with Many Crowns, or we've already mentioned

16:31

A Mighty Fortress is Our God. When I surveyed the Wondrous Cross, the reason that those hymns have endured, they were written by pastors and they were written by men skilled to handle the

16:43

Word of God. And so what my burden is, can we take the skillfulness of those gifted with the teaching and preaching of God's Word and marry it with the hymns and spiritual songs of this generation, so you have not only great music, but truth that is uncompromised.

17:04

And that takes a skillfulness in those writings to be able to do so. And that's the burden that I have, not only for Christian music, but for Christian ministry in general.

17:15

Is it rooted in Scripture, and is it expressed in a way that it goes beyond the personal feelings or testimonies of the moment to real truthfulness that can be passed on if the

17:27

Lord carries another generation, so that they can learn and worship in glory in Christ Jesus alone.

17:33

And of course we do have a much -beloved testimony song that you and I cherish,

17:39

Amazing Grace, but there's a lot of biblical content in the God -centeredness as to how the wretch was saved and so on.

17:49

Oh yeah, phenomenal example, that's right. That's a great song, a testimony, and it's a great song of God's truth of what

18:00

Amazing Grace really is. I mean the opening line, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, there's the

18:09

Reformed faith put in a nutshell that salvation is of the Lord. He saved me, as Paul says in Titus 3, 5.

18:18

It's not that we chose to be saved, He saved us, and by the gift of faith and grace in Christ Jesus caused us to respond in confession of who the

18:29

Lord really is. And you know, we know that the great hope and the great truth of Scripture never returns void.

18:40

And so when we see songs like that of testimony that is rooted in God and His grace, we can see the history, and if people don't realize it, that's the personal testimony of that great writer,

18:55

John Newton, who was a slave owner, and he came under such conviction and was redeemed out of that practice.

19:05

This is a song, freedom spiritually, but freedom also in how he treated his fellow man.

19:11

It's a wonderful testimonial song. Great example, Chris, excellent. We're going to go to a break right now.

19:17

We do have a question from a listener waiting in the wings for us, Tom in West Islip, Long Island, New York.

19:23

If you could hold, we will be right with you with an answer to your question,

19:28

God willing, after this break. If you have any questions, or those of you who have not written questions yet, please email them now or as soon as possible at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

19:40

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. When you email a question, please at least include your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if outside the

19:53

USA. We'll be right back with Steve Camp on Christian Music, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

20:03

Thriven Financial is pleased to support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. While others see money as a goal,

20:10

Thriven sees it as a tool for serving God, family, and community. For more than a century,

20:16

Thriven has helped its nearly 2 .5 million Christian members make financial decisions that reflect their values while also helping them live generously.

20:26

Find out more by contacting me, Mike Gallagher, at 717 -254 -6433.

20:34

Thriven Financial, connecting faith and finances for good. Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

20:48

That's the Thriven story. And we welcome

21:02

Thriven Financial of Carlisle, Pennsylvania to the advertising family of Iron Sharpens Iron.

21:08

We thank Mike Gallagher, the local branch manager of Thriven Financial, for helping the efforts of Iron Sharpens Iron with his financial sponsorship, and we hope that this becomes a very mutually rewarding experience for both of us.

21:24

And it's good to know that Mike Gallagher is a good brother in the Lord. So let me repeat their phone number,

21:32

Thriven Financial of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 717 -254 -6433.

21:40

717 -254 -6433. And we are, if you just tuned us in, we are discussing

21:46

Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly with our guest, Steve Camp, who is an award -winning

21:53

Christian recording artist, a Grammy award -winning songwriter, and he's also the pastor at Cross Church in Palm City, Florida, and their website is crosschurch .net,

22:04

crosschurch .net. And let me go to the question written to us by Tom in West Islet, Long Island.

22:14

First, Tom, Alyssa and Amanda say hello from West Islet. Besides wishing you well, we would like to thank you for all the support rendered to us while in Florida last year during our dire time of need.

22:27

That Bible you gave me is being read almost every night. It is a reminder of God's healing grace and mercy.

22:33

As far as my question, I have read many times opinions about what kind of music can be played in the church.

22:41

Many are against guitars and such. Is there a proper definition of what is allowed and not allowed?

22:48

Well, that's a very good question. We sort of addressed that with melodies and rhythms last time, and the

22:56

Old Testament had specific instruments that were required to be used in worship.

23:03

I'm not sure that God would have been pleased with people picking up any old instrument, and of course

23:10

Nadab and Abihu learned the lesson the hard way about being too creative when it came to worship, being consumed in flames when they lit a strange fire to the

23:22

Lord. Many people would say that there are no such restrictions in the New Covenant. And of course then you have also people who, and some of them are our dear brothers, even many of them are our dear

23:34

Reformed brothers who do not believe in the use of any instruments in the

23:40

New Testament other than the human voice, because there are none mentioned in the New Testament other than in regard to heaven.

23:48

But that's a good question, because it's a common question that comes up. Can a church appropriately use a guitar or any other instrument for that matter?

24:00

And before you even answer, it reminds me though of T. David Gordon in his book

24:05

Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, when he was talking about music that is inappropriate for worship.

24:14

He brought up an analogy, how would you feel if a precious loved one of yours died, and then during the funeral of that loved one some folks came in and started playing kazoos.

24:29

Obviously that would be very inappropriate unless for some reason the deceased prior to dying requested such a thing, but I think he made a valid point that there might not be any statement in the

24:43

New Testament that strictly forbids certain instruments. There are some instruments and the use of some instruments that would be ridiculous for a worship service.

24:54

Yeah, you know I appreciate the question, and thanks for that encouragement there

24:59

Tom as well. In Psalm 150, this is a great psalm, praise him with the trumpet, praise him with the lute and harp, stringed instruments in other words, praise him with tambourine and dance.

25:13

Oh my goodness, did all the Reformed Baptists hear that? You can praise him with dance.

25:22

Now I'm living proof that white men can't dance, brother. I have,

25:29

Cindy and I have some of our kids that are amazing dancers, and they are so gifted. Praise him with strings and pipe, praise him with sounding cymbals and with loud clashing cymbals, and then the psalmist says let everything that has breath praise the

25:46

Lord. So here we have trumpets, lutes, harps, tambourines, dance strings, pipes, cymbals, loud crashing cymbals, drums are sanctified, yes, guitars, yes, you can use them, bass and organ, and you know sometimes it's appropriate, and I've done this in most concerts

26:09

I've done Chris, and we do it in worship at our church, sometimes we cut out all the instruments and you just hear the wonderful chorus of voices singing praise to the

26:21

Lord. All of it is good. I think the thing that's difficult is when people want to be dogmatic in either direction, and they want to make an unbiblical assertion that they want to equate with sound doctrine based on personal taste or inference, and so some people

26:43

I know just don't care for country music, but I tell you there are some great country songs that go on for decades of great classical kind of Christian songs.

26:57

Christopher Parkening, an amazing classical guitarist, I haven't seen Christopher in a number of years, but I in the past was privileged to call him friend, and he is such a dear brother in the

27:10

Lord, and what a great classical guitarist he is. And then you know we have great vocalists,

27:18

I mean who would deny the brilliance of a great vocal like a Sandy Patty or a

27:24

Steve Green or a Russ Taft would have, those are great voices. I'm a singer -songwriter,

27:31

I play piano and sing, and you know it gives me hope that let anything that has breath praise the

27:40

Lord. I can't compete with a Steve Green or a Russ Taft, those are really great singers, but I love to sing and use whatever vocal ability the

27:48

Lord's given me to praise him with. You know some people when they play guitar they make it sing like a

27:55

Phil Keagy, when I play guitar I make it cough. I am not a guitarist, but I love to play, but I'm so grateful for the brilliance of a

28:05

Phil Keagy. But you know these are great musicians and all of it can be used.

28:11

It saddens me when churches want to say a guitar is somehow evil or satanic and an organ is holy.

28:21

It saddens me when they'll say that well maybe a tambourine is okay, but a full drum kit that's of the devil.

28:27

And we have to be very careful from pronouncing spiritual judgments on those things.

28:34

Listen I may not be a huge fan of southern gospel music, but I'm grateful for Bill and Gloria Gaither and the wonderful songs and even modern day hymns that they've given to people and given in the churches.

28:49

You know Andre Crouch who's now home with the Lord has written beautiful songs like To God Be the

28:54

Glory or Through It All or Jesus is the Answer. Great black gospel music.

29:01

All of it is so wonderful that it can be used in different expression, but as you brought up we would want to keep that in context.

29:10

We don't want to go to the loss of a friend or a loved one in their funeral and sing a song that would be tantamount to Yankee Doodle Dandy with kazoos.

29:22

I think that would be inappropriate. Is there anything respectful in that by nature?

29:28

No, but the situation would deem it as such. We would want to sing hymns that speak of the goodness of Christ and his comfort and resurrection strength and hope beyond the grave.

29:42

Hymns like Be Thou My Vision or the modern day hymn In Christ Alone. These are great songs of hope or the great hymn

29:50

On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand. What great hope. My mom, Chris, 96 years old, walked with the

29:57

Lord faithfully for 83 years. Just a few months ago went home to be with the

30:03

Lord and we were able to sing How Firm a Foundation and The Old Rugged Cross and then a song written by a friend of mine,

30:15

Graham Kendrick, All I Once Held Dear. My mom loved the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and in that setting we want to pay honor to her but we want to bring glory to the

30:27

Lord Jesus Christ. And so worship is the same way. Listen, when I'm leading worship at our church on Sunday morning, people have always asked me how come

30:38

I don't do some of my own songs or Heaven by Storm or Why Why Why or He Covers Me and I'm saying this isn't a time for performance, this is a time for worship.

30:47

And so we use some of my songs that I've written that are totally God -centered and upward.

30:53

We want that not to be a performance but to be worship. But if I were to do a concert at a college on a

30:59

Friday night, that's going to have a different tone to it than Sunday morning worship but with the common element that it'll be

31:06

Christ -centered and speak boldly of His Word and His Gospel. So we have to be sensitive to the situation.

31:14

And just like this last fall, Chris, there was a person that I had met whose sister was dying of leukemia and from the time

31:23

I met her to the time where she went home to be with the Lord was a span of only three weeks. And I went after church one

31:30

Sunday, they were all going to come to church and she couldn't travel. I went there and I gave communion to the family and we sang songs together and some of her songs just with a guitar and I tell you it was a sweet time of worship for this precious gal in the

31:47

Lord. And in her funeral again was a time of exalting Christ and honoring the

31:53

Lord Jesus. So you know that environment does impact how we do what we do but here's the overriding principle.

32:02

If we are to do all things to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, then that should mark even how

32:09

Christian artists perform at a Christian concert. It shouldn't be self -aggrandizing.

32:16

We don't have the freedom, if we're representing the Lord, to do the same kind of movements and expressions that maybe our secular counterparts would have.

32:24

Why? Because we're not there to simply draw people at all to ourselves.

32:30

We are there to bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. So you know what, when my dear late friend

32:35

Keith Green would do a concert, right from that beginning note to the end note, Chris, even though Keith was not

32:43

Reformed, it was no mistake. He was there to glorify the Lord, to call people to follow

32:49

Jesus Christ and a wayward church to repent and follow Him in sanctification. I miss my brother.

32:55

His great songs like Asleep in the Light or even the song that his wife wrote but that he made famous,

33:04

There is a Redeemer. So many of Keith's songs were just God -conceived,

33:10

Christ -centered, Spirit -controlled. And there, it was wonderful. He was not there as an entertainer.

33:17

He was there as a minister of the gospel in music. And that's what I think in contemporary music, as well as overall in Christian ministry, we need to remember.

33:28

Whether you're preaching a sermon, whether you're writing a book, whether you're holding a conference, whether you're part of a women's ministry group or a men's outreach group, whether you're doing a concert or a worship event, we should have, it should all agree with Scripture, it should honor and glorify the

33:45

Lord Jesus Christ. And when speaking of His gospel, we should not stutter and make it politically correct.

33:51

We should go into all the world and proclaim His truth. More boldly than the world proclaims its sin.

33:58

And in the time, Chris, that we live in, where we're seeing society spiral down at accelerated rates, what a time in that kind of darkness in society that we see today to let our light shine.

34:10

And we need to do that with strong conviction and music is a great tool to communicate those truths.

34:16

Bye. We're going to go to another break right now. If you have questions for Steve Camp on Christian music, the good, the bad and the ugly, email them to us now if you can at chrizarnsen at gmail .com.

34:29

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please include your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if outside the

34:39

USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Steve Camp. It's easy to put off saving for retirement, but it's just as easy to start.

34:50

Once you do, you'll feel more confident about your future. So where to begin? Start with Thriving Financial.

34:58

They'll help you define your financial goals and take realistic steps to help you reach them. It comes down to making wise choices about money, because even small steps add up.

35:09

Contact me, Mike Gallagher at 717 -254 -6433.

35:17

Licensed agent producer of Thriving Financial. Marketing name Thriving Financial. Registered representative of Thriving Investment Management Incorporated.

35:26

Thriving .com. We know we were made for so much more than ordinary life.

35:34

Lending faith, finances, and generosity. That's the Thriving story. We were made to thrive.

35:51

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study.

35:57

Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the NASB is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable

36:03

Bible translation. The NASB offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the

36:10

NASB is known for. The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference

36:19

Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues. From compact to giant print

36:25

Bibles, find an NASB that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com.

36:30

Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com.

36:36

That's nasbible .com. Tired of box store Christianity?

36:41

Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

36:49

And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

36:55

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

37:05

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us.

37:22

That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

37:30

This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Steve Camp, who is an award -winning

37:35

Christian recording artist, a Grammy award -winning Christian song writer, and he is also the pastor of Cross Church in Palm City, Florida.

37:47

Their website is crosschurch .net. And in addition to all of that, he is a very excellent conference speaker and controversial blogger and a very studied, reformed apologist.

38:02

And we are delighted to have him back on our program to discuss Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

38:11

The issue is more than just style of rhythms and melodies and choices of instruments.

38:20

And it also goes beyond lyrical content at times. What do you do when a person who is a known heretic has written and perhaps even recorded some absolutely breathtaking and wonderful music?

38:38

I can think of Phillips, Craig and Dean, for instance, who for many years denied the

38:47

Trinity. And to my knowledge, although I keep hearing rumors to the contrary, and perhaps you could clarify what you've heard on that, there are other groups like that.

39:00

I discovered recently some songs that I really love that I had never heard before were composed and recorded by a

39:09

Roman Catholic recording artist, and so on. What do you do in those situations?

39:14

Should we never use them in our worship services? Should we discourage our brethren in Christ not to purchase these things and listen to them, etc.?

39:23

And obviously there may be case -by -case factors involved in this, but if you could comment on that.

39:30

Yeah, great question, Chris. You know, I think you have to handle it case -by -case, and in some cases song -by -song.

39:41

You know, Vance Haggard one time said, what's in the well comes up in the bucket. And there's a great truth in that.

39:48

People don't wander too far from their theological underpinnings, and our view of God determines everything.

39:57

If you have a low view of God or a truncated view of God or a distorted view of God, an errant view of God, if you've recreated

40:05

God in your own image to accommodate your own life and practice, you're going to then have a

40:11

Christianity or a faith or a religion that represents that view of God. If you remember in Psalm 50, where Judah had sinned grievously against the

40:22

Lord, and then the Lord said, because I was not swift to judge you, they drew a false conclusion.

40:30

He says, you thought I was just like you. There's the problem. They thought that God was just like them, that because he didn't bring swift judgment on them, that somehow their view of God gave them license to live in a certain way, free from conscience, free from conviction.

40:51

Romans 1 calls it a reprobate mind. It means a mind tested and tried and found useless.

40:58

It's reprobate. It's lost its conscience. And that's what we're seeing creep in to evangelicalism today.

41:07

Now, when there's no filter that goes on in Christian radio, say for example, or in Christian publishing, where literal heretics can publish material absent of the basics of redemptive history, absent of the basis of historic biblical

41:28

Christianity, and because they feel it, or because they're given over to a certain stripe of personal belief, but because they're selling thousands of books, or in some cases, millions of books.

41:41

Some of these guys even have their own study Bible, because they have a huge platform.

41:47

We know what the problem is there. The motive is money and sales. It's not truth. It's not doctrine. It's not theology.

41:53

But listen, those things matter to God. I agree with Os Guinness, Chris, when he said many years ago that the sea change that we see that has happened in Christianity in the last hundred years, it's been an emphasis from serving

42:07

God to an emphasis on serving the self in serving God.

42:13

So, when the object of faith is no longer Christ but our self -esteem, when the goal of faith is no longer holiness but our happiness, when the source of faith is no longer the scriptures but our experience, then seemingly anything from soup to nuts is accepted as long as you say,

42:32

I believe. And I believe in Jesus. You don't even have to say the right Jesus. You can just say

42:37

Jesus. And it may not be the biblical Jesus. So, you can have, and again,

42:43

I haven't heard of the contrary, but you can have people that in the past have said we deny the

42:49

Trinity. We deny the three members of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, co -equal, co -eternal, co -existing from all eternity.

42:58

That's the doctrine of the Trinity. You can have them deny the Trinity. Phillips, Craig, and Dean have been outspoken in the past.

43:05

I pray to God they've changed. T .D. Jakes, a very effective communicator, but he's a heretic.

43:12

He denies the Godhead of the Bible. And I tell you, if you deny God the Father, God the

43:17

Son, and God the Holy Spirit, no matter what you call Him, that's not the

43:24

God of the Bible. Because the God of the Bible is triune. And so, we have to be so careful.

43:31

Someone's theology in what they're saying, in the pool of what they're saying, matters. So, when you have

43:38

Brian Houston, who has now recently come out proactively and very soft on the whole gay marriage issue, and he's a word -faith guy who has had

43:50

T .D. Jakes many times at his church and so forth, but he pastors a church in Australia called

43:56

Hillsong. Well, my friend Darlene Chek goes to that church. She's written a classic, wonderful song,

44:04

Shout to the Lord. And I love that song, but here's the case in point, that we must examine

44:11

Hillsong's music carefully, not because of Darlene, but because of their pastor, one who has ventured off into air, into other areas.

44:23

And so, it doesn't mean that everything is bad that comes out of Hillsong. There are some beautiful songs that they've done, but you have to examine each one biblically.

44:32

Some of it, the teachings of Joyce Myers and others in those fields,

44:38

Dr. Paula White, I use that term Dr. loosely, but Paula White and others in the word -faith constituency, they have a different view of who

44:49

Jesus is, and they have a different view of the gospel. And therefore, we have to be guarded.

44:55

I'm not saying and naming these names to be mean. I'm just saying that truth matters, doctrine matters, theology matters.

45:02

And listen, it's not sound doctrine that ultimately divides and causes problems.

45:08

It's unsound doctrine. That's the pollutant that comes into the church. Now, when you take unsound doctrine and you put it in music,

45:17

Chris, it's like the eruption of Mount St. Helens, where all of a sudden that ash and soot and so forth gets into the jet stream, and it goes for hundreds of miles unfettered.

45:30

You put unsound doctrine into the arts and into books and into tapes, or these days into mp3s and streaming.

45:39

Man, it gets into the jet stream of spirituality and evangelicalism, and it's impossible to pull that stuff back in.

45:47

That's why on Christian radio you'll hear at one point R .C. Sproul, and on the same station

45:53

Dr. John MacArthur, and on the same station Joyce Meyer, and on the same station

45:59

T .D. Jakes, or Kenneth Copeland, or whoever else it might be, Joel Osteen.

46:05

And what it does is it blends these lines together so people think that station has done its due diligence or that network in really applying the truth of Scripture to those various ministries, but the average person in the pew or the church is not discerning.

46:24

I don't say that critically, but they're not saying with the right filter doctrinally, oh man, MacArthur's good, but maybe

46:30

Joyce isn't so good. To them it's all in that same network, and they're like, I get a flavor of so many different kinds of ministries, and they're feeling blessed by it all, when in reality only maybe a handful of those teachers are representing

46:44

Orthodox Biblical Christianity. It's a real problem. So yes, if there's someone, Chris, that has denied a cardinal aspect of the truth, and I'm not talking about drums in church or length of hair, do you have to wear a suit and attire, blue jeans and an

46:58

IZOD shirt, I mean, we're way beyond that at this point. We're talking about the essentials of the faith being maligned or being weakened for the sake of the sale or the fame of someone's name and ministry.

47:12

We've got a real issue that, and it's difficult to reel that back in without seeming that you're the one being negative.

47:20

For simply saying, hey wait, this person is not Orthodox, be careful. They think you're the one who's being mean and divisive for calling attention to someone and holding them to the veracity and truth of Scripture.

47:31

Only the contrary is true. It's out of love that we try to encourage people, be discerning about these various things out there, because it could do harm to your eternal soul.

47:42

Well, going back to the Roman Catholic issue, for instance, I believe I discovered that in some of the most popular evangelical hymnals, there are some of the hymns that were written by Roman Catholics.

47:57

And if I'm not mistaken, I even think that one of the contemporary artists that you listed in the outset of the program that you utilize some music for in your own church,

48:07

I think that he may be Roman Catholic. I'm not going to be identifying which one because I'm not absolutely certain.

48:13

But if the person's music is completely biblical, I can even remember one of my favorite artists many years ago was

48:25

John Michael Talbot, who was a Roman Catholic, may still be a

48:31

Roman Catholic, and most of his music until later on when he started to include extra biblical lyrics of his own, but most of his music were actually psalms that I recall.

48:44

At least my favorite music that he recorded were psalms, but the music. But what do you do with a situation like that, where somebody has a beautiful song, a hymn, a spiritual song, etc.,

48:57

and the person themselves may be a Roman Catholic? Should that be a part of the worship?

49:02

You know, again, that's a really great question. You know, I would say this, that when we come to the arts, someone may start out in evangelicalism being orthodox in their beliefs, and I'm not speaking

49:18

Greek orthodox at this point, meaning the truthfulness of Scripture in their beliefs, but they may defect back to Romanism or another kind of thing, or they may go into Mormonism or Jehovah's Witness, or just be some hybrid of their own imagination.

49:35

Dion was one that went back to the Roman Catholic Church. Yeah, that's right. And I think this,

49:40

I think if there are songs that were written before that time, you'd have to examine them in terms of their biblical truthfulness, and if they're true, use them.

49:51

However, moving forward, you know, John Michael Talbot, a great example of this, became a

49:57

Franciscan monk, but ultimately took a wife, which was great to see. I saw

50:02

John before he became a Christian when he was part with his brother Terry of a great band called

50:07

Mason Prophet back in the early 70s. They were big in the Chicago area and so forth, and then the

50:15

Talbot brothers did some work, and then John had released some acoustic guitar albums. He's a brilliant guitarist.

50:21

What a gifted musician he is. And you're right, a lot of those early albums he made were basically

50:26

Scripture put to music. I think that that's wonderful. However, when someone represents theology that is antithetical to the

50:35

Word of God and would speak of Roman Catholic doctrine that is apocryphal at best, meaning extra biblical, then it needs to be guarded against for the sake of the truthfulness of the

50:48

Word. That matters. When we see Scripture being used, when

50:54

David's saying, oh how I love thy law, or Jesus even in John 17, sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth.

51:04

In 1 Thessalonians 2, where Paul is complimenting the church at Thessalonica for saying, when you heard the

51:12

Word of God, you received it, not as the Word of men, but in actuality what it is, the Word of God.

51:17

We see this in Scripture as guarding the truthfulness and the veracity of Scripture.

51:24

It's inerrancy, it's infallibility, it's inspiration. We cannot diminish that. And so when we would come upon denominations that maybe are affiliated with Christianity but are not

51:35

Christian in their doctrine of the Gospel, which is what Paul used as sola fide, faith alone, as the cardinal rule of thumb on what separated the true from the false that began with the

51:46

Gospels where Satan primarily attacks, but also on different doctrines.

51:52

And when you would see in music writers that are maybe coming from the spring of Romanism, again what's in the well comes up in the bucket, eventually that unsound doctrine will permeate other aspects of the art.

52:06

It can't help but do so. And in doing so, we must guard against it. Prior to that, if songs were written without that influence, take them, be discerning, use them to the glory of God.

52:18

It doesn't discredit everything that particular person did, but if they've converted to something else or have gone the way of the world.

52:25

We've seen some Christian artists come out lately that said that they are now homosexual and they are committed in a monogamous gay relationship.

52:34

Well listen, we've got to call those dear men and women back to the Gospel, back to the Lord Jesus Christ.

52:41

That lifestyle could not represent what is holy and true and right.

52:46

Even though we love them and want to see them walking with the Lord again, we would not want to support their music that would represent a gay view in this case of marriage.

52:57

And of course going back to the theology of hymn writers, there are many deceased hymn writers whose works are in our hymnals and their theological backgrounds may not even be broadly known.

53:13

So you would be safer singing a theologically sound hymn by someone like that because there's not going to be the negative baggage of books coming out or things that will be teaching heresy, etc.

53:28

If you follow what I'm saying. I don't know if I'm making sense. Yeah, absolutely. Well you know, Chris, a lot of the hymnals that people use in churches, now we don't use hymnals, we use overheads and so forth, but you know,

53:41

I'm quick to mention who wrote a particular song or are people like a song to give credit where credit's due.

53:49

But you know, a lot of the hymnals in the past, it says that these songs and these hymnals were approved by the eldership of XYZ church or XYZ denomination.

53:59

Now we can't do that in the broader scope today as much because there are 20 ,000 denominations all claiming to be

54:06

Christian, many of them claiming to be evangelical within the United States today.

54:12

So it's a vast array and everyone is splintering and creating their own faction and their own kind of set of beliefs, not based on doctrinal truth, just based on preference or based on rebellion or whatever else it may be, based on celebrity or personality.

54:28

And so we have to be careful to really examine that. I would say if anyone's listening and you're part of a pastor of a community of believers, you're shepherding your church, you're the pastor of a church, you're part of an eldership, a deaconship, may

54:41

I encourage you that whoever leads the singing part of the worship at that church, give them the task and the title of being the chief musician of that congregation.

54:53

Make it an elder qualified position so that they are qualified in life and doctrine to lead people in those songs within a local church and congregation.

55:03

And then may I also encourage you as the people of those churches, examine what you're singing.

55:09

You know, a beautiful song, say Chris, like Above All, we sing that song at our own church.

55:16

But I rewrote part of the chorus because the last part of the chorus says, as the original version says, as a rose trampled on the ground, he took the fall and thought of me above all.

55:29

Well, that's not worship. Secondly, it's not true. You know, the primary thought of Jesus on the cross was not me.

55:42

Now, that's very sentimental. It's a God is my girlfriend song. He thought of me above all. How precious.

55:47

Well, no. That's not the primary north of the cross. But we changed.

55:54

I rewrote that lyric years ago to say, as a lamb, he wore the sinner's crown.

56:01

He took it all and honored God above all. Well, now we can sing it. Now it's worship.

56:08

The rest of the song is great. So be discerning as local pastors, as shepherds, elders, and deacons, lay leaders within a church, members of a praise team.

56:18

Examine the lyric. Change them if they're not biblical. Bring the test of scripture to them because you want your people to be singing songs that honor and glorify the

56:28

Lord. Listen, whether they're more up -tempo, whether they're more of a classical nature, whether they sound like a traditional hymn.

56:35

My grandmother, Chris, was a wonderful hymn writer back in the 40s and so forth.

56:41

In her day, I never met her. She went home to be with the Lord before I was born, but she's written some great hymns, that beautiful name, and he's coming again.

56:51

Bev Shea knew of her music and songs. In fact, when I met

56:56

Bev Shea for the first time, he said to me, Steve, I want you to know that your grandfather, Norman Camp, would preach on the south side of Chicago.

57:05

And he said, before I went to join the Billy Graham Association, I would do the singing before your grandfather would preach.

57:12

And he would sing, and it's a small world in the body of Christ. I thank the Lord for that godly heritage of music.

57:18

My grandmother wrote beautiful, godly, biblical songs. So I love the hymns, and I love the contemporary songs.

57:25

So listen, whether it's country, whether it's pop -sounding musically, whether it's traditional or gospel or a hymn -like song or a praise chorus, let it be all those styles of music that wonderfully can reflect and represent the message that is a biblical message of Christ and who he is, whether it's a song of praise, a song of the gospel, a song of testimony, let it resonate to who our

57:52

Lord is. And it's simple. If it's not truthful, either rewrite it or amputate it from your musical catalog there, because you want the music to be reflective of who

58:02

God is in worship. When you were talking about rewriting the hymns, it reminded me of when

58:07

I was interviewing a number of years ago a former gang member.

58:13

In fact, he was a former Latin king, Christian Claudio, who became a Christian in prison.

58:19

And during the interview, I said to Christian Claudio, you know, I used to be in a gang too.

58:26

And he lit up with his eyes bugged open. He goes, really? I said, yeah, it was quite a dangerous gang.

58:32

We were called the Calvinist Crusaders. And I said, what we used to do is late at night, we'd break into Armenian churches and rewrite the lyrics in their hymnals.

58:44

But anyway, we got to go to a break right now. If you want to send us an email, remember, we are going to be entering our second hour of Iron Trepans Iron for the first time.

58:55

So please don't leave. Please stay tuned if you're able to. We are entering the second hour for the very first time on Iron Trepans Iron from 5 to 6 p .m.

59:05

Eastern time. But if you could send us an email with questions for Steve on Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly, we would love to receive them.

59:13

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com is the email address.

59:19

Please include your first name, city and state of residence, and country of residence if outside the

59:25

USA. And please try to stick to the subject of Christian music in some fashion.

59:32

And we would love to hear from you after these messages. So don't go away. We're going to be right back with award -winning

59:39

Christian recording artist, Steve Camp. Lynbrook Baptist Church on 225

59:49

Earl Avenue in Lynbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

59:55

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

01:00:01

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

01:00:09

We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.

01:00:15

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

01:00:22

Call Lynbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

01:00:29

Or visit lynbrookbaptist .org. That's lynbrookbaptist .org. Introducing 1031

01:00:36

Sermon Jams. Sermon Jams. But now for the good news that sounds like sweet music in the hell -bound sinner's ears, especially if you're like me and you know that you don't need

01:00:51

Romans 3 to remind you of how wicked you are. If you would like to learn more about 1031

01:00:57

Sermon Jams, visit us at our website at 1031SermonJams .com, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

01:01:05

Hi, I'm Mike Gallagher.

01:01:14

Support for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio comes from Thriven Financial, where faith and finances connect for good.

01:01:21

Thriven helps its members be wise with money and live generously. Nearly two and a half million

01:01:26

Christians count on Thriven to help them protect their families and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship.

01:01:34

To learn more about what makes Thriven unique, contact me at 717 -254 -6433.

01:02:04

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, we have been interviewing already for one hour

01:02:11

Steve Kemp, who is an award -winning Christian recording artist and a Grammy award winning songwriter.

01:02:16

And he is also the pastor of Cross Church in Palm City, Florida. Their website is crosschurch .net.

01:02:24

We're discussing the very controversial theme of Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

01:02:33

And we're going to be going into something very controversial about a much -beloved

01:02:38

Christian recording artist that seems to have gone public with some dangerous heresies.

01:02:44

And Don Francisco is his name. And Steve, if you could tell us about what you have found out about Don Francisco and his view of the

01:02:52

Word of God. Yeah, it's been a hard few weeks to do this and to be engaged over at his

01:03:01

Facebook page. I tried to go to Don personally, and I never heard back from Don, so that you guys know this.

01:03:13

He has recently come out, and again, I've known Don for years. We're not friends, we're more acquaintances, but Don has written some of the most wonderful story songs.

01:03:27

You know, the song, He's Alive, probably the most famous one. Just phenomenal.

01:03:33

He's basically quoting scripture or telling that story in such a wonderful way.

01:03:43

But he recently came out here at the end of June, just about two and a half, three weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, on his own

01:03:52

Facebook page. And he came out against the inerrancy, infallibility, and the biblical view of the inspiration of scripture.

01:04:06

If I can, for your listeners, a very basic definition. When we say scripture is inerrant, we believe that it is free from error.

01:04:18

No error. It's a simple definition. Dr. MacArthur and the

01:04:23

Master's Seminary put on an inerrancy conference just a few months ago out in California. It was a great conference, and it's a needed subject.

01:04:33

I was surprised that Don came out so strong against this. Infallibility means not only free from error, but it means that it's true in all of its parts.

01:04:46

That whatever scripture represents, it cannot lead into error, and it's truthful. Meaning, Chris, when scripture speaks of history, or science, or relationship, or kingdoms, or geology, or whatever it may be, including the self -revelation of God and the gospel, anything that scripture would communicate is true and cannot lead into error.

01:05:11

So those two things. It is free from error, and it cannot lead people into error, and whatever it speaks, it speaks holy and true.

01:05:21

Don came out here recently in saying this, and I'm reading from his own

01:05:27

Facebook page here. It says, the foundations have been destroyed, but not in the simplistic way most of Western Christianity imagines.

01:05:38

It has taken centuries of knee -jerk defensiveness, blind acceptance, and willful ignorance to reach our present state of ruin.

01:05:47

We have become idolaters, and we worship the Bible, calling it infallible and inerrant.

01:05:54

We have exalted it to the place between humankind and God. Paradoxically, we have made the

01:06:00

Bible an antichrist. Now that's just shocking language.

01:06:06

Wow, that is very shocking language, especially when Christ himself identified, he is identified in the

01:06:14

Word of God as the Word become flesh. That's right, and Don goes on to say, he says,

01:06:22

I know these are hard words, but we must hear them. In our foolish attempts to defend the faith, we have turned the scriptures into a solid piece of cement and blocked the doorway to life with it.

01:06:36

The Word of God is perfect, infallible, and inerrant, and by the age of 18, it had grown a beard.

01:06:44

The Bible is many wonderful things, but it is not the Word of God. Only the Father's beloved

01:06:49

Son is. When that living Word is redefined by men as words on a page, they murder the prophets of every age from Adam down to the present, blocking the

01:07:02

Holy Spirit from their own hearts as they deny his voice and be heard in anyone else's, and his voice is heard by anyone who will listen.

01:07:12

Wow. He closes by saying, before the foundations can be rebuilt, the rubble must be removed, the lies, misconceptions, and half truths, and the unstable, dangerous, and hurtful structures that they are built on.

01:07:27

The first step is exposing the rubble for what it is, and the rubble that he is referring to is the inerrancy, infallibility, and what we would classically come to know is the divine doctrine of the inspired

01:07:42

Word of God. Now, those are shocking words, and I'm not trying to do, as you know, Chris and I have talked here about a myriad of things involving music, and involving the importance of Scripture, but Chris, when you have a

01:07:55

Christian artist as beloved as Don is, and who has written so many beautiful story songs taken right out of the

01:08:01

Bible, and then he says paradoxically, we become idolaters and we worship the

01:08:07

Bible, calling it infallible and inerrant, and we have made the Bible an antichrist.

01:08:14

We're not just saying we disagree on the meaning of a few verses, we're not just saying this is an

01:08:20

Arminian Calvinistic debate, or a conservative progressive debate, we're saying someone denies

01:08:27

Scripture for what it actually is, and I want you to know in the

01:08:33

Scriptures, what Don said there, and I wrote back a nice reply, I try to communicate personally with him at first, so that, you know, we could have a dialogue.

01:08:45

He never responded, but I want you to know when he says here in this definition that only

01:08:50

Jesus is referred to as the Word of God in Scripture, not even that is accurate.

01:08:57

John 1 in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Prostantheon, with God, and the

01:09:04

Word was God. In that verse, it doesn't say Jesus is the Word of God, as if he is created by God, or something separate than being who

01:09:16

God is. He is called the Word, but in Scripture, I just want to read a few verses to you.

01:09:22

Acts 12 24, but the Word of God increased and multiplied. First Kings 12 22, but the

01:09:28

Word of God came to Shemiah, the man of God. Luke 8 11, and the parable is this, the seed is the

01:09:34

Word of God. Ephesians 6 17, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

01:09:40

Spirit, which is the Word of God. You know, John 3 34, for he whom

01:09:48

God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit. First Timothy 4 5, it is made holy by the

01:09:57

Word of God in prayer. We could go on and on. There are so many verses that speak of Scripture as being the

01:10:06

Word of God, and in Hebrews 13 7, remember your leaders who spoke to you the Word of God.

01:10:13

So I mentioned to Don, I said, Don, if we're going to have an honest conversation about this, at least get the facts correct.

01:10:22

But to think that those that hold that there's no error in Scripture, and that it's divinely inspired, and I'd like to go into a definition of that a little bit later with you,

01:10:31

Chris, so people understand it, but that it's not infallible. My question to Don was simple.

01:10:38

How do you know which parts are inspired and are not? How do you know which parts that are true and what are not?

01:10:44

If you don't accept it all as being the Word of God, then how do you know which parts are not?

01:10:50

And we're told in 2 Peter 1 21 that no prophecy of Scripture was by the will of man, but it was

01:10:56

God who worked on them as he moved upon them. So this is a key issue, and again, shocking language.

01:11:03

If someone says his Scriptures are not inerrant, infallible, and that the Bible is an antichrist, somewhere deified between humankind and God, and we're bibliolaters, we worship the

01:11:16

Book and not the Lord of the Book, those are not only serious charges, those are serious departures from the faith, and we need to pray for our brother.

01:11:24

Yes, and it's actually nonsensical because he gets his definition of the

01:11:31

Word from the Bible when he quotes the fact that Jesus is the

01:11:36

Word made flesh. So he's getting that from the Bible, and if you are saying that the

01:11:42

Bible is not inerrant or infallible, how does he know that that's true? Well, no, that's right, and the thing is, is our mutual friend

01:11:52

James White got on his thread, and I've been blocked now from Don's Facebook.

01:11:58

Isn't that how strange that works, Chris? You know, I always thought Facebook could be

01:12:04

Gracebook, but I guess not in this case. I was saying it kindly and to our brother, but they wouldn't ever respond.

01:12:13

Don wouldn't ever respond to me directly. His wife would. Somebody else on the thread would, but never

01:12:19

Don, and so I was blocked from that. But isn't this the interesting thing, that when someone claims that Scripture is not those things, you're right.

01:12:28

How do you know what the very Gospel is, and how do you pick and choose what you think represents the path to life if all of Scripture is not free from error and absolutely true in what it speaks?

01:12:44

Even in terms of inspiration, one of their cohorts over there at Don's work and ministry was saying, well, it doesn't mean when he says all of Scripture is inspired by God, feo nustas, breathed out by God, that he's saying that it doesn't mean all of Scripture.

01:13:02

It just means that whatever Scriptures are inspired have been breathed out by God, but not every

01:13:08

Scripture. And again, this is plain mumbo -jumbo, and again, our friend James White gave some very good comments.

01:13:15

In fact, to support James in this, he invited Don to come on his own radio program or his dividing line internet program to answer some questions, which

01:13:26

I would love to be a fly on the wall on that, because James is one of the most articulate people in this area of ministry that we've been blessed with in the body of Christ.

01:13:34

He's phenomenal. What did you say his name was? James what? James White, and that is not meant as a racial slur.

01:13:45

By the way, for those of you who don't know, I'm a very good friend of James White and have been for 25 years or so, but yeah,

01:13:54

I would love to hear that. But obviously if Don Francisco has rejected your invitations to dialogue, what was the answer to James White, if any?

01:14:04

Well, I think it's that old wonderful phrase, crickets. I think it's been quiet.

01:14:12

But listen, to be helpful here, how much time, Chris, do we have before the next break here?

01:14:17

In fact, I'd like to take a break right now. All right, excellent. So if you have any questions, those of you listening, in fact, we do have a couple of listeners who have already emailed questions that I will go to after Steve makes his point when we return from the break.

01:14:35

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

01:14:43

Don't go away. By the way, Steve, I just wanted to let you know the engineering genius who set this studio up for me is not here, and I do not how to turn your voice down during a commercial break.

01:14:57

So I just wanted to keep in mind that either don't talk during a commercial break or if you have a mute button on your end, if you could use that, because I don't know how to turn your side off right now.

01:15:09

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. My wife, Cynthia, was getting me some coffee on one of the breaks, and so I apologize for my request for some good java.

01:15:19

Thank you. I'll remember that. All right. We're going to go to a break right now, and we'll be right back after these messages with Steve Camp and our subject at hand,

01:15:27

Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thriven Financial is pleased to support

01:15:35

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. While others see money as a goal, Thriven sees it as a tool for serving

01:15:42

God, family, and community. For more than a century, Thriven has helped its nearly two and a half million

01:15:48

Christian members make financial decisions that reflect their values while also helping them live generously.

01:15:55

Find out more by contacting me, Mike Gallagher, at 717 -254 -6433.

01:16:04

Thriven Financial, connecting faith and finances for good. Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

01:16:18

That's the Thriven story. We were made to thrive.

01:16:30

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study.

01:16:36

Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the NASB is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable

01:16:42

Bible translation. The NASB offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the

01:16:49

NASB is known for. The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference

01:16:58

Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues. From compact to giant print

01:17:04

Bibles, find an NASB that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com.

01:17:09

Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com.

01:17:15

That's nasbible .com. Tired of box store Christianity?

01:17:20

Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

01:17:28

And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

01:17:34

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

01:17:44

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

01:17:53

631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

01:18:01

That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

01:18:07

This is Chris Sarnes. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is award -winning Christian recording artist and Grammy award -winning writer, songwriter

01:18:15

Steve Camp, who is also the pastor of Cross Church in Palm City, Florida. Their website is crosschurch .net.

01:18:22

We were just before the break discussing the theological downfall of a very much beloved

01:18:29

Christian recording artist for many years, Don Francisco, who is denying the inerrancy of Scripture and actually calling the belief of the inerrancy of Scripture idolatry and calling the use of the

01:18:44

Bible in that fashion the Antichrist, which is just breathtaking in its disturbing nature.

01:18:52

And just so our listeners know, we are not gossiping about somebody who happened to mention something during a private conversation to Steve.

01:19:01

Don Francisco was making these views of his very public on Facebook and perhaps other places, but he is not ashamed or shy of these things.

01:19:11

And we are just discussing them now. In fact, if anybody is listening, I would love for Don Francisco to give a reply to what we are saying.

01:19:19

And perhaps we can even have him on the air with Steve in the future. But anyway, Steve, there is nothing inappropriate about this.

01:19:27

Am I correct? In fact, obviously, you would agree with that because you brought up Don Francisco by name.

01:19:33

No, that is right. You know, Chris, when any of us make public affirmations, whether it is through social media or through a blog post or a book or even a song, through an interview or whatever, we are entering the public arena and people are free then to comment publicly.

01:19:51

Because Don has been a friend in the past and an acquaintance and we are fellow artists in CCM for years,

01:19:57

I did put up a general post on his Facebook site and said, Don, I would like to speak to you about these things.

01:20:04

Would you send me your phone number? I had lost his private number. And I said, you can email it at my email address.

01:20:11

I never heard back from him. And so then I posted a couple of comments that were kind and general, but asking for a response for further clarification and got none.

01:20:22

By the way, so you know Dr. White's comment here. If I can read this for your listeners,

01:20:28

Jim said, what a tremendously disappointing statement. This is James speaking of Don Francisco's post that I just read to you.

01:20:37

What a disappointingly statement, especially to someone who has listened to your music for years. How on earth can you call believing the

01:20:46

Bible in the way that Jesus did is drinking the Kool -Aid? Where did Jesus ever show the first bit of distrust in the inerrancy of the

01:20:56

Bible? Remember when we said, when he said to the Sadducees, have you read what

01:21:03

God spoke to you saying? He then was basing his argument upon the tense of a verb.

01:21:09

It doesn't sound like he held to the same kind of modernistic view of the inspiration and preservation of the scriptures.

01:21:18

So how do you substitute such a broad accusation as you made in that single sentence?

01:21:26

And then the next comment, he invited him to come on to his program. So no, when someone speaks publicly about these things, as they have with me, they may take disagreement with me publicly.

01:21:39

We want it to be profitable. We don't want it to be all heat and no light. In other words, we don't want to go Geraldo on anybody.

01:21:47

You know, you want to make it profitable for people. So you don't make it personal.

01:21:53

You don't go to name calling or cheap shotedness or, you know, accusations, but you deal with the issue.

01:22:01

And so I'm concerned for Don because of his strong stance against these things. And now it's something that he is, he is taking this and read the comments on his thread on Facebook has just been amazing.

01:22:15

Like, oh, amen, brother. Thank you so much. By the way, one of the great concerns that I have for this, and again, based on our premise earlier today,

01:22:24

Chris, what's in the well comes up in the bucket. If your well has a polluted Bible, if your well has an errant

01:22:31

Bible, a fallible Bible, a Bible that you believe is not accurate, and it's a hit and miss on what is true or not, then you're going to have a belief system that is also hit and miss, and that is full of error.

01:22:45

I want you to know that in that same light, within this discussion of the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture, we can see this spill over to other influences.

01:23:00

Don right now says that one of the great influences of his life that he's drawing from is the theology of Rob Bell.

01:23:09

And Rob Bell, as you know, is a heretic. And so this is a real problem.

01:23:15

He's left Orthodox writers the truth of scripture to simply embrace now the teachings of one who has been dismissed by most of evangelicalism as one who is an errant writer himself.

01:23:31

So, you know, when someone embraces, as Don has, the teachings of Rob Bell, rather than the Orthodox views of scripture, what's in the well comes up in the bucket, and I'm just heartbroken.

01:23:42

So this is not meant to be mean. We're not gossiping. But because he threw this issue out on his own website, and it's gotten a few thousand responses, and they've passed it around,

01:23:53

I'm sure, to others, I felt comfortable, as well as Dr. White did, of addressing this publicly with him, and I'm so grateful that we have a chance not to expose

01:24:02

Don, but to reprove that which is unorthodox with what he's communicating here.

01:24:09

It's an important discussion. And, of course, a denial of the inerrancy of scripture is the loud noise that creates an avalanche of every type of heresy and blasphemy and satanic teaching to just cover the church on this earth.

01:24:24

Oh, there's no question. There's no question. Chris, Satan always attacks four main things.

01:24:31

He attacks the Godhead, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. He attacks the ministry and the nature of Jesus Christ.

01:24:40

He attacks the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And lastly, he attacks the very

01:24:47

Word of God. This is, the Bible is not an anti -Christ representation.

01:24:55

I still can't believe he printed those words. The scripture is absolutely true, and the one who does not embrace the

01:25:04

Word of God as free from error, true in all of its parts. As the psalmist says, the sum of thy word is truth.

01:25:12

Psalm 119. You can strip it all down. The sum of thy word is truth.

01:25:17

The reason that we believe that scripture is free from error and true in all of its parts is because its author is free from error and true in all that he does.

01:25:28

This book has a divine author. And so, if I could, Chris, with your permission, can I give a brief definition here of inspiration?

01:25:36

Yes, definitely. And I'd like to then have you comment. I would like to just read quickly a quote from J .I.

01:25:43

Packer that I think speaks beautifully to this. He says, quote, scripture is divine writing. All scripture is inspired by God.

01:25:51

Second Timothy 3 .16, this reference to inspiration, let it be said at once, has no psychological overtones.

01:25:58

It does not imply that the biblical authors all wrote in a state of ecstasy or abnormally heightened consciousness, nor yet that they wrote as automata in some trance state in which the normal functioning of their minds were suspended.

01:26:13

Inspired by God translates to a single Greek word, theonoustos, meaning breathed out from God, breathed out by God.

01:26:23

And it is not the writers, but their writings of which the word is predicted.

01:26:29

Thus, the statement, pardon me, thus the statement means simply that all that comes into the category of scripture came from God and should therefore be received as instruction from God.

01:26:43

Accordingly, inspiration to its theological sense is to be defined as the work of the

01:26:49

Holy Spirit. God breathed it out, ensuring that men wrote precisely what

01:26:55

God wanted them to write for communication of His mind to men. It is that bearing along of the

01:27:02

Holy Spirit in the virtue of what men spoke from God, Second Peter 1 .21, and wrote from God, it is written, prophetic word made more sure.

01:27:13

What scripture said then, God said, that the biblical writers were God's pens in the same sense that the prophets when they preached were

01:27:21

God's voices. And so all that the prophets spoke could be introduced with the same formula that introduced the prophetic sermons.

01:27:29

Thus says the Lord. This is the deepest reason why the biblical writers are holy, not just because they deal with holy things, but because the

01:27:40

Holy God is their true author. Such is the nature of scripture. And the reason why there are 66 books do in fact make one book is because they all have proceeded from a single mind, a single author, the mind of God, the

01:27:56

Holy Spirit, end quote. Amen. So there's Theionoustas, breathed out by God.

01:28:03

It wasn't that men penned scripture and that God somehow made some of the writings of men divine.

01:28:10

It didn't mean that somehow they were put in some sort of existential trance and they were taking dictation elevated to some hypnotic format.

01:28:20

No. We can see the human personalities of the various authors of scripture, over 40 authors over a 1500 year period, penned 66 books, 39 in the

01:28:32

Old Testament, 27 in the New, but yet they all speak of the same God and the same accuracy over time.

01:28:40

You know, Chris, I was down at Starbucks, which we affectionately here in Palm City call St. Arbucks, and I was having some of my favorite cup of coffee and two

01:28:50

Jewish gals, older women, had walked into the restaurant and we were talking. They said, sir, what are you studying?

01:28:56

You have a Bible there. And I said, well, I'm studying the word. I'm getting ready to preach on this portion of scripture on Sunday.

01:29:02

They said, oh, are you a Christian? I said, yeah. They said, you believe everything about that book is true. And I said, yes, absolutely.

01:29:08

He said, uh, you know, we have to go, but we'd like to come back and talk to you. They're two Jewish women.

01:29:14

And they said to me, they said, give us an example. How can we know it's true? I said, man, let me ask you, how old are you?

01:29:19

And I know it's not proper to ask sometimes an older woman her age, but I risked it in the moment.

01:29:26

And she said to me, I'm 72 years old. I said, oh, that's great. And I said, are you married?

01:29:31

And she goes, oh, yes, I'm married. My husband, you know, and she went on to rag on him a bit.

01:29:37

And I said, let me ask you a question. Did you have coffee with your husband this morning before you went out to play tennis? She said, yeah.

01:29:43

I said, did you agree on everything that you both were talking about? And she said, we seldom agree on anything.

01:29:50

And she says, we look at the soup can from two different perspectives all the time. She says, why do you ask?

01:29:56

And I said, well, if you have a book that's written by 40 different authors over 1500 years, and there's no contradictions and they agreed perfectly and it's free from error and it's fully true in all of its parts.

01:30:10

Now, would you say that a mere man could do that? Or is that the work of God? And she looked at me,

01:30:16

Chris, and she goes, that's not bad, honey. I'll be back later to talk to you. So the thing is, is this, even people realize that the scriptures are unique.

01:30:27

The writer of Hebrews says they're living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword. The scriptures are different than Shakespeare.

01:30:34

They're different than Aristotle and Plato and other writers. They're from God.

01:30:40

They're inspired by God. It's the word of God breathed out by God through the human agent.

01:30:48

And it's one book made of 66 different books that communicate God's self -revelation to us.

01:30:54

Now listen, if scripture is not true, then can I encourage you to do something R .C. Sproul did when speaking on this topic to his own congregation years ago.

01:31:02

He said, if the scriptures are not true, then listen, you can all sleep in on Sunday morning because why are we studying them? Why are we preaching them?

01:31:10

If it's just a moral code and a philosophy of a few wayward fishermen and a couple of tax collectors and a few would -be prophets who needs it, but if it's

01:31:20

God's word, then it will hold us accountable. And this is the thing that I'm so concerned about.

01:31:26

If our brother Don does not believe in inerrancy, if he doesn't believe in infallibility, if he doesn't have a biblical view that all of scripture is divinely inspired by God, and his second

01:31:38

Timothy 3 .16 says four things. It's profitable for teaching. It's profitable for reproof.

01:31:45

That means stop doing what's wrong. It's profitable for correction. That means start to do what's right. And it's profitable for training in righteousness.

01:31:53

There is our sanctification. And he says, so that the man of God is thoroughly equipped, lacking nothing for every good work.

01:32:01

Listen, the scriptures are sufficient, Peter says, for all matters of life and godliness.

01:32:06

The self -attestation of scripture is that it is the word of God.

01:32:13

And I'm concerned because as you mentioned, Chris, before when Don makes a statement about the nature of Christ or the gospel, how does he know that that statement is even true if he doesn't believe in the infallibility and inerrancy and inspiration of scripture?

01:32:27

It boggles the mind, and he's yet to respond on that key question. Yeah, and the danger of selling

01:32:35

Don Francisco's music now on CD and other ways and playing it in the church is that when people ask, who wrote that gorgeous song?

01:32:46

Well, Don Francisco did. I better look him up to see what else I can glean from him.

01:32:52

He seems like a very wise and compelling Christian to learn more about.

01:32:58

And then when they hear about these heresies, the music becomes an evangelistic tool for heresy.

01:33:06

Well, no, that's right. And this is why the character of the person matters as much as the message matters.

01:33:13

You know, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 .1, Chris, if you want to regard me as anything, regard me as this.

01:33:19

He didn't say a pastor or an apostle, a missionary, a teacher, a preacher. He says, regard me as this, as a huperetas, a servant of Christ who is a steward of the mysteries, and a steward must be found faithful.

01:33:35

We are a steward of the truth of God's word. And here's another quote from Don's article.

01:33:42

When someone says with no blush to their words at all, the Bible is many wonderful things, but it is not the word of God.

01:33:52

That's a quote. The Bible is many things, but it is not the word of God.

01:33:58

That's a frightening quote. That is severe error that reveals a biblical departure from historic biblical

01:34:05

Christianity. No wonder Paul says in Colossians 2 .8, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

01:34:21

Well, how do we know what's according to Christ? We come to the truth of God's word.

01:34:27

This is how we know. So, I want to encourage people. You can get on Don's Facebook page.

01:34:35

If you haven't been blocked over there as I have, you can get on, and I would encourage you to lovingly share your thoughts with Don.

01:34:42

His wife's name is Wendy. Most likely she'll respond, which is troubling that Don won't respond himself, but his wife does.

01:34:50

They may have a few of the other people associated with Don. Try to make a case over there for a lack of inerrancy, a lack of infallibility.

01:34:58

Speak to them the truth of God's word. Again, you don't go liberal by reading your

01:35:04

Bibles. You go liberal by reading Rob Bell. You go liberal by reading some of these other voices today that have captured the hearts of this generation.

01:35:15

And be true to Scripture. The old analogy is so wonderful, and I think it's very applicable here.

01:35:22

When the FBI would train men and women to detect a counterfeit bill, they never one time showed them a counterfeit.

01:35:30

They only showed them the authentic bill, so that when the counterfeit would raise its ugly head, they would spot it instantly.

01:35:38

Not because they were authorities on the counterfeit, but because they knew the authentic bill so clearly.

01:35:44

I think the Scriptural analogy here to Scripture is clear. Know the

01:35:50

Word of God so clearly. Know the Gospel of Jesus Christ so authentically, so thoroughly, that when a false doctrine such as this raises its ugly head, you may not have even heard of it before, but it will resonate as not being true because it doesn't agree with the inerrant infallibility of the text of Scripture.

01:36:10

It's an important distinction for us to make. And Jesus, even in John 1, when it says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,

01:36:17

He is full of grace and truth. And so the Lord, I agree with James White entirely, never once contradicted the authority, the veracity, the truthfulness of Scripture, the inerrancy, infallibility of God's Word.

01:36:33

And He supported that in His own life and ministry and teachings, and He's God incarnate. And for us to come along in our own arrogance and sinfulness, and the corruption of our own rebellious hearts, and to think that we can edit

01:36:47

God, that we can edit Scripture and think we know better than the Holy Spirit, or God the

01:36:54

Father, or His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, is arrogance to the heights, that is a spirit of antichrist.

01:37:02

We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Steve Camp and Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

01:37:08

Don't go away. It's easy to put off saving for retirement, but it's just as easy to start.

01:37:17

Once you do, you'll feel more confident about your future. So where to begin? Start with Thriving Financial.

01:37:24

They'll help you define your financial goals and take realistic steps to help you reach them. It comes down to making wise choices about money, because even small steps add up.

01:37:36

Contact me, Mike Gallagher, at 717 -254 -6433.

01:37:43

Licensed Agent Producer of Thriving Financial, Marketing Name Thriving Financial, Registered Representative of Thriving Investment Management Incorporated, Thriving .com.

01:37:53

We know we were made for so much more than ordinary life.

01:38:01

Lending faith, finances, and generosity. That's the Thriving story. We were made to thrive.

01:38:18

Introducing 1031 Sermon Jams. But now for the good news.

01:38:26

That sounds like sweet music in the hell -bound sinner's ears, especially if you're like me and you know that you don't need

01:38:36

Romans 3 to remind you of how wicked you are. If you would like to learn more about 1031

01:38:41

Sermon Jams, visit us at our website at 1031SermonJams .com or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

01:38:48

It's about God and His glory and the gospel is about... Lindbrook Baptist Church on 225

01:38:53

Earl Avenue in Lindbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

01:39:00

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

01:39:06

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

01:39:13

We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

01:39:20

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Lindbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

01:39:26

Call Lindbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

01:39:33

Or visit LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsden and we have as our guest today

01:39:40

Steve Camp, pastor of Cross Church in Palm City, Florida. Their website is crosschurch .net.

01:39:46

He's also a very well -known Christian recording artist and a Grammy award -winning songwriter.

01:39:53

And we are talking about Christian music, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Before I go to Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania with her question that she's sent us, this reminds me of whether or not to use a well -known artist's song in our worship service.

01:40:15

I remember there is a song that I really love and the lyrics are biblically faithful and it's a beautiful song.

01:40:23

And I'm not going to mention it until I really get this confirmed about the writer of the song.

01:40:30

But since this writer said that he received a divine revelation, that people all over the world were going to be singing his song in churches and elsewhere,

01:40:43

I felt uncomfortable doing that because I didn't want to be a part of his self -induced fulfilled prophecy, if you follow what

01:40:52

I'm saying. Yeah, and you know, rather than that being a legitimate prophetic utterance, it sounds like to me he had just a bad pizza the night before,

01:41:01

Chris. You know, that can cause many problems. You know, here's the thing that we have to be careful, and it is such a problem today when someone comes up to you and says,

01:41:13

I have a word from the Lord for you. If they're not quoting scripture, be very, very wary of it, because scripture we can profit from.

01:41:25

Some folks will ask, Steve, do you believe God speaks today? Well, yes, by his spirit, through his word.

01:41:31

So pray with an open Bible. We talked about this a bit last week. Don Whitney's written a new book on praying the

01:41:37

Bible. It's a simple book, and I would encourage you to read it. Open up the Psalms. Begin to pray

01:41:43

Psalm 23 line by line. Thank the Lord for being our shepherd. Thank the Lord for leading us beside still waters.

01:41:51

Thank him that he restores our soul, that he's our faithful shepherd, that we don't have to desire anything else, that Christ is enough.

01:41:58

God will speak to you by his spirit, through his word, if you decide to pray with an open

01:42:04

Bible, but we believe this because scripture is true. Here's some of the concerns,

01:42:10

Chris, before we maybe get to that question real quick. Proverbs 30 verse 6, Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar.

01:42:20

Deuteronomy 4 .2, You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the

01:42:27

Lord your God that I command you. We see this also in Deuteronomy 12 .32.

01:42:34

The writer says, Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

01:42:42

And then these profound familiar words out of Revelation 22, even the prophecy out of Revelation 22.

01:42:49

He says, I warn everyone, in verse 18, who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.

01:42:58

And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

01:43:06

What is he saying? It's a dangerous thing to try to add to scripture,

01:43:12

Joseph Smith, to try to take away scripture, Don Francisco.

01:43:18

It's a dangerous thing to do either one. We must honor all of it. No wonder

01:43:23

Paul, in Acts chapter 20, that in that great chapter, he says,

01:43:29

I have not shied away from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

01:43:34

What does it mean? He preached the word, all of it. All of it is true. All of it is without error.

01:43:40

All of it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, exhortation, training in righteousness, so that the man of God is fully equipped, thoroughly for every good work.

01:43:50

This is something that we need to recapture today, Chris. And it's so important, again, when we take that stuff, and you can hide a lot of bad theology in music, because the music is disarming.

01:44:04

And you have to be careful. Make sure, folks, what you're putting into your heart and mind is biblically true in honoring to the

01:44:12

Lord Jesus Christ, because in the end, it could hurt you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

01:44:19

Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania, asks, what do you think about the young generation today listening to hypnotic, so -called

01:44:27

Christian music, basically falling into self -absorbed trances or self -induced trances, worshiping their emotions instead of worshiping

01:44:37

God? A very good question, because a lot of the emerging churches are incorporating mysticism and all kinds of strange

01:44:49

Gnostic, Catholic behavior in their worship services. If you could comment. Yeah, excellent question.

01:44:57

Well, you know, this is why, you know, we are told in Scripture, and I'll just mention a verse or two here.

01:45:03

The Apostle Paul says in Colossians chapter three and verse two, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are of the earth.

01:45:14

We must be heavenly minded to be earthly good. In fact, in Romans 12, 2, it says, do not be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

01:45:35

This is all relating back to the truthfulness and the veracity of Scripture. One of the things, and I appreciate your question here today, out of 1

01:45:45

Timothy 6, this really has me concerned, Chris, with the Millennials today, and especially those within the

01:45:52

Church that are part of the, they you know, caged

01:46:00

Calvinists where they've come upon a little theology and they can't wait to bless us all with their bloviations.

01:46:07

But here they forget that godliness is a doctrine. They forget that. It's part of the uber grace movement that's going on out there.

01:46:14

You know, I've got my fire insurance. It doesn't matter how I live. It's all covered by the blood. It's all covered by the cross.

01:46:20

My obedience means nothing. That's a works righteous attitude. But here, to your listener's question, 1

01:46:27

Timothy chapter 6, and Paul writes here, teach and urge these things.

01:46:35

If anyone teaches a different doctrine, verse 3, and does not agree with the sound words of our

01:46:41

Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.

01:46:50

Now listen, music, by its very inference, affects our emotions.

01:46:56

There's nothing wrong with that. When I listen to a beautiful instrumental, my wife

01:47:01

Cynthia is a graduate of Juilliard. She's an amazing violinist, has been trained by the finest in the world, has played with great symphonies, and she is amazing.

01:47:09

When she plays just a simple melody in our praise team, it could be just her by herself playing, what wondrous love is this, or great is thy faithfulness, and you'll hear from time to time maybe a person weeping or something along that sort.

01:47:25

It's touching an emotion based on the truthfulness of a song, but the melody carries a weight of influence, and that's why the melodies are good things, and they have to complement well the lyric.

01:47:38

I think to the question here is so important. Music touching the emotion and exciting our emotion, and the ability to weep or to sing with vibrancy and volume, or to sing in a hush or a whisper, or raise our hands, or be prostrate before the

01:47:58

Lord in brokenness and contrition before him, whatever that may be.

01:48:04

That's a good thing if it's not the emotion that you seek, but which flows out from that which is true and genuine worship before him.

01:48:13

John chapter four, Jesus said it this way, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit, that's a little s, and truth, meaning right motives, right doctrine, you know, right desires, right mandate, and so you want to have your emotions engaged in worship, but it's not through the emotion that we seek

01:48:37

God, because this is a cognitive thing. We come and we know the Lord, and when you hear the teaching of scripture, when you hear the preaching of his word, and then you can respond in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs from that word dwelling richly in your life, it's based on truth.

01:48:55

It's not based on some sort of a static emotional dribble. Then you have real worship.

01:49:01

In other words, great theology put in great hymnology will lead to great doxology.

01:49:09

Great theology encased in great hymology will lead to great doxology. Proper truth, theology put in music that's honoring to the

01:49:19

Lord will erupt in doxology. It's praise and glorifying to him, and so if you find people that are ecstatic in their worship, absent of truth, that's not profitable.

01:49:29

That's frenzy. That's feigned worship. It's not profitable for anyone. You could get the same feelings going to one of my favorite artists in pop music,

01:49:39

Bruce Springsteen. You could go down and see him play there in Jersey at one of his great concerts, and you'll have,

01:49:46

I've heard more people say this about Bruce's show, some sort of spiritual experience. What would they mean by that is they haven't encountered

01:49:52

God, but that they have just been so moved by the power of his songs and his message that he's bringing.

01:50:01

There's a lot of good messages in some of Bruce's music. Some. Some.

01:50:09

He's moving his audiences on some of these things, and what I'm saying is for a

01:50:14

Christian, to remove Christ from the centrality of that, or to only make the music an emotional experience absent of truth, you can again have the same result in any secular concert, whether it's

01:50:28

Springsteen, whether it's Pavarotti, regardless of who it is.

01:50:34

You can have that same kind of emotional connection and walk out of there thinking you've been changed, but only truth can take you to true transformation, and we know it's gospel -centered truth,

01:50:46

Christ -centered truth that changes us for eternity and helps us live here now until we're home with the

01:50:52

Lord Jesus Christ. So I agree with the question. A lot of the Christian music that's doing that, be wary of it, because it may pierce the emotion, but it's not renewing the mind through Scripture.

01:51:03

Yeah, and James Montgomery Boyce used to be very critical of mantra songs that repeated phrases or words over and over again, really violating the principle, opposing the repetition of words and so forth, as the pagans do.

01:51:21

But a very good friend of mine, Pastor Ron Glass, Wading River Baptist Church on Long Island, did a series on meditation and how dangerous it can be.

01:51:33

Obviously there is good meditation when it's on a subject, the Word of God, but this type of Christian so -called worship where people are opening up their minds in quietness and opening up their hearts to receive some kind of revelation, some kind of new insight, can that not be very dangerous, this

01:51:57

Gnostic type of monastic practice where the mind is being opened up to all kinds of new revelation while tranquil music is playing in the background, and it's all about an experience rather than meditating on something that we know is true?

01:52:18

Yeah, well you know what, it's an excellent question. In Psalm chapter 1,

01:52:24

I believe we have the answer right in the very first Psalm, and considering this is a song, the psalmist begins,

01:52:32

David, he said, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight, and here it is, is in the law of the

01:52:43

Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Literally, to meditate means to fix your heart and mind on something, firmly fix it.

01:52:54

So listen, meditation is not wrong, uh, memorizing scripture is not wrong, craving the word is not wrong, delighting in the word is not wrong.

01:53:04

You want a delight in the law? You want on that law, the word of God, to meditate day and night.

01:53:10

That's where your focus should be. And again, the psalmist says in Psalm 119,

01:53:15

How can a young man keep his way pure by taking heed thereto according to thy word? Man, where's the moral breakdown in our generation?

01:53:22

It's absent of the word of God. Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.

01:53:29

Again, his word is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. You don't have to be like a blind man staggering to and fro through the fog of this generation.

01:53:38

You can see the pitfalls coming. It's a lamp to our feet. We can be enlightened people, but that's not an existential, quasi -new age meditative kind of thing.

01:53:50

That's truth dominating our hearts and our minds so that we want to honor the

01:53:56

Lord according to truth and respond to the truth of scripture in all that we do to honor

01:54:02

Him. And so this is our hope here. If we want to be the people that delight in the law, and this is why

01:54:08

I love that Caveman's Call song, uh, Chris, that we sing. We delight in the law of the Lord. We delight in the

01:54:13

Son. You know, we delight in the return of Christ. Um, I love it. It just speaks of what our joy and our heart should be as the people of God.

01:54:22

And it's all things that focus on Christ and not of us. So the meditative, I guess,

01:54:27

I guess you would refer to it as well as the contemplative, contemplative prayer movement that's going on around.

01:54:33

It's very dangerous because it disengages the mind and simply wants people to feel their way through God.

01:54:41

And again, nowhere in scripture are we to feel God, but as Paul said, we are to know

01:54:46

Him above all things. And that comes through the truth of God's word. I, years ago, attended a worship service and I used that term very loosely, uh, perhaps they were worshiping something, but it wasn't

01:54:59

God. Uh, Rodney Howard Brown, and they had all kinds of, of this strange music in the background as he was telling people to open up their hearts and minds for an experience that had nothing to do with the scriptures.

01:55:13

Can a person in such a setting be open to demonic activity and, and possession?

01:55:20

Obviously, we don't believe, or I'm pretty sure that you don't believe that a true Christian can become demon possessed, but couldn't people in the audience have some kind of demonic influence in their life as a result of that kind of thing?

01:55:31

Boy, you know what? I only know, we only have a few minutes left here, Chris, I know. And I think this is a perfect question, uh, maybe to go out with here.

01:55:41

I, it's, I'm so glad you're asking it. Uh, 1st Timothy 4 .1 says this, now the spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits.

01:55:56

And listen to how Paul clarifies it, the teachings of demons. When we have unsound doctrine listed, uh, and people are, are trying to gain influence through it, it literally is demonic activity.

01:56:14

And this is where we have to be clear. Um, you know, the apostle Paul, when he was, uh, traveling and when he was, uh, ministering and he recounts for us all of those sufferings and things that he did, uh, in his life and where he came, he tells us, uh, a little bit later on, uh, coming in there to 2nd

01:56:40

Corinthians 12, uh, that Satan masquerades himself as an angel of light, um, almost as one of righteousness.

01:56:50

Uh, again, he's the great counterfeiter and counterfeiting doesn't help if it doesn't have the appearance of something that is genuine.

01:56:59

Just like again, going back to our analogy, the counterfeit bill looks like a real dollar, but it's not, it's counterfeit, but it looks like it.

01:57:10

Counterfeit Christianity looks like the real thing, but when you examine it, it's not.

01:57:16

Um, it's funny you mentioned Rodney Howard Brown. He was the one responsible for the laughing movement that came through.

01:57:24

I wrote an article about this years ago on my camp on this blog called that the theme of the church, the theme song of the church is never send in the clowns.

01:57:34

You know, it's, it's holy, holy, holy. I want you to know I've debated Rodney on Twitter several times meet, but I've tried to point out some of these things to him and he's, he's very, uh, obstinate and arrogant and he'll never mention scripture when defending his points of view.

01:57:54

I would just tell people to be careful of that. So yes, you know what? Unsound doctrine represented as sound doctrine can have mixed with it the doctrines of demons.

01:58:06

Why? Because it's counterfeit. It's subtle. It's twisted. It's rested. It's, it's taking the truth of God's word and mangling it to one's own destruction.

01:58:18

And we know Satan, according to John eight is the father of lies because he's been a liar from the beginning.

01:58:23

So we have to be very careful. I think people, when we're dealing with spiritual issues, have to guard themselves against not only the error of, uh, of people that are not honoring

01:58:35

God through sound doctrine, but also if it's something that, that rends itself of a demonic representation apart from the truth of scripture, no question, they can be tempted.

01:58:46

They can be influenced. Satan will attack the mind. He can place thoughts there that are not honoring to the

01:58:51

Lord. And that's why, again, your mind needs to be renewed. And yes, as I fully agree with your statement, a

01:58:57

Christian cannot be demon possessed, but certainly a Christian can be influenced not only by their own lusts and passions and desires,

01:59:05

James one tells us, but also a Christian can be influenced just like Peter, when he said to the

01:59:11

Lord, you'll never go to the cross. And he says, get thee behind me, Satan. He wasn't calling

01:59:16

Peter Satan, but what he was saying is what you just said represents Satan's objective. Satan would love to never have

01:59:23

Jesus go to the cross in redemption for his own. We're out of time, Steve. Thank you so much for being on the program.

01:59:29

My apologies to Brian from Toronto, Canada, and Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and our anonymous listener.