November 25, 2022 Show with Marq Ortiz on “Trusting the Lord to Build His Church”

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

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

legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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

issues facing the church and the world today.

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

another.

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

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

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

with your own questions.

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

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

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

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

25th day of November, 2022.

I hope you all had a very refreshing and enjoyable

Thanksgiving with family, friends, and loved ones, and that you not only enjoyed yourself and

feasted on delicious food, but that you also were a witness for Jesus Christ

to anyone with whom you ate and relaxed and enjoyed.

The day.

We have a first -time guest today.

Once in a while, I am approached by a listener, and this listener was a woman named

Chris Pope, who said, you really have got to get my pastor, Mark

Ortiz, pastor at Grace Reform Fellowship of Burnville, Pennsylvania, on your program.

And I very often take up my listeners'

suggestions, recommendations, especially when they're so passionate and enthusiastic, and that is what

I have done today.

And I also love meeting new pastors who embraced

and believe in and passionately proclaim and teach and preach

the doctrines of sovereign grace, and so especially even on top of that when they're in my

new home state of Pennsylvania.

So I am thrilled to have on the program for the very first time Mark Ortiz, and he

is the pastor of Grace Reform Fellowship of Burnville, Pennsylvania.

And today we're going to be trusting, today we're going to be trusting, today we're going to be discussing trusting the

Lord to build his church.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio,

Pastor Mark Ortiz.

Yes, so before we get into your testimony, because whenever we

have a first -time guest on the program, we have that guest give a summary of their

salvation testimony, and that would be you.

But before we do that, tell our listeners something about Grace Reform Fellowship of Burnville, Pennsylvania.

Now I know it is called Grace Reform Fellowship, and there are many different

kinds of reformed congregations out there, and the main or

primary division amongst us is that there are Baptist or Baptistic

congregations that are also confessional and reformed, and there are also Pado -Baptist and Presbyterian

congregations.

Where does Grace Reform Fellowship fall?

Well, technically, reformed Baptists are independent churches.

They just have fellowship, or the most closely connected

fellowship, I should say, with those that are also reformed Baptists and

confessional, adhering to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and although there are other

confessions, the Philadelphia Confession, the New Hampshire Confession, and others.

But if anybody wants to find out more about Grace Reform Fellowship of Burnville, Pennsylvania,

go to GraceReformedBurnville .com, and that's spelled B -R -N -V -I

-L .com, that's B -E -R -N -V -I -L .com, and

God willing, we'll be repeating that website throughout the broadcast.

And so now we come to the point, since you are a first -time guest,

we'd love to hear your salvation story, your testimony, in summary form,

and that would include the kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and

what kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to

himself and saved you.

Yes, my friend, Pastor Fred Zaspel, used to be a pastor there.

He's now one of the pastors at the Reformed Baptist Church of

Franconia, Pennsylvania, but there was a time when he pastored in Pottsville.

In 1976, I had dropped out of college, I was attending,

and I dropped out of college, and

a friend of mine stopped by the house to pick me up, driving around, and happened to go

past that I

hadn't

seen for a

number

of

years,

and he

was on

that walk.

I didn't explain it, but

I ran

up to my room, and I fell on my knees, and I cried out

for mercy.

Actually, I

went downstairs to

the family Bible, and I opened it up, because I

remember my friend telling me, you know, like we always do, read John or read the Bible.

So I started reading it, and it was like a lost...it was thrilling.

My mom happened to walk downstairs as they were reading the Bible,

and the look on her face...

I don't know if she thought I was going to get ready to pawn the Bible or what, but she said, What are you doing?

And I said, Mom, I think I just got saved.

I didn't even know how to express it, but she started rejoicing.

So that week, just to show you the providence of God, a

friend of mine, we were invited to play at...they had a bicentennial.

They invited me and my buddy to come and do some...

The sound system came up, and he had a cross

around his neck, and it was really nice.

I saw my mom out in the audience talking to some people, and they were pointing up at me.

And what I

was talking to were part of this church,

and they were

out there praying for me.

When I walked into the church that Sunday, I thought they were going to fall off their chairs, because it turns out they were out there praying for

me.

Now, it turns out they were part of a four -square gospel church.

I'm not sure how four -square...

I didn't know anything about anything.

I didn't know the Bible.

All I knew was something...I met Jesus, if you will.

That was a denomination that...

Yeah.

Not exactly known as a giant of theological knowledge.

At our community, had all the funerals growing up in, you know, and she walked in,

and two couples met her at the door, and she said she needed prayer.

And they just took her in, prayed for her, took her home.

So she had gotten saved the same time, basically, I did.

We just didn't know it.

And she told me later, you know, she grew up thinking she was a Christian, but she knew better when she

did get saved.

So I'm saying all this to say how my journey to reform doctrine

actually started that day I got saved, because while I didn't know anything, I didn't know

doctrine, I didn't know the Bible, I knew something happened to me that I wasn't

seeking, I didn't cause to happen, I didn't make happen, but

it transformed me.

It began this journey of changing my life.

Now, it was over a period of time, things started changing.

I started coming to the church, went down to the bookstore, got a Bible.

I didn't understand a lot, but I had this hunger for the Bible.

I just wanted to study it, wanted to read.

And I knew, again, just something found me.

So my buddy, then I remember him giving me a copy,

whom I had never heard of.

Sovereignty of God?

I got another book by Pink.

Sovereignty of God was one

that reading the Bible

began my journey.

I wasn't actually being taught, and I don't want to be misunderstood, like I'm being critical of others or

other, even the pastor at the time.

I owe him so much, my first pastor.

I'm no longer Pentecostal.

I know that was going to shock some of my friends.

I don't know

Jesus and rejoicing, worshiping in

grace.

But the more I started, I

don't know how to express it, Chris.

I'm losing sense that there was so much more that I wanted.

So I started reading.

I felt a call, and I couldn't even put it into words, that I wanted to serve the Lord.

I didn't know what I wanted to do except I was going to play music.

I was writing music, playing music.

I didn't know anything.

I ended up going.

I got married first.

I met my wife.

All of those Pink books paid off because I was going down to the local Christian.

And it was run by a Mennonite couple, and they were so nice to me and so good.

I got to know them as I was going in there buying a book.

Pink would mention one of his books.

He mentioned Owen, John Owen.

I don't know who these people are.

So anything I could get, I tried to order.

That's where I ended up meeting Mary.

A whole bunch of good stuff happening.

I shocked my mom.

I shocked some of my friends.

I started wearing a three -piece suit to church.

I used to go around and bib overalls with my Afro and my, you know.

And now here I am.

Not that they made me wear a suit.

I just wanted to clean up.

Hey, things are changing.

So anyway, we got married, and we moved out to Los Angeles to go to Bible college.

And I went to Life Bible College in L .A.

But this was as I was growing more and more in my understanding of

Reformed doctrine.

I wasn't thinking of it in terms of Reformed doctrine.

I was just understanding certain things in the Scriptures.

And is Life Bible College a theologically Reformed college?

Yes.

So it was not Reformed then?

Pardon?

Then it was definitely not Reformed.

Nobody was faithful to what I was understanding.

The professor had us pick out a verse we were going to do our study,

our term paper on.

And I reached in the hat and pulled out Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10.

And I thought, oh, wow, that's providential.

And so I did my paper on Ephesians.

By grace you are saved through faith.

That and out of yourselves is a gift of God, not of worse.

The professor got up.

He read the paper in the class, and he said, this is a great example of good.

That's good.

But then he turns right around.

He raised my hand.

I said, excuse me, sir.

I have a word that you don't agree with.

We're saved by grace through faith.

And he turned around in front of the whole class, and he was angry.

His face was actually red.

And he said, you're a Calvinist.

Well, I said, that's fine with me.

I mean, I love John Calvin.

I don't have a problem with being called a Calvinist.

I said, but you mentioned Calvin's name.

But I'm here at this school.

I'm paying money to learn.

Anyway, that was an eye -opener for me.

And I thought, well, I still didn't.

After I graduated, my wife and I ended up moving back to

Allentown, Pennsylvania, and started a church.

We pioneered the church.

It was still a four -square church.

And nobody was pressuring us.

I mean, we started from scratch.

And all my ministry, I don't set out, I'm not going to preach Calvin,

or try my best to preach.

And I'm certainly the first one to tell you, I'm well aware of my shortcomings.

But I started preaching expositorily.

I like to pick a book of the Bible and work through it

expositorily.

And the people, it was all new to the people that they were

receiving.

The church was slowly starting to grow.

But it was a struggle.

At the time, by the end of the eight years, I have to be honest, we were feeling burned out.

We had the opportunity also to teach at Teen Challenge Training Center.

So my wife and son and I, we would drive back and forth.

I would teach at Raresburg, still pastor at Allentown.

So one day I just felt it was hard because the people that were there,

they loved us and they wanted them to leave.

After eight years or so, we went to Teen Challenge.

And it just was, even that was a blessing in many ways, ministering to the men.

I have a real heart for it because of my past.

But there was just growing conflict.

Again, I wasn't preaching Calvin.

I wasn't preaching, teaching the Bible.

They had me teaching.

And I was, it was happening in terms of having

to have people come who were, quite frankly, involved in

some, in my opinion, extreme behaviors as far as like

get into that.

After a while, I just, I can't stay.

I can't keep fighting, fighting this.

Well, why don't you at least mention something about how they were misusing the

doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Because, obviously, we who are Reformed believe in love, preach, and teach the

doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

He is one of the three persons of the Godhead.

So why don't you tell us about, at least in summary form, what was aberrant that you could

see?

What was the aberrant doctrine about the Holy Spirit that you saw and heard?

Get

more

extreme

in

terms

of some

of the

Reformed

theology, at least for

me, has

wrong

teachings.

Contribute some of it back to a difference of understanding in terms of theology.

For instance,

what

I'm saying,

on

this rock I will build my church.

I will build my church.

Gates of hell shall not.

Whether it's not a particular denomination, we

know that the church, for instance, we're the temple of the living God, where Ephesians 2 says that

we're fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God, built on the foundation

of Jesus himself being the cornerstone.

We're the household of God, Paul says.

The church of the living God, the pillar, this is a

chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for his own possession.

Just think of how the Bible describes the body

of God as foundational.

He is the one who is building.

Look at it from a human standpoint and see many reasons to be.

All the different denominations, people, the church is so divided.

You've got all these different, and it's true.

And later on, if we have time, if you'd like, I'd like to give you some of the reasons, more specifically why

I'm more than confident in the church.

But the sovereignty of God is the foundation of it all.

The Bible is so clear, and that's the thing that I was starting to see as I was reading and praying.

The Bible is such a wonderful book.

It's God's book.

Because of the revelation that it gives to us of God himself, that we could never have devised on our

own.

Man never would have devised this picture that the Bible paints of God

himself, sovereign over all things.

Psalm 113, Who is like the Lord our God who is enthroned on high, who humbles

himself to behold the things in heaven and earth?

Our God is in the heavens.

He does whatever he pleases.

The Lord is great and does what he pleases.

I was reading, been reading verses like this and thinking, Yeah, God is, I don't, who can even fathom?

Where would this come from if not from God himself?

But then we see in our own lives, and even in some theology,

how to fit our views and our understanding,

that we limit God to one way or another.

And I began to see that some theology's limitations,

and for one minute that Arminians don't love the Lord, or that they're not

Calvinists.

I would never say that with some of

my Arminians.

I would want to challenge me on, for instance,

how can you put a, if you put a limitation on that and say, God's grace is, he's

not sovereign in grace.

Well, then you're almost tempted to make faith.

And I would say, whatever you understand about, don't ask anybody

whether they're Arminian or Calvin, Calvinist, Reformed, Non -Reformed.

When you're on your knees praying, if you're truly saved, how

much glory?

Do you give all the glory to God,

or 99 of the glory?

Because if you take it upon yourself to say, well, God did all that he's going to do, and now it's up to me to

give some of the glory away from God, as far as I can see.

Yes, and we're going to have to go to our first station break right now.

Okay.

And we're going to switch to Microsoft Teams to do our, to conduct.

So am I.

I don't know why you'd be, all right, we're going to have to stick with this then.

All right, we'll just stick with this method.

And you seem to be hearing me now, fine.

So my webmaster said you're coming through loud and clear.

So let's just stick with what we're doing then.

All right, Chris.

All right, we're going to our first commercial break.

And we'll be right back with Mark Ortiz, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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We're now back with our guest, Mark Ortiz, and he is the pastor

of Grace Reform Fellowship in Burnville, Pennsylvania.

We are discussing trusting the Lord to build his church.

Right before the break, you were talking about how you were becoming increasingly more troubled

by the Arminians, not only in church, but also in the Bible college and even on the

faculty, that were limiting the power of Jesus Christ in their

words.

Of course, nothing can actually limit the power of Jesus Christ, but in their words and teachings,

and especially in the area of salvation.

If you want to pick up right where you left off there, and then we'll move to our main theme

of the church.

...bring us out of that.

Well, certainly not ourselves.

Not some act of our own.

We

understand

the scriptures,

didn't know the scriptures, but I knew, again, something happened I didn't deserve.

I had this overwhelming sense of being lost, and then I had forgiveness and mercy.

And as I learned, jeez,

people argue over the five solas.

To me, once again, I can't imagine arguing over

depravity.

Now, they're misunderstood, all of these doctrines, partly because sometimes we as

pastors and teachers do a poor job in teaching and expressing.

We're novices.

I was a novice.

I can't, if I go back and think of all the mistakes I made over my life, and

this really takes me to the subject of trouble.

When I think of the vessels that he uses, yours truly included, it truly is a

wonder and a testimony of his almighty grace that there will

be a church.

In our presentations,

without preparing them,

little depravity.

If you read the Bible, you'll see that it makes it clear that every part of our being, we're not as bad as we

could possibly be.

We're not totally depraved in that sense, but every faculty of the human being

is painted and ruined by sin.

Our minds are darkened.

Our wills are enslaved to sin.

We love sin.

That's all we do, our minds, our hearts.

And so that's total depravity.

There's nothing good in us in terms of spiritual good.

People say, well, that's a good guy.

We're all relative.

We're talking relative to one another, but not relative to the

Bible makes that clear

judgment of God.

That's part of the problem with much of the modern church in terms of the preaching, in terms of the teaching.

Too much of it is so human -oriented, self -oriented.

Again, I try my best to preach expositorily, go through the Bible, Old and New Testament.

The more you understand the scriptures, you can see how human experience lines up.

We're living in, look at the days in which we're living now and tell me that it's

corrupt, that man isn't depraved, if you will.

Total depravity.

People argue over election, and yet I can't see how you can read your Bible and read not only the

New Testament, but the Old Testament as well, and not understand,

and we'll argue over what caused the election, what prompted God to

foreseen faith, or there can't be

foreseen faith because God would wait all of eternity and the only thing he would see us do is reject

and unbelief.

No faith.

Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of Christ.

Even faith is a gift of God.

And faith, by the way, is not a work of merit.

It's an empty hand reaching out and receiving what God himself has done.

We have to go to our midway break right now.

We're going to pick up where you left off.

And if anybody has a question for my guest, Mark Ortiz, on trusting

the Lord to build his church, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H

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

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

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But when you can't do any of that, at the very least, please at least contact them and thank them

for sponsoring Iron Truck and Zion Radio if indeed you really love the show and don't want it to go off the air.

We depend on our advertisers to exist, folks.

We cannot survive merely on the donations that come in because tragically they have plummeted

to an all -new low after the COVID mandate hysteria that has occurred

in our country.

We have never recovered from it.

So we need our advertisers.

Please let our advertisers know that you value them because they value

us.

And also, as I said, send in your questions to Mark Ortiz, to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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

if you live outside of the USA.

Don't go away.

We are going to be right back with Mark Ortiz after these messages.

It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners.

From all over the world.

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

he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

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

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

Moorcraft.

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

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

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

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

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

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Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great Protestant

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-7831.

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If you visit, tell them Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland,

sends you.

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church.

In Cornwall, New York,.

And also the host of the ReformRookie .com website.

I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Subscribe to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio podcast right now.

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

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

Okay, I just joined and I see you, but I do not see you yet.

As host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio, I frequently get requests for listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church

in Flemington, New Jersey.

Pastor Mike Allen and I.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how He shall be worshipped and how He

shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

God in spirit and truth.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a God -centered focus.

Reading, preaching and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,

baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy

and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at

gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

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That's 908 -996 -7654.

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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

Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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

to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes,

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

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

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

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org.

That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

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

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and

always.

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

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

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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

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Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.

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Before I return to our guest, Mark Ortiz, and our discussion on trusting the Lord to build his

church, we just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

First of all, if you love this show, folks, and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, I'm

urging you, please, go to ironsharpensironradio .com Click Support, then

click Click to Donate Now.

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

And if you prefer snail mail, sending in a physical check to a physical mailing address, there will

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where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

Also, if you want to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you want to advertise is compatible with what we

believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible because we are just as much

in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in need of your donations.

So, please, if you want to advertise, send us an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put

advertising in the subject line.

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally

solid, biblically faithful church, no matter where you live in the world, I have extensive lists spanning the

globe of good solid churches and I may be able to help you find a church, even sometimes

within a few minutes of your home, as I have done with many people all over the planet Earth in the Iron

Sharpen's Iron Radio listening audience.

So, if that's you, you are spiritually homeless, you don't have a solid church home, send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail

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

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Pastor Mark Ortiz in

regard to our theme Trusting the Lord to Build His Church.

Pastor Mark, I would like you to enter into our actual theme right now.

You've given us a good base as far as your journey theologically

and how you see a lack of trusting in the sovereignty of God in

many churches and in the particular Bible college you went to.

Talk about why we need to trust God to build His church.

Here

tonight

was

just an

example

of feeling like I

need to

burn out

and I

think

of

everything that,

and even within the church world.

I was reminded of the scripture in 1 Corinthians where Paul said, remember your, consider your

calling brothers, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many powerful, not many noble birth,

but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

And that's even more true I think of many of the servants

that he marveled to me.

Our 24th year, Allentown, 5 years

in Pottsville.

Aware of my own weaknesses and shortcomings and struggles over the years, sometimes I find myself thinking

it's a wonder that anybody would want to be pastors and yet

we've been blessed with such a loving and wonderful group of people who bear

with us with our weaknesses and shortcomings even as we have to bear with others and one another.

And yet God, I believe because of the commitment to His word,

will continue to be built on.

He said, I will build my church on this rock, the rock of Jesus Christ and the truth

of who Christ is.

So I find great comfort in that.

And when we came here, again, we were just preaching.

They told me, the search committee told me when I interviewed for this position, we want to be

taught the Bible.

We want the Bible.

And so I said, oh great, that's what I want to do.

I want to teach.

But it wasn't too long when I started teaching,

teaching Ephesians and etc.

But I think some of the mistakes I made was assuming that everybody felt the same way

and maybe everybody was at the sound

that that wasn't true.

And there was a misunderstanding.

There was a lot of stress.

People left the church for a number of different reasons.

And I'm not putting the blame on everybody else and saying I made my share of mistakes.

But I was committed.

You know, we were taught some of the church growth.

We were taught finding people's felt needs.

You don't see it in the Bible because no one seeks after God.

The things that people want in many ways are

antithetical to the gospel itself.

So we could decide if we're going to do gimmicks

and music or

message of

self.

We must trust God.

And it's not always easy to trust God,

the apostles, the cornerstone.

But it takes faith.

It takes commitment.

It takes the help and the encouragement.

And that's what happened here at Burnville, began to happen.

After the first three years, three and a half years, I was starting to feel like I made a big

mistake by coming.

It just seemed like a constant battle, constant challenge to the things we

were being taught, having to not

being popular as of that nature, having to come against

certain teachings.

One there started providentially bringing from Teen

Challenge days and others.

And it was time and time again people were telling me,

we want to be humbled and said, well, that's all I want to do.

And I'm trying my best to do that.

And we're all at different stages.

Not everybody, even here at the church now, I'd say, are well -versed.

But they're hungry and they're open and they want to receive.

They want to grow.

And more and more people are coming and so gratifying.

In the midst of, we all have them, not just pastors.

We live in a society right now that's so,

well, now the church has always had to deal with that, with persecution, with opposition.

You go back to the very first generation and the world has always hated Christ

and they always had to face false doctrines.

Finishing up our series in the book of Jude where he says, you

can sometimes bring a pastor into conflict with people because they think

you're being too negative or you're always coming against this or coming against that.

But part of our role as pastors and shepherds is to protect the flock and to guard

against false doctrine.

Not, as I said to the congregation, it's not every disagreement.

We're going to disagree on particular points.

None of us see eye to eye on everything.

But the heart of the gospel is so clear and it's so important.

But you have so -called Christian teachers today denying some of the very fundamentals of

the faith, preaching actual heresy, and there are many people that are illiterate when it comes to the

Bible.

And that's part of the stress and part of the trials for leaders, not just pastors, but

to contend for the faith, but to feed the flock because we deal with our own shortcomings.

We deal with our own sense of, you know, who am I to be?

I don't want to be unloving.

I don't want to be critical.

I don't want to be—and we all have that human nature where we want to be liked.

We want to be accepted.

We want to struggle with that.

And yet we're called by God to be faithful and not successful.

When you ask about your churches, how many do you have?

How many were there on Sunday?

How many programs do you have?

And they don't ask, how are the people growing?

How are, you know—we're

not called to be men -pleasers, but by nature we tend to be.

We have a listener, a Christian from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says,

is not an evidence that people are not trusting in the Lord to build His church,

that they are focusing far too much on the number of visitors they receive and the number of

members they have.

This is relating to what you were just saying.

And when you become consumed with this, like it's a contest with

other churches, it really is a dangerous sign

that you are ready to abandon the Bible as the blueprint for conducting

church, and you start to develop and adopt these gimmicks that you were talking about before.

Am I right?

Kind of lack

of faith,

because you're not—I think the

average church, it's not—.

Like Joe Osteen, you mean.

Yeah.

Here's part of the thing

with the church.

And trusting God.

We all don't have the same abilities.

I wish I could preach like Spurgeon.

You know, I wish I could preach like, you know, John Calvin or John MacArthur or

R .C. Sproul or some of the other greats.

It's not our own eloquence or our own, I want to do better, I want to learn, I'm still

a student, I want to grow.

But the bottom line is, it's not

success isn't measured by how many people or how

many—are we leading them to Christ?

Are we trying to teach the whole counsel of God, not just our particular

hobby horses or our own particular things that are pleasing to men?

I think of Paul in

Galatians and the Gospel.

Real quick, you know, why is the Gospel hated?

And it is hated in this world.

It strips man of all grounds of boasting, the true Gospel.

It renders us without any grounds to boast before God.

The Gospel proclaims the utter sinfulness of man.

We're not just sick, we're not just sad, we're not just—we're lost before a holy

and righteous God because it proclaims the absolute

emptiness of man's wisdom.

Look at the world today.

They're going more and more crazy.

The things that are being promoted in our society by this culture, it's absolute lunacy.

The Bible speaks of this progression of sin.

It declares the total defeat and judgment of Satan.

It declares the glorious manifolds that

I'm not ashamed of.

It's not how to find out what people want in church, and then we do that.

That's not biblical.

That's not biblical.

And proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yes, God loves, but man is

under sin, under judgment.

That's the most loving thing we can tell people is that you need to repent.

Repent and believe, not just say a little, quick little prayer.

If you repeat this prayer after me, you're saved.

How many people—when we were in Allentown, real quick, I was involved—we supported

a ministry that fed the poor, which was great.

They'd have dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the community, the homeless, the poor.

So every—meaning they would ask me.

We'd give an altar call, and people would come up, and they would give out.

I saw them writing down these numbers.

Every year, he'd write down, you know, and he said, I've got to send in a

report to the headquarters, or whatever.

Next year, it got to

the point where they would say, Hey, Pastor, how are you?

Hi, Bill, how are you?

Yeah, coming up to get saved.

You need to get saved, the kind of thing, where it's just like, say this prayer.

So much of evangelicalism, that's what it is.

There's no, in my estimation, a true reliance upon the power of

God to bring about true conversion, because the message isn't being proclaimed.

Yeah, and I just want to clarify something you said earlier.

You said that we're not to be gauging the fruit

of our labors in a church by its success.

I think that you likely meant by success in the world's standards,

because obviously growing in the

understanding and obedience of the Word of God and the growth in sanctification

revealed by the members and souls coming to

repentance and salvation, you know, those are, in God's eyes, successful

results, but not necessarily what men would deem to be successful.

I'm sure that's what you meant, correct?

Accomplish the purpose that one day you said that you will.

That's one of the wonders of the Gospel, that it can take people from such different backgrounds,

different hang -ups, different races, different—it's just an

amazing thing.

But sometimes it takes courage, it takes courage to speak the truth in love, even to some of the

cultural issues.

There are many preachers that don't want to take a stand on some of the issues of our day.

We're not being holier -than -thou or self -righteous, but we're called to warn people.

We need to be watchmen.

That's one of the roles I think of pastors, too, is to stand on the wall and get warned.

Because it's real.

The wrath of God is real.

But so is the provision that God has made through Jesus.

I thought you believed in election.

I do.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God.

The things He's revealed belong to us.

I can't look at anybody and say whether they're elect, but all I can do is say

they're sinners.

And if you repent and believe the gospel, you also

know that it must depend upon God if He can quicken a dead soul

and bring them out of death.

Amen.

And I am assuming you would agree with me that we are not to be

totally unconcerned about a church being stagnant

in its numeric growth, especially if the growth is solely because of

regenerate Christians finding out about the church and joining it because they like what they have heard and

what they see when they visit, and that none of the growth or very little of it is

from converts to Christ.

But it's not that we shouldn't be concerned and wonder what we may be doing

incorrectly and in violation of the Scriptures, but we are not to

be solely or predominantly driven by numbers and consumed by

them, right?

We're excited.

We're not

saying,

oh,

for

the opportunity.

And I used to have this dream.

It's hard to see right now, but again, we walk by faith.

I guess mainly I want to encourage, if anyone's listening, who might be

feeding into that mindset that, man, I'm not being successful, I'm not being, you know.

I mean, people, I've known pastors in the past who were so

desperate to see their church quote -unquote grow that they were buying into, you know, they'd hear

about a revival happening somewhere else, Florida.

They would even take busloads down to Florida, doing there in Florida, and

then try to bring it back here to Pennsylvania.

And a lot of it was just the music they were doing.

We've got to do the music.

Jumping up and down and falling around on the floor, we've got to do that here, because it's growing there.

No, see, it's this mentality of we've got to try it.

Whatever's going to work, it must be working there.

Not once did they say, we've got to preach God's Word.

We have to do much of that mentality.

It's pragmatism, marketing.

It's, no, that's not the gospel.

That's not biblical.

And that's growing the church primarily with goats, not with sheep.

And we have to go to our final break right now.

If you have a question, send it in right away, because we are rapidly running out of time.

Our number, or our e -mail address, I should say, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i

-s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least.

City and state and country of residence.

We'll be right back.

Please don't go away.

As host of Iron Trump and Zion Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in

Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he

shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to

worship God in spirit and truth.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a God -centered focus.

Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,

baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy,

and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at

gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

Or call them at 908 -996 -7654.

That's 908 -996 -7654.

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at

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CVBBS has been a family -owned book service since 1987, operating out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

They seek to bring you the best available Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices.

Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available or popular because, frankly,

much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

That means you can get to the good stuff faster.

It also means you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith

-insulting materials promoted by the secular book vendors.

Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence at Cumberland Valley

Bible Book Service.

Order online at cvbbs .com.

That's cvbbs .com.

Or you can order by phone at 1 -800 -656 -0231.

That's 1 -800 -656 -0231.

Please let our friends at CVBBS know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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

the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

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

sticking with or switching to the NASB.

I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, and the NASB

is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, New York, and the NASB is my

Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Sule Prince of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor John Samson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, and the NASB is my Bible

of choice.

I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the NASB is

my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Steve Herford of Eastport Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the NASB is

my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Roy Owens, Jr. of the Church in Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is

my Bible of choice.

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

Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

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

from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com.

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

Do you know what they all have in common?

They all require training, assessments, and certifications.

But do you know what requires no training at all?

Becoming a parent.

My name is A .M. Brewster.

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

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

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

their homes.

That's why Truth, Love, Parent exists.

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

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

dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.

Please visit us at truthloveparent .com.

If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is

by supporting our advertisers.

One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnton is doing is

Daniel P. Patafuco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society.

Their mission?

To foster belief in the credibility of scripture as the written word of God.

They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare

collection of biblical texts along with a fascinating presentation by Mr. Patafuco

demonstrating the reliability of scripture.

To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful, perfect facsimile of the

genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition

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This 17th century hand -engraved chart shows the family tree of Jesus Christ

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This book is complete with gorgeous full -size illustrations of Noah's Ark and the Tower of

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Originals of this work are in museums and nobody has ever made it accessible to the

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You can have your own copy of this 44 -page genealogy book for a donation of $35

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Visit historicalbiblesociety .org.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small

group study?

So often we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study God's Word in those

smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.

It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the Word of God and is

built upon sound doctrine.

Much less, it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the Bible.

Hi there, my name is Jordan Too and I am the Executive Director of the Baptist Publishing House.

Our ministry is dedicated to providing local churches with sound Bible study resources.

Our quarterly curriculum is titled The Baptist Expositor.

And for good reason, we are Baptist and we exegete the scriptures.

If you want to have a curriculum that teaches your people how to study the Word of God, I invite you, go to our website,

download a free study, baptistpublishinghouse .com.

May God bless you.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other

documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

And besides that, they feel so good.

I'm so delighted I discovered Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible Rebinding.

No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot.

Jeffrey Rice of Post -Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.

All his work is done by hand, from the cutting to the pleating of corners to the perimeter stitching.

Jeffrey uses the finest in buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors, like

the turquoise goat skin, tanned in Italy, used for my Nessie Allen 28th edition, with a navy

blue goat skin inside liner, and the electric blue goat skin from a French tannery, used to rebind a

Reformation study Bible I used as a gift.

The silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished

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For more details on Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible Rebinding, go to P -T -L Bible

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Welcome back.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today has been for the entirety of the program,

Pastor Mark Ortiz of Grace Reform Fellowship of Burnville, Pennsylvania.

We have been discussing trusting the Lord to build his church, and I'd like you to summarize what you

most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before they leave this

program about this theme about trusting the Lord to build his church.

Arnie in Perry County asks, must we not be

very careful as church leaders not to use Christmas as a

means to entertain the lost and just speak about

the meek mile and lowly babe in the manger who is harmless?

Must we not remember although the Christmas story of the babe in the manger is

important, that we must preach the whole gospel, which includes the necessity

to repent and believe, or experience eternal damnation.

Must we not do this even during Christmas?

Oh, it's my pleasure, brother, and we do have another question

from a listener, and this is Susan Margaret from Dauphin

County, Pennsylvania, and Susan Margaret says,

what do you think is a practical way to prevent church leaders

from not trusting in God to build his church?

Not trusting God, I think it's,

again, I have

to

try

to make up my mind, because it'll never be appealing.

It's the power of God unto salvation, and so I think it's a lack of trust and lack of

teaching and understanding of

continually

walk

and work it

out day by day.

Well, I just want to repeat your website to our listeners.

It's gracereformedburnville .com

gracereformedburnville .com and that's spelt b -e -r -n -ville .com.

It's been a great pleasure having you on the program today.

I look forward to having you back, Pastor Mark.

I want to remind our listeners.

Please.

Help us out financially by buying any jewelry that you intend to purchase or

custom design for Christmas, for Valentine's Day, or any other special occasion.

Please get it from royaldiadem .com royaldiadem .com and mention

us when you are making your purchase.

They are a Christian -owned and operated store and they have clientele all over

the world because their custom design process is done with you over the

internet step -by -step and they are magnificent.

I have seen the masterful work that they do first -hand for people

who listen to my program and also just write down that

website, royaldiadem .com stick it to your refrigerator, put it in your phone,

put it wherever you are looking frequently so that you won't forget about this wonderful

business who is giving us 100 of the profits from any

sale to an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener who mentions this program when the

purchase is $100 or more.

So please go to royaldiadem .com today.

We really need that extra income and also please urge your

church, if you love this show, urge your church, urge your pastors, your elders, your deacons to perhaps even

put Iron Sharpens Iron radio on a monthly donation list.

Perhaps they could view us as a domestic missionary or something like that.

We really need your help, folks.

Since the COVID -19 mandate hysteria had occurred, our

giving has plummeted and it's at a frightening all -new low.

We really need your help.

But I hope everybody listening has a safe, happy,

healthy and blessed weekend and Christ -honoring Lord's Day and I hope you

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

are a sinner.