September 30, 2015 Show with Marc Grimaldi on “Gossip: The Church Killer” and “OCD: Finding Hope & Christ on the Edge of Insanity”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnton your host of Iron Sharpens Iron wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 30th day of September 2015 and I'm very happy to have once again returning to the

Iron Sharpens Iron program my former pastor on Long Island, Pastor Mark Gormaldi who along with Pastor Doug Totter are the elders or leaders of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island located in Merrick, New York.

I'm going to be addressing two very important topics today. One is gossip, the church killer and the other is

OCD and that is subtitled Finding Hope at the

Edge of Insanity and those are two books that our guest Pastor Mark Gormaldi has written.

In the first hour we're going to be handling gossip and the second we are going to be handling the subject of OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Mark Gormaldi on either of those subjects we ask of you to write us at ChrisArnton at gmail .com,

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

USA and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Mark Gormaldi.

Thanks Chris, as always it's a pleasure to be here and I'm glad to see how well your program is doing. Yeah well that's not only a blessing to me but it's absolutely amazing to me when

I recognize every morning when I wake up how stupid I am to be hosting a program that's gaining world attention and we do have listeners all over the world and we are truly thankful for that and I thank

God for the opportunity and as I've said to people in the past I'm just a dumb

Christian with a good radio voice who has a whole lot of smart friends and at least

I can say that I think I'm smart enough to ask reasonably intelligent questions, not necessarily smart enough to answer them but I think that I can ask pretty good questions.

Well first of all before we even go into the first topic on gossip, please give our listeners an explanation or description of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

Yeah Grace Reformed Baptist Church as you can tell by the name is a Reformed Baptist Church. We hold to the the doctrines of grace.

Our confession is the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. You can look it up online and see what we what we believe and we hold to and as you said we're located on Merrick in Merrick on Long Island and I hope that if you're in the neighborhood here that you would come to to visit our church.

And I know that the website for Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island is gracereformedbaptistchurch .com.

Wow how did you get that website? That's a great URL. We got it early on. We were probably one of the first comers

I'm assuming for it. Yeah we were able to get that site. gracereformedbaptistchurch .com

and hopefully you will remember to repeat that throughout the broadcast. And let me before we even get into the topic at hand, since Pastor Mark Romaldi is going to be speaking this weekend at a conference on Long Island, I wanted to give this conference a plug.

Pastor Bruce Bennett and the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, New York invite you to join them at their sixth annual

Bible conference October 2nd and 3rd. This year's topic will be eschatology, a biblical examination of the four major end time views.

They are pleased to have pastors Chris Pandolfi, Pastor Dave Corson, Pastor Mark Romaldi who is our guest today in Iron Shepherds Iron, and Pastor Rich Jensen presenting one of the four views each.

The conference will have five sessions. Session one will be on Friday October 2nd at 7 p .m.

as Pastor Chris Pandolfi defends premillennial dispensationalism. Session two will be at 10 a .m.

on Saturday as Pastor Dave Corson defends historic premillennialism.

Session three at 1115 a .m. as Pastor Mark Romaldi, our guest today, defending amillennialism.

Then there will be lunch served after session three. And session four will begin at 130 p .m.

as Pastor Rich Jensen defends postmillennialism. Dinner will be served at 545 and session five will start at 7 p .m.

by Anthony Uvino hosting a roundtable discussion with all four pastors with audience questions being fielded during the roundtable discussion.

The conference is absolutely free of charge but offerings are welcome and Word of Truth Church is located at 1055

Portion Road in Farmingville, Long Island, New York and can be reached by calling 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614 and on the internet at WOTChurch .com.

WOT stands for Word of Truth Church dot com. So we hope that if you live on Long Island or near Long Island that you can attend that conference.

And I don't know if I ever told you this, Pastor Mark, but do you know what the difference between an optimistic amillennialist and a pessimistic amillennialist is?

No. An optimistic amillennialist is an amillennialist. A pessimistic amillennialist is an amillennialist.

I'm somewhere in between there. Even though it's not our subject today, since you're speaking on it and we're promoting the conference, can you give us a very brief summary of what amillennialism is?

Yeah, well, the amillennial position would hold to, obviously, the very debatable passage in Revelation that deals with the whole question of the millennium.

When does Christ return? After the millennium? Before the millennium? This thousand year reign? Is it even a literal thousand years or not?

And so on. The amillennial position would hold to a stance that would say that the millennium is not a literal thousand years.

Rather, it's a spiritual millennium, and it's throughout the whole period from Christ's first coming all the way until his second coming that we'll be going through those kinds of things that are described in Revelation.

So it's more of a spiritual application to that. Whereas some of the other positions, especially the premill views, would say it's a literal thousand years and that has not come yet and we're still not there and so on.

So in short form, it's the view of the millennium. There's a whole other bunch of baggage that's attached to that and it's got to come, or if you can't make it, it will be,

I believe, Bruce Bennett's going to have these messages also put on sermon audio as well so you can listen to them.

So as good as we can do in an hour's time for each position, which is very hard with these particular views, hopefully you'll get something out of that.

Yes, and I guess the other crucial difference between amillennialism and all of the premillennial views is that amillennialists do not believe that Christ will be physically reigning for a thousand years along with resurrected saints.

That's right. We would see it as that Christ is already reigning now with his people.

And there's two views even in amillennialism that would look at that. One is he's reigning with the saints who are in heaven with him now is one view.

And the other view is that that would include those who are converted on earth at this moment would be still partaking in that reign in a sense as we look forward to the consummation of his kingdom upon his return.

So yeah, there would be no literal earthly reign of Christ to come for a thousand years or anything like that.

And you believe that when Christ does return, it's not for a secret rapture, it's the final consummation of all things on earth where the saints are resurrected and the wicked are resurrected and there will be rewards in heaven and judgment and that kind of thing.

Yeah, exactly. And it will be a visible return, a bodily return that is visible to all.

Yes. And that's WOTChurch .com for more information on that conference.

WOT, for word of truth, church .com. So we hope that you can go. Well, you have written two books and the first we are addressing today is

Gossip the Church Killer. And I don't know statistically if this is true.

I don't have any research that I've done on it. But I would think that I'm probably not far off if I were to say that gossip is the most rampant sin in the

Church of Jesus Christ and at least it's a very prevalent one. I don't think anybody could argue against that.

If you could define what gossip is. Yeah, let me just say two things in defining that.

First, let me say this as well. The book that I have on gossip is presently a manuscript, but it's all ready to go.

I just have to actually get it published. So it's not officially in a cover to cover binder yet, but it will be.

And I really think it will be helpful for churches to read it. Gee, that's not what

I heard, Mark. Well, I wouldn't be looking on the radio program if I told you the truth.

No, that's my fault. But it is complete, it is finished, it just has to be actually published. So if there's any good publishers out there who want to do that for me, that would be another thing too that would be helpful.

But to answer your question about gossip, First, as far as when you said that it's being something that is so rampant in the church, one of the reasons that I wrote this book is because that's exactly the case.

From my own experience in about ten years of ministry and even before that, just as a church member and being involved as an upcoming minister in the gospel, from what

I've seen in other churches, gossip is not only that it's rampant, but it's literally been at the root of what's destroyed churches, which is why

I call it the church killer. And one of the things about gossip that makes it so challenging is that everyone at some point or another, in fact at many points, has gossiped or will gossip.

Everyone will struggle with that in some sense. So while we can say, let's say adultery, or some of the other sins that are given throughout all of scripture that maybe somebody might not fall into that particular sin or many people may not, gossip is something that if we're not watching, we can be certain that we're involved in it.

So it's something that everyone has to wrestle with. As far as the definition of gossip, what

I wrote in the book to define it is this, is that gossip involves any communication, and it could be verbal or written, that is communicated from one person to another or others concerning a person who is not present and which can potentially affect someone's view of the person not present in a negative way.

So any kind of communication that can potentially cast a negative portrayal of another person's character and that person's not present can be defined in some way as gossip.

So you said it's either oral or written. Can I use sign language and do this? Well, sign language technically, yes, sign language would work too.

That would count. Okay. And let me differentiate that from there have been people who have been furious on occasion with my show or sometimes with different speakers they hear at churches or conferences that will publicly say very critical things about a famous Christian leader.

And I'll give you an example, Joel Osteen. I remember my old Iron Sharpens Iron radio program was nearly taken off the air because a mutual friend of ours,

Pastor Jim Capo, when I was at a wedding and let him fill in for me as a host, he did a program addressing

Joel Osteen and Steve Camp was his guest and they were providing a critical examination of Joel Osteen and even

Joel Osteen's church was notified in advance so that they could respond, they could give any kind of rebuttal to what was said and there was never any return information or contact from them.

Would that be categorized as gossip? No. And what you're talking about there is something that is in the public domain so it's not a private matter even or something about an individual let's say in the church that you know something about or whatever it might be but Joel Osteen or even a pastor of a church it's something in the public domain even if it's a sin that has been committed publicly there's some room to discuss that.

I think there's got to be caution on how that's done obviously and examination of our hearts has to be you know we have to do that as well but yeah

I think it's right and proper in fact we're commanded to even in scripture I believe as pastors to be able to teach our sheep about error and about those who are teaching falsehood and damaging teachings and so those in the public who are teaching or who are out there in front of everyone's eyes

I think there's room to discuss those things and to especially to have some critiques even written critiques or verbal but I do think it's also a good thing to hear that they had that Steve Camp and you had contacted even the church and let them know what was going to happen in advance that's even to me even going further and above board to do it the right way so yeah

I wouldn't necessarily consider that gossip I think there's a healthy place for that kind of discussion when dealing with public figures or public sins.

and it's interesting there are I don't know if you've seen some of the banter that's going on on the internet but Dr.

James R. White mutual friend of ours Alpha Omega Ministries was recently believe it or not he was defending a statement of the

Pope and what he was defending was that the

Pope said that the cross was a failure in earthly terms or human terms like if people were to be standing there watching it at the time they would have thought wow

Jesus failed and people were criticizing the

Pope saying that it was absolute heresy that he was saying this and James said although I believe the

Pope is a false teacher and a dangerous and a heretic and I'm no fan of the

Church of Rome we have to be careful about even the way we represent our theological enemies we cannot say statements about anybody even if they're a member or leader of a cult that isn't true

Right, right and I would agree with that I think what James did was good on expressing that I've gotten many seen many copies of that that article on Facebook you know all over the place where people are reposting that about what the

Pope is saying and I read what James had said and I appreciate that and I think what that tells us Chris is like you said we need to be careful especially as Christians what we pass on as information it's so easy to read something and just pass it on we see constantly on the internet even with what went on with this young boy who brought this clock to school that he supposedly had made and all that and when they opened that up they found out there was so much more information and yet so many people have jumped in and made all kinds of comments and invited him to all kinds of events in the present and I think we just have a case of foot and mouth syndrome that's really predominant in our country and even as Christians if we're honest with this day the way information is circulated we do that too and we need to be careful because we do not want to slander even those who hold too gross falsehoods that would compromise the gospel we need to represent them faithfully and properly now one of the things that makes this sin of gossip you know unique is that it is very often cloaked as a

Christian duty or a an act of goodness to alert friends family and loved ones about something dangerous or sinful or wicked that a person either believes or has done so they are using this as their own way of alerting and warning people but this is not the correct biblical method of doing it unless you have addressed the person yourself first correct and it has to be information that is 100 % accurate and it can't be speculation and it can't be something that you were revealing that was private am

I right on those pieces yeah in fact in the very beginning of my book right after the introduction when

I get into chapter 1 which is what is gossip at the beginning of every chapter

I actually tell a little fictional story about different characters and I just to kind of help illustrate some of the points

I'm trying to make book and it's not premeditated it's not done maliciously

I think we mean well but it kind of disarms the other individual and ourselves to kind of give us an excuse to say the things we're going to say which really are gossip and some of the disarming clauses would be you know a good one a good one a good one a good a good one a good one a good one good one a one a good one a good one a good one a one a good one good good a that is about to come out of the mouth and be discussed.

And the part of what I said just a minute ago about confronting the person face -to -face and so on, this is only in regard to something that would be otherwise private, correctly?

Like I was just mentioning Joel Osteen earlier, if this is a public scandal or something, that doesn't prevent you from reporting it to others as long as your motives are correct, correct?

Am I right? Yeah, when you're dealing with a public figure, yeah, definitely it's okay to reveal that to others.

I think what you're talking about, Chris, is as well as if there's an issue, again, gossip can take on many forms.

It can be anything from what somebody was wearing today to something about someone's sin life or something that somebody's struggling with in their life and you're revealing that.

You found out or they've entrusted something to you. And I think the key there is something that I deal with in Chapter 4 where I actually begin to deal with what it means to how do we properly approach people when we have a concern.

And I think the critical way that we do that is Matthew 18. And that first step of the process given in Matthew 18 is one of the most significant steps of the whole process that deals with discipline and so on, and it's also one of the most neglected.

And I think if we concentrated on fulfilling that first step, we would avoid a lot of problems.

And it's that phrase. And this deals with, of course, an offense or if your brother sins against you.

But if your brother isn't sinning in any sense, right? Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he hears you have gained a brother and then goes on to give the next step.

But how many times do we find when these kinds of things happen, when somebody sins against us or when somebody is doing something that you might be concerned about, do we just skip that step and we just go into this mode of, we may have some sincerity there.

I need to find somebody else to see what they think about this. And I think it's so important that we find that the

Lord, the way he words that, tell him his fault between you and him alone. That is a critical way of avoiding gossip when dealing with confrontation or some kind of an issue of concern with someone.

And I want to repeat our e -mail address. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Mark Romaldi on gossip, the second hour we'll be discussing

OCD, obsessive -compulsive disorder. But right now our subject is gossip, and our e -mail address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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

USA. And obviously, if it is regarding a personal or private matter, you may remain anonymous. And obviously, don't mention anybody else's name then either.

Or don't be very obvious about who you're talking about. That would be ironic if we started gossiping right here on the program.

Yes, and one of the other ways that Christians like to put perfume on the sin is by cloaking it as a prayer request.

Aren't sometimes prayer meetings unfortunately infiltrated by gossip? Yeah, Chris, sadly that is the case.

In fact, I can say that I've been a part of prayer meetings, even in our own church here, where there have been occasions where somebody, even in their praying, not necessarily even, sometimes before you pray there's interaction and certainly there can be gossip there, and there is.

But even in the praying and speaking to the Lord and praying for that individual, there's some specific details that are given in that prayer that are just inappropriate to bring up in a public setting like that and could be harmful and would be gossip as well.

So yeah, definitely in the guise of prayer requests, that's probably one of the most common ways you find gossip coming out.

And if you could, I know you mentioned it a little bit at the outset of the program, but what really compelled you to write this book?

Yeah, Chris, several years ago we have gone through several different kinds of challenges in our own church here over the last, probably before 10 years ago even, because 10 years ago

I actually came into ministry and everything's perfect now, so we don't have any problems anymore. I'm just kidding about that. But we went through some serious trouble at times in the church and different kinds of things that led to divisions and so on.

And throughout that period, and actually even within the last 10 years too as well, there's been situations that have developed in the church that have spread and have come back to us as pastors through kind of like the back door and just the different ways things were handled where we could say, my co -pastor and I had shaken our head, you know, if this was just dealt with in the right way and people addressed people directly and didn't go behind the scenes, how much it could have avoided some major problems and even splits and so on.

So with that happening, even my own self being affected by it, because one of the things a pastor hears, and I'm sure every pastor can relate to this in some sense, you'll get people who come in and say, you know, several people came to me, pastor, and said they had this concern about you and so on.

And it could be a true, legitimate concern, but you say, okay, can you tell me who they are so I can go to them?

Well, they really didn't want to say anything, and they were concerned about hurting your feelings. So I'm like, all right, well, they were concerned, but instead of coming to me now, they went and they spoke to other people, you know, about this issue.

So all those kinds of things and, you know, just people who have said things about others, it just gets throughout the church.

And the more you have people hearing these things, it affects hearts, and you can't help.

If somebody tells me something about someone else that's cast a bad view on that person,

I can't help but have that come to mind as I communicate with them and in some way affect my speech or the way that I view them.

It's there, because it affects the heart. Gossip goes into the heart. It talks about that in Proverbs.

It's like morsels that go into the depths of the heart. And so it's just been such a dangerous thing that I've seen in the life of our own church, and I know that it's –

I've heard stories throughout all churches, and I know it's a big thing throughout all history, this problem.

Yes, yeah. I mean, as you know, I was involved in the very serious sin of drunkenness, and I know what you mean by the fact that –

I know that there were brothers in Christ who told others about my drunkenness who never confronted me face -to -face, and who knows how the

Lord would have worked with that earlier if they had come to me. Now, obviously, when the world does that, that's a different story.

We can expect the world to behave like Christians, so if they're going to – I'm not saying that the world should gossip, but if they don't follow biblical mandates to go to the person in private first and so on, they don't even know that that's in the

Scriptures, and they don't even believe in the Scriptures. But do you think that a lot of the root of this sin involves cowardice?

I think there are several roots, and you're right to describe it as a sin that has a root.

And I do have a chapter, actually, in the book that talks about getting to the heart of gossip in Chapter 3 of my book, and it really gets down to helping us understand that gossip in itself is an outward reflection of an inner problem, right?

What we do outwardly, whether we speak what we speak, what we do, how we act, is reflecting something that's going on in the heart.

And so at the root of gossip, I think there are several kinds of things that could be at the root of that. Certainly there's the issue of cowardice, an unwillingness to confront someone because you're afraid of what they might think, a fear of man.

I think there's also things like covetousness and jealousy, envy. When you're jealous of someone or covetousness toward them, you might want to in some way ruin them or say things about them.

Pride, sometimes it's just a desire to be the one who's in the know, the one who has information, have information on someone, and we want to be the one that people come to for that information.

There's so many roots, pride, envy, resentment, jealousy, what you said, cowardice, that are involved that lead to it.

We're going to be going to our first station break. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you've just tuned us in for the last half hour, we have been discussing gossip, the church killer, with our guest,

Pastor Mark Gormaldi of Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island, New York, located in Merrick, and we are going to be at the top of our second hour, beginning a new discussion on obsessive -compulsive disorder, commonly known as OCD.

But if you'd like to join us on the air for the next half hour to discuss gossip, if you have a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. And please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, unless you're asking about a personal or private matter.

And we already do have a listener in Sharpsburg, Georgia. Lou asks, how would you recommend diffusing a conversation that's entering into gossip territory?

Oh, that's a very good question, Lou. Very good. Yeah, I think if, and I can say that in my own experience that I've failed in this regard.

It's a hard thing to do, but it's important that we strive to do this. I think if we, first of all,

I think we need to be aware when somebody comes to us to speak to us about something to not be caught off guard, but to have a sense of awareness that there's a potential, at least a potential that there could be some type of gossip that can go on here.

But I think if we're aware and as we communicate with someone, I think one way to diffuse it is to say to that individual as they begin to say, you know, maybe

I'm concerned about so -and -so or whatever it might be. We can say, well, okay, let me just ask you something real quick.

And, you know, I care about you and just want to see things done in the right way. Have you spoken to that person?

And if they say, you know, yes or no, certainly you can go from there. But if they say yes, but they're not listening, then you might want to say, well, have you talked to the pastors?

And just in some way to instruct the person that, you know, what's the right thing to do in that, you know, to do it in love, what's the right thing to do in that situation so as not to create an atmosphere of gossip.

So to kind of point them in a loving way, you don't want to look at them and point the finger and say, hey, you're a gossip, you know, look at you, you dirtbag, you know, nothing like that.

But you do want to say to the person, you know, remembering that we all fall into this at times, to say, hey, look, you know, it would be the best thing to go to that person and to speak to them.

Let them know. They might not even be aware of what your concern is, and that's the right thing to do. So I would start in that direction.

We have another listener in Georgia. We have Dale, who asks the question, can you talk about the social media,

Facebook in particular, and its effects regarding gossip, since much is already made public by the individual.

Is it considered gossip to pass something on that originally, something on that originally began on the

Facebook page by the individual? Yeah.

Yeah, I think we touched on this a little bit before, Chris. I think that it does make it a lot more challenging with the media that we have and the fact that we, at the touch of a button, can know everything going on all around the world and we can communicate to people all around the world.

We have hundreds of friends and so on. And I think in that realm, certainly gossip is very possible, especially if you're dealing with, you know, individual friends or if you're communicating something about someone.

But I think it's more that the bigger danger is slander. There's a difference between slander and gossip.

Although slander is something that can take place with gossip, gossip includes more than slander.

It's broader than slander. You can speak the truth about someone and still be gossiping if it's something that you've not gone to them about or if it's something that can cast a bad light on them and that other people are not aware of.

Slander is more of when we're saying things about someone that's not true. And I think what we see on Facebook is a lot of slander.

And I think that's the bigger issue there, just in my opinion. Yeah, excellent question and answer.

And one tangible way that I can recall, and I know that Dr. James White, who we just mentioned already, won't mind me bringing this up in public because he has.

When I first was challenged by a

Roman Catholic to find an evangelical Christian to debate a

Roman Catholic apologist, which actually began that two -decade -long debate series in New York that I was involved in, at least a decade of which was specifically

Roman Catholic debates, I almost did not invite

James White to participate because of reading something in a Catholic magazine that described him as a hateful bigot.

And obviously when I was told by evangelicals who knew him well that that was a lie,

I eventually got to know Dr. White and we obviously know that standing up for truth and having righteous indignation about heresy and so on is not equivalent to hate.

And obviously we had such a wonderful series of debates that turned out to be very fruitful and productive and so on.

And even those from the Roman Catholic Church that attended them very often were very impressed not only with Dr.

White's brilliance but with his Christlike spirit in conducting these events.

Yeah, I think that's an important point that Chris would make and I think that that's clearly a case of slander.

And it does go to show you that even with slander, with gossip, with these kinds of things, that words really mean something.

When you look in Scripture, you look in the Proverbs, you look in Ephesians, all throughout

Scripture, if you look at all the sins that are exposed in Scripture and connect how many of them deal with in some way either directly or indirectly the tongue and what we say and what we communicate, it's predominant.

I mean it's all throughout and exactly like you said, that affects your heart and you're not alone in that. How many times

I can say that I've heard something about someone or an article that was written that I read and it said something and right away my heart is engaged and I'm furious.

And then you find out later on that that was only a part of the context and it was taken out of context and before you know it there's a whole different side of the story.

And the Scriptures address that, right, about the person who speaks first seems to be right until the neighbor comes and examines them.

And I think that overall in our country, in the church in general, I just think that with communication being so freely done as it is,

I think we really sin so much with our lips, with our communication, passing things on, and I think the

Lord is certainly not happy with that and we would do good to evaluate that as churches and to preach from our pulpits about how we use our tongues and so on.

Lou from Sharpsburg, Georgia writes back, I heard through the grapevine that I won a free copy of Mark Ramolli's book, or is that just a rumor?

Tell Lou from Sharpsburg that he'll get a free copy of his book, I just have to get it into a published form.

And I would love to send Lou, in fact I'd love to send several people a copy once I get it put into a published form.

I think it'll be real helpful. And once again our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

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

This in many respects, although you're not physically killing someone, you are murdering their reputation, aren't you?

Yeah, in fact Chris, in the second chapter of my book I deal with the issue of the question, is gossip really that dangerous?

Because it seems like something that, first of all, doesn't get a lot of attention as to being addressed in the church.

It seems like, okay, well it's words, you're not touching another human being in a sexual way, you're not murdering, you're not stealing, there's no direct contact in that sense.

So it seems like a minor thing. But in reality, when you look at what the scriptures say about it, when you look at the damage that comes from it, when you look at how it leads to some of those other sins as well, it's very serious.

And it's, in fact, in Romans chapter 1, when it talks about how the

Lord is angry with mankind and they're under his judgment, it's listed among those sins where it speaks about that those who practice such things deserve death and so on, and how they continue to do those things and approve of those who practice them.

It says that there are gossips or whispers included in that. And so I address the issue of the dangers of gossip, and one of the things,

I address five specific categories of why it's dangerous, is it's a form of character assassination.

It's something that injures the personal character of people and it affects the way people view them.

Let me just read one quote to you from a brother I'd gotten from the Internet that I put in the book. It says, the snake that poisons everyone, he calls gossip the snake that poisons everyone.

It topples governments, wrecks marriages, ruins careers, destroys reputations, causes nightmares, spawns suspicion, and generates grief.

Even its name hisses. It's called gossip. I just thought that was a cool quote. Yeah, it is. Now, how do you, as a pastor, seek to bring a halt to gossip that's occurring in the congregation?

Yeah, and I think I need to, through the book I do this, and it's something that certainly needs to be addressed in the pulpit, and I have, and probably should do it even more often because it is something, again, that's predominant in human beings in general and even in the church.

But what I do is, again, I try to get to the heart of it, to try to get people to think about what's going on in the heart, to examine why we do the things that we do.

I think there's a real sense of carelessness in us and in our culture. I think that's the way it is.

We're kind of trained that way through our media as well, to kind of not think, and that it's okay to just speak your mind and speak your heart.

The Scriptures very clearly say that we need to examine our hearts and we need to think about what we say, to be careful before we speak, to let no corrupt word come out of our mouth.

It says in Ephesians, and many times it talks about being diligent to guard our hearts.

Out of it comes the wellspring of life. And so I think we need to, one thing that I would do is encourage people to think more about their motives and get to the heart of why we say the things we say.

And then beyond that, when we address concerns with people, doing it according to Scripture, Matthew 18, another thing that I have in the book, another way of addressing it too, that I think would help positively to help put gossip to death, or at least cripple it, is

I have a chapter that's dedicated to what I call positive gossip. And it's called

Chapter 6, Anything Good to Say. And what it is is spreading health. Why can't we go to others and spread good things about brothers and go up and say, hey, did you hear about what so -and -so did today, how good they're doing?

And they walk with the Lord and just how excited they looked and how they were blessing in the church and serving in this way.

In other words, why don't we spread health? Why don't we speak good gossip, positive things about other people even when they're not around?

There's freedom to do that. And I think that would help counter the negative, focusing on the negative things that would affect people's characters and people's view of others.

And that is such a blessing on those occasions when you find out that people have been talking about you behind your back in a wonderful way.

Yeah, that's always a positive thing to hear, to be able to say good things about someone else and how helpful they've been to you in some way, how they've helped you with counsel, whatever it might be.

There's so many things that can be done in a positive sense to spread positive things about others, and that will help creating that kind of an atmosphere.

And of course, as much as I am always so thrilled to hear it, please, those of you listening who are spreading this gossip, please stop telling people that I am the most brilliant man on the face of the earth.

But we do have a listener in Lindenhurst, Long Island. CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, says that I frequently hear about women's intuition and wives will sometimes tell their husbands not to pursue a particular activity with an individual just because of a hunch or an inner feeling about an individual.

Could you call that gossip, or is that truly protecting one's spouse?

Yeah, that's a good question. It seems like, based upon what the individual is saying there, that that's more of somebody has a gut feeling about something.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it's gossip. Your wife knows you well, and maybe they have a bad feeling about something.

It's not like they're giving you information that they know about that individual in some negative sense.

There is some truth in the sense to say that sometimes the Lord gives women, maybe the humble men,

He gives them a certain kind of wisdom that is unique and profound, and we need to listen to our women in that sense.

But it doesn't mean when they tell us not to do something, we don't do it. Sometimes it could just be yesterday evening's roast beef that's in the stomach, and it just feels weird.

Real quick, Chris, as you're saying that, it just brought something to mind that I think is important too about the marriage relationship and about how gossip can take place in a marriage.

This is extremely important because I think even as pastors who are in ministry, let me say this, gossip is something that everyone needs to be aware of, whether you're a pastor, a deacon, a layperson.

None of us are beyond the reach of sinning in this way. But one of the things I think pastors need to be careful with, and this is something that I've seen throughout ministry, in some places could be a common practice among pastors, is how much they share information with their wives about things going on in the church.

I think that they need to be really guarded with that and not share things with their wives about sensitive matters and about counseling and so on, appointments, things that are going on, because that's gossip, and it also will affect the heart of your wife.

You may have a pastor, let's say, who goes to his wife and says, I met with so -and -so today, and they were railing against me and did this and that, and then your wife is now affected by that, and you may deal with that before the

Lord and work that out with the person, but now your wife sees that person and has bitterness toward that person because of things they've done to you.

So I just think pastors also need to be very cautious on what they say to their wives about what's going on in the ministry.

Some people take the idea, well, the two being one flesh, I think they take that to a place that Scripture does not give warrant to do that.

We need to guard our wives and guard what we tell them. Is gossip a disciplinable offense in the church?

I would say if it's continuous and ongoing and there's a lack of repentance on the part of an individual,

I think it could be, yeah. I think it does talk about in the Scripture about people who cause dissension, and there's some instruction there by the apostle

Paul on how to be dealt with and not to have fellowship with such people and so on. So somebody, I mean, if something's gotten, it's come back that there's a rumor going around or whatever it might be, or gossip of some sort, and you address that person and they confess it and they ask for forgiveness and you go on, that's fine.

But I think if it's something that happens and there's no acknowledging it as sin and they're digging their heels in or they're continuing to do that, yeah, for the sanctity of the church, to protect the unity of the church, people may need to be disciplined and put out if they don't repent of that sin.

Well, what are some of the other ways that you have seen gossip affecting a church and Christians in general?

Yeah, I think in, let me give you an example of, I'll give you a case -in -point situation.

Something happened here some years ago, and this is not an uncommon thing. There was a particular woman who had come up to me and who had said that they were concerned about another individual woman who was just seen to be very rude, just standoffish, and whenever this individual would walk past that woman, she would kind of walk past and not say anything and this individual who was speaking to me was starting to get very offended by this and just seeing that this woman was very harsh and just rude and really was getting upset.

And so I said to her, I said, look, I said, have you gone to her? Have you gone to the woman? And she said no. She said, you know, she's just afraid to because of the way she's been.

And I said, you need to go to her. You need to go to her and speak to her and let her know. Do it in a loving way. Say, look, this is the perception

I have. It just seems like you're upset about something. Is everything okay? And so the woman wound up going to the other individual, the other woman, and then later on came back to me and said, you know, you were right.

Everything was fine. And, you know, she wasn't upset. She was, you know, busy with something or whatever it might be.

Sometimes you have people who are just shy. You know, there's different kinds of personalities and different things like that or busy or whatever it may be.

So that's just one example. It's just the perception that we get when somebody doesn't acknowledge us in some way.

They walk past you or they bump into you. I mean, I've seen situations like that many times where somebody's just been classified as rude and ungodly.

That's one small example. But it can go from there to somebody who is just speaking things to other people in the church, you know, revealing information about so -and -so or what's going on in someone's marriage or whatever it may be that just spreads around and causes problems with the children and everything else.

You know, we've had things like that too. Doesn't the Apostle Paul list gossip right along with and the same breath a lot of other sins that everybody admits are heinous and damnable?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and one example was what I talked to you about in Romans 1, but there are other examples as well.

Also in Proverbs 4, we know that the text, that very popular text where it talks about the...

I'm sorry, not Proverbs 4. In the Proverbs where it talks about the things that God hates and one of those things that are listed there is someone who causes dissension, you know, among brothers, who causes dissension among brothers.

I forgot the exact text, but it's in the Proverbs. I have that somewhere in my book here, but it's one of the things

God hates, you know, is this idea of somebody who spreads gossip, who causes dissension, who separates people by his words.

Why don't you give our listeners some concluding remarks that you most want etched in their hearts and minds regarding this very prevalent sin in the church?

Yeah, I would say to the listeners, what I would say to myself is two things, many things actually, but I'll just keep it short, is

I would say that, you know, to take it seriously that the gossip is a serious matter. It's not damnable in the sense that, you know, it's not the unpardonable sin, but it is serious, and to be someone who is guarded in your own speech, to consider why you say what you say, think about what you say, what you hear.

And then also, one of the chapters in my book that I have is called When I Have Gossiped.

It's, in fact, the last chapter. Just to encourage the listeners, too, that if you look at your own heart or you look back and you see, as you're hearing this program, and you say, you know, wow,

I can see many times that I have failed in this way and I have gossiped, to know that the gospel is there for you, you know, that God is gracious.

You know, gossipers are forgiven and can be forgiven for their sins, and I would say just go to the

Lord, confess that, come back to the cross, to the gospel, and seek to be more determined to deal with it.

And if necessary, you may need to go back to some individual you spoke to and just to express to them that it was wrong what you said, but just to know that there's hope.

And, you know, for all of us, as we fall short in these ways, because we do, we fall short, there's hope at the cross to deal with this.

But let's deal with it, let's take it seriously, and let's build the church and not tear it apart. And, of course,

I'm sure you would agree that it's more than just a sin. It's more than a sin to just be involved in gossiping yourself out of your own mouth.

Wouldn't you agree that it's also a sin to drink it in, even as a person who's eavesdropping and just soaking in all of the information that they can get?

Yeah, yeah, it is a sin to spread the gossip, and it is a sin to give an audience to that gossip and not to, and again, as I said,

I say this to myself, it's very difficult, but it's a sin to not speak to the person who is speaking to you and to not point them out to correct them, to not correct them on what they're doing, to show them, to leave them innocent, and just to drink it in, even if you don't pass it on to anyone else.

It is to participate in the other person's sin, and so we want to be those who can freely confront one another.

We're all sinners, we all fall short, and part of what we do in the church is we help each other grow, and part of that has to do with rebuking, and we need to be able to rebuke one another when we find others who are gossiping or when we're gossiping, we need to be able to accept rebuke.

Well, if you want to get updates on this book, when it will be in print and so on, go to gracereformedbaptistchurch .com,

gracereformedbaptistchurch .com, and you can contact Pastor Mark Grimaldi at that website and ask him for updates, and hopefully that book will be available in the near future, and if anybody is listening, perhaps you might want to set that in motion if you are personally involved in a publishing company or ministry and so on, and we would love to hear from you.

In fact, you can even contact us at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

or at ironsharpensironradio .com, ironsharpensironradio .com.

We're going to be going to another break, and at the top of our second hour, we're going to be discussing the obsessive -compulsive disorder, and that is commonly known as OCD, and the reason that our guest,

Pastor Mark Grimaldi, has such in -depth knowledge on this subject is that he has this disorder and was able to overcome it, and we're going to find out more about what this disorder is and how it can be successfully treated, and obviously, if you have friends, family, or loved ones, or neighbors, or acquaintances, or colleagues that have this or believe they may have it, why not call them up and have them listen to the broadcast at ironsharpensironradio .com

for the next hour, ironsharpensironradio .com, and we hope to hear from you and your questions on OCD, obsessive -compulsive disorder, after these messages.

Give us an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzin.

Before we return to our discussion with Mark Rimoldi, actually before we begin a new discussion on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD, I just want to give a couple of more plugs to those who sponsor

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gracebaptistcarlisle .org is their website, so you can find out exactly how to get there and so on.

Well, we are beginning our new subject with Pastor Mark Romaldi now on obsessive -compulsive disorder.

And Pastor Mark, if you could give us a definition of exactly what that means. Yeah, obsessive -compulsive disorder is actually a mental disorder and it's characterized by intrusive thoughts, unwelcome thoughts that tend to produce anxiety, and generally there's a seeking to alleviate those thoughts or the anxiety of those thoughts by performing some type of repetitive behaviors, which we call compulsions.

So the obsession is more of the thoughts that you're obsessed on and the compulsions are the behaviors that are sought to as a means of alleviating the anxiety produced by those thoughts.

And are there different ways that this manifests itself? Is every person with OCD exactly alike in the way that they behave?

No, no, there are at least five different kinds of OCD and some of them overlap and sometimes people have a touch of a few and maybe predominant in one area or another, and sometimes people who are in a real bad state of obsessive -compulsive disorder wind up merging into other areas.

But there's the five areas that are common for OCD. The first is checking, and those what we call checkers are the people who would feel compelled to check things over and over again.

There's the obsessive thinking about that the light may have been left on and so check the light switch or is the door locked, the window locked, all kinds of things, just checking, constantly checking.

Are the oven knobs turned off in the right position? So they obsess on that and then they have to go and the compulsion would be perhaps to turn the switch on and off several times to make sure it's off.

So checking is one type of OCD. The second type is what we call washers and cleaners.

That would be those who are compelled to be without any kind of bacteria or anything like that.

They want to be absolutely clean at all times. They're concerned about becoming ill or passing on germs to someone else, so they're germophobes in a sense, and so they wash constantly, constantly cleaning and washing and washing their hands over and over again several times, and so they want to be careful not to spread anything.

The third would be what we call orderers. Orderers are people who have to have everything in the right order and books are stacked spine to spine and pencils are lined up right next to each other, change nickels around nickels and quarters and quarters and everything is just perfectly lined up and everything has to be orderly and they have an obsession with that.

And then fourthly are what are called obsessionals, and this is more of what my primary struggle has been, and that's more of obsessive thoughts in the mind, questioning whether or not you would do something or whether or not you're capable of doing something.

Maybe you have a horrific thought of some sort that gets into your mind and you say, oh, could

I actually do something like that? And you have this fear that you might do something just because you had the thought, and so it's mostly in the mind.

It doesn't make its way out into any kind of checking per se or anything like that, but that's what they call a purely obsessional.

And then fifthly is what we call the hoarders, and the hoarder is someone who they just can't throw anything out.

They save everything, newspapers, and it's all useless stuff that you'll never need, hangers, and they're just afraid to get rid of anything because they just might at some point use that thing and usually a hoarder, you'll look into their house and it's just a disaster full of mountains of all kinds of things and they just can't get rid of it.

So those are the five general classes of OCD, and some people struggle with a few of those, some people struggle with one of those, some people occasionally merge from one into several depending upon if things escalate and so on.

Yeah, and I'm assuming that especially with the checking syndrome, I remember my father, every time that we left for a trip as kids, he'd pack us into the car and we'd drive for about 10 minutes and he goes, you know,

I better check to see if I left the oven on. I guess the difference would be between that and OCD is once he knew he had the oven off, he didn't keep checking it.

With an OCD, even in the face of proof that the thing had been done correctly the first time,

OCD would just keep checking it anyway, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. In fact, virtually everyone at times has obsessed on something or obsessed about something that they really didn't have to obsess on.

They were concerned that they'd forget to do this, to shut this off, or maybe sometimes people do that periodically.

That wouldn't necessarily mean they have obsessive -compulsive disorder. But you're right, Chris, what happens with somebody who has

OCD, you're right exactly, is they'll go and they'll check it and then they'll leave and then they'll go back again and check it again, and that's where you have that repetition, where they may turn the thing on and off several times or do something, a compulsion of some sort, to make sure to convince themselves of the absolute certainty that they've finished the task.

They have to do some type of compulsion, as insane as it can be at times. Now, as I said earlier, and this isn't gossip because you obviously wrote a book about it, but you have, unfortunately, or actually

I guess if all things work together for the good, there's good that came out of it, but you have been plagued with this, obsessive -compulsive disorder, and before we get into exactly how you began to treat it, what kind did you have?

Did you have all of these that you listed or just some of them? What I had, I think, as I go back into my late teen years and my twenties, and I'm 41 now just to give perspective on this,

I've always had a degree of checking as I went into my twenties, maybe some degree of ordering, but it was livable.

It was livable, but I had that. What happened, though, is as I got older, and they say that this happens oftentimes in the thirties and so on, is

I merged into this purely obsessional kind where I started to just be overly introspective, especially in Christianity, because the

OCD, if you have OCD, it makes its way into whatever context your life is filling. So whatever you do, if you're a mechanic, it will make its way into what you do with the cars and how you clean up or whatever it is.

For me, in my Christianity, my big concern is going to be that I want to walk with the Lord, that I want to live a godly life, that I want to deal with sin.

Well, you can become so introspective with that to the point where you're just constantly overly examining yourself, and that's kind of where I fell into that category, just racing thoughts.

Did I sin in this way? Did I say something wrong? Could I do this? What if I did this? What if this happens?

And just obsessing on those kinds of things. Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania asks,

I understand that your guest is convinced that this is a real thing that he has experienced, but do you think that this society, especially in regard to children, is over -medicated and perhaps things are invented at times by psychiatrists and psychologists?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Let me answer that. There's a long answer for that, but let me try to put it short.

By the way, we have 45 minutes. We have 45 minutes, so we're going to go. But, yeah, let me answer that.

That's a good question. Is there an over -administering of medication?

Absolutely. I think that children especially are put on medication sometimes just for being children.

Maybe they're a little overactive and they're put on and they shouldn't be. I think there is too much of an impulse for medications and pharmaceutical companies to push these things.

It's a lot of money. You go into CVS any day of the week during the day at any hour and you're going to see several people behind the counters working.

That's a big, big profit -making industry. However, that said, beyond a shadow of any doubt, these mental conditions are real.

There's no question. Within the realm of Christianity and biblical counseling, and I get into this in the book, there's the question of, okay, is it just a sin issue?

Is it because you're obsessing on these kinds of things simply because you're not trusting God, you want to be omniscient, you want to be all -knowing in that sense?

There's some truth to that. There is a sense of sin attached to that where you want to make sure of this and you have to be all -knowing, and some of that is there.

However, I believe strongly, and I think there's some testing that can show this to some degree, that there is a propensity towards these kinds of conditions based on physical issues as well.

The chemicals of the mind and so on. There are people who have different kinds of, whether it's schizophrenia or what do you call it, the different polar...

Bipolar? Bipolar and OCD and so on. When I've counseled with these people, these people have real, genuine physical problems.

And so sin, we can say, is attached to everything. It's attached to the problems we have with our body.

If we have health issues, our lungs break down or whatever it might be, sin is attached to everything in some sense, and that deals with the psyche as well.

However, there is a reality that because of sin, it produces these kinds of problems physically, but also mentally as well, and that would lead me to say that there are legitimate mental conditions.

There's a real physical aspect to these things that would lead some people to be more vulnerable to these kinds of things like OCD.

I can say for myself, there's no question that there's a physical element to this as well.

I mean, it's spiritual, but there's a physical as well. You mean a biochemical element? Yeah, a biochemical element as well, definitely.

And it could be a variety of reasons why that is, but certainly it would come back to the sin nature. I mean, it affects the mind as well.

But there's a biochemical aspect to this. Now, when you were saying that these mental conditions are real, you weren't giving a wholesale blanket approval that all of these things that psychologists and psychiatrists say are real.

No, no, no. No, because they're a condition. They'll say, I mean, a psychologist and a psychiatrist, what they'll do is they'll excuse sin in order to avoid any kind of responsibility.

For example, just to give an example, Tiger Woods, when he was caught for sleeping around with all kinds of women, and that's a public thing, when not all that had happened, it was like they considered it to be a mental disorder.

So there is, in our society, in the psychological realm, an unwillingness to deal with sin as sin and to confront people with sin and to excuse everything as some kind of a physical disorder, blame it on your environment, blame this.

So yeah, there is, that's definitely true, and there is a line to be drawn. But I'm just saying that I wouldn't, the other extreme is to say that there's no legitimate mental condition, you know, involved with any of these things, schizophrenia and all these things, or MS even, things that can't be necessarily shown on a chart or something, just write it off because they can't be because it's in the mind.

I think that's the other extreme. Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania asks, what were the circumstances that eventually led your guest to finally say,

I definitely need to get some help? Yeah, that's a great question. I actually deal with that in the book.

I have a section in there called my personal OCD biography, and I get into that.

And what happened was with me, and again, I'm trying to cut this short, is that I didn't realize that OCD, that the obsessive -compulsive disorder had anything to do with what

I was going through. In other words, I didn't know about that at the time when I originally had gone through different kinds of experiences with these obsessive thoughts.

And when it led to just all kinds of battles and everything, I didn't understand. But what happened is as I began to,

I knew that in my history that I've, again, I've been somewhat of a checker, somewhat of an orderer.

And as I began to look at the kinds of thoughts that I was having and the overwhelming recycling of these thoughts,

I started to relate it to the checking and the ordering that I had done. And to see a connection in some sense with that, that there was a similarity in that.

And then I began to go and read about it and learn that, wait a second, this is a legitimate disorder.

This is something that people have gone through. And once I was able to find that out, I began to read on it, to seek help medically, but also from a biblical counseling standpoint to get help from that standpoint.

And I began to see, okay, now I can address this, because I know what it is that I'm dealing with. So it took some time to make the connection between the obsessional, that there's this purely obsessional category, that that connects to these other types of OCD, like checking and ordering and washing and et cetera.

I didn't know there was this connection. Everybody knows that, has heard of OCD, right, checking this, checking that.

But the purely obsessional part of it with the recurring thoughts, that was new to me. I just never heard of that.

Yeah, it is interesting that you would have these specific activities duplicated by people all over the world, specifically washing hands, checking doors and on and on.

It gives some weight that this is likely not just imitated behavior.

Yeah, in fact, one common person that we see on the television is

Howie Mandel, right? With the washing, he doesn't shake hands, and he's got all kinds of things in his house,

I think, to keep him from touching certain things. So these are real issues.

Now, again, could it be that somebody is just afraid of dying, and it causes them that fear to become inordinate to the point that they lapse into this kind of thing?

I'm sure it can. But the reality is once you've lapsed, once you've gotten there, it has done some damage physically.

There are physical aspects to this as well that make you more susceptible, more vulnerable, and more difficult to pull out.

You mean fear of dying because you've caught a disease? Yeah, something like that. That could be at the root of some of the things with germs and stuff.

That could be at a root. In other words, it could have been a sin, the sin of not trusting the Lord. And again,

I'm not talking about Howie Mandel, because he's not a professing Christian even, but it could be this inordinate fear of catching some kind of disease or something that leads to obsessing, and then a breakdown of some sort that brings you to a point where physically now there are issues that have to be dealt with from a physical standpoint as well.

So what exactly were you told to do by professionals when you realized that this was actually a disorder that you had?

Yeah. As I've counseled, two things that I had done that I came to eventually to find help with dealing with the condition is, one is

I found that from the medical standpoint, there has to be a question of whether or not medicine should be administered or taken.

And I think that that's a touchy issue. Certainly, ideally, we wouldn't want to take medicine if you don't have to.

There is an abuse of taking medicines and drugs out there. There's no question. But I think there is a place when dealing with this kind of condition or any of these psychiatric conditions where you're so far gone, you're so far taken away by it, that you're unproductive.

It takes up so much time. It's intense. It's escalated to a point where you can hardly leave the room, where it might be wise to take some type of medication to help alleviate the physical problem so that you can get back on your feet and think through things properly.

So there was medical help in that sense. However, it's also important to get good counsel.

And I thank the Lord that he had enabled me to find good biblical counsel from someone from CCEF, Christian Counseling Education Foundation.

Christian Counseling Education Foundation, CCEF. And I found someone there who worked with me once a week over the phone and helped me kind of get into the right mind to address these things so that I would not get swept away into the compulsions and the obsessions and get torn back down into the vicious cycle that you get into when it gets intense.

And so there are several types of scriptural ways, things that I was able to use to help apply, to help keep me from falling into any of these obsessions in any significant way.

We have an anonymous listener that wants to know, are all New FedEx counselors across the board opposed to taking medication for things that are deemed by the patients to be mental disorders?

No, not all. I think if you look at New FedEx counseling and where it's come today,

I think it's evolved in a positive way in the sense that, let me say this, if you go back to the old school

New FedEx counselors, the Jay Adams Foundation, who did a lot of good, by the way, for the whole idea of counseling and resting it away from the psychological realm and the medical realm and saying, look, that counseling should be done in the church.

He did a lot of good work in that. However, I think that people have stood on his shoulders and have come to develop that further.

So you have some people like in the old school camp who would be completely, for the most part, against taking psychotropic medications under any circumstance.

They would see it as it's not dealing with a real issue, that it should be dealt with with counsel and so on.

However, I think there are some today who are coming across to see that there is a place for medication, and there are a lot of good biblical counselors who would see a place for medication.

It's not the first place you would go to, and I would say that to anyone as well. I don't think anybody should run to taking medication.

I think there needs to be a careful evaluation. I think there needs to be questions answered as far as how far are they in the cycle of whatever type of obsessing they're caught up in, how far has it escalated, how much time are they given over to it, how much are they able to get done in life, are they able to function, can they be counseled through this, or are they just in a place where they're just so lost in the obsessing and the compulsing of it that they need some help physically to help alleviate things enough so that they can even receive the counsel.

So I think it needs to be addressed in that way. But not all New Theta Councils today, I don't think, would say necessarily that there's no place for medicine.

I think all would say, would prefer not, and there are some who would say on the no condition, but there are some as well who have come across to see that there is,

I believe that from what I've seen, that there is a place to keep the medicine going at least as needed.

And that is a fancy term, New Theta Counseling. What exactly does that mean? Yeah, New Theta Counseling has to do with counseling that addresses the mind and the heart.

So it's as opposed to just looking at the actions of someone and dealing with it at the level of actions.

You're saying, well, what's going on at the level of the heart and the mind? Let's get to the root of this.

And you're pulling at those strings and addressing them with scripture. New Theta Counseling is very strong on addressing things from a biblical standpoint, and there's a strong confidence in what the

Holy Spirit can do to help repair people, depending upon what their needs are, whether it's marital, whether it's physical, whatever it is.

But I think, again, I agree with all that, by the way. I think biblical counseling is critical.

But I also think, to use an illustration, if somebody has a thyroid that's really off, you can give them all the biblical counseling in the world.

If they don't get any kind of medical attention for that to help with the thyroid condition, they're still going to be emotional and do things that are going to be influenced by the problems that are involved with their physical condition.

So the physical does need to be addressed. Again, it's a fine line to discover when somebody needs, when just the counseling is sufficient in itself.

I would have certain questions I would ask the individual who's going through the time of trouble and trial.

I would see where they're at. And I would assess things and not just say, okay, assume that counseling is going to take care of it.

If there's physical things that are going on, you know, however it began, whether it began with sin or worry or doubt, where are they now?

It needs to be addressed there. And sometimes there may be a need for medical attention as well. We're going to be going to our final break of the broadcast.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Mark Romaldi regarding obsessive -compulsive disorder,

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That's the Thriving story. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnson. If you've just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes, we have been interviewing Pastor Mark Rimaldi of Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island, which is located in Merrick, New York.

The first half of the program, we were addressing the sin of gossip. Not that we were gossiping. We were actually talking about this sin and how to prevent it and so on.

And the second hour, we have been discussing obsessive -compulsive disorder known as OCD.

And one of the main reasons we have been discussing it is that our guest Pastor Mark Rimaldi himself has battled with this disorder.

And thankfully, praise be to God, through counseling and certain medications, has been able to conquer it.

And I just want to remind everybody that Pastor Mark Rimaldi is one of the speakers at the

Word of Truth Conference in Farmingville, New York. That's going to be their sixth annual

Bible conference, October 2nd and 3rd. And this year's topic is eschatology, a biblical examination of the four major end -time views.

And they are pleased to have Pastors Chris Pandolfi, David Corson, Mark Rimaldi, who is our guest today, and Rich Jensen presenting one of the four views each.

The conference will have five sessions. Session one will be on Friday, October 2nd at 7 p .m.

as Pastor Chris Pandolfi defends premillennial dispensationalism. Session number two will be at 10 a .m.

on Saturday as Pastor David Corson defends historic premillennialism.

Session three is at 11 .15 a .m. as Pastor Mark Rimaldi defends amillennialism.

Lunch will be served after session three. And session four will begin at 1 .30

p .m. as Pastor Rich Jensen defends postmillennialism. Dinner will be served at 5 .45 p .m.

And session five will start at 7 p .m. by Anthony Eugenio, hosting a roundtable discussion with all four pastors, with audience questions being fielded during the roundtable discussion.

The conference is absolutely free of charge and offerings are welcome. Word of Truth Church is located at 1055

Portion Road in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, and can be reached by calling 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614, or on the web at wotchurch .com.

That's wotchurch .com. We have an email from a listener who has written us about our discussion that we were having prior to the station break, obsessive compulsive disorder.

We have Christian in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who says, forgive me if you've already said this because I just started listening, but did your guest's diet have anything to do with the obsessive compulsive disorder coming about in his life?

Yeah, that's a good question. Not that I know of. I mean, I don't think that's the case.

I would say this, though. I'm sure that dieting, exercising, those kinds of things, and I address this in the book as well, anything like that will help, certainly with any condition that you have, just trying to be in the best shape that you can so that you can think clearly.

Because it's true, if you're not eating the right foods, processed foods and things like that, you can be more vulnerable to different kinds of illness and so on.

So dieting, it may have something to do with it in some respect, but I don't think it's the,

I wouldn't put that as the hinge point for it. We have another listener in Stryker, Ohio, Scott, who asks, how much does

Pastor Grimaldi believe our society of extreme litigation, hackers, identity thieves, and the psychological fears play a part in OCD?

Many programs on TV suggest that you are never safe, your neighborhoods, your workplace, your nation.

I have a couple of friends who have said that they are orderly, because it is the one thing that they can control, even though they can't control the compulsion.

That's an interesting question. Yeah, it's an interesting question. Yeah, I'm not really sure how to answer that.

I mean, I'm sure in some cases, you know, all those kinds of things can affect any individual, right?

If you have a fear of anything, for that matter, it can wear on you, and the more you obsess on it, certainly that can create problems and lead to a breakdown and so on.

So that could be the case, that some people who struggle to this end have those kinds of fears.

I think one of the reasons why, you know, in my dealing with this, one of the counseling helps that has helped me greatly is my view of the sovereignty of God.

And I think that that would help in all those cases to help alleviate those fears, is to recognize, right, that God is sovereign over all things, that whatever is going on here, whether this conspiracy is true, or whatever is going to happen with the blood moon, you know, all the stuff that people are worried about with the economy and everything else, those things can send anyone into a talisman.

So I think the sovereignty of God is critical for that. But even with that, I think that, you know, somebody could be overwhelmed with a particular obsession or fear of something, and it could lead to a breakdown of some sort, and they could be, you know, repaired and so on.

And I think there's a difference between that, even, and what I'm addressing with the condition that carries over into a lot of other areas as well, not just one particular fear.

Again, it could be the case that one fear could lead to these other areas, I suppose. But I do think that there's a,

I guess if I can put it this way, a sensitivity switch in some people, for whatever reason or another, physically, that can easily be flicked and lead someone down a path where they're in a fit of escalated obsessions, you know, over different kinds of things and thoughts and so on, that other people are not as prone to, you know, to have that happen to them.

You know, there's something more to it than just an individual fear about something. Do you know of any case studies or evidence that some people who have

OCD have been somehow traumatized by something in their past that, like, for instance, had thieves or violent people break in their home, or somebody has gotten a serious disease, so that's why they want to constantly wash their hands.

Somebody that they love may have died from an illness or something. Is there any evidence that experience leads to this?

Yeah, I don't, I mean, again, I suppose it's possible, and I don't know offhand.

You know, I haven't researched, like you said, the case studies. It's possible, I'm sure. But I do think that when you look as well, there are a lot of examples of people who have just kind of, this has come upon them in some sense, and is there, and there's no explainable reason like that as well, where there's this condition that's there.

One way to, one example to show it as well is that in young children, sometimes when they get, what do you call it when you,

Lyme disease, I think it's Lyme disease, if it's not treated, sometimes it could lead to obsessive -compulsive disorder, some real severe problems in that area, and they'll find out that they treat the

Lyme disease and it suddenly goes away. So it's something physical that happened through the

Lyme disease that led to that, and once they dealt with that, it went away. Now that's only with young children. There's no evidence that that's happened with adults with Lyme disease.

But just to show you that it's something that can come upon someone based upon something with the physical condition or the psych, something that's affected in some way in the chemicals.

So is it possible that there are cases where people who have just had an inordinate fear, I suppose it's the case that that might be something that might be more of panic attacks, they may get things like that.

I don't know if it would be a full -blown obsessive -compulsive disorder, maybe obsessing about certain things. I'm just not sure.

I suppose it's possible. And now I think it's obvious that we should get to a very important part of the discussion.

How are you coping with this disorder today, and what specifically are you doing to cope with it or overcome it completely?

Well, Chris, I just need to go wash my hands real quick. No, there are certain things that I have, what

I call weapons for the warfare that I use, that I have in mind. One of the advantages of having gone through some of the serious bouts with OCD and some real times of escalation where it's gotten real intense is that you learn as you go through those things.

You learn as you go through them and as you come out of them and you begin to understand the battleground, so to speak. And so I think that's been a big help.

And so aside from, in my case, the medicinal help that I had gotten, which took me a long time to accept because originally

I was so anti -medicine until I had no other means of just giving me some sense of being alleviated so that I could function, that's been helpful.

But what I do is I try to reflect on certain things scripturally that help a lot.

So, for example, as I said before, the importance of recognizing the sovereignty of God, that there may be things in my mind about what if this or what if that or could

I do this? I have to come back to God's sovereignty, His control of all things. I have to come back to the grace of God and who

I am in Christ, that Christ died for all my sins, not just potential sins because a lot of OCD is potential, what could happen, what may happen, but also for actual sins.

So I come back to the grace of God. I come back to Christ being my mediator and those kinds of thoughts and recognizing that in this life we're broken and we're being repaired and it's a gradual process and I can't look at things from the standpoint of perfection and say that I'm not here yet and get anxious over that.

So there's a lot of those kinds of things which very much deal with the mind and the counseling aspect of things that I look to.

I have a list of those kinds of things in the book to help someone to reflect on those things as they work through this.

Just to clarify one thing, I haven't completely conquered OCD in the sense that I don't ever deal with it.

To some extent, every single day of my life I have to be aware and I can have obsessive thoughts or whatever it might be.

It's just that by God's grace I'm able to, like you said, to overcome it, to continue on through it, to not allow the obsessions to hinder me or to hold me back.

I can walk through them, so to speak, and not address them even. And that's something you learn as well.

The thoughts as they come upon you, just to let them pass by, so to speak, and keep going and trusting in the grace of God and the sovereignty of God to bring you to the other side.

And that's what happens eventually. If you do that, you just get back into the habit of living normal and not having to address all these different thoughts, the what -ifs and the maybes and so on.

Do you feel comfortable giving the names of specific drugs that have been helpful to you?

Yeah, the only one that I've ever used which has worked for me, has helped, is the short name is called

Luvox, L -U -V -O -X. The pharmaceutical name is Fluvoxamine.

That's the one that's helped me. There are other ones, several other ones, that they call

SSRIs that they use for the serotonin to help inhibit it in such a way that it produces more.

Because they say that one thing that they find in people who struggle with OCD when they examine the brain is that the serotonin is expended more so in that condition.

And whether that's anxiety that does it or whatever it is, it helps so that more is produced, so to speak, so that you're not clobbered, so to speak, by what's going on with the obsession.

So that's one. Some people have, you know, you've heard of Prozac and those kinds of things, and there are several kinds that others take as well.

But that's the only one I've ever used. Any negative side effects? I'll tell you, thank the

Lord, I have not had any negative side effects. The only thing that I've had is sometimes some degree of tiredness.

And I can say that I think if I'm dieting properly, which I have not been overly faithful in, but if I'm dieting properly and exercising and doing those kinds of things,

I believe that I would be able to really, you know, to overcome that tiredness to a greater extent.

So I think if I'm doing the right things in other areas, that will help. But that's the only thing that I can say. And I don't even know how much

I can attribute that to the medicine, but there is a tiredness that I have. Now, is the medication something that is ongoing and will be a part of your life forever, or is this something that you've already finished?

No, for me, and again, it depends on the individual. For me, it's something that's ongoing.

I actually, several years ago, sought to phase off through the doctors with the assistance of the doctor.

Just to say that to the audience, you don't ever phase off a medicine on your own. You always do it with the counsel of a doctor.

But I actually sought to phase down and to work on phasing off. But what happened was, when

I had done that, I found that as I had gone on and was doing well for a time, is that it only takes, you know, one battle.

Let's say you're having an obsessive thought that comes in. Okay, you deal with it.

You go through that all day. You deal with it. But let's say one gets through, and you begin to battle it, and it affects you.

You know, it could tear you down and set you back. And that kind of happened to me. One gets through, and now physically

I'm drained. You get tension in your head, and now you're in a condition where you're in a cycle where you can't get out.

There's just all kinds of tension in your head. You can't think clearly. Now the thoughts increase. You merge into other forms of OCD, some of the other ones that I told you about.

It gets worse and intensifies. The medication, the help that it gives, from what I can tell, is that it helps buy you time so that you can think through things more clearly without just getting swept off your feet.

And that's what happened to me when I was starting to phase down is I got swept off my feet.

In fact, I was getting ready to preach. I'm getting ready to go to the pulpit. And all of a sudden a thought came in at that moment, and it was like it just hit me at that time.

And now I preach, and I got through all that, but the stress of everything just made me more weaker and set me back.

So I don't want to risk not being a father to my children or a husband to my wife or a pastor to the congregation by phasing off and saying, okay, let me just do it without it.

I'd rather just take the medication and just have the extra help that I need to allow me to think properly and to work through the obsessions.

Were you ever counseled by anybody that you respect not to take medication?

Not after I started it. Before I had ever taken it, like I said,

I myself was pretty strongly opposed to medication in general. I always thought of medication as a means of bypassing sanctification, not dealing with things in a way that God would deal with them with you spiritually and so on.

And like I said to you, it took me a long time, months, where I just wasn't sleeping because I had insomnia.

My OCD led me to insomnia, and I was in a real bad way. And it got to a point where I talked to somebody from, believe it or not, from Focus on the

Family, which is not the ministry that I run to for all my counseling needs, but I happened to talk to somebody.

And the guy just said to me, look, you don't want to take medicine, you don't want to think about doing that.

He said, how much longer do you want to go on not being able to serve as a minister in your church, not being able to be a husband to your wife, a father to your children?

And it just kind of humbled me to hear all that, and I said, you know, this guy's got a point. I mean, am I going to just stick this out and just keep going like this, or maybe there is some help here?

Let me try it and see what happens. I have nothing else to lose at that point, and I did. And after several, you know, it takes a while.

After a while, I began to be able to get on my feet, alleviate some of the physical challenges of it so that I could think more clear and get out and be on top of the game, so to speak.

Yeah, my friend David Murray of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary just interviewed him not long ago on his book,

The Happy Christian. And he also wrote a book previous to that on depression. But he said that for anyone who would claim that it is always wrong to take medication for a mental issue, he said,

I want to take a look at their medicine cabinets, because obviously if you're treating other things in your life through medicine, why would it be so abhorrent to treat a medical condition that way, a mental condition?

Yeah, in fact, Chris, and I agree with that man 100%. When I first sought counseling for when

I was working through this, I had actually gone to an aesthetic counselor who was anti -medicine.

And again, like I said, I was anti -medicine at the time as well. So I don't fault him for that. And I had gone to him several times.

I'm assuming that you mean specifically for mental issues he was against medicine. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Psychotropic drugs, exactly. No, not medicine for all the other areas. You're right. And anyway, as I met with this man, a very nice man, well -meaning, but as I met with him several times, he had addressed it from the standpoint that a lot of the old -school aesthetic counselors, the way they would address these things, and I felt that it really wasn't helpful.

He meant well. When I got counsel from the man at CCF, and again not that CCF is by any means a pro -medicine, they would be more of the mindset, look, it would be ideal not to, but they would allow for it and see places for it.

It was just addressed from a whole different standpoint, and I found I got the help that I need to pull through it.

And so it's important that we're careful when we address these things to recognize that a human being is made up of the body and the soul, and there's a mind there, and there are things going on in the mind that we can't measure, at least at this point in time, through different kinds of tests.

You just can't measure it. You can't just say, okay, well, the only way you can be certain that you should take something that's medicinal is if you can measure it.

I think it's just unwise. There are many people that I know of, good people, who are on medications for certain types of depression and things that are happy in the

Lord and everything, that are there for physical reasons, that I'm pretty certain of that, that when they're not on medicine,

I mean, boy, they're just off the wall, gone. And when they're on their proper doses of what they need to be taking, they're in their right mind, they're godly people.

And so I've seen enough in my lifetime, not just in what I've experienced, and I live it, to know that there's a place for it.

And I think that generally the people who are very quick to say that there's not, I just think that they've never lived it, they don't know it, they haven't experienced it.

Now, I know that you touched on this somewhat earlier, but just to clarify some things, we are in a fallen body that has the curse of Adam upon it, and we have a sinful nature.

That is a given, at least for those of us who are not Pelagian. We understand that we have original sin, and we who are

Calvinists even go further and say we are totally depraved at birth. So obviously we're all sinners.

But is it right to say that all mental disorders are always a direct result of conscious sinful activity or thought?

And I'm speaking beyond merely the state of sin that we inherited from Adam.

I'm talking about active participation either mentally or otherwise in sin.

Yeah, I guess I would have to open that up further, what you mean by that.

But what I would say is this. I would say that because of the

Fall, because we're fallen, like you said, the body is corrupt, the mind is corrupt. There are different ways that our fallen condition manifests itself.

For example, there are people who have a propensity toward homosexuality. I would never say that somebody is born a homosexual, because God created us in the proper way, in His image, with a design.

But I would say that there are people who, because of the sin nature, have more of a propensity toward that, and certainly the environment and how they were raised can add to that,

I'm sure, in certain ways and so on. Now that doesn't excuse it. It's still sin, right? It has to be dealt with, and God gives us hope in His Word and grace in Christ.

So there may be individuals, and I would say myself included, maybe my propensity from my sin nature is to have been somebody who has had a struggle with anxiety or worry at times that I should not, when

I should just trust in the sovereignty of God. But because of that propensity, it has led to, in my physical being as well, physical weaknesses as well, so that when

I deal with, let's say, stress and seek to deal with it, I tend to get tension headaches, which makes it very difficult for me to think clearly.

So I have to be aware of that. It's not a good thing to be worried about something, to get upset about something, but it's part of the nature there, and I have to deal with that.

And I look to the Lord for grace, and I seek to battle with it. But when it happens, and as it does happen to me, one of the things that happens is

I may get tension headaches from that. So yes, it's related to sin, but I still have the tension headache. Does that mean that at that point, that the physical element of that, even as a result of sin, doesn't need to be addressed at all?

Well, sometimes it depends. It may need to if that tension headache leads to other physical problems that are caused physically because of it.

Even though sin is at the root of it, I still may need to take a certain kind of medication to deal with whatever that damage has been caused.

I've been involved with all kinds of drug abuse in my life before I was a Christian as well. I mean, could that have played into it in some sense?

You know, smoking marijuana and doing this drug and that drug, it would extensively. Well, some people have done drugs, and they've never had these kinds of problems.

But maybe for me, I damaged myself in some way where, again, I have this propensity. So I would have no problem saying, in some way, all these things relate to sin.

In some way, there's a non -trusting, a worry factor that's there in me.

But there's also a physical reality in me where I have a propensity to break down in some physical way, quickly even, in dealing with stress or whatever.

It's like I can quickly hit that switch, so to speak, whereas other people, the physical element is not as vulnerable for some reason or another.

And so if I can alleviate that so that I can have more time to think through something, to work through it,

I think that it's wise, in some cases, to take medicine if it's going to give you a quality of life, the ability to live until we get to heaven, where we're perfect, and without any physical or spiritual or psychological problems.

You know what I'm saying? Yes. And I think that you should probably clarify your use of marijuana wasn't to unwind after a stressful board meeting at church, was it?

Well, I don't live in Colorado yet, so I can't do that just yet. But, yeah, that's all before I was saved, and I was involved with all that.

All right. Well, I thank you so much for being on our program today. How do people get a hold of OCD, Finding Hope in Christ on the

Edge of Insanity? Yeah, OCD, Finding Hope on the Edge of Insanity, you can get it at Amazon .com,

any of the online bookstores and so on, you can get it through them.

I think it's like $10 or $11. Just so people know, as far as from my standpoint, the only revenue that ever comes back to me from the book is when

I had it published, I put it down to the lowest possible price that it could be so that people can get the help from it.

Anything that I get from it goes right back into keeping it alive, because you have to pay a fee every year to keep something in publication.

So I haven't made anything on it, and I'm not making anything on it, but it could be helpful, I think, to people.

If you go to Amazon, you can get it there. That's a very easy place to go to get it. And you can also go to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com,

cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

who is a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron. Thank you so much, Pastor Mark Grimaldi. We look forward to having you back.

I know that your website is gracereformbaptistchurch .com. Yes, sir. Thank you,

Chris. Appreciate it. Real pleasure to be on here with you. And if you want to see Pastor Mark Grimaldi in person preach on eschatology this weekend, go to wotchurch .com.

That's W -O -T for Word of Truth, church .com. I want to thank everybody who took the time to listen today and to write in questions.

And I urge you to tune in tomorrow to Iron Sharpens Iron for Pastor David Campbell of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, addressing his book,

Handle That New Call With Care, Accepting or Declining a Call to a New Congregation. And we've got a lot of excellent programs coming up, including

Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and Ken Ham, world -renowned creation apologist.

But I want you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.