January 9, 2018 Show with Jason Wallace on “The Death of Mormon President Thomas Monson & What This Means for the LDS Church” PLUS Mark Chanski on “Jonathan Edwards’ 70 Resolutions”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth day of January 2017.

I'm delighted to have back on the program as a returning guest my dear friend Jason Wallace, who is pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church of Magna, Utah in the

Salt Lake City area, and he is also producer of lds .video and all of the videos under that umbrella on the

Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. Today we are going to be discussing the death of Mormon President Thomas Monson and what this means for the

LDS Church, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jason Wallace.

Chris, it's my privilege to be back with you. And I'd like everyone listening, if you have a question on Mormonism, and especially if it has something to do with the late president of the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, Thomas Monson, our email address is chrisarntzen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

And I can readily understand if you are a Mormon and you are starting to question your beliefs and you want to write in anonymously, we understand that.

If perhaps you are friends with Mormons, you don't want to offend them by bringing attention to yourself, whatever the case is, we understand if you have a personal matter that you want to ask about, we will grant your request to remain anonymous.

But other than that, please give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence. Well, first of all, before I even go into the topic at hand, as we typically do, because there are new listeners joining the

Iron Sharpens Iron radio audience every day, or practically every day, tell us something about Christ Presbyterian Church of Magna, Utah.

Well, we are a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. We are coming up on our 20th anniversary.

We started from scratch back in 1998, and the Lord has blessed. We have an established church here.

The Lord blessed us with a building, and it's actually an old Mormon ward, and we have a sister congregation up in Ogden, Utah.

Well, I bet the Mormons regret letting you get a hold of their ward building.

Well, they honestly have a policy now that they tear down all their buildings, at least in the

Salt Lake area. They will not sell them as a standing structure anymore.

If they no longer need them, they'll tear the building down before they sell it. This one was sold back in 1961 by the

LDS church to the steel workers for a union hall, and it went through a number of hands before it got to us.

That's the only reason we have it. It's actually one of the oldest church buildings in the valley. Wow.

Well, obviously it wasn't technically a church before you occupied it. Actually, there was a

United Church of Christ congregation there and a couple of Baptist congregations in between the time that the steel workers sold it, and we got it.

Great. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna, Utah, you could go to gospelutah .org.

Now, your accent doesn't quite sound like you're from Utah.

Tell us about where you're from and why you specifically accepted a call to a church in Utah, or did you plant that church in Utah?

I came out as a church planter, and this was actually my first call. I went to seminary with the hope of coming out here.

I was born and raised in Statesboro, Georgia, down in southeast Georgia about an hour northwest of Savannah, and was basically shaken from a nominal faith when

I was 23 years old by a young lady trying to recruit me into a cult called the

Way International. And her knowledge of scripture embarrassed me.

I knew enough to fake my way through a Sunday school class, but I really didn't know the scriptures. I really didn't know

God. And I got shaken from a nominal faith and had a desire to share the gospel with people like this who were religious but didn't know

Christ, and I realized I'd been in the same boat. And so I actually visited out here back in, coming up on 30 years ago on a business trip, and I came out here for some training, and I recognized these people.

They were like me. They said nice things about Jesus, but they didn't know him. They really didn't know the scriptures at all.

And so I started praying for them, and the Lord had a sense of humor. I was a number cruncher by profession.

I had my bachelor's and master's in business, and the Lord just kept opening doors and shoving me through them.

And I eventually went to seminary and came out here back in 1998 as a church planter.

And have you seen any fruit yet while you have been evangelizing the

Mormon neighbors that you have there? Yes, we've seen a number of folks come out over the years.

Probably about 40 percent of the congregation in Salt Lake, about I forget what the current numbers are now, but probably 50 to 60 percent of the congregation up in Ogden are former

Mormons. Wow. And there are people who come out.

There's a lot to lose by coming out, and so we've not seen the fruit that we hoped to, but the

Lord has blessed us. We've been able to get the message out, and so a lot of folks are aware of us and actually seem to like us in spite of the fact we say that they're following a false prophet that's leading them to hell.

But I'll routinely have somebody stop me on the street because we were able to have a primetime television program on a

Christian UHF station here for seven and a half years. Well, praise

God for that. And by the way, I want to let our listeners know that this

Thursday and Friday, if you want to mark your calendars, I am interviewing all four authors of the new book titled

Leaving Mormonism, Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds.

All four of these authors are former Mormons who have PhDs, and they include

Corey Miller, Lynn K. Wilder, Vince Eccles, and I hope I'm pronouncing his name right, and Latane C.

Scott. This Thursday, the two ladies, Latane C.

Scott and Lynn K. Wilder, will be on the program before 6 p .m., and then on Friday, Corey Miller and Vince Eccles will be on the program.

And I know that you happen to be personally acquainted at least with Lynn K. Wilder, correct? Yes, I actually interviewed her twice on my show, and her husband

I interviewed once. Great, so you'll have four hours this week, Thursday and Friday, two hours a day, of testimonies of former

Mormons who left Mormonism, and these were very educated individuals, PhDs. They weren't your average

Mormon, just like sadly an average evangelical may be extremely ignorant about what the actual teachings of the

Bible are and of historic Protestantism. It's amazing how ignorant many professing evangelical

Christians are in regarding the truth, but these were not like Jack Mormons, as they call them, or Mormons that had very little knowledge of what their church stood for.

These were people who knew what they were believing when they were Mormons, and they knew what they were giving up.

They knew what they were abandoning. So I think that it would be worth your while, Thursday and Friday, to tune in and write your questions for these guests about that subject.

But just recently, perhaps you could give us the exact date, but the president of the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints passed away. His name was

Thomas Monson, and he was 90, I believe, when he departed this earth.

What was the date that he departed the earth? A week ago today, actually.

One week ago today. And I heard James White, our mutual friend,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, on a recent dividing line. He was describing this individual as from an earthly standard, a human standard, seemingly a very kind gentleman, a man who made a humorous event out of a little boy disrupting a speech he was making.

Rather than having anyone be stern with the little boy, he started to wiggle his ears to see if the little boy could repeat what he was doing, because apparently the little boy was imitating him from the crowd.

And while some pastor or perhaps parents of a child doing that might be furious with the child or embarrassed by him, this man made light of it and tried to put everybody at ease so that they wouldn't be, perhaps, overly disciplinary of the child.

But what can you tell us about Thomas Monson? Well, he was 90 years old.

He'd grown up in the church, of course. He had served a number of different callings within the church, and then he was made an apostle back in 1963, which is the

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And the succession is based on seniority within the

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. This is something that goes back to the time of Brigham Young.

So when Gordon B. Hinckley died, then he was made the prophet somewhat by routine afterwards.

Every prophet that has been named, Monson was the 16th prophet, president of the church.

Every one of them has been the president of the

Twelve Apostles, and that's done by seniority.

So basically it's a rotation. And so when Hinckley died in 2008,

I think it was, then they made Monson the prophet and served for about 10 years.

So tell us exactly what the Mormons mean when they call someone an apostle, when they call someone a president.

What exactly are the gifts and rights and abilities and so on that this person has that would be above and beyond the average

Mormon? Well, Joseph Smith claimed that he was restoring the

Apostolic Church. He argued that the signs and wonders that you saw with the biblical apostles were no longer being practiced because the church had experienced a great apostasy.

And he claimed that now they were restoring it with priesthood authority.

They were speaking in tongues. They were claiming signs and wonders 75 years prior to Azusa Street and the birth of Pentecostalism.

Some common roots for both of them in Westlianism, to some extent,

Smith's mother, brother, and sisters all joined the Presbyterian church, but Smith was very much a

Westlian in his thinking. He claimed that he was bringing back the true

Apostolic Church for the end of the world. And so in order to have a restoration of all things, they had to have a restoration of the 12 apostles, and they had to have a restoration of temples, a restoration of prophet.

And so he was the prophet. He ended up establishing a first presidency, which served the prophet above the quorum of the 12 apostles.

And one of the interesting things in terms of their practice is that there was no clear succession plan for Smith when he died.

He seemed to indicate that he was grooming his sons to take over for him. But when he died, the first presidency had been basically ruling everything, and the senior member of that was a man by the name of Sidney Rigdon.

Brigham Young was the president of the quorum of the 12 apostles. He basically overruled

Sidney Rigdon and ultimately declared him excommunicated and split the church essentially.

Not all the Mormons left Nauvoo to come to Utah. A large chunk of them did, but a large chunk of them stayed behind and did not follow

Brigham Young. And since Brigham Young, when a prophet dies, they dissolve the first presidency and basically elevate the president of the quorum of the 12.

These men claim to be apostles. They claim miraculous powers.

They give blessings to people. Sometimes, at least historically, they claim to heal the sick and things like this.

The prophet himself is the one who speaks for God. And according to historic

Mormon teaching, the living prophet is more vital to Mormons than the standard works, which includes the

Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price.

Essentially, you don't ever pit a dead prophet or the scriptures against the living prophet.

The prophet is the voice of God. They used to make greater claims to infallibility, but since it's been shown how many contradictions there have been between apostles and prophets of today versus apostles and prophets of the past, they don't claim infallibility on any of them, but they'll excommunicate you if you don't follow them.

Interesting. Now, I don't want to go too far afield of our topic today, but I've always wondered and always forgot to ask you if you ever saw the 1940

Hollywood movie titled Brigham Young starring Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell and Dean Jagger.

That was about how the Mormon church basically survived after the assassination of Joseph Smith, and you have

Brigham Young leading his band of followers into Salt Lake City eventually.

I was wondering, have you ever seen that movie? I actually saw it many, many years ago.

Okay, because I was just wondering how accurate it was, because in the movie, as you may recall, Brigham Young was dishonest about having received a vision that he would be the new prophet for the church, and his dishonesty was apparently haunting him, especially when things were not going very well for his fellow

Mormons as they journeyed across America to eventually land in Salt Lake City, Utah.

When they finally made a settlement there in Salt Lake City and a swarm of locusts were devouring their crops,

Brigham Young reached the end of his rope and was having someone ring the church bell to gather everyone, because he was about to make a speech admitting that he had lied about seeing a vision or hearing a voice, something to that effect, that he was to be the new prophet.

And then a flock of seagulls, a giant enormous swarm of seagulls, flock of seagulls, came and devoured all of the locusts before he said anything, and he took that as a sign of God to keep his mouth shut and basically keep his post.

Is any of that something that has any bearing upon the historic record? Well, I think there was some hesitancy with Brigham Young initially in terms of things such as polygamy, he didn't want to enter into it at first, there was some hesitancy about how do

I know when God's speaking to me, but what I see by the time that he assumed prophethood of the of the

LDS church and led people out here, I don't see a whole lot of self -doubt in him. The story of the seagulls is sort of a popular folk tale that, from what

I understand, I'm not a Utah historian, but what I understand from folks is that this is a story that was not really reported for the first 30 -40 years after it supposedly happened, but in the late 19th century it began to be circulated more and more and it grew in scope to where birds eating crickets became not just a normal thing, but it was like this great cloud of seagulls came in and ate the crickets, and you get details that simply weren't verifiable that are added in, such as the seagulls ate the crickets, flew out to the

Great Salt Lake, drank salt water, and then vomited up the crickets so they could come back and eat more, and it just simply doesn't appear to have a whole lot of validity in history, but it's celebrated with a gold -plated seagull monument at Temple Square.

And the email address again for our listeners 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. We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, what can you say about this most recent president of the

Mormon church, Thomas Monson, who just passed away? Was there anything different that you can specifically mention that set him apart from other

Mormon presidents? Was he closer to the truth? Was he just as far away from the truth, or was he even further away from the truth of the scriptures?

Well, the Mormon church has shifted a lot of ground over the last 30 years.

The Mormonism of 30 years ago, people were reading Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine, reading books like Spencer Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness.

Both those books have been allowed to go out of print by the Mormon church. When they let the second one go,

I forget if it was a prophet or an apostle who made the joke, it was a miracle if you could find forgiveness in it.

It was a book written by a previous prophet. The Mormon church has, especially since Gordon B.

Hinckley, the previous prophet, tried to present a much warmer, fuzzier picture to the world.

For those who are familiar with Catholicism, it's been sort of a Vatican II Mormonism, where instead of saying that the

Roman Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, and Protestants are her pastor children, which is how they used to describe us, they instead say, well, we're

Christians too. And we're just here to share that we have other things to bring.

And so, the tone has changed a great deal.

They used to be very clear that they were the only true church upon the face of the earth.

They don't say that nearly as much as they used to, at least not in public, not around other people.

But Gordon B. Hinckley was the former public relations head for the church, as I understand it.

And when he became prophet, you can see that shift to the modern, warm, fuzzy

Mormonism strongly there. He tried to walk a line where he would put out a public face where he would plead ignorance on fundamental doctrines of Mormonism, but then he would go to conference and say things to the faithful that were pretty much old -line

Mormonism. And he kept these two stories going, one within the church and one outside the church.

With Monson, even with Hinckley, the wheels had started to fall off of that. Monson, to me, came across very much as a caretaker.

There were strong rumors that he had been suffering dementia for a number of years. To a great extent, he was more a figurehead than anything else.

He was 80 years old when he came in. He would, at conference, make speeches that he had made 20 years earlier, and they didn't let him interact a lot with, you know,

Gordon B. Hinckley had gone on Larry King Live and things like this. Monson was much more protected. The church has continued to basically accommodate the spirit of the age, and so they're far less hardcore on things.

It was under Monson that they were very supportive of Proposition 8 in California and defining marriages between one man and one woman.

When that blew up in their face, though, they quickly backed up from that, and they gave a large contribution to the

Utah Pride Center. They began first fairly quietly, but then very publicly supporting what started as local ordinances prohibiting discrimination in housing or employment based on sexual orientation or identity.

They did it at the local level and finally became a state law as well.

Monson oversaw the time when the Boy Scouts basically sold out.

The Mormon Church sponsors around...

The New York Times just said a third. I don't think that it's quite that high, but the

New York Times in his obituary said that a third of the scout troops are sponsored by the

Mormon Church. It's somewhere in that neighborhood, and I think it's a little bit lower. But the

LDS Church had made all kinds of rumblings a number of years ago, but when the

Boy Scouts actually started allowing homosexual scout leaders, they didn't say much.

His presidency, to a great extent, has just been one of the church appearing to be largely on autopilot.

He seemed like a nice guy. He had worked in publishing.

He was not a hard -core kind of guy.

Dowan Oaks is much more abrasive than Monson is, or was, rather.

But after the

Boy Scouts changed their policies, Mormon Church didn't do anything for a while. Now they've sort of embraced a compromise where they've pulled out of the scouts for the upper levels, and they're doing their own programs now, but they're staying in the scouts for the younger ages, and I think they're looking at possibly doing a totally separate program from scouting.

But compromise has been a word that would largely define

Monson's presidency. And is this compromise something that was coming directly from him, or just, as you were indicating before, since he was largely a figurehead, something that those in the background who were and are yielding more actual power were doing, and Monson was basically doing nothing because he was perhaps mentally incapacitated or just not as mentally clear as he once was?

I think that's fairly close to it. I mean, I think that he's been part of the machinery for years.

I mean, he was, like I said, I think it was 1963, he was made an apostle.

So, I mean, he's been in this forever. And then he's been prophet for 10 years.

So, I mean, I don't think that he was just showing up for temple dedications. These guys, they learned to work together a long time ago.

And so I don't think that he was orchestrating any master plan so much as my impression is that these guys are first and foremost businessmen.

You know, they're not theologically trained. There's no pastors or anything else in the

Mormon church. There's bishops who serve part -time in an unpaid position.

They're very proud of this. But in order to become a bishop, the main qualification seems to be that you're successful at business.

And so the more successful you are at business, the higher you rise. These guys are almost all very successful.

The man who's next in line is Russell Nelson, who is a former heart surgeon.

And as you've watched the institutions around us fold to pressure from society at large,

Mormonism has basically done the same thing. I've joked that they're turning into the

Episcopal church because they talk about diversity, they talk about all these things.

They don't embrace them as radically as the Episcopal church, but they don't really seem to have any convictions either.

In fact, we're going to go to our first break right now. If anybody wants to join us with a question of your own for Pastor Jason Wallace about the

Mormon church in general, and specifically if you have a question about Thomas Monson, their recent president who departed this earth, give us an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question is about a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

God willing, we will be right back with more of Pastor Jason Wallace. Tired of box store

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We are back now, and we have our guest on with us,

Jason Wallace, pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna, Utah, which is a congregation of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we are discussing the death of Mormon president

Thomas Monson, and what this means for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.

And let's make this clear, even though people who listen to this show often enough would readily know this anyway.

We want to make it clear, we do not believe that the so -called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

Saints is a church, and it is especially not a church of Jesus Christ.

We believe that this is a cult. It is a false religion, even though it might be filled with many, many wonderful people from a human standard, unfortunately.

And this is an embarrassment to the modern state of evangelicalism, but you might have neighbors that are

Mormon who are better neighbors than your evangelical neighbors. I'm not saying that that's necessarily the case, but Mormons have been known for being wonderful people, but they do have a false gospel and a false

Christ, am I right, Pastor Jason? Yes, false God, false Christ, false gospel,

I mean, the deeper you go, the further it gets from the Bible. The superficial appearances of similarity fade with any kind of scrutiny.

That's why our listeners have to go to lds .video and find out more about the heresies of Mormonism, lds .video,

that initial video, that documentary that you created, what was that titled again?

An Earnest Plea to Latter -day Saints. One of the troubles that people have in sharing the gospel with Mormons is that they end up very frustrated because the

Mormon sounds so orthodox. What they don't understand is that the Mormons redefine every term from God to sin to righteousness to Christ.

Every term means something different in Mormonism. And so, you know, Mormons will say, oh, we believe in Jesus, we believe that we're saved by grace through faith, we believe this and that and the other.

What we've done is made something aimed directly for Mormons.

You don't have to go and become an expert on Mormonism. If someone you know is a Mormon, you can actually say,

I've watched this video, I would love to hear your feedback on it. Well, typically, a

Mormon will say, well, I'll have the missionaries visit you. I'll say, well, I'd be happy to hear their feedback on it as well, but I really don't want to get into your discussions.

I want to hear your feedback on this video. And if you're nice and persistent, Mormons typically don't know what else to do other than to agree.

And so it deals with things in language that they understand, that their

God is not the God of the Bible, and we show why. And their idea of sin, their idea of Christ and salvation none of it is the same as what the true scriptures spell out.

And of course, we never intend this to be some kind of a mean -spirited, hateful, bigoted thing.

Truth is truth, and falsehood is falsehood. And if something is being believed and practiced that puts one's eternal destiny in jeopardy, the most loving thing you could do is to make them aware of that fact.

People constantly equate evangelism and apologetics and polemics and trying to correct a friend or loved one or neighbor or acquaintance in error, they equate that with hatred.

But why would that be hatred when no one seems to think that way? When it comes to politics, no one seems to think that way.

When it comes to health, exercise, and nutrition, when people have differing views, perhaps polar opposite views, no one thinks that if you are trying to get somebody to stop the diet they are on to use a different form of weight loss or something like that, they don't think that you hate them because of that.

And yet when it comes to something that is infinitely more important, they think you're hating them by getting them to change their minds, by attempting to change their minds, which of course we know only the

Holy Spirit ultimately can do. Exactly. You know, one of the things with Mormons at the foundation of all their claims is that Joseph Smith was told by God he should join none of the existing churches because all the churches were corrupt, all their creeds were an abomination, all the professors were corrupt, all the creeds were an abomination, and they claim that they're the restoration of the one true church upon the face of the earth.

Well, they don't see that as insulting. You know, we have the exact same creed that Presbyterians had at that time, and I asked them, you know, is this an abomination to God?

Oh, I wouldn't say that. But your prophet said that. Well, no, no, he didn't say that. Didn't he say that?

Well, no, God said that. And so they have a very different standard.

I've used the expression before, Bubba Smith was an NFL player back in the 70s, he had a famous quote, he said, you know, the fight started when he hit back.

Mormons don't see anything they say against others to be harsh or inflammatory in any way, but any response to what they say is seen as mean and hurtful and Mormon bashing.

Typically, they don't take criticism very well. Yeah, and ironically,

I've had Roman Catholic friends who have asked me, why don't you have

Catholic guests on Iron Sharpens Iron radio? And I said, well, on some occasion

I do, either because there's going to be a debate involved, or there's going to be some kind of intention for me to expose an error within Catholicism.

I had Robertson Jenison, for instance, Roman Catholic apologist, and we were discussing the liberalism of Pope Francis and an overview of Pope Francis from a conservative

Catholic's point of view, because you will never hear that anywhere. EWTN will never have something like that.

The Catholic Answers will never broadcast something like that. So I thought that was a unique situation.

And of course, I did take heat from even Protestants. In fact, I only took heat from Protestants for doing that.

Some of my fellow brothers who are theologically reformed, really sternly chastised me.

But I said, I'm not going to have a Roman Catholic on to promote

Catholicism or teach Catholicism as its end goal. I said that would be like theological suicide for me to do something like that.

And then they insisted, no, there'd be nothing wrong with that. And I said, well, why don't they interview Calvinists on EWTN?

Or, you know, why doesn't Marcus Grodi have a Catholic who became an evangelical

Protestant on the Coming Home program or the Journey Home? And he responded to me, oh, well, that's different.

How is that different? There is some hypocrisy going on here.

And I'm not saying it's intentional hypocrisy. It's just people don't see the forest through the trees. Yeah, I agree entirely.

Now, when it comes to specifically Thomas Monson departing, you wanted to speak about this.

And what do you think is going to be the aftermath? I mean, you're not a prophet, I understand that. But what do you think, what do you foresee as being a change, if any, within this so -called

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints? Well, they're basically, a week ago, they lost a 90 -year -old prophet, and they're going to replace him, if they do what they've done every other time, with a 93 -year -old prophet.

Really? Yeah. And Dallin Oaks is next in line.

And Dallin Oaks is sort of interesting. He's an attorney, former member of the

Utah Supreme Court. I'm not sure where he is in terms of some of his positions, but Monson was a newspaper guy, publishing guy.

And he was made a bishop when he was 22, he was made an apostle at 36.

And so, he's been in this his whole life. You've got a surgeon, who's not exactly the most political guy out there, by any stretch.

But Dallin Oaks will be the interesting guy to watch. I don't know how long it'll be before they're going to have to replace

Nelson, because the few pictures I've seen of him lately, he didn't seem to be in great health.

But I don't see a big change. Mormonism has no real function to reform itself.

You only get to the highest levels after having been in for multiple decades in leadership.

So, essentially for 68 years, Monson was a bishop or higher.

For 54 plus years or whatever, he was a member of the

Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. So, I don't see real changes coming through any of the prophets.

I could be mistaken, but it just, there's been a drift, if you look through Mormon history.

After 1890, they've largely been, you know, they hold on to the old stories.

They've been reaching out, proselytizing. But with 1890, you have the

Manifesto, where they give up on polygamy. And they've compromised ever since, whenever pressure has been brought to bear.

They compromised on blacks in the priesthood back in 78. They claimed it was a revelation of God.

They could not allow a people of African descent to hold the priesthood, which is what every male member has basically above the age of 19.

Essentially, they could not hold the priesthood until everyone else had it. And so you could be a member, but you couldn't enjoy what every other male member had.

In fact, didn't they teach that the only thing, the highest goal a black

Mormon could ever achieve in the afterlife was to be a slave of whites in the afterlife?

I've heard that. I'm not remembering a direct quote from any president on that.

Mormonism, you have to understand, they have their scriptures.

And then they have their sort of folklore, or unspoken or unwritten traditions, like the magisterium, or their sacred tradition that they claim, you know, what the

Roman Catholics would call that. It changes. And really what matters is what the current prophet tells you.

He can't be questioned. And so there have been some things that have been said, but like Catholics will say, well, that wasn't being said ex cathedra by the

Pope, so we're not bound by it. Prophets have said things that they say, well, he wasn't saying that in the right way.

It wasn't affirmed. It wasn't put down in scripture, therefore we're not held to it. And the thing that you were bringing up in regard to the priesthood, not that you would rejoice in any organization withholding a privilege from a black person or anybody else because of their race or their ethnicity or the color of their skin.

At the same time, you're just saying that they are being completely inconsistent by saying that that was revelation from God, and yet it somehow disappears.

Yeah, we go through this as one of the things in an earnest plea to Latter -day Saints. They were very, very clear.

It was not only in their scriptures, it was in official statements from the

First Presidency. For those who, I've got Catholics on the brain today, for those who are

Catholics, this would be like Pope Francis saying that he is stating something with full magisterial authority.

This is something that's not just an offhand statement. This is supposed to be definitive, and they said this is by revelation, it cannot be changed, and then a few years later they changed it.

They just had tried to forget that. We are in a catch -22 because, in some ways, we would prefer that they remained racist because we don't want anybody being sucked into their damnable teachings.

I mean, Gladys Knight has been supposedly a great recruiter of African -Americans into the

Mormon Church, and the modern -day Mormon might not even be knowledgeable about some of these things from the past.

Correct, and we deal with this in an earnest plea. They conveniently forget this, the same way the

Seventh -day Adventists conveniently forget all the things that Ellen White said about black people, and it's amazing that here are people who are claiming to be prophets of God, and they say these things, and yet black people are flocking to the

Seventh -day Adventist Church and to the Mormon Church. Well, we're out of time, brother,

I'm sorry, but since you were only on an hour today, the time just went by like a bullet, but I know that for anyone who wants to get in touch with Pastor Jason Wallace, the website is

GospelUtah .org, GospelUtah .org, and of course, don't forget about LDS .Video.

LDS .Video, do you have anything else to say very quickly before we go to our break? Yeah, you don't have to become an expert on Mormonism.

Simply watch the videos and ask a Mormon to watch them with you, and ask for feedback. If they ask you questions you can't answer, contact us, we'd be happy to help.

And very quickly, isn't Dr. James R. White going to be speaking for you very soon? Yes, he's scheduled to be here

February 11th, Sunday School morning and evening worship. We're trying to arrange for him to go into a local mosque to dialogue with a

Muslim imam about the nature of the Gospel, and then the next night he's going on a local show called

Heart of the Matter. Former Mormon, turned broad evangelical, turned heretic,

Sean McCraney, denies the Trinity and calls it unbiblical garbage, and Dr.

White's going to be defending the Trinity on that show. And if you want more information on attending those events with Dr.

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries there in Magna, Utah, and everything else that Christ Presbyterian Church of Magna, Utah, is involved in, go to GospelUtah .org,

GospelUtah .org. Thank you so much, Pastor Jason Wallace, we look forward to your return very soon to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Christ, my pleasure. Thank you so much. God bless. And don't go away, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

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

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

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

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

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

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

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

Welcome back. This is Chris Sarnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the second hour today is Mark Chansky, author and pastor of the

Harbor Reform Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan, and we are going to be discussing Jonathan Edwards' 70

Resolutions and his spirituality and immaturity. But before we go into that,

I just have to announce a couple of things very quickly. Coming up next week, I will be in Atlanta, Georgia, God willing, at the 2018

G3 Conference. This is a conference that stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory, hence the three

Gs. It is a Reformed conference, and this January, or this month,

I should say, the topic will be Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.

The speakers this year include Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .P.

Charles Jr., Tim Chalies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Matheny, and Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, Justin Peters, and Stephen Nichols.

The conference begins on the 17th. There is a Spanish edition of the conference during the daytime.

Then the English edition of the conference is launched Wednesday, January 17th in the evening at 7 p .m.

when Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries will debate a Muslim apologist. Then on Thursday the 18th through the 20th, the

English -speaking conference will be conducted. And if you'd like to register to attend, and if you even want to man an exhibitors booth, as I am doing for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, if you have a church, a parachurch ministry, an organization, a business that you want to promote during that event, and there will be thousands of people there.

Believe me, there were thousands of people there last January, and I believe that the attendance is even going to be greater than last time.

If you want your organization, whatever it is, to have a lot of attenders of this conference passing by and taking your material and so on, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com, and either register just to attend, or also if you want for an exhibitors booth, please tell them that you heard about the

G3 Conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Last but not least, I just have to quickly ask you for donations.

I hate doing it, but my advertisers, who have kept this program on the air for so long through their own hard -earned money, have pleaded with me to make public appeals for donations because we are in treacherous times financially here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and are very realistically in jeopardy of going off the air.

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Well, now we are entering into our second phase of today's show with Pastor Mark Chansky of Hope Reform Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan, to discuss

Jonathan Edwards' 70 resolutions and his spirituality and immaturity, and it's my pleasure, my honor, and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Mark Chansky.

Hi Chris, my pleasure, my privilege to be here. Hope you're doing well there in the east. Yes, I am as always better than I deserve, and I actually want to thank

God that we have a listener in the Iron Trip and Zion audience who has already responded to our plea for new advertisers, and we are looking forward to an organization that provides reformed

Christian goods and clothing, art, and accessories that feature doctrinally sound designs.

We look forward to having more discussions with you about advertising your organization.

Thank you so much for responding to that urgent plea for new advertisers, but before we go into our subject at hand, which is quite a thought -provoking one, especially since you bring up one word that may shock or disturb some of our listeners if you speak of Jonathan Edwards' immaturity, but before we go into that, tell our listeners about Hope Reform Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan.

Well, actually, it's Harbor Reform Baptist Church. Harbor Reform Baptist Church. Didn't I say that? Well, I think you said hope.

That's all right. We are hopeful. Okay, I apologize because I'm looking right at the name and it says

Harbor, so I apologize. No problem. You may be familiar with Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, New York, where my friend

Rich Jensen pastors. Yes, I've heard of that church. Well, as far as us here at Harbor, we're a church that was planted by the

Reform Baptist Church in Grand Rapids back in the late 80s. I was a pastor there with three others, and we were involved in a lot of church planting.

We planted a church off in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in Lethbridge, Alberta, way up in Sault Ste.

Marie, Upper Peninsula in Michigan, and Louisville, Kentucky, and then we, having planted churches in other places, we thought we had a number of families who were coming from toward the west coast of Michigan, toward the

Holland area, and we thought, you know what, having planted elsewhere, maybe we should try to plant nearby.

As some folks were driving like 45, 50 minutes into Grand Rapids in order to worship, and they wanted to be able to invite people in their own community, so we attempted to plant a church out here in Holland, Michigan, and the

Lord gave us almost a dozen core families, some of the cream of the crop,

God's finest out here, and that was the foundation for our church. That was back in 93 we began meeting, and the

Lord has been gracious and merciful since then, Chris. Well, praise God. Well, Iron Sherpins Iron Radio seemingly is getting new listeners joining our audience every day.

Many of them perhaps are first -time listeners, and some of them have just never made their presence known before, but we are getting emails from names we've never heard from before nearly every single day now, so there may be a lot of people who are unfamiliar with Jonathan Edwards.

I don't know how much many of these folks know about church history, even though Jonathan Edwards is quite a prominent figure in church history from the 18th century, and in fact he is very well known even to secular historians and your average student of American history, even if the person may not have any religion at all that they adhere to, but tell us something about, and of course in a summary fashion, who

Jonathan Edwards was. Well, Edwards was born in 1703. He lived through 1758, died at the age of 84.

Arguably, he is the most influential Christian theologian in North American history.

He pastored a church in Northampton, Massachusetts. During this time, there was the first Great Awakening, revivals that took place.

George Whitfield rambled through the east coast of the U .S. The two of them,

Edwards and Whitfield, became friends of one another, and they were very influential in really directing the course of the nation as the

Spirit of God shipped the east coast, and there were thousands, hundreds of thousands who were saved.

He may be best known for his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, as he discussed the fact that we are all under the wrath of God apart from the

Lord Jesus, stories of his preaching, and the word came home with such power that people afraid of their never dying souls being cast into hell, they were holding on to the pillars in the church and crying out to God for mercy.

Would such a thing would take place among us today as we have such a superficial generation? And then himself, he was actually, after many years there in Northampton of faithful labor, you know, it says in Luke chapter 6, the

Lord Jesus says, woe to you when all men speak well of you. Even though he was a great pastor, there were some who didn't like the bright light of his preaching, and so there were a number of families in the church who frankly wanted to get out.

And they did, and Edward made some mistakes too regarding a particular book that was found, a book where there was impurity, and he began to seek to investigate the matter, and there was misunderstanding, and he ended up regretting some of the things he did, but he was put out of the church, and then he ended up laboring on a really an

Indian reservation in Stockton, and then just before he died, he was actually appointed to be the president of the

College of New Jersey, and at age 54, he took a smallpox vaccination and unexpectedly died of the vaccination itself.

And when you think of Edwards in his relatively short life, these resolutions display how he considered time to be so important.

He didn't want to waste an ounce of it, and a good thing he lived that way because his life was short, but he was very impactful because he had the help of God in using his time very efficiently.

Yes, in fact, I don't know if I've told you this before, and sorry for repeating myself if I have, but a very dear friend of mine,

Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens, who

I've known since the early 1990s, he was raised in an

Arminian Christian home and went to college as an Arminian Christian and was led to the doctrines of sovereign grace by a professor who was teaching on the impact that Jonathan Edwards had in American society in the 18th century that has lasted through to today, and the professor was not even a

Christian. So during these lectures on Edwards, Pastor Ed Moore was convinced of the doctrines of sovereign grace.

Interesting, there's a gentleman named Pastor Mark Rains, he now pastors in Connecticut, and he was a student in England, and he chose to take a semester over on the

European continent, and while he was there, he took a secular literature class, and the class was involving the 1700s in the

USA and the type of literature that went on, and the instructor, who was an unbeliever and an atheist at that, had the whole class read

Edward's sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and the plan was, upon the classes reading it, the teacher would systematically tear it apart in the lecture, but my fellow pastor,

Mark Rains, took it, read it, he was an unbeliever himself, and read it, and he found himself, he wasn't clinging to the pillar, but he was clinging to the carpet in his study as he was reading there in a flat, and God shook his soul and made him repent of his sins, and he believed in the

Lord Jesus Christ as a result, again, of an atheist professor's assignment. Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the

Hands of an Angry God. Praise God for that. Well, we're going to be, obviously we can't address all 70 resolutions that you refer to in the theme today,

Jonathan Edwards' 70 resolutions and his spirituality and his immaturity. We can't, obviously, the time doesn't permit to address each of the 70 resolutions, but what were these 70 resolutions?

Well, they were an attempt on the part of a young man who was 18 and 19 years old while he wrote these 70 resolutions, an attempt for him to seek to love the

Lord with all of his heart and strength and soul, and so he resolved, and today there can be a negative view of resolutions, but the reality is resolutions, especially you even think of New Year's, how we are made in the image of God, and instead of our being like the hamster who's constantly running along in the little cage on a treadmill, on and on, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, how appropriate it is for us to sit back and to ponder, and in fact you look at the scriptures, there are these dividing lines of time that the

Lord gives to us. Genesis 1, morning and evening, the first day, and there's pause that takes place, and then we have every week there's the

Sabbath day where pause takes place for evaluation, and there's the new moon in Old Covenant Israel where pause takes place, and you ponder where you've been, where you are, where you're going, and then also every year we circle the sun one time in a year, and how appropriate for us to pause, and I think it's good for all of us to take this idea of resolution to break the spell of the hypnosis of the world, where we pause and we consider where we've been, and this is what

I think the young man Edwards was doing when he was age 17, excuse me, 18 and 19.

He paused and he considered what he was going to do now with the rest of his life, so that's what really was the impetus to push him on, to snap the finger, to break the spell, so he could resolve to live to the glory of God and everything he did, even if biblically speaking how

Daniel, Daniel 1, 8, it says there he was at Babylon University, and he was going to be sucked into the vortex of all that propaganda, and he didn't want to permit himself to be drawn away in the current of it, so it says, but Daniel made up his mind, that's what my

New American Standard says, Daniel set his heart literally, and the ESV actually says

Daniel resolved that he wouldn't defile himself with the king's food, and I think resolution is not merely the stuff of will worship, but resolution is the stuff of biblical religion.

You think of Psalm 5 where David says, in the morning

O Lord you will hear my voice, in the morning O Lord I will lay my request before you and wait in expectation, so resolving is all over the scriptures, and I think we would be wise to do it.

Now Edwards himself was in some way falling in the tradition of his contemporaries as writing up lists of resolutions were pretty common there in the 1700s.

Take Benjamin Franklin who was Edwards' fellow colonial, he would write out resolutions for himself, in fact when he was on his way back from Philadelphia after his first visit to France in 1726,

Franklin decided to make some resolutions, and you can read them even now, and he kept making and remaking those resolutions really throughout his life, and he wrote this, he said, to apply myself industriously to whatever business

I take in hand, and not to divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of growing suddenly rich, for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.

So we see a contemporary of Edwards having single -mindedness so that he might become prosperous, he says, so that I might arrive at a place of plenty, but Edwards you can see in his resolution has a far higher thing he's aiming at, and that is glorifying the

God who created him and who redeemed him. So I think that's the background, that's what drove

Edwards to pen these 70 resolutions as a young man, and notice how

I gave you that title there Chris, Edwards 70 resolutions, his spirituality and his immaturity.

So even though I think there's a lot of spirituality to be found here, and overwhelmingly that's the benefit we can draw from them,

I think we're wise to read them with a little bit of a warning label, and we can talk about that maybe toward the end.

In fact that would be a perfect place for us to take our final break, it will be shorter than the last one, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, now is the time to do it before we run out of time.

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

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Pastor Mark Chansky and more of Jonathan Edwards 70 resolutions, his spirituality and his immaturity.

Don't go away. In fellowship, play, and together.

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

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Or go to BatteryDepot .com. That's BatteryDepot .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

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

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. And for those of you who celebrate

Valentine's Day, please consider Solid Ground Christian Books for all your Valentine's Day gifts. Go to Solid -Ground -Books .com.

Solid -Ground -Books .com. Please make sure you tell them that you heard about them from Chris Orens and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I truly thank all of you from the very depths of my heart who have been patronizing

Solid Ground Christian Books, who have helped to pull them out of a sales slump they were experiencing after relocating from Alabama to Florida.

And they are rejoicing over there, and they were listing me, or Mike Gaydosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, was listing to me over the phone, reading from a list that is, a very long line of names of people who ordered specifically because they heard about Solid Ground Christian Books from Chris Orens and on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I thank you so much. Please keep that up, and please keep reminding them where you heard about Solid -Ground -Books .com.

And I also wanted to just remind you that tomorrow, a pastor who happens to be a pastor of a church that is a part of the same organization as Harbor Reformed Baptist Church in Holland, Michigan.

I'm speaking of Mark Romaldi, the pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, located in Merrick, New York.

He is our guest tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to discuss Let Your Gentleness Be Known to All, Rethinking Biblical Polemics.

That is our theme tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I think it's a very needed one, especially for us reformed folk who unfortunately have been polluting the internet lately with some very harsh speech against Brothers in Christ unnecessarily.

It's truly an ugly day currently for many who claim the name of Calvinism, and it's a disgrace.

And I thank God that Mark Romaldi will be on to discuss this very timely topic.

We are now back with our discussion with Mark Chansky, pastor of the aforementioned

Harbor Reformed Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan, and we are discussing Jonathan Edwards' Seventy Resolutions, His Spirituality, and His Immaturity.

If you want to pick up right where you left off, Pastor Mark. Yeah, let's just dive into his spirituality. These are so rich.

He was a great theologian. He contemplated the most loftiest of concepts, but so practical.

Just one of the resolutions take 31, for example. He addresses the issue of his tongue and the way that he speaks.

As a young man, 18 years old, writing this, he says, resolved never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule, often when

I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to and to try it strictly to the test of this resolution.

His conscience was burdened by the way that he would blurt out things without thinking about it.

He resolved to put a border guard at the boundaries of his speaking and not allow any illegal escapee.

He wanted to make sure that he was speaking things that were in keeping with the law of doing unto others.

You'd have them do unto you. So there's an indication of he's very practical. He speaks about even the issue of integrity of speech.

He says this in number 34. He says, resolve in narration never to speak anything but the pure and simple truth.

And we all know how, when it comes to speaking about something that took place, so easy to shade the truth to our personal advantage.

I mean, all of us have, like, a bad alignment on a car, the pull to that kind of self -idolatry in speech.

And Edwards was grabbing himself by the lapels and saying, don't do that, in keeping with the principle of, say,

Proverbs 12, 19, truthful lips will be established forever, but lying lips are an abomination to the

Lord. And so he wanted to be a man of truthfulness. And that was an emphasis that he made himself.

And even he talks about his tongue just being kind in conversation.

He writes this in 66. He says, resolve, but I'll endeavor always to keep a benign aspect.

That means a kind demeanor and an air of acting and speaking in all places and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.

Sure, he knew. He knew there were times you may have to deliver a rebuke. Psalm 141 says, let a righteous man smite me in kindness and reprove me.

It's oil on my head. My head won't refuse it. But he didn't want to just be a hammer.

He wanted to be a nurturer, an oil pourer. His 70th resolution says, the very last of his resolution says, let there be something of benevolence in everything that I speak.

He wanted to be a man who could find the good. In many ways, that's really imaging the

God who made him. Sometimes, Chris, I don't know about you, but I can, we can be so critical.

We can have a hawk eye for the bad and a mole's eye for the good. But the

Lord, I think Job won. Satan comes roaming into his throne room and the

Lord says, hey, have you considered my servant Job? Well, the Lord knows he's a hell -deserving sinner. The Lord knows that he sins constantly throughout the day.

He finds the good in Job. Hey, have you considered my servant Job? He's blameless, upright, fears me, shuns evil.

And I think Edwards was saying, I want to be somebody who finds the good. I speak something kind, words of benevolence.

And here's an 18, 19 -year -old man resolving to do this to the glory of God.

Praise God. Well, why don't we delve into the more uncomfortable aspects of Jonathan Edwards.

Believe me, I know what the outcome may be whenever we bring to light anything that is a matter of correction or rebuke or whatever negative thing that you might have to say about a great man of God, a hero of the faith.

I have gotten some emails wondering why a guest or two has said in criticism of something that one of our heroes have said or written.

And of course, we are not to make idols of our heroes. In fact,

I don't know about you, but I've had Christians say, oh, we should never use the word heroes. And I don't agree with that.

There's nothing wrong with having a hero, in my opinion, as long as you don't idolize the person. What do you think about that?

Well, I think of Hebrews 13, 17, where it says, remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, consider their conduct and imitate their faith.

And so I think we are to have heroes. Hebrews chapter 11, there's that all of faith, those mighty men of God.

There's Abraham, there's Isaac, there's Jacob, there's David, there's Samson, there's

Enoch. These are men whom we're to look to as models, mentors, worthy of our following in their footsteps.

Right. But when you reach a point where no one can criticize those heroes, you're in a cult, whether you know it or not.

Absolutely. And so why don't you tell us something about the spirit, the immaturity of Jonathan Edwards?

Well, when I say immaturity, I mean, he penned these things when he was 18, 19 years old.

And as a result, certainly he was not fully ripe as a

Christian man. But I tell you what, if my 18 or 19 year old son laid those resolutions down on the table and I read them,

I certainly wouldn't think, man, this guy's immature. Praise God for the work in the heart, because the

Lord, the spirit of God is working in his life. But the point that you're making is absolutely correct.

He was 18, he was 19 years old. In fact, any man who pens any treatise or any book or any series of books, we can always look and say, you know, the best of men are men at best, and they all have feet of clay.

And so surely that's the case with Edwards. Just for example,

Justin Taylor has got that blog, Between Two Worlds at Gospel Coalition, excellent material that Justin brings.

And he put a blog out a couple, three or four years ago, and he talked about how Edwards is spoken of very highly in our circles, especially around January when it's resolution time.

And he said, I find Edwards to be so challenging. But he also said,

I find that this is mingled, that is my appreciation, that my appreciation is mingled with a little bit of uneasiness.

And that is because Edwards does not give a full -orbed display of the

Christian life. There's heavy emphasis on duty. Now, duty in our generation can be a naughty word, and our generation can be such a feeling -oriented generation.

But that being said, I think there is some legitimate concern about the emphasis on duty and personal resolution, and maybe not much of an emphasis on the finished work of the

Lord Jesus Christ and his spiritual empowerment. In fact, Sinclair Ferguson, he writes this about Edwards, and Ferguson loves

Edwards and his resolutions, but he said, doubtless the resolutions display the mark of relative youth.

References to God are frequent, but references to Christ and to grace are noticeably infrequent.

Edwards' sense of the need for radical consecration was then greater at that time in his life than his ability to show how such devotion would need to be resourced in Christ over the long haul.

He goes on to say, while this is not wholly lacking, there is no doubt that introspection that dominates over divine provision.

That notwithstanding, he says, the resolutions provide a very powerful illustration of an oft -repeated divine pattern.

Those the Lord means to use significantly, he often deals with profoundly in their early years.

We do have a listener question from RJ in White Plains, New York.

RJ in White Plains, New York asks, I hope this isn't too far off topic, but I have heard from fellow

Calvinists that as great of a man and as biblically faithful of a man that Jonathan Edwards was, they have said that his understanding of man's will before regeneration had some deficiencies in it.

Do you concur or are you aware of what I am speaking about? No, I'm aware of what he's talking about, but I'm not really adequate to unpack it in a responsible way.

I'll have to pass on that one. I'll punt. Okay. Well, thank you, RJ in White Plains, New York.

And keep listening to the program and keep spreading the word about the program in Westchester County and beyond.

We have... Let me go on a little bit, Chris. Sure. This whole issue of the immaturity. And again,

I think Ferguson is absolutely right that the emphasis seems to be on personal responsibility and not much balancing off on the provision that God gives.

That being said, that being said, he does put a preface in his 70 resolutions that's often overlooked.

He writes this in the preface, again, it's before any of the 70 are written. Edwards writes, being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help.

I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions as far as they are agreeable to his will and for Christ's sake.

So I do think we see in Edwards, even as a young man, he's saying, look,

Christ is divine. I am the branch and apart from him, I can do nothing. I need the sap of Christ's spirit to bear fruit in my life.

And I think that in this preamble, he is saying how humbly needy he is, and he's dependent on the empowerment of the

Lord. That being said, Gene Edward Veith also has critiqued

Edwards, and he writes this. This is interesting. He says, conservative Christians can sometimes fall into the trap of paying too much attention to themselves, asking the introspective question, am

I really safe? And I think we should ask that question, Chris. 2 Corinthians 13 says, test yourself to see that you're in the faith, examine yourself.

Don't you know that the Spirit of God dwells in you, unless of course you fail the test. I think we can do that, but I think even that can be excessive as well.

And so it is important that we look for hidden sins, and is there evidence in my life? Veith says this though, we have to admit that our own resolutions to improve our lives, however well -intentioned that they may be, often can be of little effect.

And when it comes to finding a sense of assurance, we have to look away from ourselves and look to Christ.

It was McShane who said, for every one look at yourself, take ten looks to Christ.

And we need this desperately. It's true that we should examine ourselves and we should be looking for fruit of the

Spirit. Matthew chapter 7, by their fruits you shall know them. And it's a great question to ask, do

I have the fruit of the Spirit? But those fruits are always going to be pocky, they're always going to be bruised.

And so we need to look to Christ, who's our great provider. Veith goes on to say this, surely

Edwards would agree with Martin Luther, who in his own spiritual counseling would urge tormented souls to stop looking at themselves.

Instead they should look to Christ on the cross. Veith goes on, and this is the finale here of Veith, he says, salvation, both would insist, is outside of ourselves, founded on the unshakable grace of God, on the objective work of Christ.

And certainly Edwards would say that. When we look inside ourselves and see our sin and our weakness, it leads us only to despair.

But when we look outside of ourselves to the promises of God's Word, then we find joy and confidence and assurance.

Amen. In fact, we have a listener question about that very thing. We have an anonymous listener who says,

I know that Reformed Christians believe in what is called the perseverance and preservation of the saints.

And I know that a part of that is that we are to see as a litmus test of whether or not we are truly among God's elect, that we are living in obedience in spite of the fact that we do sin and we do fall, but we always repent of these sins and return to following our

Savior. But at the same time, I wonder if I am truly of the elect, because there are some sins, private and mental sins, that persist that I cannot seem to shake, typically involving sexual lust.

Am I to view myself as unelect, or am I to remain in a point of uncertainty?

How should I view myself in my relationship with the Lord? I do love

Him. I do go to services weekly. And I'm not saying that all these things that I do are meritorious.

They are just something that I love to do, because I know that I love my Savior and I want to please

Him. But at the same time, there are things that seem to be ever -present in my life that disturb me.

Well, I would say, first of all, it's good that you're disturbed, because there is that sense of aching and that sense of sorrow that is a true sign that you are the real deal, that you're really born again.

In fact, just consider how, oh, Galatians 5, 17 speaks of the flesh lusts after the

Spirit. They war against each other. If you are merely putting up the surrender flag, and as an overall rule, you are simply giving in to the temptations, then it may be that you don't really have the life of the

Spirit of Christ in you. On the other hand, if there is a fight that is going on, and frankly, I hear with the ache in your soul that you're expressing in this correspondence, that ache, to me, is a healthy indication that the

Spirit of God may well indeed dwell in you. Think of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7, where Paul says, the good that I would do,

I do not do, but the evil that I wouldn't do, that I do! What a wretched man am I who will rescue me from this body of death!

You see the ache? You see the groan? The fight that's going on in this man? And that's the encouragement.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So if you are, we live out here in Michigan, we got the

Grand River that flows through, Grand Rapids, and there's this fish ladder, this dam that the coho salmon in the spring and in the fall, they've got to climb and jump up against the current.

If you are fighting against the current of this culture, and the current of sin, even in your own heart, there's a fight that's going on, that's an indication that there's life.

Now the other hand, if you're just a drifting stick who's drifting along with the current of the culture and the temptations and the lust of your own heart, well there's a concerning indication that maybe you really aren't a

Christian. Paul says we've got to fight the good fight of faith, and even Lord Jesus says, because of the increase in wickedness,

Matthew 24 13, because the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who endures to the end, who fights the good fight, will be saved.

Amen. Well I want you right now to have five minutes of uninterrupted time to just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we run out of time.

All right, again, I think of Edward's spirituality, and I encourage you to read these resolutions.

Read Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is a magnificent, beautiful writer. John Piper, desiring

God, glorifying God in all that we do. In many ways

Edwards was the most influential theologian in the life of John Piper, so if you like the passion of Piper, I encourage you to read

Edwards. And in these resolutions, just think of his motivations.

Number seven, he writes this in his resolution, resolved, never to do anything which

I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. Now ponder that.

That is a great rule of thumb. That's a mighty motivation. Revelation 19, resolved, never to do anything which

I should be afraid to do if I expected it would be not above one hour before I should hear the last trump.

That's the way that we should live. Amen. Who knows? Who knows if Christ's toes are going to break through the clouds the next hour, or if I'm going to breathe my last, whether it be an aneurysm, or a heart attack, or get t -boned at an intersection somewhere.

I should live right now as if this were my last hour. Amen. That's the way we ought to live our lives.

Or even here, Chris, you're a little older than the 17 year old or 18 year old guy.

How about this one for you? Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish

I had done when I come to die. 52, he says, I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live if they were to live their lives over again.

Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think

I shall wish I had done supposing I live to old age. That's a 19 year old kid who was driven to excellence.

Now some may say excessively driven. Lighten up, Jonathan, some may say. But Chris, the reality is the guy died at age 54, a young man.

And the Lord says, John chapter 9, we must do the works of him who calls him while his light for night is coming when no man can work.

And what we do, we better do quickly. And I'm so thankful that this guy was spurred when he was just 19 years old.

And I would say this, just in conclusion, the issue of his immaturity. When Edwards was an older man after the great awakening, probably sometime in his mid to late 40s, there was another teenager, a girl named

Deborah Hathaway, wrote to Edwards for some advice on the Christian life. She lived in Suffield, Connecticut, which was not far from Northampton.

And Edwards would go and preach there sometimes. But he replied to this girl with a 19 point letter during this later season in his life, was during the busiest time of his life.

And he speaks a lot to this girl of certain disciplines and how she needs to have a sense of sin and a sense of being driven.

But listen, the best advice came near the end of this long 19 page letter when he writes this to this girl.

In all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little poor helpless child.

Taking hold of Christ's hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wound on his hand and on his side.

And there's a guy whose faith has become ripe. When he was 17, 18, 19, he was driven with duty.

But by the time that he became a guy in his late 40s, he looked on the beauty of the

Lord Jesus and the love of Christ constrained him. Amen.

Well, brother, it has always, as always, it was a pleasure to have you on the program today.

And I just want to make sure that our listeners have all of your contact information. First of all, the Harbor Bible Church, or I'm sorry, the

Harbor Reform Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan. The website is HarborChurchHolland .org.

HarborChurchHolland .org. And do you have any other contact information that you care to share?

No, but come on out and visit us. In fact, you got to come out to the lake shore. We're only about three miles from Lake Michigan.

It's a beautiful sunset to come to evening service, or frankly, you can just come and live stream us because all of our services are are live stream, both audio and video.

And we'd love to have you come on along and worship with us. Amen. So just make sure you write that down.

HarborChurchHolland .org. If you ever are visiting Michigan in the Holland area, or if you have friends or family and loved ones that live there, or if you are either visiting or planning to move there, please look up the

Harbor Reform Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan. That's HarborChurchHolland .org. Please remember that tomorrow, my former pastor, my most recent pastor before moving to Pennsylvania, Mark Romaldi, pastor of Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, who is a part, that congregation is a part of the

Reform Baptist Network along with the Harbor Reform Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan.

Pastor Mark is my guest tomorrow on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio to address rethinking biblical polemics.

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