March 9, 2018 Show with Earl Blackburn on “Jesus Loves the Church & So Should You” (Part 2)

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.

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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. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this ninth day of March 2018. I'm delighted to have back on the program for a second time to address part two of a discussion we began a couple of days ago, Jesus Loves the Church and So Should You.

Pastor Earl Blackburn, who has been the chairman of the administrative council of the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, otherwise known as ARPGA, for eight years. He is currently the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana.

He's an author of a number of books, including the book that we are addressing today that I just mentioned, Jesus Loves the Church and So Should You, and we are going, as I said, to be discussing part two of this topic today, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for the second time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Earl Blackburn.

Thank you, Chris. It's a real joy to.

Be with you, and I am honored to be back, and I think should be not only central to our own thinking, but it is certainly central to all the redemptive purposes of God and Christ Jesus,.

And that is the church. Amen, and for anybody who would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I could see a question like this, or should I say a theme like this, very readily lending itself to someone wanting to remain anonymous because people may not be in membership in a church because of something horrible that happened to them in a church in the past, or something like that.

Perhaps they'd rather not draw attention to their identity for a whole host of reasons, but we will grant your request if that is indeed the case, but otherwise please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Before we go to any of our listener questions, Pastor Earl, for those of our listeners who missed you last time and who have not heard of you before, please let our listeners know about Heritage Baptist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Heritage Baptist Church is an old.

Established church. If you go to our website, hbcshreveport .com, you can see the beautiful building. It was built in, we think, 1916, 1917, not certain exactly, and at one time it was in a very prestigious part of the city of Shreveport, but as a result of urban shifting and so forth, the neighborhood began to go down, and the church today is an inner-city church.

Multi-racial, multi-generational, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual church. We have our sermons, especially, translated into at least one other language, and sometimes they're translated, the sermons are translated simultaneously into another language.

First to hear, and it has been a real thrill to be a part of such a... It is a confessional church, meaning that we subscribe fully to the 1689 Baptist Confession of... London Baptist Confession of Faith.

It has historically been a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. We are duly aligned with both the Southern Baptist Convention and the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches.

Of America. And for anybody who wants to look up the website for Heritage Baptist Church, the website is hbcshreveport, S-H-R-E-V as in victory, E, port .com. That's H-B-C for Heritage Baptist Church, Shreveport, S-H-R-E-V as in victory, E, P as in Peter, O-R-T .com.

Recovering the New Testament Vision of the Church

Well, the last time we left off the discussion on this very topic of Jesus loves the church, and so should you. You wanted me to start today's program, part two of this topic, by repeating a question that was sent to us from Joe in Slovenia, because you were very intrigued by that question, and you wanted to answer it more fully than you did the time allowed the last time we were on the air.

So Joe in Slovenia wrote the last time in part one of this discussion, Dear Brothers Chris and Earl, the church means so much less in our day than when I was a youngster. Even then, back in the 1970s, the local church did not have the significance in the lives of most Christians that the New Testament teaches us she should.

But today, our society and lives are so hurried and fractured. In our day, do we recover the authenticity, intimacy, and accountability in the church that should be part of a normative Christian life?

May God bless you both in your ministry in a local church. So if you could respond as you wanted to, in a more full fashion than you did the last time that we ran out of time and weren't able to address it to your satisfaction, anyway.

Well, first of all, I want to thank the brother for sending in this question. He is in Slovenia, so I would assume that he is a church planter, a missionary, and that...

He is a Southern Baptist missionary, as he has identified himself that way in the past on our.

Program. Well, kudos to this brother. May the Lord richly bless him and his efforts to propagate the gospel there in that great country and land.

That's where our First Lady was born and raised.

Oh yes, that's right, that's right. This question is a superb question, because I think we're living in a day, Chris, in which, one, the concept as the New Testament teaches it of a church is virtually lost.

And secondly, even when the word church is used, it's been denigrated to where I think that if Christ or the holy apostles were to come, they would not even recognize it. Now let me unpack that. How do we recover what Joe asked in his email to you?

How do we recover the dignity, the beauty, the purity, the holistic view of the church? Before I answer that, let me just say, I think one of the things that we're seeing, especially in Western society today, is a great denigration of the church.

And those of the influx, the importation of the German higher critical, redactional criticism that came, started in Europe and came to our country in the middle 1800s, and really impacted our country around the turn of the 20th century.

And so many things evolved out of that. Liberalism quickly came in in the midst of most of the Protestant churches, even the liberal church, or even the Roman Catholics, the problem with liberalism. They had to get rid of theologians, they had to get rid of various of the influence of theological liberalism.

And it so impacted the evangelical churches and the conservative Protestant denomination that they began to lose this concept. And it can be seen today. I can drive through this whole area of the two parishes in which I live in Louisiana, and you'll see religious edifices, and there'll be signs out there, but they won't even have the name church.

They may have worship center, or they may just have Riverside, River Park, Forest Green, whatever. And many have even taken the name church out. And this whole concept of a worship center has become very popular, very trendy.

And it tells you right away that there has been a loss of meaning of the word church, the very understanding of church. And then because of the, how should I put it, falling away from biblical, apostolic, Reformation Christianity, that people don't even think that the church is necessary.

And if they do, it's only there as they need it for marriages, for funerals, gatherings, and so forth. Well, how do we recover what our brother Joe from Slovenia has asked? And I think the answer is a simple one.

It's an answer to any other question that we might have about biblical and saving Christianity. How do we recover the gospel? How do we recover biblical churchmanship? How do we recover the Christian life?

And the answer is very simple. You need to return back to the Holy Scriptures. You need to return back to the Bible. And so when you go to the Scriptures, one thing that you find in the New Testament Scriptures, the New Testament is a church book.

And I shared with you, I was listening to this guy on the radio and he said, don't worry about the church. All you need is Jesus. You don't need to be concerned about the church. Church can't save you.

Agreed. Church can't do that. Only Jesus can save spiritual and pious. But it is not in harmony with the New Testament. Out of the 112 times that the word Ecclesia, which is translated church in the language of the New Testament, out of the 112 times that it is used, 106 of those at least refer to visible bodies of baptized believers that are gathered for the purpose of the worship of the triune God, the edification of itself, and the propagation of Jesus Christ as the only Savior of sinners.

It is not referring to some social club. It is not referring to a host of other things. It is referring to a body called out, a particular body of believers, tithes, following Christ, gathered together for the worship of the triune God.

Let me pause there and see if there's anything that you would want to add or...

No, I can't think of anything to add right now. I don't know if you've completed that thought or if you want me to move on to another listener question. No, we will never see a recovery,.

And I hear all the time people talking, or I hear it mentioned, oh, we need a revival, we need a move of God's Spirit, and of course I believe those things to be true, but what we need is a return back in all their fullness, and not pick and choose.

I think we have this mentality when we come to the Holy Bible. I like this part. I don't like this part. I like that other part, but I don't like what's over there. And I'm preaching through the book of Romans right now, and I was just thinking this week in my study, preparing for my Sunday morning, this book is so controversial.

You'll hear people say, oh, the book of Romans is my favorite book in the Bible. And then when you come to certain parts, chapters one and two, or chapters six and seven. Or nine. Chapters nine and ten.

Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that. And so we have this sense of autonomy, and we have this sense of freedom. I am my own master. I am the captain of my soul. I am the master of my faith. And we think we have the right to pick and choose what we like about the Bible and what we don't like.

And what we like, we will follow. What we don't like, we're going to discard. Well, that has weakened today, and we need to return to a full-orbed Christianity. One of the problems I face here in the Deep South, and I've said this to our people so many times, we are surrounded, people will talk about the South, or certain parts of the South, as being the Bible Belt.

And I say, we may think, we may pride ourselves in being the Bible Belt, or having biblical Christianity, but what is the most common pervasive view of Christianity in the South is not a biblical Christianity, it's a cultural.

And like I said earlier, if Christ or the Apostles were to come and visit our churches, they would not recognize as the apostolic churches which they founded fall upon the earth, as they delivered the Gospel of.

Jesus Christ and all of the Word of God. Well, we do have another question from that same brother in Slovenia who's listening again today. Joe in Slovenia says, Dear Brothers Chris and Earl, thank you for focusing on the Bride of Christ.

Within the biblical concept of the local church being described as a fellowship, a body, a building, and other metaphors which describe unity, connectivity, accountability, mutual dependence, etc., what should we say biblically about one who isn't an active, committed, faithful member of a local church?

In what way, if any, would lack of biblical fellowship indicate that a professed believer is a false professor? Would the Apostles have understood and accepted the concept that a true believer can live indefinitely without intimate fellowship in a local church?

And in fact, I'm going to read one more question from another listener that is basically on the same theme. I don't want to steal her thunder either, but we have, let's see here, we have Catherine in Asante, Minnesota.

She says, when you get to the point, she's asking me this personally, when you get to the point in the podcast where you ask, meaning Iron Trip and Zion Radio, when you ask for monetary contributions, you mention that not going to church is living in disobedience to God.

I regularly attend church myself, but was not raised attending church, and none of the other members of my family attend church, but they have accepted Jesus as their Savior. I have never heard that not attending church is actual disobedience to God, and maybe that is because no one wants to say it outright, but would you be willing to explain how God conveyed that to us?

I would greatly appreciate any information, and I really enjoy your program and have learned a lot. That's Catherine in Asante, Minnesota. So she is basically asking the same thing that Joe in Slovenia is asking, although Joe perhaps was more in detail about should we view such a person who is not a member of a church as a true believer, and of course that can be a sticky question because we cannot read the hearts and minds of people, and there are many reasons why people may not be going to church.

I'm not saying it's excusable, but it may be understandable if they have been burnt out by a cult or even a doctrinally biblical church that acted like an authoritarian cult, or maybe they were molested in some way by the pastor or a deacon or something.

There could be a long list of reasons why a regenerate person is not going to a church or becoming a member of one, even though they are in sin by doing so, but if.

You could pick up on those questions, Pastor Earl. Well, I've raised a vital issue that needs to be addressed today. Now, of course, we would clearly that the Church of Christ is the Savior, and Christ is the Redeemer, but when you turn to the New Testament, and I'll confine myself to the New Testament primarily today, when you turn to the New Testament, as I said earlier, the New Testament is a...and when you find on the day of Pentecost, when Peter concludes his great sermon, 40 words and continue to exhort them, save yourself from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word were first of all baptized, and there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls. And then when you go to verse 42, it says, and they devoted them to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, the koinonia, to the breaking of bread, which I believe is the liturgical term for the Lord's supper, and then this, and the Lord added to their number.

I'm reading from the ESV, the old King James says, and the Lord added to the Church, day by day, those who were being saved. And I think here you see an apostolic example. These believers just didn't simply accept Jesus, make a little decision, I've got my path into heaven, I have my fire insurance policy, and now I'm safe, I'm secure, I can do what I want.

But there was something about the gospel that Peter preached, which is found throughout the book of Acts and the rest of the epistles, of course the New Testament, found them together. The ESV says they devoted themselves.

First of all, there were four marks here. First mark is the apostles' teaching. Cute little sermonette filled with anecdotes and jokes and stories. I remember I had a professor one time, a pastoral theology professor, and he was talking about preaching.

He said, listen, if you want to catch people's attention, you need to come in with some witty little joke. And I thought, really? Yeah. I thought, you mean that's what witty little jokes are displayed?

Come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. They devoted themselves. They, under the apostles' teaching, delighted their souls and so filled their hearts. They wanted to sit under its authority, under its ministry, to be guided by it, directed by it, corrected by it, reproved by it, built up.

And the second thing, and this goes to the point of what Joe, the second point that Luke brings out here, is not only did they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, but to the fellowship, that koinonia, that shared life.

It wasn't that they just popped into church very quickly on Sunday morning, and we have a group here in town that would like to, I don't want to say more, I don't mean to castigate people, but 55 minutes, very early, usually in the morning, 55 minutes, rock music played the first 20 minutes, little funny things, and then little pep talk, and it's over so people can go home on Sundays and watch football or whatever they want to do.

And they're gone. My neighbor goes and he says, man, I really like it. He says, I don't have to interact with anyone. I don't have to talk to anybody. I go in, I go out, and I said, yeah, you flipped your quarter to God, huh?

And you're due. And he said, well, I wouldn't put it that way. I said, well, how would you put it? You've sapped your conscience. Here in the book of Acts, we find that they're interacting one another.

They're with one another. There's a fellowship. There's a shared life. They weep with those that weep. They rejoice with those who care for one another. They love one another. They pray for one another.

They help one another. I could go on and on and on and on. And then they continued, they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. That's not sharing meals in their homes. It's in the context of the church.

The Lord's Supper meant something to them. It wasn't just something that was packed on the three or four months or something like that. It was something that brought vitality. It brought Christ to their minds and remembrance.

And then it says something else, which has virtually disappeared in evangelicalism today. They continued and devoted them to pray together. They believed that God was absolutely sovereign. And if God did not move and work, none of their methodology, nothing of their schemes or programs would get the work done.

Nothing they could do apart from the ministry of the Word of God and the proclamation of the gospel would get the work done. And they knew that it needed to be watered with prayer. Now here is the example.

And then when you go through the New Testament, you need to ask yourself this. If I am not a part of the church, what part of the New Testament applies to me? Because the book of Romans was written to the church at Rome.

First and second Corinthians to the church in Corinth. Galatians to the churches in Galatia. Ephesians to the church at Ephesus. Philippians to the church at Philippi. Colossae in the Lycus Valley. Colossae, Laodicea, and Aeropolis.

And then the pastoral epistle, minister of the gospel, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Who were ministers, pastors in Christ's churches, just in my book. I'm not trying to promote or sell my book, but I developed this whole line of thinking.

But then when you come to the book of Hebrew, which is style of writing, and I'm not going to the authorship of Hebrews, that's irrelevant to our discussion. But when you come to the book of Hebrews, there's a very poignant passage in chapter 10, verse 25.

The writer of Hebrews says, and do not forsake the English translations have assembling of yourselves. The New Testament Greek is the synagogue-ing of yourselves, together, as is the manner of some. But exhort one another, and all the more so as you see the day approaching.

What day? Well, of course, the day of the Lord, the day of Christ's return. And so here is a clear commandment for believers not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. And to say, and I understand, brother, I've had to deal in pastoral counseling with people who've been abused, been sexually abused, mentally, emotionally abused, people that have been under authoritarian abuse, the great damage and the wickedness that has been done, are really no excuse.

Somewhere or another, it may be small, it may not in the eyes of the world be very significant, but it's the true Church of Jesus Christ where they can gather together for the purpose that the Church has called into existence.

And I would like to, sometime in this program, talk about why the Church, why did God ordain the Church? Conclude this question, these two questions. I'm not questioning someone's salvation in Christ, in one sense of the word.

But in another sense, if you don't want to be with the people of God, if you don't want to worship God, if something else is more important to you than the worship of the triune God, and there are other people that are more important to you than humble followers and disciples and believers in Jesus Christ, I would say you need to do some very serious examination.

Because if you're not a part of a visible Church of Jesus Christ, then 95 of the New Testament has no relevance for you as a Christian. You can be a Christian and not be a part of Christ's Church is a serious and a grievous error on the part.

And I don't mean to sound... When I look at the New Testament, I can come to and arrive at no... I think people need to seriously say, where is a Church of Jesus Christ that I can be a part of, and see God glorified in worship, see my own heart strengthened and built up in the faith, and joined together with the making known.

Of Christ as the only Savior of sinners. Amen. And in fact, since you went to the book of Hebrews, wouldn't you say that this is one of the key passages that's very important in regard to what you were just saying about the necessity of all Christians to be members of a good, solid Bible-believing and biblically faithful Church, is Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Obviously, if a person's a member of a Church, there is no one keeping watch over their souls in an earthly sense, anyway.

Right. Well, I'm a super saint, but there are many times I go to worship on the Lord's Day, and I'm down. I'm discouraged. I'm not encouraged. I've had a hectic week studying, preparing, going to hospitals.

My morning this morning was disrupted because I had to be at the hospital. A widow in our Church is undergoing surgery. She has no husband. Her children are not in this area. They're on the East Coast or the West Coast.

She has no one, no family but the Church. My wife wouldn't pick her up. Other people would be coming in. I was over there. I walked in. As she is getting ready to go to surgery, just before the surgeon comes in, I read the Scriptures.

I pray with her. They're trusted. There are many people that love you. Well, my week is, I lost three hours. Schedule is constantly disrupted, and I come to Church, and I'm being looked at as the one who's going to deliver the message, the sermon, and leading the worship.

We have other elders in our Church. I'm often down and discouraged, and I need my gas tank filled up. As I'm there, we stand up. We, in our Church, begin our worship with the reading of Holy Scripture.

The Scripture begins to be read, and then we sing the praises of God. Amen my soul from this world and the things that surround me, the things that keep me from running the race with patience. Fresh view of glory and of heaven, and I see Christ seated with the Father's right hand.

And then, believe it or not, I actually get blessed occasionally by my own preaching. And as the Word of God is ministered, all of a sudden, truth begins to take hold of my mind and filters down into my soul.

And I realize that the things that we see are temporary, and the things that are not seen are eternal. And I'm strengthened. I'm fortified. And someone comes up, a sister in Christ comes up and says, Oh, Pastor, pray for me.

A brother comes up. Oh, Pastor, thank you. Different ones, young people come up, older people come up. We share our lives together. We care for one another. We've worshiped God. We've received divine energy and strength from heaven.

And all of a sudden, man, there's fellowship with some of that. Truman, Carl Truman, brought that up and initiated the discussion about church. And I can tell you, so many times, people have said, it makes me aware that I can't just sneak around and do this or that.

That, be sure my sins will find me out. And it helps me to walk circumambility. There's health, there's strength, there's that, again, that word that Luke used, that koinonia, that shared life with one another, that helps us.

And so many who do not either go or are a visible church of Jesus Christ.

Yeah. And as I brought up to Dr. Truman, church discipline saved my life, perhaps even physically, because of my return to the abuse of alcohol after 18 years of sobriety. And if I had not been disciplined, I might have continued in that.

And it may have led to my death. It was such a high level of alcohol consumption that I thank God for the discipline I received, because I know for a fact that the motivation was love and restoration.

And I was completely restored and on very good terms with my former pastors. The only reason they're my former pastors is that I moved to Pennsylvania and they're in New York. And I even interviewed my pastor at that time, Mark Romaldi, after I was restored, of course, and my program was relaunched.

I interviewed him not only on my own discipline that I underwent, but also just on the subject in general. And that may have been the first time that somebody who was under church discipline interviewed the person that disciplined them.

I don't know if that's the first time. It's.

The first time I ever heard of it. Well, these things are 29 churches. And here not too long ago, one of the pastors of the big megachurches, and this is a trend that I think is faltering, can go in and they can go out.

There's no accountability. They have their consciences thinking that, hey, I've gone to church, at least know something about the New Testament or being a part of a church. And so these megachurches have become the trend, but was called in a two-year adulterous relationship.

And none of them really knew what to do. And so they didn't say anything for three weeks. And the people began to say, where's our pastor? And finally, they were forced to make an announcement to the church.

Well, the pastor had some personal problems and we had to let him go and nothing was done. And I contacted the denominational authorities in our area. I said, hey, something needs to be done. So my, our son goes to work and he comes home from work and he says, dad, he says, boy, you ought to heard them at work.

They were told this pastor of this big church had committed adultery and they were laughing. They said, well, if he can get away with it, I guess we can too. And he said, I was getting a cup of coffee.

And one of them said to me, he said, hey, isn't your dad a pastor? And our son said, yes. And they said, what would your church do if he did something? Our son said, what did you say? And he said, I said, well, first of all, my father is a member of the church before he is a pastor.

And he is like every other member. And if my dad committed adultery on my mother, I can tell you what would be done. The church leaders would publicly for my father and publicly rebuke him for committing adultery and call the church for him.

And if he did not repent, they would excommunicate him from.

The visible body of Christ. In fact, can you pick up where you left off there? We have to go to our break. We actually are long overdue for our first break and pick up where you left off when we return.

Okay. I shall. Okay. And don't go away. We'll be right back with Earl Blackburn. Tired of box store Christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert. Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

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And Solid Ground Christian Books is also the publisher of Jesus Loves the Church and So Should You, which is the topic that we are addressing today with our guest Earl Blackburn. This is part two of a discussion that we already began earlier in the week and we wanted to further address it because the time that we were allotted did not permit us to develop this theme in its fullest sense or in an inadequate sense.

So Pastor Earl, I invited Pastor Earl back onto the program, Pastor Earl Blackburn, who is the author of Jesus Loves the Church and So Should You. And by the way, if you want to order this book, go to solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com and order the book.

And please tell Mike Gaydosch, founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, that you heard about the book from Chris Arnsen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before the break, as you know, Pastor Earl, we were talking about a mega-church in your area where a pastor who was caught in an adulterous relationship, they kind of quietly tucked him away without making any disciplinary action upon this pastor, and you were discussing how your son's co-workers brought the situation up to them, or should I say to him, at work, and he was responding to their question on how your church would react if you were caught in such a crime.

Yes. So he's there in the break room.

Before work starts and an adulterous situation, and he said my father would be publicly censured and rebuked, and the church would be called upon to restore him. If he repented, he would be restored back to fellowship.

He would not be restored to the ministry. He would be restored back to the fellowship of the church, but more importantly, his repentance would restore him back into fellowship with God and my mother, and if he did not, he would be excommunicated.

And one guy said, dude, that's hard stuff. And my son said, no. And when he said that, everyone scattered like cockroaches in a dark room when the light was turned on. And this is so true. I mean, we're living in a lawless society, a lawless state.