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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.
It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.
Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 15th day of July, 2024.
This is a historic day, as today, just moments before we went live, Donald Trump announced who is going to be his vice presidential running mate in the 2024 election for the presidency of the United States, and that is J .D. Vance, and it will be interesting to see how things develop in the future.
Also, this is the first live broadcast since the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump, which took place on Saturday during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, not very far from where I am right now.
And we thank the Lord that this was a failed assassination attempt, but tragically and horrifically, a very brave, courageous young man, husband and father, was murdered while he was covering his wife and daughter, protecting them from the gunfire, and that ended his life, and that hero is Corey Comperatore.
And we ask of you to pray for the Comperatore family, especially as they are in the midst of very deep grieving and mourning over the loss of such a very special husband and father, and I'm sure that we will begin to learn more and more about this hero who lost his life in such a senseless and tragic and horrific way.
So please keep praying for the Comperatore family, and I hope that the story of this hero does not get lost in all of the excitement and buzz over the Republican Party National Convention and all that will be taking place during this presidential race in the future.
We have to keep the memory of Corey Comperatore alive. Well, today we have a first-time guest. There is something that occurred not long ago. Well, at least it became news to me very recently. It may not have been news to others in the Church of the Nazarene denomination, but I must confess that I have been out of the loop when it comes to the denomination known as the Church of the Nazarene.
I had always known that it was a Wesleyan Arminian denomination, unlike myself, who is a thoroughgoing Five-Point Calvinist and Reformed Baptist, but I had always thought that this denomination was a very strong denomination, adhering to biblical inerrancy, conservative in its views of biblical morality and so on, evangelical.
So it became a shock to me that the faculty at the Nazarene Theological Seminary had become pro-LGBTQ+. I'm not stating with certainty that every member of that faculty is leaning that way in that apostate, anti-biblical, anti-Christian direction, but we'll find out more about that.
Today we have as our guest for the very first time Jared K. Henry, lead pastor at Mackey Church of the Nazarene in Oakland City, Indiana, and he is also the president at the Holiness Partnership, and we'll find out more about that, and we are going to be discussing—we cannot remain silent—one Nazarene pastor calls upon leaders of the Nazarene Theological Seminary to repent of their pro-LGBTQ-plus stance.
It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Pastor Jared K. Henry.
Thank you so much for having me, brother.
It's a joy to have you on, and please let our listeners know something about Mackey Church of the Nazarene in Oakland City, Indiana.
Mackey Church is over 100 years old. They started in 1919 from an evangelist who set up a tent in the area and preached, and I think the second year he was there, there was a group of people who said, we want to start a church, and that's how it began.
Over 100 years ago, we're going to celebrate our 105th anniversary actually this fall of 2024, so it's been around for a while, and we're actually in Mackey. The address you have probably is Oakland City, but we're actually in a little small place called Mackey, and the population of Mackey is about 135 people.
However, we have over 400 people who are a part of our church. We're a multi-site church now, so our main campus is in Mackey, and then on the other side of the county, we also have a campus in Owensville, Indiana, and then recently, we've united with a campus that's outside of Orlando that is led by campus pastor Alex Hilaire, so we're into some neat things and trying to be salt and light.
With the good news, the gospel message to the world.
And I'm assuming I was correct that as far as a theological identity, you would be a Wesleyan-Arminian congregation and denomination?
Yeah, Wesleyan-Arminian, so we are part of the Church of the Nazarenes, kind of a part of the holiness movement of the mid-late 1800s with really a desire to see people born again, but then also to go on into living a holy life, that being a Christian is more than just entitled.
There's actually a radical transformation that takes place, not just behavior modification, but we believe God can cleanse and change your heart as well and make you holy through and through.
Yes, there is one thing that during the tension that exists between Calvinists such as myself and Wesleyan-Arminians such as you, very often what is lost is the strong, very strong agreement that both camps have in their opposition to what has become known as easy believism and cheap grace, this very dangerous teaching that somebody could have absolute and complete confidence that they will enter heaven one day just because at one time in their past they raised their hand at a revival meeting or a church service or went forward at that meeting and recited a prayer and then went home to live exactly as they did before that event and committed to serving the devil their whole lives, the world of flesh and the devil, and that person is told that they are to have complete and utter confidence that they are saved and that they are born again and that they are going to heaven and that nobody should tell them otherwise, and both thoroughgoing five-point Calvinists and Wesleyan-Arminians do agree on that, that that is a very dangerous and false teaching and doesn't even have a long.
History in the church either. Yeah, I think I'm not, I know this much about John Calvin, he was pretty serious about living a life differently because Jesus is Lord and through the power of God in your life, so yeah, I would agree.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about that in his book, he talks a lot about cheap grace in the book Cost of Discipleship. I think he coined.
The phrase, actually. Yeah, it was good. Well, if anybody wants more information about the Mackey Church of the Nazarene, you can go to mackeynaz .org, M-A-C-K-E-Y-N-A-Z .org, and now let's hear a little something about the Holiness Partnership.
Yeah, so the Holiness Partnership has been around just not even for five years, just maybe three or four years now. It's primarily Nazarene pastors who are looking around and watching the influence of culture and other things, even on the church.
We believe that the church should be salt and light to the world, and that means that the people who've been born again, God's people, should impact the world in positive ways, rather than the world impacting the church and pushing the church to accept worldly morals or ethics.
And so as we looked at all of the things that are going on in the life of the Church of the Nazarene, yes, but the broader holiness movement and then the broader evangelicalism, there's a lot of confusion, and it's because the people are raised in this culture that is antithetical to biblical truth, Christian morality, holy living, all of those kinds of things, and what's the answer?
What's the response? So there's a lot of people out there who are saying, this is the problem, this is the problem, but it's easy to be a critic. It's easy to diagnose a problem, but it's a lot more difficult to find the solution, and so we just met, had time of prayer, really sought the Lord, and determined that we felt like part of the problem is that this message that God calls us to be holy as He is holy, and whatever God calls you to do, He will empower you to do.
It's not a carrot on a stick. It can be a reality through the power of the Holy Spirit that you can experience the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit in your life and walk in that, and if believers continue to pursue that calling of God, that really will be the answer.
We won't have the problems of people adopting cultural narratives if the Spirit has made their heart pure and they've been given the mind of Christ, for example, and so we want to reclaim biblical holiness and resource the church to be faithful and fruitful.
So there's some people who are faithful to the truth, but they're not faithful to the Great Commission, and I think you can be faithful to biblical truth and be fruitful in that faithful position. You don't have to choose to be faithful or fruitful, but you could be both, and so that's kind of where we're coming from, and we want to resource the church.
We have gatherings annually. We're looking at some other ways that we can really be a blessing to local churches and ministries, laypeople and clergy alike.
And if anybody wants more details on the Holiness Partnership, go to theholinesspartnership .com, theholinesspartnership .com, theholinesspartnership .com. I think I flubbed there. Yeah, that's all right.
And just another clarification, the holiness movement does seem to have different branches, especially that began to be more noticeable and prominent in the early 20th century, and that would be the holiness movement that would be from a more cessationist wing that does not believe that the sign gifts of speaking in tongues and healing and things like that—although every Christian, I'm sure, believes that God heals today—but as far as the gift to a human being of healing, there is the branch that believes, just like many, if not most, Calvinists, that those gifts ceased with the apostles, and then there's the other branch that are typically aligned with the old-school Pentecostals, not necessarily the broader charismatic movement, but the old-school Pentecostals who claim to be holiness churches.
Now, where would the folks in your holiness partnership align themselves? Perhaps it's both, I don't know.
Yeah, there may be some of both who would kind of say, yeah, we like the holiness partnership, so I could speak for myself on this, and I would say that I would not consider myself a cessationist, but I would consider that I don't agree with Pentecostal definitions of gifts, and what I mean by that is when I see the gift of tongues in the New Testament, I don't see a people standing and speaking erratically, verbalizing things that are nonsensical to the listener, except for one person who will get up and clarify.
In other words, let me say it this way. I see the gift of tongues as something that eliminates linguistical barriers to the gospel being proclaimed. It does not create barriers, and so I would disagree with Pentecostals simply on the definition of the gift of tongues.
I think that gift would be given in a context that would be maybe multi-linguistic and necessary to overcome language barriers. It wouldn't be a gift given in a context where everyone speaks English anyway.
Why would God give a gift that isn't necessary? All the gifts ultimately are for the glorification of Christ, and so if it causes confusion, it's not helpful. So I don't know where that puts me exactly.
I do believe that there are places and times where, even post the book of Acts, where that gift would be appropriate and that gift would be given like the gift of tongues, but to overcome language.
Barrier, not to create it. Is that fair? Does that make sense? Yes, I'm assuming. What you mean is there are a number of theologically reformed Christians who also take the position that they believe that most of what is identified today as signed gifts are not biblical and therefore not real.
Not that the people practicing them are necessarily faking intentionally, but they have been deceived somehow to think what they are doing is a Holy Spirit gift. But you don't want to go as far as calling yourself an absolute cessationist because you don't want to, as many say, put God in a box where he may do something in regard to those supernatural gifts, and you don't want to just rule that out completely.
Well, that and also I don't read in the New Testament any kind of expiration date. I think that's almost, it feels imposed upon the book of Acts or the New Testament that those gifts would cease necessarily.
And here's the other thing. Some of those gifts, we tend to make, not all of us, but there are some people who tend to so emphasize those gifts, they forget about the giver. And I want my focus to always remain on the giver.
So like you had mentioned, I believe in healing and I believe that there are some people who may very well be able to pray for those who are sick and they have a gift in that kind of a way. I don't have a problem with that at all.
I have a problem when they try to monetize that, or I have a problem when they are, when that becomes a show or that becomes the focus. But like we pray in our church with somebody sick, if somebody's going into surgery, whatever, we pray for them, we anoint them with oil and we trust that God hears our prayers on those.
So that's not always maybe necessarily the gift of healing. So I do believe in gifts, I just don't make that, that's not the focus of our ministry. And I also reject those who.
I think misdefine them, as you mentioned. Yes, and I agree with having the elders called upon to lay hands on a sick member and anoint them with oil and pray over them. In fact, when my mother was dying in the 1995 of pancreatic cancer and she was visiting Sloan Kettering for a checkup, I asked a dear friend of mine who is now in eternity with my mother and infinitely more important than that with Christ, Pete Padro.
He was a pastor at the time of Church of the Good Neighbor, the oldest Spanish-speaking Protestant church in New York, which had bilingual services. But I took, actually Pete came to my brother Bob's apartment where he was living at the time in Manhattan, and he prayed over my mom and anointed her with oil.
And the Lord did not choose in His infinite wisdom to heal my mother physically at that time, but I know with certainty that she is completely healed now because she is in glory with Christ. So that was my hope, but God's ways are not our ways.
But we have to go to our first commercial break. And if anybody has a question of your own, submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
Let's say you are a member of a church that is promoting homosexuality, and you are very opposed to this, and you're not ready at this point right now to make your identity known. I can understand something like that.
Maybe you're even struggling with the sin of homosexuality, or maybe you are just a totally pro-homosexual person. Maybe you are involved in that activity, and you're proud of it, and you adamantly, vehemently, radically disagree with what we're saying, but you don't want to reveal your identity.
Things like that, we would understand that you'd want to remain anonymous, but if you're just asking a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Please don't.
Go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church, a Christ-centered, gospel-driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the Great Commission, supporting, and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family. At Linbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.
We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.
Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear God's image. If you live near Linbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship.
For details, visit linbrookbaptist .org. That's l-y-n-brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not a result of words, so that no one may boast of the Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself.
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I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur. I've been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I highly recommend this show. But today I want to tell you about one of its advertisers, Rare Document Traders, far and away my favorite source for quality Charles Spurgeon memorabilia.
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We can be reached at securecommgroup .com. That's securecommgroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist.
Church on Long Island. Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur. In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's pleasure when he ran.
He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God. He sensed that same God-given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God. That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.
I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.
That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672. That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word.
And delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace. Here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio,.
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So go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. We're now back and we're having a fascinating discussion with my first-time guest pastor of Mackie Church of the Nazarene in Mackie, Indiana.
And his name is Pastor Jarrett K. Henry. And we are discussing, we cannot remain silent, one Nazarene pastor calls upon the leaders of the Nazarene Theological Seminary to repent of their pro-LGBTQ stance.
And if you have a question, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. But as I informed you before the program started, we have a tradition here on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
Whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest before we get into the thick of things with the main theme that we have publicized as our primary topic. Before that, we have our first-time guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include a religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.
So I'd love to hear your story.
Yeah, so I was raised in a Christian home. My dad was actually agnostic when he became a Christian, and then married my mom. She was serving the Lord from a young age. And so I was born into this Christian home and raised.
My dad felt a call to ministry, so he was pursuing a call to pastoral ministry. And while he was in seminary, we attended a Nazarene church in Lexington, Kentucky. And during a fall revival at that church, I don't remember who the special speaker was, the evangelist, but I do remember I'd asked my mom if I could take a book of mazes, like you work a maze, you know, as a kid.
And she had told me I was eight years old. She said, I think you're old enough, you need to pay attention to what's being said. And so being the obedient child that I was, I just put the book of mazes under my shirt and took it to church with me anyway.
And when I got to church, I sat down at the far end of the pew away from my parents and got that book out and put it down on the pew beside me. So hopefully they couldn't see it. And I didn't pay attention to the singing, to the prayer, to the preaching.
I wasn't really paying attention. But as I stood at the end of the service, I felt the Holy Spirit convict me of my sins. And I knew that I was not in right standing with God. I was eight years old and stepped out from that pew and went down to the altar.
People prayed with me and I made Jesus the Lord of my life. And God just transformed. It was a pivotal point in my life. Everything was different from that point forward. So when I was born again, so from an early age, I began to walk with God at eight years of age.
And then when I was when I graduated from high school, I'd kind of been I didn't tell God no, but I hadn't really told him yes. I felt he had a sense that his spirit was calling me to be a pastor as well.
And I think that my aversion to that was because my own father had been a pastor. And for whatever reason, I felt I felt like, you know, I don't want to do that. I want to go make money. I even told God one time, look, I've got a better deal for you.
I will pay double tithe and do whatever you want me to do. If I'm if I can go and be a doctor, a medical doctor, which there's no problem with being a medical doctor unless God's called you to pastoral ministry.
And so the summer after my senior year of high school, when I after I graduated from high school, I accepted that call. I just fully committed to the Lord at that point in his call in my life and and then pursued that call.
And I found, you know, there's a time where the enemy can try to convince you that serving Jesus is painful and terrible and all of these kinds of things. And there will be cost to following Jesus, no doubt.
But there's a joy in doing exactly what God's called you to do. And I have found that joy in serving the one whom I love. Amen.
One thing I forgot to ask you, but I was almost certain and I am almost certain that the Church of the Nazarene is a credo Baptist denomination in that you only baptize believers. Is that the case or am I wrong on that?
Um, you know, there there are there is provision in our articles of faith for young children to be baptized. So when when you say young children, that that can be interpreted.
In many different ways. So there must be. Must they be of an age where they.
Can demonstrate faith and repentance? Well, I believe so. I believe that you need to be born again, believe her baptism. However, there are some who have baptized even infants. Oh, really? And yeah, yeah, there are.
It doesn't happen often, but it's kind of become in some circles a more popular thing. But I've never baptized an infant. I don't know many pastors who have. I do know a few. And it's it's kind of from our heritage that goes back through the Methodist Church to the Anglican Church.
And I think it's it's kind of that it's a holdover of that heritage. Yeah. Where are you an alumni of the Nazarene Theological Seminary? No, I attended I went I started college at Asbury College and then transferred to Triveca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee.
And then I also have attended Asbury Theological Seminary, but I've not attended Nazarene Theological Seminary. And is Asbury, that's a Pentecostal college, is it not? No, Asbury is actually it's non-denominational, but its roots are in Methodism.
Okay. So yeah, so it's a Wesleyan Arminian Seminary as well. Okay. So when did you.
Begin to discover when alarm bells started going off that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark? And I'm talking about Nazarene Theological Seminary, where you noticed that there was an unbiblical attitude and softness towards or affirmation of what has become known as the LGBTQ community.
I reject calling them a community. It is a damnable and unnatural sin, a sin that people can be given the gift of repentance from and who have repented from that. And as the scriptures are even clear, some of you once were these things.
And I've even interviewed a number of people on this program that fit somewhere in the so-called LGBTQ acronym or acrostic. In fact, one of the most notable is Rosaria Butterfield, who was an outspoken lesbian and Marxist and tenured professor at Syracuse University and was saved by the mercy of Christ and is now and has been for quite some time married to a brother in Christ who is a pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America in North Carolina.
I had the privilege of even having breakfast in their home and then joining them for worship in the church where Kent Butterfield pastors, Rosaria's husband. And I've interviewed a number of other people.
For instance, just recently I interviewed a brother in Christ named William Allen. That is his alias because he didn't want to unnecessarily bring any kind of negative things upon his family, friends, and loved ones by revealing his full true name.
But he actually was somebody who was deceived by Satan to get so-called transgendered surgery. He had the full-blown surgery and so-called became a woman. Of course, we know that that is not the case.
And William Allen, the man of whom I am speaking about, he knows now that that did not happen. He was never a woman. And he has now had the reverse surgery done and is a member in good standing at a Bible-believing church and so on.
But I've had quite a number of interviews on this subject, either with people, and Patty Height is another one that pops into my head. Patty Height, who is very popular amongst the Calvary Chapel folks.
That's where she is a member in Old Bridge, New Jersey. Wonderful sister in Christ, who lived the life of a lesbian before getting rescued by Christ and also had gender confusion on top of that. But when did you notice that something was amiss there at.
The Nazarene Theological Seminary? Well, I can't remember a specific time. I, as a church pastor, I would hear things from now and then. And, you know, there's always a lot of, you know, maybe gossip or whatever you want to call it that goes around.
And most of the time, it's not worth pursuing. Somebody's aggravated about something and it has no biblical basis for concern other than somebody's preference or something. But there were things that were said, I guess, online.
A lot of social media stuff is really created. There's a lot of misinformation, but there's also a lot more transparency because things are out there on the Internet and whatnot. And so probably that's how things began to kind of come to my attention.
And as those things happened, there was a growing concern on my part that, you know, is this legitimate? Are leaders unaware of some of these things? Is this an oversight? I guess you want to believe the best about people, especially leaders of institutions that are a part of your denomination.
And especially like our Nazarene Theological Seminary, that's kind of our flagship educational institution. And so eventually it led me, after research and even actually knowing some people personally that I talked to, it led me to reach out to the president of Nazarene Theological Seminary, Jaron Rowell.
In fact, before anything, before I put an article out, before I made any noise about this, I wanted to make sure that what I was hearing and seeing and receiving evidence about and the buzz about some of these kinds of things, I wanted to know, is this true?
I'm not going to stake my reputation on something that's not true or protest, if you will, something that is not valid. And so I just reached out straight to the president. He was gracious enough to respond to my queries and actually called me.
At one point, we had, I can't remember now, it's been a few years. This all went down like in 2020 or 2019 even when I first had the first conversation. So there's a couple conversations, a couple back and email.
And in essence, I became very troubled by the lack of transparency by which he would speak to me about some of those that were in employment. Some were professors, some were staff people. There was a guy that was openly identifying as a homosexual that I personally knew him.
And he just wasn't, they had hired him at one point, probably unaware as a student of the seminary. And then while he was there, he came out publicly. This is who I am. This is part of my identity that whatever.
And then they, after he graduated, they actually hired him full time. And so I just, you know, I had some really serious questions about some of these things. What are our thought processes there? Because I know on my local church level, for me to hire someone in a ministry kind of a role or really any kind of a church leadership role that was professing to be openly homosexual and all that kind of thing, that would be problematic.
I would not be able to do something like that. Here's our seminary that exists to train Nazarene pastors for the Nazarene churches, you know, and that they are hiring even staff, but then also some of their faculty.
And let me just be really clear here, too, that this, we're not talking, you mentioned this, but we're not, we're not talking, I'm not talking about every single staff person or professor that's there.
There are some that are biblically solid and they are holding to and affirming, you know, the historic stance of the Church of Jesus Christ and biblical truth and the Church of the Nazarene and all that kind of stuff.
So this is really a minority of those folks that are there at the seminary, and yet they are continually given the platform to continue to speak and to teach. And so I was told a number of things in my conversation with the seminary president, and that was, you know, that these speakers that I was concerned about that were adjunct professors, he said, you know, well, they're not, we're not allowing them to teach a class on sexuality.
And to which my response would be, well, would you allow a Mormon to teach the class on evangelism as long as they don't teach a class on Christology, you know? And so that's nonsensical to me. This is a, yeah, this is a fundamental, basic issue that's clear in Scripture, regardless of the fact that there are some who want to muddy the water.
And they may themselves be more confused than a termite in a yo-yo, but it doesn't change this reality, you know? And so after, and then when I asked the president, you know, point blank, Jaron Rowe, the president, you know, hey, do you believe that those who practice homosexuality, do you believe that they will inherit the kingdom of God?
He would just respond. He would not respond clearly to that question. He would just say, well, we affirm the Church of the Nazarene's statement on human sexuality, which I think is a good statement. The problem with that is, is that one, you're not answering the question with clarity.
You're taking kind of a position of, I affirm our denominational stance, but there's some vagueness to that. So now there are some in lots of different denominations who would decide, who would distinguish between, it's a false dichotomy, but they would say, well, I will affirm this belief, even though I don't hold this belief, if that makes sense.
It's a new pharisaical way of trying to split out, you know, split out these hairs and stuff. It's a coward's way out, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it lends itself to one of the problems, I think, in the Church, generally speaking, in the United States, at least, is we seem to think that ambiguity is a strength.
Right. And ambiguity is a great gift for a politician, but it's not a great gift for a pastor, a preacher, a spiritual leader, a prophet, whatever, you know. We need clarity in our pulpits and from our leadership about things that are clear in Scripture.
So, yeah. And it's a complete denial of 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, to be not unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?
I mean, it's just as simple a teaching and as clear a teaching as can possibly be. But we have to go to our midway break, and I want to pick up on that as soon as we return from this midway break. Please use this time wisely.
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Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland. Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
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That's also the email address where you can send in a question about this very important issue that we are addressing today that does not only involve the Church of the Nazarene denomination, but involves many churches that profess to be evangelical Protestant.
We are talking with Pastor Jarrett K. Henry, lead pastor of Mackie Church of the Nazarene in Mackie, Indiana, and he is also the president at theholinesspartnership .com, and we are addressing, we cannot remain silent, one Nazarene pastor calls upon leaders of the Nazarene Theological Seminary to repent of their pro-LGBTQ stance, and that's chrisarnson at gmail .com for your questions.
How shocked were you when you were starting to hear rumors which led you to having a personal phone conversation with the president of Nazarene Theological Seminary? How shocked were you when you discovered how soft it had become against the damnable practices.
Of homosexuality? I think that I was most shocked from my conversation with the president. I was really kind of taken back that he was, it may have been even different had he said, you know, I've had a hard time managing things or I wasn't fully aware or something, but it really felt like he kind of doubled down.
Now, let me just say he was very kind about what he said to me, but and polite and he's soft-spoken and in a lot of ways, it would be normally a pleasure to talk with him. That was his personality. However, the content of the conversation was very troubling, and so I was pretty shocked, and that's when I kind of took notes over the couple conversations and then the emails of what was going on and things that were said, and that really ultimately comprised the, I have a blog and I wrote an article on that blog, why I can no longer support Nazarene Theological Seminary.
I put that article together and then I sent it out to a number of trusted godly folks who gave their input to me, and I said, look, I want you to tell me, am I too hard? Am I too soft? Give me feedback, and I did.
I had lots of people give me feedback on it, so I edited it a number of times and changed wording, and I just wanted it to be, I wasn't just wanting to be full of rhetoric, but I wanted it to be something that would be significant, and I was really, in some ways, I was afraid when it went public, when I would put it out that, well, it looks like this would be the end of me and the Church of the Nazarene in some ways, you know, like, ouch, I'm going to be kicked out or something, and so I sat on this thing for almost a year, praying and seeking the Lord and also the counsel, wise counsel, godly wise counsel from other people, and so it was September 2020 when I actually put it out publicly on my blog, and it was a Wednesday night.
That was one mistake that I made, was putting it out on Wednesday night right before our Wednesday night service, and when I got done with the Wednesday night service, I posted it on the blog, and I shared it on my social media, and it went Nazarene viral, and when I got after the service, and I went back to my office to get ready to go home, my phone had all kinds of texts.
I had missed calls, and I was like, what is going on? I thought there was something, you know, something happening, and it was this blog article. I just did not anticipate that it would cause the kind of feedback that it did, but what was shocking to me about the feedback was that I had almost universal feedback that was positive about what I had done.
Now, let me caveat that with saying some of the social media stuff, there were some trolls on social media for sure. I do not know all, I did not know all those folks, and I did not know who, where they were.
Some of them probably were not even Christians. They were not even in the Church of the Nazarene and so on and so forth, but in terms of people who contacted me either directly or through private messages on social media or email or whatever, I had really only two negative responses.
One was someone who worked at the Global Ministry Center who called me and said, hey, you know, I know the president, Jaron Routt, he's a really nice guy, and I said, well, I did not say he was not a nice guy.
I just said, you know, he is compromising on this. I am not accusing him of things that are not true. I am just saying he is not providing leadership in this area, and—. He's not behaving like a Bible-believing, born-again believer.
Yeah, yeah. Well, not just his own personal behavior, but his leadership,.
You know, action, you know. Well, I think behavior, though, would be also under the understanding of who you are partnering with or who you are permitting to identify with you. And by the way, it just reminded me of the first time you said how soft-spoken and kind and nice he was, it reminded me of Proverbs 27, verse 6, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
And so, I think that you could say that although this man—I'm not saying this man is actively involved in homosexuality—to tolerate it amongst those that identify as being a part of the body of Christ, we are not even to publicly eat with someone that identifies themself as a Christian, but is involved in unrepentant, scandalous sin.
So, I think that this could rightly be identified as a practice that this man is guilty of. I don't think he can hide behind this just being some kind of an administrative thing.
Well, that's certainly the last thing that you said there about the administrative stuff. I think that's a lot of times you hear people say, well, you know, there's policies and there's procedures and there's this kind of stuff, and it's kind of a smoke screen for, you know, hiding the issue.
But I guarantee you if there was a guy that was advocating for neo-Nazi ideology, they wouldn't hide behind policy to deal with it. And so, it's really a cultural thing, and you know, you hear a lot about tolerance, and it's interesting in the book of Revelation, you know, God speaks to the church at Thyatira and says, yeah, I have this against you.
You tolerate the woman Jezebel, and what's the problem with tolerating someone? There's a lot of people who kind of maybe annoy me or our personalities don't jive, and we need to tolerate. But the reason that God rebukes them for tolerating Jezebel is because she's teaching his servants to practice sexual immorality.
And so, when you have, it's actually, I think, biblically, you could make the case that it's more grievous to the Spirit of God and Christ that someone who purports to speak on God's behalf is teaching things that, if acted upon by the listener, the pupil, the disciple, would would damn them, in your terminology or in biblical terminology, that's more grievous than the person who's actually just living in sin, you know.
And so, he didn't say, I have this against you, you tolerate lost people who are searching or who are seeking or who are even attending your church. He says, I have this against you. You tolerated someone who is in a leadership position and is advocating for behavior that is contrary to God's sexual design for humanity.
And that's ultimately God's rebuke to the church of dietary. And I think that, so that's why, you know, I had somebody call me one time and said, you know, you just must hate anybody, you know, that claims to be LGBT, you know, whatever.
I said, absolutely not. I'm a local church pastor. I have people in my congregation and churches that I've pastored previously who have dealt with this temptation. Some have come out of this lifestyle.
Praise be to God for spiritual victory, the overcoming this mindset and this ideology and way of life even. And so, it grieves me as a pastor to people who are resisting this temptation and saying no to this and saying yes to Jesus, that we have leaders who are allowed to teach in our seminary who actually believe that we should affirm behavior that will send people to hell.
That grieves me, and I have a righteous anger about that, because I love people who say that they're in the LGBT community.
Yes, it's not a loving act to give people a salved conscience about practicing or believing things that are going to damn them. That's not loving. And in fact, in addition to 1 Corinthians 511, which I quoted earlier or paraphrased, I am writing you, this is the Apostle Paul, I am writing you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he is guilty of sexually immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.
Having them on the faculty is a much more serious issue than just eating with them. But also, these people that seem to think they are somehow safe from God's wrath just because they do not personally engage in homosexual acts or even heterosexual sins like adultery and fornication, they may think, well, I don't do those things.
But don't forget, we have some powerful words in the book of Romans in chapter 1, where if we jump down to verse 24,. Therefore God gave them up to vile impurity in the lusts of their hearts, so that their bodies would be dishonoring among them.
For they exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions.
For the women exchanged natural relations for that which is contrary to nature, and likewise the men too, obeying natural relations with women, and burned in their desire toward one another, males with males, committing shameful acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
And just as they did not see it, to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a depraved mind to do those things that are not proper. And then if we jump down to verse 32,. And although they know the ordinance of God, like this president does, that he seems to have some kind of allegiance to the code of sexual ethics of the church of the Nazarene, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.
So people have to remember, it's the approving of those who practice them as well.
Yeah, you know, I think that part of the nuance that has been attempted to be created is that there are some who would say, while I hold this view that is biblical and the church of the Nazarene holds, for example, I embrace the church of the Nazarene statement on human sexuality, which I think is biblical.
At the same time, I think that they would say, but I also recognize that I have brothers and sisters who don't hold my view on sexual ethic, and while I disagree with them, I still think that they're within Christianity.
Much like you introduced me as Western Armenian, you said you were Calvinist, we would say, although we might disagree on some of those theological issues, those are not heaven and hell issues, and so we both view each other as brothers in Christ, and I think you can do that with those issues.
But for me, this is an essential issue. In other words, what issues are salvific? What issues are salvation kind of issues? And the Bible's clear, if you practice homosexuality, you will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
And so if that's the case, then it's actually—you can't be a brother and advocate for something different than what God says on an issue that's clear in Scripture. You know, I've heard even people say, well, there's only three or four verses, maybe six verses in all of Scripture.
I mean, well, how many verses do you need before you're going to say yes?
You're going to gamble your eternity on how many verses there are. Unbelievable.
How many times does God have to say something to get through to you on this issue?
Yeah, and let me lovingly correct you, brother, when you said, well, I think you said, my view or something like this, the way I see it, something like that. Well, this is very clear truth that has been universally held by the body of Christ for millennia.
You know, this is not something that we have to dig deeply into the Scriptures with full knowledge of the original languages to come up with these prohibitions. This is as plain as the nose on our faces.
Mm-hmm.
I think he said, in my view, that's the way he said it. It's a pretty clear thing that it should be everybody who's a Christian's view.
It should be, yes. Yeah, I agree.
Well, we have a listener in Brownsburg, Indiana, Kirby, and Kirby in Brownsburg, Indiana, says, could it be that the president and those in the faculty who are affirming the belief that homosexuality is acceptable are on the deceiving category called side B Christianity, which some are coming up and rising in ranks in the body of Christ in formally biblically sound denominations who are identifying as homosexual but think that they are completely fine with God as long as they don't physically practice these things?
Yeah, that's an excellent question because I don't know if you were aware of this. A number of months ago, I organized a live public moderated debate between my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and an individual named Dr. Gregory Coles, and Dr. Coles calls himself a side B as in boy Christian, which is a part of a group that teaches that you can be a homosexual in your identity, but as long as you don't practice it or lust in that way, and they would, of course, say that lust in heterosexuals and in homosexuals is equally sinful, they would say as long as you're not guilty of the physical consummation or lusting, it is completely fine to be in the state or an intrinsic state of being or identity as a homosexual.
And in fact, Gregory Coles actually in this debate declared it was a gift from God and said that if somebody were to give him a pill or offer him a pill that would cure him of homosexual attraction, he would not take it.
So going back to the listener Kirby's question, do you know if this is what they're talking about when they say simultaneously, we agree with the Church of the Nazarene statement on sexual ethics, but at the same time welcome people on the faculty that say that they are in favor of LGBTQ identities?
I'm not sure where the president would say that he stands. It's just hard to get an answer on that anyway, but I think that's a bit of a different issue. The issue is even if he were completely orthodox in his own views, as a leader, he has responsibility for who's on the faculty there.
At the end of the day, you're responsible for that. So it doesn't matter if you're orthodox and you believe right and you're doing the right thing on your watch, you've allowed. So again, I don't want to be just unintentionally condescending or anything, but I think it ultimately comes down to is this a competency issue?
Are you able to lead an institution or are you actually using your position to advocate something that you secretly hold? I can't make a on his heart what he's trying to accomplish. All I know is he knows that there are professors that are teaching in our Nazarene seminary who are clearly LGBT affirming.
They're not even side B. They're side go for it, practice it, and he's allowing them to teach. So for me, it doesn't matter what his perspective is on this issue, but the reality is that whatever your perspective is, even if it is orthodox, your leadership is failing and you have not led well because you are allowing someone who holds an anti-biblical view of sexuality and is actually advocating for open sin.
And whether they're teaching a course on sexuality or not, the reality is they are teaching things that if you can't get that right, you can't get anything right. Ultimately, your mind has been twisted, and so that's where I think the problem comes.
And rests upon. Okay, we have Sally in, it's either Beaufort or Beaufort, South Carolina, and Sally asks, I don't understand your reaction to the majority of those who responded to your blog article where you were shocked that the majority were in favor of what you were saying.
If you originally thought that your denomination was biblically faithful and more conservative,.
Why would you be shocked by that? I think I was shocked because of the overwhelmingness. I maybe wasn't clear on how overwhelming. Like that Wednesday night, I was responding to texts and phone calls.
I was on the phone. Thursday, the next day, I was on the phone literally all day long. Calls, texts, emails started pouring in. Friday, from the time that I got up to the time that I went to bed, I was on the phone call.
And on Saturday morning when I got up, I went to my phone, and again, it was full. And my wife said to me, Sunday's coming. You need to fast from your phone. Just let it go. And so I think in that regard, it was overwhelming.
I mean, I got calls from pastors, leaders, internationally for the Church of the Nazarene. I was contacted by students, current and former students of the seminary who said, you don't have any idea of the depth of this, you know, or whatever.
And I was contacted by even professors at the seminary who said, this is going on. You know, I wouldn't tell who they are because I don't want to put their job in jeopardy or anything, but literally was contacted by people.
And it was overwhelming in that regard, I guess I should say. So part of me was like, I'm going to stir up and, you know, it will feel like an attack upon a Nazarene institution. And I was born again in the Church of the Nazarene, so I love the Church of the Nazarene.
The reason that I feel compelled to speak is because I love the Church of the Nazarene. And I love the seminary. The idea, I should say, of the seminary. But I cannot currently support the seminary with the leadership that we have who are looking the other way when it comes to faculty who are LGBT-affirming.
Now, are you required as a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene to financially, as a church, support the seminary? Because there are denominations who do that. I remember there was a brother, a well-known theologically Reformed and Calvinist writer, who was excommunicated from the Reformed Church in America, commonly known as the RCA, the same denomination where Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Shuler were pastors.
This man was a theologically sound pastor, unlike they were. And he was excommunicated because his congregation and he and the leadership refused to financially support their seminary because of the liberalism.
I don't even think it was as bad as what you're describing, because it was years ago. And in fact, they excommunicated him without even a trial or hearing or anything.
But is that something you have to do? We are encouraged as local churches to take up an offering for the seminary. Our church, actually, before this, we just budgeted a certain amount out of our local church budget.
We no longer do that. We do support the World Evangelism Fund, which goes to support missionaries in the Church of the Nazarene and other missions, things around the world. We are considered a 10 church, which means that 10 or more of our local church income does not stay local.
It goes to support missionaries. And my understanding is, and I don't have the numbers in front of me or the percentage, but there is like a 0 .1 or something like that of that money of all the churches in the USA and Canada goes to support the seminary.
So, they might get something from us, but it's not like we're choosing. We have cut off anything that we give directly to the seminary, at least my local.
Church. Okay. We have to go to our final break. If you do have a question of your own, send it immediately because we're running out of time. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back.
It is much more than an exposition of the larger catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology. Dr. Moorcraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.
For details on the 8-volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com. For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.
Please tell Dr. Moorcraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you.
I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love, Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711. That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
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Church on Long Island. Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to the radio ministry of John MacArthur and the film Chariots of Fire. The Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's pleasure when he ran.
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Worldwide. This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee. Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.
Grace Church at Franklin is an independent autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course the end of which we strive is the glory of God. If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior.
Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin. Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org. This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today.
And always. And a big shout out to Pastor Bill Sousa of Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee for their huge, enormous generosity over at that church. They knew that we are going through some real hard times financially.
Currently we have some big, important bills that need to be paid. And so on top of their monthly support that they already provide, they added a fairly substantial financial amount to that this month to help us through this crisis.
And I want to thank Pastor Bill for always having my back as it were when things like this arise. And to repeat the website of that fine congregation, it's gracechurchatfranklin .org, gracechurchatfranklin .org.
And the word at is A-T. It's not the symbol at. It's gracechurchatfranklin .org. Also, I want to remind you folks that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco Associates. If you are the victim of a very serious accident or injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the United States, call 1 -800-NOW-HURT, 1 -800-NOW-HURT, or visit their website 1 -800-NOW-HURT .com.
Make sure you tell Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, that you heard about his practice, Buttafuoco Associates from Chris Arnsin of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio. And Pastor Jarrett, we have a listener in Bucks Corner, New York named Vanderbilt.
And Vanderbilt says, When doing some digging into the Church of Nazarene website, I discovered that you ordain women. I was wondering if any of you folks who disagree with homosexuality have come to realize that the same hermeneutic used to justify the ordination of women is also used to justify homosexuals in the Church, because it is normally defended by cultural things that have changed over time, and not the Bible.
And I was wondering where you stand on that. Yeah, I think that's a fair question, brother. Yeah, that's a good question, actually. I'm glad you asked it. I had Matthew Sickle on this program, who is a key administrative figure in what is now called the Global Methodist Church.
They broke away from the United Methodist Church over the issue of ordaining homosexuals and so on, and they ordained women. And I had to be honest, and I said it seemed to me like a ticking time bomb that may lead them right back to the point where they're ordaining homosexuals again at some point in the near future, or in the distant future, either way.
Yeah, so I appreciate you asking.
That question. I think it's a good one to respond to. I think it's a totally different hermeneutic, and here's how. Every verse, chapter, everything in Scripture, the whole testimony of all of the Bible is that the practice of homosexuality is not compatible.
Some of the strongest language against behavior or otherwise is used to talk about things outside of God's sexual design. All right, so you can define something positively or negatively. In other words, if I had three women standing on a platform and somebody said, who's your wife?
I can say either the one in the middle is my wife, or I can say the one on the left and right are not my wife. Either way, you would know. All right, so Scripture defines God's design for sexuality both positively and negatively in Scripture.
There's never a time when homosexual practice, homosexual relationship, marriage, whatever, is ever spoken about, even neutrally. It's always spoken of, this is not God's design, all right, and there's without exception, and so that's why this issue is so clear.
The issue of the ordination of women, I think, is a different hermeneutical approach than homosexual practice, and here's why. There are examples in Scripture of women who lead and preach and pray publicly in both the Old and the New Testament.
For example, in the New Testament, there's a reference to Anna the prophetess. This is a female who is prophesying or preaching or speaking on behalf of God, and she's in the temple and she's doing those kinds of things.
In the Old Testament, there's examples of that. There's examples in the New Testament of Paul in Corinthians talking about women praying in a church service, so that's different. So what you have to do then with this issue, and why I think the issue of women in ministry or ordained women is different than the issue of homosexual practice, is that there does seem to be some Scripture that says women are to be silent in the church, and that women are allowed to speak, and I've actually been given authority, biblically, to be a prophetess and to lead in that kind of capacity in the life of the church, and so I think that is an issue by which I would certainly understand.
I think whoever shared the question, they come down on the side that says, I'm going to go with the Scripture that seems to say women should not speak in the life of the church. Women should have no authority, and the Church of the Nazarene comes down and says, look, we recognize that there is that Scripture, but we also recognize that there is Scripture that says women are to have this level of authority.
They are to speak as a prophetess or as a leader in that capacity, and so we're going to say that while there certainly are times when women should not be ordained and we recognize that, there's also a time where we should recognize God has called this woman to be a prophetess.
Anna, for example, and there's others, and so we're not going to stand in the way of God calling women to the ministry in that.
Capacity. Does that make sense? Well, obviously, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it makes sense taking the other position. For instance, I don't know how you would respond to 1 Timothy 2 in verse 12, but I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man but to remain quiet, for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve, and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a wrongdoer.
So the excuse or the argument that I've heard from egalitarians, people who believe in the ordination of women, is that Paul's prohibition was a cultural thing because women were prone to gossip and talking during a worship service, but obviously Paul is saying that the answer is found in Genesis in creation.
So how do you respond to that? I'm just curious. Well, I would say, you know, I guess I would answer, I would do like Jesus, answer a question with a question and say, well, what do you do about the fact that there are clearly women, even in the New Testament, who are given position?
And so that to me is the difference between this, the issue of women in ministry and the issue of homosexual practice is a very different issue because there does seem to be scripture that doesn't, it's contradictory.
So then you have to ask, well, is there, is this, is our, is scripture speaking to specific events? I'm not just saying it's cultural, I'm not claiming cultural, I'm claiming scripture's testimony about the women having authority.
What authority do they have in the life of the church? There, you just quoted from Timothy, that seems to be a passage of scripture that would say they don't have any authority, but there are other places where it seems to give them that authority because it, there is a woman, she is a prophetess.
And so for me, it's like, that's where we have to do the harder, it's a more difficult kind of a place to be because it's like, okay, I've got to apply this. So if there is an exception to this rule, whichever side, whichever rule you have, you've got to acknowledge that if you, like, I believe there's, that women can be ordained.
And so if I believe that, there's got to be an exception, though, because there's obviously scripture that says there's time where women are to be silent.
Well, I would, I would, we are out of time, brother, and I would love for you to come back and have a very cordial, friendly debate on the issue, either on my show or even at a public setting. But we will, we will determine that at some other point.
Of course, just let me quickly say, being a prophetess does not necessarily mean somebody has authority in the church over men, because there are women who are, and women should proclaim the gospel to everyone they meet, and so on.
But we will, we will pick this up at another time, God willing. And I want to make sure that our listeners have the necessary websites for the Mackey Church of the Nazarene in Mackey, Indiana. Go to MackeyNaz .org, MackeyNaz .org.
And for the Holiness Partnership, go to TheHolinessPartnership .com, TheHolinessPartnership .com. It was really a joy to have you on, brother, and I'm looking forward to having you back on the program.
Yeah, hopefully that will work out, Lord willing, and thank you for having me.
And I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.