Show with Interviews from the 2019 G3 Conference Part 2: Andrew Smith & Brian Fairchild, Phil Johnson, AND Michael Miller

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 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 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 a 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, Champaign County, Illinois, and the rest of

humanity living on the planet Earth.

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

I am not Chris Arnzen.

I am Chris Arnzen's substitute for the day, although I have been strictly forbidden to

refer to myself as the Vicar of Chris.

My name is Eric Nielsen, and I also serve as the webmaster for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to wish you all a happy Friday on this 20th day of December, 2019.

While Chris is away attending the Foundations Conference in New York City, we are taking this opportunity to

air some interviews that Chris did last January at the 2019 G3

Conference.

Today's show will include interviews with Drs. Andrew Smith and Brian Fairchild, Phil

Johnson, who is the Executive Director of the Media Ministry of Dr. John MacArthur, grace to

you, and Michael S. Miller, the founder, president, and CEO of Discerning the Faith Ministries.

There's a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started.

This is Chris Arnzen again, on site at the G3 Conference 2019 in

College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

I have just been thrilled with everything I've experienced here.

Once again, being at the G3 Conference representing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has proven to be a very

monumentally fruitful experience for me personally and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We'll be giving you updates on what I'm talking about in the not -so -distant future, God willing.

We have two brothers in Christ now that I'm going to be interviewing who are

also manning an exhibitor's booth, just as I am here at the G3 Conference.

We have two preaching fellows for the Society for

Expository Preaching.

We have Dr. Andrew Smith and we also have Dr. Brian Fairchild, both

with this organization.

First of all, greetings to my brothers.

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Well, let's start with you, Andrew.

You're the preaching fellow that I met first about a year ago.

I think I actually met you not that long ago.

It was in Jacksonville, Florida, correct?

Yeah, James White.

At the James White debate that I organized in Jacksonville that he and

Dr. Michael Brown, both on the same debating team, debated to

professing homosexual ministers in the Jacksonville, Florida community.

That was certainly a night where the truth of the Scriptures

came through very loud and clear that this was indeed

homosexuality that is a sin, a damnable sin that must be repented of, not something that is

acceptable as a Christian way of life.

But I was very intrigued when I first met you, and you told me a little bit about the Society for

Expository Preaching, and I said to you immediately after hearing this explanation that I wanted to have you on the

show, and you are providentially here today, so I'm glad that you and Brian are both here.

Why don't you tell our listeners something about exactly what is the Society for Expository

Preaching?

Sure.

Well, it's an initiative that Brian and I both started to want to be a ministry to

pastors that are in churches, and they're ministering, they're preaching the Word of God every week,

and we want to be someone that can join them and encourage them and provide a brotherhood

for like -minded ministers who believe the same things theologically, they believe in the authority and the

inerrancy of Scripture, and are committed to the task of expositional preaching.

And we know because we are pastors, Brian pastors in Midland, Texas, and I pastor in St. Augustine,

Florida, that there's not a lot of expositors out there that are doing sequential exposition

book by book as the foundation of the church's life and spiritual growth.

So we want to do whatever we can to connect like -minded guys so they can meet with each other, encourage one another, pray for one another,

and then we also want to provide some one -on -one consultation, sermon evaluation.

One of the benefits of seminary is they give you the tools to understand how to put a sermon together, but then when you

get the boots on the ground, so to speak, and you get in the context, it's helpful to hear

advice from other pastors on how they preach through the Old Testament or the New Testament or a particular book.

So we want to provide some one -on -one consultation, we want to provide some resources that will

reach into their lives.

Brian and I both have had the privilege of sitting under the ministry of Dr. Steve Lawson as his

doctorate students.

I was glad that I grabbed a hold of him in the hallway just long enough to get a photo taken.

Unfortunately, he's too busy to do an interview this year, but I've interviewed Dr. Lawson in the past, and he is certainly

a precious brother in Christ.

In fact, it's been a long time.

The last time I interviewed him, he was still a pastor.

Yes.

Well, he's had a huge influence on us, and we feel a stewardship.

We want to give back to other pastors who maybe can't get doctorate of ministry training.

And we don't want to replace seminary, but we want to fine -tune homiletical, exegetical,

theological preaching, because that's what Christ uses to build the Church.

Right.

Well, before we go any further with more details about the Society for Expository

Preaching, Dr. Brian Fairchild, if you could let our listeners know

something more specific about your congregation where you pastor.

So I am in Midland, Texas, and I pastor a colonial Bible church there.

We are a Reformed Baptist congregation.

The Lord called us to plant that church 17 years ago, so we have been in West Texas

for 17 years.

I'm actually a native of Midland, Texas, and the Lord called us back home to plant that church there.

We are a church that reaches a broad geographical region.

We have folks that drive as far as two hours to get to church.

There's just a dearth of preaching everywhere, and in the more rural parts of the country, that's even more

exaggerated.

You have to go further to find expository preaching.

It's amazing when you think of a place like Texas in the Bible Belt where, as there

will be commonly made jokes that I don't think are far

from the truth, that you could have a Baptist church within 100 yards

of another one and many more within the same town.

Right.

Baptist church in every corner and, of course, other evangelical Protestant denominations as well.

Right.

Exactly.

I am a personal living testimony to the power of the Word

that reveals Christ, and him saying he will build his church, the Word does that as it reveals

Christ.

I'm not a salesman.

I was telling someone earlier I had a sales job in seminary and just about starved to death.

I couldn't sell ice to a man in the desert or a blanket to an Eskimo.

It's just.

The Lord has been so faithful to the preaching of his Word for 17 years that he has

sustained us and built his church.

The fruit that you see in people's lives is just irreplaceable.

You cannot duplicate that through any other means, and to see Christ glorified in them is a treasure.

Why don't you, and then we'll have Dr. Andrew Smith do the same thing after he also

gives some details about his own congregation where he pastors.

Why don't you give us a summary of your salvation testimony?

Tell our listeners how you were raised, if you were raised in a religious

atmosphere at all, and if so, what kind of religion, and what were the providential circumstances

that our sovereign Lord raised up in your life, drew you to himself and saved you?

So I was saved at a young age, Chris.

I had the blessing of growing up with believing parents, believing grandparents on my mother's side, a tremendous

influence in my life.

But again, I have to testify to the power of the Word.

It was through Scripture memory in the AWANA program at our local church that

I can remember as a young child just being absolutely under conviction

in memorizing the Scripture.

I can still see the book and the pages in my little book that I memorized

in my mind.

It's as clear as day, and memorizing the passages from Romans and James and

other passages.

I knew I was a sinner, and I knew Christ was the only hope for salvation for me.

And so I was able to come to know the Lord through that.

And one night, just being brought to the end of myself, going to my parents and saying, I'm a sinner, I need to be

saved, and having my parents pray with me, and a sweet time.

So that's how the Lord brought me to faith.

And how did you know that the Lord had placed a call upon your life to enter into the ministry?

I have never wanted to do anything else.

Even as a kid?

Even as a kid.

Wow.

That was my driving passion.

I can remember, I loved to mow the grass as a kid, because it gave me a

chance to put on my big Walkman with a cassette and listen to preaching.

Wow.

I was a freak.

Well, a good kind of freak.

Yeah.

But I've always loved preaching.

I've loved the preaching of the Word.

And the Lord really confirmed that call to me when I was 14, that that was the

direction He would have my life to go.

And I began to even, thanks to some very long -suffering Sunday school teachers, teach

Sunday school and preach short sermons for them.

At that time, my junior high youth pastor had formerly been a senior pastor, and he

would sit down and help me write sermons and those sorts of things.

So it was a blessed life for me in that regard.

Praise God.

Well, Dr. Andrew Smith, if you could tell us something about your congregation, where you pastor, and then also, after that,

let us know about a summary of your own salvation testimony.

Sure.

Yeah, so I planted three years ago Christ Reformed Community Church in St. Augustine, Florida.

We're South Jacksonville, St. Augustine area.

And it's a Reformed independent congregation built upon the expository preaching of the Word of God.

And we've got a fine group of people.

We're still a church plant, and we're growing, and we're meeting in a school still.

And hopefully in the future we'll have plans of having our own building and growing as a ministry.

The Lord is in charge of all of that.

I'm just trying to be faithful every week, every month, every year in what he's called me to do.

And my testimony is very, very similar to Brian's.

I, too, was saved in a home that loved the Scriptures, that was very faithful.

Churchgoers, both my parents, believers.

I come from generations of Christians and a long line of pastors.

My father was not a pastor, but I have several grandfathers and great -grandfathers.

And even my great -great -great -great -great grandfather came over from Dublin, Ireland and helped establish the first

Presbyterian church in the Allegheny Mountains close to you in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

So I have that rich heritage, and I owe everything to God's sovereignty in saving me at a very, very

early age.

And similar to Brian, going to my parents.

They were not pressuring me to say some sinner's prayer or something like that.

It was me being struck with the exceeding sinfulness of my sin even as a young kid, knowing I was

disobedient and needed Christ.

And I, too, knew from about the age of four or five that the Lord would have me

preach His Word.

And that's what I wanted to do my whole life.

And my dad is able to come to this conference with me.

He's a member of Josh Bice's church.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I know Pastor Bice very well.

I'm very happy to hear that.

And he said that I remind him of my fourth son who

my dad claims is going to be a preacher because my fourth son claims he's going to be a preacher.

And that was kind of me growing up.

And so I love the church.

I love preachers.

I love the influence of my parents, the heritage that I've received.

I've been given an immense stewardship to give back in some capacity, not only to my own kids but also

to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ as I preach the Word.

Praise God.

Well, now let's go back to—I'm sorry, did you—.

I was just going to say, speaking of Josh Bice, we announced this week that he is joining the Society as the third

preaching fellow.

Oh, praise God.

For the Society.

So we're thrilled about that.

Oh, praise God.

And before I forget to ask you, just out of curiosity, now I know Dr. Lawson has had many students,

but do you know Pastor Andy Woodard, who is one of Dr.

Lawson's students?

I have connected with Andy through social media, but I don't know him personally.

Okay, he happens to be a sponsor of my radio program, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Is that right?

Fantastic.

Yes, New Covenant Church, New York City in Manhattan, one of the very few

Calvinistic Baptist churches in Manhattan, one of the very few

biblically faithful Reformed churches left in Manhattan, which is a tragedy, but he's

a wonderful brother.

I just thought I'd run that by you.

Going back to the Society for Expository Preaching,

first of all, I think it would be great to have a clear definition of exactly what that means because

we have people from all realms of life in our

audience, all levels of Christian growth and sanctification,

ranging from brand -new believers all the way up to seasoned theological scholars

and pastors and seminary professors and authors, and we also have people who are

not even Christians who do contact me from time to time.

We have Muslim listeners, we have Roman Catholic listeners,

even have received on occasion contact from Moonies

and others.

It's a diverse group of people listening, but why don't you explain for our listeners

what is expository preaching?

Well, I would say that any definition of expository preaching roots its foundation in

the authorial intent of God's Word.

So we are after, as expositors, getting to what the Holy Spirit intended as He

inspired the Old Testament authors and New Testament authors of Scripture, what they were saying and why they were saying it

in its original context.

That's where you start, and then you build from there.

We are big proponents of sequential exposition through books of the Bible.

God put the Bible together in a certain way for a reason.

Chapter 2 comes after chapter 1 for a reason.

So we like to start at the beginning of a book, chapter 1, verse 1, and work all the way through, faithfully

taking the text apart in a way that honors the original intent of the original

authors as inspired by God, and then seeking to draw the theology of that out, the truth

of that out, in terms that the congregation can understand, and then applying it to their

life as we center that message around Christ and His gospel.

Now, obviously, since you have dedicated yourselves to creating a

society, the Society for Expository Preaching, obviously there are other

rivals out there in regard to the methodology and

practice of preaching.

So what would be, perhaps we could have you, Dr. Bryan, give your

two cents about what are the other methodologies that might even be more dominant than expository

preaching out there?

Well, obviously, the most obvious competitor to expository preaching,

which is really no competitor at all, is topical preaching, which elevates the ideas of

man and then manipulates the Word of God to conform it to the thoughts of man.

That's not preaching.

That is some sort of motivational speaking.

When we place ourselves above the inspired, authoritative Word of God.

So I think that's what you most commonly see, and that may sound a bit

harsh, and certainly I think there are good men who don't intend to do that, but that's in

essence what we do when we try to preach our ideas and then force God's Word

to fit what our agenda is.

That is certainly the biggest and most threatening category, I think, to

expository preaching in churches.

In fact, here at the conference, as we've had our booth just a few slots down from you, I think that's

been the most common testimony that we've heard.

I used to go to a church that had topical preaching, and once I was exposed to the Word of God presented in

the way that it is intended to be presented, I couldn't go back.

And so I think that's a lot of people's testimony, that they crave the meat of the Word.

And so that's the biggest threat, I think, to expository preaching is man -centered preaching.

Now, there are pastors and congregations that have committed themselves

to expository preaching, but they have.

Also, during the course of the year, there will be special occasions

where a sermon might be categorized as a topical sermon.

There might be some kind of a national crisis happening.

You might have some well -known person assassinated.

Perhaps a beloved saint in the congregation has passed away.

It could be something like a celebration of the birth of Christ.

It could be a celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

Wouldn't those be occasions where it would be completely appropriate, as long, of course, as the

pastor is exegeting Scripture.

Absolutely.

He's not just telling stories.

Yes.

And, of course, even a good sermon can include a pastor's story about something.

Personal kind of way that he has applied a scriptural truth to his life

because of something that has occurred.

But wouldn't that be an acceptable form of topical?

Sure.

And, to be clear, when I say topical, I was referring to

developing a series of thoughts that then we try to plug Scripture into.

Now, Scripture obviously deals with topics, and so it is perfectly acceptable.

And while you're addressing topics, you can go to the Word of God and do it

expositorily, expositionally to take and let the text define the topic rather

than the topic defining the text.

And so that's certainly what we would want to do when we're talking about the virgin birth or

dealing with a lament of a nation after a national tragedy from the Psalms.

That is a topic, but we're allowing the Word of God to speak to the topic, not vice versa.

And so when you're talking about the practice of topical preaching that you would

consider to be harmful or detrimental, that would be when every week the pastor,

you know, he's not continuing a thread of a chapter, a

book of Scripture from previous weeks.

He is just picking a different subject every day that might be how to get out of depression or how to

raise children properly.

And every week it's just something different.

Is that basically what you're talking about?

Yes, sir.

I think so.

And I think just in hearing you guys talk, I think of the holidays.

I think of Christmas.

I think of Easter.

Those are wonderful opportunities to, you know, look at a theological concept like the Incarnation,

and let's talk about what this means.

And let's see the Incarnation prophesied in the Old Testament and look at some passages there.

Let's go in the New Testament and see what Paul says in Philippians 2 about Christ humbling himself.

And so those are good opportunities to do sort of theological exposition where you look throughout.

The Puritans were great at this, you know, being able to look at a theological concept from every single angle, the Old Testament

and the New Testament.

That has a way in one sermon of giving people a whole picture outlook of what the Bible says on one subject.

That's topical, but as you go to those different verses to make the argument for that theological concept,

your argument is rooted in the authorial intent of those authors and those texts.

And those are great opportunities to instruct people with a powerful one -punch sort

of sermon that unravels what the Bible says in a summary way on this one particular

subject.

Now, you might have a pastor who is committed to expository preaching.

But would it be wise or unwise for this pastor to, let's say he just

becomes convinced of expository preaching and he says, well, what we're going to do today is we're going to start in

Genesis 1.

Would it be wise for him to just remain in the Old Covenant Scriptures, the Hebrew Scriptures, until

he reaches the Gospel of Matthew?

Or should there always be an element of both the Old and New Testaments

in a proper sermon?

Yes, I think both are critical.

I think the advantage of having church three times a week, three preaching venues, which my current context

does not have, but in the past I've had, the sort of pattern I've followed, and this is not written in Bible or written

even in stone for me, but I like to exposit a New Testament book on Sunday morning, an Old

Testament book Sunday night, and on Wednesday nights go through the Psalms.

And I've done that practice for years, and people in one week are getting something from every part of the Bible.

It's also helpful if, you know, I'm preaching through Ephesians right now.

Well, there's a lot from the Old Testament that Paul pulls into his letter to the Ephesians, and so we've

been going back to these prophecies about the mystery of Christ and the mystery of the body of Christ in the Old

Testament.

And so we always go back to Ephesians, but we're able to leave for a minute and show how

the Old Testament prophesied this Christ would come, and there is unity to the Bible.

That gives great strength to expositional preaching using cross -references that way.

I think that intertextuality and linking the Scripture together is a tool that

we just don't get enough of, maybe in our training, hermeneutically or

exegetically.

Dr. Abner Chow at the Master's University and Seminary has done phenomenal work in writing

on intertextuality and putting those things together.

It's very helpful to understand that, and that's part of the thoreal intent.

The way that the apostles used the prophets when they're quoting from them.

They understood the meaning and the significance, so I think if you can master

intertextuality and make that a part to always have the whole of Scripture

together.

And you know who's a master at that is Dr. John MacArthur.

Yes.

I mean, if you're a young preacher and you just listen to his sermons, he teaches you by example

how to draw all the Bible together, and he does it in a brilliant way that is not academic.

It's summarized.

It's cohesive.

And so he's the master, I think, of that sort of tying texts together and doing that in a way

that a congregation can understand.

Now, how would you react to somebody that would identify themselves as

being committed to expository preaching?

But there are portions of the Scripture where the person and work

of Christ are not addressed in those particular verses that you might

have reached a point to address in your series of expositional sermons.

There might be some that would, you know, say, I'm going to stick to the text.

I'm not going to be involved in eisegesis here and transport things about

Christ, his work on Calvary, and so on.

And then there will be others, of course, who would be extremely upset by that.

I mean, Charles Hadley Spurgeon believed that every sermon should be, you know, basically

filled with Christ, even if the texts being addressed don't specifically mention Christ or might not

have anything to do with specifically his redemptive death and

so on.

So how do you address that issue?

Well, you have the first promise of the Gospel in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible.

And you trace that promise of this Messiah that is going to crush the serpent, the devil.

That thread is traced throughout the Bible.

But we believe that the Bible is a progressive revelation.

In other words, God doesn't reveal everything about himself in one moment, everything about Christ in one

moment.

So I think there's a way where you can, wherever you're preaching from, point people to Christ.

I think every sermon should be Christ -centered in the sense that you want your people seeing Jesus.

You want them to see that the central motif of the Bible has to do with God's redemption of

his elect people.

And the way that the prophets did that is different than the way the apostles of the New Testament did it.

But they were giving the same message in their context, depending on what part of the timeline of redemptive history

they were.

And I think it's helpful to show that progressive revelation of Scripture so that

people do see Christ.

You're not putting Christ into the text where he's not there, but you're looking at him as he's revealed by the Holy Spirit to be

there, and that's helpful.

And that's where an undergirding framework for our people is critical of biblical theology,

the unfolding story of redemption, so that they themselves are able to make those connections, even where

we're not going to make a beeline to the cross, as Spurgeon would say.

But Jesus, I think, preached that way, right, in Luke, beginning with Moses.

He reasoned with them from the Scriptures and showing them all things.

So I think we can do that without doing harm to the text.

But one of the ways, I think, as faithful expositors, maybe, that we need to do that is make sure our people have a good

framework to hang every book of the Bible on, especially the Old Testament, working

knowledge of how this fits in the overall plan, as you said, Andrew, of progressive revelation.

Now, there is also a disagreement amongst even those within the same camp of

Reformed theology.

There's a disagreement amongst pastors about what the primary purpose

of preaching is.

And you will have some pastors that I've met.

They are in a minority, at least in regard to whom I have personally met and encountered and

interacted with.

But they will say that the primary purpose of the preaching of the pastor

is not to evangelize lost individuals.

And, of course, let's put aside the primary function of preaching is to glorify

God.

Let's put that aside as something that is a given.

But as far as what its purpose is for those sitting in the pews in

regards to their lives, I've met some pastors who will say that, as I said

just a moment ago, the preaching is not primarily or even

necessarily at all to be focused at the evangelizing of the lost, but it is meant

for the instruction and edification and education and discipling of the

saints gathered.

And then it is their duty to go out from the four walls of that congregation and do the

evangelizing.

And then you have others who vehemently disagree with that, even within the same Reformed camp, who will say,

some will even say that every sermon should include an

evangelistic call to the lost to repent and believe upon Christ and be saved, because

there is no guarantee that there are going to be congregations filled with nothing

but regenerate people.

In fact, some would say it is unlikely that any congregation is

completely filled with regenerate people.

So not only do those people who are lost need to hear that urgent call

to repentance and believe upon Christ, but even those that are truly regenerate need to

be reminded of the truths of the gospel anyway.

And they may even be, if they are regenerate, they may be living secret

lives of sin that should not give them any comfort that they are

truly born again, even if in the mind of God or to the knowledge of God

alone they are, with certainty.

But, you know, Christians do fall on occasion into dark sins and they may have a

season of unrepentance and so on.

So tell us about your philosophy in regard to that.

Should evangelism to the lost always be, at least in part, included in sermons?

I would say yes, even given the nature of our own children

being in the congregation when they are young and have not yet come to Christ.

They need to hear that appeal to Christ.

I don't think that our preaching is for the lost necessarily.

And by that I mean go invite your unsaved neighbor to

church and let the pastor be the one that presents the gospel.

You present the gospel to them.

I'll preach the word and I'll make a presentation of Christ.

We want to show Christ and we want to appeal to everyone to

heed the command.

And there again, I think it's an important distinction, the gospel is not an invitation, it's a command to believe.

And so we have to be faithful to issue that and the Lord will bless that, I believe.

So I would say yes, there always needs to be a gospel.

So even if the texts that you're exegeting are

involving gender roles in the church or something, it should always wind toward

a call to the listener to repent and believe upon Christ.

I think so because I think that's the way the Bible is put together.

You look, for example, at the ministry of Jesus and he said Israel is an example of

an unregenerate people.

There's hypocrites, there's Pharisees, there's sheep among the goats or goats among the sheep.

There's tares among the wheat.

And so if you just preach the Bible expositionally, you're going to come across Jesus' hard sayings to

those who thought they were part of the people of God.

And they in fact were part of the people of God in a physical outward sense, but internally they were filthy.

They were dirty, they were hypocritical, they were Christ rejecters, Messiah rejecters.

And Paul deals with that in the epistles in terms of the fruit of

the Spirit in Galatians and then of course the Apostle John in 1 John.

You know that you're a believer if you have love for your brother and you walk in the light.

So again we go back to expository preaching takes care of if you're

faithful to just preach the Bible, these topics pop up all the time.

And you're constantly calling people within the visible church to repent and place

faith in Christ if they've never done that.

Their assurance is not that they're in the church physical or visible.

Their assurance of salvation is found in their identity in Christ and their love for Him and

their love for the body of Christ that is evidenced in the fruit of the Spirit.

So tell us exactly about the nuts and bolts.

I don't mean nuts as far as nutty individual, but the nuts and bolts of the Society

for Expository Preaching.

If let's say a pastor here goes by your booth and he picks up a business card of yours

and he thinks to himself, you know, I really need some assistance when it comes to this because it's a new

methodology.

I've been a topical preacher all my life.

So what exactly do you do for pastors and congregations and others

to whom you administer?

The first thing we would want to say again and reaffirm, we're not here to replace the academy or the seminaries.

So if he needs training at that level, we would certainly want to encourage him to find a good solid seminary

to do that at.

Beyond that, what we would do is take him and say, you know, brother, you can sign up for one of our

one -semester preaching cohorts.

And in that time, one of the preaching fellows, whether it's Andrew or Josh or myself, Josh

Bice or myself, will take five men a semester.

We will review with them from the exegetical beginnings of a sermon through the homiletical

delivery of a sermon.

We'll listen to those, we'll evaluate those, and we'll provide feedback for them, as well as

giving them a couple of books to read and doing a couple of online classes with some

noted expositors, seasoned expositors that are able to encourage them.

That is the essence, the core of what we hope to accomplish, and then to create a network, a

brotherhood of expositors who can then go out and continue to do that for one another.

Once they have the tools of evaluation, they know how to walk through that process, we want them to continue that and to

build that for other pastors around them.

We also have an associate member level where they will gain access to our annual journal that

we'll produce, online podcast and blog articles,

scholarly articles, academic articles on preaching, those sorts of things as well.

And as far as your own experience as preachers, were

both of you, and forgive me if you've already said this, and I just somehow missed it or forgot it, but

have both of you always been in your histories, your personal histories

as preachers, expository preachers?

No.

When I first started preaching, I was not raised in a background, I'd never heard of

expository preaching.

And so all of the preaching that I ever knew was topical.

No, I'm talking about as far as you personally.

Oh, me personally.

So, well, yes.

So when I started preaching in Bible college, again, not being exposed to that, my preaching was

topical.

By the time I finished seminary, though, I had been exposed to expository preaching.

So at our church, they've never known anything other than sequential expository preaching.

Now, if you could share with me, each of you, your three

personal favorite expository preachers, at least those

that we can actually hear that are at least within the 20th or

21st centuries, so people could look up their sermons, perhaps in Sermon Audio or other places.

Why don't we start with you, Brother Andrew?

Sure.

Yeah, I would say Dr. John MacArthur is number one on that list, has had a huge influence on me

ever since I was a little boy.

And when I started preaching as a teenager in the church, I mimicked John MacArthur,

you know, because I wasn't formally trained yet.

And so the Lord has providentially placed in my path since then men who have been able to come

alongside of me and train me in expository preaching,

men like Robert Delnay and Steve Kreloff and Jason Allen.

Oh, Steve Kreloff, yes.

I've had the privilege of meeting Steve.

Yeah, I did an expository preaching internship under him at Clearwater when I was in college.

Oh, wow.

Jewish believer.

Jewish believer, yeah, and he's written about that, and he's masterful in

breaking apart a text.

And so those are some guys, but also obviously Dr. Steve Lawson has had a huge impact on

me and been a tremendous blessing to me personally and ministerial -wise.

And I've got to go with Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones, and those are the three, you know, MacArthur,

Lawson, and Lloyd -Jones who have had the most impact on me.

Actually, you listed four, but that's okay.

Steve Kreloff was one of them.

And Brother Brian?

It's hard to disagree with anything Andrew said.

In my early days, one of the first men that the Lord used to open my eyes to expository preaching

was a man that most may not know, a man from Greenville, South Carolina, by the name of Dr. Mark

Minnick, who is more in perhaps the fundamental

Baptist circles, but nonetheless a very capable expositor.

Dr. MacArthur and Dr. Lawson, I think, would be the men who have most shaped me, though.

Praise God.

Well, why don't you let our listeners know exactly how they can get in touch with you and how they could

perhaps begin interacting with you, and they may even wind up joining you as

another expository fellow, or they may be somebody who is completely foreign to this

idea, this concept, and who wants to benefit and learn more from you.

Well, the best place to go is preachingsociety .org.

That's our website.

It's not up and running yet, but what you can do is leave your name and your email and hit subscribe, and what we will

do is send updates as the ministry develops.

Our plan, tentatively, is to have a cohort of men who are involved in the consultation and the preaching

workshops this coming fall.

So it's sort of first -come, first -served basis in terms of who the Lord brings to us,

but if you get plugged in through preachingsociety .org and give us your email,

we can send you information as we have it, and you'll be on top of that and ready to sign up when it's time to sign up for

the cohort.

You can also contact us and follow us through social media on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as well.

So this was Dr. Andrew Smith and Dr. Brian Fairchild, both

preaching fellows for the Society for Expository Preaching.

I want to thank both of you for taking time out of your schedules today here at the G3 conference to have your

interviews, and I look forward to following up with both of you in the future.

Thank you, Chris.

I hope you both continue to enjoy the conference as well.

We appreciate your time.

Thanks.

My pleasure. God bless.

I believe you'll also find World to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a

depth that's simply not found in other media outlets.

Armed with this coverage, World can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community.

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Also check out World News Group's podcast, The World and Everything in It, at

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Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself.

Recently he wrote a book titled Consider the Evidence for the Bible.

Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country.

Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100

cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10

different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I am your guest host, Eric Nielsen, and we are airing interviews that Chris did earlier this year

at the January 2019 G3 Conference.

Chris's next interview is with Phil Johnson of Grace to You.

We hope you enjoy it.

This is Chris Arnson again on site at the G3 Conference in the Exhibitor's

Booth Hall, and I am so thrilled that Phil Johnson just approached my booth and sat down.

Phil Johnson, many of you know if you've listened to Iron Sharpens Iron long enough.

He is one of my most frequently interviewed guests and most beloved guests.

He is the executive director of Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur, and

it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Phil Johnson.

Hey, thank you, Chris.

It's good to be able to do it face -to -face and actually see you when we're doing this.

Yes, I think this may be our third time doing this face -to -face.

In fact, though, this is the first interview I believe that I've done with you face -to -face

where you look like you're about 100 pounds lighter than you were.

Not quite 100, but yeah, I've lost a little weight.

I need to lose a little more.

And you look great.

Thanks.

I'm assuming this was intentional.

Oh, yep, absolutely deliberate.

And, well, Phil, the pre -conference

session that started on Wednesday was on

the social justice movement and the gospel.

I forget right now what was the exact title of the...

I think it was social justice and the gospel.

Oh, okay.

I guess they're right.

We've already addressed this on my show, but I wanted perhaps you to give me an update and a summary of why this is

an important issue.

Some of my listeners might be wondering why I've even done multiple programs with different

guests addressing this.

It's interesting that every time I've done it, it usually has been my guest who has said, can you do a

program with me on the social justice issue?

Why is this such a big deal?

Phil, some people might think that we are making more of a big deal out of it than the

reality would reveal.

But what would you say?

Yeah, in fact, lots of people have said that.

Well, why are you making a big deal out of this?

Because it sounds so benign.

We're all, as Christians, we're all in favor of justice.

Maybe you could define the movement before you go into why.

It's a big deal that we talk about.

Well, let me just explain.

We are in favor of justice and justice even in the social arena and all of that.

But the word social justice is a term that has been in play in the secular world and the

academic world for decades.

And it means something specific.

It's loaded with all sorts of economic and social ideas.

And if you hear a secular person talking about social justice, these days, many of them have moved beyond

racism, which, of course, we all deplore racism.

But the idea is everything is systemic racism.

Everybody's credibility is determined by their victimhood.

And so in the secular realm, people are vying for one another, vying with one another for who can

have the deepest sort of victim status.

Because the person who has the most victim points is the one who has to be

given the most credibility and platform.

And if you're a white male, you should just shut up and listen.

In fact, those very words have come out of some of the social justice lawyers' mouths.

Yeah, exactly.

You're right.

And check your privilege, be quiet and listen.

It's called intersectionality, this idea that there are multiple levels of

victimhood and oppression.

And the most oppressed person is the one who we should all be listening to.

It chafes people in the social justice movement when you say this.

But it's absolutely true that a lot of this thinking is rooted in Marxism and neo -Marxism,

Marxist ideology.

And it found its way through the academic realm into popular thinking and from there

even into Christianity.

And when we point out the Marxist roots, we're not saying that every Christian who speaks

approvingly of the social justice movement is a Marxist.

But it is true that this ideology is tangled up with lots of

ideas that have been taken from the secular political realm and radical leftist politics.

And sort of blended all together so that now, as I said, the movement has moved beyond the issue of racism.

And now it's about gender equality and LGBTQ rights.

And the next thing, it's going to be about whatever the next popular perversion is going to be.

Because if you can say that a person is oppressed and needs to be

accepted because he's a homosexual, all of those same arguments would work for any other kind

of sexual perversion.

And that's the way it's headed.

It's a movement that really has no end.

And so we're concerned about blending that with the gospel and particularly without any proper definition

of biblical justice.

I'm for biblical justice.

I am not for the secular idea of social justice.

The secular idea of social justice usually involves ideas like

income redistribution, the attempt to get equality of outcome in

everything.

And just a sort of leveling of all of society's

hierarchical structures.

So that it's a kind of pure egalitarianism in the end.

And a lot of the rhetoric and arguments and values from

this movement, which is a postmodern movement at the heart of it, a lot of those values

and arguments have been brought unchanged into the Christian realm.

And so you had last year, and here's why it's a big deal.

Two organizations, very popular and that I've always been supportive of, the

Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel.

Both of them founded around the year, you know, just before the

end of the first decade of this new millennium.

Both of them founded to defend the gospel against the assault that was coming

from people who denied substitutionary atonement and biblical inerrancy and all that.

And so these two organizations were both founded about the same time to defend the core gospel

principles.

We need to interrupt this interview for a few moments to share some messages from our sponsors.

We will be back with the rest of the interview soon, so don't go away.

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I am Eric Nielsen, sitting in as guest host for Chris Arnzen, and today we are replaying

interviews from the 2019 G3 conference.

We're now rejoining an interview with Phil Johnson of Grace to You, as Phil begins

to discuss the importation of social justice language, argumentation, and rhetoric into

evangelical organizations.

Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself.

Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the Evidence for the Bible.

Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country.

Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100

cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10

different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history.

In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the Law Journal.

If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state, I recommend that you

call Dan.

Consultations are free.

There is no fee unless you win.

Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878.

1 -800 -669 -4878.

Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

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

sticking with or switching to the NASB.

I'm Pastor Brandon Scalf of Cruciform Bible Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the NASB is my Bible of

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I am Eric Nielsen, sitting in as guest host for Chris Arnzen, and today we are replaying

interviews from the 2019 G3 Conference.

We're now rejoining an interview with Phil Johnson of Grace to You.

As Phil begins to discuss the importation of social justice language, argumentation,

and rhetoric into evangelical organizations.

A lot of the rhetoric and arguments and values from this movement have been

brought unchanged into the Christian realm, and so here's why it's a big deal.

There's two organizations, very popular, that I've always been supportive of, the Gospel

Coalition and Together for the Gospel.

Both of them founded just before the end of the first decade of this new millennium.

Both of them founded to defend the gospel against the assault that was coming from people who

denied substitutionary atonement and biblical inerrancy and all that, and so these two

organizations were both founded about the same time to defend the core gospel principles.

Both organizations are less than 20 years old, and last year, both organizations had large

conventions where the appeal for social justice was a central theme.

In the Gospel Coalition's case, it was the MLK 50 Conference.

It was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, and

with Together for the Gospel, they devoted at least one full evening of their normal

semi -annual conferences to the issue of social justice, and in both cases, they were essentially saying

that churches, evangelical churches, need to move this matter of social justice to the front of

their agenda.

Now, these are organizations that were founded to defend the gospel, so if we're right and

blending the themes of social justice with gospel terminology actually corrupts the gospel,

and I'm convinced that's the case, then these two organizations that were founded to defend the

gospel are actually moving in a direction that signals a

matter of great concern as far as the gospel is concerned.

The gospel is very simple.

Jesus himself spelled it out to the disciples after his resurrection in Luke 24, where he said that

Christ must suffer and die for sins and be resurrected so that anyone who believes

in him and repents has eternal life.

That's basically the gospel message in a thumbnail according to Jesus.

It's not about economic policies, government policies, social justice, systemic

racism, and all of that stuff.

Those issues need to be discussed, if at all, separately from the gospel.

But, you know, my answer would be that the church actually has an

entirely different message, and it's a message about unity in Christ, and

it's not about social structures.

It's about the unity that all believers have in Christ so that, as you see in the New Testament,

a slave and a slave owner are, before God, given the same status.

Paul doesn't command that society be restructured, and Roman society was

far more full of social injustices than our culture is.

But you don't see the disciples fighting those things.

That wasn't part of the gospel message.

It never has been.

And yet what you have is a lot of people in the current generation saying, we've discovered this new

principle, we've newly discovered this principle that really should be and must be made part of the gospel, and by

adding to the gospel, they're actually corrupting it.

Now, this isn't a new principle at all, though, is it?

No, it isn't.

Like I said, the movement, the themes of the movement, the values of the movement, and the rhetoric of the movement have been

borrowed from secular thought, and secular radical thought.

And it's sort of been blended by a long process of dialectical

modification so that nowadays, even to Christians, it sounds

benign.

See, we've got a group of people coming into church leadership, a new generation who were trained in

college after, say, the fall of the Berlin Wall, after modernism was well and truly

dead and postmodernism took over.

And so they've been indoctrinated with postmodern values all the way through their school career.

And it's troubling because people in that generation really, I don't think, have

the moral and intellectual tools that are necessary to really

answer this biblically.

They've been taught that their feelings are more important than facts even, that

truth is a kind of, you know, you have your truth and I have my truth, and everything is a matter of perspective.

And they've been raised in churches that were pragmatic.

If they grew up in evangelical circles, they were raised in churches, for the most part, that were pragmatic and seeker

-sensitive and not at all given any sort of serious doctrinal instruction.

And so you have a generation of naive evangelicals who are very susceptible to this sort

of rhetoric.

What are the tangible, physical

things that those that would be identifying themselves

as representing the social justice movement, what are they actually asking

or even demanding that we who are conservative evangelical Bible -believing Christians

do?

It's kind of not clear to me what they are insisting.

In order for us to be in a right relationship with God, in order for us to be...

Yeah, they don't really speak in those terms, though.

It's not about a right relationship with God.

It's about reconciliation between racial groups and people groups.

And you're right, it's not clear at all what it is they want, because they'll

demand an apology, but you give the apology and then that doesn't solve anything.

You have to keep...

If you are from a people group that historically has had people in it who were slave

owners or racists or white supremacists or whatever, and see, if you're white, then

you are going to be tainted with the guilt of the white supremacists, even if

none of your ancestors were ever slave owners, racists or whatever, just because

under that sort of postmodern idea, it's the group you belong to that counts, not what your

personal character is.

And that used to be the definition of racism itself.

Yeah, that's right.

It is a kind of racism, I think.

Oh, it is.

And the demand is that you apologize for and repent of the

sins of your ancestors.

It's a strange twist on the theology of repentance, because they're asking you to repent for

sins that you may not be guilty of, you probably aren't guilty of, but your ancestors may or may not have been, but you're part of a people

group that had people who were, and therefore you need to lay your hand over your mouth, repent, and

listen to the oppressed people groups.

And the problem is, there's never any end to that.

What does that solve, then?

What does that reconcile?

It doesn't really reconcile anything.

It just means the power is now passed to the people who were previously

oppressed, and I suppose over time they become the oppressors now.

Exactly.

I don't know.

Nobody really knows, because there's no endgame, and that's one of the common criticisms of the social

justice movement.

What is it actually that they want?

What is the endgame?

What would it take to reconcile and resolve all of this?

And nobody has any actual answers to that question, because I don't

think it really is a legitimate, objective, identifiable problem that's looking for a solution.

It's a worldview that sees everything in terms of people groups and oppression

and power, and there's just no escaping that once you get into that kind of mentality.

Now, the thing that strikes me as being very odd, if I

were a member of a group, whether it be an ethnic group or

people who share the same melanin content of my skin or what have you, and I had

achieved, whether it be anything in the academic realm

or any category you can think of, I would not want

myself to be viewed as having achieved this level

of skill or talent or gift just because I had been given

special treatment.

That would not make me happy at all.

I would be insulted by being told that or being told that I needed that.

Now, it seems very odd that there would be people, because some of the spokesmen

of this movement are people who are brilliant, who have published

books to their credit and have taught in various places and have

been viewed with very high esteem and regard for many years.

It seems strange to me that they would want people to

view that their specific group that they identify with, they

must be given special consideration and treatment to make things easier for

them to...

Yeah, I agree with you.

It's insulting to think that if we don't help this oppressed people class, they're not going to be

able to excel.

It's just a different, it's a shifted form of racism in and of itself.

Why do brilliant people buy into this?

I think there's a lot of social pressure on it.

I mean, you think about it, the term social justice, as I said, has a benign sound to it.

We all want to see justice triumph.

We all want to see justice even in the social realm, even in the secular realm.

I do.

I certainly do.

But that's not what the term social justice signifies anymore.

And yet, I think a lot of people, thought leaders, even in the evangelical movement,

would be reluctant to speak out against social justice because then that doesn't sound good.

It's like, in fact, here's exactly what happens.

You say, well, I'm not an advocate of the social justice movement.

The answer, even from Christians, who you'd think would be a little more discerning than this, but often the answer from

young evangelicals is, oh, then you're a racist?

You want to be a racist?

You will be called a racist if you express any concern about the ideology of

the social justice movement.

And so there's a huge amount of pressure and an intimidation factor that forces,

particularly people in positions of high visibility, to just sort of go along.

You see this even in the secular world.

People get fired and lose their careers because of something they may have said 20

years ago or a tweet they made when they were in high school or whatever.

Just the smallest thing can get you labeled a racist and you

forfeit your career.

So there's a great fear factor, I think, that keeps a lot of people from speaking out and saying, wait

a minute, this is going in a direction that ultimately is going to be destructive to the fellowship of the Church, destructive

to the structure that God has established in the

body of Christ, but most of all destructive to the clarity of the gospel.

And so I think even though, yeah, you're going to suffer slings and arrows

of contempt and accusations and recriminations from lots of people if you

say, I don't support the social justice movement, but I think the issues make it

worth that.

It is a big issue because it does ultimately impinge on the gospel.

Yeah, it impinges on the gospel, but it also, I have repeated this on

nearly every interview I've done on the social justice topic, but it

is promoting racism, the very thing they seem to primarily

focus on as the great sin.

Yeah, but you understand the definition of racism today, particularly in the academic world, is

that racism is oppression that comes from a privileged class

against a disadvantaged class or oppressed

class because of the color of their skin or the tribe they belong to and so on.

So if you're part of a privileged class, you as a white man, you cannot be the victim of

racism by that definition.

You just can't be.

So you can't say, well, this is a kind of racism, or people usually refer to it as

reverse racism.

I don't like that term because it's not reverse racism.

It's just a different flavor of racism.

But by the postmodern definition of racism, it's not because you're a member of a privileged class, so you can't

claim victimhood.

Shame on you for doing that.

And the fact that you would do that is proof that you are a racist.

That's how the rhetoric goes.

That's how the argument goes.

And so there's no way to win it.

There's just no way to persuade the other side that maybe this is headed in a bad direction.

And you're going to see, I think, in the years to come, lots more people losing their careers and jobs and

livelihoods over trivialities, a lot of misunderstandings or simple

expressions that really are innocent and nothing wrong with them

today that tomorrow are going to be labeled politically incorrect.

You can't use that word.

And somebody's going to go back to your Twitter feed from three years ago, before the word was verboten, and

point out that you used this offensive word, and now you should be fired.

You see that every day on Twitter.

There are people calling for people to be fired because of opinions they hold, statements they've made,

words they've used.

And in many cases, they're not even mean -spirited things.

It's just something someone said in total innocence, and it costs them their career.

Yeah.

Well, one of the remarkable things about this is that I have interviewed at

least two of the people that seem to be considered by many to be the

primary spokesmen of this movement who, as little as nine years ago,

were mocking some of the very things that we are discussing that are

prominent in their vocabulary today.

One of the very things that you mentioned that was laughed at,

rightfully so, on my interview about nine years ago, was the idea that

ethnic or racial minorities, and of course you and I know that there is only one race, the human race, but

just for the sake of the term being a part of the common

vocabulary, but the idea that a person of a

racial or ethnic minority, especially one that has been oppressed and so on, that

they could not be guilty of racism, was laughed at literally by

at least two of the people viewed as primary spokesmen of this

movement.

So it's very bizarre that there seems to be this radical shift, and I can't help but wonder, is

this a genuinely believed shift in their thinking,

or if this is just wanting to fit in?

Of course, a lot of the time it would involve assumption on my part.

You're right.

Well, you know, I said this is rooted in postmodernism, and one of the characteristics of postmodern

epistemology is the fundamental idea is that you can't really know anything for sure.

So postmodernism is hostile to any kind of settled conviction or genuine faith,

what we would call faith on biblical grounds, is an unshakable conviction that a thing is true.

To a postmodern, nothing is an unshakable conviction that anything is true.

So what seems true today might not be true tomorrow, and it's a big moving target, and

what is politically correct today might be politically inexcusable tomorrow.

So it's a frightening scenario.

But beyond all of that, the bigger issue, I think, is the idea that

if you think that the reconciliation we have in Christ, our

union together in Christ across every tongue and tribe and nation, if you think

that's not a sufficient answer to the

racial divisions in America and here and there in the culture,

and the church herself is systemically guilty of years and years and years of

utter racism, not meaning necessarily hatred for a different race, but we

haven't done everything we can to assure equality of outcome, and that's the proof.

You can prove statistically then that the church has been guilty of systemic racism,

and it's a moving target.

It's going to get worse, and more and more innocent things are going to be labeled racism,

and I just don't see any end to it.

It clouds the gospel, by the way, which tells us we are fully forgiven in Christ.

We stand totally justified before God so that there is therefore now no condemnation

to those who are in Christ Jesus.

But the social justice movement thrives on condemnation, spreading it around, blaming people

and shaming people.

It just seems to me to be so clearly incompatible with what Scripture calls Christians to be

that honestly I am amazed that any sober -minded, serious Christian leader could

become an advocate of the social justice movement, but it's too costly politically to

have too many people speak up.

Yes.

Well, the next time I am told by someone representing the social justice

warrior movement that racism has been an epidemic

throughout the history of the church, I'm going to respond, and why are you perpetuating it?

Because that's basically what they're doing.

Yeah.

When you are treating, when you are accusing somebody, or making false,

slanderous assumptions about someone because of the melanin content of their skin, it

is not only evil and slanderous, it is moronic.

It's laughably ridiculous.

Look, it is true that in history there are, and perhaps even today, there are remnants of

churches where racism thrives.

Well, shame on them, you know.

But the fact that there are churches where racism was tolerated, excused, explained

away, or whatever, doesn't automatically taint every future generation of

evangelical who happens to be white.

I'm guilty for what I do.

I'm not guilty for what my grandparents do.

It's a good thing because my great -grandfather was quite the scoundrel.

But I don't need to repent for his sins.

I need to deal seriously with my own.

And that's another place, I think, that this whole movement undermines the gospel, because it puts the focus on

corporate sin.

You know, the original sin is white privilege, not the fact that you yourself are depraved in your

heart, and you sin against God and need to beg his forgiveness.

It becomes a matter of accusing others rather than repenting of my own sin.

And that just undermines the gospel at the very start.

I was going to say it undermines sanctification, and it does, but it actually undermines the gospel at the

very start.

If you're telling people that, if you're giving people the agenda of the social justice movement, you are not giving

them the gospel.

Amen.

Well, that was not the only theme involved at the G3 conference.

That was just the pre -conference theme on Wednesday night.

The majority of the conference, the remaining three days, is focused on the mission of

God and the biblical understanding of missions.

What exactly under that umbrella of that main theme of missions are you addressing here?

Actually, I'm going to go back to an Old Testament book from the book of Jonah.

Jonah was called to go and bring a message, a prophetic message, to a

hostile nation.

And he tried to evade that duty, and the Lord providentially orchestrated it so that he did it, and he had to do it, and there was a

great worldwide revival.

And that's where the story normally stops in Sunday school class, because the end of the story of Jonah is

actually quite a disappointing tale.

Jonah's angry.

Here's a prophet who was actually

ordained by God to be the instrument through which the greatest revival in the history of the world came.

The entire city of Nineveh repented and was spared from God's judgment for at least 100 years.

And you'd think any preacher worth his salt, any true prophet, would be thrilled to be the

instrument of such a great outpouring of divine grace and repentance and salvation.

It was salvation, because Jesus said to the people in Capernaum, the men of Nineveh are going to rise up in the

judgment against you because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

So Jesus recognized this as real repentance, a genuine revival, probably the greatest

single movement of salvation in the history of the world, at least that we have on record, and

yet Jonah was angry about it.

And so I'm dealing with a chapter where Jonah is pouting and angry, and I'm going to try to

untangle what it means.

The final chapter of the book of Jonah, which you don't hear in Sunday school,

that's what I'm preaching on.

I love this subject a whole lot more than the social justice thing, because it is uplifting and encouraging, and

it shows the glory of God that he could use even a frail and fallible instrument like Jonah

to accomplish his will perfectly.

Everything God wanted done did happen, and Jonah wasn't happy about it.

And the book ends on kind of a sour note.

It's not an upbeat ending, but it's full of great lessons for us and great

encouragements for us to be loving and gracious to the people that God has

called us to minister to.

Yes, I think one of the proofs of the reliability of the Holy Scriptures is that the

stories don't always end the way that you might expect.

That's right.

And I gather Jonah is the one writing this account of his own rebellion.

So maybe he did repent.

He doesn't record it.

If he did, he's not going to boast about it.

But it definitely shows his flaws in full technicolor.

And you can't read that book and come away thinking, I want to be like Jonah.

None of us wants to be like Jonah.

But all of us have the seeds of that kind of resentment built right into us.

And, you know, to me this is so much more important of a message than calls

for social justice.

Now I have heard a couple of brethren.

They weren't being overly critical of the theme of this

conference.

They were more approaching it from a position of perhaps

being at least slightly baffled that all that is going on in our nation right

now, all of the controversies going on, not only

in the church but in the political realm and how that is affecting Christians

and all kinds of things, why a theme like this would be focused

upon when nearly, you know, between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people, and judging from

the seats that were filled so far in the auditorium, the main auditorium,

I'm assuming that there's probably close to 5 ,000 people here, why this

theme do you think is an important theme to be addressed?

I think asking that question reflects a lot of whoever's asking that is not thinking

straight because, I mean, I look at the world and I think, look how messed up the whole world

is.

You know, what we need is another great missionary movement.

And I don't think many Christians today think that way.

They think, well, we need a political voting bloc that will, you know, let's get government

control and then we can change our culture.

And that's never been the way it works in 2 ,000 years of church history when the church

ultimately does, very few times has it happened, but at times the church will get the reins of government

and it never goes well.

Never goes well.

I think it was Will Durant, the great historian, who said that nobody yet has

worked out how to reconcile Christianity with government.

And he means politics, you know.

Because people say, well, we need more social engagement.

I agree.

But it's a different kind of social engagement than what people who use that term usually have in mind.

They're usually thinking, let's do, you know, public demonstrations and get some political

clout and, you know, build political savvy within our movement and

then we can engage our culture.

The only engagement of the culture that has ever worked to the benefit of the secular world

in the history of the church has been the proclamation of the gospel.

And the vast missionary movement is, you know,

one of the great triumphs, I think, of the church, at least since the

Protestant era began.

And it's faltering right now because we've got a lot of missionaries out there doing other things besides preaching the gospel.

Now, the subtitle of the conference is A Biblical Understanding of

Missions.

It has the underlying intention, I assume, to

convey the idea that there is an unbiblical understanding of missions that may be prominently

held in the church.

Yeah, well, there's no question that there is.

And, you know, how specific do you want me to be?

I want you to be as specific as you want to be.

I think the blame for that, ironically, lies at the feet of Fuller Seminary and the

School of World Mission there.

They have dominated Christian missions since the 1970s and mission strategy

and all of that.

And it has become, as I said, something other than an evangelical

attempt to proclaim the gospel.

They're doing lots of other kinds of social work and

all that, some of which is fine and perfectly valid if it is accompanied by the

proclamation of the gospel.

But a lot of mission organizations have given up preaching the gospel completely in order to dig

wells or train people about hygiene.

Even within what would be considered in some realm of conservative evangelicalism?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Most of the Christian aid ministries, I won't be specific here, except

just to say that most of the big organizations that specialize

in giving aid in needy places, they have a strong tendency

to drift away from the gospel and gospel proclamation because it's not politically correct.

It's not politically correct.

Say, for example, let's pick one of the neediest parts of the world.

For 30 years' time, Bangladesh is predominantly a

Muslim area.

It used to be called, I think, East Pakistan or something like that.

But you can't go in there and just openly preach the gospel.

So if you're going to do relief work, you have to tone the gospel down.

And I think relief agencies have gotten so accustomed to toning the gospel down, thinking that this is a

good pragmatic step that, in some cases, you'd be hard -pressed to find within

the relief organization anyone who even knows what the gospel is.

Now, there are exceptions to that rule.

There are still blessed exceptions, but they're not the big ones.

Now, I have been a Christian since—a born -again

believer since the mid-'80s, and for most of

that time have also been a Reformed Baptist, a Calvinist.

I have very frequently heard over the years from fellow Reformed Christians

that the issue of hyper -Calvinism represents such a tiny minority of those who

are professedly Reformed that it really doesn't need to be addressed that much.

But the reason why I disagree with that is because

there is always a possibility of a resurgence of

that mindset and that sin.

And I have witnessed hyper -Calvinism more often than I

would care to admit exists among us.

And I think that a theme like this, a biblical understanding of missions, is also not only a

reminder to Christendom surrounding us that Reformed people are not

opposed to missions, they're not indifferent about

missions, they're not passionless.

The really historic missions movements have all been started by Calvinists.

The original missionaries who were sent out from England in the 18th

century or before even, they were all Calvinists.

But I think we also, as Reformed Christians, need to remind those within our own

circles of fellowship and influence that hyper

-Calvinism is a deadly and damning extreme.

Of course, I agree with you.

I've got an article online about hyper -Calvinism.

You could Google it.

It's called A Primer on Hyper -Calvinism.

I've dealt with this for years and I see little nests, not large movements, but little nests of hyper

-Calvinists crop up on the Internet.

They feed each other's extremism and they tend to be anti -evangelistic.

Not all of them are, but that's a tendency of it.

I'm going to deal with this at least obliquely in my message here at G3 because

one of the failings of Jonah, I think, was that he had the spirit of a hyper -Calvinist.

He wanted to see God destroy the reprobate, and there are some Calvinists who think that way.

In fact, all of us, I would say, as Calvinists, because we believe in the sovereignty of God, we have to continually remind

ourselves that God has ordained the means as well as the end, and the means by which he chose

to get the gospel out is through preaching the gospel.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and he chose by means of preaching the gospel to save

the lost.

How shall they hear without a preacher?

We have to keep reminding ourselves of that.

You can't just fall back on the sovereignty of God and say what will be will be.

God ordained the means as well as the end, and if we are the means, we

need to be faithful.

Well, I know that you have a 4 o 'clock appointment, so I've got to let you go, but I do want to urge you to put on your

calendar somewhere soon a date when you can return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio so we can

address the celebration of, is it the 50th?

The 50th anniversary of John MacArthur's first service as pastor of Grace Community Church.

That was on February 9th of 1969, and he's been there ever since.

Praise God.

I obviously would love to have you discuss that in the near future, and also

would obviously love to get John on again.

We'll definitely do it.

I'll try to do it while he's in the office, and at least you can talk to him for a few minutes.

Oh, that'd be great.

I appreciate it.

Well, God bless you, brother.

Thanks.

We are now going to our final break to hear from the sponsors that make Iron Sharpens Iron Radio possible.

When we return, Chris will interview Michael S. Miller, the founder, president, and CEO of

Discerning the Faith Ministries.

Lindbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lindbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in

the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service.

It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement.

It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages.

Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ.

In fellowship, play, and together.

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

be.

Call Lindbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402.

That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit LindbrookBaptist .org.

That's LindbrookBaptist .org.

Welcome back.

The following is an interview that Chris did last January at the G3 conference with Michael S. Miller.

This is Chris Arnzen on site at the G3 conference again.

G3 conference 2019.

Sitting here at my exhibitors booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and I am delighted to be interviewing today

Michael S. Miller, the president and CEO of Discerning the Faith Ministry.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Trip and Zion, Michael Miller.

Well, thanks for having me, Chris.

Appreciate it.

Why don't you tell us something about Discerning the Faith Ministry.

Well, thanks.

Discerning the Faith Ministry, we're a fairly new ministry.

This is actually our first time here at the G3 conference.

And this is essentially our launch, and we exist to help equip

and come alongside churches and to help the leaders in the church to be able to get some

training, to equip them, essentially to apply a biblical worldview.

And we do that through seminars where we will actually come into the church and we will teach

and train their, particularly their lay leaders.

Because what we found is that a lot of the lay leaders, even though you have pastors who are seminary trained, the lay

leaders don't have time to go to seminary necessarily, aren't as equipped as perhaps they even want to be.

And so we come alongside and assist the pastors, the elders, and

help to create a custom -tailored seminars that would help based upon

where their church is at.

So anything from essential core doctrine all the way up to some of the more complex issues of the day,

ethical issues such as abortion, homosexuality, and how do you think about this from a Christian worldview

and apply those things.

So that's essentially part of our ministry.

We also have another part of our ministry known as Susanna Project.

And what we're doing with that is, if you know a little about Susanna Spurgeon, she had a book ministry.

Wow, my friend just wrote the autobiography of Susanna Spurgeon.

Yeah, Susie, right, Ray Rhodes.

Yes, Ray's been on the program a number of times.

And in fact, I was disappointed I didn't see him here this time.

You haven't seen him.

Is he here?

He is here.

Oh, wow.

In fact, I did an interview with him yesterday or two days ago over at our exhibitor booth.

Is he still here?

He is.

Well, make sure that you have him come over here.

So the last time I interviewed Ray was before the book was in print.

So I haven't interviewed him since then.

So I'd like to have him on again.

I'm sorry, but I interrupted you.

No, it's quite all right.

So her ministry is what inspired us to start a book ministry for

international pastors.

So we use Kindle devices to load up digital books and send those over to

international pastors who don't have access.

Right now we're launching in Malawi, Africa.

We're partnering with a few organizations there to get books in the hands of pastors who their ministries

are training and equipping so that when they leave from that place they now also have a theological

library that they can take with them.

Does it remain in digital form or do they wind up printing it?

No, it remains in digital form.

It gives them the ability to travel around the country.

The only reason I ask is that I'm assuming, unless I'm completely out of touch, that there might be some of the

more impoverished nations where it's not typical for a pastor to even have a computer.

That's right.

And in our kits we include a power bank that goes with them

so they can charge those.

And if they're out in the middle of nowhere where there's no electricity, which we found with some pastors, we actually provide them with a

solar panel charging kit that allows them to continue to charge that and use it.

And those Kindles are great because they can last for a month at a time on a single

battery charge.

And so partnering with some of the publishers, we are working to try to get good

theological books out to those pastors.

Now, I'm assuming that there might be a lot of churches

who, if they have already reached the point where, you know, the ministers themselves have been

ordained, they've gone through the necessary steps to achieve that level of

authority within a local church and so on, they might be thinking, perhaps wrongly, perhaps

rightly, but why do I need somebody to help me discern anything?

You know, there's almost, I would imagine, perhaps I'm totally off base,

I would imagine there would be an apprehension, if I was working with a ministry like yours, of people being insulted,

of pastors and elders at a church being insulted by me daring to think that they

need my help with discernment.

How do you respond to something like that?

Well, I would say that sometimes in some churches, depending on the church, depending on the size of the church,

it can be that there is perhaps a pastor who doesn't feel equipped to necessarily

be able to do that, who maybe doesn't have the time or the resources that he would want to be able

to spend on doing that, perhaps just being able to have

somebody from the outside come in, especially if, I've talked to some pastors even here where they

are wrestling with, they just got to a new congregation and perhaps they'd like to be able to, they

see that there's some issues going on that they would like to address, but you just got there

and you're still building up some credibility.

And sometimes just bringing in somebody from the outside who can come in and provide some seminars, provide

some biblical perspective on some issues, can at least help them start the conversation with people.

So it creates sometimes, it can create a little bit of a buffer so that

they can start to address some things, but not necessarily be as blunt about it when

they first get there.

What I could easily imagine, since I know quite a number of pastors in this position,

you will have a newly called pastor that's entering into a situation where

he knows he has a lot of work ahead of him to eradicate or purge

the church from some traditions or favorite Bible

teachers, and I use air quotes for those of you who can't see that, who are heretical or at least

extremely problematic.

And the pastor, the new guy on the block, very often faces a strong

opposition from those within, whether it be the deacons or

elders already there, or even the ladies running the knitting circle.

Those sometimes, from what I've heard from my pastor friends who have newly ascended

into the position of pastor at a church, sometimes it's just the old guard

in the congregation that have been there for sometimes 50 years or more, who are like, who is this young

man to tell me that I've got to stop listening to Andy Stanley or Charles Stanley, or whatever the case is.

That's right.

Not that they necessarily have to tell people to stop listening to someone as if you are some kind of

dictator, but there obviously is going to be some counsel from a

pastor about people that you might want to avoid who are popular preachers and teachers.

That's right.

That's right.

Absolutely.

And that's where we would like to come and partner with a pastor that's in that circumstance and be

able to help come in and provide seminars on those things.

And we really do believe that anybody from an elder pastor all the way down

to those that are teaching children Sunday school should have a good theological basis before they

go into that position.

I think that oftentimes we don't do that.

We don't focus on even those who are doing children's ministry.

It's almost like, well, you know, that's kind of anybody can do that.

It's funny that you said that because it was just yesterday or the day before,

a brother who I can't remember now if he is currently a

pastor, but it was somebody who was giving me their testimony in a car while we were driving from one point to another.

And he said that after becoming a Christian, the church that he was

a member of, within a week they had him teaching children's

Sunday school.

He was saying to them, I'm not really equipped to do this right now because a lot of these things I don't know.

And they basically said exactly, oh, anybody could do this.

Just take the book and go through everything.

He was taken aback, and that was one of the reasons he actually eventually left because of the lack of

discernment of the elders to give a man that wet behind the ears, probably still dripping

with his baptismal water, that kind of a responsibility.

And that is probably one of the most important responsibilities, teaching children.

That's right, absolutely, and good on him for recognizing that and saying, hey, I'm

not quite there yet to do this.

That's certainly good on him.

And I think also some of the things we'd like to try to address is that there are certain ethical issues today

that I don't think that the church is necessarily addressing.

I think you see that in some of the surveys that come out.

I mean, we've taken a good look, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have looked at the

Ligonier and Lifeway survey that came out, the updated version of that survey on

the state of theology.

And you look at that, and that's just a disturbing survey.

You mean the Ligonier partnered with Lifeway, the book?

The Lifeway research arm, right, the research arm of Lifeway.

Okay.

And they did this in 2016, and then again in this year, or I guess it's 2018.

And just the survey they did even among evangelicals and

what evangelicals believed was somewhat disturbing.

And so I think that we're trying to address some of those issues that we

see where you have a vast majority of people who claim to be evangelicals who even believe

that Jesus was the first created being.

Really?

I think it was about 78 % was that one.

Really?

Evangelicals?

Of evangelicals.

Now, that's self -proclaiming evangelicals, but still it's striking.

Can you give us some of the other frightening things that are being commonly

believed by professing evangelicals?

Sure.

I'm trying to remember some of them off the top of my head here.

So I believe that same survey found that 5 out of 10 proclaiming

evangelicals believe that God accepts the worship of all religions.

Really?

So 5 out of 10, and then 52 believe that everyone sins a little, but

most people are good by nature.

Really?

Well, the influence of Charles Finney is a lot more widespread than we might imagine.

And so to us, when we look at those kind of statistics as a ministry, we look at that and we say, well, that

means there's got to be some problems within the local church where the leaders, the Sunday

school teachers, are not quite equipped to train the people in their congregation.

And so our goal is to try to address some of those things, to try to hopefully in years to come, when they

continue to do these surveys, that these numbers change.

And they change and they shift more to an orthodox position.

And so that's part of our goal.

And to address some of the ethical issues of today.

You know, how many churches are addressing things like in vitro fertilization?

And how do we look at that from a biblical worldview?

Medical ethics.

That's right, the church where I'm an elder at.

We've had people who have gone and had that done.

And I think it's people that haven't, they don't even know what's going on.

They don't understand medically and have even thought through whether or not this is actually

an ethical thing to do from a Christian worldview.

And so we try to address some of those things as well in some of our seminars.

We'll actually come in and talk about those specific issues and answer questions about those.

And I'm not sure how many pastors feel confident in their ability to do that.

And what kind of, if you could give us some physical details, tangible practical

details about how these seminars are conducted at the church that might call you in.

So we can do it pretty much a number of different ways.

We can do this as either a whole day on a weekend or just an evening, couple of hour

seminar.

Where we'll come in and we'll do that.

Or we can do it depending on where they are, the church is at.

We can even do it as a Sunday school class where we'll come in for a series of weeks and

teach that depending on their location.

We're outside of the Washington, D .C. area, so certainly churches that are in that area would be happy to do something

like that.

Great.

What I usually do on Iron Trip and Zion Radio when I have a first time guest, I usually have them do this first.

But in your case I'll have you do it last.

And of course at the very end of our discussion I'll have you give out all of the contact information that our

listeners might need.

But I typically have our first time guests give a summary of their salvation testimony.

If you could tell us what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in.

And what kind of providential circumstances did our Sovereign Lord raise up in your life to draw you to

Him and save you.

Well, I always enjoy talking about that.

I was actually born and raised in a Christian home.

There was never really a day that I didn't hear the Word of God taught in the home.

My parents raised us.

I had four other brothers and sisters and all of us were raised in a Christian

home, went to church.

I was actually raised in the Presbyterian Church of America, the PCA denomination.

So I actually grew up listening to R .C. Sproul on the radio.

Also John MacArthur on the radio and via tape cassette.

And my father really did a lot to foster that.

My father and I would actually have late night conversations about theology when I was a teenager.

Where we would stay up until midnight talking about theology.

As a 13 and 14 year old I was doing that with him.

That's great.

And so if I was going to put a mark, I'd say there's a time when I was

maybe 10 and 11 where I really affirmed and feel that I actually

gave my life to Christ.

And recognized that I was a sinner in need of salvation.

And so it was at that moment.

And as I continued to develop I felt God was calling to ministry and eventually

didn't go into ministry immediately.

But went into the Air Force actually.

I was in the Air Force serving there and I

eventually years later decided that God was calling me to ministry

full time.

And decided I needed to go to seminary.

And so I went and attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and actually recently graduated there

with my Master's in Divinity.

Well praise God.

Well please make sure that our listeners have your website and any other contact information that you care to provide.

Sure.

So if they're interested in any of our seminars, any of the Susanna Project ministry.

If they're interested in sponsoring a pastor perhaps or would like to nominate a pastor to receive one of those Kindles.

They can visit our website www .discerningthefaith .org or susannaproject .org.

Now you mentioned the Susanna Project but you didn't really get into much detail.

So let me give you at least a minute or two to be more detailed about the Susanna Project.

Certainly.

So the Susanna Project as I was saying it was inspired by Susanna Spurgeon and her book

Ministry to Poor Pastors.

And so what we're doing is with Kindle devices.

We are using those to get over there.

Oh that is the Susanna.

I'm sorry I must have somehow missed the connection.

I was blurring the discernment ministry with the Susanna one.

Okay.

So that's and we are always looking for other pastors.

We like to partner with other ministries who are training those pastors so that it's a supplement to that.

It's not just on its own.

But we are always looking for sponsors.

In fact we have 13 pastors right now on a list that we are looking for sponsors for who are

graduating from the Central African Preaching Academy that is part of the Masters Academy International.

So we are looking for sponsors for those for those individuals.

So we'd love to talk to anybody who would be willing to to sponsor one of those pastors.

Great.

Well thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule today to be on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Thank you Chris. Appreciate you having me.

God bless.

I hope you've enjoyed the interviews that we aired today from the January 2019 G3 conference.

Please continue to tune in to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio as we will be airing more of these interviews in the near

future.

And please always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.