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

Iron Sharpens Iron

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania It's iron sharpens iron This is a radio platform in which pastors

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Christian scholars and theologians Address the burning issues facing the church and the world today

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

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage We are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation

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To make one another wiser and better It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours

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And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions, and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Lake City, Florida Champaign County, Illinois and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth We're listening by a live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com. I am NOT Chris Arnzen I am

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Chris Arnzen substitute for the day. Although I have been strictly Forbidden to refer to myself as the vicar of Chris My name is

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Eric Nielsen And I also serve as the webmaster for iron sharpens iron radio and 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

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January at the 2019 g3 conference today's show will include interviews with doctors

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Andrew Smith and Brian Fairchild Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of the media ministry of dr

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John MacArthur grace to you and Michael s Miller the founder president and CEO of discerning the faith ministries

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There's a lot of ground to cover. So let's get started This is

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Chris Arnzen again on site at the g3 conference 2019 in College Park, Georgia Suburb of Atlanta and I have just been thrilled with everything

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I've experienced here and once again being at the g3 conference representing iron sharpens iron radio has proven to be a very

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Monumentally fruitful experience for me personally and iron sharpens iron radio and we'll be giving you updates on what

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I'm talking about and the not -so -distant future god -willing, but we have Two brothers in Christ now that I'm going to be interviewing

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Who are also manning an exhibitors booth just as I am here at the g3 conference

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We have two preaching fellows For the Society for expository preaching we have dr.

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Andrew Smith and we also have dr Brian Fairchild Both with this organization first of all greetings to my brothers.

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Thank you. 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

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I think I actually met you Not that long ago. It was in Jacksonville, Florida yeah,

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James White at the James White debate that I organized in Jacksonville that he and Dr.

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Michael Brown both on the same debating team debated to A professing homosexual ministers in the

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Jacksonville, Florida community and that was certainly a Night where the truth of the scriptures came through very loud and clear

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I mean that this was indeed homosexuality there's a sin a damnable sin that must be repented of not something that is acceptable as a

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Christian way of life but I was very intrigued when I first met you and you told me a little bit about the

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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.

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So I'm glad that you and Brian are both here Why don't you tell our listeners something about exactly?

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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 on in churches and they're ministering.

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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 of Brian pastors in Midland, Texas, and I pastor in st

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

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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

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And then we also want to provide some one -on -one consultation sermon evaluation one of the

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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

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It's helpful to hear advice from other pastors on how they preach through the Old Testament or the

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New Testament or a particular book So we want to provide some one -on -one Consultation we want to provide some resources that will

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Reach into their lives Brian, and I both have had the privilege of sitting under the ministry of dr.

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Steve Lawson Oh, yeah 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 with him

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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

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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

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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

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But we want to fine -tune homiletical exegetical theological preaching because that's what

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Christ uses to build the church Right. Well before we go any further with more details about the

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Society for expository preaching dr Brian Brian Fairchild if you could let our listeners know something more specific about your congregation where you pastor

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

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We are a reformed Baptist congregation The Lord called us to plant that church 17 years ago.

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So we have been in West Texas for 17 years I'm actually a native of Midland, Texas and the

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Lord called us back home to plant that church there We are a church that reaches a broad geographical region we have

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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.

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That's even more exaggerated You have to go further to find expository preaching the Lord has amazing when you think of a place like Texas in the

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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

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Baptist Church Within a hundred yards of another one right and many more within the same town right

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Baptist Church in every corner and of course other evangelical Protestant denominations, right exactly so we've

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I Am a personal living testimony to the power of the word

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That reveals Christ and him saying he will build his church. The word does that as it reveals

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Christ? I'm not a salesman. I was telling someone earlier. I had a sales job in seminary and just about starved to death

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III couldn't sell, you know ice to a man in the desert or a blanket to an

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Eskimo So it's just the Lord has been so faithful to the preaching of his word for 17 years that he has sustained us and and built his church and the fruit that you see in people's lives is just Irreplaceable you cannot duplicate that through any other means and to see

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Christ glorified in them is is a treasure Why don't you and then we'll have? Dr.

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Andrew Smith do the same thing after he also gives some details about the his own congregation where he pastors

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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

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Providential circumstances that our sovereign Lord raised up in your life drew you to himself and saved you

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So it 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

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But again, I have to testify to the power of the Word It was through scripture memory in the

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Iwana program at our local church that I can remember as a young child just being absolutely under Conviction in memorizing the scripture

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I can still see the book and the pages and in my little book that I memorized in my mind it's as clear as day and Memorizing that the passages from Romans and James and in other passages

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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

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Lord through that and one night Just being brought to the end of myself going to my parents and saying

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I'm a sinner I need to be saved and having my parents pray with me and a sweet time

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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?

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I Have never Wanted to do anything else. Hmm it even as a kid even as a kid.

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Well, that was my driving passion I can remember My I loved to mow the grass as a kid

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Because it gave me a chance to put on my big Walkman with a cassette and listen to preaching Wow. I was a freak

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But a good kind of yeah, I but I've always loved preaching I've loved the preaching of the word and The Lord really confirmed that call to me when

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I was 14 that that was the direction He would have my life to go and I began to even

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Thanks to some very long -suffering Sunday school teachers Teach Sunday school and preach short sermons for them at that time

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My junior high youth pastor had formerly been a past senior pastor And he would sit down and help me write sermons and those sorts of things

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So it was great a blessed 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 your own a summary of your own salvation testimony.

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Sure Yeah, so I planted three years ago Christ Reformed Community Church in st. Augustine, Florida we're

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South Jacksonville st. Augustine area and it's a reformed independent congregation built upon the expository preaching of the

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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

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The Lord is in charge of all of that I'm just trying to be faithful every week every month every year and what he's called me to do

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And my testimony is very very similar to Brian's I too was saved in a in a home that loved the scriptures that was very faithful church goers both my parents believers

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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

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Allegheny Mountains close to close to you in Beaver County, Pennsylvania Wow, and so I have that rich heritage and I owe everything to God's sovereignty and 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.

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

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Christ and I too knew from about the age of four or five that the

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Lord would have me preach his word and that's what I Wanted to do my whole life and and I was just my dad was is able to come to this conference with me

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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 he said that I remind him of my fourth son

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Who he's 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,

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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

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But also to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ as I preach the word Praise God.

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Well now let's go back to I'm sorry to do it. Oh, I was just gonna say Speaking of Josh Bice, we announced this week that he is joining the society as the third preaching fellow.

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Oh For the society, so we're thrilled about that. Oh praise God and then before I forget to ask you just out of curiosity now

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I know dr. Lawson has had many students But do you know?

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Do you know? Pastor Andy Woodard was one of dr. Lawson students.

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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.

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I am sharpens. I'm radio. Is that right? Yes, New Covenant Church, New York City, okay in Manhattan one of the very few

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Calvinistic Baptist churches in One of the very few biblically faithful reformed churches

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Left in Manhattan, which is a tragedy, but he's a wonderful brother. I just thought I'd run that by it going back to the the society for expository preaching

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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

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Christians Who do contact me from time to time? we have Muslim listeners we have

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Roman Catholic listeners even have received on occasion

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Contact from Mooney's and others, but it's a diverse group of people listening

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But why don't you explain for our listeners? What is expository preaching? well,

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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

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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.

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That's where you start And then you build from there. We are big proponents of sequential exposition through books of the

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Bible God put the Bible together in a certain way for a reason chapter 2 comes after chapter 1 for a reason

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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

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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

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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.

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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 the expository preaching out there?

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Well, obviously the the most obvious Competitor to Expository preaching which is really no competitor at all is topical preaching which elevates the ideas of man

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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

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When we place ourselves above the inspired Authoritative Word of God, so I think that's that's what you most commonly see and that may sound a bit

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Harsh, but 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

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Try to preach our ideas and then force God's Word to fit what our agenda is that is certainly the biggest and most

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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.

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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

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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

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That they they crave the meat of the word And so that that's the biggest threat.

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I think to expository preaching is man -centered preaching that now there are

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Pastors and congregations that have committed themselves to expository preaching, but they have also

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During the course of the year there will be special Occasions where a sermon might be categorized as a topical sure sermon there might be some kind of a national crisis happening

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You know, you might have some well -known person assassinated perhaps a beloved saint in the congregation has passed away or It could be something like a celebration of the birth of Christ.

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It's your salvation 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

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Absolutely, he's not just telling stories. Yes And of course, you know, even a good sermon can include a pastor's story of sure something personal kind of way that he has applied a scriptural truth to his life because Something has occurred, but wouldn't that be an acceptable form of topical sure and and to be clear what when

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I say topical I Was referring to developing a series of thoughts that then we try to plug scripture into another scripture obviously deals with topics and so it is perfectly acceptable and and I It is while you're addressing topics.

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You can go to the Word of God and do it expository Exposition Lee to take and let the text define the topic rather than the topic

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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

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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

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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

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Chapter a book of scripture from previous weeks He is just picking a different subject every day

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That might be sure how to get out of depression or how to raise children properly or when every week

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It's just something different. That's basically what you're talking about Yes, sir, so and I think just in hearing you guys talk

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I think of the holidays. I think of Christmas I think of Easter. Those are wonderful opportunities to you know

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Look at a theological concept like the incarnation and let's talk about what this means and let's see the incarnation

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Prophesied in the Old Testament and look at some passages there Let's go in the New Testament and see see what

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Paul says in Philippians 2 about Christ humbling himself And so those are good opportunities to do sort of theological

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Exposition where you look through all that the Puritans were great at this, you know Being able to look at a theological concept from every single angle the

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Old Testament and the New Testament That has a way in one sermon of giving people a whole picture outlook of what the

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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

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Argument is rooted in the authorial intent of those authors in those texts and that's those are great opportunities to instruct people with the powerful one -punch sort of Sermon that unravels what the

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Bible says in a summary way on this one particular subject now You might have a pastor who is committed to expository preaching

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But would it be wise or unwise for this pastor? To let's say he just becomes convinced

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Of expository preaching and he says well what we're going to do today is we're gonna start in Genesis 1

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Would it be wise for him to just remain in the Old Covenant scriptures the

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Hebrew Scriptures until he reaches the Gospel of Matthew or should there always be an element of both the

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Old and New Testaments in a proper sermon Yes, I think both are are critical

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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

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I've followed and this is not written in Bible or written even in stone for me But I like to exposit a

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New Testament book on Sunday morning an Old Testament book Sunday night and on Wednesday nights

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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

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

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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

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Old Testament and So we always go back to Ephesians But we're able to leave for a minute and show how the

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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 yeah,

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I think that Intertextuality and linking the scripture together is a is a tool that We just don't get enough of maybe in our training hermeneutically or Exegetically dr.

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Abner Chow at the Masters University and Seminary has done phenomenal work in writing on intertextuality and Putting those things together.

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It's very helpful to understand that and that's part of the thoreal intent You know the way that the

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Apostles used the prophets when they're quoting from 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.

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John MacArthur Yes, I mean if you just if you're a young preacher and you just listen to his sermons

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He teaches you by example how to draw all the Bible together and he does it in a brilliant way

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That is not academic. It's summarized. It's it's cohesive and so He's the master

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I think of that sort of tying texts together and doing that in a way that that a congregation can understand now

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How would you react to somebody that? Would identify themselves as being committed to expository preaching

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But there are portions of the scripture where the person and work and of Christ are not addressed in those particular verses that you might be

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Have reached the point to address in your in your series of expositional sermons

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There might be some that would You know say I'm gonna stick to the text.

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I'm not going to be involved in isa Jesus here and transport things about Christ his work on Calvary and so on and then there will be others of course would be

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Extremely upset by that. I mean Charles had the Spurgeon believe that every sermon Should be you know basically filled with Christ Even if the text being addressed don't specifically mention

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Christ or might not Have anything to do with specifically? his his

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Redemptive death and so on so how do you address that issue? Well you you have the first promise of the gospel in the book of Genesis the first book of the

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Bible And you trace that promise of this Messiah that is gonna crush the serpent the devil that thread is traced throughout

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Throughout the Bible, but we believe that the Bible is a progressive revelation in other words

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God doesn't reveal everything about himself in one moment or everything about Christ in one moment

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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

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Christ centered in the sense that you want your people seeing Jesus you want them to see that the the central motif of the

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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

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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

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They were and I think it's helpful to show that progressive revelation of Scripture So that people do see

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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

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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

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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

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

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He reasoned with them from the scriptures and showing them all thing So I think we can do that without doing harm to the text

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But but one of the ways I think it's faithful expositors Maybe that we need to do that is make sure our people have a good framework to hang every book of the

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Bible on especially the Old Testament working knowledge of how this fits in the Overall plan as you said

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Andrew of progressive revelation now. There is also a disagreement amongst

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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 in regard to whom

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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

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It is and of course, let's put aside the primary Function of preaching is to glorify

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God. Let's let's write. Let's put that aside as something that it's a given but as far as What it is what its purpose is for those sitting in the pews in regards to their lives

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I've met some pastors who will say that it 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

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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

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Camp will say some will even say that every sermon should include an

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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

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Congregations filled with nothing but regenerate people. In fact, some would say it is unlikely that any congregation is

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Is completely filled with regenerate people. So not only do those people who are lost need to hear

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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

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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

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Even if in the mind of God or to the knowledge of God alone they are with certainty, but you know

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Christians do fall in on occasion into dark sins and They are may have a season of unrepentance and so on.

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So tell us about your philosophy in regard to that should Evangelism to the lost always be at least in part included in sermons.

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I Would say yes Even Given the nature of our own children being in the congregation when they're young and have not yet come to Christ They need to hear that appeal to Christ.

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I Don't think that our preaching is for the lost necessarily and by that I mean

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Go invite your unsaved neighbor To church and let the pastor be the one that presents the

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God you present the gospel to him I'll preach the word and I'll make a Presentation of Christ.

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I we want to show Christ and we want to appeal to everyone to heed

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The command and then there again, I think it's an important distinction. The gospel is not an invitation

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It's a command to believe and so we have to be faithful to issue that and the

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Lord will bless that I believe so I would say yes, there always needs to be a gospel Even if the texts that you're

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Exegeting are involving gender roles of the church or something there should always it should always wind toward a call to the

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Listener to repent and believe upon Christ. I think so because I think that's the way the Bible is put together

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You look for example at the ministry of Jesus and he said Israel is an example of an unregenerate people there.

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There's hypocrites. There's Pharisees There's sheep among the goats or goats among the sheep. There's tares among the wheat

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And so if you just preach the Bible Expositionally, you're gonna come across Jesus's hard sayings to those who were who thought they were part of the people of God and they were in fact were part of The people of God in a physical outward sense, but internally

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They were filthy. They were dirty. They they were hypocritical they were Christ rejecters Messiah rejecters and and Paul deals with that in the epistles, you know in terms of The fruit of the

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Spirit in Galatians and then of course the Apostle John and first 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

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Bible these topics pop up all the time and you're constantly calling people within the visible

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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 And their love for him and their love for the body of Christ that is evidenced in the fruit of the

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Spirit So tell us exactly About the nuts and bolts.

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I don't mean nuts as far as nutty individual But the nuts and bolts of the

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Society for expository preaching if let's say a pastor here goes by your booth and he picks up the business card of yours and He thinks to himself, you know,

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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

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And so what exactly do you do for pastors and congregations and and others who you to whom you administer?

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

35:34

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

35:46

You can sign up for one of our one semester preaching cohorts and in that time one of the preaching fellows

35:52

Whether it's Andrew or Josh or myself Josh Bice or myself. We'll take five men a semester

35:59

We will review with them from the exegetical Beginnings of a sermon through the homiletical delivery of a sermon.

36:06

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

36:24

That is the 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

36:33

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

36:40

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 will produce online podcast and blog articles

36:56

Scholarly articles academic articles on preaching those sorts of things as well and as far as your own experience as preachers

37:07

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

37:13

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

37:20

As preachers expositor expository preachers, no When I first started preaching

37:27

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

37:35

No, I'm talking about as far as you know personally so well Yes, so when I started preaching in Bible College again not being exposed to that my preaching was topical

37:47

By the time I finished seminary though. I had been exposed to expository preaching so at our church

37:52

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

38:09

Those that we can actually hear that are at least within the 20th or 21st centuries so people could look up their sermons perhaps on sermon audio and or other places

38:21

Why don't we start with? You brother Andrew sure yeah, I would say dr.

38:26

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

38:36

I I mimicked John MacArthur You know because I had 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 Yes, I had the privilege of meeting

39:00

Steve yeah He did a expository preaching internship under him at Clearwater when I was in college and so the

39:06

Jewish believer Jewish believer Yeah, and he's written about that and and he just he's a masterful and breaking apart a text and So those are some guys

39:17

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.

39:27

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 for but it's okay

39:38

Steve Kreloff was one of them and brother Brian It's it's hard to disagree with anything

39:45

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.

39:57

Mark Minnick Who is more in? in perhaps the fundamental

40:03

Baptist circles, but nonetheless a Very capable Expositor dr.

40:09

MacArthur and dr. Lawson, I think would Be the men who have most shaped me though Praise God.

40:16

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

40:34

Idea this concept and who wants to benefit and learn more from you? Well, the best place to go is preaching society org.

40:42

You can that's our website. It's not up and running yet but what you can do is leave your name in your email and Hit subscribe and what we will do is send updates as the ministry develops our our plan

40:54

Tentatively is to have a cohort of men who are involved in the consultation and the preaching workshops this coming fall

41:01

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 preaching society dot o

41:11

RG 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 for the cohort

41:20

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

41:27

So this was dr. Andrew Smith and dr. Brian Fairchild both

41:33

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 both of you in the future.

41:46

Thank you Chris. I hope you both would continue to enjoy the conference as well Appreciate your time. Thank my pleasure Chris Arnz and host of iron sharpens iron radio announcing a new website with an exciting offer from world magazine

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I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years His name is Dan, but if you go

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

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself Recently he wrote a book titled consider the evidence for the

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Bible Ravi Zacharias wrote the forward Dan also has a master's degree in theology

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46:34

That's Chris Arnson at gmail .com Welcome back to iron sharpens iron radio

46:43

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

46:49

January 2019 g3 conference Chris's next interview is with Phil Johnson of grace to you

46:57

We hope you enjoy it. This is Chris Arnson again on site at the g3 conference in the

47:04

Exhibitors 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 listen to iron sharpens iron long enough

47:15

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

47:30

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

47:36

Yes, I think this may be our third time doing this face. Yeah. Yeah, but in fact though, this is the first interview

47:43

I believe that I've done with you face to face where you look like you're about a hundred pounds lighter than Not quite a hundred.

47:50

But yeah, I've lost a little weight need to lose a little more and you look great And I'm assuming this was intentional.

47:56

Oh, yep. Absolutely deliberate and well Phil the the pre -conference session that Started on Wednesday Was on the social justice movement and the gospel

48:14

I forget right now What was the exact title of the I think it was social justice and the gospel.

48:20

Okay. Yeah, I guess they're right I want you to we've already addressed this on my show

48:25

But I wanted perhaps you to give me an update in a summary of why this is an important issue

48:32

Some of my listeners might be wondering why I've even done multiple Programs with different guests addressing this it's it's interesting that Every time

48:42

I've done it It usually has been my guest who has said can you can you do a program with me on the social justice issue?

48:48

Why is this such a big deal? Some people might think that we are making more of a big deal out of it than the reality would reveal

48:56

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

49:06

Maybe you could define the movement before you go into why it's a big deal that we yeah Well, let me let me just explain we

49:14

We are in favor of justice and justice even in the social arena and all that but the word social justice is a term that has been in play in the secular world in the academic world for decades and It means something specific.

49:30

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, you know, everything is systemic racism.

49:50

Everybody is 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

50:16

White male, you know, you should just shut up and listen because everybody else Those very words have come out of some of the social justice.

50:23

Yeah. No, exactly. You're right and check your privilege, you know be quiet and listen and It's called the intersectionality this idea that there are there are multiple levels of victimhood and oppression

50:37

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

50:43

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

50:53

Marxist ideology and it found its way through the academic realm

50:58

Into popular thinking and and from there even into Christianity and when we when we point out the

51:04

Marxist roots we're not saying that you know, every Christian who speaks approvingly of the social justice movement is a

51:11

Marxist, but it is true that this ideology is Tangled up with lots of ideas that have been taken from the secular political realm the and and radical leftist politics and Sort of blend it all together.

51:25

So that now as I said the movement has moved beyond the issue of racism and now it's about gender equality and 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 if you can say that a person is oppressed and it needs to be

51:48

Accepted because he's a homosexual though all of those same arguments would work for any other kind of Sexual perversion and that's the way it's headed.

51:57

It's 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

52:10

I'm for biblical justice. I am NOT for the secular idea of social justice the secular idea of social justice usually involves, you know ideas like Income redistribution the attempt to get equality of outcome in everything and 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 post -modern movement at the heart a heart of it

52:50

A lot of those values and arguments have been brought unchanged into the

52:56

Christian realm And so you had last year that and here's why it's a big deal There's two organizations

53:02

Very popular and and that I've always been supportive of the gospel coalition and together for the gospel

53:09

Both of them founded around the year, you know Within just before the end of the first decade of this new millennium

53:18

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

53:36

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01:00:01

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

01:00:31

Chris Arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years

01:00:38

His name is Dan Buttafuoco. Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer

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Recently, he wrote a book titled consider the evidence for the Bible Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword

01:00:56

Dan also has a master's degree in theology Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states

01:01:04

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer he wrote the test for the

01:01:14

National Board of Trial Advocacy and Currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for 1 million dollars or more

01:01:22

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

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

01:01:56

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

01:02:03

That's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com When iron sharpens iron radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the

01:02:15

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

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01:05:19

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

01:05:54

Christian realm And so that here's why it's a big deal is two organizations Very popular that I've always been supportive of the gospel coalition and together for the gospel

01:06:05

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 the central theme in in the gospel coalition's case

01:06:41

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

01:06:53

Evening of their 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

01:07:06

Matter of social justice to the front of their agenda now these are organizations that were founded to defend the gospel

01:07:12

So if we're right and and blending the themes of social justice with gospel terminology

01:07:19

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 that you know

01:07:31

Signals a matter of great concern as far as the gospel is concerned the gospel is very simple

01:07:37

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

01:07:42

That the the Christ must suffer and die for sins and be resurrected and so that anyone

01:07:48

Who believes and repents? Believes in him and repents is Has eternal life.

01:07:54

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 those issues

01:08:08

Need to be discussed if at all separately from the gospel, but you know my

01:08:15

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

01:08:32

New Testament a slave and a slave owner are before God given the same status

01:08:38

Paul doesn't command that Society be restructured and Roman society was far far more full of social injustices than our culture is

01:08:48

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

01:09:01

We've newly discovered this principle that really should be and must be made part of the gospel and by adding to the gospel

01:09:07

They're actually corrupting it now. This isn't a New principle at all though is it no it isn't it's like I said that the movement the themes of the movement the values

01:09:19

Of the movement and the rhetoric of the movement have been borrowed from you know secular thought and set a secular radical

01:09:26

Thought and it's sort of been blended by a long process of dialectical you know 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

01:09:43

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

01:10:04

I don't think have the have the moral and intellectual Tools that are necessary to really answer this

01:10:12

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

01:10:22

And I have my truth and everything is a matter of perspective And they've been raised in churches that were

01:10:27

Pragmatic if they grew up in evangelical circles raised in churches for the most part that were

01:10:33

Pragmatic and seeker sensitive and not at all given any sort of serious doctrinal instruction

01:10:40

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

01:10:48

What is what are the? tangible Physical things that those that that would be identifying themselves as Representing The social justice movement what what are they actually asking or even demanding that we who are?

01:11:11

conservative evangelical Bible -believing Christians do what is 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.

01:11:28

It's not about a right relationship with God. It's about Reconciliation between racial groups and people groups and and you're right.

01:11:37

It's not clear at all. What it is they want because That you know they'll demand an apology

01:11:43

But you give the apology and then that doesn't solve anything you have to keep if if you are from a people group that Historically has had people in it who were you know slave owners or Racists or white supremacists or whatever and see if you're white then

01:12:00

You are 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

01:12:17

It's 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

01:12:24

Yeah, that's exactly it's a kind of racism. I think oh, and and the demand is you know that you apologize for and repent of The sins of your ancestors, it's it's it's a it's a strange

01:12:39

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

01:12:46

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 you know listen to the oppressed people groups and The problem is there's never any end to that.

01:13:00

What does that solve then? What does what does that reconcile? It doesn't really reconcile anything. It just means the power is now passed to the people who were

01:13:09

You know previously Oppressed and I suppose over time they become the oppressors now

01:13:16

So exactly I don't know nobody really knows Because there's no end game, and that's one of the common criticisms of the social justice movement

01:13:24

What is it actually that they want? What is the end game? What would it take to reconcile and resolve all of this and nobody has any actual answers to that question?

01:13:35

Because I don't think it. I don't think it really is a legitimate objective identifiable problem

01:13:41

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 men mentality now the thing that strikes

01:13:56

Me as being very odd if I were a member of a group

01:14:04

Whether it be an ethnic group or people who share the same melanin content of my skin or what -have -you

01:14:12

And I had achieved Whether it be anything in the academic realm or or any category you can can think of I would not want myself to be viewed as having

01:14:30

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

01:14:42

I would be insulted by being told that Or being told that I needed that now.

01:14:47

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 in regard for many years

01:15:09

It seems strange to me that they would want People to view that their

01:15:20

Specific group that they identify with they must be given Special consideration and treatment to make things easier for them to yeah,

01:15:29

I agree with you It's insulting to think that you know if we don't help this oppressed people class

01:15:35

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?

01:15:46

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

01:15:53

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

01:16:01

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

01:16:22

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 think would be a little more discerning than this but often the answer from young evangelicals is oh, then you're a racist

01:16:37

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

01:16:56

To just sort of go along may you see this even in the secular world people get fired and lose their careers

01:17:03

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 can get you labeled

01:17:14

A racist and and you forfeit your career, so there's a great fear factor

01:17:20

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

01:17:31

The the structure that God has established in the body of Christ and but most of all destructive to the clarity of the gospel and So I think even though yeah, you're gonna suffer slings and arrows of contempt and accusations and recriminations from lots of people if you say

01:17:54

I don't support the social justice movement, but I Think the issues make it make it worth that it is a big issue because it does ultimately impinge on the gospel yeah impinges on the gospel, but it also

01:18:07

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

01:18:20

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

01:18:36

Against a Disadvantaged class class or a oppressed class

01:18:43

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

01:18:50

You as a white man you you you cannot be the victim of racism by that definition

01:18:55

You just can't be so you can't say well This is this is a kind of racism or people used to refer to it as reverse racism

01:19:03

I don't like that term because it's not reverse racism. It's just racist different flavor of racism, but But by the by the postmodern definition of racism.

01:19:13

It's not because you're 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

01:19:22

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 gonna see

01:19:34

I think in the years to come lots more people losing their careers and jobs and livelihoods over trivialities a lot of a lot of misunderstandings or or simple you know expressions that That really are innocent and and nothing wrong with them today that tomorrow are going to be labeled

01:19:54

You know politically incorrect you can't use that word and somebody's gonna go back to your Twitter feed from three years ago before the word was

01:20:02

Verboten and point out that you use 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

01:20:14

Statements they've made words. They've used and in many cases. They're not even mean -spirited things

01:20:19

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

01:20:25

Yeah, well, this is one of the remarkable things about this is that I have interviewed at least two of the people that seem to be

01:20:36

Considered by many to be the primary spokesman of this movement Who as little as nine years ago were mocking some of the very things?

01:20:48

that we are discussing that were prominent that are prominent in their Vocabulary today one of the very things that you mentioned

01:20:58

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

01:21:16

But just for the sake of the the the term being a part of the common vocabulary but the idea that a person of a

01:21:28

Racial or ethnic minority especially one that has been oppressed and so on that they could not be guilty of racism

01:21:35

It was laughed at literally by At least two of the

01:21:43

The people viewed as primary spokesman's Spokeman of this movement, so it's very bizarre that there seems to be this radical shift

01:21:52

And I can't help but wonder is this a genuinely believed shift in their

01:21:59

Thinking or if this is just wanting to fit in of course This would a lot of the time would be involved involve assumption on my part right well

01:22:08

You know I said, this is rooted in post -modernism and one of the characteristics of post -modern epistemology is the

01:22:16

Fundamental ideas that you can't really know anything for sure so post -modernism 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

01:22:32

To a post -modern 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 but you know beyond all of that The the bigger issue.

01:22:57

I think is the idea that if you think that You know the reconciliation we have in Christ our union together in Christ across every tongue and tribe and nation if you think that's not sufficient a sufficient answer to the

01:23:17

Racial divisions in America and you know here and there in in the culture And and and the church herself is systemically guilty of years and years and years of utter racism

01:23:31

Not meaning necessarily hatred for a different race But but we haven't done everything we can to assure equality of outcome

01:23:40

And that's the proof you can prove statistically then that you know the church has been guilty of systemic racism and You know it's it's it's a moving target it's going to get worse and and more and more innocent things are going to be labeled racism and I just don't see any end to it and when the clouds the gospel by the way which tells us

01:24:04

You know 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 I miss but the social justice movement thrives on Condemnation spreading it around blaming people and shaming people and you know

01:24:23

It just seems to me to be so clearly Incompatible with what scripture calls

01:24:28

Christians to be that honestly I am amazed that any sober -minded serious

01:24:33

Christian leader Could be become an advocate of the social justice movement

01:24:39

But it's too costly politically to have too many people speak up. Yes well the next time

01:24:46

I am told by someone representing the social justice warrior movement That racism has been an epidemic throughout the history of the church.

01:24:58

I'm going to respond and why are you perpetuating it Because that's basically what they're doing.

01:25:04

Yeah, 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

01:25:24

It's it's laughably ridiculous look. It is it is true that in history there are

01:25:30

And perhaps even today there are remnants of churches where racism thrives well shame on them

01:25:36

You know but the fact that there are churches where? Racism was tolerated excused explained away, or whatever doesn't automatically taint

01:25:47

Every future generation of evangelical who happens to be white I'm guilty for what

01:25:54

I do. I'm not guilty for what my grandparents do It's a good thing because my my great -grandfather was quite the scoundrel

01:26:02

But I don't need to repent for his sins. I need to deal seriously with my own and That's another place.

01:26:09

I think that this whole movement undermines the gospel because it puts the focus on corporate sin

01:26:15

You know the original sin is white privilege not 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 that just undermines

01:26:33

Well, it undermines the gospel at the very start. I was gonna 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

01:26:50

Amen well that was not the only theme involved at the g3 conference

01:26:55

That was just the the pre -conference theme on Wednesday night The the majority of the conference the remaining three days is focused on the mission of God Understanding of missions what exactly under that umbrella of that main theme of missions are you addressing here actually?

01:27:15

I'm gonna go back to an Old Testament book and from the book of Jonah Jonah was called to Go and bring a message a prophetic message to a hostile nation

01:27:25

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

01:27:42

Jonah Jonah's angry you know Here's a prophet who?

01:27:49

was 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 a hundred years and 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 that the men of Nineveh are gonna rise up in the judgment against you because they repented at The preaching of Jonah, so Jesus recognized.

01:28:27

That's real repentance a genuine revival the probably the greatest Single movement of salvation in the history of the world least that we have on record and and yet Jonah was angry about it

01:28:39

And so I'm dealing with a chapter where Jonah is pouting and angry and I'm gonna try to untangle what it means that the final chapter of the book of Jonah, which

01:28:50

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 it shows the glory of God that he could use even a frail and fallible instrument like Jonah to accomplish his will perfectly everything

01:29:11

God wanted done did happen and Jonah wasn't happy about it and the book ends on kind of a sour note.

01:29:18

It's not a beat ending But it's full of great lessons for us and great encouragements for us to be

01:29:26

Loving and gracious to you know the people that God has called us to minister to yes,

01:29:32

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 that's right

01:29:41

Yeah, and and I gather Jonah is the one writing this account of his own rebellion So maybe he did repent.

01:29:47

He doesn't record it if he did he's not gonna boast about it but It definitely shows his flaws in full technicolor and you can't read that book and come away thinking

01:29:59

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.

01:30:10

This is so much more important of a message than the social just calls for social justice now

01:30:16

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

01:30:34

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

01:30:42

All of the controversies going on Not only in the church, but in the

01:30:50

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 four and five thousand people and judging from The seats that were filled

01:31:07

So far in the auditorium the main auditorium that I'm assuming that there's probably

01:31:14

Close to 5 ,000 people here. Why this theme? Do you think is an important theme?

01:31:21

Yeah, I think asking that question Reflects a lot of whoever's asking that is not thinking straight because I mean

01:31:29

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

01:31:37

And I don't think many Christians today think that way they think well We need a political voting bloc that will you know?

01:31:46

Let's get government control, and then we can change our culture and that that's never been the way

01:31:51

It works in 2 ,000 years of church history when the church Ultimately does very few times as it happened

01:31:58

But at times the church will get the reins of government and never goes well never goes well

01:32:03

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

01:32:10

Worked out how to reconcile Christianity with government and he means politics you know

01:32:18

Because people 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

01:32:29

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

01:32:36

Clout and and some and you know build political savvy within our movement

01:32:42

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 and the the vast missionary movement is

01:33:02

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

01:33:09

Protestant era began and 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

01:33:20

Subtitle of the conference is a biblical understanding of missions. It has the underlying intention

01:33:28

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?

01:33:42

I think I want you to be I think if you want to I think the blame for that Ironically lies at the feet of the fuller seminary in the

01:33:50

School of World Mission there they have dominated Christian missions since the 1970s and Mission strategy and and all of that and It it it has become as I said something other than an evangelical attempt to proclaim the gospel they

01:34:09

Doing lots of you know other kinds of social work and 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 given up preaching gospel completely in order to you know dig wells or or You know train people about hygiene or you know things that are within what would be considered

01:34:35

In some realm of conservative evangelical. Oh, yeah Definitely most of the most of the

01:34:42

Christian aid Ministries, I won't be specific here except just to say that most most of the big organizations that that specialize in You know giving aid in needy places

01:34:56

They have a they have a strong tendency to drift away from the gospel and gospel proclamation because it's it's not politically correct

01:35:04

It's not politically correct safe example in in let's pick one of the neediest parts of the world or for 30 years time

01:35:12

Bangladesh predominantly you know

01:35:18

Muslim area, it's 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 gonna do

01:35:30

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 blessed of such exceptions, but They're they're not the big ones now.

01:35:58

I have been a Christian since a born -again believer since the mid 80s

01:36:06

And for most of that time have also been a reformed Baptist a

01:36:12

Calvinist I Have very frequently heard over the years from fellow reformed

01:36:19

Christians that the issue of hyper Calvinism represents such a tiny minority of those who are professedly reformed that it really

01:36:30

Doesn't need to be addressed that much but the reason why I disagree with that is is because the

01:36:39

There is always a Possibility of a resurgence of that mindset and that sin and I have

01:36:46

I have witnessed hyper Calvinism more often than I would

01:36:51

Care to admit exists among us. Yeah, and I think that a theme like this a biblical understanding of missions is also not only a reminder to Christendom surrounding us that that reformed people are not opposed to missions.

01:37:08

They're not Indifferent about Missions. Yeah, in fact the nationalist the the really historic missions movements have all been started by Calvinists the original missionaries who were sent out from England you know in the 18th century or before even were were

01:37:29

They were all Calvinists and but I think we also as reformed Christians need to remind those within our own circles of fellowship and influence that That hyper

01:37:43

Calvinism is a deadly and damning Yeah, of course, I agree with you.

01:37:48

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

01:37:59

But little nests of hyper Calvinists crop up on the internet and they feed each other's extremism and they tend to be

01:38:06

Anti -evangelistic not all of them are but they that's that's a tendency of it I'm gonna 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

01:38:21

Calvinist, you know he wanted to see God destroy the Reprobate and there are some

01:38:26

Calvinists who think that way and 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

01:38:39

To get the gospel out is through preaching the gospel. That's You know, the foolishness of God is wiser than men and he chose by means of preaching the gospel to save The lost and how shall they hear without a preacher?

01:38:55

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

01:39:01

God ordained the means as well as the end and if we are the means and We need to be faithful.

01:39:09

Well, I know that you have a four o 'clock appointment. So I'm gonna 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 sign radio so we can address

01:39:23

The celebration of is it the 50th anniversary of John MacArthur's? first service as pastor of Grace Community Church that was in February 9th of 1969 and he's been there ever since praise

01:39:36

God. Yeah, I obviously Would love to have you discuss that in the near future and also would obviously love to get

01:39:44

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

01:39:50

Oh god, be great. All right, appreciate it. Well, god bless your 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

01:39:59

Chris will interview Michael S Miller the founder president and CEO of discerning the faith ministries

01:40:07

Lindbergh Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lindbrook Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century

01:40:14

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 relevant

01:40:21

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 in healing

01:40:29

We're a diverse family of all ages Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship play and together.

01:40:35

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

01:40:41

Call in Brook Baptist at 5 1 6 5 9 9 9 4 0 2 that's 5 1 6 5 9 9 9 4 0 2 or visit

01:40:50

Lindbrook Baptist org. That's Lindbrook Baptist org. Welcome back The following is an interview that Chris did last

01:40:57

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 sharpens iron radio, and I am delighted to be interviewing today

01:41:13

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 sharpens iron

01:41:24

Michael Miller. Well, thanks for having me Chris. Appreciate it. Why don't you tell us something about discerning the faith ministries?

01:41:31

Well, thanks discerning the faith ministry. We're a fairly new ministry this is actually our first time here at the g3 conference and We we just 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

01:41:59

Teach and train their particularly their lay leaders because what we found is that a lot of the lay leaders

01:42:05

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

01:42:26

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

01:42:37

Homosexuality and how do you think about this from a Christian worldview and apply those things?

01:42:42

So that's essentially part of our ministry. We also have another part of our ministry known as Susanna project

01:42:49

And what we're doing with that is if you know a little about Susanna Spurgeon My friend just wrote the autobiography.

01:42:56

Yeah, Susie, right, right Ray Rhodes. Yes Ray's been on the program a number of times. And in fact,

01:43:02

I was disappointed. I didn't see him here this time You haven't seen him. Oh, is he here? He is here. Oh, wow In fact,

01:43:07

I did an interview with him yesterday or two days ago Over at our exhibitor booth as he's still here.

01:43:13

He is. Well, make sure that you have him come over here So I the last time I interviewed Ray was before the book was in print

01:43:21

So I haven't interviewed him since then so I'd like to have him on again, I'm sorry, but I interrupted you know, it's quite alright so her ministry is

01:43:31

What inspired us to start a book ministry for international pastors? So we use

01:43:37

Kindle devices to load up digital books and send those over to international pastors

01:43:43

We 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

01:43:57

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?

01:44:05

No, it remains in digital form It gives them the ability to to travel around the country.

01:44:11

The only reason I ask is that I'm Assuming and less I'm completely out of touch that there might be

01:44:16

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

01:44:22

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

01:44:32

Well, 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

01:44:44

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.

01:44:54

We are working to try to get good theological books out to those pastors now

01:45:02

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

01:45:21

Be thinking and perhaps wrongly perhaps rightly, but why do I need somebody to help me discern anything?

01:45:28

You know? There's almost I Would imagine perhaps I'm totally off base

01:45:34

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

01:45:40

Insulted the pastors and elders at a church being insulted by me daring to think that they need my help with discernment

01:45:49

So how do you 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

01:45:59

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

01:46:07

Maybe doesn't have the time of 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 Talk to some pastors even here where they are

01:46:24

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

01:46:51

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

01:46:57

So that they can start to address some things But not necessarily be as blunt about it when they first get there what

01:47:05

I could Easily imagine since I know quite a number of pastors in this position

01:47:11

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

01:47:24

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?

01:47:40

very often faces a strong opposition from the those within Whether it be the deacons or elders already there or even the lady is running the knitting circle

01:47:53

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

01:48:00

Ascended into the position of pastor at a church Sometimes it's just the the the old guard in the congregation that have been there for sometimes 50 years or more

01:48:10

Who are like who is this? Young man to tell me that I have got to stop listening to Andy Stanley or Charleston or whatever the case is.

01:48:18

That's right Not that didn't they necessarily have to tell people to stop listening to Someone as if you are some kind of dictator, but there are obviously is going to be some

01:48:31

Counsel from a pastor about people that you might want to avoid Who are popular preachers and teachers and so that's right.

01:48:39

That's right Absolutely, and and that's where we would like to come and partner with a pastor that's in that same

01:48:46

Circumstance and be able to help come in and provide Seminars on those things and we really do believe that that anybody from an elder pastor all the way down to To those that are teaching children

01:49:00

Sunday school should have a good theological basis before they go into that position

01:49:06

I think that so oftentimes we don't do that. We don't focus on even those who are doing children's ministry

01:49:12

It's almost like well, you know That's kind of anybody can do that. Well, that's funny that you said that because it was just yesterday of the day before A brother who

01:49:24

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

01:49:38

Christian The church that he was a member of within a week

01:49:44

They had him teaching Children's Sunday school and he was saying to them.

01:49:50

I'm not really equipped to do this right now Because a lot of these things I don't know, you know, and they basically said exactly what you know

01:49:56

Anybody could do this, you know, just take the book and go through everything, right? He 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

01:50:09

Man wet behind that wet behind the ears probably still dripping with his baptismal water See, right the that kind of a responsibility and and that is probably one of the most important responsibilities

01:50:22

Teaching children. That's right. Absolutely and and good on him for for recognizing that and saying hey

01:50:29

I'm not 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

01:50:40

That I don't think that the church is necessarily addressing. I think you see that in some of the surveys that come out

01:50:46

I mean, we've taken a look good look and I'm sure a lot of your listeners have looked at the

01:50:52

Ligonier and Lifeway Survey that came out the updated version of that survey on the theological state of theology and you look at that and that's just a

01:51:02

Disturbing survey, you mean the Ligonier partnered with Lifeway the book the Lifeway research

01:51:08

Okay, 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 the survey they did even among evangelicals

01:51:23

And what evangelicals believed was was somewhat disturbing? so I Think that we're we're trying to address some of those issues that we see where you have a vast majority of people who claim to be

01:51:40

Evangelicals who even believe that that Jesus was the first created being Really?

01:51:46

I think it's I think it was about 78 % Was was that one really? evangelicals of evangelicals now, that's self -proclaiming evangelicals

01:51:57

But still it's striking. Can you give us some of the other? Frightening things that are being commonly believed by professing evangelicals

01:52:08

Sure. I Try to remember some of them off the top of my head here So I believe that sir same survey found that five out of ten

01:52:17

Proclaiming evangelicals believe that God accepts the worship of all religions Really? So five out of ten and then fifty two percent

01:52:24

Believe that everyone sins a little but most people are good by nature Really?

01:52:31

Now the Saudi the influence of Charles Finney is a lot more widespread than we is indeed

01:52:37

I'd imagine and so to us when we look at those kind of statistics as a ministry we look at that and we say well

01:52:43

That means there's got to be some problems within the local church Where the leaders the

01:52:49

Sunday school teachers are not quite equipped to train the the people in their congregation

01:52:56

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

01:53:06

And they change and they shift more to an orthodox position And so that's that's our 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 world view

01:53:25

I mean medical ethics right the church where I'm an elder at We've had people who have gone and had that done

01:53:32

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 in a

01:53:45

Ethical thing to do from a Christian world view and so we try to address some of those things as well

01:53:50

In some of our seminars. We'll actually come in and talk about Those specific issues answer questions about those

01:53:57

And I'm not sure how many I'm not sure how many pastors feel confident in their ability to do that and what kind of if you give us some physical details

01:54:09

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

01:54:18

We can do this as either a whole day on a weekend or just an evening couple of hours

01:54:24

Seminar where we'll come in and and we'll do that or we can do it depending on where they are the church is at We can even do it on a as a

01:54:34

Sunday school class where we'll come in for a series of weeks and teach that depending on their location

01:54:40

We're out outside of Washington DC area so certainly churches that are in that area Would be happy to do something like that Great what

01:54:49

I usually do when I interpret Zion radio when I have a first -time guest I usually have them do this first, but in New York case

01:54:55

I'll have you do it last and of course at the very 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

01:55:06

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

01:55:18

Circumstances that our sovereign Lord raised up in your life to draw you to him and save you

01:55:24

Well, I always enjoy talking about that. I Was actually born and raised in a Christian home

01:55:30

I there was never really a day that I didn't hear the Word of God taught in the home my parents

01:55:36

Raised us I had four other brothers and sisters and all of us were raised

01:55:42

In a in a Christian home went to church I was actually raised in the

01:55:47

Presbyterian Church of America the PCA denomination So I actually grew up listening to R .C.

01:55:53

Sproul on the radio also, John MacArthur on the radio and via tape cassette and My father really

01:56:03

Did a lot to foster that My father and I would actually have late -night conversations about theology when

01:56:10

I was a teenager Where we would stay up till midnight Talking about theology as a 13 and 14 year old.

01:56:17

We were I was doing that with me. That's great. And so I If I was gonna put a mark,

01:56:24

I'd say there's 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 continue to develop

01:56:42

I felt God was calling the ministry and eventually Didn't go into ministry immediately

01:56:50

But went into the Air Force actually it was in the Air Force serving there and I Eventually years later

01:57:02

Went decided that God was calling me to ministry full -time and went this decided

01:57:07

I needed to go to seminary and so I went and attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and actually recently graduated there

01:57:15

With my master's in divinity. Well, praise God So well, please make sure that our listeners have your website and any other contact information that you care to provide

01:57:24

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

01:57:32

Or would like to nominate a pastor to receive one of those Kindles. They can visit our website www .discerningthefaith

01:57:39

.org or Susanna project org now you mentioned the Susanna project

01:57:44

But you didn't really get in too much detail So let me give you at least a minute or two to be more detailed about the

01:57:49

Susanna project certainly so the Susanna project as I was saying it was Inspired by Susanna Spurgeon and her book ministry to poor pastors

01:57:58

And and so what we're doing is is with Kindle devices. We are using those to get all that is the

01:58:03

Suzanne I'm sorry. I must have somehow missed it the connection. I was blurring the

01:58:10

The discernment ministry with the Susanna org. Okay, so that's so that's and and we're always looking for other pastors

01:58:16

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

01:58:25

But we are always looking for sponsors in fact We have 13 pastors right now on a list

01:58:31

To that we are looking for sponsors for who are graduating from the Central African Preaching Academy That is part of the

01:58:38

Masters Academy International So we are are looking for sponsors for those for those individuals

01:58:45

So we'd love to talk to anybody who would be willing to to sponsor one of those pastors

01:58:51

Great. Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule today to be on iron sharpens iron radio

01:58:56

Thank you, Chris. Appreciate you having me. God bless. I hope you've enjoyed the interviews that we aired today from the

01:59:02

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