February 5, 2016 Show with Dean Bertsch on “Missions & Sovereign Grace”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet

earth, listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this

fifth day of February 2016 and I'm very delighted that today we have on Iron

Sharpens Iron a guest by the name of Dean Birch.

He is an old friend of mine from back in the 90s when we both would regularly attend

the John Bunyan Conference.

Actually, it was typically just known as the Bunyan Conference, but I don't want our listeners who are

unfamiliar with that conference to think that we were going to some kind of podiatrist conference somewhere.

It is not a foot disorder we're talking about.

We're talking about the great, legendary John Bunyan of Pilgrim's Progress fame from

the 17th century.

John Bunyan was the reformed Baptist in

England imprisoned for preaching without a minister's license in the 1600s, but

wrote, thanks be to God, Pilgrim's Progress while in prison.

I digress by speaking about John Bunyan right now.

That's where I originally became aware of this dear brother, Dean Birch, and he is

currently with Reaching and Teaching International Ministries and we're going to find out more about that

during the interview, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you, Dean Birch, to Iron Sharpens Iron.

It's a pleasure to be here, Chris.

Thank you so much.

Tell our listeners something about Reaching and Teaching International Ministries before we

get into the heart of our interview today.

Absolutely.

Reaching and Teaching exists basically to take training to so many parts of the world where people

serving in pastoral roles or pursuing a role of being a pastor

have little or most likely no access to any sort of training.

The idea is we take training to them so that they can be equipped to be able to plant churches

and raise up disciples.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our theme today is going to be Missions and Sovereign Grace.

Our email address here, if you have any question regarding that, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

Please include at least your first name and the city and state where you reside and the country where you

reside if you live outside of the USA, and we hope to hear from you no matter

where you live and no matter what you believe.

You don't even need to be a Christian, by the way, to send an email with a question

to Iron Sharpens Iron.

We would welcome your participation on the show, whether you are a Christian, an

atheist, an Evangelical, a Roman Catholic, a

Swedenborgianist, anybody that is out there listening who cares to ask a question, feel

free to do so at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

And before we even go into the theme, Missions and Sovereign

Grace, and learning more about reaching and teaching international ministries, tell us

something about your own personal testimony.

Well, Chris, I was raised in central Pennsylvania, up in the metropolis of Pottsville,

raised in a Christian home, attended actually an American Baptist church, and

back in the late 60s, early 70s, a man came to that church who actually, he preached the gospel, he preached it faithfully,

and I'll be honest, I'm one of those who cannot tell you the date or the hour when I was actually converted,

and to be honest with you, for a number of years that bothered me.

I would go to these conferences and men would say, if you don't know the actual day or the hour, if it's not written in the front cover of your Bible,

you're probably not a Christian, that sort of thing, until I actually sat under some sound preaching of the

word and realized that God had miraculously saved me when I was in my teens.

I would probably say I was probably 14 at the time, but somewhere in that stretch of my life

I was converted.

I grew up in the home of a World War II Marine who was a school teacher,

and I pursued that for a while to be an accounting teacher, as my father was, but

also just that pastor under whom I sat had placed a love for the scriptures into me, well God did

through him, and a desire to study his word and to know it better.

And so...

Was that John Thornberry?

No, no it wasn't.

Because he was also pastoring in an American Baptist church for years.

Yeah, he was.

He was up in, what, outside Lewisbury in, what was it, W, can't think of it right now.

Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

But no, this was a man by the name of Carl Hand.

He was a good man, took me aside, worked with me.

I remember taking, he took me into his study one day in his parsonage, and I think he pulled down

A .T. Robertson's word pictures and some other books and was just showing me that the word of God

was not just something to sit on your shelf, it wasn't just something to read, but it was something to study.

And that had an effect on me, and I'm grateful for it.

Not that this was going to be the heart of our discussion, but I think a lot of things

come hand in hand with what the topic is, missions in sovereign grace.

You said something about the belief that there are fundamentalists out there who teach that if you don't

know the day and the hour, or at least the date of your salvation, you're probably not

saved.

I don't know this for certain, but I wonder if that kind of thinking developed

out of the truth that there are many false conversions and people

who claim to have come to Christ have a very lackadaisical

attitude about that whole thing, because they're just being told, hey, if you say this prayer,

you will become born again and you'll never have to worry about going to hell, just recite this.

And you yourself, I'm sure, have gone to some kind of evangelistic meetings, whether it's the Billy Graham

Crusades or other things, where you see people online going forward to

allegedly receive Christ for salvation, and they don't look like they are any more

eager or urgent than people just waiting online at the DMV.

I think you're right.

I think a lot of it is just an emphasis on decisionalism, and if you need to know the

day you made that decision.

Again, it's very man -centered, it's not an emphasis on the Spirit of God working inside of a person.

And again, with the whole thrust being on man, what he does, the day you made the decision,

I just think that's really a big push behind that date, hour, write it in your Bible kind of thing.

Okay, we've been speaking about, or I've been mentioning at least, the term sovereign grace

in regard to missions.

Some people may be tuning in for the very first time, may have just discovered this program

today.

In fact, I just recently heard from somebody from Wisconsin who just discovered my show

for the first time and began listening.

But you never know who's going to be hearing this program, who may not even understand what we're talking about in

regard to sovereign grace.

What exactly, in summary, is that?

Well, sovereign grace is basically the words of Jonah when he came up on the shore saying, salvation is of the

Lord.

I would not be here, if it were not for God's grace moving me, I would never have

sought Him in the first place.

There's something about the biblical references to a person being dead in sin.

There's a limit to what dead people can do.

There's a very high limit, and I don't mean to be grotesque, but if I were to go to a

funeral parlor and walk up to the casket, both of my parents have passed away, to walk up to either of them

and say, hey, get up, or hey, have a meal, they're not going to respond because they're dead.

What they need to be able to respond is life, and the only thing that imparts life to enable

someone to embrace Christ and embrace the gospel is the grace of God first moving in.

A person.

Yes.

I would say, unfortunately, that the majority of Christendom today

believes that man has within themselves the innate ability, prior to

being born again, to savingly trust in and believe in Christ

in such a way that pleases God and actually brings that person to conversion,

whereas the scriptures are clear that man cannot please God in the flesh.

So if believing in Him is pleasing to Him, how could He possibly do that while He is still dead in His trespasses and

sins?

Yeah.

I mean, you look at Psalm 14, which Paul quotes in Romans 3, and that is, if I can paraphrase it, God looked down through

the corridors of time to see who would choose Him, who would choose to pursue Him, and the answer is no, not one.

You look at the analogies that are used in the scripture for salvation, I just mentioned one, being dead and needing to

have new life, regeneration.

I have some friends who have adopted children.

In not one of those cases did the child say, I choose you to adopt me.

It was the parent who chose the child.

You think of being freed from slavery, being redeemed, redemption.

I don't know of slaves who say, hey, I choose to have you redeem me.

It's the Redeemer who redeems the slaves.

And that's what we mean by sovereign grace.

It's God's sovereign will and choice to call sinners into His kingdom.

Now the retort to that by those who object to what we believe is very often

that in your system of theology, meaning us and the others who call themselves either

sovereign grace Christians, Calvinists, theologically reformed Christians, whatever label they so

choose to use, they will say, your idea of God is that He makes men

into robots.

Well, we don't believe that at all.

In fact, one Roman Catholic hurled that

same accusation against me once.

And I said, well define, what do you mean by robot?

What does that mean?

Well, if you can't freely choose or reject Christ

to either be saved or to go to hell, then you are a robot.

And I said, oh, that's interesting.

That's your definition of a robot.

Do people sin in heaven?

No, of course not.

So you're saying they're incapable of sinning in heaven?

Yes.

So is your highest goal in life to go to heaven?

Yes, it is.

Then your highest goal in life is to be a robot for eternity then, right?

He goes, what are you talking about?

You just said that the inability to either believe or reject

Christ is the definition of free will, which is a

core teaching in your religion or ideology.

Well, if you can't freely choose to reject Christ in heaven, that must mean you're a robot.

You've lost your freedom.

Yeah, exactly.

And so we do believe men make choices and make decisions all the time.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

In fact, if it were not for God's, to use our term of the day, sovereign grace, man has

already made his choice.

Men have made their choice in Adam, and every man has ratified it ever since.

People are doing what they have willfully chosen to do, and that is they are going their own way.

Like sheep, they've all gone astray.

So yeah, I think sometimes people who have an objection to sovereign grace, I think their starting

point is in the wrong place.

And what I mean by that is they often start picturing humanity as being basically neutral.

And as a friend of mine said, we were just in Ecuador teaching a module on systematic theology,

and my one friend, a co -pastor who was teaching, made the statement, election does not

send anybody to hell.

Election does not hurt anyone.

I thought it was a profound statement, because basically most people think, well, there are those people out there who, they want to

choose God, they want to choose Christ, but if they're not elect, they can't.

And it's just a faulty starting point.

The starting point is every man is rushing away from God with his fingers in

his ears, not wanting to hear a thing, and it's just sovereign grace that reaches down and,

the gives him life.

I think if we start with the basic premise, which the Bible meets us with, and that is, man is not basically good,

nor is man basically neutral.

Man is deceived, man is in sin, man is blind, and apart from God's

regenerating grace, man would never choose him.

Right.

They somehow think it's an injustice that God would leave some in their own

sins, where they deserve to be in hell anyway, and rescue some while leaving

others behind.

Yeah, injustice, or the word you often hear is the word fair.

Right.

They'll say it's not fair.

And I don't mind when a person says that, if the person's being genuine, but my response is twofold.

Number one, what would be fair would be for God to just allow everyone to perish.

We've all chosen that, that's our plight apart from his grace, so fairness would be rejection of the

entire race for our sin, our willful disobedience, and the only thing that I can say that has ever

happened that even borders on not being fair, was God the Father pouring his wrath on his innocent son,

so that sinful people could have life.

So if you want to talk about not fair, the only thing that comes close to not being fair is the fact that God the Son

willfully granted, but absorbed the penalty of our sin.

That's the only thing that's not fair.

Yeah, the other two alternatives outside of the doctrines of grace

are not even fair anyway in regard to a human understanding of fairness.

If you go to the extreme of universalism, why is it fair that the godly missionary

who lived a life of obedience, obviously not in perfection because we all sin, but lived a

notably and demonstrably godly life, sacrificed much to

help people in foreign lands, perhaps in impoverished nations, perhaps this person even

gave up wealth and so on, and comfort to live in the jungles and so on, and this

person perishes and winds up in the same heaven with Adolf Hitler.

You have that as the true full -blown universalism, or you

have those even that would include fundamentalists and many evangelicals

who admit, no, there are people that will perish in hell and spend an

eternity in hell for rejecting Christ.

Well, how is it fair that there are people who have lived for

thousands of years in nations where there was no gospel, and even today you don't have

people living on an equal playing field, you have a child being brought up in a Muslim home in the Middle East

that may be killed if he were to convert to Christianity, compared to the

children of Christian parents or even a pastor and his wife having a child where the child is

instructed from his infancy in the ways of God.

How is that fair that they both have the command to believe in

Christ in order to receive the eternal life?

Yeah, when one is significantly advantaged over another, yeah.

I think also we also have to deal with the fact that we are fallen creatures, and even our concept of fairness is

going to be worked.

The only concept of fairness that we can come up with is one that's got to be informed by God's word, and

that's what we seek to do.

So, tell us about some of the work that you have

done with Reaching and Teaching Ministries, international ministries, some of the specific

countries, and some of what you have witnessed there and what you have seen God doing in

these various places.

Wow, that could take a bit.

Well, we have about 90 minutes.

We have actually more than 90 minutes.

Oh, well, I can do that.

Over the past year and a half since I joined the staff of Reaching and Teaching, I have traveled to

northern Ecuador four times.

I've been to northern Brazil twice.

I've been to Panama.

This coming Sunday, I'm actually going to Haiti.

I just came back from Ecuador last week, and then after returning from Haiti, be going back to northern Brazil.

What we do is we have a training program that we've put together.

When I say we, our organization was founded by Dr. David Sills.

Dr. Sills was a missionary in Ecuador for a number of years, returned to the States.

He's a professor of missiology at Southern Seminary, and he is the one who has put together pretty well the whole

training program, thankfully.

What we do is we have a nine -module program where over the course of three years, we'll make three trips a

year to a certain location where men who are currently serving in pastoral ministry

or people who are aspiring to a leadership sort of role will come in and will be

instructed.

We'll do one week of intensive teaching.

We call it hard head and hands.

It's not just academic teaching, though that's a component, but for pastoral leadership, we'll

deal with spiritual disciplines.

We'll deal with just ministry issues with which they're facing as well as the academic teaching.

As I said, I've personally been on a number of these trips teaching some of the different modules, whether it's

serving the Old Testament, serving the New Testament, Christian doctrine, hermeneutics, and on and on the modules go.

One of the things that overwhelms me is just the fact that once you leave the shores of the United States, there are,

let's just say it's a huge minority of pastors who have ever had access to any sort of training.

When we were down in Ecuador back in September, I remember specifically asking some of the men who were attending the training how much

training have they ever had, and usually they would say none, and they've been pastoring five years, eight

years, ten years without having ever been exposed to the scriptures.

So it's frustrating at one level, and it's very, I don't want to sound selfish, but it's very

rewarding at another level because just to be able to go and provide what we take for granted.

People can tune in and listen to this radio show.

They can go online and take courses for free on seminary level classes right now.

But places where either because of the language barrier or just because they don't have adequate internet access or something like that,

they have no access.

In fact, I would say that's the one word that drives us, and that is just simply the word.

Access.

Here you've got Bible colleges, you have seminaries, you have books, you have resources.

We are so ridiculously rich from the standpoint of having access to education

to serve in a pastoral role or a leadership role.

Once you leave the States, in fact, about two years ago I was on the Gospel Coalition website and I saw a statistic which

is what probably had the biggest impact on me.

They put this statement there that said outside the United States, 85 of the

world's 2 .2 million evangelical churches are being led by men with little or no training,

which means out of every 20 churches you walk in, three of them will be pastored by someone who has had

some semblance of training.

It's just overwhelming and it's just, no pun intended, but it's foreign to us here.

We don't realize what it's like once we leave our shores.

Yeah, there's an element of Christianity that you have witnessed and

been confronted by that has an exaggerated and even

unbiblical concept of the perpiscuity of

Scripture.

They will think that we don't need training and

lofty teachers and all these kinds of things because the Word of God is sufficient.

Now, obviously, we believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, but that Scripture itself

says that you should not let anyone be a teacher.

Obviously, there is a high role that a teacher has even in this inerrant

word that we believe is easy enough to

understand in regard to the primary things

regarding salvation and so on.

Yeah, true.

Now, a lot of places where I've been, actually, the experience has been very positive in that they, number one, have not

had training, but number two, they're very hungry for it.

They don't have the attitude of, well, we don't need teachers, we have Scripture.

They have the attitude of, come teach us, we don't have a clue.

In fact, the first international training trip I'd ever made a couple of years ago was with a different organization

before I joined Reaching and Teaching.

I was in Mongolia, and there was a gentleman there.

This was a poignant moment for me.

There's a gentleman at the end of the week.

I had taught a module on Genesis 1 through 11, just establishing basic worldview, but a man with whom I had traveled,

a missionary, he had taught a module on hermeneutics.

At the end of the week, this man stood up in a debriefing session.

This is all through interpreters, because I don't speak Mongolian, they don't speak English.

This gentleman, and by the way, this man, he was converted in a Mongolian prison.

You wouldn't mess with this guy, okay?

But he was speaking during the debriefing, and the person whispering to us what he was saying, all of a sudden he

said, he just said, when he gets back to his church on Sunday, he must apologize.

And we're looking, and he said, why?

And then he said, he learned this week, he has not been teaching his people what the Bible says.

He's been teaching his ideas, and then going to the scriptures to try to find verses that seem to support it.

And my first thought was, plenty of that goes on in the States.

But seriously, just that impact from seeing, wait a minute, I need to go to the scriptures, I need to

read, I need to interpret, and then apply.

Observe, apply, or interpret, apply, not just get your ideas and then go to the scriptures first.

And now, there's a congregation somewhere in the nation of Mongolia, week by week, who's being

fed from the scriptures, where prior to that they weren't.

They were just hearing a man's ideas.

Amazing.

And this book that we call the Bible, which is really a collection of books,

has been called by the Apostle Paul, the unsearchable riches of scripture.

And therefore, we should not take lightly the fact that

seasoned men of God should be those that open up

the scriptures on a regular basis to the flock and shepherd over them.

So this is a very important thing, which is why even the scriptures themselves warn against

laying hands on a novice and exalting a new believer, a new

convert to the position of a teacher or elder and so on.

So overseas, this is even more flagrantly disobeyed from what I understand.

It's a huge problem.

Like I said, you ask these men, how long have you been a pastor?

Five years, seven years, ten years.

How much training have you had?

None.

And then the next question sometimes will be, well, then why are you the pastor?

And I don't mean that in a negative way, like slamming the person.

I'm just curious.

Answers you'll get would be something along the lines of, I was the oldest.

I was the first one in my village to come to Christ.

In my secular position, I was a leader in the community, so I automatically became the leader in a church.

And so many of these men, I don't question their heart at all, but they end

up serving a pastoral role, not knowing whether they've ever even been called into that role.

They just get thrust into it, and it's almost like a default position.

They're serving in this role saying, I don't know.

All I know is I'm it, and I don't know what I'm doing.

Please help me.

Right.

Well, this is a totally different issue, but I think there is some overlap.

I have heard when I've had discussions with black

female Christians in ministerial positions of leadership and pastoral roles,

even with the titles of bishop and things like that, and when I have

questioned some of them as to how they can possibly

believe they are appropriate candidates for those offices, when the Apostle Paul

is very clear that a woman is not the teacher, have authority over the man, very often you will hear, well, the

men just ain't doing it.

The men aren't rising up to this role, and without the women

grabbing hold of the reins and getting things done, very often they would just

not occur and so on.

Now, I'm not justifying that these women have taken those

positions, want to be careful as not to be too overly harsh about it either,

but it's still a violation of what the Word teaches.

But what you were saying seems to be almost the same scenario where you have, well, nobody else is doing it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's just, you're it.

They just point at me and they say, well, you're the guy who's going to lead us because you're a leader, or you're the guy who's going to be leading us because

you were the first one to come to Christ in our village, or something like that.

So, you know, you're right.

And a lot of those cases, we had one, again, when I was in Mongolia, there was a woman in the training, and I had asked the man

about that, and he said, yeah, yeah, she's not a pastor, she's not pretending to be a pastor, she wants to learn more scriptures.

And we found out more.

This is a fascinating story, Chris.

This woman, and I hope you don't mind my saying this, I'm going to be honest, this woman had planted three churches by accident.

It's funny.

Her husband is an unbeliever, and she was shopping in this one area where she'd go to shop,

and she just couldn't stop talking about Jesus.

And people were coming up and asking her questions.

They were being converted, 10, 15, 20.

And finally, like a church, but she said, I cannot be the leader here.

I'm not qualified.

So somebody would be raised up, kind of take over, and the husband, who was an unbeliever, you need to stop shopping there.

You need to go shop someplace else.

So she went to a different part of the city and kept talking about Jesus and people coming to faith.

Three different times this happened.

And she came to the training saying, look, I'm not a pastor.

I don't want to be a pastor.

I'm not qualified to be a pastor, but I want to learn the scriptures so I can minister better.

Particularly, she had a passion to reach out to ladies, and she just wanted to be better equipped in the scriptures.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Absolutely not.

The Bible really commands that the older women teach the younger.

Absolutely.

In fact, a number of places, we have women who attend the training.

Now, we do have a module on homiletics where it's preaching -centered.

There, the ladies don't participate.

That's who we are.

That's a part of what we do.

But we have a lot of women who will come in and sit in the training because they minister to women or because they minister to children,

and they want the children to grow.

If I have the moment, let me….

Well, in fact, if you have the story, let's go to a break right now.

It is the half -hour mark for commercial.

Absolutely.

So just remember where you left off, and we'll pick up as soon as we return.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Dean Birch and more on our topic for today, Reaching

and Teaching International Ministries, Missions in Sovereign Grace.

Don't go away.

God bless.

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

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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

We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do

than how men view these things.

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

We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be

vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and

love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750.

That's 508 -528 -5750.

Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled

Resting in Grace.

You can find us at ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org.

That's ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org.

Or even on sermonaudio .com.

Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study.

Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the NASV is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable Bible

translation.

The NASV offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the NASV is known

for.

The NASV is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible.

Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference Bible includes contemporary

topics relevant to today's issues.

From compact to giant print Bibles, find an NASV that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible

.com.

Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASV for yourself today.

Go to nasbible .com.

That's nasbible .com.

Tired of bop store Christianity?

Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

And how about the preaching?

Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

Well, there's good news.

Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience

featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you.

Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

631 -929 -3512.

Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

That's wrbc .us.

Welcome back.

This is Chris Sorens.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dean Birch of Reaching

and Teaching International Ministries.

And for some reason, whenever I think of or whenever I hear his name, Dean Birch, I think of two different separate

organizations.

One is the John Birch Society.

That's my uncle.

And one is the Dean Birjohn Society, which is a King James only group.

It's not a relative.

Let's combine them and form the Dean Birch Society where people must use the King James only and be

libertarian and anti -communist.

But anyway, in fact, somebody told me something very funny about the Dean Birjohn Society,

which is a King James only fraternal organization.

You must be a Baptist to be in the Dean Birjohn Society.

But Dean Birjohn was an Anglican.

So Dean Birjohn could not join the Dean Birjohn Society.

Who needs consistency?

Right.

And our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own on missions and sovereign grace,

is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please use your first name at least and give us

your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

We do have a listener in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, Jordan,

who asks, as someone who is looking into missionary aviation, do you have any

suggestions as to how to begin?

Are there any organizations that should be avoided?

Missionary aviation.

I'm not really sure what he means by that.

Right away, the two organizations that come to mind right away are MAF, Mission Aviation Fellowship, who has done

incredible work down in South and Central America, South America in particular.

Is that like flying missionaries?

Yeah, absolutely.

And taking supplies and removing.

They've done wonderful things.

I mean, you think back to the whole Nate Saint,.

Missions aviation.

MAF now.

And Jim Elliott.

Yes, exactly, that whole, the Ecuador Five.

MAF.

Now, they're being squeezed out of some of the South American countries who are cracking down on some of those things.

JARS, the Wickliffe's organization, which is aviation -centered, is

another good one.

Beyond that, I actually have a connection or two I could look into.

So if Jordan would be willing, I could maybe look in and find some further information in e -mail if you wouldn't mind

you sharing an e -mail address with me.

Sure.

I have a feeling that Jordan would not mind that.

And, of course, you could give your contact information as well.

I know that the website is reachingendteaching .org, and that's end spelled out.

Yes.

But any other e -mail address or anything?

Yeah.

I mean, my e -mail address is the longest e -mail address in history.

I think if people e -mail me, they really want to, because if not, they're not going to type all this out.

It's my first and last name.

It's dean .birch, and my last name is spelled kind of differently for most.

It's B as in Bravo, E -R -T as in Tango, S -C -H.

So dean .birch at reachingendteaching .org.

And that's unlike the John Birch Society.

Exactly.

Yeah, those little forms where you have to fill out your e -mail address, there's never enough room.

And, of course, Jordan, assuming you're still listening, if you give me permission to share your e -mail address,

I will.

Yeah, and I can look into it and find maybe a better answer.

Great.

And, by the way, before we went to the break, you were going to tell a story.

Yeah, we were talking about women attending the training and things, and I mentioned

Sunday school or teaching youth.

I don't know about you, Chris, and I would imagine many of our listeners out there.

We grew up hearing stories.

We hear the story of Abraham or the story of Noah, the story of Moses, the story of David.

When we came on here a little while ago, you mentioned how the Bible is one book.

Well, it's 66 books.

Well, we really emphasize it's one book.

It's one book written by one author tells one story.

And when we, especially when we survey the Old Testament, we try to equip

teachers to work with our youth by emphasizing, look, Abraham is not a great story

in faithfulness, or David is not a great story in courage.

These are all stories which is part of the one storyline that points to Christ.

How many times have people heard David taught on in a Sunday school program or preached on

where we have to slay the giants in our lives and things like that, whereas the purpose of the story is

not to teach us to slay giants in our lives.

The purpose of the story is we need a David.

We need a deliverer.

We're more like the people of Israel who were shaking in our boots because there was an enemy called the Goliath and we weren't capable of

taking him on.

And we need one who will step up and will slay the giant, who will slay our enemy.

And what we try to show is how these are not individual separate distinct stories,

but it's one story.

So the question when you look at Abraham is how does Abraham fit into that storyline, the promise of Genesis

3 .15 that runs all the way through to Christ?

How does Noah fit into that?

How does Abraham, I just mentioned, how does Joseph or Judah in Genesis 49, the lion,

how does David fit into that storyline?

And our emphasis is, again, to point people to Christ, and our hope is that it also impacts

those who will be working with the youth.

So from an early age, as Paul said to Timothy, from the early age they understand

the true meaning of the Scriptures, and that is the Scriptures are pointing them to Jesus Christ.

How much is an understanding of the Old Testament, how

important is that in the evangelism of the gospel of Christ

when you are, especially in foreign lands, when there are many people in

the Western world and in America who have some semblance of what

may have occurred in the Old Testament?

They may not have their theology right, but they have an idea, but you may be in lands where the whole thing is

a total foreign story to them.

Right, and therefore you need to start with creation.

There is a God.

There is a God to whom we are responsible.

We have offended Him with our sin.

And you can't start with John 3 .16.

For God so loved the world.

First of all, who's God?

A good exercise was given to me one time.

Somebody said, read John 1 and look at the number of references or statements in John 1 that you need a

familiarity with the Old Testament to even understand what he's saying.

Law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ,.

And on and on.

In a biblically literate culture as ours used to be, you can probably go straight to the New

Testament Scriptures to talk a person about the gospel.

But honestly, you're right, in what's coming in our day and is probably here now and in other cultures,

you need to go back to square one.

You need to go back to creation and establish our accountability to a sovereign, holy, creator

God whom we've offended with our sin.

How much, to your awareness anyway, are the cults

doing a far better job at converting

individuals into their lies than Christ's church is?

And I'm not speaking as if this is some kind of contest where innate abilities and

talents and gifts of persuasion are involved, but I'm just curious, to your knowledge,

about are there lands that you know where there's actually more Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness

and other false gospels prominent than the Christian gospel?

Yeah, I think two things.

One is, I don't know about more, but some areas where the Jehovah's Witness are extremely strong.

The problem is when these organizations are seen as also being

some level of Christian, and what it does is it perverts and confuses an understanding of what the

gospel actually is.

But I think as big of a problem as the cults, Chris, is, well, two things.

One, the problem, which is ubiquitous worldwide, and that is the problem of syncretism.

For instance, like the church in Mongolia, it's growing by leaps and bounds, but if you look carefully, you are going to see

the effects of shamanism and Buddhism in the Christian church.

When you go down into places in South America, you will see animism

and Catholicism in the Christian church.

In fact, to be candid with you, after going on some of these trips and seeing the syncretism in these other

cultures, I come back to our culture and I'm thinking, wow, are we exempt from it?

Are we exempt from syncretism in the church in America?

And then I look at our materialism, I look at our embracing of modern psychology in the church, especially under

parenting and things like that, the problem is worldwide.

The self -esteem movement.

Oh, all of the above.

It's exactly right.

So I think one problem in the church is syncretism.

The other problem is just, I don't want to say aberrant forms of Christianity, but Christianity,

I'm hoping Christianity, but whether it's a level of Pentecostalism or extreme

legalism.

One quick example, I had the opportunity when I was in northern Brazil last July or August,

whenever it was, it doesn't matter, I had the privilege of preaching in a little village church.

And at the end, it wasn't, the guy didn't give an invitation and all this kind of stuff, but what he did is he got up and he basically said, in

Portuguese, this is Brazil, you've heard the gospel tonight.

If God is moving on your heart and you want to talk to one of us afterwards, and he said

this one gentleman in the room, young guy, started to raise his hand and his wife grabbed his arm and pushed it back down.

I didn't know all this was going on.

I was sitting up front, and that evening afterwards, the pastor called me over, wanted me to talk with

this gentleman.

Here's what happened.

This is a true story.

He's sitting there, and this is 90 degrees, high humidity, and he's sitting there with a t -shirt, a pair of shorts on, in this little church

service, hearing the gospel.

He started to raise his hand to say, I want to talk with somebody about this.

His wife grabbed his arm, pushed it down, and whispered to him, this is, I believe, a verbatim quote,

whispered to him, you can't do this, because if you do this, you'll have to wear long pants, and we can't afford them.

You can't wear shorts anymore.

What I'm saying is, there's such a legalistic version of Christianity floating around down there

that this young lady is trying to, humanly speaking, prevent her husband from

responding to the gospel, because she believes responding to the gospel means he can't wear shorts

anymore, and if he can't wear shorts, it's going to put them in more extreme financial problems, because they don't have money for him

to buy pants.

First, I'm just trying to process this, because I'm incredulous that this is actually happening, but this is truth.

This is what happened.

If you're going to be legalistic about that, at least give the people the pants for free.

Yeah, I mean, it's a true story.

We talked with them afterwards, and tried to convince them that, no, it's not a matter of

shorts or long pants.

It's an issue of the heart.

But again, that's just their association, and those built -in, humanly speaking,

defenses against the gospel, because, well, that's what the gospel is.

It's the clothing that you wear, and this is what the gospel is.

That's the biggest barrier sometimes you're fighting against.

That actually brings up an interesting question, because I don't know if everyone who might even

agree with you on a great deal of theology would have the same answer.

There are standards of modern, I'm sorry, modesty, in the

scriptures.

And when you go to some foreign culture, there's going to be all varying

degrees of dress and undress, things that may not even be viewed

as sexual in the culture where you are.

It may be completely because of climate, or some other cultural reason.

You have women walking around completely bare -breasted and things like that.

Sure.

How much of the Western world do we insist upon

when we are evangelizing foreign cultures, especially when it comes to the modesty issue?

Because obviously, if you have men who are missionaries coming from countries

where that is very inappropriate dress, it may be a very huge stumbling block for them.

Yeah.

Obviously, you're raising the question of contextualization.

Different people are going to come down with some pretty different answers on that.

I agree.

If it's going to be a major issue, for instance, in much of South America, women

with young children, breastfeeding is as common as, I had

one person say it's as common as apple pie in America, wherever you go, outside of urban areas.

Urban areas are very Westernized, and therefore, where I was in Northern Brazil, that is not an issue.

If you make it an issue, I'm not sure that would be wisdom.

In Sao Paulo, probably you could make an issue out of it because there the culture is more Westernized and I think they would have

that view of modesty.

I think you've got to be very careful.

On the other side as well, for instance, there are places where I would go.

Where if I wore shorts,.

It would be an offense.

And therefore, I won't.

And we might look at that as Americans,.

And say, well,.

That's crazy.

It's 95 degrees,.

It's incredibly humid,.

What's wrong with wearing shorts?

And the answer is, in their culture, from a modesty perspective, wearing a pair of shorts,.

Cargo shorts,.

Would be offensive, and therefore, I won't do it.

And that's that whole cultural...

One of the things I've learned from missionary friends is when people think of a missionary going to a foreign culture, the

first thing they think of is learning the language.

As important as that is, learning the culture is every bit, if not more important, because of these very issues.

You can offend or take as offense areas where you shouldn't, just simply because you need to

be culturally aware.

So I think cultural sensitivity is huge, but trying to balance that line with legalism, it's hard to give a cold,.

Hard,.

Fast,.

Firm answer,.

Because I think it may even vary a little bit from culture to culture too.

Yeah,.

Because it's interesting.

Here in this country, the church has gone

wild in appeasing the appetites and tastes of the world

and seek to pattern their worship and structure as a gathered body

to appeal to the broader group of

humanity and what they would be listening to in regard to music, how they would be dressing,

and so on, outside of the context of worship.

So therefore, you have this being done here, and you have it be done, as I'm sure

you would agree, to the point where the gospel is compromised and the holiness of God,.

The awe,.

The reverence, the God -centeredness of worship is totally being

distorted and balanced in favor of man -centered worship and appeasing

men.

So when you go overseas, people could be actually guilty of doing the same thing, couldn't they?

We don't want to rattle their feathers too much, and that might be even more than a pun there.

Yeah,.

Or their fig leaves.

Right.

Where do you draw the line with that?

I don't know if that's an easy answer.

No,.

I don't think it is.

It's certainly not for me to just flippantly throw out an answer.

I think a lot of learning has to take place,.

Like, okay,.

What is this?

Because there are things in every culture that need to be redeemed.

And there are things, I mean,.

God is a God of culture,.

And what is beautiful?

It's funny, sometimes I think we go the other way, and what I mean by that is also, we don't just export the gospel.

We're very concerned about, we don't want to compromise the gospel.

But sometimes we add to it, and we end up exporting,.

Not the gospel,.

But American version of the gospel.

So you go into some place where,.

Every day,.

They're wearing grass skirts or whatever, but when they come together on Sunday to meet,.

You know,.

The guys are wearing white shirts with ties, you know, they're singing Amazing Grace, translated into their language, and there's nothing wrong

with that at one level, and yet at the same time,.

It's like,.

Okay,.

We've made them American Christians, not whatever the people group happens to be Christians.

And that's, I think there's a tension on both sides.

On the one side, you have to look at something and say,.

No,.

That is wrong.

That has to be changed.

That is wrong,.

That's an offense, and that one is worthy of being addressed, whereas another issue,.

No,.

That's a cultural issue, that's not a right and wrong gospel issue.

And that's tough.

It's very difficult to go in, especially, I'm not anti -short -term mission trips, don't get me wrong, but I think short -term

mission trips have hurt there, where people go in for one week,.

For two weeks,.

They don't know the culture, and yet they're very quick to make those pronouncements, that this is evil, this is wrong,

when it may not be.

I mean,.

I have some dear brothers who attend our church, brothers and sisters from India, and we would look at

some parts of their culture as being very,.

Very dirty.

And yet,.

They look at some parts of our culture,.

I mean,.

That spoon that I just ate with, that was in somebody else's mouth at breakfast this morning.

Okay,.

It was washed, but that's not clean to eat a spoon.

It's just a different, it's not right, wrong,.

But they're cultural issues.

And it's very easy to go in from your cultural perspective with your glasses on, and see wrong,.

Wrong, wrong,.

Wrong,.

When really, that's a lack of maturity.

And that's why we have to rely on the people who know the culture, who have learned the culture, who can say,

when we teach in northern Ecuador, we have a missionary who lives in Quito, and a lot of times, I rely on him.

I'll say,.

Cody, talk to me, what's going on here?

And he'll tell me,.

No, Dean,.

This is something we really have to work on when you're teaching this week, because this is a problem.

This is wrong.

But he knows because he's there.

He's learning the culture.

Mm -hmm.

The doctrines of grace, do you see the doctrines of grace beginning to

spread in a significant way in some of these lands that you've been to?

Not as much as what we're seeing in the states.

You know,.

Whether you call them the young,.

Restless, and reformed,.

And some of the other terms.

You know, my younger son is a student at Boyce College in Louisville, the undergrad school where Southern

Seminary is.

Named after James Pettigrew Boyce.

James Pettigrew Boyce,.

Absolutely.

One of the founders of the Southern Baptist denomination.

Exactly,.

Yeah,.

Absolutely.

In the 1800s.

Yeah,.

And the abstract principles and all of the above.

The majority of students there at Boyce, at Southern, are going to be ones who embrace the doctrines of grace.

Southeastern, similar as well.

You're seeing it growing in the seminaries, and I see that more stateside.

Fortunately, organizations, and I don't say this in an arrogant way, organizations such as ours, there's one called

TLI, Training Literacy International, doctrines of grace organizations, and this seems

counterintuitive to some people, doctrines of grace organizations who are extremely mission -minded.

My friend David Sitton down at Two Every Tribe Ministries.

I've had him on the program.

Yeah,.

David,.

Doctrines of grace guy.

And,.

You know, not only exporting the gospel,.

But,.

You know,.

The scriptural gospel from both an evangelistic perspective, leading people to faith

under that understanding, but also organizations such as ours, which are also going in and doing the discipleship,

teaching them, and teaching them from the perspective of what does the Bible say?

Let's just look at it.

As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

What does that mean?

You know,.

Romans 8,.

Those whom he foreknew,.

He predestined,.

Those he predestined, he called, those he called, he justified,.

Those he justified,.

He glorified.

What does that mean?

And teaching them and having, it's not,.

Okay,.

We're coming and this is what we're teaching you.

No,.

Let's look at the scriptures and let the scriptures teach you.

And I think from that, we're going to see the doctrines of grace spread.

Praise God.

And you mentioned something that I actually had as the, nearly the entire

subject of an interview.

Those that are turning missions trips into vacations,

churches and other groups that raise a ton of money to send the youth and other people to

a foreign land for some kind of a so -called

mission trip.

When,.

If they had actually given that money to the indigenous people, that would have went a lot further and

so on.

What is your comment about that?

Both.

Well,.

I want to be careful because I don't want to paint with too white of a brush.

You might even,.

The good side is that you could actually possibly plant within the heart of a young person a desire to

be a missionary.

Absolutely.

I think the important thing is that a trip be done correctly.

Just one or two for instances.

One was last year,.

Two years ago,.

My,.

One of our deacons from our church, Mark Saylor, my son Josh, and I went to the Ivory Coast to visit missionaries.

And it cost,.

You know, a couple thousand dollars for this trip.

And one or two of the people that we visited up there, indigenous people, the Nyarifolo people group,.

Chris,.

One or two of them said, we know you care because you came.

I've heard David Platt say that.

He gets off a plane in Somalia and a pastor will come up and say, the fact that you actually came.

So there is something about physically going with your body, showing up, being there

that does not replace, is not replaced by a check.

However,.

Comma,.

A lot of short -term mission trips,.

You know,.

That's all wear the same color T -shirt and I'll be careful.

I just offended someone with that one.

I didn't mean it, but you know what I mean, where we're all going to go.

And here to me is the big thing,.

Chris.

So many times we go on mission trips to some location and we go there saying, we're here and

here's what we're going to do.

Rather than going to a missionary on the ground and say, number one, would it be a help and a

blessing for us to come?

And number two, if we do, you tell us what you want us to do.

We just had this conversation in Ecuador two weeks ago when we were down there.

Teaching.

We're looking at taking a small group of people from our church in Camp Hill down there in September.

And what we said, we had this little meeting with some of the leaders of the one church.

And I just said, listen, here's the bottom line.

If we come, we want to leave with you saying, we're glad they came,

not we're glad they've left.

And honestly, I've talked with missionaries,.

Chris, and you probably have too.

Some of them have had short -term trips come where when they leave, it's a blessing.

Because teams come, here's what we're coming.

We're coming to do a VBS.

We're coming to do a medical clinic.

We're coming to do this.

We don't know what we're doing.

They know what is necessary.

So when it's driven by the people on the ground, and they say,.

One,.

It's good for you to come.

And two,.

Here's what we need you to do.

I think short -term mission trips are wonderful.

And it gets people out of this, as John Piper calls it, this Disneyland called America, gets them into a

different culture and exposes them to things.

And who knows, may plant a very seed that God will water and someday raise up a missionary from that.

And I would imagine it would be wise to have most, if not all of

what is going to be done determined by dialogue with the foreign

pastors and those running those churches before you even leave American soil.

Before you even think about going.

Right, right, right.

Before you make a commitment to go, you want them to have told you, here's what we want you to do on this trip.

Right.

We have to go to our next break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail

.com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And you may remain anonymous if it's about something personal and private that you're asking our guests

about.

But if not, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading.

The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read.

Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Preachers to heart.

The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and

future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting

books for all ages.

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to

present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Are you a Christian looking to align your faith in finances?

Then you'll want to check out Thriving Financial.

We're not your typical financial services provider.

We're a not -for -profit Fortune 500 organization that helps our nearly 2 .4 million members be wise

with money.

We provide guidance that reflects your values so you can protect what matters most.

We help members live generously and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship.

Learn more about the Thriving story by contacting me, Mike Gallagher, Financial Consultant,

at 717 -254 -6433.

Again, 717 -254 -6433.

We know we were made for so much more than.

Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

That's the Thriving story.

We were made to thrive.

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

the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service.

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

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

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

We're a diverse family of all ages.

Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ.

In fellowship, play, and together.

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

be.

Call Lindbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402.

That's 516 -599 -9402 or visit LindbrookBaptist .org.

That's LindbrookBaptist .org.

Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in for the last hour, we have had on the program Dean Birch who is with

Reaching and Teaching International Ministries.

We are discussing Missions in Sovereign Grace.

And before we go to a listener question, you wanted to jump back to where we left off

during our last discussion before the break about short -term mission trips.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I didn't come across too negative, like I don't think they're good or helpful or whatever, because personally it was a

short -term mission trip that opened my eyes.

I had been asked through a friend to serve on the board of Two Every Tribe Ministries back in 2003.

And honestly, I saw mission as just some para -church, secondary whatever.

And when I accepted this position, I didn't know what to do.

So I went on a short -term mission trip with the organization.

And it was that first cross -cultural experience that really had a deep

impact on me and subsequently on my family too as we had made a couple trips with them.

So I'm not being negative or poo -pooing short -term trips because as I said, I think they're wonderful.

I just think sometimes a little more homework needs to be done up front

to make sure that we're serving those to whom we're going rather than almost having them serve us.

People may not agree with every theological T that he crosses or I that he dots, but Steve Saint at

iTech, Nate Saint's son, Steve and his kids and the organization down there have done some wonderful

research and provide good information on putting together good short -term mission trips.

So I just wanted to try to be balanced on that.

We do have a listener, Pastor Ed Roman of Carlisle Baptist Church, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

I usually don't give out the full name of our people, our listeners, I should say, emailing questions, but

I wanted to allow Ed to have a plug for his congregation,

Carlisle Baptist Church on Walnut Bottom Road in Carlisle, Pennsylvania is listening today.

He asks, what are the reactions you have received from

students as you have engaged them with biblical teaching?

I'm not 100 % sure if he's referring to foreign students or students here.

I imagine he's referring to the students, the attendees of our training when we are over in the other cultures.

It's been very, very positive.

Even occasionally when you have some people who come who think, kind of what you said earlier, Chris, I don't know that I really need this training, and all of a

sudden they have their eyes open, they see things.

A good, for instance, was after having taught that Old Testament survey module, how the whole Old Testament points to Christ,

my wife and I were actually down in the same community in Ecuador, a little city called Otavalo in the Andes

Mountains, about two hours, hour and a half north of Quito, and we were with some of the people, and the one man who's one of the leaders in the church

just said, wow, ever since that module, when you guys did that, my whole Old Testament has just opened up to

me.

Now when I read it, it just has purpose, it makes sense, I can see.

The response has been very, very positive.

It's nice to go to a place one time, but when you have the chance to go back a second or a third or a fourth time and just see

a hunger on behalf of the students, you see them open up a little bit more during Q &A time.

They feel more free to ask questions, because in some cultures that's almost difficult for them, because

you're the teacher, they're the student, and asking questions can almost be seen as disrespectful.

And sometimes when you go the first or second time, they don't really ask questions.

But once you develop some relationship there and some of that stuff breaks down, the response on behalf of the

students has been incredibly encouraging, just regarding their biblical acumen

opening up, their seeing the scriptures, and their own ability to open their Bibles and read their Bibles

and understand what the scriptures are saying, such that they can.

Our ministry motto is 2 Timothy 2 .2, so that they can entrust it to faithful men who can then entrust it to others.

And it's been extremely encouraging.

Well, Pastor Ed Roman has a follow -up question.

Tell the stories.

Perhaps he wants you to give anecdotes about what has happened.

Well, I mean, one of the stories that just was very humbling was

the first time we went to this little city called Otavalo, there was the man that I just referenced a few moments ago.

He got up in the very beginning and just looked at, there were three of us there to teach, and he just said, because you are here,

I know God answers prayer.

And that goes back to the point I was making earlier about many of these people are biblically illiterate, but they

realize that they are, and they're hungry to be taught, they're hungry to be fed.

There was a man who raised his hand.

With a question.

We try to have Q &A time, number one,.

About what we taught that day.

In case there are questions.

That need to be clarified.

But also, we open it up to anything ministry -wise, anything that's going on in ministry they have a question about.

A gentleman who I think was one of the.

Sharper people in the room.

Raised his hand and said, I have a question.

In this community, not the church, but in the community, during the month of July, June, whatever,

they have a celebration where they actually sacrifice animals to the sun.

Doesn't your church do that?

No, they sacrifice preachers.

Anyway, he said, Southern Baptist Church, I guess.

They sacrifice animals.

And I said, okay.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

He then said, my question is, as Christians, is it okay for us to eat the meat that's been sacrificed?

And I'm thinking, you know, I think I've read something on that.

So I honestly, I said,.

Well, take your Bible,.

Open to 1 Corinthians 8.

He just started reading, and his eyes, what did my mom used to say?

His eyes got as big as saucers.

Just, wow, the Bible actually speaks to that and answers the question.

And we talked about it and everything,.

But it's just, it's real -life ministry.

If you pardon the cliche, it's rubber -meeting the road.

And the anecdotes are, they're real.

Marital issues in the church, you have the machismo culture where these guys are just being,.

If I can use it,.

They're just being jerks as husbands because that's the macho thing to do.

And dealing with, I mean, it's real life.

And not just coming and saying, well, here's what I think.

I'm the American, I know all this.

That's baloney, but let's open up the scriptures.

Let's see what God says about this.

And it's been so encouraging to see people just get that frame of reference, turn to the scriptures to see what God is saying.

I brought this up on other programs, and I know that some of my listeners who listen regularly probably

were rolling their eyes when they hear me say, oh, here he goes again when I repeat myself.

But some things I think are worthy of repeating, especially since we're specifically talking about sovereign grace

and missions.

I have heard nightmare stories from people

who are familiar with denominations that reject the doctrines of grace, who send out

missionaries, and it's all about a numbers game.

If a missionary is not bringing in converts numerically to

the satisfaction of whatever denominational mission board that's paying for them, that person will be yanked.

Because they are really looking at this from a totally man -centered perspective on

is this human being that we have sent out as a missionary gifted enough and

talented enough and articulate enough to persuade people to make a decision for Christ, to

convince them to change their minds and so on, which really

demonstrates that they don't understand how salvation works.

Yeah, I don't want to paint with too white of a brush because there are some organizations out there who probably don't agree with the way

we would see things soteriologically.

Who do take a long view and do realize, maybe I shouldn't mention it,

but new tribes.

We would not have a lot of agreement with them.

Soteriologically,.

But they understand.

They'll leave missionaries someplace a long time.

So I want to be careful that I'm fair, but at the same time,.

I understand what you're asking.

Because I've often thought, I'm big on having historical heroes and one of my historical heroes was Adoniram Judson.

Seven years in Burma before his first convert.

The father of modern missions, William Carey is often referred to as such.

Again, about seven years before seeing a convert.

Many mission boards today would have pulled them prior.

Why?

Because they're not producing.

You read stories of people who spent 20, 30, 40 years of their lives ministering in difficult

cultures, Japan for one, with a small handful of fruit to point

to from the standpoint of converts,.

But yet they were faithful.

Day in, day out, serving Christ, serving Him faithfully.

Again, that's the question.

What's required of stewards?

Did they have big numbers?

Or did they be found faithful?

I think that it behooves every mission organization, regardless of your soteriology, to

measure the success of missionaries on the field by their faithfulness, not by a numerical

count.

Because what happens then is they feel pressured into doing things to engender converts.

Whether it's watering down the gospel, cheapening the gospel, or somebody showed some kind of interest, so,

okay, we had a person respond.

And they speak in very gray nebulous terms so that it looks better in the next newsletter that you send home.

It's almost like it fosters.

Almost a lying culture.

You have that situation where places,.

They'll say,.

Well, we've had 18 people come to Christ, and it says where two or

three are gathered, so we've planted about six churches.

And they'll report that.

But again, while it's wrong, while it's dishonest,

and I'm not giving them a pass for that, at the same time, they're pushed into that by the very thing that you've mentioned.

Yes.

And isn't it interesting that when we look at the Scriptures, Jesus Christ had a habit of

thinning the herd when it got too big by saying something that was true

and simultaneously very unpopular or unappealing to the senses of the natural man.

John 6.

They all leave.

Peter, are you guys leaving too?

Or John 8.

Many believed in him.

Well, you are my disciples if you continue.

You're right.

It wasn't the big, well, you made some semblance of whatever, so come on, you're one of us.

And it also, I have been chided very often

by friends and acquaintances who view me

and my Reformed friends and brothers and colleagues as being narrow

-minded and judgmental because we do not participate in a lot of the broader ecumenical

activities.

And so on.

And believe me, I am not some narrow -minded bigot

when it comes to fellowship with people outside my immediate circles of Reformed

theology.

In fact, I have, as I've said before, I have friends who are Arminian,

Wesleyan, Methodist, Pentecostal, and many other types of non -Christians.

I'm only kidding.

I'm only kidding.

I get a big laugh at a pastor's lunch, and I was joking.

But no, I do have a very broad circle of friends that I have fellowship

with, and especially in the past on the show when I knew more of the local

pastors on Long Island, I would quite often have.

And I hope that that actually happens here in Carlisle where I have more of the local pastors on.

Well, I think it's biblical.

I mean, you look at Romans 14.

Who are you to judge another man's servant?

In other words,.

If the blood of Christ has purchased that person's salvation, I need to be very careful

how I look at him, how I treat him.

Okay, we disagree.

Theologically, we disagree on some things, but at the same time, if the blood of my Savior purchased his

salvation, I need to be very, very careful there.

But at the same time, Paul could have taken,

the Apostle Paul I'm speaking of, could have taken advantage of

maintaining numeric strength in opposition to the

Gentiles, in opposition to Rome and the pagan religion

culture that surrendered them by saying, you know, the Judaizers want you to be circumcised,

but, you know, they still agree with us on Jesus Christ being God and our Savior and Messiah.

Why don't we just put those kind of issues on the table for some future meeting,

but we're going to really just welcome them in and we're going to work together with them because

they are, after all, our brothers.

He didn't have that attitude at all when it came to something that he believed was an

encroachment upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's the key, and I think that's where it calls for much maturity on our part to look at something and say, is this a gospel

issue?

If it is, yeah, Galatians 1.

You know, if anyone bring any other gospel other than the one I've given, let him be accursed.

And that is an issue worth dividing on.

But at the same time, Paul wrote Romans 14 and said, well, some of you want to observe some days

and some of you don't.

Let each one be fully persuaded in his own mind because there he didn't see it as being a gospel issue.

The gospel wasn't at stake.

And I think that's where the Christian maturity and discernment comes in,.

But you're right.

The tendency to want to compromise even the gospel for the sake of numbers, that's always there.

And I think that's one of the reasons why we have to be crystal clear on what the gospel is.

We need to be reminding ourselves to quote Dr. Jack Miller, preach the gospel to ourselves every day, preach it to

our people every day, make sure people are clear on what the gospel is so that when these other

issues encroach upon it, we recognize it as such.

You know, this may seem like a redundant question since I have a Christian talk show and the

majority of our listeners are Christians and perhaps even seasoned Christians

and even pastors and so on.

But I do have listeners that occasionally will pop into the

conversation with emailed questions.

Who are Muslims, who are Roman Catholics, who are members of other religions.

What is the gospel?

Yeah, I mean, the gospel is not join our club.

The gospel is not wave our banner.

The gospel is there is a God and this God is a holy God and He has created us.

We are responsible to Him and every one of us has offended Him by our sin.

We have one of two choices.

We can either stand before Him on our own and face eternal condemnation, eternal separation

from everything that's good.

Everything that's good is God.

Separation from Him for all of eternity.

Or if there would just be a substitute, one who could stand in our

place, one who could take our penalty because there is a penalty and this God is just and penalty

must be doled out for sin.

So our only hope is to have a substitute who number one can take our penalty and exhaust it to the full

and number two, provide us with the very righteousness that we need so that when God looks

upon us, He sees us no longer as sinful, not even as neutral,.

But as righteous.

And that's the only place you're going to find.

That substitute is in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity,.

Very God of very God.

He who knew no sin became sin, and was constituted sin.

So that those who believe in Him, those who trust in Him, those who place all their eggs in one basket

and that one basket is Jesus Christ, they receive His righteousness and

therefore when they stand before Him in that gray,.

They will be a great day, they will be accepted.

Not because of any good works that they have done, they've done none, but simply because of the works of their Savior, the Lord Jesus

Christ.

The Gospel is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ's payment for sin and His provision of

righteousness is all we need.

It's all we ever could need.

It's all we want, is to be able to stand righteous before our Creator one day.

What would you say are the indisputable, essential

core things that one must believe though for the Gospel to be genuine?

Like for instance, the sinless, perfect life of

Christ, is that not an element?

And the fact that He is Deity, He is God, and His death, His substitutionary death,.

I think that's huge.

That burial and resurrection and ascension.

Yeah,.

I think we need to look at the question of how everybody believes in Jesus.

How do I believe in Jesus?

Well the question is,.

What Jesus do you believe in?

Do you believe in the Jesus of the Bible, the one who is God, the one who has existed for all

eternity and yet at a point in time poured Himself into human flesh, the Word became

flesh and dwelt among us.

So He is God incarnate, God in the flesh.

He lived a perfectly sinless life.

He had to.

If He had sin, He ceases to be our perfect substitute.

So I think the person of Christ, the sufficiency, I think that's a huge word, whether a person articulates that word or not,

but it's a huge word, it's a huge concept.

The sufficiency of Christ because as soon as you add to Christ, you've taken Him away.

And therefore, the essential nature of Christ is Christ alone.

Solus Christus.

And I'm assuming that when people evangelize, I'm talking about

nations and tribes like you had mentioned before, To Every

Tribe, David Sitton's organization where these people have never heard the gospel prior to

these evangelists and missionaries coming there.

I'm sure that you will have some people who even seem to make some

kind of a profession of belief in the Great Spirit,

Jesus.

And they may have some kind of understanding of Him as being some spiritual

being or entity or force, but it still may be a totally false or heretical understanding of Jesus

though.

Don't these things still have to be.

Worked out.

In the profession of the person for them to be deemed a true convert to

Christ?

Absolutely.

Okay, great.

You've made this profession,.

But let's talk about this.

Let's flesh it out further.

And I think also, that's part of the discipleship process.

As you're discipling people, at times it will be revealed.

Whether their profession.

Was genuine or not.

One of the biggest problems on the mission field today, and I'll say this

because of our organization,.

But Chris,.

One of the biggest problems on the mission field today is the Great Commission go into all the world

and make disciples.

A lot of organizations have cheapened that down to where basically would say go into all the world and make converts.

And therefore they'll go in, and I don't know if I shared this.

With you before,.

But it's a story that I tell.

Virtually everywhere I go.

I was in Louisville, Kentucky a year ago, and I was talking with a gentleman from an organization.

I will not mention the name of the organization.

I don't want to throw them.

Under the bus because honestly, the people with this organization have more courage in their little finger than I have in my whole

body.

But I was talking with this gentleman,.

And he was telling me a story about a man in Northern India.

Who bought a bicycle, a drum, and a speaker.

And he would ride into a village, and he would beat the drum.

For a while.

Until he got a big crowd of people, and then he would take the speaker and microphone out of the solar pack, and he would preach the gospel.

So the guy's telling me this story, and I said,.

Well, what would happen?

He said, well, in some villages they would rush him.

They would knock him down.

Off the bike,.

And they would beat him up.

I'm thinking, oh my goodness.

I said, what would he do?

He said, well,.

He'd get back on his bicycle and he'd ride to the next village.

And again,.

I'm amazed by the courage of this man.

And he said, oh yeah,.

But wait till I tell you.

The best part.

Sometimes he'll ride into a village, he'll preach the gospel and 10, 15, 20 people, the Spirit of God will move and

people will be brought.

To faith,.

And a church is born right there.

And I said, wow.

I said, what does he do then?

He said, well,.

He gets on his bicycle and he rides to the next village.

And I'm thinking,.

What happens.

To that 10, 15, 20 people?

A church is born.

What is a church?

Where's the leadership?

Where's the knowledge.

Of the Scriptures?

Do they even have the Scriptures?

Right.

They haven't heard the whole counsel of God.

Yeah.

And they have no access to it.

Where's the discipleship?

Going, therefore,.

Into all the world, panta ta ethne, to go to all peoples and make disciples.

Baptizing them and teaching them.

To observe whatsoever.

I've commanded you.

And this,.

What Dr. Sills refers to.

As this need for speed,.

That we've got to go.

To the next group,.

Go to the next, go to the next, go to the next,.

And we do have to go.

To the next group.

Don't get me wrong,.

But we've got to stay and we've got to disciple.

These people because some of these people aren't even genuine converts.

But how are they.

Ever going to know?

How is anybody going to know?

Answer, you disciple, you teach, you explain, and in that process it's going to be determined.

Whether these people.

Even have an understanding.

Of what it is.

They said they embraced in the first place.

That's the need.

For discipleship.

We talk about.

Unreached peoples.

That's huge.

But one of the things Dr. Sills emphasizes again is the tragedy of the world is not that there are so many unreached.

The real tragedy is that there are so many who are undiscipled.

And which goes back to one of the initial points we were bringing up, the need of teachers.

Yes.

Exactly.

You know, I mean, there are people who are gifted, pioneer church planters.

I mean,.

They'll go into the bush.

They'll go into an urban culture.

They're gifted evangelists.

They share,.

They've got people.

But if they just move on,.

Who's left?

We need teachers.

We need teachers who can work with these people and raise them up and teach them to observe all the things whatsoever.

Jesus...

That's part of the Great Commission.

Part of the Great Commission.

Is not going.

And getting people to raise hands or walk an aisle or sign a card or even genuinely say,.

Look, I truly believe in Jesus.

Okay, great.

That's a start.

It's an important start but it's a start.

We're told to make disciples and the discipling process comes through the result of teaching and living

life on life with them.

We're going to be going.

To our final break now and if you'd like to join us on the air, we've got just

about a half hour left so we would love for you to join us on the air if you have a question at chrisarnsen at gmail

.com.

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

Please include at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the U .S .A.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Dean Birch of Reaching and Teaching International Ministries.

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

Or am I trying.

To please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed.

Baptist Church.

And we hold to.

The London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do,

than how men view these things.

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

We believe, by God's grace,.

That we are called.

To demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting

community around us, and to build up the Body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit.

Our area,.

Please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750 that's 508 -528

-5750 or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV

program entitled, Resting in Grace.

You can find us at ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org that's ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org

or even on SermonAudio .com.

Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Hi, I'm Chris Arnsin.

Of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Are you a Christian looking to align.

Your faith and finances?

Then you'll want to check out Thriving Financial.

They're not your typical financial services provider.

They're a not -for -profit.

Fortune 500 organization that helps their nearly 2 .4 million members.

To be wise with money.

They provide guidance that reflects your values.

So you can protect what matters most.

They help members.

Live generously and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship.

Learn more about.

The Thriving story by contacting Michael Gallagher at 717 -254

-6433.

That's 717 -254 -6433.

We know we were made for so much more than our...

Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

That's the Thriving story.

We were made to thrive.

Attention coin collectors and investors.

Long Island Galleries of Wading River, New York has brilliant, uncirculated 19th century Morgan

silver dollars for only $54 per coin with free shipping and handling for a limited

time.

There's a 40 coin limit so order now.

While supplies last.

Call 888 -260 -8111. 888 -260 -8111.

Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express welcome.

Price is subject to change.

So call now at 888 -260 -8111.

888 -260 -8111.

If you prefer ordering your brilliant, uncirculated 19th century Morgan silver dollars.

By check,.

Mail it today.

To Long Island Galleries, 9 Susan Drive, Wading River, New York,

11792.

That's Long Island Galleries, 9 Susan Drive, Wading River, New York, 11792.

Remember they're only $54 per coin with free shipping and handling and a 40 coin limit.

New York State residents.

Must add sales tax.

Long Island Galleries is honored to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

See the Long Island Galleries.

Display ad.

At ironsharpensironradio .com.

Welcome back,.

This is Chris Arnzen and this is our final half hour of today's program with Dean Birch

of Reaching and Teaching International Ministries.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own we just have about 28 minutes

left or so so please email us as soon as you can at chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

And Dean.

There are people there are a lot of people who when they hear about somebody who

says that they are a quote quote Calvinist a reformed Christian or sovereign grace believer

they will say.

If they hear about a person that makes those claims and yet also has a heart for missions has a

heart for reaching the lost heart for evangelizing they will say well you know it's

too bad that they are Calvinists.

But at least they have a blessed contradiction in their

approach to ministry.

Because they are perhaps even naively contradicting their

own statement of faith by going out there and doing the work of an evangelist and reaching the lost and

going overseas.

Because obviously that is a contradiction to the very teaching of election because

after all if God chooses before the foundation.

Of the world.

Who is going to be saved.

Who needs evangelists and missionaries.

So how do you react to that?

You said we have.

25 minutes.

Well a couple things.

First of all you can just say.

Well it's an obedience issue we are told to and therefore we are being obedient.

But number two I think.

Earlier I alluded.

To the fact.

That I think a lot of times people struggle with the doctrines of grace.

Whatever terminology you want to use.

Because of caricatures.

Or just simply misunderstanding as I said earlier.

With election.

That the basic presupposition.

Of everybody.

Is kind of neutral and God is saying well you're in you're out you're in you're out.

As opposed to.

All of humanity rushing in the opposite direction.

Shaking their fists.

Against God that's the starting point and his reaching down and saving some.

Is grace.

But again.

That's a misunderstanding.

Same thing here.

It's just a misunderstanding first of all that as believing.

In the doctrines.

Of grace.

We wouldn't want.

To have the joy.

And the privilege to be part of rescuing.

His sheep.

I mean right there.

That's enough but historically I mean I mentioned my historical

hero as a missionary Adoniram Judson.

Strong what do you want.

To use.

Calvinist doctrines of grace.

All of the above.

William Carey.

We mentioned his name.

Father of modern missions.

Yeah.

Jonathan Edwards.

Another historical hero.

He was a theologian he wasn't a missionary.

Yeah.

He was a missionary.

When he was fired.

By his church.

In Northampton he actually served.

The next couple of years.

Reaching out to the Indians up northwest of Northampton before he accepted the call to Princeton.

Which is basically.

What killed him.

And David Brainerd.

David Brainerd right.

His almost son -in -law.

Or whatever.

Yeah.

Who was a strong Calvinist so history is littered with Calvinists.

Who are missionaries.

In fact.

I would say you're going to find have a hard time.

Historically.

Finding more non -Calvinists who were missionaries.

You were just by my landlord in this building that we are sitting in the parsonage of

19th century.

Presbyterian minister George Norcross you were my landlord pointed to you the very

area of the room downstairs.

Where.

His brother -in -law Sheldon Jackson wrote a

proposal of some kind that involved the importing of reindeer from Siberia

to Alaska because he was a missionary to the Eskimos and

Native Americans and is in fact one of the Time Magazine's top 10.

Alaskans.

Of history.

Sheldon Jackson another Calvinist who had this burden for those people.

Yeah.

So I think.

It's historically.

Inaccurate.

To say that.

As a Calvinist you should not be interested in missions.

Or it's a surprise.

That you are.

Because again you're just fitting.

In the long line.

Historically.

With those who.

Were like -minded you know Robert Moffat John Patton and the list goes on.

But I think again.

I mean.

We can point to people history and if they could point to.

Fine.

At the end of the day.

What does the Bible say.

You know consider statements.

Like the Apostle Paul who would be willing.

To say.

I endure all things.

I mean.

If that doesn't speak of what most missionaries have done.

I mean the stories.

Of what missionaries people refer to me as a missionary.

I don't like that term.

I live in Louisbury, Pennsylvania.

I speak English.

Everywhere I go.

It's my culture I don't consider myself a missionary.

I don't.

I personally.

Have a very.

I have a problem.

With using the same term as just my friend.

Who I was just with two weeks ago.

Down in Ecuador this man and his wife you know they went to Haiti a month later was the earthquake

and they're pulling bodies.

Out of the rubble.

They were robbed at gunpoint.

They buried a three -year -old daughter.

And yet he stays in another culture live in Ecuador now learning a different culture and all that.

You know.

What makes him stay.

And the answer is.

Grace.

He endures all things.

For the sake of the elect.

Or to me I mean I'm going to stop.

Hitting it.

Sorry.

People.

Well.

Punch in the forehead.

Acts 18 when the Apostle Paul is evidently shaking in his boots

about going into Corinth and God says to Paul don't be afraid Paul

for I have many people in that city according to what most people would

think today.

That Paul would say.

Shoot if he's got many people.

In that city.

Thank goodness I don't need to go in there.

They'll be saved with or without me.

I don't need to go in there.

I'm bailing.

I'm going someplace else.

But the fact.

That God said.

Paul.

I have many people in that city was what emboldened him to go into Corinth and preach the

gospel and to basically rescue some of his sheep from perishing.

So it's.

It's exactly the opposite.

You you.

You point me to a pond and give me a fish and pole and say maybe there are fish in there maybe they'll bite.

I'm not that excited but you point me to a pond give me a pole and say there's fish in there and they're going to bite because God

has seen to it you know.

Let's.

Let's throw some worms on those hooks and get it in that water because they're going to bite.

And if we are assured in the scriptures specifically in the book of Revelation.

That.

Christians in glory worshiping Christ will be from out of every tribe

and tongue and people and nation that gives the reformed person or the sovereign grace

believer the Calvinist the zeal to go out there and

say this is God's work.

He is going to call out a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and I am

there to be used as a tool in his hands to preach the gospel.

And the very preaching of the gospel and the evangelism of missionaries is the means that God

uses to draw out his elect and save them.

Yeah I think the objection you just touched on something Chris that I think is so important.

That is I think the objection.

Is.

Again.

It's a man -centeredness.

And that is.

Well if that man is going to believe why would you go anyway or something like that.

Our ultimate reason.

I mean if you read.

Chapter one of John Piper's book Let the Nations Be Glad.

Our ultimate reason for mission is not our concern for people.

That is a reason and it's a big reason.

But our ultimate reason is we want to see our God glorified missions exist because

worship doesn't.

There are places on this planet where there are people who will be born.

They will be raised.

They will die and never once hear the name of Jesus that's not good enough we need to take that name there

because you know I often say the great commission.

Which is recorded.

In Matthew 28.

Was first recorded.

In Genesis chapter one when God said be fruitful.

Multiply.

And fill the earth God's design from the very beginning.

Was to have.

His image bearers.

Over all of this.

Terrestrial ball worshiping him.

And as long as our God is not being worshiped in places on this earth

we have a reason to go.

And the reason to go is a God centered reason.

It's almost like.

If you could picture the earth and wherever there are believers.

Wherever there are churches.

There's a light and you look at the place and there's light light light.

Hey there's darkness there.

My God deserves light there.

Let's go there and let's preach the gospel.

To those people.

I believe God has people there.

Let's go.

To quote David Sitton let's go get them for Jesus.

And when we go and we preach the gospel and people come to faith yes it's wonderful.

People are safe from their sin they're going to spend.

All of eternity.

In his presence around the throne.

Yes that's all wonderful.

But even greater still our God is now being.

Worshiped there.

Where previously he wasn't worshiped that's a God centered motivation for evangelism and missions.

Yes and even the most ardent opposer of the doctrines of

sovereign grace the most strident Arminian,

Wesleyan.

Whatever term you might want to use or whatever background they may be from if you were to ask that person

when you sit around your Thanksgiving dinner table or even when you are just praying

normally with your family do you give God the credit and prayer for the money that

you have and the food on your table and so forth.

Well of course I do.

Well if God is giving you those things why don't you just sit around and wait for them.

I mean they don't obviously view the illogic inconsistency behind

that accusation.

They would hurl at us now.

Obviously the wicked of the world.

I have a feeling if you ask Donald Trump the question why are you

rich what are you kidding me.

Because I earned it.

It's my hard work my skills my gifts.

Something like Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4 of Daniel.

Right.

This great Babylon which I have built.

Yeah.

So they don't even see the inconsistency in that.

Yes God does bless us with the money that we have and the food

on our table and the shelter overhead.

But there's a means by which we achieve those things.

I think sometimes we especially as Americans we want to have answers for things.

And we're not.

We're not content with tension.

I don't understand how God can be three yet one but I

embrace it.

Because the scriptures teach it.

I don't understand.

How Jesus could be fully God.

And fully man unmixed yet inseparable.

But the scriptures teach it.

I believe it but yet when it comes to our soteriology a person says well I don't understand how man can be

responsible and yet God be sovereign.

And rather than allowing to live with that tension they just throw one out.

And I'll admit there is a tension there there's a tension.

When I read Acts chapter 2.

That says.

That these men with wicked hands did what God had ordained from before the foundation.

Of the world would be done.

Did God ordain.

That it would be done or were they culpable.

For what they did the answer is yes and we've got to be fine with that and I think because

there's some mystery there there's some but I'm not exactly sure how that works.

They just throw it out.

And say well it's got to be up to man then and they're not willing.

To allow for that.

Same tension there that how can man be responsible how can man be culpable for

his sin and yet God be sovereign.

And the answer is.

He is that's what the Bible teaches.

We must believe it.

And I want to make sure that the listener walks away today

with the core things that you definitely want etched in their hearts and minds today.

So I'd like to let you just unburden your heart today for a little bit to make sure that those are

included in the broadcast before we run out of time before we realize it.

I mentioned a few minutes ago Chris that the word that motivates me.

Or us is the word access.

There are two words.

One is the word access.

And one is the word redundancy.

When I say access.

Places where we travel there's no access.

There's just no access to being taught.

Some places there's no access.

To the gospel.

That's not my role.

I'm not a pioneer church planter.

We go to Kichwa Indians in northern Ecuador.

Our belief is.

The best people.

To plant Kichwa churches.

Are Kichwas.

So let's go.

And let's equip them so that they can do it but they don't have the access to being equipped.

So that's what drives me that's what drives us to give them access.

These men are.

Buy or try vocational.

They're itinerant farmers they own small businesses they can't pick up and drive two hours.

Hour and a half.

To Quito every day for seminary classes.

They just can't financially they can't logistically.

So what happens.

They go untrained or we bring training to them we're bringing access to them.

Our church has a plurality model.

Where we have got.

More than one sharing the pastoral duties.

If I'm not there.

I'm not going to be there this Sunday because I'll be in Haiti.

I'll be back next Sunday but then the following two I'll be in northern Brazil.

Our church functions just fine.

There's built in redundancy there.

I'm redundant.

Many there might say I'm not necessary but we have redundancy here down there.

There's no one to teach them.

There's no one to go.

So those are the things that drive me and I believe.

Our organization.

Our organization Reaching and Teaching was founded by Dr. David Sills when he returned to the states after

serving as a missionary.

In Ecuador.

And with the Ecuadorian seminary.

Down there.

He would have pastors whom he had met.

Contact him saying hey could you come down.

And teach us.

Come down and teach us on this issue or that issue.

And he would go down.

And he would do issue based training to respond.

And then he realized wait a minute these men don't know what you quoted earlier the whole counsel of God.

And so he stepped back and created this program where we can go three times a year.

For three years.

And give them a basic level education in the scriptures a biblical understanding a biblical

world view so that they're equipped to be able to serve the people whom God has given them and

to spread the gospel throughout those areas.

We would travel whether it's in Brazil whether it's in Ecuador Panama wherever we pass these little villages

and I would always ask the same question in Ecuador.

A couple weeks ago.

Is there a church here?

And men.

No.

We pass to another village.

No.

All these villages.

All these people.

No access every week every Lord's Day.

Whatever.

To hearing the gospel preached and having the privilege.

Of taking what God.

Has taught me or taught us.

Here in the states I've sat under amazing teachers as you know my personal mentor Fred Zaspel

a walking dictionary.

Of theology.

A dear friend.

Yes.

He has been a guest in this program.

No.

I mean he.

Where would I be.

He taught me so much not only did he teach but he also gave me.

Exposure to.

Reading the right books and listening to the right people and the education that I have received and

I still believe.

In that.

What God said to Abraham.

I will bless you.

So that you will be.

A blessing to others.

And the reasons why God blesses us.

To bless others I'm not very well equipped financially.

But I have been.

Well equipped.

I don't want to say.

Intellectually.

That sounds arrogant and I'm not either but I've been exposed to very good teaching and you know.

Silver or gold.

Have I none.

But what I have.

I give thee and that is.

I've had access to teaching.

During my life so I have the privilege now of taking it.

To others.

And again our emphasis 2 Timothy 2 .2 when we teach the teaching does not stop with the people

whom we are teaching we're teaching you.

So that you will take this.

And turn it over.

To others.

Who will then turn it over.

To others.

And on and on.

And we see.

Sound teaching.

We see discipleship and mentoring spreading through.

These areas.

And this may sound like an odd question because hyper -Calvinism

is probably the greatest thing amongst Calvinists that prevented missionary work but

I'm going to still ask the question.

Anyway.

Do you see a problem on the mission field.

When you.

With hyper -Calvinism.

At all?

Praise God, no. I haven't.

I guess that's because of what I opened up the question with.

Yeah, if God's going to save him he'll save him.

Like they told.

Kerry.

I have not seen it I've not encountered it I've encountered a number of things just even.

Two weeks ago.

In Ecuador learning of some churches.

Who have even embraced the doctrines of grace.

But have also.

Embraced an extreme.

Level of legalism.

Which is extremely.

Frustrating.

So you see a lot.

Of problems like that.

I mean it's a church.

It's a church.

It's going to have problems but I've not encountered any hyper -Calvinism thankfully.

Now they've adopted the extreme legalism because of the missionaries and evangelists who are themselves

legalists.

Is that what you mean?

No, I have no clue.

I have no clue.

I was just talking.

To people and they're saying.

Yeah there's this.

Church in Quito itself where they're very legalistic and very this.

They actually.

They preach and teach the doctrines of grace.