December 29, 2016 Show with Charles Ware on “One Race, One Blood: A Biblical Answer to Racism”
2 views
CHARLES WARE,
author of
“ONE RACE, ONE BLOOD:
A Biblical Answer to RACISM”
Cohosted today by
Charlie Liebert of
SixDayCreation.com
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- Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister
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- George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
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- Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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- Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
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- Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
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- 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.
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- Now here's our host Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon
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- Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.
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- This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 29th day of December 2016.
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- And before I even introduce my guest for today who hasn't called in yet, so he may not be my guest today after all, but before I introduce him and the topic and my co -host who's in studio with me,
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- Charlie Liebert of sixdaycreation .com, I want to make a couple of announcements.
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- I want to remind you that the Iron Sharpens Iron Pastors Luncheon is now just a couple of weeks away.
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- It is Thursday, January 12th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.
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- at the gorgeous Carlisle Vault. That's V as in victory, A -U -L -T, a vault, just like a bank safe.
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- It is called the Carlisle Vault because it's a historic bank going back to the early 20th century that was transformed into a catering hall, a very beautiful one at that.
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- And the door of the vault is still in there. In fact, now it's a doorway going between two separate rooms in the catering hall.
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- But that that luncheon, which is absolutely free of charge, is going to be held
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- Thursday, January 12th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. And any man in the ministry, whether he is a pastor, an elder, a deacon, perhaps you run a parachurch organization, something like that, you are invited to attend this event absolutely free and you'll be getting a sumptuous gourmet meal for free.
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- You'll be getting probably between 30 and 40 brand new books donated by Christian publishers, major Christian publishers, all over the
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- United States and the United Kingdom. You'll be getting a wonderful message,
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- I'm sure. I'm guessing it will be wonderful. It hasn't happened yet, but I have no doubt that it will be wonderful.
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- The message by Dr. Tony Costa, who is our keynote speaker. Dr. Tony Costa, who is professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Canada.
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- So if you would like to attend that free luncheon, or if you know somebody who you think would, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
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- I'm sorry, I'm giving you the wrong email address, but I'm going to answer my phone right now. This is my alleged guest's publisher calling me saying that they're trying their best to get a hold of him.
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- So the beauty and wonder and joy of live radio. So if you would like to go to that luncheon or if you know somebody who would like to attend that luncheon, you would email pastorsluncheoncarlisle at gmail .com.
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- Pastorsluncheoncarlisle at gmail .com or chrisarnson at comcast .net.
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- C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at comcast .net.
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- And also the next night, this is open to everyone, every man, woman, and child, no matter what status in life you are in, no matter what religion you may adhere to, or even if you adhere to none.
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- Although I think there is a very good argument that atheism is a religion, but that's not the topic for today, so I don't have time to go into that.
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- But no matter who you are, you can attend the Iron Sharpens Iron Great Debate that is being held at the
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- Carlisle Theater in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This is going to be held
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- Friday the 13th, the night after the luncheon. Friday the 13th of January at 7 p .m.
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- at the historic Carlisle Theater, another historic building that dates back to the early 20th century.
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- A theater that, who knows what kind of movies that theater had showing, like you could only imagine the movies that we all remember that have gone down in history as cinematic masterpieces, like Gone with the
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- Wind and other things like that. Well anyway, that theater has been restored to its original beauty and grandeur, and we are having our debate on the theme,
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- Mary, Sinless Queen of Heaven or Sinner Saved by Grace?
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- And the competitors, if you will, the two debaters involved in that event are the aforementioned
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- Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary, and he is going to be facing another friend of mine, although I disagree with him, radically, on many things involving religion.
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- And this is one of them, my friend Robertson Jenis, who is founder of Catholic Apologetics International, will be defending
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- Mary as a Sinless Queen of Heaven at that debate. And tickets are $5 for the debate, unlike the luncheon, which was free, which will be free.
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- The debate requires a $5 ticket purchase, and you can purchase them at the door.
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- I would advise you get there early, because you never know how many people are going to arrive. Theater seats 900, and we have had over a thousand people show up at my past debates in New York, so that will be a good problem to have here in Carlisle, but I have no idea how many people will show up at this one, since it's my first Carlisle, Pennsylvania debate that I am hosting.
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- You can also get those tickets in advance at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, that's
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- CV, as in victory, bbsforbiblebookservice .com.
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- CV for Cumberland Valley, bbsforbiblebookservice .com. You can contact them, and they are selling tickets.
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- And we look forward to as many of you as possible, who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron, showing up at this debate.
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- I already know that we have people who are traveling from as far away as Virginia, New York, Maryland, and Washington, D .C.,
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- and we're thrilled about that. So I hope many more of you come, and I would love it if Roman Catholics show up in droves.
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- I want Roman Catholics there more than anybody, because it's a sad situation, but the major Roman Catholic radio station here in this area, in the
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- Cumberland County area, the owner of the station, very nice lady, wanted to promote this debate, but her general manager and other people involved with the station somehow reversed the decision to promote it.
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- So that radio station, that Catholic radio station, will not be promoting the debate. And I am very saddened by that, because this is always a fascinating event, and I think people on both sides of this debate may even learn a lot from this experience.
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- So perhaps if you who are listening could pray that the radio station reverses its decision again, but this time for the better, that they go back to the owner's decision to promote the event.
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- Well, as I said before, we are supposed to be having a guest today that I have no idea if he is going to be joining us today, but if he doesn't, that's okay, because I have a knowledgeable co -host with me that I can speak with.
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- We are waiting for a call from Charlie Ware, author of One Race, One Blood, A Biblical Answer to Racism, and he co -authored that book with Ken Ham.
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- Many of our listeners readily recognize that name, Ken Ham, world -renowned creationist advocate, young earth creationist advocate, and Charles Ware is president of Crossroads Bible College, and Ken Ham is president of Answers in Genesis.
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- Well, Charles is supposed to be on the program today, and as you heard during my introductions,
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- I got a phone call from his publisher on my cell phone, and we are not 100 % sure he's going to be joining us because they cannot locate him.
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- So even if he doesn't arrive, I know that God has reasons for everything. That's one of the, see, this is one of the major blessings about being a
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- Calvinist, because you know that all things work together for the good, for those who love
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- God and are the called according to his purpose, and I don't even understand really how an
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- Arminian can take peace and joy in those texts, somebody who doesn't believe
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- God is in total control over everything, but I believe that, and so does my co -host, and his name is
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- Charlie Liebert. Yeah, Chris, hello. I do want to say something, Chris, before we go on about the debate, okay, because there's an important aspect of this
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- I think I want the listeners to hear. Debates are staged for a particular reason. The reason is simply to promote understanding between two different viewpoints.
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- When I teach my business law class, that's the purpose of my debates, and I pick always very controversial topics for that reason, like gun control or abortion, but the whole purpose of the debate is to promote understanding so we can understand the
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- Catholic viewpoint. We don't agree with it. We never will, but we can understand it better, and they can understand our viewpoint better, and out of that, if we know that God is sovereign, then in fact people may be saved as a result because they come to see the truth.
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- Right, and what I have said to Catholics and others, because there are a lot of evangelicals who are very squeamish about this kind of a thing.
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- They really don't want to partake in anything like this. They think it's mean -spirited.
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- They think sometimes even that it is an exercise in hate and bigotry, but the thing is, as I've repeated to many of these people on both sides of the
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- Tiber River, whether they're Catholic or Protestant or neither, who oppose this event or these events, these debates,
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- I have said that, number one, it is one of the highest acts of love that you could demonstrate to warn someone if you believe they are believing or doing something that is bringing them grave danger, whether spiritually, mentally, or physically, and this is certainly a religiously dangerous area because if the
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- Roman Catholics are right, those who are rejecting the
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- Mary that they venerate are in serious trouble. They are in serious sin if that is the case, and if we are right, if the evangelicals, the
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- Bible -believing Christians, as we typically will call ourselves, if we are right that Mary was, although she had a very unique role in history and was chosen by God to bear his son,
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- Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, that she was chosen to carry him and give birth to him, other than that, she is just a sinner saved by grace like every other
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- Christian, and the Bible doesn't even really say all that much about her, and that is not to denigrate her or take away from her, but if the
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- Bible -believing Protestants are right about Mary, then the Roman Catholics and the
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- Eastern Orthodox and everyone else who venerates her, they are committing the sin of idolatry, which is a very dangerous sin to be involved in.
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- It's a sin that in some cases in the scriptures, God, especially when you're referring to the old covenant, people were struck dead by God for worshiping in an unbiblical manner, in a manner that he did not prescribe or command, and when you add veneration of Mary and the saints and their relics and images into the mix, you are just stripping
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- Jesus Christ of the glory that is due only to him. You are watering down what he did on the cross.
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- You are really denying his exclusiveness and his role, his sole role as redeemer in the gospel plan that was ordained by God himself.
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- So this is an area that either side should be interested in what they believe the truth to be publicly declared in the presence of those who reject what they view as truth.
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- These are not mean -spirited, although they can be stern events.
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- This is not Mr. Rogers having somebody from his neighborhood in the living room to have coffee, or should
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- I say, cookies and milk. This is a very serious thing being discussed and debated by two serious men who take their faith seriously and take what they believe true worship to be.
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- They take that seriously, and so this is not going to be two ecumenists blowing kisses to each other from across the room.
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- It can be stern, and being fallible human beings, being sinners, it may get more stern than I would be comfortable with at times, but that should not prevent us from doing things like this.
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- And it's a very sad day when people think it is a superior model to express your love for someone who disagrees with you by sweeping things under the rug.
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- It's as if they're saying, let's not talk about that. Let's just forget about that.
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- You know, I don't want to make somebody uncomfortable. Well, Jesus Christ didn't behave that way.
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- The Apostle Paul didn't behave that way. And in fact, whenever these ecumenists get in an uproar about these debates, what they are really saying is that they are nicer than the
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- Apostle Paul. Because if you remember, when he wrote his letter to the church in Galatia about the
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- Judaizers, in our day and age in the 21st century, if the Apostle Paul was alive, most evangelical leaders,
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- I am certain, would rebuke the Apostle Paul for exposing the
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- Judaizers as being guilty of damnable sin. And that's what he did.
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- He said they should be accursed. And the only thing that we know of that the
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- Judaizers believed that Paul did not believe is that Gentiles who became
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- Christians had to be circumcised. That's the only thing that we know for certain that this group disagreed with when it came to the gospel and when it came to the gospel that Paul preached.
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- And yet that one thing got Paul filled with righteous indignation and he condemned the
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- Judaizers as preaching a false gospel, which is no gospel at all.
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- And so I don't know why people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, both
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- Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants, are supposed to believe in the inerrancy of the
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- Bible. I don't know why we're supposed to be nicer than the Apostle Paul when it comes to an issue like this.
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- But I do thank you for bringing that up, Charlie. And I want to get to know something about you.
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- It may very well be that you are my sole guest today, and that's fine with me. Okay, that's fine.
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- But I want to hear something. I know that you are founder of sixdaycreation .com.
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- But before we even get into that, and before we even get into the fact that you are an
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- Orthodox Presbyterian, tell us something about your childhood, the religion of your upbringing, if any, and what providential things came about in your life that drew you to Christ.
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- Yes, let me kind of start at the beginning. I grew up in a small town on an island called Amityville. And so did
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- I. So did I. That's always funny. We both graduated from the same high school. But when I went to, when
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- I was a child, growing up with my parents, they took us to church every Sunday at the local
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- Methodist church. And I was there as a child, taught all the boys. Was that Simpson? No, we were at first.
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- Okay, on 110. On 110, right. And then later on, we went to Simpson. But we were at the, that was the prime church in town.
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- That was the big one. And interestingly enough, those Methodist churches, even though they're liberal, when
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- I was doing the debates on Long Island, they would promote them. Really? Well, at least they would graciously accept my flyers and told me that they hung them up and that kind of thing.
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- Well, we went to the church pretty much every Sunday with my parents. And I remember about 16,
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- I wasn't religious as a child, but about 16 years old, I was sitting in the congregation one Sunday morning and the pastor was preaching.
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- Methodists take a very strong stand against alcohol. And he was preaching a sermon about that, about the evil of drinking.
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- Really? Because today, I wouldn't, I don't think that they had the old Wesleyan... I don't think, I don't think they do either anymore, but they did then certainly.
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- And I sat there as a 16 year old and I knew the people around me, particularly some of the ones that I knew directly from my parents, had been to the
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- Yacht Club opening the night before, where there'd been copious amounts of liquor consumed by a large number of people.
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- So I thought as a 16 year old, I dropped out. Although I continued to go to church, I pretty much shut down anything the church ever had to say to me.
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- By the time I was in my late teens, early 20s, I had become a hardcore atheist.
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- A couple of things, a couple of things influenced me for that. The first one was, I had a friend, there were actually six of us that grew up together on Long Island and in high school and one of them was
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- Paul. Paul and I stayed in town after everyone else graduated in 1959. And we stayed in town and I was a volunteer fireman.
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- My Sunday mornings were now spent playing pinochle rather than going to church. And I was in the,
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- I went down to the firehouse on Sunday morning and the sergeant behind the desk, Eddie Baxter, said to me, Charlie, you know what happened last night?
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- I said, no. Well, Paul's girlfriend, Dorothy, at 18 years old, died of cerebral hemorrhage. He never recovered.
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- He became an alcoholic and eventually took his own life. And I said, how can they be a God that would allow that kind of thing to happen?
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- So by the time I was in my 20s in college, I'd pretty much become a hardcore atheist. Now, I married a
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- Catholic girl and we had two children and moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. When we were in New Jersey, we were enjoying family on the weekends.
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- Her big Italian Catholic family was a great place to spend Sundays. So we did that a lot.
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- And we got to Greensboro and there was nothing going on on Sunday. And she decided to go because some friends in the neighborhood asked her to go to an
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- Episcopal church. She decided to go there and left me home with two children. Well, that didn't last long.
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- I didn't manage two children well, okay, particularly with some of my characteristics. So I decided to go to church too.
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- So we went to Episcopal church. In that church, nothing threatening was ever said from the pulpit.
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- There was a lot of stories about three ways to make French bread and all kinds of different sermons that didn't really seem to have any relevance.
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- That's what if you ever talk to my wife about those years, she'll mention that three ways to make
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- French bread. But by the way, don't let me forget to bring up Eddie Baxter again when you continue your story.
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- Okay. Okay. So there were three families in this church whose lives were different, very different.
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- And I didn't understand why, but their lives were different. And they asked us to join a Bible study with them.
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- Now, during this time, after we moved to North Carolina, our marriage was in trouble. My wife and I were having good conflict to the point where we actually discussed divorce at one point.
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- I was addicted to pornography and I also was having a relatively strong drinking problem. All those things were coming apart.
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- I was promoted at work. I got a new job with great prospects for working for a man
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- I hated. So everything seemed to be coming apart. And they invited us to the Bible study. We went for 16 weeks.
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- Things seemed to improve at home, but then the study was over and we went back. And about six months later,
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- Frank Grove invited me to go to a retreat weekend in Asheville, North Carolina. Now in Asheville, we went to the retreat weekend.
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- It started on Thursday night. Thursday night, they walked us through the Catholic tradition because this was the Episcopal retreat of the
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- Stations of the Cross. We walked through that and then we took a vow of silence. And Friday morning, we got up out of bed, had our breakfast, and then a man came out and gave a talk.
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- And in that talk, he asked three questions. What's your purpose in life? What does it mean? And where are you going? I realized he couldn't answer those questions.
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- I mean, yeah, I had a wife, two kids, a house, a car. I had all that stuff, but I knew that wasn't the answer.
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- I knew that wasn't the answer. So I began to struggle with that question. I wrestled with those questions all weekend until Saturday night.
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- Saturday night, I went at the chapel by myself alone about 11 30 at night. And I just got down as a typical
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- Episcopal would at the kneeler and just kind of sat there for a minute. And some things flashed back in my mind.
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- Two things flashed back. First was Paul's death, Paul's suicide. And then the second thing was, we used to spend time as students when
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- I was going to my bachelor's at night, drinking beer in front of TV and watching Billy Graham.
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- And some of those things, some of those things he said came back. The second thing that came back was,
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- I had a friend, Frank, who had talked to me 15 years before when I was working on my master's and had given me testimony.
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- And Frank simply told me the story of his life. He married his high school sweetheart, started a business in Amityville, was very successful.
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- Everything seemed to go well. And then one day he was actually living in the next town over, his house burned down and his wife and children died in the fire.
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- He lost everything. And as a result, became an alcoholic, eventually lost his home is he became homeless.
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- He just, he just completely fell apart. And then he looked across the table at me and said this to me, he said, Charlie, that all happened for a reason.
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- And the reason is because that's how I came to know Jesus Christ. Now, this is 15 years before I would even, even come to Christ.
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- But he planted the seed, he was faithful to plant the seed. And as a result of that, so thinking about those things,
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- I said in my heart, God, if you're real, and I wasn't really sure he was, you can have my life because it's totally messed up.
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- And it was. And of course he took it. I came back to Greensboro, a new creature, not really understanding what had happened to me, okay, just knowing that God had changed me somehow.
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- In fact, when I walked in the den, my wife recognized that. And I, my friend invited me to come said,
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- Charlie, pick up the Bible, read the Gospel of john. I've been reading the Bible for years. But when a person reads it, it doesn't believe they're in the dark.
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- They're reading with the lights off. It really doesn't make any sense. And now suddenly the lights are on.
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- Well, I got to john chapter three, kind of counter with Nicodemus. And at 2am, I called
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- Frank and said, Frank, have I been born again? And Frank said, Charlie, I believe you have. And that was the beginning,
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- God would heal our marriage, God would do a whole massive bunch of things. But that's how
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- I came to know Christ. Do that retreat weekend, Terry would go, my wife would go about three months later, and she too would come to Christ her because of her
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- Catholic background. As she walked through the stations of the cross, she basically heard in her mind, God say to her,
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- I died because of your sin, not because of the sins of the world, but because of your particular sin. And that brought her to Christ.
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- And when we when I encountered her at the weekend, we looked across the room with each other and our eyes met and we knew she knew
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- I knew that she knew what I knew that we both had become new believers. So that's my story, Chris.
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- Yeah, some reason I'm getting some kind of a flashback from an Abbott and Costello skit, you know that I know that you exactly.
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- Yes. I don't know if it's Abbott and Costello, but it's something. Yeah, it's one of the comedian sets. Right. But yeah, you mentioned
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- Eddie Baxter. Do you know if Eddie Baxter had sons named Cliff and Mark?
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- I believe so. Because Mark is a good friend of mine. He's a born again believer has been has been for many years.
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- He's theologically reformed also. And he is now he and his wife,
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- Jackie, are now attending Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, Long Island, New York, pastored by my very good friend,
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- Pastor Josh Fryman. And Cliff Baxter, sadly, is no longer with us.
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- Don't know what his faith was. But he passed away about,
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- I don't know, seven or eight years ago, perhaps even longer than that. Eddie was a very interesting guy.
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- I'll give you one of the little piece of trivia and we will go further on this. We will go further on this. But Eddie was the first one on the scene at the murders in the
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- Amityville House of Horror. Really? Yes, he was. And he would say later on in the years post that he would say,
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- I could never get those images out of my mind. He must have actually been with my friend,
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- Pastor Rich Jensen. He's a pastor now, but he was a homicide detective. Suffolk County Police Department, because he was among those first people on the scene.
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- Yeah. And he was one of the first on the scene. Well, how did you? Well, actually, we're going to go to a break right now before I go into the
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- Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And what drew you to that denomination?
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- And if anybody would like to ask Charlie Liebert, not Charlie Ware, but Charlie Liebert, my co -host, a question.
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- And let me make a comment on that. If the listeners have any questions, any word Christian apologetics,
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- I'll be glad to go. All right, great. It doesn't have to be just in the realm of creation versus evolution or young earth versus old earth or anything like that.
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- It could be beyond that scope. Our email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net.
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- chrisarnson at comcast .net. We already have a first time listener who has a question for Charlie Ware, but maybe you could answer it anyway.
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- You could also email us at ironsharpensironradio at gmail .com. ironsharpensironradio at gmail .com.
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- And please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence. If you live outside of the
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- USA, don't go away. We're going to be right back with my co -host, Charlie Weir.
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- Charlie Liebert. Charlie Liebert of sixdaycreation .com.
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- And maybe Charlie Ware will be joining us too. So don't go away. We'll be right back,
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- Ethisphere Institute, a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics.
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- Contact me, Mike Gallagher, Financial Consultant at 717 -254 -6433.
- 32:22
- Again, 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the
- 32:28
- Thriving Difference. Lending faith, finances and generosity.
- 32:40
- That's the Thriving Story. I'm Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
- 32:57
- And here's one of my favorite guests, Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to.
- 33:02
- Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV and occasional guest on Chris's show
- 33:11
- Iron Criticizing Iron. I think I think that's what it's called.
- 33:18
- Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.
- 33:24
- It is going to be a bang up conference called the G3 conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the
- 33:33
- Protestant Reformation with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White and a bunch of other people.
- 33:41
- We hope to see you there. Learn more at G3conference .com. G3conference .com.
- 33:49
- Thanks, Todd. I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth.
- 33:56
- Linbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.
- 34:03
- 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.
- 34:10
- It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.
- 34:18
- We're a diverse family of all ages enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play and together.
- 34:24
- Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.
- 34:31
- Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402 or visit linbrookbaptist .org.
- 34:40
- That's linbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsin. If you just tuned us in, our guest today, it looks like a man went from being my co -host to my guest today,
- 34:52
- Charlie Liebert, founder of sixdaycreation .com. We possibly may be joined by Charles Ware.
- 35:01
- Dr. Charles Ware was supposed to be on the show today and somehow completely slipped his mind,
- 35:08
- I'm assuming. He is author of a book that we were going to discuss,
- 35:13
- One Race, One Blood, A Biblical Answer to Racism. But we don't know if Dr.
- 35:21
- Ware is going to be joining us. So we are going to continue our discussion with Charles Liebert.
- 35:30
- And we are also ticking emails at chrisarnsin at comcast .net.
- 35:37
- My other primary Gmail account is still frozen by Google for going over their quota.
- 35:43
- I'm amazed at how long they're dragging this out to reactivate my email address with them.
- 35:51
- So chrisarnsin at comcast .net you can use for questions. And you can also use ironsharpensironradio at gmail .com.
- 36:01
- That's ironsharpensironradio at gmail .com. And if you could,
- 36:09
- I want to find out, since you are an Orthodox Presbyterian, currently attending the
- 36:16
- Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church here in Carlisle, and you were an
- 36:21
- Orthodox Presbyterian in North Carolina prior to coming here, so if you could tell us about... Okay, how did
- 36:27
- I get there? This is a little bit longer story because my wife and I came to Christ in 77.
- 36:37
- And we moved almost immediately to Greenville, South Carolina. And when we were down there, we found a church by the name of Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church, which was then
- 36:49
- RPCES, later joined the PCA. And Dr. Cross was the pastor at the time, Dr.
- 36:55
- Thomas Cross. And Dr. Cross and John Buswell Jr. were the two pastors. And after we got there, and we went in the first Sunday, and possibly
- 37:05
- I could tell you a story about how we got there, but that's not important right now. We got there the first Sunday, my wife and I walked in, and the pastor had a, what was called a visitor's class, went in there and realized this is where the
- 37:16
- Lord wanted us. So we were there. During that two and a half years, I was actually trained and ordained as a deacon and then as an elder, and sent to start a mission work in Simpsonville, which is right south of Greenville.
- 37:28
- We started as a small church there that still exists today.
- 37:34
- The founding elders were myself, Render Canes, a pastor from Chattanooga, and another elder by the name of John Wheeler.
- 37:40
- So we were Presbyterian from the beginning. That's where God took us. And He took us to the doctrines of grace almost immediately.
- 37:47
- And I've never struggled with that, Chris. That's one thing that's interesting. A lot of people struggle with it. I've never struggled with it because it's how
- 37:52
- God dealt with me directly. So we came back to Greensboro, North Carolina, we bounced around with an
- 37:59
- ARP church for over 20 years. We were in an independent church for a while. And then about six years ago, my wife and I decided we were going to leave the
- 38:08
- ARP because of some issues related to creation that had come up with the pastor that was in the church we were in.
- 38:15
- And we visited OPC. That's Providence Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina under Pastor Ari Van Eck.
- 38:22
- And again, the same thing happened. It took about 60 seconds. I looked at my wife, she looked at me and said, yeah, this is the right place.
- 38:30
- And the question is, there are basically two principal reasons. The first one is simply doctrine.
- 38:36
- I am a strong Calvinist. I believe in the five points. I have no issues with any of them. So they will support that.
- 38:43
- And the second one is I really love that form of worship, which is semi -liturgical,
- 38:49
- I would call it. It's dialogical. We repeat creeds, we do responsive readings, we will say the
- 38:57
- Lord's prayer, we'll do a catechism question as part of the worship, we'll sing, and then of course, we'll be preaching.
- 39:04
- And to me, that's a very important part that worship is participative, that we participate in not just singing the songs, but also in dialoging on the doctrines of grace, the doctrines of the faith.
- 39:15
- Because they're in the hymns, but they're also in the confessions and in the catechisms. And all those things are important as part of worship.
- 39:22
- So that's why I'm an OPC, because that form of worship and the basic Calvinist doctrine, which is what
- 39:27
- I believe the Bible teaches very clearly. And what was unique about the
- 39:35
- OPC that really set it apart amongst, you know, there are other
- 39:42
- Presbyterian churches faithful to the Westminster standards and so on.
- 39:48
- Yes. Is there anything else? Yes, I think the one thing that struck us in both these cases, in Providence and also in Redeemer, is the reception is the moment you walk in the door, people greet you, the people get to meet you, the people want to talk to you, they want to learn who you are and establish a level of fellowship.
- 40:08
- And the first couple weeks we were at Redeemer and the first couple weeks we were at Providence, we were invited to two or three different families homes for lunch at the church.
- 40:16
- And that was just to get us involved in the church itself and also to get to know some of the people.
- 40:23
- And that's important because being Christians is a three -legged stool. It's the scripture, it's fellowship, and it's the sacraments.
- 40:31
- So it's important that we understand that fellowship is part of this. And part of that fellowship is holding each other accountable.
- 40:39
- And obviously you have fallen in love with apologetics.
- 40:45
- Yes, I have. And perhaps even with a special, although not exclusive, interest in defending young earth creationism.
- 40:54
- But if you could explain how you developed this passion for apologetics and in particular the study of the biblical creation apologetic.
- 41:06
- Yeah, let's go there. That's an interesting question. When I became a
- 41:12
- Christian, I was a hardcore atheist. I said that earlier. And as a hardcore atheist, one of the things
- 41:18
- I believed is I believed evolution just as it was taught to me directly in school. I mean, my teachers wouldn't lie to me, would they?
- 41:23
- I mean, of course not. Teachers must have told me the truth when they told me evolution is how man got here. So I bought into that.
- 41:29
- And then when I became, when I was converted in 77, I started reading scripture and started,
- 41:35
- I read, began reading also in Genesis besides in John. And it was pretty clear to me there wasn't any evolution there at all.
- 41:41
- It was six days and it was pretty, pretty clear. That's what the language said anyway. I'll get more into that in a minute, but the language said that pretty clearly.
- 41:48
- So I said, well, that certainly conflicts with evolution. So I embarked on basically three years study. I went back to the sources.
- 41:55
- Okay. I'd been taught one side of a question. And this is where we need to understand that you need to hear both sides of a question.
- 42:01
- I saw it one side, the evolution side. So for the first time I began to read the creation side, I read books by Henry Morris, Ken Ham, Dwayne Gish, Gary Parker, all those people that wrote about or wrote those books in those timeframes about creation versus evolution.
- 42:16
- And I evolved, Chris, from a old, old earth evolutionist into a young earth creationist over those three years,
- 42:24
- I became convinced our young earth creation made more sense than anything I'd ever, ever seen in terms of evolution.
- 42:31
- So I just, it just became a natural belief to me. Now, as a result of that, I began to teach
- 42:37
- Sunday school and I taught some Sunday school materials on apologetics. And one of the ladies in the churches we were in at that time in Greensboro asked me, well, can you do something for our children?
- 42:48
- So I developed a workshop program, which I've done for years for homeschool children. It's a three hour workshop.
- 42:53
- It's called creation dinosaurs and the flood. And it's a whole series of activities. It's activity driven. It's not content driven, but it's activity driven, but the children get a lot of stuff out of that.
- 43:03
- So I began to get into apologetics. And as I did, eventually I would encounter and meet Ken Ham through a friend that also works with the ministry called
- 43:12
- Mark Loy. And as a result of meeting Ken, I would eventually work for that ministry and develop a real love for apologetics.
- 43:18
- And when I say apologetics, I mean, basically presuppositional apologetics. I believe the presuppositions are critical.
- 43:24
- And I've wrote that in the books we'll talk about on January 23rd. And I think that, uh, because of the fact there are, as I've mentioned before on my program, there are a number of people that are brand new
- 43:38
- Christians who listened. There are some people who are not Christians at all, who listen to iron sharpens iron.
- 43:45
- We've got to define and explain apologetics because the way that people have used the word apologize for probably over, well over a century, uh, is not really the original intent behind the root of that word.
- 44:05
- It, uh, it originally means to give an explanation. It does not mean I'm sorry. So if you're giving, uh, an apologetic, uh, for the
- 44:15
- Bible, the authenticity of the Bible or the inerrancy of the Bible, you're not apologizing and saying,
- 44:20
- I'm sorry that the Bible is inerrant. And I'm really sorry. I believe in this, but you know, you're not doing that.
- 44:27
- No, you're, you're, you're basically just, you're basically giving it, it's back to the verse in Timothy. You are giving an answer for the hope that is in you.
- 44:34
- You said, and this is, this is where we fail our teenagers. Uh, we need to prepare them to be able to have an understanding of why they believe what they believe.
- 44:44
- This is, this is one of my, I'll get on the soapbox for a minute here. This is one of the critical things in this culture. And Ken Ham's written a bunch of stuff about it, but this is a critical area.
- 44:53
- You need to know why you believe what you believe is what you believe reasonable. Does it make sense? Is it transformational?
- 45:00
- All those questions you need to answer because when you get out in the world, you're going, the world is going to challenge you.
- 45:06
- It's going to challenge you very strongly. And if you don't have a good answer, you're going to get flustered.
- 45:11
- You're going to get taken off track and maybe eventually you'll so -called lose your faith. Now you don't really lose your faith because you probably never had it.
- 45:19
- But the point simply is, that you'll get off track because you don't know the reason for the hope that's in you.
- 45:24
- And that's critical. That's very important. And I deal with that. We talk about it in my books. Yeah, well, uh, you have written at least two books, perhaps actually you have the third one on the way, right?
- 45:34
- Yes. The third one is I actually, I actually got the text proof of it two days ago. So, uh, the, the, the, the first book is a book that deals with, uh, evangelism because I was struck by the question or the problem that came up in my teaching.
- 45:48
- And the problem was simply that people are asked questions by, uh, by unbelievers and they don't have an answer.
- 45:54
- So they get off the track and they never get to the gospel. So I've developed a strategy based on what Jesus did with the Pharisees and some of the other encounters he had and how to get around that.
- 46:02
- You don't answer the question. You ask the question with another question. And that other question will get to probing presuppositions.
- 46:09
- And then you give the gospel. The, the, now what I was working on that first book, uh, my friend, one of my spiritual mentors,
- 46:15
- Bob Kelly said to me, Charlie, now that you got the strategy to deal with evangelism, personal evangelism, how about the questions?
- 46:23
- So I had, I maintained a website for 25 years answering questions on the web called six day creation .com.
- 46:29
- And in that website, I had developed a whole over a hundred questions with standard answers that I would just post when people would ask because the same questions keep coming up again and again.
- 46:37
- I just post those. So that became the second book answers for the hope that's in you. As I wrote that book,
- 46:43
- I, I did a small section, a small chapter on creation versus evolution, but I didn't do it a lot of justice.
- 46:49
- I just kind of over overviewed the issues around it. And, uh, Bob again said to me,
- 46:55
- Charlie, you need to go further on that issue because that's one of the key issues in this culture. So the third book, what doesn't have biblical title at all, it's called without three miracles,
- 47:04
- Darwin's dead. And he's dead with or without the point is, and the emphasis is in the book.
- 47:17
- And I'd like, I said, I'm just doing the last proofs now. Uh, the emphasis in the book is, is, uh, uh, evolution can't happen for three reasons, something from nothing that's impossible.
- 47:26
- And science proves that that's impossible life from dead stuff. Science proves that's impossible. Okay. Both of those violate scientific laws.
- 47:34
- You can't get there from here with those. And the third one is, is, is evolution proposes going uphill in the universe that is going downhill.
- 47:41
- It's called entropy in physics. And it's a downhill trend of all of the universe. Everything goes downhill.
- 47:47
- Eventually nothing survives and nothing is created, uh, intelligently without a intelligence behind it, either
- 47:56
- God himself, or in the case of the creation, the process of photosynthesis is one of the main machines that keeps all life alive.
- 48:06
- People don't realize that either. Well, we have a question.
- 48:12
- I don't know if, uh, you can answer this question, but since Dr. Ware is not here, uh, we have
- 48:19
- Jerry in Charlestown, New Hampshire, a first time questioner on iron sharpens iron and Jerry, I assure you, uh, if, and when
- 48:28
- Dr. Ware does actually become a guest on iron sharpens iron, it might even be later today.
- 48:34
- Uh, I will make sure that I, uh, read this question to him as well, but actually,
- 48:41
- Chris, let me stop you for a second. Uh, I will, I will give you two of my top copies of my books to send to this listener also for the question.
- 48:48
- Okay. So in other words, two of your books, one copy of each, one copy of each of my books. Oh, great. Well, look at that,
- 48:55
- Jerry. And you're also, because you're a first time questioner. You're also getting a brand new, new American standard
- 49:00
- Bible since you are a first time questioner to iron sharpens iron. Well, Jerry says, do you think that the
- 49:07
- West in general, and even the church in particular has imbibed
- 49:13
- Marxist ideology when it comes to thinking of race, namely that it divides people into different groups marked almost exclusively by their race, and then seeks to pit them against each other for their own benefit.
- 49:30
- For example, it seems that people on the left want to identify those with darker pigment of skin only as black, almost to the point where their ontological identity is black rather than an image bearer of God.
- 49:44
- And it seems they do so to stoke a grievance culture to their own political purposes.
- 49:51
- If this is indeed Marxist thinking, why is it so destructive to unity among fellow human beings?
- 49:58
- And how do we confront it with the truth of God's word? Thank you for all you do,
- 50:04
- Chris, Jerry in Charleston, Charlestown, New Hampshire. Okay, he is correct.
- 50:10
- It's Marxist. But it's more than that, because it's atheistic. And it's more than that, because it's evolutionary.
- 50:16
- It's interesting, I never would have guessed that it was Marxist, because I thought the whole point of Marxism was to view all of humanity as one, regardless of their ethnicity.
- 50:28
- And that's why there was no nationalism with the with the Russia became a part of the
- 50:34
- Soviet Union, and so forth. That's the theory. But in practice, the opposite is what happened. Okay. That's the theory.
- 50:40
- And by the way, I wasn't plugging Marxism as if it was something good. I just was puzzled by that particular.
- 50:47
- But let's get to the origin of racism itself, because this this is extremely important, because racism springs out of the evolutionary presupposition.
- 50:57
- And I'll say that again, racism springs out of the evolutionary presupposition. evolutionists say that man evolved from monkeys.
- 51:03
- And during that process, at different points in the process, different races spun off.
- 51:09
- And they actually ranked them in what Darwin's second book, he talks about the rise of man, and he talks about that a little bit, that races, so so they ranked the races, the races were simple, okay, the white
- 51:21
- Europeans didn't write enough textbooks. So they want their number one, then come the Orientals, then come the Browns, and then come the blacks.
- 51:28
- And the blacks are regarded as inferior by evolutionary process. Okay, I'm not saying all evolutionists are racist.
- 51:35
- What I'm saying simply is, that's the process that that's how it gets there. Okay. So the in the early part of the 19th century, the evolutionary scientists would go to place like Tasmania, shoot the shoot, shoot the natives down, boil out the skulls and send them back to England as artifacts of evolution that really happened.
- 51:53
- Okay. And and the the regarding was, and you can look at this too, in your history books that go back and look at what was called white man's burden, okay, because the white were regarded as superior to the black.
- 52:03
- And as a result, we had a burden to bring them up to standard. That's all absurd. The Bible is very clear on this.
- 52:09
- We're all descendants of Adam and Eve. We have with the differences between us are genetic, and they're cultural, but they're not racist.
- 52:18
- Okay, racism is a classification scheme that comes out of evolution. And it's important to understand that because when you understand that, then you realize that whole evolutionary presupposition puts us back where we are today in the
- 52:28
- US puts us backward instead of forward. If the Church of Jesus Christ would get this one, right, that is understanding we are all one race, we're all of the same parentage from Adam and Eve, the culture would be transformed.
- 52:43
- In fact, some people have joked that the most segregated time of week is the Sunday morning. And that's probably true in some cases.
- 52:49
- Now that's cultural differences. But that doesn't mean that we should should separate ourselves at all. Because because we are all one race.
- 52:55
- And then that's an important thing. It's in the book that we're talking about today from Dr. Ware and Ken Ham, that that the origin of races is very important.
- 53:05
- And it's very important to understand that we are all one race. Now what happened is when men were dispersed at Babel, they took the language with them, they also took their genes with them.
- 53:13
- And then a process which is not evolution, called natural selection worked itself out. And the people that survived in the various environments on the earth survived based upon the characteristics they had genetically.
- 53:24
- But why are the people that are the black people at the equator, and light, light skinned people north almost to the almost to the
- 53:32
- Arctic Circle. The reason is simple. There are certain genetic characteristics that set them apart.
- 53:38
- For example, in the African American, well, in African races, the people living in Africa, they tend to have a genetic variation called sickle cell.
- 53:53
- A sickle cell, if the child has both genes, gets the disease, and of course, the child is not not healthy. But if the child has one, which is called the trait, one of the genes, but not the second one, they can give it to a child.
- 54:05
- But they also have an immunity that comes as a result of that genetics, and the immunities to the parasite called malaria.
- 54:13
- Which means that in the in the tropical environments where malaria is prevalent, who's going to survive?
- 54:19
- The dark skinned people. So natural selection sorted out the people after they dispersed from Babel, based upon the genetic characteristics they have.
- 54:26
- And it's always in the genes. I know, for example, Oriental people have a little bit of a shaped eye, and they have the yellowish skin color.
- 54:34
- That's in the genes. They have a gene that carries their fat at a higher level toward the skin than most do.
- 54:42
- Native Americans have a red skin. What is that? That's in the genes. What's in the genes? They have the characteristics of the capillaries, and their skin is very close to the surface, so they have the reddish color.
- 54:51
- So it's always genetic. It's never racial. Race is a construct, okay? Understand that.
- 54:56
- It's a construct. It's just a way to classify particular people that have particular genetics. And of course, what happens is the genes don't get mixed up until modern times, because transportation people are not going, most people didn't go more than 30 miles from where they were born.
- 55:13
- So the genes didn't get mixed up. Now in modern times, that's changing. We're seeing a lot of mixing of the races.
- 55:20
- But this racial classification is an evolutionary construct. Understand that, and the Bible does not teach that very clearly. Yes, I mean, there are
- 55:27
- Caucasians with darker skins than, quote, quote, Negroes, if you want to use that term.
- 55:35
- There's been several cases, and AIG has published a couple of these, where people that have brown skin, okay?
- 55:40
- Not black and not white, but brown, okay? The color you find in a country like India or Pakistan, in that part of the world.
- 55:47
- Well, they have mixed melanin genes, okay? Black people have all black genes. They're pretty much going to have black children.
- 55:53
- And Caucasians are pretty much all white genes. They're going to have all white children. But the people with the brown skin have the mixed genes, which means that sometimes in a family, you'll have two children born.
- 56:02
- And one will be light -skinned, almost like a Caucasian, and the other will be dark -skinned, almost like an African American. And they'll be the same parents, because, again, it's purely genetic.
- 56:13
- It's just based upon the melanin in the skin. Well, thank you, Jerry. Keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron, and keep spreading the word about the program in Charlestown, New Hampshire.
- 56:25
- And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net,
- 56:32
- chrisarnson at comcast .net, or ironsharpensironradio at gmail .com.
- 56:41
- ironsharpensironradio at gmail .com. Now, it is amazing to me that the liberals are really the champions of evolution, and yet it seems to contradict the things that they claim they are championing, like interracial harmony and viewing people apart from the color of their skin or what ethnicity they belong to and all that kind of thing.
- 57:29
- It just seems amazing to me that they could uphold, not only uphold with fairly common unanimity, the understanding of evolution,
- 57:44
- Darwinian evolution, but to deny it, they would say, puts you in the category of being a moron.
- 57:54
- And yet this very system of thought, Darwinian evolution, has inherent to it racism.
- 58:03
- And why I don't know that even conservatives, whether they're politicians or Christians, or Christian apologists, or when they get involved in either a debate or discussion of the whole matter of evolution, and you'll have liberals like Chris Matthews laughing hysterically if he finds out a
- 58:37
- Republican candidate for any political office doesn't believe in evolution. Like as if this is some kind of proven fact.
- 58:46
- Darwinian evolution is a proven fact. One thing that's important here is to understand that outside of biblical truth, almost all logical reasoning is contradictory.
- 59:00
- I mean, you look at the atheists. Yeah, well, what I was going to say is that even the conservatives, the
- 59:06
- Christians or political conservatives, either they're ignorant, or for some reason, they don't bring it up.
- 59:12
- But the original title of Darwin's book is On the
- 59:18
- Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the
- 59:27
- Struggle for Life. He was a racist. He was a and as others superior, inferior, and that blacks and people of non white, non white races or colors, or, you know, they would categorize them as being in different races.
- 59:47
- Yes, that they would be closer in the evolutionary chain to the ape. That's correct. That's correct.
- 59:54
- And so why why is it that you don't have conservatives screaming this from the even when they're given these grand opportunities in public, because it's politically incorrect?
- 01:00:08
- How is it politically incorrect? If you're publicly opposing something and saying, I don't believe in evolution? Why wouldn't you want to bring that up?
- 01:00:15
- Because because the cultural control, particularly in the media, is that evolution is the only answer, creation cannot be tolerated.
- 01:00:24
- And it's a laughable answer. They simply presume that and because they presume that anyone that even attempts to say it is going to get left out.
- 01:00:35
- And this is going to be really interesting in the current administration, because Mike Pence is a creationist. I know that from some of the writings he's done.
- 01:00:42
- Well, I hope he brings it up. Yeah, I'm sure he's going to. And that's going to create all kinds of issues with the media because the media wants to do that.
- 01:00:50
- And by the way, his pastor, I have heard recently, is a graduate of Master Seminary, John MacArthur.
- 01:00:59
- Yes, yes. We're going to go to another break right now. And if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
- 01:01:10
- chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back, God willing, after these messages with Charlie Liebert of sixdaycreation .com
- 01:01:21
- and possibly even Dr. Charles Ware. You never know. We'll be right back after these messages. Chris Arnson here and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia.
- 01:01:34
- And here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.
- 01:01:39
- I hope you join me at the G3 conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church at the
- 01:01:46
- Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the
- 01:01:54
- Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Balcom, Conrad M.
- 01:02:01
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- 01:07:18
- Welcome back, and God is good, because he has produced for us our originally scheduled guest,
- 01:07:26
- Dr. Charles Ware. He is president of Crosswoods Bible College in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the author of several books.
- 01:07:36
- He is also chairman of the Association for Biblical Higher Education's Ethnic Diversity Committee, and speaks at churches,
- 01:07:44
- Christian schools, colleges, seminaries, mission conferences, camps, prisons, and civic functions in the
- 01:07:50
- United States and abroad. In addition, Dr. Ware is a consultant on racial reconciliation and leadership in various organizations and companies, including
- 01:08:00
- Walmart, and his ministry is well -received by audiences of all races, and we are going to discuss his book,
- 01:08:09
- One Race, One Blood, A Biblical Answer to Racism, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time,
- 01:08:17
- Dr. Charles Ware. Sorry about the mix -up, but it's... Hello, Dr.
- 01:08:24
- Ware, you broke off there for a second. Are you there? Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, so now I can hear you, yes.
- 01:08:30
- You said, sorry about the mix -up. Well, those things happen, and they've happened to me, too, on more occasions than I care to bring up during a live program, and my co -host in the studio with me, who has actually, from my first hour, been my guest, is
- 01:08:49
- Charlie Liebert, who is founder of sixdaycreation .com, and thank you for doing such a great job during the first hour,
- 01:08:57
- Charlie. Thank you, and Dr. Ware, we have met before. Probably 15 years ago.
- 01:09:05
- Okay. Yeah, I just, by the way, I just got back from the ARC encounter yesterday. Wow, I'm covetous.
- 01:09:12
- I want to go there myself, and I haven't been there yet. Well, I want to, first of all, just get a brief summary,
- 01:09:22
- Dr. Ware, of your own upbringing, the religion of your youth, if any, and what things came about in your life, providentially, by the hand of God that drew you to himself and saved you.
- 01:09:39
- Well, yes, I was born in Kissimmee, Florida, before Disney World got there, and my parents was migrant workers coming up north as migrant workers from Florida to New York, worked in summers and go back to New York in the winter, so we were snowbirds.
- 01:09:58
- But during that time of life, and Florida was segregated at that time,
- 01:10:03
- Kissimmee was segregated, so I'd be segregated south, come up north, be integrated, then go back down south into segregation.
- 01:10:11
- Well, during those times, I think about seventh grade, my family began to stay up in New York year -round, and I was in a predominantly white school, and ninth grade,
- 01:10:21
- I was sophomore, I mean, ninth grade, I served on the student council. Tenth grade, I was president of my class.
- 01:10:29
- Junior, I was vice president of the student council. Senior, I was president of the student council. Played three sports a year, less than three sports a year, but was empty, and was looking for real satisfaction in life.
- 01:10:43
- And in my senior year, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
- 01:10:49
- Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Racial tensions throughout our land, especially in some of our major cities.
- 01:10:55
- Two white men came to my house on a Monday night, presented to me the gospel of Jesus Christ. I repented of my sins, and God gave me what
- 01:11:08
- I was looking for in my life. 180 degree turn, I was baptized into the church that was all white.
- 01:11:16
- I was the first black person that entered that church. My mama said I looked like a fly on a bowl of milk.
- 01:11:22
- But the gospel had taken effect, and I've never been the same.
- 01:11:29
- That's funny. Hey, I don't think I've ever heard that one. I've heard similar analogies, but just not that one.
- 01:11:42
- I think I've heard you look like a raisin in a bowl of cornflakes or something like that.
- 01:11:52
- And now, how did the direction in your life begin where you were basically opposing the commonly held beliefs of liberals when it especially came to issues that regard the nature of man, the origins of man, the origins of life, creation, and that kind of thing?
- 01:12:18
- Well, I think that in high school, even when I was being taught the secular concept of evolution,
- 01:12:23
- I remember sitting in a class once, and they were showing how monkeys, gorillas, and humans, so on and so forth.
- 01:12:30
- And I remember saying, I didn't come from no monkey, man. I don't know what you're talking about. Now, I wasn't that school as far as scientific, but it just didn't make sense to me.
- 01:12:41
- And so I never really totally bought into that view, even before I was saved.
- 01:12:49
- So even before you were saved, you didn't even buy into the whole nonsense of evolution then?
- 01:12:56
- Well, what really happened to me after I came, no, I didn't buy into it, but after I got saved, what really hit me, quite frankly, was in the church.
- 01:13:06
- It was a view that interracial marriage was sinful. And I just said, hey,
- 01:13:14
- I've been educated in the secular world. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'll believe the Bible.
- 01:13:20
- If that's what it says, that's what it says. I had a close friend that I actually, a black fellow that I took to a youth meeting, and he made a profession of faith, and we went to camp.
- 01:13:33
- And he was an outstanding athlete. A lot of the white girls was around him, and he was told not to sit next to the white girls.
- 01:13:41
- So he came to me and wanted to know what it was about. And I told him, I don't know, but we aren't here for girls. We're here for Jesus, so just forget it.
- 01:13:50
- He was two grades behind me, and he was going to come play basketball. I got saved in March of 1968, and in August of 1968,
- 01:14:00
- I was in a Bible college. And our team was pretty good.
- 01:14:05
- I mean, this gentleman I'm talking about, when he was a senior, our school went 22 -0.
- 01:14:11
- They went straight through the sectionals. But at any rate, he said he wanted to come to a
- 01:14:17
- Bible college and play balls. I said, well, good. Well, some black power advocates got a hold of him that summer and told him that Christianity was a white man's religion.
- 01:14:27
- He referred back to the incidents. Well, he wasn't trying to sit next to the white girls. They were trying to sit next to him, and he was picked out.
- 01:14:34
- So he just decided he wasn't coming to Bible college. He was going to secular school. He was going to be an
- 01:14:40
- NBA ball player. First month, they broke his foot in college. He broke his foot, dropped out of school, got involved with a gal, got on drugs, beat her up, and wound up in jail.
- 01:14:52
- A friend of mine called me when I was in college and said, I think you need to go visit him. He'll listen to you. Well, it was a three -hour drive, and I didn't have a car, so I decided, well,
- 01:15:01
- I can't go, but I'll write him a letter. So I wrote a letter. I don't even know when he got it, because during that time, he got out of jail, and within 13 days after he got out of jail, he got involved with another gal.
- 01:15:15
- I think they got married. They had a gun, got an argument. They got married, and a gun went off and shot him, and he was dead, you know?
- 01:15:22
- I mean, about 19 years of age, and I had a lot of regrets. Maybe I should have went and visited him, this and that, but it did drive me to the question, so what does the
- 01:15:33
- Bible have to say about race and interracial marriage? So I studied a paper and did a paper for my class in college called
- 01:15:41
- Prejudice and the People of God, because as I studied the Word of God, it became clear to me that we all came from Adam.
- 01:15:50
- We were all related because of Adam. We were all sinners, and that what made us unified in the body of Christ was the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and that God had prohibition against saved and unsaved people getting married, but if they were saved, it was all right.
- 01:16:10
- So it was like the Word of God opened my eyes at that point, and I've kind of been giving out that message ever since then.
- 01:16:19
- Praise God. You were talking about churches and pastors and Christians believing that interracial, quote -unquote, marriage is not biblically correct and so on.
- 01:16:39
- Have you confronted that very much today other than those folks who are openly identifying with some kind of an organization racially motivated or motivated by racial hatred,
- 01:16:56
- I should say, racial hatred, bigotry, and so on? I mean, I'd be shocked if in this day and age, if a pastor other than his own private bigotry that he may wrestle with, a pastor or a respected person within the faith outside of these organizations like the
- 01:17:24
- Klan and neo -Nazi groups and skinheads and so on, if they were to actually say even today that interracial marriage is not accepted by God, I know that there are some cults that have taught that.
- 01:17:42
- I know that the Worldwide Church of God used to teach that. I don't know if they still do, but if you could comment on that.
- 01:17:49
- Well, yeah. It's a lot different than when I got saved. In fact, I'll give you one of your extremes first.
- 01:17:55
- I was on a radio program probably about 15, 20 years ago now, and a white supremacist called.
- 01:18:03
- The host of the show told me who it was later. I didn't know, but he made a comment. He said he wouldn't talk to me.
- 01:18:10
- He talked to the host of the show who was white. He said, we know where white people came from. White people came from Adam. We don't even know where black people came from.
- 01:18:18
- So what do your guests got to say about that? So I said, well, the Bible is explicitly clear in Romans 5, where for sin entered the world by one man, that man was
- 01:18:28
- Adam, and that death passed upon all of sin. If only white people came from Adam, then only white people are sinners,
- 01:18:35
- I guess. That kind of conversation. That's going to unhinge them quickly, yeah.
- 01:18:41
- But today, I definitely think that many, and there are some what
- 01:18:49
- I call some good Christians who just felt that the Bible taught that interracial marriage was wrong.
- 01:18:54
- I think that has really changed, but you still have some out there. I teach a course,
- 01:19:00
- I've created a course called Culture, Race, and the Church that we teach here at Crossroads Bible College for our students to help them wrestle with some of these issues biblically.
- 01:19:09
- And I have yet to teach the course, and I just taught it again in January, where there were not students in the class who said,
- 01:19:17
- I have heard pastors teach or had teaching that interracial marriage is wrong biblically.
- 01:19:25
- And it kind of surprises me, because I was thinking, well, I'm going all this stuff, it's passe now, it's out of date.
- 01:19:31
- But I still, there are still pockets out there. Yeah, that's a shame. And obviously, we have to be clear to distinguish that from when people say a good
- 01:19:45
- Bible -believing, biblically sound, theologically accurate Christian might be heard saying that he's against mixed marriages, but that is in regard to the faith of the individuals, not the skin color or ethnicity.
- 01:20:00
- Definitely, definitely. And I, you know, to help me in interacting on this subject with people in general, in our society, you know, the word racist is very, very broad.
- 01:20:13
- So you looked at me funny, you're racist, you know, you didn't like something I did, so you're racist.
- 01:20:19
- What I tell people, what I've helped me, and I mentioned in the book, One Race, One Blood, I kind of put people in categories.
- 01:20:26
- A hardcore racist is a person who thinks that they're superior to other people by virtue of their so -called race.
- 01:20:33
- And they're so hardcore that evidence doesn't really change them. Data doesn't matter.
- 01:20:40
- Facts doesn't matter. I said, I don't meet many people like that. It would be some, like you just mentioned,
- 01:20:45
- Klan, white supremacists, and even black Muslims could fall into that group.
- 01:20:50
- That's right. Nation of Islam, right. Yeah. So what I say is, all right, I don't meet many there, but most people
- 01:20:57
- I meet are prejudiced. That means they are pre -judged based on their experience, media, so on and so forth, what they read and heard.
- 01:21:06
- Most of those people, if you bring them the facts and show them the model, they will change.
- 01:21:13
- And then I have people, what I call perplexed. They just don't know everybody. I don't know what I call you, African -American, Afro -American,
- 01:21:20
- Negro, black, you know, I don't really know what to do, what's offending you, what's not. So we come alongside them and give them a hug.
- 01:21:33
- There are people that I call protective, and that's parents.
- 01:21:38
- And I've had to tell some young people, all parents who don't want their child in the so -called interracial relationship are not prejudiced.
- 01:21:48
- Some may be, but not all. But some of them are just scared of what the consequences might be in our society.
- 01:21:54
- Right. So they're trying to protect their child from hurt or harm in such a relationship.
- 01:22:00
- Right, right. My mother, who's now in heaven with Christ, I believe she would have fallen into that category.
- 01:22:07
- My mom in my household growing up, if she heard the word, the
- 01:22:14
- N -word uttered, she would treat that as if you said any kind of vulgarity or profanity.
- 01:22:22
- And we get very upset about that and would punish you just as much as you had said any kind of a vulgar term.
- 01:22:33
- But my mom also, I remember when I was a teenager and dating a dark -skinned
- 01:22:41
- Indian girl and my brother was dating her sister, I remember there being some concern or fear about if we got married, what would the children have to go through, that kind of thing.
- 01:22:53
- And I'm not saying that that's necessarily right to think that way, but there is a difference between having that attitude and being a bigot.
- 01:23:02
- Yes, definitely. And we do have a question from someone that sent in a question earlier while you weren't here, and Charlie, my co -host,
- 01:23:15
- Charlie Liebert, did an excellent job answering it. But since I promised that I would ask this question to you, should you actually come on the program today,
- 01:23:29
- I wanted to make sure that I fulfilled my promise to Jerry in Charlestown, New Hampshire, who is a first -time questioner on Iron Sharpens Iron.
- 01:23:40
- And Jerry from Charlestown, New Hampshire asks, let's see,
- 01:23:47
- I have to enlarge the font on this because I'm going blind. Okay. Do you think that the
- 01:23:53
- West in general, and even the church in particular, has imbibed Marxist ideology when it comes to thinking of race, namely that it divides people into different groups marked almost exclusively by their race and then seeks to pit them against each other for their own benefit?
- 01:24:12
- For example, it seems that people on the left want to identify those with darker pigment of skin only as black, almost to the point where their ontological identity is black rather than image bearer of God.
- 01:24:27
- And it seems they do so to stoke a grievance culture for their own political purposes.
- 01:24:33
- If this is indeed Marxist thinking, why is it so destructive to unity among fellow human beings?
- 01:24:39
- And how do we confront it with the truth of God's word? Well, you know,
- 01:24:45
- I'm not sure whether it's totally Marxist or not, but I will say that one of the difficult things I have when
- 01:24:50
- I teach culture, race, and church is dealing with the history of America. And the reason being is that,
- 01:24:58
- I think it was 1662, we passed a law that one drop of sub -Saharan
- 01:25:05
- African blood makes a person black. When you think about it, you say, well, the
- 01:25:10
- President of the United States, his mother is white. Well, how come he's black?
- 01:25:17
- Well, we have created that designation and it's really to protect the impurity of the so -called white gene pool, so that any so -called mixture was put down to a lower class who had lower rights, who had less rights in our country.
- 01:25:33
- So I've often said that the problem isn't a race problem, but it's a color problem.
- 01:25:39
- And so I think there's some, when we go through our history, there is definitely that type of denying people rights and things by putting them in a so -called lower class, even if their family and biological tree defied that.
- 01:25:58
- Now, you said, how do we fight it? What I love to talk about, by the way, is grace relations, not race relations.
- 01:26:05
- Because race, it always seems to be them and us, that division that was just spoken of.
- 01:26:11
- Grace, talk about us and us. We were sinners. We were related with Adam as sinners.
- 01:26:20
- We get related through Christ, one blood, his death, and now we're made brothers and sisters in Christ.
- 01:26:27
- And the grace of God is deep enough to cover our past sins, present dysfunctions, and give us hope about the future.
- 01:26:36
- And I really believe that the church gets so caught up in the secular, worldly thinking and action and reaction to this subject that we lose sight of what the
- 01:26:48
- Bible tells us, that we are disciples of Christ and we'll be marked as so by our loved one for another.
- 01:26:55
- Well, guess what, Jerry? Not only did you win all those other things that you won before, including two books by my co -host,
- 01:27:02
- Charlie Liebert, and a new New American Standard Bible. A new New American Standard Bible, two news in a row there.
- 01:27:09
- Not only did you win all of that, but you've also won, for your question, the book by our guest,
- 01:27:17
- Dr. Charles Ware, One Race, One Blood, that he co -authored with Ken Ham, compliments of our friends at Master Books, and also that will be shipped to you, compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.
- 01:27:33
- That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com. And we thank
- 01:27:39
- Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS .com for being faithful sponsors and supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
- 01:27:47
- And we have, in fact, I'm gonna go to a break right now. It's our final break, but when we come back from the break, we have a question from Slovenia for you,
- 01:27:58
- Dr. Ware. In fact, I might as well read it for you now, and you can answer it after the break, so this way we have time to mull it over.
- 01:28:08
- The question that we have from Joe in Slovenia is, please ask Dr. Ware to describe for us his short list of specific and practical things that we as individual believers and churches should do to overcome racial barriers, stereotypes, and divisions in the church.
- 01:28:28
- What steps should I take to get to know, fellowship with, and worship with believers of other races with which heretofore
- 01:28:38
- I've had little to no interaction? Thank you for all your hard work for Christ and his church.
- 01:28:45
- Well, you can answer that when we come back from our final break, Dr. Ware. Super. And anybody else who'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net.
- 01:28:56
- chrisarnson at comcast .net. Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages with Dr.
- 01:29:05
- Charles Ware and Charlie Liebert on One Blood, One Race. I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,
- 01:29:15
- Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,
- 01:29:28
- Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.
- 01:29:34
- Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.
- 01:29:41
- It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the
- 01:29:49
- Protestant Reformation with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.
- 01:29:57
- We hope to see you there. Learn more at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.
- 01:30:05
- Thanks, Todd, I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's booth.
- 01:30:13
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- 01:31:06
- 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.
- 01:31:16
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- And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.
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- 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.
- 01:31:43
- That's wrbc .us. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am
- 01:31:55
- 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,
- 01:32:01
- I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a
- 01:32:07
- Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.
- 01:32:14
- 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.
- 01:32:23
- That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.
- 01:32:29
- 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.
- 01:32:42
- If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.
- 01:32:48
- You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.
- 01:32:55
- Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled,
- 01:33:01
- Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org, that's providencebaptistchurchma .org,
- 01:33:08
- or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
- 01:33:33
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- 01:34:30
- Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest for the following half hour and the last half hour is
- 01:34:40
- Dr. Charles Ware. He was supposed to be on for the full two hours, but there was some miscommunication that we had, so we're definitely going to have to have
- 01:34:48
- Dr. Ware back on the program at some point very soon, but we are discussing his book, One Race, One Blood, that he co -authored with Ken Ham, and the subtitle of this book is
- 01:35:01
- A Biblical Answer to Racism, and before the break, I asked the question from a listener in Slovenia, Joe in Slovenia, please ask
- 01:35:09
- Dr. Ware to describe for us his short list of specific and practical things that we as individual believers and churches should do to overcome racial barriers, stereotypes, and divisions in the church.
- 01:35:21
- What steps should I take to get to know, fellowship with, and worship with believers of other races, with which heretofore
- 01:35:30
- I have had little to no interaction? That is a super question,
- 01:35:37
- Joe, appreciate that type of question, that's where I like to live, what are some answers going forward, and that's why
- 01:35:42
- I like to talk about grace relations. I would recommend to you get the book One Race, One Blood, and the whole book is good, and even that chapter would be helpful, but here's some things
- 01:35:52
- I think Christians need to do. Number one, we need to pray and ask God for his love and enlightenment.
- 01:35:59
- Number two, we need to study what the scriptures have to say about our unity in Christ.
- 01:36:05
- Ephesians 2, 3, and 4 would be great chapters to go to. John 13, 34, 35, just get
- 01:36:14
- God's view of this whole thing down in your own heart and mind. And then
- 01:36:19
- I think we need to really search our own hearts. A lot of us say that we're not prejudiced, but when we get right down into it, human nature is what it is.
- 01:36:28
- Envy, jealousy, pride, all those things we struggle with, so we need to get honest before God.
- 01:36:36
- And then we need to intentionally learn of other cultures. A lot of what you hear in the media misrepresents people of other cultures, especially
- 01:36:45
- Christians. So even in evangelism, Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, he became all things to all men in order that he might win some.
- 01:36:55
- Basically what he's saying is he had to learn another culture so that he could communicate the gospel. So we need to listen and learn and we need to really seek out the wisdom because this is a difficult subject and it's easy to bind to stereotypes and perceptions rather than doing the hard work of really getting wise counsel and understanding where people are coming from and their perceptions and their history and their heroes and their villains and all of that.
- 01:37:26
- And then take the big step, that great risk we teach our students in culture, race, and the church.
- 01:37:33
- They all have to visit a church of a different ethnic or cultural background than the one that they have grown up in and the one they're attending now, and they have to take notes.
- 01:37:42
- What is different about that service, biblically and culturally, and they need to distinguish between the two and see can they by the love of Christ seek to give up some of their rights, as Philippians 2 says, and count others, the interests of others above their own.
- 01:38:03
- And that type of humility and seeking after, you'd be surprised how people come around if they really think you love them and really think you care about them.
- 01:38:13
- So that's a short list. I want to get your reaction to something that I did back in the 1990s.
- 01:38:24
- Actually, it was probably actually going back to the 1980s. I was a member of a church that was a predominantly white church.
- 01:38:35
- I think there was one black couple in the church, and we were located geographically in an area of Amityville, where my co -host and I were both born and raised.
- 01:38:48
- And in the area that our church was in, my church that I was a member of, the area that the church was in, it was in the northern part of that town, which is probably 95 to 99 percent black in its population.
- 01:39:08
- And I remember saying to the pastors of our church, you know, this is really a bad reflection on us as a church if we are 99 percent white in our congregation and we live right in the heart of a black community.
- 01:39:25
- It's really showing that we're not reaching out to our neighbors the way that we should be with the gospel.
- 01:39:31
- And I said, why don't we get Dr. Robert J.
- 01:39:36
- Cameron, who is somebody that I became familiar with through a Christian radio station. He was a conservative,
- 01:39:44
- Bible -believing, black preacher who shared nearly identically the doctrinal standards of the congregation that I was a member of.
- 01:39:54
- And there were people in the church that were familiar with him through the radio. Dr. Cameron since became a very dear friend of my late wife and myself.
- 01:40:04
- And Dr. Cameron also went home to glory with Christ just a few years ago.
- 01:40:11
- But I said, why don't we get him to be a speaker at the church? We'll have a conference and I will plaster flyers and posters all over this community with a photograph of Dr.
- 01:40:25
- Cameron. And so people will see that this is not some kind of a purposefully all -white church that wishes to remain that way.
- 01:40:35
- And sure enough, a lot of black neighbors to the church came to this conference.
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- And I think somewhere between three and five families remained there and became members.
- 01:40:49
- Now, some people might say that that was using tokenism as some kind of a pragmatic way of doing that.
- 01:40:58
- But I don't think so because Dr. Cameron believed what we believe. We weren't solely using him because he was a black man.
- 01:41:06
- We were using him because he was a brilliant man who agreed with us in theology and was a powerful preacher and an excellent communicator of truth.
- 01:41:14
- So do you think that would be a way that a church could consider doing something like to reach out to the people of other races that may be in their midst and perhaps even invite you to speak at a conference at their congregation?
- 01:41:30
- Oh yeah, we have a phrase that we use in our class, no contact, no impact.
- 01:41:37
- So if you don't have contact, go and make contact and go visit people in the community.
- 01:41:43
- Have speakers. We say a site's worth, a picture's worth a thousand words.
- 01:41:49
- So if you can get a diverse people speaking in the pulpit or even churches, two churches predominantly, we got two students here.
- 01:41:58
- One of them is pastoring a multicultural church. The other one is pastoring, I think, basically a heavily black church.
- 01:42:05
- So one of the students in our class in recent class in November and through December said, oh, our churches came together and I met the brothers and sisters.
- 01:42:15
- That was so warm to me. Yeah, it was a black lady talking about whites. So the thing of it is, if there's no contact, there's no impact.
- 01:42:24
- And we have to, sometimes it's fearful, but we have to take those steps.
- 01:42:31
- Jesus came from heaven to become one of us, that he might die for us, that he might save us.
- 01:42:37
- And his love should motivate us to try to make contact. And I like what you're saying.
- 01:42:42
- Sometimes we think it's got to be huge and change everybody overnight. But I tell them,
- 01:42:48
- Paul said in evangelism, he became all things, all men, that he might win some.
- 01:42:54
- We won't win all, but we should win some. And we need that contact.
- 01:42:59
- So I think I encourage all those type of things that we can do for the cause of Christ. Yes. And I think that tokenism would be a wrong way if someone were to choose a black preacher, or in the reverse, if a black congregation or a church heavily populated or predominantly or exclusively populated by black members wanted to reach out to the white community just to choose a man to speak there because he was white, irregardless of what his beliefs were, would be ridiculous.
- 01:43:31
- That's why I emphasize that Dr. Cameron, when we had him speak, was very much in agreement with us on the majority of theology and so on.
- 01:43:41
- And by the way, I think I forgot to mention to Joe in Slovenia, you have also won a free copy of One Race, One Blood by our guests,
- 01:43:48
- Dr. Charles Ware and Ken Ham. And we thank you, Joe, for giving us an
- 01:43:54
- American address to ship that to, to prevent the very high overseas shipping costs that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service would be faced with when they ship that out to you.
- 01:44:07
- And we thank CVBBS .com again for shipping out all of our winners, their free books. And we also thank
- 01:44:13
- Masterbook for providing the free copies of this book for us to give away.
- 01:44:20
- One thing I want to say that I have to be careful how
- 01:44:26
- I say it because people are very sensitive these days and accuse folks of being racist or, or being insensitive or what have you for the slightest misstep in the way you speak.
- 01:44:46
- But do you think that it is really unproductive?
- 01:44:53
- And in fact, in some ways, is racism in a different package?
- 01:45:00
- If people really go overboard, tiptoeing around the tulips, if you will, when they are speaking in the presence of or speaking to their brothers and sisters in Christ with a different skin color, where sometimes it seems that, that those who are liberal and even sometimes those who are black
- 01:45:26
- Christian brothers and sisters, they want us, it seems at times to treat them as if they are little children to not use any kind of terminology that may hurt their feelings or something.
- 01:45:38
- Do you understand where I'm coming from, Dr. Ware? I don't know if I'm making myself clear, but to me that even seems racism.
- 01:45:45
- It seems like racism in a different package. If we have to go overboard speaking to our own brothers and sisters in Christ differently according to their skin color, because we were out of fear of hurting their feelings in some way.
- 01:45:59
- Well, yeah, that's what I was talking about earlier, why I put people in different categories, because the word racism has become so broad.
- 01:46:07
- You can hardly have a conversation without somebody being offended. Even President Obama was on YouTube, I think he was on a university somewhere a few years back, and he was telling them, hey, this is a university.
- 01:46:20
- You can't be upset by every view that disagrees with your view. You're at a university.
- 01:46:26
- This is a place of ideas. You don't have to be having exchange. I agree with that.
- 01:46:32
- We don't have to agree on everything. That's one of the things I say about having conversations.
- 01:46:38
- We're talking to our students. Having conversation doesn't mean you have to agree, but you listen to the person, try to figure out where they're coming from, and you can speak your views and learn from one another.
- 01:46:50
- In fact, one of the keys to real racial reconciliation or any relationship is deep trusting relationships, because if you can't disagree and resolve disagreements, your marriage won't last, your relationships on the job won't last, your relationships in the church won't last.
- 01:47:11
- So to be so sensitive that we're offended by everything. In fact, I tell people
- 01:47:17
- Christ is my model, and he hung on the cross and said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.
- 01:47:23
- So I want to be more like him than anybody else. I remember speaking on this subject in a church, and a guy waited to get up to greet me.
- 01:47:34
- He's probably a white fellow, probably about 5 '8", I'm about 6 '2". He weighed a little like 250, 260 pounds, real big fella.
- 01:47:43
- And he said, Brother, I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. God saved me.
- 01:47:50
- Let's hug. You know, and I shook his hands all the way around him, but I did the best
- 01:47:55
- I could, you know. Did you check to make sure he didn't steal your wallet when he did that? That's a great story.
- 01:48:03
- But that's the power of grace. Yes, amen. That's the grace of God. Yes, well, you may even recall seeing this on television yourself,
- 01:48:11
- Dr. Ware, when a former member of the Klan was on trial for being a part of a group of Klansmen who murdered a young black man.
- 01:48:22
- And one of these murderers who was on the stand, who was found guilty, was begging the black mother who was present in the courtroom for forgiveness.
- 01:48:39
- And he said, if there was a way that I could, you know, turn back time and somehow do something differently,
- 01:48:46
- I would. And I really, I'm begging you to forgive me, because this was a wicked thing that I did.
- 01:48:51
- I don't know verbatim what the man said, because I don't have a transcript in front of me, but it was something like that.
- 01:48:58
- If I could become your son, I would, you know, that kind of a thing. And the woman there said to the
- 01:49:04
- Klansmen, I've already forgiven you. If Jesus Christ has forgiven me, I must forgive you.
- 01:49:10
- And that was a powerful moment in a courtroom, just to witness that on television.
- 01:49:16
- Well, that's grace. And that's what we saw in Charleston, you know, with Dylann Roof. I tell people that the power of the grace of God as Christians, we need to be modeling that before watching
- 01:49:28
- World. We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know,
- 01:49:36
- I am furious every time I see liberals try to equate one's skin color or ethnic origin or nationality with being a homosexual.
- 01:49:48
- It really infuriates me to be without words.
- 01:49:54
- I was wondering what your guest's response to this is. It seems that the homosexual activist community is jumping on the bandwagon of genuine civil rights activists that have paved the way for legal unity of the races in this country.
- 01:50:19
- And this is an entirely different thing than one's race, ethnicity or national origin.
- 01:50:26
- It is behavior and it is a damning behavior. God never damned anyone because of their skin color.
- 01:50:31
- If you could comment on Harrison Mechanicsburg's question slash comment.
- 01:50:37
- Great question. In the book, I actually had an appendix put in the book because every time
- 01:50:42
- I speak about this subject, that type of thing come up. And that appendix is called hijacking the civil rights bus.
- 01:50:52
- And it addresses the very issue that is being raised. I tell our students that we want to show compassion to everyone, but we will not compromise the truth of Christ for anyone.
- 01:51:03
- And as was stated, homosexuality, lesbianism, same -sex attraction, whatever you want to call it, is sinful behavior if acted upon.
- 01:51:17
- And it can be changed. I can't change the color of my skin. And actually the civil rights law had immutable, part of the description of it is immutable traits, something you can't change.
- 01:51:31
- So yes, God's word will tell us about our unity across so -called racial or ethnic lines, but God's word will also draw moral lines.
- 01:51:43
- And as a Christian, we cannot give up on those moral lines. We have to hold to those. At the same time, showing compassion because homosexual, lesbian, they're like fornicators or anybody else, they need salvation through Christ.
- 01:51:58
- But I definitely do not blur those lines. The word of God is very clear. Right. And not only could you not change the color of your skin, there's no reason why you should even want to.
- 01:52:11
- Whereas, you know, being involved in a sinful lifestyle like homosexuality, one must want to and repent of it if they desire to have eternal life.
- 01:52:24
- And well, thank you, Harrison and Mechanicsburg. And you have also won a free copy of One Race, One Blood, A Biblical Answer to Racism by our guest
- 01:52:34
- A. Charles Ware and Ken Ham. Thank you for joining us on the air with an excellent question like that.
- 01:52:42
- And I already know since we only have about six minutes left that I definitely want
- 01:52:47
- Dr. Ware back on the program very soon. So when we go off the air, Dr. Ware, if you don't mind hanging on the phone a couple of minutes,
- 01:52:55
- I'd like to schedule you for an interview, another interview when we go off the air, if that's all right with you.
- 01:53:01
- Love to. Yep, love to do it. Well, right now I would like you to surmise in five minutes or so what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we go off the air in regard to this topic we've been discussing.
- 01:53:17
- Well, I think it's summed up like the words I like to use, grace relations.
- 01:53:23
- I like to put in the hearts and minds of the listeners that the grace of God is powerful enough to reach any sinner, forgive them of their sins, accept them into the family of God, and then the word of God would guide us in our personal life and our interpersonal life within the body of Christ and the world at large.
- 01:53:46
- You know, so much in the secular form is divisive and discouraging.
- 01:53:53
- It's like somebody's got to win, somebody's got to lose, I'm better than you, you're worse than I am, where the grace of God says no, we're all sinners.
- 01:54:03
- I tell people there's enough sin to go around for everybody. We're all sinners, should go to hell, but because of God's marvelous love and his grace, we're saved through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- 01:54:17
- That love should make me secure enough that I don't have to fight for other people or win over on them to make myself feel significant.
- 01:54:27
- I'm significant because I was created in it, was purchased by the death, burial, and resurrection of the
- 01:54:33
- Son of God, indwelt by the Spirit of God, and yielded to the
- 01:54:39
- Spirit of God that he might produce the love of God in me for others, and I should take the initiative.
- 01:54:46
- One of the things that disturbs me a lot is what I call the blame and shame game. We're blaming and shaming one another rather than asking
- 01:54:57
- God, how can we positively unite around the Word of God and submission to the
- 01:55:04
- Spirit of God to advance the kingdom of God for the glory of God?
- 01:55:09
- I like to tell people I don't want reconciliation for reconciliation's sake. Biblical reconciliation is for the mutual edification of believers and the united evangelization of those who are lost, and if we can get that into our hearts and begin to ask
- 01:55:26
- God for practical, personal ways, I have a thing called a grace dream and grace relations.
- 01:55:34
- Dream is what is our dream, and it should be biblical, so it should be one race, one blood.
- 01:55:41
- But having that dream, so what's the reality? If the next to R is the reality, what's the reality in your context, your church, your community?
- 01:55:48
- Study that out, see what the reality is, and then E is what do you expect if you really pursued that dream?
- 01:55:54
- What do you expect? Encouragement? Opposition? What's going to happen? Then the
- 01:55:59
- A is for applications within your context, because every context is different, and then the
- 01:56:06
- M is for measurables. What are you going to do in the next 30 days or 60 days? So that's kind of a thing
- 01:56:11
- I like to use and love to talk about it more in depth sometimes. Well, praise
- 01:56:16
- God. Dr. Ware, I really appreciate you coming back on, well, should
- 01:56:22
- I say coming on for the first time on the program, and I ask of your forgiveness for any of my own parts in the confusion that resulted.
- 01:56:31
- I was on my side. I just looked and found it up. It was down in my notes, and I don't use it.
- 01:56:41
- Well, I really appreciate you being on the program. I know that the
- 01:56:48
- Crossroads Bible College, where you are president, their website is crossroads .edu.
- 01:56:57
- If anybody wants to purchase a copy of One Race, One Blood that did not win a free one today, or perhaps even some of you who won a free copy want to buy some for your family, friends, and loved ones, or neighbors, or give them out to strangers, just make use of them for God's glory, you can get that through cvbbs .com,
- 01:57:19
- which is Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, a sponsor of Iron, Sharpens Iron, cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for Bible Book Service dot com.
- 01:57:29
- And is there any other contact information that you would like to provide for you personally?
- 01:57:35
- Do you have your own website, a blog, or anything like that that you'd like to promote? Oh, they can get it all on crossroads .edu,
- 01:57:42
- and I would like to say the course Culture, Race, and the Church can be taken online if somebody wanted to dig into some of these areas a little deeper, historically, biblically, and bring it up to today.
- 01:57:55
- I'd encourage them to take that course. And where can they take that course? Where do they find that? Crossroads.
- 01:58:01
- They go to crossroads .edu, www .crossroads .edu, Culture, Race, and the
- 01:58:06
- Church be the course that we're talking about. And you can also find out more of the other books that Masterbooks publishes at masterbooks .com,
- 01:58:19
- masterbooks .com. We thank the folks at Masterbooks for providing us with the free copies that we've been giving away.
- 01:58:26
- And my co -host, Dr., not doctor, but my friend, Charlie Liebert, you have one website that is sixdaycreation .com.
- 01:58:35
- Anything else? Yeah, I have another website where my two books that I've published so far are offered. It's called yourchristiananswers .com.
- 01:58:43
- yourchristiananswers .com. There'll be a new website for the Darwin book that I'm working on publishing now.
- 01:58:48
- Great. Well, don't forget, folks, about the upcoming debate between evangelical
- 01:58:55
- Protestant theologian Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary and Roman Catholic theologian
- 01:59:02
- Robert St. Genis of Catholic Apologetics International, Friday, the 13th of January at the
- 01:59:08
- Carlisle Theatre. For more information, go to chrisarnson at gmail .com.
- 01:59:14
- They just reactivated my account while we were on the air. chrisarnson at gmail .com or chrisarnson at comcast .net.
- 01:59:22
- I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.