January 16, 2023 Show with Gary Carter on “From Dallas to London: The Journey of a Dallas Theological Seminary Graduate into Reformed Theology”

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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This is Chris Arnzett, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 16th day of January, 2023.

Many of you may have seen publicity for today's program that informed you that our guest today was going to be

Reformed apologist and documentarian Jerry Johnson, perhaps most well known for creating the

DVD series Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism that came out,

I think, over 20 years ago. Jerry was originally scheduled to be on the program.

He was going to be discussing with me a brotherly critique of dispensationalism.

And then Jerry informed me that he had to postpone our interview because he is attending the funeral of a friend today.

So I just wanted to make you aware of the fact that that is why Jerry is not with us today.

But I'm thrilled that a brother was very enthusiastic overtaking

Jerry's place on the show today. I thank him for his willingness to do so with late notice.

And this contact came about providentially while I was looking for a theologically sound church for the daughter of a friend in the

Tampa Bay area. So I am delighted that God's providence and sovereignty led me to discover a wonderful brother,

Gary Carter, who is pastor of Free Grace Church of Tampa Bay, Florida. And today we're going to be addressing something similar to what

Jerry Johnson was intending to cover, but this would be a much more personal story of that critique of dispensationalism.

We're going to be discussing the theme, From Dallas to London, the Journey of a

Dallas Theological Seminary Graduate into Reformed Theology and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Shepard's Iron Radio, Pastor Gary Carter.

Thank you, Chris. And Gary, before we go into your story, tell our listeners about Free Grace Church of Tampa Bay, Florida.

Before I do that, I'll let you know that it's been over 20 years ago,

Jerry Johnson asked me to do a debate between covenant theology and dispensationalism.

Wow. And we did that in Brandon, Florida. Oh, so it actually occurred.

Yeah, I did. I told him that I would prefer to do just, we both share teachings, but he liked the debate format.

And so do I. I've arranged about 30 debates over the last two decades or even longer than that.

I began organizing them in 1996. And so I absolutely love debates as long as the participants are handling themselves appropriately.

Yes, that's right. And in fact, the vast majority of the debates that I arranged, they did, although there was a couple of debates where the opponent of reform theology got a little heated, but God still enabled the events to be productive and edifying.

But, so, that's a good thing. I had a small son at the time who, when

I came home, he said, how did the auction go? And I said, well, it really wasn't going well.

So, yes, the Free Grace Church, we started in 1990, and it's free grace, as in the

Shorter Catechism, justifications and act of God's free grace, adoptions and act of God's free grace, sanctifications and act of God's free grace.

So it's that kind of free grace, Reformed Baptist. Yes, I know why you're probably mentioning that.

There is an unfortunate situation where there are Christians and pastors and churches who are heretical, that are using the term free grace to describe themselves.

And what they mean by that is that repentance is not necessary for salvation, and that a regenerate

Christian need not bear the fruits of repentance and godly lives and obedience, albeit imperfect ones.

They insist that that is not a requirement to show that as an evidence for salvation.

You were originally at Tampa Reformed Baptist Church, and the term is for drive -by people.

They do not understand it. So someone said, well, why did you change to free grace? And I said, to make more

Reformed Baptists. I actually read a note from someone that said among the

Puritan writers, one of the most used phrases in summarizing what they believe is free grace.

The Puritans used it constantly. They'd say, well, what are we saying? That's God's free grace. So it's free and sovereign, unchangeable, effectual, not distinguishing, so forth.

So we started in 1990, and we've continued to grow spiritually,

I believe. And Florida is a very transient state. People move here, and then they start missing their relatives up north, and they go back, or they move around.

And so we've had a lot of people that have come and gone, but we're very thankful.

So 1990 was our first service. Well, praise God. And by the way,

I don't think I asked you this yet, but is the video of the debate that you did that Jerry Johnson organized with you, where you were defending

Reformed theology against a dispensationalist opponent, is that available anywhere?

You know, Jerry would know that. I don't have a copy of it. Okay. Well, I will make sure

I let or ask Jerry that after the show today. And if anybody wants...

It's an old one. Go ahead. It's an old one, but it was a good time. Good. Well, if anybody wants more details on the

Free Race Church of Tampa Bay, Florida, which is specifically in Lutz, Florida, the website is tampareformedbaptistchurch .com.

tampareformedbaptistchurch .com. And God willing, I will be repeating that toward the end of the program.

Well, before we actually go into your journey from Dallas Theological Seminary into Reformed theology in the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith, I want to hear the earlier part of your story. Whenever we have a first -time guest on the program, which you are one, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the kind of family atmosphere they were raised in religiously, if any, and the kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them. And I want to hear your story.

Okay. Well, I was born in 1954, and I grew up in a small town in Ohio where Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia meet.

And something special about small -town America in late 50s, early 60s, we had prayers over the intercom.

We had pastors come in and preach to us in special services, and they read the

Daily Bread or whatever every day and said the Lord's Prayer. And so it was a nice little town.

My family situation had a lot of difficulties. My father and my stepfather both were in severe problem with alcohol.

They were alcoholics. We didn't go to church. But I was invited to a church camp when

I graduated from high school. So I was pretty much involved with things

I'm believing teenagers were involved in. And so I said, well, what is church camp?

And they said, well, we play ball. We have winter roast. We camp out.

We do all these things and play sports. And I said, and they pay for it?

And they said, yes. But I didn't realize they had Bible studies all day. They didn't. They left that out. So I went.

The first night there, it was a man probably in his 30s. He challenged everyone, you know, if you're going to heaven, raise your hands.

Everybody raised their hands. And he said, how many just raise your hands and you really don't understand it?

You don't know that. You don't have any reason to believe that. He really pressed it. And I realized how ignorant

I was. I didn't understand anything. And so later that night, we had a man who was a chaperone from a local church in the bunk.

And he was going to read scripture and pray before we went to bed. And he read Acts chapter 16.

And in that chapter, when the Philippian jailer asked, what must

I do to be saved? And Paul told him, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

I don't know how to explain it, but it was just written on my heart. I grasped it. God gave me the faith to believe it.

And so my first prayer, I remember later going to bed and was,

I said, Lord, my first thought was I don't want to go to hell. But what I really want is you.

What I really want is you and to live for you and to know the Bible. So then

I started studying the Bible and God just gave me a hunger for it. I just couldn't get enough of it.

We used to, on Friday nights, if you had a car, you would shine up your car and get your eight -track tapes out, go to the local hamburger stand and drive around to see and be seen.

And I remember I was getting ready to go. First Friday night, I got home and I said, I could be home studying the

Bible. Why am I doing this? So I just had an amazing hunger for the word of God.

And I got involved in a little Baptist church. A pastor was like a father to me and took great interest in me.

And he, he preached. And so I had some friends who were, these were men probably in their 30s.

They said, you should come up to a Bible college that's been started. It was for, a lot of times it was for pastors who had no theological education.

They, along the high river, there were a lot of factories and they're pretty much closed now.

But those factories were, had shift work. And so if you work midnights or days or whatever, you could come and take classes at two different times during the day and get your classes.

And if you work shift work, because a lot of the pastors worked in these factories. And so there were, these men were from Dallas seminary that started the

Bible college. So I got started studying the Bible. And so really everybody

I knew was dispensational. I didn't really even know what it meant. I just knew they believed in a rapture and tribulation period.

It was the left behind movies were out at that time. And this is 1972.

And so, but as I grew, I just wanted to witness, to evangelize, to be near to God's people.

And I wanted to be at church every time the doors were open. No one told me that you don't have to come to the business meeting, which was unpleasant to see the brothers arguing.

Or the most entertaining. It depends on which way you want to look at it. Nobody warned me about that.

So, but the young people didn't come to church after the summer. And so I found my fellowship was with all these older saints.

And there was no generation gap. They love the Lord. They love the word.

And I just had great fellowship with them. And then eventually I graduated from a high university and I was taking classes at the seminary.

They had a couple of men there who were really strong in languages. There was a man who formerly was a lumberjack.

Then he became a missionary to the Jews and then he taught Hebrew. And so I got two years of Hebrew with him.

I got a year of Greek because I was, I felt I was constantly teaching either young people or assistant for the adults.

And just God brought that desire in my heart to, 1

Timothy 3 says, to teach, to preach, live God's word.

And so I was going to go to seminary. And so obviously I went to Dallas and I wanted to get a head start on the languages.

So then I went to Dallas and of course I met my wife and we got married before I went.

Her name is Levina. We've been married 47 years. Praise God. I'm so thankful for that.

So then I really went to seminary with a desire to know the word. And they had some men there at the time who,

I don't know why they were really there. They were more reformed in doctrine. S. Louis Johnson perhaps?

S. Louis Johnson, Bruce Waltke. John Hannah and Ed Bloom, who

I think is in charge of the translation revisions for the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

And these men were the most well -read. There was just something different about them. They were much more reformed in their doctrine.

But I didn't understand all that. But toward the end of the seminary

I took a class on revivals. And we looked at really pretty much the

Calvinistic revivals. And were warned about Finney, which I was thankful for that. Really?

At Dallas Theological Seminary you were warned against Finney? Yeah, with Professor John Hannah.

He was one of the ones that you said was reformed leaning, right? Yes. Because it's very hard to find dispensationalists who are critical of Charles Finney.

Yes. And so he said, buy all the Manner of Truth books you can get. He said,

I've never been disappointed in him. So I did that. I began to get

Manner of Truth books. And of course we're moving into this dispensational element now. If that's all right.

Oh yeah. And I just wanted to quickly say I had the honor and privilege to share lunch with S.

Lewis Johnson when he was a speaker at what was called the John Bunyan Conference, which was an annual event that was held in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

And New Ringgold as well, later on. And he was one of the speakers and I had the privilege,

I think he actually providentially said, you mind if I sit next to you? And he sat down next to me and we had a wonderful conversation.

And he told me the story of how when he became a believer in definite or limited atonement or particular redemption, he was basically forced to resign from Dallas's factory.

Basically it was kind of like the Godfather. They gave him an offer he couldn't refuse or something.

They basically gave him the realization that there was no alternative other than for him to resign.

You know, I remember that's one of my experiences there. A number of us wanted to go hear

S. Lewis Johnson talk about limited atonement. And so we went to Believer's Chapel and he was going to teach us that.

And he surprised us. We were ready for deep exit Jesus and historical, even philosophical.

He covered all the bases. But he said, you asked me, who did Christ die for?

He said, my answer is who is saved? And he said, that's my answer.

That's who he died for. And he kept going, he kept going around on that.

Like, you asked me, who did he die for? Well, who's in heaven? That's the one he died for. Who did he die for?

Those who are going to be saved. So he always connected the cross with the effectual work.

He wasn't trying to save. He was actually saving. And it ended up, it was a surprising, he surprised us eager students with this very straightforward, emphatic teaching.

And it was beautiful. Praise God. And we're going to go to our first station break right now.

If you have a question for my guest, Gary Carter, please submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are a member of a dispensationalist church, and you don't feel comfortable asking a certain question.

Perhaps you're going through a journey of your own where you are departing from that theological system and also an eschatological system that you are leaving.

Perhaps you've already departed that in your heart and mind, but you're still a member of that church.

And you feel uncomfortable identifying yourself. Well, I understand that. You may feel free to remain anonymous.

But please, if it's just a general question, if it's not a personal and private issue, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

And by the way, I also wanted to make it clear, and I'm sure my guest today, Gary Carter, would agree with this.

And by the way, this is not the baseball great from the New York Mets, Gary Carter.

This is a different Gary Carter. But I want to make it clear to our listeners, and I'm very confident

Gary would agree with me, that we are not seeking to vilify dispensationalists. One of my greatest living heroes is

John MacArthur, who, although I disagree with his dispensationalism and his eschatology,

I agree with the vast majority of what he and his ministry stand for.

And in my opinion, dispensationalism seems to be on a lower, a much lower rung on the ladder of importance with him.

Those issues don't seem to dominate his sermons or his books.

And in fact, when he wrote the Gospel according to Jesus, he was standing almost all alone as a dispensationalist, fighting against easy believism and cheap grace, which unfortunately was being taught very heavily, even at Dallas Theological Seminary, where my guest today was a student.

So I just wanted to make that clear. We are just being open and honest about our differences with dispensationalism, especially my guest is doing that.

And since I am a Reformed Baptist, a confessional Reformed Baptist, I think it's an important distinction, although not one to separate fellowship with dear brethren who still embrace that system.

It is just a matter of standing for the truths as I see them and as my guest sees them.

So I just want you to be aware of that. I do have quite a number of listeners who are dispensationalists who love the show.

In fact, there was a very strong financial supporter of this show when we first launched the program.

And it was because of this man that we did first launch the program, Pastor Ron Glass, the former pastor of Wading River Baptist Church, Wading River, Long Island, a thoroughgoing dispensationalist and a thoroughgoing

Calvinist. And Ron knew of my differences with him on these things, but he insisted on helping financially to relaunch my program after I moved from New York to Pennsylvania.

And he became my very first sponsor of this broadcast. So I do have a very strong, heartfelt attachment to many dispensationalists.

So again, we're not vilifying them. We're not trying to present this as heresy, something that jeopardizes one's salvation or anything like that.

We are just talking about important differences that brethren in Christ grapple over.

And hopefully when they are debating one another and having discussions with one another about these differences, they do so hopefully in love.

But just to let you know that that's where we are coming from today. And again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Gary Carter right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Armson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program is from the

Free Grace Church of Tampa Bay, Florida, a Reform Baptist church in that area. We are discussing

From Dallas to London, The Journey of a Dallas Theological Seminary Graduate into Reform Theology in the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith. If you have a question, submit it to chrisarmson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. Before I forget to ask this question,

I am dying to find out who initially made contact with a man who has become a great hero of many who are

Reform Baptists, who was the founder, the very founder of the church where I am a member in the late 1950s,

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I believe it was called Grace Chapel of Carlisle at that time.

And the man's name is Ernie Reisinger, who not only founded Grace Baptist Church, but later would labor alongside

Tom Askell at Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, where Tom Askell leads

Founders Ministries, a Calvinistic movement within the Southern Baptist Convention. But tell us about that initial meeting and how you initially became aware of Ernie Reisinger and how a friendship developed.

Yes, that's a great honor and if we're not in any hurry,

I would like to give a lead into that. Sure, we are not in any hurry at all. Okay. All right.

Well, so I began to read the history of revivals and different men like Whitfield, Edwards, Brainerd, the

Scottish revivals, McShane and Burns and so forth. And as I did,

I just noticed the way they talked about the Christian life was so much more rich and full.

And Whitfield would say things like keep close to your evidences. Well, you never heard that in dispensational circles.

I didn't. and then I heard about this booklet that Ernie Reisinger wrote on what shall we do with the carnal

Christian? Because that was part of Lewis Barry Chaffer's theme of who is spiritual and who's carnal.

And he showed that in 1 Corinthians 3, it's really, they were arguing over whether they liked

Apollos or Peter or Paul better. Who's your favorite preacher? And he said, that's childish.

It's carnal. It wasn't that these were ungodly people and he called him carnal

Christians. And it was such a help to me as he just explained that and then explained the true evidences of regeneration.

And I happened to my mother was living in St. Petersburg. And so when

I came to St. Petersburg, I did try to get in touch with Ernie and I visited him and I was invited to the

Founders Conference at Rhodes College. This was in the mid 80s,

I guess. And I got to meet him, talk to him and I'd visit him in his home also.

He'd give me books. He always gave people books. So it was a great help to me to know him.

He did come and do a commissioning service when we started the church in Tampa.

And he preached on, he preached on being a preacher, but he really emphasized the illustration from Pilgrim's Progress, which he loved, on the story at Interpreter's House, the man who had the

Bible in front of him, the world behind him. And it was a just a wonderful summary of what it means to be a preacher of the word.

So Ernie was a great help to me. And I'm very thankful that God brought him into my life.

By the way, if anybody is interested in learning more about this great modern -day hero of the

Reformed Baptists, Ernest Riesinger, a biography is in print by my dear friend

Jeff Thomas, who many of you have heard on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. I've interviewed

Jeff Thomas frequently on this broadcast. And he wrote the biography of Ernest Riesinger, available at the

Banner of Truth. And you can order that through BannerofTruth .org,

BannerofTruth .org. But I would actually prefer that you order it through sponsors of this program,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service, dot com,

CVBBS .com. And they carry all of the Banner of Truth's titles there. But so you became friends with Ernie.

And by the way, was Ernie still pastoring in Carlisle at that time, or was he down in Florida?

Oh no, he was in Cape Coral. Okay. And he would send me on some errands.

He had me preach at Pompano Beach, things like this. And it was just a real privilege to have a connection with him.

Yes, I had developed a friendship with his brother, John Riesinger. And John was on the opposite side of the perpetuity of the

Decalogue issue with his own brother, Ernie. But I benefited greatly, nonetheless, from John Riesinger's preaching and teaching, and used to attend his conferences every year for quite a bit, the aforementioned

John Bunyan conferences. So both of them are now in heaven, and now they're in full agreement with each other.

Yes, that's right. You know, another, I found that as I began to read these

Banner of Truth books on the revival, it just brought me in contact with different authors, and I found their descriptions of the

Christian life, and how they used the Bible so much richer. I would find if I'm, they would use the minor prophets and Isaiah and Romans and Ephesians all mixed together.

It was just walking with God, knowing God, and they had that understanding of the unity of the

Bible. I think that was the key thing for me, that the Bible is one book,

God has one people, and they are the elect, the regenerate, and the redeemed.

That's what defines them. I, go ahead. No, go ahead.

I had, I read a Robert Louis Dabney's article on the

Plymouth Brethren, and he said they tend to emphasize positional and practical truth.

Well, positional would be like justification, practical is what you do about it. He said, but they leave out experiential, the regeneration.

And it shows why you can end up with supposedly carnal

Christians, is if you don't understand regeneration, then there's a true change that's a very defective view of Christian life.

Yes. So, Dabney was very helpful on that, and it was, interestingly, he was critiquing the

Plymouth Brethren, which is foundational to dispensationalism. Now, this issue is one of the core issues of basically what you would find to be, and what most performed

Christians would find to be deficient theology, aberrant theology, amongst the dispensationalists.

One of the reasons why you departed from that system is that, and of course, not in every occasion, because John MacArthur seems to be a very stark contrast against the backdrop of the majority of dispensationalism on the issue that you just mentioned, but it seems to have been, especially in the 80s,

I can remember, it was a, dispensationalism was a breeding ground for those who staunchly opposed the insistence upon repentance as a mark of true conversion and salvation, to such the point that some of these dispensationalists would label us as dangerous heretics.

I'm not saying that they all would, but some would. They would, they seemed to think, erroneously, that we were teaching a works, righteousness, salvation, much akin to what the

Church of Rome dogmatically teaches, and in fact, I can even remember years ago meeting

John Ankerberg at a conference, and I think John must have been more enlightened about the issue later on, because he actually had

John MacArthur and D. James Kennedy and R .C. Sproul do a documentary in opposition to the

Evangelicals and Catholics Together document after this meeting I had with John Ankerberg.

But when I said to John Ankerberg, this was way before, long before,

I had my own show, I said, did you ever think of having John MacArthur on to debate somebody who opposes lordship, salvation?

And he said, well, my only problem with John is that I think he would have a hard time presenting the gospel successfully to a

Roman Catholic. And I said, why? What do you mean? And he said, well, his position is too close to theirs in teaching works being necessary for salvation.

I said, John, you haven't read John MacArthur's book. He doesn't teach that at all.

But that seems to be what many dispensationalists think that we are teaching, right?

Yes, and I believe that there's a local station here that took MacArthur off for a while out of concern for that.

But for some reason, I'm very thankful. I remember the first time

I heard about what he called lordship, salvation.

I said, well, that's right. I heard it. I said, that's right. That's, you have to repent, believe,

Christ has to be your Lord. That's one of the effects of regeneration.

So, yes, but in reading these men like the

Scottish revivalists, Whitfield, Edwards, like Edwards' book on the treatise on the religious affections, he really spells out how the soul works with perceptions and inclinations that are the root of, rooted in regeneration and there's ongoing evidences in the

Christian life. So, when we have a baptism, three things especially we focus on on the, explaining to the person about giving a testimony is tell us how you realized you were lost.

A lot of people don't realize they're lost. And then, how were you saved? What, in your relationship with Christ?

And then, what are the ongoing evidences? And so, that's really, those three things are essential for a true testimony.

Amen, I agree with you. All this I saw really developing as I was reading this wonderful Puritan literature and meeting people like Dabney, of course,

Ian Murray's books were very helpful to me. And I just found I, I drifted away from dispensationalism for something better.

Amen. Just a better view of Christian life. So then I had this idea, I don't know where I got it at, but I said, well,

I'm going to read through the whole Bible and study every chapter of the Bible because I was living in Wisconsin at the time and we were snowed in from the end of October till sometimes the end of April.

I had plenty of time to study. And so, I wanted to take the principles of the new covenant as mentioned by Jeremiah and in Hebrews, the forgiveness and the regeneration, right?

His law upon your hearts and this I'll be your God and they shall know me, knowing

God and go through every chapter of the Bible and see if I see that throughout the

Bible. And so it took me about five years. I went through a chapter a day and, but really not more than 20 in a month because I really couldn't digest it all.

And so, after about five years, I've made through the whole, all the scriptures and it was just this wonderful time being stuck in the snow, studying the word of God that really prepared me for it.

And this is after I'd been to seminary and it just was God's wonderful dealing with me and I ended up Reformed Baptist when

I came out. Amen. And by the way, in case anybody is saying, especially if they are close friends of the late

Ernest Riesinger or at least followers of his ministry and readers of his literature and they think

I am mispronouncing his last name, that's because initially

Ernie did pronounce his, in fact, for most of his life, pronounced his name, his own last name,

Riesinger, but he later started pronouncing it Reisinger after he discovered that was the more appropriate

German pronunciation. And that was another thing that divided him and John. They pronounced their own last name differently.

Okay. I understand that. And before we go to the midway break, unless you have something else you'd like to say on that same thread that you were discussing, give us another reason why you left dispensationalism.

We've already discussed a very important issue of how the majority of it, not all of dispensationalism,

I've been trying to repeat that, I don't want to broad brush, but perhaps predominantly dispensationalism is opposed to the idea that repentance is necessary for salvation because they think wrongly that must mean that you believe in some form of works righteousness, which is a totally false and slanderous accusation against Reformed people who don't even believe a person's own will is involved in his salvation, let alone his deeds.

But if you could, pick another reason why this is an aberrant system to you. Well, as I work through these scriptures,

I found that the Old Testament had a gospel hope, they had a gospel hope, they were looking forward to the

Messiah to come and bring in everlasting righteousness, Messiah to crush the serpent's head,

Messiah to save the people from all the nations, and that's exactly what the

New Testament is. So you hear people say, well, Christ didn't fulfill the prophecies, he did with his crucifixion and his resurrection and his present work.

So you have Psalm 110, the Christ reigning at the right hand, and when

I studied the Ascension, I lost my millennium because I saw in the

Ascension all the glory of Christ and pouring out the Spirit, saving the people throughout the nations, and as Isaiah 51, 8

I believe, says that my salvation is from generation to generation. So he would save the people from all the nations throughout the generations, and that's what he would do, and he's doing it.

So, to me, the theme was the unity of the Bible. It all fit together, and the differences are easy.

Getting rid of the physical sacrifices and things like that, well, Christ fulfilled them.

But to be able to read through the whole Bible and see how to walk with God and know

Him and live for Him, it's... I heard one man say, don't take away the bread from God's children.

If you make everything refer to a future a thousand years on Earth in the Old Testament, then that's supposed to be what we live on today.

In fact, I want you to return to that very point when we return from our midway break. We're going to our longer than normal break, folks.

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Pastor Carter, you were talking earlier about one of the other reasons why you believe you began to distrust and eventually abandon the dispensationalist system.

Was this emphasis on an earthly millennium, and perhaps you could pick up where you left off there. Yes, that was a big change, but what

I found was sometimes God uses the most simple, straightforward things in the scriptures to tell you what he wants you to know.

I was reading 2 Peter chapter 3 about the coming of the

Lord and that the elements will melt with a fervent heat. The earth and the things in it will be burned up and then will come a new heavens and new earth.

So if that happens at the coming of Christ, there's no room for an earthly thousand years.

It's that simple. When he comes, we go into eternity. So that to me was a very straightforward and you're not depending on some prophetic figurative text.

It's a very straightforward epistle and Peter spells it out very plainly that when he comes, that's it.

We go into eternity rather than into an earthly thousand years. Well, it did raise a lot of other questions

I had to look at, but that was the, if you interpret the clear by the unclear or the unclear by the clear, there's a clear one.

And that certainly is a good principle of hermeneutics. I remember in the course you have all the things about the animal sacrifices, which

Hebrew says are done away with to have animal sacrifices in an earthly temple just does not

I think fit with the unity of the Bible. So many things like that.

Also the old, what do we call the apostolic hermeneutic?

How did the apostles interpret the Old Testament? That's the true interpretation because they were inspired by the spirit.

So for example, Acts chapter 15, you find that James says that this is the fulfillment of Amos nine, that when it says that God's brought

Simon to bring in, he used Simon to take a people out of the Gentiles for his own name, his own glory.

And he's saying that this is the fulfillment of the book of Amos chapter nine, that I will return and rebuild the tabernacle of David and that the rest of mankind may seek the

Lord. Even all the Gentiles are called by my name. So that's an apostolic interpretation of Amos chapter nine.

And I found that repeatedly, if you look at the quotes in the

New Testament of the Old Testament, they're actually interpreting it for you.

Why shouldn't we listen to the apostolic hermeneutic? It's a very powerful principle. And there are many examples of that, surprising ones.

Of course, Romans nine, he says, is the word of God become of no effect?

Did God not fulfill his promises? The answer is, well, certainly not, because the elect have always obtained it.

The elect of every generation, Jacob, not Esau, but on through the history of the

Bible, not of human wills, but of human runs, or human runs, but as God who shows mercy.

So the elect obtained it, the rest were hardened. And so the

Bible spells it out very plainly. Another surprising one is second

Corinthians six, where the apostle says that we are sons and daughters of the almighty.

And he's explaining second Samuel seven, which is that it's a quote that God would make

David his son and the kingly line. And those who are united to the king, the risen

Christ himself, they will be the sons and daughters of God. Now, surprisingly, in the same passage, just the verse before that, he says,

I will dwell in them and walk among them and be their God. And they shall be my people. And he's quoting

Leviticus 26 in the midst of all the descriptions of what

God would do with Israel. Paul quotes that as describing the church.

So these are things you don't hear unless you're specifically asking, how does the

New Testament interpret the Old Testament? And Christ himself said, the scriptures speak of me.

And he taught the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He went through the scriptures, the

Psalms, the prophets, the writings, and showed how things concerning him, they have a fulfillment.

So that's first Peter two as well. He takes the descriptions of Israel, a holy nation, peculiar people, and he applies them to the church among the

Gentiles. First Peter's written to those in Cappadocia and Bithynia.

That's not Israelites. He says, this is, it's the fulfillment of it.

So it's an apostolic hermeneutic. It's a very powerful thing. Then you have

Galatians three, those who are Christ or Abraham's lead and heirs according to the promise.

It seems to be just as plain as day. So when you try to separate the church from Israel, I remember

I was reading J .A. Alexander's commentary on Isaiah.

He gives you one sentence summaries of almost of each verse or section of the chapter and then gives you a detailed explanation of it.

And he's constantly showing how that this is fulfilled in the church. And when

Christ said, I'll build my church, I think the dispensationalists or myself, you think, well, how could they even know what that meant if it was not in the

Old Testament? But the word Ecclesia, there are dictionaries that give you all the uses of Ecclesia in the

Septuagint, which the New Testament used, a Greek translation of the Bible.

So Ecclesia is about a hundred times in the Old Testament, about a hundred times in the New Testament. So the

Ecclesia that is called out of God, those are his assembly, his congregation. They are in the

Old Testament. They constantly read about the Ecclesia. So just more detailed look at how the

New Testament and the Old Testament relate are, they're just very clear.

And Ephesians 2 says that the dividing wall is broken down. We're one new man and we are the temple of God.

The Jews and Gentiles together, the one body are the temple. Many, many verses like that.

A true Jew is one inwardly, not outwardly, Romans 2. And surprisingly, the

Galatians 4, you know, dispensationalists.

And I didn't tell you this, but actually after I got out of seminary, I went to a small

Bible college and I was the teacher of dispensationalism. That's what I taught. It is.

That was my course to teach. So I had to work through these things. But then when

I moved to Wisconsin, I really just began to restudy the scriptures for myself using good resources.

And of course, one of the claims is there's a consistent literal hermeneutic, but it's literal when they might want it to mean physical

Israel rather than a spiritual Israel. But Galatians 4 says this is an allegory.

And you're like, that's a word you're not allowed to use, allegory. Yet Paul uses it.

And he used the text in Isaiah 54, which was

William Carey's great text to strengthen your stakes, lengthen your cords, because the

Gentiles are going to be brought in. And this is a, it's really a continuation of the old prophecy before Abraham was called, was given to Noah, that Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem.

Japheth, the Gentiles will dwell in the tents of Shem, in the Shemites, the

Israelites, and they'll be one. So Galatians 4 quotes this passage in Isaiah 54 that the

Gentiles will be brought in. And he's really explaining what

Isaiah 54 pretty plainly says. After Isaiah 53, the cross, you have the resurrection and then the calling in of the

Gentiles. And the apostle quotes that verse. And then he says, the

Jerusalem below is in bondage, but the Jerusalem above is the mother of us all. So you see the way the

New Testament develops these themes. They really show the unity of the

Bible, that Christ came and he's doing what he promised to do.

The next thing he comes back and we go into eternity. Now I remember seeing a letter that Pink wrote in one of his letters that to go back to an earthly thousand years, it's really a retrogression.

But we have a progressive revelation. You'd be going back to the types and shadows.

And we have this. Colossians says we have the shadows are done away with because we have the substance, the reality.

And sometimes the most surprising texts will just a careful reading of the

Bible. Hebrews chapter nine says that they spoke of these the good things to come.

And then it says this, not of this creation. Not of this creation.

So it's not an earthly thousand years. It is a we go into eternity.

Of course, the thousand years doesn't have any land Israel. It's the those who are beheaded for their witness.

And there's there. They're reigning with Christ. Actually, Acts 20 is a encouragement to martyrs.

The Romans were going to kill them, persecute them. And they really always mock believers and say, look at this person.

They are. We get rid of them. But behold, they live and they reign with Christ in heaven right now.

And so the word thousand is used figuratively so many times like a cattle on thousand hills.

God's forgiveness is to a thousand generations. And it's often used that way.

So for revelation to use it in that way is not unusual at all. Yes. And if you're going to insist on a wooden literal interpretation, then you're going to have to come to the conclusion that God only owns the cattle on only a thousand hills, not a thousand and one, not a thousand and two.

Exactly. And I remember and I started seeing all these inconsistencies.

And these are dear men that I love. They were my spiritual fathers. And you almost feel like you're talking against your family.

But it's not but not them. It's what they believed. The truth.

Scripture was helpful to me by the truth and sell it not. Whatever it costs to get the truth, it's more precious than anything.

But I always continue to love these dear men who as a new Christian taught me.

And but one of the inconsistencies is all it all the time.

Dispensational study, the tabernacle. And it's they describe Christ in the tabernacle in beautiful ways, even to the boards and the sockets all the way through.

But then they say that that's. It's not the the

New Testament was a really a parenthesis. It wasn't spoken up. And it just doesn't fit.

Also, you find that I remember I came across the book by John Bunyan, Solomon's Temple spiritualized.

Well, you're allowed to spiritualize the tabernacle. But who's allowed to spiritualize the temple?

Well, John Bunyan did. It's really a good book showing how that these things were types and shadows of the good things to come, which are not of this creation.

So I found that the apostolic hermeneutic is just a power.

I just don't see how you can overcome the apostles own explanations of the scriptures.

It's a very powerful truth. Amen. Well, let's go to some listener questions.

Let's see here. We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, one of our most faithful and most loyal and generous supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina says, Greetings, brothers. How did the men from your former church in West Virginia react and friends from Dallas Theological Seminary react when they found you were now in the covenant reformed biblical viewpoint, which

I, too, believe is correct for my study of the Holy Scriptures? Well, I'm thankful to say

I have a friend who is he's like your one childhood friend you stay with from kindergarten on.

Dear, dear brother of mine. And he respects me and he just he doesn't get into it.

I just think he is thankful to have an ongoing fellowship.

And I'm surprised that he doesn't want to argue about it. I don't really either, but it's just that others they they kind of lose track of you.

I had a friend I was supposed to preach at his church and we stopped there and I talked to him about.

Ernie's book on the carnal Christian. There's a Southern Baptist Church and he said if I preach that I would lose half of my congregation.

Wow. And I was supposed to be preaching the next morning, but he didn't mention it.

So he kind of bypassed me. So that's the kind of things that happens. You lose some friends and they're content to let you go by.

Yeah, in my own life and relationships the only time

I get very uneasy about dispensationalism is when that has become the hobby horse of a pastor, a church, a denomination, etc.

And when they become so militant in their views of dispensationalism that if you disagree with them on any of their viewpoints, every jot and tittle, if you do not agree with every jot and tittle, you are renounced as a liberal.

You are renounced as even a heretic. Some will bar you from fellowship.

And I think that that is really crazy. In fact, I would say the same thing about amillennial or postmillennial covenantal

Reformed Christians if they were to dismiss as heretics all dispensationalists.

I'm not saying that there are no dispensationalists who are heretics, but they're not heretics simply because of their dispensationalism, especially if it's a more historic brand of dispensationalism.

And when I use that term historic, I mean from the 19th century is when it really appeared.

Now, just to ask you, because of the fact that many fundamentalists especially love the whole concept of that old time religion, how do they react to the blatant historical fact that their theological system that they prize so heavily is not very old?

I mean, as I said, it really was given birth to in the 19th century, which is not that long ago.

Well, I think it's like what Ernie experienced by saying to the Southern Baptists, the original

Southern Baptists were Reformed Baptists. They didn't want to hear it. That's right. And that's why

Tom Haskell has called his ministry the Founders Conference because all the founders were

Calvinists of the Southern Baptist Convention. Okay, we have... There's one other major thing.

If we have to go to a break, that's fine. No, we have a little bit. The Second Coming. When you look at all the references to the

Second Coming, it's not of a rapture.

I mean, the word rapture probably is derived from 1 Thessalonians 4, the word harpazo, which means to grasp.

And so those who are alive are grasped, taken up to heaven.

But 2 Thessalonians 1 is a good example. It says that the believers will obtain rest with us when

Christ appears in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God. So you have the believers obtaining rest and the

Second Coming and fire and judgment at the same time. So there's no pre -trib rapture there.

So the Second Coming is one single event. It says

I will raise Him up on the last day. Yeah, John 6 .40.

Then another example is 1

Corinthians 15. The last trumpet shall sound and we shall be changed in the moment and twinkling of an eye.

Well, if that's the last trumpet, there are not seven trumpets after it. So when you look at the details of the

Second Coming, every eye shall see Him. There are all of these very clear verses.

No secret rapture. Right. The blessed hope. They often say the blessed hope is the rapture and the glorious appearance of Second Coming, but it's the same time.

The blessed hope and glorious appearing is what we're waiting for. They're joined together in 2

Titus chapter 2 verse 13 following. So when you look at all the references to the

Second Coming, they're one single majestic final consummative event.

There's not two Second Comings. It's one. So their argument against us, against all non -dispensationalists, that they are the only ones taking or interpreting the scriptures literally, they themselves fail that test because, as you were mentioning before, verses such as John chapter 6 verse 40, for this is the will of my

Father that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life and I myself will raise

Him up on the last day. The only way to interpret that literally is if it is the last day of the earth as we know it.

And they somehow want to not interpret it in a literal fashion, even though they claim to be the champions of literal hermeneutics.

And we also have some of the dispensationalists following the lead of Hal Lindsey where, for instance, you have in Revelation chapter 9 verse 7, the appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold and their faces were like human faces.

Hal Lindsey said that these locusts were Soviet helicopters. So where is the strict literal interpretation there?

They so often fail at the very things that they say that they champion and they say that we are guilty of disobeying.

And you have clear things like the Apostles saying that rock which followed them was Christ. Well, that's a very spiritual understanding of Christ shepherding the people through the wilderness.

And so he will us. And why don't they adhere to a

Roman Catholic understanding of the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper? Why do they not view it truly as the body and blood of Christ if they're taking such a strictly literal interpretation?

It's funny how the Roman Catholic Church, one of the very few areas in the entirety of the

Bible that they take literally is that. But very, very puzzling indeed.

We're going to our final break right now. It's going to be shorter than the other breaks. And again, if you have a question for Gary Carter on his departure from dispensationalism, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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Make sure you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says,

Chris, you misspoke. Hal Lindsey thought that the locusts described in the

Book of Revelation were not Soviet helicopters but Cobra helicopters. Okay, I got the wrong side in the

Battle of Armageddon there, sorry. We don't have time for any more listener questions.

I'd love to have you back on to continue this discussion, but I want you now, Pastor Carter, to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Well, I think the thing that pressed upon me was the unity of the

Bible. All scripture is profitable. And so to have doctrines that keep it from being profitable, it doesn't seem to be wise.

But the whole Bible is God's bread for his children. And you read it from cover to cover and you'll find

Christ, you'll find what it means to walk with God, to know him. And so I just,

I left that for something better. I got more of Christ, I got more of the work, more of knowing

God, a holy life. And so any that are listening and struggling with this, it's a good pastor.

And if you're struggling with Revelation, I read the William Hendricks on Northern Conquerors, that was great help to me.

So there are good books that explain any things you think are difficult passages, but the big picture is that Christ is in the

Old Testament, the New Testament, he's our shepherd where his sheep, and the whole

Bible is yours. What a wonderful truth, the whole Bible is yours, dear brothers and sisters.

Amen. And if you want more information about Free Grace Church of Tampa Bay, Florida, go to tampareformedbaptistchurch .com,

tampareformedbaptistchurch .com, that is the website for Free Grace Church of Tampa Bay.

Thank you so much for doing such a spectacular job today as our first -time guest,

Pastor Carter. As I said, I'd love to have you back on the show. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

Please forgive me, all of you who are waiting to have your questions asked and answered, who were not able to get your questions on the show today.

Hopefully we'll have Pastor Carter back on very soon and we can read those questions. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater