June 17, 2016 Show with Jim Winder on “The Pilgrim’s Progress & its Relevance Today”

The Program Introduction and John Bunyan’s Enduring Legacy

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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. Now here's our host, Chris Arnton.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Friday on this 17th day of June 2016 and by the way I want to start receiving happy anniversary emails and calls and texts soon for Iron Sharpens Iron because we are now celebrating our first year of broadcasting as the all-new Iron Sharpens Iron which began this month in 2015.

Obviously Iron Sharpens Iron, my program, began in its infancy in 2006 but as far as broadcasting live from Pennsylvania, this is our first year now. June marks our first year. We thank everybody for making this program possible, not only those who sponsored it and and did everything else that was required of getting this program launched or relaunched, but we also thank you, the listener, who have been growing, our listeners have been growing in number, it seems, every day now and we thank all of you for listening, for encouraging me, for sending in good questions for our guests via email, and just being the very reason, other than Christ and his gospel, the very reason that we are broadcasting this program.

So thank you so much for getting me through the first year of rebroadcasting here on Iron Sharpens Iron out of Pennsylvania and we look forward to, God willing, many years to come. Today we have a guest, for the very first time, that was strongly recommended to me by a friend of mine that I've known for quite a long time, Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mahopac Falls, New York.

Pastor Jim has not only been a guest of mine on this program, but he's been a dear friend over the years, quite a brilliant brother in Christ, quite a powerful preacher and teacher, and when he gives me a very strong recommendation, which he doesn't do a lot, I take it seriously, especially since he, like myself, is a Reformed Baptist and Reformed Baptists have a reputation of being very fussy and are very cautious about who they recommend, and you might even say that many people would call us anal retentive as a group, but so when Pastor Jim Harrison gave me this plug or this encouragement to get my guest Jim Winder on the program, I took heed to his recommendation and the rest is history.

We now have Jim Winder on the broadcast and Jim Winder today is going to be discussing The Pilgrim's Progress and its relevance today for those of you who are either new Christians or perhaps you're not even Christian at all, I do have listeners that are not Christians from varying religions, even once in a while I know that atheists and agnostics are listening, but The Pilgrim's Progress was a classic work written by John Bunyan, John Bunyan who was a tinker in England in the 1600s, was a man imprisoned for his faith, he was imprisoned for his faith by the Church of England because he was preaching without a Anglican minister's license, and he went home to be with the and his most classic work that he wrote while in prison is The Pilgrim's Progress and it has been said that there is no book that has sold more copies and has been translated into more languages other than the Bible than Pilgrim's Progress, and we are going to be discussing why this is such an important book to our guest and why he thinks it's so relevant today and even probably more specifically we are going to be introducing you to a live dramatic musical retelling of The Pilgrim's Progress called Journey to the Celestial City which is basically performed in churches and theaters and auditoriums all over the United States by our guest and you can find out how you can invite him to a theater near you or to a church that you are a member of during this broadcast, but let me without further ado introduce you and welcome for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Jim Winder.

Jim Winder’s Testimony and the Discovery of Grace

Well thank you, I'm.

Really happy to talk with you guys and I love such a great influence on my own life, bringing that story to people who know it and many people who don't. And one of the things that I guess we'll talk about today is why is it appealing to every born-again.

Yesterday, the young men, he says I speak to needs.

The story. And we will be getting more into detail about what this story is that John Bunyan, one of the great heroes of the Christian faith, wrote about so many centuries ago that is still selling millions of copies today and just an amazing feat when you consider that this man was uneducated and was merely a mender of pots and pans and when I say merely I'm not denigrating the blue-collar labor that not only he was involved in but that many are involved in today, even bivocational pastors are.

I'm not denigrating that all by saying merely but what I say is that it obviously takes many by surprise and even shocks many to learn that someone with no formal education who did manual labor would be considered one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time in the Christian Church and so much so that even in his day someone who had much higher learning and was highly respected as a brilliant scholar and theologian, Dr. John Owen, a nonconformist pastor in England that same century who befriended John Bunyan actually had Bunyan preach in his own pulpit which is quite a sign not only of Bunyan's great gifts but of John Owen's humility but I also want to quickly introduce at least publicly because we've already introduced you to off the air but my co-host Reverend Buzz Taylor why don't you greet our guest Jim Winder.

Well hello Jim I'm.

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say. And let me start by protecting my reputation by saying that I have read Pilgrim's Progress however I have to say it was back in the late 70s when I was in college so this is gonna be a.

Good refresher course for me. First of all let's start with you personally Jim as an individual. Let's hear something about your own upbringing, the religious background or perhaps even lack thereof. I'm unfamiliar with your personal story but tell us about how you were raised and how you eventually came to embrace.

Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Well from those years up and through my college years I had a real desire for compromise with God and of course I was a 10 cadet. All I can say is during those years, one of the guys in the class, he had a born again and no one else did.

And John talking about and I'm probably saying it more he said that's what you need and I said well okay to God and I don't think I understood it in my life for real. John Piper says there was a defining moment he said all of a sudden the chains fell off my legs.

I realized that whether I was in a good frame or a bad frame there was Jesus Christ my righteousness. Amen. So I think it took a few months for keeping me. My faith was real then and it's just real now and he has used music and my sort of Jesus.

Music, Performance, and the Gospel in Pilgrim’s Progress

Yeah and I love all those styles of music by the way. And have seen many years ago.

Dan Vogelberg in concert at least three times and always always loved Simon and Garfunkel far better as a duo than I did Paul Simon alone. And who else did you mention. Oh yeah James Taylor. Yeah I love James Taylor as well.

Well you know something I'm gonna pick up where you left off but I want to play a one of your musical pieces here just so our listeners will immediately get a grasp of where we are headed in this discussion as far as your performances that you conduct all over the the country live and and I hope that you all are blessed with this song that we are about to play and we are going to be right back after this the song so don't go away but here is Jim Winder with just.

A taste of what you will experience in his live performances. In the fields just.

Below a small house a man walked slowly bent over by the weight of the great pack heaped up over his back and shoulders. The breath of the wind pushed the wheat heads and ripples around him and every third step seemed to spring a pheasant all a flutter into the air.

But the man did not notice. He walked on holding an open book and turning the pages slowly slowly beyond him. The Sun was setting over the Western Mountains gilding the sides of the peaks with a light so red that they seemed on fire.

When the man saw this he stepped back startled his hands flew to the burden on his shoulders and he cried what shall I do. If he expected an answer he received. None. Nothing changed except the light which faded to a pale violet.

He shuddered and turned back to his house staggering under the weight of his burden. One day he walked further than usual. He went eastward glancing fearfully back over his burden to the mountains that glowered behind him.

His burden had grown heavier with the passing days and the book he read had become more and more distressing. So when he topped a small rise and saw mountains ahead of him he fell to his knees and shouted to the wind.

What shall I do to be saved. He did not look up. He did not expect an answer. But one came along the path ahead of him. Christian saw a man walking briskly. He stood quite still when he came up to Christian and quite straight waiting for the burdened man to speak.

Sir groaned Christian. Can you help me. Perhaps nodded the man. Sir this book tells me that I will die. You hardly need a book to tell you that look around you. All things die in the city of destruction but this burden will sink me lower than the grave.

If you already know this said the man. Why are you standing still sir. Are you willing to point the way. I am evangelist. I am willing. Do you see the gate past that second field. No. Do you see a light.

At least I think so. It is enough for now. Keep it in your eye.

And run when you reach the gate. Knock so. Christian began to run. Well that's.

Just a touch of what you're going to experience at these live performances and I will be playing more excerpts musical excerpts throughout the broadcast as many as we can get to. But you had a testimony of salvation that is basically being echoed by many Christians across the globe who were raised either in Roman Catholicism or some other religion.

They may have even been raised in an evangelical church but did not really know what the gospel was. And I happen to be somebody whose background other than the musical part I am not a musician never was but I was raised Roman Catholic was an altar boy and have some of the same background experiences that you no doubt had.

And the discovery of grace is such a phenomenal event in the life of someone who is enslaved in a false religion or a misunderstanding of the gospel. It revolutionizes your whole thought process about how much you owe God for being saved.

That is no longer a treadmill that you're on trying to earn his favor and knowing that you will never be good enough. And in fact you you had mentioned earlier that as a Catholic you did not have an assurance of your salvation.

Well the the Roman Catholic Church actually teaches that to have an assurance of your salvation is the sin of presumption. And they never want you to have any kind of a place of certainty on this earth that you will be in heaven.

Because obviously the whole system requires the priesthood and the sacraments to maintain not only to become regenerate but to maintain a regenerate life until you're dead and even after death the period of cleansing called purgatory that they have invented which further detracts and mocks the finished work of Christ on Calvary.

And I want to be clear to everyone I'm not trying I'm not trying to be mean about these things. I don't despise or dislike Catholics. I love Catholics. There are many folks who are Catholics. In my family I have friends who are Roman Catholic whose company I enjoy even more than some born-again Christians I know.

So that has nothing to do with it. This has to do with the truth of the gospel. I mean wouldn't you say that one of the most loving acts that a human being can possibly do. In fact I'm gonna quote St. Augustine.

I just recently posted this on my Facebook page. In fact I think it was a Catholic who originally posted it and I reposted it. It's a quote by st. Augustine the greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

And that that is is supposed to be on a higher level of importance than.

Sparing someone's feeling is it not. Jim. Well yeah I mean because you know there's this isn't gonna last many months maybe it may be a year maybe two and they're dragging you down. I love you so much and those people don't even know you but they love you enough to read.

Amen. And we're gonna go to a break right now if.

You would like to join us on the air with a question of your own. Our email address is Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. That's C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA and if it's a personal and private matter that you're asking about.

I mean it would seem unlikely during a topic like this that that would be the case. But we may have somebody who is still Roman Catholic and they have something to say and they don't want to identify who they are.

They may even want to say something critical in opposition to something that is said. You may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. But if you could we would prefer if you give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you have a question that's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away we're gonna be.

Right back after these messages with Jim Winder. Iron Sharpens Iron radio is.

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

Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you just tuned us in we are speaking with Jim Winder who is part of a musical ensemble that puts on a presentation called Journey to the Celestial City which is a 90-minute live dramatic musical retelling of Pilgrim's Progress with original Christian songs amplifying the storyline.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Jim about anything at all regarding his faith, regarding his musical background, regarding this specific performance Journey to the Celestial City, regarding the life and teachings of John Bunyan, anything in regard to what we've been discussing our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com and as I said earlier please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA and again that's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

And so where did you actually wind up attaching yourself as a member of a Bible-believing Christian Church during this pilgrimage of your.

Own that you were going through? Well as soon as I became... That's a Christian and missionary alliance. And I managed to swing a dinner date and the next day I went over to take her. Oh yeah, yeah. That's the denomination that my co-host Reverend Buzz Taylor is a member of.

And you keep mentioning the Jersey.

Shore. I'm wondering if you're familiar with one of my sponsors Harvey Cedars.

Bible Conference. You know what I hear about it a lot. Yeah yeah and I've been.

To Ocean Grove too. I remember the years that I worked for WMCA radio and which was then in, started out in Rutherford New Jersey then wound up in Hasbrook Heights, New Jersey, now is in New York City.

But during those years they were in New Jersey they had annual events every summer in Ocean Grove and had some fun memories of that. Beautiful area, a dry town as I remember at least the area that they had these events at with the old-school circuit preaching Methodists that were dominant in that area whose facilities still stand in some of.

That area. We've been blessed with about 15 people, single most talented. Yeah I've been to.

Tuscarora, the Lutheran brethren run that establishment. And in fact I had a groundbreaking performance there myself. I have to send you the mp3 of my musical tribute to Martin Luther King. Party Hardy Marty and the Protesters.

And I will send that to you right after the show at some point. But I'm going to interrupt us again with another treat for our listeners so that they can have another musical taste of what they will experience that journey to the Celestial City.

So I hope that you are blessed by this as well and we're gonna be right back with our discussion right after this song.

The Pilgrim’s Progress, Grace, and Christian Perseverance

Where all our tears will be gone this day. It's worth the journey and that's sure been saved. Tremendous. That was The Hard But Right Way by our guest Jim.

Winder and his group that performs Journey to the Celestial City which is the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan put to music and with original songs the concept of Pilgrim's Progress obviously and it's not a word-for-word musical adaptation of the book but it's.

Thank you for that Jim that was quite quite beautiful. Looking forward to playing some more songs during the program. How did you how did you first discover Pilgrim's Progress or The Pilgrim's Progress as it's officially titled?

Did you discover Bunyan first in his life or did you first discover his book?

I wasn't a believer then, down in Lawrenceville, and I thought you might like the smell of it. I read it. I absolutely love the language of it.

There's a whole bunch of King James only Baptists jumping up and down applauding right now.

Well, you know, there is something about the poetry. It's tasty and now in concert, the context for what the scripture is. You just heard our music, but we have bass, drums, electric guitar. We're very tasteful in the churches we go to.

In fact, Pastor Naird has set up in soundcheck for someone. I said, well, we'll make sure, we will pave the way. Well, what he means is the story is great. Throw the baby out with the bathwater and don't just love the story.

The whole purpose of the story is there to deliver the gospel. It's a vehicle.

And one of the things that you were saying when you were finding different editions of the Pilgrim's Progress, although there are good ones, my dear friend of many years, Dr. Barry Horner, who is a quite a expert on the life and teachings and writings of John Bunyan and does a phenomenal seminar on the Pilgrim's Progress that I have seen, I think I've seen him do it like five times at least.

And it's quite a long seminar that he actually adapts to the length that you request. He can do it over a two-day period, a three-day period, a one-day period, three hours, six hours, more, etc. But anyway, he says that you have to be very careful, though, because there are aberrant religious groups that have adopted the Pilgrim's Progress with their own versions of it, that really strip the whole story of the main meaning of it.

There is even a Roman Catholic version of the Pilgrim's Progress, and there are clearly non-reformed versions that really remove the true grace-focused theme throughout.

Wow, it was nothing sacred.

Yes. But I'm going to play another song right now. I am waiting with bated breath to hear this one, and we're going to be returning to our discussion after this next song, which my computer is so sensitive now, I have a new computer that I quickly, without even intending to click off of things that I'm about to listen to, but here we go.

Save Me is the next song that we're going to be hearing by Jim Winder, so sit back, relax, and praise the Lord with Save Me.

Save Me by Jim Winder and Journey into the Celestial City.

What another gorgeous song, praising our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so, you've discovered in the timeline that we've been discussing of your life and testimony, you've discovered Pilgrim's Progress.

How did you come up with the concept of getting together with other musicians and creating this whole concept of the live, dramatic and musical and instructional performance that you have developed?

Well, that's another really, heard of Max McLean?

Oh yeah, in fact, I've had Max McLean on my program, and he wrote a very glowing endorsement of Iron Trip and Zion. I had Max on my program when I was broadcasting out of New York, and he was starring in the Screwtape Letters off-Broadway, the C .S. Lewis play.

I was going to do Mark Scott sponsored by, I guess, I don't know if you could do that before, it was his first CD, which was just a bunch of, and maybe at one of your other events, do Mark Scott or Genesis.

And I got to play places, and that was the seed for me to do gigs, and Mark, he did the epilogue and the closeout story section on the album, and it would do that. And go down into pieces and do what they do, until I finally memorized the whole thing.

Great, and perfect timing there, because we are just exactly at the point where we take our next break at the top of the second hour. And we do have Aaron, a listener, who has a question that we will get to when we return from the break.

Aaron, if you're listening, could we have your city and state of residence? I'm just curious, because I know that you have been a new listener and have been communicating with us, but I don't know where you're from.

I think our listeners might like to know where our listeners, the different parts of the country and different parts of the world where our listeners are residing. So if you could email us back with also your city and state of residence, Aaron, we would love to hear from you.

And if you'd like to join Aaron and a couple of other people who are waiting to have their questions asked and answered on air by Jim Winder, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. That's C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we're going to be right back with Jim Winder and Journey to the Celestial City. Hi, I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

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Blessed Assurance and 1 John as a Word-for-Word Musical Presentation

Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Jim Winder. And I might as well give Jim's website while I'm at it. It's Jim-Winder, spelled just like you would think, W-I-N-D-E-R.

And it's pronounced Winder, not winder. And it's Jim-Winder .com. And you will find out everything that you need to know about his performance, his live, dramatic, musical, instructional performance, which is a retelling of the Pilgrim's Progress with original Christian songs, amplifying the storyline.

And it's titled Journey to the Celestial City. And so if you want more information not only on booking Jim yourself and Journey to the Celestial City, but also to find out where he may be across the United States.

Have you traveled overseas yet with this, Jim?

I haven't gone.

Yeah. So perhaps even some of our overseas listeners, which we do have a number of them in Ireland and England and Australia. And we actually have listeners that I know of from the e-mails that have come in with questions for my guests, about 15 different foreign countries at least and about 40 different U .S. states so far that we know of at least.

And so we love the fact that Iron Trip and Zion audience is expanding. On my old show when we were broadcasting from New York, we had every state but Hawaii had heard from listeners. We may have had listeners in Hawaii, but just never heard from many.

But even Alaska, we had some listeners from time to time sending in questions or even calling in because I used to have a call-in show. But tell us also about Blessed Assurance, another 90-minute word-for-word.

Well, this is a word-for-word delivery of John's first letter, unlike the Pilgrim's Progress presentation, which is not a word-for-word presentation. Tell us about Blessed Assurance.

Well, Blessed Assurance, as you said, it's an ESV version, 1 John. I used the same sort of formula here. I wrote songs to go with each of the chapters. And because it's not quite the same kind of music, all the songs are original, and they're all written to amplify the text that we're in.

The song that goes is just symbolic of Christ.

I'm going to play another song right now by Jim Winder from the Journey to the Celestial City performance. And I hope that you enjoy this just as much as the other songs we've played so far. So sit back and relax.

And here's Jesus on My Side by Jim Winder. Well, we thought that Jesus on My Side was going, there we go.

To help me stand the test, my soul is, I call Jesus' name.

This is Jim Winder, Jesus on My Side. And this is from the Journey to the Celestial City performance that Jim is involved in, that he has created along with his band. And why don't you plug your other band members by name and instrument.

Let's start with Jim Oakley, who is my drummer. He's a terrific guy. Great bass jersey. And Mike Lewinsky, who is my guy.

Fast Eddie, I have a friend, Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church, and we call him Fast Eddie from the famous Paul Newman movie. Cool Hand Luke, I think that was. No, that wasn't Cool Hand Luke.

That was, oh, I can't remember the name of the movie with Jackie Gleason. It just totally flew out of my head when he was the pool shark. Paul Newman played a pool shark that beat Minnesota Fats. I can't remember the name of the movie.

But anyway, Aaron from Indianapolis, Indiana asks, where can I appreciate or experience this wonderful performance? Well, obviously, anywhere that you invite them, Aaron. But other than that, what's next on your calendar that is either near Indianapolis or perhaps it's just anywhere that she's willing to travel?

You know, we're in New Jersey. We find that there's a lot that happens through Easter just to go share this. You know, we don't have a record deal for this.

Yeah, I've been very disappointed. I've been in Christian radio for 30 years approximately. I've been very disappointed with a lot of Christian DJs who refuse to even listen to anything unless it's just sent to them by a major label and specific songs that the major label wants them to play where they're just imitating, directly imitating the world.

Now, I don't want to be overly harsh because I also know that Christian DJs get flooded with CDs from non-professional folks, some of whom are no doubt very gifted, but some of them who unfortunately have been deluded into believing that they are gifted when they should definitely find another hobby or profession.

That was very diplomatic.

Yeah, well, because I've heard some of the things. When I was actually complaining to a friend of mine who is a Christian DJ, he said, well, you know, this is the kind of thing that I get in droves, and he played something for me.

And obviously someone is not practicing what Augustine had said about leading somebody to truth. And somebody in those folks' lives are not obeying the principle of Proverbs 27 .8, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

So obviously there are some people who are being encouraged to keep in the musical industry who don't have any business being in there.

Well, you know, what I've found over the years is going to be on the railway. But that's okay. You know, there is like ours that are 15 people that are working as equals.

Well, I can tell you right now that I want to begin the process. I want to get the ball rolling to get you out here locally to Carlyle at the Carlyle Theater. It's a historic, beautiful theater from the early 20th century.

It was built in 1930 or thereabouts. And it's a real gorgeous, old-fashioned, historic theater that has been restored and is now being used not only for movies, a lot of art films and things, but also live performances and plays and some very famous bands and recording artists have performed there.

And even the actor Kevin Bacon, he's in a musical group with his brother, and they performed there twice and some other groups that you would definitely recognize. I don't have a list in front of me. But I would definitely love to have you guys come out here if I can, by God's grace, pull something off and get you into the Carlyle Theater.

Well, that would be great.

And thank you, Erin, in Indianapolis. She reminded me of the title of the movie that I was grasping for. It was The Hustler, starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, where Paul Newman played Fast Eddie the pool shark and Jackie Gleason was Minnesota Fats.

But anyway, thank you, Erin. We also have a Christian in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, have you ever performed this musical, Journey to the Celestial City, in either non-evangelical or even non-Christian venues?