December 9, 2025 Show with Rob Ventura on “Equipped to Evangelize: A Biblical Foundation”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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

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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.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth day of December 2025.

I'm thrilled to have a returning guest today. My old friend, Rob Ventura.

He's an author and editor for a number of books and one of two pastors at Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island.

And today, we're going to be addressing his latest book, Equipped to Evangelize a

Biblical Foundation. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Rob Ventura.

Thanks for having me, dear brother. It's great to be with you. And I heartily recommend everyone listening, if you are a pastor or in leadership or at least have some decision -making capacity at your churches or are influential in making things happen, such as guest speakers at your church and arranging conferences,

I highly recommend Rob Ventura for that as a keynote speaker or as a part of a panel of speakers at a conference.

I saw him, I guess it was about a year ago, and maybe you can correct me in how long ago it's been, but I remember seeing you preach at Scott Brown's conference there in North Carolina, and it was a magnificent time of edification.

And you are indeed a powerful preacher, my brother. Well, by the Lord's grace, you know, we are only what we are by His grace.

So, it was great seeing you that day, brother. Nice to reconnect with my Long Island friend.

That's right. My guest is also from Long Island, from Holtzville, and he made his way up in the world and is now in Rhode Island instead.

And tell us about Grace Community Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island. Oh, it's a wonderful congregation.

I'm so privileged to serve there. And yeah, any information or literature that you would see about me online would say that there's another pastor, my dear fellow pastor,

Jack Buckley. But in God's wonderful kindness to us, we just ordained and installed a new elder, so now we've got three.

The third elder is Victor Claudio, so Pastor Claudio. It's a joy to have another brother laboring with us in the harness, and we just rejoice.

But yeah, the church has been a Reformed Baptist church for over 40 years. It was founded by Sherwood Becker, and he did a wonderful job in establishing the church and those things most surely believed among us.

We are a confessional Reformed Baptist church for decades, and it's just a wonderful congregation with people from all kinds of backgrounds and different ages, and the

Lord's really doing good stuff among us, so we're very, very thankful. Well, if anybody listening lives in the

North Providence, Rhode Island area, or you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in that area, or you're just passing through for some reason on vacation or on business, and you providentially happen to be in that area on the

Lord's Day and want to visit, the website for Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island is gcbcri .org.

gcbcri .org. And God willing, we'll be repeating that later on in the program.

Well, as I've already mentioned when I introduced you, the book that we are addressing today, very few topics could be more important and practical at the same time as evangelism.

And let me just, first of all, read some of the powerful commendations for this book, written by Brothers in Christ, who

I have had the privilege to interview on this program. First of all,

Paul Washer says of this book that it encompasses all that the

Christian and the church need to know to go forth and preach the gospel. And I'm sure most of our listeners know who

Paul Washer is, founder and missions director at HeartCry Ministry in Radford, Virginia.

And my friend, Dr. Joel R. Beattie, Chancellor of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, says that this book combines biblical clarity and doctrinal fidelity in a work that is sure to revive your passion for knowing

Christ in the gospel and making him known to the world. And my old friend,

Pastor Mark Chansky, coordinator of the Reformed Baptist Network, says this book will ignite your passion for reaching the lost.

Get it. And Phil Johnson, who at one time was the most interviewed guest on Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, I don't know if he still holds that title, but it's definitely close to it.

This excellent book will both motivate and encourage you with a truly biblical strategy for winning people to Christ.

I highly recommend it. And Phil Johnson is the executive director of Grace to You Ministries in Sun Valley, California, the ministry of the late

John MacArthur. Jonathan Master was just on my program yesterday, who's president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Teller, South Carolina, says this work is a powerful resource that will help equip and prompt you to action for the great task of proclaiming the good news of Christ to sinners.

Pick it up, read it, and put it into practice. And lastly,

I'll read one by another dear friend of mine since 1996, Dr. Conrad Mbewe, who will be preaching at the next biannual free

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon, March 5th of 2026, here in South Central Pennsylvania.

Dr. Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Caboada Baptist Church and also founding chancellor of African Christian University, says this is an excellent primer on evangelism written by a pastor with a shepherd's heart.

Rob Ventura has masterfully distilled the full scope of evangelism into a succinct and impactful

God. I am delighted to recommend it. Wow, that's a powerful lineup of powerful commendations.

Now, even though you've gotten all these wonderful commendations, obviously this is a tremendously valuable book.

There are, as you know, books in print that have been in print some for centuries and some more modern treatments of books on evangelism coming from a theologically

Reformed and even Baptist perspective. What was it about this topic that compelled you to say to yourself, you know,

I love a lot of the things that are in print, but I think that I've got something else that needs to be said, so I'm going to add to the volumes that already exist.

Yeah, that's good. So what I would say is, first, I would agree with you, Chris. There have been good work on evangelism written over the years.

J .I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, outstanding. Ernie Reisinger, Today's Evangelism, Its Message and Method.

Walt Chantry's Today's Gospel, authentic or synthetic. Also, just to mention, not from a

Baptist perspective, but from our dear brother, Dr. Beeke, who, by the way, turned 73 today.

Wow. Texting earlier. Yeah, what a dear brother. His book, Puritan Evangelism, is outstanding.

Jeremy Walker, there's a Reformed Baptist. He has The Broken Hearted Evangelist, excellent book, really more dealing with the evangelist himself, as opposed to the evangel.

And then Paul Washer's done those trilogy of volumes through RHB, Explaining the

Gospel. But for most of those classic works, whether it was Beeke or even

Thomas Boston, The Art of Man -Fishing, Chantry, Packer, Reisinger, mostly those guys, the

Baptist guys, those books were written, you know, 30 years ago. And it's so long ago,

Packer not being one of the Baptists, but to get my point regarding Reisinger and Chantry. But his book, Packer, one of my favorites,

Evangelism and the Psalmogy of God. So you're looking 25, 30 years ago. So when I was thinking about this topic of evangelism, which

I preached on 16 years ago at my church and then just re -preached the series like this year, finished the last message this past Sunday, it struck me that there's been nothing new, essentially, by a

Reformed guy in 25 or 30 years. And so I thought it's time to do something fresh and interact with the kind of things we're dealing with in our day, the

LGBTQ community, the homosexuals on the right, on the left, liberals, whatever it might be, so that, you know, we can have modern language, modern scenarios, modern context in which we can go forward with the gospel.

Some of these guys were not dealing with those things at that time. And now we have a different context in which to bring the glorious gospel.

So that's why I wrote the book. I thought, again, it's time to do something new and just something fresh.

I think that we need to be current with all that we do while, of course, holding to the old truths of the

Word of God, the old path, what a good way is. And this, for example, is why I typically do any book.

As you know, I recently did a new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith. We had one exposition done by our wonderful brother,

Sam Waldron, but that was 30 years ago. And so I'm thinking, huh, I think it's time to do a new one.

And we only have one on our confession of faith. So I got 20 plus guys from all over, actually, both sides of the pond.

And we did the new exposition of London Baptist Confession of Faith. And that thing has sold so many books.

They sold more than five weeks. I didn't even know there were that many Baptists in the world.

Especially Reformed Baptists. Unbelievable. Wherever I go, at any conference

I do, it's one of the first things that happens. Someone comes up to me and says, that book was so helpful for me.

And again, I got great authors. They did a great job. Same thing, my Romans commentary came out about a year and a half ago.

And I had 140 volumes of Romans that I read every week by preaching. But there was no commentary that actually was a homiletical commentary with practical applications for believers and unbelievers.

So I thought, you know what, let me write one. And then just the last thing I'll say in this regard, the book I did on spiritual warfare with Brian Borgman, my excellent brother.

We're looking at like, what's the Reformed books on spiritual warfare? And they're like, oh, Thomas Brooks or Boston, whatever.

800 volumes, hundreds of years ago. So I'm like, why don't we do something new that would be short, simple, to the point.

And again, by Reformed guys. So wherever there is a niche or space in the literature,

I'm going to try to fill it if I can. And hence, we have this whole topic of evangelism.

So that's why I did it. It's not because there aren't good books out currently on it, but they are decades old.

And I wanted to bring something new to people that would be fresh, while again, holding to those dreams of the

Bible, which always is to anchor our thoughts and writing. Amen.

And as you are fully aware, the Reformed faith and Reformed Christians have been slandered for centuries, actually, by opponents to those teachings, claiming we don't evangelize.

We don't believe in evangelism. And yet our Reformed faith, does it not actually add extraordinary incalculable value to the very active evangelism?

No, that's well said. I mean, again, if I didn't believe in election, I wouldn't preach the gospel. Election drives me to preach the gospel, just like it did with Paul.

I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they might be saved. And personally, again, if you check the record historically, all of the greatest evangelists, whether it was

Spurgeon, Whitefield, Edwards, Lloyd -Jones, whoever it was, all of these guys were

Calvinistic. All of them were Reformed. And so again, Reformed theology, the Puritans, Calvin, sending missionaries out to France from Geneva, all of these men understood the sovereignty of God over all things.

And yet that evangelism is the means that God uses to bring his elect in. So historically, it's quite clear that the greatest evangelists that the world have ever known have always been

Reformed. Yes, and in fact, Dr. Tom Meadows wrote an extraordinary book called

By His Grace and For His Glory that is filled with some of the giants of Baptist history who were known to be powerful evangelists and yet also thoroughgoing five -point

Calvinists. And many folks, especially Baptists, and perhaps even especially independent fundamentalist

Baptists who are anti -Calvinist, love many of these

Baptist heroes compiled in this book, not realizing how Calvinistic they were.

No, that's exactly right. And again, if you're a Baptist, everyone says they love Spurgeon. Well, what did Spurgeon believe? Well, he was a thoroughgoing

Calvinist. He was a Reformed Baptist. In fact, when he founded the Met Tab in the cornerstone of the building, not only did he put up a

Bible, but he also put a copy of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith in the cornerstone of the Met Tab.

So there you have it. Yeah, along with Benjamin Keech's catechism.

Oh, there you go. Good. And so tell us, before we go to our first break, how this book is broken down.

Yeah, so I just did it neat and orderly. These chapters actually come out of my sermon.

So you've got seven chapters. I wanted to do something short and sweet and to the point.

So someone could sit down within an hour and, you know, 15, 20 minutes, hour and a half, go through the whole book.

It's weighing in at 118 pages. And it's just very, very streamlined and homiletically pleasing,

I'd hope, so that we have, firstly, the need for biblical evangelism. Secondly, the scope of biblical evangelism.

Third, the motive for biblical evangelism. Fourth, the agents of biblical evangelism. Fifth, the message of biblical evangelism.

Sixth, the result of biblical evangelism. And then seventh, last but not least, the power of biblical evangelism.

Amen. Well, we're going to go to our first commercial break. And if you do have questions for our guest,

Pastor Rob Ventura, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are a member of a church that is in disagreement with some things that we are making clear we believe in today,

Pastor Rob and I, and you're uncomfortable identifying yourself publicly because you're still a member there.

Or maybe you're even the pastor yourself, and you've come to disagree with your own fellow elders over some of these things, or your denomination, or whatever the case may be.

If you've got a good reason to remain anonymous, we will respect that request. But if you are just asking a general question about the

Scriptures and perhaps church history regarding the topic of evangelism, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

So don't go away. We're going to be right back. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We'll be right back with more of Rob Ventura right after these messages.

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This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is my old friend,

Pastor Rob Ventura, and we are discussing his book, his latest book,

Equipped to Evangelize, A Biblical Foundation. And if you've got a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

And we do have a listener with a question named Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

Knowing that Christians are at various levels of maturity in their

Christian walk, what are some things that newer believers should have a good handle on or understanding of before sharing the gospel?

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think to begin with, they need to understand the gospel itself.

And this book was really written for the Christian, the Christian in the pew.

This is not a heavily theological work that I have presented, although it's full of theology, but this is not a book just for pastors.

It's for pastors and people in the pew. In fact, several guys have said to me that they've bought multiple copies and they're using it in their

Bible study hour to teach the people how to evangelize. So I think the first thing we've got to understand is what the gospel is itself.

And I've got a whole chapter, page 71 and following, in the book on the message of biblical evangelism.

And just in short scope, I'll give you the headings. I've got God, the righteous, and secondly, man, the rebel, and third,

Christ, the Redeemer, and then fourth, our call to repent and believe. And so, again, I think if believers understand the gospel, that namely it starts with God, the righteous,

God is holy, thrice holy, God's whose law we have broken, et cetera, which comes secondly to man, the rebel.

Thus, we're under God's judgment. We need his forgiveness because his law stands against us and he must punish our sins.

The righteous Lord loves righteousness. The soul that sins, it will die. That's all the bad news.

But then the third heading is under that section of the message of biblical evangelism is

Christ, the Redeemer. How in love Jesus Christ interposed himself for us.

How he died in our room instead as our sin -bearing substitute and surety and paid the penalty of his people in full.

And then the fourth part in that chapter is about the call not to accept Jesus, as people tell us in our day, but rather to repent of our sins and to put our trust in Jesus' accomplishment alone for life and salvation.

So, they've got to be thoroughly saturated with the gospel. They've got to understand what the good news is all about.

And with that, they can go forward and tell others about the doing, dying, and rising of Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen. And you used a commonly used phrase there as an example of what not to do.

Invite people to accept Jesus. The other very popular one is to invite

Jesus into your heart. And I remember my friend, Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, many years ago, during a sermon.

In fact, I think it was the first sermon I ever heard him preach in the 1990s. And he said in response to that,

Jesus doesn't want to enter into your stinking, filthy heart. He wants to remove it from you and replace it with a heart of flesh.

Amen. That's well said. I tell people the glory of the gospel is not that we accept Jesus, but that he accepts us.

Praise be to his name. Amen. And so, as far as the need for biblical evangelism, if you could explain, especially to the critics of the doctrines of sovereign grace that we believe,

Reformed theology, why do we believe, if God has determined before the foundation of the world whom he chooses to save, why the need for biblical evangelism?

Right, because the God who's predestined those who would be saved is the God who's ordained the means to their salvation, namely the preaching of the gospel.

And so that's why Paul says, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. And the great need, of course, as we all understand, is that men are lost, dead, and trespasses in sin.

They're currently under the wrath of God. That's why we need to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's striking, Chris, how really this whole thing I've got here on this chapter about the message of biblical evangelism,

God, man, Christ, and then the call to repent and believe, that just comes right out of the book of Romans. Because after Paul sets forth the announcement of Romans 1 and 16, where he said,

I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes for the

Jew first and also the Greek, for in it, that is to say, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith and as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

So he just announced this matter of the gospel, but he hasn't told us much about it until he goes to the next verse and says, for the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who suppress or hinder the truth in unrighteousness.

So verse 18 starts with the word for, the Greek word gar, giving us the reason why the gospel is good news.

The gospel is good news because people are under the judgment of God. Because of their sins against him.

And the gospel tells us about the loving savior who gave his life as the just one for the unjust ones that he might bring us to God.

Okay. And by the way, Seth, in Humblestown, Pennsylvania, due to the kindness and generosity of Christian -focused publications, you have won a free copy of Rob Ventura's book,

Equipped to Evangelize. So make sure we have your full mailing address so that we can have that shipped out to you.

We have another listener, Andrew in Clarksville, Tennessee. How do you define the gospel and what are the non -negotiable elements to communicate to the listener?

That's a very good question because you and I would say that even those who are not

Reformed, not everyone who's not Reformed, but many who are not

Reformed, evangelical Arminians and so forth, have the necessary elements, typically, in their gospel presentations.

They have the necessary core of what the gospel is in order to be used of God to bring new life to the hearers through his sovereign grace.

But what would you say is a good definition of the gospel?

And as Andrew says, non -negotiable elements, what are they? Yeah, so the gospel itself, the

Greek word is euangelion, and it's made up of two Greek words. The first word is eu, the second one is angelion.

So quite literally, the gospel means good news or good message. And so we are telling people good news, again, about the

Savior who in love gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins. So we preach the gospel.

But to tell people good news without knowing the bad news first makes no sense.

That's why the gospel has those four major heads as we trace Paul through the book of Romans, which is all about an exposition of the gospel.

It begins in chapter 1 with, I'm announcing the gospel, and then it ends in chapter 16 as an inclusio to the whole book on another gospel note.

And Paul is unfolding the glories of the gospel all throughout the book. But as soon as he announces it, first he mentions

God. God is holy and God is just. God exists. He's knowable. And then he speaks about man, that man is a rebel against God, whether he's a

Jewish person who's not saved or a pagan person. The end of Romans 1 into Romans 2 into Romans 3, so that Paul summarizes in 3, 9 of Romans and says, what then?

Are we, that is, we Jews, better than they, that is, they Gentiles? He says, not at all.

Why? He had previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under, not just in, but under thin.

So again, the constituent elements to the gospel always begins with God.

Then secondly, man is a rebel against God. And then third, lo and behold, in the second half of Romans 3,

Paul speaks about Jesus, 321. But now, 321, those two words, but now is what

Lloyd -Jones called the gospel. It's the great transition. But now, he says, the righteousness of God, remember he mentioned the righteousness of God concerning the gospel back in 117.

He says, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

Even the righteousness of God, how's it received? Not by works, no, but through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe, for there is no difference.

And then, as you know, Paul will expound the substitutionary work of Christ, the propitiation that he accomplished for his people.

And again, Paul ends that section by saying that we must trust in Christ alone for life and salvation.

I will say, and I do say this in the book, that of course this does not mean that every time we present the gospel, that these four key elements have to be brought forth.

We really need to find out where people are at in the general scope of things. If we have time with people, then yes, we can take them through God, the righteous man, the rebel

Christ, the redeemer, and our responsibility to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for life and salvation.

But many times, life is not that neat and tidy. And so we find people just in different places, much like Paul and Silas in Acts 16, where the

Philippian jailer, he's heard about Paul preaching there and Philippi, the way of salvation.

Now he's got these guys locked up. God comes and he opens up the prison doors and the man falls on his face and cries out, what must

I do to be saved? So Paul doesn't say, well, let me tell you first about God. And then man, no, he already understands about God.

He's sinned against him. He says, what must I do to be saved? Which means he sees himself lost. And then

Paul just at that point, can go to the final part and say, believe on the

Lord, Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. So we don't want to have a truncated view of presenting the gospel that we have to go through all these four points, a canned approach, whatever it might be.

We want to find out where people are at. And then based upon that, we can speak about what element of the gospel needs to be spoken to them and applied to their hearts by the power of the

Holy Spirit. Amen. And good news, Andrew, you also have won a free copy of the book we are addressing,

Compliments of Christian Focus Publications. So make sure you give us your full mailing address.

I'll move on to one more listener question before I move on to another one of my own.

Clement in Rustburg, Virginia. By the way, Clement, why don't you move to Alexandria, Virginia, so you could call yourself

Clement of Alexandria. Clement of Rustburg says, is it not dangerous to tell people that you don't even know or people that you do know who are in open rebellion against God that Jesus loves them and died for them?

Yeah. So I would say I never tell people that, actually. So I don't think that's dangerous. If Jesus loved them and died for them,

I don't know if he died for them. First off, if they repented their sins and put their trust in him, then I know he died for them. But we can say what the

Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him, that's the condition.

If they believe in him, should not perish, but rather have everlasting life. So, yeah, you never see this message of, you know,

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That's certainly not what Jesus told Paul. In fact, he said when he saved

Paul there in Acts 9 that you're going to have a terrible life, Paul, actually. You're going to be persecuted on the left and on the right.

But I'm going to be with you, Paul. And I'm going to save your soul. And I'm always going to set your feet upon the rock. And I'm going to take you to glory in the final analysis.

So, yeah, there's a false gospel that's out there. Again, God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life. But I would say that God owns you and your life has been one of dying against him.

And therefore, you need to turn from your sins, begging for forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and God will receive everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord. So that's the biblical message, not telling people again, God loves you, or again, you know, pray the sinner's prayer.

We don't see any of those things in the Bible. Hence, the name of my book is Equipped to Evangelize a Biblical Foundation.

And I come against all of those errors, all of those modern, broad evangelical terms that people use in the beginning of the book, just so that we could be standing on a solid foundation.

Now, when you say you don't tell people that Jesus loves them and died for them,

I'm assuming you are specifically and only referring to people you can assess are lost and you're evangelizing them.

Is it not very appropriate to tell people you are confident are your brothers and sisters in Christ, especially if you are making an effort to comfort them during some kind of trial?

Oh, 100%, no, you're right on, Chris. Yeah, so when we're talking about evangelism, the assumed audience is the lost.

And once the lost repent of their sins and trust in Christ alone for life and salvation, then we know that they did that because God has had them on their hearts from all eternity.

He loves them, and once they're saved, they now become the children of God, justified, adopted into God's family, and part of the family of God, and they're loved by God forevermore.

And nothing, no nothing, will ever change that fact so that, just to quote Paul again in the book of Romans, he could say there in Romans 8, that neither death nor height nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. So thank God that as believers, God loves us, He has us on His heart, and we can bless

His name for it. Amen, so what is the scope of biblical evangelism?

Yeah, so I deal with that in the book in the second chapter, and simply stated, the scope is all people, all people, and we need to understand that because, again,

God commands all men everywhere to repent. Jesus said, go into all the world, make disciples of all the nations.

And so someone, again, going back to what you were alluding to earlier, Chris, might argue back and say, well, if you only believe the elect are gonna be saved, why don't you just preach to the elect?

Sounds like something someone charged Spurgeon with. And Spurgeon said, well, if I could lift up their coattails and see an

E stamped on their backs, I would do it. But we don't know who's got the E stamped on their back.

So we preach the gospel to everybody. And I really challenge, again, people in the book, that's the helpful aspect of having a modern book, to reach out to those people, the liberals that we might not love, the homosexual down the street, or the lesbian, whoever they are.

We wanna love all people in that sense. We could say, God has got a heart for all people, and we're not better or worse than those people, fornicators, liars, whatever they might be.

We wanna tell them about Jesus and how he emancipates people from their sins the moment they turn from them and put their trust in him to be their savior.

In fact, that wonderful passage concerning Jesus, like on page one of the New Testament, you shall call his name

Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And that's the scope, his people.

And his people are from all kinds of background, men, women, black, white, Jews, Gentiles, so that John can say in the book of the

Revelation that there will be people out of every tribe, nation, tongue, and kindred. And so that's important for us to know, not just generally as Christians, but certainly as Calvinistic Christians, that we need to see everybody before us as an image bearer of God and someone who's lost before God, and therefore the gospel is perfectly suited for them.

Yeah, and I can recall a member of my family who at the time was lost, and I remember when

I would evangelize this individual, he would always say to me, you think you're better than me.

And my response every time to him was, you seem to have forgotten what

I have told you many times in response to that comment, is that between the two of us,

I seem to be the only one that recognizes how horrible I am.

The whole issue here is, I know I'm a sinner and I need a

Savior, and I want you to share in that Savior. I want you to receive the blessings of that Savior and be rescued from sin and eternal hell.

And therefore, this has nothing to do with me thinking I am so great or wonderful or better than you.

It's that my Savior is better than whatever you have adopted as your favorite things in life and your goals in life without Christ.

Is that correct? That's exactly right. Yeah, the only way we think we're better than other people is if the good news was about us, but it's not about us.

It's all about Christ, who in love died for our sins. So we don't come to people as a holier -than -thou individual.

We might be much worse than they are in truth, but we come to them as fellow sinners and saying, we have found the bread of life, and we want you to partake of him as well.

Amen. And by the way, Clement, in Rushburg, Virginia, you've also won a free copy of the book,

Compliments of Our Friends at Christian Focus Publications, who have been very generous to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio ever since the inception of our program in 2005.

Well, the issue at hand is that regardless of the fact that God has indeed, as we've already said, chosen before the foundation of the world those whom he will save, it is not a contradiction to do as he commands us to do, because it's the very means he uses, the evangelism of the lost, to quicken the hearts of the spiritually dead and bring them to newness of life, is it not?

It's the means, the method that he himself, God, uses.

Am I right? That's exactly right, Chris, and well said. It's kind of like prayer, right? Why pray?

Because God says, call upon me, and I'll show you great and mighty things that thou knowest not.

So prayer is the means to lay hold of the heart of God. And so I deal with this on page 43 in the book, entitled

Election and Evangelism, Friends or Foes. I say someone might object to this worldwide scope of evangelism, our topic under consideration, on the grounds of the doctrine of election.

How can it be possible for a person who holds to the biblical teaching of election also to believe that we are to share the gospel with all people?

If we believe that only a certain number of people are going to be saved, how is it that we should preach the gospel to all?

I say, have you ever heard these objections? Perhaps you have even thought them yourself. To which I say, believing that God has an elect people whom he will save through the preaching of the gospel is not at all contrary, or I could say, inconsistent to preaching the gospel to all men.

And why? Well, I say because it's through the preaching of the gospel that the elect here and are saved, and just list multiple passages.

I say, we don't know who the elect are, but as we saw in the last chapter, our job is to preach to all people, not to convert anyone.

This is what Spurgeon meant when he famously said, here's the quote I gave you earlier, quote, if God would have painted a yellow stripe on the backs of the elect,

I would go around lifting shirts. But since he didn't, I must preach whosoever will.

And when whosoever will believes, I know that he is one of the elect. Amen. Amen. And what is the motive of biblical evangelism?

Because there are people, and very often these people are false teachers, or they're masquerading as Christians, where their motivation is to do the very thing that family member accused me of, to publicly impress a crowd by making themselves look holier than the people that they are so -called evangelizing.

And they will very often use this as an opportunity to just publicly humiliate the lost, to demean them.

A clear example was Fred Phelps, the late Fred Phelps, whose church and family are notorious for publicly declaring their hatred for homosexuals and,

I mean, in every other category of humanity other than themselves. They hate the military.

They hate America. And we could go on and on. And ironically, before his death, his own family excommunicated him because he was getting too nice.

But we have to be careful that we, even as born -again believers ourselves, do not mimic that arrogance and pride when we evangelize.

So remind us, please, what are the true motives of biblical evangelism? Yeah, historic

Reformed theology, when it comes to this whole matter of biblical evangelism, has had a twofold motive, twofold motive being, first, the glory of God, and then, secondly, the good of man.

And so with all things, we begin with the glory of God, right? The glory of God is what we're seeking to promote, as it were.

Man's chief end is to glorify God. And so when sinners are saved, we know God is glorified.

It brings glory to God. It certainly doesn't detract from God's glory if a sinner's not saved, no. But it's a glorious thing when sinners are saved by God because what do they do when they're saved?

Well, they bring glory to God. They praise God. And so God's glory and his magnificence among men is the first great objective when we preach the gospel.

We do it for God's glory because God is glorified in the saving of sinners. But then, secondly, we evangelize for the good of men.

Men are lost and they're on their way to hell. They're on the broad road that leads to destruction. And so the second motive has to be that of seeing them come out of the judgment of God, which they're already under.

They're not just going to judgment. They're already under the judgment of God, as we're told in John chapter 3.

He that believes not is already under the judgment of God, the wrath of God.

And so we want them to come out of the canopy of God's judgment into the love and favor of God through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. So those are the twofold motives that we always must have before us.

God's glory, God is magnificence as we preach the gospel and tell others about how kind and good and wonderful God is in sending a substitute, sending our

Savior, sending our surety. And then we want man to experience the goodness of God in true biblical salvation.

Now, notice none of these things that I just spoke of with reference to motive is that we would have another notch in our belts so that we have now 15 decisions for Christ this year.

And look how many people I got saved. Well, you know, Chris, we don't save anybody so much so that Jonah could say, and we agree with him, that salvation is of the

Lord. And so we just share the gospel. We tell them about the doing, dying, and rising of Jesus Christ, our

Lord. We tell them that they're lost under the judgment of God, that rebels against them. Then we tell them about Christ and his sacrifice and his accomplishment, call them to repent and believe.

And then if God saves them, praise God, as I said earlier, they glorify his name and they are adopted into God's family.

And when they die, they'll go to be with him forevermore. But none of this is about us, again, having notches in our belt or saying, oh, look what we've done.

No, we don't do anything in salvation other than make ourselves available, make ourselves the instruments, the channel, the conduit through which

God works for rescuing his people. Amen. And we are going to our midway break right now.

And once again, if you'd like to join us on the air with your own question for Pastor Rob Ventura, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Before I return to Rob Ventura and continue our fascinating conversation on the new book he has written,

Equipped to Evangelize a Biblical Foundation, I just have some brief reminders. Folks, if you really love this show and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves,

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Last but not least, if you're not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, like the church where my guest

Rob Ventura pastors, Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island, well, wherever you live on the planet

Earth, if you do not have a biblically faithful church home, I have helped many people in our audience spanning the globe find churches that are biblically faithful.

Sometimes even just a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you too. So if you are without a biblically faithful church home, send me an email, no matter where in the world you live.

Send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address to send in a question to Rob Ventura about equipped to evangelize.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, and country of residence.

And Pastor Rob, who or what are the agents of biblical evangelism?

Yeah, it's wonderful. As we think about the whole thing about who are the means and the channels, we might think it too wonderful to consider that God has committed this whole matter into earthen vessels.

And so we are actually God's agents, not angels, but God's redeemed.

He has committed this gospel to earthen treasures. And so God's people, all of us in all of our various locations and places where we dwell and go, whether it's mothers at home, raising their kids, discipling them for the glory of God, teachers in their school, accountants in their firms, wherever it might be, whoever we are,

God has given us all wonderful opportunities to be his agents for the advancement of the gospel.

So this is a wonderful thought, really astounding that God would, call us as people to be the means, again, not angels or, you know,

God saying, look to the tea leaves or, you know, look to the clouds. You'll see a formation, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. But we are God's mouthpieces for the advancement of the gospel.

So it's humbling. And yet this is the fact of the matter, according to scripture. Amen. And we do have a listener with an unusual name.

We have Sugar in Banner Elk, North Carolina. And Sugar says,

I know that the Bible teaches that women are forbidden to hold positions of authority over men in the church, but are women just like men commanded to evangelize?

And what would be the restrictions regarding women and evangelism? Yeah, that's a really good question.

And I'm glad that Sugar couched all that she said with, you know, biblical understanding that, you know, men are called to preach the gospel and in the church as pastors.

And of course, people in the pews men are called to be leaders in the church, elders and pastors and deacons.

That's what God has told for local churches. But when it comes to the work of evangelism for the world,

God has again committed this stewardship, this treasure into earthen vessels and all his redeemed have part in sharing the gospel with the lost.

And so we see that when, for example, in Acts chapter nine, when

Paul was wreaking havoc on the church, nine and eight, looking at eight now, it says now eight, one, now

Saul was consenting to his death and Stephen's death. At that time, great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, the first local church in the

Bible. And they, the church were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

The apostles stayed back in Jerusalem and devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.

And Saul wreaked havoc on the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women to prison.

And then in verse four of Acts chapter eight, it says, therefore, those who were scattered, the church church from Jerusalem, which had a membership of 3000, and it would go up to about 5 ,000 as Luke tells us.

Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere, preaching the word. So I believe that men and women are to be involved in the work of evangelism.

But again, like our sister said in the church, the preaching from the gospel of the gospel from the pulpit is, is for men.

I believe only men are to be pastors in the church, as Paul says in first number three, and deacons are to be men.

But when it comes to evangelism, the rank and file of God's people have all been called to share

Christ to the lost. There's no restriction on women sharing the gospel again with, you know, women or even men in some settings.

And, and that's a glorious thing that we can all be involved in as God's people. And as I mentioned, just a few moments ago, women also, especially, you know, the great mission field they have may not necessarily be

China. It could be very well their kids right in their kitchen. And so mothers should be discipling their children, telling them the gospel and sharing the gospel with their neighbors.

I mean, very often in our church, when we have prayer meeting, we'll open up the floor in the second season and we'll say any, any in -house concerns we can pray for.

And more times than not, several women will say, I had this opportunity to speak to my neighbor, speak to this person.

I was there in the hospitals, able to share the gospel. So it just brings great joy to my heart that they understand that disciples are to make disciples and women are disciples, just like men outside of the church.

It's free reign, free course to tell others about Jesus. You just mentioned the children of a household being a mission field.

That is an important truth that sadly, many of our

Pato Baptist brothers and sisters and friends neglect intentionally because they do not believe their children are a mission field.

There are exceptions among Pato Baptist, like our friend, Dr. Joel Beakey, who we mentioned earlier.

He's a Pato Baptist, but strongly believes that children of Christian parents are a mission field, that we are not to automatically presume they are

Christians and of the elect just because they were born to Christian parents. No, they've got to be born again of God.

Amen. As someone once said, and I don't know who said it, but I heard it years ago,

God has no grandchildren. That's it. That's it. Yeah. So we've got to come to know

God personally in our lives. Paul says in Ephesians 2, where children of wrath, even as the rest.

In Ephesians 2, we're all born dead in trespasses and sins. And to put our children in some type of safe zone, some type of halfway covenant, some type of whatever, it's just faintly unbiblical.

Our children are lost. They need to be saved. Now, again, being born in a Christian home, they do have special privileges for sure.

And they've got gospel advantages for sure. Our kids, you know, we're not like the, you know, disadvantaged like the pagans next door and all around us.

No, they were in a home with parents who loved them, who told them about Jesus every day of their lives. And so, yeah,

Christian kids have great advantages, but they must make good on those advantages.

In fact, Chris doesn't even Paul deal with this very issue there in Romans chapter three. Well, he does because he says in three, one, what advantage then has the

Jew or what is the profit of circumcision? Paul doesn't say nothing. He says much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.

And we can say that very thing with our children who were raised in Christian homes. What advantage do they have? They got the gospel.

They hear about Jesus all the day long. It's a huge advantage. It doesn't mean that they're automatically saved and all the rest.

No, but they have been brought very close to the savior. Contrary in my own life.

I never heard if you could believe it, hold on. If you could believe it, I didn't hear John three, 16 and low is 22 years old.

I mean, that's crazy. John three, 16. I didn't hear it until I was 22 years old, living in New York city.

That's how he get my upbringing was. I never held the Bible. I never touched the Bible. So I was 22 years old, living in New York city.

I didn't know you could touch a Bible. I didn't know where you would get a Bible. And so again, growing up in the, in the pagan home,

I grew up in, I was at a great disadvantage, spiritually speaking, albeit I had loving parents and all that.

That's great. I won't neglect that at all or negate that. But children who are raised in Christian homes, what advantage do they have much in every way?

Amen. We have a listener that appears to know you. We have a listener named, well, he's actually

Miguel from the South Baptist church of Laconia, New Hampshire.

And he says, Rob, as a fellow New Yorker now living in New Hampshire, I would like to see

New Hampshire as it once was following the first great awakening, Jim Wilson's principles of war, a handbook on strategic evangelism and Nate Pickowitz is reviving

New England. And by the way, Miguel, I interviewed Nate Pickowitz on that book.

You could look it up on my archive at iron trip and Zion radio .com comes to mind when thinking about this in this spirit, what do you see as a short -term and long -term plan for a church to have an impact that can continue perhaps with church plants and fresh troops, as he phrases it in quotes, fresh troops in nearby areas, and eventually the entire state knowing that such a foundation must impact the generations from your friends itself,

Baptist church of Laconia, New Hampshire. Yeah, no, appreciate it.

Appreciate the question. And I know Nate Pickowitz as well, not real well, but we've interacted, but while we're talking about New Hampshire, I better give a plug to my dear, dear friend, pastor

Scott Meadows of Calvary Baptist church of Exeter reformed. So again, if some of your listeners are in that area, please check out

Scott and also this brother's church. And, and Nate's et cetera. I've interviewed Scott as well on the program.

Oh yeah. Oh brother, we were talking this morning. So long time friend, but I think if we're going to see any of these things come to pass,

I think the first thing we've got to do is pray. I mean, right. Prayer is always the precursor to evangelism and revival.

And James tells us wisely. We have not because we asked not. And so I believe that there should be a constant prayer where churches, again, we've got several, you know, this church,

Scott's church, and you know, whatever their other Bible believing church, hopefully confessional church in the area can get together and pray.

Right. We have not because we asked not begin to seek the Lord, Lord, you know, revive us again in the midst of years.

And I know in New Hampshire today at small things, and I'm just speaking to pastors in that area, also in Maine, et cetera.

And so we need to pray God that God would help us because the Bible tells us despise not the day of small things.

And so we need to begin on our knees. If we're going to, if we're ever going to stand strong for Christ and witness to others.

And then again, I, this is not to be self -promoting, but I would encourage churches to pick up the book equipped to evangelize.

And some of the other books I mentioned in the beginning of the time together today, the interview, read good books.

God has always used good books historically to stir up his people. And this book is the one

I wrote is a, is a stirring call as one of the endorsers said to evangelism. And that again, it was one of my great goals to, to stir up the troops.

But again, before we do all that and consider these things, I believe we must begin on our knees.

Amen. And Miguel, please give me your full mailing address in Laconia, New Hampshire, because you've also won a free copy of Equipped to Evangelize.

And thanks for joining us on the air here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio with an excellent question.

One of the other things that we must try to address before we run out of time is one of the most important aspects of this entire conversation, the message of biblical evangelism.

Yeah. And again, the message is the gospel, just straight and simple. The gospel, the new one

Galeon, the message that is centered in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and we need to think on the gospel and all that it means for us.

We need to live in the gospel as Christians, constantly thinking about its implications to us. And that old, old story about a savior who came from glory, right?

As we think about Jesus love for us, we will want to tell others about him.

And the hymn writer says that very thing. As we think about his love, how he died for us, we'll want to tell others the same old story.

And so, again, that's chapter six there in the book, rather chapter five. And it's the message of evangelism centered in God, firstly, and secondly,

Christ thirdly. And then there's a call to repent and believe the good news. All who do that will be saved.

And must we not, when we evangelize and we declare the gospel, must we not focus on the vital aspects of that gospel message?

There's a very famous evangelical pastor and author who has in his commercials said, think things like, well, as he's walking along the beach and he's promoting either a book or just his church, you won't be lonely anymore.

If you come to Jesus, things like that. Well, that's not even necessarily true, but, um, that's right.

Yeah. Talk to Paul, talk to Paul while he's in prison. Or John on the

Isle of Patmos. uh, don't, isn't that crucial that we not use these so -called side benefits, things that may or may not be true, or at least they may be frequently true, if not always true.

But these are not the main reasons we are proclaiming the gospel. No, that's exactly right.

Like you said, these are benefits that come to people who are converted. Again, they enter into the family of God by way of adoption.

They're saved. They receive new hearts. They get the down payment of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians one, having believed you received the

Holy Spirit, you enter into God's family, the church, you've got the community of God's people, the saved saints on the earth and all those wonderful, wonderful things.

Uh, again, forgiveness, you have communion union with God. Those are all wonderful things, but those are, those are byproducts of the gospel.

Those are not rock cards to get people into the gospel and into Christ, as it were, and into the church, et cetera.

So, um, yeah, we just have to be careful that we don't try to paint this as, Oh, again, Jesus will fix your marriage and all that.

Now he very well may fix your marriage and he very well may take you off drug addiction and, and, and very well do all those things.

Indeed, he's a, he's a whole savior. He saves from the uttermost to the gutter most. Right. So, um, he's a, he's a wonderful savior in what he does, but the message we preach with records to the gospel has one primary focus, and that's reconciliation with God.

And when people are reconciled with God through the Lord, Jesus Christ, what then happens is

God blesses them. And he begins to restore all the years that the locust has eaten.

And he puts the man and the woman, uh, back into the condition that, that God would have had him to be, or her to be, uh, prior to the fall.

And so, yeah, being saved. I mean, again, we can say with the psalmist of old, our cup runs over.

We're blessed. And God does so many, many good things for us. But those benefits are not the draw cards for the gospel.

Um, the, the draw card for the gospel is that sinners can be made right with God. That is first and foremost through Christ, through faith alone, not our works, but through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone.

And what are the results of biblical evangelism? And many of, if not most of our non -reformed brothers demand results, or they view the evangelist or the preacher or the missionary or the pastor as totally useless.

Um, and missionaries are often taken off mission fields because they don't meet a certain head count that the denomination sending the person out is expecting.

Uh, so there are unbiblical expectations and even demands on people who are evangelists in regard to results.

But what are the true results of biblical evangelism? I think we understand that, you know, one plants,

God waters one plants and other waters, but God brings the increase. We get away from all of this, you know, result oriented, you know,

Armenian fundamentalists. Um, again, I'm looking for decisions and put another notch in my, my belt, et cetera.

Um, we're not responsible for the results, right? We, we leave the results with God. We're called to preach the gospel and God brings the results.

And according to the Bible, as I opened it up in chapter six, the results of biblical evangelism, I see a twofold result.

One is life unto life and the other is death unto death. So whenever we preach the gospel, which of course makes it a very serious thing, we know that there's this twofold work, which is going on.

In fact, Paul himself expounds this whole matter in second Corinthians two, verse 12 and following.

He says, furthermore, when I came to Troas to do what he says to preach Christ gospel.

Okay. That's the context. And a door was opened to me by the Lord. Here's Paul showing his

Calvinism. I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus, my brother, but taking my leave of them,

I departed from Macedonia. And Paul says, now, thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ.

That's triumph. As we're preaching the gospel and through us notice again, the means human instrumentality.

What does he do? He diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. Verse 15 for we, we, we, we,

God's people, we, the apostolate, we Christians are to God.

Fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to the one, those who are perishing the aroma of death leading to death and to the other, the aroma of life leading to life to which

Paul then cries out saying, and who is sufficient for these things? The results are, are, are stark.

They're startling. Um, we preach the gospel. We know that, yeah, God will save us elect praise God. But we also know that people will reject that gospel and it will become because of their rejection, death leading unto death.

And so again, Paul asked the question, who's sufficient for these things? We're not sufficient to preach the gospel with such implications as these.

But then Paul goes on to say later in verse three, the next chapter, a few verses down, he says, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God who's sufficient for these things.

No one in and of themselves, but our sufficiency is from God who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant.

So the results are twofold life unto life, death unto death, startling. That's the reality.

Amen. And, uh, going back to what you were saying before about the power bowl of the sower and the seeds, people should not become overly distressed and depressed and self -accusatory when their evangelism efforts, perhaps especially with loved ones, with family members, seem to be falling on deaf ears.

And as far as we know, those individuals are rejecting the gospel.

Well, that's right. I tell people the only unsuccessful evangelism is the evangelism that was not God. Right. And so if we evangelize and tell people about Jesus, that's a complete success.

And I've preached open air for around 30 years now, Chris, from New York city to New Jersey to Rhode Island.

I just preached open air down in Providence this summer. And, um, and it was a total success.

Total success. Why? Not that we saw a hundred people get converted, but that the gospel seed was spread.

People heard the gospel tracks were given out. Bibles were distributed, et cetera. So that's successful evangelism.

The results are up to the Lord. Again, one plants and other waters, but God brings the increase.

I just say, if we went out, we shared Christ with others. We preached the biblical gospel that we could say, praise

God. That was a successful day. Amen. And amen.

And, uh, we all need to be, uh, reminded of that, uh, just as we read in Isaiah 51, 55, 11, uh, those precious words show, shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which

I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which

I sent it. So that's it. So you have to always remember these important biblical truths when we evangelize.

Let me go, uh, now to, uh, an anonymous listener. The anonymous listener says,

I know that not all evangelism is preaching, but should not all preaching be at least in part evangelism?

Should not every message delivered from the sacred desk, although we may be doing expository exegetical preaching on texts that may not directly address the gospel.

Should we not nonetheless include a gospel declaration before we descend from those pulpits?

That's a great question. I believe that as pastors we should. And I think in 99 % of the times

I've preached a sermon to God's people, um, I've always preached to the lost.

And, um, I think that's really biblical. And I'll just take some of the thoughts of what the person was saying. You know,

Paul in second Timothy chapter four, verse one and following, he speaks about how to preach and all that.

So he says, I charge you, therefore, speaking to Timothy, before God and the

Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearance and his kingdom. And here's what we have.

Preach the word. Proclaim the word, open your mouth widely and tell people about the word of God.

How often? Well, Paul says, be ready in season and out of season only two times when he preached the word that's in season and out of season.

That's all times, Chris, preach it in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching.

Why? Verse three, four, here's why. Gar, four, the explanatory word for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will eat up for themselves.

Teachers, that is false teachers. And they will turn their ears away from the truth. And be turned aside to fables, quite literally myths.

So then Paul says to Timothy, but you in category, but you, Timothy, be watchful in all things, endure afflictions.

But it doesn't stop there after he just commanded him to preach the word, how he's supposed to do it, the manner, how long, et cetera, et cetera.

Then he ends that pericope or that section of scripture by saying, I'll just preach the word to God's people.

Faithfully, et cetera. But then he says, and do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

And so I believe that with all of our gospel preaching, especially as ministers of the gospel, that we are to preach the

God's people. And then we are to make some type of appeal to the lost among us.

Paul says, but you'd be watchful in all things, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist.

And isn't one of the reasons that's so important is that we may take it for granted, especially in a smaller congregation, that everyone sitting there that we thought we knew, and we have called brothers and sisters for years, it may turn out later on in their lives that they were never saved to begin with.

That's exactly right. And again, if all of God's people, as we spoke of earlier, rank and file of God's people are called to evangelize men, women, whoever we are, how much more the minister of the church, he should be doing it.

And he should be doing it as an example. And so I like to tell people that evangelism is sometimes more caught than taught.

And so I plead with sinners, every sermon to turn from their sins and to fly to Christ by faith that they might be saved.

And the people are seeing this week in and week out, and they're hearing this week in a week out. And I'm sure that with the blessing of God, that stirs them up to then open their mouths widely to others concerning the

Lord Jesus Christ. We'll take one more question before we go to our final commercial break.

We have Broderick in San Ramon, California.

And Broderick says, It seems that all too many reformed pastors do not think homiletics is an important element of evangelism.

I know that different men have different gifts, different manners and voices.

Not all are equally bold or loud, but at the same time, mustn't any man who is a pastor or an evangelist use boldness in whatever way

God has gifted him to speak with an urgency for the listener to repent and believe?

Yes, I would say yes. I'm not sure why he brought up homiletics. Homiletics has to do more with the structuring of sermons.

And so, of course, the pastor, every week in his study, he's preparing sermons homiletically, exegetically and Christocentrically, et cetera.

But when it comes to evangelistic preaching, certainly if you're doing that in the church, then I believe homiletics would be involved.

But when I preach open air, I don't bring any manuscript or anything. I always preach extemporaneously.

I think that's a different type of preaching, a different type of audience. Just like when I witness to people, again, whether it's at a restaurant or the airport, airplane,

I just speak to people freely from my redeemed heart. So there's no homiletic there. Certainly from the pulpit, yes.

But again, when I preach open air, I just take a passage and preach extemp, like Whitfield would do or whoever else.

It might be Sturgeon, Edwards, Luther, Calvin, et cetera. So from the pulpit for sure.

But in the extemp context, I would say no, at least not for me. Well, it seems like he was getting at the fact that many

Reformed pastors, and there is a time and place for a lecture, but they very often come across professorally and only lecture and present facts.

Oh, I get you, yeah. And, you know, and there is no, there are times there are men who teach from a pulpit and they seem just as bored as their audiences with these truths that they are handling.

Right, yeah, they're like talking heads, right? Like that's an Al Martin quote, a talking head, you know? Yeah, I think if the gospel's gotten hold of us, if we get hold of the gospel, it'll get hold of us.

And it'll be like Jeremiah, fire should up in our bones so that we can't hold it back. And so, yeah,

I believe that, you know, men who have been really struck by the gospel will present it with passion.

Now, again, I want to be careful. You know, my passion is not going to be someone else's passion. And as you know,

Chris, Jonathan Edwards, when he delivered perhaps the most famous evangelistic sermon in all of history, sinners in the hands of an angry

God, what did he do? He held his manuscript by candlelight and read it. And God came and just busted the whole place open, as it were, and people were grabbing onto the pews, thinking the floor was going to split open and swallow them off the ground.

So I want to be careful not to say that my style of evangelism is the same style of someone else.

I mean, even John MacArthur, you know, he preached the gospel through his messages. I mean, he was very cool, calm, and collected.

You know, but again, to mention Pastor Martin, who I mentioned earlier, I mean, he was, I mean, a firebrand. Wow. Yeah.

An amazing evangelistic preacher. You know, Ralph Barnard, same type of thing. Paul Washer, right? It's different.

So everyone should be who they are before God as ministers. But I would say, you might even question a guy if he's just up there with no passion, passionless, and just kind of reading.

I know guys that are very intellectual and very, very astute and learned men, and yet when they bring forth the gospel, there's passion there, there's fire.

Their sermons might be more lecture -esque than mine, but when it comes to preaching

Christ, because they know Christ, there's great passion. Okay, we're going to our final break, and if you want to ask a question, please send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. I'm Dr.

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is

Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

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Tell them Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. Puritan Reformed is a

Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Armsen's Iron Shopping Zion radio program.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church visit nhpbc .com.

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

God bless you. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church, a

Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York and play our role in fulfilling the

Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family.

At Linbrook Baptist Church we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired word of God, inerrant in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear

God's image. If you live near Linbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit linbrookbaptist .org

that's l -y -n -brookbaptist .org This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast of the

Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself. Welcome back. We are now continuing this wonderful discussion with Pastor Rob Ventura on his new book on Equipped to Evangelize a

Biblical Foundation. And, Pastor Ventura, there is a very important element of this discussion, the power for biblical evangelism.

And it seems that very often Christians are desperate to add something to the declaration of the gospel because they think otherwise the gospel itself on its own will be impotent, ineffectual, and so therefore you need a world class band, you need a theatrical performance, you need all kinds of stuff to mix in there because the gospel itself doesn't seem to be good enough, if you could.

What is the power for biblical evangelism? When you think about a world class band, we certainly wouldn't think about the early disciples, that's for sure.

And so, the Lord Jesus Christ gives us the answer to the question in Acts 1 in verse 8 when

He said that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

And so, the Holy Spirit Himself is the power. He Himself is the power.

He Himself, of course, is the third person of the blessed trinity. He is a person, but when He comes to us at that time in His special presence,

His power fills the Christian. And so, the power for evangelism is the power of the

Holy Spirit. And Paul speaks about this in his letters, and the Bible speaks about it in many, many places.

In fact, as I highlight this throughout the book, I give different examples of this very topic.

But when you search the Scriptures, just going back here and defining this whole matter,

I say in the book on page 105, let me be clear, the power to evangelize the lost is not something separate from the

Holy Spirit Himself. It is rather a direct heightened expression of His presence and work in and upon us.

And then again, when you just search the Scriptures, you see this whole matter of spirit and power going together. For example,

Isaiah says, actually, I'm speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, but, "...the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the

Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the

Lord. The Spirit shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom, knowledge, and might, or power."

Micah says, "...truly I am full of power," how? "...by the Spirit of the

Lord." Paul in Romans 1, "...and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the

Spirit of holiness or the Holy Spirit." Again, Paul in Romans 15, "...now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope," how?

The prepositional phrase answering the question, "...by the power of the Holy Spirit."

And of course, we know that this is true of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ preached, "...in the power of the

Holy Spirit." If I cast out demons by the power of the Holy Spirit, "...then truly the kingdom of God has come upon you."

And so, throughout the Scriptures, we see this connection between the Holy Spirit coming upon us and His special presence and God's people being filled with power.

Now, of course, the moment we believe, as I said earlier, we have the Holy Spirit. Once for all time, having believed, you receive the promised

Holy Spirit. But of course, as you know, Chris, as we go on in our Christian life, the Holy Spirit freshly empowers us for various tasks.

We believe in the seal of the Holy Ghost once for all time, but then

He goes on filling us time and again. And as you search the book of Acts, you see that the people were filled with the

Holy Spirit. And what was the result? They spoke boldly in the name of the

Lord. And so, the Holy Spirit Himself is the power for believers when it comes to biblical evangelism.

Amen. And we must not forget that classic and beautiful text,

Romans 1 -16, that states, "...for

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first, and also to the Greek." And I'd like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air.

I think the main thing would be that God, in fact, has called us as people to preach the gospel to every creature, right?

We've got the Great Commission. As I tell my church, let's not make it the Great Omission. Let's keep it the

Great Commission, and we've got a work to do. And so, that work, again, was committed to us,

God's people, men and women alike. And so, let's obey our Lord, and let's tell others about our

Lord, Jesus Christ. God has committed this to our care, to our hands. So, in that case, we are the hands and the feet and the mouthpieces of our

Lord. And so, we have a great stewardship. So, let's be faithful in all of the areas where God has placed us to open our mouths widely for him.

Amen. Well, I want to make sure that I give our listeners the websites pertinent to you and our discussion today.

First of all, we have got a very easy website to remember for Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island.

That's gcbcri .org gcbcri .org

gcbcri .org gcbcri .org Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island. And let's not forget the website of that fine publisher who has provided for us the books that we were giving away,

Christian Focus Publications. Their website is christianfocus .com

christianfocus .com christianfocus .com A United States -based publisher and book distributor that carries this book is the folks at my friend

Dr. Joel Beakey's church and book distributor and publisher, heritagebooks .org

heritagebooks .org which is the website for Reformation Heritage Books. And do you have any other websites or contact information that you care to share, brother?

Oh, yeah. You can get the book anywhere. Amazon, Westminster Books, Christian Book Distributors, they all have it.

Christian Focus, they're based out of Scotland, but they have their distribution here in America as well.

They get the book around the world, but if you just put in a clip to evangelize, everyone's selling it, and it's very, very inexpensive.

I mean, I think Beakey was dumping them for last week with Thanksgiving and all that stuff, probably for like $7 - $8.

Wow. So it's just really, really good. It normally just retails for like $12 - $13, so it's a very inexpensive book.

It's not going to completely fund my retirement, but it might help a little bit anyway. Well, it sounds like the kind of book...

It's very inexpensive, and you can get it anywhere. It sounds like the kind of book that pastors and elders should not only promote for individuals in their churches to purchase, but the churches themselves should purchase a whole case of these because it's such a prominent issue in the life of a

Christian. Right. No, it's a huge issue, and again, I think especially as Reformed folks, we want a solid book that's up -to -date by a

Reformed guy that can speak to the issues of our day that you can read again within an hour and a half, and all of God's people could be blessed by it.

As I said in the outset, several churches bought the book and many, many copies of the book, and they're using it for Sunday school classes.

In fact, Beakey, he ordered hundreds of the book, and they sold out in a week, so I was thankful for that. The nice part, after each chapter,

I end with a reflection and discussion, so there's four questions after each chapter to prompt further interaction and learning, so that's just something to think about.

Well, thank you so much, Brother. I look forward to your return to the program, and I want everybody listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater