October 23, 2023 Show with James Reff II on “Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God”

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, 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 Monday on this 23rd day of October 2023.

I'm delighted to have back on the program James Reff. He is pastor of Grace Community Church of Chestertown, Maryland, and he will address the theme of an upcoming conference he's having at that church, evangelism and the sovereignty of God.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor James Reff.

Thanks for having me.

Why don't you let our listeners know something about Grace Community Church of Chestertown,.

Maryland. Yeah, very good. We are actually a church plant through the Bible Fellowship Church, mostly up in Pennsylvania area. We have several different churches and church plants throughout the Delmarva region.

We're one of two church plants here in Maryland. I've been here for a number of years, planning the church. Lord willing, we'll be able to graduate, become a full-fledged member of the Bible Fellowship Church.

2025 is our slated graduation date. And so we're here as a part of the church plant and we're trying to put on this conference just to kind of let people know who we are and hopefully introduce people in our communities and surrounding areas and people outside of there too as well to good, solid biblical reform teaching.

And what is the congregation that planted your congregation? Because I'm familiar with some of the Bible Fellowship Churches here in Pennsylvania.

What was it? What were you asking?

Which specific Bible Fellowship Church in Pennsylvania planted your church?

We are, well I would say the Newark Bible Fellowship Church in Newark, Delaware would be our...

Oh, I thought you said Pennsylvania, I'm sorry. Well, if anyone wants more details on this church, go to Grace. B. as in Bible, F. as in Fellowship, C. as in Church, Chestertown. At, wait a minute, I'm reading the wrong thing.

It's GCChestertown .org, GCChestertown .org, that's correct, right?

Yes, that is correct.

I was reading your email address. And we will repeat that information later on in the program. Well, tell us about this upcoming conference you're having on the theme Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, which is going to be held November 3rd through the 4th at Grace Community Church of Chestertown.

Let's hear some more details about this.

Yeah, so we're super excited to be able to partner with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals to put on this conference. It's called the Eastern Shore Reform Conference, and so we wanted to introduce people to good, solid biblical teaching, people who maybe were not quite familiar with Reformed teaching.

And so we sort of centered our theme throughout the years, at least for now, on the Sovereignty of God and dealing with specific topics within that overarching topic. Last year, it was on the Sovereignty of God in general with Dr. John Kerr, and he did an excellent job.

And this year, we decided to continue with the theme for our second conference, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, which we're super excited about. I think it's a very important topic that a lot of every believer should be interested in and passionate about, but just helping them to see how God's sovereignty and man's responsibility to share the gospel with others, how they harmonize together.

Tell us more about your speaker.

Yeah, our speaker this year is Greg Gilbert. He's from Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. I believe he's a senior pastor there, and he's a part of Nine Marks Ministry. He's written several books through Nine Marks Ministry.

What is the Gospel? Who is Jesus? Can I Trust the Bible? I think is another title of one of the books. So he's written a number of books through the Nine Marks Ministry. Of course, many of you are familiar with Nine Marks, Mark Dever, his ministry there.

So he's coming. He's going to speak at our conference on Friday and Saturday. He'll have three different sessions.

And the theme is the, I don't know if it's just a quote, quote, coincidence or if it's intentional. The theme is the exact wording of the title of a classic book by J .I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

Is the format of your conference's discussion going to be following in any way Dr. Packer's book? Or is that just, as I said, a coincidence?

Well, it's not a coincidence. I mean, it is. It's not a coincidence. It's we did borrow, obviously, from that book. I think that's a great book. We actually have copies of that that we'll have available for during our conference.

I think it's a book that every Christian has to read multiple times throughout their Christian life. The great book. And maybe we'll get to some discussion of that. But so we did borrow it from that book, obviously, that was sort of the inspiration for our conference title.

However, we're not strictly following that, you know, format. Right.

Well, if anybody wants to join us with a question of your own for my guest today, Pastor James Reff, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com. That's C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail dot com.

Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA. And this is a theme that we have addressed on Iron Trip and Zion Radio probably many.

Times.

But it's a theme that I don't think you can repeat addressing too often because there is such great misunderstanding in Christendom in regard to what we as reformed Christians or also nicknamed Calvinists, believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace, what we believe about the sovereignty of God.

There is much even slander against us, typically by people who have never read a single word of our confessions, who have never read the writings of the Puritans or the great heroes of the Reformation or even the 19th century heroes of the faith like Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

They seem to be just regurgitating things that they have read or heard from anti-Calvinists. But even the phrase evangelism and the sovereignty of God, they, our opponents theologically would think that that is an oxymoronic phrase, especially in regard to what they think we believe about the sovereignty of God.

And evangelism, wouldn't you agree, one of the reasons why we who are reformed Christians can boldly and confidently evangelize and be motivated to not give up when we don't see fruit immediately or even for a long period of time is because we know that the sovereign God of all creation, of all heaven and earth, will not fail to save his elect.

And he commands us, his creatures, to evangelize as his means to bring this about. Am I right?

Yeah. I mean, I would wholeheartedly agree. I think that's what the scriptures teach. They teach both man's responsibility to preach the words of Christ, to preach the gospel. And yet we see that God is sovereignly in control even of the salvation of men, that God is the one who saves men, not us.

But we are the means or the instrument by which God accomplishes the salvation of his elect through the preaching of the gospel.

Well, we already have a question here from Penelope in Belmore, Long Island, New York. Penelope says, what are your lists of do's and don'ts when it comes to evangelizing the lost in reference to this specific topic?

Okay, well, that's a very broad question.

I would say the first thing is to, well, don't get distracted, right? So there are lots of things that you could get distracted by, but keep the main point, the main point, try to keep on track with what the gospel is, not avoiding questions.

And I would say also don't let go of the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Christ, right? So I think one of the things that we can easily just kind of get off track and talk about all sorts of things, but we need to keep the gospel the main point and focus when we're out talking to others and sharing Christ with them.

So that would be the main thing.

When you were talking about keeping the main thing, the main thing, isn't it true. In your experience, as it has been in mine, when evangelizing someone who is lost, they very often make efforts to drag us into rabbit trails to keep us off that main topic of the gospel.

They want to ask every question that they think in their head is going to nullify the authenticity and reliability and trustworthiness of God's word. And they're going to regurgitate things that they've heard from Bill Maher and other liberals and leftists and Christ deniers, thinking that they're very clever.

And we have to resist the temptation to allow them to dominate the conversation, don't we?

Yeah, well, that's true, right? We want to always bring it back to the gospel. So I really appreciate, like Greg Gilbert, one of the books that he's written, What is.

The Gospel?

We tend to overcomplicate it, but it's really pretty, pretty clear. It's easy. God, man, Christ response. So when I'm out sharing the gospel with people, I use that as sort of a roadmap, as a guide. So I kind of just work through those steps, and if I sort of find myself kind of getting off on a rabbit trail, I just get back on the next on ramp, get back on the highway.

So I want to help a person to see, number one, that they have sinned and rebelled against a holy and righteous God. So I take them to God's law, show them how they have broken God's righteous commandments, right, that they have no standing before God, and then show them who God is, right?

So once they understand their need, then you can bring them to God, show them that he is holy and righteous and just, and he will not overlook their sin. And then you can point them to the person of Christ and show them what Christ has done.

The fact that he came into the world, died for sinners, was buried and rose again, and then prompt them to a response. Like, what are you going to do about this? And talk about repentance and talk about faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

So if we can remember those things, God, man, Christ response, then that's a pretty good roadmap for us not to get distracted by other things.

And wouldn't you say, when Penelope said do's and don'ts, some don'ts might be, and you can let me know if you agree or not. Sometimes when we are having a conversation with someone who is not a Christian, we can mistakenly start talking about our favorite hobby horses of theology that are not essential to the pure gospel discussion.

And we might overload people's minds with things that may be wonderful truths and important truths, but not necessarily something that's going to have a listener or hearer begin to consider the state of their soul and become aware of their urgent need to repent and so on.

I think that probably, or very possibly, we who are Reformed, especially if we are in a early stage in our appreciation and belief in these precious truths, also known as cage-to-hage Calvinism, we could be more guilty of that than anyone, can't we?

Yeah, right. I mean, to be honest with you, we have to be careful, right? Because there are conversations that we might have with people who are, let's say they do come to faith in Christ. There are conversations that we might have in house, right, that we might not.

We need to understand and realize that we're dealing with somebody who is lost, that this is an unregenerate person, and there are spiritual things which can only be discerned by those who have the Spirit of Christ within them.

And so this person needs, the main thing that we need to get back to is that they need to be, they need to submit themselves to Christ, right? They need to be born again. They need to know the saving faith of Jesus Christ.

And then those conversations are things that can be had over a period of time. But the main point is that they need Christ. And so we have to get back to that before we can deal with some of those others.

So that's a trick sometimes, is not avoiding the questions, but yet trying to gently bring the conversation back to the gospel.

Yeah, and wouldn't it be wise during, you know, depends on what the conversation is and how it came up, what kind of providential circumstances brought about this conversation, wouldn't it be wise for us at times to say, I really want to answer that question, but can we just wait a little bit so I could just say what I primarily want to tell you?

Like, for instance, if some people start bringing up things that they think would in their minds make it clear that the Bible violates proven tenets of science and things like that, you know, they will they will try to get you tongue tied when it comes to proving to them a literal six day creation.

Or I could go on and on with examples of what they might be asking you to attempt to bring the spotlight away from their soul and their urgent need to repent and trust in Christ, that we could say, hey, you know, I love discussing creation, but can we just wait a little bit?

Let me just say what I believe is most primary in your need right now or something to that effect, isn't that a way that we can postpone properly certain issues without flatly rejecting or opposing the idea of bringing them up in conversation or answering their questions?

Right. Yeah. I mean, we have to be discerning in this. There's no I wish there was like just, you know, one size fits all answers to how you deal with those things. We have to be discerning. Right. So there are some times when.

Foundationally, right, I mean, like none of us are neutral, right, we come to conversations from a worldview and a world perspective and unbelievers coming from a unbelieving worldview and system where they've rejected God and denied him and his word and the believers coming from a perspective where we stand upon God as the we presuppose God and his truth.

And so we we are trying to open their eyes. I mean, God's one opens their eyes. We're trying to show them through the scriptures that what what God has said and how he wants us to respond. So it takes discernment.

Sometimes we do have to. Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where the term God or understanding of even who God is, it's foreign. So sometimes we have to even dig a little deeper and build that foundation.

We can't just assume like in biblical times where they had a concept, a proper concept of who God was and a foundation so that Christ and all these other things that came after could could be presented in a way that was meaningful and coherent.

We don't have that foundation in our country anymore. Sometimes we have to go a little bit further back to even help people to understand who God is, like that he's holy and righteous and just and and he's going to punish sin.

And he's not arbitrary. He doesn't just overlook these things. And sometimes you have to build that. You just have to know your read, be able to read your audience and read the people you're talking to and be able to sort of adapt on the fly.

And unfortunately, the only way that can happen is this is through experience. So the more we do it, the better we get at it. And we're going to to encourage people who are like, well, I can't do that.

Well, yes, you can. You're going to make mistakes. And that's why we have to you know, one of the comforts is when we talk about God's sovereignty, right? God uses our words, even our mistakes and things that we say, you know, he uses them to grow us and mature us.

But also when we're faithful preaching the gospel, you know, God uses those things, even if we don't word it exactly the way we think we should or whatever.

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, don't you believe that humility is a very strong factor in our approach and evangelizing the lost so that they do not come up with the wrong idea that we are saying we are superior to them and we are instilling in them the notion that we are sinners just like they.

But we have found the cure and the only rescuer of our eternal souls from our sin and.

Our damnation. Yeah, so humility is the big part. So my mind automatically goes to, I say it's in Peter. It says, sanctify the Lord Jesus in your hearts, being ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for the hope that was within you, yet with reasonableness and respect.

So there is a very clear principle that, you know, we shouldn't just go in there, you know, guns blazing and be disrespectful to people like even people we adamantly disagree with, even people who are, you know, just flagrant or, you know, all sorts of things.

We should do we should present the gospel, but do it with gentleness and respect for people. So certainly humility is, you know, we don't want to, the gospel is offensive, right? It's a stumbling block to the Jews and an offensive to the Gentiles.

Yet we don't want our words to be offensive to others, right?

The way that we present it, you know, we don't want to add unnecessary offenses of our own on top of the gospel that already offends. Yeah, and our offenses could be and very often are for the wrong reason.

Going back to humility, wouldn't it be a wise approach? Now, of course, there are different kinds of evangelism you could be evangelizing. You could be doing outdoor, open air street evangelism where you're talking to a crowd of people.

And there is also sitting next to somebody in the hospital waiting room or sitting next to somebody on a plane trip or bus ride or, you know, more of a one on one or you speaking with a very small group.

There's going to be a difference because speaking to a large group, evangelizing to a group, there would be even a different approach, perhaps, of raising the voice and speaking with more boldness than you might if you're just having a one on one conversation.

But going back to the humility aspect of when you are having those one on one conversations or with small groups, a handful of people, to demonstrate that humility, wouldn't it be wise to make it clear that you want to know about these people?

You want to ask them questions about their lives, any questions that they are comfortable answering. You know, tell me about yourself. Tell me about what you do for a living and on and on we could go and to demonstrate that you're really interested in them and not just winning a trophy for Jesus.

Right. Yeah, I think it's important when you're again, this comes to down to like knowing your audience, knowing who you're talking to. It takes time and skill, I think, to develop them over a course of time.

But certainly anything you can do to break the ice, anything you can do to break that tension and to sort of kind of help them to let their guard down a little bit to have that conversation is great. So family, talking about family, talking about kids, talking about pets.

That's a big one. Like people love to talk about their pets, you know, just and being genuine about it. Right. I mean, so like genuinely wanting to know about, you know, something personal or something, you know, you don't get too personal, but, you know, something about that person that they're interested in.

And you can oftentimes pick it up if they're walking down the street with a dog, you know, talk about their dog and tell them how cute their dog is, you know, and, you know, just trying to find something that you can connect on that human level.

And just so that put them at ease and then, you know, then look for, you know, those on ramps, right, to bring that towards the gospel conversation. So.

We have to go to our first commercial break, if anybody would like to join us once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

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We are addressing evangelism and the sovereignty of God, which is also the theme of the upcoming East Shore Reform Conference being held at Grace Community Church of Chestertown, Maryland. And if you have a question for James, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Let's have your responses to the age old question from non-reformed, non-Calvinist brethren in Christ who will say, why do you even bother evangelizing if God, before the foundation of the world, has chosen those whom he will save?

And he's going to regenerate them in his own good time, and he is going to bring them to faith and repentance by his sovereign power, and they will certainly go to heaven. Why are you even evangelizing at all?

And for that matter, why do you even pray for their salvation?

Yeah, so the simple answer to that question would be because God commands us to do so because we have a divine command from God, and we are responsible to God for sharing the gospel with the world. The Great Commission, Romans chapter 10, 1 Peter 3 .15, which we talked about earlier.

So we could just stop right there and that would be enough, the scriptures tell us. But also because we understand that if God ordains the ends by which he is accomplishing, which is the salvation of the elect, he also ordains the means by which he accomplishes that, and that is through the preaching of the gospel, which, you know, from Romans 10.

I'll turn there real quick. Romans 10, verse 17. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Well, how are they going to hear the word of Christ? It is through believers, through those who have faith in Christ, who go out and then preach through their speaking the word of Christ.

That's how they hear of Christ and the gospel. So, you know, that verse talks about how shall they believe on whom they have never heard? How are they to hear without someone preaching? How are they to preach unless someone is sent?

You know, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news? It's very simple. God's called us to do it, and the means by which he accomplishes the salvation of his elect is through the church, through the church sending out us as individuals into the world to preach the gospel.

So what was the second part of your question?

Well, I just added into that mix the fact that people who are opponents to what we believe will also include in that challenge to us. Why do we even why do you even pray for the salvation of the lost if God is already for ordained or predestined those whom he will save?

All right. Yeah. Why do we pray? Well, I would, again, say that it's because we believe that God hears and answers prayers and we believe that God works through those things. I love what Packer talks about in his book, Evangelistic Sovereignty of God.

You know, he goes in and he like just really just dives right into it. He says, you know, he proves that any time we pray that we even the person who is more on the Arminian side, more free will side of things, even they become Calvinists or believe in the sovereignty of God when they pray.

Right. Because they don't pray, you know, hey, they don't pray to that person to save themselves when they pray, God save this person. And why do we pray like that? Why do we pray to God and say, God, save this person?

Because we actually believe that God saves because that's what the scriptures tell us. And we believe that God hears our prayers and that they are that God is the one who is, you know, busy about saving people.

So even the person who is totally, you know, against, you know, Calvinism or reform teaching or whatever it is, they're totally on the Arminian perspective. Even they, when they pray, would be more on the reform side because they pray to a God whom they know saves men.

Yeah, I believe Packer's exact quote, or at least close to his exact quote, because I don't have it in front of me, is that all Christians are Calvinists on their knees.

Yeah, I've got it right here.

And if he didn't say it in there, he said it somewhere.

It's in his introduction to the first first couple of pages of the book, but I don't know that exact quote that you're talking about there.

But one example of that very thing, I don't know if you remember who Ergin Kainer was. Ergin Kainer was the president at one time of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, a rabid anti-Calvinist. And one evening, I believe he was preaching to the students.

And the theme of his sermon was a mocking theme and it's wording why I was predestined not to be a Calvinist. And it was really a horrible sermon that wasn't even based on exegesis of the word of God.

It was it was really bad. I mean, even at one point, he shocked me because I'm sure most of those folks listening, especially Jerry Falwell, would have had enough knowledge of the Bible that they would have recognized that what Ergin Kainer said in regard to Romans nine was was absolute heresy.

He said and he yelled this at the top of his lungs. Why did God love Jacob and hate Esau? Because of what they did when the text clearly says that had nothing to do with that before they were even born.

God loved Jacob and hated Esau. But but after that horrible sermon, Jerry Falwell demonstrated exactly what J .I. Packer said about Christians unconsciously being Calvinist when they pray, even if they're Arminian.

Jerry Falwell started off by congratulating Ergin Kainer on preaching a wonderful message, which was mind boggling that he did. And then he started praying. I don't have the words, the transcript of his words of his prayer, but I remember it was something similar to, Lord, please open the eyes of those who are spiritually blind who are listening.

Please, Lord, give them new hearts. And, you know, he's going on and on. Praying is exactly according to the theology of somebody who believes in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

Right. As if we can give somebody a new heart.

Yeah, right. And so that's why he even Falwell recognized he had to pray to God to do that. And in fact, when people have asked me, why do you even pray if you believe God for ordained or predestined everything that's going to happen?

I ask them, I turn it around on them. Why do you pray to God for the salvation of the lost? What is he going to do? Right. You know, what is he going to do that he hasn't already done? And, you know, it doesn't make any sense according to their scheme of theology.

Yeah, and really true in a practical sense, it aligns the will of God with our hearts, with God's will. So when we pray, we're praying to a sovereign God who desires and does save men. And so when we do that, it changes us and it gives us compassion and hearts for the lost so that we will then have a desire to go and just preach and teach and speak the gospel to the lost.

And so it's very appropriate. And that when we go out, you know, when we go out and do an evangelistic meeting or go out someplace that we pray before we go, because. If God doesn't work or move, then, you know, our words are not going to convince them, it's the spirit of God that has to be there moving, regenerating that heart, you know, causing them to be born again and giving them eyes to see and to enter the kingdom of God.