February 4, 2019 Tribute to the late Paula Webster, “A Loving Tribute in Memory of the Wife of Christian Apologist William Webster” PLUS Elizabeth W. D. Groves on “Grief Undone: A Journey with God & Cancer”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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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.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this fourth day of February 2019.

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This is my first live broadcast since returning from my very long trip down south, first to Atlanta, Georgia for the

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G3 conference where I manned an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth, then later to Laurel, Mississippi where I manned an exhibitors booth at the

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Deep South Founders Conference, then spent one night in Birmingham, Alabama and returned home and took a week off to recuperate.

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And I will give you more detailed updates on those two wonderful weeks down south as soon as possible and another broadcast.

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But today I must announce that during my time down south having a wonderful time,

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I did have that happiness interrupted with some sad news. I got a call from my dear friend

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David T. King, who is a Christian apologist and dear friend mutually with Dr.

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William Webster, who I have known since approximately 1990, I believe. David called to tell me that our mutual friend

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Bill Webster's wife, Paula Webster, had passed away, had gone home to glory with Christ in eternity.

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She had battled cancer for quite a while, but it went into remission and she received a clean bill of health as recently as five months ago, and when it returned, it returned with a vengeance.

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And she was given the grim prognosis of having a week to live, but she went home to be with Christ only after about three days after hearing this news.

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Paula Beth Webster, at age 69, went home to be with the Lord she loves on January 25th, 2019 at Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital after battling cancer.

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A graveside service took place at 3 p .m. Friday, February 1st at the

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Crawford Cemetery in Battleground, Washington, with immediate family present.

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Paula was born in Mount Vernon, Washington, the first of three children to Maynard and Terry Wurst.

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She attended grade school and high school in Washington State and for a short time in Tucson, Arizona.

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She was an accomplished violinist during her high school years, playing in the

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Tuscan Youth Symphony. She married Bill Webster in April of 1972.

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Paula was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and homeschool mom. The passions of her heart were her

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Lord Jesus Christ, his gospel, teaching his word, and her family. She was a dedicated

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Bible teacher and discipler of women. She is survived by Bill, her best friend and husband of nearly 47 years, her daughters

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Tess, Mary, and Anna, and sons Matt and Will, eight grandchildren, and her sister

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Pat. I interviewed Paula a number of years ago. In fact, the exact date was

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October 15th of 2008. That was the last time

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I had had her on the program. She gave a fascinating interview about the dangers of presumptive regeneration.

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She herself believed that she was saved long before she actually was.

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In other words, she believes that she had been deceived by her own fallible perception of her heart and she had come to faith, saving faith, in reality much later in life than she had first thought.

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And today I'm going to, for the first hour of the program, I'm going to air in tribute of Paula her interview that she conducted with me.

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And then after that, the second hour, we're going to have a live interview with Elizabeth W .D.

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Groves. She is teaching Hebrew at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and she's going to be discussing her book,

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Grief Undone, A Journey with God and Cancer. Obviously a very relevant subject to be a sequel to Paula Webster's broadcast in tribute of her life.

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Obviously this is a bittersweet time. The bitterness obviously flows from the fact that a dear sister in Christ has left this earth and we grieve especially for William Webster and his family as they are left behind by her.

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But the sweetness obviously comes from there is no doubt where she is right now.

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She is enjoying a bliss that we cannot even comprehend on this earth, being with Christ, being actually in the presence of Jesus Christ for eternity and glory.

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So she does not have any regrets about departing this earth, that's for sure.

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She was a strong Christian woman with a strong Christian testimony. In fact, James Montgomery Boyce, the late James Montgomery Boyce, whom perhaps she's even met by now again, had a reunion with him in heaven perhaps.

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James Montgomery Boyce was so impressed by Paula Webster's testimony that he included it in his commentary on Romans.

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I think it was Romans 9. But hopefully when William Webster returns to the program, he will give us more details about that.

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But now I am going to start airing the broadcast in tribute of Paula Webster, my interview with Paula Webster on October 15, 2008.

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And I hope that you are blessed by this, and I hope you enjoy. Good afternoon,

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Long Island, New York, Connecticut, and those listening internationally over the internet. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Do you treat your children, if you have children, do you treat your children as if they are a mission field?

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Or do you assume that they are Christians just because they are your children and you happen to be

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Christians? Well, as the old saying goes, God does not have grandchildren.

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And to discuss this today is Paula Webster, the wife of well -known apologist and author and founder and director of Christian Resources, Bill Webster.

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Paula Webster herself believes that she was deceived most of her life, most of her early life,

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I should say, into thinking that she was actually a born -again believer in Christ, headed for heaven.

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But then in adulthood, through examination, self -examination and so forth, began to realize that she had never truly been saved by the blood of Christ.

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And that had brought her to a genuine conversion, truly crying out to the

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Lord in repentant faith. Want to pick up the phone, you can call your family, friends and loved ones and have them tune in.

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And they can hear this program anywhere on the planet Earth via live streaming. We'll be right back with Paula Webster.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you've just tuned us in, our guest today is

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Paula Webster. She is the wife of well -known apologist, author and founder and director of Christian Resources, Bill Webster.

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And today, Paula is going to be speaking about the heresy of presumptive regeneration.

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And it's great to have you back for the second time on Iron Sharpens Iron. Paula Webster. Thank you,

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Chris. And let's go into your childhood, the upbringing that you had in regard to religion and so forth and the church that you went to.

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I was raised in the Christian Reformed denomination, and I was very thankful for the home

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I was raised in and for the doctrines I learned. We had to study and be quizzed on the

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Heidelberg Confession. I made a profession of faith before the consistory when

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I was 14 years old. And as far as I knew, I believed with all my heart everything

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I had been taught. I don't think I can remember a time when I was not convinced in my heart that the scriptures were the word of God and that everything that I knew was true.

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And I think I had a faith of sorts in God. But in my 20s,

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I became very troubled by the fact that there were two issues that I couldn't resolve.

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One was the fact that I couldn't figure out how to lay hold of the Lord for power over besetting sins.

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And it really troubled me that in spite of all my background, I had a firm faith in what

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I would call the doctrines of the word. But I didn't have a personal relationship of any sort with the

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Lord. Now, going back to your upbringing, even before you made your confession of faith at 14, were your parents, your family, your minister, your fellow congregants urging you to assume that you were a

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Christian at the time? Did they ever? Yes, absolutely. I don't remember ever hearing the gospel presented to me personally or in church or in any setting.

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It was a general presentation of the gospel, but not a specific one as though anyone in our congregation could possibly be lost.

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I heard a lot about being a child of the covenant, and it was just assumed that I was a

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Christian and I assumed the same thing. I had no reason to doubt it.

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I was told that because I was a child of the covenant and did, in fact, profess the doctrines and professed a faith in Christ, the assumption was that I was saved.

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But I never heard the gospel presented. You were just taught what the facts of the gospel were.

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You weren't actually evangelized. You didn't have the fear of hell put into you to examine yourself whether you were truly among the elect and so forth.

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I can't recall a single time when I was presented with that truth, either in my family or in a church setting.

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One of the great heroes of the Christian faith, especially among reformed folk, is

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Abraham Kuyper, but that seems to be one of the greatest flaws of his ministry and belief system was the doctrine known as presumptive regeneration, that you were to baptize your infants assuming or presuming that they were regenerate because they were the children of Christians.

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And obviously, there is even a difference of opinion among us, amongst Pato Baptists.

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I don't want to broad brush all those Protestants who baptize their infants because, for instance,

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Dr. Joel Beakey of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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He's also the president of the Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary there in Grand Rapids. He believes in infant baptism, but believes that that is a serious error to automatically presume that your children are regenerate just because they're your children and you're a

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Christian. And he believes that the home is a mission field, that children must be evangelized.

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But going back to... I completely agree with that. Yeah. Well, this, unfortunately, is a breeding ground for nominal

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Christianity, isn't it? Sometimes you have generation after generation of families believing that they are indeed children of God just because they were raised in a

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Christian home. But Christian parents can have reprobate children just as wicked parents can have

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Christian children, correct? Yes. Sadly, I think that's completely true. I, in looking back, saw little evidence of genuine

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Christianity in many in my family because I think they were all deceived by the same error. I can't honestly say that my parents believed that baptism saved me.

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I don't know that they would have gone that far. But the assumption was, because I was a child of the covenant, no one saw or felt any need to, as you say, treat children as a mission field and speak with them personally about their own conversion.

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I never heard words like conversion, being saved, relationship with Christ.

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All of this was addressed in a very general way as though it was for someone outside the denomination or someone outside the church, and that's most unfortunate.

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Yeah, I remember years ago when I worked for a Christian book publisher, part -time, we carried a book written by a friend of mine called

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The Gospel for Children. And a Presbyterian minister somewhere down south returned the book because he realized that this book was evangelizing children.

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And he thought, I guess it was just a book of facts about the gospel rather than something to get children to search their hearts.

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And he said that we don't evangelize our children in our church, and he returned the book. That's kind of frightening, isn't it?

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It's very frightening because I do remember the first time I was convicted of sin, I was four years old.

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And I'd been put in a nursery, didn't want to be in the nursery. And because I was angry,

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I pinched the daylight out of another little child for no reason. And I remember sitting there wondering what was wrong with me, what was in my heart that would provoke that kind of meanness.

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And I've often thought back on that episode and thought if someone had come along and I'd been able to articulate that to a grown -up,

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I would have understood clearly when presented with the facts that sin was my problem and that it was a hard issue.

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Now, did your congregation have any interaction or fellowship with other

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Christian or Reformed churches? Because I wouldn't want to broad brush that denomination. I've known very fine men and Christians from that denomination.

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Actually, most of them have left now for a completely different reason because there was a split,

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I believe it was in the 90s, over liberalism that began to dominate the

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Christian Reformed Church. And many fled that denomination into more Orthodox Reformed groups, such as the

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United Reformed Church of North America. But did you see that same sort of attitude with other

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Christian Reformed congregations or did you not even have any interaction with any other churches when you were a kid? Being Dutch, we almost exclusively interacted only with other

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Dutch people and with other Christian Reformed people. And my perspective, again, was as a child.

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So I don't have any way of knowing what it was actually, in fact, like. But as far as I can remember, it was not confined to our local body.

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This was a problem throughout the denomination. And as a grown -up in talking with other fellow

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Dutch people, many of whom have been converted, they saw the same thing. I don't know what the church was like later on because I left it in my 20s and I'm in my 50s now.

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But many of the people my age will share the same testimony that they were in church, that they assumed they were saved, and it wasn't until they got older and heard a gospel presentation that was complete that they were converted.

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Now, did you have any friends growing up in church that demonstrated really a scandalous, gross sin that would clearly identify one as an unrepentant unbeliever, and yet they were still given a false assurance that they were saved?

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Well, I would say that a number did, depending on how you define gross.

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Many of us were typical teenagers that practiced a lot of sin, and yet we were faithfully in church every

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Sunday, and that was not addressed as a possibility that we were not born again.

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We were always exhorted not to backslide and to be conscious of our reputations in the family and in the church and to live good lives.

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But I don't recall ever having anyone make the connection between that and the possibility of not being born again.

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But I would have to say that after leaving the Christian Reformed Church, when I married, we were in a large evangelical church, and they didn't address that issue either.

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It was the same problem. This is not a problem confined to presumptive redemption. It is more of a reformed problem.

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Just the general problem of an incomplete gospel or some sort of a disconnect between whether or not born -again people can practice sin, that's prevalent in,

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I think, the Christian community at large. Yeah, the modern evangelical church is very permeated and perhaps even dominated with what has been nicknamed easy believism and cheap grace, where unlike the

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Christian Reformed Church that would baptize infants presuming they were regenerate, in the modern evangelical church, if you merely walked an aisle during what has become known as an altar call, something that doesn't even have a biblical basis, but someone is called forward to recite a prayer, that person is very often told that they are with certainty born again.

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Sometimes the minister will even go farther and say, if you begin to doubt that you're born again, that's the devil trying to lie to you and trying to steer you into uncertainty and depression.

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So don't even listen to that doubt in your head. Well, it could be the Holy Spirit convicting you.

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Exactly. That's exactly what I was told. And at one point was really concerned about my spiritual state, never dawned on me that I wasn't born again, but I was concerned.

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And even mentioned sort of in a joking way to a pastor, is it even possible that I don't know the

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Lord? And he was very incensed that I would go there and said exactly that thing to me, don't doubt you've made a profession of faith, you can't go there.

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Mm hmm. And so what began to occur in your life when you went to assuming that you were born again and really didn't need to fear hell in any way?

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And then obviously it may have been a gradual thing, but something began to click within you that you needed to seriously examine your heart and question whether or not you would go to heaven.

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How did that start to occur in your life? Well, actually, it kind of didn't happen until I actually was born again.

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The scary part is I never questioned it until I'd had the experience and realized biblically what had happened.

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As I said before, the two things that really troubled me in my 20s were the fact that I had no power over sin and I was told, read more scripture, pray more.

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I had written a book that encouraged me to know, reckon, yield, obey, regardless of what

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I did, trying to lay hold of my position in Christ and my resources in Christ.

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It didn't do any good. I had no power over sin. The other thing was because we were in Bible studies,

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I took note of the fact that both David in the Old Testament and Paul in the New spoke earnestly and often of a personal relationship with God, a love relationship with God.

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I knew that I didn't have that, that the only thing I felt was a sense of duty and obligation and some fear of displeasing

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God and Him being angry with me, but there was no sense of love.

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There was no relationship and there wasn't even much of a desire there. There was more fear than anything else.

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It was through those two things that the Lord began to speak to me through scripture.

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Actually, Bill had quoted a verse in Matthew. It says, he who seeks to, let's see, got it right here, sorry.

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You're speaking of your husband, Bill Webster. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

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For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.

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Kind of a question was framed in my mind. When did you, because I really, really wanted some answers and I had been praying in earnest about it and the question was framed in my mind.

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When did you surrender your life to me? And I realized

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I had never done that. I'd never heard to do that and in considering that, it was a very fearful thing to me because there were a number of things

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I didn't want to let go. But when I did fully surrender my life to the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ, my life so radically changed and it was clear to everyone that something amazing had happened that I had to ask the

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Lord, what just happened to me? And I felt led to 2

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Corinthians 5 .17 that says, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things have passed away.

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Behold, all things are new. Everything so radically changed. But the thing that was the most amazing to me is that heart for God was present.

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The relationship was not based on duty and obligation. A sense of forgiveness was present.

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I saw what I had been and what I was now. My entire life, my focus, perspective, the direction, the things

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I wanted to do, my relationship with the Lord, everything was radically changed and I realized then that this was not some second step of Lordship or something.

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This was, I had been born again and it shocked me because I thought,

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I can't believe that I went that entire, my entire lifetime, assuming I had a position with Christ I did not have.

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And we have to go to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our guest,

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Polo Webster. Our number is 631 -321 -WNYG, 631 -321 -WNYG.

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Again, our theme today is, we're addressing the question, do you treat your children as a mission field or do you presume they are saved just because they are your children, the children of Christian parents?

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And the old question could be posed, does

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God have grandchildren? Don't go away. We'll be right back with Polo Webster. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Orns and our guest today, if you've just tuned us in, is Polo Webster, the wife of well -known

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Christian apologist, William Webster, who is, he is also an author and the founder and director of Christian Resources.

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I want to plug a book by Polo's husband, William Webster, that is really directly on this topic,

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Must Jesus be Lord to be Savior? And this book was first published in 1986 and has been revised and updated.

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And it's actually listed in the bibliography of the very well -known and controversial book,

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The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur. John actually used

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Bill's book as a resource when writing this book, which really caused a great stir in the evangelical world.

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There were church splits as a result of this and there were publishing wars going on back and forth, basically between those that insisted that all's one needed is a basically a mental assent to the facts of the gospel and of Jesus Christ and his death and to believe one is a sinner.

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And that in and of itself would bring someone to a rebirth in Christ.

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And that person could very quickly after that born again experience, so -called, even become apostate, can become an atheist for the rest of his days on earth, even decades after this so -called born again experience.

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And that person would be assured of going to heaven in the theology of many evangelicals. And Dr. MacArthur was taking a strong stance against this position that has been nicknamed easy believism and cheap grace in his book,

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The Gospel According to Jesus, which actually just reached its 20th anniversary in print this year.

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And I'm looking forward to getting Dr. MacArthur back on Iron Sharpens Iron to discuss that book once again because the heresy still exists.

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But you could go to Christian Resources' website, the website of William Webster, christiantruth .com,

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christiantruth .com, and look up Must Jesus be Lord to be Savior to order that book, as well as a book called

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The Gospel of the Reformation, which also deals in some points with this issue. And I believe there are at least one or two other books in the collection of things that have been written by Will Webster that at least touch on that issue.

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This book, however, is entirely dedicated to the subject of lordship salvation versus easy believism,

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Must Jesus be Lord to be Savior by William Webster. christiantruth .com is the website, christiantruth .com.

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Paula, what can you say was actually going on in your life that,

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I mean, were you involved in any sins that really rattled you?

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Actually, before we even go back to that question, we do have an internet listener on the line. He's calling long distance, so I don't want to keep him holding.

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We have Jimmy in Noonan, Georgia. Welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron, Jimmy. Hi, Chris. How are you doing? Good. Hi, Paula.

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How are you? Hi, Jimmy. Listen, I had a question because I came from a

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Lutheran background, and it was very similar. They would preach to the congregation whether there were children there or not, and everybody heard the same message, but nobody was really evangelized, so to speak.

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But when I was about 12, I came to the knowledge that Christ was my Savior. I was sorry for my sins, and I believed that I didn't want to go to hell, and I believed that Christ was the only way.

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And I believe at that time, 12 or 13 years old, that I had the experience that people would call a born -again experience, although there was no great epiphany and no light shined in my eyes or anything like that.

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I believe from that time on, I was saved. I've had bouts with sin here and there, but I've always overcome them.

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Would you say that I'm a Christian? I don't know your heart, but the thing that I'm encouraged about is that you say that you are in progress, in process, and that when sin comes up, you deal with it.

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I think what John MacArthur has said is very true. You don't go back and look at some sort of a decision.

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You examine your life now to see if you're in the faith, and I think the Word of God is real clear. Those who practice sin need to take another look.

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In other words, those who live habitually in sin probably need to examine themselves, but those who have made a profession of faith and whose lives are marked by a desire for holiness and godliness, none of us have a perfect performance, but the fact that that's the desire of your heart and the practice of your life,

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I think gives evidence of real, genuine faith. And don't we all struggle with sin every day,

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Paul? Yes. That was another question I had. We all struggle every single day with some sort of a sin, whether it's an indwelling problem that we have, we deal with either some people are addicted to pornography or alcoholism or something like that.

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Others have nothing that they're basically addicted to, but they sin now and then.

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Yes, I think there is always going to be the battle against sin as long as we live in the bodies we have, but I think that for the

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Christian, I think in looking at your life, you have to ask the question, am

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I an overcomer? Do I see victory? Is the Lord meeting me? What would I say would be the habit or practice of my life?

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If it's godliness and righteousness, then I think that gives evidence of genuine faith, but if there's constant, if the practice of sin is what dominates and I'm not seeing victory and I'm constantly living in sin, then

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I do think one needs to make one's calling and election sure because the Bible is clear. What would you say about somebody who doubts their salvation on a regular basis?

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I'd want to talk to them about why, because I know that the enemy can cause genuine

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Christians to doubt, but if there is doubt, I think I would want to go back over the gospel presentation that that person heard and make sure that what they heard was complete.

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I would want to hear what their testimony was to see if perhaps they had misunderstood something or were responding to an incomplete gospel.

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I don't think I could just say one way or the other whether that would indicate salvation or the lack thereof, but I would certainly want to walk through it with them.

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Okay, to be honest with you, there's a verse that Jesus said in scripture that not all who call me

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Lord, Lord, you know, some I will say I do not know you. That's a frightening verse in scripture, even for those of us who believe.

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Especially since the people he was talking to were performing all kinds of miracles. Yes, exactly.

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Now, I mean, you know, because of that verse, well, not necessarily only that verse, but other things.

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I sometimes doubt whether I'm elect. I'm afraid that I'm not elect. You know what

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I'm saying? Even though I believe, I read my scriptures on a daily basis, I pray.

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To be the Lord is the work, to me, evidence of the work of God in your life. Yeah, and we're not to be delving into the secret things of God.

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We are to take comfort that we are of the elect if we are bearing the fruit that Christ told us if we are the elect, correct?

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We're not to be sitting in horror, wondering if we are among the number that God has ordained into eternal life.

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Well, the fact is that God is not going to turn his back on anyone who is desiring him.

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The fact that there is desire there is, to me, evidence of God working in that life because none of us would seek him if it were not for the initiative of the

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Holy Spirit in our lives. No, not one. Jimmy, we have to go to a break, but do you want to hold on for one more question when we come back?

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No, I'm good. All right, thanks a lot for calling, Jim. All right, bye -bye. We'll be right back with Paul Webster.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Paul Webster, the wife of well -known apologist and author

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Bill Webster, who is also the founder and director of Christian Resources. And we are discussing the question, do you view your children as a mission field, or are your children a mission field in your home, or do you just presume they are regenerate because they are the children of Christians?

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I wanted to touch on one thing that Jimmy said. I know that Charles Spurgeon even believed the dearest of saints at times fear that they may be lost.

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And sometimes it's just because they have been given such a strong sensitivity to sin.

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And also, you have Christians who are in very theologically poor or heretical denominations, or churches or congregations that may be very legalistic, or the pastor is putting those kinds of doubts in a genuine believer's mind all the time over things that are not even necessarily, over things that are not even signs necessarily that one is lost.

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They could be just poisoning the person's mind with a constant fear, because obviously we know of churches that even teach that a person can be saved and be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ for decades and lose his or her salvation in an

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So that false teaching can also be an unnecessary burden to the mind of a

36:35

Christian that sends him into a doubt like that, correct? Yes, but I wanted to say one thing with reference to what

36:42

Jimmy said, and that is there are people that should doubt. Yes, yes.

36:48

And I was one of them, and I absolutely resisted it because I had been told it was the enemy. So if a person is,

36:55

I would say, constantly bombarded, earnestly seek the Lord. He will give some sort of confirmation and affirmation there, because to ask me or anyone else,

37:08

I can't imagine giving someone false assurance, and there would be no way for anyone to know the heart of an individual.

37:16

So where there is a constant problem with doubt, I would really counsel to earnestly seek the

37:23

Lord and seek to know in the Word. Even the book you mentioned, I'm actually rereading the new copy or the new edition of the

37:31

Gospel according to Jesus. I would highly recommend reading that book. It's so clear. The issues are so clear, and one can go through there and say, is this true of me?

37:41

Yes, and people falsely accused Dr. MacArthur of teaching works righteousness.

37:49

Yes. When he wrote that book, they were teaching that he was somehow guilty of the Roman Catholic heresy of meritorious works or something like that.

37:57

You're not teaching that at all. In fact, that's one of the things that your husband writes very prolifically against, is the notion of a works righteousness salvation.

38:09

Yes. I've never understood the argument, actually, because if the grace to believe is from God, and in believing, if I have to turn, say

38:20

I'm Hindu or Buddhist or whatever, if I have to, in my mind, turn from faith in a false system to faith in Christ, why is it less grace to turn from sin to the true and living

38:33

God? I have never understood why one aspect is viewed as works and the other is not.

38:38

They would either be both works or neither. They're a complete work of grace in the heart and mind.

38:44

Yes, yes. The twin truths of justification by faith alone and that a good tree will bear good fruit must be preached together, but they must be differentiated.

39:00

Wouldn't you say that we have to make very clear that the good works that will out of necessity be evident in the life of a

39:09

Christian have nothing to do with the person becoming a Christian? Exactly. And what

39:15

I was starting to ask you before Jimmy from Newnan, Georgia, called is that it's still hard, it's probably still hard for many of our listeners to understand what could have been going on in your life that possessed you to doubt your salvation unless you were involved in some kind of overtly immoral activity or you just didn't love the

39:39

Lord or love worshipping Him or love reading His word or perhaps you were just in a state of neutrality, of apathy.

39:49

What was going on that rattled you so that made you start to examine your state, your salvific state?

39:58

It was a battle that was in my mind alone. I don't think anyone else had any idea what was going on.

40:05

There were a number of issues with respect to fear. There were some obedience issues with respect to the

40:13

Lord, some habits that I was a closet smoker.

40:20

I was desperately trying to quit that. There were just a number of either attitudinal issues, sin issues in my heart and life that I knew were wrong and I knew

40:31

I needed to repent from but as hard as I tried I could not lay hold of the

40:37

Lord for the power to do it. And I felt, I knew I was a hypocrite and a Pharisee and I was leading, we were leading

40:43

Bible studies and the sense of guilt that I felt knowing that they would be horrified, those who were under my leadership would be horrified to know what my heart was really like and where I was really living.

40:59

Really that was what prompted the search or the earnest prayer that the

41:05

Lord, I wanted reality, I wanted to be authentic on the inside.

41:12

I thought this is ridiculous, if Christianity doesn't work in the inner man then it doesn't work. It's not about morality, it's not about religion,

41:19

I just don't want to be a church goer, I want a relationship and I want holiness and I can't get there from here.

41:27

And that kind of passion within you for those things was absent previously in your life?

41:34

Yes, I was content for years to be religious because I wasn't exposed to more.

41:43

But I would say in the late 70s I met a woman, who at the time was in her 70s, who was utterly

41:53

Christ -like. This was a woman that I had never met anyone like her. Not only was she doctrinally sound, but this woman had a relationship with the

42:02

Lord and had a holy life. And for the first time in my life I bumped into somebody who in every way exemplified what a

42:12

Christian should be on this earth and I wanted what she had and I wanted to be like her.

42:17

Not having any idea that what was going to be involved was a total heart change, a conversion.

42:24

But it goes to show you the power of a single life because that one woman created a desire, well the

42:30

Lord used her to create a desire in me to be like her. Yeah, wouldn't you say that one of the most dangerous states to be in is the kind of false comfort one is receiving for himself that he or she has saved when you are really a reflection of phariseeism, where you do not see yourself committing what have been called gross or overtly scandalous sins.

43:06

You're not committing adultery, you're not a drug addict, you're not using vulgarity and so forth.

43:13

And you list up all these things in your mind that you're not doing, just like the pharisee who was praying in the temple,

43:21

Lord I thank you that I'm not a sinner like this tax collector. And you start to point the finger at others being lost and you take such pride in the fact of all the things that you don't do that are scandalous and all the things that you do do on a religious level.

43:38

Oh, I go to not only church twice every Sunday but I go to a prayer meeting and I do all these things.

43:44

I serve on the diaconate board and blah, blah, blah. There's a very big danger in having a cold, dead, lost heart and yet being very actively religious and proud, correct?

43:55

Absolutely, that's why I think it is so important in our gospel presentations and on a regular basis to talk about the demands of the law, accountability to God, what is sin, to constantly raise the bar so that we're not examining ourselves horizontally with respect to others but we are always the standard, the bar we're using is the

44:16

Lord Jesus Christ and the standard of scripture about what it means to be a true Christian. And I think so many of our presentations of the gospel not only finish up with the easy believism, the absence of repentance and lordship, but they don't adequately define or explain sin and the law and our accountability to God as it should.

44:44

And one thing that is typically evident in a false convert who is very religiously active and self -righteously pious is that there's often a lack of mercy and forgiveness on their part towards others.

44:59

Yes, and generally speaking the emphasis becomes on performance and outward activities and as you say there isn't a sensitivity to sin in the personal life and therefore there's no mercy with respect to others.

45:13

I would agree with that. So what happened after, tell us something more about this crisis event when you came to realize that you believed yourself to be lost and you cried out in repentance to Christ and there was obviously a dramatic shift in a theological understanding in regard to salvation at that point.

45:33

Well it prompted a real search of scripture to begin to understand. I thought I want to know what the scriptures say about the gospel.

45:42

I want to understand what really happens at conversion. So it prompted I would say a lifelong study of the gospel, its content, its application, how it should be preached, how it should be shared, everything about it and it grew into a tremendous conviction and burden for others in my situation.

46:05

I would say that my burden is for the churched lost, the pew sitter who has heard and assumed he's saved and he's not and that's my prayer burden and I am always very thrilled to be able to have an opportunity to share my testimony and talk with them.

46:22

The changes were dramatic and permanent and while the performance is clearly not perfect,

46:31

I'm so thankful for all the Lord did at that point and it has been like I've said, there was a change in my life and I've been moving in a new direction ever since.

46:43

It did create a real problem in my family, many of my family, not my immediate family but my extended family did not understand what

46:51

I was talking about. It created a real fear within our church family because many said to us exactly what you said earlier about John McArthur, that we were somehow embracing a different gospel, we were promoting a works based gospel.

47:11

We had been involved in ministry and the doors on that closed. It was a dramatic turning point for both of us but it also was the point at which

47:25

Bill began to research the scriptures and examine the gospel and it became the basis for the book,

47:36

Must Jesus be Lord to be Savior. It was a real turning point for both of us, for him theologically and for me both theologically and practically in my conversion.

47:45

It is fascinating that a reformed denomination would be guilty of that sort of heretical belief, knowing that the reformers themselves, this seems to be absent among them.

48:00

None of them that I know of wrote that one should presume that their children are saved just because they're the children of Christian parents and even later in history, the

48:10

Puritans and so on. This seems to be a thing that would have been a novelty up until the 19th century or so, correct?

48:19

Yes, as I read, I'm reformed and I love the Puritans and I love to read and so many of them are very, very clear about the need to present the gospel, they're clear about the gospel, they're clear about evangelizing children.

48:34

I'm kind of stumped as to know how this sort of thing evolved to the place where the assumption was that you didn't need to evangelize children.

48:45

We have to go to break right now. Don't go away. We'll be right back with the final edition of today's interview with Paula Webster. Welcome back.

48:58

Paula, how would you respond to somebody who would charge you with morbid introspection, that you're behaving in such a detrimental, self -absorbed way that you're looking to find any fault within yourself to doubt your salvation?

49:17

How would you respond to that kind of a charge? I would have been happy not to look at it. I would have been happy to avoid it and it was,

49:27

I believe, a work of the Holy Spirit to show me that there were a number of sins that I had committed as a teenager and on into my 20s.

49:34

I had to ask the question, how can, if I'm consistent with scripture, how can a

49:39

Christian live in that? How could I do that and be okay with that and then how could

49:44

I not have the power to deal with it? It was not morbid introspection that drove me.

49:52

It was a desire to be right with God. It was a desire to have a holy life. It was a desire to live consistently with the word of God and to be authentic.

50:01

I can't be in ministry and be a hypocrite and a Pharisee. If Christianity does not work, then

50:07

I'm going to look elsewhere. These were all questions that I believe were prompted by the

50:13

Holy Spirit in order to get me to earnestly seek the Lord for answers, which is what happened.

50:19

Some of the theological opponents of Dr. John MacArthur, who we mentioned earlier, the author of the very well -known and controversial book,

50:29

The Gospel According to Jesus, some accused him and still accuse him of teaching the heresy of perfectionism.

50:35

You're not guilty here of that, are you? No. I would be the first and then my family would be the second to testify to the fact that I'm not perfect.

50:48

It's not a perfect performance, but it is a perfect heart in the sense of, I think for every true

50:54

Christian, um, reading J .C. Rowell recently on holiness, the issue is love for Christ.

51:02

That was what was missing, desire for a holy life. It's not about religion and duty.

51:07

It's about relationship and obedience from a heart of loving gratitude for all that Christ has done and all that he is, but it's not perfectionism.

51:15

I don't believe in perfectionism until I get to heaven, but I do believe that one can have in Christ, um, a heart that desires to live holy in Christ Jesus and to seek him with all that is in us.

51:31

Yeah. And, uh, wouldn't you say that one of the dangers of, uh, having a numbed conscious, if you will, or a dead one regarding, um, your, your, your, your state before God as to whether or not you're a

51:48

Christian is that people have a tendency to compare themselves with people who may be, uh, outwardly a lot worse than they are instead of comparing themselves to Christ or comparing themselves to the, the disciples or the great heroes of the faith.

52:04

They're usually comparing themselves to somebody who is, uh, overtly wicked in some way.

52:09

Like there are, there are prison inmates that may take pride in the fact, uh, yeah, I may have killed my mother, but the guy in the cell next to me, uh, tortured her before he killed her or whatever people take a pride over things that many of us would see seem absurd, but isn't that a danger that we, who we are comparing ourselves to?

52:29

Yes. That's why I think constant exposure to the word of God, to solid preaching, to a right gospel and seeking the

52:37

Lord with all that we are that, that was what was encouraged by the reformers. And God will bear witness, um, to our sin.

52:47

He will bear witness to a work in us. Um, he will answer the heartfelt cries of a broken and a contrite heart.

52:55

If we will seek the Lord and also use the word of God as a standard for determining where we are, if we're honest about where we really are.

53:03

Well, I'd like you to close the program with what you most want to have engraved on the hearts and minds of our listeners when they leave today's broadcast.

53:13

I would say that if there is anyone in the listening audience that really has sincere doubts based on the fact that they, they have, they're not sure about the gospel they heard, perhaps there wasn't a clear conversion.

53:26

Um, perhaps there is not victory over sin. There's not a desire for holiness or a love for Christ to make their calling and election sure.

53:34

And I would really encourage, uh, since you mentioned it, reading this book, the gospel according to Jesus, it's a very clear and thorough examination of the gospel that was presented in the book of Matthew by Jesus himself and would be everything

53:47

I would want to share and don't have time to share. Yes. And I would also urge you to order.

53:53

Must Jesus be Lord to be savior by Paula's husband, Bill Webster, uh, at Christian truth .com

54:00

Christian truth .com. That's just a excellent resource for a whole field of, uh, apologetics issues, many involving apologetics, uh, with, uh,

54:12

Roman Catholic opponents to the doctrines of grace and some involving the heresies of modern evangelicalism.

54:20

But, uh, Bill Webster is a very, very gifted apologist and writer, and he writes clearly, uh, and he's easily understood.

54:29

So you don't have to be intimidated by picking up a book by Bill, the fear that you're not going to understand a word.

54:35

He says, that's Christian truth .com Christian truth .com. The order of any of Bill Webster's materials and audio tapes and DVDs and CDs.

54:44

Thank you so much for Webster. It was great having you back on the program. I really look forward to having you back on the program and also

54:51

I'm looking forward to having your husband, uh, back on very soon to discuss one of his books. Good.

54:57

Thank you, Chris. Thank you so much. I want, uh, all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater savior than you are a sinner.

55:07

God bless. And that was the interview that I conducted on October 15th, 2008 on the old

55:17

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, the old call -in version out of New York on WNYG and WGBB radio in Babylon, Long Island.

55:27

Uh, that was, uh, Paula Webster, uh, the wife of my dear friend,

55:34

William Webster, founder of Christian Resources, apologist, author, and a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

55:43

In fact, he and my other friend, David T. King, were recently on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, uh, twice to discuss part one and part two of the lie of Rome that sola scriptura is an invention of the reformers.

56:01

You may have heard that. In fact, uh, one of those programs, part one or part two, was the second most downloaded interview in 2018 on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

56:17

Well, uh, Paula, uh, in fact, at that time when I just did that, uh, last interview with William Webster and David T.

56:25

King, uh, Bill had not known that his wife's cancer had returned.

56:32

She had, uh, battled cancer for quite a while, was in remission as, uh, recently as five months ago, and then during her most recent doctor's visit was given the very grim prognosis of having a week to live, and within a matter of three days,

56:51

I believe, she departed this earth and entered into glory with Christ. Please pray for Bill Webster and his family, uh, that date again where Paula entered into glory with Christ was

57:09

January 25th, 2019, and, uh, as I said, please pray for William Webster and his family, and we look forward to Bill returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio again, hopefully very soon, uh, and, uh, the grieving process as someone who knows this firsthand, it's a tricky thing because, uh, the initial stages, you might not even be hit as hard as you will be later on.

57:38

Sometimes there is a surreal stage when you're, you're not even quite totally conscious of what has just happened, and then later on it hits you harder, especially when, uh, those that love you who have been clamoring around you immediately following the death of a loved one with phone calls and cards and visits, when that dies down as it typically does, that's sometimes when it even gets harder for you to deal with the loss that you've experienced.

58:12

So, uh, as I said, please pray for William Webster. I can't repeat that enough, uh, and if you want to get in contact with William Webster, you can go to his website, christiantruth .com,

58:26

christiantruth .com, not only to order some phenomenal books that he has written or books that he offers by other authors, but also just to extend to him your words of encouragement and comfort at this time.

58:40

And I, uh, urge you not to go away because when we return from the station break, we will be joined live by Elizabeth W .D.

58:50

Groves, who teaches Hebrew at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and she is the author of Becoming a

58:59

Widow, The Ache of Missing Your Other Half. She's going to be addressing another book,

59:06

Grief Undone, A Journey with God and Cancer, and obviously a very relevant topic to conclude the second half of our program with.

59:16

Uh, so we hope that you stay tuned and listen to that coming up in just about 10 minutes or so after our station break, which is a longer station break than normal because of the fact that we have

59:30

Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, airing this program, and they need to localize

59:36

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio with their own public service announcements and commercials. So during this time, please use the, uh, the break wisely by writing down information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

59:54

But in addition to that, write down questions for Elizabeth W .D. Groves about Grief Undone, A Journey with God and Cancer.

01:00:03

Uh, don't go away. We'll be right back after the station break, and we hope to hear from you with your questions.

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01:08:15

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen and I just want to give a brief word to all of you about our sponsors

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They have fallen into a financial rut recently so we're asking you to please, more than ever before, order gifts and books for yourselves from CVBBS .com

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God willing temporarily, with your help. We are now being joined by a woman who has something to say to us that is very relevant to our discussion today.

01:09:37

As many of you know who were listening obviously for the first half of the program we were paying tribute to Paula Webster, the wife of Christian apologist

01:09:48

William Webster who has written books for Banner of Truth and other publishers.

01:09:54

Paula Webster just went home to be with the Lord very recently after a battle with cancer.

01:10:00

She departed this earth at the age of 69 and obviously there is a bittersweet response to this from those who knew her because of the fact that it's very sad that a woman left this earth at a relatively young age who is a dear sweet and valuable member of the body of Christ but also the sweet part comes in knowing that she would not trade places right now with any of us being in the presence of Christ for eternity and I'm sure that is an enormous comfort to William Webster and his family.

01:10:42

By the way if anybody wants to receive in written form Paula Webster's testimony please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:10:55

chrisarnsen at gmail .com and I will email you a written version of Paula Webster's testimony and in fact as I said before James Montgomery Boyce who perhaps is having a chat with Paula Webster in heaven right now he included a part of Paula Webster's testimony in his own commentary in the book of Romans so chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:11:22

is my email address if you want that written testimony but now we are joined by Elizabeth W .D. Groves.

01:11:29

She teaches Hebrew at Westminster Theological Seminary and is the author of Becoming a

01:11:34

Widow the Ache of Missing Your Other Half. We're going to be discussing a different book that she has written titled

01:11:42

Grief Undone a Journey with God and Cancer and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio Elizabeth W .D.

01:11:51

Groves. Thank you very much Chris and can I just say I'm so sorry to you and to Bill and other people who loved

01:11:58

Paula I know it it is bittersweet indeed and I just want to say that I'm sorry for the sadness and the grief part of what you're feeling right now.

01:12:06

Well I appreciate that very much and typically when we have a very first time guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio Elizabeth should

01:12:16

I call you Elizabeth or Libby? Either one is fine. Because that just so our listeners know

01:12:21

Libby is a nickname that she goes by very frequently but what we do very often when we have first time guests we have them give a summarized version of their own testimony of salvation and if you could do that for us now and then we can pick up to when and where and how you met your late husband and proceed from there as to the reason that you wrote both

01:12:49

Becoming a Widow and also Grief Undone. Okay sure. I went my family went to a church when

01:12:58

I was young not necessarily all the time but with some regularity it was a pretty liberal church looking back on it

01:13:06

I'm pretty sure one of my Sunday school teachers one year was a believer but the gospel at least as I recall it as a child perhaps was not crystal clear maybe

01:13:18

I just didn't have ears to hear but we moved when I was in seventh grade and went to a church in that new town that did preach the gospel and I would say over the course of that first year that we lived there excuse me the

01:13:32

Holy Spirit just was working on my heart drawing me through his word

01:13:39

I just kept hearing the story of Jesus and thinking about it and I remember there was a night that I was out taking a walk late at night in the dark we lived way out in the country and it must have been right around Easter because I remember the pastor had preached um you know pilot saying what what shall

01:13:58

I do with this man and challenging those sitting in the pews what will you do with this man Jesus and I realized

01:14:03

I had to make a decision about that and I think it was just by the grace of the

01:14:10

Holy Spirit I suddenly was was just aware keenly aware that God was real that he existed that he was calling me that that he had sent his son to die in my place so that I could be forgiven and be in a relationship with him and there was something that changed in my heart and I just welcomed that gift um and it that was different from that day um it's

01:14:40

I think probably any Christian you talk to would say you know the journey of faith over a lifetime has ups and downs there are times that feel more like plateaus and times

01:14:50

I can look back on and say oh my goodness I grew so much in that particular period because of one thing or another the

01:14:57

Lord was using um wonderful fellowship sitting under wonderful teaching going through hard experiences um whatever he chooses to use and so I I can look back and see just his faithfulness over what am

01:15:13

I now 61 close to 50 years pushing 50 years um and I'm so just so enormously thankful will always be thankful for his grace

01:15:23

I I have very much a sense of being called out of darkness my life was was very happy I had a wonderful family wonderful parents it it was a life many people would give a lot to have

01:15:35

I think it's not I did not go through the experiences so many people do that are just hard and wrenching and crushing

01:15:45

I had a very nice life um but notwithstanding I have very much a sense of being called out of the darkness of being away from God and being called to know him and to live and walk in his light praise

01:15:57

God and before we go into how you met your husband um how did you wind up teaching

01:16:03

Hebrew at Westminster Theological Seminary some uh who know the history of Westminster uh and who perhaps are even former students there or professors they may be they may raise their eyebrows to know that there is a female teaching

01:16:18

Hebrew on the faculty there tell us how you wound up there well that was very much a

01:16:23

God thing too um when my husband came to Westminster as a student in 1979 he and I took

01:16:29

Hebrew together and I kept it up for a while and then I was busy raising children and and kind of let it slide back out of my brain um but my husband suffered from fibromyalgia for many years that's not what he died of but but for a couple of decades he struggled with that with amazing amounts of grace

01:16:50

I have to say um but it it got to the point where it was so bad

01:16:56

I thought you know we may need to change roles here I had been enormously blessed to be a stay -at -home mom which

01:17:03

I absolutely love um but his health was deteriorated excuse me deteriorating enough that I realized the time could come that he will not be able to work and I will need to be out in the workforce um and maybe

01:17:16

I need to think about some training or preparation or more schooling and so I started a program at Westminster in 2003 um and finished at the end of 2008 and during that period

01:17:31

Al was diagnosed with cancer and died so he died in February of 2007 and I was able

01:17:38

I was close enough to the end of my program which I had been doing very part -time to be able to finish it up um and so the the last year of my schooling

01:17:48

I had just turned 50 in January and a friend of mine does career counseling and she said for your birthday

01:17:55

I would like to give you career counseling I said that would be fantastic thank you so it was four sessions and we did the first one not long after my birthday in January and I was so busy with two kids still at home and a part -time study program and just trying to walk myself through grief and help the kids walk through grief and one thing or another that we never got back to those sessions until August.

01:18:19

So we finished up at the end of August and she was wonderful and she said well I can see you know you really like these things and you're good at these things and maybe a career in this or that or the other thing and both of us thought that I might really enjoy teaching

01:18:32

ESL English as a second language so she said maybe you could volunteer in an

01:18:39

ESL classroom just to to see it in action and get a better sense of whether it's something you would enjoy as much as we both think you would and I remember at the time thinking that sounds like an excellent idea but I just don't know where I would find the time

01:18:51

I'm all of my minutes are maxed out but I had to because um we were we had been able to cobra our life insurance but that only runs for 18 months and so I knew that by the next summer that was going to run out and I needed to get a real job with benefits for the two children

01:19:08

I still had at home um so I prayed I said Laura I don't know where I will come up with the time but this seems to be the next step would you please somehow miraculously open up time in my schedule to do something that would move this process forward of figuring out where you might be leading me next and probably two days certainly not more than a week later a friend of mine who was teaching

01:19:31

Hebrew at the time called and said two days into the fall semester my TA just had to pull out would you be willing to be my teaching assistant and had

01:19:41

I not just had that conversation with the Lord I would have said I would absolutely love to but I just don't have time but I had just prayed that the

01:19:48

Lord would open up time for me to do something to move this process forward so I said yes and I loved every single minute of of being the teaching assistant it was just oh my goodness

01:20:01

I felt like a pig in mud um anyway it turned out that that is she learned probably midway through the fall that for family reasons she and her husband were gonna have to move to another part of the country and so really the

01:20:15

Lord just had me in the right spot at the right time to step into that place and I love it absolutely love it and I'm so grateful

01:20:23

I you know I would guess there are not many people on the planet who have a job that they love and who wake up in the morning looking forward to going to work but that's praise

01:20:33

God now just for the sake of this is not the subject of our discussion today how would you put the minds of complementarians at rest that you have not violated some kind of biblical precept by being a female teaching

01:20:47

Hebrew in a seminary obviously there are many different points of view on that question um

01:20:54

I guess I would say two things that I'm just teaching Hebrew I'm just teaching language it's not as if I'm teaching people to preach or anything substantive like that I don't want to say

01:21:03

Hebrew is not substantive but it kind of falls in a different camp right um and that that my my sense is that I'm doing it very much under the jurisdiction and direction and authority of the men in charge and that you know if they say we think this is okay then

01:21:20

I'm okay with it amen and you have women on the mission field who have been teaching people the scriptures who were bilingual and so on who were able to convey the scriptures to those of different lands who would not have understood

01:21:38

English and so on this is something that has been done for centuries yes um but now let's find out before we go into more detail about the loss of your husband uh more about how you two and God's providence met and fell in love and so on okay um we went to the same college although Al was five years older than I and so he had finished his undergrad and finished a one -year engineering degree when

01:22:07

I arrived as a freshman um but he was still involved in leadership in the campus fellowship group at the college and so that's where we met and over time we fell in love got married um he was pastoring a small church in very rural

01:22:24

Vermont there were probably 150 people in that village um and so he we got married and he continued to pastor for the year after that and then he came to seminary so he kind of did things backwards um but at least at that time

01:22:40

I can't speak as authoritatively now about the spiritual state of northern New England but at the time it was a relatively dark place spiritually speaking it's a gorgeous place um and so people you know even though he had not been to seminary had not been trained were delighted to have someone who loved

01:22:59

Jesus who believed the Bible and would preach it to them but in the pastorate he realized oh my goodness

01:23:04

I need better training I need to know the scriptures better I need to to know all kinds of things better and so that drove him to seminary and we ended up at Westminster now how did you first discover that Al had been basically got cancer uh tragically how did this come about um he had a spot on his shoulder that looked kind of ugly um and so he had that removed and biopsied and it was all clear it was no problem it came back maybe a year later

01:23:38

I don't remember exactly how long something like a year later um and looking back knowing what

01:23:44

I know now we would have jumped on that immediately and had him in the doctor's office the next day and had it removed um but I think because it had already been biopsied and shown to be clear we didn't act on it the way we should have um and he he had an extraordinarily busy life um and not a regular schedule because he was a professor and so he

01:24:08

I never knew what his schedule was Monday the next I think he hardly did and so it was he was the one who needed to call and make the appointment because I could make an appointment it would inevitably conflict with something he had going on um and he was so busy and because we didn't feel a sense of urgency it it was a while before he called and then it was a while we also didn't know to communicate to the people there this is really urgent we need to see have an appointment right away so he had an appointment scheduled for a few months later so it was just it was

01:24:37

I would do things differently if I could go back and change things but I can't um anyway so so they also removed that spot biopsy that and and that the pathology was unclear there was clearly um odd tissue well below the skin level the outer skin level um but it was hard to tell if it was scar tissue or something else and so he he had surgery and they removed a huge patch of skin from his shoulder um all the margins tested clear all the lymph the sentinel lymph nodes tested clear so as far as we knew we were out of the woods at that point and then it was just a follow -up regimen three times a year four times a year he would go for a visual scan and once a year for a chest x -ray so that was in an october of 04 um he had the chest x -ray in january of 05 all clear everything was great january of 06 he had the regular chest x -ray and there were three somethings in his lungs one in left lung went two in the right um and the the most likely thing was melanoma but it took a while it took almost a month to various appointments and whatnot to get that biopsy definitively so it was late -ish february of 06 that we had a confirmed diagnosis of melanoma and because it was in both lungs surgery was not really an option and and we knew from that day in the doctor's office that barring a miracle this was a terminal diagnosis now when you say it was in his lungs did he experience any kind of distressing symptoms in regard to his breathing or uh not at that time no not not until the following fall when they had grown to be fairly sizable then he he um i don't know how much it bothered his breathing but he would cough up little bits of blood throughout the day um but no at the time of diagnosis he he felt absolutely fine well apart from the fibromyalgia he felt fine wow um yeah and so uh how long did he live after being diagnosed um just shy of a year wow now one thing i'm certain you would agree with is that uh most people i think or at least many who have lost loved ones uh or perhaps they are dying themselves from an illness they have these regrets about if i had only done this or that differently as you were basically saying before i wish i could have turned back the clock don't we need to find rest in god's providence and sovereignty over these things when yeah we start beating ourselves up over what we should or could have done if we had you know as we look upon things uh in hindsight yes yes i i think i really think i mean i believe that that god is over all things that he is sovereign and i say that not you can hear god is sovereign as a very cold doctrine out right or someplace in the abstract world and that's that's actually not what i mean when i say it at least that's not my personal experience of it so much as god is sovereign and is in control of all things and can do anything and sometimes he chooses to walk you in hard places walk you through very hard things walk you perhaps up to and through death not because he doesn't care but he does care and he is a father who walks with you through those things um but you know regret i mean i would just say i have sometimes thought of all the human emotions regret might be the strongest i don't know if that's true but i think it could be and i think um it's so important to bring that to the lord and say whatever it is you know i wish i had not left my child in that spot i wish i had not whatever i mean you could use anything that you regret right you could torture yourself over and over and over exactly and i think ultimately and i'm not saying this is easy but i think to come and lay that before the lord and say lord i know this could have gone differently i know you could have made it go differently and you didn't and help me please to know you as a father who loves me and who loves whoever the person was who was affected by this um and to trust that in the bigger picture of things this is is coming from your loving hand and help me please to let go of that regret and not beat myself up or not beat someone else up maybe i feel that somebody else is responsible for blah blah and again i'm not saying that as if that's an easy thing to do but i think it is it will chew you up if you don't bring that to the lord and just beg him for help to let go of that and to trust it to his care amen i have a question from an anonymous listener which i'm going to read to you okay uh and then when we come back from our last break i'd like you to answer that question okay the anonymous listener uh says i need some advice on how to evangelize someone who is dying who i strongly believe is lost during these times we want to cheer people up we want to be kind and gentle to them we don't want to rattle them but at the same time if they are about to depart this earth we know that we must bring them the gospel and should not have comfort until they respond affirmingly i also know that god is in control over all this but at the same time we do have responsibilities to evangelize how do i do so without crossing the line of either being too soft or too harsh when doing this at a bedside of a dying person and we'll have you respond to that when we come back from our final break if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question uh for liby our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

01:30:47

chris arnson at gmail .com don't go away god willing we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors my name is steve lawson founder and president of one passion ministries as well as teaching fellow for ligonier ministries i serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the master's seminary in los angeles i would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students andy woodard serves as the pastor it's called new covenant church nyc they are a reformed baptist church that meets in midtown manhattan you can find their service times and location on their website which is www .ncc

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knows that you heard about them through iron trip and zion radio well we are now back with our guest libby groves who is teaching hebrew at westminster theological seminary and is the author of becoming a widow the ache of missing your other half we have been discussing her book grief undone a journey with god and cancer and before the break you may remember libby that somebody basically was asking how do you avoid being too soft or being too frightening and harsh to somebody on their deathbed that you're seeking to evangelize before they depart this earth well obviously that is going to depend somewhat on you and on the person um but i would say a few things number one pray pray pray pray pray it is only the lord who will ever change someone's heart and that you might consider fasting and praying that the lord would change them um the second thing is to to think of you know recognize that this is a person this is a precious individual made in the image of god and there's not a one -size fits all answer to that question so to be as as individually personal with them as possible and to show them love and you know you might just ask them you know you could do it gently you could say it also matters have they accepted the fact that they are died that would make a difference too if they have you could probably be a little more direct if they haven't if they are still denying you know you can't face that idea then you would have to be even more gentle perhaps to say you know we are all going to face death someday you are i am everybody we know is that's right a hundred percent um i would love to share with you something that gives me so much hope would that be okay would you be open to that and they might say yes and they might say no if they say yes then you have an opportunity to share wonderful hope with them if they are somebody who is just really you know violently shut down adamantly opposed to god don't want to hear this then then preaching to them might actually give them the wrong picture um and it might you know it might be better to say okay no this is really hard for you i know you're not excited about this god stuff and i respect that i just want you to know i'm going to be praying for you um it's something that i think you really have to tailor it to who they are but another thing i think um there can be a sense for us i have certainly experienced this that if the motivation it almost comes out of fear more than love the fear of oh no if i don't say this if i don't take advantage of this opportunity whether they like it or not then their blood will be on my head and you know you read in the scripture about the blood being on the watchman's head and so forth um but i think that that motivation of fear for our own record or our own you know i don't want to be found guilty here is not the right motivation and so i think if that's what's driving it maybe to step back and look at your own heart say lord help me to have a heart that is more than anything concerned for this person um and help me to know how to how to approach them in a way that just kind of clears the air and i think i think sometimes people are surprised when you say to them you know i i don't want to just say stuff for my sake i don't want to you know i'm not doing this for me but would it be okay with you i know religious people can come across as being xyz are you comfortable would you be comfortable if i just shared a thought with you i think sometimes people are surprised to to find out that christians are actually aware that we can be obnoxious that that alone might be whoa wow yeah sure yeah yeah i can remember when i was a new christian this is about 30 years ago uh i had found out that my family doctor the doctor who had delivered uh at least several of the arnson children there were five of us i was the youngest and we continued seeing him as a doctor through adulthood at least early adulthood but i had found out that he had cancer and i visited his home one day which was the same house where he had his medical practice and he had been retired at this point and i gave him a card and i remember i was very specific in the card of his need to embrace christ in order to uh enjoy and experience eternal life in heaven and i basically said to him although i pray that you survive this cancer it will be a win -win situation either way if you embrace christ because you will be spending an eternity with him in indescribable joy even if you lose your battle to cancer and i don't remember exactly how i worded it because it was 30 years ago but i remember my dad being upset with me that i wrote this and he was saying you're going to be troubling this elderly man while he's dying and he was very upset and i said dad i care more about his eternal soul than i do about how he might feel either way and i i remember i was not overly harsh in the way i worded it either um but i he survived i think several more years and i went to the wake as as at least catholics call them i don't know if other uh folks call them the the viewing the wake but i went to his wake and one of his daughters uh before i was a believer was my barmaid one of them anyway because i was a frequenter of taverns and she was one of uh the the bartenders and she immediately embraced me was so happy to see me and she introduced me to her sister and she said this is my friend chris arnzen and she said what what's your name said chris arnzen she said are you the one that wrote the card i said i said yes she said did you know that for these last few years while my dad was dying he had that card on his nightstand and it was still there the day he died and one could only wonder providentially what the lord did with what i wrote in there uh so that was just a a little anecdote there about in a personal experience about about trying to be truthful to somebody who's dying um truthful and sensitive yeah that's wonderful yes and i know that already that we have to have you back on the program because we only have eight minutes left and there's much more that i want you to talk about but can you tell us why with all the books written about grief uh even from theologically reformed sources why you said to yourself i think that i add another book to the volumes that are already available uh that's not quite how it went it never occurred to me to write a book and when people suggested that i said i'll write a book um when al was to receive his diagnosis um you know he knew hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people because he had taught at seminary for 25 years and he knew you know harvests of students had gone out all around the world and he was just a people person he was very friendly and so he was trying to update people by email if we have to talk to the appointment we found out this and so on and so a friend of ours said how about if i set up a blog for you we've never heard of a blog blogs were a brand new cutting edge thing back then um but she did and that was great because then if people were interested they could tune in to the blog and if they weren't they weren't troubled by all these emails coming to them um but to our astonishment people like i don't know i want to say thousands i maybe i'm not remembering right a lot of an astonishing number of people around the world probably because of our influence and students have gone around the world um would check the blog and it it was really quite amazing to us and so people said oh you should turn that into a book but it wasn't until a publisher came and said new someone at new growth press said we would really like you to turn this into a book that i thought you know maybe i should at least pray about this rather than dismissing it out of hand um and the only thing i i think i can only think of two reasons that people might have been interested in the blog one was just because they knew and loved al and he was such a wonderful man um and the other is that because we were writing it in real time um i think people had the experience of walking through the journey themselves and so if you knew somebody who received a terminal diagnosis you wouldn't ever say could i just move into your living room and watch you do this that would be obviously very intrusive but that was what was there on the blog and i think people felt as if it gave them the opportunity to say to see what might this look like from one day to the next when you're living with facing death facing losing someone you love um the only two reasons i can think of that that the blog was so red um but it was not my idea to put it into a book well i i can see value in this because one of the reasons is because we are not cookie cutter duplicates of one another and the more the merrier as the saying goes when it comes to books especially perhaps on something like this that we will all be going through at some point in our lives uh and because of the fact that every person reacts differently and can react in a wide spectrum of ways even as regenerate believers in christ i think that i think that we could use more voices uh to convey uh how others have experienced such a heart -wrenching uh trial in their lives and um if you could i really like you to close today with about three minutes of commentary of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners about grief before we go off the air today well um just off the top of my head that grief is very real don't if you are in grief don't let people try to talk you out of it um it's very individual every person experiences grief differently even if it's the same incident or the same person they're right it is just so individual and we do a great disservice to try to force people into a mold um but maybe more than anything just to say that that god knows he absolutely knows your situation and he cares i mean jesus jesus lived in this on this earth he saw this broken world through human eyes he lost people he loved he knows what that is like so so he understands and he cares and he is with you i think if i had to say anything it would be he is with you and he will be with you whether you are the person facing death or you're the person losing having lost someone or facing losing someone you love he is there and to to cling to the scriptures to prayer to fellowship but sometimes you know in grief you you almost can't even do that yourself and so to to reach out for help not to be afraid or embarrassed to call a friend call your pastor call someone you know and say i just can't read the scriptures would you come and read them to me would you pray with me would you pray for me would you help me with my laundry whatever it is it can be very very practical but don't be afraid or ashamed to reach out for help because that's part of what god gives us the body of christ for and i think that's part of his being with us is through his people amen and how would you counsel those that are witnessing their friends or loved ones going through the period of grief some people are afraid to intrude upon somebody's private intimate world in that way uh how would you in about a minute's time uh give us some good counsel on that right and again it's so individual some people would absolutely love to have you come and show up every day and other people would really appreciate the space so you know make your best guess or just ask them just say you know what i love you i'm so sorry you're going through this would it be helpful if i came and picked up your laundry and took it home and did it or would you most appreciate people just supporting you in prayer from a distance and let them tell you and give them the opportunity to change their mind about that from day to day um but err on the side of just show up and ask for the laundry and they can say no and given the opportunity to say no but but rather just say if there's something i can do let me know don't put that on them just have an idea what you think might be helpful and show up and do it praise god well i want to let our listeners know that if you would like to purchase a copy of grief undone a journey with god and cancer please go to cvbbs .com

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uh our sponsors because they cut they carry a large assortment of new growth press titles new growth press is the publisher so go to cvbbs .com

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and order that also to repeat the website of william webster who we dedicated the first hour to regarding his late wife paula who just departed from the earth very recently on january 25th william webster's website is christiantruth .com