June 6, 2018 Show with Jeremy Vuolo on “The Apostle Paul’s Heart for the Lost in Romans 9”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown 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, 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 Wednesday on this sixth day of June 2018.

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I'm so delighted to have back on the program a returning guest, Jeremy Volo, who is a former pro soccer player for the

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San Antonio Scorpions, the husband to Ginger Duggar Volo, one of the 19 siblings in the

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Duggar family, and he's the pastor of Grace Community Church in Laredo, Texas, and today we are going to be addressing the theme,

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The Apostle Paul's Heart for the Lost in Romans 9, and we're also going to be announcing the 2019

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G3 conference where Jeremy is one of the speakers on the very long roster of very impressive brothers in Christ and a couple of sisters in Christ as well, and I'm eagerly looking forward to being there,

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God willing, in January manning another Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jeremy Volo.

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Hey Chris, thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Yeah, it is always a pleasure to have you on, and well, first of all, tell us something about, in fact,

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I said during your introduction that you were on the San Antonio Scorpions. Were you also on the

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Red Bulls? Yeah, I spent a year playing with the New York Red Bulls in the MLS as well before going to San Antonio for two years.

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Okay, and of course, as I also just mentioned, your wife now,

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Ginger Duggar Volo, she has been your wife for about, what, two years now? Coming up on two years this

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November, and we are expecting our first little one mid -July, so we couldn't be more excited.

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Yes, I remember when I interviewed both you and Ginger at the last G3 conference in January, you had made that announcement, and we were also discussing names, and did you ever find out if it is going to be a boy or a girl, or are you keeping that a secret?

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Yeah, we found out it's going to be a little girl. I do remember discussing names with you, and it's funny, we would bat around a few ideas for names, and we would ask a lot of different people's opinions, some of our friends and family, and after hearing some of their responses to some of our favorite names, we decided that we were going to keep the name a secret until the little girl is born, because I think it's much tougher to criticize a name when you've got a cute little newborn in your arms, isn't it?

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So in other words, people were not happy with the name that you chose? Yeah, I think a few people were a little skeptical of some of the names, and we had really liked them, so we thought, you know what, we're going to keep this a secret.

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Well, I will be rejoicing with you all, I am already, but I will be rejoicing with you when that little one actually is breathing oxygen outside of the womb, and when you begin telling us stories about certain things that are happening in our life growing up, and looking forward to that.

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Well, for our listeners who have not yet heard you on this program before, tell our listeners about Grace Community Church in Laredo, Texas.

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Yes, I've been pastoring Grace Community Church for about three and a half years now. We are situated on the border of the

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U .S. and Mexico, right above Nuevo Laredo, and God has been really kind.

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He's really been opening up tremendous doors and opportunities for the

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Gospel in Laredo, as well as Nuevo Laredo. We are excited about, we're beginning to actually, as we discuss the topic of missions today, we are actually beginning to go across the border into Nuevo Laredo, where there's 350 ,000 souls there, and very little, if any,

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Gospel preaching. And so we've had some doors open across the border as well, so we are very grateful for what the

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Lord's doing here in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. Well, praise God for that. And the congregation, would you categorize it as a

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Reformed Baptist church? Yeah, we are. Great. And by the way, let me give our listeners our email address here.

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It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S, A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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

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That is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guests.

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Before we go into the theme at hand, the Apostle Paul's heart for the lost in Romans 9, tell us about your specific speaking engagement at the

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G3 conference. This is your second time at G3 speaking, am I right? Yeah, so this past January was my first G3 conference, and it really was a phenomenal experience.

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I've got to know Josh Byst, the organizer and pastor of Praise Mills Church in Atlanta, and he's actually coming this weekend to preach in Laredo.

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Oh, wow. He's become quite a close friend of mine, and yeah, it's just a phenomenal experience this past January, and so I have the wonderful privilege of being asked to speak again this upcoming

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January. It's going to begin Thursday, January 17th, and the conference ends Saturday, January 19th, and as you said in the intro, it's a wonderful list of speakers.

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I love the theme of the conference. The conference is not just to come and hear a bunch of preachers preach and kind of fill our minds with more truth, though, as valuable as that is, but the conference is really focused on transforming the attendees to go back to their churches and be living, breathing organisms of the body of Christ and to support the local church.

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It's really centered around the local church. I love the theme, the emphasis. I couldn't be more excited to join the other speakers this

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January. Amen. Well, I'm looking forward to being there, as I already said, and I have considered this to be now my favorite of all conferences.

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It's become the most important conference to Iron Trip and Zion Radio as far as the contacts that I have made.

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Although I do love the other conferences I've been to and go to, I was at the Banner of Truth conference just a week ago and was blown away at the number of people there that I had never met or heard from before who approached me and said that they loved my show.

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They must have recognized my face from Facebook or something because I don't have my photo on my radio program website that I'm aware of anyway.

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I'm not the webmaster, so I don't think it's on there, but if it is, it's kind of a small picture. But I was just amazed.

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At least 15 people every day would approach me and say how much they love the show, how much it means to them, including a total stranger from India that I sat down next to providentially without even knowing who he was, and he told me that he loves the show and listens to it and so on.

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But yeah, I am looking forward to being there and if anybody else listening, we will be repeating this later, but if anybody else listening would like to join me and Jeremy Volo at the

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G3 conference. By the way, that stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory in case you're wondering. That will be held at the

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Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

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Then just go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and please tell the folks at the

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G3 conference that you heard about it from Chris Orenson on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. You can also go to that website if you would like to have an exhibitors booth just like I have that I have had for the last two years, and this will be my third

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G3 conference where I will have an exhibitors booth, God willing there. And if you'd like to have one too, whether it's your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, whatever it is that you want to promote, it does have to pass the test of the board at the

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G3 conference as far as what they approve of having present there. But I'm sure if you are a lover of the doctrines of sovereign grace that they will very likely give you that permission.

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And so just go to g3conference .com and make sure that you tell them that you heard about it from Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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Well, now we are going to be going to the heart of the matter. I'm going to read

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Romans 9 1 through 5, but I believe that is specifically the texts that you wanted to address today, correct?

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Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me read Romans chapter 9 1 through 5. Let's see here, just grab my thing here.

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Okay, I am telling the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the

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Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are

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Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers and from whom is the

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Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all God blessed forever.

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Amen. A very powerful portion of that chapter in Romans, and it's funny because when we are having conversations with a lot of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are not from our background, not believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace, they will be immediately alarmed if we want to go to the passage because they know that we are going to be sharing with them unique beliefs that are held by Reformed or sovereign grace believing or Calvinistic Christians, although they shouldn't be just held by us, they should be held by everybody who believes in the inerrancy of Scripture because they're right there, plain and black and white, in not only

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Romans 9 but many other places in the Bible. But this is an area that should be echoing in the hearts and minds of every single

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Christian, no matter what particular theological persuasion they may consider themselves to be an adherent of.

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This is something that every Christian should have beating in their heart, should they not.

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Yeah, it really is, as you said, Chris, one of the most impactful statements in all of Scripture.

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I mean, outside of statements and actions of our Lord Jesus Christ, if you think of men and women in Scripture, aside from Christ, this is one of, if not the most remarkable statements in Scripture.

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And I do find it ironic, as you said, you know, you think of Romans 9, and no matter what side of the aisle you're on, whether you believe in the sovereignty of God over salvation or if you are a believer in the free will of man, we think of Romans 9 sort of as the battleground for that.

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And I glory in the truth of Romans 9, as you said, which are explicit there about the sovereignty of God.

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A proper exegesis of the passage and the surrounding context gives us the conclusion of God's absolute sovereignty and salvation.

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And yet, really, Chris, I find it sad, if not disturbing, that in so many of our discussions about the sovereignty of God and salvation, and so many of the arguments, whether it's on Facebook or face -to -face, with, as you said, our brothers and sisters who are on the other side of the aisle in terms of sovereignty of God, so many of them, though we're digging into the content of Romans 9, we are arguing without the heart of Romans 9.

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Wow. Without the heart of the Apostle Paul. Yeah, people on both sides are very often not doing that.

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I've got to just quickly tell you something that is, I don't know if you would call it disturbing or humorous, it might be both, but years ago

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I remember having a conversation with a brother in Christ who loved the debates that I was organizing with James White, James R.

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White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who is a Reformed Baptist apologist and a

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New Testament Greek scholar and an apologist and a just a brilliant brother in Christ, author of many books, has had over 100 public moderated debates with Catholics and Muslims and liberals and even in -house debates with those who reject

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Calvinism, cult members and homosexuals and homosexual advocates and all kinds of people.

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But this person loved James White's debates, but he hated the

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Calvinism that James White and I believe in. And I just simply said to him, well,

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I want you to respond to what I'm about to read to you. And I read to him the entirety of the chapter of Romans 9 and he said in response,

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I didn't exegete the passage, I didn't give my explanation of it,

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I didn't say anything but read the passage. And he got very upset and he said, you know who believes what you just said?

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I said, who? He said, the biggest growing cult in the world, the Muslims.

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I said, excuse me? I said, you are aware that I just read from Romans 9 the

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God -breathed words that are in the inerrant scriptures in the

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New Testament that you and I both cherish. And he said, nah, but it's what you read into it.

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I said, I didn't read anything into it, I just read it. So, but it is amazing.

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It's there on the surface and one of the exegetical points that is to be made in that whole discussion is how

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Paul begins Romans chapter 9 and what is breaking his heart?

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Well, it's the eternal destiny of his kinsmen. He's dealing with salvation. He's not dealing with merely the role of Israel and the redemptive purposes of God.

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He's dealing with the salvation of men and women, individual souls with whom he has acquainted and loves dearly.

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But it's fascinating to me. I always look at Romans 9 and the contents of the sovereignty of God as a sort of sandwich.

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And I've purposed in all of my ministry, and specifically dealing with this subject, to never forget the pieces of bread that sandwich the meat in Romans 9.

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And you see those two pieces of bread as Romans 9, 1 through 5, and then

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Romans 10, 1 and 2, where Paul says, brothers, my heart's desire for them and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

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For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. So in all of this discussion, what is driving the

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Apostle Paul? A passion for their salvation. And I think if we're honest as Christians, and we read those opening verses of Romans 9, which one of us, after reading

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Paul say that he could wish himself accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers, which one of us just kind of sits back and goes, yeah, that makes sense?

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You know, of course he does. Aren't we left kind of staggered?

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Yes, he is saying that he would rather go to hell himself and spare his kinsmen, the

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Jewish people. If it were possible that that would be the scenario, which of course it cannot be.

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Yeah. Yeah, to feel the full weight really of this passage, I think we need to understand a little more about the life of Paul himself and who he was.

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I think most of us have a pretty cursory understanding of Paul. Obviously he had defected.

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He was himself a Jew, raised a Hebrew of Hebrews, raised as a

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Pharisee. And we know the Pharisees were highly regarded. Paul was, you could say, a sort of rising star, even in Israel, as he was trained under the tutelage of Gamaliel, the elder in Jerusalem.

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Paul had just a staggering intellect. He was a powerful orator.

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Paul was a brilliant mind. He was a young man who was being trained by the most prestigious of the

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Jewish scholars and rabbis. And here was this rising star in Judaism, whose reputation was kind of growing in the holy city, who had defected and had left

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Judaism and had then gone to believe in the Christ, the very

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Christ who the Jews had put to death. It kind of gives us a little bit of a background of when

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Paul says his kinsmen, he's speaking of those people that he was very intimately acquainted with.

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And this would have been his family. This would have been his friends. This would have been his life, those people he knew and grew up knowing and caring for.

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So Paul was amongst these, he called them his brothers and his kinsmen according to the flesh.

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And it's these for whom Paul is really heartbroken.

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But you know, Chris, as I was studying this passage and I was thinking about who the Apostle Paul was and how he was trained, do you ever think through, you know, as you think of how intimately acquainted

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Paul was with the Jews and how much he cared for them, have you ever noticed how the Jews treated

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Paul after his conversion? If you read through the book of Acts, right, and we find over 40

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Jews taking a vow not to eat until they'd killed Paul. Right.

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And Paul cannot be shocked by that because before his conversion, by the mercy and grace of God, by the miracle of the

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Holy Spirit transforming him, he was a bloodthirsty

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Pharisee of Pharisees hunting down Christians, rounding up men and women to be executed.

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Yeah, I mean, he, Paul was such a rising star amongst the Jews, his powerful intellect, but he wasn't just an apathetic theologian who loved these truths.

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Paul was a Jew of rabid conviction. I mean, he was gripped by the truth of Judaism to the point where he was putting those followers of the way to death violently and unapologetically and vehemently, and he was passionate about persecuting the

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Church of Jesus Christ, an absolute enemy of the true gospel.

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And it's really, you know, it's interesting to know as Paul encounters the gospel with Stephen, we remember the account when

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Stephen is filled with the Holy Spirit and he stands and he's preaching to the Jews the truth of Christ, it's amazing to think of Paul as he witnessed that encounter, and here was a clash of power.

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On the one hand, you had Stephen, full of the Spirit. On the other hand, you had Paul, who was the brilliant theologian and zealous Jew, and it says

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Paul was outmatched. Paul had come up against a superior power in the

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Spirit -filled Stephen. And really, he only had one of two options, didn't he?

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He had the option of either submitting to Stephen and Stephen's gospel and what he was saying, or to fight against it and to seek to destroy it, and obviously we know which route

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Saul took at the time to seek to destroy Stephen, and he was complicit in his murder.

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Yes, he gave his consent, and if I'm not mistaken, he was basically like a coat -check boy, wasn't he, at the stoning of Stephen?

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Yeah, he would hold the coats of those who were stoning him, putting him to death. Yeah, it's really amazing as we look at who the

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Apostle Paul was as a Jew and how he rose to the ranks of Judaism, and then, of course, we know the road to Damascus, where he meets

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Jesus Christ and has an encounter with the Living God and is radically converted by the power of the

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Spirit, and his life is changed. And so, obviously, that results in a defection from Judaism, and Paul became an advocate of the gospel.

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And so, though the Jews had loved Saul, you could say they hated Paul and wanted him to die.

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And the reason I bring that up, Chris, is just to think, if we remember what's going on, if we kind of remember the scene, and we remember the context, and then we reread those words of Paul in Romans 9, it's even more staggering, because he's not just talking about mom and dad, who love him and he still goes home to Thanksgiving dinner and, you know, celebrates

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Christmas and birthdays. We're talking about men who were seeking to murder him, and men who gnashed their teeth at him, and men who had a blood thirst for him and took vows to murder him and wouldn't rest until he was killed and vehemently opposed him and stoned him multiple times.

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We're talking about those men of whom Paul says,

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I have unceasing anguish and great sorrow in my heart for them.

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Praise God. That is mind -boggling and obviously a reflection of Jesus Christ himself, who died for people who were, when he died, his enemies.

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He died for people who hated him, who wanted nothing to do with him, and we who believe in the doctrines of grace believe he died for his people, and that was a perfect atoning death, so all those for whom he died were eventually and will be eventually saved, but that was not the case when he died.

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Yeah, they were the ones putting him to death, gnashing their teeth and crying, crucify, crucify.

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Yeah, so it's a phenomenal portrait of Christ, and that's why I said at the start that really this statement of Paul is almost unlike any other in Scripture.

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There is one other instance which I'll bring up, but almost unlike any other statement by any person outside of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and really it's an image of the closest we get of someone outside of Christ who imitates

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Christ. I mean, you think about the Apostle Paul. He says, for I could wish myself a curse.

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He's not actually wishing himself a curse. He's contemplating if it were a possibility, but we think of Christ, he didn't wish himself a curse.

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Christ was a curse. Amen. He didn't merely think of the possibility and have a broken heart.

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Yes, he had a broken heart. He wept over Jerusalem, and he pleaded with men and women to come to him and drink from the fountain of life, and his heart was broken.

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And he was a man of sorrows as he looked at the desecration of sin, but it didn't stop there.

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He actually stepped to the cross, and his face like a flint headed for Calvary.

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And so Paul is merely a reflection of Christ. And so if we are staggered by the statement of Paul, it should draw us into the throne room of Christ to behold our

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Savior in his glory who actually was cut off and was accursed and bore the weight of hell for us.

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Yes, when he cried out to the Father on the cross, my

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God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was quoting

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David, but it really was a complete fulfillment of that Davidic statement, because in Jesus's case, it was a much more stark and horrifying abandonment than David ever experienced.

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Oh yeah, and it was the experience that no child of God will ever experience, and even no child of Satan, even in hell, will experience.

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Because if you think about even the punishment of an unbeliever who faces justice in eternal torment, they're only bearing the weight for their sins, and Christ bore the weight of the sins of all who would be redeemed.

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It wasn't for the sins of one, it was for the sins of many. And so there's no relating, ultimately, to the fulfillment of Psalm 22 by Christ on the cross.

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No one ever suffered as he suffered, nor will anyone suffer fully as he suffered on the cross.

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Amen. And we are going to our first break right now. If you would like to join us with a question of your own for Jeremy Volo on the heart that Paul had for the lost,

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I will, since Jeremy is a pastor, I will broaden the questions that you may have that may be under a more pastoral umbrella, if you will, if you want to ask him something that wouldn't take too much time to answer.

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And you could remain anonymous in those kinds of cases, I understand that. But please send in your emails to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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

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USA. Don't go away. God willing, we will be right back with Jeremy Volo and more on Paul's heart for the lost in Romans 9.

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But we are now back with our guest Jeremy Volo. He is pastor of Grace Community Church in Laredo, Texas, and we are discussing the

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Apostle Paul's heart for the lost in Romans 9. In fact, before I forget, I want to make sure that you let our listeners know about your mom's ministry,

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Swan, and also your dad's ministry. Your dad's a pastor and he has an outreach to the

38:27

Amish, something that you don't hear about a lot. He has been used of God to lead the Amish, many Amish individuals to Christ.

38:35

And in fact, I had the wonderful privilege and pleasure to fellowship with your dad at the

38:40

Banner of Truth Conference in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania recently. And he is going to be coming back on the program with another

38:48

Amish individual who has been led to Christ. But if you could tell, first of all, starting with Swan, and then we could move on to your dad before we return to our discussion on the

38:57

Apostle Paul's heart for the lost. Yeah, so my mother,

39:03

Diana Volo, has begun a nonprofit organization some seven or eight years ago designed as a music mentoring program for children whose parents are incarcerated.

39:15

There's nothing else like it in the States, nearly nothing else like it in the entire world, where children have the power of music to help them overcome the obstacles that they face in life having one or both parents incarcerated and not being there to raise them.

39:33

Many of these children are being passed from home to home, uncle to aunt to grandmother, and some really tragic stories.

39:41

And if you stop to think about the billions of dollars being pumped into even incarcerating the children who are 75 % more likely to spend time in jail if their parents have, it's really a tragic situation.

39:55

And so Swan for Kids is a wonderful solution. My mother has been working diligently to help the children and has many success stories which are glorious.

40:06

You can go to swan4kids .org to find out more about that organization.

40:16

And my father, yeah, he's an incredible man who's been serving the Lord for over four decades, and he's working amongst the

40:25

Amish and bringing the gospel into a very closed society that not many people have the opportunity to enter.

40:33

And, you know, we look at the Amish from the outside as pious and very faithful, and many would perhaps even consider them believers, but once you enter their world you discover much of the false doctrine and the self -righteous works -based salvation.

40:50

And so my father has had the privilege of preaching the gospel of God's grace now for many years to the

40:57

Amish and to see much fruit born from that. Great. I don't know if you happen to have handy your dad's website, but if you don't

41:04

I can look it up for an announcement later. I don't at the moment.

41:09

Okay, I'll announce that later, but keep your eyes and ears open for Chuck Volo, Jeremy's father, returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio with an

41:21

Amish brother in Christ, an Amish individual who actually has embraced the true gospel of free and sovereign grace.

41:30

So we look forward to hearing Chuck and this brother in Christ on the

41:36

Iron Trip and Zion Radio program, and it was such a joy to be able to fellowship with both of those individuals at the

41:41

Banner of Truth conference. We do have a listener, let's see here, we have

41:49

RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, one of the things that struck me about the passage that you are addressing today in Romans 9 where Paul says that,

42:05

I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are

42:25

Israelites. And the thing that has struck me about that is that John Hagee and other

42:34

Christians wrongly believe the heresy that Jews do not need to believe in Jesus Christ, that being

42:45

Jewish seems to be something that protects them in the eyes of God, because these people view these

42:52

Jews as the chosen of God. But wouldn't what Paul says in this text and many other places totally refute that nonsensical, dangerous, and heretical teaching?

43:06

Oh yeah, absolutely. All you have to do is go to the end of Romans 9 and the beginning of Romans 10. You could walk all through the book of Galatians.

43:15

He says at the end of Romans 9 that Israel pursued the law that would lead to righteousness, but did not succeed in reaching that law.

43:27

And Paul says, why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.

43:34

They have stumbled over the stumbling stone. Well, what faith is he speaking about?

43:39

Well, the law was always meant to drive people to Christ. The law was always meant,

43:47

Romans 3 .19, to shut men's mouths, to demonstrate to them that they could never accomplish the law.

43:54

It was always meant to drive one to the coming Messiah, in the case of the

44:00

Old Testament Jews, and now back to the having come Messiah for us and Jews in the modern day.

44:09

The law was never meant to be by works, and the Jews failed to reach that righteousness because,

44:15

Paul says in the very context of Romans 9, they tried to fulfill the law by works, but the law is meant to drive you to the

44:24

Messiah. Well, thank you, RJ in White Plains, New York. Keep listening to Onion Trip and Zion Radio and spreading the word about the program in New York and beyond.

44:34

But if you could now pick up where you left off before the break. Yeah, so as we're looking at Paul's statement here,

44:43

I said that there's another statement similar to the

44:48

Apostle Paul, and it's actually back in Exodus. If you think back to Moses as he's leading the

44:56

Israelites through the wilderness, and he comes down from Mount Sinai, and you remember they were offering praise and sacrifices to the golden calf, and they were dancing around and engaged in all sorts of licentiousness, and Moses breaks the tablets and heads back up to the mountain, and we find in that whole context that God makes a proposition to Moses as he seemed fed up with Israel.

45:32

And he essentially tells Moses that, Moses, let me pour out my wrath upon these people, and I'll make a great nation of you.

45:40

I mean, what a tempting proposition. How many of us would take that up?

45:47

Frustrated pastors or frustrated missionaries, where we've been laboring, and we've been laboring, and the people return to their idolatry, and they return to the ways of the flesh, and they're not quite getting it, and living the

46:03

Christian life, and they're lazy, and they're complacent, and we've been laboring with them, and if God were to come to us and say,

46:09

Pastor, forget these people. I'll destroy them, but I'll make you great, and I'll make a nation of you.

46:16

I'll make a people of you. How many would raise their hands and take up that proposition?

46:23

But that's not what Moses does. And similar to Paul's words, here we read in Exodus 32, the staggering words of Moses, where he says in verse 31,

46:38

Moses returned to the Lord and said, Alas, these people have sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold, but now, if you will forgive their sin, and then

46:49

Moses pauses, doesn't finish his sentence, and then says, but if not, please block me out of your book that you have written.

47:01

Wow. So here, Moses is exemplifying the same heart of Paul, which ultimately is the heart of Christ, where he actually says,

47:15

Lord, forgive them, but if not, block me out. This intense burden for the, in this case, the

47:29

Jewish people, and for their salvation. Two absolutely just staggering statements from these giants of the faith,

47:41

Moses and the Apostle Paul. And as we think back to Romans 9, something that highlights this even further for us, and obviously,

47:54

Chris, all of this is going to culminate in how does this passage of Scripture bear weight on our lives, and how are we to respond, and how are we to live, and in the subject of missions, which the upcoming

48:09

G3 conference is going to cover, the topic of mission, how are we to pray for, and to pursue, and to evangelize the lost around us and to the ends of the earth?

48:22

This is all going to come back and bear weight on our lives. And what heightens it even more is, as some have argued,

48:34

Romans chapter 8, one of, if not the, considered by many, most glorious passages or chapters, singular chapters, in all of Scripture.

48:45

We read in Romans 8 of new life in Christ, and new life in the Spirit, and the sympathy of the

48:52

Spirit, and the power of the Spirit in giving us assurance, and producing in us holiness, and the radical elements of Romans chapter 8, speaking of our election, and God's foreknowledge of us, and our future glorification, which is secured and sealed for us already.

49:13

And coming off of that, as Paul ends that glorious chapter, speaking of all of the advantages of being in Christ, he then says,

49:27

I could wish myself cut off from all of that, in order that they would know it.

49:35

It heightens it. Yeah, it's mind -boggling to have that kind of an attitude that's some,

49:43

I would say that that is an attitude and a mindset that is likely rarely felt or believed by the majority of Christians.

49:56

Right. And if we're honest, how often do we feel this way?

50:05

I mean, how often? You look at those words. You know, Paul's a fan of mega speech, right?

50:12

He says mega. He's talking about great sorrow. He's talking about unceasing anguish.

50:20

I mean, can any of us honestly say, I have unceasing anguish for the law?

50:26

It doesn't stop. It doesn't relent. I remember, Chris, there was one time

50:32

I was in the Philippines doing missions work there, and I got a horrific stomach bug.

50:40

I don't know what it was. If it's something I ate, or the water, or something. And I remember waking up early in the morning for about four hours.

50:47

My stomach, I'd never experienced pain like it in my life. To this day, it might be the greatest pain

50:53

I've ever felt. Just felt like a churning in my stomach, and I was going to just agonize for hours.

51:01

I remember praying to the Lord. I didn't even ask the Lord to take it away. I asked the

51:06

Lord, Lord, just give me five minutes of peace. Just let me cease from this pain just for five minutes.

51:14

You can bring it back, but just give me five minutes of rest from this pain. Why? Because it was unceasing anguish.

51:23

Well, correlate that to the anguish of Paul's soul. And it was this burden that was constantly pressing down upon him.

51:33

He couldn't escape it. It was a mega sorrow. It was a great sorrow.

51:41

And Paul, I mean, can you, can I say, oh yes, that's the experience of my heart for the lost?

51:51

Well, we should. We should pray for that. We should yearn for that. But how often we ourselves fall short of such a passion for those who stand outside of Christ and thus stand condemned apart from him.

52:06

Amen. In fact, we have a listener who is anonymous who asks, what counsel can you give me for the ongoing sorrow that I have for my own children, none of whom are believers?

52:19

I have six children. They are all adults. They are all rejecting

52:25

Christ. Although, thanks be to God, there are some of them who finally have begun to return to church services with me.

52:35

And I praise God for that, for those signs of hope that he has given me. But they still are not truly regenerate.

52:43

And there are others of my children that do not darken the door of a church. And it gives me such agonizing sorrow and depression.

52:52

Sometimes I have sleepless nights over it. Can you give me some counsel on how

52:57

I can have some moments of peace in the midst of this pain? And we'll have you reply to our anonymous listener when we come back from our midway break.

53:09

This is a longer than normal break. It's 12 minutes because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Florida requires a 12 -minute break between our two major segments of our show.

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So please be patient with us. Use this time not only to write questions for Jeremy Volo, our guest, but also to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them.

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Because if our advertisers are patronized and you are letting them know that you appreciate their sponsorship of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, they are more likely going to remain as sponsors and the program will more likely remain on the air.

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So we appreciate you responding to our advertisers whenever possible. But our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:52

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Tired of box store

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01:06:56

Before we return to our discussion with Jeremy Volo on the

01:07:01

Apostle Paul's heart for the lost in Romans 9, we just have a couple of important announcements.

01:07:08

First of all, I hope that as many of you as possible join me this November, the 9th through the 10th, at the

01:07:17

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology. Not to be confused with the Reform Town Conference on Quaker Theology.

01:07:25

It's the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

01:07:32

The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, and Timothy Gibson and Carlton Winn.

01:07:42

The theme is the glory of the cross. If you would like to join me there, go to alliancenet .org,

01:07:49

alliancenet .org. That is the website of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals who have orchestrated this event.

01:07:56

Alliancenet .org. Click on events and then click on Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

01:08:01

If you attend, please look me up at the Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio exhibitors booth that will be there,

01:08:08

God willing, with me behind it. And I'm looking forward to meeting many of you there just as I did at the

01:08:13

Banner of Truth Conference. That's alliancenet .org. Click on events and then click on Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

01:08:22

And then the event that Jeremy Volo, my guest, and I have been talking about, the

01:08:28

G3 Conference is coming up in January.

01:08:34

And I hope that I once again meet a ton of people who listen to the program, who love the program, who have been benefited and edified by the program.

01:08:45

Perhaps they've even been led to salvation through the program, had their theology transformed through the program.

01:08:52

I'm just amazed at what people tell me about how Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio has been used by God in their lives.

01:08:59

But this conference will be held Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th.

01:09:04

And the theme is The Mission of God, A Biblical Understanding of Missions. And Jeremy Volo is one of the speakers.

01:09:12

Also on the roster will be, God willing, Paul Washer, John Piper, David Platt, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, and many others.

01:09:26

Todd Friel from Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. Anthony Methenia, who happens to be

01:09:32

Paul Washer's pastor. Stephen Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C.

01:09:41

Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Don Curran and Chip Thornton and Owen Strachan and many more.

01:09:48

So please, if you want to be there, go to g3conference .com,

01:09:54

g3conference .com. And don't forget, you can also register for an exhibitor's booth, just as I will be manning there at the

01:10:05

G3 Conference, God willing. Hope to see you there. Please tell the folks at the G3 Conference that you heard about them through Chris Aronson on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:10:14

Last but not least, it's the least comfortable time of the program for me, but it's something that needs to be done, especially now, it seems more than ever.

01:10:25

We are in a real financial crisis here at Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. If you love the show, you look forward to it every day,

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Monday through Friday. You share the MP3s with family, friends, and loved ones, which are absolutely free. Please consider donating to us, because we are really in an urgent need of finances that we don't have right now.

01:10:45

In fact, for the first time since 2014, we are five days late with the rent here.

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Thankfully, we had a couple of listeners in Hilltop Lakes, Texas pay for the electric bill.

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We thank Linda and Glenn in Hilltop Lakes for that wonderful gift. But we need money for the rent, and we need money for a lot of other things.

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Please, as I have mentioned before, please never siphon money out of the regular giving that you're accustomed to to your local church where you are a member.

01:11:46

If you're not a member of a local Bible -believing church and you're not prayerfully seeking for one, you are living in disobedience to God.

01:11:53

And I'm glad that I'm saying that because of that, a number of you have contacted me to help you find churches near you that are faithful to the

01:12:05

Scriptures. And there's somebody out there that I haven't responded to yet in Wisconsin. I will,

01:12:11

God willing, get back to you tonight to help you find a church. But I have lists of churches all over the world that are biblically faithful churches, and hopefully

01:12:17

I can help you find one. But never siphon money away from your giving to that church. Never put your family in financial jeopardy providing for your church and home are two commands of God.

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But if you're financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, then please give to Ironsharpensironradio .com

01:12:32

if you do not want us to disappear from the airways. If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:12:39

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line. As long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe here on Ironsharpensironradio, doesn't have to be exactly identical, just needs to be compatible with what we believe, then we would be more than happy, more than thrilled to accept your advertising dollars and help you launch an ad campaign with us.

01:13:00

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jeremy Volo, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:13:11

Whatever the question is, if it's regarding Romans 9, the doctrines of grace, or even a pastoral question, send us the email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:13:21

And before the break, Jeremy, as you likely remember, an anonymous listener is heartbroken on an ongoing basis, similar to what we are reading in this text that the

01:13:35

Apostle Paul went through over his kinsmen, the Jewish people. Well, even though it may not be common for Christians to have the depth of heartache that Paul had for his people, even so much as to want to switch places with them if it were possible and go to hell in their stead, that might be a rare mindset and attitude, but there are parents out there that are heartbroken and are terrified over the future, the eternity of their children who reject

01:14:09

Christ. And if you could give this listener counsel on how to find peace in knowing that their children are currently not believers and that they will somehow overcome that terror and depression.

01:14:26

Yeah, it's a situation that certainly breaks your heart. One I'm very much familiar with pastorally, and I can't think of a situation, even as I anticipate the birth of our little girl this

01:14:41

July, of a more grievous place to be than knowing that your own children have rejected

01:14:49

Christ and are not desiring to live for his glory and thus face the judgment in the final day.

01:14:56

And so I certainly empathize with our listener, and there's a few ways to really respond to that.

01:15:04

Ultimately, I think we need to say what Spurgeon said and to believe what

01:15:10

Charles Spurgeon said when he said that the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which the

01:15:15

Christian lays their head at night. And ultimately, as we know the sovereign

01:15:22

God who is working all things for his purposes and all things together for our good and for his glory, that is ultimately the comfort of our soul, knowing that God will be glorified no matter what situations or circumstances of life.

01:15:43

But as it comes down to our responsibility and how do we live with this burden and this aching and this unceasing anguish, as the listener said, she often finds herself sleepless and awake at night worried and thinking of her children's salvation.

01:16:04

I would say two things very practically, and again I would go to the life of the Apostle Paul. We read in Acts chapter 18 that the

01:16:14

Apostle Paul reasoned with the Jews, these very ones whom he loved, and he reasoned with them week in and week out, and he pleaded with them from the

01:16:25

Scriptures to cast their souls upon Christ for their salvation.

01:16:33

And he engaged himself, we see it in his whole life, he gave himself relentlessly to the proclamation of the

01:16:43

Gospel. But, as is made clear in Acts 18 in the opening verses, there comes a time when that message is rejected and it's no longer listened to or the dialogue is no longer engaged.

01:17:00

And so there comes a time when we must move on and perhaps no longer bombard our unsaved child with the same message, but then we resort to prayer and we resort to the secret place where we plead with the

01:17:17

Lord before His throne and ask Him to give mercy and to pour out grace upon their soul.

01:17:26

And so we see that obviously in Romans chapter 10 where Paul says, his heart's desire for them and his prayer to God for them is that they would be saved.

01:17:37

And so my counsel to this mother who's experiencing the pain of having lost children is to ultimately rest in a sovereign

01:17:50

God who is good and in that trusting this

01:17:56

God to plead with Him that He would demonstrate mercy to her children, all the while seeking to be faithful, to share the

01:18:05

Gospel with them, and to demonstrate the Gospel to them in her behavior, in her love toward them, and in her clear devotion to the well -being of their souls.

01:18:19

I know words, Chris, really fall far short, don't they, in dealing with these situations, and yet it ultimately rests with us and what we believe about God and His sovereignty and His goodness and His glory where we have to finally make our stand and trust this

01:18:44

God to do as He pleases. Yeah, that is a difficult thing to all of us to be willing to even not only have peace with God's will but come to a point of rejoicing in God's will, whatever

01:19:02

God's will is. And I know that that is always easier said than done, but it's something that it is the calling to every

01:19:10

Christian, and it is something that will ultimately give us peace, isn't it? Yeah, it absolutely is.

01:19:17

I mean, as you align yourself with the will of God, and as you align yourself with the person and the character and the heart of Christ, is when we're drawn closer and closer and transformed more and more into His image.

01:19:35

And so we begin to feel what Christ felt as He wept over Jerusalem.

01:19:42

And it's painful for this mother to be feeling the way she's feeling is nothing to be suppressed.

01:19:51

It's not something to seek to be avoided. If anything, she's being aligned with the will of God who looks at sinners and doesn't

01:20:00

He say throughout Scripture that He desires none to perish. Romans 10 21, all day long

01:20:08

I've held my hands out to a stubborn and obstinate people. He's imploring them with open arms, come to me.

01:20:17

Jesus stands up in John chapter 7 at the end of the Feast of Booths, and what does He say?

01:20:23

If anyone thirsts, come to me, and from him will flow rivers of living water.

01:20:29

Be satisfied in me. He's pleading and imploring with people. And so as she and we seek to align ourselves with the mind and the heart of God our

01:20:42

Father, we are transformed more and more into His image. Well thank you, and I want to let the listener know that I sent you an email that I forwarded to you, an email that was sent to me by my guest

01:20:59

Jeremy Volo that hopefully will be of further help to you in this area. Can you,

01:21:05

I haven't had a chance to really look it over, obviously I'm interviewing you right now, but is there any way that you could summarize what this email is about?

01:21:13

Yeah, so what I've sent to the listener who asked the question, and Chris, feel free to send it to anyone else who requests it, is actually a list that my mother came up with in her wrestlings as she's prayed for her own children, not all of whom are following the

01:21:32

Lord, and the lessons she's learned as to how she should accept and embrace and really move forward in the calling that God has given her to have unsaved children or an unsaved child.

01:21:50

And so the reflections of a woman, a godly woman, my mother, who's in the exact same position as our listener who is wrestling with the reality of having children who are not pursuing

01:22:02

Christ. Yeah, this is just another evidence of election, unconditional election, because I'm not saying of course that there is a certainty that your siblings who are currently lost will remain that way, but the fact that you could have children raised under godly parents in a godly

01:22:30

Bible -believing home, not perfect, there's no perfect family or home on earth, but one where the children are nurtured in the faith and you have some that grow up to be vibrant, obedient disciples of Jesus Christ and even pastors such as yourself and then others in that same household reject that same

01:22:51

Christ and gospel in inerrant word, and to me it's just another example of the necessity of a miracle of the

01:22:59

Holy Spirit in the heart of an individual. Yeah, and currently it's just one of my siblings who is not professing to follow

01:23:10

Christ and it's heartbreaking because they're the nearest and dearest people to you in the world and you love them with all of your heart and they're literally your kinsmen according to the physical flesh, and so ultimately it challenges us, doesn't it

01:23:29

Chris, as to whose will and whose glory we are ultimately after, because even in God's dealing with the unbeliever, we need to glory and revel in as difficult as it is, and this goes into Romans chapter 9, the sovereignty of God to do as He has willed to do, and will not

01:23:54

God receive glory even in the judgment of those who reject Him?

01:24:02

We have a listener from Ponoka, Alberta, Canada, and the listener's name is very unusual,

01:24:12

Sicily is the name, and Sicily, and I hope

01:24:19

I'm not mispronouncing that name, says that, I stumbled across your father last year online and I've heard a few of his sermons, he is a great preacher, but his only question is that he questions those that don't believe in sovereign grace in Romans 9.

01:24:41

Now I'm not 100 % sure what our listener means by he questions those, I don't know if he means that he questions their salvation or their honesty, perhaps that they see something that they don't want to reveal that they see,

01:24:54

I don't know what he really means, if you want to clarify what you mean by that, Sicily, that you question those that don't believe that don't believe in sovereign grace in Romans 9, but don't we have to be very careful,

01:25:08

Jeremy, Pastor Jeremy, that we don't start to look down on brothers and sisters in Christ that do not agree with us in the doctrines of grace, and that we have to be patient knowing that these things were revealed to us even by God's grace, that's not because we're smarter than anyone else, and that the doctrines of grace should humble us.

01:25:36

It's amazing how many proud and arrogant Calvinists there are, unlike though, however, the claim of many of our anti -Calvinist friends and brothers, we are not exclusively ones having that attitude,

01:25:52

I've met plenty of arrogant and proud Arminians, so, but it's even more, we have less excuse, let me put it that way, when we are believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace, we have infinitely less excuse to be proud because the very doctrines we claim to believe should humble us to the dirt, shouldn't it, shouldn't they?

01:26:12

Yeah, well, it's an inherent contradiction, isn't it, a proud Calvinist? Right, by the way,

01:26:17

I don't want to let our listeners think that I am accusing them, I'm not sure, I can't remember if Sicily is a woman or a man, but I don't want you to think that I'm accusing you of being arrogant, but I'm just saying,

01:26:29

I'm giving a cautionary word here, but anyway, continue, I'm sorry I interrupted you. Yeah, so really, whichever way we take that question from the listener, my father certainly knows and loves very dearly people who don't embrace the same theological system as he holds and sees in Scripture, and I think we all would say that, some of the people that I look up to the most and love the most would not adhere to my system of theology either, and so, yeah, it's an inherent contradiction, though, to say that there's a proud

01:27:04

Calvinist, and as you read the Apostle Paul, he is saturated with humility, and that's why

01:27:12

I would always urge those who are, whether they're coming to an understanding of the sovereignty of God in salvation, or have long believed it and grown up in a tradition of it,

01:27:25

I would urge them never to forget the opening words of Romans 9 and Romans 10, and to allow that humility and that brokenness and that passion and that love and that missional deal of the

01:27:41

Apostle Paul, never allow that to dry up. Oh, that should saturate our conversations, that should saturate our dialogue, and yes, we need to be firm, and we need to be clear, and we need to discuss these things, but it should never be divorced from the heart and the passion for the law.

01:28:03

Another contradiction should be the Calvinist who doesn't evangelize.

01:28:08

That should be absolutely absurd, because we've been given a commission from God to go to the ends of the earth, to speak to all creatures, and to share the gospel with them.

01:28:22

So, yeah, it does break my heart. I come from a strong Reformed tradition, Chris, as you know.

01:28:28

You know my father, you know my heritage, and yet I can say, by God's grace, that I come from a strong Reformed heritage that is radically evangelistic and has a passion for taking the gospel where it's never been proclaimed, and to laying down our lives that others might live.

01:28:50

And I desire, in my own heart, to adopt and to maintain and to cultivate that same heart.

01:28:59

And it brings up, really, Chris, something I want to discuss, even from Romans chapter 9.

01:29:04

In fact, if you could pick up right there when we return, because we have to go to our last break, and it's going to be a lot briefer than the other breaks.

01:29:14

So, please, if you have a question, I would send it in now before we run out of time. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:29:20

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And by the way, I did find the website for your dad's church in Kingsville, Maryland, New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland.

01:29:32

Their website is newlifemd, abbreviation for Maryland, dot org, newlifemd, which is the abbreviation for Maryland, dot org.

01:29:44

And that is the church where Chuck Volo, Jeremy's father, is the pastor, one of two pastors.

01:29:52

And I hope that everybody in that area of Maryland pays a visit to that church very soon.

01:29:59

But we're going to our final break right now, and please, if you want to have a question asked and answered by our guest,

01:30:06

Jeremy Volo, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:30:12

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01:35:37

Mr. Sicily, he says, I only said that because I am currently on the fence on Sovereign Grace.

01:35:47

I grew up in a Reformed church, but have been convicted to be Berean lately and to search these things out.

01:35:54

That is why I've begun to only question Arminians on Romans 9. The Sovereign Gracers are very consistent in their answers.

01:36:02

Sorry for the confusion. But anyway, that was a clarification from our listener,

01:36:08

Mr. Sicily in Canada. But if you could, go ahead.

01:36:14

No, I was just going to say, in response to that, I often have discussions, obviously as a pastor, in regards to God's sovereignty and salvation and these issues.

01:36:26

And I often say, Chris, as I'm sure you do, that the only reason that I believe in the sovereignty of God and salvation, or would categorize myself, quote -unquote, as Reformed, the only reason is because exegetical study of the

01:36:43

Bible, just proper study of the Bible, leaving aside the logic of man or leaving aside presuppositions to the best of my ability, just the raw study of God's Word gives me no other option.

01:36:59

And so for Mr. Sicily, I would say that's exactly where we need to be, is kind of cast aside maybe presuppositions with which we've been raised, and dig into Scripture and say, what does

01:37:11

God say? And I think we can't go wrong if that's our purpose and our intention, and if we really give ourselves to it.

01:37:21

Yeah, I mean, a theologically Reformed Christian or Calvinist or Sovereign Grace believer, however you want to identify this person, it's always a good thing to believe the right thing.

01:37:34

But if you're believing the right thing for the wrong reason, that is a very troubling thing, because you might be believing the right thing and be dead in your heart and be a lost person, just like in the

01:37:47

Epistle of James, where James warns that you say you believe in one

01:37:52

God, well, you do well, but even the demons believe and tremble. So you should be believing whatever you believe, because it's contained within the

01:38:00

God -breathed Scriptures, and not just because your heroes or your parents and grandparents and great -grandparents believed in those things.

01:38:11

Yeah, and I'll just say this to Mr. Sickly, because I'm very sympathetic to wrestling through these things, is really,

01:38:20

I think the whole question, well, there's several major issues, but one of the primary ones is simply asking the question and searching for it in Scripture when you go through John chapter 3, when you go through 1

01:38:34

John, ask the question, which comes first? Does repentance and faith produce regeneration?

01:38:44

Or biblically, according to the inspired authors, does regeneration produce repentance and faith?

01:38:52

And that will determine which side of the aisle you land. Amen. Well, you wanted to continue with something specifically,

01:39:00

I think you wanted to do exegetes, some more of Romans 9, 1 through 5, before we went to the break.

01:39:07

Yeah, well, Chris, my heart for the listener, obviously, as we look at Romans 9, it's such a staggering statement from Paul.

01:39:16

It's a powerful section, and it really should leave us just glorying, first of all, in the cross, but then it should leave us desiring the same heart that Paul had.

01:39:31

We want to, as disciples of Christ, we want to feel what

01:39:36

Paul felt. I want to feel what Moses felt. I want to know what

01:39:43

Christ knew and feel what Christ felt as he wept for Jerusalem. And so, as we bring this discussion sort of to a head, my burden is that Christians who are studying the

01:40:01

Scriptures and pursuing Christ would know, how can we enter into the passion of Paul?

01:40:10

How can we enter into the heart of Christ and have this zeal for the lost that drives us, not just to the mission field in the

01:40:23

Bible, but to the heart of Christ? We pray every week, and we're sending a young man from our church to the

01:40:29

Middle East this summer, and we pray for those missionaries. It needs to drive us to the ends of the earth and the places that aren't comfortable, but it needs also to drive us next door to the person who's lived next to you for five years, and it needs to drive you into the adjacent cubicle or to pick up the phone and call mom or call dad and share with them the glories of the gospel of Christ.

01:41:00

And so, my burden pastorally is, okay, how do I come to have the heart that Paul had?

01:41:12

And again, I would revert to a Pauline letter.

01:41:17

I would go to Philippians chapter 2, where Paul says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was equal with God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

01:41:36

Excuse me, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself a servant, made himself nothing.

01:41:45

He literally was in the form of God and came down to this earth as a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and he was being found in human form.

01:41:55

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

01:42:01

Paul gives us the charge to have the same mind of Christ. And so, as we seek to be transformed into the image of Christ, the only way that that is going to take place is through the power of the

01:42:19

Holy Spirit working in us to transform us. But as we look upon the person of Christ, as we engage in intimate communion with Christ in prayer, as we set our eyes on Christ in his

01:42:39

Word, as we spend time with our risen Lord, as we behold with unveiled eyes the glory of the

01:42:50

Lord, we are, from one degree to another, transformed into the same image.

01:42:57

And so, I don't want the discussion of Romans 9, and even the necessary questioning of ourselves, where we have to ask, where's my unceasing anguish?

01:43:08

Why don't I feel what Paul felt? I don't want listeners and Christians to walk away dejected, and to walk away guilty, and to walk away saying, well,

01:43:19

I must be a horrific Christian. No, rather, I want us to see the lack of passion for the lost, and to be driven and motivated to adopt the same heart by spending time with our

01:43:36

Savior. That's all Paul was doing. The only reason Paul exemplified that heart in Romans 9 is because he was intimately acquainted with Christ.

01:43:49

And he counted everything as lost just for the sake of knowing Christ. And he counted his life as, for me to live is

01:43:57

Christ, and to die again. Why? Because I'll be with him in consummate glory. And so, if we want to share that same passion, and if we want our lives to produce the same fruit on the foreign mission field, in our homes, in our churches, of radical usefulness, well, the answer is we need to set our eyes on Christ, and be intimately acquainted with our

01:44:23

Savior. And by the power of the Spirit, we will be transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another.

01:44:31

Amen. Praise God. Let's see, we have another listener.

01:44:39

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says that,

01:44:49

I know women who are married to unbelieving husbands, and they have a burden on their heart, obviously, for the salvation of these men with whom they have become one flesh, and they are agonizing over these husbands that are headed for hell.

01:45:13

I know that the scriptures teach that women are not to be bossy, and to usurp the authority of their husbands, and they are not to be preachy to their husbands, and they are to win them over with silence.

01:45:30

Can you explain in practical terms how this might be actually fleshed out in a marriage?

01:45:37

And of course, this would be a two -hour interview of its own. Yeah, it would.

01:45:44

I mean, you think about this practically, the commission or the call to a woman who has an unsaved husband is a supernatural commission.

01:45:55

It's a supernatural commission. Because our flesh tells us, I've got to correct him,

01:46:01

I've got to overpower him, I've got to overrule him. But then we look at 1

01:46:07

Peter 3, and he says, be submissive. He'll be one without a word.

01:46:13

And look to the Lord. Trust in the Lord. When they see your respectful and pure conduct, he'll be one.

01:46:23

And you say, well, how is this fleshed out practically? Well, I would actually draw your mind to another example of one who suffered unjustly, and yet by their conduct and by their life, drew others to Christ.

01:46:43

Think of Stephen, the first martyr. It was a supernatural response

01:46:49

Stephen gave to, first of all, the rejection of his gospel, the gnashing of their teeth and the rage and the rushing of him.

01:46:57

But then the remarkable violence that was expressed toward him in the stoning of Stephen.

01:47:04

And he doesn't respond in anger. He doesn't respond in cursing of them.

01:47:12

It's a supernatural response of Stephen whereby he pleads with the Lord for their forgiveness.

01:47:19

And so in the face of evil, even an unbelieving husband who doesn't treat a woman with respect for her religion or her faith in Christ, to have a response of grace and to have a response of patience, it's not natural, but it's produced by the

01:47:44

Holy Spirit. And it doesn't take much work to look back and to see that Stephen was filled with the

01:47:50

Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that produced that in him. And if we go back even further, we see Christ being crucified.

01:47:58

And as he graciously suffered, what does the Roman centurion say? Surely this man was the

01:48:06

Son of God. As Stephen was martyred and Saul looked on, certainly

01:48:13

Saul took note and recognized there's something supernatural about this man.

01:48:19

Well, so it will be in your marriage as you patiently endure and you seek to love and to cherish and to honor and submit to your unsaved husband.

01:48:32

You may not feel like you want to do that. You may not feel like he's responding to it, but that's the testimony.

01:48:41

That's the witness of the power of your gospel, a supernatural life in the face of adversity.

01:48:47

I hope that's helpful, but it really is the picture we're given in Scripture for such situations.

01:48:54

Amen. And I think that it would be wise of us to very briefly, at least,

01:48:59

I'm not going to mention the person's name because I have been hearing information that this person may have been wrongly accused of saying and doing things, but there's a very famous person who was a

01:49:13

Southern Baptist leader who lost his livelihood recently because it has been claimed that he sent a woman back to an abusive husband and so on and told her to just go back home and be a submissive wife to this abusive man and perhaps her life and safety were in danger and so on.

01:49:39

This is something that we have to be careful to not confuse women who are married to unbelievers or maybe even believers that are behaving wickedly in this manner.

01:49:54

We are not to tell women just to be doormats, in other words, where they are to be going home and being beaten up and having their lives threatened and on and on and on.

01:50:06

Absolutely not. And even in the case, I'll go even further than the physical abuse.

01:50:11

There are many instances of emotional and psychological abuse that not only does the woman need to be separated for her protection, and if there's children, the children as well for theirs, but with that abuse being reported to the authorities, the police.

01:50:29

I've had the conversation with the men of our church and our church and have made it very clear that there is not going to be any dimension of covering up church issues or interrelational issues that are breaking the law, whether it's sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse.

01:50:49

The proper steps will be taken for the handling of that situation. So, as we look at Scripture, we don't want to rip it out of its context and try to twist as men have and use the

01:51:03

Scripture to promote a woman or a child or even a man remaining in a situation that is psychologically, physically, emotionally, sexually abusive.

01:51:16

That needs to be...there needs to be protection immediately and the proper authorities need to be addressed.

01:51:23

And no matter what your view is as a Christian about divorce, because there are brothers in Christ even in the same denomination, in fact the same church, and maybe even the same pew, who disagree on if there is ever a right reason or a biblical reason for actual divorce, no matter what your opinion is on that, there should be a very clear understanding that there is definitely a time and a place for physical separation from a dangerous person or an abusive person, whether they are physically or mentally abusive.

01:51:59

Absolutely. Yeah, it doesn't even impinge upon the issue of divorce.

01:52:06

That would be something, regardless of the woman's conviction or the pastor's conviction or anyone else's conviction, that's something that can be dealt with later.

01:52:15

That's something that can be dealt with in retrospect. The immediate action needs to be taken for the well -being of the person suffering abuse.

01:52:25

Well, I want you now to have approximately four minutes or so of uninterrupted time where you can summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today in regard to our topic.

01:52:38

Yeah, my desire, Chris, is to stir in the souls of Christians a passion for the most fundamental command given to the

01:52:51

Christian is to follow Christ, to be disciples of Christ, and to go to the ends of the earth and to make disciples of Christ.

01:53:01

The commission given to the Church, the New Testament, the New Covenant Church, which is to drive the life of the

01:53:08

Church. And as we individual Christians are members of biblical churches, we are to be actively engaged in the fulfilling of that commission.

01:53:21

And so, I know in the Reformed circles, we love theology and we love doctrine, specifically the doctrines of grace, and that is wonderful.

01:53:32

We can't have missions without doctrine. My burden is that we would allow that doctrine to transform our lives, and we would not keep it in the cognitive compartment, the compartment of the mind only, but that we, like Paul, would allow that theology to seep down into our hearts and propel us out to the highways and the byways to implore people to come in.

01:54:04

Just remember, Paul, the kinsmen according to the flesh were the ones whipping him five times.

01:54:13

He received 39 lashes at the hands of the Jews. The kinsmen according to the flesh were the ones taking vows to murder him and doing everything to imprison him and stop his ministry.

01:54:27

And it's for those kinsmen according to the flesh for which Paul's heart broke and he had unceasing anguish.

01:54:35

How much more should we, for those who are not merely persecuting us with such vigor?

01:54:41

Do we look at the sexual revolutionaries and the progressives politically with despising them and looking down upon them?

01:54:51

Or do our hearts break for them and drive us to go to the places they are and to bring the gospel to them?

01:55:00

I want to close with a quote from Hudson Taylor, that great missionary who began the

01:55:05

China Inland Mission. He said this as he was sailing to China and he passed many islands on his way there.

01:55:16

He wrote this in his journal, Oh what work for the missionary! Island after island, many almost unknown, some densely peopled, but no light, no

01:55:28

Jesus, no hope, full of bliss. My heart yearns over them.

01:55:35

Can it be that Christian men and women will stay comfortably at home and leave these souls to perish?

01:55:45

There we have the heart of a missionary, there we have the heart of Paul, and there we have the heart of Jesus Christ, a heart that we should yearn to to have ourselves and to go to those who do not know the gospel and to bring it to them in love.

01:56:05

Amen. We have time for one more question from Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says that we who are reformed have a tendency sometimes to go overboard in our condemnation of brothers in Christ who believe differently than we do.

01:56:27

Sometimes it is admittedly for very serious reasons and very serious errors that might even be considered heretical, but at the same time must not we always remember when we are talking about a brother and sister in Christ that when we have differences with them, our differences must be buffered in our minds knowing that this is one for whom our

01:56:50

Savior died? I remember a time when a young man

01:56:58

I knew refused to enter a church on a Sunday morning because they held a different position on the sovereignty of God and salvation.

01:57:09

And my question to that young man is, do you think that those saints in that building are counted worthy by Christ because he dwells in them?

01:57:24

Is Christ able to worship with them, but you can't worship with them? What pride when we think that we are more righteous than Jesus Christ who indwells those believers that, sure,

01:57:40

Christ can have fellowship with them. Sure, the Spirit can indwell them, but I'm not going to fellowship with them.

01:57:46

It's the height of pride, isn't it? Amen. Well, that's pretty powerful, and I agree with every word you just said.

01:57:52

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the contact information that we have been discussing earlier of the

01:58:04

Grace Community Church of Laredo, Texas. I know your website is gcclaredo .com.

01:58:11

That's G -C -C for Grace Community Church. Laredo, which is spelled L -A -R -E -D -O .com.

01:58:20

And let's not forget to give another plug to your dad's church and give his website out for the

01:58:27

New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland. That website is newlifemd for Maryland .org,

01:58:35

New Life M -D. And why don't you once again repeat your mom's website for SWAN.

01:58:46

Yeah, SWAN4Kids. It's SWAN, S -W -A -N, the number four, kids .org,

01:58:53

swan4kids .org. And very quickly, we have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, and she says she's really enjoying listening to the interview with Jeremy Volo.

01:59:04

Since Jeremy is from Laredo, Texas, I'm wondering if he has anything to do with a recent conference

01:59:09

I saw on my Facebook page, ReformationTheology .com.

01:59:18

I would need a little more information, but we do not have an association with any recent conference in Texas that I'm aware of.

01:59:25

Okay, this is 2018. Well, sorry, Linda, that we can't be of more help with you, but I will forward your email to Jeremy, and perhaps he knows, he can find out more information about whether there is any connection.

01:59:38

I want to thank you, Jeremy, for being my guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

01:59:45

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.