October 16, 2025 Show with Dr. Conrad Mbewe & George Lawson on “A Loving Tribute to the Late Voddie Baucham” & “What Our Sovereign God is Accomplishing on the African Continent for the Spread of His Gospel of Grace”

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October 17, 2025

October 16, 2025 Dr. Conrad Mbewe,Pastor of Kabwata Baptist Churchof Lusaka, Zambia, author, highlysought after conference speaker, &founding Chancellor of African Chris-tian University AND GEORGE LAWSON,Pastor of Baltimore Bible Church inTimonium, MD, & board member @The Master’s University, who is cur-rently in a PhD program @ BaptistBible Seminary, who will both address: “A LOVING TRIBUTE […]

00:03: Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
00:10: George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
00:16: Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
00:23: Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:58: And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,
01:12: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
01:17: Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:22: This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on the 16th day of October 2025.
01:35: I am sorry about my less than spectacular voice today.
01:40: I am on the tail end of a bad bout with a cold or flu, but thanks be to God, He is slowly and steadily raising me up back to health.
01:54: But we all heard last month the tragic news of one of the giants of 20th and 21st century
02:06: Christianity, Wody Baucom, had entered into glory at the age of 56.
02:18: That is quite a bit younger than myself, and this was quite a shock to most of us.
02:30: Although we knew that Wody was suffering with heart problems for quite a while, it still came as quite a shock.
02:40: This occurred on Thursday, September 25th of this year, 2025, and I haven't yet been able to have a program that paid tribute to our precious brother
02:56: Wody, and I am so glad that we are able to do so today, and I could think of no better guest to pay tribute to our dearly departed brother
03:09: Wody Baucom than Dr. Conrad Mbewe, a pastor of Kobwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, author, highly sought -after conference speaker, and founding chancellor of African Christian University.
03:25: He is joining us today. We are going to begin the program by paying tribute to Wody, and then we are going to be moving on to a broader topic of how our sovereign
03:39: Lord is furthering the kingdom of Christ and spreading the gospel of sovereign grace on the
03:48: African continent, and we will be joined by George Lawson as well, pastor of Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland, who's also a board member at the
04:01: Master's University and is currently in a PhD program at Baptist Bible Seminary, and we are going to all discuss that and give you the announcement of an upcoming
04:15: Bible conference in February of 2026, where Dr.
04:21: Conrad Mbewe is speaking at Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland, and he's also, not long after that, once again going to be my
04:33: Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon Speaker that will be on Thursday, March the 5th, 2026 at Church of the
04:45: Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in Perry County, Pennsylvania.
04:50: But first of all, let me introduce my two guests one at a time. First of all, welcome back to Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio, Dr.
04:58: Conrad Mbewe. Thank you. I'm glad to be with you, Chris. Thank you for having me on the program.
05:04: Oh, it's always a joy to have you on the program, and why don't you give a brief description of Kabwatha Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and then move on to give a brief description of African Christian University.
05:21: All right. So Kabwatha Baptist Church began, it'll be 40 years next
05:28: January, and yeah, currently we have a membership of about 430.
05:39: Wow. Mostly younger generation that would be below the age of 50.
05:50: Yeah, we've got 10 elders, 10 deacons at the moment, generally going well.
05:59: Church planting is a large part of what we do. Planted between 40 and 50 churches across Zambia and across Africa.
06:12: Yeah, it's a Reformed Baptist Church. One of the first Reformed Baptist Churches in Zambia planted by the
06:21: Lusaka Baptist Church, and it's also within the city of Lusaka. And even though you're in Zambia, Africa, that congregation, no doubt, is one of the largest
06:35: Reformed Baptist churches in the world. Well, God's been gracious to us in blessing us that way, yeah.
06:44: And then we also have a major project of establishing a university, a liberal arts university called the
06:58: African Christian University. The project began around about 2010, so this is roughly 15 years, but only about seven years in which we have had students.
07:16: We have about 100 students at the moment learning agriculture, business, education, and theology.
07:27: And our theological wing is at graduate level, so we've got a
07:34: Master of Arts in Pastoral Theology. And that's where Vodipokam came to join us in 2015 and spent nine years with us and left
07:49: December last year only to graduate to heaven within the first year of his return to the
08:00: U .S. So that's what I'll say about the two institutions. Well, if anybody wants more details on these wonderful organizations, first of all,
08:11: Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa has a website, kabwatabaptistchurch .com,
08:18: K -A -B -W -A -T -A, baptistchurch .com.
08:24: And then the African Christian University has two websites. One is acu -zambia .com.
08:32: That's acu -zambia .com and also acu -usa .com,
08:39: acu -usa .com. And we'll be repeating that information later on in the program.
08:48: And as I also said, we have been joined by my second guest today,
08:55: George Lawson. And as I mentioned earlier, Pastor George Lawson is the pastor of Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland.
09:10: And he is also a board member at the Master's University and is currently in a
09:17: PhD program at Baptist Bible Seminary. Pastor George, thanks for being on the program.
09:23: This is, I know, your first guest appearance on the show on our live edition.
09:29: I had interviewed you at one of the G3 conferences on site for a pre -recorded interview a number of years ago, but this is your first live interview on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and it's a joy to have you, brother.
09:48: Well, it's a joy to be here. And one small correction on the introduction.
09:53: I'm actually in my THM at the Master's Seminary right now, but that's on the path towards PhD if the
10:03: Lord wills. So I just wanted to make that one correction, but I'm very glad to be on here. Okay.
10:09: Well, I don't even know where I got that information from, but I got it someplace that looked trustworthy.
10:14: And I guess you can't always trust what you read. Yeah, I've been asking the university to update my bio, but it just hasn't happened yet.
10:27: But anyway, just to be honest. So I did get that from the Master's University website. You did.
10:33: That's a reputable place to get information from, but unfortunately, they haven't updated my bio.
10:39: But I'm grateful to serve there, and I'm just grateful for what the Lord's doing.
10:45: Well, tell us about the Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland.
10:52: So Baltimore Bible Church was planted back in 2013. It started as a
10:59: Bible study in 2012 with 15 people in the Bible study, just in a basement.
11:05: And we covenanted as a church in 2013, in July of 2013. So now we're in our 13th year, going on our 13th year, and the
11:15: Lord's grown the church since that time. We're right now just about 250 adult members and I think about 150 kids.
11:24: So we've got just many, many people from all over Baltimore County and city as well.
11:32: We've got three or four elders now, four deacons. And I'm just grateful for what the
11:38: Lord's doing there as He's growing the ministry, just on the Word of God. So now we're a church that believes in the exposition of God's Word in every service and the sufficiency of God's Word in every ministry.
11:51: And really no tricks or gimmicks, just trusting in the Word of God to do the work that He does.
11:57: And God's Word performs its work in those who believe. So it's been a blessing to be a part of it.
12:04: Amen. And I know that you are having, as I said earlier, you're having Dr. Irvin Bayway speak at the
12:12: Baltimore Bible Church in February of 2026. Tell us about that. Yeah, that's correct.
12:18: And just a little bit of a background on how some of this got started. It was back in 2022,
12:26: I taught at a conference with Paul Washer. I was invited to teach at a conference.
12:32: And after the conference, Paul and I shared a lunch together and just asked
12:37: Paul, you know, what are you excited about in missions right now? I know you're involved in missions all over the world.
12:43: Is there a certain place that's really on your heart that you're excited about? And he turned to me and he says, brother,
12:49: I just got to tell you, I'm so excited about what's going on in Africa right now. And you've got to see the work that the
12:55: Lord is doing. I told him about Conrad and Bayway. I was familiar with him because of some of the conferences that I've heard
13:03: Conrad speak at. And he says, brother, you just have to see what the Lord's doing. Churches are being planted.
13:08: Missionaries are being sent out. Young men are being trained for ministry. The Lord is really doing the work there.
13:15: So in 2023, I joined a team of brothers to go and see the work that the
13:21: Lord was doing firsthand. We came to the Zambia Reformed Conference. I got to know
13:27: Conrad a little bit more personally while I was there. Voddie Backham was also there during that time.
13:33: Got to share a meal with him and talk to him about the work that the Lord was doing. And after returning from my trip, just in my conversations with Paul Washer, he says, brother, what would you think about a conference that might introduce some of the people here in the
13:52: States to what the Lord is doing? And again, the work that the Lord was doing was really extraordinary.
13:58: And that's not just my words. That's what others are saying as well, as the church is really being built and ministries are growing and prospering.
14:08: Schools, as Dr. Conrad has already shared, there's school work that's being done, university work, and just a lot of impact that the church is able to have.
14:21: So we started talking about the idea of a conference and inviting some of these brothers to come over and share a little bit of what the
14:29: Lord is doing there, to give us a window into what the Lord is doing. And as I started talking about the conference with others, a lot of men from the
14:40: Masters Seminary, from the Masters Academy International, Paul Washer himself, as well as Conrad, wanted to join us for this conference.
14:48: We've got a number of brothers who are also coming from the African continent to be with us.
14:54: So it's going to be a great time. It's February 28th is the date of the conference, right here in Baltimore, Maryland, at Morgan State University.
15:04: It's going to be a full day conference where we'll hear from Paul Washer, Conrad Mbewe, Nathan Busenitz, who's vice president of the
15:13: Masters Seminary. We'll also have Carl Hargrove, who is one of the elders at Grace Community Church, Mark Tatlock, who's the president of the
15:23: Masters Academy International, and a number of missionaries from Africa who will be with us just to share what the
15:32: Lord is doing and really the impact of the Word of God. And there's kind of two kind of emphases.
15:38: There's, you know, what can we learn? Because there's definitely things that we want to learn from what these brothers are doing, but also how can we support the work that the
15:47: Lord is doing? So it's really about the glory of God and celebrating the work that the Lord is doing.
15:52: So just very excited to have this conference. And we're really hoping that the Lord will use it just to really inspire people, to equip people with the
16:01: Word of God and celebrate, you know, the work of the Lord. And for more details on Baltimore Bible Church, go to baltimorebiblechurch .org.
16:13: Baltimorebiblechurch .org, and all of the contact information that you will need is on that website.
16:21: Well, as you know, Pastor George, we have a tradition on this program. Whenever we have a first -time guest, we ask that guest to give a brief summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which that guest was raised and what kind of providential circumstances our
16:43: Sovereign Lord rose up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. So we would love to hear your story.
16:51: Well, thanks for giving me the opportunity. I'm just grateful for the ways that the
16:57: Lord opened my eyes to the truth. I grew up in a oneness Pentecostal church. For those that may not know what that is, it was a church that denied the
17:07: Trinity. We didn't believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believed in a Unitarian deity, and it was all
17:15: Jesus' name only. It was also a church that's been called Jesus' name or Jesus' only church because they only baptize in the name of Jesus, and they believe that baptizing a person and declaring the name
17:30: Jesus over that person when they're being baptized, that that's the moment of salvation, that somehow the work of God is applied to their life in the waters of baptism.
17:40: So it's a baptismal regeneration type of understanding of salvation.
17:46: So it was a salvation by works because baptism is a work. We're submitting ourselves to baptism.
17:53: Jesus Himself spoke about baptism as fulfilling righteousness. So it was a belief in salvation by works, and it was also a belief in a different understanding of God.
18:03: So I grew up in that church. I grew up in Albany, New York. My father actually pastored a church in Brooklyn, New York, for nine years.
18:11: So we would drive from Albany to Brooklyn, which is a three -hour drive one way.
18:17: We'd leave 6 a .m. in the morning, arrive at church at 9 a .m. He'd stay there all day, and we'd close up the church 9 o 'clock at night and then drive back home to Albany at 12 midnight is when we'd get home.
18:30: And that was my life on the road and just seeing the dedication of my dad and thinking that this was the right way.
18:37: I just believed that I was saved because I was baptized in the right name, and the right name was declared over me when
18:43: I was baptized. But if somebody were to ask me, if you were to die, do you know where you're going?
18:51: I'd always have that question mark in the back of my mind because I just knew that something was wrong with my life.
18:57: I was convicted over my sin. And it was during my college years, about my second year in the college,
19:07: I had a trip to Washington, D .C. My uncle was over a building project there, and I came to do some summer work with him.
19:19: And I was introduced to some people from the Calvary Chapel that introduced me to the
19:25: Salvation by Grace. They started trying to figure out where I was theologically. And when
19:31: I told them that I'm saved because of my baptism, I've been baptized in the right way, they just started confronting me with the
19:38: Scriptures. And every time I'd argue, they'd show me another passage in Scripture. And I eventually realized that I wasn't arguing with them,
19:46: I was actually arguing with the Bible because the Bible was confronting me about who the true
19:51: Jesus was, the true way of salvation by grace through faith because of Christ. And I remember one particular conversation because, again,
20:00: I'm believing that Jesus Christ is just the personal name of the Father, and the
20:06: Father was the one who is personally in Christ. And even the death on the cross, believing that it was the
20:15: Father who was on the cross who was dying for the sins of the world. It's an ancient heresy called modalism. I remember the one brother said, you know, so when
20:22: God is on the cross, you believe that the Father and Jesus are the same person? I said, yes.
20:28: He says, when the Father is on the cross, in your view, the Father is on the cross. But then
20:34: Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He said, who is left to pay the sins of the world?
20:40: Like, who is on the cross at that moment? If the Father's turned away, is it just a body that's paid for the sins of the world?
20:47: And I remember I couldn't answer the question. I was stumped. And I went home that night, and it's like everything made sense.
20:56: You know, salvation is only by grace. It's only through Christ that the salvation has nothing to do with my baptism.
21:02: Like, all of a sudden, the lights turned on. The Lord really used this conversation to turn the lights on for me.
21:09: I went home, and I confessed my sins to the Lord. I told the Lord, I never really knew who you were.
21:15: I didn't understand these things. First time I called God Father, because we were taught to only call
21:22: God by the name of Jesus. It was my first time calling God Father. And the next day, my life was just totally transformed.
21:29: I wanted to share the gospel with everybody moving, because I knew that my sins were forgiven, that I had a relationship with Jesus Christ.
21:37: And I remember going home that summer, and I had an opportunity to speak at my old church.
21:44: And they wanted me to speak about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I just learned that, you know, and baptism, you know, for them, everything came through baptism.
21:54: I just learned that baptism didn't save you. So I was able to speak to my entire congregation and let them know that baptism doesn't save you.
22:02: We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. And you can go down a wet devil and, you know, go down a dry devil and come up a wet devil, were my words back then, and just share the truth, what
22:16: I knew about the truth. And I remember after that time, my father confronted me about my new beliefs, actually told me that if I continued to believe in the
22:28: Trinity, he was going to pull me out of college. But I knew that I had been transformed, and I couldn't turn away from the truth.
22:36: I remember going back to college and, you know, talking to some of the friends that I had before, sharing
22:43: Christ with them, going back to D .C. and sharing, you know, kind of my experience. And I remember having an opportunity to talk with my father again.
22:54: And after I studied a little bit more and could, you know, understood my faith a little bit more and how to share it with him,
23:02: I sat down and had a conversation with my dad and said, you know, dad, you know, if you continue to believe what you're believing, you're going to die in your sins.
23:10: You have a different view of Christ. You have a different view of salvation. What you believe in is not a saving faith.
23:16: And it was two months after that conversation, my dad passed away. But I knew in my heart that I shared, you know, everything that I knew with my father and trust, you know, his soul in the hands of the
23:28: Lord and, you know, pray that the Lord would have used that conversation to change my dad's heart.
23:33: But after that, my family has come out of that church. You know, grateful for that.
23:38: My mom is now a part of our church here in Baltimore. My sister's also, you know, come out of that church.
23:44: And praise God, just grateful for the ways that the Lord has worked in my life. But that's how the Lord drew me to faith.
23:51: And I'm just grateful for his work because it's a sovereign grace. Hallelujah.
23:56: What a great story. And I'd love to have you back on the program when we have more time to specifically go through a lot more details about the heresy of the
24:06: Oneness Pentecostal movement. We have addressed that on this show a number of times with different guests, but I would love to hear in more detail your story at some future interview.
24:18: But we're going to go to our first commercial break. And when we return, we're going to have both of my guests, especially
24:25: Conrad, since he knew him so closely. We're going to have a tribute to the late
24:33: Votie Baucom. And then we will move on to the broader topic of the work of our sovereign
24:41: Lord on the African continent. And if you'd like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
24:51: chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least city and state of residence and country of residence.
24:58: If you live outside the USA, don't go away. We will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.
25:05: I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
25:11: Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.
25:19: At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune
25:35: God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.
25:43: In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every
25:49: Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.
25:57: That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.
26:12: This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.
26:19: Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.
26:28: Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our
26:40: Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.
26:47: If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some
27:00: Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.
27:10: Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.
27:18: This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign
27:24: Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.
27:42: I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.
27:47: I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,
27:53: Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
28:00: It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim
28:18: Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
28:25: I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.
28:34: For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net,
28:41: that's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711, that's 631 -696 -5711.
28:55: Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
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32:14: At Lindbergh Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired
32:20: Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.
32:32: We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.
32:48: Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear
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33:02: Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit LindberghBaptist .org,
33:09: that's L -Y -N -BrookBaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbergh Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
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36:49: Dr. Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and also
36:55: Pastor George Lawson of Baltimore Bible Church in Maryland. And we are going to begin the program by paying tribute to Vodi Balcom.
37:06: This is the first time I have been able to do this tribute, especially since I have had very few live interviews since my traveling has been quite extensive lately, going to different conferences and things like that.
37:25: But I am so delighted that we have the opportunity to pay tribute to such a great hero to many of us,
37:34: Vodi Balcom. And Dr. Conrad Mbewe, you, as you said earlier, invited
37:42: Vodi to Africa where he brought his entire family.
37:50: I believe you said it was 2015. I might be mistaken. But tell us, first of all, how you became initially aware of Vodi Balcom.
38:01: Yeah, what had happened was that in the year 2006,
38:09: Paul Washer was visiting Zambia. He had preached the year before and now wanted to introduce a few
38:17: American pastors to what he had found in Zambia. So 2006, he came back.
38:25: And as he was leaving, he says to me, Conrad, I know just the right guy for you to invite, come and preach here.
38:35: His name is Vodi Balcom. Have you heard of him? And I heard it.
38:41: So, but I trusted Paul sufficiently, known him by that time for about six years.
38:49: So I said, please, by all means, go and get his body to see if he can come over and preach.
38:58: And sure enough, Vodi agreed. And in the year 2007, he came, that particular year, he just came with his son,
39:08: Trey, come and preach. And then he, yeah, kept coming until 2015 when he finally moved here.
39:20: And there was a specific reason you invited him to move there. It had something to do with working with the African Christian University, correct?
39:28: Well, not quite. You see, what happened was that the very first time Vodi came, as he was going back, he said to me,
39:37: Conrad, we're passing by a house that was on sale. So he said to me,
39:44: Conrad, I'd like to buy that house and move here. Wow.
39:49: I thought he was joking. So that was in 2007.
39:59: Then he came again in 2011.
40:08: And I remember his statement then was, hey, Conrad, we had agreed that that house,
40:16: I was going to buy it. And this time, by the way, he came with his wife,
40:23: Bridget. And he said to me, I want Bridget to love this place so that she can agree that we move here.
40:35: He came again in 2012, 2014. And he kept increasing the number of members of his family he would come with.
40:47: And again, he would say, Conrad, pray that Bridget will agree to come here.
40:56: So in 2014, he then said, Bridget has agreed to come and live here.
41:05: So please pray that she doesn't change her mind. She has to go back to the
41:11: U .S. A few months later, he calls me from the U .S. And says,
41:18: Conrad, I have resigned my job here, getting ready to move to Zambia.
41:25: And then he adds in that phone call that my elders were asking me what
41:31: I'll be coming to do in Zambia. And then he says, Conrad, you haven't given me a job yet.
41:39: What will I come to do? So that was quite hilarious. But the man was serious.
41:47: Well, thankfully, just a few weeks earlier, the dean of our School of Divinity had just resigned to go back to the
41:56: U .S .A. So that's how I would say to him, brother, there's a job waiting, dean of the
42:05: School of Divinity, and showing up. August 2015,
42:14: Vody arrived with his entire family. Well, no, no, seven of the nine children in his train together with his wife,
42:27: Bridget. Praise God. That's how it came. And what do you remember most about Vody, the man?
42:38: And what do you miss most dearly about him? Well, first of all,
42:47: I mean, it's to do with his preaching. One of the reasons why he kept coming back was that the
42:58: Zambians had loved the preaching of Vody Boka. And so you can imagine five times within a period of about eight years, he kept coming back.
43:11: And we loved his preaching. He came and basically continued his preaching ministry.
43:20: He joined Kabote Baptist Church soon after he came, and we gave him at least 10
43:26: Sundays a year, which would have been just a Sunday every month to fill the pulpit and preach.
43:37: So that was lovely. And then Vody was very clear in terms of the
43:45: Reformed Baptist position. It was his conviction, but there was also great clarity.
43:55: So whether you were dealing with covenant theology, or you were dealing with Baptist ecclesiology, or you were dealing with the end things, the end, the last things rather, and so forth.
44:17: Vody was very clear, and in any discussion, you could see that he was very, very comfortable in that position.
44:26: So he was a great asset to Zambia in that sense. The first thing that I would mention is that although Vody was involved in a lot of battles on the
44:38: American continent, the things to do with war theology and so on, the homosexual agenda, the abortion issues, and so forth, we hardly ever heard that from his lips in Zambia.
45:00: I think he knew, because he had mingled in now, that those were not the battles that were happening on our side of the
45:09: Atlantic Ocean. So he was basically a full -on expositor of God's Word, pointing us to Christ, constantly pointing us to Christ.
45:24: And as I was saying at his memorial, all you need to do is to listen to the sermons he preached when he was in Zambia, and you will notice that.
45:38: But yes, on social media, you could see that he was sustaining a battle on the
45:48: American side. If I could just add one more element, and it's the fact that in the university, he helped to establish the biblical worldview in the various schools.
46:09: He made sure that it became part of the very atmosphere of the university.
46:19: And then, because he was the School of Divinity Dean, he also ensured on that side that we ended up with the graduate level of studies.
46:35: Yes, as a man over his home, he was also a great example. He loved his wife.
46:42: He loved his seven plus two children that were out in the
46:48: USA. His life revolved around them. He was very involved in their home education, just ensuring that they were grounded in the historic faith of our fathers, even while they were being taught by him, by his wife, and others that were coming to the home.
47:15: So you couldn't miss it. A man was being a godly husband and a godly father, and so forth.
47:24: I could say a lot more, but that was our brother in many ways.
47:32: In the church, he wasn't trying to drive from the backseat.
47:40: He always made it clear that he had no personal agenda. He wanted to do what we had asked him to do, and that's what he was doing.
47:50: Somewhere in between, he moved with my eldest son. When my son launched out, we sent him to plant a church in one part of the city.
48:05: Voddie moved there as well, and was just helping to, as it were, disciple this younger pastor as he was getting the church off the ground.
48:18: Yeah, and also our son, Voddie, was getting ready to plant a church near Voddie's home.
48:28: And we only found out afterwards that Voddie was also in discussion with him, wanting to provide his home as the initial place where the church would start from.
48:40: And yeah, so he was a wonderful servant of the
48:45: Lord to be with in Zambia. We loved him. We loved his wife
48:50: Bridget very, very much. She was an integral part of his life in every way.
48:58: Yeah, my family and his integrated exceptionally well in every sense.
49:06: So, yeah, the Lord's taking him to his reward. Amen. Yes, I did not know
49:14: Voddie nearly as much as you did, but I did have the honor and privilege to meet him face -to -face on a number of occasions, having attended a number of the conferences where he spoke.
49:30: I had the privilege of one interview with him that was conducted on site at a
49:37: G3 conference when he happened to be providentially wandering by my exhibitor's booth.
49:44: And I called over to him, and he graciously accepted my invitation to sit down and be interviewed.
49:52: And I am honored to know that every time that I saw him after that at different conferences, he immediately recognized me, gave me a big bear hug.
50:04: And thankfully, my spine was not broken by those hugs. And he was just a pleasure to meet a man of not only his physical stature, who a high -ranking jujitsu expert.
50:26: And I believe, did he not open up the first Brazilian jujitsu school in Zambia?
50:32: I heard that. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah, he did. Yeah. And he, in spite of not only that, his impressive physical strength and presence in that regard, and also his being globally renowned as a powerful preacher, teacher, and author.
51:02: He, every time that I saw him, had a very palpable essence of deep humility emanating from him.
51:17: I never recognized a conceited swagger or a boastfulness or arrogance that some folks less sanctified, even if they were
51:32: Christian, might possess if they had his fame and his physical abilities and so on.
51:40: But he just seemed to carry himself as a humble servant of Christ.
51:47: And the church is certainly at a loss without him. And we look forward to being reunited with him in glory one day.
52:00: And when we come back from our midway break, I'd like George Lawson to chime in with any words of his own about how
52:09: Vodi and his ministry may have impacted him and his life. I'm sure
52:16: Pastor George joins me in our sadness over how many of the
52:26: Black evangelical pastors in our nation were disappointed with Vodi because, sadly, the woke movement had captured the attention and approval of many men who even agree with the three men on this program today, theologically, but who somehow got drawn in, sucked in, to embrace the woke movement, social justice warrior movement.
53:01: And Vodi was always crystal clear that he radically and sternly opposed those ideologies because of his commitment to the
53:12: Scriptures. And perhaps George will have something to say about that as well, being a
53:19: Black pastor in Baltimore, Maryland. But we'll have him chime in after we return from our midway break.
53:28: And once again, if you have any questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
53:37: chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the
53:45: USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.
54:05: Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,
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54:22: Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is
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54:47: Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.
54:52: Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the
54:57: Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great
55:07: Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,
55:18: Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.
55:24: For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.
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01:02:36: Tell them Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
01:02:51: Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.
01:03:00: At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession, we embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune
01:03:15: God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.
01:03:23: In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every
01:03:29: Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.
01:03:37: That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.
01:03:54: Greetings. This is
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01:04:30: But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
01:04:43: Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur, and the film
01:04:51: Chariots of Fire. The Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's pleasure when he ran.
01:04:58: He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God. I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.
01:05:10: That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.
01:05:22: I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the
01:05:29: Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.
01:05:38: That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.
01:05:48: That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.
01:06:07: God bless you. Welcome back. Before I return to my conversation with Dr.
01:06:15: Conrad Beyway and Pastor George Lawson, I have some important reminders for you.
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01:08:45: Lord's Day giving to your own church in order to bless us. Never do that. And if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're back on your feet and more financially stable before you bless us financially.
01:08:57: But if you are blessed financially above and beyond, your ability to provide for church and family, and you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and even trivial purposes, well, if you love the show and don't want us to go off the air, please consider sharing some of that money with us by going to irontripandzionradio .com,
01:09:16: click support, then click, click to donate now. Last but not least, if you're not a member of a
01:09:22: Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, or like Baltimore Bible Church in Maryland, no matter where you live on the planet earth,
01:09:37: I have lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe. And I have helped many people in our audience all over the planet earth find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even just a few minutes from where they live.
01:09:50: That may be you too, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful church home. No matter where you live in the world, send me an email to chrisarnsonatgmail .com
01:10:00: and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Dr.
01:10:07: Conrad Mbewe and Pastor George Lawson. chrisarnsonatgmail .com gives you a first name at least, city and state and country of residence.
01:10:15: And a doctor, or should I say Pastor George Lawson, if you could let us know how you came to meet the late
01:10:24: Vodie Baucom and what he and his ministry have come to mean to you. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to share.
01:10:33: I first learned about Vodie Baucom during my years in seminary, during my time at the
01:10:38: Master's Seminary. So that was between the years of 2006 and 2010 when
01:10:44: I first started hearing the name Vodie Baucom and some of the preaching of Vodie as well.
01:10:50: I first heard him preach in person at a shepherd's conference back in 2012. And really came to appreciate not only his preaching, but also his defense of the faith in the public square, his willingness to stand up for the truth, even under fire.
01:11:09: And there were a number of interviews that Vodie Baucom had where it was obvious that the interviewers had no idea who they had on their hands because Vodie would refuse to back down when it came to the truth of scriptures, whether that had to do with gender roles or biblical sexuality.
01:11:28: And then back in 2020, in the middle of all the controversy around Black Lives Matter and critical race theory,
01:11:35: Vodie was really a faithful and a biblical voice for the truth in the midst of a fog of confusion.
01:11:41: And so just very thankful for just his clarity around those issues, just very helpful.
01:11:49: And then back in the summer of 2023, I had my first personal meeting with Vodie as I shared during my trip to Africa, where I and a number of men were invited to share a meal with him in his home.
01:12:03: He was hospitable, he was gracious, he was transparent, he was committed to his family.
01:12:09: And behind the scenes, he was just a lot of fun, just a lot of fun around the table and afterwards.
01:12:15: And since then, since that time, we've communicated back and forth a number of times.
01:12:20: And just two weeks before he passed, I had a personal Zoom call with Vodie and he was actually trying to work out a schedule to join us for the
01:12:31: Roots in Reformation conference that we're having in February. So two weeks before he passed, we were on the phone.
01:12:38: And then two weeks later, he was home in glory. And I'm just grateful for his life, for his ministering, for his clarity, for his boldness, for the truth.
01:12:48: And it seemed just at the time when his voice needed to be heard the most and when it started to be heard the most was also the time that the
01:12:56: Lord took him home. But just grateful for the truth that he stood on. And as the apostle
01:13:03: Paul, he spoke with the Ephesian elders. He said, I commend you to the word of God's grace that's able to build you up.
01:13:11: So we have the truth of the word. And we know that the Lord is still on his throne and now
01:13:18: Vodie is before the throne of God. So just grateful for just the lion in the pulpit that he was and just the tender heart that he had behind the scenes.
01:13:27: And definitely we'll miss the brother. And yeah, so just grateful for the opportunity to get to know him personally and that we still have so many of his sermons that we can go back and listen to his books that we can sit down and read.
01:13:44: And he accomplished more in his 56 years of life than many who have a lot longer than that.
01:13:50: So I'm just grateful for the ways that the Lord has used them for the sake of the kingdom. Amen. And we do have a listener.
01:13:59: Carmine in the Bronx, New York has a question for Dr. Conrad Mbewe.
01:14:06: He says, Dr. Conrad, I was wondering if you could give us any more information on how
01:14:13: Vodie passed. Alls I was able to read on the internet was that it was the result of a medical incident.
01:14:21: Is there anything more that you can say? Very little.
01:14:29: I mean, he had expressed a sense of tiredness to his wife.
01:14:38: It was due to have his review. At the end of the year.
01:14:45: Medical review? At the same, a medical review. So, and on that particular day, they were relaxed watching television.
01:15:01: When, yeah, he suddenly began to lose consciousness, was fighting to,
01:15:11: I suppose, get his breath. Um, back. And, uh, yeah, they tried to use
01:15:21: CPR to, uh, keep him going. Called 911.
01:15:28: They, they rushed it. But in the midst of all that, yeah, he, he became unconscious.
01:15:35: They tried to revive him. Nothing. Rushed him to the hospital.
01:15:42: Uh, and he was pronounced dead. So. They were taken by surprise.
01:15:49: It was late afternoon going into early evening when that happened.
01:15:56: Yes, quite a tragedy, but. Only a tragedy for those who remain on earth who knew and loved him.
01:16:05: He is obviously not having any regrets where he is now. In the very presence of his
01:16:13: Lord and savior who he served faithfully for so long. And, uh, obviously.
01:16:20: Uh, we would love to have been the beneficiaries of him serving a lot longer here on earth.
01:16:26: He was such a young man, uh, comparatively at 56. Uh, that is, uh, uh,
01:16:35: I guess it's, uh, seven years younger than me. But, um, we shall, uh, we shall miss him and his teachings that are thankfully available in print.
01:16:50: And on YouTube and in sermon audio and other. Venues, uh, will bless the body of Christ for, for many years to come.
01:17:00: Uh, well, uh, we will now shift gears to. Enter into our discussion on how the
01:17:10: Lord is continuing to powerfully use. Uh, Kabwatha Baptist church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.
01:17:19: Uh, to spread the gospel of God's sovereign grace. On the
01:17:24: African continent and beyond the African continent. Uh, it's, uh, by the way,
01:17:31: I'm going to do a bit of bragging here, Pastor George, I hope you don't get too jealous, but I happen to be.
01:17:39: Privileged with a historical fact regarding our brother, Dr. Conrad Mbewe.
01:17:46: Uh, the church where I was saved on Long Island, New York. Which was originally called
01:17:51: Calvary Baptist church of Amityville, but then after a merger in 1995 became grace reform
01:17:58: Baptist church of Long Island and Merrick, New York. Uh, that was the, the very church where Conrad Mbewe preached in the
01:18:07: United States for the very first time. And I had the honor and privilege of being present for that conference.
01:18:15: Uh, it was a three day conference. I can remember, uh,
01:18:20: I worked for WMCA radio at the time and I created a commercial using a very powerful clip of Conrad's preaching.
01:18:31: And, uh, inviting people to the conference or phones at the church were ringing off the hook.
01:18:38: Uh, prior to that, uh, three day conference. And we had over the three days, not including our own members.
01:18:49: We had over 500 visitors over those three days. And, uh, amazingly many, if not most of those visitors were
01:19:00: Pentecostals. And, uh, I can remember, I can remember getting calls myself.
01:19:08: I had an office in the church building, uh, because I, uh, was working with WMCA radio and they, uh, the station, uh, paid for my office rent in free advertising.
01:19:24: But I can remember over and over and over again, hearing, uh, from listeners who were calling, uh, to find out more about the conference who were primarily
01:19:34: Pentecostal. They would say over and over again, I must hear that man. He has the anointing.
01:19:40: He has the anointing. And, uh, I agree with them on that a hundred percent.
01:19:47: Uh, but, um, so tell us, uh, Conrad, uh, why don't you give us a breakdown on the progression of the extent of how the
01:19:59: Lord has been spreading the doctrines of sovereign grace and used
01:20:04: Caboita Baptist Church to plant many other churches of, of the same theological perspective for foreign
01:20:12: Baptist. Tell us about, uh, how this is progressed to the point that we are now witnessing in 2025.
01:20:24: Yeah. Well, you know, so it was very difficult to, to be, um, be a historical narrative when you're a part of it.
01:20:38: Yeah. So, um, but let me try. I think in the late 1970s, going into the early 1980s, we, we had a pastor at Lusaka Baptist Church.
01:20:57: His name was Joseph Fokwe. He, he, he inherited a series of messages in the book of Romans.
01:21:07: He took over the pastorate when they were just entering into Romans chapter five, and he basically finished off the book of Romans over the years.
01:21:19: He was the first Zambian pastor there and, uh, had trained in, uh, the
01:21:27: UK at Spurgeon's College. And, uh, his, his ministry really impacted many of us.
01:21:35: We were invested students then, we were, uh, hazy in understanding of salvation, but anybody going through Romans five, six, seven, eight, you know, without a firm grasp of salvation, um, in terms of the five solas, it's probably not converted at all because that's, that's the rich vein, uh, of, uh, sovereign grace in salvation.
01:22:08: So many of us came to embrace, uh, the doctrines of grace then, and we were also pointed to burn of truth books.
01:22:19: So we taught them, we, uh, devoured them, not knowing what
01:22:27: God was going to do with our lives. Uh, we finished university studies, went to work in various parts of Zambia, and we just couldn't fit into the churches that we were finding there.
01:22:42: So that's how we went back to Lusaka Baptist Church as individual, not knowing that most of us were doing it.
01:22:50: And, uh, the pastor then Joseph Foko just advised us to just start churches and that Lusaka Baptist Church would support.
01:23:00: So those would have been the first few Reformed Baptist churches, I would say in the second half of the 1980s.
01:23:10: At that time, it was largely around the, uh, the doctrines of grace.
01:23:18: However, in 1989, the second
01:23:24: London Baptist Confession of Faith clocked 300 years, and a preacher from the
01:23:34: United Kingdom by the name of Ashu Blades, a very close friend to Al Martin in the
01:23:43: USA. He came with a lot of copies of, uh, the 1689
01:23:51: London Confession of Faith. And we, we read, we were seeing it for the first time, read those copies and said to ourselves, this is it.
01:24:05: This is representing our position. And so at least three of our churches proceeded to adopt the
01:24:15: Confession of Faith by 1990, 1991.
01:24:21: And those would have been the first churches with a full of Reformed Baptist position.
01:24:30: And, uh, a number of others that had come out of that initial
01:24:37: Lusaka Baptist Church diaspora, as it were, within Zambia, a number of them also got, began to adopt the
01:24:47: Confession of Faith. So we began a conference, the same one that, uh, our brother
01:24:54: George attended, and we began it in 1990.
01:25:01: So right now it's been running for about 35, 36 years, and it became the running point for the, the young churches, uh, but in due season, words spread into other
01:25:19: African countries. So we began to have a number of them coming over to attend the conference.
01:25:28: Initially, we specifically wanted international preachers because we were all quite young.
01:25:36: We were like between the age of 25 and 35, and we just needed to add age to our claim that this was nothing new.
01:25:47: So we got quite a number of preachers from England, Scotland, from the
01:25:54: USA, and so forth that were coming to add that extra weight to what was happening.
01:26:03: Then a number of our churches, Kabwatha Baptist Church included, took on a deliberate effort to start planting churches across Zambia, and then from there across the continent of Africa.
01:26:21: One aspect that helped us was the intern, pastoral internship program, where a number of guys come in from across Zambia and across Africa to spend a year in our churches in Lusaka, and then who, as we born, these would be sent out to go and plant churches in the capital cities of their nations.
01:26:52: And out of that, we've seen churches planted in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, all the way to Sierra Leone.
01:27:10: And then other parts of Africa have also just embraced the light that they've come to know of in Zambia.
01:27:22: And although we did not directly plant churches there, there are churches that have since been established in countries like Kenya, countries like Uganda, and of course
01:27:35: South Africa has been a major boost. Other churches have been planted in Nigeria, Tanzania, and so forth.
01:27:49: And then other independent movements have begun.
01:27:55: I know there's Fali in Madagascar, who's also doing an incredible work there.
01:28:03: Charles Woodrow, who's a missionary in Mozambique.
01:28:09: There's a great work that's happening there. And we've begun to hear of other small but growing movements in places like Ghana, the
01:28:25: Gambia, and so forth. So it's just a, yeah, I mean, a movement of God that's spreading like wildfire across the continent of Africa, for which we're grateful, because it's giving the charismatic movement a run for their money, so to speak.
01:28:48: Previously, there wasn't a movement that was really challenging it, but now from what
01:28:56: God is doing, there's a biblical movement, one that is around the exposition of scripture, consecutive exposition of ministry, churches that are built solidly on a biblical view of the church, and so forth.
01:29:17: So yeah, a number of training facilities that began in different parts of Africa, South Africa, Zambia, of course, with the
01:29:31: African Christian University. Our friends in Kenya have two colleges that are running that are squarely on a reformed path.
01:29:44: Uganda, I've heard of one, I'm yet to relate to directly, and so forth.
01:29:51: So there are quite a number that are beginning to deliberately train pastors.
01:29:59: And then Nine Marks is also having its own influence on the continent through a number of other pastors, for which we're grateful.
01:30:10: So we can't claim total ownership of it, of the reform movement. There's in Zambia, there's also a, we normally refer to them as Faith Baptist Churches, but it's related to a missionary called
01:30:28: Phil Hunt. They've put up a seminary as well there that's also moving in that direction.
01:30:36: I know in December they'll be having Tim Chalice, they'll be having H .B.
01:30:41: Charles there, and a few other guys. So, you know, the reform movement is generally spreading across Africa from a number of different angles.
01:30:56: Now, I'd like to have George Lawson ask a question in a moment, but I just wanted to have you clarify something.
01:31:05: I know that Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio does have some charismatic and Pentecostal and non -cessationist listeners.
01:31:15: We always have since we launched in 2005. And they may think that it was unnecessary of you to bring up the fact that there was an unchallenged message from the charismatic movement until the growth of the
01:31:33: Reform Baptist movement there in Africa. But as you have said while preaching here in the
01:31:41: United States, that the charismatic movement here in America is like kindergarten compared to what has been going on in Africa, where you'll even have evangelical pastors or professedly evangelical pastors that bear very little difference between the local witch doctor and their own role as a pastor of a professedly evangelical
01:32:12: Christian church. If you could just mention that briefly, and then we'll have Pastor George chime in.
01:32:19: Yeah, well, I think it's simply the fact that they need to visit
01:32:27: Africa and see for themselves what we are up against.
01:32:34: Whereas, yes, we had the traditional sort of Pentecostal Assemblies of God kind of Pentecostal movement where we could disagree doctrinally on the cessation or continuation of the extraordinary gifts.
01:32:56: But beyond that, we were able to sit in same conferences, preach together, minister to students in colleges and universities and so on, knowing that it is more or less the way we've differed with pedobaptists, for instance, on the issues of baptism.
01:33:18: However, what has evolved out of that is something that even the old -time guys are very concerned about, because it's basically a kind of deliverance movement, but within the wider charismatic position that is the equivalent of the village witch doctor, basically.
01:33:48: It thrives on claiming all kinds of miracles in terms of giving you five bank accounts, giving you a husband, enabling you to have children, and so on and so forth.
01:34:06: Anything that you want, which the witch doctor in the village does. A job, if you're trying to get a job, and so forth.
01:34:17: Getting back your lover who's abandoned you. I mean, literally anything. And it's that which became a hurricane that was destroying so much of the real
01:34:35: Christianity as we know it from the Bible. Thanks for asking for that clarification. Tom Hanks Yes, Your Honor.
01:34:41: Just before we move on, I think it would be helpful for you to share just some of the stories that you've heard out of that movement.
01:34:51: I know we shared a little bit about even the ways that some of these pastors are taking advantage of their sheep, and there was even one that literally had members of the church go out to eat the grass on the front of the lawn of the church—literal grass—in order to receive some kind of blessing from the
01:35:15: Lord. Really bizarre, you know, the kind of authority that some of these pastors are claiming for themselves in opposition to the
01:35:24: Word of God. But do you want to share a little bit about that? Tom Hanks So my church stopped doing church discipline by making me eat grass.
01:35:33: Just kidding. Yeah, it's a bizarre story, but unfortunately, the kind of thing that happens when people remove the authority from the
01:35:43: Scripture and place it on the supposed man of God behind the pulpit. But you want to share about that kind of thing?
01:35:49: Yeah, there's been stories like that that have been really ridiculous.
01:35:56: The story that you just mentioned is, again, a preacher in South Africa in that category who told his congregation to go out and eat grass.
01:36:13: And sure enough, they did, and many of them felt terribly ill that they had to bring in medical people and take them into hospital and so on.
01:36:27: We've also had a number of hundreds of deaths in Kenya where the government just had to move in and go and start digging up shallow graves.
01:36:40: That's been very recent as well. The specific pastor is undergoing trial at the moment.
01:36:52: Again, it's many individuals. A number of African governments are trying to step in now because their citizens have been financially defrauded from their little earnings that they have.
01:37:10: It's all been swept away. Again, claiming that they should be planting seeds for them to get their miracle.
01:37:19: A number of women have been sexually abused.
01:37:26: One particular case in Zambia, the guy impregnated 10 women in his congregation.
01:37:33: Ten. And all this is not news in every corner. It's what's on headline news in newspapers.
01:37:43: It's in the law courts and so on. So, yeah, it's terrible.
01:37:50: Thanks. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, and we have to go to our final break. And if you'd like to join the conversation, we do have a few people who have also sent in questions waiting to be asked and answered.
01:38:03: You could join them. And if we have time to read your question, that will be of benefit to our audience.
01:38:12: Please submit that question immediately because we are rapidly running out of time.
01:38:19: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.
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01:45:31: Associates, from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we are now back with Dr.
01:45:37: Conrad M. Bayway and Pastor George Lawson. And we do have a listener from Canada.
01:45:47: We have a listener, Timothy N. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, who says,
01:45:56: Dr. M. Bayway, is there anything that you could explain about the spiritual soil of Africa that made it ripe to receive the doctrines of sovereign grace in such a profound way, unlike the battles that we seem to see here in the
01:46:13: United States with many people resisting this teaching? Yeah, well, in a nutshell,
01:46:23: I mean, first of all, it's clearly the work of the Spirit. The Spirit blows whatever
01:46:29: He wills. He is sovereign and sends revival to different parts of the world in His own time, often at the back of praying people.
01:46:48: There's been really an act of God. But number two, it's the fact that many of us are first generation
01:47:01: Christians. What tends to happen in places like the
01:47:08: U .S. is that the reformed faith and Christianity generally has been around for hundreds of years.
01:47:20: And so, you know, people have developed a resistance towards that which
01:47:29: God is doing. And then it's largely been like taking things for granted, what we call the scene of the third, fourth and fifth generation.
01:47:43: They end up with a
01:47:48: Christianity that's really like a social environment rather than a robust faith.
01:47:58: Whereas what's been happening in our part of the world is, you know, a younger generation that has come to embrace the evangelical faith for the first time.
01:48:11: And though their families would have been churchgoing, but it's really a dead kind of liberal environment.
01:48:24: And now that they've embraced this, thankfully, quite a number of stumbled across the reformed faith, the doctrines of grace for the first time.
01:48:34: So that's been part of the excitement. Then there's been the internet that has exposed them to the ministries of people like John MacArthur, John Piper, Paul Washer and so on.
01:48:51: And they've just fallen in love with what they've come across.
01:48:58: So that has built upon the books that challenged many of us in the 1980s, 1990s and so on.
01:49:12: So young people on their cell phones, their smartphones are just downloading messages, listening to them across the continent.
01:49:23: So I think that's the way that I'd explain it. But remember, we began with a sovereign work of God by His Spirit.
01:49:33: Mark, we have Roberto in Anaconda, Montana.
01:49:41: And Roberto asks, have you seen many Pentecostals, especially those who were pastors, come to embrace the doctrines of Reformed Theology?
01:49:54: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Right across the continent. Wow. Praise God.
01:50:01: Yeah. I can give name after name in different countries.
01:50:09: That's definitely happening. As I said, many of them, it begins with one or two messages that shocks them.
01:50:19: Then they begin to use the Internet more, to read further, to listen more.
01:50:27: And yeah, a point comes when they just can't continue in that context.
01:50:36: And they move on to start other churches.
01:50:42: Now, are most of these formerly
01:50:47: Pentecostal pastors who come to embrace Sovereign Grace, are most of them becoming cessationists, or do they retain their
01:50:56: Pentecostal distinctives? I would say most of them become cessationists.
01:51:04: But yeah, they're a number that I would say, I would use the word, are trying to remain sort of middle of the road.
01:51:15: So they're not pushing their continuationist position.
01:51:21: But they're sort of just saying, well, look, you know, in this area, we are open.
01:51:29: I think that's the position that they tend to take. But on the doctrines of grace and the general principles of the
01:51:39: Reformed faith, they've definitely crossed over. Okay.
01:51:44: Pastor George, do you have any questions for Dr. Cameron? Well, I've got plenty of questions for Dr.
01:51:51: Conrad, but I would just chime in really quick and say that this is exactly why we're having this conference in February, the
01:52:00: Roots and Reformation Conference. And again, you can go to rootsandreformation .org,
01:52:07: because the work that the Lord has been doing in Africa is really, really remarkable.
01:52:13: Across the continent, our brother Conrad mentioned, our brother Folly Ravwangi in Madagascar, and just the training of pastors that he's doing there.
01:52:25: There's another brother, master seminary graduate in Ethiopia, Abra Adulla.
01:52:33: And he's actually in charge now of the largest
01:52:39: Baptist denomination that's there in Ethiopia, responsible for the training of 10 ,000 pastors, and really across the denomination.
01:52:49: I mean, that's in the millions of people who are impacted by those churches. So, the reform movement, it's not just in Zambia, but it's kind of spreading throughout the continent.
01:53:01: The Lord is doing a remarkable work as people are discovering the doctrines of grace, as people are understanding the impact of expository preaching, called back to the scriptures.
01:53:13: And that's what I saw while I was there. It's what Paul Washer saw, and it's also what Voddie Bauckham saw as well, and really drew him to that part of the world.
01:53:24: But I did have one question. I think this would be interesting for your listeners to hear this, but Dr.
01:53:30: Conrad, can you share with Chris and the listeners the beginnings of ACU and the connection with MacArthur and Piper?
01:53:40: Because I don't think a lot of people know this story. Yeah, yeah. Interesting, yeah.
01:53:46: I should have mentioned that. So, you know, at the time we're beginning our university, the private universities—not even private prison, but private universities—were a new phenomenon in Zambia.
01:54:03: So, the Zambian government had come up with a watchdog, a legal framework that would then license and accredit universities, private universities.
01:54:15: And one of the conditions they gave was that we needed to have two accredited universities anywhere in the world that would endorse this new project of a university in Zambia.
01:54:36: So, I began to—I was the founding chancellor, so I began to speak to a number of seminaries and Christian universities in the
01:54:53: U .S., and yeah, they were warm. But the moment
01:54:58: I then said, okay, so we need a letter from you that says you're willing to stake your reputation on this,
01:55:06: I hardly got any until two individuals, both of them by the name of John—John Piper and John MacArthur.
01:55:20: I specifically recall John MacArthur being in his office introducing the subject, and I was shocked.
01:55:28: I was expecting the usual resistance, but no, he was extremely warm.
01:55:34: He called Mark Tutlock into his office, told him to get that letter ready and everything, and wow,
01:55:42: I couldn't go on. I know time is running out. But just to say that these two men were willing to stake their reputation in order to support a project for which
01:55:56: I'm most grateful. Hallelujah. Well, we are out of time. Brother Conrad M.
01:56:04: Bayway, forgive me for calling you Cameron before, I had just had it pop into my head a dear friend of mine who has been in heaven for well over a decade now,
01:56:15: I believe, Robert J. Cameron, who was in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor in New Jersey.
01:56:24: But Brother Conrad, I just want to thank you for tolerating me and keeping our friendship intact and even strengthening over the nearly three decades that we have known each other, and it's absolutely amazing.
01:56:46: It's amazing that it's been nearly 30 years since you first preached that sermon on American soil at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick.
01:56:56: I want to remind our listeners that the website for African Christian University is acu -zambia .com
01:57:10: and also acu -usa .com. And let's not forget about the
01:57:19: Caboita Baptist Church website for that church in Lusaka, Zambia, caboitabaptistchurch .com,
01:57:28: caboitabaptistchurch .com, and that's spelled k -a -b -w -a -t -a -baptistchurch .com.
01:57:36: And then please do not forget about the event featuring
01:57:41: Dr. M. Bayway and also Paul Washer on Saturday, February 28th at the
01:57:47: Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland. That website is baltimorebiblechurch .org,
01:57:55: baltimorebiblechurch .org. And last but not least, all men in ministry leadership, please mark on your calendars that my next
01:58:04: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, which will feature Dr. Conrad M.
01:58:09: Bayway for the second time, is going to be held Thursday, March 5th, 2026 at Church of the
01:58:19: Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. And not only is admission free and your lunch free, but every man attending gets a heavy sack of free brand new books personally selected by me and donated by generous
01:58:33: Christian publishers across the United States and the United Kingdom. And if you'd like to register for that, just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,
01:58:43: chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line.
01:58:49: You can also find out more details about the luncheon at ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:58:56: Both of you men, Dr. Conrad M. Bayway and Pastor George Lawson, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules to be with me on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:59:08: And if you could just hold on for a moment so I can give you a more proper goodbye off the air.
01:59:13: But I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater