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”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on the 16th day of October 2025.

I am sorry about my less than spectacular voice today. 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. But we all heard last month the tragic news of one of the giants of 20th and 21st century Christianity, Vodie Baucom, had entered into glory at the age of 56.

That is quite a bit younger than myself, and this was quite a shock to most of us. Although we knew that Vodie was suffering with heart problems for quite a while, it still came as quite a shock. 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 Vodie, 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 Vodie Baucom than Dr. Conrad Mbewe, a pastor of Kobata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, author, highly sought-after conference speaker, and founding chancellor of African Christian University.

He is joining us today. We are going to begin the program by paying tribute to Vodie, and then we are going to be moving on to a broader topic of how our sovereign Lord is furthering the kingdom of Christ and spreading the gospel of sovereign grace on the African continent, and we will be joined by George Lawson as well, pastor of Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland, who is also a board member at the Master's University and is currently in a Ph .D. program at Baptist Bible Seminary, and we are going to all discuss that and give you the announcement of an upcoming Bible conference in February of 2026 where Dr. Conrad Mbewe is speaking at Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland, and he is also, not long after that, once again going to be my Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon Speaker.

That will be on Thursday, March the 5th, 2026 at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in Perry County, Pennsylvania. But first of all, let me introduce my two guests one at a time.

Dr. Conrad Mbewe’s Ministry in Zambia and African Christian University

First of all, welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Conrad Mbewe.

Thank you. I'm glad to be with you, Chris. Thank you for having me on the program.

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.

All right. So Kabwatha Baptist Church began, it'll be 40 years next January, and yeah, currently we have a membership of about 430. Wow. Mostly younger generation that would be below the age of 50. Yeah, we've got 10 elders, 10 deacons at the moment, generally going well.

Church planting is a large part of what we do, planted between 40 and 50 churches across Zambia and across Africa. Yeah, it's a Reformed Baptist Church, one of the first few Reformed Baptist churches in Zambia, planted by the 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 Reformed Baptist churches in the world.

Well, God's been gracious to us in blessing us that way, yeah. Then we also have a major project of establishing a university, a liberal arts university called the 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.

We have about 100 students at the moment, learning agriculture, business, education, and theology. And our theological wing is at graduate level, so we've got a Master of Arts in pastoral theology. And that's where Vodipoka came to join us in 2015 and spent nine years with us and left December last year only to graduate to heaven within the first year of his return to the U .S.

So that's what I would say about the two institutions.

Well, if anybody wants more details on these wonderful organizations, first of all, Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa has a website, kibwatabaptistchurch .com, K-A-B-W-A-T-A baptistchurch .com.

And then the African Christian University has two websites. One is acu-zambia .com, that's acu-zambia .com, and also acu-usa .com, acu-usa .com. And we'll be repeating that information later on in the program.

And as I also said, we have been joined by my second guest today, George Lawson. And as I mentioned earlier, Pastor George Lawson is the pastor of Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland. And he is also a board member at the Master's University and is currently in a Ph .D. program at Baptist Bible Seminary.

Pastor George, thanks for being on the program. This is, I know, your first guest appearance on the show on our live edition. 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.

Well, it's a joy to be here. And one small correction on the introduction. I'm actually in my THM at the Master's Seminary right now, but that's on the path towards Ph .D. if the Lord wills. So I just wanted to make that one correction.

But I'm very glad to be on here.

Okay. Well, I don't even know where I got that information from, but I got it someplace that looked trustworthy, 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. But anyway, just to be honest.

Oh, so I did get that from the Master's University website.

You did. That's a reputable place to get information from. But unfortunately, they haven't updated my bio. But I'm grateful to serve there and just grateful for what the Lord's doing.

Well, tell us about the Baltimore Bible Church in Timonium, Maryland.

So Baltimore Bible Church was planted back in 2013. It started as a Bible study in 2012 with 15 people in the Bible study, just in a basement. 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 Lord's grown the church since that time.

We're right now just about 250 adult members and I think about 150 kids. So we've got just many, many people from all over Baltimore County and city as well. We've got three or four elders now, four deacons.

And just grateful for what the 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.

And really no tricks or gimmicks, just trusting in the word of God to do the work that he does. And God's word performs its work in those who believe. So it's been a blessing to be a part of it.

Amen.

And I know that you are having, as I said earlier, you're having Dr. Irvin Bayway speak at the Baltimore Bible Church in February of 2026. Tell us about that.

Yeah, that's correct. And just a little bit of a background on how some of this got started. It was back in 2022. I taught at a conference with Paul Washer. I was invited to teach at a conference. And after the conference, Paul and I shared a lunch together and just asked Paul, you know, what are you excited about in missions right now?

I know you're involved in missions all over the world. Is there a certain place that's really on your heart that you're excited about? And he turned to me, he says, brother, 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 Lord is doing. He told me about Conrad and Bayway. I was familiar with him because of some of the conferences that I've heard Conrad speak at. And he says, brother, you just have to see what the Lord's doing.

Churches are being planted. Missionaries are being sent out. Young men are being trained for ministry. The Lord is really doing the work there. So in 2023, I joined a team of brothers to go and see the work that the Lord was doing firsthand.

We came to the Zambia Reformed Conference. I got to know Conrad a little bit more personally while I was there. Voddie Backham was also there during that time. 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, you know, just in my conversations with Paul Washer, he says, brother, you know, what would you think about, you know, a conference that might introduce some of the people here in the States to what the Lord is doing?

And again, the work that the Lord was doing was really extraordinary. And that's not just my words. That's, you know, what others are saying as well, as the church is really being built and ministries are growing and prospering.

Schools, as Dr. Conrad has already shared, you know, there's school work that's being done, you know, university work and just a lot of impact that the church is able to have. 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 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 Masters Seminary, from the Masters Academy International, Paul Washer himself, as well as Conrad, you know, wanted to join us for this conference.

We've got a number of brothers who are also coming from the African continent to be with us. 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.

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 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 Masters Academy International, and a number of missionaries from Africa who will be with us just to share what the Lord is doing and really the impact of the word of God.

And there's kind of two kind of emphases. 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 Lord is doing?

So it's really about the glory of God and celebrating the work that the Lord is doing. 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 word of God and celebrate the work of the Lord.

And for more details on Baltimore Bible Church, go to BaltimoreBibleChurch .org, BaltimoreBibleChurch .org. And all of the contact information that you will need is on that website. 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 sovereign Lord rose up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.

So we would love to hear your story.

Well, thanks for giving me the opportunity. I'm just grateful for the ways that the 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 Trinity.

We didn't believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believed in a Unitarian deity. And it was all 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 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.

So it's a baptismal regeneration type of understanding of salvation. So it was a salvation by works because baptism is a work. We're submitting ourselves to baptism. 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. 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.

So we would drive from Albany to Brooklyn, which is a three-hour drive one way. 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.

And that was my life, you know, on the road. And just seeing the dedication of my dad and thinking that, you know, this was the right way. I just believed that I was saved because I was baptized, you know, in the right name.

And the right name was declared over me when I was baptized. But if somebody were to ask me, you know, if you were to die, do you know where you're going? I'd always have that question mark in the back of my mind because I just knew that something was wrong with my life.

I was convicted over my sin. And it was during my college years, about my second year in the college, 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.

And I was introduced to some people from the Calvary Chapel that introduced me to the Salvation by Grace. You know, they started trying to figure out where I was theologically. And when I told them that, you know, I'm saved because of my baptism, I've been baptized in the right way, they just started confronting me with the 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. I was actually arguing with the Bible because the Bible was confronting me about who the true Jesus was, the true way of salvation by grace through faith because of Christ.

And I remember one particular conversation because, again, I'm believing that Jesus Christ is just the personal name of the Father. And the Father was, you know, the one who is personally in Christ. And even the death on the cross, believing that it was the Father who was on the cross, who was dying for the sins of the world.

It's an ancient heresy called modalism. And I remember the one brother said, you know, so when God is on the cross, you believe that the Father and Jesus are the same person? I said, yes. He says, when the Father is on the cross, in your view, the Father is on the cross.

But then Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He said, who is left to pay the sins of the world? 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?

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. You know, salvation is only by grace. It's only through Christ that the salvation has nothing to do with my baptism.

Like, all of a sudden, like the lights turned on. The Lord really used this conversation to turn the lights on for me. I went home and I confessed my sins to the Lord. I told the Lord, I never really knew who you were.

I didn't understand these things. First time I called God Father because we were taught to only call God by the name of Jesus. It was my first time calling God Father. And the next day, my life was just totally transformed.

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. And I remember going home that summer and I had an opportunity to speak at my old church.

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. 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. 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 I knew about the truth. And I remember after that, that time, my father confronted me about my new beliefs. Actually told me that if I continued to believe in the 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. I remember going back to college and, you know, talking to some of the friends that I had before, sharing 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. And after I studied a little bit more and understood my faith a little bit more and how to share it with him, I sat down, 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.

You have a different view of Christ. You have a different view of salvation. What you believe in is not a saving faith. And it was two months after that conversation, my dad passed away. But I knew in my heart that I shared everything that I knew with my father and trust his soul in the hands of the Lord.

And, you know, pray that the Lord would have used that conversation to change my dad's heart. But after that, my family has come out of that church, you know, grateful for that. My mom is now a part of our church here in Baltimore.

My sister's also, you know, come out of that church and praise God, just grateful for the ways that the Lord has worked in my life. But that's that's how the Lord drew me to faith and just grateful for for his work because it's a sovereign grace.

Hallelujah. 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 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.

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 Conrad, since he knew him so closely. We're going to have a tribute to the late Vodie Baucom.

And then we will move on to the broader topic of the work of our sovereign Lord in or on the African continent. And if you'd like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at Gmail dot com.

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So please go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I'm now back with my guests, Dr. Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and also Pastor George Lawson of Baltimore Bible Church in Maryland.

And we are going to begin the program by paying tribute to Vodi Balcom. 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.

But I am so delighted that we have the opportunity to pay tribute to such a great hero, to many of us, Vodi Balcom. And Dr. Conrad Mbewe, you, as you said earlier, invited Vodi to Africa, where he brought his entire family.

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.

Voddie Baucham’s Preaching, Humility, and Service in Zambia

Yeah, what had happened was that in the year 2006, Paul Washer was visiting Zambia. He had preached the year before and now wanted to introduce a few American pastors to what he had found in Zambia. So 2006, he came back and as he was leaving, he says to me, Conrad, I know just the right guy for you to invite, come and preach here.

His name is Vodi Balcom. Have you heard of him? And I hadn't. So, but I trusted Paul sufficiently, known him by that time for about six years. So I said, please, by all means, go and get this Vodi to see if he can come over and preach.

And sure enough, Vodi agreed. And in the year 2007, he came, that particular year, he just came with his son, Trey, come and preach. And then he kept coming until 2015, when he finally moved here.

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?

Well, not quite. You see, what happened was that the very first time Vodi came, as he was going back, he said to me, Conrad, we're passing by a house that was on sale. So he said to me, Conrad, I'd like to buy that house and move here.

Wow.

I thought he was joking. So that was in 2007. Then he came again in 2011. And I remember his statement then was, Conrad, we had agreed that that house, I was going to buy it. And this time, by the way, he came with his wife, Bridget.

And he said to me, I want Bridget to love this place so that she can agree that we move here. He came again in 2012, 2014, and he kept increasing the number of members of his family he would come with.

And again, he would say, Conrad, pray that Bridget will agree to come here. So in 2014, he then said, Bridget has agreed to come and live here. So please pray that she doesn't change her mind and go back to the U .S.

A few months later, he calls me from the U .S. and says, Conrad, I have resigned my job here, getting ready to move to Zambia. And then he adds in that phone call that my elders were asking me what I'll be coming to do in Zambia.

And then he says, Conrad, you haven't given me a job yet. What will I come to do? So that was quite hilarious. But the man was serious. Well, thankfully, just a few weeks earlier, the dean of our School of Divinity had just resigned to go back to the U .S .A.

So that's how we said to him, brother, there's a job waiting, dean of the School of Divinity. And sure enough, August 2015, Vody arrived with his entire family. Well, no, no, seven of the nine children in his train together with his wife Bridget.

Praise God.

That's how we came.

And what do you remember most about Vody, the man, and what do you miss most dearly about him?

Well, first of all, I mean, it's to do with his preaching. One of the reasons why he kept coming back was that the Zambians had loved the preaching of Vody Bokom. And so you can imagine five times within a period of about eight years, he kept coming back.

And we love this preaching. He came and basically continued his preaching ministry. He joined Kabote Baptist Church soon after he came and we gave him at least 10 Sundays a year, which would have been just a Sunday every month to fill the pulpit and preach.

Yeah, so that was lovely. And then Vody was very clear in terms of the Reformed Baptist position. It was his conviction, but there was also great clarity. So whether you were dealing with Heaven and 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.

Vody was very clear, and in any discussion you could see that he was very, very comfortable in that position. So he was a great asset to Zambia in that sense. The third thing that I would mention is that although Vody was involved in a lot of battles on the 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. I think he knew, because he had mingled enough, that those were not the battles that were happening on our side of the Atlantic Ocean. So he was basically a full-on expositor of God's Word, pointing us to Christ, constantly pointing us to Christ.

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. But yes, on social media you could see that he was sustaining a battle on the 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. He made sure that it became part of the very atmosphere of the university.

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. Yes, as a man over his home, he was also a great example. He loved his wife, he loved his seven plus two children that were out in the USA.