Aug. 4, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Rich Jensen on “Ecumenism: Biblical vs. False!”

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth.

Listening via live streaming, this is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this fourth day of August 2015 and I'm so delighted that I have as a guest today a man who is actually one of my very first guests ever hosting a talk radio program.

That's my friend Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island, New York and years ago when

I was working for WMCA Radio, a satellite radio station of the

Salem Media Group, which is the largest radio network in the world, largest

Christian radio network in the world, when I was working there in their New York City affiliate,

WMCA, which was actually at the time located in northern New Jersey, they gave me the opportunity to fill in for the host there,

Andy Anderson, who is currently with the Lord and Andy Anderson recommended that when he was on vacation that I fill in for him that day and that began my bug for radio and one of my very first guests was

Pastor Rich Jensen and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Rich Jensen.

Hi Chris, how you doing? It's a pleasure to be with you again, although I don't know if you've told everybody just how you started that program which set all of your guests back a little bit.

Yeah, why don't you tell everybody? Well, we were sitting there around the table and you were hosting and the radio and the light came on and you said, the

Calvinists have taken control of the studio. Andy Anderson is bound and gagged and under the table.

Yes, I do remember it well and amazingly they still invited me back a number of times to host the program when

Andy was out. In fact, I was the first host after Andy went home to be with the

Lord suddenly and tragically. He had had cancer for years and no one had known it and so he departed very quickly after being diagnosed finally and the very first person

I asked to fill in for him for I believe two weeks was myself and that really launched my bug to begin hosting a radio program which eventually came about on WNYG and WGBB in Babylon, Long Island and that was the beginning of Iron Sharpens Iron between 2006 and 2011 and my guest today,

Pastor Rich Jensen was a frequent co -host and guest on that broadcast and it's great to have you back and in fact it's great to welcome you for the very first time to the all -new

Iron Sharpens Iron. Again, it's good to be here, Chris. Today we're talking about ecumenism, biblical versus false ecumenism, and this is a very vital issue in the church today and there are many differences of opinions that exist within the body of Christ on how to approach this subject.

There are even different differences of opinion within the Reformed or Calvinistic community and even the

Reformed Baptist Church at large which both Pastor Rich and I are a part of and before we even go into the subject at hand, tell our listeners something about Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, I'm sorry,

Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island and the ministry there.

Well, again, we're located in Medford right on Route 112 in the Brookhaven Executive Center, pretty much in the heart of Suffolk County.

We're a growing congregation. We've been in existence for 19 years. We were a church planned from Grace Reformed Baptist in Merritt.

We currently have a little over 100 people attending Sunday mornings and constantly growing.

The church is involved in numerous outreach. We still have some doing street evangelism.

We're looking for community outreach as the church is growing. But the Lord is blessing us here and we have a great congregation and very supportive and especially of the

Doctrines of Grace. It is hard to believe that it's been 19 years because it was like yesterday when

I remember you first started the church. Yeah, in fact, our first service was actually

Father's Day of 1996 and we've grown from that. It was very humble beginnings.

But again, the Lord is just blessing us here and we're just pleased.

I can't believe it either. Next June we'll be celebrating 20 years. In fact,

I had the distinct privilege of being at your ordination exam. Oh, yes.

That was very interesting. Yes, it was. Twelve men and only three Calvinists on the council.

I think that the roughest spot you had was because you're a post -millennialist. That's true.

What was interesting, I don't know if you remember this, I love little ironies. I was ordained, it wasn't too long after Easter, and we were using a classroom.

This was at Calvary Baptist Church up in Port Jefferson. All the Easter flowers had been taken away and as I was defending the

Doctrines of Grace, I was surrounded by tulips. And that was not by your design.

No, it wasn't by my design. That was pointed out by somebody in the gallery who was watching the ordination. Well, it's so great to have you as a part of the program again and we look forward to this discussion.

If anyone listening has questions regarding, you can ask questions regarding Reformed Baptist distinctives in general and so on, but particularly we would love to hear from you about ecumenism, what your questions are regarding that, the cooperation of denominations, individual congregations, and church members with other denominations, congregations, and church members from different backgrounds, and of course that also would include people from very similar backgrounds.

That is what we are discussing today. How are we to set up boundaries and be obedient to the scriptures when we practice ecumenical relationships with other professed

Christians? Why don't you first start off with what you would call a biblical definition of rightful ecumenism?

Well, I mean, I think even how we define these things, we need to be very careful.

I mean, obviously, I mean, the Roman Catholic Church always defined ecumenism as, you know, you had to be a part of the one, the true

Catholic Church. And they would define that as the Roman Catholic Church. I mean, obviously,

Christ has only one church, but that is divided into various congregations with varying theological perspectives.

And I think from a biblical perspective, if anyone is a true believer, there has to be a certain amount of fellowship between members of the true

Church of Christ, even though we might be in separate congregations. The issue that comes up isn't, because look, this side of paradise, the chance of having, you know, the one true church is going to be slim, you know.

But that doesn't mean that we don't have fellowship with one another, or that we should just shut ourselves out from one another, of members of the true church.

And I think that's what the issue really comes down to, is discerning, you know, to what degree can

I have fellowship with somebody who's a professed believer, and to that extent.

Well, you are a Reformed Baptist, as has already been made clear, even by the name of your church. There are some

Reformed Baptists who really, even if they don't have it written down somewhere, they only in practice have any kind of fellowship with other

Reformed Baptists, or at least others who are Calvinist. Is that your practice?

And if not, how do you go about, what are the boundaries that you have fellowship with those that are not theologically

Reformed or Calvinist? Well, again, I think you have to come back to and answer the question from a theological base.

I think one of the problems that we have in the church today is, aside from a very small slice of the church, people just want to deal with practicalities, okay?

And I think that's where we have so many problems. We have to start in dealing with the theological answer to the question.

But then that plays out in different ways in practice. For example, would I just allow anybody to come into my pulpit, and especially somebody who has what

I would consider to be a wrong view of the Gospel, or even a wrong view of sanctification and those type of things,

I might think that they are true believers, but I have an obligation as an elder, as a pastor of a church, to protect my pulpit and to protect my flock from what

I would consider to be false teaching, even if the person was a true believer.

And so that would come into play. But does that mean that I can have no fellowship with them, or should

I shun that person? And I don't think that that's really the answer. It's a question of, you know, how does the view, the difference in the views of what the

Scripture teaches how does that affect the activity that you're doing?

For example, I'll just come right out with it. I mean, obviously, being a Reformed Baptist and a member of an association that has some very specific views,

I take a secessionist view of the signed gifts as displayed in the

Scriptures. And so I could not have a joint service, so to speak, or have somebody in my pulpit who would be advocating somebody practicing those gifts, because I would think it is an error, and I would have to do that.

Now, does that mean that I can't do other things with that person? No. Could we have fellowship in, you know, sitting around a table and having a meal, in a pastor's fellowship, or even the churches working on community outreach together?

I think, of course, we can do things like that. Well, going back to who you allow into the pulpit, you did say in that description that you wouldn't want them advocating a non -cessationist view behind the pulpit, but you have had a dear brother in Christ who's now with the

Lord, Al Stein, who was a pastor of the

Neighborhood Assembly of God in Belmore, and he is thoroughly Calvinistic, especially now that he's in glory.

But he was, before departing this earth, a thoroughgoing Calvinist, but a non -cessationist.

And he also would have shared the abhorrence and the opposition that you and I have to much of the extreme and dangerous and heretical practices in the

Pentecostal and charismovement, even though that he was himself in that denomination, and in fact an overseer in that denomination.

And, of course, our mutual friend who is still with us, Pastor Jim Campo, of the Massapequa Church of God, which is a

Pentecostal denomination, and Pastor Jim, who doesn't define himself as a Pentecostal, is still nonetheless a, he's not a hardcore continuous or non -cessationist, but he isn't a hardcore cessationist either.

But he's a thoroughgoing Calvinist and believer in the doctrines of grace. So you did welcome them to preach from your pulpit, so maybe if you could explain the difference there.

Yeah, I think the difference is really quite clear, I think, especially the relationship

I had with Al Stein was a very good relationship, and it wasn't just a casual relationship.

In fact, we were on your show together a number of times. Yes. When I was headmaster of the

Christian school, he opened his church to allow us to have school functions in his church.

We had numerous theological discussions, and something that's near and dear to my heart, and that is true biblical counseling.

And when he counseled, I mean, he was strictly from the scriptures.

I allowed him in my pulpit, and my congregation was extremely blessed during the time that he, the one time that he was in my pulpit.

I trusted him that he would not bring up any areas of difference, and he lived up to that.

Just the same, and look, I would certainly have a Presbyterian come and fill my pulpit, especially somebody from the

OPC, but before I would, I would trust that that person would not try to preach on baptism.

So, I mean, even though we have some theological differences there, I think we can do that. And Al was one of those men, and by the way,

I had the highest regard for him and his views, and even though we had some differences, in most cases he and I were more in line theologically than I am with many other

Baptists. So I think I fit the criteria of guarding my pulpit by having him here.

And Jim Capo, Jim Capo's a Reformed Baptist, he just doesn't know it yet. Well, I hope he's listening.

I would say that to his face. Yeah, well, I think he even calls himself a non -cessationist

Reformed Baptist or something like that. And so we have the recognition that we have brothers in Christ who disagree with us, and I'm not going to say they're trivial matters, but they disagree with us on matters that are not damaging to the

Gospel or blurring to the Gospel or in opposition to the Gospel. And we feel free to, with folks like these, have joint services where there's no expression or outward manifestation of signed gifts or anything like that.

But then you come to the next category where you can have fellowship on a one -on -one level or in a level that is outside the confines of a church worship service where you're just a brother and a friend to a

Christian who disagrees with you. For instance, a Pentecostal brother who may be very sound in many ways, but he is very zealous about his view on the gift of tongues and other things and really can't suppress speaking about it.

You wouldn't want him behind your pulpit, but you can have many areas of fellowship with somebody like that. Absolutely. And the key here is, and this is why

I think we have to be careful of even how we define and not allow ourselves to be pigeonholed by the word ecumenism or are you an ecumenical?

You know what I mean? Because we might be defining those words differently.

There is no way that I would consider myself a proponent of the ecumenical movement. We have to stand on truth.

Truth divides. That's simply the way it is. So the idea is,

I can have fellowship, even have two churches fellowship together and do community outreach projects as churches, but that doesn't mean that we could necessarily have a joint worship service, nor would that necessarily be beneficial.

And I think you have to be mature enough to recognize that those differences are there and still advance the kingdom of God.

Look, the scripture makes it very clear. How many times did Jesus say, look, if they're not against us, they're with us.

If they're non -believers, then of course we treat them completely different, but if they are true believers, we better treat them as part of the body.

And I think sometimes in our zeal for our doctrine, we can shut out somebody who is a true believer and not even have fellowship with them.

And I think that's going beyond what the scripture teaches. Yeah, it's a very dangerous thing to set yourself up as an enemy to an individual for whom

Christ died. Absolutely. And of course, Pastor Rich and I, being

Reformed, we believe that Christ died for his elect and for his church. We don't believe that he died for every single human being that ever lived and ever will live, even those who will be in hell, because we believe that his atonement was perfect.

He actually definitely atoned for the sins of those for whom he died, and he definitely redeemed them and will bring all of them to glory with him.

So that's why I used that phrase before. And of course, there are times when it's not necessarily a theological issue that would bar you from full communion with another church.

You may have a church down the road that has the same confession of faith that you do, but if you believe that they're disobedient in some very serious matter where they are not disciplining either members or the leaders who have been involved in unrepentant sin, especially when it's open and scandalous, you wouldn't want to join in union with them while that is continuing, would you?

No, I think you're absolutely right. And I just want to refer back a little bit to what you were talking about of setting ourselves up as the judge and who

Christ died for. Remember, in Romans 14, the apostle makes it very clear, talking about matters where we have disagreements, matters of conscience, and things like that.

And in that case, he's talking about was eating things that somebody considered to be unclean.

And remember what he said. He says, because of food your brother has hurt, you are no longer walking according to love.

Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. And I think that's such a crucial verse.

If they're a brother in Christ, Christ died for them. And how dare we set ourselves up and injure the person for whom

Christ died? And that's the whole point that Paul is getting at in that text in Romans 14.

And now let's move on to the matter that is of most crucial importance today, or the biggest problem that we see that has been going on for decades, is the modern ecumenical movement.

And as you said earlier, you don't want to identify yourself as a part of the ecumenical movement because that phrase has a lot of baggage with it.

That has attached to it the notion, and there are obviously different varieties and levels of this modern ecumenism.

You may have some who believe that you at least need as a common denominator a belief in Jesus Christ, the

Son of God, and so on. But even beyond that, there are even more liberal churches that have fellowship with synagogues and mosques and so on, and other institutions where Christ is rejected and denied as being

God in the flesh, and denied in his resurrection, and so on, and all of his attributes, or his deity especially.

But if you could start with the most common one that affects even conservative

Christians today, or conservative professing believers today, you have many in the conservative evangelical movement who are completely fine, their conscience is not troubled by ecumenical relationships with the

Roman Catholic Church. You have even Billy Graham. The Billy Graham Crusades has had

Roman Catholic priests participate in counseling people who come forward for salvation.

That's what in their mind that they are doing when they come forward. And the

Billy Graham Crusade Association has a strict policy that if you are a counselor, you cannot deter someone who comes to you, you cannot deter them from returning to the

Catholic Church. In fact, I believe that if they are Catholic, that's the only place you can refer them to, if you could take up from there.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is exactly where you see things going too far.

There are so many errors in the Roman Catholic Church that would hinder somebody from coming to salvation.

Their whole view of salvation is opposed to the biblical mandate of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.

And so to in some way say that we can partner with somebody who is preaching a different gospel mitigates against what

Paul says in Galatians. And so that clearly, anybody who is teaching a different way to be saved,

I don't see how we can partner with them at all. And there we have to take a stand.

And in some cases, even a strong stand where somebody might consider our words to be unkind.

Not that we should ever be unkind, but in our day and age, if you just say something like, no,

I disagree with you, people consider that to be unkind. Or you're wrong. If you tell somebody you're wrong today, they say you're unkind.

But I think we have to stand up, and when we have an error such as what Rome preaches as salvation, we have to be able to stand and say, no, that is not correct.

That's not what the scripture teaches. And so how can you have fellowship with somebody who is preaching a different gospel?

So I think right there is, I mean, I think that's an easy one. But now, that being said, though,

Chris, let me say this. I think we have to be careful how we deal with individual Catholics.

There's a difference from decrying and standing against the doctrine of Rome, and that's a big difference in dealing with individual

Roman Catholics that we come in contact with. And there, I think, you know, obviously we need to treat them with love, with kindness, and to gently persuade them of the error of the doctrine of Rome, and show them the truth according to the scripture.

Yes, there are Catholics who either through naivete, ignorance, and so on, of what their own church dogma is as a

Catholic, who actually believe in the biblical gospel. And there are some who defiantly, as a

Catholic, believe in the biblical gospel and choose to remain in the Catholic Church because they think they're going to be the next visitation of Martin Luther or something, and they think they're going to bring about reform or whatever reason it may be.

Sometimes it's just because they want to protect their marriage from breaking apart, or they want to protect themselves from being shunned by their own family.

It could be a number of things. But there are Roman Catholics who do believe in the biblical gospel. They very often have some of the other baggage of Rome, but that is the crucial issue, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. And I would agree with you because I have met, I have counseled with people who are just like that.

And I think that sooner or later, someone who is in the

Roman Catholic Church and has come to true faith, I think you'll find that sooner or later they do wind up coming out because they realize, there comes a point where they realize that they're going to wind up coming out of the

Catholic Church. But again, that's a very difficult thing.

And lest people begin to think that we're just a couple of nasty, bigoted, hateful people, long before you and I were born, the

Council of Trent in the 1500s, after the Reformation, anathematized or pronounced curses upon those that believe in the gospel of the

Reformation that you and I believe is biblical. That anyone who would believe that good works are just the fruits of true justification and not any kind of a co -meritus agent with faith, that we are cursed.

And so the onus is really upon Rome to retract that, but it never has and most likely never will because that would be an admission that they declared something to be dogma that wasn't true.

Yeah, and again, I think what you just said goes right in line with what

I was talking about before, that as soon as you stand against something, somebody says that you're unloving. Quite the opposite.

Here at HOPE, we don't preach, quote, an anti -Catholic doctrine. And I don't want to be known as being anti -anything.

I want to be known as being pro -Christ. And I think how we teach and how we preach can give a certain perspective, and that's where we have to be careful.

My wife is a former Catholic, and I would say that probably at least 50 % of my congregation are former

Roman Catholics. So, I mean, we don't do, quote, Catholic bashing here.

Our goal is to love the Roman Catholic, to show them the gospel, to show them the error that their church is teaching as compared with what the infallible word of God says, and to win them to Christ in that way.

And you do that by befriending them, by loving them, and showing them the love of Christ, not by coming after them with a club.

And I think that's one of the things that I constantly try to tell my congregation.

We have a group in particular that is very active in going out in street evangelism.

They go out about once a month onto the streets and, you know, just stopping people, giving them tracts and talking to them and whatnot.

And I think we need to be careful that not only are we giving the true message, all right, but we also have to be concerned about the fact that we are giving the message in grace and in love and in an attitude of compassion because that's exactly what

Christ did. When you look through the scriptures and see how Christ dealt with the sinner, it was always out of compassion and with style.

I tell them style counts, you know. I mean, I can do several different ways of telling somebody they're going to hell.

I mean, I can do it with red veins popping out of my face and, you know, pounding the table and screaming at them that you're going to hell.

Or I can, with tears in my eyes and with compassion, admonish them if they don't repent they're going to hell.

And I choose the latter. I think far too often Christians are painted with a bad brush because that's the picture they give to the general public and especially to the media.

I think we have to be very cautious about when we stand before the media, when we stand before, you know, judges, et cetera, that we are respectful, that we are of all the most gracious people because we are the recipients of that amazing grace.

We have to go to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, you can email that question to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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That's wrbc .us. Well, welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor Richard Jensen, who is a retired homicide detective from the

Suffolk County Police Department on Long Island. And he is now and has been for the last 19 years the pastor of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island.

And that is in Suffolk County, Long Island. And just out of curiosity, let's just before we revisit or return to,

I should say, our main theme, how did the calling to become a pastor become known to you by God in light of the background of you being a police officer and you being a homicide detective?

What was the things that occurred to transition you in the realization of where your true calling was?

Well, I had been in homicide for a period of time. And, in fact,

I closed out my career. I did my last eight years of my 20 in homicide as a detective sergeant.

And in investigating death, it's not at all like what they show on television.

A lot of it is routine. A lot of it is mundane. There certainly is the excitement, especially when you're making the arrest.

But a good part of it is dealing with the victim's family.

And you find yourself in a position where you become almost a counselor to them.

And I'm talking about anybody because they're constantly calling. They want to know what's going on. You want to make sure that you're dealing with them right.

They've suffered a great loss. And so a lot of that was going on. And what I found was that my

Christian faith was very, very helpful. And even though, as a public servant, you're supposed to be careful about sharing your faith,

I found that I had numerous opportunities. One, to share the gospel very forthright, even when

I couldn't do that necessarily. But giving biblical principles and comfort and bringing them into the

Psalms for comfort and things like that. And it was during that that I really started having a heart for people.

And at the same time, the pastor of our church, I had been made a deacon in the church.

And he was selecting a few men that he thought had the gift to preach or teach.

And he started a mentoring group. And I became part of that group. Part of that was going to the

Moody Bible Institute Pastors Conference every year, which is usually around the

Memorial Day weekend. And starting to go to that and listening to the speakers and interacting with them.

Usually they had between 1 ,000 and 1 ,500 pastors there. And interacting, that was how I first started to feel the call.

And a good friend of mine, somebody that, he was a former

New Jersey state trooper. And I don't know if many of you listeners may know him,

Tom Smith from New Jersey. They had started a police fellowship.

And I got to know Tom through that. And he actually left the state police,

I think he had about 15 years. And he didn't even wait for retirement, but was called to the ministry and had become a pastor.

And has had a vibrant ministry for many, many years there in western

New Jersey. And he and I talked a little bit about, you know, how do you know

God's call and those type of things. And he gave me some tremendous insight. But I just started to realize that there was a greater calling.

I mean, here I was called to help people after somebody had been killed. You know, and then putting the bad guys away, et cetera.

And coming into the ministry, we have an opportunity to affect people before they get into trouble.

And so that's kind of the transition. And my wife and I just started praying about it.

And sure enough, we started looking around after I had retired for some sort of ministry.

Wasn't sure if it was going to be pastoral ministry or not. And I wound up being called by my own church to the assistant pastorate.

And that's how it came about. And then ultimately, you know, planting

Hope Reform Baptist Church. Yes, and I remember that well and was a part, a member of the church that first cooperated with you in the planting,

Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island. And I hope some of our dear brethren and friends from that church are listening today.

In fact, from Hope Reform Baptist as well. But let me repeat our e -mail address.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question for Pastor Rich Jensen on our main theme of ecumenism, and you can also ask general questions about Reform Baptist doctrine and practice and polity and so on.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we ask that you please give your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if outside the

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

And I want to announce before time runs out and I somehow forget to do it.

I want to make sure I announce Hope Reform Baptist Church's website. It's hopereformedli .net.

hopereformedli, for Long Island, .net. And we hope you visit that website often.

Going back to the Church of Rome, there's really some either unintentional dishonesty, unconscious dishonesty or blatant dishonesty when it comes to Rome's modern -day face as being the kinder, gentler denomination or church in regard to ecumenism.

Well, first of all, if you're not Roman Catholic and you do not believe that Christ is physically, bodily present in the

Eucharist, you cannot receive their, quote -unquote,

Lord's Supper or their Mass. And nor should you because it's a different ceremony.

They're not the same thing as many evangelicals naively sometimes think.

I've seen evangelicals at weddings and funerals and things like that in a

Roman Catholic church who will actually go up and receive the Mass. And I say to them later, why on earth did you do that?

Well, I'm just viewing it as the Lord's Supper in my head. Well, they don't view it that way and they certainly don't want you to do that.

And the second thing is even though Vatican II declared you and I and Protestants as separated brothers, we are not in the true church according to them.

And as I said before, they have not made the

Council of Trent at least the anathemas in regard to uniquely Protestant beliefs. They have not nullified those or recanted those.

Obviously, some of what was taught at the Council of Trent is true, such as the

Trinity and many other things that all Christians believe. But I'm talking about specifically the unique things that Protestants believe, our opposition to venerating images and saints and our opposition to all of the uniquely held dogmas of Mary and all those things.

We are anathematized by the Roman Catholic Church because of those views. Now, having said that, you would not obviously cooperate in a worship service with the

Roman Catholic Church down the corner, as they do sometimes have these ecumenical services. You would not invite a priest to speak in your pulpit.

What would you in good conscience be able to do as a church with the

Roman Catholic Church down the road or with individual Catholics? I'm assuming that you would have no problem being involved in a right -to -life event as long as you were not restricted in things that you believed were duties of yours as a

Christian and as long as you weren't compelled to do things that were violating your conscience.

Yes, you're absolutely right. I could never do something as a joint effort of XYZ Roman Catholic Church and Hope Reform Baptist Church.

I don't think I could do that. But certainly in the realm of petitioning the government for righteous laws and things, we would stand with the

Roman Catholics on many areas that way. In fact, let me tell you one way in which

I was involved in something. As you know, Chris, for seven years, going back a couple of years now,

I was the headmaster of Grace Christian Academy, which is a ministry of Grace Reform Baptist Church in Merritt.

And that's near and dear to my heart. Christian education is near and dear to my heart, both

Christian schooling and also homeschooling. In fact, at Hope here we have a

Hope Home Education Center in which we have students from many different churches come and attend our homeschooling.

What we do on Friday, we have students from many different families going from many different churches, and we augment their education with crafts, music, and things that are more difficult for individuals to do at home.

And that has been a great blessing. But also when I was part of the Christian school,

I would attend a yearly, an annual state education department meeting for private and nonpublic schools, which included religious schools as well as secular private schools.

And in that forum, we had everybody you could think of who had a private school.

There were, of course, the largest representatives was the Roman Catholic schools.

We had a large percentage of Jewish schools. Of course, you had a lot of Christian schools.

And then you had individual denominations, Lutheran schools, etc. Also had some

Muslim schools represented, and then just plain ordinary secular schools. The interesting thing is while we were at the conference, everything, there was only one focus that kept us unified, and that was keeping the petitions before the state to keep their hands out of education.

You know, the parents' right to educate and to send their kids to where they want. So as a Reformed Baptist school, we wanted to make sure that the state was not trying to interfere with what we taught our students, just like the

Jewish schools were interested in the same way. While we were there, it was amazing at the unity that we had.

And we'd have several hundred people at these conferences. And at one of the meetings,

I was asked to give the invocation. And I prayed a

Christian prayer, and in the name of Jesus, amen, as was how I concluded. I asked for God's blessing upon the meeting, that the government would see what our point of view was, etc.

And I prayed along those lines. Not one person came to me and said they were offended because I prayed in Jesus' name, you know.

And you could do your own thing. So, I mean, we had our own Christian gathering, and we actually got a circle, and we prayed, and we had that meeting.

But in the main meetings, it was just general information concerning what's going on in New York State. And we were very successful in keeping the laws to regulating education so that they were favorable to parents who wanted to send the kids either to private school or to homeschool them.

And this organization was very instrumental in that. And I think that's a perfect example of how we can work with other people in the community without compromising on our faith when

I owed it. In fact, that was one of the biggest points at the thing was we could all respect one another, disagree completely with one another, and yet on these issues, we could come together.

And it worked so well. By the way, I want to also let our listeners know that there are also differing views amongst

Roman Catholics today on how they are to view Protestants like myself, who is a

Reformed Baptist, who have left the Catholic Church. And Patrick Madrid, who is a very well -known

Roman Catholic apologist, had his own magazine that still may be in print,

I'm not sure, or maybe it's an Internet form. And he, of course, has a radio program that he just recently stepped down from to pursue other activities within his ministry,

I believe, or his apostolate, or whatever they call those organizations in the

Catholic Church. Patrick Madrid told me that I am in serious jeopardy of going to hell unless I repent and turn to Rome.

And he viewed me differently than our mutual friend Dr. James R.

White, who even though he is in the front lines of the battle actually engaging

Roman Catholics in debate and refuting their teachings in writing and so on, where I am merely helping him and orchestrating events for him, facilitating him in these areas in the theological arena.

Patrick Madrid said that James White is not nearly as much in danger as I am because he was never a

Roman Catholic. So they view me as an apostate. Well, then again, so do many

Reformed Baptists. Well, we all certainly view you differently than James White, I can tell you that.

But the thing is here is that this isn't all just hugs and kisses and sweetness.

There are Catholics who view, I'm not even talking about strict

Latin -Rite types of Catholics, I'm talking about mainstream conservative Catholics who would view those who have left the

Catholic Church as apostate and therefore in very serious jeopardy of going to hell.

Well, you know what, Chris, on that vein, even to call somebody a Roman Catholic is almost meaningless today because there are so many different brands.

I mean, look, we know what is the official dogma of the Roman Catholic Church and that officially defines what a

Roman Catholic is. But when you filter it down, you have so many different views and how they apply that from one congregation to another that you can be called one thing under one parish and something else under another.

I'll give you an example. I was called to the bedside of a woman who was dying by her granddaughter.

The woman was a Roman Catholic. But the family wanted me to come because they wanted me to witness to and pray for her and everything else.

And as I came walking in, the Roman Catholic priest was already there. And when he found out who

I was, because I was going to wait until he had finished doing whatever he was doing, he came out, grabbed me by the arm, pulled me in, and grabbed my arm so tight that I literally would have had to afford him to get loose.

What did he want to do? He wanted us to pray together. And the reason being, he was an ecumenicist.

And to him, this would be a big feather in his cap because he could go back and he could say,

I prayed with a Reformed Baptist pastor today. You follow what

I'm saying? And there are other priests who, if I walk through the door, stay out.

You know what I mean? So it depends on individuals as well. There is a fallacy that is a major part of Roman Catholic apologists.

First of all, there's over 30 ,000 Protestant denominations. That isn't even true, first of all.

I thought there were 30 ,000 Baptist denominations. But the number isn't even true.

And the number, when it was originally derived, I think maybe by the World Council of Churches or something, they were including all non -Roman

Catholics who profess a belief in Jesus as Protestant. So it was ridiculous.

But anyway, there are just as many divisions and differences amongst

Roman Catholics as there are amongst Bible -believing Christians, and perhaps even more.

In fact, there are more, because you typically don't have arch -liberals within Bible -believing

Christian churches. Now, you have false homosexual churches calling themselves evangelical today, but they're clearly not in the same camp of theology or practice as conservative evangelicalism.

And they're not even in the same religion as we are, basically. But Robertson Jennings, basically, another

Roman Catholic apologist who I interviewed recently, he agreed that there's just as many divisions in the

Roman Catholic Church, but they have one church. And he said that you

Protestants, when you have a complaint that's serious enough about what church you're in, you just pack up your bags and leave and start a new church.

But I told him, I think it may have been off the air, I told him that we're not really starting a new church.

We believe that all who are genuinely saved are in one true church, and that's the

Church Christ established. So starting a new congregation or even a new denomination because of convictions over theology and the seriousness of error in the group that you once belonged to, that is not starting a new church, is it?

No, no, definitely not. I mean, we believe in the

Holy Catholic Church. We recite the Apostles' Creed. There is only one true church, the

Universal Church. And that's what you mean by Catholic with a small c, is the word universal? Sure, and in fact, in our church, when we recite the

Apostles' Creed, I make sure that we leave Catholic in there because some people have changed it to,

I believe, in the Holy Christian Church. But no, a Catholic is in there for a reason, because there is only one

Universal Church. And it manifests itself in local congregations, which is, of course, very biblical.

But no, you're right. But that's not to say, too, that something somewhat of what

St. Genesis said is correct. And it's unfortunate that it's allowed by other churches because they don't practice discipline, and that is that somebody who's disgruntled goes out and just starts a church.

No, that shouldn't be. Oh yeah, of course. But he was using the concept of a whole new church as they view the

Roman Catholic Church. When you started Hope Reform Baptist Church 19 years ago, you didn't begin a new church.

You began forming a new fellowship of Christians in a specific congregation in Suffolk County.

And the e -mail address here, if you have a question, we do have a couple of listeners who have already e -mailed questions.

But if you have a question, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Now, you brought up something that's also a dilemma that arises frequently in the civic arena, the public arena, the gathering of people from your village, town, city in some kind of a public event where prayer is a part of the celebration or event.

And our mutual friend, Dr. James R. White, has said that he will never join in prayer with people such as Roman Catholics who are committed to the

Council of Trent's dogmas and so on, and others who deny the gospel.

He will pray for them and perhaps pray over an event, but not with others who deny the gospel.

And so we have events that come up like that all the time. We have sporting events where you might be even in a sporting event yourself, a high school game of some kind or what have you, and you might have somebody say,

Hey, Pastor Rich, would you mind coming over here? And perhaps you and Father O 'Reilly can say a blessing upon the events today.

Things like that. And where sometimes, in fact, another mutual friend of ours,

Pastor Don Blend, was asked to pray at the beginning of some kind of a public hearing in the village of Lindenhurst or the town of Lindenhurst where he was specifically asked,

Please pray over the processions that would be taking place, but please do not mention

Jesus in your prayer. And Don refused. He said, I'm going to pray and I'm going to specifically mention the name of Christ, and he did.

So how do you react and how do you respond? And what do you think is the proper

Christian response to that kind of a thing where you're being requested to join in on a prayer with people that deny the gospel?

No, I would agree with Dr. White completely on that. We have never, nor will

I ever, have a joint prayer session with people who I would consider not to be

Christian. Because prayer is an act of worship. So, I mean, we'd have to be careful.

It's different if I am asked to pray for a certain thing in a public venue, that's fine.

If they ask me and a Muslim to pray, I would have to decline that. Because that would give an indication that I am in somehow agreement and we're praying to the same

God, and I don't think we are. So I would agree with that completely.

I remember someone that we both know, Steve Camp, a Reformed Baptist Christian recording artist who is now a pastor in Florida.

He did not want his child, I can't remember if it was a daughter or a son, to participate in the prayers of the coach.

I think it may have been a soccer team. The coach was a Roman Catholic and he would pray over the team and Steve did not want his child to be a participant of that, which they were very puzzled by because the child professed to be a

Christian and they knew that Steve, the father, was a Christian. So how do you respond to that kind of a situation?

Well, yeah, that's getting a little bit dicier. I don't know,

I haven't even thought about that one, Chris. I think there comes a time...

Well, let me say this. Certainly for Steve, if it's a matter of conscience, then he's absolutely right not to.

But I mean, there are times where if you're going to be in a public gathering and somebody is going to be up there praying, for example, if it's some sort of public gathering, they ask

Father So -and -So to come up and pray. I will not pray along with him. You may just...

And pretend that I'm praying along with him because I don't believe it's a biblical prayer. But I'm not going to walk out,

I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to stand there respectfully and he's going to do what he's going to do.

You'll just stand there in silence and not give the appearance that you're praying? No, no, of course not.

No, I would never do that. Well, we have to go to a station break right now.

In fact, this is our last station break. If you'd like to join us on the air...

Actually, it's the last of two station breaks. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our guest,

Pastor Rich Jensen, on ecumenism or anything involving Reformed Baptist belief and practice in general, you can join us at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

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It's about God and His glory, and the gospel is about... Welcome back. This is Chris Orns, and if you've just tuned us in, our guest today is my dear friend of many years,

Pastor Richard Jensen of Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island.

Their website is hopereformedli .net. hopereformedli .net.

Pastor Rich is a retired homicide detective. In fact, was the youngest homicide detective in Suffolk County Police history, and he is now, and has been for 19 years, the pastor of Hope Reformed Baptist Church.

And we hope you join us on the air. We already do have a couple of questions, but we hope more folks join us on the air with a question for Pastor Rich at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Before I continue with the interview, I want to announce that tomorrow, since we're doing a lot of talking right now about Catholicism and Protestantism and so on, tomorrow, another very good friend of mine,

Bill Webster, is going to be discussing his book, The Gospel of the Reformation.

And you do not want to miss this program. As some of you may be wondering why very often on Iron Trump and Zion, there is criticism of churches, not only

Roman Catholic, but even other professedly Protestant churches, whether they be mainline churches or evangelical.

There seems to be what may be in your mind nitpicking going on, but I can assure you that that is not the case.

It is not nitpicking. These are things that we are disagreeing over that are very crucial and important matters.

And Bill Webster's book, The Gospel of the Reformation, not only distinguishes what the reformers believed in contrast to the

Church of Rome from which they came, but also it contrasts the very commonly held beliefs of a very large segment, perhaps even the dominant segment of evangelicalism today, and how many who would call themselves evangelical or Protestant have really abandoned or perhaps were raised in a church that never even taught the genuine teachings of the

Reformation, which of course we who believe that we are following the teachings of the

Reformation believe we are following the teachings of Scripture. Otherwise we would not be following them at all.

That's tomorrow from 4 to 6 p .m. Bill Webster on Iron Trump and Zion. That's 4 to 6 p .m.

Eastern Time. And then the following day we have John Sampson of a

Reformed Baptist church in Phoenix, Arizona called King's Church. And he is going to be continuing his discussion on objections to God's sovereignty in election.

And then we have on Friday, the 7th of August, we have

Mike Gaydosh, my former pastor, who was the original pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Merrick, Long Island.

And before that, Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, Long Island. He is now the director of Solid Ground Christian Books.

And we will be having an interview with him. And we have yet to determine the topic that day. So tune in and find out what we're going to talk about.

And I'd like to welcome to the Iron Trump and Zion family of sponsors, a brand -new sponsor that just committed last week to being, at least for a year to begin with, a sponsor of Iron Trump and Zion, Providence Baptist Church of Norfolk, Massachusetts.

That's Providence Baptist Church of Norfolk, Massachusetts. Pastor Mark Lukens is a precious brother in the

Lord. And he deserves to be congratulated as he is welcoming into his home newly adopted children.

And I join him in celebrating that. And the website for Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts, is providencebaptistchurchma, an abbreviation for massachusetts, .org,

providencebaptistchurchma .org. And we are returning back to our discussion on ecumenism, biblical versus false.

And we were, before the break, discussing prayer. And the last thing that you mentioned,

Pastor Rich, is that if you were at a social event or a public event of some kind, or a non -Christian, no matter who the person was, if they were praying over the event or the processions that were about to follow, you would stand there respectfully, but you would neither pray nor give the appearance that you were joining in the prayer.

No, especially because of what prayer is. Like I say, prayer is an act of worship, whether people realize it or not.

And just because you're not praying in a worship service doesn't mean it's not an act of worship. And that's not something that we can join hands with non -believers in, because that type of worship is not acceptable to God.

So again, I wouldn't make a big to -do over it and storm out of the place or anything else, but what

I always try to do anyway is I always try to be very cautious not to put myself in a position like that.

But should I find myself, I believe that's what I would do, is I would just respectfully stand aside and just leave it at that.

We do have a listener from Long Island, New York, CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, who asks,

You've been speaking a lot of the fact that you do not have ecumenical relationships or connections with Roman Catholics or the

Roman Catholic Church. What about Protestants? What are the Protestant churches, if any, that you would not associate with?

Well, that's a very good question. And it really boils down to the fact that it depends on what

Protestant church, because some believe in the Gospel. And as I just mentioned in my announcement about Bill Webster's book,

The Gospel of the Reformation, there are many Protestant churches that are not even Christian. Yes, you're absolutely right.

And in fact, just because you have the sign, the name, and it says church, it doesn't mean it's really a church.

And that's where we have to be discerning. If the certain elements of the Gospel aren't there, then it's not a church.

And so that's an easy one. That's a no -brainer. Where it becomes more difficult is where there is the elements of the

Gospel, but yet there is a proliferation of false teaching.

For example, take the Word of Faith movement.

I don't see how I could have any legitimate fellowship in any type of service with people who are preaching a prosperity

Gospel, and that basically all the problems are your own, it's your lack of faith and those type of things, because it is just so different from the true

Gospel. Fortunately, well, let me just say this, fortunately it's not up to me to make a decision, this is a true church and this isn't.

But if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it probably is a duck. And if a church is preaching so much false doctrine,

I'm going to treat it that way. By the way, I just want to let you know that George Whitefield called us, who are

Baptists, ducks. And he was lamenting over the fact that all of his

Pato Baptist converts, well, not all of them, but many of his Pato Baptist converts to Christianity were becoming

Baptists. He said, why are my little chicks becoming ducks? I'm not even going to address that one, because I respect

Whitefield, and would never put myself on a level with that man.

But again, those that are true churches, we might not have close fellowship, and a lot of that has to do with proximity as well, and even just practical matters, to have fellowship with churches that are miles away, it may not be practical anyway.

But we do need to be discerning. And then you also have to look, we're told to have wisdom.

Wisdom that, you know, the Book of Proverbs is in there, and several other books that are designed specifically to teach us how to apply the

Word of God to real -life situations. And that would be the criteria. And there comes a point where I have to ask myself, how is this going to benefit my congregation and the other congregation?

And is it going to be something that is beneficial to the propagation of the Gospel, or am

I just trying to have fellowship for the sake of having fellowship? I mean,

I have trouble having fellowship with the other Reformed Baptist churches. I don't mean that we have bars.

I mean, just from practical matters, it's not easy to get together that way. We started a

Spurgeon's Fellowship of Calvinistic Baptist pastors, and it's difficult every time we meet.

You know, somebody's missing, somebody can't be there, and that's just having, trying to get the pastors together, you know, for mutual edification and doing things together.

But I can give you one example of something that we do participate in right here on Long Island.

Every year, Word of Truth Church, which is in Farmingville, Pastor Bruce Patterson.

Yes, he was just my guest yesterday with Pennsylvania State Representative Stephen Bloom.

They were talking about the church and politics. Oh, and he's a good guy to do that, too. But he has a conference each year, usually

October, November, somewhere around that time frame. And he picks a topic, and he asks several different pastors to come and to preach.

Now, Bruce is fairly Reformed. He would not consider himself to be a

Reformed Baptist. He says he has a qualified cessationist view on the gifts and whatnot, but he's much more contemporary in how his service is.

And there's a number of differences in our theology, but he and I are very close.

Our churches have done some things together, and he asks me to preach, you know, each year at that conference.

As well, in fact, Al Stein preached at that one. Jim Capo, Dave Courson has preached there.

So, I mean, these are some things that we can do together, and hopefully we get people from all the congregations coming together.

And that's one way in which we can do it. But there is a common ground that we can meet on without compromising on any of our particular stances.

And that has to be done. And, of course, each church has to be taken on an individual basis, just as Christians, because you may have a church down the road that's an

Episcopalian church that celebrated the legalization of same -sex marriage and may even have a homosexual priest, so -called, or minister.

And they are really an apostate church that has no resemblance to the genuine scriptures or gospel.

And yet, you may also, maybe one block away from that or the next town over, have an

Episcopal church that is a 39 -articles,

Calvinistic, Anglican church. Low church, etc.,

that may be more resembling of your beliefs and practices than some

First Baptist church on the next corner. Yeah, absolutely. You definitely have to take it on an individual basis.

Just because, like I say, the sign over the door doesn't necessarily mean anything today.

Because we've seen Baptist churches going so far astray that I would not want to have any fellowship with them.

And what we need to do is call them to repent. Part of what happens, too, though,

Chris, is I think any fellowship, and now I'm talking specifically in answer to the question of those

Protestant churches, you know, I'm not talking about Rome at this point. Even when you come together, you can come together on the common ground, but even there you can't compromise on your principles.

I'm going to go back to the Christian school, to Grace Christian Academy. That school was open to any

Christian family. In fact, the standard rule was one parent had to be a professed

Christian and to have their child enrolled. When I was there, I had to interview the parents, and I had to assure myself that at least one parent was a professed believer, and we preferred that they were a member of a church, although some churches don't have memberships, so we couldn't make that hard and fast.

But one of the things that we did was we made a unifying factor there was the school held to the church's confession of faith.

So everybody who came through the door got a copy of the 1689, and we told them, you need to understand that if you send your child here, this is what's going to be taught.

You don't have to believe it yourself, but you can't make an argument that, oh, this goes against what your church is teaching.

No, this is a ministry of this church, and we're opening it up to all Christians of any persuasion as long as you understand this is what's going to be taught there.

In fact, at one point I counted that we had, I think, was 49 churches from Nassau and Suffolk County and then some even from the city represented in the school.

The parents were told, obviously we would try to avoid the controversial issues because that wasn't our goal.

Our goal was to educate the children according to the Scriptures. But when it came up, we took a very specific stance.

For example, we even had teachers on staff who were paedo -baptists. But if somebody asked me a question in chapel upon the proper mode of baptism, they're going to get credo -baptism.

And, in fact, it's interesting because one girl was substituting teaching,

I think it was a sixth -grade class, and a girl asked me a question. She said, Pastor, why is it that some

Christians believe in speaking in tongues and others don't? And her father was a

Pentecostal pastor. And I said, well, why don't you ask your father that question? You know,

I'm trying to weasel out of it, okay? But she was a sharp girl.

And she said, I know what my father thinks. I want to know what you think. And so I very gently explained why

I believe that the sign gifts had ceased and were with the signs of the apostles, et cetera.

And she was very interesting. And I wound up having a conversation with her father, who accepted it extremely well.

He said, look, you asked a question you had to answer honestly. That's how we can come together even when we disagree, if we understand that.

He had no problem with me explaining, you know, the Reformed Baptist view of that in this setting.

I think that makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah, of course. And we do have an anonymous listener who says that the church that he is a member of only has fellowship with other churches that only use the

King James version of the Bible. And they not only must use it, but they must believe that it is the only true version of the scriptures in existence.

Can you comment on this? Is this too strict? Well, obviously, since neither you or I are

King James onlyists, I'm assuming you're going to answer that, yes, that is too strict.

And, in fact, it's superstitious, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I just don't understand how people who claim to hold to the scripture alone can say that there's only one translation alone.

I mean, how can you get that from the scriptures which used to be written prior to 70

A .D., you know? And now that this is the only view, especially when you get into the development of it and all.

And I would direct that person to James White's teaching on the development of the scriptures and all.

I happen to be a big fan of the NASB. Who happens to sponsor our program.

Do I get a cut? Is there a stipend I get for mentioning that? Well, I could give you a free copy of their genuine leather giant print

Bible if you'd like. No, I'm good. But I happen to be a big fan of it because if you look at the development of it and how it's translated and the criteria that's used, it is just so far superior to so many of the other translations that are out there.

And so, firstly, yes, I think there's an error there to hold that as a standard.

You can't get that from the Bible alone. And then since that is, in fact, an error to say that you have to use this translation and that's our means of fellowship, they're cutting themselves off.

Where do you get that in the scripture? You know, it just doesn't make any sense. Right, especially since the

King James Version didn't exist when the scriptures were being written. Yeah, and that's true.

I would have a question then. What was the criteria before the King James Version? That's right. And, of course, we would differentiate between that, which would be superstition, really.

Just like the Roman Catholic Church in years past had a superstition about the Latin language.

Yes. And some still do. You know, think that the only valid mass is a

Latin mass. And, of course, we wouldn't think any mass is valid. But we would distinguish between that view and our brethren.

And you and I have Reformed brethren that we uphold as some of them

I would even include as modern -day heroes, for lack of a better term, but men

I really have learned much from and admired greatly, who I've even preached at Grace Reformed Baptist Church on Long Island, for instance, like Dr.

Joel Beakey and my friend John Greer of the Free Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland, who preached at Grace Reformed Baptist as well, who they in their own churches only use the

King James Version, and they have a denominational policy that all the pastors must preach and teach from it.

But they do not bar any kind of fellowship with others that have a differing view on that.

Yeah, I mean, I can understand that. I mean, there can be legitimate reasons even for everybody using the same translation and whatnot.

I mean, at HOPE, our Pew Bibles are NASB, and I do that, especially if we have any visitors.

So if they read, if I'm reading the Scripture, they can read it exactly as I am.

But in the congregation, there's a number of people that have some have the ESV, there's some that have different, some have the

New King James, and I have a few people who just prefer the King James, and that's fine.

They're free to do that. And in fact, sometimes that's very helpful in the studies, because when we're having our

Bible studies, I'll read something, and I'll say, wait a minute, who's got a King James? Read that for me in the

King James, because I remembered what it said, and sometimes you get a little better take from using the different translations and it becomes more fully.

So, I mean, I don't have a problem with anybody using any particular, as long as it's a legitimate, not one of these, you know, off -the -wall translations, which unfortunately some of those do.

And, of course, there are fundamentalists that really have an extreme view of separation where they won't fellowship with anyone who fellowships with somebody that they disagree with and that kind of a thing.

You might have some fundamentalists say, I'm not going to fellowship with this

Reformed Baptist because one of his favorite authors is R .C. Sproul, and R .C. Sproul has one of his favorite writers,

Thomas Aquinas. So, therefore, I'm not going to fellowship with this Reformed Baptist because of his love for R .C.

Sproul. You know, that kind of chain reaction, extreme form of separatism, that can be equally dangerous as willy -nilly ecumenism, can it?

Yes, it certainly can because they're setting up their own criteria. You know, if we hold to the doctrine of sola scriptura, that means that the

Bible alone is our guide. Now, what you do is you have people setting up their own criteria for what is considered to be appropriate fellowship.

And they're going beyond the Scriptures. They would claim to hold the sola scriptura, yet they themselves are going beyond what the

Scripture teaches. Okay? And, I mean, there's... Look, there certainly is a place to sever fellowship.

All right? Even within the church. If a church goes into disobedience or starts teaching a doctrine that is, you know, that is so far abhorrent that, you know, it's dangerously bordering heresy.

I mean, heresy, clearly. Somebody's in heresy, you've got to walk away from them. But when the teaching starts going...

And, unfortunately, sometimes this just happens gradually. There was a church right here on Long Island.

I actually, when I was an assistant pastor, preached in the pulpit. It was a solid church. And over the years, it has gone the way where,

I mean, it's gone into annihilationism and full preterism and all kinds of other abhorrent doctrines where, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you should put

Ichabod over the door of that place and just walk your walk. Are you there,

Pastor Rich? Yes, I'm here. Okay, because you immediately went silent there. I was waiting for you to finish your laughing.

All right, I'm finished now. You can go ahead. No, that's all right. Go ahead. We do have

Arnie writing to us from Perry County, Pennsylvania. He says,

I know a pastor in the community who is willing to participate in the marriage of a believer and a

Roman Catholic, and he is going to officiate with a Roman Catholic priest. Would you consider this a violation of biblical ecumenism?

Yeah, absolutely. Firstly, if the person is still a professing

Roman Catholic and not a true believer, then clearly, you know, the

Bible mandates that you can only marry in the Lord. And I would never marry a believer and a nonbeliever, regardless whether, you know, whatever religion they were or if they claimed to have no religion.

And then it's compounded by co -officiating with somebody who's holding to a completely false view of the gospel.

And you can't divorce marriage from the gospel. That's kind of an interesting statement.

You can't divorce marriage. No pun intended. Sorry. But you can't do that.

You can't divorce marriage from the gospel. Because one of the purposes of marriage that God has given us is that it is to tell us about the relationship of Christ and his church.

And biblical marriage is patterned after that relationship. So, I mean, clearly then, if the gospel is different, all right, from what the

Roman Catholic Church teaches and what the Bible teaches, then clearly, how can you do that?

That doesn't make any sense. It's clearly going against, I think it's going clearly against what the biblical mandate would be.

I know that there are brethren that you and I love and respect. I'm not going to mention any names because they may have changed their views or practices that I'm unaware of.

But we have friends who are in the pastorate who do marry, and perhaps you do too, marry two unbelievers as long as they submit to a certain period of biblical counseling before they're married.

Do you participate in that? Yes, I would. And I'll tell you why.

Because, firstly, I believe that marriage is a universal doctrine given to us by God.

It's not just for Christians. It's for all men. It's a creation ordinance.

And therefore, nonbelievers, they have the right to be married as well.

And I believe rightfully that they should come to the church for that. You're actually, you're restraining sin in at least that area of their lives if they are, you know, having extramarital relationships.

Sure. And what I do is I give them a certain amount of biblical counsel.

And that would be one of the criteria for me to marry them, is they would have to submit. Plus, I go over and tell them,

I give them what marriage is. You know, I said, if you want me to marry you, you've got to listen to what

I have to say. And it's amazing how many nonbelievers have come and said, yes, okay, we'll accept the counsel and everything else.

And, of course, they're going to get the gospel in there as well. And so far, I haven't had it where one of them got saved and the other one didn't, and I couldn't marry them.

That would be an interesting set of circumstances. And we're going to go to our last break.

This time, it is our last break. And shoot over an email if you have one. We're running out of time. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And we hope to hear from you very soon because, as I said, we are running out of time.

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Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

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631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen and this is our final half hour. Actually, we have less than a half hour in our discussion with Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island.

Their website is hopereformedli .net. Hopereformedli .net. We've been discussing ecumenism, biblical versus false.

And in a minute, we're going to transition over to a brief discussion on the evangelistic efforts that Pastor Jensen is participating in to Columbia.

But before we go into that, we have another anonymous listener who wanted to know, since you stated earlier that you do not believe in marrying believers to unbelievers, are there any circumstances where you would make an exception?

For instance, if the believer, either through a lapse in judgment or a temporary lapse into sin, impregnated a girl whom he loved who was not a believer, repented of the act but wanted to be responsible to take care of a resulting child, would that be an appropriate thing for the believer to marry the unbelieving girl or woman who is pregnant?

No, not in my view. I don't see that there's any exception clause in the scripture.

And the scripture is quite the opposite. What relationship does light and darkness have?

And I think that would only be compounding the problems. I think you'd have to look for other ways to take care of that child, or particularly evangelizing the other person.

Of course, not being careful not to try to force the person into that, so that they do it just because they think it's doing the right thing.

Right, and I assume that you would certainly believe that the man responsible for the act of impregnating a young lady, or a lady of any age, that he must provide for that child, whether he is the woman's husband or not.

Absolutely. I mean, you would believe that being a deadbeat father is just as grievous as being a man marrying an unbeliever, wouldn't you?

Oh, of course, of course. No, you know, a man who gets a woman pregnant, there's a lot of biblical examples as to that, and he obviously is responsible.

And in fact, his obligation is to marry her. But it's up to the woman, her father in particular, to say whether or not that's going to happen, and there could be reasons why it shouldn't.

And the fact that he's a non -believer would be one reason which would mitigate him from marrying the woman.

Or if he was a believer and the woman was not. Yeah, yeah, either way.

And I'm assuming that there could be a season of time where, obviously we believe that only

God gives the increase and that humans like us only plant, we plant in water.

But I'm assuming there would be a season of time that you would believe it would be legitimate for special counseling in the word of God and evangelism uniquely with the hopes that this woman would convert, not give a false conversion testimony, but in hopes that she would convert so they could be married.

Yeah, I mean, in fact, I gave a short answer, but any time you have a situation like that, there needs to be extensive counsel given on the part of the elder of the church.

And, I mean, that's something that goes without saying. I know biblical counseling has fallen out of favor, so to speak, in the modern church, but there needs to be, any time you have a difficult situation, there needs to be counsel where the counsel is given is biblical so that the person knows how to deal with these things so that they don't run off and make a mistake and compound one sin upon another.

Because that happens a lot because people have a tendency of responding emotionally instead of biblically.

Christian in Carlisle, Pennsylvania wants to know if music, the type of music and the style of music that one church uses in their worship services, can that be a reason to cut off fellowship or a reason not to have ecumenical relationships with them?

I don't think so. Again, it depends on how you're defining cutting relationship or lack of fellowship.

I mean, quite frankly, well, let me say this. My congregation, we sing predominantly hymns.

We're very conservative. We hold tenaciously to the regulative principle of worship, and we believe that the hymnology just aids that principle a whole lot more than a lot of contemporary songs.

It's not a question of how old or whatnot or even necessarily the style of music.

It's a question of how does the music relate to the whole service and into the worship of God, and we have pretty much adopted a very conservative view on that.

It would be very difficult for us to have a joint worship service with somebody who wants to bring out, you know, some of the latest songs that we don't think necessarily, number one, are biblically correct or theologically correct and are pretty much fluff instead of the deep, rich theology that we find in the hymns.

That doesn't mean we cut fellowship with that church. In fact, several of my close pastor friends have very contemporary worship services.

We disagree over that, but we haven't cut fellowship, you know, over that. But would

I want to have a joint worship service? Yes, if they would submit to having hymns only, or at least of that type, or if the music wasn't hymns, that it was of a worshipful tone so that, you know, so that it don't affect the conscience of some of the people in my congregation.

Yeah, isn't it ironic that our mutual friend Pastor Jim Capo, he has music that is more reserved in his congregation than many

Reformed Baptists do. Yeah, we're not exclusive hymnody, but we are predominantly hymnody, and in fact we are seeking to incorporate more of the psalms, because the hymnbook we use has some psalms in it.

But, you know, we are, as we start our studying worship and whatnot, we are really seeing the need to put more psalms into our worship service, because,

I mean, that's God's hymnbook. And when you put the psalms to music, I mean, it's perfect for a response.

Look, what's the purpose of music in a worship service? The purpose of music in a worship service is to give the congregation, who are the true worshipers, to respond to what has been preached or what has been read.

And what better way than to respond with words? In fact, it has to be theologically correct, and, of course, the psalms are, of course, totally theologically correct.

And, of course, even though you might disagree with an exclusive psalmody church, you could hardly fault them for not wanting to violate their conscience by having a joint worship service with a church that insists on using hymns or contemporary music or what have you in the worship service when they believe out of conscience and out of theological conviction that the psalms are the only songs appropriately sung even today in the

New Covenant. Now, obviously, you disagree with that, but you could still respect their judgment in saying,

I'm sorry, we can't have a joint worship service with you. Oh, no, we would do that in a heartbeat.

You know, if there was ever a time where we were going to have a joint service and the other church was an exclusive psalmody, we'd do that in a heartbeat.

You mean you would use only the psalms is what you mean? Oh, absolutely. Right, right. Absolutely, because that's common ground on which we can come together.

And, you know, as long as they don't try to put that on my conscience, I mean, because we've worked our way through this, and there's specific reasons why

I believe we can sing the hymns, but I would have no trouble with that.

Yeah, in fact, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, they have a psalter in every pew along with the hymnals.

The best argument I heard for being against exclusive psalmody, not to go on a rabbit trail here, but the best argument against it is that it prohibits then the congregants for actually using the specific name of Jesus Christ in song, and even though you are singing even in the psalter to Jesus, but not my name, not by his name

Jesus. And the best argument for at least incorporating the psalms, in addition to them being inerrant as far as being a part of the

God -breathed canon, is that you are connecting with every generation of the saints of God, going back even to the

Old Testament. Yeah, and again, yes, clearly, I mean, there are so many psalms that are messianic in nature that there's no question, you know, that they're referring to Christ, and ultimately, of course, everything, you know, points to Christ from the

Old Testament anyway. So, I mean, yeah, the psalms definitely need to be used. We use them to the extent that we can.

We're a little bit behind. We don't have a penis right now, which puts us at a little bit of a disadvantage.

So we're, you know, we get our music through the CDs and et cetera. But so I would definitely love to see more psalms included in it.

The reason that we're on the stance that we are is it's not the date of the psalm, you know, that determines it.

It's the theological content and the style of the music.

And sometimes some of the styles of music just don't go with the specific worship service and doesn't even necessarily match what you're talking about.

Look, I'm a big music fan. I actually have taught music in our home school group.

I'm a big fan of the blues. I'm a jazz fan and some of those styles of music like that.

I'm a big fan of some of the oldies. You know, I grew up, I'm a child of the 50s. But that doesn't mean that I would necessarily want that particular style of music, you know, sung in the church service because it's not appropriate.

Again, I think people get lost in what do they want as opposed to what is the purpose for worship.

And specifically the singing is designed to respond, to give the congregation the chance to respond to what is happening in the worship service because they are the true worshipers.

Yeah, and I actually believe Were You There could qualify as a blues song. And a lot of the old black gospel and Negro spiritual songs are very similar to that.

In fact, I've challenged some of my Christian musician friends to put some of the psalms to the blues because I think there's a couple of psalms that David has written that could very accurately be put to the blues.

And it fit, you know, because where David is lamenting, why not? Amen. And within these 11 minutes that we have left, why don't you talk a little bit about your evangelistic efforts to Columbia?

Well, actually what's happened, it was a little over a year and a half ago when we first got invited.

I taught in a seminary down in the city of Medellin, Columbia, which if people are familiar with their recent history of the drug trade, that was the home of Pablo Escobar.

And it was considered for many years to be the most dangerous city in the world. And now

God has been doing a fantastic work. I think there are six Reformed Baptist churches now in the city of Medellin.

I think the crime rate has dropped drastically for many different reasons, some of them socioeconomic as well.

But the doctrines of grace are just being poured out, and this seminary was started to train pastors to go back out into their churches and start to preach the true doctrines.

Because a lot of the churches were, you know, kind of the health, wealth, prosperity, and, you know, those type of things.

And so they've been bringing some tremendous people down to teach in the seminaries, to equip these men to go back out into their various cities and either plant new churches or bring churches to Reformation.

And I don't know why they want me, because, I mean, they're getting some big names down there. You know, Sam Waldron teaches down there.

Paul Washer? I think Paul Washer is going down there if he hasn't been there already.

And so they're actually giving these guys a very good seminary education. And so I spent two weeks down there, you know, a year and a half ago, and I was just absolutely blown away with what's happening, and not only just in Columbia.

And a lot of this, you know, actually stems back to an

RBMS missionary, Stanley Lyne. That's Reformed Baptist Mission Services, for those who are listeners unfamiliar with that acronym there.

Right, which goes back a long time. I believe he's been in Columbia for 50 years.

And a lot of what's happening now is, like, the men that he has trained in Bogota have now reached out to other cities.

And there's like a whole network of Reformed Baptist churches and other Reformed churches, you know, down in not just in Columbia, but they're sending them out to other cities.

In fact, I got one story back which was really interesting. One, I think it was in Ecuador, one of the men that was trained and who

I know, because he sat under my class, was sent back to his church in Ecuador.

And they didn't realize exactly what they were sending him to when they sent him to the seminary, because he comes back, he's a thorough

Calvinist, you know. And he starts preaching the doctrines of grace, and they excommunicate him, they throw him out of the church.

And so, but a group of people listening to what he said, you know, realized that he was preaching from the

Scriptures. And so they gathered around him, and they said, we want you to start a new church. So they started a new church, and tons of people are coming to find out what is this going on.

And he's actually in a better position than he was in his other church. And you've seen this over and over again. They're sending people to Argentina, to Venezuela, to Bolivia.

So it's just amazing that good Reformed teaching is going on in these places.

And many of these places are probably going to start being the primary areas of the world launching missionary efforts, even to this country that we live in.

We have such a pride of America, and we very often aren't even really recognizing the fact that the church in some areas of the world, perhaps because of the persecution that existed there, has really become on fire with the gospel, and in many ways puts the church of America at large to shame.

Don't these churches that are springing up globally in some areas? That's true. In fact, the one church in Medellin, which is the larger of the churches there, the two pastors who are just unbelievable men.

I have so much respect from Sergio Ruiz and Julio Benitez. They told me when

I was down there that they actually are getting calls from Hispanic congregations in the

United States to ask them for help and how do we bring

Reformation to our congregation. And so you're right, that's actually happening a little bit even at this point, that the influence is coming back.

Because these guys are really preaching the doctrines of grace. They asked me to preach the

Sunday that I was there. It happened to be Easter Sunday of not this year, but last year.

And it was what a wonderful experience, because I was able to sing the same songs.

Actually, I was able to sing them in Spanish, because I knew the tunes. And be so blessed, because I knew the words, because they were the same songs that were singing.

And when I preach, obviously I preach to an interpreter, because my Spanish is not even first -year

Spanish. But that was such a blessing as well, and getting to know the men who were translating.

In fact, the man who translated for me was a pastor himself, and he mimicked even my gestures as I preached.

Same voice inflection, he had it down to a T. But there's a lot of good men down in there, and a lot of things are taking place.

They're on our prayer list. We pray for Colombia, changing from the drug capital of the

West. And we're praying now that that would become a capital for the gospel to go through all of South and Latin America.

And of course, our listeners can go to hopereformli .net to even find out more about those evangelistic efforts in Colombia, to see how they can be involved in some way or support those efforts in some way through contacting you.

That's hopereformli .net. And as we conclude, since our main topic was ecumenism,

I think that, and I'll let you sum up your most heartfelt beliefs that you want to etch in the hearts and minds of our listeners before this broadcast is over.

But isn't the most vividly clear example that we have in the

New Testament that we cannot have ecumenical relationships with those who deny the gospel is

Paul in relationship to the Judaizers? Because after all, from what we know, from what is actually said in the epistles in the

New Testament about the Judaizers, for all we know, they agreed with Paul and the disciples on everything except they insisted on circumcision.

And that was enough to make Paul recoil in horror and reject them as having a false gospel.

And he said that if anybody brings those Christians a gospel other than the one he had preached, even if it was himself or an angel from heaven, that they are to be accursed.

And if Paul couldn't have an ecumenical relationship with the Judaizers, how can we have ecumenical relationships with the

Church of Rome and others who do far more than just add one detail to the gospel such as circumcision?

And if you could sum up everything as we conclude, Pastor Rich. Yeah, I agree with you completely, but then on the other side of the coin,

I mean, there's no question that we have to be discerning, and especially as pastors and elders we have to, you know, protect our sheep.

That's our job with the under shepherds. We have to make sure that they are getting only the truth and all.

But we can't lose sight of the fact that Jesus prayed that we would all be one. And of all the true believers, we are one in Christ.

And it is that union that we have that is so important. And so we have to strike that right balance.

I know there are Christians out there who don't like the word balance. I love the word balance. I believe that Christian life is one of balance.

And so we have to strike the right chord. We have to shun those who are not true believers.

We can't have Christian fellowship with them. On the other hand, those who are, we are one with them.

And we need to treat them as such and work with them in such a way that even where we have differences, the world would look at us and say, look at even how they handled the differences.

You know, they're handling their differences in a gracious and loving manner. Because, again, these are people for whom

Christ has died. If Christ has died for that person, I have to love that person. And I have to show that love even when we might have some differences.

I'm not talking about compromise. But we have to treat them as one. And if you totally isolate yourself from these erring brethren, how on earth are you going to have any positive influence on them?

That's exactly right. And, of course, we can even learn, and often do, learn from people that we disagree with on one issue.

They may be far more obedient to Christ in other areas of their lives and of their practice as a church.

You know, I've often said this. Obviously, I have some difficulties with the

Pentecostal movement and everything else. But I'll tell you something. I would love to see a lot of that enthusiasm caught into some of the

Reformed Baptist churches. Yes, and their willingness to reach out to those who are considered the scum of the earth, the pariah of humanity by civilized so -called people, those in the inner cities who are prostitutes and homosexuals and drug addicts.

The outreaches to this segment of society is very typically Pentecostal. Yes, it is.

And we have to go now, Pastor Rich. I know that your website is hopereformedli .net. I look forward to having you back on this program very soon.

All right. Goodbye, Chris. Good talking to you. And I hope everybody listening will always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater