July 27, 2016 Show with Robert H. Bennett on “Demon Possession & Spiritual Warfare” AND ALSO “A Lutheran Theologian’s Primer on Doctrine: What Unites & Distinguishes Lutherans From Other Heirs of the Reformation”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 27th day of July, 2016.

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And today we have returning to our program Dr. Richard, I'm sorry,

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Dr. Robert H. Bennett. I almost slipped there because I have a dear friend who's been on this program named

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Dr. Richard Bennett, who is a former Roman Catholic priest, but that is somebody entirely different.

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This is Dr. Robert H. Bennett, who is executive director of Luther Academy and adjunct professor of missiology and international mission specialist at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

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He is author of the two books, I Am Not Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare, and Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America.

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The last time that we had Dr. Bennett on, we spent most of our time on that first book addressing his encounters with the demon possessed and demonology and the occult overseas.

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And today we are going to be addressing primarily for the first hour his book

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Afraid, Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America. The second hour we are going to be discussing a

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Lutheran theologian's primer on doctrine and what unites and distinguishes

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Lutherans from other heirs of the Reformation, including myself, being a Reformed Baptist, and my co -host,

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Reverend Buzz Taylor, being a Presbyterian. And obviously there are a lot of others who are heirs of the

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Reformation out there from varying denominations, and the Lutherans do have a unique niche that they fill in that group of Christians, and we are looking forward to that to perhaps lay to rest some inaccuracies that may be perpetrated, and also just to get a clearer understanding about what

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Lutherans truly believe historically, those who are truly biblically based, conservative and confessional, as opposed to the many liberal

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Lutherans today that have abandoned their historical connection with the scriptures. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

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Robert H. Bennett. It's great to be back with you again. And let me introduce to you again on air my co -host, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. And welcome back. Thank you. And before we even go into the topic at hand again, since there are no doubt some new folks listening that have not heard you on this program before, why don't you let our listeners know about Luther Academy and also

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Concordia Theological Seminary? Sure. Luther Academy provides theological education, really continuing education for pastors worldwide.

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In many parts of the world, especially where Lutheranism is growing in just unbelievable ways like in Africa and Asia and so forth, in many of those areas it's very poor.

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Many times they don't have seminary education, or if they do, it's really kind of a substandard education that we might have received here in the

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United States. So what we do is we travel to various parts of the world, pretty much

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Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America, all over the place, and we provide whatever those pastors are looking for.

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So if the president of the church body says, our pastors are struggling with baptism or preaching or the

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Lord's Supper or Christology or justification, whatever the list could be, we make sure we get the right professors sent there.

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Luther Academy pays for all the pastors in that local area to attend their meals, their housing, and we put on week -long intensive seminary classes for them.

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And we also publish a number of books in the United States that deal with confessional Lutheran theology, and we'll talk about one of those in the second hour,

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The Saving Truth Doctrine for Lay People, but we're also very well known by our Confessional Lutheran Dogmatic series that we've been publishing for years.

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And let me, right off the bat, let our listeners know that they can join us on the air at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

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USA. And although I'm not requiring it, it would be interesting to know what theological background you're coming from when you write, especially we'd like to know if you are

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Lutheran or not, but as I said, you don't have to do that, I just think it might be interesting since we don't have many

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Lutherans as guests on Iron Sharpens Iron, and that is not by design, it just happens to be the case.

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I have had Lutherans on before, and I obviously have one on now and intend to have more on in the future,

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God willing, but we would love to hear from you no matter what your theological positions are, even if you don't have any, if you have a question, you might not even be a

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Christian at all, you might be an atheist, or an agnostic, or a member of some non -Christian religion, well we would love to hear from you, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Well since we are, for the first hour, discussing primarily demon possession and spiritual warfare, and that which has been occurring in the

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United States, I think it might be a good idea, especially for those who missed the last interview we did, if you could tell us what exactly demons are.

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Well of course there has always been a lot of debate over that, the position I would take is that they are fallen angels, those angels that departed with Satan at the great fall.

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And what would demon possession be as compared to oppression, harassment, etc.?

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You know, and that's an interesting topic, as we talked last time I did my original research in Madagascar, actually

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I just returned from there this week, we had a wonderful couple of conferences there with hundreds of pastors, but when

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I was there we were talking about this topic, because it's something that's very common in their midst, as they deal with the animistic religions, as the

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Gospels are preached to those who have never heard the Gospel before, those who were in essence worshipping

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Satan before they heard that word of truth. And when we talked to them about demon possession there, they were very strict on how they understood it, but really not strict at all, not the way we would understand it.

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Their understanding was, they don't differentiate between oppression, or harassment, or physical possession, although they realize all those things are part of that process, the demons wrought upon people in the world.

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Their point was, is whatever the circumstance that is happening, if it's the devils involved, the answer is exorcism.

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And exorcism could be directed towards a person who might be bodily possessed sometimes, and not other times, or fully possessed without the devil leaving, or people who are being harassed in their homes at night, or who are being persecuted by what they understand to be the spirits, so there's a really big, large category there.

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Usually in the U .S. we talk about someone who is physically possessed, rather than someone who is being oppressed, or attacked, or harassed.

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I think that's a better way of actually looking at the problem. For instance, we're all aware of Roman Catholicism, and the

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Roman Catholic exorcists that are out there, and one of the things for a Roman Catholic priest is that he would have to be one who has been set apart to do this work, one who has the approval of the bishop, and then in addition to that, there would be many physical and mental tasks that someone would need to go through before they received an exorcism.

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But the way that I had studied it, and the way that I've actually been teaching about it for quite a while now in the

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United States, is exorcism is not an extreme rite like the

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Roman ritual we might find in Roman Catholicism, but exorcism is simply that that we see throughout the

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Scriptures. It's simply, be gone in the name of Jesus Christ, whether that's a devil within an individual, or that's a devil that's harassing someone, or causing them mental issues, or whatever the case is.

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So I think it's better to look at it as, we're going after the same problem, and maybe we don't need to differentiate so much what the actual problems are, realizing at the heart of it, it's all one problem.

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And how would the phenomena be different in the

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United States than you have witnessed overseas? That's the interesting thing, it's really not too different, except for in many countries where traditional religions are still followed, people seek to be possessed.

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So they're not asking the devil to possess them, or demons to possess them, as part of their rituals and their understanding of their ancestors, who they believe are still present in an unseen realm.

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They ask that their ancestors would possess them, to give them that wisdom that the ancestors possess, or maybe wisdom for how to heal particular problems, or to have a whole list of whatever they're particularly seeking from this demonic world.

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But they don't understand that it's the devil, they think it's their ancestors, and so forth.

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In the U .S., that's obviously not as common, although it's becoming more common now, as people are indirectly doing this, for instance, seeking wisdom from mediums to talk to what they are telling is the dead or the spiritual realm.

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In essence, they're falling back into this same problem, seeking to be in contact with the dead, but they're really not in contact with the dead, either it's a farce, as many times it does happen, or it's a demonic figure who's taking the place of, and pretending to be, a dead relative, or an ancient spirit, or something to that effect.

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How would you define spiritual warfare? Spiritual warfare is,

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I would define it clearly in, the only real spiritual warfare is that which Jesus does on our behalf.

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And so, spiritual warfare would be standing strong in the truths that have been revealed to us by the word of God, and trusting in the person of Jesus to do the warring, not individuals to do the warring.

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Individuals, of course, would speak the words, be gone in the name of Jesus, they would also say things like, you know, the devil, you have no place here,

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Christ has defeated you, this person is a child of God, and likewise, but one point

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I always make whenever I talk on the topic is, there's only one exorcist, only one exists, and that's

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Jesus. Amen. Amen. And, obviously, from what you've already said, not only today, but the last time you were on, there are varying degrees in which the demonic realm can harm a person, and when someone is possessed, is it really like, how we've seen it in films, for instance,

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I don't know how accurate or based on fantasy these films are, of course, there's all different kinds of films as well, but you usually see somebody who seems to have control of their senses and their thinking, and then they are totally overrun by a demonic entity where the demon is speaking through that human in a different voice, there is, you know, there may be some kind of supernatural manifestations of the person being elevated off the ground or objects being elevated off the ground and being thrown around a room, all these kinds of things that we see in Hollywood, how much of that, do you believe, occurs in reality?

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Many times those things can occur, but I wouldn't say that they're the norm, I mean, the devil likes to hide himself as much as possible,

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I would think that many people who are dealing with this may not even know that they're dealing with it, or there's no real outward signs that are magnificent in the sense that we see within Hollywood and so forth, but we do have stories throughout history of various signs, and those are the basic ones, you know, hidden knowledge that they should not have, power, the ability to move objects, and likewise, that most people would be associated with, but I talk to the seminary students here at Concordia Theological Seminary every year,

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I don't teach in the MDiv program for the seminary students, I teach in a PhD, but I do drop into the

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MDiv classes to talk on this topic every year, and that's one of the questions they ask, they always want to know, how can

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I know for sure, and my answer to them is, sometimes you just can't know, sometimes the devil is very good at hiding himself, and you won't see all these outward maneuvers, although sometimes they do come up in the midst of an exorcism.

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And for instance, you have even different ways this is manifest in the

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Bible, with those who are demoniacs, or demon -possessed individuals, you have people running around like a crazed person without any clothes on, and then you have another person who was just blind and mute.

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Right, in addition to that, you have in Acts 16, the woman who tells fortunes, who is really demon -possessed, even though she's saying, you know, this is

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Paul, the servant of the Most High, nevertheless, it's the demon speaking those words.

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Now, in the United States, the exorcisms that are most dominant, and I'm just identifying them the way that the people who perform them are identifying them,

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I don't know if they are real, I think that many of them, or much of it is false, but you have some of the extreme charismatic groups, actually, who call themselves deliverance ministries, where you will have

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Christians every time they gather, expelling demons, often accompanied by vomiting and things like that.

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Now, what do you make of that phenomenon happening in the United States with these groups? Do you think this is some kind of psychosomatic thing?

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I mean, obviously, you don't have the mind of God, you can't know for certain what percentage is true, what percentage is false, but what is your take on that kind of thing in those ministries in general?

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Yeah, I question those type of things as well. I mean, obviously, there's no way of really knowing what's in the heart and what's going in the mind of these individuals.

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From what I've seen, for the most part, actual full demon possession is relatively rare in the

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U .S. Most of the time it's demonic influence or demonic oppression.

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The devil can effectively work without possessing someone, simply by pushing the right buttons, and as, of course, believing in original sin, all of us have the buttons right there that can be pushed any time if we're not aware of the circumstances.

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So I think a lot of those probably are maybe fictitious without knowing for sure each of the circumstances.

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But I think in the U .S., most of what we see is more of a demonic oppression or intention, working, telling lies to individuals and helping them to make decisions maybe they wouldn't make otherwise.

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I think that's more the prominence we find here in the U .S., although as our country continues to slide into this spiritualism that is really kind of taking hold, especially those who call themselves spiritual but not religious, which means basically they can take from any particular religion or even make up their own religion and add all the different things together and come up with their own theologies,

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I think as we find people searching for more of the magnificent, as we find people who are believing more in ghosts, those who have died as humans and are still active in the world, which

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I don't believe, by the way. As we see people falling into these areas of the paranormal,

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I think we will see an increase in actual demonic possession as we go. We have

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Tyler from Mastic Beach, Long Island, who wants to know, Do you find it common that many well -meaning

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Christians place too much emphasis on the demonic, rather than the all -good and sovereign

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God of Scripture? Absolutely. You know, within Lutheran theology, we were kind of void on this maybe in the last hundred years or so, but if you go back and you look at how

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Lutherans have dealt with this topic in the past, demon possession, demon oppression, was just seen as one additional task amongst all the other tasks that a pastor was called to fulfill.

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Indeed, you know, pastors visit the sick, pastors visit shut -ins, pastors visit those who are in prison, those who are mentally ill, and those who are affected by demons.

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It's just one more aspect, not a primary aspect at all. If anything, more of a minor aspect.

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Some pastors may never have to deal with this in their entire life, and other pastors, for whatever reasons, have to deal with it more, depending on where they're at and what their membership looks like.

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So I think we have to be very cautious that we don't make a prominent theology and practice focusing on this as you would find in the deliverance ministries and likewise.

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The only reason for me writing my book is I was seeing the exact opposite within confessional

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Lutheranism and even within Reformed movements and likewise, that they were actually losing because of trying to move away from those many times fraudulent or deliverance -type of activities, really stop talking about the devil altogether, as if he was no longer active in the world and that people weren't being afflicted to this day.

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So the reason I wrote the book is so that people could be reminded by Scripture and by real stories that this is still a common problem in many people's lives, and the

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Church needs to be there and to answer these instances, otherwise people are left without hope and they seek answers in all the wrong places.

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One of the very reasons I wanted you on the program is because, being a

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Calvinist and from a very conservative, traditional Reformed Baptist background and having most of my fellowship, although not all of it, but most of it

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I would say, with confessionally Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians, you don't hear a lot about the subject of demon possession or demonology.

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And since it is a real thing, everybody agrees it's real because they believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and they see it in the

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Scripture, and it's just a mystery why it's not being spoken of. Some people always relegate it to the jungles of Africa or South America or somewhere, and that doesn't seem to me to be, even though most of it might be there,

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I can't imagine that it would all be, and obviously you don't believe it is because you wrote a book on it. And of course we want to distance ourselves from those that we hear on the radio that have exorcisms over the air and all that stuff too.

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Right. I guess it's a very common thing for the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction.

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Right. We're prone to extremes. Yeah, one of the things that you will have some of our charismatic and Pentecostal brethren, when we who are outside of the camps that are more focused on the demonic realm, when we may criticize a pastor or evangelist that we believe might be a charlatan who is performing exorcisms, and we sometimes even say that these men even appear themselves to be acting like they're demon -possessed, our friends will point us to Matthew 12, and there's the classic case, starting in verse 22,

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If the kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, any city or house divided against itself will not stand.

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If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

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If by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?

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For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

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Or how can anyone enter the strongman's house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strongman, and then he will plunder his house?

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So they will say that Satan can't or won't divide against himself, so therefore we should not claim that these men are casting out demons by the power of demons.

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But I guess we could say, now this would be for you to answer, Dr. Bennett, but I guess we could say that what they're doing isn't really exorcism, so that it's not really the same kind of scenario, because these

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Pharisees, even though they were opposed to Christ, they knew what they were seeing was real exorcism.

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Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it. You know, you have to wonder what's happening with these individuals, and we're reminded that even

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Satan shows himself as an angel of light, and then right after that we're reminded that so too do his followers use areas of deceit and come in false clothing, and likewise.

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It's interesting, we have that clear text from Jesus, but I did some research in Haiti, this will be in a new book that will be coming out next year, but as a part of that I talked to a number of voodoo priests that were on the island, and it was interesting, they were very clear that they could not inflict any harm upon us

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Christians, but they did believe that they could heal. And when

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I pushed them on it a little bit, for instance, one voodoo priest says, well if your little son there, if he runs out and a car hits him, do you heal him, or how do you do this?

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He says, well no, I take him to the doctor, I can't heal anything unless it's a spiritual cause.

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So in that case, it appears from what they're saying, who knows, you know, you're talking to just a voodoo priest, but from what they're saying is that, in essence, they can only take away a curse or a sickness that was already imposed by their spirits, the

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Lua, and so you wonder how that all plays out, but there's really no way of knowing, I guess, but Jesus is very clear on that point.

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And why would you say that demon possession is more prevalent in other parts of the world when, although they may have rituals and religions that may invite this kind of thing, it seems that we have people in political leadership right here in the

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United States that are so blinded by evil, they can't even recognize that what we are seeing in regard to the

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Holocaust of unborn children is something that's straight from the pit of hell.

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And even those who are not, perhaps, enthusiastically supporting it and promoting it,

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I'm speaking of abortion, obviously, there are those who are just very calm and uninterested in it, they have a neutral position, they are very relaxed when it comes to this issue, they don't think it's something they should overly burden themselves with.

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That seems to be pretty overt demonic, at least, oppression in this country here.

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What are your thoughts on that? Oh sure, I think Paul helps us a little bit there in Ephesians chapter 2, as he recognized that everyone who is born, all of us, start in that predicament.

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He uses the Greek word nekros, dead, that all people are spiritually dead people, following that spirit of disobedience in the air,

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I think is how he says it. And this understanding that he moves on, of course, through the book of Ephesians to show that it's only when faith is wrought, it's only by that word of God that we're rescued from that darkness.

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So in essence, Paul is really telling us that we shouldn't be surprised when the world is evil, because of already that disconnect from God and that following of Satan, not that he's necessarily possessing everyone, but already his influence is there from the time we're born because of original sin, and that God has to rescue us from that by his word, by giving us faith, and making us alive walking people rather than dead walking people.

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And it's interesting, you go to these parts, these cities sometimes, and they have their zombie walks, and people are all dressed up as zombies and are kind of walking and falling over, and you kind of look at that in view of Ephesians chapter 2, and you go, well you know what?

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Most people around us are in the same shape. I was just going to say that it sounds like the parking lot at Reverend Buzz's church.

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See what happens when you're not outnumbered? But yeah, and of course the world has become the playground for all of this, and you know, like Winston Churchill said one time that sometimes people stumble across the truth, but they get up and brush off their knees and walk on like nothing ever happened.

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And that's what Paul said, you know, Paul was quoting Winston Churchill in Romans 1 when he said that people suppress the truth in unrighteousness, even when they do come across it.

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So it hardly requires demonic activity for them to reject the truth when they see it, because they've got enough of the flesh and the world to do that.

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Absolutely, I mean, dead is dead. Dead people don't understand spiritual things.

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When I was a pastor, I used to be in Michigan as a pastor, and I would use the example, we had many deer in Michigan, and you'd see them on the wrong side of the road all the time dead, and I'd say, well go try to tell one of those deers it's okay, get up, it's fine.

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You know, he won't hear you, he won't understand. And same thing for those who are apart from faith, they simply wouldn't even recognize the problems of many spiritual things because they don't have those spiritual eyes to see or the ears to hear or the minds to comprehend.

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And I think remembering that Ephesians text is really helpful when we're dealing with these types of problems.

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And once again, Paul doesn't say people are all demon possessed, but he does allude to the fact that they are nevertheless following the will of the devil, just as a part of being those without faith.

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And the world provides answers that seem to make sense to the spiritually dead. Like Chris, your example about abortion, you know, it's obviously murder, there's obviously a death that occurs every time.

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Especially since doctors are doing it and they know better. And of course, the argument used to be over whether or not it was life.

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Now it's like, well it's life, but so what? But when they have been given permission by the world to reject that it's murder because they cloaked it in terms like, you know, a woman has the right to choose over her own body, you know, what to do with her own body.

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And, you know, that helps them to suppress, they look for any ammo,

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I guess is what I'm saying, they look for any ammo they can to justify their position. So they don't have to admit that what they believe in is immoral.

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There's a wonderful book, it's titled How Christianity Changed the World. I believe the author is

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Alvin Sink. That sounds interesting. That's the topic. And anyways, why this book is so helpful is it helps bring some perspective to our own time.

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What the book does is it goes back and it looks throughout history at various parts of the world and so on and shows what those places looked like before Christianity.

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Oh yeah. And as you look back at those circumstances, it's not too different than the world that we see in our midst right now.

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So it isn't that these are our new problems that are facing us, that people are killing and not finding problems with them.

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Likewise, it's when Christianity entered in, Christianity as it grew stronger, as more people were converted, these things were pushed out to the periphery of society.

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They always existed, but they weren't common. As we see Christianity declining in the

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West, although it's growing marvelously throughout the world, the West is declining, we're seeing all these old practices.

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You can just take that book and you kind of say, oh, yep, that's back, and yep, that's back. And so it's helpful,

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I think, to realize that the real nature of the problem is the nature of faith.

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We have to get a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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

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USA, and we thank those who have already sent their questions and are waiting for them to be read and answered on air, and we will get to you,

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God willing, shortly. But don't go away. We're going to be right back with Dr. Robert H.

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Bennett and our discussion on demon possession and spiritual warfare. Hi, I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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37:47

This is Chris Arns. And before we return to our guest, Dr. Robert H. Bennett, and our discussion on demon possession and spiritual warfare, our sponsors, one of our sponsors, the

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39:38

We do have Kevin in Mount Holly, Pennsylvania, who says,

39:46

I don't know how the Lutheran theologians divide the church offices that are mentioned in Scripture, but the tradition that I am a part of only lists two, elders and deacons.

40:03

Is an exorcist another form of church leader, or is this just something to be performed by certain

40:11

Christians, no matter what role in life they may have? Answering that question,

40:18

I wouldn't look to a particular person as an exorcist.

40:24

I talked about that a little bit earlier within Lutheran theology, that it's just one aspect of pastoral theology, or what a pastor, or one who's fulfilling the role of a pastor in some of the other denominations, maybe, would just be one more aspect of their work, no different than visiting the sick or visiting those in prison, or likewise.

40:48

I think we become problematic when we divide this into a particular category.

40:55

One reason for that is, I met a pastor a few years back who got very involved in spiritual warfare and exorcism.

41:09

He's not doing it as much anymore, only when he has to with his members, which would be the right way to do it.

41:15

But what his problem was, is he got so involved in exorcisms and dealing with the demonic, he did so because it was rewarding to him.

41:27

We preach the gospel, we baptize, we provide the

41:32

Lord's Supper, and those are all wonderful things that provide everything we need in life.

41:38

But nevertheless, when you deal with the demonic, there's an immediate reward, you could say, in the sense you're seeing real spirituality happen.

41:49

What happened with him, however, is he got so involved in these things, it finally realized to him that he was destroying the rest of the ministry.

41:59

In fact, really, the main thing that he was called to do is one who served the Church. He wasn't preparing his sermons properly anymore, he wasn't studying what he should be studying, he wasn't dealing with the sick, the erring, and those falling away from the faith, and so it really took over his ministry.

42:19

I think that we need to put in that category just one thing that a Church, one who's leading a congregation, continues to do.

42:29

And of course, in my work in Madagascar, I identified how the Church there works also with laypeople in connection with the pastors, so it's not an either -or situation.

42:40

The laypeople are trained and they go with the pastors and they participate in the exorcisms as well. So I don't believe in this special category of exorcists, and as I made the point earlier, really the only exorcist is

42:53

Jesus as he works through the words that he's called us to speak.

43:00

And we have George in Quag, New York, who asks,

43:06

Do you think that there is great danger in mistakenly identifying someone who has serious mental illnesses with someone who is demon -possessed, as has been done in the past, and where there could be tragic consequences?

43:22

Right, and we're dealing with those who are mentally ill. We recognize that there's real mental illnesses out there.

43:30

We recognize that there's medications that should be sought to care for such individuals.

43:36

But at the same time, we recognize that the devil is one who loves to take advantage of those who are weak, and those who are in sickened conditions, whether it's physically or mentally.

43:45

So many times you'll have somebody who maybe is mentally ill, but at the same time the devil is increasing the problems of that individual because of that weakness that they're dealing with.

43:57

Now, one thing we haven't really talked about is exorcism and actually what I mean by exorcism.

44:04

Within the Roman Catholic ritual, of course, as most of us are aware of, because of television shows and the exorcist movie and things like that, there's a very formal process.

44:15

The person is decided to be one who is demon -possessed, and so now you enter into the formal ritual of exorcism to battle the priest against the demon, really, in essence, with maybe the help of Jesus.

44:30

I think we need to look at exorcism in a little bit different way. One way we haven't talked about it is, many times when

44:37

I talk to groups where they have me out to talk about exorcism, I ask them, first off,

44:42

I say, Have any of you ever received an exorcism before? And of course, no one's going to raise their hand unless maybe they've had.

44:50

But generally, it's pretty quiet. You can hear the crickets in the corner someplace.

44:57

My next response to them would be, Well, have any of you ever been baptized before? Baptism has always been understood by the

45:04

Church to be exorcism. Make way for the Holy Spirit, leave you unholy spirit, make way for the

45:11

Holy Spirit. And then I would continue on, I would say, Have any of you ever simply prayed the

45:19

Lord's Prayer before? Well, yeah, we've prayed the Lord's Prayer. Well, the Lord's Prayer is, in essence, an exorcism.

45:25

Deliver us from the evil one. We're speaking exorcist words. We're asking Jesus to deliver us from the evil one.

45:33

Then I carry it on, and we'll probably have an opportunity to talk more about this when we talk a little bit about Lutheran doctrine later on.

45:39

But at the same point, we're receiving exorcisms all of the time.

45:44

Not that we're seeking to have an exorcism, but in essence, we're receiving exorcisms if we understand that Jesus is the only exorcist and that he operates in this world through his word.

45:59

And so there's a presence in this, especially within our Lutheran doctrine. We understand that Jesus is present when his word is spoken.

46:08

We would connect baptism also to the presence of Jesus. The pastor says the words, Jesus does the work.

46:14

To the absolution of sins, the pastor speaks as one who's called by the

46:20

Lord to speak those words of absolution, but it's Jesus who's doing it. And of course, primarily in the preaching, and then finally in the

46:27

Lord's Supper, we have an understanding of presence that Jesus is there in, with, and under the bread and wine in our

46:35

Lutheran theology. So in essence, we're having an exorcism all of the time.

46:40

Anytime we go to church, anytime we are reading our scriptures. Not that we're demon -possessed by any means, but we're pushing away the devil, or actually

46:50

Jesus is pushing away the devil in our life by his very presence, through his very word, and through his actions in the sacraments.

46:59

And really, we need to look where Jesus is. The evil one does not wish to exist.

47:05

I mean, we see, of course, through the scriptures, whenever Jesus shows up, the devils flee and cry, and likewise.

47:12

So while we're not seeking to have exorcisms, we're seeking simply to worship the

47:18

Lord, to have him speak to us through his word, nevertheless, there's already an exorcistic response there going on.

47:26

The word exorcism, of course, simply means to cast off, to push away, to repel, in the

47:33

Greek. For instance, in John chapter 12, now is the time for the prince of this world to be exballowed, to be exorcised.

47:42

I think most translations say cast off. So I think we need to maybe change how we're viewing exorcism, and change the way we're looking at it.

47:52

Now, going back to the question related to someone who's mentally possessed, many times you would have no idea if that's a demonic situation, if it's a mental illness, or if it's both.

48:03

But it's very simple to have an exorcistic effect on these individuals by preaching to them, by, in the midst of their prayer, working in that if there's any evil in their midst, if there's any evil clinging to them or causing them difficulty, that it be gone in the name of Jesus.

48:22

So there's kind of a long answer to the question there, but you can feel free to ask me questions about it. Obviously, I'm assuming that you would also believe that there are people who truly need to be under medication, schizophrenics and things like that, that have been certainly diagnosed with some kind of disorder of that nature.

48:43

Oh, absolutely, and I make that point over and over again in the second book, that our Lord works through means, through vocations.

48:51

It would be inappropriate theology to exclude that which God has provided through doctors, through mental health professionals, through various types of medication.

49:02

This is how God deals with many of the problems of this world, and to simply say, no, we're just going to have faith and to pray, would really be despising those means that the

49:14

Lord has already prepared for us and provides for us through this world of vocations and likewise.

49:20

Jim in Kansas City, Missouri wants to know, Do you attribute the spread of overt homosexual activity in this country to some kind of demonic occurrences, or is this merely a product of man's depraved nature, being given more freedom politically?

49:44

Yeah, I think we can answer that it's both. Sin clings to individuals.

49:51

All of us have a certain propensity for sin, whether that might be stealing or looking at women who we should not be looking at or not our spouses or whatever.

50:04

All the sin should go through. Every one of us has a particular propensity for some sin, and usually we won't talk about that to anybody.

50:11

Even the closest people in our lives might not know what that is. But in our society, by making it acceptable and even pushing it on people, we're encouraging sin.

50:23

And I think we have to look at things, if you want to get a Paul, I think it's Ephesians 6 if I remember correctly, that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities of the spirits, the evil one who's acting in our society.

50:38

So there's always going to be a demonic influence in our society until finally the

50:44

Lord returns and sin is dealt with and the devil and the angels are cast into the eternal fire with those who do not believe.

50:55

But there's always going to be a demonic influence on our society, and that's why Paul tries to make that so clear to us in Ephesians 6.

51:04

Just out of curiosity, did you do any investigation in regard to this subject in areas of the

51:12

United States like New Orleans, where you have, it seems, I'm no expert on this, but it seems that there would be a lot more concentration of occultic activity, voodoo and those types of religions,

51:27

Santa Ria, and that kind of a thing going on, where it would be more similar to the situations in Africa and South America, where you have people actually inviting these spirits into their hearts and minds.

51:42

Well, sure, and many times when you talk about voodoo in New Orleans, there's a tourism factor there.

51:49

Right. And people are there, they're seeking these things, and many times they don't believe them.

51:55

They're accepting it as part of the culture of the area. But nevertheless, they're opening themselves up to these spiritual problems by interacting with these occult measures.

52:09

Indeed, anything that's occult is really something that could affect us in various ways.

52:16

But I did do some research in New Orleans, and what I wanted to do in New Orleans is I wanted to go and find a place where it's in your face.

52:24

And my main research, I read about it in the book Afraid, is I wanted to see who was going to these places.

52:32

What were they saying? What were they doing? I stood in these places and just listened to the conversations that were going on around me.

52:42

For instance, one person who thought they had an evil spirit who called the voodoo practitioner at one particular shop, and he gives them this long, ridiculous formula with water, basically to drink a gallon of water, and if you feel bloated, there's an evil spirit within you.

53:04

I know, it's quite ridiculous. But there's all kinds of other things he attached to it, and Psalm 23 was a part of it, and complete ridiculousness, but I provide the whole story in the book.

53:15

And in another place, there's a young man, probably, I don't know, 12 years old or something, he runs in the door with his dad.

53:25

His dad's the first one to speak, and he says, Hey, what did this picture of Marie Laveau, the historic voodoo priest many years ago in New Orleans, what did this look great on your voodoo wall, son?

53:37

And then the son tells dad, no, I don't want that. Instead, he wants the death certificate of Marie Laveau, and dad buys him all these little magical bags and things like that.

53:48

Well, you know, the dad was just thinking this was cultural. You know, he thinks it's just part of the fun of living in this area and stuff, but the kid knew exactly what he wanted.

53:57

He knew exactly what spell bags he wanted and so forth. So we're seeing these things because our understanding of the devil has really been kind of put away, even within Christianity in some regard.

54:10

Like you said, we believe in the historical nature, we believe in the inherent scriptures and so forth, but the devil's activity in the world, because we haven't been dealing with that, we who know better, we still watch out, but our children and the younger people in our society, they don't have that safety net that makes them realize, we don't want to go that far in these areas, and so they find themselves in these occult practices.

54:35

And then probably one of the craziest places was a place called the Voodoo Temple, which is off the

54:40

Strip, it's away from the Strip, and long story on that, but if you go in there, there's a back room and there's actually a whole temple to various gods with thousands of dollars all in it, where people have placed their offerings to various spirits and asked them to help with their lives and so forth.

54:59

So these are common areas of spiritualism that are taking root in our world, but we're not looking at them with caution, where we've written off the devil as being active in our world, and now we can engage in all these different spiritual practices, we think, which are safe and can't harm us, but come back to harm us.

55:20

I'd like you to basically summarize what you most want our audience to be left with on this subject right now, before we transition after the break over to a primer on Lutheran theology.

55:34

If you could let our listeners know, basically, what you most want etched in their hearts and minds regarding the subject of demon possession and spiritual warfare.

55:44

That the devil is still active in our world. Not that we need to be afraid of him, not that we need to even really think too much about him, but it's like going into a war.

55:57

You have to realize that there's an enemy there, and as long as you realize that enemy's there, you're cautious of what you do.

56:05

Ultimately, we don't need to be afraid because, as John 12 is so clear, Jesus has already defeated the devil.

56:13

He's already defeated sin and death, already there on the cross and in his resurrection.

56:19

So as Christians, we don't need to be afraid, but we do have a world that's leaning back into these circumstances, and as Christians, we need to know how to properly speak the gospel so that people are not afraid and those who are oppressed can hear the gospel, can be connected with Christ, who is the only exorcist.

56:38

And how could I avoid reading this portion of the great

56:45

Lutheran hymn by a hero of the Reformation that not only Lutherans look to as a great source of inspiration and encouragement and knowledge, but across the spectrum of Protestants, including

57:03

Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians. Martin Luther is who I am speaking of, who penned that glorious hymn,

57:10

Mighty Fortress is Our God, and let me just read this portion of the hymn. And though this world, with devils filled,

57:19

Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed

57:24

His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim,

57:30

We tremble not for him, His rage we can endure, For lo, his doom is sure,

57:38

One little word shall fell him. And those were very powerful and wise words from the great

57:48

Reformer Martin Luther that I, even as a non -Lutheran

57:53

Christian, view as one of my heroes of the faith. And I think that most of those in my camp of Christians would echo those sentiments.

58:04

Well, you know, that hymn itself is an exorcistic hymn. And when I mean exorcistic, it's showing that the devil has no power.

58:13

It's driving the devil away. Luther would talk about belittling the devil. He never means to do so as a person to the devil.

58:20

He means belittle the devil in view of what Christ has done. And in the Bible book, I provide 70 -plus hymns that I would state are exorcistic in nature, hymns that we sing all the time without really identifying what's happening in the singing of those hymns.

58:37

I mean, real hymns are sermons unto themselves. They can be preached and sung, unlike many of the more popular

58:44

Christian songs these days and so forth, which are more musical than they are theological. Great.

58:51

Well, we are going to be transitioning now to a primer on Lutheran theology when we return from this break.

58:59

A lot of our listeners may be scratching their heads, wondering why I, a Reformed Baptist radio host, would be doing that.

59:07

And it is not because I am converting or considering converting. It's because the

59:12

Lutherans are among our brethren in Christ and those in our historic lineage.

59:21

And we all share with us a great love and respect and gratitude for the

59:29

Protestant Reformation, which Luther was used most powerfully to spark. And, of course, there were men before him, like Jan Hus and others, who paid the very greatest price for their attempts at Reformation by being martyred by the

59:47

Roman Catholic Church. But since we do all share in common, those of us in the

59:55

Reformation camp, those of us who are theologically Reformed, who consider ourselves to be heirs of the

01:00:03

Reformation, we have this shared history and shared lineage.

01:00:09

So I think it's an important thing to just be further educated on what some of our other brothers believe, because there's a lot of confusion today, just as there are many

01:00:22

Presbyterians that have completely apostatized from the faith, as even my co -host,

01:00:29

Reverend Buzz Taylor, will readily admit to. One of the reasons his denomination that he is a part of exists is because of the liberal apostate churches that have sprung up under the name of Presbyterianism and that have thrown away their heritage and their biblical roots.

01:00:52

But there is a lot of confusion with Lutheranism today as well, especially since some of the larger denominations, if not the largest in the

01:01:01

United States, seems to be nearly completely sold out to unbiblical tenets and so on.

01:01:09

So we wanted to get somebody from a conservative, confessional, historically

01:01:17

Lutheran background to basically let our listeners know what unites us as brothers in Christ, the

01:01:26

Calvinist and the Lutheran, and also what sets the Lutherans apart, what distinguishes them amongst other heirs of the

01:01:33

Reformation. So if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:01:39

chrisarnson at gmail .com Whether you are Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Sweden, Borgianist, Atheist, Agnostic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, we would love to hear from you, no matter what religious background you may be from.

01:01:56

chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:02:05

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That's the Thriving Story. Welcome back.

01:05:52

This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in for the two hours today, we have as our guest

01:06:00

Dr. Robert H. Bennett. And for the first hour, Dr. Robert H.

01:06:06

Bennett was discussing demon possession and spiritual warfare. And now we are going to have

01:06:13

Dr. Bennett, who is a Lutheran, give a primer, if you will, or a summary of historic, biblical, confessional

01:06:23

Lutheran doctrine and teaching. And we're going to learn how not only the

01:06:31

Lutherans are united with other heirs of the Reformation, like Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists and others, but there's also things that are unique about that branch of the

01:06:43

Reformation that sets the Lutherans apart and distinguishes them amongst other

01:06:49

Reformed folks. And our guest, Dr. Robert H. Bennett, if you missed his introduction at the outset of the program, he is

01:06:58

Executive Director of Luther Academy, and he is Adjunct Professor of Missiology and International Missions Specialist at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

01:07:11

And if you would like more information on Luther Academy, you can go to lutheracademy .com,

01:07:18

lutheracademy .com. And also, Dr.

01:07:24

Bennett has his own website, drroberthbennettphd .com.

01:07:29

Dr. Robert H. Bennett, and Bennett has two Ts at the end, phd .com.

01:07:37

And, well, it's great to start off the program on this topic that I haven't done in quite a long time.

01:07:46

I did it once before, something similar, on Iron Sharpens Iron, on the old program with Reverend Swirla.

01:07:52

Do you know Professor Swirla? I sure do. Yeah, we had something similar. We called it

01:07:58

Lutheranism 101, I believe, when he was on a number of years ago. But there is a lot of, as I was saying, admiration of Martin Luther himself and that branch of the

01:08:15

Reformation. There is a lot of admiration shared amongst those who are not Lutherans today, those who are

01:08:22

Presbyterians, those who are Reformed Baptists, those who are Reformed Anglicans, Congregationalists, and members of other groups who fondly view and are immensely and enormously grateful for Martin Luther and how the

01:08:40

Lord used him and those who would follow him in the Reformation. If you could tell our listeners about the

01:08:50

Missouri Synod denomination, first of all, because of the fact that immediately, very often when

01:08:57

I speak to an evangelical, perhaps a conservative evangelical, they might have a knee -jerk reaction where they say, aren't

01:09:07

Lutherans just all liberal? I know the Lutheran congregation down the block was a female pastor.

01:09:14

They get into the gay pride march and all this kind of thing.

01:09:20

What are you talking about? How on earth could you think that they are somehow your brethren in Christ?

01:09:26

Well, obviously there's different kinds of Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Anglicans and even

01:09:35

Baptists. Let's not forget that Bill Clinton was a Baptist or is a Baptist, and there are other

01:09:41

Baptists who are certainly not demonstrating that they believe in the

01:09:47

Christ and the teachings of the Scriptures. But tell us, our listeners, about the

01:09:54

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and also about some other Lutheran bodies that you would believe would be faithful heirs of the

01:10:01

Reformation. Sure. The reason we originally started this conversation is a recent book the

01:10:08

Lutheran Academy published, The Saving Truth Doctrine for Lay People, works of a man,

01:10:14

Curt Marquardt, who was a professor at Concordia Theological Seminary and a great apologist for the

01:10:20

Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, who wrote a wonderful book that really gets to the main points of theology in an in -depth way but in a very simple way.

01:10:31

And so that's how we started talking about this. The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, has about 2 .1

01:10:37

million members. We are the largest confessional Lutheran church body in the

01:10:42

United States. By confessional, I mean that we hold to the Holy Scriptures as the inspired

01:10:48

Word of God. We don't try to interpret them in view of culture or any of those other things that so many people are enamored with these days.

01:10:58

We have only male clergy. We have always denied women's ordination. We also are in complete opposition to the various movements of gays and lesbians and all the acronyms that they have these days as being clearly against the

01:11:17

Word of God. We just recently had our Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod convention in Milwaukee a few weeks ago, and once again made very clear statements on the problems of our culture and what many

01:11:33

Lutheran church bodies are doing these days, affirmed all of our confessions. In addition to that, we have the

01:11:39

Book of Concord, which contains books like the Augsburg Confession, which really started off the

01:11:46

Reformation. Many times people think of Luther and the 95 Theses, but really the essence of the

01:11:53

Reformation began with the Augsburg Confession, a book called the

01:11:59

Apology to the Augsburg Confession, which is really a response to the

01:12:05

Roman Catholicism's attack on our first document. And then also we have the small catechism of Martin Luther, the large catechism of Martin Luther, something called the

01:12:17

Formula of Concord, when there were some questions over some areas of Lutheran theology as opposed to Reformed theology.

01:12:25

Likewise, kind of clarifying that, and some other books as well.

01:12:31

So as we talk about being confessional Lutheran, we look at our confessions as that they are properly representing the

01:12:39

Word of God, not that they simply contain in them the Word of God, but that all of the aspects of the confession are in line completely with the

01:12:50

Holy Word, and so we confess that we will teach and preach and confess according to that confession.

01:13:00

Now, I have become aware over the years of the Wisconsin Synod, how would they differ? I know that they seem to have a stricter guideline as to who they would have fellowship with and how that would be conducted, if at all.

01:13:14

But if you could tell us about that, and any other body of Lutherans that you think today may be trustworthy in regard to their teaching and practice.

01:13:24

Sure. You mentioned the Wisconsin Lutheran Synod, a very faithful Lutheran church body.

01:13:32

We have some differences with them, but we're always in talks trying to work those out if the

01:13:39

Lord provides some time to come back and to fellowship with them. We were in fellowship with them at one time in our church body.

01:13:47

And there's also the Evangelical Lutheran ELCA, which is not the

01:13:52

ELCA. That's a very different group. That's the liberal group that you're even talking about that would not hold those confessions or scripture anymore.

01:14:00

But the ELC, which is another very small, really originates in mostly

01:14:05

Scandinavian Lutheran members, but a faithful church body as well.

01:14:11

So we have the three main professional Lutheran church bodies in the United States would be Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, which is the largest, and then the two smaller ones, the

01:14:20

Wisconsin Synod and the ELCA. And are the Lutheran brethren truly a part in any sense of historic

01:14:30

Lutheranism, or is that a completely different type of Christian denomination and background?

01:14:37

Lutheran brethren are, in my view, difficult to pin down many times. You have many wonderful confessional

01:14:45

Lutheran pastors within the Lutheran brethren, and then you have other pastors that I would think would slide away from more of our confessional and historical

01:14:56

Lutheran understanding. But there are some very strong Lutherans in the

01:15:02

Lutheran brethren. Indeed, we meet with them. They have us come speak at their winter conferences many times, and many of their professors have been trained in our seminary.

01:15:15

So there's a lot of good going on there. We do have some differences with them. Well, there is a program that you may be familiar with that I know a lot of my listeners are no doubt familiar with.

01:15:27

It's called the White Horse Inn. That is hosted by Mike Horton, who is from the

01:15:35

United Reformed Church of North America, which is basically from...

01:15:40

that denomination is more in line with the Dutch Reformation. He co -hosts that with Rod Rosenblatt, who is a

01:15:48

Missouri Synod Lutheran, and Kim Riddlebarger, who is another member of the

01:15:53

United Reformed Church of North America. And there is also Ken Jones, who happens to be a

01:15:59

Reformed Baptist that from time to time is involved on the panel there with Mike Horton.

01:16:05

And so obviously, since they have done many, many programs over the years together, there is a lot that they share in common.

01:16:16

And there seems to be a lot of those

01:16:22

Christians in my camp who are Calvinistic, who when we read Luther on many things, especially the bondage of the will, one of the most important debates that was a part of the

01:16:40

Reformation, and we scratch our heads wondering how there could be a completely different denomination other than the fact that we acknowledge there were differences between Luther and Calvin on the sacraments.

01:16:55

But let's start with, for instance, the total depravity of man that obviously has relationships with the bondage of the will.

01:17:05

Was there much of a difference between Luther and Calvin on that issue?

01:17:12

And in regard to also the primary or most dominant thought of Lutheran scholarship today, that it would be coming from a confessional and conservative background.

01:17:23

Sure. There's many similarities there, of course, with Calvin and the strict reform and understanding that man is born by nature sinful.

01:17:36

We talked earlier on the program about how Paul in Ephesians 2 refers to man apart from faith as being spiritually dead, incapable of doing anything on their own.

01:17:54

Lutherans have always held to that, especially within confessional Lutheranism, that because of that depravity, because of the inability for dead people to act, the only way that faith can come is by an outside means, an outside means of the

01:18:15

Word of God as it is spoken, as preached, as it's delivered to individuals.

01:18:22

The bondage of the will, as you talk about that, of course, Luther identifies two books as his most important writings of all of his life.

01:18:33

Many of your listeners are familiar with Luther. He wrote unbelievable amounts of writings and works and books in his lifetime.

01:18:42

But he identifies the bondage of the will and the small catechism as his two primarily texts that he looks to as his best accomplishments.

01:18:51

And, of course, in that bondage of will, Luther does toy a little bit with the hiddenness of God.

01:19:01

He recognizes that for God to be God, he must have all power, all authority, all knowledge, and likewise.

01:19:12

When you talk about, for instance, predestination and maybe the more

01:19:19

Reformed understanding and Luther not being one who follows predestination,

01:19:26

Luther's point in the bondage of the will is that he recognizes there's many things that God has not revealed to us in Scripture.

01:19:37

But Luther's point is we always stick with the revealed God. So that which

01:19:42

Christ has stated clearly is what we follow. And we're okay with some paradoxes.

01:19:48

Sometimes our reason or our learning, our experience might help to push us in a position that we would say that Christ did not clearly speak of and move away from some of the clearer texts that Christ did provide.

01:20:11

And that's really where kind of that contradiction comes in with predestination.

01:20:17

Luther, it's said, walked up to the cliff, looked down, and turned away and went the other way.

01:20:27

And simply God has not revealed, so we will not speak of. And that really is one of the major differences.

01:20:35

There's a couple other differences as well that are major, but one of the major differences that I would see, and you know

01:20:42

Reformed theology better than I do, but that's one of the differences I would see is Luther was very worrisome about allowing the wisdom of the mind, reason, to answering questions that God, he would say, that we would say, have not been clearly dealt with in Scripture.

01:21:04

So you're saying basically that Luther relegated a lot more to mystery than Calvin or his successors would have.

01:21:14

Right. If God did not clearly speak on something, Luther would say that we are not to speak.

01:21:22

And actually I think if I remember right, he quoted Augustine, you know, this understanding that we don't go where God has not provided the road.

01:21:32

Well now, we are coming up, since you brought it up earlier, the 95 Theses.

01:21:37

We're coming up on 500 years from the posting of those 95

01:21:42

Theses on the chapel door in Wittenberg. Could you address that a little bit? And then I'd also like to know what kind of a celebration you're planning for that?

01:21:50

Yeah, those were primarily a protest against the selling of indulgences, correct? That's correct.

01:21:56

Luther, you know, they had the priest going through and selling the indulgences.

01:22:02

Luther had members of his own church telling him that they could go out and get drunk and live lives of debauchery because they had paid for the indulgence.

01:22:14

And so now they did not need to worry about their sinful actions. Luther mistakenly thought that it was just something that the various priests and bishops were doing without the

01:22:28

Pope's knowledge. And so he wrote his 95 Theses mentioning a number of problems within the

01:22:37

Roman Catholic Church and thinking that he was, you know, helping the Pope understand what was being done in his name.

01:22:45

And of course, as it turned out, the Pope didn't see it that way and was behind most of these measures.

01:22:53

And as a result of that, the persecution of Luther, which would later become the

01:22:59

Lutherans, took place. So we celebrate for that, for the Reformation, October 31st. The main celebrations will be in 2017.

01:23:07

That's where the 500 -year point would be. But also, as I mentioned earlier,

01:23:13

I think more of a primary time of the Reformation, if we actually look at it, would be at the

01:23:20

Augsburg, the Diet of Worms, and then later Augsburg, as Luther and Melanchthon, who actually was there because Luther wasn't allowed to attend, and they were still seeking to kill him at that point, put together a real confession of what they found to be problematic in the

01:23:43

Roman Catholic Church. Luther never wanted to separate from the Roman Catholic Church.

01:23:49

He was simply asking them to return to their historical faith that once was the faith of the

01:23:55

Roman Catholic Church. And maybe that's one of the differences we see within Reform and otherwise the

01:24:03

Lutherans there as well. Luther didn't get rid of practices that the

01:24:10

Church was engaging in that would show the historical nature of the Church, unless those practices went clearly against the word of God.

01:24:20

Now, would you say that that would be... Was that where the word Protestant was first applied to the

01:24:25

Church? Yeah, I think we find it in that time period. Although it's interesting that generally we

01:24:32

Lutherans don't refer to ourselves as Protestants in the...

01:24:37

It's kind of a touchy subject, but we understand ourselves still connected to historic

01:24:46

Christianity. We still worship, for the most part, in most of our congregations anyways, with liturgical worship that would go back to the very early parts of Christianity.

01:25:01

We retained infant baptism and the understanding of the presence of Christ in the

01:25:09

Lord's Supper, although we did not follow what Luther would call at that time the abomination of the mass as what

01:25:15

Roman Catholicism had turned it into. And going back to the bondage of the will issue,

01:25:24

I can recall years ago the late David Hunt was involved in a radio debate with a friend of mine who happens to be a

01:25:35

Reformed Baptist theologian, Dr. James R. White, and it was not a rigidly timed debate.

01:25:41

It was more of a discussion where they were disagreeing. And Dr. White, after talking to David Hunt about his understanding of the freedom of man's will,

01:25:53

Dr. White said, does it bother you? And by the way, I don't know if you're familiar with the late David Hunt, but he was also very opposed to Roman Catholicism, as is

01:26:03

Dr. White and as I am, theologically, not the people. But Dr.

01:26:10

White brought up to David Hunt, known perhaps primarily for his attacks on Catholic theology, he said, doesn't it bother you that you are really siding with Erasmus in the great debate with Luther on the issue of the bondage of the will?

01:26:26

And that's where David Hunt really waved the white flag and said, I don't even really know what you're talking about.

01:26:32

I'm not really an expert on the history of those things. But don't you think that it seems that most of the evangelical world today has more of an understanding of the human will that Erasmus did, the

01:26:49

Roman Catholic, rather than Luther or Calvin? Oh, exactly. Especially when we talk about evangelicalism and the requirement of giving one's life to Jesus or a particular prayer to bring

01:27:06

Jesus into your life. Luther, when he's dealing with the bondage of the will, he talks about the will being bound in the sense that apart from Christ, the will has the ability to move, to walk, to choose to go to church or not to go to church, or whatever the case is.

01:27:26

But when it comes to things that are spiritual, things that are connected to God, the will is only unbound through faith.

01:27:36

It's only through faith that we talked about this a little bit earlier in our previous discussion, that it's only through faith, it's only through that action of the

01:27:45

Word of God that one can be opened, eyes can be opened, ears can be loosed, minds can be released to trust and to hold to the

01:27:56

Word of God. Before we go to the break, I think that, unless I missed something somehow,

01:28:01

I don't think that you answered Buzz's question about any plans for a 500th anniversary celebration of the 95

01:28:08

Theses being nailed to the Wittenberg door. Oh, absolutely.

01:28:13

We have a major program in our Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod right now, a website directed to helping our congregations to all get together in various ways.

01:28:26

We just do them within their congregations, depending on their logistics, to celebrate the Reformation. We will have a number of get -togethers throughout the year.

01:28:39

There's materials that have been printed. Just a whole host of things that you would expect.

01:28:45

So, there's multiple celebrations that will be taking place as a result of it.

01:28:51

We are going to a break right now. We do have a few people waiting to have their questions asked, waiting patiently,

01:28:58

I hope. And when we return from the break, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:29:06

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. If you'd like to join those who are already waiting, to have their questions asked, you can have a question of your own.

01:29:15

And we ask that you at least give your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence. And we will get back to you as soon as we can.

01:29:25

And so, don't go away. We're going to be right back with Dr. Robert H. Bennett and our primer on Lutheran theology.

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Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is

01:34:10

Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest for the full two hours today is

01:34:16

Dr. Robert H. Bennett who is a Lutheran missiologist and author. And our first hour we were talking about demon possession and spiritual warfare.

01:34:26

In our second hour we are now discussing a primer on Lutheran theology and what unites and distinguishes

01:34:35

Lutherans from their brothers in Christ who are fellow heirs of the

01:34:41

Reformation. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:34:47

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And we have Tom, a Missouri Synod Lutheran in West Islip, Long Island, New York, who wants to know why is it that the

01:35:00

Missouri Synod Lutheran Church forbid Pentecostal or Charismatic practices?

01:35:10

I'm not quite sure which practices he's speaking of, but inherent within Pentecostal and Charismatic practices is an understanding that God is working outside of those means that he has provided.

01:35:29

So, for instance, within the Lutheran Church we would focus on that which

01:35:34

God has revealed in his word. That the scriptures that God has provided to us provide everything necessary for our understanding, our learning, and that which is necessary to have full faith in our

01:35:50

Lord Jesus Christ. Many times within these Pentecostal and Charismatic focuses, the focus is put upon a new word of the

01:35:59

Lord. People, for instance, you would hear them, that the Lord told me to do this or to do that.

01:36:08

We would not say that the Lord is not possible for him to do such things, but at the same time we would have to measure everything against the word of the

01:36:17

Lord. And many times the focus becomes on the individual and their particular power or gift rather than on the clear proclamation of the word.

01:36:34

And by the way, Tom, you are getting free of charge as our gift to you, a copy of The Saving Truth by the late

01:36:44

Kurt E. Marquart. Did I pronounce his name correctly, Dr? You did. And if you could give us your full mailing address,

01:36:52

Tom, we will have that shipped out to you. And that's going to be shipped to you by our friends at the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:37:01

cvbbs .com. Thank you for the question. There are, I know, specific

01:37:07

Lutheran denominations that do welcome charismatic practices of the sign gifts and so on, speaking in tongues that they would deem to be angelic, and healing services and so on.

01:37:23

Is the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church across the board not permitting these things to take place, or is that more of things that take place on an individual basis, or what have you?

01:37:35

It would not be a part of our theology or our confession. However, in some

01:37:41

Lutheran churches, there's been an influx of some of these practices that is condemned by our church, and nevertheless, you have congregations that bring these practices in many times because they have not been properly catechized of why they should not engage in such practices.

01:38:03

Indeed, even the speaking of tongues are a special stance on that, that the apostles were speaking in knowable languages.

01:38:12

For instance, at Pentecost, all these people from the various parts of the world are hearing the gospel presented in the languages that are their own languages.

01:38:22

So we would not agree with, theologically, someone who is speaking in some tongue of an angel, for instance.

01:38:31

I think that's a misquoting of Paul. Paul is saying, even if I did, for instance, so we do not believe in those type of Pentecostal practices like the speaking of tongues, or in individuals' power to heal, for instance.

01:38:47

Just like we talked in the previous hour that Jesus is the only exorcist, if healing takes place, that's the

01:38:54

Lord who's doing that work. Many times within Pentecostal practices, the focus is on the individual who supposedly has the gift of healing, and so they can choose who to heal.

01:39:07

Of course, we know of all the false healings that have taken place in the world. I mean, I don't know we can discount all of them, but I know that we know that there are many times that these people are shown to be frauds.

01:39:19

Many times, they would deny the Holy Trinity, the very basic facts of the

01:39:25

Christian faith, and so these would not be practices that would be a part of our theological understanding, although just like in any church body, you have some areas where some people may try to hold to these practices.

01:39:40

And we do have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island again.

01:39:45

He asks, Was the split between most confessionally reformed and Lutheran churches started with the debate between Luther and Zwingli on the doctrine of transubstantiation?

01:39:58

I think he must mean consubstantiation, but if you could explain the differences between the

01:40:05

Lutheran understanding and the Roman Catholic view, it will obviously answer Tyler's question about the rift between Luther and Zwingli.

01:40:12

Sure, it is really in that the debate, the coming together, they're trying to work these things out.

01:40:19

Luther finally recognized that it was impossible to carry on the conversation.

01:40:26

They were two men speaking in completely different terms. Luther at one point even said that it would be much easier if he could follow that which

01:40:37

Zwingli was professing, although he was stuck with the clear words of God. And it came down to, for instance,

01:40:43

Jesus' presence at the Lord's Supper. You know, Jesus says, This is my body.

01:40:49

This is my blood. You have Paul confirming that, you know, as the Lord has provided me,

01:40:55

I now pass on to you. And he re -speaks the words of institution. And he even talks about those who are taking the

01:41:03

Supper in an inappropriate way, and the problems that they're facing. And he even warns us that to do so is to bring judgment upon oneself.

01:41:12

Zwingli, of course, would believe in, this is just a... Right, a memorial meal, a sign, but would not find

01:41:21

Christ physically there, would not find the forgiveness of sins in that act of Jesus providing for us his very body and his blood.

01:41:30

So the person who wrote it is correct. That's where you start to see the real distinctions start to break off there with the understanding of...

01:41:41

And it's more than just a misunderstanding of the Lord's Supper in these cases.

01:41:47

It's really a misunderstanding about Jesus himself. You know, what is

01:41:53

Jesus capable of doing? You know, sometimes it's trying to hold on to the personal nature of Jesus, the human nature, in a sense saying that there's things that Jesus can't do because he's human.

01:42:09

Where, of course, we would understand that the divine and the human have come together in the person of Jesus.

01:42:16

And so, he is still all the attributes of God and yet still true man.

01:42:24

And guess what, Tyler? You're also receiving a free copy of this book that we are giving away today that we just mentioned.

01:42:32

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01:42:38

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01:42:45

Now, going back to the division between Rome's understanding of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, if you could differentiate the two as clearly as you can in the brief time that we have.

01:42:58

And also, perhaps if you could comment on something I heard from a

01:43:04

Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor, and I don't know if you agree with him or not, but he said that consubstantiation was only a theory of a possible explanation of the

01:43:18

Eucharist and not a dogmatic certain definition of it. Sure.

01:43:25

And generally, we really don't speak in the terms of consubstantiation. The differences we would have with Rome on this, of course, is a

01:43:34

Roman Catholic doctor would state that the bread and wine are transformed, you could say, into the body and blood of Christ who still has all the outward accents of bread and wine, but now it is and only is his body and his blood.

01:43:52

Of course, as Lutherans, once again, going back to that point, we simply stick with the revealed word of God.

01:43:59

Paul in 1 Corinthians makes it very clear that the cup that we drink is not participation in the blood of the

01:44:07

Lord, the bread that we break, the body of the Lord. And so, Lutherans would say it's the bread and the wine, but at the same time, it's the body and blood of the

01:44:18

Lord. Their in, with, and under is the term that we usually would state.

01:44:24

Their in, with, and under that bread and wine is the body and the blood of our

01:44:29

Lord Jesus Christ. So we would not say that it's changed so it's no longer bread or no longer wine.

01:44:36

Also, we would differ with other Christian groups that would say that it's only bread and wine and it's just a memorial meal.

01:44:46

So we would find that mitigating position, which I think is clear in how Paul states it. And the

01:44:53

Catholic view is actually that the elements become the body, soul, and divinity of Christ, and they worship those elements.

01:45:02

Do Lutherans worship the elements of the Eucharist? No, in the Roman Catholic Church, they even have the tabernacle.

01:45:08

They'll put that up and people throughout the week, for instance, might come in and believe that in that tabernacle upon the altar, there is

01:45:19

Jesus. One thing we're cautious to do as Lutherans is we don't identify how long the

01:45:30

Lord remains in those elements. We believe that when the

01:45:37

Church is gathered, when the words of institution are stated, there in the midst of the people there is

01:45:44

Christ in, with, and under the bread and the wine. We would treat the elements of bread and wine as holy objects during that time, and most of us

01:45:54

Lutherans would then consume whatever is left there that was not consumed by the congregation.

01:46:03

And some of the older practices, some of the older churches would have a sink that would, the wine would be poured out and it would go into the ground behind the church or something like that.

01:46:14

So we've always treated it in a very special way, but at the same time it's not to be worshipped throughout the week and set upon in a tabernacle or anything like that.

01:46:28

Right, and that's why people, I was raised Roman Catholic and you genuflect because of that tabernacle that's up there on the altar because you believe that Jesus is there in that tabernacle.

01:46:41

And many of our Lutheran churches genuflecting still takes place, but it only takes place during that time of the service.

01:46:51

It would not be something that would be later on in the service. Not all Lutheran churches do that sometimes, no.

01:46:57

One of the things that it is hard for us who are Calvinists to wrap our heads around, and that would probably be me specifically since I'm the one bringing it up, but the great solas of the

01:47:11

Reformation which include sola fide and sola gratia, we can't understand how

01:47:17

Luther could have believed in those so passionately that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone.

01:47:28

How that can be simultaneously held as a pillar or pillars of the

01:47:34

Reformation or of biblical Christianity and yet also believe in baptismal regeneration.

01:47:42

If you could respond to that because that seems to be something that they seem to be two things conflicting with each other.

01:47:51

Right. And within the Lutheran church we understand that baptism has always been a part of the

01:47:56

Christian church and some might argue with that, but if you go back and you look through early

01:48:02

Roman Catholicism or even back to the early scriptures, we would find that it was a common instance of baptisming of whole families.

01:48:12

For instance, at Pentecost when the people are concerned what they should do, Peter reminds them that they should be baptized, them and their entire families.

01:48:24

Baptism, I think, needs to be understood this way if you're trying to understand it from a Lutheran perspective, that it's not the action of the individual at all.

01:48:35

That baptism is something that God does through the water and the word.

01:48:41

Faith is created apart from an intellectual understanding. So, for instance,

01:48:48

Jesus welcomes the little children and I think it's Mark 10, if I remember, and then reminds us that the kingdom of heaven is for such as these.

01:48:58

But we know children are sinners. We've already talked about original sin, it's stained upon us and so forth.

01:49:06

And so the action is God's action. It's not a work of man for us. It's something that Jesus is doing through the proclamation of his word and the application of the water.

01:49:17

Not that there's anything special or holy in the water by itself, but when the water is added to the word, there is baptism.

01:49:25

So it's not a contradiction in our understanding in any means. We're saved by grace through faith.

01:49:31

What is faith? Faith in its primary sense is that which is given by the word.

01:49:39

Faith, of course, as we grow in our Christian faith and we learn as children and growing up, we wouldn't deny that at all, but faith in essence is a gift that is departed by the word in baptism and by the word even outside of baptism in some cases.

01:49:58

That's God's actions, not man's actions. And I think many times that's where the confusion comes in.

01:50:06

Peter in Nassau County, Long Island, wants to know if you agree with the

01:50:12

Lutheran World Federations participation in the joint declaration on the

01:50:18

Doctrine of Justification with the Church of Rome. Absolutely not.

01:50:23

The Lutheran World Federation would be really kind of the main international

01:50:29

Lutheran body that is kind of connected with that liberalism that we've spoken of earlier.

01:50:36

The joint declaration was really pretty much a farce, I would say. What they did is they reinterpreted grace, justification, and so forth to try to make it appear as if it was just a big misunderstanding

01:50:52

The Reformation was just a big misunderstanding and we all agree. But when you get down to the very aspects of what they're describing, really the

01:51:02

Roman Catholic Church want at every instance their Lutheranism and the traditional understanding of justification that God declares us to be righteous apart from anything within us by his word, through his presence.

01:51:18

That was completely lost by the Lutheran World Federation in the midst of that discussion. Well, thank you very much for sending that question in,

01:51:28

Peter. And you are also getting a free copy of the book that we have been discussing,

01:51:34

The Saving Faith, by the late Kurt E. Marquart. And that is,

01:51:43

I mean, if anything, that the Lutheran Church would consider a hallmark teaching.

01:51:49

It's justification by faith alone, is it not? I mean, I don't know how there could be any sympathy or mingling of understanding with the

01:51:58

Church of Rome's stark contrast to that, which is clearly condemned at the

01:52:04

Council of Trent, justification by faith alone. And that condemnation has never been lifted or banned or overturned or apologized for because you could not sustain the concept of papal infallibility by overturning that.

01:52:21

So, am I right on that? Isn't that one of the... You're exactly right. That's why I said the whole thing was really a farce by the

01:52:30

Lutheran World Federation to try to state there was immunity there and there were simply some misunderstandings of the past and how each side was speaking to one another.

01:52:39

There's no way to misunderstand that. It was really the essence of, even to this day, it's the essence of our faith that we have been declared righteous by God, that it's an action that God has taken already upon the cross.

01:52:55

We talk about objective justification, that God has already declared us righteous on the cross.

01:53:03

And then we have subjective justification, that that work of the cross needs to come to us in time through the proclamation of the

01:53:11

Word, through holy baptism, understood as God's action, not as our action of providing faith by His grace, through His Word, and to try to say that that's something different is really to lose the essence of Lutheranism itself.

01:53:29

Amen. Javier in Patchogue, Long Island wants to know, are there any

01:53:36

Lutherans who actually would agree with Calvin on unconditional election?

01:53:42

And when I speak of any Lutherans, I'm of course speaking of ordained men, not just average people in a church who could have a wide variety of beliefs.

01:53:54

You know, a difficult question. I mean, there's probably many beliefs that you could find throughout the

01:54:03

Lutheran world. We've already talked about some really heterodox beliefs that we find within the largest denomination of Lutheranism within the

01:54:11

United States. So, I guess that's kind of an individualistic question that you'd have to deal with.

01:54:18

But as Lutheran pastors, as part of our ordination, we commit that our teaching and all of our preaching will be in view of Scripture and our

01:54:29

Lutheran confessions. And even if somebody holds a different position, they would be breaking their vows by teaching something contrary to that.

01:54:39

So you would think that universally, the Lutheran confessions would oppose that teaching because it's kind of interesting that Calvin himself believed, as do many

01:54:51

Christians today, that Augustine firmly believed in that. And Luther was an

01:54:56

Augustinian monk and also seems to have had been influenced by Augustine himself.

01:55:04

Maybe I misunderstood the question. You can just repeat me back to that again just to make sure

01:55:10

I'm not misunderstanding something. Unconditional election. You know, that there are a specific number of elect individuals that God has preordained before the beginning of time.

01:55:22

Right. And Luther, of course, would reject that, his understanding that God elects through His Word.

01:55:34

He would understand single election. That is, that God has looked, for instance,

01:55:40

Ephesians 1, I think we see some work there, that in Christ, that Christ has elected us before the creation of the world.

01:55:49

The difference is, he wouldn't see the negative side of it. He wouldn't see that as a result of that, there are some who were not elected.

01:55:58

By the way, Javier, you are getting a free copy of this book that we have been discussing, The Saving Faith, by the late

01:56:06

Curt E. Marquart as well, if you give us your mailing address. And we do have, let's see, we have

01:56:18

Lawrence in Center Reach, Long Island, who wants to know, what are the boundaries of fellowship that Lutheran Missouri Synod pastors are permitted to participate in?

01:56:34

The participation would be with any of the church bodies that we have declared fellowship with, and the declaration of fellowship is usually based on the other church's confession that we would share.

01:56:48

For instance, the Book of Concord, the confessions contained therein, and of course, biblical, holy scriptural understanding that the trust of the word of God is the word of God, that it doesn't contain errors, and likewise.

01:57:05

And so in the Lutheran church, we are only in fellowship with those in which we declare fellowship, although of course, we are always in conversation with church bodies around the world to work out that fellowship, to come to a common faith and a common understanding.

01:57:23

But our pastors would not be eligible to participate in Christian worship services that would not be a part of that fellowship, and indeed we can talk to whoever we want, we can attend whatever church we want, or vacationing or something of that effect, but as acting as the role of pastor, we are not to be engaged in that for the reason of, what it does is it implies a common belief and a common fellowship where one does not exist.

01:57:57

And so we want to hold that ground so we can continue to have the conversation. Earlier, for instance, we were talking about the

01:58:04

White Horse Inn, what makes that work is you have two confessing churches, two confessing people, people who confess faith.

01:58:14

And if you have a confession, even if it's a different confession, you can have ongoing talks so you can talk about why you confessed this and why

01:58:24

I confessed that. And most of Christianity these days we're living without confessional churches, and so it's very difficult to even determine what the differences are sometimes because the churches change constantly, their theologies and their thoughts based on emotion and reason and other things as well.

01:58:45

Do you have, I know this is a lot to say in 30 seconds, but if you could just summarize what you'd want to leave our listeners with in about 30 seconds because we're running out of time.

01:58:53

The Lutheran Church of Missouri said it continues to be a confessional Lutheran church tied to the historical

01:58:58

Reformation as we would find it with Luther, and even the early Reformed documents that we would find in the time of early

01:59:05

Lutheranism. Indeed, I have people in churches who read these things all the day and these documents that were written in the 16th century are still pertinent to these questions and I encourage anyone to, no matter what their background is, to pick up a book of Concord one day and take a look at it.

01:59:23

Well, I thank you so much for being a part of our broadcast today. I apologize for the couple of folks that were waiting to ask questions that couldn't be on today.

01:59:32

But just keep in mind that you can always go to drrobertbennettphd .com

01:59:38

and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:43

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you next time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.