December 19, 2025 Show with Marcus Pittman on “The Christian Response to the Deaths of Anti-Christian Public Figures”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 19th day of December 2025.

No doubt most, if not all, of my listeners have heard the horrifying news five days ago,

December 14th, that Rob Reiner, the globally known actor and film producer and writer, he and his wife,

Michelle, were brutally, gruesomely murdered by their own son, Nick.

And there has been even controversy surrounding the way people should be responding to this, including in the

Christian community. And I thought it would be a good idea to conduct a program today on the

Christian response to the deaths of anti -Christian public figures, and do

Christians have the liberty to enjoy the art of unbelievers, lessons to be learned from the recent horrific murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner at the hand of their son,

Nick. And today, I think I have an ideal guest to conduct such an interview.

It's been a long time since he's been on the program. His name is Marcus Pittman, co -founder of Lore TV, a platform that allows indie filmmakers to fund and distribute their movies and TV shows.

He's a former executive producer and showrunner for Apology Studios and Abortion Now, a former head of video for the agency that handled

Pure Flix digital advertising, and the producer and director for three pro -life videos,

No. 1, Babies Are Murdered Here, No. 2, Babies Are Still Murdered Here, and No.

3, Pro -Life Spider -Man. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, Marcus Pittman.

Thank you for having me, man. How are you? I'm doing better than I deserve, brother. Although I have definitely reached an age where it is more frequent that I am getting sad news from friends and loved ones that other friends and loved ones have passed away.

It's coming with more rapidity at this age in my life.

And today was the funeral of a very dear friend who I've interviewed on this program many times.

Reverend Roger Salter, a Reformed Anglican minister originally from Tasmania, but he was pastoring in the

Birmingham, Alabama area, St. Matthew's Anglican Church. And I strongly urge everybody listening after this live program, of course, that you look up in the archive of IronSherpaandZionRadio .com

my past interviews with Roger Salter. Just type in his name, Roger, and his last name,

S -A -L -T -E -R, and you'll have a number of interviews that I'm sure will bless you.

Well, tell us—oh, first of all, I know that there's congratulations in order. You and your wife are in the process of adopting a child, correct?

Well, not any child specifically. We're raising funds to do the process.

Right. Well, yeah. Yeah, we are doing that. So we've been doing that,

I think, about maybe a year and a half ago. We started raising money, and we got our home study approved, and now we're just kind of— we raised enough to be able to do a private adoption without an agency.

I know that a lot of people at abortion clinics all over the country have our name on the list, but that's always so rare.

You just kind of sit and wait, and you just wait on the Lord, really, legitimately, because it's a miracle whenever a woman in an abortion clinic decides they're going to give their child up for adoption anyway.

And there's a lot of people waiting, too, so we're trusting the

Lord on that. Our hope is to raise enough money to go through an agency that would guarantee the speed up of the process.

But ultimately, God is sovereign, and that child is out there. And if He chooses to deliver one to us, we can't really rush that process no matter what, whether it's a private adoption through an abortion clinic or whatever.

Okay, well, tell us about Lore TV and even how that name got chosen by you for this organization.

Yeah, that name is actually—it comes from the word folklore.

It's usually spelled L -O -R -E, but we spell it L -O -O -R because we want to be cool and hip.

But what it actually means is it comes from the term phrase or to give an award.

So the idea is that our users, our subscribers, monthly subscribers, can donate money and fund independent movies and TV shows from young, unknown, independent artists who don't want to make stuff for 65 -year -old, life -weight

Christian bookstore shoppers. And so we're trying to expand the market of Christian entertainment and broadly conservative entertainment to a younger

Gen Z generation. Great. And if anybody wants to find out more about that organization,

Lore TV, go to L -O -O -R dot TV. L -O -O -R dot

TV, and God willing, we will repeat that later on in the program. Every Christian should know that Ezekiel 18 .23

reads, Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the

Lord? Rather than that, he would turn from his ways and live.

If God doesn't take pleasure or delight in the death of the wicked, obviously we who are seeking to be his obedient followers and disciples should not rejoice when wicked individuals die, those who reject

Christianity, who reject Jesus Christ. Rob Reiner was such a person.

He was notorious for having many anti -Christian views.

He was a politically active individual. But at the same time, he was an extraordinarily gifted man.

Now, I'm not saying that if he wasn't a gifted man that we should delight in his death.

That's not what I mean by that. But what I do mean, though, however, is that Rob Reiner has left a legacy of art that many

Christians enjoy, including myself. One of the classic works from his hand is the

Princess Bride, which many Christians even may make it an annual tradition to watch with their entire family.

I know a Christian, a retired pastor,

Buzz Taylor. Perhaps he's listening today. He used to co -host this program years ago.

Buzz Taylor, now living in Massachusetts. But he and his adult children have seen that film so many times that they've memorized it nearly word for word.

Perhaps I'm even wrong by saying nearly. They may have memorized it word for word and they reenact it together.

But tell us about this phenomenon. There are probably a minority of Christians.

I don't think that it's an overwhelming number, but there are some Christians, perhaps especially fundamentalists, and even those with stricter codes of ethics in the reform community, would say that it is absolutely wrong for Christians to enjoy things like the

Princess Bride and other things. Now, I can't even remember.

It's been a while since I've personally seen the Princess Bride, although I did thoroughly enjoy it. I can't remember if there was anything overtly wicked in there involving language and so forth.

But tell us about your opinion about Christians making use and enjoying the art of unbelievers.

Yeah, I think, you know, foundationally, we have to kind of look at the world.

I look at the world, and I think it's true to look at the world presuppositionally, in that everyone, every human is an image bearer, and they accidentally reveal that there is a

God in their stuff. So two things. First, when God created the heavens and the earth, he created the heavens and the earth.

And the Bible says that that's a general revelation. It's not evangelistic. It's not enough to convert people to Christ in a salvific sense at all.

The Bible says it gives them knowledge of God so that they're without excuse, but there's no magic in the beauty of the creation.

There's no magic in it. So I think a lot of times, especially the

Christian film industry has kind of like really created this false idea. It was created in marketing boardrooms and suites by executives, many of whom were not even

Christian at all, but it was just about sales. But this idea that all

Christian movies are this evangelistic sort of gospel track sort of thing.

And that would be like basically we're creating art as special revelation.

Right? And so special revelation is God's word. It's completely—has its own miraculous qualities to it.

The heavens and the earth and the beauty of a small puppy or some sort of beautiful flower or sunset or sunrise is also

God's artwork. And yet he has the freedom to create artwork that doesn't save. And so I think in the same sense, we can do that.

We have that exact same ability. And I would say that every image bearer, whether they're a

Christian or not, accidentally creates stories and messages that expose that they are in fact created in the image of God.

And so I think art is—first of all, art doesn't make sense in any other animal species.

Right? They don't really acknowledge it.

Even though they do it, they don't acknowledge it. I think there was a nature documentary a while back ago with birds that were just beautiful and they were dancing.

And they were doing it to get a mate based on instinct, not because they actually believe that this was a magnificent or valuable or even financially we can benefit from.

They're just doing it by instinct. So animals who eat their own children still reveal the glory of God just in how they dance and their feathers and how they move across the plains of Africa.

I mean, you can watch those BBC documentaries and they're pushing evolutionary theory on it while you're watching this.

It doesn't add up. So again, by accident, they reveal who

God is. In the same issue with Princess Bread, here you have the same man who produced this terrible

God and country documentary with Russell Moore, David French, and Phil Vish. They're absolutely awful and disgusting in every possible way.

And ironically, some of the men you listed are professing Christians. Right, right, right.

But then he made The Princess Bride, which is this beautiful love story. It's very much kill the dragon, get the girl, which has been said as the one -sentence summary of the

Bible, the dragon being Satan and the girl being the church.

And so you have this beautiful analogy of this and all that is good and true.

You have this relationship between a son and the grandfather, and he's reading his child this kissing book.

And so it's a phenomenal story. But also just in terms of how it's crafted, many film schools use the script for The Princess Bride as a basis of a perfect script.

Really? Yeah, there's nothing left unanswered in it. There's no loopholes.

Everything is tied up at the end. And all the characters have their art in some way.

And it's just a beautiful story. Now, that story wasn't written by Rob Reiner, so I think that's kind of important.

He didn't write it. It was based off a book. I can't think of the author's name right off the top of my head.

But the author of the book was pretty committed to the movie being as based on the book as possible.

In fact, I actually heard that they wanted to cut out all of the father -grandson scenes altogether and just make it a fantasy.

And the author refused, which is crazy to think about because that's like such an integral part of the story is the grandfather and his grandchild reading this book and discovering the joy of a good story together.

And the grandson growing up as a reader. So there's this narrative, and then there's the meta -narrative of the book that they're reading.

And the studios wanted to cut that out, which is crazy. Which is why you never trust studio executives' editorial decisions.

But yeah, so yeah, not made by a Christian, but the princess bride is made by an image -bearer.

And that is the key to that. Well, this can be a complicated issue because Christians do constantly disagree over things like this.

Most Christians that I know, as I was saying earlier, enjoy the art, which would include movies,

TV programs, and music, of unbelievers. The question is, when do we stop enjoying these things as Christians when they include things that are clearly offensive to God?

I'll give you an example. I remember when I was a new Christian, and I went to the movies with my very first Christian girlfriend.

And we were watching that classic movie with Steve Martin and John Candy, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

A movie that I still, to this day, love. I think it has one of the most moving endings of any movie

I've ever seen. And I still get choked up watching the end of that movie.

But I can still remember there is a scene where profanity is almost entirely absent from the movie, except for this one scene where Steve Martin is furious about a rental car not being available.

And he just starts a litany, a machine gun of profanity. 17

F -words, I think, within 30 seconds or something like that. Yeah. And I remember my girlfriend looking at me, and she said, you think that's funny?

And she was furious. I still wonder if that had something to do with her eventually breaking up with me.

Now, I'm not saying I was right for laughing at that scene, but how are we as Christians to react to things like that?

Do we reject the entire piece of art, in this case a film, and just never watch it again because of a scene being in there like that?

Or how do we compartmentalize things like that when we are trying to enjoy something?

And that would be, in this day and age especially, almost everything that we enjoy from the hand of unbelievers.

The difference, though – I mean, we have vulgarity in pretty much everything. You're absolutely right.

I would say there's a difference, though, in Plainshires and Automobiles in that the author's intent was to show the absolute frustration and anger of the main character there.

So if he was cussing like that the whole time, there wouldn't have been a really dramatic point to it.

Doug Wilson wrote the book The Serrated Edge, where he talks about the proper use of language and when a

Christian should use harsh language or strong language or all those sort of things from Scripture.

That's a really great book. I'd recommend The Serrated Edge on that. But even so, even if you say, well,

I completely disagree with it, you can watch something and gain value from something even if it's done sinfully or even if sin is referenced.

It would be weird if I looked at the Scriptures and said, man, I'm really entertained by all the violence and rape and bad stuff in the

Bible. That would be weird. But the overarching narrative of the

Bible is Christ and being rescued and all these sort of things. But there is all these demonstrations of evil and wickedness in Scripture that are absolutely vital towards explaining to you, one, the depth of human depravity and also how great of a rescue, a salvation that Christ breaks.

So even the Bible uses sin as a narrative framework in its storytelling over and over and over again.

The writers of the Bible are murderers and drunkards and all sorts of sin, which they openly talk about.

And so there is this thing, there is this way in which

God's world works, in which Christians aren't to be sort of these isolationists who aren't aware of or they escape from, you know, tough, tough conversations or difficult situations or they cringe and rebel.

We've become such critics of this. And I would also add, too, like in classical

Christian education, a lot of the stories from whether it's Plato or Aristotle or, you know,

I mean, the list goes on. They also have a bunch of stuff in it that is immoral.

And sometimes, you know, the story that they write doesn't even lead to a great conclusion or whatever.

But we still study it because what we see in these works, these classic works, are how are these great civilizations, like what are their stories, what do they care about, what helped, what motivated them to build these great civilizations?

And it's the accidental exposing of being an image bearer that is what we point out and we bring up in classical education.

And let me pick up when we return from our first commercial break on what you just said.

And if anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. I'm Simon O'Mahoney, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, originally from Cork, Ireland.

The Lord and his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune

God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

This program is sponsored by Hope PR Ministry. Hope PR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.

We are dedicated to sharing Reformed biblical content every Wednesday and Friday.

Tune in for sermons, lectures, and interviews exploring distinctive Reformed doctrines. If you are looking for Christ -centered content, simply search

Hope PR Ministry on your favorite podcast platform to begin listening today.

Hope PR Ministry also offers Morning Meditations, a daily podcast featuring

Reformed devotionals designed to nourish your soul. Start your day with these spiritually enriching messages by tuning in to Morning Meditations wherever you get your podcasts.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.

I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Sule Prince of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor John Samson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Steve Herford of East Fort Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Roy Owens, Jr. of the

Church of Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.

Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the

NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur. I've been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I highly recommend this show.

But today I want to tell you about one of its advertisers, Rare Document Traders, far and away my favorite source for quality

Charles Spurgeon memorabilia. Are you looking for that special, unique Christmas gift for your pastor or missionary friend or a loved one?

Why not purchase a piece of church history that any believer would cherish? Rare Document Traders is your one -step source for Spurgeon's handwritten manuscripts and letters, as well as other rare books and collectible items from church history.

In 15 years that they've been in business, they've earned a stellar reputation in the Reformed community with thousands of satisfied customers all around the world, including me.

Visit raredoctraders .com today. That's raredoctraders .com.

And look for their upcoming Cyber Monday sales. Don't forget to mention you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

That's raredoctraders .com. I'm Dr.

Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Every Christian who's serious about the Reformed faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.

It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, that Dr.

Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. Welcome back.

If you are just tuning us in, my guest today is

Marcus Pittman, who is the founder of lore .tv, l -o -o -r dot tv.

And we are discussing, in the wake of a horrific bit of news that we all received five days ago, that Rob Reiner and his wife

Michelle were gruesomely murdered by their own son. Their throats were slit, and there has been some controversy over how one should even respond to the death of a notorious anti -Christian.

Not that that means Rob Reiner was against every single

Christian that he may have known. In fact, I don't know what the theology of actor

James Woods may be, but he professes to be a political conservative. And in spite of that, had a, apparently, very close friendship with Rob Reiner, who even rescued his career at one of its lowest points, having him starring in a movie,

I believe it was Mississippi Burning. And apparently, Rob Reiner was very aware of the conservative political leanings of James Woods.

But at the same time, he was notorious for being in favor of everything that Christians are supposed to biblically oppose, and opposed to everything, or many things, that Christians are biblically commanded to support.

And that in and of itself raises the question of should we enjoy the art of someone, even someone who is as notorious in his views in favor of the murder of unborn children, for instance.

But at the same time, as I was saying at the beginning of the program, I'm sure you would agree, Marcus, that we are not to be using occasions like this as Christians to publicly rejoice when we hear about someone like Rob Reiner being murdered, or even being somewhat callous about it.

I totally disagree with the way our president reacted to it.

Yeah, I thought that was just weird. Yes.

Yeah. And the only way that you could make President Trump's words make sense is if he was claiming that Rob Reiner's son was pro -Trump, because Trump's words insinuated that Rob Reiner brought his murder upon himself through his

Trump derangement syndrome. So I don't know why he would even bring that up.

He shouldn't have remarked at all if he was not going to say it. I mean, apparently he did conclude his words by saying, rest in peace.

He hopes they rest in peace. And some have said that Rob Reiner was very glib about the attempted assassination of President Trump.

Now, I could not find anything like that. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I know he openly despised President Trump, but I don't remember—or I could not find anything that he said where he was delighting in an attempted assassination of Trump and dismayed over the failure in that attempt.

But nonetheless, we as Christians are called to a higher standard, even if people seek or wish ill upon us.

And that's one area where, as much as any of our listeners may love and support

President Trump, we should not be imitating that behavior at all. Am I correct there?

Yeah, I think the Bible says not to rejoice in the death of the wicked. I think that's true.

I think also even if they're wicked, if they're insanely talented, I think the world loses something there as well.

We lose the gifts that they provide.

You could have this evil, anti -Trump, leftist, pro -abortion, vile human being, and he's a really great chef.

And you're like, man, I really love that food. And then he dies, and suddenly that restaurant goes out of business.

There's things that are lost in the world when anybody dies, whether they're a believer or an unbeliever.

And so I think it's –

I was shocked by his death. I think he was still working on stuff that we will probably never see the completion of it.

I still think about the death of Jim Henson. And what if he was still here today?

Would the Muppets have ever sold – would they have sold Disney? Would they just be

IP on Disney's – in Disney's vault that very rarely ever gets used?

All those things. And I felt the same way too. I'm sure a lot of people did.

With the death of Steve Jobs, I was just – I mean, I was legitimately upset.

I was in the cell phone industry at the time too. I was a lot closer to it right after – not too far after the release of the iPhone.

But I remember when he died, and I was like, man, the world lost something. And God, in his kindness, used people like that to be able to gift us with incredible technology and innovation.

Sometimes I think – I've mentioned this before. A lot of times when

God hardens the heart of an unbeliever, he removes – they just become really stupid in some areas.

But other areas, God sort of preserves for them. I think an example of this is – who was the guy –

Penn Jillette is one of those examples. He's an adamant atheist.

He's a brilliant performer and magician. His show, Fool Us, I think it's been on like 10 years now.

And it's just a really good, clean show. Have you ever seen the video that he did,

Penn Jillette, of where he describes in vivid detail the fan of his who approached him after one of his

Vegas acts and gave him a Bible? Did you ever see that? Yeah, I did.

I saw that. I know Ray Comfort got to speak with him briefly, and I also saw that Cy Tim Verdoncate got to speak with him as well.

I don't know. I think they might have been at the same moment. Well, just to let our listeners know if they're wondering why

I brought that up, and you can look it up yourself, just look up Penn Jillette Receives the Gift of a

Bible on YouTube. He talks about how much he admired a man who gave him a

Bible because that man believed that the only way one could receive eternal life in heaven was by being a

Christian. And you become a Christian by understanding and believing in the Word of God. And Penn Jillette said, even though he's an atheist, that how on earth could you not tell people this if you believe it?

How cruel can you be to keep that to yourself? So he was saying something quite remarkable that you would not generally or regularly or hardly ever hear from the lips of a leftist and an atheist.

Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I remember that video pretty thoroughly.

That was like right during the time where I was pretty heavily involved in Way of the

Master. So that was like a big deal for us street preachers, man. That was a really big deal.

I think there's this guy on TikTok, I think he's called

Celebrity Evangelist or something like that. And he gets custom

Bibles with the celebrity's name embroidered on it. I saw a video recently where he gave one to James Corden with his name on it.

And James Corden thanked him for that. But I also heard that somebody gave a Bible to Ozzy Osbourne before he died.

Yes, I saw that. Yeah, yeah. And he was actually frantically looking for it.

And apparently his son was helping him find this Bible because he wanted it desperately.

Yeah, yeah. A musician who hates

God, God still preserves their musical abilities. A visionary like Steve Jobs, God still preserves their vision and skills in that sense.

And that's a kindness to the world, I think. You know, Steve Jobs, unbeknownst to himself and probably never intending to be, is probably one of the most influential people of this last century that has been able to give the

Bible and Christian resources and stuff to more people than any

Christian has been able to do ever. And that's all through the iPhone, right? It's like, how does that happen?

And I think, you know, we tend to lean, especially if you're a Calvinist, you tend to lean not so much into total depravity, but I think it's utter depravity, where it's like you can't do anything.

And that's not a presuppositional approach to the way

God made the world. But also, I mean, we could talk about this. I don't know where you want to go.

We could go anywhere you want to go. Well, I like to point out the

Christian scientists and innovators that got us to where we are today technologically because they were

Christians. And in some instances, nobody was able to do that. So Sam Morris is a great example.

I have a talk where I give to students on Sam Morris. But he held to the

Westminster Confession. He was an artist, a painter, actually. And he was away on a trip where he was painting a portrait of—you know,

I actually believe it's—what's the French guy in Hamilton?

The Broadway—oh, they know him from the play. I didn't see the play. Yeah, yeah, the real historical figure.

But I— Major Andre, who was a— No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not going to try to go back and recite the lyrics to get the name of it. But he was actually painting his portrait.

And it was unfinished because he got a letter in the mail through the

Pony Express, so it could only travel at the speed of a horse. It said, And he did.

And then he came back, and, you know, his wife was dead. I think she died of a hemorrhage or something like that, a complication of childbirth or something.

And anyway, he was so bothered and weighted down by this fact that the speed of communication took several days to get to him.

And he couldn't figure out how to do that. So his mom, Sam Morris's mom, writes him a letter.

And you can read this. You can just Google letters to Sam Morris. You can read all these letters that were written to him and his faith and Christian worldview and everything he did.

And then you have—he's sitting in a pub, and there's all these guys that are talking about the experiments that are being done with electricity and how electricity can travel, you know, as fast as the speed of light down a copper wire, no matter how fast—no matter how long the copper wire is.

And he asks them, you know, do you think this could be used to actually communicate with people? And they laugh at him, you know.

And so then he goes and he creates the telegraph, which is demonstrated before the

Supreme Court. And the first telegraph message is what hath God wrought, that Bible verse, speaking on God's blessings to a nation in Israel.

And it's what hath God wrought is the first message. And the United States government didn't spend money like they do now.

So the United States government rejected it and said they didn't want it. So that privatized it, thankfully.

And within, you know, 10 to 20 years, you have telegraphs all over the place. And so that posed the challenge is that, well, how do you send a message overseas?

Because now—I think it was Gary North. I think Gary North was the one that said the day before the telegraph and the day after, the speed of communication went from about the speed of a horse, which is probably,

I think, on average, maybe 20 miles an hour, if that, 10 miles an hour.

And then it went to the speed of light. So there's never been such a drastic technological shift in the history of the world since Sam Morris's telegraph.

And that telegraph is the same basic technology we use for ones and zeros, dots and dashes.

It's how computers communicate with each other. So then they had to do it overseas.

And they do it overseas, and nobody can figure out how to lay a cable across the

Atlantic Ocean. And everybody fails. All these humans trying to do it, these fails. This Christian guy—oh, man,

I should know his name. You need a live chat on your podcast, because live chat usually helps.

So the Christian guy who first laid the first transatlantic cable, what they did was they met in the middle of the

Atlantic Ocean, and they laid the cable on each side from Britain and from America, and they laid the cable on each side.

And then when they got to the middle to put the two pieces together, they prayed a prayer and they did a

Bible devotion. And that secured—the cable worked.

Their technology worked. And the first telegraph from the president to the queen of England at the time said, may this technology be forever neutral among the nations to further the gospel among the earth.

You know, it was incredible how far we've come. Now we look at AI and we're like, oh, you know, 666,

Mark of the Beast, or Antichrist, or whatever. We always abstain from that. We're not investing capital in tech.

We're not doing any of that. And it was the Christians that kind of built this infrastructure.

And the way in which they laid the first transatlantic cable is the exact same way they lay fiber optic cable in the ocean.

It hasn't changed that much or that significantly. And the very way we can communicate with each other around the world instantaneously is really because of those two

Christians. It's insane to think about. And so sometimes

Christians—so my argument is if an unbeliever like Rob Reiner can make the princess bride or an unbeliever can make the iPhone, what more can

Christians do if they have the worldview and God's blessing upon them?

I think that's a pretty significant question because I believe that the technology was cursed at the

Tower of Babel. So they came together. They did all this—you know, there were all these pagans. They came together, and they built this tower, and they tried to be

God. And then at Pentecost, the languages are given back to humans.

That curse is reversed. And ever since then, we've had this amazing technological advancement.

We had—you know, the apostle Paul used the same technology to write his letters on as Moses did.

There was no increase in that sort of communication style up until 100

A .D. The Chinese invented paper, and then Martin Luther invented the printing press, right? So you have this, like, expanse of communication technology and all this sort of stuff ever since.

You know, in the Bible, it says God's cursing them because for man, nothing is impossible.

And then Jesus says over and over again, with God, anything is possible.

So there is this element of that the gospel, because it's been brought to the world, frees us to innovate, to take the minerals and resources that are found in the garden and on the earth and to utilize them.

Like, we turn rocks into computers that we can communicate with.

You know, we're cross -country right now. I mean, I know you're in Pennsylvania. And we took that from rocks that God gave us.

You know? Yeah. So that's crazy to think about.

By the way, it was Johannes Gutenberg, by the way, that invented the printing press. Just thought

I'd throw that out there. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I knew it was Gutenberg.

I wasn't sure who did the transatlantic cable. But I'm sure a quick Google search.

Transatlantic cable. And by the way, while my guess— Cyrus Field.

It was Cyrus Field. Okay. Now, I assume by your bringing this up is you're trying to say, if God can use a gifted pagan to create art that even his children can enjoy, how much more advancement would be made in the world if Christians were in these realms of life?

Is that where you're coming from here? Yeah, that's right. So, you know, we kind of look at the world and all the worldly stuff and go, well, everything's so bad.

You know, we can look at the state of—I actually compare

Hollywood right now to, like, cheesy Christian movies where they're just forcefully pushing a message and they're not focused on the story.

They just want to get to the, like, what is the preaching moment. So the left has done this with woke nonsense, trans stuff, all this other sort of stuff.

And the Christians do it with evangelism by making movies just gospel tracks.

And so it's a mistake on both sides when what we should really be doing is just focus on making great stories and art.

As I said, general revelation stuff. You know, focus on art as being general revelation.

But we also, as Christians, we don't invest in art as Christians.

We invest in art as socialists, as sort of welfare. Oh, starving artists, we want to support the starving artists.

So, you know, that sort of thing. Or these missional events through nonprofits, donor advisor funds, whatever.

And instead of saying, actually, entertainment is a legitimate business. And so, you know, my thing is, like, if you look at the state of Hollywood right now and you complain about how terrible everything is, well, that's a market opportunity.

Right? Like, that's a gift from God that the giant is stumbling.

Then we should charge the gate. You know, the army is stumbling. Let's charge the gates.

And we tend to look at it the other way as, wow, look how terrible these movies are. We need to completely leave the system.

And I don't think that is a very helpful system that we've created.

And the current Christian model for movies and filmmaking only benefits secular

Hollywood for the most part. Right? So all the movies and stuff you see coming out are a result of approved films and scripts by secular distribution companies, whether it's

Sony or DreamWorks.

All of these Christian films that come out through their distribution arms are approved. And an example of that,

Kirk Cameron or the Kendrick Brothers did a movie with Kirk Cameron that was about a child who was saved from an abortion and given up for adoption.

And then that child grows up to go and find the father, which I believe the father was

Kirk Cameron in that film. I never saw it. And the reason I didn't see it is because it actually didn't get a broad mainstream release through the theaters because I believe it was

Sony rejected it because they didn't want to do a movie that was anti -abortion.

So the Kendrick Brothers had to do it as a Fathom event. It was one night only. And so it flopped and it didn't make all its money back.

How did Gosnell ever get into the movies? Because that was clearly an anti -abortion movie.

I didn't get a distribution deal through the secular studios.

So that was done independently. Because I did see it in a regular movie theater. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So you can get a theater to play a movie independently. It's a lot harder than getting on the studio's calendar.

But remember, you're not just getting—when you get a distribution deal through Sony or Lionsgate or wherever, you're also getting their marketing budget, right?

So their marketing and all their resources, all their assets are met. So if they say, well, we're not going to make this movie for whatever reason, you kind of have to write your

Christian movies for them. And my conspiracy theory is they want the Christian movies to be really bad because they don't want them to compete with their blockbusters.

And so that's my conspiracy theory. But no one's been able to disprove that for me yet.

By the way, before I forget to say it, I don't know if you saw the movie Rob Roy, but there is one of the greatest lines against abortion in any movie

I've ever seen. And this was a Hollywood film. I don't know of any

Christian involved in the making of it. There could have been. I don't know. But there is a scene when

Rob Roy's wife reveals to him that she is pregnant with the man—with the child of the man who raped her.

And she said, I wanted to go out into the river and root it out with a stick.

And Rob Roy says, why kill the child when it's the father that deserves killing?

So I thought that was one of the most— I haven't seen that movie. Oh, you're kidding me. You never saw it?

You've got to see it. Liam Neeson is Rob Roy. Classically old school

Liam Neeson, 1995, it looks like. Yeah, OK. I'm going to check that out. Oh, you've got to see that. It's one of the best movies

I've ever seen. But we have to go to our midway break right now.

And we do have some folks waiting to have their questions asked and answered. And if you'd like to join them, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church.

We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

Christ. This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com

Still praising

God for the addition of Gold Wealth Management to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio family of advertisers.

They are veteran -owned and operated and built on the values of honor, courage, commitment, and service to others.

The same values that were instilled in the owner during his eight years in the

Marine Corps. Gold Wealth Management is offering free reports on current market conditions, the threat of BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the coming digital currency, and how to protect your savings and retirement accounts with real assets like physical gold and silver.

There is absolutely no pressure and no obligation. Request your free reports today.

Call 623 -640 -5911. That's 623 -640 -5911.

Or visit goldwealthmanagement .com slash iron.

That's goldwealthmanagement .com slash iron. And tell them

Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. Don't wait. Be informed. Be prepared with Gold Wealth Management.

Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the

Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com,

where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. Hello, my name is

Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

Apple's iTunes app by typing ironsharpensironradio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show at any time, day or night.

Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnzen has on the show.

Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

Iron Sharpens Iron radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We're dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a reformed

Baptist perspective to beginners in the faith as well as seasoned believers. From Keech's Catechism and the

Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.

And finally, if you're looking to worship in a reformed church that holds to the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Uvino, and thanks for listening. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.

That's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com or call 678 -954 -7831.

That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

Joe Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.

I'm Brian McLaughlin, president of the

SecureComm Group, and an enthusiastic supporter of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron radio program.

The SecureComm Group provides the highest level of security, closed -circuit television, access control, and communication systems for Manhattan's top residential buildings, as well as churches, commercial properties, municipalities, and more.

We custom install exactly what you need to protect yourself, including digital recording, off -site viewing, and connectivity from most smart devices.

From simple code -activated systems to the latest technology using facial recognition, the

SecureComm Group has it. We also provide the latest in intercom and IP telephone systems.

In addition, we provide superior networking platforms. We'll create, maintain, and secure your local network.

Whether it's a Wi -Fi or a hardwire network, we'll implement the latest secured firewall, endpoint solutions, and cloud backup.

I would love to have the honor and privilege of helping protect the lives and property of Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners and their associates.

For more details on how the SecureComm Group may be of service to you with the very latest in security innovations, call 718 -353 -3355.

That's 718 -353 -3355. Or visit securecommgroup .com.

That's securecommgroup .com. This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group, joining

Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air.

Here at Iron Sharpens Iron radio, praise

God for the generous monthly financial support of Royal Diadem Jewelers, educated by and affiliated with the

American Gem Society, Jewelers of America, and the Gemological Institute of America.

For the perfect custom -designed engagement ring or any one -of -a -kind piece of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications,

Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered. No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step -by -step through every stage of the process and even hold a high -tech internet virtual visit using state -of -the -art jewelry design technology to serve you.

They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you.

From rough design to digital model to photorealistic image to wax prototype model to the finished product, they're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way.

This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed and well beyond your expectations.

Visit royaldiadem .com. That's royaldiadem .com today.

Sterling Vanderwercker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager,

Brian Wilson, and the entire family thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And you still have time to purchase a

Christmas gift with a rush order and delivery from royaldiadem .com

for someone you love. And if you do that, you're going to be giving Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a

Christmas gift at the same time. The reason being is that when anybody in our audience ever purchases jewelry from royaldiadem .com

and they mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we get 100 % of the profits from that sale of jewelry.

So please, whether you are purchasing something that they already have in stock at royaldiadem .com,

or if you have more time to purchase a gift, if you want something customized and designed so it's a one -of -a -kind piece of jewelry for someone you love, whatever the case may be, whether you're purchasing jewelry for yourself or for someone else, please go to royaldiadem .com

and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That way we get 100 % of the profits from the sale.

That's royaldiadem .com, mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to Marcus Pittman of lore .tv

and our conversation on whether or not Christians have the liberty to enjoy the art of unbelievers, even unbelievers who may be very hostile towards things that we as Christians believe.

This conversation was sparked by the recent horrific murder of Rob Reiner and his wife at the hand of their son,

Nick. And more and more folks are having conversations about how much of a notorious anti -Christian's art may we have the liberty to enjoy.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question regarding that, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

But before I return to that conversation, I want to remind you folks, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, not long ago, lost two very large advertisers that we had the privilege to be financially supported by, one of which was a globally known

Christian bookstore here in Cumberland County that was in business for 50 years, serving the body of Christ, and it recently permanently closed its doors.

We lost a very valuable source of income. We lost the second advertiser, and a third one might be on the way.

So please help us replenish and replace that lost income. Go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card.

If you prefer a snail mail, there will also be a physical mailing address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com,

where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you want to advertise with us, whether it's your church, parachurch ministry, your business, your private practice, like a law firm, a medical firm, maybe it's just a special event that you want to promote.

Whatever it may be, if it's compatible with what I believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we're just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as your donations.

So send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

Keep in mind, as urgently and as desperately as we need your financial help, I never want anybody listening to this program to give their own church, where you are a member, less money than you normally give your church on the

Lord's Day in order to bless Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Please never do that. In other words, never cut into the finances that you have specifically set aside for your

Lord's Day giving to your own church in order to bless us. And if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, please wait until you're back on your feet and more financially stable before you bless us financially.

But having said that, if you love the show and you don't want it to go off the air and you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family and you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and even trivial purposes, well, please share some of that money with us if you really love the show.

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where you live in the world,

I have helped many people in our audience spanning the entire globe find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even just a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you too.

So if you're without a biblically faithful church home, just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put

I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in your question to Marcus Pittman, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

We have a listener in Hoover, Alabama, and this listener's name is

Paulie, and Paulie asks, when you say that we shouldn't delight in the death of the wicked,

I know that that is a biblical precept, but at the same time, how far do you take it?

Should not American GIs and others have celebrated the death of Hitler, and so on and so forth?

I'm not trying to compare Rob Reiner with Hitler, but I think you know what I'm saying. Where do we draw the line with that?

So what do you think about that, Marcus? I think there's a difference between celebrating justice and celebrating death.

Sometimes those are the same thing, but they're also different categories. So I could celebrate the justice of the death penalty being established on a murderer, or I could celebrate the justice of winning a war, even if it means a lot of people died, but that's not the same thing as celebrating the image bearer dying and meeting his fate in hell.

I think that's the key difference. We should celebrate justice. I don't think what happened with Rob Reiner was just his death.

Yeah, and ultimately death is just, but that doesn't mean the means of which that death is established is always just.

Yeah, one of the creepiest things gave me chills and made me nauseous that I've ever seen on television was watching

Hillary Clinton, watching the brutal beating and murder of Muammar Gaddafi and laughing her brains out while she's watching it.

There was something so chillingly evil about that.

No matter how wicked Muammar Gaddafi may have been, it was actually also a very bad strategic mistake to remove him from power, even though he was an evil man.

The evil that was unleashed after he was murdered, when far more strict

Muslims rose to power, made it life more difficult for Christians and others than when

Muammar Gaddafi was in power. But having said that, putting that aside, to see

Hillary Clinton cackling like a witch watching that was really creepy. But as far as, oh yeah, let me have another listener question.

This was very good. We have RJ in White Plains, New York.

And RJ says, You mentioned before about classical Christian education, including the great works of written literature that may have evil elements in them that may even support or celebrate these things as being a just reason for Christians enjoying art by unbelievers.

But at the same time, it should be known that there have been prominent

Christians throughout history who were opposed to classical Christian education for that very reason.

Yeah, that is true. I was actually surprised how old classical education is. But there have been notable figures from Christian history who were opposed and are opposed to classical education because of that.

Do you have any further comments about that? Yeah, I think the ability to learn isn't only— one doesn't only learn from Christians.

One learns best from Christians, but one doesn't only learn from Christians. If that's true, you can't even watch the news because even learning about what happens in the world is usually reported on by people who aren't

Christian, even if they still have the capabilities to report the news accurately.

I mean, they used to. But there's so much—

I mean, you go to your city council meeting and you're learning about the city council and the events of the city council or the city, what's going on in the city.

You're usually learning from unbelievers about the way in which the world works.

And so I don't think it's— there's a difference between seeing a moral thing and being entertained by a moral thing.

It's not a sin for me to witness somebody being murdered if I'm at a bank robbery or whatever.

It's not a sin for me to witness that. It would be a sin if I was entertained and overjoyed by that.

And the same thing is true when it comes to books and stories, especially, even more so, when they're fictional.

So even when they're fictional, there's a difference between seeing a character commit evil or seeing a character do evil and actually being entertained by evil.

I would emphasize that's why I think— I am not including nudity in this discussion because I don't think you can see nudity and somehow not be entertained or intrigued by it.

And also, the nudity itself is actually a sin, whereas a fake

CGI gun splatter in a war movie is not actually a sin. So there's a lot of distinctions.

One of my pastors, I was asking him about this a long time ago, and he told me, he said his argument would be if you're watching something in a movie and it's fake, then it's not real.

But if you're watching something in a movie and it's real, then it's real. Right? So that,

I think, having that thorough understanding and knowledge of stuff is very important for being able to be discerning as to what you watch.

Yeah, there was a—oh, yeah, now I remember the name of it—Oz.

It was a cable TV series about prison called

Oz, and I stopped watching it when there was a scene so grotesque to me involving

Christopher Meloni, who many people will more probably remember from the

TV series on NBC, Law & Order. But Christopher Meloni played a homosexual inmate, and there's a scene when he started swapping spit—

This is an HBO series, not The Wizard of Oz. Yes!

That would have been a very bizarre version of The Wizard of Oz. Christopher Meloni started swapping spit with another man, and I turned to the channel and never watched the program again.

Yeah, that's real. Yeah, because someone, when I was mentioning this to them, and just like people will—actors and actresses themselves will say,

I'm not having sex, I'm acting. Now, if your scene involves you being naked and being groped, even though there might not be actual sexual intercourse, you're still sinning because you're doing things that are an abomination to God.

And— In reserve for the marriage bed, primarily.

Right, and even the scene that we were mentioning— There is no marriage bed in Homosexuality, just for clarification.

Right, right. And even the unneeded, unnecessary cursing scene by Steve Martin that we were talking about before on planes, trains, and automobiles.

He was sinning because he was cursing, you know, I mean, in a vile way.

So, there are certain things that are make -believe stuff, like somebody shooting somebody with a gun, and they're not really firing a bullet at them, and they're not really hurting or killing them.

You know, there are things that aren't sin. But that actually brings up an excellent question from a listener of ours.

Rory in Lexington, North Carolina says, As much as I love to watch gangster movies, and although gangsters are typically portrayed as being evil in movies, there is always the danger that you start to root for these evil men and view them as heroes in some sense, even if unconsciously.

What do you have to say about this? I think that's very true. There is a bizarre thing going on. Like, for instance,

I think one of the best movies ever created was The Godfather.

I've seen it many times. I could continue watching it many times. And The Godfather 2 as well.

And there is an effort to show that this is an evil way of life and so on, and nobody is really getting murdered in these movies, so you can't say that they're sinning.

But it was actually, when you talk about graphic violence, it was very tame in that realm.

Sonny's execution at the toll booth was probably the most gruesome scene in the whole movie, or even the two movies, one and two.

But what do you say about that, about the dangers that do exist about us? We find ourselves, maybe you don't, but sometimes you find yourself rooting for characters that are evil people.

You know what I'm saying? That was one of the things that made Breaking Bad so brilliant, is because it kind of flipped the whole anti -hero sort of thing on its head.

You started off with a good guy who became this drug lord, mob boss, and killed a lot of people, destroyed his family.

And then towards the end, he becomes a really unlikable character. And you're like, why was I rooting for this guy to get away all this time?

But that was the intention of the author, was he wanted to create a character that slowly became evil.

And that way the audience looks back on it and goes, what am I rooting for when

I root for a character? And that's really a result of Christians not getting involved in the movie business.

Because the whole, you know, I was watching Jim Carrey's Grinch. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, the

Jim Carrey version. So the animated version, there's not a lot of backstory on the

Grinch. He's just evil because he's purely evil. But in the Jim Carrey version, the

Who's are actually the bad guys, right? The Who's are the ones that caused the

Grinch to become the way he is. And even when he tries to save Whoville, the

Who's are still, you know, bad and corrupt. Besides Cindy Lou, there was no really redeemable

Who in all of Whoville. But I think that's the thing.

We have to justify why a character is evil. No, you don't.

You don't have to justify it. A character can just be evil for the sake of being evil. So this sort of anti -hero theme where, you know, a great example of this.

I absolutely love Superman. He's my favorite superhero of all time. And they just haven't been able to grasp how to make him a good guy.

Like, modern Hollywood doesn't understand how you can have Superman be a good guy.

And, like, what is the struggle of that? Until the CW, a few years ago, released a show called

Lois and Clark. Well, Lois and Clark was the

Dean Cain one. Superman and Lois was a CW one that came out about five years ago.

And that was the most perfect Superman narrative I've ever seen.

And it's phenomenal. And they struck the chords, right? Because what is the tension of Superman when he's perfect and hardly any— like, you know, his only weakness is the most rare material on the planet, right?

And so what they did was they casted Superman and Lois years— 15 years after they got married and they had kids and were living in Farmville.

And so now Superman's struggle is, how do I save the world and return home in time for dinner?

And it was amazing. Like, I didn't need Superman to struggle with doing something immoral when he's like,

Hey, if I don't beat this guy by 6 p .m., my wife is going to be upset because I missed another dinner.

That's a real legitimate challenge that I think a

Superman with teenage sons would have to deal with. How does Superman manage his home and protect his family?

That was just incredible. And so it showed that there actually is a way to do that.

But I think when a lot of the people who are at the top in Hollywood, they don't want their stories of their heroes to be just bad for the sake of being bad because that kind of makes them bad for the sake of being bad, right?

They have to rationalize their lifestyle and what they do somehow.

And they do that by injecting these antiheroes into these stories. But I don't think

Christians need to do that. I think you can have a villain who is just a villain and who is just bad for the sake of being bad.

That was the great thing about the original Star Wars, Darth Vader. We didn't need a backstory on why Darth Vader was a bad guy.

We didn't need the one, two, and three. We didn't need to know about Anakin Skywalker or any of that stuff.

He was just a bad guy. And then you get to the five, six, and seven, and suddenly there's all this weird emotional justification for why – you know what?

I have not paid attention to five, six, and seven. The new bad guy in The Force Awakens, why he's bad.

And it's this emotional nonsense and feminist nonsense and all this other sort of stuff. And it's just completely unnecessary.

So, you know, my answer to every problem in this Hollywood is invest and do something better.

Because the worse they get, the better the market opportunity. Yeah, before I go to a listener in Little Ferry, New Jersey, I know that you explained it a little bit in your opinion why the art, especially in film, from professing evangelicals is so bad typically.

I'm not saying every bit of it. But there is very often something notably and noticeably and palpably cheesy when evangelical

Christians create a film. And even the best of movies about Christian themes are typically not made by openly professing

Christians, at least to my knowledge. I think one of the best movies on a

Christian theme was Luther the Movie that came out in the early 2000s starring

Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther. I'm not aware of any evangelical or even

Lutheran connection to the making of that. You know, you have

Anthony Hopkins playing C .S.

Lewis in that version of Shadowlands being remarkable. And, you know,

I could go on with other… Chariots of Fire. You know, these were not made by Christians and they're about Christian themes.

And they are far superior to most of what

I have seen, if not everything I've seen, that is openly a Christian production.

Why is that? This is going to be… I know this answer very well, and I've been fighting it for the past five years.

It's very complex and deep. But the reason Christian movies are bad is not because there's a lack of talent.

It's not because there aren't artists that are capable of doing it. It's not because the screenwriters are bad or the writers are bad.

It is a top -down problem. The movies that are defined as Christians… And so just a little background about me.

I was the head of video for the agency that did Pureflix's advertising.

So I worked for the agency. I didn't exactly work for Pureflix, but I was able to have meetings and stuff with a lot of executives and stuff during that time.

They are targeting the Christian film industry. When they first came out, realized that the movies were not going to have a long shelf life in the theater.

They were going to probably be there two weeks max, maybe three weeks, maybe a month, if it's like a real winter.

And so they had to figure out, how do we make money when the movie is not in theaters?

And that means selling DVDs or VHS tapes, DVDs. And so where do you sell

VHS tapes and DVDs for Christian movies? Well, you do that in the Christian bookstores, the Lifeway Christian bookstores.

And so they came together and they said, who shops at Lifeway Christian bookstores? And they said it's 35 -year -old middle -aged women with kids.

They're the main shopper, the main demographic at Lifeway Christian bookstores. So suddenly every single movie that was ever made for Christian movies were marketed towards that 35 -year -old mom.

So not only did you get cheesy movies and TV shows that were overly safe, but you got movies that were heavily feminized.

Anyone who's in the Christian entertainment industry knows the running joke is you can't sell your movie unless it's an

Amish romance. And so really what it is is the theology of Beth Moore defined what the theology of Christian movies were.

By the way, I do have a first edition copy of Josiah and the Milkmaid. I just wanted to let you know.

I'm so riveting. Beverly Lewis signed it.

So basically the Christian entertainment genre was created in a boardroom.

It wasn't made by every other film entertainment industry.

Naturally, the way entertainment industries are made is they're made through grassroots. So you have punk rock music that started in garage bands and Tooth &

Nail Records, which is actually pretty significant in that. Or you have hip -hop, which was started on street corners in Brooklyn and by poets.

Usually what happens is you have a localized group of people that develop this sort of art form, and then that art form sort of kind of spreads virally.

And then the mainstream, the people with the money, usually see, hey, there's a movement happening, and they financially back that movement.

That wasn't what happened with Christian entertainment. And so all your music, all your movies, all your books, so this includes

K -Love, it's all marketed towards the shopper at Lifeway Christian Bookstore. The problem is there are no

Lifeway Christian Bookstores anymore. So they got rid of the Lifeway Christian Bookstores before—actually, before 2020, before COVID.

They shut down most of the Christian bookstores in the country. And they didn't create other means of finding new talent, finding new artists.

And so it's very, very top—everything's very, very top down. It's what will the studio allow—what is the studio comfortable enough putting their name on?

And what are the Christian entertainment industries comfortable putting their name on?

And so there's all these audiences that never get entertainment made for them. One is men.

There's no male Christian entertainment. You could look at—you could say Courageous and Fireproof, right?

So those are two that come to mind that are geared towards men or about men. But those are movies made for women to take their husbands to the theater.

The actual term I think they used, I believe, is fix-'em -ups, right?

So they fix him up. So they're theaters that are made to get the husband of a wife to repent.

So the wife takes—but that's not— There's never a movie that's just made for men with no expectation of the woman coming to the box office.

The other reason is what is called subsidy. And the guy who invented this actually told me this, and he's a great guy.

I love him a lot. He told me that when a big -name

Christian movie was about to come out, they wanted to figure out how they could fill up as many seats in the theater as possible.

And so what they decided to do was instead of making a movie that just targets a wide range of people,

Christian or non -Christian or whatever, instead we'll make a movie that only appeals to a pastor.

And so the pastor then buys 300 tickets to the movie theater and passes them out.

So there's a lot of—well, now you're making a movie for a pastor. No one in the congregation can be offended.

There can't be anything offensive. There can't be anything too gritty. So you're not even making stuff for Christian audiences anymore.

You're making stuff for pastoral staff. And if there's something in that movie, after they use the church tithes to buy all these tickets and then they pass out the tickets, and then there's something in it that upsets members of the church, then the pastor's in trouble.

So there's a level of safety and precaution and rewriting and scripts, studio decisions on the scripts and cutting this and cutting that out.

And it's all executive, top -down decisions that destroy the

Christian film industry. And if you ask any Christian artist, any Christian filmmaker about it, they will tell you this exact same thing.

This is pretty common knowledge. I've spoken to hundreds of artists. I've spoken to several people that have been very high level in the

Christian film world. And this is what they'll tell you. And so my advice is if you want

Christian entertainment to be better, you can't subsidize it. You can't buy free tickets because that doesn't allow the film to compete fairly in a marketplace.

That's socialism and welfare. That's not, you know, hey, this movie wasn't good. It deserves to fail.

Right? And then if a movie is good, it deserves to be financially rewarded.

That's the capitalist system that God created. And so I've been on this for five years, is we have to stop investing in Christian movies as nonprofits and missional activities.

And we have to invest in movies in such a way that it creates billionaires.

And then those billionaires can go and then build out studios and do what

Steven Spielberg is doing and doing with all these other famous actors, like Seth Rogen, for example, who started off doing really stupid comedy movies.

And now he's producing a lot of stuff. Right? And so we have to have this incubation system that allows for younger artists to take risks and then maybe make a movie that you go at.

I think you crossed the line there, buddy. But you have to give them the freedom to do that. You have to give them the freedom to fail.

And they have to get the financial consequences of failing. And you have to build this incubation.

And it's the same way that Saturday Night Live works. Saturday Night Live is a live show once a week.

You get up there and 90 % of all the sketches are not funny. But every now and then you get more cowbell sketch or you get a

Will Ferrell. And it's that 10 % of sketches that really work that build up stars with backbone who can bomb in front of millions of people once a week.

And that's how you build up talent in the creative industry by trusting them to tell a story and letting that story fail.

Same way stand -up comedy works. It doesn't matter if you're Nate Bargatze or any Christian church comic.

They all perform in smoky comedy clubs. And they perform to the same audience.

They don't perform their comedy before just Christian audiences. They perform them to everybody.

And if everybody laughs, they know it works. And then they go and perform it before the church or on a bigger

Netflix special or something like that. Which is why I'm actually really excited. Jeff Foxworthy is doing a comedy special next year.

And Netflix is following him around to the comedy clubs where he's working on bombing.

He's working on telling jokes that bomb and fail and bomb and fail. And then he improves them and he gets better.

But the only way to do that is to put out stuff before an actual audience and see what the audience relates to.

Yeah. When you mentioned one of my favorite comedians of all time, Nate Bargatze, his career was launched by a very vulgar leftist comedian,

Mark Maron. He was the warm -up act for Mark Maron. And that's how he got his fame and now is selling out venues on his own.

Completely clean out. Yeah. I'm very passionate about stand -up comedy. And I've been to many comedy clubs.

I've been to the Comedy Cellar in New York. And it's amazing. The one thing I see all the time is that a comic will get up there and they'll always start off with relatively clean jokes.

And if those jokes fail, as a safety mechanism, they'll resort to more vulgar, disgusting jokes.

And it never works for them. It never works. Every comedy club I've been to, the worse and vulgar the joke is, the less laughs they get.

And so what I tell Christians is, if you want the comedy scene to be better, you need to go to your local comedy clubs and not laugh.

Because you're the barrier. If you take a whole group of Christians to a comedy club and they're telling vulgar jokes, it's going to be really bad for the comic.

It's not going to work out well. And so the audience in a comedy, the audience is the judge of what's funny or not.

And I agree. Borgatti's one of the best of all time, I think, at this point. And this trailer for his new movie came out where he's playing a really bad stay -at -home dad so his mom can start a business or sell product or whatever.

So he has to stay home for a month. And people are like, oh, no, it's the dumb sitcom comedy dad with the feminist who's trying to get a job.

And I'm like, well, I've listened to enough Nate Borgatti's show, enough of his comedy to know he really values his wife who is a stay -at -home mom.

And so my theory is he's just going to do really bad at being a stay -at -home dad as he should.

And they're going to reverse roles at the end and she's going to go back to the house. That's my hope. Well, we have to go to our final break.

But you can't judge a movie by the trailer. Right. We're going to our final break. Don't go away. We're going to be right back.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love.

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711.

Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. I'm Dr. Joe Moorcraft, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Anthony Uvino, founder of thereformrookie .com

and co -founder of New York Apologetics, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Tim Bushong of Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and the NASB is my

Bible of choice. I'm Eli Ayala, founder of Revealed Apologetics and staff member with the

Historical Bible Society, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio advertising family.

At Lindbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

Word of God, inerrant in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear

God's image. If you live near Lindbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit Lindbrookbaptist .org.

That's L -Y -N -Brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast of the

Lord's blessing in the knowledge of himself. Armored Republic exists to equip free men with tools of liberty to defend

God -given rights against the twin threats of tyranny and chaos. If you own a rifle to resist tyrants and criminals, then you should own body armor and a med kit for the same reasons.

A rifle stops evil, body armor and a med kit keep you in the fight and preserve your life.

Armored Republic is a body of free craftsmen united to create tools of liberty. We are honored to be your armorsmith of choice.

Civilian ownership of body armor is about increasing decentralized power and, by comparison, reducing the advantages of centralized power.

The danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king. As Americans, we hate the word king applied to any mere man.

We are Armored Republic, and in a republic, there is no king but Christ. Arm yourself with tools of liberty at ArmoredRepublic .com.

Truly grateful for many things that the

Trump administration has ushered in, but here's something that seriously concerns me. On July 18th,

President Donald Trump signed the Genius Act into law. This new law allows financial institutions to convert your hard -earned dollars into stable coins, a digital token backed by $37 trillion in national debt.

They will not need your approval. You hand over your dollars, and they give you a trackable, programmable, freezeable token.

This sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. They get control, and you get surveillance.

Stable coins are not freedom. They're a digital leash. This is one step away from a full -blown digital currency.

How stable is a stable coin? If your account is hacked or if the power grid goes down for a period of time, you can instantly be locked out.

It is time to get some of your hard -earned money outside of the traditional banking system and the

U .S. dollar. If you want to have a better understanding of stable coins and the future of money, then please call my friends at Gold Wealth Management and request your free report.

This report is a must -read. Call or text Gold Wealth Management today at 623 -640 -5911.

That's 623 -640 -5911. The report is free, and there's no obligation.

Again, call or text 623 -640 -5911. Tell them

Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. Welcome back, and we have a few minutes left.

We have Joyce, who is located in Little Ferry, New Jersey.

How do you respond to those Christians who say that we should not be entertained by anything evil by using

Philippians 4 .8? Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

That's a very good question. How do you respond to that? Whoops, I had you on mute there, brother.

Sorry. Oh, am I back? Yes. Okay. That's a great question.

One, I think, is everything we talked about today is the ability for an unbeliever to make good things.

They're capable of making good things, so we should meditate on those things that are good.

I don't know if watching a show that has something that's offensive to you that you don't like is the same as meditating on it.

Now, if you are consistently harping over that bad scene and meditating over that bad scene, that's a problem.

But I don't think something in a movie that you might not agree with as a

Christian means that you're completely meditating on that whole thing. That, I think, is very important.

Now, when do you think violence goes over the line into gratuitous violence?

It's kind of interesting how so many leftist actors are in favor of gun control, anti -gun ownership, and yet in their movies that they make millions of dollars for their acting ability, they're portraying the hero with a gun, you know, shooting the bad guys.

But anyway, when does it become a wrong thing for Christians to be viewing it or making it?

Yeah, I think if it's senseless, you know, I know like Saving Private Ryan, the violence in that movie, it's to alert you to the gruesome nature of war.

And then I'd say there's also, you know, violence in the

Bible. That's, you know, Samson in the jawbone killing 600 men.

That's pretty gruesome. Or David requiring the 400 foreskins as the bride price.

So there's a lot of gruesome violence in the Bible. But the question is really what is the intent of it?

So that's what I would say there.

It's really about intent. Well, folks, we're out of time. Make sure you visit

LOR .TV, LOR .TV, LOR .TV.

I want to thank you, Marcus, for being such a superb guest today. Look forward to having you back on the show.

I want to thank everybody who listened and wrote in questions especially. And I want you all to have a very blessed and safe and happy and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

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