May 25, 2023 Show with Brandon Vanderford on “A Generation Z Christian Addresses the Burning Issues Facing the Youth of Today”

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 Thursday on this 25th day of May, 2023, and I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest in the program that came about through a series of acts of God's providence.

Well, first of all, I was very grateful and thankful to Scott Brown, the founder of Church and Family Life in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where he also pastors

Hope Baptist Church. I was very thankful to him to extend an invitation to me several weeks ago to man an exhibitor's booth at the most recent

Church and Family Life conference in Black Mountain, North Carolina, at the

Ridgecrest Conference Center. He agreed to pay my expenses and put me up at the conference center in exchange for advertising, and my first day there in Black Mountain, when

I got to the cafeteria at Ridgecrest Conference Center to have a bite to eat for lunch,

I discovered that they were closed, the cafeteria, that is, was closed until dinnertime, so I called

Scott Brown and said, hey, do you know anybody that would like to take me to lunch somewhere locally, and I will treat them to lunch, and Scott said,

I believe I know somebody, and sure enough, I was put into connection with the guest that I have today,

Brandon Vanderford. I was so impressed by this young man over lunch, an intellect and knowledge of the

Scriptures and Christianity and things confronting the

Church in our day, I was so impressed by his vast knowledge of all these things that are rarely possessed by someone, in my experience, that is from the

Generation Z age group, and so I immediately said,

I've got to get Brandon on the program as soon as we are able to line up an interview, and he thankfully agreed, and Brandon Vanderford is a part -time staff member at Church and Family Life.

He's also a member of Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where I already said

Scott Brown is the pastor, and we're going to be addressing a Generation Z Christian addresses the burning issues facing the youth of today.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Brandon Vanderford, and are you there,

Brandon? And I was hearing Brandon just moments ago.

Oh, there you go. My apologies, I had myself off on mute initially. You would think that I'd have a better handle on that after the three years of COVID with all of the

Zoom meetings and web interactions that we had, but mistakes still happen.

Well, I appreciate you having me on the show today, Chris. I look forward to our conversation about some of the subjects that we're going to discuss from a

Gen Z perspective. It was a pleasure to meet you at the conference two or three weeks ago,

I suppose it's been now. It was a great conference. You know, the venue, it makes it feel almost as much like a retreat as it is a conference.

It's a great time for fellowship and for connecting with friends and people in the ministry.

The sermons are always an encouragement, but it was good to have you join us this year. It was great to be there for the very first time at an event of church and family life, and Scott has already extended the invitation for me to man an exhibition booth once again at the next church and family life conference in 2024.

I'm looking forward to that as well, God willing. And why don't you tell our listeners something about church and family life?

Absolutely. So church and family life was established in 2001. The basic premise of this ministry is to bring the sufficiency of scripture to church and family life.

The Bible is not only inerrant, it's also sufficient. So it offers practical instruction for the way that men and fathers are to lead their families, for the way that a family is to operate.

It offers instruction on discipleship and education. And for the church, how is a church to operate according to the principles of God's word?

How does the family relate with the church? We have a world now in which the way that the family operates within the church is very much informed by the way that the family operates within the world.

So what does it mean to get back to scripture's principles for these two institutions?

Really, a lot of the problems that we're dealing with in the modern world today stem from problems with the way that families are operating and churches are operating.

And getting back to the word of God will solve a lot of those troubles that we have.

And now tell us something about Hope Baptist Church of Wake Forest, North Carolina, where you are a member.

Absolutely. So I have been at this church since 2018.

It's been a good blessing to my life. It's actually the first time in my life that I've been thoroughly engaged in church life.

Growing up, my family was not as connected with a local church as we should have been.

So seeing elders get up week after week, faithfully proclaiming the word of God and its relevance to all of life as we go through the scripture expositionally.

We just got out of the three -year sermon series and the book of Revelation. It was a very helpful sermon series.

Our pastor, helpfully, didn't make it a matter of eschatological debate so much as what principles do we discover in the book of Revelation that have an impact for how the church is to operate in a society that is contrary to the principles of scripture?

Basically, how does the church operate in Babylon? And it was a very helpful sermon series.

We just started the book of Romans two weeks ago. So it's going to be another helpful series. But it's been a blessing to be part of this church.

And this is a Reformed Baptist church? That's correct. We hold to the 1689

Second London Baptist Confession. Great. Well, if anybody wants to know more information about Hope Baptist Church, if you happen to be visiting

Wake Forest, North Carolina, or you're passing through there, or you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in or near there, go to hopebaptistchurch .info.

Hopebaptistchurch .info. And as far as the Church and Family Life ministry website, a ministry of Hope Baptist Church, go to churchandfamilylife .com.

churchandfamilylife .com. And God willing, we'll be repeating that information later on in the broadcast.

Well, this topic, I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe you may be the youngest guest we've ever had on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Someone may look up the archives and later prove me wrong on that. But first of all, tell us how old you are.

Absolutely. So I'm 23 now. My birthday's in about three weeks, though, so almost 24.

I'm just at that age where it still makes a difference. I would say I have a lot more gray hair on my head by age 24 as opposed to age 23, and I say that tongue -in -cheek.

And as far as Generation Z, all these labels are somewhat new to me.

I know that there's Baby Boomers and Millennials, and I think Generation Z comes after that, but you might correct me on that.

But what is the age group that would involve Generation Z? That's a great question, and that's a question you're going to get different answers from different people.

I have not actually found a set definition of which year the generation begins.

There's some variety of opinion, but very late 1990s onward is generally recognized as Gen Z.

They tend to be some of the younger people in the workforce. A lot of them are graduating from college right now.

We're talking early to mid -20s and then kids that go down into school and middle school and so on and so forth.

I believe that Gen Z kids are still being born or either that or we just moved out of that phase, but late 1990s and then about 20 years afterwards.

And the topic at hand, as I've already mentioned, is Generation Z Christian Addresses the

Burning Issues Facing the Youth of Today. Let's start with what is so troubling about church life and perhaps even

Christianity in general that there are quite a large number of children of Christian parents, many of whom may be even raising the children in the home, in the

Christian home, in the church, are leaving the Christian church. But actually, before that,

I almost forgot to fulfill the tradition of Iron Churpin's Iron Radio where whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony.

And so before I get into that question I was just about to ask you, let's hear your story.

It usually involves the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in and what kind of providential circumstances were raised up in your life that drew you to the

Lord and saved you. Absolutely, Chris. So I'm actually going to break this down into two parts.

I'm going to first explain my salvation testimony and then kind of give a little bit more detail on how

I ended up in Reformed theology. So my salvation testimony is fairly simple.

I grew up in a Christian home. My parents made the

Word of God known to us from a young age. We were homeschooled, so lots of discipleship, lots of time in the

Word. Interestingly enough, it was actually in part at the urging of my kindergarten teacher in school that my mom decided to homeschool.

So I grew up in this Christian home and there wasn't a time at which

I rejected the faith. I always believed the

Word of God as it was presented to me, and it's been more of a maturing in that understanding and coming to a deeper understanding over time.

I don't remember who it was originally that used the analogy, some salvation testimonies are like a sunrise, whereas others are like a bolt of lightning.

Mine would certainly be more like the sunrise. As far as my journey to Reformed theology, that's a little bit of a different story.

Growing up, actually the first church that I remember, and this will probably come as a surprise to some of the listeners, was

Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. I was born in Houston and we went to Pastor Joel Osteen's church.

I could, if this were a video, I could show you a picture of my baby dedication certificate signed by Pastor Joel Osteen himself.

It was actually at a Joyce Meyer conference that Women Outside the

Door first handed my mom a CD on Reformed theology.

It was maybe five to eight years before we actually started making more of that transition.

Have you ever had Dr. Joe Moorcraft on your show before? Of course.

He's probably neck and neck with Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries as being the most interviewed guest

I've ever had on this program. Very good, very good. He was the one who first introduced me to Reformed theology.

I had conversations with him at conferences. I just had a conversation with him on the phone today.

Wonderful. He's a dear brother. He starts talking about this

Calvinism thing and the first thing I think is, well, he sounds so solid on so many other issues, but he sounds off his rocker on this one.

It took me about two or three years of having those mental blocks of Arminianism torn down before I could come to a

Reformed understanding of the doctrines of grace. Then at that point, everything starts to follow.

I'm sure many of your listeners who have come to Reformed theology as adults would be able to give a similar testimony.

You come to Calvinism and then you start to see the holes in a lot of dispensational theology move to a more covenantal framework.

Then comes confessionalism and you start to discover the historic creeds and the wealth of wisdom that's in those ties to historic

Christian orthodoxy. That's been my journey to Reformed theology. Well, praise

God. Going back to my question that I was originally asking you before I remembered that I had not yet covered your testimony, there are droves of children of Christians who are even raising their children properly in Bible -believing homes and in reasonably sound churches and even very solid churches.

I mean, I know people who are pretty much in lockstep to a great degree with both

Hope Baptist Church of Wake Forest, North Carolina and my church where I'm a member,

Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I know people in that theological orbit who are also having the shock of seeing their children abandon the faith and never to, at least at this point, darken the door of a church building again.

Can you give us any insight what you have seen, what you have heard from either young people who they themselves have abandoned the faith or you're hearing from their parents or you're hearing it from somewhere.

Do you get any idea of what seems to be possibly a trend? Now, I know that if these children never return to the church, that will be because of the core reason that they were never regenerate to begin with.

So that's the theological issue, obviously, the theological reason. But what would be the reasons that they give as far as you are aware of?

That's a very good question. And it's at the same time a very simple question and it's also a very complex question.

It's simple insofar as we live in a cultural moment that's not all too dissimilar from many times in history when basically the whole society stands against Christian doctrine.

And, you know, it was G .K. Chesterton who said any dead thing can flow with the stream, and it takes a living thing to swim against it.

So it takes the effort that a Christian has to put into living according to the principles of the faith in the 21st century is much more intense than what would have been necessary in, say, the 1940s or the 1950s when the general cultural trends were still in favor of Christianity.

We're in a world that's very hostile to Christianity. So a lot of the individuals who may not have been regenerate but may have went with the flow and remained church members and went to their

Southern Baptist church are exposing themselves as being unsafe because the world has a much stronger pull.

My heart goes out to any parent who has struggled with that or has had a child walk away from the faith.

I've been blessed to have the vast majority of my friends continue the trajectory that their parents set them on and walk according to the principle of Proverbs.

A child trained up in the way that he should go stays on the way. He doesn't depart from it.

And that's been my experience largely. I also have had friends walk away. I think a lot of it is a failure of discipleship on the part of the church.

Within the church, we have made a conscious effort to be as much like the world as is possible.

I remember a Christmas program at a church in my hometown, and this was shortly after the

Disney blockbuster Frozen came out. They called it unfrozen. It was a play on how

Jesus melts frozen hearts. These types of things are the game of the evangelical church of the last 40, 50 years, the whole seeker -sensitive movement permeating our culture, and it's destructive because it makes the church look like an alternative to the very real thing that the world offers.

Yeah, you just transported me back in time to the mid -1980s when

I was dating my very first Christian girlfriend. She was originally from Long Island, where I'm from, and she had moved to Lynchburg, Virginia.

She went to college at Liberty University and then after graduating became an elementary school teacher at the church where Jerry Falwell was the pastor,

Thomas Road Baptist Church. And when she was visiting Long Island, she invited me to the church where she was saved, and they had a

Christmas pageant. And everything in the pageant was just secular music.

It was all your good old -fashioned favorite Andy Williams Christmas music, and it just concluded with a very similar conclusion that the

Broadway Christmas show with the Rockettes had with the manger scene and so on.

I had been saved in a Reformed Baptist church, and my stomach was churning the entire time

I was in the building. But I don't know if you have experienced this since you've been a member at Hope Baptist Church, and I don't know how much connection you are maintaining with those who are in less theologically sound churches, but I have discovered something that shocked me—shocked me in a good way.

I had discovered—in fact, I first heard it from a

Reformed brother years ago who had a college campus evangelistic ministry, and he said during a conference

I was at, he said, it may surprise you to know that there are many—and he said,

I'm not broad -brushing, I'm not saying that this is the case with all young people, and he was referring basically to Generation Z, and perhaps even including millennials in there.

He said, it may surprise you, but the young people who are starting to develop a craving to return to church or even perhaps become active in a church for the first time in their lives, they very often want nothing to do with the hip, modern attempts of churches to imitate the world.

They view that as a bait -and -switch attempt.

They're clever enough to realize that there is a lore there where you're going to be giving an imitation of pop music and rock music to appeal to the tastes of young people, and you're going to have a man—and

I know I'm going to be insulting a lot of people because I've been to churches that are theologically Reformed that may resemble this—but you're going to, you know, have the pastor with skinny jeans and sneakers or sandals or barefoot, wearing a t -shirt, and they're going to be turned off by that in many cases.

They want something that's more traditional. They want something either from what they remember as a child or that something that is in stark contrast from the world they're living in.

They're craving something about the church that makes them evident that they are looking for answers outside of the world, so why do they want to go to a church that resembles so closely the world?

And this actually happened or came to light several years ago when the oldest daughter of the woman who led me to Christ, she had a young child, and she was living in Florida at the time, and she said,

I want my son to be raised in the church. I really want to return to the church because I was raised in the church, and I think it's the right thing.

And she even admitted she was not yet born again at that time, and she asked me for church recommendations where she was, in Orlando, and Orlando is a huge place.

I contacted some Reformed ministries that I had respect for.

They gave me church recommendations, and this young woman contacted me back, and she said,

Chris, I hope you're not offended, but the church that you recommended to me, I don't want to return there because I felt like I was in a concert rather than at a church.

Even though the church was theologically Reformed, they were basically trying to be seeker -sensitive to a younger generation with the skinny jeans and the rock music.

So does that sound at all familiar to your ears, that there are young people who want little to do with the modern church's attempts at imitating their culture?

No. So I agree with that analysis 100%. I think your friend has a very astute observation.

She is, by the way, born again now, and she moved to Pennsylvania, was baptized, and is a member of the same congregation where I am now.

Praise God. I do think that that is a correct observation, and I've noticed that with many of the friends that I have who do not necessarily attend as conservative of churches.

Some of my good friends attend J .D. Gerst Church, which is a very mainstream

Southern Baptist church, but I can even tell with them that they do have a hunger for more solid things in the

Word of God. I think that there's a recognition that we can't outdo the world, so why try?

That's the big failing of the evangelical church in America, somehow thinking that they will attract worldly people by doing worldly things better than the world does worldly things.

But when we actually return to the solid food of Scripture, I do think that there's a hunger for that.

And just as a warning, in all sincerity, I have seen friends that I engage with a lot online, and I'm sure that you've seen similar things in your ministry.

Individuals who were serious about Scripture and took the church seriously, moving to less sound—I hesitate to use the term denomination, because it's a bigger switch than denomination—but people going to Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, because they hunger for something that a lot of evangelical churches are not offering them.

And if you've grown up in a very, you know, what

Paul would describe as serving milk instead of the solid food of the Word of God, if you've grown up in that type of evangelical church and you haven't been exposed to the depth of doctrine that's available in Reformed theology, then you're looking at the church and you see these

Catholic and Orthodox churches, which appear to be far more historically connected and rooted than what the evangelical churches are offering.

So if evangelical churches need to get serious,

I think a lot of Gen Z sees the majority of the church in America as fundamentally unserious, and that needs to change, because we are losing young people to erroneous versions of Christianity as a result.

By the way, I want to let our listeners know, if you want to, after this live program is over, if you'd like to listen to an interview

I conducted on May 12th with Joshua Schuping on his book

Disillusioned, Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church, you can find that recording on the archive at www .ZionRadio

.com. Just type Schuping in the search engine, S -C -H -O -O -P as in Peter, I -N -G.

We're going to our first commercial break right now. If you have a question for my guest today,

Brandon Vanderford, please send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And by the way, I didn't have time to tell you this before the show, Brandon, but during the commercial breaks, you are not going to hear the commercials, because you're on Microsoft Teams.

Everybody else hears the commercials. You don't. You only hear my voice during this broadcast.

So don't panic that you've been kicked off the air when you hear dead silence for about ten minutes. And if you could, also please keep yourself on mute during the commercial breaks.

Don't go away, folks. We're going to be right back after these messages. James White of Alfenbega Ministries here.

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you. Welcome back, and if you just tuned in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Brandon Vanderford, a staff member at Church and Family Life in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

We are addressing a Generation Z Christian Address as the burning issues facing the youth today.

We have an anonymous listener who says, I'm having a lot of problems dealing with my own adult children who have a very soft view and acceptance of homosexuality, not that they themselves are involved in that practice, but they think that Christians are being bigoted and hateful and nasty simply for opposing this behavior.

I was wondering what it is about this generation that seems to be so willing to accept that kind of behavior where most generations in the past understood naturally that this was something strange, bizarre, and something to be avoided.

Yeah, I could remember when I was a teenager, first of all, or even as a younger child, elementary school going into high school,

I didn't even meet the first openly admittedly homosexual person until I was in college.

So growing up in the neighborhood, if there were homosexual kids or kids that had that propensity, it was not made known.

And in fact, in the entirety of the high school, there was never a kid that I was aware of that openly described themselves that way.

And of course, I'm not commending the cruelty, the verbal cruelty that even was hurled against effeminate young men or effeminate boys and masculine girls and young women.

I'm not saying that that's justifiable, but there was at least a recognition that this was a strange thing.

So as our listeners asked, what do you think it is about the current youth that chastise their parents and grandparents and Christians for having an opposition to that?

And I don't know why you're making a lot of noise there, Brandon, but can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you.

Okay. Did you hear the question? I did hear the question and it's a very good question. I believe that the answer is that simply a logical progression.

It was inevitable. And I think that people have recognized that this was going to be an inevitability for a long time.

Plenty of people have predicted this, and that doesn't change the fact that this is very much a problem for the church and it's a problem that we're going to be dealing with more and more as more churches decide to compromise on this issue.

I think it was Francis Schaeffer who said that the church is always about seven years behind the world.

Let's see, Obergefell was 2015. That would be 2022. The church starts to adopt some of these things or at least stops condemning them.

I hope that that doesn't become more widespread, but we've seen the church compromise with sexual sin before.

Usually that compromise occurs because of silence. We stop actually addressing the sin as a sin.

An example of that would be cohabitation. It's a real problem within the young people of a lot of mainstream churches living together before marriage, but it's not addressed from the pulpit because it's so mainstream, because it's so widely accepted.

You're going to isolate a lot of people by preaching against that sin. I think that that's working its way in the direction of homosexuality now.

I don't think many churches are going to officially say that it's not a sin, but what churches will do is they'll stop preaching against it, unfortunately.

I think we've seen signs of that with, was it J .D.

Greer who said, I believe it was J .D. Greer, but don't hold me to it.

He said homosexuality doesn't send you to hell for the same reason heterosexuality doesn't send you to heaven.

Well, there's more to it than that. That's just intentionally said to muddy the waters, to make the sin sound less reprehensible than it is.

But I think a lot of people were prophets on this issue. They knew the church was willing to compromise here because it's compromised on sexual sins in the past.

What would you say about that, Chris? Well, it actually just reminded me of a sermon.

I don't know if you've heard it or seen it. Votie Balcom, one of my favorite modern -day preachers.

Absolutely. Votie opened up a sermon by doing something tongue -in -cheek.

He said, and I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the transcript of his sermon.

But he said something like, Before I give my message today, I just want you to know that I love wife beaters, and some of my best friends are wife beaters.

And I think that there's been an unfortunate cruelty in the church toward wife beaters, especially in generations past.

And I think that we should stop our hate speech against wife beaters.

And he was basically saying what is almost a replica of what many, if not most, evangelicals will say before a sermon against homosexuality.

That's right. They have to do damage control, and they have to, in essence, apologize for what they're about to preach and teach on, even if it's just a brief recognition that homosexuality is a sin.

They have to go out of their way to tell everybody how much they love homosexuals and how many of their friends are.

The thing is, we're not talking about liberal churches, of course, because they would never recognize that there's anything wrong with homosexuality at all.

In fact, they would treat it as if it is a superior way of being and something we should all celebrate and rejoice about.

But there is a fear, it seems, even amongst conservative evangelical

Protestants over the reaction to a criticism of this.

But one thing that makes this whole issue about the youth accepting and not only accepting it but tolerating it,

I mean, I'm sorry, not only accepting and tolerating but celebrating it is something wonderful, is that there is something about this generation that seems to be very proud of believing what the government tells you.

And that's something very foreign to my memory growing up.

I don't remember kids and teenagers especially and people in their early 20s saying, man,

I just soak up every word that the government tells us because the government's right about everything and we should be really listening to and obeying our government.

And you almost long for a day of rebellion again because you're wondering why on earth are these, how is this young generation in lockstep with the government?

I live in the same neighborhood. It's a one -minute walk to some of the campus because it's a multi -campus college, but Dickinson College, which is a notoriously liberal arts college.

And during, especially during the height of the COVID hysteria, you would see crowds of young, healthy, athletic students either walking together somewhere or running, doing some jogging.

They're all wearing masks on a beautiful spring day. And even if they're alone, they're wearing masks on a beautiful spring day.

And I'm like, how on earth, what happened to the rebellious attitude that teenagers instinctively had to authority?

Now they're sucking it all up and proud to do it. You got any ideas? Well, see,

I'm afraid that that rebellious instinct is still being exercised, but to a certain extent it's being exercised in the wrong place.

It's being exercised against those members of society that are not actually authorities within the zeitgeist, within the context of the zeitgeist.

So for an example, the anonymous listener who asked about her children who were adopting the popular cultural sexual ethic,

I would be willing to bet that these kids see themselves as taking a step against authority insofar as they are contradicting what their parents believe on this issue.

They believe that they're being bold. They may believe that they're being brave. They're being neither of those things.

They're actually just going along with the entire stream of what culture tells them to do.

And I've seen this with parents or with children who have left the faith.

I haven't known many of them, but they act like they're taking this brave step. So there is that rebellious attitude, but it's not being exercised against the real authorities.

It's the same way that a lot of mainstream pastors like to bash lower class white people specifically.

You know, the traditional Southerner who's the only class of individual in America that's seen fit to be the butt of jokes and so on and so forth.

There's now a prevailing and dominant attitude in society that somehow punching down is punching against authority, or at least it's treated as such.

That's why we have these celebrations for people who come out of the closet as if they were taking a stand against society when in reality they're going completely along with it.

So they've basically changed the moral paradigm. They're acting as if somehow it's an act of rebellion to go along with exactly what the government is telling you to do.

What you're saying about the government being such an impact in the way that young people in particular are thinking, still wearing masks three years later after COVID, perfectly healthy.

I think that's actually been the scenario. I think that's the way humans work.

I think humans, 90 % of us are going to go along with the flow, whatever that flow might be.

History's always been made by minorities. And I think that's what my generation needs to realize.

I think my generation needs to have hope. I see a lot of Gen Zers who are depressed, who are concerned with the direction that the world is going, and they've lost hope.

And I think they need to be given that hope. We may not be the moral majority anymore. History's always changed by dedicated minorities.

And we can be the Patricks and the Bonifaces of this generation.

We need to adopt the word of scripture. Yeah, we just have to go to our midway break right now.

And please be patient with us, folks. The midway break is always a little longer than the other breaks in the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us to have a longer break for them in the middle of the show because they have to obey the

FCC in airing public service announcements and other things that localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida.

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials. Please send in your questions to Brandon Vanderford at chrisarns and at gmail .com.

We'll be right back. ♪♪♪

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, again for the

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Burning Issues Facing the Youth of Today chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

We have Christopher in Western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York who wants to know when you are evangelizing with friends of your own age what is the most common complaint about Christianity you hear from the youth that are lost?

I believe it's the exclusivity of Christ we live in an age where the utmost virtue is tolerance and inclusivity and people don't like the idea of a religion that says there is only one way why shouldn't

Hindus or Muslims who genuinely believe what they do be acceptable in God's eyes now we know what the

Bible teaches but that's a hard truth for a lot of young people to accept and we have a very similar question from Thomas in West Islet, New York Thomas says do you think it would be wise for us to at least on a cursory level bone up on the latest in scientific evidence that supports our

Christian views because I continually hear over and over again from young people that they reject the evangelical faith because it is anti -science and that's something that listener said

I've experienced when speaking to younger people especially not necessarily only younger people but I do hear that a lot from younger people they are under the delusion, the falsehood that true science supports their leftist ideas but it is far from the truth and we can't all be scientific experts though and we have to keep the gospel the main thing but how do you mix that into the conversation if at all that's a tremendous question

I believe that type of apologetic how does science fit with what the

Bible teaches us of course elevating the Bible above the position of science the

Bible informs the way that we interpret science not the other way around I do believe that that's more helpful in discipleship than evangelism in my experience when

I've gone street preaching and worked with the men in my church and ministry the issues that people bring up are not related to the rock layers or the dinosaurs or so on and so forth these are all great things to teach your kids

I believe and I believe to teach your family teach Christians, Christians need apologetics so they can understand that their faith is grounded in reality that it's not blind faith that we actually have very good reasons for believing what we do however

I believe that when you're speaking with a rank unbeliever the issues tend to be more moral in nature there tend to be more moral questions and unwillingness to submit to the law that the

Bible presents for one thing or to the authority of Jesus as Lord I believe it's more of a spiritual problem when you're dealing with actual unbelievers

I think the apologetics are a better internal tool of the church that's been my experience

I'm sure others have had varying experiences though I could be wrong but I'm assuming you're presuppositionalist and one of the things that I have found to be greatly beneficial about presuppositionalism and of course there may be evidentialists and those who are involved in classic apologetics who will do what

I am recommending anyway but we have to be careful not to let lost people dominate our conversation isn't that right that lost people in order to take the spotlight off of their own soul off of their own sin off of their own eternal destiny they like to bring up rabbit trail issues one after another to keep you running around back and forth chasing squirrels and keeping yourself and your conversation off of what they need to hear the most which is the gospel and their need to repent and follow

Christ isn't that one of the best things we can do for instance somebody brings up a scientific issue unless we have five hours where we're sitting around somewhere with somebody isn't it best to say something like I could give you resources on that later

I know brilliant scientists like Jason Lyle who is a young earth creationist and he's got some fascinating videos and things like that but let's get back to the issue at hand and you get right back to what they need to hear the most which is how they are to be made right with God am

I making sense here yes I believe that that nails it that's a very good way of putting it you know one of the most prescient questions

I've ever seen in Ray Comfort's interviews and he has excellent interviews online

I'm sure most of your listeners are familiar with his content yeah he was just on the show recently actually very good very good

I believe that one of the best questions he ever asked an individual who was arguing with him on the scientific fronts is he stopped and he asked the question is it possible that you reject

Christianity because Jesus would tell you how to live your life and you don't want to live your life in the way that Jesus would tell you to and she said you know that's very possible that was an honest question and that was an honest response

I do believe that that's what it boils down to 9 times in 10 I believe that the scientific questions are generally rationale for making a decision based on moral problems with the teachings of Christianity you know it's it's the rationale you want to the reason is not always the reason

I don't think that many people leave the church because of rock layers I think it's good for the church address those types of questions but boils down to people don't want

God to rule their life so I think I think that question that you asked

I believe that that nails the issue we have another question that might might have different answers as our questioner has targeted them to young people it but these could be this could be a question asked about anybody in general really but the question is from BB in Cumberland County Pennsylvania how in your opinion has the

Internet and social media blessed young people and how is it cursed them that's a very that we could go you could have a whole interview and I'm sure you've had many interviews on just that topic how social media impacted the world for good and for ill

I believe that social media and the Internet has great potential

I do believe that the harm that's done to society exceeds the good the benefit is you have a radio program every single day where you can talk to people in every nation on this planet people can tune in through the

Internet it's given us a greater reach than mankind has ever had you can communicate a message across the globe that's done wonders for evangelism

I have a good friend also attends this church he actually might be an interesting interview sometime he's developing an audio app with audio books evangelistic and doctrinal audio books in Turkish in Russian he's currently working on Arabic I believe that they've launched

Chinese they're working on Farsi it's in Iran so there is a lot of potential within technology overall

I don't think it's been good for the young people because I don't believe that people have made use of that potential in a positive way for the most part

I think that the connectedness as by some strange paradox brought about a greater isolation than most humans have ever experienced it's actually cut them off from their closest relationships a lot of families which is where the individual finds a core piece of their identity are divided by influencers on TikTok and Instagram that no real relationship exists with and that's a pervasive problem

I believe that's isolated us from our place I believe that humans are to exist within the context that God's placed them largely when the telegraph from Maine to Texas was first completed one prominent newspaper declared the telegraph has been completed now

Maine will be able to say whatever it will to Texas but it remains to be determined whether Maine has something to say to Texas so the globalization hasn't been healthy for relationships yeah and there has always been the problem which reveals the truth of the doctrine of total depravity that's right that kids are cruel and I'm not saying adults are necessarily any less cruel but kids don't have a filter typically that prevents them from saying the cruelest things and when you get involved in social media

I know that there have always been children and young adults who have committed suicide for the sheer merely because the mockery they received from those in their neighborhoods and schools but now you have the potential of tens of thousands of people hearing and seeing things about the secret life of some tormented kid they have a video of the kid doing something that they didn't know they were being filmed or whatever the case is or just mocking the kid about their weight or appearance or personality and it's just magnified so many times over that I know that's obviously one of the serious drawbacks and failures of being involved heavily in social media but obviously there's always the plus side that I know a lot of young people who have become fascinated by the

Bible because they have discovered really excellent and fascinating people on the internet like James White and Votie Balcom and they become riveted to these debates and sermons and messages that they never would have otherwise perhaps discovered so it's always that balance isn't it

Amen to that and if I could add this time you know I think it's important for young people to be connected with where God's placed them so I think that what that means practically is as you just said the abundance of biblical resources that are available at the fingertips of a young person it's amazing people in past ages could have only dreamed of it but when it comes to your favorite pastor if somebody asks you that question who's your favorite pastor wouldn't it be a blessing to be able to say that it's the pastor of your own local small town church that place where God's placed you it's great to have men like John MacArthur and R .C.

Sproul was a tremendous blessing during his life but I would love to see people tied to their local congregations and their hometowns be a influence there for the gospel pray for nations and tribes overseas but also pray for local people because where God's placed you is where he intends most of your ministry to happen and that's why

I in addition to world renowned theologians, scholars, authors conference speakers in addition to having men like that and women like that on my show

I have made it a vested effort to have local pastors on as much as I can and one of the reasons

I have my biannual Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheons is to get to know as many local pastors as I can to invite some of them on the program when they're doing something that I believe will be beneficial to our audience and that cannot be understated in fact something that I remember very vividly that's probably the only thing

I can really remember that was powerfully true from a

Pentecostal church I began attending in my journey as an unbeliever I remember this

Pentecostal pastor who used to do a lot of antics and behave in a very crazed fashion jumping up and down pews and screaming at the top of his lungs but I remember him rebuking the congregation and he said

I know that some of you are not even giving to this local church because you're sending your money to Jimmy Swaggart you're sending your money to Jim Baker you're sending your money to all these televangelists are they going to be at your mama's bedside when she's in the hospital dying of cancer are they going to be with you at the graveside when someone precious to you dies are they going to be with you when you are facing death are they going to be sitting there holding your hand and praying with you no they're not and that really stuck with me in spite of everything else that was crazy that man said and did that is still etched in my mind and I think that those are very sound words and are you still there

Brandon? Yes no I apologize for the no I'm here

I had myself on mute while you're talking I think that that is important to keep in mind as we talk about giving and as we talk about the treasures that were to lay up in heaven

Jesus speaks of giving a cup of cold water to the least of these I think that monetary giving is a very positive good that's how great ministries like Church and Family Life and your show stay on the air and keep putting out good content for the church but also it's good to keep in mind that when we're told to be generous and so on and so forth

I think that the Lord Jesus was talking less about sending money for relief in Ukraine and more about being a friend to the elderly in your community it needs to be a personal giving it needs to be a sense in which a person is giving of themselves so I like the point that Pentecostal pastor made despite all of the surrounding craziness that you may have experienced that day and we have an anonymous listener who says is there anything about the

Reformed church in general and I realize there are differences amongst

Reformed denominations and even congregations within the same denomination but is there anything about the

Reformed church in general that is off -putting to unbelievers that are of your age group for valid reasons let me think about that for just a moment because I believe that's a very good question

I think that one of the issues that we may have within Reformed circles is we tend to be very cliquish we kind of stay within our own circles we have our own group of friends as I said earlier you have a hunger for depth of doctrine in the modern evangelical church and I think that some young people are going the wrong places to find it but if we can be more intentional about connecting with those that maybe don't attend a doctrinally sound church but really are on fire with a love for God then we can make a big impact

I think it's basically the idea of widening the fold get outside of our immediate circles make friends with the people in your neighborhood with the people at your work maybe lead bible studies in the office and that's a good way to introduce some of your co -workers who would call themselves

Christians but are completely lost when it comes to doctrine and theology.

It's a good way to lead them in the right direction and see what God does with that over time Amen We have

Robert from Orange County, New York Robert says

You're a very impressive young man. Do you have any interest in entering into the pastoral ministry?

I've asked Brandon that same exact thing during lunch in Black Mountain, North Carolina Do you have any answer to that?

The answer that I would give to that is it's something that I'm very open to and what

I told you when we were discussing this in person is I'm in a spot where I do have a desire to make the word of God known to people, to evangelize

I joined our church street preaching and so on and so forth and occasionally my pastor will give me the opportunity to bring a 15 minute message to the congregation and I am blessed to have that opportunity.

I count it a privilege I do have questions when it comes to the matter of the call to the ministry and we discussed this

Chris, Martin Lloyd Jones and guys like him put a very sound emphasis on you enter into the ministry when you know that your soul cannot do anything else and that might be where God works on me over time that may be something that I feel at age 35 that I don't feel at the same way at age 23 but right now that's not where I'm at.

I'm keeping my options open. I'm very willing to serve and ministrate if that's what

God calls me to long term. But I do think that Vodibachan addressed this issue he said not everyone who is passionate about the word of God has to go into ministry.

It's good to have lay people and people in business and people that do other services within the community that are also passionate about the word of God.

So that might be where God has me for my life. We'll see. I think that will be something that's revealed in time.

We have an anonymous listener and I don't know if it is a young lady or a mother of a young lady.

This anonymous listener says Is Brandon married and does he have any intention to be married?

Well I am not, not at this time and I very much do have an intention to be married.

Made efforts in that direction. Nothing's quite worked out yet but we'll see what future the

Lord has for me. We have a good belief in the doctrine of providence and God will bring along the right person when it's time and I'll be ready.

We have another anonymous listener who said In response to a criticism of the

Reformed faith at large when it comes to young people, I have my own experience with Reformed churches and I am personally

Reformed myself is that many people in the Reformed faith tragically are so much focused on reading and learning and having theological discussions and focusing all their time and effort into the whole concept of Bible study that many of them do not want to share their time with actually rolling up their sleeves and helping somebody in need and sometimes young people are in great need of somebody actually physically being there to help them and the

Reformed folks more than Pentecostal and others in my experience seem to always look for someone else that can do the job and I think that's a valid point and it may be a bit broad brushing but what do you have to say about that?

I think you're right. I think that's a valid point. I believe that we need to be more welcoming to Christians that are learning that may not be in the exact same position that we are doctrinally.

One of the things that I do and this may be just because I'm 23 and still a little bit immature but when

I'm going to a new Reformed church, I'll carry around my good John MacArthur study

Bible. I kind of use it as a test to a certain extent how many once I walked into a

Reformed church and that was actually the first comment that I had. Why do you have that Bible? Don't you know he's a dispensationalist?

No, John MacArthur is a dear brother in the faith so actually that's where we might have a little bit too much starch in our collars and we need to be a little bit more, you don't want to use the term seeker sensitive.

That's too much baggage but we actually do need to be welcoming to people who may not be in the same place that we are yet.

Remember, again, I came from a background where the first church I remember is

Joel Osteen's church and there were people kind enough to walk alongside with me as I was making this doctrinal journey and coming to a greater depth.

That's my perspective. Yeah, there is definitely truth in the listeners' observations.

It's true that if you go into the inner cities most of the time, not all, most of the time if you're looking at people evangelizing drug addicts and prostitutes who are feeding them physical food and clothing them and also evangelizing them they're typically not reformed people and that just happens to be the case.

We're going to our final break right now. It's going to be more brief than the other breaks. If you have a question and you want to get in line to have your question asked and answered send your email as quickly as possible to chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question is personal and private.

We'll be right back. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference that's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching writing about and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries And there's more great news.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.

Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org and enter promo code

G3 I S I R, that's G3 I S I R for the 30 % discount

Chris Arnzen, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the

G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3 I S I R for your 30 % discount off the registration fee

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

Lord Jesus Christ and of course the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes or you are visiting this area or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org That's gracechurchatfranklin .org

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior and King Jesus Christ today and always.

Hi, this is John Sampson, Pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson 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 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,

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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

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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.

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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.

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This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group joining Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep

Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air. Puritan Reformed is a bible believing kingdom building devil fighting church.

We're devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in scripture alone.

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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.

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvinio and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York and also the host of the reformrookie .com

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we're now back with our guest today Brandon Vanderford and we have

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania who says what are three books that you would most recommend when evangelizing a young person to give that young person to read on his own?

That's a very good question. The three books that I would give to a young person when evangelizing that young person my top recommendation would be read books that will help you in giving you the confidence to evangelize these might be conversations that you're having but initially if you have the opportunity to read a book with a young person, start with the

Bible maybe start in the book of John and read through that and discuss that there are so many great books out there but you're asking that person to make a strong commitment up front by asking them to read three books and there are lots of good books out there but unless this person is very, very interested that might be difficult for you to get the follow through there

I would say if you have the opportunity start reading through their Bible with them and I think that will have abundant fruit but Chris, are there books that you would suggest in this type of scenario?

Yes, I Will Never Become a Christian 7 Reasons Challenged by Peter Jeffrey who was a dear friend of mine

Reformed Baptist pastor in Wales who is now in Heaven I Will Never Become a Christian 7

Reasons Challenged and Peter Jeffrey also wrote a book called Bite Size Theology Bite Size is one word,

Bite Size Theology and the subtitle is An ABC of the Christian Faith Those are the two that immediately popped into my head because Peter Jeffrey always sought to even though he was a brilliant man of God always sought to break down his gospel presentations so that anyone could understand what he was talking about and a dear, compassionate, loving brother but we have time for one more question that involves a brief answer.

Arnie in Perry County Pennsylvania says I understand that church and family life is a ministry that is based in part on family integrated worship and I was wondering how is that of benefit when you are talking to youth about the faith and inviting them to your congregation?

That's a great question because in all sincerity that's one of the more difficult parts about the model.

You have people who come visit your congregation and their kids are not used to staying through service they can get used to it.

Kids within probably 4 -8 weeks learn to settle down during the service and we don't have a lot of issues but initially maybe you can offer, if you're good friends, offer child support offer to stand outside the doors with their kids outside the sanctuary if the kids are having a hard time sitting still that's a very good question.

That would be a sound approach. Give them the opportunity to sit inside while their kids are still learning in this new environment but ultimately it's wonderful when the family worships together and when the family is discipled together in the word of God by the pastor of that congregation.

And sometimes and this isn't always the case, sometimes youth groups become a counterculture within a church and you have youth group leaders who are even teaching something entirely different than the pastors.

Obviously that's not typically going to happen in a reformed church but anyway, I've seen it happen although I can also say that I know wonderful men of God who are superb pastors today that began their work in ministry as youth pastors.

So whatever side of the equation you stand on, we can't negate the fact that there have been great people of God used who were not necessarily a part of the family segregated model but we have run out of time and I want to make sure

I give the contact information you need for two ministries. One is Church and Family Life where our guest is a part -time staff member, churchandfamilylife .com

churchandfamilylife .com and Hope Baptist Church of Wake Forest, North Carolina, hopebaptistchurch .info

hopebaptistchurch .info. Thank you so much Brandon for being such an excellent guest. I look forward to your return to the show.

Thank you everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write in questions. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater