June 18, 2025 Show with Michael McCarthy on “An Overview of the Upcoming Fellowship Conference New York” PLUS Ryan Hemelaar on “The Religions Climate & Oppositions to the Gospel in Australia”

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 a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 18th day of June 2025.

During the second hour of the program today, we have a first-time guest, Ryan Hemelar, who is an Australian street evangelist, apologist, debater, podcast host, and founder of NeedGod .net, and he's going to be addressing the theme, The Religious Climate and Most Prevalent Oppositions to the Gospel in Australia.

That will be coming in our second hour of the program. But right now, for the first half of our show, we are thrilled to have a returning guest, Michael McCarthy, who is pastor of Christ Fellowship of Bohemia, Long Island, and we're going to be giving an overview of the upcoming Fellowship Conference New York, which will be held in July in Merrick, Long Island.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Michael.

McCarthy.

And for some reason, you're really breaking up. You're not crystal clear like you were before. I'm not sure what happened, bro. I'm going to cut my camera off. Hopefully that will help. Maybe you could do the same.

You have a frozen picture on your camera. So I don't know if you're going to have to re-log in because you, well, I still don't hear you. Yeah, I think you should do that, bro. Log out and log back in, and hopefully you will be able to connect.

I don't know what happened. But before Michael rejoins us, God willing, I want to give an announcement that we're looking forward to all men in ministry leadership joining me on Thursday, September 18th at the Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is Perry County.

It will be my next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, and that'll be at 11 a .m. And the guest speaker, once again, will be Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. This is Dr. White's second speaking engagement at the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheons, and all men are welcome, all men in the ministry in some capacity are welcome, and that would include pastors, obviously, and elders, obviously, but also deacons, parachurch ministry leaders, and others.

So if you'd like to register for that Free Pastors Luncheon, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

And also, when you make note of that, you might as well put on your calendar that Dr. White will be speaking at the church where I'm a member, Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. That will be on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30 p .m., and that afternoon time will enable even many pastors who have their own worship services to attend, because typically, at least if you are a pastor nearby Carlisle, you'll be able to head right over to Trinity Reform Baptist Church when your services are over and join us for that afternoon worship service with Dr. James R. White.

And for more information on Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, go to trbccarlisle .org, and the location and everything else you need to know will be there. And that's open to everybody, not just men in ministry leadership.

And of course, it's also free, it's a worship service. So we look forward to seeing you there. But now we have been joined by Michael McCarthy. Thank you for logging back in, Michael. And can you hear me now?

Yes, I apologize for the technical difficulties.

Okay, well, those things happen. Well, tell us about Fellowship Conference New York and even the title of it, which is very interesting. I know that you folks who conduct these conferences try to do it in a unique way, and tell us all about that.

Yes. So I have never been to a Fellowship Conference other than the ones that our church has hosted. And from what I have heard from people who have participated and have joined the other Fellowship Conference, especially the one in Denton, Texas, we've done an okay job duplicating that, at least I hope so.

But the major tenant of the Fellowship Conference in the name itself, fellowship, there are many conferences out there that inundate you with good biblical teaching. But one of the things that is missing is having the opportunity to get to know other Christians that are living in your particular area.

So I believe that is one of the distinctives of the Fellowship Conference. Of course, there is solid biblical teaching. Of course, there is singing. But we try to make the conference very accessible in regards to gaining new relationships with other Christians from that community.

So I think that's one of the major distinctives of this conference. We hope that when people come, they leave knowing more Christians than they did going when they first had joined this conference. So that's how I would really sum up the Fellowship Conference and its distinctives from other conferences.

And who are the speakers at this year's Fellowship Conference in New York?

So the speakers for this year are Pastor Mack Tomlinson, Evangelist Michael Durham, and Pastor Brian Elsie. They all are from Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

Yes, that's the church where Mack Tomlinson is the pastor. And as you may know, I'm actually not 100 sure you knew this, but Mack will forever occupy an enormous place in my heart because he was very active in evangelizing my oldest brother John while he was dying from emphysema.

And I believe that the Lord effectively used Mack to finally lead my brother to salvation. My brother did give me evidence before he departed this earth and things that he said in communication with me through Facebook Messenger primarily, because it was very difficult for him to speak.

But he was making it clear to me that he was trusting in Christ for his salvation. And it was a turn of attitude because for years, my brother John would like to make fun of my beliefs, but at the same time, he would later tell me that he did highly respect me for my commitment to Christ and he was proud of me and so on.

But the mockery came to an end a couple of months before he passed. And since Denton, Texas is very close to where my brother lived in Texas, I contacted Mack and he steadfastly was reaching out to John.

So I just will always thank God for Mack and his compassion for the lost and specifically compassion toward my brother and his boldness in sharing the gospel with him.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that story, Chris. I'm not surprised by that to hear that that's what Mack did for your brother. When I think of Mack Tomlinson, when I think of Michael Durham, although Michael does not hold the office of pastor in Denton, Texas, they are pastor of pastors.

They are the shepherds of shepherds. And I have benefited tremendously from both of those men in particular, and they have been a huge blessing to my life. And if there's one more thing I could add to going back to your original question regarding the Fellowship Conference, the best way I like to think of it is the Fellowship Conference is about obviously fellowship with God and fellowship with others.

And I think I emphasize the others part. But when you come to the Fellowship Conference, I believe one of the distinctive messages that you're going to hear is fellowship with the Lord, that the Lord Jesus is not just a theological concept that we are to attain to or gain knowledge about, but he is a person that can be known, can be loved, can be communed with.

And those are usually distinctive messages that I have heard from the people that have spoken at our conferences.

Yes. And another thing that makes those conferences unique is that there is never a specific theme chosen as a central focus for the entire conference. Each speaker just addresses what he believes the Lord has placed upon his heart to proclaim from the Scriptures during that particular time and for that particular audience.

It's not as rigidly identified with a specific theme, and not that there is anything wrong with that at all. It's just a different alternative approach to a conference that makes it somewhat unique.

Yeah. We have had a conference where someone has preached on the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the Spirit of God, and we have had in that same conference multiple messages on suffering and how the Christian must persevere in faith.

So there is a large array of topics which, from my perspective, have proven to be beneficial to a larger and broader audience where people coming from various backgrounds and situations, they come to these conferences, and I believe they can truly expect, because of the way we go about doing things, that the Lord is going to bless them with a timely word for their lives, that they are going to leave this conference loving people more and loving the Lord Jesus more.

And I understand that, once again, you're holding the conference at the church where I was formerly a member before relocating from New York to Pennsylvania, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick.

Yeah, that is correct. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

No, go ahead.

Yeah. Grace has been a very generous host to us over the last—this will be our fourth conference, and I'm very thankful for the relationships I've been able to develop with the elders.

That are there.

My eldership—excuse me—I was ordained by the former pastor, Mark Romaldi, so I believe the roots run rather deep there.

And by the way, Mark is going to be on the program again in a couple of weeks to tell us valuable lessons that he has learned from a near-fatal head-on collision that happened recently down there in Tennessee, where he now lives.

I don't know if you even heard about that accident, but the police officers on the scene were absolutely mystified and amazed that he survived the crash.

I had not heard the details. I did see a title of one of the videos he had done a live broadcast for pertaining to an accident, but I didn't know that it was that serious. Well, I'm very thankful that he's doing okay.

Yeah, he only had whiplash and some bruising, but no major injuries or anything like that, and neither did the other driver, who was actually at fault in this accident, and he was not intoxicated while driving or high or anything like that.

It was just a case of overcompensating when he was making a wide turn to get back on the the highway after he had gone off the road for some reason that I can't remember right now. But when he got back onto the road, he went into the lane with oncoming traffic, which was Mark, and they collided head-on.

But dear brother, and I'm looking forward to having him back on the program. So everybody listening, if you could just keep your ears open for us to announce the exact date when Mark Romaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Greenbrier, Tennessee, when he will be returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

It will be in July, but it will be very soon, and we look forward to that. Well, since my second guest is going to be talking about the unique challenges of evangelizing in Australia, why don't you tell our audience something about your experience declaring the gospel and seeking to pastor a small flock on Long Island, New York?

What are those challenges? I remember Long Island very well. I don't know how much has changed in the religious climate since I've been there, but I remember there was, even though there's definitely a politically conservative element there, people who are politically conservative are not necessarily interested at all in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And, of course, political leftism abounds on Long Island, so you have a whole different audience in that realm of citizenship. But if you could tell us your own experience.

Yeah, so I've grown up in Suffolk County, New York, all of my life, and if there was any place to grow up in in the state of New York, I would choose Suffolk County 10 out of 10 times. I'm very thankful that the two counties on Long Island, Suffolk and Nassau, are politically conservative.

We both voted red this November. But like you had mentioned, political conservatism sometimes has no connection to any religious belief. Many of the times I have done evangelism on street corners, especially in one town called Patchogue, which is on the southern part of Long Island, I have noticed that most of the people don't know what they believe.

For the most part, there are some lingering elements of Roman Catholicism that remain, but for the most part, it is a rather agnostic, atheistic part of New York, and it's extremely unfortunate. But the harvest is ripe.

I do believe that it provides plenty of opportunity to speak into many of the conservative positions that people hold to. There are many economic conservatives, but they are at the same time social liberals.

So they might vote red in the voting box, but they are practical liberals. So it's a rather unique situation here. One of the things that I have found very difficult as a pastor of a small church here in Long Island for the past seven years is the financial situation is very difficult for people in my age range.

For the most part, it is very difficult to purchase homes on Long Island, and it has caused many young families to leave. That has been our experience as a church, and it has been, I think, the experience of many people there, you know, school districts are decreasing in population.

It has a lot to do with it's just very difficult to raise a family here on Long Island, which I believe is also having which is also creating great difficulty for churches on Long Island as well. But nonetheless, there are many people that are still in need for the gospel's reach.

So for that reason, we pray and we look forward to Jesus' kingdom advancing even in some of the most difficult parts of our country.

And what I recall about Long Island is the phenomenon that if you came across a congregation that had in the neighborhood of 400 or 500 or even larger, numerically, a size for a charismatic or Pentecostal church, and I don't want to give the impression that I am broad-brushing because I know fine brothers in Christ who pastor charismatic and Pentecostal churches in spite of my serious disagreements with them over the sign gifts and things like that.

But the larger a church is on Long Island, the more likely it is going to be a church that embraces the darker and more heretical teachings and teachers, such as men and women from the Word of Faith movement, that will be heard from their pulpits.

Am I pretty much on base with that still?

Yes. I believe the larger churches on Long Island are usually Pentecostal, charismatic. I have come from one myself, and so has my wife and even some of the members of my church as well. We all come from a similar Pentecostal background.

But one of the things I have noticed as of late is the old-school Pentecostalism that I think dominated Long Island in the 90s and even earlier—the 80s, 90s, early 2000s. There's a lot of rebranding going on, and by that I mean they are rebranding themselves like emergent churches did maybe a decade ago, and they're going that route.

The message is getting softer. The gospel is absent. And I don't want to broad-brush this either. I know that there are churches that hold to the gospel and are healthy and vibrant that might have multiple meetings on a Sunday.

But you have a lot of conveyor belt Christianity, where you just have people rolling through the doors and then leaving, and you have four or five services on a Sunday. That has become very popular on Long Island over the last, I would say, 10 years, and that seems to be the predominant expression.

But I'm very thankful to the Lord that God has caused me to cross paths with many Christians that I would say I have a kindred spirit with them. And I've noticed that though I believe this, you know, you might say the Reformed Calvinistic expression of Christianity is smaller in Long Island.

I do believe the root is run deep, and I've grown rather surprised with how interconnected many of these churches are. So we try to do our best to be a light as best we can and hope that God uses our efforts for His glory.

Okay.

We're going to be back with more of Michael McCarthy after this first commercial break if you have a question for him. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N, gmail .com.

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James White here of Alpha and Omega Ministries, announcing that this September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen has lined.

Up for me.

On Thursday, September 18th, at 11 a .m., I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pre-Pastor's Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville. Then, on Sunday, September 21st, at 1 .30 p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the Bible is the Authentic and Inherent Word of God?

I hope you can join Chris and me for both events. For more details on the Pre-Pastor's Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in 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.

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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.

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And don't forget, folks, cvbbs .com is now shipping worldwide. And welcome back. We have as our guest today, Michael McCarthy, for the first hour of the program. He is a pastor of Christ Fellowship of Bohemia, Long Island, New York.

And another providential similarity here between our discussion and my oldest brother, John, who is, I believe, now in eternity with Christ. He lived, before moving to Texas, he lived in Bohemia, Long Island, and I have fond memories of visiting him there.

But we are promoting the Fellowship Conference, New York, which is going to be held next month, July 17th through the 19th at Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island, located in Merrick. And they are allowing Christ Fellowship Church of Bohemia to use their facilities for this event.

And if you would like to find out more details on registering for the Fellowship Conference, New York, go to illbehonest .com forward slash fcny for Fellowship Conference, New York. That's illbehonest .com, I-L-L-B-H-O-N-E-S-T dot com forward slash fcny.

And we do have an anonymous listener who asks, I have been contemplating with my wife whether or not we should move to Long Island, New York for a business-related reason. And I was wondering, is there a certain area of New York that has the least evangelical witness in existence?

That's a great question. Yeah, I don't have a metric to determine where there is least, but I could just tell you from my experience in Suffolk County that I believe that there is a rather solid evangelical witness.

There are not many good churches, but the good churches are existent, and I think they're rather spread out all throughout the county. So, I think some of those churches are rather accessible to someone that's looking to find a church like the ones we might find ourselves in fellowship with.

So, that's been my experience thus far. I'm not too familiar with Nassau County, although I do know a few churches. I know Lindbrook Baptist is one of them. Levittown Baptist is another. I know North Shore Baptist is another.

Those are just—and Grace Reformed, of course, and Merrick. Those are just some of those churches in Nassau County that I have, I can just say off the top of my head. But I do think there is a good evangelical influence.

It's just a matter of, really, what stripe of evangelicalism are you looking to be in fellowship with?

Yes, and of course, I don't know what the reason behind the question from our anonymous listener was, but if you're looking for a place to plant the church, because there is no evangelical witness or very little, from my memory—and perhaps you have an update for me, Michael, that would contradict this—but in all the years I lived on Long Island, and I lived on Long Island from the time of my birth until 2014 when I moved to Pennsylvania, the further east that you traveled, the less likely you would find an evangelical church.

And when you get as far east as the Hamptons and further, with the exception of one PCA congregation that I knew was planted out there, and I believe South Hampton, and with the PCA, it's a hit and miss these days.

You could have a rock-solid church, or you could have a woke church in the PCA. But there was hardly anything at all. Most of the churches were the old mainline leftist churches, a lot of United Church of Christ, and you'd have the occasional cult like the Church of Scientology—not Scientology, I'm sorry, Church of Christian Science, and things like that.

But would that be your experience, that the further east you go, the harder it is to find an even evangelical church of any kind,.

Let alone a solid one? Yeah, that's a great point you make. I'm not endorsing everything these churches might teach. These are just churches off the top of my head that I know of. I know that Shoreham Wading River Baptist is a Reformed Baptist church out there.

Oh, yeah, David Cook.

Yeah, and that's Calvary. Yeah, it'll be Calvary Baptist and Riverhead. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. So Calvary Baptist and Riverhead is David Cook, yes, and then there's Shoreham Wading River Baptist. But other than those two churches, I'm rather ignorant of all the things that happen out there out east.

And I think one of the reasons why it is probably so difficult to plant churches is as you get further out east to the Hamptons, obviously things are more expensive, but a lot of those communities are summer communities.

And that might be reason for why it is so hard to plant a church out there, at least as far out as the Hamptons.

Man, I'm sure you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody that was not totally sold out to leftism when you get out that far.

Yeah, you know what? You'd be surprised. I've actually got to know a few people out there, and surprisingly conservative. But again, that goes back to our conversation we had earlier, is there's just—and I'm thankful for this, because all truth is God's truth, and praise God for that—but there are a lot of Christless conservatives here on Long Island.

And what all that simply means is you're just moving left lower than the left. You know, unless you're anchored in biblical truth, you shouldn't. And that's what we're seeing.

Well, I would be thrilled to hear good, solid, especially confessionally Reformed Baptist churches being planted out in eastern Suffolk for the very reasons I mentioned. The places with the least gospel witness are the places that need a solid church the most.

And I'm hoping that that begins happening at some point in the future. And let's see, we do have Baron in Darien, Connecticut, who wants to know, do you have any anecdotes or stories about some of the experiences you've had at the.

Fellowship conference that you care to share? Yeah, there was one experience last year that I do believe, collectively as a conference, we all agreed that this took place. Thankfully, last year, over the course of three days, we had different musicians lead us in song, and each of them extremely gifted.

But on that Saturday, it was probably our smallest crowd, which is usually the case—you know, people traveling back, whatever else, a lot of pastors returning back home because, you know, they have the church meeting on Sunday, whatever else.

But there was a group of young adults that led us in song, and this is not to endorse—well, this is not to say, come so you can have some fanatical experience, but it was rather evident to everybody that was there.

Again, you're talking to a group of people that are predominantly Reformed, but I would say this way, that God's love and joy was rather tangible. And there was a great realization of the work of Christ on our behalf as we were singing, so much so that it had actually led us into a period of prayer, which we felt was really the only appropriate response in light of what we were experiencing.

So those things have happened more times than not at these conferences, and I'm very thankful for God's kindness in allowing us to experience the truth that many of the times are being taught there. And yeah, like I told you, like I had mentioned before, you know, the fellowship conference is about fellowship with God, and we do believe that we have a God who is willing to fellowship and make himself known to his people.

And there have been times at the conference where God has done exactly that in a rather peculiar way, and I'm very thankful for that, and people have left edified and overwhelmed with God's work in Christ on their behalf.

So we're looking forward to God.

Doing the same again over those three days in July also. Excellent. We have Flynn in Calicoon, New York, and Flynn says, I would love to hear more about your guest's conversion from Pentecostal or Charismatic beliefs into a more solid Reform background.

Yeah, that's a great question. Thank.

You so much for asking it. But really brief, I'll try to summarize this, make this story, this long story really short. I grew up in a small Pentecostal church for the majority of my life, for various reasons.

We left that church, we joined a large Charismatic church that I think still remains one of the largest churches on Long Island today. I went off to school and I went off to college at SUNY Cortland, upstate New York, and that's usually not the place you go and find Jesus.

But although I was familiar with the Bible, I was familiar with the gospel, I could tell you I could tell you true things. They did not have personal application to me yet. When I went off to school, I would say at the age of 19, I would say the things I had always known had a life-changing effect on me.

So it was no longer Jesus died for sinners, Jesus died for me. And because of that, my life had drastically changed. And after that, I realized I love reading the Bible. And I was off at school, and many of the times I was not under the teaching of the pastors there at the church I was currently attending, since I'm off at school.

And by God's grace, I came across men like James White, and I had never heard someone teach the Bible that way. And it was life-changing. And I came to understand the doctrines of grace. I came to realize that the reason why I love Jesus is primarily because of his love for me.

I started to realize how great the grace that saved me actually was. And as I started to learn how to read my Bible, I started to understand—I started to realize that, well, many of the things I was hearing on Sundays were not true.

And it led to great frustration, which I would confess that I probably did not express that in the most mature way most of the time. But I'm thankful that God is kind and slow to anger, even with me in the state that I was in.

And that led me to leave. And thankfully, I had some really good friends that we had all come from similar backgrounds that I was able to reach out to, and they helped me throughout this whole thing and challenged me to leave.

And it was very uncomfortable. It wasn't easy. I'm very thankful for many of the good things I learned in these churches, I would say, for the most part, especially in regards to prayer. You know, I do think a Pentecostal prayer meeting is far different than what you might find at your typical Reformed church.

And many of the good things I learned there have stuck with me and have impacted how I go about life in ministry as well. So that's how I came out of it. It wasn't really very fanatical. It was just I learned my Bible.

I understood what it was teaching and realized, hey, you're not teaching what the Bible actually says. And yeah, decided to leave from there. And then God has led me from that point on. So I'm very thankful for that.