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”

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 18th day of June 2025.

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During the second hour of the program today, we have a first -time guest,

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Ryan Hemelar, who is an Australian street evangelist, apologist, debater, podcast host, and founder of NeedGod .net,

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and he's going to be addressing the theme, The Religious Climate and Most Prevalent Oppositions to the

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Gospel in Australia. That will be coming in our second hour of the program.

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But right now, for the first half of our show, we are thrilled to have a returning guest,

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Michael McCarthy, who is pastor of Christ Fellowship of Bohemia, Long Island, and we're going to be giving an overview of the upcoming

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Fellowship Conference New York, which will be held in July in Merrick, Long Island.

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

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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.

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I'm going to cut my camera off. Hopefully that will help. Maybe you could do the same.

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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,

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I still don't hear you. Yeah, I think you should do that, bro.

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Log out and log back in, and hopefully you will be able to connect.

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I don't know what happened. But before Michael rejoins us,

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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

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Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is Perry County. It will be my next

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, and that will be at 11 a .m.

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And the guest speaker, once again, will be Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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This is Dr. White's second speaking engagement at the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheons, and all men are welcome.

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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.

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So if you'd like to register for that free pastors luncheon, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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

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And also, when you make note of that, you might as well put on your calendar that Dr.

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White will be speaking at the church where I'm a member, Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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That will be on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30 p .m.,

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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

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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.

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James R. White. And for more information on Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, go to trbccarlisle .org.

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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.

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And of course, it's also free. It's a worship service. So we look forward to seeing you there.

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But now we have been joined by Michael McCarthy. Thank you for logging back in,

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Michael. And can you hear me now? Yes, I apologize for the technical difficulties.

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Okay, well, those things happen. Um, well, tell us about Fellowship Conference New York, and even the title of it, which is very interesting.

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I know that you folks who conduct these conferences try to do it in a unique way, and tell us all about that.

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Yes. So I have never been to a fellowship conference other than the ones that our church has hosted, and from what

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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

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I hope so. But the major tenant of the fellowship conference is in the name itself, fellowship.

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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

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Christians that are living in your particular area. So I believe that is one of the distinctives of the fellowship conference.

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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

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Christians from that community. So I think that's one of the major distinctives of this conference.

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We hope that when people come, they leave knowing more Christians than they did going when they first had joined this conference.

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So that's how I would really sum up the fellowship conference and its distinctives from other conferences.

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And who are the speakers at this year's fellowship conference in New York? So the speakers for this year are

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Pastor Mac Tomlinson, Evangelist Michael Durham, and Pastor Brian Elsie.

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They all are from Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas. Yes, that's the church where Mac Tomlinson is the pastor.

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And as you may know—I'm actually not 100 percent sure you knew this—but Mac will forever occupy an enormous place in my heart because he was very active in evangelizing my oldest brother

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John while he was dying from emphysema. And I believe that the

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Lord effectively used Mac to finally lead my brother to salvation.

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My brother did give me evidence before he departed this earth in things that he said in communication with me through Facebook Messenger, primarily, because it was very difficult for him to speak.

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But he was making it clear to me that he was trusting in Christ for his salvation.

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And it was a turn of attitude because for years, my brother

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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.

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But the mockery came to an end a couple of months before he passed.

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And since Denton, Texas is very close to where my brother lived in Texas, I contacted

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Mac, and he steadfastly was reaching out to John.

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

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Yeah, thanks for sharing that story, Chris. I'm not surprised by that, to hear that that's what

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Mac did for your brother. When I think of Mac Tomlinson, when I think of Michael Durham—although Michael does not hold the office of pastor in Denton, Texas—they are pastor of pastors.

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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.

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And if there's one more thing I could add, too, going back to your original question regarding the Fellowship Conference, the best way

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I like to think of it is the Fellowship Conference is about, obviously, fellowship with God and fellowship with others, and I think

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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Each speaker just addresses what he believes the

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Lord has placed upon his heart to proclaim from the

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Scriptures during that particular time and for that particular audience.

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It's not as rigidly identified with a specific theme, and not that there is anything wrong with that at all.

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It's just a different alternative approach to a conference that makes it somewhat unique.

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Yeah, we have had a conference where someone has preached on the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the

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Spirit of God, and we have had in that same conference multiple messages on suffering and how the

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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I've been able to develop with the elders that are there. My eldership—excuse me,

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I was ordained by the former pastor, Mark Romaldi, so I believe the roots run rather deep there.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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It was just a case of overcompensating when he was making a wide turn to get back on 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

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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

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Mark Romaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Greenbrier, Tennessee, when he will be returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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It will be in July, but it will be very soon, and we look forward to that.

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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?

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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 even though there was 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.

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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

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Suffolk County 10 out of 10 times. I'm very thankful that the two counties on Long Island, Suffolk and Nassau, are politically conservative.

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We both voted red this November, but like you had mentioned, political conservatism sometimes has no connection to any religious belief.

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Many of the times I have done evangelism on street corners, especially in one town called

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Patchogue, which is on the southern part of Long Island, I have noticed that most of the people don't know what they believe.

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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.

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I do believe that it provides plenty of opportunity to speak into many of the conservative positions that people hold to.

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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.

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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.

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For the most part, it is very difficult to purchase homes on Long Island, and it has caused many young families to leave.

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That has been our experience as a church, and I think the experience of many people there—the school districts are decreasing in population.

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It has a lot to do with it's just very difficult to raise a family here on Long Island, which

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I believe is also creating great difficulty for churches on Long Island as well.

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But nonetheless, there are many people that are still in need for the gospel's reach.

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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.

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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 congregation, you could be sure it was a

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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

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Charismatic and Pentecostal churches in spite of my serious disagreements with them over the sign gifts and things like that.

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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

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Word of Faith movement, that will be heard from their pulpits. Am I pretty much on base with that still?

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Yes, I believe the larger churches on Long Island are usually

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Pentecostal, Charismatic. I have come from one myself, and so has my wife and even some of the members of my church as well.

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We all come from a similar Pentecostal background. But one of the things I have noticed as of late is the old -school

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Pentecostalism that dominated Long Island in the 90s and even earlier—the 80s, 90s, early 2000s.

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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.

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The message is getting softer. The gospel is absent. And I don't want to broad -brush this neither.

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I know that there are churches that hold to the gospel and are healthy and vibrant that might have multiple meetings on a

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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

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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.

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But I'm very thankful to the Lord that God has caused me to cross paths with many

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Christians that I would say I have a kindred spirit with them, and I've noticed that though I believe—you might say the

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Reformed Calvinistic expression of Christianity is smaller in Long Island—I do believe the roots run deep, and I've grown rather surprised with how interconnected many of these churches are.

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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.

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Okay, we're going to be back with more of Michael McCarthy after this first commercial break if you have a question for him.

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Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Don't go away.

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We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this

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September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the Free Pastors Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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Amen. Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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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

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

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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 on Lord's Day in worshiping our

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God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

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

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

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

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

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We are dedicated to sharing Reformed Biblical content every Wednesday and Friday. Tune in for sermons, lectures, and interviews exploring distinctive

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I'm Simon O'Mahoney, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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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

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

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

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

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

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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33:41

And welcome back. We have as our guest today Michael McCarthy for the first hour of the program.

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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

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John, who is, I believe, now in eternity with Christ. He lived before moving to Texas.

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He lived in Bohemia, Long Island, and I have fond memories of visiting him there.

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But we are promoting the Fellowship Conference New York, which is going to be held next month,

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July 17th through the 19th, at Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island, located in Merrick, and they are allowing

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Christ Fellowship Church of Bohemia to use their facilities for this event.

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And if you would like to find out more details on registering for the

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Fellowship Conference New York, go to illbehonest .com

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forward slash fcny for Fellowship Conference New York.

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That's illbehonest .com, I -L -L -B -H -O -N -E -S -T dot com forward slash fcny.

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Why? And we do have an anonymous listener who asks,

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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?

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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.

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There are not many good churches, but the good churches are existent, and I think they're rather spread out all throughout the county.

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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.

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So that's been my experience thus far. I'm not too familiar with Nassau County, although I do know a few churches.

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I know Lindbrook Baptist is one of them. Levittown Baptist is another. I know North Shore Baptist is another.

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Those are just—and Grace Reformed, of course, in Merrick. Those are just some of those churches in Nassau County that I have,

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I can just say off the top of my head. But I do think there is a good evangelical influence.

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

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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,

37:13

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

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I moved to Pennsylvania, the further east that you traveled, the less likely you would find an evangelical church.

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And when you get as far east as the Hamptons and further, with the exception of one

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PCA congregation that I knew was planted out there, and I believe

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South Hampton, and with the PCA, it's a hit and miss these days.

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You could have a rock -solid church, or you could have a woke church in the

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PCA, but there was hardly anything at all.

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Most of the churches were the old mainline leftist churches, a lot of United Church of Christ, and, you know, you'd have the occasional cult like the

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Church of Scientology—not Scientology, I'm sorry—Church of Christian Science, and things like that.

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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?

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Yeah, that's a great point you make. I'm not endorsing everything these churches might teach.

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These are just churches off the top of my head that I know of. I know that Shoreham -Wading

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River Baptist is a Reformed Baptist church out there in Shoreham. Oh, yeah, David Cook.

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Yeah, and that's Calvary. Yeah, that'd be Calvary Baptist in Riverhead. Oh, I'm sorry. So Calvary Baptist in Riverhead is

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David Cook, yes, and then there's Shoreham -Wading River Baptist. But other than those two churches,

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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, you know, further out east to the

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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

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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.

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Yeah, you know what, you'd be surprised. I've actually got to know a few people out there, and surprisingly conservative.

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So, 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

40:14

God's truth, and praise God for that, but there are a lot of Christless conservatives here on Long Island.

40:22

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

40:34

I would be thrilled to hear good, solid, especially confessionally

40:40

Reformed Baptist churches being planted out in Eastern Suffolk for the very reasons

40:46

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.

41:05

Yeah. 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?

41:30

Yeah, there was one experience last year that I do believe, collectively as a conference, we all agreed that this took place.

41:46

Thankfully, last year, over the course of three days, we had different musicians lead us in song, and each of them extremely gifted.

41:59

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.

42:11

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.

42:27

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.

42:41

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.

43:00

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.

43:16

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

43:27

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.

43:38

And people have left edified and, yeah, overwhelmed with God's work in Christ on their behalf.

43:44

So we're looking forward to God doing the same again over those three days in July also.

43:51

Excellent. We have Flynn in Calicoon, New York, and Flynn says,

44:02

I would love to hear more about your guests' conversion from Pentecostal or Charismatic beliefs into a more solid

44:11

Reform background. Yeah, that's a great question.

44:17

Thank you so much for asking it. But really brief, I'll try to summarize this. I'll make this story, this long story, really short.

44:25

I grew up in a small Pentecostal church for the majority of my life for various reasons.

44:33

We left that church. We joined a large Charismatic church that I think still remains one of the largest churches on Long Island today.

44:42

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

44:49

Jesus. But although I was familiar with the Bible, I was familiar with the gospel,

44:55

I could tell you true things. They did not have personal application to me yet.

45:04

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.

45:14

So it was no longer, Jesus died for sinners, Jesus died for me. And because of that, my life had drastically changed.

45:23

And after that, I realized I love reading the Bible. And I was off at school, and many of the times

45:30

I was not under the teaching of the pastors there at the church I was currently attending since I'm off at school.

45:38

And by God's grace, I came across men like James White. And I had never heard someone teach the

45:46

Bible that way. And it was life -changing. And I came to understand the doctrines of grace.

45:53

I came to realize that the reason why I love Jesus is primarily because of his love for me.

46:00

I started to realize how great the grace that saved me actually was.

46:06

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

46:14

I was hearing on Sundays were not true. And it led to great frustration, which

46:19

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.

46:31

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.

46:45

And it was very uncomfortable. It wasn't easy. I'm very thankful for many of the good things I learned in these churches,

46:51

I would say, for the most part, especially in regards to prayer. You know, I do think a

46:57

Pentecostal prayer meeting is far different than what you might find at your typical Reformed church.

47:04

And many of the good things I learned there have stuck with me and have impacted how I go about life and ministry as well.

47:11

So that's how I came out of it. It wasn't really very fanatical. It was just I learned my

47:16

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.

47:25

And then God has led me from that point on. So I'm very thankful for that. Praise God for that.

47:32

And basically now, in the minutes that we have left, we've got somewhere in the neighborhood of eight minutes left.

47:42

If you could summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners, especially in regard to Fellowship Conference New York, which is coming up, as I said before,

47:56

July 17th through the 19th, which is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of that week. If you could just instill in the hearts and minds of our listeners reasons why they might make sure that they fit that into their schedules coming up.

48:16

One of the reasons why I think there aren't many large -scale conferences on Long Island throughout the year.

48:24

And the reason why we hold a conference like this is our aim is to duplicate many of the benefits of a large conference for a small conference price.

48:36

And we believe that with accessible speakers, that once they teach, you are able to go and speak with them and ask them questions.

48:45

Many times they'll pray for you. The opportunity for corporate prayer meetings while we are at the conference, which will take place on that Friday morning and that Saturday morning.

48:57

And the time of fellowship and food, we include all of our food into our conference pricing for the sole purpose of people not having to think about food and rather fellowship.

49:09

And on Friday from 1 to 5 p .m., we'll have food served buffet style.

49:17

We usually have plenty of food left over. So before you know it, those hours between 1 and 5 go by rather quickly just because of,

49:28

I think, the quality of fellowship that is available during that time. And the one other thing

49:34

I'd like to say is, as I have mentioned earlier, I think one of the imbalances in many

49:47

Reformed circles is just the attainment of knowledge. Really, salvation merely becomes how many facts

49:56

I can collect over—or even true facts—over the of my life as a

50:02

Christian. But what we tend to forget is that there is a God to be known and there is a

50:10

God who desires communion with his people. One of the repeated themes,

50:18

I would say, over the conferences has been experiential Christianity, that God doesn't just desire us to believe true things, which is true, but I believe that the

50:32

Bible teaches us that there is an experience that comes with believing true things. And that's usually a repeated theme throughout the conference.

50:41

And some of the applications of that is prayer, devotion, evangelism.

50:48

And I would assume that many of those themes are going to be repeated once again in this year's conference.

50:55

So yeah, that's why I believe you guys should come. We'd love to have you. And if you're listening today and you decide to come to the conference, please come up to me and introduce yourself to me.

51:05

I'd love to meet you. And yeah, we hope to see you there. Fantastic.

51:10

And once again, for those of you who are interested in finding out more about the

51:16

Fellowship Conference New York, coming up again on July 17th through the 19th, which is a

51:22

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, go to I'llBeHonest .com

51:28

forward slash fcny. That's I'llBeHonest .com

51:35

forward slash fcny, which stands for Fellowship Conference New York.

51:41

And I just want to thank you once again, Michael, for doing such a great job on the program today, letting our listeners know about this wonderful conference.

51:53

Please make sure you send my love in Christ to Max Tomlinson and his lovely bride.

52:02

And if God permits, I will be there. We are making arrangements for the memorial service for my second oldest brother,

52:14

Andrew, and it may likely be that week, which would make it even more likely that I will be there at least for one or two of the conference days.

52:28

And so I hope that that can be worked out, because I'd love to see you, and I'd love to see Mac and some of my old friends at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island.

52:38

Yeah, Chris, we'd love to have you, and I look forward to hopefully seeing you, and thank you for being such a generous host to me.

52:45

I appreciate it. It is my pleasure, brother. Well, God bless you, and please, folks, do not go away, because the second hour, as I announced earlier, we have a first -time guest.

52:59

His name is Ryan Hemelar, and he's an Australian street evangelist, apologist, debater, podcast host, and founder of NeedGod .net.

53:11

He's going to be addressing the religious climate and most prevalent oppositions to the gospel in Australia, and I hope that you stick around to hear what

53:22

Ryan has to say during the second hour of the broadcast. And once again, our email address, if you have a question for Ryan Hemelar is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:35

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

53:43

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

53:52

Well, don't go away. We are going to be right back, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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

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Hello, my name is Anthony Eugenio, 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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website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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

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

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio and thanks for listening. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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For more details on the Pre -Pastor's Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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01:07:23

Welcome back. While we are waiting for Ryan Hemelar to join us on the program, which

01:07:30

God willing that will be happening soon, we are for some reason experiencing difficulties, but it seems like he has joined us.

01:07:38

But before he is welcomed officially to the program, I want to remind you that if you love

01:07:45

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, folks, and you don't want it to go off the air, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:07:52

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

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

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where you can mail your checks, made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you want to advertise with us, whether it is for your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your private practice, like a law firm or a medical firm, or maybe it's just a special event, whatever it is, if it's compatible with my beliefs,

01:08:29

I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible, because we're just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

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

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Also, folks, remember, as urgently as we need your donations, I never want anybody cutting in to the finances that you have specifically set aside for your

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Never do that. And if you're struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're back on your feet and more financially stable before you send us a gift.

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But if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family, and you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and even trivial purposes, if you love this show, please share some of that money with us if you want us to continue to exist.

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Go to ironsharpenxionradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a

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Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where you live on the planet earth,

01:09:46

I have extensive lists spanning the globe, and I have helped many people all over the world find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you, too, if you are without a biblically faithful church home.

01:10:03

So no matter where you live, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put uneatedchurch in the subject line.

01:10:09

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Ryan Hemelar, and our conversation is going to be about the religious climate and most prevalent oppositions to the gospel of Jesus Christ in Australia, and it is my honor and privilege to welcome

01:10:28

Ryan Hemelar to Ironsharpen Zion Radio for the very first time. For those of you who are just tuning in now,

01:10:37

Ryan is an Australian street evangelist, and he is also a

01:10:43

Christian apologist, and he is a theologian, and he is a podcast host and a debater and founder of needgod .net,

01:10:55

and it's great to have you in the program for the very first time, Ryan. And I don't hear you,

01:11:02

Ryan. I don't hear you. I do not hear you, brother. And he's probably looking for a mute button or something to turn off, and while you are, while Ryan is trying to figure out how to unmute himself,

01:11:26

I would like to remind you of our email address if you have a question for Ryan. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:11:34

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

01:11:44

U .S .A. Please. And he is on the air. Thank you.

01:11:49

Yeah, I knew you'd come through eventually.

01:11:57

Well, Ryan, since you are a first -time guest, we have a tradition here. We always have first -time guests give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which you were raised, and the kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

01:12:15

Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. So let's hear your story.

01:12:22

Yeah, thanks, Chris. I grew up in the Lord's Providence in a Christian home, which was a wonderful blessing, but I was not a

01:12:32

Christian from birth or anything like that, because someone has to hear the good news of the gospel, and the

01:12:38

Lord has to bring them to faith. And so I would attend Sunday school, attend church each week, and even participate in different things, serving with the tech at the back and things like that at church.

01:12:52

But what God used to bring me to faith was, for whatever reason, the

01:12:59

Lord put on my heart to just go and read the Bible. I hadn't really read much of it. Obviously, I read it at church, but I personally had not taken the time to go and read it for myself.

01:13:10

And so I decided, before school every single day, I would go and read, have my bowl of cereal for breakfast, and then read through the entire

01:13:20

New Testament. And then that's what God used to, one, show me how sinful

01:13:25

I was, that, wow, I'm a wretch. I should be thrown into hell for all my sins. And then secondly, come to understand that Christ came into this world to save sinners.

01:13:37

And so that was about the age of 15 then. So that's when I put my trust in Christ, and the

01:13:45

Lord changed my life dramatically, changed my desires. And then

01:13:51

I wanted to get involved far more in Christian things, even at school, running a couple of Christian programs and things like that.

01:13:58

But I still, at that time, so 15 to the age of 17,

01:14:03

God has saved me, but I still had no interest in wanting to share the gospel. Not that I didn't think it was important, but I just was too scared.

01:14:13

I had no idea what to say. How do you share the gospel with someone? And so it was only until about the age of 17 when finally

01:14:19

I got equipped. People helped me out to know what to say when sharing the gospel. I joined a local team in my city who were doing evangelism, and that's when the evangelistic side of God started producing my life and loved it and been doing that ever since then.

01:14:37

Praise God. And was there any theological shift in your way of thinking from the time of being raised in a

01:14:46

Christian household that your parents may have had a specific theological view that you have in any way departed from, and your thinking today is perhaps somewhat different?

01:15:01

That's a good question. No, because my parents, they go to a very solid

01:15:07

Reformed church even, and they're solid believers, which is really good and blessing to have that.

01:15:15

But you can be raised by very decent parents and just miss the gospel and just not understand it or just not truly make it your own until a certain time when

01:15:26

God just opens your eyes to the truth. And so, yeah, my parents, they are believers, which is really good.

01:15:34

And so there hasn't been a shift from that. I was going to that church for many, many years after my conversion even.

01:15:44

I did move to a different church just because it was just closer to where I moved out to.

01:15:50

I got married, and so I now go to a Presbyterian church in the area that I live in.

01:15:57

But there hasn't been so much theological shifts. Just God's been growing me as I read

01:16:04

Scripture each day and as I test everything

01:16:09

I hear with the Word of God. I love this saying, which I often say on our live stream. I say, we're going to check it with the

01:16:16

Bible, yo. And you said that you're going to a

01:16:22

Presbyterian church now, but it's from my understanding, hearing you, especially in your recent debate with a

01:16:31

Roman Catholic on baptism, that you believe in credo baptism or believer -only baptism.

01:16:39

Is that true? That's correct, yeah. So it's a good church in my area, but yeah,

01:16:46

I don't agree with them on that particular issue of baptizing babies, but I can still have great fellowship there with them and worship with them.

01:16:54

Amen. As it is obviously known to my audience that I frequently have

01:17:00

Presbyterians on my program as guests, even though I am a confessional

01:17:06

Reformed Baptist, I just had a curiosity. How close to you is

01:17:12

Perth, Australia? I'm on the other side of Australia, so Perth is right on the

01:17:18

West Coast. Brisbane is where I live, and that's on the East Coast. The only reason I ask is that there is a

01:17:26

Reformed Baptist church in Perth, and I know that we have listeners in Perth, because one of those listeners contacted me asking for a solid church recommendation, and I recommended to him

01:17:41

Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Perth, and he visited that church, joined it.

01:17:48

He is a member there now to this day, and so it is good to know that we have

01:17:55

Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio listeners in Perth and other parts of Australia as well.

01:18:02

That's so good. Yeah, there are some good, solid Reformed Baptist churches even in my city and different cities in Australia, so just great to see that.

01:18:12

Well, I have been, before I even discovered who you were, there were listeners of my program who urged me to look up your website, needgot .net,

01:18:26

and I did see your debate with the Roman Catholic recently on the issue, is water baptism necessary for salvation?

01:18:39

I'm very impressed with your biblical knowledge. Not only am

01:18:45

I extremely impressed with your biblical literacy and knowledge, but the

01:18:53

Lord has given you a unique personality where no one can accuse you of being mean -spirited while you are disagreeing with people.

01:19:03

You have a temperament that is very graceful and gracious and humble, in spite of the fact that you are extremely well -read in the

01:19:18

Bible and in theology, well -versed in theology. Tell us about how that unique trait of yours—because very often people who are prone to enter into the debate arena are not of that description.

01:19:40

And it's not necessarily that they're nasty, but they just may be less soft -spoken and graceful in the way they present the truth, and especially when they're correcting error of an opponent.

01:19:55

But tell us how that has come into play and has been proven to be valuable in your life as a street evangelist, and when you're doing public apologetics with those who either have a neutral view of the gospel, which will still tragically bring you to hell if you don't repent, but even a hostile one.

01:20:22

Yeah, glory to God that He's been giving me that temperament of not wanting to get angry.

01:20:31

What helps me with this is looking at our Lord who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return, and when

01:20:37

He suffered, He did not threaten. And yeah, I'm a work in progress still. We're all work in progress.

01:20:43

God is sanctifying us. But I found what is helpful is I want to win this person.

01:20:49

I don't want to destroy him. I want to win him to Jesus, and so I can witness to him through the words that I say, but also my conduct and my demeanor can also speak volumes to him.

01:21:03

And so just over the years, I've learned if I want this person to stick around and actually want to keep chatting,

01:21:10

I want to be friendly. I want to be kind. I want to compliment them where I can, where it's appropriate to compliment them, when they're getting right answers, whatever it is, and just slowly guide the conversation to where I want it to go—talking about Christ and what

01:21:25

He's done, the response to the gospel, these sort of things. And yeah,

01:21:31

I try and carry that across, even if someone's getting angry, which sometimes happens because—so

01:21:38

I do straight evangelism, but since COVID began, I also now do a lot of online evangelism, where we go onto different websites like Omegle, and we just chat to random strangers about the gospel.

01:21:51

And so sometimes you'll encounter people who may be angry at God and therefore be angry at you or, you know, just whatever it is.

01:22:00

They just don't like Christianity. And so I've found, like, there's a proverb, a gentle answer turns away wrath.

01:22:09

And I see that time and time again, someone's being angry, but you give them a gentle answer.

01:22:16

You be kind to them. And it's like, again, the burning, the heaping burning coals on their heads.

01:22:22

They're like, man, you're so nice to me. What's going on? Like, I've been so rude to you. What's going on? And they actually have a change of demeanor, and they actually listen.

01:22:30

And you can potentially have a full gospel chat with this person. So I found that really valuable.

01:22:37

Amen. Now, may I ask you your age? I saw when I was looking at a bio of you on the internet,

01:22:44

I didn't know how old it was, but it mentioned that you were in your 20s. Are you still in your 20s?

01:22:51

No, I'm 36 now. Okay. Well, I guess that wasn't old. Internet post.

01:22:59

Well, that is to reflect upon the fact that you still look like you're in your 20s anyway.

01:23:05

But I was going to say your brain is far surpassing your average 20 -year -old.

01:23:12

I think the major challenge I had in my life as a young man in my 20s was how to eat a meal without getting stains on my shirt.

01:23:25

But are you basically self -taught? Because you seem to be—I don't want to be guilty of swelling your head with the sin of pride—but you seem to be quite a brilliant young guy.

01:23:38

Are you self -taught, or were you formally educated in any way? Well, I'm nothing, but I did a degree in theology a number of years after I finished high school.

01:23:53

I did a degree in theology about 15 years ago, and that was helpful. But just what

01:23:59

I do know theologically largely wasn't from Bible college, but it has just been from daily reading.

01:24:06

We do a five -day -a -week live stream on the YouTube channel

01:24:11

NeedGod .net, and I actually find that's really helpful. Every day, I invite people to ask a

01:24:17

Q &A, like ask their questions about the Bible. And I find that's really helpful of like, oh, okay, that's an interesting question.

01:24:23

Haven't heard that one before. And it makes you just get into God's Word and just come to understand it better. So I found that really valuable.

01:24:31

By the way, one of your biggest cheerleaders who first urged me to interview you before I knew who you were,

01:24:40

Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania, she just commented while listening to this program, speaking to me, what are you talking about?

01:24:51

That is still your greatest challenge, not getting stains on your clothes while you eat.

01:24:58

That's funny. But now tell us how you realized that you had a calling from God to enter into the field of apologetics and started doing the street evangelism.

01:25:19

I saw that Jesus had commanded us to, and I knew

01:25:25

I should, but I never thought I would, just because, as I mentioned before,

01:25:31

I had no idea how to do it. And so I had concluded, I'll probably never share the gospel with anyone my entire life, but I'll just maybe support those who are.

01:25:41

And so that's kind of how I resolved it. You know, I sometimes have my pastor at church preach on evangelism.

01:25:47

I'd be like, I get really convicted. But then I'm like, I don't know what to do. How do you start a conversation?

01:25:54

How do you get a conversation going and then continuing it? And what do you say there? What if they ask a big question you don't know the answer to?

01:26:00

So then what actually happened, how I got into doing it is, my mum was teaching religious education at a public school in my city.

01:26:18

And because in our state they allow still Christians just go into public schools just to have a class each week, just to teach

01:26:25

Christianity, which is a really wonderful opportunity. And so one of the fellow religious instruction teachers gave just like a

01:26:33

CD of Ray Comfort's teaching, who does a lot of evangelism. And that was actually really instrumental because he gives a pretty good framework on using the law and evangelism.

01:26:44

And what people need is not life enhancement. You know, they come to Jesus and have a nice life, but we need to be fleeing from the wrath to come.

01:26:53

We need forgiveness of sins. And so that gave a good framework. And so that, I think, was a really instrumental thing, listening to that.

01:27:02

But then finding out there actually are Christians in my city who are already going out every single week to evangelism.

01:27:09

I was like, I'd love to go along sometime. I'd love it. And so then eventually I did. This is when

01:27:16

I was 17. And it was such a joy just being out there, seeing people hear the gospel, some people coming to understand it, some profess faith in it.

01:27:26

I was like, this is great. I want to keep coming out. So I went out every single week after that, and then eventually became the team leader there of that outreach.

01:27:34

And we then branched out to doing it, not just once a week, doing it eventually every single day, heading out somewhere on the streets, different parts of my just to try and reach some people for Jesus.

01:27:46

Now, is your street evangelism primarily just greeting people that are walking down the street and introducing yourself and speaking to them, or are you already setting the stage by preaching?

01:28:03

Like there are many street preachers who have a very different temperament than you, it seems.

01:28:13

Some people have told me that they don't like street preachers because they don't like being yelled at.

01:28:20

Now, of course, there is a wide spectrum of street preachers. There are people who just, all they want to do is just scream at people walking by, and very often they're lone wolves and mavericks who are not even attached to a church.

01:28:38

Many of them are heretical. But there are wonderful brethren

01:28:44

I know personally who are involved in street preaching who do use a loud and thundering voice and sometimes use amplification to make sure that they're heard to a larger audience.

01:28:57

So what are you specifically doing when you're street evangelizing? Yeah, so the team

01:29:03

I joined, yeah, we would do one -on -ones. We'd also do open -air preaching, and yeah,

01:29:11

I took part in that for many years. For the last maybe eight or so years that we've been doing it, our methodology has slightly changed.

01:29:22

We don't do the open -air preaching just because we found it's actually become more effective to just have the conversations with people in the street where you know that they're actually hearing the entire message, not just a snippet.

01:29:37

Obviously, God can use anything, so praise God. But we found stopping the person saying,

01:29:42

Hey, can I ask you a question? And you'll find that most people say, Yeah, sure. What's your question? Do you believe that there's a heaven after we die?

01:29:50

And right there, you're into a chat, and you'll find that most people will stick around and have a conversation.

01:30:00

Oh, yeah, I do believe it, because most people in the world do believe in heaven. Even if they're not religious in any sense, they'll still think there's some sort of heaven after we die because it's pretty depressing not believing in one.

01:30:10

And so it's a good starting point. Hey, do you believe there's a heaven after we die? Yes. What do you think you've got to do to get there?

01:30:18

And they'll say, Be a good person. That's the most classic thing. Just don't do bad things. Be a good person. And so then that's where we go from there to talking about,

01:30:27

Well, guess what? God's done his perfection. Have you lied or you know, done any, go through some of God's laws and yeah, we've done these things.

01:30:35

What do we deserve? Not heaven, but hell. And that leads then into the gospel. So we found that really effective because then you can see if they're, one, they're hearing your time message, but I've learned something over the years to not monologue at the person.

01:30:53

If you monologue at somebody, just speak at them and not really ask them any questions. They're tuning out.

01:30:58

They're thinking about what's for dinner and they want to get out of there because, you know, if you just speak at someone without having to ask them questions, they often tune out.

01:31:06

So I've learned, ask questions, even within every 30 seconds, make sure you're asking another question, leading you to where you're wanting the conversation to go to.

01:31:17

So even how I explain the gospel to someone, so I've talked about sin already. I've talked about how we deserve hell.

01:31:23

I'll say, Hey, look, we need someone who can take our punishment for us. And so if somebody takes a hundred percent of your punishment, how much is left for you?

01:31:33

So I'm asking it as a question to get them to process. Okay. Someone takes all my punishment.

01:31:38

How much is left? Oh, there's none left for me. You're right. So if there's no punishment left for you, where would you get to go when you die?

01:31:45

Oh, I would get to go to heaven. So they're processing it themselves. And then they'll say, yeah. And that was

01:31:50

Jesus. That's why he died on the cross. That's why he rose from the dead three days later. And so why do you get to go to heaven?

01:31:57

And then they're having to articulate back to you. Well, because Jesus, he died on the cross to pay for all my sins.

01:32:04

Like you got it. It's like in a math class. If your teacher just tells you the question and tells you the answer, but doesn't tell you how you got to the answer, you won't get it.

01:32:12

But if he shows you the steps and the processes, you're like, ah, that makes sense. I can now do the next one.

01:32:18

And so that's why my strategy as well with sharing the gospel, rather than just telling it, I want them to ask questions in a way of communicating it to them.

01:32:27

So they're processing the logic and they're seeing why that makes sense. Why Jesus dying saves us.

01:32:33

Because people know, a lot of people know about Jesus dying on the cross, but they don't know why that saves us, why that's the key.

01:32:39

And, and then I'll ask them what I often call checking questions. Checking questions are these questions

01:32:45

I like to ask people to see if they've understood the gospel I've shared with them. So one of them is like, what would you say to God?

01:32:52

If God asked you, why should I let you into heaven? And that's a really good question because if they say, because I'm a good person or because I do good things, they haven't understood the message.

01:33:01

And so I'm going to have to go back and say, okay, where have they missed this? Or another one is, if you put your trust in Christ today, but let's say you then sinned again three times tomorrow, and then you died, would you go to heaven or hell?

01:33:19

That's a good question because a lot of people think that Christ only paid for your past sins, but none of your future ones.

01:33:25

And so it's based on performance from this point on to be good enough to get to heaven. And so this is a good question to show, no, actually

01:33:31

Christ paid past, present, and future sins. Your trust is in him. And so then, yes, we shouldn't sin, but even if you were to fall,

01:33:40

Christ is still covering you if your trust is in Jesus. And that's a helpful one just to show the extent of what

01:33:47

Christ has done for those who put their trust in Jesus. Amen. And so I'm assuming you're talking about, obviously, that being the case where you're asking questions continually, that would be the opportunities that you have for one -on -one evangelism as opposed to preaching in the street.

01:34:08

Correct. Yeah, with preaching, it's hard to get the interaction. Now, sometimes we would, we would get hecklers.

01:34:15

Even over the years, we would have, there's the Brisbane Atheist Society group who would come along every single week to try and heckle or have a debate, public debate.

01:34:27

And they enjoyed it. We enjoyed it. And it was quite good because if you have someone heckling and you're interacting with them, it draws crowds in.

01:34:35

So sometimes we would have like a hundred people listening into these public debates out on the streets. And so that's really good.

01:34:43

If you don't have a heckler, usually you won't have that many people stop. You'll just have people walking by and then they'll hear maybe a few sentences or a few phrases, if you're doing open -air preaching.

01:34:56

But yeah, we found that it's just been most effective to just strike up conversations, either with individuals or with groups on the street.

01:35:07

And that's our focus these days. So do you hold up a sign that says, hecklers are welcome?

01:35:16

No, we wouldn't actually. It would just, people would just start heckling. Or even you might sometimes say,

01:35:23

Hey, what's like, you can tell someone wants to say something, say, what do you, what do you think about what

01:35:28

I'm saying? And they're like, they'll give their opinion. But yeah, there was one, one guy who for like six years, every single week an atheist would come along to hear us preach and heckle and debate.

01:35:44

Yeah, they were very committed, more committed than even some Christians are, but for their atheism, and we're still praying for him.

01:35:56

He's still not yet saved. He still loves his sin and doesn't want to come to Christ as a result of that.

01:36:03

But uh, you know, we're good friends with him. He was actually, when, when I got married, he was the, he was the

01:36:10

DJ for my wedding at the reception. So yeah, like good friends with him, but we're just praying for him still that God saves him.

01:36:18

And every now we still see him come out and we still have these sort of conversations with him. So you would typically then engage hecklers rather than try to ignore them?

01:36:29

Yes. Engaging them, I think is key with open air preaching. Unless like they're being completely irrational and unreasonable and try to talk over you, maybe they might be ignoring, you might ignore them at certain times, but yeah,

01:36:45

I think engaging them is a key to draw in a crowd to listen.

01:36:52

And people just like discussion as well, compared to if it's just one person speaking, yeah, that could be good, but two people.

01:37:00

And if they disagree with each other, people are like, Ooh, what's going on here? This is interesting. It's interesting.

01:37:06

Like we even had police officers in the street where we do it, who would say to like some of the different people,

01:37:15

Hey, go and listen to the preachers. You guys need to listen. You know, you guys are being a bit of a nuisance around here.

01:37:21

Go listen to the preachers. They can sort you out. It's funny, we became like a, I don't know, just a bit of a feature in a way that even the local government would refer people to us so they could hear the gospel on a sad day night.

01:37:35

I've got to introduce you to a dear friend of mine, Ryan Hartsell. Ryan, if you're listening,

01:37:43

I'm going to put you in touch eventually with Ryan Hemelar. Both of you share the same first name, but also share a passion for open air evangelism.

01:37:57

And that's what Ryan does full time with a church out in Tennessee.

01:38:03

He was living in Pennsylvania for a while and relocated to Tennessee near Knoxville.

01:38:10

But it would be great for you guys to at some point get together. I don't know if you ever make trips to the

01:38:17

United States. Perhaps you can even make a trip to Brisbane, Australia, but you two should definitely at least start communicating through social media or something.

01:38:31

Yeah, thank you for that. That'd be great. Yes, and the way that I phrased the theme of our conversation is the challenges, basically, that you would face, the prevalent challenges and obstacles and oppositions that you would face as an evangelical, especially one engaging in street evangelism.

01:39:07

What is the religious climate there in Australia and those most prevalent oppositions that you face to the gospel in Australia?

01:39:16

Now, obviously, Australia is an enormous place, and this may differ from place to place just like it would in the

01:39:28

United States. I'm sure that open air evangelists have a different experience when they are evangelizing in a more notoriously liberal area like New York City than they would in the

01:39:43

Bible Belt, even though the same people who are passing them by in either a blue state or a left -wing state, that the same people that are passing them by in a red state or a

01:40:06

Bible Belt state, they could be equally lost. But there may be a different reaction to the presentation of the gospel.

01:40:17

I remember when, any time that I was involved in passing out tracts in public in my former home on Long Island, New York, there was a distinct contrast between the way that an average white person would react to you trying to hand them a tract and engage them in conversation and the average black person that you would encounter.

01:40:44

Because the folks that I encountered, typically, who were black

01:40:51

New Yorkers, would be very respectful and might even say, praise

01:41:00

Jesus. Now, they may be lost. They may also be a brother and sister in Christ.

01:41:07

But there seemed to be at least a comfort with them that they're familiar with the

01:41:19

Bible -believing churches, because you have many black folks in New York, even if they have left the faith or never had it, were raised in at least churches that profess to be

01:41:33

Bible -believing. Whereas, typically, a white person would ignore you like you were a lunatic and when you're trying to hand them a tract, they act like you're handing them a rag that you just cleaned a toilet with.

01:41:50

They want nothing to do with you. But anyway, what are your views or observations,

01:41:58

I should say, about the religious climate and the most prevalent oppositions that you received?

01:42:06

In fact, you know what you could do? We'll have you pick up on that question when we come back from our final commercial break, because we've got to go to our final break right now.

01:42:16

And if you want to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:42:21

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back with Ryan Hemelar after these messages.

01:42:41

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

01:42:49

Chris Arnson has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,

01:42:54

I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pre -Pastor's

01:43:01

Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 30 p .m.,

01:43:08

I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

01:43:13

Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

01:43:19

For more details on the Pre -Pastor's Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:43:25

That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

01:43:36

That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

01:44:02

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

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01:44:41

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01:45:18

that's l -y -n -brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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

01:48:54

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.

01:49:07

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

01:49:29

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

01:49:39

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

01:49:45

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.

01:49:57

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

01:50:08

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

01:50:16

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

01:50:24

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

01:50:33

Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. And, folks, please mark on your calendars this

01:50:40

Friday, God willing, Dr. Joseph C. Morecraft III will be my guest once again after a very long absence here on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, so I'm looking forward to that.

01:50:51

Also, folks, please remember that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &

01:50:57

Associates. If you're the victim of a personal injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the

01:51:02

United States, call my longtime dear friend, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law at 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, or visit

01:51:12

Dan's website, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM, and mention to Dan that you heard about his law firm,

01:51:20

Buttafuoco & Associates, from Chris Aronson of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. Now we're back with Ryan Hemelar, and by the way,

01:51:26

Ryan, I never asked you if I was pronouncing your last name correctly. You are, you did a good job of that.

01:51:33

Is that Scandinavian at its root? Uh, Dutch. Oh, okay. Yeah, so my grandparents are from the

01:51:40

Netherlands. Okay, well, going back to the question I was asking you before the break, the religious climate in Australia.

01:51:52

Yeah, so there's been a, if you're looking at the census data where they do a survey of this religious climate in Australia where everyone in Australia has to answer to the government.

01:52:04

Back in 2001, so a bit over 20 years ago, 15 % of people on that survey said they have no religion, but when they did it in 2021, they now say about 40 % say no religion.

01:52:23

That's a massive increase of people now identifying not as religious at all.

01:52:30

And so Christianity has declined from 68 % in that first survey to now 43%.

01:52:36

So there is an increase of secularization and it is quite different.

01:52:43

When I speak to people in America, because we do online evangelism through these websites, and I speak to a lot of Americans, and it's actually a blessing you guys in America have in terms of evangelism because you have a lot of people open to spiritual things and talking about spiritual things.

01:52:59

When in Australia, it's less so because it's very secular.

01:53:07

Having said that, like we still, on the streets when we chat to Australians, there are

01:53:14

Australians who are still willing to talk, but they've just never thought about the things of God before. Like, you know, do you think there's a creator?

01:53:22

I've never thought about that before. It's never come up on my list of things to ever think about. And so that is a bit of a challenge, being able to reach these people.

01:53:32

But I am seeing with the advent of social media, younger generations, younger

01:53:40

Australians are actually getting more interested in God again. So the middle age, older, they may not be, but the younger generation is.

01:53:49

And so because of the TikTok channel, YouTube and other platforms that I've got, when I'm out in the streets, it's pretty much every week, people will come up saying, hey,

01:53:57

I watch you online. And like, these are the younger ones, not the middle age, this is a younger audience. They might be 12, they might be 15 or something like that.

01:54:06

And they're like, yeah, my parents are atheists, but I'm a Christian as a result, you know, just of social media.

01:54:13

I've come to understand the gospel through that. I've put my trust in Jesus. And which is really cool. God's reaching the younger generation then, even if their parents and others around them are not

01:54:24

Christians. So that's really cool. I'm loving to see what God's doing there. And we also, you mentioned when you were handing out tracks, you had like the white

01:54:37

Americans not wanting to take the tracks, but the black Americans were. In Australia, it can be somewhat similar in that you try and stop an

01:54:45

Australian and chat to them, and you'll get more rejection. You'll get some that are definitely willing to talk, but you'll get more rejection compared to if it's either an

01:54:57

Indigenous person, or we get a lot of tourists. We get a lot of foreigners, a lot of students who come from Asia particularly, and they now are like living or staying in Australia.

01:55:08

And so they're very happy to chat. Papua New Guineans, all that stuff. Very happy. Filipinos, very happy to talk about spiritual things.

01:55:17

And so, yeah, that is interesting. Just different responses to willing to be open to speak about spiritual things based on cultural background or where the person's from.

01:55:29

But I'm just encouraged that even though the census data is showing non -religious is inclining and Christianity in a bit of a decline, what

01:55:40

I would say is that it's more of a cultural Christianity that we no longer have as much of, which is not a major thing because those people who identified as Christian, I would know that if they've given up, they weren't genuinely in the faith anyway, because we know that God keeps his people.

01:56:01

And so then it's almost like a good thing. It's almost like a purification of the

01:56:06

Christian church, that people aren't just calling themselves Christians because that's the in thing to do, but then they don't really believe it, they don't really follow it, they don't really go to church.

01:56:17

Now it's those who identify as Christian more so will be those potentially who do believe it and who are following it.

01:56:25

But yes, even amongst those that still profess to be Christian doesn't mean that they're saved.

01:56:32

In my evangelism, I've found that when you encounter either here in Australia or it's in America when

01:56:40

I'm doing the online stuff or even other parts of the world, we get to meet people. I find about 90 % of professing

01:56:49

Christians I speak to don't really know the gospel. 90%. How do

01:56:54

I know that? Well, I asked them that opening question, do you believe there's a heaven after we die? Yeah, yeah.

01:56:59

I'm a Christian, I believe in a heaven. Okay. How do we get there? Be a good person.

01:57:06

He's like, be a good person or do good things. It's like 90 % of professing Christians say.

01:57:11

When you say professing Christians, are you including evangelicals? I'm including anyone who just would identify as related to Christianity.

01:57:20

Yeah, I just heard the same or a very similar report about percentage of evangelicals that attempt to describe the

01:57:29

Trinity. It's very often, if not most often, a heretical description that would be modalist or something else.

01:57:37

Well, we have time for one listener question because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:57:44

Percival in Florence, Alabama wants to know, what is the number one wrong thing to do when street evangelizing?

01:57:56

One tip I would have is if you're wanting to start up a conversation with someone, I would say don't have either a

01:58:04

Bible or gospel tracts in your hand. Have them in your bag or something or in your pocket or something like that because otherwise people are like, oh, he's selling me something and they don't want to talk.

01:58:15

Take them out of your hands, have nothing in your hands. People are like, oh, this guy's genuinely asking me a question.

01:58:22

He's not trying to sell me something and say, hey, can I ask you a question? You'll have more people be willing to stop and have a chat with you.

01:58:29

Wow, I never would have thought of that. That's a very valuable tip there.

01:58:34

Well, I want to remind our listeners, if you want to find out more about Ryan, you want to explore his debates and online exchanges with a whole host of different kinds of folks and just find out more about his public witness for the gospel of Jesus Christ, go to needgod .net.

01:58:58

Needgod .net. It's been a joy to have you on the program, Ryan. I hope that we have an opportunity at some point in the future to have you on for the full two hours.

01:59:10

Thank you, Chris. Yeah, it's very early morning where I am in Australia, time zone differences, but yeah, thank you for having me on today.

01:59:17

Thank you, brother. I want to remind everybody, as I always do at the end of the program, that I never want you to forget for as long as you live,

01:59:27

Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.