May 18, 2021 Show with Jeremy Brandenburg on “Making Your Neighborhood the Frontline of Missions”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 18th day of May, 2021, and I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest today that I so much enjoyed sharing a time of fellowship with over lunch not long ago, as he is a new pastor in town right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

His name is Jeremy Brandenburg, a former Army officer and the new pastor at Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Today, our theme is going to be, a former Army officer discusses making your neighborhood the front line of missions, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jeremy Brandenburg.

Well, thanks so much for having me, Chris. I'm still trying to figure out what convinced you to have me on, because my first audience that I spoke to today was during our family devotional, and there was not a lot of attention being paid to that, so ...

Well, even if that is going to be the case today with our listening audience on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we know

God's listening. Amen. And that's all that matters. Audience of one. And so tell our listeners, first of all, about Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Right. Well, we're a little OPC congregation, Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

I'm sure your listeners are ... many of your listeners are familiar with our denomination. Our well -known founder,

J. Gresham Machen, broke away from the mainline Presbyterian Church back in the early 20th century, and the church, the denomination, has been growing little by little ever since, and our congregation dates back to ...

I know some of the folks from my congregation are listening and are going to correct me if I get the dates wrong, but we've been around since about 2001.

And it was a group that came together that was looking for a Reformed liturgy, they were looking for a church that was faithful to the

Scriptures, and so there was a group of families that came together here in Carlisle.

There's a pastor, an OPC pastor named John Van Meerbach in Gettysburg, who helped another man who was very influential named

Tom Tyson, a long -time pastor in the OPC, who ...

I'm reaping the benefits of his ministry in particular, I think. But our church is about 20 years old, we have about 90 people on a

Sunday, and we sit ... I've come to call Carlisle, Carlisle is unique and it is a special place, but I've come to call it the land between the interstates.

We're here between I -81 and 76, right at the turnpike, and so it's no coincidence that our church is close to one of those, we're right off of I -81 here on York Road.

A very major highway cutting across the

United States that I have had a number of friends who are either traveling from the north to the south, or vice versa, who have stopped by to visit me because they're on 81.

Right, and for my wife and I, it's really funny the way that God works, His interesting providences, because we've driven past Carlisle many times.

I went to seminary outside of Philadelphia at Westminster, and we would drive 81 all the way down to Kentucky to visit my in -laws, him and Diane Shelley, and we would always pass by Carlisle, and sometimes we'd go through Carlisle because you're trying to get off of the turnpike and on to 81, and we never ever thought that this is where the

Lord would lead us, but we are so happy to be here, and it really is a special place. The Christian community here is tremendous.

I just came from a pastor's fraternal meeting at Grace Baptist, led by Pastor John Miller.

One of my pastors. Right, right. So, I mean, this is not something we could have picked for ourselves, and so we're so grateful.

It is a privilege to be here, it is a privilege to be a pastor, and I'm privileged to be a pastor of the wonderful people at Redeemer OPC.

Praise God, and I'm looking forward to our joint worship service on the evening of Sunday, May 30th.

Yeah. 6 p .m., to be precise, where our two congregations are going to be worshiping together at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, so that is going to be a joy.

Yeah, hopefully. Again, you invited me to do this, John Miller invited me to preach at their evening service.

I'm not sure why, but hopefully it won't be my last invitation. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, go to RedeemerOPC .org.

Thank you, Chris. And can I just say that anyone who is listening to your program, especially anyone who is within driving distance, please come visit us.

We would love to. It would be an encouragement to us to have folks come and even just worship with us one

Sunday. We have visitors coming. It's wonderful. We're getting back to normal, and I just invite anyone who's listening to your program to please come and worship with us one

Sunday. Great. And as I said, for those of you who are doing traveling this spring and summer, 81 is a very major highway cutting across the country from north to south, and it should be fairly easy for you to stop by for a visit if you're passing by Pennsylvania.

And we would hope to hear good reports from Pastor Jeremy that some of our listeners have done so.

So keep that in mind, make a note of it somewhere, and visit RedeemerOPC .org

in Carlisle. And we have a tradition here on the show.

Whenever we have a first -time guest, when that first -time guest is a

Christian, there are rare occasions when we have a guest that is not a Bible -believing evangelical

Christian because they have something of importance to say to our audience nonetheless. But the vast majority of times we interview

Christians, and when we have a first -time guest, we have them give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and the kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you. So if you could, give us your story.

Right. Thanks for asking. It's something we need to do more often these days, especially as we're living through trying times, and we need to give a reason for the hope that we have, because we do have a hope that is indestructible and unfading.

I grew up going to a PCA church in Center City, Philadelphia, which, again,

I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with, 10th Presbyterian Church. When you're a little kid, you just think, well, this is what church is like.

Every church is big with these massive balconies and these arches and this organ that's booming, and everybody's singing,

A Mighty Fortress is Our God, with gusto. Many fond memories of 10th

Presbyterian Church when I was a new Christian and attended for a number of years in a row the

Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, when our dear brother James Montgomery Boyce was still on the earth before entering into glory with Christ.

Yeah, and I did not know Dr. Boyce personally, obviously, I was a kid, but he was my pastor.

I heard him preach week by week. Unfortunately, I didn't really start to pay attention until he was stricken with cancer, but I should maybe talk about that later.

For me personally, growing up, it was a Bible -believing church. It was a church where we were regularly told that we were sinners from a very young age.

I actually remember one of my Sunday school teachers recounting how he was at a different church, different denomination, and they were teaching in Sunday school about,

I think it was he was referencing his mother, who was a Sunday school teacher, and she was saying, telling the kids, these little kids, you know, you're sinners, your sins are an offense to God, these aren't just mistakes, and someone else said, oh, we can't tell them that, that's not, you know, that's too much for them, and no, we can, we have to.

I tell my children that regularly, but I had a Sunday school teacher, Chris, when I was in first grade, who

I distinctly remember, a wonderful woman, a very godly woman, who in class was sitting there with us, and really, week by week, she just laid out the

Gospel and, you know, reassured us and exhorted us to put our trust in Jesus Christ, and, you know, back then it was very, as is still very common today in the broader evangelical world, you pray the prayer, you ask to receive

Christ into your heart, and she said, you know, anyone who wants to do that can do that right here and now, and so I remember sitting there in first grade and thinking,

I really need to do this, and, you know, we're, as a

Reformed Christian, we obviously have an understanding that our salvation doesn't begin when we decide to follow

Jesus or when we decide to ask Him into our heart. Our salvation, beyond all that we could fathom or understand, began with the

Lord's decree before time, that before the foundation of the world, the Scriptures tell us, when

God set His love on us, and I would say my testimony is, you know, I could share different stories along the way, there's probably one good one in the church context that would be helpful, but it's really my testimony of being an object of God's mercy while knowing that because of my sin,

I deserve the exact opposite, but because of Christ, God has been pleased and is still pleased to show

His favor and His love and His affection to me. You know,

I think I knew the five points of Calvinism before I could really evangelize or share the

Gospel well, and so another point in my upbringing that, you know,

I reference as far as my testimony and coming to understand the Gospel, I was in church membership class, one of my classes was taught by Phil Reichen, now the president of Wheaton College.

Oh yeah, I've had him on the program. He's a wonderful, wonderful man. He has definitely got a hard road ahead of him, and he's already been on the hard road there at Wheaton, but man, oh man.

Yeah, I think these were some of his probably more peaceful days back teaching membership class at 10th, but he taught one of our classes, but I remember during the final interview, there was a group of pastors sitting around, and they want to know that we have a genuine

Christian testimony, and they got to me, and they asked me questions about your faith, and I remember kind of stumbling, and then there was a point where one of the pastors kind of zeroed in on me and said,

Jeremy, what do you have to contribute to your salvation? You know, something like that.

I'm paraphrasing, but that was essentially the question. What do you bring to the table in God's work of salvation? And you know,

I almost felt stumped, but then I feel like it was the Holy Spirit helping me to speak the truth that I knew, and I just said, nothing.

Nothing, because that's the truth, isn't it, Chris, that what we bring to salvation is the debt and burden of our sin, our guilt, and our shame, and Christ is pleased to take it all upon himself and give us new life.

In fact, I've even heard it put this way, and I think it's an excellent way.

It may confuse people at first, but we are saved even from our own righteousness.

We have to repent of that. We have to repent of holding on to anything within ourselves that we believe is making us pleasing to God, because there is nothing in and of ourselves that could ever merit an entrance into eternity with Christ.

Yes. Yeah, great point, and hopefully I'll be able to reference the

Westminster Confession a lot, because I think it's a tremendous document for any Christian, and obviously it's the standards that we hold to.

But going through ordination exams, it was interesting being asked questions about good works and just going over what we profess that the

Bible teaches regarding our good works, that the fruit of our Christian testimony, even those things are full of weaknesses and imperfections, but they're accepted for the sake of Christ.

And so even our righteous acts are still insufficient, but God loves us, and He's saved us nonetheless.

Well, we've already said in our introduction of you that you are a former Army officer.

Tell us when in your mind, perhaps even in your heart, did you begin to desire joining the military, and tell us about that experience, perhaps some of the highlights of it.

And I typically ask a veteran on the show, when

I interview one, how their experience and training as a member of the

Armed Services has actually come to aid them in their walk with Christ. Yeah.

Well, I could, we could probably spend the whole rest of the show on that. That's a topic near and dear to my heart, obviously.

I made the decision, I would say, well, I mean, like every little boy growing up, you want to be a firefighter, a police officer, a soldier.

Somehow I always knew that... I did have a grandfather who was into fishing, had a little boat, but I always knew the

Navy was not for me. I'm kind of a land -based creature. So I was always geared towards the

Army. I actually, so growing up in high school, this was, so 9 -11,

September 11th, was very pivotal, you know, sitting in chemistry class as a junior in high school.

And it's like, for the older generation, it was like when JFK died, you'll never forget where you were, when you heard it, you know, that entire day almost.

Experiencing our nation actually get attacked was huge. And as a young man who was, you know, pretty patriotic, cared about my country, was proud to be an

American, that had a huge impact on the way I thought about the future and what I would do with my life.

About a year later, a young man who had graduated from my high school and went to United States Military Academy at West Point came back to promote the school.

And I listened to him talk for about 20 minutes, and I thought, well, that's why I want to go to school.

And in God's providence, I got accepted and got a nomination and went there, and after four years, graduated and was commissioned into infantry.

And so that's, you know, that's the path that I took getting into the Army. And how long have you served in the armed forces?

I was on active duty for eight years, and now I'm currently a reserve officer. I am transitioning out, you know, for the sake of being a full -time pastor, but I've been serving in some capacity since 2003, when

I entered the military academy. And your rank? My current rank? I'm a major. Great.

Well, we are discussing something that sort of has a military flavor to it, because we are referring to the mission field here as the front line, and our theme is, a former

Army officer discusses making your neighborhood the front line of missions.

And I know I'm going to probably butcher this story, but I, many years ago, heard a story that I heard confirmed was true by a number of scholarly

Lutherans that I've spoken with. And the story is that a cobbler said to Martin Luther that he wanted to uproot his wife and children and move to a foreign land to serve as a missionary, and he asked

Martin Luther what his advice was. And Luther said, well, you are a cobbler.

Make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price. That's my recommendation for you.

Now, obviously, Luther wasn't opposed to missionaries or anything like that, but I think that there is a great bit of wisdom in this idea that people seem to have lost the concept of the fact that if you are a

Christian, you should be a missionary, even if that means your own backyard, your own community, your own neighborhood.

And in fact, it probably should be your neighborhood to begin with before you even consider entering into a foreign mission field.

Does that make sense to you? No, absolutely. I think more and more

God is bringing the horizon, I mean, the horizon of missions is a lot nearer than we tend to talk about, especially in,

I think, American Christian circles. But, you know, without derailing the conversation too much into current events,

I think the things that have happened over the past year for me and for many others, folks in our church and other

Christians that I talk to, it's really brought home the fact that we are living in the last days, and when

I say that, I don't mean that we have some type of knowledge of Christ returning next month, but we're living in the last days.

We just lost thousands of post -millennial listeners. I'm sorry,

I'm just kidding. That's all right, we welcome all millennial views, right? But, you know, it's also, it's brought that home to me, that this isn't just like some nebulous period when, you know, okay,

Christ is going to come sometime, no, no, we know we're living in between the time when Christ ascended, Jesus suffered, he died, he rose again, he ascended, and he said he's coming again, and the church's prayers come again soon,

Lord Jesus. And, you know, when people ask me about COVID and the virus and everything,

I try to say, well, biblically, Jesus said these things are going to continue to happen until the end comes and he returns, but it should shake us up, and I think for many people it has shaken them up to the fact that we're just kind of, we've been plodding along and thinking everything's okay, and things are not okay.

This is a very trying time, this is a very difficult time, the church and individual Christians' families have been under tremendous pressure, and, you know, in God's grace and in God's goodness, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, the church is going to be reanimated and reenergized with zeal to proclaim

Christ. And you don't have to go overseas, you don't have to go to a big city. We need people in cities, we need people overseas, but we need people everywhere, we need

Christians everywhere who are living faithfully and not ashamed. You know, I'm going to preach next

Sunday evening at Grace from Romans 1, verse 16 and 17, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

And we shouldn't be ashamed of the gospel, we shouldn't be ashamed of it in our own homes, with our wives and our children, we shouldn't be ashamed of it in our workplace, we shouldn't be ashamed of it on the ball field, wherever we are, this is our life.

You've been sealed, if you're a Christian, you've been sealed by the Holy Spirit, and you belong to Jesus Christ.

And you should be unashamed of telling people about him, and why they need to know him.

Yeah, it is quite tragic that many of us, and I'm including myself, there are moments when we should be opening our mouths and proclaiming the gospel, and it's too much of an inconvenience for us, and we just keep our mouths shut.

It could be almost anything, as little as not wanting to ruin a mood during dinner at a restaurant or something.

You don't want to embarrass yourself in front of the waitress or waiter, or even if it has nothing to do with embarrassing yourself, you don't want to have somebody who's actually serving you food get angry with you for any reason.

And there are people who risked and actually gave their lives, there are

Christians throughout history who have had the most gruesome of torturous deaths, even children who underwent this, in defense of the gospel.

Even over things today that the more ecumenically -minded

Christian would say, you're being ridiculous for wanting to divide over, and these are things that are actually a lot more crucial than these ecumenists may think they are.

One thing that actually saddens me is, having been a

Christian since the mid -eighties, how many people I agree with theologically on Reformed doctrine, and these people are members of Reformed and confessional churches, and yet they're ecumenists with Rome and so on.

It makes no sense to me. Yeah, I mean, I'm in favor of trying to make allies with people we can form relationships with and cooperate, but we need to stand firmly on our convictions and not blur the lines of what it means to be a

Christian and what the true gospel is. Amen.

And there was a Reformation for a reason, and obviously it is because Rome did not and does not have that gospel.

And they made that even more clear after the Reformation at the Council of Trent, which was a specific response to the

Reformation, where they anathematized or pronounced curses on those that would dare to believe in the key doctrines of the

Reformation. Not only us, but we were definitely the primary targets in mind by the

Council of Trent. We have to go to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us with a question, you can email it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. We'll be right back after these messages, so do not go away.

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And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor Jeremy Brandenburg of the

Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

And we are discussing a former Army officer discusses making your neighborhood the front line of missions.

And if you have questions, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. I normally don't give the full name of a listener when they send in a question, but this is a brother in Christ that I have interviewed on this program and has also been a co -host with me on this program and has a ministry you should all be aware of.

He's also providentially a member of Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church. His name is

Charlie Liebert, the founder of sixdaycreation .com. And by the way, six day creation, the six is spelled out,

S -I -X, it's not the number. sixdaycreation .com. He was actually co -hosting with me when

I interviewed Ken Ham, the world -renowned young earth creationist.

And Ken announced on the air that Charlie was the oldest living dinosaur.

And Charlie was a colleague of Ken's a number of years ago. But Charlie actually has two questions.

He says, what kind of research will you do to define opportunities to reach out to Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the gospel?

Well, hello, Charlie and Terry. I love you both.

I'm so fortunate to have you in our congregation. As you mentioned,

Chris, Charlie, there's many smaller providences than us coming to Redeemer.

And it was really through the ordination, if I could just talk for a minute about the six day creation.

I really appreciate Charlie's emphasis on that because it was really through seminary that I had to start.

Before seminary, you have general views, you have a Christian faith and a

Christian testimony, but going into the pastorate, you have to be very specific. And when you're examined, they ask you where do you come down, the creation issue.

And after investigating it and really thinking through it and praying through it and studying and reading and consulting with other pastors and professors,

I've come to hold the six day literal view. Some people would say, oh, you're just conforming to what the majority opinion is, and that's fine, but I think when

I explain it to people, for me as a pastor, I believe the

Bible. I believe it's true. I believe all of it is true and inspired. And through seminary,

I really came to understand and appreciate through solid teaching that the whole gospel is

Genesis to Revelation. And when you look at specifically the way the Apostle Paul talks about the first and second

Adam, the way that biblical writers handle the whole scope and sweep of revelation, biblical revelation,

God's self -revelation that is, it's all true. We can't pick and choose what we think is true and what's not based on our current cultural situation.

So I think this is actually a really important issue. Creation and science are always hot button issues, but I think the church is going to be pressed more and more to kind of clarify its position.

Do we believe the Bible? Do we believe, are we afraid of being labeled fundamentalists for having a six day view?

Because I believe that's what the Bible teaches. How do you explain it? Yeah, we all struggle to explain it.

I struggle to explain it to my children. Okay, dinosaurs, and how does that all fit in? But this is what God's word says, and at the end of the day, we should have full faith and assurance that this is true, and we can unashamedly teach this and hold to this, because this is what

God has revealed about how he made the world. So I really appreciate Charlie and his ministry. To answer the question about the research that I'll do, well,

Charlie, you'd be happy to know that I've already started to do research. Part of the research

I'm doing is just, you know, to use the technical terminology,

I guess, is to kind of look at the sociological outlines and the demographic outlines of the community.

I'm trying to wrap my mind around who lives in Carlisle, what are the different communities, their makeup, to begin to understand how to reach out to those groups.

You know, we're a small church, but we want to be a church that welcomes everyone. One of the communities

I've started to reach out to is the baseball community. I've been coaching Little League, and let me tell you,

Chris, I don't know if you've been around the Little League in this area or gone to any Little League games, but Little League is a big deal in central

Pennsylvania. You look at, you know, for example,

Williamsport is home of the Little League World Series, and just in the short time, I mean, since the first season, we just moved here, but people take

Little League very seriously around here, and I'm very happy to report that our team, the

Golden Dragons, won our first game last night, and we're getting towards the end of the season, so that was very helpful.

But, you know, I mentioned that in all seriousness to say that I think part of the research and the understanding of the community just comes with time and with getting to know people and understand what people hold to be important, what they value, how they spend their time.

I guess I'll have to learn a lot more about cars, because Carlisle, as you know, is home to car show after car show.

Yeah, and nine a year. Nine a year. Someone from my church actually just told me a story how they went to one of the more recent car shows, which it's interesting how the car show community is a little bit more resilient because I don't think they ever stopped having car shows.

You've got to maintain your car, and you've got to keep working on your classic car, I guess, but a dad and his son from my church said they walked around for three hours at a car show to find parts for his car that his son's building, and they found a gasoline cap.

There's got to be some type of sermon illustration in there. Well, it's actually refreshing to hear that your team, a little worried about the name the

Golden Dragons, but I'll just put that aside. I'm glad to hear that your team actually won its first game, but I actually would have been possibly equally happy to hear that the other team won.

The reason why I'm emphasizing the word won, W -O -N, is because not every

Little League, not every

Little League, I guess I should emphasize the word league, has been even announcing anyone a winner or even keeping score.

Right. This whole politically correct nonsense has crept into every sphere of life, even

Little League and the sporting events of children where they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and therefore don't keep score and that's not helpful for kids to be prepared for the world, is it?

No. The thing is, at the younger ages, it is kind of helpful to be focused on the skill building, but still, everybody knows, everybody's keeping track.

The parents are keeping track. The coaches are keeping track. The kids are keeping track. And there's something, even

I was thinking about it, always trying to go back to Scripture and Apostle Paul talks about winning.

He talks about competing in the race and competing to win, to get the prize. And I thought about trying to communicate that to the kid in terms of this, we are competing.

Whether you end up going to the high school, baseball, college, minor league, majors, whatever, it's a paradigm for life because we're all doing something.

We're all image bearers and we're all walking through life destined to one of two places.

And the Apostle Paul, I really love the way that, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the

Apostle Paul talks about it in such vivid language of fighting a good fight and running to win the prize because there is a prize and the prizes are all.

Even doing things like Little League, one of the things I said to the kids is, you know, it's Little League. It's baseball.

Don't take it too seriously. Have fun, but do it with everything you've got. So we're, believe me, we're coaching to win.

We want the kids to be encouraged, but we're teaching them to be, to try hard and to have fun, but to win.

Great. And of course, as much as I am in favor of competition not being erased from these things,

I am opposed to some of the idiots who are parents who scream profanities at little children during these games.

I don't know if you've experienced any of that. Yeah, thankfully we have. I've heard those stories, but thankfully we have, we've had some intense parent -child interactions, but thankfully nothing that bad.

So, you know, also when you tell people that you're a pastor, you know how it goes.

People tend to kind of brush up their language a little bit and be more self -conscious about the things that they say.

And Charlie has a second question. As a new pastor in a city you just moved to, how will you plan your evangelism approach to the community?

And by the way, Charlie, you are aware that Jeremy has been installed as your pastor.

This is not a part of the interview, I hope, that you're doing.

Anyway, as a new pastor, how do you plan to plan your evangelism?

Chris, I think, since Charlie's asking these questions, I think he's nominated himself to teach an evangelism class.

So I think that's going to be part of the plan. If I could just, if I could answer that question and come back really quickly to one thing about the research to be a little bit more serious, even though I do,

I love Little League and it is important to me and it is a real way to outreach and get to know people. But I'm also researching, so I subscribed to the

Sentinel local paper, a great way to get the news and views.

And one of the things I saw in the local paper, which, you know, piques my interest as a pastor and a

Reformed person, trying to look at the world and assess things. So I don't know if you've heard this, but Carlisle Borough, Carlisle's not a huge city by any means, maybe 20 ,000 to 30 ,000, it's growing, but Carlisle Borough has passed a resolution to initiate a

Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I don't know what they'll do.

It could be like a lot of things in government, a lot more talk than action, but I'm interested.

I'd like to go and sit down on some of the meetings, because as you know, the Bible says a lot about truth and reconciliation and I'm eager to, in an appropriate, in a loving, you know, we use the term winsome.

I think we should be winsome. I think we should also be bold and leave the consequences of things to God.

But I'd like to go to these meetings and share at the appropriate time what the Bible says about reconciliation, that God is concerned about reconciliation more than we could possibly imagine.

He's sent His only begotten Son to reconcile the world to Himself through His life, death, and resurrection.

So I want to move forward on all levels. Obviously, I'm one man. We're one church.

We have limited time, but all of this is important to me. So to get to the question that Charlie asked about evangelism, well, as Charlie's probably already noticed,

I'm kind of scattershot, a little bit scatterbrained. I kind of go at unequal pace and distance in life in general, and some of the things

I've been doing recently is just getting to know the people around the church, our neighbors in our church community.

We're getting to know our neighbors in our own community. That's part of our evangelism strategy.

And, you know, for my wife, God has blessed me with a wonderful, loving, and amazing wife.

I tell people God's greatest gift to me, apart from His Son, is my beautiful wife, Courtney, with a

K, and our four children, and, you know, we're doing this together.

Courtney is... My effectiveness in life is the fruit of having a wife who is loving and gracious, and so part of what we're doing together as a couple is to, you know, seek to invite people into our homes and make our home, little by little, a place where we're having hospitality and inviting people in and opening up our lives and, you know, trying to love people in both deed and in truth, as the scriptures say.

And that's because we think that's part of what the gospel is. We both have read this book by a woman that I think has actually endorsed your program, even

Rosaria Butterfield. Oh, yeah, she's been on the program several times. Yeah, I never met

Rosaria, but really appreciate her and her husband. Gospel comes with a house key, is that...

The gospel comes with a house key. Someone, a professor in seminary, described her book as hospitality for Navy Field.

In fact, pick up right where you left off there, because we have to go to our midway break right now. Okay. And please be patient, folks, because the midway break is always a little longer than the other breaks in the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, is required to take a longer break in the middle of the show because the

FCC requires them to localize all of their programming, including

Iron Trip and Zion, geographically to Lake City, Florida, and they do so by airing their own public service announcements and other local things that achieve that goal of localizing the show.

And while they do that, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information as you can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to them.

And that either means patronizing them by purchasing their products, using their services, visiting their churches, or supporting their parachurch organizations.

But when you can't do that, or any of those, please at least respond to our advertisers and thank them for sponsoring the show.

If, indeed, you do love the show and do appreciate the fact that they are keeping us on the air, remember we are absolutely and positively in need of our advertisers to exist because the finances that come through these advertisements is absolutely essential for our existence.

So please respond to our advertisers and make sure you will do that by writing down as much of the information that you can that they provide.

And also send in questions to Pastor Jeremy Brandenburg on making your neighborhood the front line of missions.

And that's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

My friend Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

G3 Conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme,

Christ is Supreme Over All. I'll be joined by over 20 other speakers and musicians to lead in the worship of God through preaching, teaching and singing including

John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Conrad M. Bayway, Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker.

For details, visit g3conference .com That's g3conference .com

Chris Arnson and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is

James White reminding you that Christ is Supreme Over All. Here's what

Gary DeMar, president of American Vision had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

Good to be back. Chris, I always enjoy our time here. I have to tell you, you're one of the better interviewers out there and I've been doing this for 30...

more than 30 years. Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air so I don't have to brag about myself.

Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio airing live Monday through Friday 4 to 6 p .m.

Eastern Time at ironsharpensironradio .com Hi, this is

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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

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

NASB. I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the

First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York. And the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia. And the NASB is my

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And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in South Lake, Texas.

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

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

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Anchored in Truth Ministries is the mission arm of Grace Life Church of the Shoals. Based in alabasheries in over 13 countries around the world.

Anchored in Truth is in partnership with 36 church plants, as well as radio stations, theological seminaries, and various programs for unreached people groups.

With an aim to glorify God and reach the nations with the gospel. It is a blessing to see how

God has used Anchored in Truth in so many different contexts globally, as well as locally.

To find out more about this vital work worldwide, visit anchoredintruth .org.

As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

God -centered focus. Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hello, my name is

Anthony Avino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corum, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. This is

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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CVBBS has been a family -owned book service since 1987, operating out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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The Wokeness in the Gospel conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, June 11th and 12th.

Register now by going online to wokenessandgospel .org, featuring speakers such as Dr.

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Only Jesus Christ makes the world right. Daryl Harrison of the Just Thinking Podcast. Sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God and consequently to one another.

Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. Like Satan in the Garden, rote hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the

Word of God. I don't say that loudly. Also hear from Tommy Nelson, Charles Stolfus, and Rodney Brown.

Confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today, threatening even to divide the church, and answering with the

Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Wokeness in the Gospel conference coming to Denton Bible Church, June 11th and 12th.

Register online at wokenessandgospel .org. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

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and always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio before I return to our guest today

Jeremy Brandenburg and our discussion on a former Army officer discusses making your neighborhood the front line of missions we just have some important announcements to make you've been hearing the

G3 conference ads the G3 conference is one of my very favorite events if not my very favorite of all events that I've been attending annually this will be my fourth year in a row manning an exhibitors booth for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Atlanta, Georgia at this conference but you've been hearing these ads and they have been mentioning some of them that Vody Baucom is scheduled to be on the roster well, as some of you know and some of you don't know

Vody, since originally being placed on the roster of this conference he has since suffered from a serious health setback and he required quadruple bypass surgery and he definitely is recovering and there seems to be very positive signs of him regaining health and strength but he is still not out of the woods and therefore there is a question mark next to his name as to whether he will be able to speak at the

G3 conference so please pray for the full recovery of Vody Baucom not only so he can be on the roster at the

G3 conference but infinitely more importantly so that his wife and many children will continue to be blessed by his presence for many years to come and the body of Christ will continue to be blessed by his presence for many years to come as well if anybody wants to join me at the

G3 conference, go to g3conference .com g3conference .com for the details it will be held in Atlanta, Georgia from September 30th through October 2nd also folks if you love this show please go to ironsharpensironradio .com

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click support then click, click to donate now and purchase frequently and generously and I thank all of you who have been doing that all the way back since 2005 when we first launched and also our very new recent donors who have been giving for the first time,

I thank God for all of you more than I can possibly describe in the English language and I am so grateful to you and grateful to God for you you have enabled us to remain on the air and I cannot exaggerate how blessed

I am to know that so many of you truly value this show also folks if you are not a member of a local bible believing church a biblically faithful, theologically sound church, no matter where on the planet earth you live,

I have lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe and I have helped many people in our audience not only in all 50 states of the

United States but even all over the world I have helped people find churches, sometimes within a few minutes of their own homes that they didn't even know existed or that they didn't know were theologically sound they may have been passing these buildings every day and not even realizing that the churches were theologically faithful, so if you are in that category of being in need of a church no matter where you live, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com but I need a church in the subject line that's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jeremy Brandenburg, pastor of Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Coral Isle, Pennsylvania as we continue to discuss, a former army officer discusses making your neighborhood the front line of missions, before our midway break, you were beginning to mention a tool you are using, and that happens to be a book by my dear friend,

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield the gospel comes with a house key and if you want to pick up where you left off, and then

I'll have I'll read to you a listener question that actually involves something that Charlie asked you about before the break.

Okay yeah, no, my wife and I were both deeply impacted by Rosaria's book, and by her testimony and, you know, basically what she's describing is making your home a place of welcoming people, feeding people fellowshipping, and worshipping

God together, nothing of what she, I think, you know, her personal intensity level is certainly something that most of us are not going to replicate she's a very high functioning person but she was a university professor of English but don't stop there,

I mean she was a lesbian, and she was a Marxist, a leftist and I'm not saying anything that she wouldn't say in her description of herself in her former life before Christ obviously sorry, go ahead no, no, you go ahead and she relates in a couple of her books about how important community was in being part of the gay community and how people, relationships and having a place to go, a refuge a sanctuary, how important and vital that was, and so that's something in God's grace that has been transformed and she's writing in this book about these different experiences, and I think for me reading that, and I think for my wife,

Courtney we're kind of in a good way jealous or envious of those experiences because the grace that God gave

Rosario Butterfield is the grace that he gives to each one of us in Christ, and we all have a place where we live we've been blessed to be able to buy a home here praise

God for that, and if you're a Christian your home is a blessing to you personally, it's a blessing to your family, it's a place to be enjoyed, it's a place to be stewarded properly, but your home is a place to open and share the welcome of Christ, as is the church, but if you look at, it's very interesting in Scripture, Chris when you look at the qualification no matter what your ecclesiology, what your polity, how you approach how the church runs, where you go we all have the same

Bible, right? And one of the qualifications for overseers elders, deacons, is hospitality and so it's actually, biblically, it's a requirement that officers in the church, ministers and elders are opening their homes, are being generous with their time and their resources and, you know, it's something that people want to see, they want to see, okay

I come to your church for an hour and a half the service might be great, that's wonderful but, you know, what else?

As I've been kind of discipled and catechized into the Reformed faith I've gained a higher and higher view of the

Lord's day because I think it's biblical and I've been persuaded of that both through teaching and through experiencing hospitality from other believers in the church and, you know it really matters when you know that you have a place to go to worship

God and then you have a family of God a group of Christians who love you and welcome you into their home and share their life with you it's more than just a place to, you know, go and spend an hour and a half on Sunday, it is the family of God and that's what the church is biblically, it's the household of God it's a group of people who have been united first by the

Holy Spirit in faith to Jesus Christ and united to one another to live together in a particular place, you know,

I can't there's all those amazing pastors who have endorsed your program who have great teaching ministries and many people from my church listen to them

I can't be like those guys but I can be the guy here in Carlisle to come to your home and pray with you or to have you into my home and share a meal and to talk and get to know one another and to watch one another and see how

God is working in our lives, you know, it's so important that we as Christians we hear the gospel, we believe the gospel we need to be with each other, to walk with each other and to see how how

God is working by the power of the Spirit in each one of our lives and to see over time how we're bearing through and how we're persevering and how, especially recently through really difficult times

I think everyone every professing Christian would say that their church community became so much more they realized they were taking church for granted and through what's happened this past year and, you know, being away from church and being separated we really have been given in God's grace a renewed appreciation for fellowship and spending time with one another

You reminded me when you were saying that you'll never be like some of the famous ministry leaders that have endorsed this show you reminded me of when

I was a young man in my twenties seeking for truth and before I became truly born again before I visited

Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville which was a Reformed Baptist Church, it no longer exists by that name, it merged with First Baptist Church of Merrick, New York and became

Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, but before I had providentially visited

Calvary Baptist where I eventually got saved I was visiting a little

Pentecostal church in Lindenhurst, Long Island and the pastor there,

I'm not really sure where he truly stands with the Lord, but he was a bit of a colorful character to put it mildly, but he said something that still echoes in my mind today because there is truth behind it and he said this,

I think he might have even been standing on the front pew and yelling this but he was upset to learn that there were a number of people in the church that were giving a great deal of their finances to the famous television evangelists and other ministries and kind of cutting their own church out of the loop and I can remember him yelling

Jimmy Swagger is not going to be holding your hand in the hospital when you're sick and Pat Robertson is not going to be weeping with you at the grave side of your loved ones, we're doing that as your pastors and as comical as the event may have been with him screaming this on a pew there was truth behind that and that's actually one of the reasons that I make my caveat in regards to donating to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, I don't want to punish the church but God has placed you in Carlisle by his sovereignty and he intends to use you there for as long as he wants to use you there and as far as the people who are in that flock, you are their under shepherd and nobody outside of that congregation is more important to them than you only

God himself of course we have a listener in Perry County Pennsylvania named

Arnie and Arnie wanted some clarifications on Charlie's question and he says

I'm sure that Charlie nor you did not mean by the planning on how to evangelize your local area in the same way that those who are trapped in seeker sensitive ideology mean it there are churches that have gone and done research about the things that appeal to the local community and other things that may be very key to a description of the local community and they cater to those things by changing the gospel message to make it more appealing and changing the way and manner with which they worship so that they will be a more inviting place for the lost in that area

I am sure being an Orthodox Presbyterian that you do not view those plans that way but if you could just clarify yeah sure appreciate the question if we're changing anything

Lord willing we're changing we talk about the norming norm the Bible is the norm that norms all other norms when we say we're reformed we're trying to reform back to the scriptures so if we're changing as a church we're trying to bring ourselves more into line with what the

Bible says about the church and it's worship and her witness as far as seeker sensitive I don't think if you came to our church you know some people always have their quibbles they don't like this or they don't like that our church we try to have capture if you ask folks from our church they love the liturgy and I love the liturgy and it was really an indication of the kind of the match the

Lord's hand in bringing me here because we're a church that has the Lord's supper weekly believe it's biblical we have the singing of psalms and of hymns we have the great trinity psalter hymnal that our denomination recently did with URC that I'm trying to gently encourage

Pastor John Miller and O'Manny to look at because it really is a tremendous worship resource

I'm sure you do know that we do have psalters as well as hymnals that's a great clarification you guys have your psalters but you're also using the old trinity blue hymnal so if it's seeker sensitive to have the trinity psalter hymnal then

I guess we stand convicted but we don't we are churches committed to reformed liturgy according to the scriptures we say and recite the creeds of the faith the

Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed and we have expository preaching, praying in the power of the spirit for God's glory and the needs of the saints so if anything is seeker sensitive

Chris we have some amazing ladies who have restarted our hospitality ministry at the church and we have coffee and some delicious things to eat after the service but I don't think anyone would turn those down yes and I think that the question was very legitimate because as you probably know those things do happen quite regularly in fact

I can even remember a friend of mine who is not reformed visiting the church where I was a member on Long Island and he was so dismayed because I can't believe you people are singing the old hymns how boring and how devoid of a worshipful spirit those old dusty antiquated hymns are you're not going to draw people into the church with that stuff and I said well we're going to draw people into the church that truly love and want to adore

God who aren't looking for entertainment and there is that mindset of just wanting to see numbers grow but people are very often or churches

I should say are very often filling their seats with goats and you have these people who have been accepted into fellowship and even membership who are not even regenerate because there is a saying

I don't know if my friend Dr. James R. White coined the phrase but I know that he has repeated it often that which you that which you draw people with is what you draw them to and you're not going to be doing anybody a favor by catering to the appetites of a lost individual am

I making sense here? No absolutely and I think the church needs to become I think what's encouraging to me is to see that even in the broader reformed world there is a greater appreciation for singing the psalms for historic orthodox

Christian worship and by orthodox I mean small o just looking at the way the church has worshipped throughout history and having an appreciation for the fact that Christianity wasn't invented in the year 1995 the

Christian church has been doing this worshipping the risen lord for 2000 years and we should be very humble as we approach how we worship but the church should also be confident that when someone comes into the church a new person it's okay that they're a little uncomfortable because first of all if they're not a believer then they're going to be made very uncomfortable hearing about the weight of their sin and the fact that apart from Christ they're going to spend an eternity in torment and separation from the lord and under his wrath and curse that's a really sobering and serious thing and you're going to hear that if you come to our church and you need to hear that if you go to any

Christian church so secret sensitive or not if you're talking about that I definitely appreciate the question though because to bring in to reference our current cultural moment

I was very discouraged to hear a very well known pastor say recently

I read this in a Christian blog online Christian news site this pastor was saying we do five things at the church worship is just one of those we do all these other things we feed the poor and we disciple and I just thought as I look at the scriptures

Chris, worship is the primary and the ultimate thing it's the goal, it's what we're going to be doing for all of eternity in heaven and so we take worship very seriously and it's what we should be doing not just on Sunday but also in our homes individually as families wherever we find ourselves as believers if you're a college student you should be gathering with other

Christians in your dorm, in your college housing, if you're in the military we have people in our church serving in the military if you're in the military you should be gathering with other believers and seeking to find fellowship and worship

God together you want to see the kingdom of God expand get a group of Christians together read scripture and sing and the devil is going to be running scared

Amen and I'm sure you would agree again I'm here quoting my friend

James White but he is one of my most brilliant friends but he has said how disappointed he has been when he is a guest speaker somewhere and after the the music has stopped, a music leader or a pastor will ascend into the pulpit a lot of times and say now that our worship portion of the day has concluded it's time to hear our guest speaker preach and James is always upset by that because the church obviously approaching things that way doesn't realize that the preaching of the gospel is probably the most important element of worship it doesn't cease to be worship when the preacher starts to preach

No, because you're supposed to be listening you're supposed to be doing something that's why we pray before the sermon because we should have our ears we need

God to turn our ears on and open our hearts it's actually one of the things that we talked a lot about in seminary what is happening during the service it's actually something that's a depiction of the gospel because during the sermon you're sitting there but you're listening essentially you are passive but something is happening, you are hearing and receiving the truth the whole counsel of God the whole gospel of what

God has done in the person of his son and yeah, it speaks to in a larger way how in the gospel we were dead in our trespasses and sins as we read in Ephesians and how it was

God who comes to each one of us by his word and spirit and makes us alive together with Christ so even sitting there you say, oh, we're just to say that this is not part of our worship no, it is because you're giving glory to God because of your salvation you come with your sin and your weakness and your inability and God comes with all the fullness of his love and power and grace in Jesus Christ our

Lord and by the way, as far as our hymnal, if you can convince

Great Commission Publications to adopt a Baptist version of the hymnal with the psalms then perhaps we'll consider well, we've got the we've united with the

Reformed Church, the Dutch coming out of the Dutch tradition, so hey, why not just in the next edition add a

Baptist version right, and while you're at it if you're going to be trying to convince

Pastor John of something, have Grace Baptist switch to the New American Standard Bible since they do sponsor my program oh, okay,

I'll work on that one too we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania who asks as far as approaching your community as a mission field, don't you think we must always remember that it is not only a mission field, but it is a battlefield as well because we are facing unseen powers, powers of darkness when we are bringing the gospel to the world.

I am not saying that we should be just filled with harsh polemic to those that are lost around us, as some fundamentalists might do but at the same time those that have a completely mission -minded understanding of a mission field without recognizing it's a battle, may be overly soft in their approach to bringing the gospel and never mention things like sin, repentance and hell.

Don't you think these two things must be wedded together and being a man of military experience,

I wonder if anything in your mindset would be a part of that approach

Right, well thank you for the question Susan, not very far away over there in Dauphin County, beautiful part of this state that I'm coming to find out.

When I say mission field, I'm thinking, yes, in terms of how the church has understood the work of missions, but when

I hear the word mission, I am, unfortunately as a former infantry officer, it's always in my mind the context and the meaning that it has in the military, where a mission is, you get a mission, you better accomplish it.

That's your sole focus. We have a mission, we have a commission from the King of Kings, and Susan's exactly right, we are in a battlefield.

That's all I referenced earlier about the athletic references that we see in Paul's epistles, but there's also references to the warfare, the battle that we're engaged in as believers, and we know that, very importantly, we distinguish we're in a spiritual battle.

I mentioned going to the borough council meetings. That's a battlefield. There's a truth being put forward there, there's a set of beliefs being espoused, and we know that first of all, these are people made in God's image, men and women, and regardless of how much we disagree with them, we still relate to them and speak to them in a way that is glorifying to God.

One of the things that's been quoted, cited to me a lot over the past year in different conversations with believers about approaches to how the church responds during a time of pandemic, and what we should do, how we should operate.

People have cited Romans 13, and I believe Romans 13, just like everyone else, we should submit to the government.

The Christians, the Christian community in Carlisle, for example, we should be the best citizens. We should pay our taxes, we should be kind to one another, we should be polite, but we should also speak the truth, because that's what we're here for.

If you live, wherever you live, if you live here in Carlisle, if you live in Dauphin, God has placed you there as a witness to his son

Jesus Christ, and as one who should be a bright and shining lamp, salt and light in the world.

And so, to get real specific, yes, we absolutely should tell people about sin and hell.

I think it's something... You know, Chris, I have a really good friend who lives in Northern Ireland, who

I went to seminary with, and we were kind of reflecting the last few months, since both of us have started into ministry, about our seminary experience, and there's many, many, many things we appreciate.

I commend seminary to anyone who is seeking the ministry, especially where I went, I feel equipped,

I feel like I have the resources to study for a lifetime, but sadly, we both kind of recognize that we had never had a class on hell.

We had never had, I had never had even a single lecture, maybe I missed it, we had two children in seminary, I might have been absent, so, you know, don't...

don't hold it against them, but I never had a single lecture about the doctrine of hell.

Wow. That's disturbing. It is, and I mean, our denomination takes it very seriously, we had a pastor deposed for his beliefs about hell, his doctrine, someone talked about the doctrine of annihilationism, we don't need to get into all that, but all that to say, to answer

Susan's question, we need to... if what we believe is true, and it is,

Jesus Christ was risen from the dead, and people do have, people already have a relationship with Jesus Christ, because they either have come to believe, and to trust in him, and have been born again, or, they have rejected him, and they're opposed to him, and they're under Satan's dominion and power, and that's a real thing.

You go into someone's life, and yes, the effects of sin appear differently in different people's lives.

You know, you can see the people walking around the street who are addicted to drugs, and out of their mind, and you say, oh, like the man in chains in the book of Mark.

Clearly that person is... does not belong to Jesus Christ. But there are people, Chris, in houses with manicured lawns, with children who look perfect, who are destined for eternal punishment, because they do not know the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so, absolutely what Susan said is, we all need to keep that.

It's a hard thing. It's a hard thing to wake up in the morning, and you can't take the weight of that on yourself, okay, because you're not responsible for where someone ends up ultimately, but you are responsible for living faithfully, and for telling your neighbors.

You know, I've had a lot of people tell me, we need to love our neighbor. We need to do X, Y, and Z at this time. Let's love our neighbor.

And I've said, have you gone to your neighbor's home and said, let me tell you about what

I believe about God and about death. Let me tell you that I believe that God became a man, that he suffered and died because of your sin, my sin, and your sin, and he rose again, so we don't have to be afraid today or tomorrow.

We can have hope that passes through death into the new heavens and the new earth. Yes, we need to be bold.

We need to go, and we need to and if you do that, to get back to, again, last thing to say to Susan's question, if you do that, if you go, if you even tell your one coworker, if you even try to witness to the waitress at the server at the restaurant,

Satan is going to come at you with a ferocity you have not felt. And you will be reminded very quickly that you're on a battlefield, but guess what?

We are heralds of the conquering king, and we do not need to be afraid, and we do not need to shrink back.

We need to be bold. We have, in fact,

I'm going to read this question, and then I'll have you answer it when we come back from our final break.

We have a question from Christopher in western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, and Christopher says,

How do you balance speaking the truth about sin and calling people to repentance and also showing them the love of Christ?

There was obviously something about Christ that drew sinners to want to share company with him.

Are we always supposed to be hammering on people with their sin? At the same time, how can we be truthful to them without bringing it up?

And I'm thinking specifically about, for instance, if you have a waiter or waitress in a restaurant who is overtly homosexual in their mannerisms or transgendered, do we have to bring that up while they are serving our food to us, or can we just say something about the love of Christ and try to develop relationships with them where those truths will come up eventually?

And we will definitely have you respond to that, Pastor Jeremy, after our final break.

This has been a lot more brief than the other breaks, so please, folks, if you intend to send in a question as well, send it in quickly because we are rapidly running out of time.

Again, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. We'll be right back, so don't go away.

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ORG. Welcome back and Pastor Jeremy, Christopher in western

Suffolk County, Long Island, New York was basically asking about the correct balance to strike when we are communicating with the lost, and you know, there are those that have a tendency to just want to hit people with their sin like they're hitting them over the head with a hammer and they come off as self -righteous.

They come off as if they themselves did not need to be delivered from their own sin.

And then you have those who have a mushy -gushy approach to Christianity who never ever mention sin and just want to build up people and make them feel good about themselves and let them have more of a salved conscience to continue in life without ever feeling a need to repent.

And obviously both ways, both of those extremes, I'm sure you would agree, are the easy way out.

Some of the fundamentalists listening, if there are any, might take objection to that thinking, how is it easy to preach against sin?

Well, it's easy if it involves no risk and investment of you to get involved with people's lives and show them that you care about them and love them.

And then at the same time, the other extreme is also there's no risk involved because you're not offending anybody.

But if you could, I think it's a very good question and one that has practical issues involved in our day -to -day evangelism.

Yeah, I think it is important to have the balance or to be self -aware when you're evangelizing and when you're anytime you're talking to an unbeliever,

I think the more we what did the Apostle Paul say? He said, it is

Him we proclaim, not ourselves, Him being the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the more we can point people away from ourselves to the

Lord Jesus, I think even in the question Christopher was referencing how Jesus was attractive. He wasn't attractive to everybody, we need to remember that, going through the

Gospel of Mark right now. Yeah, the religious people especially didn't find him attractive. The religious elite who were challenged by his authority and his appearing did not like him.

But it says, I preached on the passage where Jesus called Levi and he's eating with the tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus responds to them and says, I came not to call the righteous but sinners.

Even the Lord Jesus did not, He didn't fail to say, yeah, they're sinners. And you know what, they know they're sinners.

They know when you're talking to, you know, apart from the most ardent militant, you know, and even those folks are, have all their own baggage and all their own complexities and the things that have happened to them in their life, but when you're talking to the average unbeliever, there's misery in their life and people are just more and less willing to talk to you about it and to let you in on the darkness that they wrestle with.

And you know, specifically for the homosexual it is important to say that homosexuality is sin because that's what the

Bible says, but you know, I've been going through the Ten Commandments recently and I just preached on the

Ninth Commandment about do not bear false witness and I try to be very clear about the fact that gossip is a huge sin.

And Christians should be just as ashamed about gossip as they should about a whole other spectrum of sins and it's important to,

I think this is why, you know, I think big conferences are really important and I'm glad we have them and I hope to go to them throughout my time as a pastor, but I also think it's important for Christians to just be ordinarily faithful in their everyday life and to not be afraid to tell their neighbor that I'm a

Christian and that I believe in the Lord Jesus and I want you to also, and then to just live your life in front of them and let them get to know you and see you.

You talk about the example of the person in the restaurant. If you have these short, brief encounters, yeah, that's not a lot of time, but we are called in all of our conversations to let them be seasoned with salt and, you know, if you're mentioning

Christ in a spirit of humility and love, you're always blessing the person that you're speaking to, whether they respond positively or not.

Because you're sharing the name of the one whose name means salvation. Yeah, there's also a difference between someone that you know if, like, you're a new pastor in town.

You know that there are people that work and live in this community that you can eventually get to know by revisiting these places of work, like restaurants.

And just like the pastor that invited Rosaria Butterfield over his home to share dinner with him and his wife, that was a relationship that was built.

This man did not just constantly bring up her sin and hit her over the head with a hammer like we were just mentioning.

And also, there's a difference between that and let's say you are on the side of a street and you see a gay pride event where people are blaspheming

God. You're never going to see that person again or those people. There's a different practical approach that might be taken, or even on a seat on a bus or a train or a plane.

So, obviously a very complicated issue when it comes to the practical approach that we don't have time for.

But in fact, I think we should have you back on so that we can further explore this topic. I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information.

It's redeemeropc .org redeemeropc .org I want to thank you so much for being such an excellent guest.

I want to thank all of our listeners today, especially those who took the time to write. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. Thanks a lot, Chris.