March 10, 2020 Show with Joe Jacowitz on “An Amazing Update on Joe Jacowitz’s Bout with Terminal Cancer”

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 10th day of March 2020, and I am so thrilled to have back on the program a dear friend of mine,

Pastor Joe Jackowitz of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California, and founder of First Love Radio, First Love Missions, and First Love Publications.

And perhaps many of you will remember that we had Pastor Joe on the program a number of months ago when he gave us some very frightening news about his own health.

He had been diagnosed with a very serious and deadly form of leukemia.

In fact, he was given a rather frightening prognosis of having a 40 to 60 percent chance of survival.

And we are thrilled to have an amazing update on Pastor Joe Jackowitz's bout with terminal cancer today.

In fact, I was the very first one who had the privilege of receiving a phone call from Pastor Joe when he left his doctor's appointment where he was given this amazing update that we are going to reveal to you momentarily.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Joe Jackowitz. Pastor Joe, are you there?

Yes, I am. Great to be with you, Chris. Yeah, you scared me there for a minute. Well, before we go into your health situation, why don't you let our listeners know about Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California and all of the ministries affiliated with First Love.

Okay. Christ Bible Church is a Reformed Baptist church in Pleasanton, California, about 40 miles east of San Francisco.

And we've been a church for about 30 years. We have several ministries,

First Love Radio. Many of you are listening to Chris's program on First Love Radio on the internet, live streaming.

And we have First Love Missions, which is a missions organization under the authority and auspices of Christ Bible Church.

And we have about 50 missionaries and helpers, and we minister in about five or six countries.

We have branches in different parts of the world of our missions work. We go overseas a few times a year and hold pastors conferences,

Bible conferences, seminars. We've given away about 300 ,000 books at these conferences since 1994.

And our third ministry is related to literature called

First Love Publications. And all of our ministries, including the books we give away, the booklets and the tracts through First Love Publications have been distributed free of charge for the entire time we've been in ministry.

And you can go find out a lot more about our ministries at firstlovepublications .org.

And at, let's see, firstloveradio .org.

And missionsfirstlove .org. And christbiblechurch .org.

And that's the very short version of our ministry. Well, by the way, hopefully you'll remember to repeat that information later on as well.

Sure. Speaking of sickness, since we're talking about cancer, I just thought

I'd mention very quickly that the coronavirus is on the minds of so many people and we're watching it spread throughout the world.

And I thought I would address it this Lord's Day from the pulpit in a sermon concerning what does the

Bible say about the coronavirus and how should Christians respond to it. And people can listen or view that sermon online at live streaming on our church website christbiblechurch .org.

That's audio streaming at christbiblechurch .org. There's also a Facebook link on the homepage at christbiblechurch .org

and they can view the video of that about 145 or so.

The video part of it starts. So that's at christbiblechurch .org this Sunday at 1 p .m.

Pacific time. That's Sunday at 1 p .m. Pacific time. Great. And that would be 4 o 'clock p .m.

Eastern Standard Time. Actually, Eastern Daylight Time, I believe it is now. Yes. And since we are still on the theme of sickness,

I just want to, before I forget, ask a prayer request of our listeners and, of course, of you as well,

Pastor Joe. My oldest brother, John, who is in his 70s, he lives in Texas and he is battling a critical stage emphysema.

He was rushed to the hospital a week ago today, actually, because he could not breathe.

And it turns out that on top of his critical stage emphysema, he has an aortic aneurysm.

And that's a very deadly situation. This could burst at any moment and very likely kill him instantly.

So I appreciate your prayer for him physically, but also spiritually. My brother,

John, is not a believer. And I just thank God that after years of trying, he finally met about a week ago in the hospital.

My dear friend, Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas. A Reformed Baptist congregation only about 10 minutes away from where my brother lives.

My brother has been very resistant to meet with Pastor Mac, and he couldn't even explain to me why.

It was obviously a spiritual battle going on. And so I just had

Mac visit my brother without announcing his coming.

And my brother was thankfully very pleased by the visit. He wasn't upset that I did that.

He said, Mac is a wonderful man, and he's looking forward to follow -up visits, hopefully, that will actually occur.

But please keep all of that in prayer for me, if you will. And so let's go back to the original situation regarding your health,

Pastor Joe. Let our listeners know exactly why it is that you had an examination that brought to light your condition of having a very serious form of leukemia to begin with.

And how long ago was that specifically? Well, that was in July of last year, of 2019.

My wife and I were in New York State on vacation, and I wasn't feeling good.

I was fatigued. I had flu -like symptoms, was sleepy, and that wasn't like me.

I fell asleep on my mother -in -law's couch, which, for the first time. And so something was up, and as soon as I returned home to California, I received a call from my doctor saying, you're overdue on your lab work, your blood tests.

So I went in, took the blood tests, and this was early, mid -August of 2019.

So that was about, I don't know, seven, eight months ago. I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Leukemia, there are many forms of it, is cancer of the bone marrow, cancer of the blood.

It's the liquid form of cancer, and then there's the solid form of cancer. But my version of leukemia is a very aggressive form, so I needed to follow up with that right away with my doctor for treatment.

And so I have the Veterans Administration for my medical care, and in the

San Francisco Bay area, the VA hospital in Palo Alto is where I received my treatment.

Well, they, in the providence of God, work very closely with Stanford University.

As a matter of fact, they're on the same campus area as Stanford University Medical Center, and the

VA referred me on the CHOICE program to Stanford, their hematology department, their department that deals with blood sicknesses and illnesses, including leukemia.

And I received one of the top doctors at Stanford, which is one of the top medical hospitals in the nation.

And so I started chemotherapy right away. Fortunately, they caught it, even though it's an aggressive form of cancer, at an early stage.

And so I had chemotherapy for five months.

I had four major sessions. The first session, I was in the hospital for 21 days, receiving the chemo virtually around the clock, and then

I had a break for about three weeks, and then I went back in for a week, and then two other sessions, which they call consolidation treatment.

The first treatment was very extensive. They just saturate bomb your system with chemotherapy, and they give you these drugs.

I had three different forms of chemotherapy given to me, and my doctor described it as having smart bombs drop into your cells.

This treatment, this chemo, is like a bomb that drops into your cells, and it penetrates in the very center of your cancer cells and lights up inside your cells so that this other chemotherapy that they give you can come in and destroy it.

Unfortunately, many good cells, many of your good cells, your blood cells, are destroyed along with the cancer cells.

And so there were many symptoms, side effects, such as extreme nausea, extreme fatigue, constipation, rashes, sores in your mouth, skin rashes over the whole body, all your hair falls out, and you just feel sick all the time.

You lose your sense of taste and smell, and it affects everything, your taste buds, your eyesight, and so it was a very rigorous and life -challenging and painful time.

Your immune system is reduced to nothing, so you're very susceptible to disease, so they basically have to isolate you.

Yeah, in fact, these treatments, chemotherapy in particular, they can be just as deadly as the disease itself, can they not?

Yes, yes it can, because the chemotherapy breaks your system down so that your immune system is susceptible to blood infections.

So I had contracted two life -threatening blood infections that by themselves could have killed me, like the

E. coli virus and a strep blood infection. Those two I had, which were very devastating.

Many people who have cancer and their immune system weakens significantly pick up blood infections in the hospital and end up dying from the blood infections and not the cancer.

And so I got two of those infections, and they had to give me the most powerful antibiotics they had for a period of two weeks, and that added to the weakening of your body because you can feel these antibiotics just weakening you and working in your brain, causing, along with the chemotherapy, they give you this fog and you can't think and you can't read and you just lay there blasé, they call it chemo brain.

In fact, I couldn't do a follow -up interview after our initial interview when you gave the frightening announcement about your condition.

You didn't sound frightened, I'm sure that you did battle that as well in your private life, but you were responding, at least publicly, with a very strong faith and admirable courage, in my opinion.

But after that initial interview where you were announcing your condition, we were going to do some follow -up interviews and we were unable to because of your just totally being robbed of energy from the chemotherapy.

Well, that's true. But I knew that God had taught me in years past that whenever we get weak, watch out because he's getting ready to do things.

He's getting ready to teach you lessons. He's getting ready to use you. So when I was completely emptied of all strength, laying in bed just praying

God have mercy on me, God have mercy on me, heal me, save my life, this was the third life -threatening disease that I had in four years.

Back in 2015 and 2016, two successive years,

I had a pulmonary embolism, which are blood clots in the lungs.

My lungs filled up with blood clots and I almost died twice. The doctor said I was a walking miracle to have survived them.

Thirty percent of people who have them die without an opportunity to get help.

And so God's grace was such that I survived those two.

And then we came down with the leukemia last August. And so many, many people were praying, many churches, so many friends,

Christian friends and people were praying for me all over the world once they found out. And after five months of aggressive treatments to deal with this aggressive form of leukemia, my doctor said that the biopsy, which is the test deep, deep down in your cells and in your bone marrow to see if the leukemia had progressed or had been cleared, he revealed that there was no cancer in my body.

There is no leukemia in my blood, none in my bones and none in my bone marrow.

And that was three months ago. December 4th was the last day of my last chemo treatment.

And a few weeks later, I was declared cancer free and in complete remission.

And so God had healed me. God had answered the prayers of his people. And in great mercy, this is the third month now

I have been declared cancer free. I'm in full remission. I go in once a month to get lab work done, to get blood tests and to meet with my doctor just to monitor and make sure that the cancer stays gone.

And so this is three months now that we've gone in once a month and there's no cancer.

It's not to say that it won't come back, because in the first three years after remission is initially declared by the doctor, some people have the leukemia return.

But in my case, of course, I'm in the hands of God moment by moment.

It's only God's grace alone that has brought me safe thus far. But so far, so good.

I'm trusting him for continued mercy. I feel great. My energy has come back.

My hair has grown back. And the symptoms are gone. And in the case of others who have leukemia, the chemotherapy that I received does not work for them.

So there are other options. They have to take the healing and treatment process to the next level, like bone marrow surgery, where they would find a suitable donor that would donate his or her bone marrow, such as a close relative.

And they would go in and have surgery to replace the bone marrow of the patient, which is filled with cancer cells and crowding out the good cells and suffocating them and their life.

And they would replace that cancerous marrow with the good marrow of their donor.

And so that that's probably the last option people have stem cell surgery or a bone marrow replacement surgery.

Well, I didn't I didn't need that because God used the chemotherapy to heal me.

Amen. And it's good to hear something positive about chemotherapy, because I have heard, unfortunately, many stories of folks who have passed because of the chemotherapy itself, which sometimes results in pneumonia.

And that can be a very deadly situation. But I'm so thrilled that God used the chemotherapy this time in a way that brought you healing.

And if you could, for a moment, discuss a

Christian response to this news, because not every Christian reacts the same way.

And, you know, you have people who might be a lot younger, who have very tiny children at home who are going to react one way, or they might even be younger than that and single and have a whole future ahead of them.

So they thought and they hear this news. And then, of course, you have those who are senior saints who believe that they have lived a completely fulfilled life and are ready to go home to be with their creator and their

Lord, Savior and friend, Jesus Christ. So you have all different kinds of reactions that people may have, even if they are seasoned

Christians, even if they have a very strong, unwavering faith in Christ.

You can have all different kinds of reactions. So if you want to just chime in about your own reaction and also give, perhaps, some words of caution that we need not expect every single

Christian to respond the way you did. Well, yes, not everyone is healed of their disease, and for a reason.

But before I go into detail in answering your question, let me just say, lest I forget, a word of thanks and gratitude to you and to your listeners who have prayed for me.

Thank you so much for your prayers, because God has answered them. Amen. May God remember you and bless you for your intercessions on my behalf.

I also want to express my gratitude to you who have given this weary soul a cool cup of water in the name of the

Lord through many other words of encouragement, cards, phone calls, and many other ways.

Because there's no doubt in my mind that God has healed me of cancer. He is the great physician, the

God of miracles, the God of all grace and mercies. And I praise Him and thank

Him for this gift of healing. Words can't express how I feel. The joy, the weight lifted, the humility, all of it leading me to bow the knee of praise to Him who has delivered me once again from a life -threatening illness besides those former pulmonary embolisms.

So for some reason, God wants me around. And one of the biggest lessons that God has taught me,

Chris, is to take one day at a time and never, ever take life for granted.

Even Christians can do that. We get so caught up in our daily activities and our routines and paying the bills and taking care of our families, and we forget that every breath and every heartbeat is given to us by God.

And all He needs to do is speak the word or pop a capillary in our brain, and we fall dead on the spot.

There's a very thin veneer between life and death, and only God observes the sense or the—He alone observes us in this world and whether or not we are walking before Him with the fear of God upon our hearts, realizing that our lives are in His hands moment by moment, and we cannot take life for granted because He can take away health.

He can take away our health at any second. And that's—as a pastor for 35 years, that's one thing that I've learned is that God uses sickness and pain and disease like cancer to get our attention when nothing else can.

When He takes away our daily routines, our ability to earn a living, to move around and enjoy the things of this life that He has given to us, and He puts us flat on our back in a hospital bed or a sickbed where we have nothing else to do but dwell upon the larger perspective and the main reason why

He created us and saved us from our sins, we tend to push that adjustment button, that big button that brings everything and the priorities of our lives, especially, back into their proper place of priority.

So, one of the passages that God used powerfully upon reflection after days and days and weeks of just reflecting upon my sickness is in 2

Corinthians 12, 1 through 10. I'll not read the whole passage, but there the

Apostle Paul had the thorn in the flesh and he prayed three times that God would remove it from him, and unless he should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to him, a messenger of Satan, to buffet him, lest he be exalted above measure.

You remember that passage? Yes. He says, concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me, and He said to me,

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly,

I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake, for when

I am weak, then I am strong. This is an exceedingly insightful passage of Scripture in many ways.

We learn so many things about the nature of the Christian life, about the essence of sanctification, and about how to obtain the power of God, not only when we feel we're strong in the

Lord, but when especially we are weak. And Paul here is speaking by personal experience with sickness and how

God used sickness as a great teacher. You know, Chris, without experience, we fail to learn certain spiritual lessons.

We miss those lessons. We're not paying attention. We're looking past the lessons.

And very often, the experience of sickness helps us to see with spiritual eyes of understanding.

And without those lessons we learn through very serious sicknesses, we lack the ability to relate to people in so many different ways.

And in Paul's case, sickness brought a revolutionary change in his understanding of the

Christian life in general, his relationship with the Lord, but specifically in his service to God, in serving

God. And I could say the same thing about my life. I'm sure other

Christians can say that too, is that my understanding of God, His ways, my personal growth and character in expanding my patience and humility, deepening my submission to God and self -examination, and increasing the love of God in my heart.

Without these very serious illnesses, I would not be where I am with the

Lord right now. Now, I think that there's a couple of very important things that we should warn our listeners about.

First of all, the misuse of truth. There are those among us who can pontificate while we are at the bedside of somebody who is seriously ill.

And even though we may be well -intending and actually speaking biblical truth, the manner with which we present this truth or these truths and the timing can turn something true and wonderful and good and godly into salt in the wounds.

It can come across with a self -righteous tone that we are lecturing those that are in the state of misery, in the state of terror, perhaps, facing an unknown future.

Don't we have to be very careful about misusing the very truths that you just quoted from the lips of the

Apostle Paul or from the pen of the Apostle Paul? We have to be very careful about misusing these things and the timing and manner with which we present them.

Am I right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We have to use wisdom, God's wisdom.

We have to take truth and knowledge from Scripture and blend wisdom into it so that we know when and how to apply it when we communicate to people.

At someone's bedside in the hospital or elsewhere, when we seek to minister to them and encourage them and comfort them, we don't want to condemn them.

God will show them if they're wrong. He will show them if he happens to be using the illness they're suffering with as a rod of chastisement.

Let the Lord do that in his way and his time. Rarely when we counsel or pray with somebody who is sick, do we want to rebuke them or do we want to be like a police officer to try to explore reasons why they may be experiencing

God's judgment? Our job is to show compassion to people in such situations.

Yes, there is a place for rebuking people, exhorting them, admonishing them, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

You need to use God's wisdom and God's word to determine when you're to do that.

But it would be very unwise to pontificate and to presume to know people's hearts as only

God can and identify the reason why they're suffering illnesses. We need to find out when we visit with people who are sick, especially with serious illnesses, what are their needs?

Size up the situation. Use wisdom. And mostly listen and see where the conversation is headed.

Find out about the person's needs. You know, if you're talking, you really can't understand what's going on with the other person because you're doing the talking instead of the listening so you can learn what's going on in their situation.

You need to listen and identify where they need encouragement, where they need prayer and compassion, and you need to pour your heart out to them in love.

You need to pray for them. And the fewer the words, the better, usually. The best thing to do in such situations is just to go.

And they're not necessarily looking for a theological, verbal treatise and description of their situation.

They're looking for comfort and consolation and encouragement. And the best way to do that is just be a good shoulder to cry on and listen to them.

So yes, this topic requires a great qualification to make sure that we don't go in like a bull in a china shop and just try to find out why.

I had, after I came down with leukemia, a couple of weeks later when

I was right at the most painful beginning stage of things, I had somebody write me an email and say,

Joe, you know, there's probably some sin going on in your life and that's the reason why you came down with cancer.

Can you believe that? And so I said to myself, okay, this person is, you know, lack of wisdom, but you know what?

I'm thinking of the individual who came out when

King David was dethroned, deposed temporarily from his throne, and he and his family and a large group of people left

Jerusalem in shame and embarrassment. And there was a man in the wilderness,

I'm trying to remember his name, Barzillai, I think is his name, who met

David out there. David is at his worst. He's suffering the punishment of God.

And here comes a man, here comes a man who just throws up dust and is cursing

David and is condemning him. And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, David's captain, says, should

I go and kill him? And he takes out a sword and David says, no, this is from the

Lord, not the sinful part of Barzillai's words, not the anger and the wrath, but God will even use the devil to accomplish his purposes, but still be far away from sin.

There is no sin in God. And David said, this is from the Lord. So I looked at that email and I said to myself, okay,

God may be using this Barzillai, but is there sin in my life? And it led to a great time of self -examination and so forth.

And there wasn't, that I knew of, but it was not without great heart searchings and self -examination and without me crying to the

Lord, search me and try me and see if there's any wicked way in me. And so even if someone comes to us at times and with words that are unwise at the moment, we need to receive it all because God could be in it in one way or another, except for the sin, if there's any sin in it.

Okay, we have to get to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

If you live outside the USA and only remain anonymous, if your question involves a personal and private matter, and we could obviously readily understand a topic like this lending itself to personal and private questions.

So we will honor your request if it indeed is in that category. But please, if it's just a general question on theology and doctrine in regard to a

Christian response to serious illness, please give us at least your first name, city and state and country of residence.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is

Pastor Joe Jackowitz of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California.

He is also the founder of First Love Missions, First Love Publications, and First Love Radio, the network that actually live streams

Iron Sharpens Iron. And if you have a question about our topic today, basically it is a

Christian response to serious illness. We also, just previously before the break, during our first half hour, we had

Pastor Joe announce the glorious, wonderful, amazing news that thanks be to God and His goodness and mercy and grace,

Pastor Joe, who had a very frightening prognosis of having only a 40 to 60 percent chance of survival from a rare form of deadly leukemia, he is now cancer free.

And we are rejoicing with him with this wonderful news. And we are taking your questions regarding a

Christian response to serious illness. And our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N, gmail .com.

And as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We do have an anonymous listener who asks,

I heard your recent interview with Justin Peters, who I know was your guest speaker at your last

Iron Sharpens Iron radio pastor's luncheon. He is truly a remarkable brother in Christ with cerebral palsy on a mission to expose the deadly and damning doctrines of the word of faith deceivers.

If you could have your guest explain a little bit about this very prevalent and very sinister element of heresy within the church.

Yes, that is very true. Justin Peters, dear friend of mine, was our most recent speaker at the most recent

Iron Sharpens Iron radio pastor's luncheon. And by the way, I'm going to be announcing later on in this show the phenomenal news about our upcoming speaker in May, May 29th to be precise.

But this word of faith movement, this is more than just the clumsy and perhaps even sinful mishandling of God's word when a brother or sister in Christ with very good intentions fails miserably at ministering to somebody with a serious illness.

This is something far beyond that because it involves actual satanic theology, if you will.

It is a really seriously corrupt form of theology that masquerades as Christianity, but is really closer in many ways to the occult.

If you could respond to our listeners question about this dangerous movement known as the word of faith movement.

It's also known as the health, wealth and prosperity movement and the name it and claim it movement and a whole bunch of other nicknames that it has rightfully earned because it's such a wicked ideology.

If anyone has read the Gospels of Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and analyzed the teachings of Jesus Christ, they will understand that Jesus never promised health, wealth and prosperity.

That was not the focus and core of his message. His message was about salvation and his message was about the vanity of this world and the temporal nature of it.

Jesus actually said to his followers that the opposite of health, wealth and prosperity will frequently, not all the time, but frequently happen to his followers such as suffering, searching, testing, pain, using pain as a tool of maturity and growth in the

Christian life. Our flesh and our vain presumption is such that we always hope the best on a material or physical outcome of things.

We're always seeking to take the path of least resistance. We're always looking for the easier way out.

We are wired so selfishly and legalistically that in practice, anything connected with pain and suffering and persecution, we avoid.

But this is what Jesus says will happen very often in the life of a Christian.

We will be searched to the depth of our souls. We often forget the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.

One day we're on a mountaintop of knowledge and experience and the next day we're at the very bottom of the valley.

We forget everything we learned the day before or most of it. And so we're very fickle and changeable and God uses pain and suffering to try to regulate the normality of our

Christian life, also to keep us humble and broken and dependent on him.

The idea of Jesus and the apostles promising health, wealth and prosperity throws out the very heart of the school of suffering, the school of sanctification, the school in which

God trains all true followers to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

It is through constant breaking and humbling, bringing us through the fiery furnace of suffering and affliction.

And if you look at the saints of scripture, the saints throughout church history, no one who was used by God was immune from entering this school of suffering as a means of training and growth.

And this idea of God promising us the constant mountaintop experience of reveling and enjoying material possessions, financial prosperity and uninterrupted good health is a lie of the devil.

I don't know how to say that any other way. I know that there are many really sincere and kind people in the movement of the word of faith teachings and the extreme charismatics and they have swallowed and bought into this lie of health, wealth and prosperity.

And God never promised good health. Look at the apostle Paul in the very text that we mentioned earlier in 2

Corinthians 12, 1 -10. The apostle's experience is just the opposite of what the word of faith movement teaches.

Paul sought God in prayer three times for his thorn in the flesh to be removed.

The physical pain that he was experiencing, he asked God in prayer three times to remove it and God said, no.

Here's the preeminent apostle, if anyone's worthy of the removal of such a thorn, he is so that he could be used more greatly in God's service.

But God says, no, there must be a commensurate and parallel level of pain that would come alongside your service to God so that while you do great things for him and serve him and produce all this spiritual fruit in the form of conversions, in the form of spiritual growth and maturity in the believers' lives, you must constantly be made aware and conscious where this fruit and where this spiritual power comes from.

And the only way to do that is to bring pain in and come alongside us so that we keep our focus, our trust, our eyes on Jesus Christ.

And this rule is the same for husbands and wives and parents as they grow in their roles.

God will use the emotional and relational pain that we often experience going from independent single people into learning to be emptied of self in a marriage where the true love, the agape love of God will take over and regulate the marriage.

And in many other situations at the workplace, God will use the attacks of co -workers and their deceitful ways and their backbiting ways and their sinful ways as a means of humbling us and bringing our cause and bringing our complaint and bringing the need for justice and fairness in the workplace to the throne of grace and leave that prayer and need there until God answers that prayer.

And very often God won't answer that prayer because to humble the pride and the self -righteousness that we battle with as Christians in our hearts,

He often, in the workplace, will leave us with a hard taskmaster as a boss and very vicious co -workers whom

God will use to break us down and prepare us more and more for ministry and also result in a deeper walk with Christ.

Yes, and we need to pick up right where you left off there because we have to go to our midway break. This is a longer than normal break that we have in the program, our midway break, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, airs this program twice daily in a pre -recorded format and therefore they need to localize

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida by airing their own public service announcements.

They air those announcements while we air our own globally heard commercials. So please remember not only to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them so that this program can remain on the air for a longer future because we depend upon our advertisers to exist.

Don't forget that. But also write down questions for Joe Jackiewicz and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. God willing, we will be right back after these messages with more of Joe Jackiewicz and a

Christian response to serious illness. Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the

Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many

Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the law journal.

If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state, I recommend that you call

Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win. Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878.

1 -800 -669 -4878. Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225

Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. When Iron Trump and Zion 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 Trump and Zion Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.

I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and Ironworks, New Hampshire, and the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Trump and Zion Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

Chris up for just such a time. 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 Ironsharpensironradio .com

Ironsharpensironradio .com Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus. We are rural and urban and we are always about the message of Jesus.

Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333.

That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.

That's liyfc .org. I'm Dr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

Since 1987, the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com.

That's CVBBS .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And don't forget you can call CVBBS .com Monday through Friday between 10 a .m.

and 4 30 p .m. Eastern Time at their toll -free number 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

And before we return to our discussion with Pastor Joe Jackiewicz, for those of you who are just tuning in, we are discussing today, at least we began by discussing an amazing update on Joe Jackiewicz's bout with terminal cancer.

For those of you who missed that first half of the program, Pastor Joe a number of months ago was diagnosed with a rare form, a very deadly form of leukemia.

He was given a frightening prognosis of having only a 40 to 60 percent chance of survival.

And then we got the much better and glorious news that he is now cancer free.

Of course, we need to still pray for Pastor Joe in regard to this illness, because sometimes it does return with a vengeance.

But we are trusting in the Lord that he is going to remain healthy and well, and have many years of future in his life waiting for him, so that he can continue to proclaim the glorious gospel of sovereign grace.

But before we return to that discussion, we have some important announcements to make.

First of all, I hope that as many of you as possible will join me and my former co -host,

Buzz Taylor, on Long Island, New York, on Friday and Saturday, March 20th and 21st, at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Quorum, Long Island, New York, for a special conference they're having with President of American Vision and author of Last Day's Madness, Gary DeMar.

My dear friend Gary DeMar, who I've known since the 1990s, is going to be speaking on God, the

Government, and the Last Days. That's Friday, March 20th. He'll begin the conference on the session on God and Government with a

Q &A following, and then Saturday the 21st, he will be discussing the

Olivet Discourse with Q &A following, and both of these events are at 7 p .m.

at Hope Reformed Baptist Church, 26 Westfield Road, in Quorum, Long Island, New York.

For more details on this event, go to reformedrooke .com,

that's reformedrooke .com, and you'll have all the information that you need on attending this.

And as I said, I am already planning to be there, only something that God may know that I do not know about will prevent me from being there, so I hope to see as many of you as possible at this event, the

Friday and Saturday, March 20th, I'm sorry, yes,

I was right, Friday and Saturday, March 20th and 21st, at Hope Reformed Baptist Church, Quorum, Long Island, New York, the

God, Government, and the Last Days Conference, hosted by Gary DeMar of American Vision.

And my other announcement is something that I feel very uncomfortable doing, but it is a necessity, unfortunately.

We are in urgent need of your donations here at Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have been faithfully and generously and loyally contributing to this program.

In fact, I've been receiving checks, fairly large ones, recently from people from whom

I have never heard before. These most recent checks have been from people that I don't know who they are,

I've never met them face to face. And they have never emailed questions into the program, as far as I can remember.

I want to thank all of you, both those who are new contributors and those who have been contributing for years, for your generosity.

We would not be on the air right now without your generosity and without the sovereign grace and mercy of our

Lord, God, Savior, and King Christ Jesus. Those of you who have listened to this program for years and who have never donated,

I'm just asking you to prayerfully consider, or perhaps even reconsider, your lack of contributing to the program.

If you do love this show, if you look forward to it, if you love sharing the free downloadable

MP3s with others, if you love hearing the guests and topics that are aired on this program that very often are never heard anywhere else, please prayerfully consider adding

Iron Trip and Zion Radio to your monthly benevolent budget. Some people have even added us to their missionary budget because of the fact that in some senses the guests that appear on this program are missionaries over the airwaves.

Globally, there are people all over the world who love and depend upon this show daily.

And I want to thank all of you who have written me and let me know about this because that is just as encouraging as the checks that we receive.

But please, go to irontripandzionradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card. By doing so, you could also mail in a check via snail mail to the address that appears on your screen when you click support at irontripandzionradio .com.

If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

As long as whatever it is that you wish to promote is compatible with what we believe, we would love to help you launch an advertising campaign.

Uh, you don't have to agree with me on everything or be an exact duplicate of what

I, uh, believe, uh, but as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, we would love to help you launch the ad campaign.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

Also, if you are not a member of a local Bible believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

So please rectify that situation as quickly as possible. If you need help finding a church anywhere in the world where you live, send me an email and I may be able to help you.

I've just recently helped people in all parts of the world, uh, who are looking for churches near them.

I also help folks when they're vacationing somewhere and they don't know what church to visit or if they have family, friends and loved ones in a particular area in the world, uh, that do not have a church home.

I have been of help there too. So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line. We are now back with our guest,

Pastor Joe Jackowitz of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California, founder of First Love Radio, First Love Missions and First Love Publications.

We are addressing an amazing update on Joe Jackowitz's bout with terminal cancer. And as I said, uh, moments ago, he is currently cancer free.

We are rejoicing with him on that. And we are also, uh, helping, uh, to further equip the listener, uh, with a

Christian, a biblical Christian response to serious illness. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Before we go to any more listener questions,

I just wanted to continue a little bit further on the thread of the word of faith movement, since it is such a prevalent heresy.

Uh, this, as I mentioned before, it's very much like the occult in that the word of faith teachers convey the notion that we can speak reality into existence, whether good or whether bad, uh, that we should, uh, never make such claims as I don't believe that I'm healed of my illness because we are, according to them, speaking a negative reality into our lives and we are actually creating, uh, or maintaining the, the serious illness by the very confession of our lips.

And then of course the reverse they would say is true, uh, that if you speak positively, these positive confessions actually bring about positive realities.

This is really akin to witchcraft in the occult, isn't it? It sure is,

Chris. We have absolutely no power or ability to speak or bring anything into existence.

God alone is the creator. He alone is the great physician. He alone is the provider of everything.

Every good gift comes from God. So I have heard accounts and reports of some of these word of faith preachers and teachers, including some women, uh, preachers and teachers of that movement who convince themselves if they're, if they just approach their desire with a positive mindset and keep saying the same thing and thinking the same thing and speaking the same, the same thing concerning their needs and wants, it will come into existence.

But I think that that's playing God. No one can speak anything into existence.

No one is their own personal genie that they're, that have as a magic lamp words that they speak or rub, uh, and bring their desires into existence.

That is preposterous. It's absurd. It's nonsense. And it has nothing to do with the

Bible. And my heart groans for countless multitudes who are sitting under these kinds of teachings where many of these dear people in their conscience and deep in their heart and in their minds and rationality, they know that these teachings are wrong, but they have no chapter and verse that they can point to because their knowledge base of the scriptures is virtually non -existent because they don't, they don't receive teachings, doctrinal, theological teaching to lay a foundation in their lives and a source to compare to when they hear such nonsensical teachings from these word of faith preachers.

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, when is it appropriate to tell someone with a serious illness that their condition may be because of unconfessed sin?

Is that ever appropriate? Obviously, we should never automatically assume that as we've already been saying that that can be a very dangerous heresy to automatically assume that anyone we speak to who is ill is ill because of their unconfessed sin.

But at the same time, as our listener asks, are there circumstances, especially if this is somebody that we know well who, well, we don't even necessarily need to know them well, but we might know of their personal history well, they may be somebody who has been in open rebellion against God for years, let's say.

Perhaps they are an unrepentant homosexual or adult or a drug addict, drunkard, whatever the case may be.

Is there an appropriate time when at this person's bedside we can, with as much love and compassion mixed with the truth, also bring to light to them or perhaps even a reminder to them that the condition that they are facing is because of their rebellion?

Well, the answer is yes. There is a place to address their situation of being seriously ill or sick with cancer or another serious disease or physical problems.

I would say first, if there's been a long pattern in history of calamity, including sickness and other forms of God's disfavor and judgment based on clear rebellion, based on a lifestyle lived in disobedience to God, the

Bible says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

So in the case of someone where it's been very clear that there's been a long pattern and habit of rebellion and disobedience, and the individual, therefore, is publicly and clearly suffering the consequences of their rebellion, there's a place to bring that up.

Very wisely and humbly come alongside them and suggest, not at first, but as the conversation goes along and where you see an opening in the conversation, to bring it up.

Yes, that God has clearly been sending them these merciful forms of his chastisement.

Secondly, I would bring it up in a positive context, as positive as you can, because if, you know, the

Bible says, whom the Lord loves, he chastens. And even if there is a non -believer who is being chastened that does not know the redemptive love of Christ, he still chastens through long -term forms of, whether it be sickness or jail time or other matters.

There's definitely a place to talk about it. I think another place where you can bring up sickness as punishment for sin is if someone is receptive to that, where in the conversation you're having with them, maybe a hospital visit, you can see that the person is broken and is pondering their ways because of their sickness and their rebellion against God, or they actually bring it up in the conversation and you sense that they are very open to talk about such a thing, that would be an appropriate time to bring it up.

There are several other instances I can give, but the answer to your question is yes. But it must be done judiciously, with much prayer, with a view to the leading of the

Holy Spirit in the conversation, that the door would be opened by his providence.

You need to rely on the Lord, even if there is an open door. You need also not only good words and good counsel from Scripture and an open door, but your spirit and your attitude and your tone must be mixed with the wisdom of God as well, so that you have the heart of Christ as you are ministering to this person.

We have John in Bangor, Maine, who says, I have been hearing some

Reformed pastors lately speak on a danger that many

Reformed Christians and Calvinists have been guilty of, and that is praying with pure pessimism, not believing that the prayers will be answered according to your desires, always doubting that this will be answered, especially in regard to a healing.

Isn't this just as dangerous as perhaps a Word of Faith movement presumption?

Yes, it is, actually, and this has been my experience with colleagues, pastor friends, and in the

Reformed movement in general, is Reformed pastors, we have our own issues that we need to wrestle with concerning answered prayer.

If we accuse the Charismatics and the people we consider to be extreme of being presumptuous, we need to be careful that we do not err on the other side of the issue, such as not actually believing the promises of God, not actually proactively anticipating that God will hear our prayers for the healing of the sick.

Doesn't the Bible say the prayer of faith will save the sick? So we need to actually exercise faith and believe before we get the answer, as the

Lord tells us, that God will heal someone. Now, we need to leave the healing in God's hands, but right up until the point that it's clear

God will not heal the person, even if the person ends up dying, we need to believe that God will heal them, because God commands us to exercise faith.

Now, some people say, well, how do we know it's God's will? Well, God's will will be made plain and will be revealed over time, but our job concerning the human responsibility part of it is to believe

God, because that is the method God has ordained and laid down for us in Scripture for healing.

He uses us through the exercises of faith to lay hold of the promises.

Now, in the end, we cannot take the smallest credit for any of it, but we must recognize the mystery of God using the exercise of faith, even though faith is like a tool, it's a bridge, it's a channel, and God himself is the source of all the healing, yet he has chosen through human means to bring about, by the exercise of faith, humanly speaking, the healing of somebody, even though we know that the effectiveness of that healing has been completely and totally on the divine side of things.

Amen. I might add, perhaps, a little caution to the way that the question was posed.

I don't think that it's equally dangerous to have, perhaps, some doubt whether an actual healing will take place when you're praying, even if that's an abuse of being completely pessimistic.

I don't think it's equally dangerous as the word of faith heresy would be. I agree, fair enough.

And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, why is it that so few

Reformed Christians actually practice the anointing with oil as is prescribed in the

Epistle of James? I think part of it is due to the hesitation and reluctance on the part of many

Reformed pastors to be identified even with the slightest form of charismatic methodology.

We know that in many charismatic and word of faith churches, symbols are very important to them.

The use of oils and handkerchiefs and prayer cloths and all of these other symbolic things.

And we've seen through the years the abuses that have been cataloged by the news media and the shame and the reproach that these word of faith so -called pastors have brought upon the

Lord and upon the Church because of their abuses of Scripture and their misinterpretations of Scripture.

And it has caused much embarrassment to the Church unnecessarily.

But at the same time, if there is a New Covenant, New Testament tradition that is closely identified with the exercise of faith, even though it may be a rare or an occasional exercise of a tradition, we don't focus on the tradition, we focus on the substance of that activity which is in this case the exercise of faith.

But the anointing oil is only symbolic of the faith that is exercised in the

Lord for the healing of the individual. And there is no evidence in the

New Testament Scriptures that would invalidate the use of the symbol of oil when you would visit somebody and the elders of the

Church would pray with them as James 5 describes. It's just a symbol, that is the anointing of oil.

The focus is in believing in the healing of this individual by the

Lord. And so we need to be careful as Reformed pastors that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because we're afraid of being identified as a mystic or a word of faith preacher because we happen to embrace a biblical practice or tradition.

Amen. And to be even a little bit personal about this, my dear mother went home to be with the pancreatic cancer.

And I made sure that while she was having examinations at Sloan Kettering in Manhattan that a pastor friend of mine who was at the time ministering in Spanish Harlem, he is now retired from pastoral ministry, but I made sure that this pastor visited my mom while she was relaxing at my brother's apartment at that time in Manhattan.

And he anointed her with oil. There were some pastors that I knew that I know who were trying to be a bit nitpicking about this.

They said, oh, she is the one that had to call upon the elders for this. And I said, well, she was not perhaps biblically aware of this practice.

So I asked her if she wanted to receive this anointing and she immediately and enthusiastically agreed.

She went home to be with the Lord. Nonetheless, this cancer did take her life. But do you think that sometimes we, especially who are

Reformed, can be a little bit overboard with the nitpicking and so on, as I just mentioned?

I mean, if my mom accepted the invitation to receive the oil, did it have to initiate from her to begin with?

Absolutely. We can be nitpicky. And definitely. Before we take another question,

Chris, do you mind if I share some of the lessons I've learned from my bout with leukemia with your audience?

Sure. Well, when I was diagnosed with leukemia, it was a shock.

And the initial shock and trauma emotionally was devastating.

Like anyone else, Chris, I asked God why and struggled to get my perspective on the situation.

After all, cancer is a life -threatening disease. I could die from it. And since this version of leukemia is an aggressive form of cancer,

I could die very quickly if something wasn't done about it. So I heard various statistics about the survival rate, and the average was about 50 % of those with AML leukemia recovered to live several years to many years after.

So it was a 50 -50 situation. But the

Bible has a lot to say about illness, and it behooves us to understand what sickness means from God's perspective.

I was interested in learning the why. Why is God, and why does God use sickness?

I didn't need to know in my particular case why the leukemia was given to me.

I just wanted to learn more about God's purpose in serious illness in individual believers' lives, because I wanted to embrace it as God would have me to.

Because our emotional and spiritual health is often determined by a proper view of sickness.

And I, as a pastor, see many people, including believers, fall apart emotionally.

When they get cancer or a serious disease, many of them, their lives fall apart.

Some people can't handle illness. And the worst in them seems to come out during that time.

So in the end, what I wanted was a good testimony. I wanted God to be glorified through my illness, and not just caught flat -footed and fall apart.

And so I wanted to learn the lessons. And it took a day or two for me to gain my composure spiritually and got to get my attention.

But the first lesson I learned was that sickness reminds us of the brevity of life.

It reminds us how quick life goes by. As the scripture says, so teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail

I am. All flesh is grass, and its loveliness is like the flower of the field.

And so the Lord showed me, Joe, life is short. I'm 64 years old, and you've got cancer, a very serious, aggressive form of cancer.

You don't know how much time you have left. Your life is brief. And it caused me to push that reset button in my mind to be able to use my time wisely in each day that God gives me.

The second lesson was that sickness teaches us the vanity of life. When you look at your life through the perspective of not having much more time in this world to live, it teaches you the value of everything being defined by what

God's Word says, including those things of sin, the world, and the devil.

Those things that we are engaging in and spending so much time in that are pure vanity that will perish with the using.

You remember the writer to Ecclesiastes, Solomon said, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and chasing after the wind.

The third thing is that sickness is designed to be a blessing and not a curse.

And that's what I needed to do, is gain my composure and see sickness as a blessing.

As we read in Romans 8, 28, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love

God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. A person who has learned this lesson is truly blessed.

He can say as Job, then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshipped.

And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. After about a day, day and a half,

I could say, blessed be the name of the Lord. I could honestly, in my conscience, look at the Lord and say,

Lord, thank you for this leukemia. I praise you for this leukemia.

And if you can still pray and worship freely, without hesitation, and without bitterness against the

Lord, when you receive such a serious illness like cancer, then you know your conscience is clear, and you know that you're seeing your illness, you're evaluating your sickness, even a serious one, the right way.

And another lesson is that sickness reminded me of death. Most people live as if they're never going to die.

They follow with keen interest and participation their business and their pleasure and their politics and science and everything else they have going on as if this world was their eternal home.

People plan and they scheme as if they have many decades ahead of them, like the rich man in the parable where the

Lord said to the rich man who said, I will build more barns, I will tear down these barns and build bigger ones to hold my crops.

And he said, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said to him, fool, this night your soul shall be required of you.

Then whose will those things be that you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

So my leukemia reminded me that I could die within a few weeks or a few months, and everything

I've spent 90 -95 % of my time on accruing and accumulating of material goods will be given to somebody else.

Look at Sam Walton, who at the time of his death built a $4 billion empire, $4 billion in the bank, working 60, 70 hours a week, six days a week, and he working all that time with all that effort just to die and give all the benefits of that money and that empire to somebody else.

Death, approaching death reminds us of our priorities.

Another lesson I learned is sickness forces us to take seriously the most important issues of life that we often avoid.

Like what? Like God, like our souls, like where will I be when

I die, like the world to come with all of its mysteries and unknown elements.

You see, Chris, healthy people don't have the time for God and to invest in their souls and in the life to come.

But Jesus said, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost?

Another good lesson is that sickness tends to soften our hearts and humble us and teach us wisdom, even if we have a clear conscience.

And Chris, I cannot tell you how many tears I shed during that first chemotherapy treatment of 21 days at Stanford Hospital.

How many tears I shed asking God to search my heart, asking

God to make me a better pastor, to make me a better husband, to make me a better father, to make me a better Christian.

Oh, sickness like nothing else tends to soften our hearts and humble us and reconsecrate our lives to God again in every single area.

Sickness is a big test of our relationship with God to determine what kind it is, what kind of relationship

I have with God. Not many people in the world have any religion at all. Yet very few have a religion that will pass a biblical test, a biblical test.

Well, sickness has a way of coming to God without any agendas, without any conditions, without any presuppositions.

And we say to God, God, here I am. Whatever you want me to do,

I'm going to do it. Wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I'm going to do it.

Just save my life. Just heal me of this leukemia or cancer or whatever sickness it may be.

And so those are some of the lessons that God taught me on my sickbed. Of course, many of them

I already knew, but it's one thing to know things theologically with a little bit of experience, but it's another thing to have the experience side of things greatly fill in and catch up to the knowledge side of it and dominate the knowledge side of it.

And that's what God did. And he continues to humble me daily. I'll never be humble enough.

And every day when I wake up, I thank God for each day. And I pray that God will help me to value each day and redeem the time for his glory, both in my walk, in my relationship with God, as well as in my service to him.

All right, we're going to our final break. And before we go to our final break, I'm going to read to you a question from one of our loyal listeners,

Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, who's not only a loyal listener to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, but also a very generous and faithful contributor financially to this program.

I will read the question to you now, and you can answer it when we come back. I've also forwarded this email to you so that you have a time to look it over in addition to my reading while the commercials are running.

But Grady says, Hi brothers Chris and Joe. Praise the true and living

God for his healing. I'm not surprised at the question you asked about sin.

I'm not surprised at the question you were asked about sin. I've had other brethren share the same thing with me.

One only has to look at Job to see this. I prefer praying that our

Heavenly Father would reveal to someone who's going through a trial if it's because of sin.

Shouldn't we do this before going to someone? So basically praying for the

Lord to reveal to us in some way whether or not this person's illness is actually because of their own sin or not.

And of course, you and I are cessationists, so the Lord might not reveal that to us.

But I'll have you answer Grady's question when we come back. If anybody wants to join us, please send in an email now because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsor.

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Pastor Joe, our listener in Asheboro, North Carolina, basically was asking, should we not be praying that God reveals to us whether or not this person that we are visiting in a sick room is guilty of sin that has brought this illness upon them?

I know that at least you would agree that we should be praying in preparation for this meeting, regardless of whether we are asking for God's wisdom as to the person's guilt or innocence, but if you could, comment.

Pastor Joe? Yes, I'm here, and I like the prayer part of this question the best.

Let me see if I can give a one -minute answer, because I know we're almost out of time. If someone is going through a trial due to sin, we should bring it to the person.

As the Bible says, brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

But, and it's a big but, the Bible regulates this process of going to someone about sin with qualifications.

You can't approach them like a police officer or like a bull in a china shop. It says in Galatians 6 .1,

if anyone's overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.

This idea of being meek because you need to consider yourself ties in with Luke 6, where it says, first remove the plank out of your own eye, then you'll be able to see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye.

So many people try to counsel people who are in sin very haphazardly without praying about it and looking to themselves first.

Another principle is that we who are strong or spiritual are to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves.

You need to be patient with people. You don't have to bring sin to them the first time in every situation.

You could pray about it first. And then lastly, it says in Jude 22, on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

Some people in simple situations require compassion. Other people need tough love.

You need to pull them out of the fire. You need to correct them in gentleness and rebuke them in gentleness.

Okay, well, we're out of time, and I want to repeat your website for our listeners. It's christbiblechurch .org,

christbiblechurch .org. Thank you. Yes, this Sunday, special message on the coronavirus at one o 'clock

Pacific time. Well, I want to thank you for being our guest today, Pastor Joe. I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater