July 16, 2025 Show with Joel Saint on “The Take Ten Academy: Teaching Our Children about the Ten Commandments”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on the 16th day of July 2025.

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Before I introduce my two guests and their topic for the day,

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I want to remind our listeners that if you want to help support the victims of the flood in Kerrville, Texas, a solid

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Reformed Baptist Church out there, Kerrville Bible Church, has a link for you where you can send your funds.

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You can go to kerrvillebiblechurch .org forward slash flood -relief.

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That's Kerrville, K -E -R -R -villebiblechurch .org forward slash flood -relief.

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And this Friday, I am scheduled to have on the program the associate pastor of that church who

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I've had on this program before, Scott Christensen, and he is going to be giving us updates on the aftermath of that horrific tragedy that took place there in Kerrville, Texas, and surrounding areas.

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And we're also going to be hearing from him how to continue to trust in the sovereignty of God in the midst of such misery.

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So we hope that you mark your calendars for this Friday for our interview with Scott Christensen of Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas.

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But today, I have a first -time guest and also a returning guest.

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The returning guest is Pastor Joel Saint, pastor of Independence Reform Bible Church in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, and host of the annual

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Future of Christendom Conference. He's being joined by a first -time guest here, his wife,

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Audrey, and both of them are going to be addressing the Take Ten Academy, teaching our children about the

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Ten Commandments. We're also going to be announcing the 2025 Future of Christendom Conference featuring keynote speaker

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Jeff Durbin, one of the pastors of Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, this

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October. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Joel and Audrey Saint.

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Hi, Chris. And fantastic to be here again, Chris. And if you could,

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I'm sorry, Audrey. Thank you for having us today. Oh, it's my pleasure. And before we go into the theme at hand,

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Pastor Joel, I'd like you to give a brief description of Independence Reform Bible Church. Yeah, at the

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Independence Reform Bible Church, we've been, well, we started this back about 12 years ago, and what we teach is we trust we teach the entire law word of God, Old Testament and New Testament, where theonomic and post -millennial church, there are too many of those, shall we say, in the area.

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And Baptist, which even makes you more rare. Yeah, indeed. Right. Reform, definitely

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Reform Baptist. I know some of my Presbyterian friends say that that's not possible. However, we believe that it is.

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We might cite Charles Spurgeon and perhaps even

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John Bunyan here as well. But it's a church where I feel free and I feel super blessed to be the pastor because you have people coming back after,

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I'll preach what the Bible has to say about politics. I mean, we have entire books named after politicians, right, or an address to politicians.

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We have the Book of Judges, First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles of the Kings, the

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Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was strictly a political person. So you don't have to give anything up to preach the whole counsel of God.

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And I trust that that's what we want to do. We want to know, and I want to be able to preach and teach what the

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Bible has to say to the church, to the individual family, and also to the state.

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Amen. Well, if anybody wants more information on Independence Reform Bible Church, go to irbc .church.

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Now tell us about the Future of Christendom conference that you host every year, and especially tell us about the 2025

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Future of Christendom conference that will feature our mutual friend

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Jeff Durbin, one of the pastors, along with my longtime dear friend,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. They are both pastors, along with a couple of other men at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona.

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And Jeff will be speaking for you as the keynote speaker this October. Tell us more about that.

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Yeah, we're super excited about the Future of Christendom conference. Our theme is No Other Name, and it's going to be held on the weekend here in Lancaster County, the weekend of the 9th, 10th, and the 11th.

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So this time we're going with a Thursday, a Thursday p .m., a Friday, and a Saturday. No Other Name.

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And we'll be addressing the cults. It seems like some of the cults, especially the

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Mormons, which apparently don't even want to be called Mormons anymore—they're now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints. We will be addressing various cults, and it seems like there's more as time goes on rather than less.

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We feel this is important, Chris. We know that every single writer in the New Testament, every single one, dealt with false doctrine.

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So that will be a weekend of dealing with that. Again, Pastor Jeff Durbin has had a lot of experience here, and we're hoping and praying that this will be an effective conference to help believers in Christ appreciate their salvation through Christ alone, greater than ever, and be able to see past all these other accoutrements, shall we say, that these cults want to add.

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Amen. Well, if anybody wants more details on the Future of Christendom conference, you can go to futureofchristendom .org,

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futureofchristendom .org. And we do have a tradition here on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

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Whenever we have a first -time guest like Audrey, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised, and any kind of providential circumstances that our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. So Audrey, I would love to hear a summary of your story.

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We've already had Joel do this in the past, but since you are a first -time guest, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

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Okay, so I always encourage those parents who are first -generation

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Christians who have come from ungodly backgrounds, and they get saved, and they start to raise a family.

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And I was one of those children that came from first -generation

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Christian parents. And my parents were mentored to raise a family in the

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Lord, and one of the fruits that came from that is that we had family devotions.

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My parents were not homeschoolers, so we were in public school. But every evening after dinner, we had

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Bible reading and prayer and an explanation to us of the Scriptures by our father.

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And it was during that time, when I was six years old, that the Lord convicted me of my own sin.

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I had gotten enough spankings, or I had been in enough trouble to know that I had a sinful heart, and I asked the

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Lord to save me from my sins when I was six years old. It was a very real experience.

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I can go back to that regularly to affirm that I know that I'm a Christian. And I was raised in this

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Christian home and went to end up going to a

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Bible college out of high school, and that's where I met my husband, Joel. And where was that?

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What college? We went to Washington Bible College, just outside the

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Washington, D .C. Beltway. That is not in existence anymore.

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Actually, Lancaster Bible College acquired that conference, and the seminary,

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Capital Bible Seminary, which is now at Lancaster Bible College. So it took over that Washington Bible College.

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But that's where we met in the late 70s. And how did you eventually come to discover and embrace

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Reformed theology? So the

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Lord brought me along through my husband, Joel, and there were inklings of that in Bible college.

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When he was questioning professors, we went to a dispensational college.

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And yet there were different students as they embraced scripture more and more would begin talking about certain scriptures that had the more of the

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Reformed view, and they would talk among themselves. And there was one particular scholar there, a student, quite a quite a studier that started recommending books to Joel in the

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Reformed, with the Reformed position. And Joel began investigating the

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Reformed side of things in college. And then after we got married, Joel brought me along in the

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Reformed positions, and then he eventually made that switch to become

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Reformed in his theology. Not very, Scott. Well, we are primarily going to be discussing today this exciting new program that you are both involved in, and that would be—and it has a clever name to it—the

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Take Ten Academy, referring to the Ten Commandments. Why don't you tell us how you originally came up with the concept of doing this, and more in particular about what goes on?

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Sure enough. You know, and I don't know, Audrey, if it was you that came up with this first or me.

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I'm not sure who it was. But what happened was, I do teach in a homeschool co -op program.

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And after a while, I learned, Chris, that an awful lot of even homeschoolers are not real conversant—I'll just say it that way—with the

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Ten Commandments. I mean, sometimes they ask the question, hey, do you know the Ten Commandments? Yeah. And OK, so what are they?

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And there were some kids that couldn't even, I mean, they might look at me kind of almost blankly and say, well, one of them is, don't kill people or something like that.

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I was like, whoa, I mean, we're talking about the homeschool kids here. So what happened was,

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Audrey and I began to talk about this. And what happened was, we said, you know what, we have grandchildren.

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We want our grandchildren—our children are doing a good job teaching our grandchildren, there's no question about that. But we said to ourselves, you know what, why don't we set something up so that at least our grandchildren will have a thorough understanding of the

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Ten Commandments and especially their civil application? Oftentimes we see the Ten Commandments as like personal, but the

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Ten Commandments have civil application as well. And you obviously have to start with them because the

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Ten Commandments will tell you not to kill your neighbor. Now, just the Ten Commandments alone won't tell you what to do if and when someone kills their neighbor, but we have to start there, you can't kill.

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So we put together this Ten Commandments Academy, Take Ten Academy, it's called now, and we have a website, taketen .academy,

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and that's the name of the website. And we've had testimonies now from kids who have been through, we've had a couple of our grandchildren go through it, and we're getting comments back like, you know,

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I just did not know this broad application of the Ten Commandments. I mean,

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I just didn't know how much this applied. And, you know, for us, one of the things we would tell people is, listen,

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God wrote the Bible through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through human means.

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However, there is a section of the Bible that God actually wrote with his own finger, that's the

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Ten Commandments. Maybe we ought to pay attention to that. Maybe we ought to be really, really constant about teaching it.

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So that's really how we got started. Yes. And so we, this will be our third year for having and offering this class.

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We had it, we began in 23 and then 24, we had one, and now we're going to have one, no, 24 and 25, and now we're going to have one in 26.

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And we got a good response. You can read the reviews on it, on the website, taketen .academy.

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That's the numeral 10, take the numeral 10 .academy. And you also can see there,

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Joel is one of the godly men. There's several godly men that are each taking a commandment.

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And so it's very diversified and keeps it interesting for the different people. So you have 10 speakers, then, you're saying?

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Yes, we do. Yeah. Yes, we do. And works. And every single one brings their approach, a fresh approach.

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It's very friendly to, it's very student friendly. The faculty are required, we have, we don't have name tags for the students.

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We have name plates. These name plates sit in front of them so that when a faculty member is up there teaching, they will use the student's name and say,

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Johnny, give me an example of a theft today. And, you know, whatever it is they're teaching, they interact with the students and the students are not allowed to hide under the desk.

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We bring it out of them because at that age, teenagers are a little bit awkward when they come into a situation where they don't know anybody.

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They don't know who's teaching them. They don't know the other students sitting around them. And it's very uncomfortable at first.

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And so they're going to sit there and not ask questions. And yet we want them to be engaged.

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So the faculty know and are very good at bringing these students out and getting them to engage with what's being taught.

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And how is this program made available and to whom is it made available?

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Is this only for children of parents in your own congregation? Is it open up to the general public or anybody?

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You might even, by some borderline miracle, have unbelieving parents who want their kids to have some kind of understanding of these things.

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Are they welcome? So tell us exactly how this works. Sure enough, that's a great question.

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So what we do is we allow the first parent to come for free. We love the idea of a teenager.

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And it's aimed at teenagers is where it's aimed at. But if other people want to come, they're certainly welcome. But the first parent can come as well.

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We have found, how about it, Audrey? We have found that there's a lot of interaction in between the classes.

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In other words, you interact with the students during the class. And a lot of our interaction has occurred with parents who have come along with their children for free.

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So, yes, it's really open to anyone who wants to come. And maybe that'll change someday.

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But right now, come on down. We're going to be doing the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God.

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And we can't wait to teach you and interact with you. Yeah, and I think that we appreciate so much you having us today.

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You have a much broader audience. But we definitely are targeting homeschoolers in our area, homeschoolers maybe across Pennsylvania, because it is a three -day commitment.

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It's a three -day commitment from 8 to 4 30 every day for three days.

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If I honestly, as a Christian parent, if my child was in public school,

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I would have them take off three days to sit and sit under the teaching of what

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God's word says about civics. Because what is civics anyway? Civics is just the science of studying human behavior so that people can be good citizens.

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That's and why not look at God's word first? How are we supposed to be citizens in this culture?

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How are we to be good citizens? What does God say about what kind of a citizen we should be?

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And so if my Christian child was in a public school, I would have them take three days off.

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Now, we are early, starting with you, Chris, talking about this, because the actual course is not till the end of March in 2026.

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But we know that a lot of families are already planning on their calendar what they're going to be doing next spring.

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And so we want to get in there early and say, you know what? Take a little time out maybe and plan to have your child come to this and plan to attend with them.

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If you're also interested in this, because it begins with God's word.

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And so what they're going to get is a civics course, but they're also going to get an introduction to biblical law that is going to set a foundation for what they're going to be seeing and hearing as teenagers from here on in.

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OK, we do have a listener question already. From Carmine in Hoboken, New Jersey.

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Who asks, you had said earlier in the program that you are a theonomic reform

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Baptist. Is this the lens through which you are teaching this course? Or will

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Christian parents, even who may be dispensationalists or non -theonomous, be welcome into this class where they want their children, nonetheless, to understand the background of the

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Ten Commandments and what they are? Yeah, that's a great question and grateful for that question.

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And yes, I mean, we this is this is our shall we say the way we we come at this.

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Everybody has to believe, obviously, in God's law at some point. For example, let's say you say the

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Old Testament really doesn't apply. Not saying the listener says this, but let's say that the Old Testament does apply only the

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New Testament does. However, let's let's take this a little bit further. Or is there a law in the

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New Testament? And the question I'd like to ask folks is here we have a command. Husbands, love your wives.

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And I'll get to I'll get around to the answer here. Well, husbands, love your wives. Is that a suggestion? Is that like a general devotional thought?

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Or is that like actually a law, something that God requires of people?

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So what we I believe everybody's a Christian understands that God has law.

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Now, they might not be a card carrying theonomist as such, but as long as they understand, yeah,

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God has lost God. Christ did not send a son. Some people say, well, Christ, you know, died to deliver us from the law.

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Well, he he he died to deliver us from the penalty of the law, which is death.

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However, Christ did not die in order for me now to commit adultery against my wife. So now

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I can do that. Now I can commit adultery because we don't have the law anymore. No one believes that. And that's that's really our our background here.

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That's where we're going. We believe all the law is good. Psalm 119.

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I said to my wife, I think I said this lately, sweets. We are trying to Psalm 119 eyes, if you will.

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If I can if I can take a a verb out of a noun there, the class, we want people to see all of the word of God, the laws, the statutes, the ordinances, the commands through the land, just like the psalmist of Psalm 119 says.

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That's really what we're trying to do. Yes. So before we were reformed, we were dispensational.

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And it was during that time that God was putting this on our hearts that Joel was always very interested in politics.

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We helped on the Reagan campaign when we were in college. We were right there in Washington, D .C.

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We almost had a front row seat. We were very active in that.

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Joel was active in getting a particular, particularly godly

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Christian candidate on campus and kind of getting the student body to think, you know, we've got to be involved, you know, in our our government.

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And, you know, which was not really heard of back at that college during that time.

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And Joel kind of was stirring things up a little. And so in our minds, the Lord was leading to us to, you know, if only we just live the

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Ten Commandments, you know, and then it led to, well, how do the

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Ten Commandments apply to our culture today? And this is where our mind was going.

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How does it apply to today? It does. God says it does. God, you know, and so we were beginning to think this way even before we were reformed.

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And I believe every child on the planet should know the Ten Commandments. We used to teach the

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Ten Commandments in public school. And yet, you know, not in this time and not that is not going to happen.

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And so there's no real place for most children, Christian or otherwise, to be learning the

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Ten Commandments. And for us, not just Psalm 119, but Christ saying, you know, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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So how can we live by every word? Well, the Ten Commandments are words that we really need to pay attention to.

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And so we want to let people know that Christ is an endorser. Of every word as well.

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Yeah, and it was Christ himself who said, if you love me, keep my commandments.

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And since the New Testament had not yet been written or when he said those words, he must have been speaking about the

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Ten Commandments. Am I correct? It's almost like if you love me, keep my suggestions.

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Yes. And I remember memorizing a verse as a teenager.

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How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy words.

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And that's in the context of God's law, his commandments. Psalm 119, right? And I took that to heart.

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I believed that with my whole heart. I just embraced that. And this is what we want for these young people.

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We want them to learn that God's way is the way that he wants us to live out on this planet, that he has rules.

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He has laws. He didn't just leave us here and drop us on and say, all right, you guys figure it out yourself.

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No, he gave us laws that the planet is to be governed by.

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And I just had a mutual friend on the program recently Dr.

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Joe Moorecraft. I know that you not only are very familiar with him and love him, but you had actually you had him speak at one of your conferences in the past.

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We have. But he said, I can't remember how long ago this occurred when he was on some kind of a television talk show, but he was on a panel with other

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Christians, pastors and perhaps scholars. And the talk show host, who

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I believe was a just a secular host that might have even been a news reporter,

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I can't remember right now. But the host asked the guests who were all professing conservative evangelicals.

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How would you, as a Christian, desire to see the United States of America governed by what code of morals and ethics and standards?

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Would you want to see this this nation governed? And Joe Moorecraft said, well, the

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Ten Commandments has got to be at the heart of our of our government.

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A Christian couldn't possibly want anything other than something that's

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God breathed as far as knowing how we are to govern ourselves. And he actually said a very well -known famous.

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He didn't mention who the person was, but it was a very famous, according to Joe, evangelical televangelist.

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And that televangelist said that he wanted the code of Hammurabi.

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To be the guidance behind governing the United States, which is a Babylonian legal text composed between 1755 and 1750

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B .C. And can you imagine how bizarre that must seem to a population hearing a

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Christian pastor say that? Why? I mean, that's an amazing thing.

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Why? Why would you want that? I mean, here we have what the what's what, for example, some some 19.

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The law of the Lord is perfect. The commandments of the Lord are pure. These kinds of things.

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I mean, can we say that the code of Hammurabi is perfect or pure? I mean, would this a pastor talking?

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Does this pastor actually believe the Bible? And I know this sounds pretty crazy, perhaps. But if you say the code of Hammurabi is somehow superior, you know,

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Christ there, for example, in in John five, saying that if you guys.

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Well, I'm obviously paraphrasing it. If you guys don't believe the writings of Moses, you won't believe me.

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So here is Christ making quite a statement about Moses. And Hammurabi is better.

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What? Chris, what are we doing? Yeah, I think it all of it has a lot of it, if not all of it has to do with Christians that are fearful of the outcry from the populace by saying they want their sacred texts to be imposed upon a nation.

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And Christians are afraid of being accused of violating the

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Constitution, where it says that Congress shall not establish a religion. I think that that has something to do with it.

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I never asked this this evangelical televangelist the question because I don't even know who he is.

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Joe didn't reveal that. But there is a fear of that. Christians are embarrassed and ashamed to be that forceful and that open and that zealous to want their core beliefs that have been established by God himself to be the law of the land in our nation.

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And we'll pick up on that when we come back from our first break. And once again, if anybody has a question for Joel and Audrey Saint, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

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Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

31:51

James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron radio free pastor's luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 130 p .m.,

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I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme. Can we trust the

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Bible is the authentic and inerrant word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the free pastor's luncheon, visit Iron Sharpens Iron radio dot com.

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That's Iron Sharpens Iron radio dot com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit

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TRBC, Carlisle dot org. That's TRBC, Carlisle dot org.

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God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events. Still praising

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

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I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother,

35:59

Chris Arnson, in the highest esteem. And I'm thrilled that you're listening today. I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for reformed

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Christian literature for decades now. Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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

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

38:25

The Lord and his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

38:32

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost and the glory of our triune

38:47

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

38:55

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

39:01

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

39:09

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

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That's royaldiadem .com. Before I go to any more listener questions,

42:53

I thought it would be a good idea for me to read the Ten Commandments, the

42:59

Protestant version, which is the biblically accurate version. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

43:06

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

43:18

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them, for I, the

43:23

Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

43:39

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.

43:50

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the

43:58

Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

44:17

For in six days the Lord bathed the heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the

44:27

Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor thy father and mother, that the days may be long upon the land which the

44:39

Lord thy God gives thee. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, and thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

45:11

And the first four of the commandments, even though every commandment is an act of obedience to God and is required of us, but the first four are directed directly to God, because they involve worship, and the remaining six are human to human.

45:38

Am I correct in stating that? That is the way an awful lot of people see it, and we definitely line up with that.

45:46

Starts out, obviously, as you mentioned, I'm the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, you shall have no other gods before me.

45:54

So it has to do with God's name, and then it has to do with God's being, and then secondly, graven images, mixing up an image made with hands with who

46:06

God is again, and then thirdly, the defense, if you will, of his name, and then fourthly, the

46:13

Sabbath prohibition there, and pointing out that God made the whole earth in seven days, rested them on that seventh day.

46:23

So all of those are reflections of God, those first four commandments, reflections of who

46:29

God is, it seems to me, then the rest of the fifth commandment, honor father and mother, some sort of a transition, if you will, but the second table is more the application, the first table is the understanding of who

46:44

God is. So first table, who God is, second table, what do we do about the fact that there's a

46:51

God who requires us and tells us how to live? Yes, and also what we're going to be doing,

46:57

Chris, too, is the 10 commandments have case laws that go with them.

47:03

There's 613 non -ceremonial laws in which the 10 commandments are flushed out so when the commandment says, thou shalt not steal, the case law says, well, what do you do if someone does steal?

47:19

And we are teaching these teenagers those principles, and I hope sometime before we're done today, we would like to ask you some of the questions that are on the final test.

47:32

I'm going to most likely fail the test. But at least you get an idea of what these kids know by the time they're done.

47:40

Sure. And it's really amazing, and it's a lot of fun. And one of the things at Take10 .academy

47:48

is that for two years now, we found out that the kids are making new friends when they come, and they want to have fun together.

47:57

So we stretched the course into three days rather than two days so that we could insert fun in between.

48:06

And we have some really great activity directors that are going to do supervised group activities with the kids so they can get out and have fun in between the sessions.

48:17

And it's just, it's going to be a lot of fun in addition to very interesting.

48:23

We had one student say, wow, if we just would do God's law, there would be a lot less crime.

48:31

That was his takeaway. And I was like, yes, that is, I mean, that is what we want them to learn.

48:39

We want them to hear it first before they're indoctrinated out there with what, you know, what else is going to bombard them.

48:49

You could say we're trying to get the Ten Commandments off the wall and into their heads.

48:55

That's right. Yes. And by the way, I am possibly going to invite, at Joe Moorcraft's urging,

49:02

Judge Roy Moore onto the program, who apparently Joe Moorcraft knows personally very well.

49:12

And he is convinced the man is truly a devout Christian. And as you may remember, he got himself into some hot water by the posting of the

49:23

Ten Commandments in Alabama on, was it the courthouse property or something?

49:30

I can't remember right now. Yeah, that's what I recall. And I can't help but think, what a criminal, guys posting

49:39

Ten Commandments. Yeah. And we have, well,

49:44

I guess we have time for one question before we go to the midway break. We have

49:50

August in Dallas, Texas, who asks, how can you institute a

49:57

Sabbath prohibition into a multicultural nation like the United States that has different days of worship, etc.?

50:07

Yeah, that question comes up. See, every time you talk about that, that question comes up.

50:12

And the Sabbath is taken very seriously in the

50:17

Bible. It appears as if Christ, when He comes along, He does some things that at least the people thought should be prohibited.

50:27

For example, one official said to Christ at one time, hey, listen, there's six days that you can heal people.

50:34

What are you healing people on the Sabbath for? And it seems like we have this ongoing dialogue going on.

50:41

It's important to remember that at one time, before the multiculturalists took over, if you will, at one time, for example, we have the

50:49

Connecticut Blue Laws. Now, some people say, well, that's restrictive and that's repressive.

50:55

I would say that that is actually opposite. There will be people who will have different opinions on exactly how to apply that commandment, but it is a commandment nonetheless.

51:06

In other words, it's not the nine commandments and the one suggestion. I think that's what some people would say.

51:11

Yes, the nine commandments and the one suggestion, that being the Sabbath. Well, no, there were the

51:17

Connecticut Blue Laws. I'm old enough to remember when places were closed on Sundays, except for maybe drugstores and that kind of thing.

51:25

And what's intriguing about this is we now look at maybe Connecticut and the

51:31

Puritan New England as repressive, but people were still coming here. I mean, they were leaving

51:37

Mary England, if you will, to come here to this repressive place that had Sabbath laws.

51:44

I am, I believe, and would defend this, that looking into Sabbath laws would be a good thing.

51:51

Now, if some people were going to say, well, hey, you know, we're seventh day in Venice or whatever, we see it on a different day. Well, that is something that in a society that attempts to follow

52:03

God's law, that's not going to be a deal breaker. In other words, we have plenty.

52:09

I'll give a quick example. Rape is a capital offense in the Old Testament under God's law. It was a capital offense in this country until 1951, for example.

52:21

Can we at least do the obvious stuff? What I find happens sometimes is some folks want to go, and this is natural,

52:29

Chris, to like, well, kind of go to the stuff that's a little bit harder for us to figure out. Well, we have plenty that's pretty easy to figure out.

52:36

Can we go there first? 05 .06 Amen. And it's interesting how the blue, what were they called, the blue laws?

52:47

05 .06 Blue laws. Yeah, that they existed even until our lifetimes.

52:59

05 .06 Absolutely. I remember when Tulsa City, New Jersey was closed on Sundays. I remember. 05 .06

53:04

When I first moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 2014, some of those existed.

53:11

Like, for instance, a liquor store had to be closed on Sunday. 05 .06 And so, I mean, they did lift that ban here.

53:20

05 .07 When I was a child, restaurants were not open. There were no sports on Sunday. Nothing was open.

53:28

05 .08 Even professional sports? 05 .08 No, school sports. 05 .08 Oh, okay. 05 .08

53:33

Yeah, all schools have sports now on Sunday, which is an outrage. 05 .19 It's all on Sunday now.

53:39

Yeah, during church. Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now, and if you have a question, please submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:47

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

53:53

We'll be right back. Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

55:23

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

55:29

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

55:35

That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com or call 678 -954 -7831.

55:42

That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

55:48

Joe Roiligan, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener from LaToy in County Kildare, Arlington, sent you.

55:53

I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church, a

56:17

Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

56:25

Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio advertising family.

56:36

At Linbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

56:42

Word of God, inerrant in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

56:53

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

57:10

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern to all who bear

57:18

God's image. If you live near Linbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

57:23

Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit linbrookbaptist .org.

57:30

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

57:43

It is the gift of God, not a result of words, so that no one may boast.

57:48

The Lord bless you in the knowledge of himself. Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

58:12

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

58:17

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

58:33

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

58:40

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

58:53

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.

59:03

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

59:11

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

59:17

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

59:28

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

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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

59:49

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.

59:58

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

01:00:05

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.

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

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

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. Hello, my name is

01:00:43

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

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

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

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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

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Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.

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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 Reform Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

01:02:09

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invidio and thanks for listening. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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

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01:06:02

Before I return to Joel and Audrey Saint as we continue our conversation on a new program called

01:06:12

Take Ten Academy, instructing children about the Ten Commandments. Before we return to that conversation,

01:06:18

I have some important reminders. If you really love this show, folks, you would hate to see it go off the air.

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Well, I'm asking you, please go to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio dot com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

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You could donate instantly in that fashion with a debit or credit card, or if you prefer snail mail, mailing a physical check at your post office to a physical address.

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Well, there is also a physical address that will appear on your screen when you click support at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio dot com, where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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If you want to advertise with us, whether it's your church, para -church ministry, your business, a private professional practice like a law firm or medical firm, or perhaps it is just a special event that you want to promote, whatever it is, if it's compatible with my beliefs,

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

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Folks, we have been really hit hard financially ever since the unconstitutional mandates that were enforced upon our nation, both federally and locally, during the

01:07:45

COVID crisis. And I'm assuming that many people in our audience who gave regularly were somehow devastated financially.

01:07:56

Either they lost their jobs, they were demoted, they lost their businesses, perhaps, that their family may have owned for generations.

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I'm not sure what the correlation is, but ever since the COVID crisis and the mandates started to disrupt the lives and livelihoods of our listeners, the giving to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio plummeted.

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And even though all of these mandates have been lifted, we have never bounced back.

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So we really need your help, folks. If you love the show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

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click support, then click click to donate now. And keep in mind, as urgently and as desperately as we need your financial help,

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I never want anybody in the audience giving their own church less money than they normally give to their church on the

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Lord's Day in order to bless Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. In other words, please never cut into the finances that you have specifically set aside for your own church during your

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Lord's Day giving in order to bless us. Never do that. And if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're more financially stable and back on your feet before you bless us with a financial gift.

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

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Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful,

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Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Independence Reform Bible Church in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, I have extensive lists spanning the entire globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people all over the planet earth in our audience find churches that are doctrinally sound, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

01:10:02

And that may be you too, so no matter where you live in the world, if you are without a biblically faithful church home, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:10:11

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Joel and Audrey Saint.

01:10:20

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:10:26

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

01:10:33

And we have Gabriella in Utica, New York, and Gabriella wants to know, how do we honor the father and mother when fathers and mothers sometimes are brutally sinister, evil, wicked, and harmful to children?

01:10:58

Yeah, another good question. Thank you, Gabriella, for that question. So here's the way we see this.

01:11:06

When we get away from God's law word, things get more and more complicated.

01:11:12

Give you a quick example, Adam and Eve, they're in the Garden of Eden, right? They just had one commandment, don't eat from that tree.

01:11:18

They break that, and then things get more complicated for them. We have gotten away from God's law for years, and now questions like this come up, and they are good, legitimate questions.

01:11:28

Well, what do we do? One of the greatest gifts any parent can get to their children is to make it easy for them to honor them.

01:11:35

Now we have all these consequences. I mean, we've had our kids in government schools now for generations.

01:11:43

We can't watch a TV show anymore without... The TV shows from 10 years ago were father is an idiot.

01:11:52

Now father and mothers are idiots on our TV shows. Everybody's an idiot.

01:11:58

And so now it's become more difficult. Let's go backwards here a little bit.

01:12:04

How did we get to this point? Chris, I still remember growing up in Pennsylvania as a kid.

01:12:11

There were no divorces. I'm 67 now. Growing up, I did not know kids who had divorced parents.

01:12:18

Well, now everybody is, so now what do we do? The answer is, and we may not be able to easily honor our father and mother.

01:12:28

I just talked to a man today who has a friend who his mother was really immoral, burnt the house down when he was four years old, abandoned...

01:12:38

I mean, all these things, right? Well, how do we do this? And so what happens is some people have the question of, well, now how do we honor

01:12:46

God now in the mess that we've made? Well, we need to go back and honor God when and where we can, and we need to recognize, and this is critical, that this breakdown of family did not happen in a vacuum.

01:12:58

It happened because we already abandoned God's law word. We already abandoned

01:13:05

God's commandments. And now it's getting harder and harder to do that. Let's take another example.

01:13:11

Husbands love your wives. We talked about that earlier. Well, my wife is hard to love. Well, you know what?

01:13:17

The command didn't change. I believe it was Christ's awesome who said, you know, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church, and I guarantee you your wife is not harder to love than the church.

01:13:29

I'm thinking about the church. Christ loves the church. You know, that is the command.

01:13:35

So the command is there to honor them, and it doesn't qualify if they were terrible people or not.

01:13:42

We are still to honor them as much as we possibly can. It doesn't mean to lie about them.

01:13:47

It doesn't mean to say things about them that weren't true, like, oh, yeah, they were great people when they were not. But the command is still there, and we are to honor them to the degree that we are able.

01:13:59

And in the meantime, get married and any children we have, make it easy for them to honor their father and their mother.

01:14:07

Again, Chris, this is the key. We get into bigger trouble. The further we get away from God's law of word, the harder we make it, not the easier, the harder it is to actually obey

01:14:18

Him, just like Adam and Eve. It was easy in the garden. They disobeyed. It's now harder to obey

01:14:25

God. And also, God's law does not protect a parent that is harming their child.

01:14:32

If you go into the case laws, the other 613 laws, it will flush that out that it will not protect a parent who is physically or sexually harming their child.

01:14:48

It's just that we are so far behind the eight ball in living these out and enforcing these laws, even through the

01:14:58

Christian church, who are required to help families like in these kind of situations and deal with them according to God's law.

01:15:09

If it means, you know, following through with the family who is having this problem in their church or however the association is, to follow it through so that justice is done for those children.

01:15:25

God just doesn't say, honor your father and mother when those kind of things are going on. There's much more to it than that.

01:15:32

I also wanted to say, Chris, that at Take 10

01:15:39

Academy, it's not just a school, it's a course. It is a course in a camp setting.

01:15:47

So it might sound like it's a school, but that's not really what it is. It's an event that is three days long, 24 hours of civics as it pertains to biblical law.

01:16:02

Any homeschooler can take those 24 hours and count it towards their social sciences.

01:16:09

And that's what it is. So I don't want there to be any mistake that Take 10

01:16:15

Academy is a school. It's actually an event every year that is three days long in a camp setting.

01:16:24

Great. Well, we do have Gabe in Bright Waters, Long Island, New York, with a question.

01:16:31

Gabe wants to know, someone mentioned earlier that there's a difference between the

01:16:37

Protestant and Catholic Ten Commandments. What is that difference? Oh, excellent question. I know that the

01:16:44

Catholic version completely removes the prohibition about graven images.

01:16:50

I wonder why, because they, and of course they deny this, adamantly deny this, that they worship these images.

01:17:00

But they do worship these images. They have statues, icons, and paintings that they venerate.

01:17:10

But what they do to those images is clearly worship.

01:17:18

In fact, let me look at the first commandment in the Catholic version. I am the

01:17:23

Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me. There's no mention of the graven image at all.

01:17:31

And in case you're wondering, the Ten Commandments are in Exodus 22 -17 and Deuteronomy 5, 6 -21.

01:17:42

Do either of you have any more comments about the Catholic perversion of this

01:17:47

God -breathed commandment? Yeah, you know, it's intriguing to me because that is the hole they fell into again and again.

01:17:57

You read Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea recently. I actually memorized the entire book of Hosea at my age.

01:18:07

I probably shouldn't have tried something like that, but it was a lot of work I got done. And this idea of idols just keeps on coming up.

01:18:15

And it seems like when they worship the idols, they also get soft on the other commandments.

01:18:22

Hosea talks of stealing and lying and committing adultery and breaking up. And the idolatry is always there.

01:18:30

It seems to me that this, Chris, is something we cannot mess around with likenesses and say, well, we're not worshiping or whatever.

01:18:40

Well, we're kind of bowing towards them. And it seems to me we must not do these kinds of things.

01:18:47

If you read the Bible, they got in trouble whenever they started to do some of these things.

01:18:52

So our students will be learning that an idol is any representation of a created thing or exalted person that a person considers divine.

01:19:06

That is the definition that we give our students. And we teach them all religions that may have idols.

01:19:17

We bring up modern -day idols, not just the ones from the

01:19:23

Old Testament. You mentioned one to me the other day. What was that one? So it's all the way down to these little angel charms that you put on that are supposed to bring you peace and serenity.

01:19:36

Have you heard of those, Chris, these little charm things in some Christian circles that bring you peace by wearing them?

01:19:42

In evangelical circles? Yes. No, I have not. Yes. Yes.

01:19:50

So, I mean, it says it right on there. And if you go to buy them online, it will say for the purpose of to bring you into peace and serenity.

01:20:05

And also like anything like a rabbit foot. When we were growing up, it was a rabbit foot that gave you, you know, good luck.

01:20:15

And, you know, and we have to be very careful about...

01:20:21

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is we are teaching this student to be careful about what we're placing our trust in that is not

01:20:32

God himself. Yes. And have you ever heard of all the debates that I've arranged and hosted with Roman Catholic opponents to biblical

01:20:46

Christians like Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Tony Costa? I can't recall ever hearing a

01:20:53

Roman Catholic trying to defend the omission of the creating of images from the

01:21:00

Hebrew. Have you ever heard any defense trying to use Hebrew from the

01:21:05

Old Testament to defend... I have not. I have not. I have gotten into discussions about, you know, praying to the saints and so forth, and especially praying to Mary.

01:21:16

And I get, well, we're not praying to Mary. We're asking Mary to pray for us.

01:21:22

We don't worship the saints. We venerate the saints. And it gets awful.

01:21:28

It gets awful confusing, at least for me. And frankly, Chris, I've never gotten past that discussion to the one you're asking.

01:21:36

What do we do with these graven images? And they are graven. And you see them.

01:21:42

You used to see them a lot more, Chris, on like dashboards and stuff on people's cars.

01:21:47

I don't see them as much anymore. Okay. We have Carl in Stanford, Connecticut, and Carl wants to know, how on earth could a

01:22:02

Christian in a political realm of authority establish as a law the prohibition of graven images?

01:22:11

Yeah. In other words, it sounds like what he's asking is, what are you... How do we say this?

01:22:20

Let me back up a little bit. Do we go inside a guy's house and find graven images? I don't think that's what the

01:22:27

Bible tells us to do. You look and see what it was. You could be in Israel, if you were quiet about it and no one knew, you could be an idolater, but you could not promote it publicly.

01:22:41

That was the difference right there. So yeah. Can you have laws against graven images?

01:22:47

Yeah, you certainly can. And can that be a capital offense? Yes, it certainly can be.

01:22:53

Now someone's going to say, oh man, that's really repressive. Well, you know what? You can go to India and they have like 2 million different idols.

01:23:03

And you can, I guess, go worship there and feel really, really comfortable. The problem is you're not going to like it there where we have all these multiple gods and all these multiple graven images.

01:23:12

So I think the question has to do with, well, can you... I think there's a two -part question. Is it right to do it?

01:23:19

And then is it possible to do it? Well, the case we want to make from our academy, the

01:23:24

Ten Commandments, is we want to see all man's rules through the lens of the

01:23:30

Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments clearly, clearly, clearly prohibit graven images.

01:23:38

And you know, it's obvious we have a lot of work to do. It has to be done generationally.

01:23:45

It has to be successively taught to the next generation what

01:23:50

God's laws are in order for us to start making them when the opportunity arises.

01:23:59

Can we just go in and make laws right now? No, we can't. We've got to teach the next generation, the next generation what the laws are so that when it's done by God's Holy Spirit and by His will and His providence brings it around that now this is the time.

01:24:20

This is the time. Well, we have to be in place and we have to know what the laws are. We're just saying that this generation, even of Christian young people, do not know what the

01:24:30

Bible says about these things. And that's why we're doing this. And we're also doing this because by God's grace, we have 31 grandchildren.

01:24:40

And the Bible teaches us not only to teach our children, but to teach our grandchildren.

01:24:47

So as long as we're on the planet, we want all of our grandchildren to know and understand these laws.

01:24:56

First, we want them to have a regenerated heart. That is our passion that each of our children will be regenerated by God's grace, that God will reach down and save their souls.

01:25:09

And secondly, we want them to know how to live out His will on this planet. And so as long as we have breath, we are being called to do that.

01:25:18

Not only us, but all other grandparents are called to do that.

01:25:24

He requires this of us. And so this is why we're doing what we're doing.

01:25:31

Now, I know I'm going to get myself in trouble with some of my Reform folks, maybe even you two, but right now in my journey of the

01:25:42

Christian faith, I take a view that may be a minority view amongst

01:25:50

Reformed Christians. I don't know if it's actually a minority view, but I think it's a minority view even in my own congregation.

01:25:59

I don't think that my pastors would agree with this. My pastor, right now, we only have one, where God willing, we're going to eventually have plurality of elders.

01:26:10

But the prohibition to making any graven image in the commandment seems to me inseparably and intrinsically tied to bowing down to the object and serving them and basically worshiping these objects.

01:26:34

Otherwise, if you were to just take it literally without that connection to bowing down to the object and serving it, you could not even have a statue of a bird or a fish or a squirrel in your house.

01:26:58

Or even take a photograph. Right. And so that is the reason

01:27:03

I don't get troubled when I see paintings that include

01:27:11

Jesus in the painting. I am somewhat troubled when people try to adopt a

01:27:19

Jesus of their own ethnicity because they're, in essence, teaching something false about Jesus to make

01:27:26

Jesus Nordic, blonde hair and blue eyed. When he was an Israelite, he was

01:27:33

Semitic, likely swarthy, likely with dark hair and dark eyes.

01:27:41

And people, of course, in Black churches, Black -dominated churches will sometimes have a

01:27:48

Black Jesus in a painting. Asian churches may have the same thing. Native Americans, you know, we could go on and on and on.

01:27:55

But are you seeking for, as far as your worship is concerned, do you believe an absolute prohibition of any kind of image of Christ, even like in some of the children's books, it's a stick figure or something like that?

01:28:12

Sure. Sure enough. So let's back up a little bit once again. This is why it's important to memorize all of the

01:28:19

Ten Commandments. In other words, no other gods, no graven images, and don't take the

01:28:27

Lord's name in vain. But the commentary within the Moses commentary within the Ten Commandments itself is really important here, and you already addressed it.

01:28:36

No graven images, make for yourself any graven images, and then we have the qualification that you shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the

01:28:47

Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generations.

01:28:53

So this is one of the things we want to do. We want to flesh out the Ten Commandments for our the way

01:28:58

God does, the way the Word of God does. So we have why we have the prohibition.

01:29:06

The prohibition exists when you actually bow down and serve it.

01:29:11

Now, a lot of people say, you're breaking God's law if you have a picture of Jesus or whatever.

01:29:21

I can't quite go there with some of my friends. I know with some that's a really big thing, but they say, well, you can't have it.

01:29:29

That's making an image. But when I preach, I try to bring people, depending on what

01:29:36

I'm talking about, I try to bring people into the context of what's going on.

01:29:43

For example, I'll give a quick example. In John 6, Christ reacts to Philip.

01:29:48

Philip says to Christ, and it's just prior to that one person we all know, you know, how can we know where you're going?

01:29:54

How can we know the way, right? And it sounds like Jesus is frustrated.

01:30:00

He says, Philip, how long have I been with you? And you say, show us his father, it suffices thus.

01:30:07

He who has seen the father hath seen me. And we get, I am the way, the truth, and the life in that same passage.

01:30:15

Well, am I allowed to say that Jesus was surprised and a little frustrated with that question?

01:30:22

It certainly sounds like he was, but am I adding something if I say that he was frustrated?

01:30:28

In other words, we present word pictures and we do that with Christ from time to time.

01:30:35

So are we allowed to do that? And I think that if we're going to say we can't even have a figure, or we can't even have a picture of what's supposed to be

01:30:44

Christ from the back, because we don't know how long his hair was, we don't know what color it was, etc. Then it seems to me that we can't do anything like that, even with words.

01:30:54

So that's how I come down on this. Okay, we have

01:30:59

Ralph in Rutland, Vermont. And Ralph in Rutland, Vermont says, as far as the prohibitions to coveting in the 10th commandment, when does admiration turn into coveting?

01:31:16

For instance, admiring someone's car, admiring someone's house, and wishing that you could have something similar, or even more controversially, to see attributes and traits in someone's spouse that you wish that you saw in a spouse of your own.

01:31:39

All right. Ralph is asking a lot of questions right there, so let's see if we can tackle these. First of all, admiration.

01:31:46

Admiration is definitely not coveting. When we look at that coveting verse, it looks as if the things that is being prohibited there are things that are exclusively belong to your neighbor, his wife, that's obviously exclusive, his work animals, exclusive, his house, that's exclusive.

01:32:08

We're not talking about his baseball bat that I can go down and buy another one just like it.

01:32:14

We're talking about things that he has, and with coveting comes along the desire to get that from him by some illicit means.

01:32:24

And it's all about anything that is your neighbor's. So I see admiration like, hey, that really is a nice car.

01:32:31

You know what? Guy has a really nice house. That happened just the other day, Sweets, you and I, right?

01:32:37

We're looking at some really big, nice houses. I said, this is a really nice house. I wouldn't want that house, not at this point in my life.

01:32:44

It's too big. It's too... I can't take care of it. I don't have the energy. But I'm not coveting his house at that point.

01:32:52

Now to say, let's get to his last point, some traits of another spouse that you wish in my...

01:32:58

I wish I was in my spouse. Man, we have to be really careful with that. Really, really careful, because how thankful am

01:33:05

I for the spouse that God did give me if I'm saying, well, man, I wish my wife had that characteristic.

01:33:13

Back up a little bit. I bet your wife, she might be interested in some characteristics of some other husband somewhere.

01:33:19

And I would say you're awful close at that point to being unthankful. That is one of the things that I will talk about from the pulpit is this horrible thing with pornography.

01:33:30

I'm not saying that Ralph was asking, I'm not saying that. But whenever we look at pornography, we're saying that the station that God has given to us is not good enough.

01:33:41

God should have done a better job. He should have given me a wife like that if I'm married or whatever. If I'm not married,

01:33:46

I need a wife like... Well, pornography isn't even real. So we need to be real careful about being thankful at all times for the spouse that God did give to us.

01:33:58

Now, connected to that, is it a violation of the 10th commandment when even if you don't have an intention to steal someone's property or their spouse, you are consumed with envy and jealousy over it?

01:34:19

Well, of course, envy... I mean, jealousy, a little bit different. I mean, God says He's a jealous God, but He never says He's an envious

01:34:24

God or a covetous God. A man is jealous for the love of his wife, for example. That's an example.

01:34:30

Envy is quite wrong. Envy, we define that... You know, coveting is you want what your neighbor has.

01:34:39

Envy has more the idea of, I want to destroy what my neighbor has, even if I don't get it.

01:34:45

I hate my neighbor that much, and I want to destroy his house, or I want to destroy his family, or whatever, both of which are wicked and ungodly and, again, show a lack of thankfulness and gratefulness.

01:34:59

Because hasn't God... In my case, hasn't God been really good to me? And if I really want to destroy my neighbor, if I want my neighbor's stuff,

01:35:07

I am telling God at that moment, not good enough, God. Kind of sounds like Adam and Eve in the garden.

01:35:14

We should be able to eat from any tree if you're really a fair God. No, be thankful for the trees that you can eat from and eat from those.

01:35:22

So bringing it down into teenager language, because we have to teach these concepts to teenagers, okay?

01:35:31

This is what we're doing at the Take10 .academy. And so what we're telling the students is that the coveting, the 10th commandment, it is a thought.

01:35:45

This has to do with your thoughts, okay? And there's no sanctions. Thinking and coveting is definitely a sin, but there's no...

01:35:56

That's between the person and God. It's only sanctioned through God's...

01:36:02

Sanctioned, I'm not using the right word there. There are only sanctions for that. If you act out murder, adultery, fornication, theft, these things come out as a result of the thoughts that you have that have to do with the 10th commandment.

01:36:22

And so we're teaching this to teenage minds and making it easy for them and giving them examples that they can relate to.

01:36:34

And maybe there might be students in our classes whose parents have split over adultery, or we also teach them how to be pure.

01:36:47

We teach them the fornication laws. And so they're going to hear it from God's, so how do you treat your girlfriend?

01:36:56

You don't sleep with her before marriage. And so maybe that's the first time they're ever going to actually hear somebody say that to them.

01:37:05

And it's so relevant. It is so relevant to these teenagers, and we're trying to bring it down to their level.

01:37:13

Okay, we have Kyle in Elmhurst, New York, who says in Matthew 5, 28,

01:37:22

Jesus tells us that even if we look at a woman with lust for her, we have already committed adultery in our heart.

01:37:31

When does the great admiration of a woman's beauty turn into lust?

01:37:39

Does it require that we start fantasizing about somebody of the opposite sex? When does this admiration become sin?

01:37:49

And I would, this is a question a lot of people have worked hard, but I believe that the question kind of answers itself there.

01:37:58

When you can say, okay, that's an attractive, obviously. We have statements like that in the

01:38:03

Bible. For example, we're told that the daughters of Joe were very attractive. So we're told these kinds of things.

01:38:10

But when we begin to fantasize, that is where we've crossed the line into lust without question.

01:38:18

Yeah, and I'm assuming also if you're trying to communicate with the woman, even through your, and of course this is not isolated to men having lust, women have lust too.

01:38:30

But communicating to that person, perhaps even through facial expressions or whatever, that you're interested sexually.

01:38:37

So it could be a lot of different ways that this is violated. You know,

01:38:42

I saw, this is a quick story, Chris. I saw my father when I was very young. I was so young, I didn't even really realize what was happening.

01:38:51

A prostitute came up to my father. We were in an airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a prostitute came up to my father.

01:39:00

Man, Chris, I might've been like four or five. I was young. We were picking up my uncle from the airport, and a prostitute came up to my father and said, oh,

01:39:08

Uncle George, I haven't seen you for such a long time. And my father was right on it.

01:39:15

My dad, he was like, right away, he was like, I'm not Uncle George. In other words, my father, you know, some men would like the attention, want to flirt a little bit.

01:39:28

But my father was committed to his family, he's committed to my mother, and he's committed to his children, and he wasn't having it.

01:39:35

And so, you know, that's a great point, Chris, in words, and then just getting a little bit of attention for the opposite sex.

01:39:43

If it's not your wife, stay away. Okay.

01:39:49

We got to go to our final break right now and send in your questions, as always, to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

01:39:55

ChrisArnzen 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 of the good old

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

01:47:43

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

01:47:48

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

01:47:56

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

01:48:02

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

01:48:08

Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events. For more details on the

01:48:15

Free Pastors Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com. That's ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:48:23

For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

01:48:30

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

01:48:38

Welcome back. Pastor Joel St., you have been to many of my biannual

01:48:44

Free Pastors Luncheons. Why don't you give our listeners, who may be men in ministry leadership, your report on what you've experienced in the past to whet the appetite of those who may not have yet ventured out to Perry County, Pennsylvania to attend one of these?

01:49:03

Yeah, Chris, I know what I'm supposed to say. I'm supposed to say, what an opportunity to meet

01:49:09

Chris Ornson. And there is that opportunity, for sure.

01:49:15

I think there's two things that compete, though. And one is, just to be able to meet other pastors, what kind of opportunity do you have to meet other pastors that are godly

01:49:29

Reformed pastors? In my own particular case here, there's an awful lot of pastors' organizations, but who knows what they really believe.

01:49:38

I mean, a lot of pastors, they have these meetings and get -togethers, and they're the ones with a rainbow flag out front.

01:49:44

Well, those are not the guys that are going to invite me to their next get -together. It's not going to happen.

01:49:51

But at your pastor's luncheons, you meet other guys, and some will have scars.

01:49:59

Some have been out there, and they've stood up for Christ, and they've paid a price for it. And it's just great to meet and talk with folks like that.

01:50:07

The other one that competes with that, of course, is the free books that are there and all the folks that donate.

01:50:15

I don't know too many pastors. I don't know which is better, Chris, free food or free books.

01:50:24

Your pastor's luncheon, you get both. That's right. And in fact, my late wife, who designed these pastor's luncheons, insisted to me, please don't ever sell anything at these luncheons.

01:50:37

Please don't allow anybody else to sell anything. I want this to be an event where pastors know that you care about them so much that they can just relax.

01:50:47

They don't have to worry about an ulterior motive that you have. They don't have to worry about being pressured to sign up for a multi -level marketing company or something that they're going to be forced to pull their wallet out.

01:51:03

Please just make them know that everything is there for free, that this is a treat for them.

01:51:08

And I've been keeping true to her design ever since I began these in the 1990s and plan to continue to have these events in her honor and memory and in tribute to her as long as I'm physically able to keep doing them.

01:51:25

And I will keep the design just as she laid out to me. And I just thank

01:51:31

God for her delight to want to do this with me, which has become, it started as an annual event.

01:51:40

Now it's a biannual event. I'm always thrilled to see you there. Well, I'm thrilled to be there.

01:51:46

I have this fantasy, Chris, you got to indulge me on this. At the next one,

01:51:53

I want to see a limited amount of food and a limited amount of books.

01:52:00

You want to see a riot? Is that what you want? I want to say, okay, you have the books or the food.

01:52:06

And I want to see who goes for the books and who goes for the food. Well, we do have

01:52:13

Colin, who is located in High Point, North Carolina. He has a question for you.

01:52:22

I am really tired of evangelicals trying to make it as if all sin is the same.

01:52:30

We know that all sin, no matter how insignificant we think it is, is worthy of punishment in hell without the blood of Christ covering us and without the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

01:52:47

But as far as saying all sin is the same, can it be disproven even from the way the old covenant saints dealt with violations of the

01:52:58

Ten Commandments? The punishments are not all the same. Yeah, this is what we want to do in this

01:53:04

Ten Commandments Academy. I should say Take10 .academy. We want to be able to communicate to our students that while all crimes are sin, not all sins are crimes.

01:53:21

You know, your two -year -old daughter who says she brushed her teeth and didn't, that's no place for the state to come in and say, oh, there's a crime.

01:53:30

And the Bible itself even answers that question. You know, in Proverbs it says, men do not despise a thief if he steals because he's hungry, but he who commits adultery sins against his own soul, and wounded in dishonor he will get.

01:53:45

So the social consequences and the criminality of the sins, they are definitely not all the same.

01:53:52

And that's a cop -out. Well, we don't need to speak up about, for example, feticide or child sacrifice.

01:53:58

Hey, someone who lies is just the same. No, but the consequences are not the same. And the violation of God's law has different consequences.

01:54:07

And some are, it cannot be undone. And again, this is why we need to consider the

01:54:13

Ten Commandments and why you and your son and daughter and everybody who can needs to sign up.

01:54:21

Come to TakeTen .academy, because we're going to learn these things, and some people never even thought of these things.

01:54:28

Okay, we have Naomi, another Long Islander in Patchogue, New York. And Naomi says,

01:54:34

I have heard that when you slander someone, you not only violate the commandment of bearing false witness, but you are also guilty of murder because you're murdering a reputation.

01:54:46

Is that too severe of an explanation of slander? Naomi, you are right on the money here, right on it.

01:54:55

And this is part of the commentary in both Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession.

01:55:01

This is the commentary. This is why we have commentary in the Bible itself that goes on with the

01:55:08

Ten Commandments. For example, the Ten Commandments tell us not to kill, but the rest of the scriptures, and this is why we take time on this.

01:55:16

The rest of the scriptures tell us what to do when someone kills somebody, not even if.

01:55:22

You're going to have murder, but you're going to put a clamper on it if you use

01:55:27

God's sanctions against it. Our idea of a sanction against a murderer now is to put them in,

01:55:32

I don't know, put them in a self -help program. You know, hopefully that's what jail is going to be. No one even knows what jail...

01:55:39

Well, this is one thing we spent some time on with our students. No one even knows, Chris, what jail is supposed to do. Is jail supposed to reform you?

01:55:46

Is it supposed to punish you? No one even knows. That's why we've got to go to God's sanctions in His Word, which tells us what to do with people who bear false witness.

01:55:59

Ninth Commandment, don't bear false witness. But what do we do? If it's a court case, a person who bears false witness gets the punishment that the accused would have gotten if you are a perjurer, if you're bearing false witness.

01:56:13

Again, superbly practical stuff. We want to teach this at Take10 .academy.

01:56:19

Okay, we've got time for at least one more question from Winnie in York, Pennsylvania. Winnie says, will this be made available through live streaming for those who cannot travel to your area?

01:56:31

And also, do you teach church leaders how to implement the same program in their own congregations?

01:56:39

Second question first, we would love to teach pastors that are interested in any way we possibly can.

01:56:46

We don't live stream it. I guess we're not that technically advantaged, but come on now, Winnie. You're in New York County.

01:56:51

That's right next to Lancaster County. Come on, Winnie. Yeah, we want to see you, Winnie. You're not too far away.

01:56:59

Well, please explain, or should I say, mention again all of the details that any of our listeners need to take advantage of this program.

01:57:09

Yeah, go to Take10 .academy, excuse me, Take10 .academy. The numeral 10, thank you.

01:57:17

Not T -E -N, but the numeral 10, and go there and you'll get the opportunity to register.

01:57:24

We have a deal going on up until December the 31st, and you'll see the testimonials there,

01:57:31

Take10 .academy. You'll figure out exactly how to register. You will also see our faculty.

01:57:39

These are men that have been out in the street. They're not a bunch of eggheads in some seminary somewhere. They're guys who

01:57:45

I have been out on the street going back and forth with people who don't believe. So they're guys who have their calluses, shall we say.

01:57:53

These are people to listen to, and you can get more on our website. And please also do not forget about the

01:58:00

Future of Christendom conference, which is being held in October.

01:58:06

No Other Name is the theme, and the subtitle is

01:58:12

The Supremacy of Christ Amidst Cults and Counterfeit Faiths, Thursday, October 9th through Saturday, October 11th.

01:58:22

This is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, featuring keynote speaker Jeff Durbin, the head of End Abortion Now, and a teaching elder at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, alongside

01:58:35

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. Well, thank you so much, the two of you, for being such superb guests.

01:58:44

I've got to have you back on soon. And I also want to remind our listeners that Iron Trip and Zion Radio needs your financial help more than ever.

01:58:54

Please go to irontripandzionradio .com, click support, then click to donate now.

01:58:59

Also, don't forget that our program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &

01:59:05

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

01:59:11

United States, go call 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, or visit 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM,

01:59:18

1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM, and please tell Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, that you heard about his law firm,

01:59:24

Buttafuoco & Associates, from Chris Arns and on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. 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.