October 25, 2017 Show with Joseph Jacowitz on “The Rise & Fall & Rise? of Family Radio” AND “The Vanishing Gospel”

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on 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 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with 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 hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 25th day of October 2017, the day before the long -awaited

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio free pastor's luncheon in honor of Reformation Day.

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We'll be talking about that a little bit later, but if you have not yet registered, we did extend the registration

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RSVP to tonight at midnight, and we opened up the registration even to men who listen to this program who are not necessarily in the ministry, but they love

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and they have the means to get out to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Once again, our keynote speaker will be

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Pastor William Shishko, who is the retired pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York.

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He's also a faculty member at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and regional home missionary for Reformation Metro New York.

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He's going to be speaking on restoring Reformation passion. Our guest of honor is going to be

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Steve Bloom, Pennsylvania State Representative, and also a on -fire born -again

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Christian who does not carry his faith in his back pocket. He is very upfront and bold about his faith.

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He is also a very humble servant of Christ, someone who you immediately have your heart endeared to if you meet him, if you are a

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Christian, of course, and we're looking forward to having Steve Bloom say a few words as well.

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And we're also going to have some representatives there from First Love Publications, and we are going to be speaking today with the director of First Love Publications, Joseph Jakowicz.

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But before I introduce him, I just want to remind you of our email address where you can send in your registration for the

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Iron Trip and Zion Pastor's Luncheon. It's free of charge. You're going to be leaving with a ton of free books if you attend, and it's tomorrow,

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October 26th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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And the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com and put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line.

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But now I'm going to be introducing to you someone who is a returning guest to Iron Trip and Zion, who

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I just mentioned. His name is Joseph Jakowicz, founder and director of First Love Publications and one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church of Pleasanton, California.

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He's going to be discussing during the first hour the rise and fall and rise, question mark, of family radio.

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And during the second hour, we're going to be discussing the vanishing gospel. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Joseph Jakowicz.

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Thank you, Chris. It's a blessing to be with you. And you know something? As many times as you and I have spoken,

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I wanted to make sure that I'm pronouncing your last name right. Is it Jakowicz or Jakowicz? You had the first one right,

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Jakowicz. Okay. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question at the initial hour on the rise and fall of family radio and the possible rise of family radio, again, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you are asking.

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But before we go into our discussion, Joe, I want our listeners to hear something about Christ's Bible Church of Pleasanton, California.

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Christ's Bible Church is an independent, Calvinistic, Baptistic church about 30 miles east of San Francisco in the heart of liberal

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California, San Francisco area, California where there's Berkeley. And we're an increasingly rare breed here to be a conservative or reformed

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Christian in northern California. And we're located in Pleasanton in the

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Tri -Valley area, like I said, about 30 miles east of San Francisco. About 75 of us in a church, and we've been together since 1990 when the church was founded with four families.

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And I've been with the church since the beginning, was shortly called to be its pastor several months after the church started, and so that'll be 28 years in February.

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And there's another pastor who's been with us for 20 years, Owen Alford. And we have four deacons, and we're very aggressive evangelistically.

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We seek to call people back to the truth, being grounded in sound doctrine with our entire main focus and emphasis on Christ, knowing

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Him in our hearts and maintaining and growing the knowledge of God. Amen.

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And we'll be repeating this later, but if anybody wants to pay a visit to Christ's Bible Church of Pleasanton, California, their website is

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ChristBibleChurch .org. ChristBibleChurch .org.

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And now tell us about this exciting ministry that is going to be blessing the men at the

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Iron Sherpa Zion Radio Pastors Luncheon tomorrow, First Love Publications.

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First Love Publications has its roots about 20 years ago in a ministry that's just started by giving away free tracks and booklets and books on biblical topics.

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And through the years, I came into contact with another ministry, and they did the same thing.

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They were much larger, and that other ministry was following the principles, the faith principles, just trusting

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God for the funds and the resources to distribute the Word of God without charging, trying to be a testimony and a witness that the

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Word of God comes without charge. And so we continued that policy of free distribution.

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About three years ago, two and a half years ago, we had one or two publications, and now we're up to 51.

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The last couple of years, we've been growing exponentially. We have a catalog and brochures, and we go on annual mission trips overseas.

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Actually, we're leaving next Thursday for Nigeria on a mission trip, five of us and our missionaries, to distribute about 500 pounds of free literature and preach at several conferences.

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And then we're going to Nepal at the end of the month to minister at probably the largest

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Reformed Baptist Pastors Conference in the history of Nepal, the country of Nepal in the

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Himalayas, to minister to 300 pastors. We're translating five theology books into the

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Nepali language and sending those pastors away with a stack of books to use doctrinal accuracy and knowledge is a big, big need right now for pastors in Nepal, so our missionary over there is beckoning us to come over and help them.

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And then, God willing, in April, we'll be going to the Philippines to minister to about 3 ,000 pastors, and we're praying that God would enable us to give 90 ,000 books away.

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These, Chris, these books are sound biblical books on theology. We have six different categories of books in First Love Publications.

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We have evangelistic, we have doctrinal, apologetic, devotional, pastoral, and one more category, which

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I can't remember right now, and the totaling 51. And like I said, we receive orders online from our firstlovepublications .org

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website from all over the country, and those packages with books and materials go out throughout the

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United States, hoping to call individual believers back to their first love and also hoping to stimulate reform, reformation, and revival among the churches by learning sound doctrine, returning to sound doctrine where we have strayed from, and also by stirring people up, believers up, churches up, to deepen their heart relationship with God and their knowledge of the

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Word of God. Great. Well, I am looking forward to meeting some of your team who are arriving in Carlisle, Pennsylvania tonight so they can be prepared for the pastor's luncheon tomorrow, and it is such a joy to know that folks like you want to labor alongside

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Iron Sherpanzion Radio to bless pastors who are coming to this, and we have pastors traveling very far distances to this event, and I keep getting word from people in New York and a brother from Georgia and people from Virginia and Maryland.

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It's just such a blessing to know that people think so highly of Iron Sherpanzion Radio and these pastor's luncheons that they're willing to drive so far to attend.

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And the first thing that we are scheduled to talk about today is a very controversial issue, especially amongst

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Reformed people, I think, because Reformed people globally are more aware of Family Radio and Harold Camping, and Harold Camping, who is now the late

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Harold Camping, who passed away... How long ago was it that Mr. Camping...

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He died on December 15, 2013, so it's been about... It'll be four years this

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December. He, I know, was, I believe, an architect and an elder in a

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Christian Reformed congregation many years ago, and Family Radio, when it began and for many years after it began, was a bastion of solid, biblically sound, historically faithful Reformed teaching and pastors, the finest of Reformed pastors from all over the

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United States and from other parts of the world, I think predominantly the UK, had their sermons aired on there regularly, and they had the

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Conference Echoes program. I had gotten a lot of sermons aired on Conference Echoes.

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I remember the brother who was in charge of choosing what sermons to air became so used to loving the sermons that I would send in to him, but back then it was by cassette tape, that he didn't even bother listening to the whole sermons anymore because he just counted on my discernment, and he would...

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I think he aired pretty much every sermon that I ever mailed to him, but then there was a really serious departure from biblical orthodoxy that began to raise its ugly head in the mind and heart of Harold Camping, but I want you to, being more knowledgeable about Family Radio, first of all tell us about your relationship with Family Radio and how long you were involved with Family Radio and something more of the history about the rise and then the fall of Family Radio.

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Well, I was with Family Radio for almost 20 years. I held a couple of different positions with them.

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First, I started off as an instructor in Family Radio School of the Bible, working with Gabriel Otero and a couple of other instructors preparing courses, correspondence courses, that would be mailed out to anyone who wanted to learn the

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Word of God through a course format. Many prisoners around the country and various institutions, thousands of them, were taking

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Family Radio courses, and then within a year or so, at that time, Ed Garbarino was the administrator of Family Radio.

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That's the number two guy under Harold Camping, and he started giving me opportunities to do on -air things.

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I did prayer time for many, many years, probably 12 to 15 years. I led a program called

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Prayer Time in the San Francisco Bay Area, and then it was picked up by the satellite stations and a few other different programs and helped with the share days and the share -a -thons once a month when they would go on the air and solicit donations and different things, a variety.

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That was my introduction to broadcasting, but I was with them for almost 20 years, from 84 to about 2003.

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I left, and I guess you can call me somewhat of an insider.

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I spoke with Mr. Camping off and on and in my role as an instructor there, which they don't hire people as an instructor unless you endorse

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Camping's hermeneutic and his way of studying the Bible and I was somewhat a suspect of the allegorical interpretation of scripture, the allegorical hermeneutic, but I kind of kept a lot of my convictions to myself and was increasingly getting concerned about the direction of Mr.

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Camping's teaching, but it is a travesty. It is a paradox.

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It is ironic. It is so heartbreaking, Chris, as you alluded to earlier, that Family Radio, such a wonderful organization starting out in 1959 when

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Mr. Camping and a few others started Family Radio and for about 30 to 40 years was really the bastion of truth.

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It was the one place you can go throughout the country in major metropolitan areas. It was a national radio ministry.

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They had about 150 stations between their regular powerhouse stations in major metropolitan areas as well as their satellite translator stations, as they call it, that would be rebroadcasting a signal from a major station into a smaller area or a smaller town and thereby leapfrogged the signal into various areas.

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So Family Radio really was among the top two or three national media organizations.

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Their focus was primarily radio, but of course they got into the internet. They live stream now.

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They started actually in 1958 and so they do satellite broadcasting.

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Of course they did shortwave broadcasting in about 10, 12 different languages through shortwave radio all around the world.

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So they really blanketed the globe with their teaching. Harold Camping himself was trained as an engineer.

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He graduated from University of California at Berkeley in 1942 with a degree in civil engineering.

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He never really had any formal training from seminary, formal bible training from a conservative seminary or a reform seminary.

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So he just launched out and within a couple of years after he and a couple of other investors started

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Family Radio, he really took over the main teacher role at Family Radio and had his open forum program which aired for, oh

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I don't know, 40 years before he died. Actually before he was no longer able to do any teaching.

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He was I think 92 or 93 years old when he died in 2013. So but Family Radio just through the main efforts of Harold Camping who was a well -to -do construction company owner, he took his training from UC Berkeley and started

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Camping Construction, a construction company in the San Francisco Bay Area and did really well.

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And so by 1958 he was in a position financially to buy the fledgling

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KEAR radio station in San Francisco which he did and from there they just he hired some experts who knew how to create or to start radio stations and hired technical experts to be able to work with the

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FCC, file the necessary applications and also to build these stations or to buy them.

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And one by one he had a network of radio stations by the late 60s early 70s throughout the

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United States in major areas like WFSI in Annapolis, Maryland, WFME in the

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New York, New Jersey metropolitan area where I first heard Family Radio in 1978 as a young seminary student there in New Jersey and so and WKDN in southern

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New Jersey covering Philadelphia as well and many many other Washington DC and many other places throughout the

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United States. And but as time went by Mr. Camping's teachings started going askew.

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His method of interpreting the Bible got him into trouble. That was the main thing that got him into trouble and I think somewhat the backlash from his teachings that many pastors and local churches reacted to negatively eventually

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I think built up a grudge in Mr. Camping against the church which eventually resulted after several date -setting episodes from 1994 onward till about 2003 he came up with a date of the second coming of Christ beginning with his book 1994 question mark

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Christ in common October of 94 which he predicted based on a weird series of numeric calculations and he tried again several times at the date of Christ's return and it didn't work and he about 2002 -2003 the worst of the heresy started coming out.

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Yes in fact Harold Camping even long before he became intolerably heretical there was always something about his teaching and about his manner that troubled a lot of biblically sound reformed pastors.

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He always had a unteachable demeanor about him and he you know had had some odd thoughts on things that he would really tenaciously cling to during his open forum program things that some of which he actually abandoned

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I mean the I mean it's too bad that he didn't abandon the the more problematic issues he started to abandon very serious vital orthodox teachings as you mentioned he seemed to start off getting public attention for his heretical notions when he was predicting the end of the world but then it moved on to not only that Christ was the enemy of the church but you were marked out as an enemy of Christ if you were a member of a church and that you should have no hope for salvation if you were a member of a church and uh as you recall

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I I actually was pleasantly surprised that Harold Camping after many attempts uh to have him debate on my radio program when it was broadcasting out of New York Iron Sherpins Iron Radio out of WNYG radio in Babylon Long Island uh he finally agreed to have a debate on my program with Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries that lasted several days and that was in July of 2009 if anybody listening wants to get those audio links for that debate uh just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and put Harold Camping in the subject line but uh as he approached the end of his ministry he was getting really radically heretical in ways that uh

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I never dreamed he would wind up like for for instance when I had him on my program he actually denied the necessity to believe in Christ uh as a uh as a uh vital aspect of of being saved right uh he uh when

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I when I was interviewing him I said to him you believe that the end of the world is going to occur in just a matter of weeks and I said

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I know missionaries who say that there are still areas of the globe that have not been evangelized and the book of revelation clearly teaches us that that those who will be worshiping the lamb in heaven are from out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and uh how could you say that the end of the world is coming are you are you saying that all of these un -evangelized areas are going to be fully evangelized so that the remnant will come out of them and he actually said you don't need to believe in Christ to be saved

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I said excuse me and he said the the believers in the old testament they didn't believe in Christ so he really uh and he and he also had didn't he have some very uh strange ideas of the trinity that developed that became almost modalistic and uh even a view of the atonement that almost appeared to be uh promoting a patrae passionism that the father suffered on the cross you know what

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I'm talking about yes I do because he did have a weird view of the father's relationship with the son actually um

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I think the avalanche of heresies uh started pouring out once he uh disclosed and publicly made known his depart out teachings where the church age has ended he believed in 1988 but he didn't disclose that until 2002 he kind of kept that in his back pocket his belief that the church age ended because in 2002 he announced his belief in that and the subsequent depart out teachings where he taught that for many years until his death actually that all believers are to leave their churches because the church age has ended god doesn't work through the church anymore he believed the offices of pastor and deacon and the ordinances of baptism in the lord's supper are canceled and that like you suggested if if a believer goes to a church they actually are anathema they're condemned by the lord and they're not saved there was a sign of not being saved but that was it for me

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I was hanging on by a thread anyway right up until 2002 because of his resetting of the date of the second coming of christ and I but he announced it at a staff meeting of all family radio employees at 2002 and I went to that meeting as a staff member and there must have been uh well over 100 people in the tv studio at that time

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Mr. Camping also had a tv program and he took a half hour to summarize his beliefs on the uh ending of the church and that believers are to depart from it and at the end

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I mean everyone is shocked the jaws are dropping and I'm sitting next to my good friend

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Jerry Ettinger one of the announcers of the the nighttime program and we're looking at each other and at the end of the half hour he stood up and said are there any questions so I'm looking around there's

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Gabriel Otero the dean of the school the bible I'm waiting for him to jump up and challenge him and some of the main announcers and the department heads and it was a real not only was it a challenge for everyone doctrinally to try to understand this heresy and and grasp of verses in scripture that refute it but it was it was a test of their own loyalty to God and to the scripture and the only ones that stood up and challenged him was

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Jerry and myself and finally after after about 15 minutes of giving him verse after verse after verse uh he just looked at me and eyeball to eyeball and said would you please sit down and but there was no answer uh really good answer that he could give me to deal with the the scriptures that I gave him uh taking apart his heresies but once the depart out teaching came in which he's actually destroying the church it's not an innocuous harmless thing that he did he was actually whether he believes it or not he was attacking and destroying the church he was hurting the faith of many believers who would no longer be able to sit under the sound teaching of scripture in many of these churches who were that were biblical

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I've I know a lot of people I've heard a lot of testimonies of the fallout and damage to people's lives one person even committed suicide others sold all their possessions their homes got rid of gave their money away uh and many uh lingering residual negative effects on the lives of many people in many churches so many pastors

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I've known through the years have told me that they lost 10 of their church members 20 of their church members and there were conflicts and uh grievances and disputes among members because of harold camping introducing this heresy and not doing anything to quell the disunity and the hurt uh that it caused upon the church of christ for many years as you suggest the family radio did did the church a great service but there was such a turn on a dime chris it was a radical turn and it went in the opposite direction and this illustrates the fact of how much damage one person can do to the church of christ if that person's person is in a key position to influence many lives but there are other heresies not only the date setting and the depart out teaching but within the next few years he also came to the position of annihilationalism that there was no such thing as hell in the lake of fire people won't have to stand before him in judgment and i think the greatest heresy of all it which even eclipses the depart out teaching the destruction of the church is the belief that christ died twice for our salvation he died camping believes before the foundation of the world and also on the cross in history but he taught that christ death before the foundation of the world by the decree of god that was the effectual death for the for the salvation of the elect and that is the i believe the biggest heresy of all as you suggested he he believed that you didn't have to have faith because i believe mr camping was a pure hyper calvinist his engineering background his analytical mind his predilection to use numbers to interpret the bible this man was a hyper super logician a logical person and many places in scripture you cannot approach the study of theology and doctrine logically because there are many antinomies that is doctrines that are both true but on the surface they appear to contradict each other but they don't contradict in the mind of god but mr camping was trying to reconcile doctrines that are not intended to be reconciled just to be accepted by god's people like for example um election uh and and the sovereignty of god rather and human responsibility how do you reconcile those two you don't you just accept them both but so i believe he was a hyper calvinist and he never really had a clear testimony you ask him well how did you get saved mr camping he he responds well there was never a time that i didn't remember that i was saved now i know that some believers don't have a very strong testimony and they just believed but because of the hyper calvinism and that faith is de -emphasized and god's decrees and election is over emphasized he just skipped faith he really did not emphasize it ever i've never heard him on his open forum program and i listened to him for 25 30 years on the open forum i never heard a clear free offer of the gospel to his listeners where he encouraged people to believe on the lord jesus christ and let's pick up right where you left off there uh we have to our first break right now if anybody would like to join us on the air the question our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa you may you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you are asking don't go away god willing we'll be right back with joseph jackowitz right after these messages from our sponsors i am chris arnson host of iron sharpens iron radio here to tell you about an exciting offer from world magazine my trusted source for news from a christian perspective try world at no charge for 90 days and get a free copy of r .c

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that's solid rock remodeling .com solid rock remodeling bringing new life to your home hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m

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eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am .com

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we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor and pastor shishko as i said earlier will be our keynote speaker tomorrow at the iron sharpens iron radio pastor's luncheon at the carlisle fire and rescue banquet hall in carlisle pennsylvania 11 a .m

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to 2 p .m and our guest of honor is going to be steve bloom who is pennsylvania state representative and also a candidate for congress and much more important than both of those things he is a bible believing born again believer in christ and we look forward to paying a tribute to him and having prayer uh offer to god for him uh at this uh exciting event tomorrow and if you haven't registered already please send in an email to register at chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and as i said earlier we have extended the invitation to all men in the iron chirping's iron radio audience who can get to carlisle pennsylvania and it's absolutely free of charge and you'll be getting free books uh from major christian publishers and also from first love publications and we have on the program today the founder and director of first love publications uh joseph jackowitz and so send in that registration at chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line and uh now you could also email us a question for joseph jackowitz regarding family radio at chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and just give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the usa and a couple of interesting things uh joe is that number one uh bill shishko who is our keynote speaker tomorrow he was very involved in family radio uh on conference echoes and knew mr camping personally and spoke at a couple of the family radio conferences out in new york and uh at least a couple and when mr camping first uh started to predict the end of the world uh pastor bill and a handful of other reformed men uh and including dr bob cameron i don't know if you knew bob he was a dear friend of mine uh who is now in glory with christ but they confronted mr camping and he was he was uh defiant unteachable and the irony is back then he said one of the signs that the church was apostate he said where do you hear preachers warning against hell anymore and it's kind of ironic that he wound up abandoning eternal conscious punishment and adopted the annihilation view um but uh one thing that's uh kind of humorous now that i look back on it is that the general manager of wfme in new jersey family radio affiliate uh he knew that i uh had been working for a while in christian radio and he contacted me to take a trip out to new jersey to see the studios uh because he wanted to see if there was a position at family radio for me so i went out there to wfme radio uh and uh when i got there the general manager was in a meeting and i had to wait in the lobby for quite a while and then we went out right uh next to family radio the wfme there was a japanese restaurant and we were sitting there having the meal prepared right in front of us uh one of those types of places where the guy chops up the food right right on the you know on the uh the oven right on right in front of you and flipping things around and he and the general manager said to me chris i have an update for you and i really apologize to you from the depths of my heart but i was fired today he uh the general manager there at wfme was among the minority of folks with family radio that did stand up against mr camping in fact he spoke at a pastors meeting that was open to pastors of all churches at the orthodox presbyterian church of franklin square on long island new york where pastor bill shishkoe was pastor before he retired and the general manager of family radio was there as the as the speaker to rally support uh again with him in opposition to harold camping's teaching on the end of the world uh and that was really what brought about his demise in his career uh with family radio is that he dared to defy mr camping on that issue but before the break um you were talking about how you never really heard a clear gospel proclamation by mr camping one of the things that he was always famous for saying uh was when people would ask him what can i do to be saved he would always say that he would always say something that was a contradiction in terms he would say there's nothing you can do there's nothing at all you can do just cry out to god just cry out to god now that that's a he's contradicting himself right there there's nothing you could do and cry out to god you know yeah well of course that is a contradiction in terms because if there's nothing you can do he should have pointed people to christ he should have said believe on the lord jesus christ or look to christ or pray to christ now uh praying someone would say well that's doing something that's a work or crying out to god that is a work but um the holy spirit as we understand the nature of regeneration the focus is not on the means which would be prayer the method the bridge which would be prayer it's on the lord jesus christ and he is the one that would grant you saving faith but mr camping is a hyper calvinist and he would just dismiss any kind of physical activity whatsoever including prayer not prayer but including anything that smacks of of works or or human responsibility now we all know that the foundation and basis of salvation is that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in the atoning work of christ alone but the lord tells us to pray and believe to believe on the lord jesus christ therefore we know what scripture teaches that we're saved by grace therefore when we pray and when we believe these as well are gifts of god just like salvation so there's no there's no contradiction in god's economy and in his plan of salvation as well as the means of grace whether it be faith and prayer these are just instruments through which god works but mr camping could never connect those dots chris he he didn't see that that faith itself is is a gift well he believed that faith was a gift of god but he never presented the free offer of the gospel just like christ himself our lord and the apostles in the gospels they called upon men to believe knowing full well that god has to grant them the faith yet in god's plan of salvation he chose the method of faith uh to bring us to god although faith itself is is not the basis of salvation it is the grace of god so mr camping could never connect that simple truth that we must believe on the lord jesus christ but of course he gets all the glory faith is from him and i never really heard a clear um gospel uh presentation there were many times chris i'm driving down the road through the years listening to the open forum mr camping is witnessing to somebody on the air he's sharing what he believes is the gospel with this person and right up until the point where um he uh you know the salvation moment comes poor mr camping is he's doing well but then he says cry out to god cry out to god i and i and i would i would just cry out and bang the dashboard and say no believe on the lord jesus christ and you will be saved mr camping tell them about christ point them to christ tell them to believe in christ the holy spirit's an expert at saving people he knows how to separate uh the the grounds of salvation through the means of salvation he knows how to glorify christ alone as the source of our salvation and the mind of a seeking center just tell them what jesus tells them believe on the lord jesus christ amen and anyway so it's a very very sad situation but i think the the bottom line issue with mr camping and his downfall and his tragic demise uh and family radios the effect it had on family radio it's listening and the church uh and the effect it had on the church you still there chris yeah that was just some unintentional computer sound effects there no problem uh but i think the bottom line is that mr camping is a symbol he symbolizes the importance of sound exposition sound exegesis using sound biblical principles to interpret the word of god when you don't approach the study and interpretation and exegesis of scripture with uh the sound biblical method which is called the historical grammatical interpretation of scripture as opposed to the allegorical method it's just like looking at a compass if you're one degree off downrange a few miles you're going to be a thousand miles off so it's really important that you start off with the right principles and hermeneutic when you interpret the scripture and but mr camping um arrived at the conclusion for example that the church ended because of his inconsistent and arbitrary and at times incoherent allegorical interpretation of scripture he long taught the view popularized by origin and early church father in the first century that first sees a literal meaning anyone can understand but more important is the moral meaning or moral teaching that underlies the literal meaning of the text this is what the allegorical approach of interpreting the scriptures um has as a basis they look at yeah they'll look at the literal meaning but there's something underneath it they call it the moral meaning which should be sought after and to an extent that's true but that seeking after the moral meaning they believe requires more insight but the most important problem is what they believe is obtaining the spiritual meaning which requires spiritual insight and knowledge and according to camping every passage in the bible has some relevance to the gospel message has some hidden spiritual allegorical meaning in it that must be ascertained that must be understood and so this becomes the basis then for his allegorical interpretations where anything in the bible becomes fair game to be made into a picture of whatever harold camping desires can i give you an example oh yeah sure for example to substantiate his teachings against the church to to prove his depart out teachings camping used the two witnesses of revelation 11 he used jerusalem and judah and all of old testament israel he used hezekiah's life and the both the disciples use in john 21 as pictures of the church and in the end he's using all these biblical examples which have no connection whatsoever in the literal meaning of the text these five or six examples are not connected together by any uh literal surface meaning uh it's only when he subjectively goes deep and says all of these six examples have something in common and he is the one that gives the spiritual connection between all of these apparently unconnected narratives in the bible and he blends them all together to make this allegorical shake which destroys the church in the end and he comes up with this depart out teaching so the allegorical interpretation in this process is pitted against the grammatical uh historical method which first determines uh a passage's meaning by reference to its language to the grammar the context the background the um what the original author intended the original readers to understand and when we read the biblical text we want to know what the original author intended to convey to his original audience in his own context amen and until we determine this we truly have no basis for asking other questions such as what does this mean to me today yeah in fact if you remember in the debate that harold camping had with uh dr james r white on my on my program that was one of the things that uh james white was bringing up to him and mr camping was defiantly rejecting any need for him to use the historical grammatical method of interpretation and um he uh and in fact one of the things that was always unusual about him even when he was a christian reformed church elder reformed christians are known for being confessional people and mr camping even when in the crc seemed to be anti -confessional he had a twisted and warped understanding of sola scriptura to the point where he he became in in essence the caricature that roman catholics like to paint of all protestantism that we are our own uh popes who infallibly interpret the bible uh alone out of any uh historical context of the church's interpretations of things he seemed to reject uh the the great gift that god has given to the church for centuries you know the great men of faith like john calvin and like luther and like john knox and like charles spurgeon uh he he seemed to only want to rely upon his own understanding alone of what the bible told am i off base here no you're not it seems as if and and i knew him for probably 20 plus years in everything he did he wanted to occupy a unique place in the christian world he wanted to come up with novel teachings uh and be in that unique place to receive attention but the problem is historic and biblical uh christianity believed by the uh majority of evangelical conservative pastors and church people and believers reacted almost to a person uh against camping except the camping knights who followed his teaching and swallowed his teaching hook, lion, and sinker but camping became the very thing he cried out against his entire public ministry especially at the helm of the open forum program where he would almost daily he would he would say the bible alone the bible alone is our guide the bible alone but the deceptive part of all that is his dogmatism and his novel interpretations attracted a a good number of ignorant believers new believers who who had not had sound teaching or sound pastors right on the blackboard of their doctrinal minds yet these people would be vulnerable and uh to to uh influenced by guys and false teachers like like harold camping harold camping meant well and he was very good for many years but the lesson we learned is that the very thing he cried out against he became even though he said the bible alone there was a very deceptive practice that he employed that was not known by the average believer and could not be observed by the average believer is that he used his own hermeneutic his own method of interpretation right let's let's pick let's pick up right where you left off there because we have to get to our midway break and this is our longer uh break than normal because the uh grace life radio 90 .1

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fm in lake city florida requires a longer break between the two hours so be patient with us as we have a an extended break now and we hope to hear from you with your questions and we already have several of you waiting and i hope you're as patient as you can be because uh we'll get to you as soon as possible but if anybody would like to get in line and join them our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and always give us your first name city and state and country of residence unless the matter over which you are asking is a personal and private one don't go away god willing we'll be right back after these messages with joe jacowitz one sure way all iron sharpens iron radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers i know you all use batteries every day so i'm urging you all from now on to exclusively use batterydepot .com

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and click support at the top of the page but most importantly keep iron sharpens iron radio in your prayers we hope that iron sharpens iron radio blesses you for many years to come tired of box store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship and how about the preaching perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from long island well there's good news waiting river baptist church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of god's word and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us

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that's wrbc .us i'm james white of alphanamega ministries the new american standard bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study used by pastors scholars and everyday readers the nasb is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable bible translation the nasb offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the nasb is known for the nasb is available in many editions like a topical reference bible researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy the new topical reference bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues from compacted giant print bibles find an nasb that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com

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whichever edition you choose trust discover and enjoy the nasb for yourself today go to nasbible .com

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that's nasbible .com hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m

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eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am .com

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we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor welcome back and before we return to our discussion with our guest joseph jackowitz and i apologize joe for mispronouncing your name right before we went to the break but uh before we go to our discussion again we have some important announcements to make in regard to special events that sponsors of iron trip and zion radio are conducting in the near future the first of which is the one i already mentioned uh don't forget about tomorrow's iron trip and zion radio pastors luncheon it's absolutely free of charge it has been open the invitation has been open to all men who listen to iron trip and zion radio if you have a means uh by which to get to carlisle pennsylvania we would love to see you please rsvp by midnight tonight the speaker is the man that you just heard in that ad for a visit to the pastor's study it is a reverend bill shishko retired pastor of the orthodox presbyterian church of franklin square long island new york he is on the faculty at greenville presbyterian theological seminary in taylor south carolina and he is the regional home missionary for reformation metro new york and he is going to be speaking on the theme restoring reformation passion our guest of honor is steve bloom pennsylvania state representative and candidate for congress and you're not only going to be eating for free and getting fed spiritually for free but you're also getting a very heavy sack of free books donated by major publishers all over the united states and the united kingdom in addition to the gifts you'll be receiving from first love publications uh if you would like to join us our uh email to register is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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now we are back to our guest joseph jackowitz. he is the founder and director of first love publications and he is a former staff member at family radio family stations incorporated and he broke away from that organization when it spiraled into very serious and damnable heresy and we are now continuing our discussion on the details that were involved in that apostasy of mr camping and those who were remaining faithful to him and before the break we were talking about how mr camping would out of one side of his mouth say don't read commentaries don't read books by men read the bible and of course the books that i wrote i can still remember a devotee of or disciple of harold camping who used to went when before mr camping told his followers to never visit churches if you may recall there were quite a number of campingites as they were called affectionately by those who were not disciples of mr camping and the campingites would jump around from church to church to church usually just to complain about how bad the sermon was in the lobby after the was over and uh there was this gentleman who used to come to the church where i was a member fairly often and he would do that very thing and when i saw him in the narthex of the church after the service i was saying to myself okay what's he going to say now and he said to me do you know what your your pastor's biggest problem is i said what's that and he said he's always quoting men he's always quoting john calvin and and charles spurge and and george whitfield and jonathan edwards why doesn't he just stick to the bible and mr camping and i said did you hear what you just said are you what part of the canon did mr camping contribute to but um that that was uh a very uh disingenuous or hypocritical or uh whatever i don't know what other phrase to use yeah uh and and it is also his disconnect from church history by being anti -confessional that's a very dangerous combination of things isn't it yeah it is and that's what happens in what position you come to when you're following a man and you are not firmly grounded in the principles of hermeneutics which is the science of properly interpreting the scripture the bible says and these principles teach and these are biblical principles as the bible teaches that no prophecy of scripture is a private interpretation so all men including harold camping including the pope including joe jackowitz and chris arnzen are under the authority of scripture and are subject to the the proper interpretation of the scriptures using the bible's own rules of interpretation and of accurately obtaining an accurate interpretation called the historical grammatical interpretation of scripture and this is precisely where sad to say as much good as he's done this was the the problem that led to harold camping's downfall because the allegorical interpretation of scripture ignores the grammar and the original context of the scriptures which is why chris it must be rejected as a valid method of interpretation it's simply unverifiable in other words no person using the allegorical method can honestly and logically prove that his conclusions are actually based on the text that's being interpreted why because if the actual meaning of the text is ignored the allegorical meaning which you're trying to obtain by going beneath the literal meaning of the text can be whatever the interpreter wants it to be and and since each allegorical interpreter may may see something or feel something different in the text allegorical interpretations can never be verified by others working with the same text unlike real biblical exegesis where the work of generations of scholars verifies and re -verifies the conclusions already reached by the weight of all of these scholars and we all need teachers chris whether the teacher is a pastor standing in a pulpit on sunday or a godly commentator and whether it's a your pastor or someone else's pastor or a commentator we always keep one eye on the scripture when we're hearing biblical exposition and biblical application everything must go through all teaching must go through the filter of scripture and so harold camping was dead wrong there that we can't profit from godly books and from teachers because we all stand on the shoulders of these giants going back to the original authors of scripture but as long as we test and prove our interpretation by the proper rules of interpretation that all agree in the historical grammatical system but the result of a fatal flaw in the system is that no allegorical interpretation can claim the authority of the original text this is because the source of the interpretation is not the text itself but the mind of the interpreter who sees anything he wants to see he sees certain things in it and so the allegorical method cannot compel anyone to believe its findings because the meaning is derived in the mind of the interpreter rather than from the objective source of the text itself now if you could uh contrast what you're talking about with those who are outside of dispensationalism for instance most reformed christians although we do have many brethren who are dispensationalists and calvinists like john macarthur and so on but there is a very common accusation by our dispensationalist brethren that we are all who are outside of their camp allegorizing uh scripture far too often there are allegories obviously in the scripture and uh it's it's interesting when our friends who are dispensationalist accuse us of using allegories and figurative language far too much it's usually that we are taking passages of scripture that we believe are in their context supposed to be very literal and they don't and then uh they uh just call us allegorists because we don't see certain passages that they view as literal as being properly interpreted as liberal such as a thousand year reign and so forth when even the scriptures say that the uh that god owns the cattle on a thousand hills he doesn't mean literally a thousand he means all hills so there are there are figurative uh uh phraseology there is figurative phraseology in the scripture but mr camping just went to a heretical extreme with it am i right yep exactly and this is where many many theologians pastors and believers go wrong because they lack one uh or both of the two two of the most important elements of the interpreter the the faithful uh interpreter is number one honesty we must be honest with the text no matter how many of our sacred cows are cut down no matter how many people who love us we will disappoint even if we lose friends over it we have to be honest with the text and secondly we must work very hard at obtaining an accurate proper interpretation lazy interpreters run into problems not only at the allegorist but the lazy interpreter will will go off the mark and go down rabbit trails that may take them sometimes years to recover from and back to a biblical position on a certain topic or subject so hard work and honesty is very very very important when you're trying to obtain a proper interpretation of scripture and so many people run into problems because they're pulled in many different directions because of the pressure they have from their denomination you know if they believe and and a certain uh interpretation it's going to step on the toes of the classes or the denominational head or my or my co -pastor or a large donor to my church and so we are often tested as interpreters of scripture and students of scripture to make sure that we are honest no matter where the chips may fall and no matter what price we have to pay there are many burned at the stake many of our forefathers were burned at the stake over over the interpretation of scripture chris and you and i can both name many of them like john huss and william tyndale and uh wickliffe wasn't burned at the stake but many others would not throw out the proper interpretation even if what we would call secondary areas of liberty of belief uh for the sake at the at the expense rather of wounding their conscience which should alone be captive to the word of god as luther said and so but this entire the the allegorical interpretations have no more authority than the interpreter and it destroys the authority of the text of scripture when one approaches it from an allegorical method no one using this method can honestly say the word of god says this this and this because their system replaces the meaning of the text which as i said through the historical grammatical method is communicated through grammar lexical meanings context background and so christians are to believe that the scriptures are god breathed and therefore are authoritative by nature when the allegorical interpreter on the other hand ignores the text the source of the scriptures authority is replaced by the thoughts of mere men and this leads to every kind of abuse of god's word and false teachers often use unverifiable forms of interpretation as a cover like camping did in order to replace biblical truth with their own subjective false understandings and their false doctrines so untaught and unstable believers are often susceptible to the smooth speech of teachers like harold camping and so without solid knowledge of how to properly interpret the bible they accept false conclusions which are not presented to them with great confidence uh which are rather uh presented with a great confidence and dogmatism by these false teachers so when we point out harold camping's erroneous use of the allegorical interpretation method we're not merely arguing about insignificant points of theology we're defending the very authority of scripture for a bible that cannot communicate god's truth consistently to each generation can't be a solid foundation for the faith yes and to go back to what i was saying earlier uh there are allegories in the bible but the historical grammatical approach uh hermeneutical approach to the bible will view things as allegorical when you can see from the context that they were intended by the author to be allegorical like even yeah jesus christ this is the the big debate between roman catholics and bible believing christians in regard to the so -called mass uh they will say that we are guilty of an allegorical heresy because we do not believe that the bread and wine are transformed literally into christ's body and blood we believe that they remain bread and wine and that they are pictures of christ's uh body and blood and the roman catholic will cry foul and say oh you're you're using an allegorical heresy there and of course they're not consistent because they allegorize a lot of things but uh but but uh it depends on the context and the intent of the author yeah can i can i say something real quick on that i'm glad you brought us back to that point because i wanted to take a break because i said a lot there and i didn't get a chance to comment on you bringing up that very issue about the allegorical interpretation there is definitely passages in the bible there are passages in the bible that are allegorical in nature and therefore you need to identify and properly interpret that allegorical interpretation the book of revelation most of it is allegory except for about six or seven chapters it is pure allegory and how do you handle that well the two most difficult types of passages in the bible to interpret chris is number one allegory and number two eschatology it's funny that in that eschatology you have more preachers standing up and speaking dogmatically on a type of interpretation that is among the most difficult passages to interpret so i would be very slow if i was a pastor or teacher or even a believer to to speak very vehemently and and strongly and uh and dogmatically about passages that are very difficult to interpret that major theologians over the last two thousand years have battled over have had disputes over uh and and you know you they some people listen to one one sermon and so on the second coming of christ and suddenly they're an expert on the second coming you know so we need to be very very careful when we look at eschatology and allegory now the bible the bible has a couple of very important lessons to teach us when we when we approach interpreting allegory and eschatology number one is that the answer to a theological question on these difficult passages of allegory and eschatology nine out of ten times are not answered the issues and the questions we seek to resolve in our understanding of a text are not answered except we get into the minutiae of that doctrine the minutiae will very often give us the answer and the minutiae the answer is to be found in the minutiae and the minutiae needs to be unfolded and unpacked through a very diligent hard study of scripture on that topic you need to compare dozens and dozens of verses with other verses for example you need to really get into the greek and the hebrew you need to look at not just one commentator and slam the book close and say that's it you need to look at the opinions of 10 15 20 commentators you need to exhaust every resource and tool exegetically every reference resource we have to come to a proper understanding of a passage that has an allegorical interpretation and even then you may not understand it uh so uh but allegory there is there there are a number of passages they they are a minority of texts in the bible but as some of our uh well -meaning brethren they uh believe they just believe that every text in the bible has a literal interpretation and that gets them into trouble too they ignore or dismiss the allegorical interpretations and that's where some people are run into a problem uh where they they'll take a passage that is pure allegory and they will take it literally and they will run into trouble because of that yeah and and even the most ardent uh dispensationalist who claims to be a literalist even they will use allegories because they know that some of the imagery of beasts and with multiple heads and things like that they they know that those aren't real creatures um that they are pictures of something but but we have to go to our final break right now and we're definitely going to be taking our listener questions because they're mounting up uh very uh highly uh as we speak here uh so uh be patient we'll we'll get to you as soon as possible those of you who are listening uh and we'll be right back god willing right after these messages from our sponsors so don't go away tired of box store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship and how about the preaching perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical tired of box store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship and how about the preaching perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from long island well there's good news wedding river baptist church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of god's word and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us

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that's nasbible .com iron sharpens iron radio is sponsored by harvey cedars a year -round bible conference and retreat center nestled on the jersey shore harvey cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400 for generations christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at harvey cedars each year thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about god's word an additional 9 000 come annually to harvey cedars as families couples singles men women pastors seniors and missionaries 90 miles from new york city 70 miles from philly and 95 miles from wilmington and easily accessible scores of notable christian groups frequently planned conferences at harvey cedars like the navigators intervarsity christian fellowship campus crusade and the alliance of confessing evangelicals find harvey cedars on facebook or at hcbible .org

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hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives hi i'm buzz taylor frequent co -host with chris ironson on iron sharpens iron radio i would like to introduce you to my good friends todd and patty jennings at cvbbs which stands for cumberland valley bible book service todd and patty specialize in supplying reformed and puritan books and bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone since 1987 the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available christian books and bibles at the best possible prices unlike other book sites they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly much of what is being printed is not worth your time that means you can get to the good stuff faster it also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic heretical and otherwise faith material promoted by the secular book vendors their website is cvbbs .com

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browse the pages at ease shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as todd and patty work in service to you the church and to christ that's cumberland valley bible book service at cvbbs .com

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that's cvbbs .com let todd and patty know that you heard about them on iron sharpens iron radio and don't forget cvbbs .com

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is having a 50 % sale 50 % off sale on reformed expository commentaries in hardback including the new one in the book of revelation uh by richard d phillips so go to cvbbs .com

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and look up that information for the 50 % off sale on reformed expository commentaries in hardback including the new one on revelation by richard d phillips and please tell them that you heard about iron sharpens that you heard about cvbbs on iron sharpens iron radio and we are now back to our discussion with joseph jackowitz the founder and director of first love publications and before we go to our listeners who have questions joe i wanted to make a couple of things clear we don't want to completely vilify everything about mr camping because as heretical as he became the lord did use him to bring quite a number of people to actually not only salvation uh but also to a sound understanding of of theology uh that obviously they didn't go lockstep with them down the spiral into heresy as mr camping uh unfortunately did but there are i've met many people who came to christ as a result of mr camping's teaching god using it of course as his sovereign means and also uh into reform theology uh this shows you the sovereignty of god because he can even use a very flawed person like mr camping for a much uh greater cause and a beautiful purpose absolutely and as i already made reference in in this program that uh it is really agonizing and heart -wrenching for me to see this swing from such a useful servant of god at one time that mr camping was influencing for good the lives of about tens of thousands hundreds of thousands even millions of people and to swing so far over to to the other side and to have to end his life like solomon or like samson uh in the extreme on the other side is is very agonizing for me i personally family radio uh blessed me and ministered to me and my wife in the in the late 70s when we were in new jersey and i have a lot of good experiences at family radio so no we're not throwing the baby out with the bath water but again it's it's a very paradoxical situation but mr camping did do a lot of good you're right and uh what do you know uh as far as what he repented of before departing this earth the only thing that i'm aware of is he he repented of the inaccuracy in his date setting but i think he clung tenaciously to his opposition to the church of christ yeah of all the things that he needed to repent of on that list that would have been the last thing i would have you know hoped that he would have repented of his belief in christ dying twice and his annihilationism and some of the other ones but yeah that uh i don't know of any anything besides that that he had regrets on but he never really publicly confessed anything that he did wrong he never uh came on the air or sent out letters where he uh expressed his sorrow and repentance in a biblical way uh based on anything that he did wrong it was but there are you know there are signs one of the things i do want to mention in today's program chris that family radio was moving back in the right direction i uh i know the the new president of family radio with which he's been there now for i don't know seven eight nine years tom evans i knew him when he was an employee of family radio he's the president now has been for a while and i've been communicating with him and so forth and tom is uh i think uh gently trying to lead family radio back to the mainstream evangelical position even reform position that they held for many decades at family radio just a few signs would be that the open forum um program or the the the quotes and the the spots that they have on the radio of mr camping's teaching is uh from what i understand is has been sifted of the depart out teachings and uh they have brought on one or two or three other broadcasters uh besides a family radio original programming that's been generated in house which they exclusively relied on after the depart out teachings came out they removed all the other broadcasters that they gave airtime to i think a couple of them are now back on the airwaves so the old -time broadcasters and so i think since uh also since 2015 there have been a number of reports saying that family radio is moving away now from an anti -church position and anti -church teaching but my only concern is they're not very open about it they they're just kind of slowly moving in that direction perhaps to try to win over the support uh both morally and otherwise of the church whatever progress it is i'm happy for it i pray that they continue to move in the right direction and uh we have uh osanachi from lagos nigeria he doesn't have a question he just says would you please tell pastor joe that osanachi from sovereign grace baptist church in lagos says hello and looks forward to his visit next week oh okay well hello osanachi and uh that wasn't planned i didn't know he was going to do that yeah osanachi has been uh sending in questions for probably six months now and it's always great to hear the insightful questions he has on iron sharpens iron radio and from what he says he's a member of the only reformed baptist church in nigeria yes well we're leaving next thursday for an 11 day mission trip there and we're looking forward to seeing him and pastor tony and the brethren there great and we have joey from clifton new jersey in october of 2001 when mr camping's teachings on the end of the church age was still very new wfme in newark was having their annual family day event in new jersey harold camping was coming to speak so i decided to write him a long letter expressing my concerns and disagreement with this particular doctrine during the event meal i approached mr camping and handed the letter to him face to face camping quickly opened the letter in my presence and said i can see that you disagree with me i graciously responded and then said i hope you will please take the time to read the letter camping responded with a bit of an annoyed tone and said well have you dealt with leviticus in here although i had already been aware that my effort might not be fruitful i realized at this point that there was almost no hope of reaching him his hermeneutic was in deep error so i just politely repeated my request will you please read the letter he responded and said i will scan your arguments knowing that mr camping would not even uh let's see knowing that mr camping would not even assure me of reading my whole letter i decided to send the letter to everyone i knew of family radio in california and locally in new york and new jersey but my point is it is very important for christians to know that the hermeneutical principles their pastors and teachers follow are critical to a proper understanding of truth make sure you get this right that was more of a statement i guess than a question do you have anything to say about joey's comments well yes uh it's unfortunate that mr camping was not teachable or approachable really and and did not objectively consider uh the opinions of others as they as he was challenged in his core beliefs especially his allegorical approach to understanding scripture and the the false props and the false foundations that he built on allegorical interpretations when he was challenged on those weak foundational beliefs he would not listen he there's i've never spoken with anyone and i know a lot of people related to family radio and their employees that ever said mr camping uh considered other positions than his own now there are many many good things about mr camping i know he did a lot of good works he went to jails and gave food away and did a lot of things to help people which he did not mention to anybody uh the man had a soft place in his heart in certain areas and ways but uh about that point i can say that the man was not teachable yes and unlike uh i know that there are all different kinds of hyper calvinists they're not all exactly alike and even though he was guilty of having a hyper calvinistic approach to uh some very important aspects of of the gospel he did go to all parts of the world with the the message of the bible although he unfortunately eventually was was twisting it and giving a a very deadly uh version of of scriptural teaching but but he did uh he did contradict the the normal pattern of hyper calvinists in that regard didn't yes he did when the problem was and and i he sent out a group of 20 or 30 volunteers for a number of years uh to different uh cities major cities like lagos nigeria in uh october of 2000 of uh 1994 for example um and and they distributed they would distribute 500 000 or a million copies of his track does god love you the problem with that track it severely truncates the gospel it gives a pure stoic approach to the gospel it lays out the fact as as is biblical that god is sovereign in the salvation of souls but he completely cuts off the personal appeal to the sinner to put his or her trust in the lord jesus christ as lord and savior now christ is the center of the gospel you've got to bring up something about the person and work of the lord jesus christ in your presentation when you share with unsaved people but unfortunately his stoic hyper hyper calvinistic approach to evangelism and his hyper calvinistic understanding of the gospel severely restricted and limited the person and work of jesus christ in in uh his teaching the ministry and we have now aaron in indianapolis indiana how did mr camping answer for the fact that christ did not return on his first then second predicted date very simple he just miscalculated it he went back to the drawing board and did his numerological calculations again based on subjective allegorical interpretations that he had in his interpretations he looks for a number he looks for a number that comes up that's consistent and once he finds a consistent or a related numerological system in the passages he examines he deduces a belief on that but it's all based on false numbers uh if if his calculations are are incorrect even in one of them then a soul system comes crashing down but it's all built on the assumption that the allegorical and system of interpretation is a bona fide and legitimate system of interpretation whereby you can understand biblical truth but it's not so his whole approach to interpretation uh stunk i was rotten from the inside out in the foundation of it and in the building of it so um he just went back using blindly using this this false understanding of how to interpretation how to interpret rather the bible based on numbers and allegorical subjective interpretations and we have joe in slovenia who says for years in the early 1990s i traveled every monday from deep east texas where i pastored to houston texas to attend seminary classes at houston baptist university the four hour long drive both ways was the only time during the week that i had access to christian radio stations during one leg of the trip when i passed by beaumont texas i picked up family radio for almost an hour after i had listened to great teachers like john macarthur charles stanley etc on other stations this is where i heard harold camping i always thought there were very odd aspects of his teaching but i only got to hear him for about 30 minutes before the single signal faded were these the years of his slide into heresy well the early 1990s is obviously when he wrote the book 1994 question mark right right right um it was a it was not an overnight slide into rank heresy it was incremental camping himself expressed in front of his whole staff that since 1989 1988 he held back in presenting his depart out teachings that the church ages over and the church is to close its doors uh and is destroyed and it took him 14 years to finally build up enough courage to present it to his staff and then that evening later that night in 2002 he unveiled that teaching on his open forum program nationwide but his his slide was slow but it built up momentum and once 2002 hit over the next several years there were one he there's something snapped in him chris where once he bucked against the church and once he resisted the pastors and he took a stand on this belief regarding the depart out teachings i guess he when he came out of the closet on this particular heresy he felt somewhat free to successively come out with all these other beliefs that were bubbling in his mind for for these years and then very quickly one after another these six or seven other major heresy heresies came out after that we have daniel in san jose california who says would you tell pastor jackowitz thank you for his ministry that i really enjoyed last month's conference on the five solas can you ask pastor jackowitz if he would touch on the current state of churches in our context here in the san francisco bay area and how can the proper understanding of the solos influence this particular area well i think that the state of the gospel and the state of the church in the san francisco bay area is devastated it's decimated the influence of rick warren and the purpose -driven movement the purpose -driven church has been particularly effective against churches in california including northern california and of course with the advent of the word of faith movement and the emergent church with mark driscoll and brian mcclaren and rob bell and john piper among others bring and replacing reformed theology including the five solas which are all which are all biblical teachings with uh fluff and glitter type teachings uh and eclipsing the sovereign grace doctrines with entertainment and with the focus on entertainment you have a wholesale exodus of believers from the churches and the result is you have a lot of scattered sheep out there that are just staying home watching tv listening to good sermons or you you have the the new paradigm the new construct of the commuter church which is growing because people cannot find sound churches especially the reformed community was devastated with the advent of the emergent church and the switch in this new paradigm from biblical exposition occupying the main activities and worship attention of the church to entertainment and so uh if this is particularly true in northern california with all of these bad things flooding into the church and sifting the true believers out and all this pragmatism and the bad methods uh they have they have just devastated the church of course because if you want to add to that the growing coldness and the violence to terrorism things that seem to be advancing exponentially these effects of wickedness growing in the world it's going to have a devastating effect on the church too the worldliness flooding into the church and it's very very rare to find a balanced church where you have sound teaching of the word of god occupying the main attention of the spiritual activities of the church along with spiritual life along with the heart knowledge of christ being maintained and emphasized as the the absolute necessity of holding on to the weightier matters of the law holding on to our first love through prayer meetings through mutual exhortation through consistent devotions and our walk with god you know this balance between word and spirit in the church must be strongly maintained if we are to survive all of these uh all of these contemporary trials that are coming against us here in northern california as well as throughout the whole world but there are many believers who are leaving california many christian families moving to other states like texas just because they can't find a sound church here anymore and we feel very lonely here in northern california uh indeed i don't know if you know my landlord but my landlord al stever who's a retired orthodox presbyterian minister he at one time at least for a portion of the history of the first presbyterian church of san francisco which is an orthodox presbyterian church he was the pastor there you know al i don't know al but i know i think his his predecessor chuck micklehenny chuck micklehenny is a friend of mine who wrote that book when the city yeah a really phenomenal book and i interviewed chuck on my old iron trip and zion program on that book and i strongly urge everybody listening to get a hold of that book when the wicked sees the city by chuck micklehenny it's about how he and his family escaped death when homosexuals burned his home to the ground or at least they set the home on fire while he and his wife were in bed sleeping and they did so because chuck and his elders had to discipline an unrepentant homosexual who was the organ player and when the organ player then sued the church and lost the homosexual activists in san francisco unleashed a very nasty evil aggressive attack upon this church including to the point of setting his parsonage on fire while he and his children were still in it but it's quite a chilling uh account of what happens when the wicked sees the city a very aptly titled book uh but uh by the way my uh landlord god willing uh al stever will be there tomorrow at the luncheon oh that's by the way i was looking forward to being at the luncheon but i couldn't make it because of our trip but we're going to have two representatives from first love publications there as you know yes i'm looking forward to meeting them hopefully tonight as they hopefully will give me a hand unloading boxes of free books that we're giving away uh well i want to make sure that you have about five minutes of uninterrupted time where you can uh basically sum up what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today and obviously we weren't ever able to get to our second topic that we intended but obviously this first topic that we had in regard to family radio just uh really had a lot more uh connected to it than we had time to uh that we had time to to uh really leave it in one hour well sure i strongly urge our listeners if there's any way you can go to the pastor's luncheon tomorrow in carlisle from 11 a .m

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to 2 p .m to encourage one another and sharpen one another as the title of your program is because in these last days it's becoming a rare thing when believers are sharpening one another on the weightier matters of god's truth on the foundational teachings of god's word there are so many superficial nominal christians that conversations about the word of god and the edification that should ensue in believers as a result uh is such a rare occurrence so i would encourage our listeners to take advantage of opportunities like this luncheon tomorrow you don't have to be a pastor to attend that right chris no we uh opened it up for any man who is a listener to iron sharpens these promotions they can bring we are limiting it to men perhaps someday in the future when we really have a lot more backing to keep these luncheons going perhaps one day we will include the wives and so on but it we will we will uh not be uh extending the uh invitations to women in the pastorate because i personally uh reject that as unbiblical uh although i'm not saying that not i'm not saying that that they're not many dear sisters in christ who are pastors i just think that they're very seriously in error in that in that aspect but it is a men's luncheon at least for now and so we open it to all men who can hear this ad and who want to travel to carlisle pennsylvania and all you have to do is send an email to chris arnson at gmail .com

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and register but if i might have a closing word to add to that is that the most important thing that we need to do in our relationship with god our walk with god and i say this as a pastor and as a believer a fellow believer with our our listeners your listeners uh is that you need to maintain a very very deep ministry of the word of god in your own life you need to make sure you understand the principles of interpretation so that in your own personal bible study and in your hearing and understanding of sermons and the word of god wherever it is taught is being understood biblically and is interpreted accurately because many people have gone astray and have lost untold resources and so forth because they were in a church or they were in a cult for many many years and it was basically because they did not understand how to interpret the bible properly they relied too heavily on their teachers who many of them were heretics in the case of jesus that his interpret and his temptation in the wilderness we know that the bottom line the bottom line dynamic in that was getting into the minutia of interpretation the devil interpreted several verses and jesus responded with the correct interpretation so the devil was twisting the scriptures to try to motivate jesus to do something that as the very word of god himself the divine logos he would not do of course so it's important that we approach the scriptures diligently as diligent to present yourself approved unto god a worker who does not need to be ashamed or rightly dividing the word of truth are you diligently studying the word of god or do you wake up yawning read a quick uh devotion you know two one paragraph devotional and then move on for your day you got to get deep in the word of god and we also to to be able to preach the word of god as as the scripture commands us and be ready in season and out of season to convince and rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine we need to have that word hidden in our hearts thy word have i hidden in my heart that i might not sin against you but we also have to have a doctrinal foundation laid in our hearts and so if you you and i need to be familiar with the doctrines of christ to always be ready to give an answer of the gospel we need to be familiar with propitiation the work of reconciliation our lord's work of redemption imputation and justification and sanctification regeneration can our listeners chris define those terms even with one sentence do they understand them so we need to be intimately acquainted with the doctrines of christ and the gospel and as much of the basic teachings of the bible the main doctrines of the bible as we possibly can how shall they hear without a preacher we need preachers whether they be pastors or whether they be christians who will go out sharing the gospel to be fully equipped with all the armaments and all the weapons of our warfare including the word the sword of the spirit which is the word of god and the lesson we learned from family radio lastly is mr camping did a lot of good and i praise god for it but also his downfall was a direct result in my view that he wasn't grounded in the proper interpretation principles of the word of god and i think that once again it's a reminder of how important confessional christianity is because we cannot be disconnected from the historical church we must always take everything written by any figure in history no matter how highly we hold that uh individual as a hero we have to be berean and test everything according to the scriptures but at the same time we cannot disconnect ourselves from the the historical church and be lone wolf maverick christians coming up with new and novel ideas that no one has ever believed that's right that's right we need to uh usually the weight of evidence by spiritually minded godly trained men that they teach usually is where you will find the answer to questions you have so read a wide variety of conservative reformed theologians these conservative reformed theologians that we have a rich legacy and they're they're not perfect but you need to have the final tribunal be the word of god if you so that's the bottom line great well i want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information uh first of all the first love publications website is first love publications .org

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firstlovepublications .org and then also the church website uh for your congregation uh do you happen to have that in front of you because it oh here it is it's christbiblechurch .org