August 3, 2017 Show with Phil Johnson on “Tim Keller & the Pressure Against Christian Leaders in the Public Eye to Cave In to the Leftist Agenda”

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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.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this third day of August 2017, and I'm so delighted to have back on the program someone who is surely one of my favorite guests, and if you take into account my old program that broadcasted out of New York, he is certainly one of my most frequently interviewed guests ever, and that is

Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You, the radio, television, and literary ministry of John MacArthur.

Today we're going to be speaking on a very controversial issue that may get me some hate mail, as did my last interview with Phil, but today we are going to be discussing

Tim Keller and the pressure against Christian leaders and the public eye to cave into the leftist agenda, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Phil Johnson.

Hey, thank you, Chris, good to be with you. And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. And it's wonderful to be on the program again.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and I do have a caveat in regard to your questions.

My guest today, Phil Johnson, does not profess to be some kind of a thoroughly knowledgeable expert on the life and teaching of Tim Keller.

We are going to be playing a clip of an interview, and we're going to keep the clip in context so it'll be long enough where no one can accuse us of taking the clip out of context, but we're going to be airing a clip of an interview that Tim Keller had with David Eisenbach on homosexuality.

And the responses that Tim Keller gives to Mr. Eisenbach regarding this sin are quite remarkably sad and tragic, in my opinion.

In fact, I think it should be sad and tragic in the mind of any biblically -minded

Christian, anyone who would call themselves a believer in the inerrancy of scripture, and anyone who has actual love and compassion for the never -dying souls of those involved in homosexual activity should also be appalled by the answers given in this interview.

But so I would rather, if you send in questions to Phil Johnson today, that you not be asking a myriad of questions regarding Tim Keller, because Phil may not know the answers to them, and basically stick the questions as much as you can to the pressure against Christian leaders in the public eye to cave in to the leftist agenda.

But before I even play that clip, Phil, I just want to introduce you to our listeners.

I mean, it's a given that the vast majority of my listeners would be very familiar with you, and grace to you, and John MacArthur, but something remarkable in a positive way has occurred recently,

Phil, in that I am getting new listeners contacting me every single day, so there's obviously a rapid growth or an explosion in our audience, and there may be people who are very new

Christians who are not familiar with you, there may be people who are not Christians at all who are listening who are not familiar with you.

I do have Muslims even who listen to my program, and I have Roman Catholics and those of other religions and no religions at all listening to the program who from time to time will send in an email with a question or a comment.

But if you could, let our listeners know about Grace to You and what your duties are there. Yeah, Grace to You is the media ministry of John MacArthur.

He is, for the past nearly 40 years, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and perhaps the best -known

Bible expositor living in the world today. He's been, he's preached verse by verse through the entire

New Testament and written a series of commentaries that covers the entire New Testament, and so he's one of the most highly respected biblical expositors today.

I would wholeheartedly concur with that, and so would everyone that I have any respect for. He is certainly one of my modern -day heroes, and in fact, it's interesting how

Dr. MacArthur, although he is a thoroughgoing dispensationalist, simultaneously being a thoroughgoing

Calvinist, there are people across the board, even those that tend to be somewhat anti -dispensationalist, who love

Dr. MacArthur. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's because he's so Bible -based and he's, you know, so thoroughly entrenched in the scriptures that it just pours out of him whenever he gets up to a pulpit or has a book published or what have you.

And I know that you happen to be the one, the key figure, that actually takes his sermon notes and turns them into books. Well, as long as we're on the subject of John MacArthur, I might as well confess to you also that he totally ruined me years ago.

In what way? Well, I was happy as a nice little independent fundamentalist Baptist pastor, and I listened to a lot of John MacArthur tapes and I heard him on the radio, and I changed a lot of my views because of him, and I got into a lot of trouble.

And Phil, you were about to say that you are one of the key figures involved, if not the figure involved in turning his sermon notes into books.

Yeah, right, my background is publishing, and so that's how I originally got connected with John.

I was an editor at Moody Press and we were publishing some of his books, and I loved his preaching and he liked my editing, and so we got together in 1983 and I moved to California, been here ever since.

Okay, I'm going to play a clip now. It is from the Veritas Forum, and the title is

Exploring True Life. For more information on this forum, go to veritas .org,

V as in victory, E -R -I -T -A -S .org, and the person conducting the interview is

David Eisenbach, and do you happen to know if this is the same David Eisenbach who is involved in the liberal party, the political party, the liberal party in New York City?

Yes, I believe it is. And he's in the history department with Columbia University? I believe that's right, and if I'm not mistaken, this is a

Veritas Forum that was held at Berkeley University in California around 2008, in March of 2008.

Okay, it's interesting that I'm just seeing it now for the first time, because if I had heard about this in the old

Iron Trump and Zion Radio, I certainly would have addressed it. I found out about it when just recently

Robert Gagnon posted it in, and with very critical and disapproving commentary on it.

As some of our listeners might know, Robert Gagnon is a scholar within the most liberal of the

Presbyterian denominations, the PCUSA, but he himself has much more of a conservative and evangelical bent, and is very open to speak out against the sin of homosexuality.

He has not caved in on that issue, as many in his denomination have. So we're going to be listening to this interview that David Eisenbach is having with Tim Keller, and Tim Keller is a highly respected

Presbyterian author and pastor and conference speaker. He is considered by many to be a conservative.

The denomination that he is a member of is certainly considered to be a conservative Presbyterian denomination.

It's the PCA, Presbyterian Church in America, and he has people who are his allies and friends and supporters that are amongst very conservative individuals who

I happen to highly respect, like D .A. Carson. But Tim Keller certainly has a bent to him that is troubling to many of us, very troubling, and that's even putting it very mildly, in regard to some liberal aspects that are existing within Christendom.

And I use the term Christendom for a reason, because I don't think that you can embrace homosexuality as an alternative activity or lifestyle than those commanded in the scriptures and be a biblical

Christian. I think that would put you outside of the realm of the body of Christ.

But we're going to hear this interview that I am mentioning, and the reason why it's startling is not because it is a openly liberal theologian answering the questions.

It's not because it's somebody who is a pundit, a liberal pundit, in the mainstream media.

But this is a person who is a beloved figure within the realm of conservative and reformed

Christian circles, which makes his answers all the more utterly remarkable and frightening, in my opinion.

But here is at least a reasonable portion of that interview between David Eisenbach and Tim Keller.

I wrote a book about the gay rights movement because I was appalled by the oppression and the discrimination against homosexuals in my

America. And this questioner asks, what do so many of the churches have against homosexuals?

And what about your church's approach to homosexuality? Is it a sin? Are they going to hell?

Let's talk about my church first, which will be a little easier than trying to answer for all the other churches of the world.

But I'll try. I'm representing all the churches of the world, all right? But Christianity, I mean, let's start with mine.

You go to the Bible quite often, and there are many evangelicals who will say it is listed as a sin in the

Bible, and these people are going to hell. Right. Now, what you... First, let's talk about my church again.

Let's go back here. What we would say is, I think it's unavoidable, I think most Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox Christians over the years have said, you read the

Bible, and the Bible has reservations. The Bible says homosexuality is not God's original design for sexuality.

Okay, there you have it. The Bible also says love your neighbor. The Bible also, in fact, the

Good Samaritan parable, which is how Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, you put a Jew and a Samaritan there.

So what Jesus is trying to say is everybody is your neighbor. Gay people are your neighbors.

People who are of other faiths are your neighbors. People of other races are your neighbors.

And it's the job of a Christian to do what Jesus did on the cross, which was to give himself for people who were opposing him and people who didn't believe in him even.

And so a Christian is supposed to say, I serve the needs and interests of all of my neighbors in the city, whether they're gay or straight, whether they're

Hindu or Muslim. I mean, Hindus, for example, don't believe in the Trinity. It's a different view than what the

Bible says. Gay people have a different view of sexuality than generally what you see in the New Testament. I'm supposed to love my neighbors.

So what I don't see is at this point, I see some churches that are basically ignoring the places in the

Bible that talk about homosexuality in order to love their gay neighbor. And I see other

Christian churches taking very seriously what the Bible says about homosexuality, but in a very self -righteous way.

So they actually do single out gay people. I mean, there are a number of conservative churches that will love their

Hindu neighbors and will love their Muslim neighbors and not their gay neighbors. And I really don't think there is any excuse for that.

So that's what's it. I mean, I, therefore, I have to take some responsibility of being a member of the

Christian church for the oppression of homosexuality. Are committing homosexual acts a sin against God?

What do you mean by sin? The answer is yes. Yes. Now, the reason, see, here's the problem with that. You don't go to hell for being homosexual.

But committing homosexual acts will get you to go to hell? No. Wait a minute. Wait, wait.

No, because, you know, some people say, well, it's not the homosexuality or being gay.

It's being, doing gay stuff. That's the problem. No. No. First of all, heterosexuality does not get you to heaven.

I happen to know this. So how in the world could homosexuality send you to hell?

And actually, the Bible, listen, this is true. Jesus talks about greed 10 times more than he talks about adultery, for example.

Now, one of the problems Christians have here is partly, let's be nice to Christians.

You know when you're committing adultery. I mean, you don't say, oh, you're not my wife. I mean, you know you're committing, but, but almost nobody knows when they're greedy.

I mean, nobody thinks they're greedy, you know, because everybody is comparing yourself to other people. And so it's a frog in the kettle kind of thing.

However, the fact of the matter is the Bible is much harder on greed materialism, and it's a horrible sin, terrible sin. Well, will greed send you to hell?

No. What sends you to hell is self -righteousness, thinking that you can be your own savior and lord.

What sends you to heaven is getting a connection with Christ because you realize you're a sinner, and you need intervention from outside.

That's why it's very misleading, actually, to say, even to say homosexuality is a sin, because most people, yes, of course homosexuality is a sin, because greed is a sin, because all kinds of things are sins.

But what most Christians mean when they say that, and certainly what non -Christians think they hear when they hear that, is if you're gay, you're going to hell for being gay.

It's just not true. Absolutely not true. So then what's the whole, how is homosexuality a sin and not?

Well, greed's a sin. In other words, it's not, doesn't help human flourishing. Basically, Christianity has an account of what we think human beings were built to do, and what will therefore help human flourishing.

So we would say if you spend all your money on yourself, that's bad, not only for your own soul, but for everybody else's.

We would say homosexuality is not the original design for sexuality, therefore it's not good for human flourishing.

We want people to do things that are good for human flourishing, but that's not what sends you to heaven or hell. Now there, maybe we ought to talk about that.

What sends you to heaven or hell really has to do with your faith in the gospel, which is that you can't be your own savior through your performance and your good works.

Now here, I'm coming at this like a Protestant now. You know, everybody's got to be a particular kind of Christian, and there's difference of opinion within Christianity about this.

But no, being gay doesn't send you to hell, and sin doesn't send you to hell like that.

The sin underneath the sin is, I am my own savior and my lord, and that's the reason why Phariseeism, moralism,

Bible -believing people who are proud and think God's going to take them to heaven because they're good, that's sending them to hell.

I mean, I know this is a lot to take in at once. It's a lot. Yeah, I mean, inside our church, therefore, there's just not going to be this disdain of homosexuals.

This can't be, not when I'm teaching the gospel like that. Well, basically,

Phil, I'd like you to begin by just giving your own overall commentary on what you heard, and then

I will also begin to ask you questions about specific things that were said. So if you could, just give us your overall reaction to this.

Yeah, let me start with where I would agree with him, where I think he's right. It is true that we're to love our neighbor, and Scripture does not, in its condemnation of homosexuality,

Scripture does not give us any mandate to be rude to our homosexual neighbors or to treat them with disrespect or any of those things which, frankly, are all too common among evangelicals.

Not necessarily, we don't necessarily do that when we're dealing with homosexuals face -to -face, but if you watch social media comments and stuff like that that evangelicals typically make about homosexuality,

I think we could be more cautious in not sort of broadcasting a sense that we see homosexuals as a fodder for ridicule and condemnation and that alone.

They are people, and they are people who need to hear the gospel and, you know, for whom the gospel is given, and there is opportunity for salvation for homosexuals.

And so we're not to be like, you know, the Westboro Baptist people and just write homosexuals off as if there's no hope for their eternity and no salvation for their sin.

I think he's right about that, and I think he's right to want to put up, you know, safeguards and say, look, evangelicals should not treat their homosexual neighbors with disrespect.

He's also right to say that homosexuality in and of itself isn't like the pinnacle of sin.

He compares it to greed, and he says some things that I'm going to critique in a minute, for example, where he says the

Bible's much harder on greed than homosexuality. I don't think that's true. And I also don't agree with what

I think is a common misconception among Christians, that all sins are equal. So if you're guilty of greed, you're in bondage to a sin that's just as serious as homosexuality.

I don't think that's true. Homosexuality is one of those sins that Scripture does put in a class that it labels an abomination.

It's a particularly abominable sin, and you see that in Romans 1, even in the New Testament, where Paul is talking about the decline of humanity into the depths of sin, and God gave them over to the lust of their heart, and it specifically mentions homosexuality as sort of one of the identifiers of a hopelessly depraved culture.

So I think it would be wrong to say that all sins are created equal, but on the other hand, it's also true that there are other common sins that are frequently tolerated in our culture and even tolerated among evangelicals that are equally abominable.

Sins like adultery and divorce and pornography and all that, which are secretly practiced by many of the same people who are openly contemptuous of homosexuality.

So he's right that we as believers need to be cautious and, you know, not be trying to take the speck out of our neighbor's eye when we've got a plank sticking out of our own eye.

That's a good caution and all that, but overall, I think this is a muddled answer to what was a very straightforward question.

Is homosexuality sinful? Scripture gives an unambiguous answer to that question.

You know, beginning all the way back in Leviticus, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination. Leviticus 18 .22,

if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. Leviticus 20 .13,

and you have that theme throughout Scripture. Every time sodomy is described or addressed, it's treated as a particularly abominable sin.

So it's not a hard question to answer, is homosexuality sinful? The right answer is, the

Bible says it is. I mean, even if Tim Keller didn't want to say, you know, this is my conviction, he could have easily simply said,

Scripture is very clear in calling it a sin. That's what the Bible teaches. But he says things like, the

Bible has reservations. The Bible says homosexuality is not God's original design for sexuality.

That's a very weak and ambiguous way to deal with it. If it's not God's original design for sexuality, is he suggesting, okay, it's plan

B? There are all sorts of loopholes like that for people who want to sort of get in step with what's politically correct and socially acceptable these days.

And there are lots of evangelicals, unfortunately, who take that attitude. They're looking for the easiest way to sort of coast through their

Christian life, not looking to Scripture for the standards, but listening to things like Tim Keller's description here and finding loopholes.

And it just lacks the clarity that ought to have. Jesus did not use nuance or ambiguity to shade the hard truths he proclaimed.

He spoke the truth plainly. And if you listen to Tim Keller very long, and this is not the only example of this, it's really throughout some of the

YouTube videos you'll see, especially when he addresses this issue of homosexuality, it just seems he doesn't want to declare any truth or defend any doctrine that the world's academic elite have already branded unsophisticated or politically incorrect.

I think he's too concerned about what people are going to think about his convictions, and that comes through when he answers a straightforward question like, is homosexuality sinful?

The other question he was asked was, are homosexuals going to hell? And his answer there is just patently wrong.

He says, you don't go to hell for being a homosexual. Well, Scripture says otherwise.

Scripture says, 1 Corinthians 6 -9, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality will inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, in fairness, in that same context, it also says, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, and so it includes greed, you can go to hell for being greedy.

But if I heard right, he even denied that along the way, that greed is a sin, but you don't go to hell for that.

The fact is, Scripture teaches that sin does send people to hell. Sin is precisely what puts people under the condemnation of God.

So I don't understand his answer there, but it's a total non -sequitur. He says, you don't go to hell for being a homosexual, and then he says, heterosexuality doesn't get you into heaven.

He gets a nice little laugh about that, and it's a clever statement, but it is still a non -sequitur, because he turns around instantly and says, so then, how in the world could homosexuality send you to hell?

If heterosexuality doesn't get you into heaven, how could homosexuality send you to hell?

Well, the answer to that is clear, and it goes back to the first question he was asked, because homosexuality is a sin.

It's an abomination. That's how it sends you to hell. Heterosexuality, as he says, won't get you into heaven.

There's no salvific value to it, but it isn't ever labeled a sin in Scripture.

Adultery is, so even heterosexual adultery will send you to hell. But heterosexuality per se doesn't send you to hell because it's not a sin.

And he leaves all that in a very murky fog of ambiguity and just unclear confusion.

You know, we need to learn how to speak the truth without mincing words, but without being personally insulting, and it's possible to do that.

You will be accused of being mean -spirited if you speak the truth these days unambiguously, but it's still possible to speak the unvarnished truth with respect, without any sort of insult, and although people will take offense, and Scripture acknowledges that, that the

Gospel itself is a stumbling block. But we still, we need to learn how to get back to speaking the truth without tiptoeing around the hard parts.

And Tim Keller's sort of the living mascot for the opposite view.

I think he thinks, and based on other things I've heard him say, I think he thinks that we have a duty as Christians, and in fact our first duty as Christians, is to minimize any possible offense in the teaching of Scripture.

That sounds like Robert Schuller to me. Yeah, I wouldn't put him in the same category, because I don't think

Robert Schuller really believed Scripture at all, and if you take Tim Keller at his word and listen when he does preach the

Gospel, I don't think he's liberal in the same sense that Schuller was.

But there is a commonality in that philosophy, that somehow he thinks we have to devise an evangelistic strategy that gets around the offense of the cross, that sort of tiptoes around the difficulty that's posed by the fact that the

Christian message itself, the idea that Christ died in the place of sinners, and as an offering, a sin offering offered to God, and that he did so to fulfill the will of his own father.

That's a huge offense in the world today, and I think Keller's mindset seems to be that we need to tiptoe around those truths as much as possible.

And just to let you know, years ago, I don't know if you ever heard, took place in the 90s, that interview that Michael Horton had with Robert Schuller, but when

Robert Schuller stormed out of the studio, and you actually heard the door slam, and then he came back in. But Robert Schuller, if you recall, during that interview, now

I don't know if he was being completely honest or honest at all, but he said that he believed in the three forms of unity of the

Dutch Reformed tradition. Yeah, he did. I heard that. My interpretation of that was, what he meant was, those were the formal doctrinal statements of his church.

I don't think he could credibly make the claim that he could sign off on everything in those doctrinal statements without crossing his fingers or severely reinterpreting the language.

Oh yeah, I agree with you, but he did say that he affirmed those things, and he said that he liked to word things differently, like he didn't like total depravity.

He preferred total inability and things like that. Yeah, but here's why I would classify Tim Keller slightly differently from the way

I'd classify Robert Schuller. And by the way, I do think Keller influences people in a way that's going to put a lot of young men who follow his lead on the same path as Robert Schuller, so I don't think the connection you're making there is totally invalid.

But nevertheless, I'd classify them differently, because you could listen to Robert Schuller forever, and you would never hear him preach the

Gospel. He had a skewed idea of the Gospel. But you listen to Tim Keller long enough, you'll hear

Gospel truth come out, and I don't really have any significant doubts that he believes the

Gospel. I just think he has a very low view of the authority and efficacy of Scripture.

I don't think he has the confidence that a pastor ought to have that, if I proclaim the

Word of God without apologizing for it, it is efficacious for the saving of even the most hostile souls.

I don't have to overcome people's intellectual resistance to the

Gospel. The Gospel itself will do that. Yeah, and some people might say, oh, you're just misunderstanding

Dr. Keller. Well, should any Christian, especially a seasoned preacher, a seasoned

Christian author and communicator, should a Christian ever be misunderstood when it comes to a question like this, which is a very simple and basic question?

Well, not only that, it's a very important question today, because even in the secular world, this is where the center of the debate is.

And if we can't make the truth clear on a question like this, is homosexuality sinful?

It's such a straightforward question, it deserves a straightforward answer, even if it makes the person uncomfortable who asked the question.

Yes, and that was a very artful dance that Tim Keller did throughout that entire interview.

He was just dancing around that question, and even the interviewer knew that. You could tell, but he kept prodding him for an answer to the very simple question.

But we're going to be going to a break right now. If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Whether you agree with what's being said, whether you disagree, whether you admire

Tim Keller greatly or not, whether perhaps you don't even know who he is, whether or not you are involved in homosexual behavior, or whether you denounce it, or whether you don't have an opinion on it, we would welcome your call, your email

I should say, still thinking back to the old days in New York when I took phone calls. We will welcome your email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And obviously I could fully understand that a subject like this would lend itself to people asking personal and private questions, so you may remain anonymous if that is the case, but if it's not the case, please include at least your first name, city and state and country of residence, and please keep the questions primarily to the real subtitle of the topic today, the pressure against Christian leaders and the public eye to cave into the leftist agenda, because my guest today,

Phil Johnson, does not pretend to be an expert on the life and teaching of Tim Keller.

But we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Phil Johnson after these messages, so don't go away.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go is

Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

We are addressing today Tim Keller and the pressure against Christian leaders in the public eye to cave into the leftist agenda.

And we're also going to be discussing for a little bit the G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where Phil is also going to be speaking again in early 2018, the 18th through the 20th of January, to be precise.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And as always, please remember to give us your first name, city and state and country of residence, unless the question compels you to remain anonymous.

And before I take any list of questions, because we already have a number of them,

I wanted to go through some of the things with you. First of all, you did rightly say that it is dangerously ambiguous to be saying things like homosexuality is not a part of the original design that God had in mind for sexuality, because there are even liberal and pro -homosexual and homosexual or professing homosexual

Christians, I understand that that's an oxymoron, but there are people who identify themselves as both

Christians and homosexuals who will freely admit that heterosexual activity was the original design to populate the earth.

There seems to be no problem with them admitting that because they realize they wouldn't exist themselves if it were not for heterosexual activity and that being a part of the design of God.

But you even have people who are professing homosexual

Christians and activists in that area who will say the reason why the

Apostle Paul came down so hard on homosexuality is because there was no such thing, they will say, as committed, loving, monogamous homosexual relationships back in the apostolic era.

So they will say that, of course, language like the original design is completely appropriate, but that doesn't mean that God does not open up his children to a new way of thinking and life and activity in a modern age.

If you could comment on what I just said. Well, there's several problems with that. It's purely speculative in the first place, there's nothing in the scripture that would suggest that, okay, that's an exception to the rule against, you know, the rule in Leviticus which says, you know, it's an abomination for a man to lie with a man.

It doesn't talk about multiple relationships or anything other than the homosexual act itself, and so that would, of necessity, apply even to a monogamous relationship.

It's the corruption of the body's intent that makes it a sinful act.

And that's important, too. I thought one of the things that Keller said, and he says frequently, that sort of sends shivers down my spine is when he defines what is sin, what makes a thing sin, again, he departs from what scripture says, and he says it's sinful because it doesn't help human flourishing.

That really seems to be his overriding idea of what sin is. A thing is a sin because it doesn't promote human flourishing.

Scripture says sin is the transgression of God's law, and that sin is sin because it is a rebellion against God's authority and righteousness.

And what makes sin so exceedingly sinful is the fact that the one we are sinning against is not humanity, but God, the

Creator of the universe, Almighty God we sin against. And that's why the guilt of sin is an infinite weight that it cannot be atoned for by us, because we sin against an infinite

Creator, an infinite lawgiver, and therefore the guilt is such a weight of guilt that it can't be wiped out by any sort of good deed or self -atonement.

And that's essential to the gospel, by the way. And, you know, not to single out homosexuals.

Scripture condemns us all. Every human being is born in a fallen condition. We all sin, and we sin in different ways.

We're bonded to different kinds of sin. But every sin carries an infinite weight of guilt, and that's why every person needs a

Savior. And that's part of the message of the gospel. I mean, consider this. What was the original sin?

If you take the Bible at face value, what was the original sin? Adam and Eve ate a forbidden fruit.

That seemed like such a paltry, petty thing. And it would be hard to make an argument that this singular act, one piece of fruit off a forbidden tree, somehow was against human flourishing.

It was against human flourishing, but only because it brought a curse on the human race, because it was a sin against God.

And so God cursed them for it, and the whole race. And you might ask, well, such a paltry little thing.

But look at all the evil potential that came out of that one act, because Adam fell. The entire universe of evil was unleashed on this earth, and everything we suffer from, every evil thing that happens in one way or another, goes back to that as its genesis.

And so there is no such thing as a trifling sin. And so if that's the case, then you have to look at a sin that Scripture calls particularly abominable, and say that there's just a universe of wickedness in that, and it should not be blown off lightly, to say things like, you know, well, that won't send you to hell, or it's a sin because it doesn't promote human flourishing.

I think it's to miss one of the most important doctrines in Scripture, and that is the sinfulness of sin.

Yes, indeed, I agree with you. And, by the way, it might interest our listeners to know that quite a while ago, over a decade ago, well over a decade ago,

I arranged a debate on Long Island, New York, at the Central Presbyterian Church in Huntington, Long Island, a debate between our mutual friend

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Barry Lynn, who was at that time anyway, he may still be, but he was the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and he was an

ACLU attorney and also an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, known as the

UCC. Most Congregationalist churches that you see today that have the actual word

Congregationalist on their sign are a part of that denomination, but not all. There are Bible -believing churches that have

Congregationalist on their signs, but just to give you an idea of the background of Barry Lynn, but Barry Lynn, during that debate, he would have agreed that homosexuality was a part of the original, well was the,

I should say, the original design of sexuality from what the Scriptures teach us, but he believed that through new revelation,

God has taught his church that it is now an acceptable practice that makes that activity acceptable for Bible -believing

Christians, authentic Christians, to participate in, and so that language of original design doesn't get one out from underneath the charge that you are deluding the truth in regard to this sin.

Right, yeah. In fact, I would say it sort of gives a weapon to the side that's arguing that homosexuality is okay.

Yeah, and there's another thing that disturbs me, and even some of my friends who

I highly admire use the term gay. I don't know why we capitulate to those promoting this sin and who are involved in this sin by using a term that they use to identify themselves, which is a term that's palatable to humanity, the word gay.

Does it bother you when professively conservative Christians will refer to those involved in homosexuality as being gay or part of the gay community?

I might be nitpicking here, but I don't personally think I am. Well, no, I don't think it's nitpicking.

I was making the same argument 15 years ago. I've sort of given it up, because I think we've lost the word, and even in dictionaries today, it defines gay as a synonym for homosexual.

So I think that's a battle we've lost, and I don't know that it's particularly fruitful to make a big deal out of it, because that's so much into the common usage today that you can't use the word gay nowadays to mean anything else.

Reverend Buzz Taylor. I would like to hear your comments on what he said concerning the sin that sends you to hell is trying to be your own savior.

Would you comment on that? Yeah, I mean, I took that down when I listened to this. He said, no, being gay doesn't send you to hell, and sin doesn't send you to hell like that, he says.

The sin underneath the sin is that I am my own savior and lord, and that is the reason why

Phariseeism, moralism, Bible -believing people who are proud and think that God is going to take them to heaven because they're good, that's sending them to hell.

There's a germ of truth in that. That sort of self -righteousness is sin, and this is sort of a blinding sin.

It's what Paul is describing in Romans 10 when he talks about the remnant of the mainstream of the

Jewish nation, the Pharisees in particular, who had sort of taught people to pursue their own righteousness and neglect the righteousness of God, and Paul said that's sending them to hell, self -righteousness.

Self -righteousness is a horrible sin, but you can't say self -righteousness is sending you to hell a sentence after you've said sin doesn't send you to hell, because self -righteousness is one of the sins that will send you to hell.

And when Scripture describes this, you know, I'll read it again, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

He's saying, and in the end of Scripture it says all liars and drunkards and so on will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

So Scripture is very clearly telling us that sin will send you to hell, and not just the sin of homosexuality, but all these other sins, including greed, can send you to hell if you don't repent of them and trust in the one who paid the penalty for those sins on the behalf of those who believe in him.

That's the gospel. There is no salvation for anyone. This isn't only about homosexuals.

There's no salvation for anyone outside of Christ. The problem with Keller's statement, one of the major problems with it is the only reason people go to hell is because they want to say,

I'm my own Savior and Lord. Look, there are plenty of people who don't even think they need a Savior and Lord. They're not trying to atone for their own sin.

They're not self -righteous. They're just wallowing in sin, and their sin will send them to hell.

And by saying what he said here, he sends an entirely wrong signal to those people.

If this is all I ever heard, if this is the sum total of Tim Keller's teaching that I heard, and I'd never been exposed to any other

Christian doctrine, I would think that, all right, if I accept his worldview, the best way for me to stay out of hell is just to wallow in my sin and not think that I need to be righteous.

Right. And it's interesting, on that same note, you could tell—in fact, he even said that he was speaking, when you talk about the sin, the ultimate sin being that you are your—thinking that you're your own

Savior, that you are your own Savior—he separated himself from Christendom by saying that this was a

Protestant teaching. He was certainly, I'm assuming, referencing justification by faith alone and that nothing that we do could possibly assist in meriting heaven for us.

But then he just totally diffused the truth and the power of the

Protestant gospel by saying, well, you know, basically this is just one branch of Christianity. You know, if you remember during his comment, when he started to identify himself as a

Protestant, he really was saying, now this is just the way I look at things as a Protestant. Well, first of all, do we really care about what your personal opinion is?

Isn't the matter what is the truth as God has revealed it, not what you think as a such -and -such?

That's the way Joel Osteen very often answers questions. My personal opinion is, well, who cares what your personal opinion is?

Yeah, that's a really good point, Chris, and that disturbed me as well, too.

It's as if he's saying, well, here's one version of Christianity, this is the one I hold to, and all I can speak for.

He started out that way, saying I can only speak for my church. How about giving us the biblical view, right?

I mean, that goes back to what I first said. It would have been very easy for him to say, here's what the

Bible teaches. He doesn't have to act like he's the final authority because he's not, but you get the impression that he thinks that if he declares any truth with too much finality and dogmatism, he's pretending that he is the authority rather than Scripture, and therefore he thinks the solution to that, rather than quote

Scripture and show that this is what Scripture teaches, the solution for him is to sort of soft -pedal everything, to tone it down as much as possible, to make it as politically correct as possible.

And my own strong suspicion is that this stems from a desire to have some level of academic credibility.

He is doing the very thing, in my judgment, he is doing the very thing that Paul renounces in 1

Corinthians 2. Right, and he said that there's differences in Christianity.

Well, there really isn't. There's differences in Christendom, but not in Christianity. There's no difference of opinion in Christianity, and I'm sure you would agree that when we speak of the term

Christianity, if you're talking about a truthful definition, we're talking about those in the body of Christ who have been born from above, those who are regenerate.

Right, and you know, that would be the logical conclusion to draw. If he followed his own logic, if thinking that you are your own

Savior, in whole or in part, is enough to send you to hell, then he'd have to say these, even these massive arms of traditionalist

Christianity that teach you have to do these sacraments and supplement the righteousness of Christ in order to get to heaven, and to some degree be your own

Savior, atone for your own sin. Anyone who teaches that, according to what he just said about what sends you to hell, wouldn't be a genuine

Christian, wouldn't be someone who's heaven -bound, but someone who's self -deceived and quite possibly on the way to hell.

So it's confusing. It's very confusing. On the one hand, he says don't be self -righteous. On the other hand, he seems to extend the peace pipe to large arms of Christendom, where the gospel has been obscured under centuries of traditional self -righteousness.

Amen. We are going to a break right now, and we will get to as many of you as possible who have written in questions, so be patient.

And if anybody else would like to join them and get online, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Phil Johnson and more of our discussion. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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Iron Sharpens today. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnz, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Phil Johnson. We have about an hour to go on our discussion with Phil Johnson, and he is executive director of Grace to You Ministries, the media ministry of world -renowned

Bible teacher John MacArthur. We are discussing Tim Keller and the pressure against Christian leaders in the public eye to cave into the leftist agenda, and we're also going to be talking about the

G3 conference where Phil is participating, God willing, in early 2018,

January to be precise. So we hope that you stay tuned for the remainder of the hour, but before I return to our question, or our discussion

I should say, I have some special announcements to make. First of all, coming up next month,

September 29th to start with, September 29th actually, the

Gospel of the Reformation's 500th anniversary is an event being held at the

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, in cooperation with the Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship.

Speakers include my very dear friend Dr. Tony Costa, who is professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and other speakers include

Pastor Caleb Bunch, Pastor Bruce Bennett, and Pastor Dave Corson. And again, that's at the

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, September 29th through the 30th.

It is free of charge, and a love offering will be taken, and if you'd like to join me there,

I intend to be there, God willing, call area code 631 -806 -0614 to register.

That's 631 -806 -0614, and it is free of charge, as I said. And the website for the

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, if you want to get more of a sense of directions and so on, it's wotchurch .com,

W -O -T, standing for Word of Truth, church .com, wotchurch .com.

And then, the very next day, the first day of October, Dr. Costa will be preaching at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island, New York, and that will be at 11 a .m.

on the Sunday service. If you want more details about Hope Reform Baptist Church and about that event with Dr.

Tony Costa, call area code 631 -696 -5711, 631 -696 -5711, or go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli, standing for Long Island, Long Island, New York.

Then, coming up in November, we have an event being run by the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is running their annual

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, located in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and that specifically would be held at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, November 17th through the 18th, on the theme for Still Our Ancient Foe, obviously referring to Satan from the classic

Reformation hymn by Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress. Speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

If you'd like to attend the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org,

and click on Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology. And then, coming up after that, is the aforementioned

G3 Conference, returning to Atlanta, Georgia, and I am so delighted that our friend and our guest today,

Phil Johnson, has joined the roster of speakers again. He was there last year when

I was in Atlanta, and thankfully he has once again joined the roster of speakers at the

G3 Conference. So, not only will Phil Johnson be speaking at the G3 Conference in early 2018, but Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcom, Keith Getty, H .B.

Charles, Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, our mutual friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Tom Askell of Founders Ministries, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Freel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace are all a part of this conference from January 18th through the 20th, on the theme,

Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. There will be a Spanish edition of the conference on January 17th.

To register, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

and that's the number three, g3conference .com, and you can, please,

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Now you can send your emails to that same address if you have a question for our guest,

Phil Johnson, and Phil is speaking, as I said earlier, on the troubling issue of Tim Keller and the pressure against Christian leaders in the public eye to cave into the leftist agenda.

If you'd like to send in a question regarding the issue, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And Phil, a couple of more things I just wanted to have you address before we go to our listener questions, because we do have a number of them and I will try to get to as many as possible.

There is this constant drumbeat that Christians single out homosexuals and homosexuality as this primary sin, a sin that is worse than all other sins, and I believe that that may be true of certain individuals or churches, but to be reasonable about that and to be logical, the fact of the matter is that sin is bombarding us in every sphere of life every single day.

I mean, it's constantly brought up in the media, there are constantly people who are involved in that sin demanding more and more rights to be involved in that activity and still have access to any other sphere of life responsibility or duty that they choose to in spite of that activity.

There are people being sued and losing their jobs who oppose that way of life or death, if you want to phrase it more properly.

It's a sin that is in the forefront of the

American mindset every day. I mean, you have little children now asking questions about things like that.

My mother, who is now in heaven, died in 1995 at the age of 70, went home to be with the

Lord at the age of 70. She told me that she had never even heard of a homosexual until she was in her 20s.

She didn't even know that they existed or what it was. You have little tiny children talking about it today.

I mean, isn't this really a sin that needs to be discussed frequently because of that very issue?

Yeah, in fact, there's no way to avoid it because it has been for 30 years or so, the homosexual agenda has been pushed on American popular culture with an aggressive public relations campaign through media of all kinds.

Even if you wanted to avoid talking about it, you really couldn't. You just couldn't. I think I was in fourth grade before I ever was aware of homosexuality and what it was.

I don't think you could even make it that far these days. It stems back from the fact that there's just been this massive public relations campaign.

To talk about the broader topic that we're talking about, one of the failings,

I think, of evangelicals today is that we look at that and try to mirror it. There are lots of Christians today, and I think this explains the approach that Tim Keller takes.

Lots of Christians today think of evangelism as a public relations problem.

We live in a media world. We see how public relations uses media to push spiritual values and worldviews and all that oppose

Christianity. It's commonly thought, I think, that the only way we can answer that is through our own public relations and politics and all the things that are being done to push the change in moral values.

We should push back through those same media. The problem is that's not what Scripture teaches. Evangelism is not a public relations issue.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul denounces that approach. He denounces the idea that the scandal of the cross is something that we need to preach around or paper over with words of eloquent wisdom.

Those are his exact words. I don't use words of eloquent wisdom. He points out that God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise so that by God's design the church is not supposed to be like a country club for the rich and powerful and beautiful people, but it's a fellowship that is open even to people who are low and despised in the world.

And he condemns boasting and all of that. And then in chapter 2, he repudiates,

I referred to this earlier, but in 1 Corinthians 2, he repudiates every attempt to try to attract the admiration of the world by using lofty speech or wisdom or public relations techniques.

And he disavows all the wisdom of this world and the values and tactics that are favored by the powerful people of this age.

And he says in 1 Corinthians 2, 5, that all of this is not done just to irritate the beautiful people.

It's so that our faith as Christians might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. And I see the opposite thing happening, and even among elite evangelical leaders today, the idea is that we must come across as more sophisticated, more academically respectable.

And it's in other issues, not just the moral matters, but you hear it, and Tim Keller is one of the culprits in this as well, evangelical leaders mocking people who want to take the early chapters of Genesis at face value.

We lose credibility with the world, they say, when we do that. Really. So we can't believe

Scripture as God gave it to us because we're afraid the world will think we're foolish.

Scripture never warns us against that, and in fact, Paul is barely three pages into 1

Corinthians when he has, you look back on what he has said, in fact, this is the chapter that brought me to Christ.

Reading this, it just destroyed my confidence in human wisdom and sophistication and all that.

By the time you get three chapters into 1 Corinthians, Paul has attacked every favorite tool in the toolbox of the 21st century church growth expert.

He rebukes the celebrity culture, and everything goes with that, factions and boasting and the country club culture and the obsession with human personalities.

He disclaims the entrepreneurial spirit, you know, and everything that goes with that, the preoccupation with worldly ideas of success and human cleverness, and this tendency to tiptoe around the hard truths of Scripture.

He says he wouldn't do that, and those first two chapters of 1 Corinthians alone are sufficient to refute practically every major manual of church growth strategy and ministry philosophy that has been written in the past 40 years.

So I don't get the continuing popularity of this sort of, let's soft -sell the gospel approach.

What we need to do today is exactly the opposite. We need to be unashamed in our proclamation of what

Scripture teaches. Amen. Now, one last thing before I take listener questions.

There's another drumbeat where we are being asked or compelled as Christians to apologize to some kind of or for some kind of grotesque, horrible oppression that the

Christian church has been guilty of in regard to homosexuality. I don't really know what these people are talking about, especially since they seem to insinuate.

In fact, the interviewer in the clip that I aired who was interviewing

Tim Keller, he was very clearly making it clear that he was talking about things going on today.

What is he talking about? I mean, I think that people think that if you have to put a church organist under discipline and fire him or her if they are involved in homosexual activity, that that's the horrible and disgusting oppression and other things like it.

But do you know what he could be possibly referring to? Well, it's possible he's talking about that.

It's also possible that he sees things like the Westboro Baptist Church people. Now, that's a very small cult.

Most of their members are from the same family. They live in a little compound in Topeka, Kansas, and they picket funerals and get a lot of news coverage by being just really mean -spirited in their condemnation, not only of the sin of homosexuality, but it's a sort of personal attack on homosexuals, like they will go and celebrate at the funeral of any celebrity homosexual who dies, that sort of thing.

If that is what somebody thinks evangelical Christians stand for, it's a real problem.

And I do think, as Christians, we ought to be unequivocal in our condemnation of that, as well as any other sin that we condemn, because those people are pretending to speak for Christ.

And so, in that sense, they're worse than the homosexuals that they're condemning. Right. Well, they have never had a position of authority to be oppressing homosexuals, anyway.

They just publicly humiliate them. Yeah, and which is a kind of persecution.

I wouldn't necessarily use the word oppression. That's a kind of fad word that a lot of people who want to make a political point use.

What those people do is deplorable, no question about it, and we ought to say that, and we ought to steer clear as far as possible from sending that kind of message to a world that's confused by all that they see anyway.

But bottom line is, we have a duty to speak the truth without apologizing for it, without apologizing for what

Scripture says. And, you know, we need to get back to doing that.

Right. Well, I'm going to go to our questions now. An anonymous listener says, my church has lost several people due to one homosexual couple.

These folks have begun attending a large church that caters to the masses with a lukewarm gospel that is no gospel at all.

I find it remarkable that influential ministers like Tim Keller, wavering on straightforward issues, can stand before their congregations and be delivering a message worth hearing.

The more the church caves into these pressures, the more the left will gain the young upcoming ministers.

Actually, you already said that, didn't you? Yeah. I mean, she's right.

Is that a she? It's anonymous. It's anonymous, so I don't know. All right. Whoever wrote that is absolutely correct, and it's a huge problem that's not just in that one community, but that is,

I think, a worldwide tendency, if not an American, certainly a strong American tendency.

You can see it in the pages of Christianity Today, which purports to be the house organ for the evangelical movement.

The drift there has been visible and obvious, and sadly lots of churches are following that path.

And I'll say what I've said, I think, on your program before. We are in need of a new reformation.

We need a few voices, more than a few, who are willing to stand up and proclaim what

Scripture says and not try to twist it or soften it so that it's more palatable to ears that are in love with sin.

Amen. Well, thank you, Anonymous, and give me your full name and address off the air, of course.

You will not be identified publicly, but you have won a free copy of The Gospel According to Jesus, What Is Authentic Faith?

Compliments of the publishers, Zondervan. They heard that Phil was on today, and they were more than happy to provide some copies of this wonderful, this really outstanding book by Dr.

MacArthur, for whom our guest Phil Johnson works. And perhaps you could very briefly just describe this book for our listeners.

Yeah, that is a book that I would say is probably the most important book John MacArthur has ever published.

It was published, I think, for the first time in 1988. What you have there now is,

I think, the third edition, and they've added at least two more chapters and an appendix to the original book.

But it is an attack on the sort of lazy evangelicalism that predominates in America, where the idea is, if you say a prayer and ask

Jesus into your heart, you could be confident that you're saved, and don't worry too much if you live in sin and disobey

Christ and all. If he's your Savior, he doesn't need to be your Lord.

And that sort of thinking was a major problem in the 1980s.

John MacArthur wrote that book, saying, no, if Christ is who he says he is, he is not only

Savior, but also Lord. And though our obedience doesn't earn us salvation, we owe him our obedience.

And those who are unwilling to obey him can't claim that they actually believe he is who he says he is.

So an unbroken pattern of disobedience and rebellion against Christ is a sign of unbelief, not faith.

So if you're not obedient to Christ, if you don't love Christ, if you don't pursue obedience, not to say that you have to be perfect, because obviously none of us are, but if you're not pursuing obedience, and if you don't truly love

Christ and seek his righteousness, then you really don't have any basis to be confident that you are a true believer in Christ.

And I think that this book actually is very relevant to our discussion, because you have multitudes of people, even in churches that are professedly conservative, reformed, and evangelical, that are being told that homosexuality is not something that you need to repent of, that it may be your mindset, it may be your heartfelt desire, but that is not sin if you remain chaste, and you can live your life as a productive member of the body of Christ as long as you remain chaste.

Now, I understand that people battle with temptations and sins, I'm not going to deny those things, but isn't it wrong to view a sin that's an unnatural sin like homosexuality as something that is completely neutral or acceptable as long as you don't act upon it physically?

Yeah, and in fact, if there is a sin that defines your lifestyle and character, if that's what defines your lifestyle and character, the sin, whether it's being gay or or, you know, being, you know, a drunkard or whatever, if the sin is what defines your character and your lifestyle, then you're not a

Christian, and that's what you meant earlier, and I agree, when you say there's no such thing as a gay

Christian. There are Christians who wage continual warfare against evil temptations like that, but those who just sort of sat back and indulged in their sin and think, this is nothing for me to battle against or worry about, they're not truly believing in Christ.

In fact, the scriptures themselves, don't they condemn and even reveal as a sign of judgment the fact that there are men burning in their hearts for other men and women who are doing the same?

Right, yeah, Romans 1. So when that book came out in the 80s, it unleashed a massive discussion, and I've lost count over the years.

The book's been out more than 30 years now, and I've lost count of the number of people, but it's probably in the thousands of people who have written us to say,

I'm so glad I read that book because it shattered my false assurance, and now I'm a genuine Christian.

Amen. In fact, let alone people who are quote -unquote homosexuals in their heart and mind but chaste, there are fundamentalists who are teaching that somebody could respond to an altar call, get genuinely saved, and then live unrepentantly, physically, with the activity of homosexuality for the rest of their lives and go to heaven because of that altar call experience.

Yeah, you're right. Actually, some of the strains of fundamentalism that were dominant back in the 70s were the worst advocates of that position.

Don't fool yourself. Legalism and antinomianism often go hand in hand.

Amen, and of course, I'm not broad -brushing. There are fundamentalists who are vehemently opposed to that mindset and condemn it, and in fact, there are even fundamentalists who are thoroughgoing

Calvinists, so I don't want to make it like they're all in that camp. I'm going to read a question and then we're going to go to our final break and have you answer it when we return.

Rose in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania says, Hello, Brother Phil. I listened to the Tim Keller clip and I was left confused.

You're not the only one, Rose. Would not Keller's thoughts and teachings concerning homosexuality fall under the latter part of Romans 132, though they know

God's righteous decrees that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Is this something that Tim Keller should be held accountable for or disciplined for, or does he get a pass, so to speak, and we'll have you answer that when we return.

We're going to go to our final break now. If anybody else would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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This is the last half hour of our interview today with Phil Johnson of GraceTU on the subject

Tim Keller and the pressure against Christian leaders in the public eye to cave into the leftist agenda.

If you'd like to join us, I would do it quickly before we run out of time. If you have a question, our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com, and please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

I do want to clarify something. I did not want to mislead anybody to think that I was opposed to churches disciplining and firing the church organist or anyone else employed or in an office of a church if they are found out to be guilty of homosexuality or adultery or fornication or any sin that is warranting such action, drunkenness, etc.

I was put under church discipline for being a drunkard, a habitual drunkard, and thanks be to God that my church did that because that's,

I think, one of the reasons my heart is still beating and I still have air in my lungs and you're hearing my voice right now.

But what I meant before was that that is, I think, what your typical liberal or homosexual advocate will be referring to when they say that the church has been grossly involved in oppressing and being hateful toward homosexuals or those involved in that behavior by disciplining them, excommunicating them when unrepentant, firing them from jobs, removing them from office.

That could be the very thing that saves their lives as well because it is no mystery or no, there's no question attached to the fact that homosexuality is not only deadly in regards to eternal life, it is also deadly physically and anybody who denies it is got their head in the sand.

But going back to the question that we heard earlier from Rose in Harrisburg, she says,

I listened to the Tim Keller clip. I was left confused. Would not

Keller's thoughts and teachings concerning homosexuality fall under the latter part of Romans 132? Though they know

God's righteous decrees and those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Is this something that Tim Keller should be held accountable for or disciplined for, or does he get a pass, so to speak?

There's several parts of that question. Let me answer them in sort of reverse order. No, I wouldn't give him a pass, but I think we need to evaluate carefully what he's saying.

My first complaint was he leaves us in a muddle of confusion, and the question itself illustrates why this is confusing.

He says, for example, in one place he says what most Christians mean when they say, and certainly what non -Christians think they hear when they say, is if you're gay, you're going to hell for being gay.

And then he says it's just not true. Absolutely not true. And then the interview,

Mr. Eisenbach at that point jumps in and says, so then what's, how is homosexuality a sin?

I'm not, he thinks that by saying that, that Keller, and Keller is leaving this impression, you don't go to hell for being a, that's absolutely not true, he says, that you go to heaven for being a homosexual.

He's giving the impression that God doesn't really necessarily disapprove of homosexuality, but that's not what

Keller intends, that's not what he believes, and I don't think that's what he intends to communicate. He's just trying to soft -sell his opinion so much that he confuses his hearers.

Because earlier in the interview he says, Eisenbach asks him, so is it a sin to commit homosexual acts, is that a sin against God?

And Keller's instant response is, what do you mean by sin? Which again, sounds like a dodge, and yet, but without pausing, and it struck me that Keller must have realized how that would sound to his

Christian constituents. So without pausing, he goes on, his very next sentence is, the answer is yes.

In other words, yes, it is a sin against God. And I'm quite certain that Tim Keller understands that Scripture teaches, and he believes that Scripture teaches, that homosexuality is a sin against God.

I'd be very surprised to learn that he waffles on that. I suppose it's possible, because there is so much ambiguity in answers like this.

It's not the only time he's addressed the question, and there is some ambiguity in it. But I don't think, and I wouldn't assume, and I don't think it's charitable to assume that he is actually giving approval to people who practice homosexuality.

I don't think he's guilty of that. He is certainly guilty of confusing his listeners enough that some of them might think he's giving approval.

One thing I can say for certain is that what he is teaching publicly is not striking fear in the hearts of those involved in that activity that would cause them to repent.

One particular famous example is Matthew Vines. Matthew Vines is leading a movement of those involved in homosexual behavior.

Well, Matthew Vines would claim that they are, the movement that he is championing,

I'm not saying that he would call himself championing it, but he is, the movement that he represents would be in favor of, what's the word

I'm looking for, monogamy amongst homosexuals, and it would be an evangelical

Christianity that accepts those with a homosexual proclivity who should be free to act upon that if they get married.

He is not someone who's, he's not someone who... And admittedly, it's hard for me to imagine that Tim Keller is going to come out and argue strongly against that.

I think he wants to remain sort of in a cloud of ambiguity, and that's bad. So back to the original question, would

I give him a pass? Well, I don't know that I would propose him for church discipline at this point, but he wouldn't be invited to preach in our pulpit.

Well, one of the reasons I brought up Matthew Vines is that he publicly, I heard him with my own ears from his lips, he was declining any invitation by our friend

Dr. James R. White to engage in a public debate, a moderated debate, because he viewed

Dr. White as someone who is bigoted and mean -spirited and hateful and so on, and yet at the same time, now

Tim Keller, he said that he highly respects Dr. Keller, read what he has written on the subject and heard what he has spoken about, and although he disagrees here and there with Dr.

Keller, he was not offended by anything Dr. Keller said. I think that that speaks volumes.

It does, it does, and I think probably Keller was no doubt happy to hear that, because I think that's his aim, to be not perceived as a bigot, and so when someone says, look, if you disagree with me on this issue, if you just say flat out that homosexuality is a sin, then you're a bigot and there's no way around that, and Keller clearly wants to avoid having that charge leveled against him, and my response to that is, look, if that's what the world is going to call us bigots, they do that anyway.

Christians have never been embraced by the world and praised for our intellectual accomplishments or whatever, and the scripture makes it very clear that that's okay with God.

You know, look around yourselves, brothers, Paul says. There's not many wise, not many noble. God chose the weak things of this world to confound the wise, and so the idea that, you know, we have to impress the intellectual elite or we're not going to be able to see the kingdom advance in this hostile world, that's just clean contrary to what scripture tells us to think like.

Well thank you, Rose and Harrisburg. You have also won a free copy of The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur.

This is a beautiful hardback edition, compliments of our friends at Zonervan Publishing and compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com, so make sure we have your full mailing address so that Todd and Patty Jennings, owners of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that out to you as soon as possible.

We have Osanachi from Lagos, Nigeria, Africa, who says,

I confess to personally having issues with some of Dr. Keller's positions on certain issues, but the biggest of them all is the social gospel.

Can Mr. Phil please address the dangers this poses to the gospel and Christ's church, if any?

Yeah, and that's a great point. History is full of lessons that when churches begin to substitute social justice for the righteousness of God, they've actually corrupted the gospel message, and churches that embrace that, and you see a large picture of that at the beginning of the century, when most of the mainstream denominations in America embraced various levels of social gospel -type thinking, and within a generation all those denominations had gone liberal.

It's a straight path to liberalism, because it replaces what Scripture says about the righteousness of God and true justice with a humanistic view of justice, and true justice doesn't need any modifiers.

Social justice implies that, and you know this if you just pay attention, in the minds of those who use that expression, social justice implies a sort of almost quasi -Marxist view of seeking equality through financial, you know, through the redistribution of wealth and laws that outlaw, you know,

I don't know, racism and whatnot, and some of those things are valid goals, but to group it all as social justice and make that your aim instead of genuine justice, because biblical justice, real justice, justice itself, also requires the punishment of evildoers, and you never hear people who talk about social justice focus on that aspect of justice.

In fact, people who get enthralled with social justice often become openly hostile to government authority, the police, and so on, and when in fact

Scripture assigns to the government the right to bear the sword of justice. Amen.

And that's in Romans chapter three, I think it is. Well, thank you

Osinachi in Lagos, Nigeria, Africa, and thank you also for giving us an

American address for a pastor you know here in the States who will bring you the book that you have just won when he makes his annual trip to Nigeria, that would be

The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur, the book that you've just won, compliments of Zondervan Publishing and also compliments of CVBBS .com,

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com, who will be shipping that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron and keep spreading the word in Nigeria and beyond. We have

Jeff in Clinton Township, Michigan, who says, muddled speech seems to be the right term for those who seek to blend biblical language and popular culture.

It will never be clear and thoughtful. In line with this conversation, Russell Moore in 2015 stated publicly that he would not attend a same -sex wedding but would attend the reception since it is different.

This too is confusing speech. Both of these men have lost my trust and this playing both sides of the fence is nothing more than a slow slip back to liberalism.

Thank you both for your clarity of thought which is so needed today and by the way, our listener in Clinton Township provided a link documenting

Russell Moore's statement in 2015. So your comments, Phil Johnson. Yeah, I mean,

I remember when Russell Moore said that and it confused me as well because the reception is where you actually celebrate the marriage.

It seems to me that sitting at a wedding and merely observing it is not necessarily sinful.

I don't think I would do it because you give the impression that you're supportive of it by your attendance, but to go to the reception is to celebrate with those people this abominable act that just took place.

So I think Russell Moore had it backward in the first place, although I think a safer policy would be not by your presence to encourage the same -sex marriage that you know is abominable in God's eyes.

That is a moral dilemma that's going to come up for more and more of us. We need to think it through carefully, but I would say the last thing

I want to do is give the impression that I'm celebrating this event and therefore I couldn't go to the reception.

Yeah, I won't go to the wedding ceremony, but I'll go to the reception and eat the cake that one baker was fired for not baking.

Yeah, that's right. By the way, it's Romans 13 that talks about submission to the authorities.

I had a little bit of brain freeze there for a minute. Romans 13. Well, everybody who listens to this show knows that I have about two hours of brain freeze every day hosting this program.

We have Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina, who says,

Great. Hi to Phil, and a question for Phil. Would it have not been better for Tim Keller to have answered the question like this?

All men sin and therefore are due the judgment from our holy God. There are also different sins that have more and less degrees of severity, and God will judge each with consideration for the type of sin.

The specifically the sin of homosexuality and a few other sins. So the question is, not is one better than the other, or sin and require

God to rightly judge each one. Thanks for a great show. You could respond to Pastor Sterling.

Yeah, that's actually a very good answer, and those are the sorts of things that, with my mind,

I have to sit down and write it out. I can't think it up on the fly and be that articulate, but that would be a very good answer, and combining that with the text that an earlier questioner pointed out at the end of Romans, where those who even give approval to such things are, it says, worthy of condemnation.

I would also point out that in this culture where there has been an overt and deliberate campaign to promote sins of sexual perversion,

I wouldn't even single out homosexuality, but now it's transgenderism and all the sins that are related to sexual perversions, then yeah,

I think those sins do deserve to be, at least in the context of our culture, those sins do deserve to be singled out with an absolutely clear condemnation.

I wouldn't downplay the guilt of, say, greed. That's the one that Keller went to.

Greed is an abominable sin as well, and I wouldn't want to downplay that, but in our culture right now is, well, there are certain segments of our culture that promote greed as well, but if I were living and ministering in the midst of a greed -saturated culture,

I would definitely preach against greed. I think you need to focus on the sins that people are in bondage to, and when it's clear that they're in bondage to some sexual perversion, it's absolutely the most unloving thing you can do to tiptoe around that issue and pretend it's a sin you don't notice or you don't have to speak about or to just soft sell it.

Yes, you have actually said something that hinges on a question from Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

We keep hearing about loving our gay neighbor from folks like Tim Keller.

Isn't true love involved in commanding them to repent lest they spend eternity in hell?

Isn't that really the loving thing to do? Obviously, we don't just do that. We perform acts of kindness and deeds of compassion and demonstrate love in many ways, but must that not be a part of it?

Yes, and in fact there are believers who realize that and watch what Christians talk about and do and have condemned the evangelical movement for that very thing, one of them being

Penn Jillette, the, you know, magician of Penn and Teller, illusionist, whatever he wants to call himself.

He's been very candid about this, where he says, he points out, look, if you really believe, genuinely believe, that people are going to be punished in hell for eternity for their sins, then you have an obligation to warn them and to plead with them in the most heartfelt tones.

And in fact, Penn Jillette has, there's a video out there where a guy gave him a bible and he talks about this and he says, you know,

I'm not buying that guy's worldview and belief system, but he says, I can tell he believes it and I was impressed by his sincerity and his genuineness and all of that.

It's a good lesson to the rest of us that it's never loving to shut up in the face of impending disaster.

If your neighbor's house is on fire and he's asleep inside, the most loving thing you can do is to wake him up and warn him that he better get out of there.

If you just let him burn to death because you didn't want to interrupt his nap, you can't call that love.

And thank you, Christopher, you have also won a free copy of The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur, compliments of Zondervan, the compliments of CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. We'll be shipping that out to you. Please make sure we have your full mailing address. We have

Joe in Clifton, New Jersey. At what point do you take words like those of Keller to ultimately be a denial of scriptural infallibility?

It seems that teachers gradually deny scriptural infallibility in practical ways—teaching, interpretation—long before they embrace it theologically, and yet aren't these positions essentially denials of infallibility given that they know the clarity of scripture on the issue they are discussing?

Is this a distinction we should make? I wouldn't necessarily accuse

Tim Keller of denying biblical infallibility. I do think he encourages other people to question the authority and infallibility of scripture.

I think it's a valid point to suggest that that's where this leads, this sort of cowardly preaching, this sort of timid, over -concern about what is academically respectable is the very thing that opens the door for the next generation to just come right out and flatly deny the authority and infallibility of the scripture.

I don't think you're going to hear Tim Keller speak that boldly, but I think it is a fair question to say how much confidence does he really have in the authority and efficacy of the scripture if he has to invent a strategy for evangelism that goes, you know, just dramatically against what the

Apostle Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2. Well, thank you,

Joey. Joey and Joyzie, you have won the last copy that we have available of The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur, so please make sure you give us your full mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey, where Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to you.

Thanks again to Zondervan Publishing for providing that book. Let's see here, we have another listener that I just had in front of me and it somehow escaped my view.

Let's see here, oh, we have Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and let's see here,

I have to enlarge Gordy's email because it's microscopic and the font is, you might as well, you know, just use a telescope to look at this thing.

All right, it seems difficult to even pin down just what Tim Keller even believes. I read a random blog he recently posted and he must have mentioned the gospel eight times in that short piece.

It was almost as if he and his followers have faith in the gospel, not that Jesus Christ, who is the focus of the gospel.

Can you shed any light on this? I'm not sure

I understand the question. I don't have any reason to think that he's trying to...

Is the question whether he really believes the gospel? I don't know, but it could be, and I could be wrong.

In fact... But let me just back up and sort of answer the question, hopefully answer the question in a different way.

I do think he's sending mixed signals, because he does frequently talk about his confidence in the gospel, and the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

It's not wrong to talk about the power of the gospel to change hearts and all that.

Scripture does talk that way, and Keller was one of the co -founders of the Gospel Coalition, whose focus is supposed to be the gospel.

But if you look at all the material coming out of the Gospel Coalition and from Keller's pen, it doesn't seem to me that it really is always gospel -centered, or at least that they've expanded the definition of the gospel enough that gospel -centered material can include things like reviews of the latest popular movies and things like that.

I've criticized that trend online, and I don't want to make anybody unnecessarily angry with me for hammering the same theme, but that is something that I think all of us who talk about gospel -centered ministry need to really watch carefully.

If we're going to say that we want to be gospel -centered, if we're going to say we really do believe the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, we can't act like we think human wisdom is necessary to open doors for the gospel and all of that.

It's an easy thing to say you are committed to gospel -centered ministry, and yet slip off -center and forget that the gospel is supposed to be, then, at the center of every message we give.

Yeah, I was at the Gospel Coalition conference in Indianapolis, and there were some outstanding men, especially in workshop discussions, like Michael Haken, for instance, who had a wonderful class during that event.

But I was disturbed by some of what was said during the primary sessions, and Tim Keller concluded this conference that was on the theme,

No Other Gospel. And during his final message of the conference, he's lovingly quoting from a

Roman Catholic who was an apostate from the Presbyterian church, Elizabeth Elliott's brother,

Tom Howard, I believe his name is. He was quoting lovingly from this Roman Catholic who was an apostate from biblical

Christianity, who he says he meditates on. I mean, what kind of signal, what kind of message are you sending when you say things like that?

Yeah, and that's the sort of thing I'm talking about. I definitely don't want to leave the impression that I don't like anything comes out of the

Gospel Coalition. They do publish a lot of really good stuff, and very helpful stuff, and some excellent

Gospel -centered stuff. But take back to the original YouTube video that we started two hours ago with this broadcast.

There are some nuggets of Gospel ideas in there. The notion that you can't be your own

Savior, and that the essence of disbelief in Christ is thinking that you can be your own

Savior. There's a nugget of Gospel truth there, but in this whole discussion of homosexuality, it doesn't really come back to the

Gospel ever. It doesn't talk about how Christ died to pay for guilt and sin.

It doesn't even really talk about guilt, which is Paul's starting point in Romans when he talks about the

Gospel. The Gospel is God's answer to how we deal with human guilt.

And if you try to tiptoe around that issue, you can't really credibly claim to be

Gospel -centered. And so if you expand your definition of the Gospel to include, you know, your politics and social justice and all the other stuff, you haven't really made yourself

Gospel -centered. You've simply defined what Gospel -centered means in a way that's a catch -all for anything you want to do.

In fact, I just saw an ad on the Grace To You website, gty .org, for Divine Design, God's Complimentary Roles for Men and Women.

What an excellent segue. I guess that's something new by Dr. MacArthur's pen. But I know that the

Grace To You website is gty .org. I know that the

G3 Conference, where Phil Johnson will be speaking, can be found at g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com. Do you have any other contact information that you care to give?

No, that's great. Anybody who wants to write me a direct question can contact me at phil at gty .org.

gty .org. Phil at gty .org. Well, I want to thank you so much,

Phil, for being my guest today. If you wouldn't mind holding on, because I want to schedule you for another interview. All right.

And I want to thank the Reverend Buzz Taylor for being our co -host today. I want to thank all of our listeners, especially those who took the time to write in questions today.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.