May 18, 2017 Show with Jonathan Master on Part 2 of “The God We Worship: Adoring the One Who Pursues, Redeems & Changes His People”

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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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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. 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.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 18th day of May 2017.

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In studio with me is my co -host the Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello again. And we have returning to our program for the second time,

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Jonathan Master. Well at least it's the second time that we are discussing the same topic. I'm not sure, I think we may have had

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Jonathan on more than twice, but we are discussing part two of The God We Worship and Jonathan is the professor of theology and dean of the

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School of Divinity at Cairn University in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. He's the editorial director for the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and host of the Alliance podcast Theology on the Go. He's also the author of A Question of Consensus, The Doctrine of Assurance After the

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Westminster Confession and we are discussing, as I said, part two of The God We Worship, Adoring the

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One Who Pursues, Redeems and Changes His People. And it's my honor and privilege to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jonathan Master.

02:22

Thanks Chris, thanks Buzz, good to be with you. Is this my second interview with you or have I had more than two?

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This is our third. That's what I thought, okay. You were right though, it's the second on this particular book.

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Right, yes, and it was a privilege to once again be very near to the exhibitors booth for Cairn University at the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals conference where the Reverend Buzz Taylor and I were manning our own exhibitors booth for the

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Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat at the Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

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And if I sound like I'm not my wide awake, sparky, excited self today, it's because I'm still very drained from a lack of sleep when

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I was there. So nothing against the conference for that, but I just got sleep deprived through insomnia, but I hope that I can make it through the end of the program without stumbling over too many words,

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Jonathan. Well no, I can definitely identify with being sleep deprived, but aren't you supposed to come back from retreats energized?

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Yeah, really. Well most people I guess who get full night's sleep do exactly that.

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Well Chris, you just take a nap and I'll talk with Jonathan, how's that? You mean you want to switch places, I guess, because Buzz is usually napping during every broadcast.

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But before we go into the discussion or continue the discussion of the

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God we worship, remind our listeners or inform our listeners who never heard you before on this broadcast about Cairn University in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.

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Yeah, thank you. Cairn's been around for over 100 years. We celebrated our 100th anniversary in 2013, and it's a

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Christian university, still very committed to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and the centrality of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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Every student at Cairn, we offer a number of majors, dozens of majors, but every student at Cairn takes 30 credit hours of Bible and theology at least.

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So whatever their major is, they're also taking about a major's worth of Bible and theology plus church history and some other things that kind of connect to that.

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So we're a Christian university in Langhorne, which is a suburb of Philadelphia, relatively on the smaller scale for universities around 1 ,000 students, and it's a delight to teach there and to work with our students.

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It's great because the way that the core curriculum works with all that Bible and theology, it kind of infuses everything we do, and it's sort of in the air, those types of questions, so it's a joy to be there.

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And now tell our listeners about the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, where you serve as editorial director.

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Yeah, the Alliance is a coalition of churchmen and pastors and theologians and lay people within the

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Church who are united together to try to foster a

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Reformed awakening in today's Church. The way the Alliance goes about this is through hosting conferences that feature sound, doctrinal preaching from solid teachers, and also through some of our online publications.

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The Alliance has a number of websites that produce regular, very good content, very doctrinally sound content.

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The website that you might have heard of, or our listeners might have heard of, are Reformation21 .org,

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which is sort of a polemical focus, Place4Truth .org, which focuses on biblical doctrine,

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Christ -Word Collective, Meet the Puritans, which is sort of historical in its orientation. We also have a couple of podcasts.

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You mentioned mine, Theology on the Go, at the outset, which offers sort of brief 15 -minute interviews on theological topics, and there's also

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Mortification of Spin, which is a little bit longer format with three hosts. So a number of different activities that the

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Alliance engages in, but the overall thrust of the whole thing is to foster a

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Reformed awakening in today's churches. Yeah, we had all of the participants of the

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Mortification of Spin at the Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center for the

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Faithful Shepherd Pastor Retreat. Dr.

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Carl Truman was there, Todd Pruitt was there, and Amy Bird was there, and we also had

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John Nielsen contribute some excellent messages. In fact, I'm planning to have

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John on very soon to discuss his work at Princeton University, being a part of obviously a very tiny minority of evangelicals there doing ministry, which is a sad commentary since that was a bastion of evangelical and Reformed theology in the 19th century and perhaps the earliest parts of the 20th century before a tragic decline into liberalism which swallowed it up.

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But it's good to know that men like John Nielsen are there doing a good work and fanning the flames of revival there.

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Yeah, no, there are some good, good people doing work on campuses, of course, all over the country, but I happen to know some of the ones at Princeton, and it is very good work that they do.

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And then, of course, being with the Spin gang, Carl and Amy and Todd, that's always fun, isn't it? Oh yeah, they were excellent, and I enjoyed also having private conversations with them, and I'm looking forward to have

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Carl Truman back on. He is going to be discussing the classic book by Bannerman, The Church of Christ, published by the

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Banner of Truth, and he brought the forward to that reprint that Banner of Truth has in print, and so I'm looking forward to interviewing

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Carl Truman on that book and on Bannerman himself. We have not yet picked a date, but hopefully that will come about very soon.

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And once again, for those of our listeners who missed your interview, tell them specifically about what you discuss on Theology on the

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Go. Theology on the Go is a brief podcast, usually we aim for about 12 to 15 minutes, sometimes it goes closer to 20, where I interview one particular person on one particular topic.

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So the topic usually is a theological topic, justification, adoption, the atonement, those kinds of things, or sometimes it's biographical, so Augustine or Calvin or Luther or something like that.

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And the idea is to have sort of a bite -sized podcast that someone could listen to on their commute or while making dinner or something like that, that introduces them to a topic and to a person and gives them some resources at the end to kind of investigate further.

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So the slogan that we have for it is a brief interview about an eternal truth, and that sort of encapsulates our vision for it.

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Great. And for more information about the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, our listeners can go to alliancenet .org,

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alliancenet .org, and I will be reminding you of that later on in the program because we have a couple of future events to announce, at least one of them being sponsored by the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. But now I want to also, before we get into the discussion at hand, remind our listeners about an event where you are speaking, the

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Banner of Truth 2017 U .S. Ministers Conference, which is coming up very soon.

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It, in fact, will be on Tuesday, May 30th through Thursday, June 1st.

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And what is exactly your topic of discussion for our listeners who missed you last time? Well the topic of the whole conference is the living and enduring words, so all the conference theme really revolves around the doctrine of the

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Word of God. My two addresses, the first one is called Living and Active, and the second,

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Sharper Than Any Two -Edged Sword, of course, taken out of Hebrews chapter 4. But my first address,

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I'm going to look at an Old Testament text where the Word of God is shown to be alive and doing the work of the

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Lord, and then the second address, I'm going to look at 2 Timothy chapter 3, sort of classic text on the doctrine of the

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Word of God, and show how the Word of God does the work of God in a very pointed way.

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And so both addresses are on the Bible, and from the Bible, and that's kind of how they're going to be divided up.

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A number of other speakers there as well, but I'm going to be giving two addresses. Yes, and joining

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Jonathan Master at that conference, the U .S. Ministers Conference sponsored by the

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Banner of Truth, joining him will be Joel Beeky, Jeff Thomas, William Vanderwerd, Mark Johnston, Carlton Winn, and Ian Hamilton.

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So I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the

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U .S. Ministers Conference, May 30th through June 1st in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at the

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Elizabethtown College, and I'll be repeating this information later as well. Let me give our listeners our email address.

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If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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We understand you desiring to remain anonymous, so you may feel free to do so. Otherwise, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Well, the last time we had you on, Jonathan, to discuss this book, we went through every important word or phrase in the title.

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We went through the word God and exactly who this God is that we worship.

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We went even through the word we, meaning the ones who worship. We went through what worship means, adoring.

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We went through what pursues and redeems and changes his people mean.

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In fact, they said last time if this were to be an Arminian book written by honest

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Arminians, the book would have been aptly titled

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The God We Worship, The One Who Pursues, Tries to Redeem and Tries to Change Everyone, rather than The One Who Pursues, Redeems and Changes His People.

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These are certain things that have either been accomplished in regard to his redemption or his work on Calvary, and as far as pursuing and changing and transforming those whom he has elected before the foundations of the world, these are things that are certain about God.

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He doesn't try to do anything, as we said last time. Am I right? Yeah, that's absolutely right.

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I mean, the words are intentionally definite, and I think you picked up on that. It's indicative of the fact that in the

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New Testament, when it talks about God's work in salvation, it is a definite work. He accomplishes what he sets out to do, and so it's important for us to say that a lot of times when people present the gospel,

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God is presented as being on the other side, sort of waiting, hoping, fingers crossed, but that's not what the scriptural teaching is about our salvation.

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We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and God made us alive in Christ, and that's the kind of speech that we have throughout the

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New Testament. And we believe that God definitely has a people.

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His people are the elect whom he has chosen before the foundation of the world, and they include

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Jew and Gentile and from those out of every tribe and nation and people and tongue.

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His chosen people are not exclusively the Jews, as many dispensationalists and messianic ministries will attempt to claim today, or they do claim today, but they are people from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds and races and so on whom he has chosen for himself.

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One of the distinctions of Reformed theology, it seems, is that we make this bold statement that his chosen people are the elect from all races and groups and ethnicities and nations from all over the globe.

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Yeah, that to me is what the Apostle Paul, how the Apostle Paul uses that language of election and of choosing when he talks about the chosen people of God, and when he talks about God's elect, sometimes he'll just address a church, like he does in Thessalonica, God's elect.

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And when he does that, of course, that's inclusive of Jews and Gentiles, it's all those who are in Christ.

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And that is the way that the term is used. Now, of course, it's true, various points, you have

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God choosing specific individuals for certain tasks, and even choosing, he talks about choosing

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Israel for certain tasks, but you're right, the elect of God, the people of God, as it's stated in the

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New Testament, are Jew and Gentile in Christ, elect before the foundation of the world.

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And the first chapter of the book was written by Brian Chappell, God's Glory Revealed, and I'm assuming

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I'm pronouncing his name correctly, it's Chappell, correct, not Chappell? That's right, yeah,

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Brian Chappell. Right, and tell us about God's Glory Revealed. Well, what

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Dr. Chappell does in this chapter, and it's really beautiful how he does it, is he digs deeply into Isaiah chapter 6, the calling of Isaiah, in the year of King Uzziah's death,

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I saw the Lord on his throne high and lifted up the train of his robe filled the temple. And what

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Chappell does is he shows how God's glory is revealed in this chapter,

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God's holiness is revealed to Isaiah, and then what he does is he shows how, what the implications are of God's holiness for the person who encounters it.

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So when one is confronted with the holiness of God, what is the response?

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And in the case of Isaiah, of course, the response is a recognition of his own sinfulness, and an understanding of how he stands before God, and how he needs

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God's cleansing in his life. And what Chappell shows is that these are the appropriate, and in a sort of sense, the natural and right responses to this revelation of God's holiness and God's glory.

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So that's the substance of it, it really revolves around Isaiah 6, but then he draws the theological themes out from it.

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And chapter 2, an old friend of mine, Charlie Drew, wrote, called by God to worship.

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You got to make sure you send my greetings to Charlie Drew. He used to be a pastor out on Long Island, New York, where I lived.

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He was pastoring out in the Stony Brook area at a church called

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Three Village Church, and we had gotten involved in a couple of radio projects over the years, but I haven't seen or heard from Charlie in a long time.

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But tell us about called by God to worship. Well, once again, you know, what we have here is essentially an exposition of a passage of Scripture, a very familiar passage of Scripture from John chapter 4, and it's the passage in which

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John elucidates Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at the well.

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And what Reverend Drew does here is he talks about what it is that God calls her to,

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Jesus calls her to, and calls us to as well, and what that looks like.

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So it's really an explanation of what true worship is, because you remember, of course, in John 4, that's where Jesus says the true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth, and so Charlie talks about that, and then talks about the sustenance and the kind of renewal that human beings receive when they are rightly worshiping the true

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God in the way that he has ordained for them to. So at the end, he talks a little bit about the difference between worshiping an idol and worshiping

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God, but really, the jumping -off point, if you will, is that encounter Jesus has with the woman at the well.

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Yeah, that is quite a frequently discussed occurrence in the

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Scriptures. It's something, I think, that those who are the outcasts of society, they may view themselves that way, or they may know that many others view them that way.

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It's one of those occurrences where even they can know they can be loved by Christ in spite of if they are the scandal of the town, in spite of the fact that if everyone looks demeaningly upon them, and whatever sin they have committed.

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Obviously, the woman in this story was an adulteress, and it's not clear to me whether she was married just multiple times or just sleeping around.

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I'm not sure what Jesus meant by that. Have you come to a final, solid conclusion on that? Well, I do think she probably...

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it looks to me as if she's been married several times, but certainly those two things aren't exclusive.

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I think that she probably was also sleeping around. She had clearly led a sort of... had a profligate and checkered lifestyle, morally.

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But I take Jesus' words to mean that she had actually multiple husbands, in fact.

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But there is some ambiguity there, as you know, in the language. But that's the way

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I've taken it. But it's really interesting, because the main point you're making is such a good one.

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And Charlie Drew makes this point that this woman, as he puts it, was terribly unclean, utterly unacceptable, and yet this is the woman to whom

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Jesus speaks this great message and gives this call of repentance. So you're right.

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I mean, I think there is a comfort in that for all of us who recognize our own sin, and maybe those who have begun to think that the message of repentance and faith in Jesus couldn't possibly be for them, they're beyond that.

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And I think you're right. The fact that Jesus speaks to this woman is really a striking reminder of the call that's given to everyone.

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It was remarkable that they were even there, to tell you the truth, because the text starts out by informing us that Jesus had to go through Samaria, and yet that was not the common practice of the day.

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The common practice of the day for the Jews was you go as far as you have to to go around Samaria, because you don't go through it.

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And it was almost like, you know, Jesus had this divine appointment. He deliberately made sure he was where she was.

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And that's just to go back to talking about the one who pursues us. Yeah, it's a great point.

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It's a great point, Buzz. I mean, not only does it show the depth of Jesus' mercy for even these people who would have been considered outcasts by the

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Jews of his day, but it also does just show that all of this is within the providential outworking of God's plan.

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And I think you're right. I think there's a strong undercurrent of God's election and God's sovereignty in pursuing those whom he would call to himself.

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Wouldn't you say that there's lessons that could be learned from that story by both the group on the one side, who would be modern -day

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Pharisees, who would be Christians who are so self -righteous that they never want to risk ruining their reputations by even sitting down and having a conversation with an overtly, scandalously lost person, especially someone of this caliber, or perhaps even worse.

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And then on the other side, you have those who frequently enjoy the company of rebels and scandalous sinners, but in most cases, or I shouldn't say in most cases, in many cases, they wind up appearing just like them to the public.

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They wind up perhaps imbibing in too much of the drink or whatever is going on in these parties or gatherings and behaving too much like these people.

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And they never do the right thing and evangelize these people and let them know of their sin that needs to be repented of.

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Whereas Jesus, although he reached out with compassion and love to this scandalously sinful woman, he also was pretty abrupt with her.

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He was using language that many would think, man, he was rude. I mean, he flat out tells her, the husband that you have now isn't even yours.

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So, I mean, isn't there a lesson to be learned by people on both sides of this issue of fellowship, or should

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I say, not fellowship, but friendship and spending time with those outside of the body of Christ?

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Yeah, it's such a great point. The Lord offers such a profound example for us in this way.

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He is often associating with people who would have been considered either unclean, ritually unclean, or simply just sort of distasteful and disqualified by virtue of their sin.

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And he will seek out those people on many occasions, or sometimes they'll come to him, but he won't reject them.

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But yet at the same time, you're exactly right, he doesn't pull any punches. He was without sin, and he really does exemplify the blessed man in Psalm 1 who doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but delights in the law of the

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Lord, even while he is spending time with tax collectors and sinners.

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And so there is that remarkable challenge that the Lord offers to people who would either reject others out of hand and sort of look down their nose at others, and then on the other hand, who might, you know, just become like those around them.

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And you're right, I mean, it is striking again and again in the

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Gospels how Jesus both associates and yet challenges.

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Yes, I can remember my very first pastor as a born -again Christian, Mike Gadosh, who is a guest on this program from time to time.

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He's the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books. I remember he had an excellent sermon years ago,

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Jesus, friend of sinners and separate from sinners. We have to be both, don't we, as Christians?

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We have to be a friend of sinners. We have to reach out with love and compassion to them with the

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Gospel. We cannot keep the Gospel to ourselves selfishly and greedily as if we are the only ones that matter in regard to our eternal life.

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We have to really seek to share this message of eternal life with all whom we know and meet when we have opportunity.

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And yet we are not to become like these people. We are not to follow in their footsteps and try to perhaps even seek to woo them to the

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Church and to the Gospel like seeker -sensitive movement by behaving like them in many ways. Yeah, that's a really good title that I think does sort of attack both of those impulses that we can fall into, and that's a biblical balance.

29:40

Great. We're going to be going to our first break today. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Jonathan Master, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

29:58

USA, and please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

30:04

God willing, we'll be right back with Jonathan Master and the God we worship. I am

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I hope that you mark your calendars for, let's see, Thursday, July 6th, 4 to 6 pm.

37:29

Bill Shishko of A Visit to the Pastor's Study will be our guest, and I hope that you have questions for him.

37:35

In fact, I hope you start listening to him every Saturday, 12 to 1 pm

37:41

Eastern Time on wlie540am .com on the internet, where you can hear him anywhere in the world.

37:48

And those of you listening from Long Island, New York, or anywhere within the New York Tri -State area, most of those areas do have 540 am on the dial, on the radio dial, within their frequency.

38:03

So even parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, I understand, get that station.

38:09

So you can listen on the radio in that area, or listen anywhere in the world at wlie540am .com.

38:16

12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time, and please, if you call in with a question to Pastor Bill Shishko of A Visit to the

38:23

Pastor's Study, please make sure you mention that you heard about his program on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

38:29

And it seems that my studio equipment is suffering from insomnia or something, because everything's sluggish today.

38:36

The ads aren't starting exactly when they're supposed to start, so I'm not sure what's going on here. But if you'd like to join us today with a question of your own for Jonathan Master on his book

38:48

The God We Worship, Adoring the One Who Pursues, Redeems, and Changes His People, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

38:55

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we do have a listener, it's our friend in Slovenia, Joe, who has a question for you.

39:04

He says, Dear Brother Chris, welcome back to all of you, so glad to hear your program again. As a result of a small group study on Exodus 25 this week and preparing to preach on John 6 this

39:17

Sunday, I was wondering about your thoughts regarding any notable connections between the bread of the presence in Exodus 25 -30 and Jesus' reference to himself as the bread of life in John 6.

39:33

In what, if any ways, is the God we worship represented or depicted in the bread of presence on the table in the tabernacle?

39:42

Thanks for sharpening our focus on God's Word, on the God we worship.

39:49

Do you have any comments on that, Jonathan? You know,

39:55

I don't have any offhand connecting it with John 6.

40:00

Of course, John 6 almost always is connected, because Jesus himself talks about this in John 6, with the manna that was given in the wilderness.

40:10

So there is a Mosaic connection, there is a, an Exodus connection, if you will.

40:17

I don't know that I've drawn a line between that and the bread of presence, except that the bread of presence was a reminder in some ways of God's provision for his people.

40:28

So there's maybe a, I guess my initial answer, and again, I'm sort of doing this off the cuff, is there might be a kind of two degrees of separation there, but because I think the bread in the wilderness, the manna in the wilderness, is the key element, the key

40:47

Old Testament reference for understanding John chapter 6. But, you know,

40:53

I probably, you know, an hour or two after this, Joe, I'll probably think of a better answer, but my initial answer is that I don't know that I see a direct connection there, but maybe some kind of indirect one, it's sort of evocative of something else.

41:12

Well thanks for your question, Joe, and we don't have any books today, we gave them all away during our first interview on this subject, the

41:19

God we worship, the last time we had Jonathan Master on. But keep listening to the program, and keep spreading the word about it in Slovenia and beyond.

41:29

Thanks a lot for always adding good questions to our discussion. This book also has some other excellent authors, in fact every one of them that you have included in this book are excellent preachers and teachers and writers.

41:47

Richard D. Phillips, who we've had on this program a number of times. In fact, Reverend Buzz Taylor and I just had the privilege of hearing

41:54

Richard D. Phillips preach at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology just a few weeks ago in, what's that suburb of Philadelphia?

42:05

Bryn Mawr. It was Bryn Mawr. Right, that's right, and a proclamation Presbyterian church.

42:11

Gorgeous, gorgeous facility they have there, and a very nice pastor, I met him for the first time.

42:17

But in your book, Richard D. Phillips addresses sought by Christ to worship, if you could explain that a little further.

42:28

Yeah, before the break we were talking about Charlie Drew's chapter in here where he deals with John chapter four, and Rick really ends up in the same place.

42:41

Rick spends a lot of time on John chapter four in the encounter with the woman at the well, but he starts by talking about Exodus 25 where the

42:52

Lord says that he will meet with his people from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, and Rick makes some points about how it's so significant that the meets with his people at this place, and that the

43:10

Lord, in a sense, is the one who initiates the worship at the temple.

43:15

And then he transitions from talking about that Old Testament temple worship to, again,

43:23

Jesus' explanation to the woman at the well, and he draws out even perhaps more clearly than the previous chapter did, than Charlie Drew's chapter.

43:32

He draws out those kinds of things that I think Buzz was referring to before the break, the ways in which it's obvious in the text that Jesus is the one doing the seeking here.

43:45

Jesus is the one who is seeking out this woman as a worshiper of him, and so then what

43:58

Rick does then so beautifully is he weaves into the exposition of John 4 and of Exodus, he weaves in his own testimony, very powerful, his own testimony of the way in which

44:11

God works through all kinds of circumstances to draw him to himself and to even draw him into pastoral ministry.

44:21

So there's this sort of blend of Old Testament, New Testament, and then personal testimony of the

44:27

Lord's work in Rick's own life. Yes, in fact, I was speaking with a

44:33

Reformed pastor recently, and he said, whenever anybody has asked him, is your church seeker sensitive?

44:41

And he says, yes, we are always seeking to be sensitive to the desires and commands of God, who is the seeker.

44:53

Yeah, yeah. And I've also heard people say that why are people spending so much time building and designing churches and ministries specifically for people that don't exist because of the fact that the

45:09

Bible says there is no one who seeks, no not one. But people who are truly seeking are actually being drawn by God.

45:18

They're not seeking in their own initiative unless it is just to find some kind of benefit out of the religion that you are a part of.

45:27

Am I right? Well, absolutely. And I think what's interesting is this isn't always the case 100 % of the time, but more often than not, when people's eyes are open, when they are brought to life spiritually by the regenerating work of the

45:47

Holy Spirit, and they are trusting in Christ for their salvation, generally speaking, when that has happened in time, they will tell you that, you know, looking back, it was the

46:00

Lord who was seeking me. So while they may, you know, at various points call themselves seekers, usually after the fact, it's really clear in retrospect that they were not seeking so much as they were being sought.

46:15

And so, you know, that perspective really changes, I think, when people are brought to saving faith.

46:21

They see that, boy, it was the Lord's work from beginning to end. You know,

46:26

I found out some interesting things, or actually some of the things that were being said by one of the speakers at the

46:35

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals pastors retreat over the last few days.

46:41

John Nielsen was, as I said, one of the speakers. He has a ministry that he is a part of in Princeton, New Jersey, trying to be a light in the darkness there.

46:55

And he was talking about, he was basically breaking some of the myths about millennials.

47:04

And he was confirming some things that I just recently discovered, at least with one individual, that surprised me.

47:16

He was saying things like, you know, people who are, or should

47:23

I say, churches that are worshiping God in an orderly, traditional, and dignified fashion are not roadblocks, or is not a roadblock to the millennial who is really being drawn by God and seeking out deeper truth.

47:46

And they are not drawn by some of the things that are typically thought of as wise methodologies to entice millennials into your church by having hipper music, and having the ministers dress in a hip, relaxed way.

48:09

And all these things that we think of, dumbing down sermons, and on and on, because of the fact that many of the millennials, especially if they are being drawn by God himself, they are very skeptical about anything that appears to be a slick sales pitch.

48:35

And they see through a lot of this stuff with churches trying to imitate the world as a way of enticing in unbelievers.

48:46

And he was saying that this is not something that, at least in his experience, is something that is attractive to millennials, because they're kind of tired of that stuff.

49:00

They've already seen it and experienced it. And if they really want to learn or discover transcendent truth, they expect the church to be different from the world.

49:13

They don't expect it to blend in with the world. And I found out that, at least with one person, very recently

49:20

I was very surprised, pleasantly surprised, when the daughter of the woman who led me to Christ in the 1980s, she had left the church years ago.

49:31

She was raised for a portion of her childhood in a very solid Bible -believing Reformed church.

49:37

She got married to a man who I believe is an agnostic.

49:43

They have a baby together, and she is having longings to be attached to the church again, especially now that she's raising a child.

49:52

She doesn't even believe that she's regenerate yet. She actually admits that.

49:58

She doesn't think that she's born again. But she wants to go to church, and she asked me for a church recommendation near her in Orlando.

50:06

I called up some churches that I was aware of who pointed me to a church close to her, and she contacted her mother, and she said,

50:15

I hope Chris Arnzen's feelings aren't hurt, but I really am uncomfortable at this church. The people there are very nice and everything, but they seem very, very relaxed and informal about what they're doing.

50:27

They're not taking it very seriously, it seems to me. And the band, the worship band, is more like an entertainment time than a worship time to me.

50:37

I just don't feel comfortable, and I was amazed to hear this. Do you have any comments on what I'm saying here? Yeah, I've noticed the same thing.

50:45

I work most of the time with college -aged students, and I think that trend is accurate.

50:53

I think, no, I mean, there are so many exceptions, it's hard to say for sure, but I think it's true.

51:00

I do hear from students very often that they're actually turned off by what they perceive as a certain manipulative kind of slickness, and that to them, well, they're very savvy, so they can often see through that because they've been exposed to that kind of savvy or kind of slick manipulation for their whole lives, and I think they can often really see through it.

51:28

So yeah, I mean, hard to make generalizations, but I would say that that does seem to be a trend, and of course that's a great thing.

51:38

But you know, we know theologically that what John said at the conference that you just attended is absolutely true.

51:47

If God is the one drawing someone, then those kinds of superficial things really aren't the issue.

51:55

So I mean, I think he makes a really good and accurate sociological observation, but more importantly,

52:07

I think what we're counting on is that God is the one pursuing, and God is the one bringing people to repentance and faith.

52:18

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

52:27

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your name, your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

52:39

USA, and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable if you are speaking or asking about a personal and private matter.

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But don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with Jonathan Master right after these words from our sponsors, and we'll be continuing our discussion on the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen.

58:51

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

58:56

Jonathan Master, and we are discussing his book, The God We Worship, Adoring the One Who Pursues, Redeems, and Changes His People.

59:03

This is part two of our discussion on this subject that we began a couple of weeks ago on this program, and I want to, before we return to our discussion, remind you about some important events coming up, one of which includes our guest,

59:23

Jonathan Master. That would be the 2017 U .S. Ministers Conference conducted by the

59:29

Banner of Truth, Tuesday, May 30th through Thursday, June 1st, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at the

59:37

Elizabethtown College. The theme of the conference is the Living and Enduring Word, and the speakers include our guests, as I mentioned,

59:45

Jonathan Master, Joel Beeky, Jeff Thomas, William Vanderward, Mark Johnston, Carlton Winn, and Ian Hamilton.

59:55

If you'd like to join us there at this conference, or at this pastors conference, go to banneroftruth .org,

01:00:05

banneroftruth .org, click on events, and then click on U .S.

01:00:10

Ministers Conference, and I believe they have this open to anyone in leadership, including deacons, and I believe that pastors may also bring guests from the church with them, but you can ask

01:00:25

Banner of Truth about that, and ask your pastor about that, or tell your pastor about that.

01:00:31

BannerofTruth .org, click on events, and then click on U .S. Ministers Conference.

01:00:37

That's Tuesday, May 30th through Thursday, June 1st, and that's at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and then not far after that, we have the

01:00:53

Foundations Conference, which is a conference orchestrated by Sermon Audio. That's being held

01:00:59

June 22nd and June 23rd in New York City on 350

01:01:05

West 26th Street in the Chelsea area of Manhattan, and this has another great lineup of speakers, including

01:01:16

Stephen J. Lawson, Joel Beeky, Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of Dr.

01:01:24

John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and tomorrow's guests, we have on the program tomorrow

01:01:36

Alan Dunlop, and he is going to be speaking about his book,

01:01:42

I believe it's called The Confessions of a Fundamentalist. He is going to be discussing some of the things that he, as someone who at one time identified with that group known as independent separatist

01:02:00

Christian fundamentalists, he is going to be discussing what about that movement he no longer finds compatible with biblical

01:02:12

Christianity, and he's also obviously going to be very kind about it because there are things that he believes that are still important elements of biblically faithful Christianity, but he thinks that it has tragically gone into a direction that he no longer feels comfortable with aligning himself with in regard to its departure from what he believes are biblical standards and so on.

01:02:46

Confessions of a Fundamentalist, that is our topic tomorrow with Alan Dunlop, and he, as I said, is one of the speakers at the

01:02:55

Foundations Conference. If you'd like more information about that conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com,

01:03:05

thefoundationsconference .com, and you'll have all the information you need on how to register, and I hope to see you there as well.

01:03:13

And then in August, August 3rd through the 5th, in our co -host

01:03:18

Reverend Buzz Taylor's Old Stomping Grounds, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held in Portland, Maine at the

01:03:26

Deering Center Community Church on 4 Brentwood Street, Portland, Maine, and the speakers at that event include

01:03:35

Pastor Don Curran, who is going to be my guest soon on Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

01:03:41

He is with Don Curran Ministries, and he is also with the

01:03:48

HeartCry Missionary Society in Radford, Virginia, which is the organization founded by Paul Washer.

01:03:56

Pastor Mack Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, who's been a guest in this program a number of times and has become a dear friend.

01:04:03

Pastor Jesse Barrington of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, and Pastor Nate Pickowitz, who is the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmantown Ironworks, New Hampshire.

01:04:16

And Pastor Pickowitz is also going to be a guest on Iron Trap and Zion Radio to discuss reviving evangelical

01:04:26

Christianity in New England, and which at one time was a bedrock of Bible -believing

01:04:35

Christians and churches, and has sadly been overcome and overwhelmed by liberalism and nominalism and so on.

01:04:46

But I'm looking forward to interviewing Pastor Nate Pickowitz, but he is one of the speakers at Fellowship Conference New England.

01:04:53

Go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com for more details. fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

01:05:00

And if you go to any of these conferences, please, I urge you to tell those in charge that you heard about the conferences from Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

01:05:12

Especially bring that up when you are registering. And I hope to meet you at those conferences where the

01:05:21

Lord enables me to show up. So I do plan on being at most of those events, and I'm not entirely sure about others, just because of my schedule and finances.

01:05:34

But we hope to see you at as many of those as possible. And now we are going to finally bug you for money.

01:05:45

Lately, I have been nearly every day urging you to donate to Iron Trap and Zion Radio because of the fact that we are in desperate times these days financially.

01:05:57

If you are blessed by this program, if you believe it is important, if you find yourself listening to it regularly and you have the finances to bless us with a donation,

01:06:11

I would love to receive a donation of any size that you can afford. As always, we never want you siphoning money out of your giving to your church or off your family's table if you are struggling to make ends meet.

01:06:27

But if the Lord has blessed you above and beyond your ability to comfortably do those things, I would love to receive a donation of any size where you can mail it to an address made available on IronTrapandZionRadio .com.

01:06:43

You click on support at IronTrapandZionRadio .com, and there will be an address where you can mail checks made payable to Iron Trap and Zion Radio of any size that you would like.

01:06:55

And I look forward to receiving those checks, and also look forward to receiving emails from anyone who desires to advertise on Iron Trap and Zion Radio, whether it is your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your corporation, a special event that you're having, or anything that is compatible with the theological makeup of this broadcast.

01:07:20

So we would love to receive an email from you if you're interested in advertising, or if you could recommend somebody that you think might want to advertise.

01:07:27

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

01:07:35

and put advertising in the subject line. So I appreciate that very much, and hope to see you at many, if not most, if not all of the events coming up that I've been announcing here on Iron Trap and Zion.

01:07:52

And it was great at Harvey Seder's Bible Conference to meet people that are committed, they told me anyway, that are committed to begin listening regularly to the broadcast.

01:08:04

So I hope that is even the case today. And if any of you are listening today, hello again, and perhaps we'll see you next year at Harvey Seder's Bible Conference.

01:08:47

Remember, my friend Bill Shishko, who has an ad every day on the show who I mentioned before, he has reprimanded me many, many times when

01:08:54

I have said, my church or your church. He always says to me, brother, it is not your church, it is the church of the

01:09:02

Lord Jesus Christ. So I have to remember that before Pastor Bill gives me another rebuke.

01:09:09

But if you'd like to join us on the air right now with a question for Jonathan Master, we are returning to our discussion on The God We Worship, Part Two.

01:09:19

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:09:25

And we do have a question from Charlie Liebert of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who is the founder of 6daycreation .com.

01:09:38

6daycreation .com and those of you who listen to Iron Trepan's Iron Radio know that Charlie, from time to time, is the co -host or guest on this program, especially when it has something to do with the creation versus evolution debate or the young earth versus old earth creation debate.

01:09:57

And Charlie asks, what are the consequences of Arminian theology on evangelism as opposed to the

01:10:04

Reformed view? Jonathan? Yeah, Charlie, thanks for the question, and thanks for all the work you're doing.

01:10:14

I think the biggest one that comes to mind immediately is, and it then depends on you as the evangelist to kind of close the deal.

01:10:29

And that has all kinds of consequences. If you believe that it depends on you as the evangelist to kind of close the deal, to make the sale, so to speak, when presenting the gospel, then first of all, that can lead, it doesn't always do this, but it can lead to attempts at manipulating people, at really sort of trying to make this deeply emotional appeal that may not in fact be clear about the realities of the gospel message in its totality.

01:11:04

You may be tempted to sort of sand down the sharp edges of some of Christ's words.

01:11:11

The other thing I think, ultimately, is it can lead to a deep, deep frustration.

01:11:17

All of us who have had any experience in evangelism have experienced failure in the sense that, you know, you share the gospel with someone and they don't immediately respond.

01:11:31

And of course, in an ultimate sense, it's not ours to regard that as necessarily a success or failure, but it feels like a failure in any case.

01:11:39

And I think what happens is the more you're reliant on your own efforts to persuade people,

01:11:47

I think the more ultimately discouraged and frustrated you'll become because you'll face the rejection that, remember,

01:11:57

Jesus himself faced. I mean, if you look through the Gospel of John, when you see Jesus present very clearly and forcefully who he is, there's always a mixed response.

01:12:08

Some believe, some reject him out of hand, some kind of want to hear more, and that's typical.

01:12:16

But I think that to the extent that you think it relies on you, number one, you're going to change the message, you're going to at least be tempted to change the message.

01:12:26

And number two, I think you're also going to have a sense of your own failure.

01:12:34

If you have any self -awareness or honesty at all, now there are people who just celebrate their successes, think of themselves as having brought people to Christ and sort of ride on that, but I think anyone with any really deep self -awareness will feel a deep sense of discouragement, ultimately, if that's how you see things.

01:13:01

Of course, we all know people who we have witnessed to, we have prayed for them, and they died without Christ.

01:13:08

This is Reverend Buzz Taylor speaking, by the way. So, you know, and to put the burden on them that it was because they didn't say it right, that's just too much.

01:13:20

And yet I've even heard on Christian radio, you know, that if you did it right, anybody would come to Christ.

01:13:26

Well, that just simply is not so. And, you know, to put a guilt trip on somebody that if I had only learned a little bit more about how to present the gospel, they might have been saved.

01:13:35

We don't have to worry about that. Yeah, Buzz, that's a great point. I have this book, and I always,

01:13:42

I have kept the book, not because it's really any good, but because it has this quote that is so remarkable to me every time

01:13:50

I go back to it. The book is, it's a book from the mid -20th century called Soul Winning Made Easy, and it's from a pastor.

01:13:59

Somewhere in Indiana was that pastor? I can't remember. But, you know,

01:14:04

I'll tell you, if the title wasn't enough, the opening paragraph will really get you because it basically, the author as much as says what you just said, which is,

01:14:15

I am convinced that anyone with the right, you know, training and if they sort of say things the right way and affect the right body language, is able to bring anyone to Christ.

01:14:30

I mean, it's that pronounced message. And boy, in addition to that just being false at every level and dishonoring to the

01:14:40

Lord, what a discouragement that will be if you really look into it. Oh yes.

01:14:46

I want to read an excerpt on this subject right now from an excellent booklet that is published by Chapel Library by James E.

01:15:01

Adams, not to be confused with J. Adams, James E. Adams. It's called Decisional Regeneration.

01:15:07

Oh yeah. And in this booklet, James E. Adams says, the false teaching of decisional regeneration has even polluted the structure of the sermon.

01:15:21

Jack Hiles, considered by many to be an authority on preaching, gives the following advice to his fellow ministers.

01:15:31

Many in our preaching will make such statements as, now in conclusion, finally may

01:15:40

I say, my last point is, these statements are sometimes dangerous.

01:15:49

The sinner knows five minutes before you finish, hence he digs in and prepares himself for the invitation so that he does not respond.

01:16:02

However, if your doing is abrupt and a lost person does not suspect that you are about finished, you have crept up on him and he will not have time to repair himself for the invitation.

01:16:21

Many people may be reached using this method. I mean, he is basically saying you can trick people to be saved.

01:16:35

And if anybody would like to get this booklet, by the way, it's an excellent booklet. It's chapellibrary .org,

01:16:42

chapellibrary .org, and look for Decisional Regeneration by James E.

01:16:48

Adams. But this is pretty monstrous, isn't it, Jonathan? You as being someone who has been involved in churches and the academic realm and so forth, for ministers to be trained to trick people into salvation, as if that could ever occur.

01:17:08

I guess, in some ways, if Arminianism was biblically true, he might have had a point or something.

01:17:17

But obviously, there are enough false converts polluting the

01:17:23

Church and embarrassing the Church and Christianity in the 21st century without us having to trick more unbelievers into the

01:17:33

Church so that they can masquerade as being Christians also. Well, you know, that's a great point, too.

01:17:39

I mean, I agree with everything you're saying, Chris, but you know, that's another good point in answer to the question.

01:17:47

I think what another result of that view is you get a lot of nominal decisions that are made, and maybe even people who begin to become part of a

01:18:01

Church, but they're just, they're not Christians. They have never heard and understood and received

01:18:10

Christ for who he is. They've never repented of their sin and turned to him in faith.

01:18:15

And so, not only do they then become deceived and live in a kind of self -deception, the

01:18:22

Church becomes filled with unbelievers. And so,

01:18:27

I think it's a great point. At a corporate level, what this can lead to is very big churches, and I'll sort of put that in quotes, that really are nothing more than large groups of self -deceived, unbelieving people who have not encountered

01:18:50

Christ. Yeah, it's mind -boggling. And of course, I have to be quick to say here that there are many who identify themselves as independent

01:19:01

Fundamentalist Baptists who are equally grieved by such statements. Not every Fundamentalist Baptist out there is a big fan of Jack Hiles and his writing or methodology or preaching.

01:19:14

I've met a number of them who... Well, thank you for pointing that out too, Chris, because that's the kind of Fundamentalist I was.

01:19:20

Really? Oh, I was very much against all that stuff, yes. Oh, you were against... Oh, I was against it. Okay.

01:19:26

Yes, I went to Jack Hiles' pastor school for a week. He opened up his place for pastors to come see how they did it, and I was mortified by the stuff

01:19:36

I saw there. I really... Yeah, for those of you who are unaware of Reverend Buzz Taylor's pilgrimage, he began in the independent

01:19:44

Fundamentalist Baptist circles where he went to Bob Jones University, then became a charismatic, and then became a minister within the

01:19:54

Church of God, Findley, Ohio denomination, which is like a Wesleyan Baptist group or Nazarene -type group, and then he became

01:20:02

Presbyterian. Yes. And sadly to me, being a Reformed Baptist, he just leaped right over the

01:20:08

Reformed Baptists and... Well, I never got to waste any more time getting where I was going. Maybe I should be happy that you never became a

01:20:16

Reformed Baptist. But anyway, thank you, Charlie Liebert in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for your excellent question, and I look forward to your return as co -host or guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and let me give you another plug for your website.

01:20:34

It's sixdaycreation .com, sixdaycreation .com, and the word six is spelled out.

01:20:41

It's not the number. It's S -I -X daycreation .com. And the next chapter that you have in your book is quite intriguing, and this is written by the only person involved in this book that I have not yet interviewed,

01:21:00

Joseph Ryan, Joseph Skip Ryan. He wrote a chapter called

01:21:07

Guided by God's Sovereign Providence, and tell Joseph Ryan or Skip Ryan that he has an open door here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to be interviewed if you ever get in touch with him again.

01:21:21

Yeah, thanks. Skip's contribution to this book I think is significant.

01:21:28

The providence of God is another doctrine and another angle almost of approach to talk about God's sovereignty.

01:21:38

We've spent a lot of our time talking about God's sovereignty and salvation, God being the one who pursues,

01:21:43

God being the one who redeems, God being the one who changes, and really what Skip does in this chapter is he talks about how all of life, including our journey to the life circumstances that ultimately are used by God to bring us to faith, but really everything in our life is guided by the providence of God, God's governing over the world, and so he explores that in several different passages, a couple of psalms, and James chapter 4, and sort of moves back and forth to give what

01:22:27

I think is just a beautiful introduction to the providence of God. And let's see, we have

01:22:35

RJ in White Plains, New York. Who says, don't you think that although much of modern -day

01:22:46

Arminianism is giving a false message when they evangelize, or at least at the very least a distorted one, don't you think that in our day and age it is alarming how many

01:22:59

Reformed people seem to be adopting Arminian methods of evangelism, such as seeker -sensitive type worship services?

01:23:09

I think it is alarming, RJ, and it's a good observation that you make.

01:23:16

I think that this is where the labels can become a little bit difficult.

01:23:23

An awful lot of people will embrace a label without maybe thinking through the implications of the theology that historically has been denoted by that.

01:23:37

But you're right. To be consistent in our convictions about Reformed theology, we have to recognize that some of these things are just man -made methods that assume a faulty understanding of the effects of sin, and of the nature of man, and of the work of God in salvation.

01:24:02

And so, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. A lot of things that go under that label or under that umbrella don't look too different from church practices that frankly would be avowedly non -Reformed and anti -Calvinistic.

01:24:25

But, you know, it's sometimes tough to sort through some of those labels.

01:24:32

It's a good reminder though, RJ, I mean, it's a good reminder for all of us that we need to think through the implications of our theology for all of our life and for all of our practices.

01:24:45

It's sometimes easy for us to embrace an individual sort of understanding of the sovereignty of God, but to not carry that through to how we view our families, and how we view our churches, and how we view the world in general.

01:25:02

So certainly that's a temptation to which we can all succumb. I'm going to take our final break right now so that I don't have to interrupt my guest in mid -sentence, but if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, now is the time to do it because we are running out of time, and I ask of you to give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:25:33

USA. And you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable, but we would ask that if it's not a personal matter that you please at least give us the first name, city, and state, and country of residence.

01:25:48

So don't go away, God willing, we're going to be right back with this final, after this final station break with our guest

01:25:55

Jonathan Master and our discussion on the God we worship. We look forward to hearing from you soon with your questions.

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And if you go to Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center in the beautiful area of New Jersey where this conference center is located,

01:34:12

Long Beach Island in New Jersey, please let Don Oldman, or should

01:34:19

I say, I'm sorry, John Oldman and the folks at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center know that you heard about them through Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:34:27

As I've been announcing for quite a while, that was the location of the

01:34:33

Faithful Shepherd Retreat sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that the

01:34:38

Rev. Buzz Taylor and I just attended this week, Monday through Wednesday. And it is a gorgeous place, and if you have not yet picked a location for your own ministries event, your conference, your retreat, whatever it is that you are trying to orchestrate, whether it's a very small handful of folks or a fairly large group of,

01:35:05

I believe they can accommodate over 100 people, and I can't remember the exact number right now, but it's definitely a fairly large group of people that can be accommodated at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center.

01:35:19

Go to hcbible .org, hcbible .org, if you would like to use their facilities for any event.

01:35:28

And again, please let them know at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center that Chris Arnzen and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio told you about them, and specifically look up John Oldham, O -L -D -H -A -M, who is the owner and director of Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center, and he's also the mayor of the town,

01:35:53

Harvey Cedars. So let him know that you heard about them through Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:36:02

And I also want to, hold on a second, Reverend Buzz Taylor. Well, I was just thinking that we mentioned that the food was even good.

01:36:09

Yes, that was one of the best aspects of being there. Very good food. It was a good time. Very often when you go to places like that, it's like very industrial cafeteria food, but this is quite delicious homemade cooking, homemade style cooking.

01:36:28

Wonderful fellowship and everything too, around the tables was great. Yeah, and figured you'd bring up the food though.

01:36:33

Yes, of course. And I also want to let our listeners know something that I failed to mention the last time

01:36:40

I was announcing events. The G3 Conference has finally been arranged for 2018, and I will be there,

01:36:50

God willing, with an exhibitor's booth. And I hope that many of you greet me at that exhibitor's booth this coming

01:36:58

January for the G3 Conference. And there's going to be a whole host of excellent speakers and topics addressed.

01:37:10

And I really had such an enjoyable time the last time I was there, and hope that that is repeated the next time,

01:37:21

January 18th through the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:37:27

And a whole bunch of great speakers there that I'm sure will be a blessing to you, including

01:37:35

Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, H .P.

01:37:40

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White of Alpha Omega Ministries is one of my dearest friends,

01:37:47

Tom Askell, and Michael Kruger, who is quite a brilliant young man who's president of Reform Theological Seminary in North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina.

01:37:59

He was at one time a pastoral intern at the church where I am now a member, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:38:06

Paul Tripp, who is a prolific writer and a well -known speaker amongst

01:38:11

Reform folks. Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. And Derek Thomas, who is also quite a well -known writer and conference speaker amongst the

01:38:22

Reformed. Welshman, and I have interviewed him as well. I've interviewed,

01:38:28

I think, 99 % of everybody on that roster, and I hope to interview the rest of them before this conference.

01:38:36

But if you have any further details that you'd like to explore, or if you'd like to register, and I hope you do, go to g3conference .com,

01:38:47

g3conference .com, and please tell them that you heard about them through Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Well, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question regarding the

01:38:56

God we worship, now is the time to do it. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:39:01

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Once again, I apologize for the malfunctioning with our advertisements and the sputtering and the delays and all these things, the lagging.

01:39:12

I'm not sure what's going on here. We go away for three days, and there's utter chaos here in the studio.

01:39:20

I'm near brain dead from a lack of sleep and all kinds of stuff going on here, but I think that we are nonetheless having an excellent interview today with Jonathan Master, my guest, and now's the time to email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:39:38

chrisarnson at gmail .com. We do have a listener, BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, would you recommend that someone go to an

01:39:51

Arminian church nearest them if traveling to a Reformed church is much too far away for reasonable travel?

01:40:03

Good question, BB. We're always balancing those kinds of concerns in our lives.

01:40:10

I would say, I mean, the way you put it, it sounds like, you know, a reasonable distance.

01:40:18

You know, I think you should be involved in a local church, and if there's no way you could have any involvement and possibly not even, you know, participate in regular worship on Sunday at another congregation, then

01:40:35

I would say, you know, find the best place you can in a reasonable distance, and that's going to look different for everybody.

01:40:47

You know, some people don't have a car, and so their options are a little more limited, and, you know, some people live in an area where there just aren't too many sound churches, and so you do your best.

01:40:59

I've lived overseas for a period of time, and during those periods,

01:41:05

I can assure you that there weren't as many options in the particular places where I was living, and so, you know, you try to find the most biblically faithful congregation that you can get to.

01:41:20

So, you know, a little hard to answer without knowing all the specifics, but it sounds to me like my recommendation would be, you know, you find the best, most faithful place you can within a distance that allows you to still be engaged.

01:41:38

And an answer that was given by a recent guest of mine, David Engelsma, a couple of weeks ago, without hesitation, he immediately just said, move!

01:41:51

There you go. No, it's always the option. You can start a church in your area, maybe.

01:41:57

Well, yeah, that's a bit difficult, especially if you... There's a lot of... I hear this so many times, though, because, well,

01:42:04

I think of all, in my own family, all the people that live in a place where there aren't really good

01:42:10

Reformed churches. What do you do? It's difficult. Well, obviously, not just anyone is biblically qualified to just start a church.

01:42:19

I'm sure you would agree with that. Oh, yeah. And I'm assuming you mean that they should contact a solid, a biblically solid church and request, or churches, and try to get cooperation from one of them to plant a church.

01:42:34

And take what steps they can, of course. Right. And, of course, some people are just lazy.

01:42:41

They don't even want to drive 20 minutes or something to a biblically faithful church. And wouldn't a lot of that depend on how far off from biblical truth these

01:42:51

Arminian churches that are local are? I mean, if it's really intolerable, if they are so far off the biblical radar, don't you recommend that they really have to make preparations to move?

01:43:07

Or, as Buzz was saying, if it's possible to get a church planted in their area. But the more likelihood is that it's going to be easier for them to move than that to occur.

01:43:18

Yeah. I mean, all of those things would need to be considered. All of those would be factors. I think that, you know, it sounded to me from the question as if we're talking about a church that is, in many ways, trying to be biblically faithful, but differs on these key, important, vital doctrines.

01:43:41

And so without minimizing those, that might make a difference. If you're talking about there are no churches, or every church is an apostate church, or something like that, yeah,

01:43:50

I mean, then I think you need to take more serious measures. I will say this, though, as a serious point.

01:43:56

I know that the man you're interviewing who said move right away,

01:44:02

I know he was sort of joking, but I will say this, that I do think when people are moving, if you're looking, considering a new job, if you're considering moving your family somewhere,

01:44:13

I do think it's appropriate to look ahead of time and to consider ahead of time what churches will be in the area.

01:44:20

I've met a number of people over the years who have moved their families to a new place without any consideration at all of where they might worship and serve in a local church, and they end up moving someplace and then finding that there's nothing there, and it has a great effect on them and their family and their spiritual well -being, but it sort of never entered their mind to consider that.

01:44:48

So that's not exactly the situation that the listener's in, I don't think, but I do think it's a situation some people find themselves in, and look, this is very, very important.

01:44:59

The next chapter that we have in the book by someone

01:45:04

I have interviewed a couple of times, I believe, Philip Graham Reichen, Redeemed by God's Sovereign Mercy, if you could explain in more detail.

01:45:16

Well, what Phil does in this chapter is, and you know it's funny because as I'm walking you through these, some themes are emerging that I don't think

01:45:26

I fully saw, even though, you know, I had a hand in putting this whole thing together.

01:45:32

What Phil does is he really does an exposition of Romans chapter 9, but he interweaves it with several passages in the book of Exodus.

01:45:44

And so it's Romans 9, but it's Romans 9 through the lens of Exodus 15 and through Exodus 33 and a number of texts from that book.

01:46:04

And so that's what it does, but his basic point is to show that it's

01:46:13

God's mercy that saves us, that we are redeemed by the and that that truth should really inform all of our lives and our entire view of the

01:46:29

Christian life. Excellent, and we move on from there to someone

01:46:36

I haven't interviewed in a while, but I have interviewed him a number of times, and I'm looking forward to his return,

01:46:42

Michael Horton. I know Michael Horton so long that I can remember the days when he was single and was asking me, do you think you know of any sweet Reformed Baptist ladies that might want to donate to get to know a single

01:47:02

Presbyterian pastor? And that's how long I've known Michael, because he's been happily married for quite some time and I believe has children, but he has always been a favorite of mine.

01:47:14

Michael Horton says, Michael Horton's topic in this book is sanctifying grace, if you could expand upon that.

01:47:26

Well it's a chapter obviously about the Lord's sovereignty in our sanctification as well, so it's, you know, one of the great truths that we can often forget is that not only is

01:47:39

God sovereign in saving us and bringing us to a knowledge of His Son, but God is also sovereign and active in causing us to grow in holiness and in Christlikeness, and that's really what

01:47:51

Dr. Horton explores in this chapter. Now he does it by looking at Romans 6, that's one of the classic texts on sanctification, but then he also ties in Romans 6 with Romans 7, where Paul talks about his own struggle, even though he is a

01:48:10

Christian believer. There's some debate about, you know, what perspective Paul's writing from in Romans 7, but Horton's position, and I share this, is that Paul's talking about his struggle as a believer, so he combines those truths about our being dead to sin that Paul explicates in Romans 6 with the ongoing tension that we feel as Christians indwelled by the

01:48:38

Holy Spirit that Paul begins to discuss in Romans chapter 7.

01:48:45

And one of my favorite guests is Michael A .G. Hakin, who's been on this program a number of times. He has a chapter titled,

01:48:52

The Spirit of Holiness, if you could expand on that one. Yeah, well when we talk about sanctification, we are talking about the work of the

01:49:02

Holy Spirit, and what Hakin does is, he talks about Romans 8, and how

01:49:11

Paul in Romans chapter 8 describes the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as a work that brings about greater holiness to us.

01:49:23

And so he really drives home, I think, in this chapter the importance of holiness.

01:49:30

You know, I heard J .I. Packer, I think I read this, J .I. Packer said when he first became a

01:49:38

Christian back in the middle of the 20th century, many of his Christian friends were just diligently concerned with pursuing holiness, and what does it mean to be holy, and he said that has changed.

01:49:51

He said now the young people he talks to are concerned with, what is God's will for my life, in a sort of more, you know, in the areas of vocation and things like that.

01:50:01

And that shift, he says, is a really significant one. What Hakin calls us back to is this understanding that holiness is what we're called to, and holiness is what the

01:50:12

Holy Spirit is at work in our lives to affect in us.

01:50:19

And we have another chapter by someone else who I have interviewed,

01:50:26

Dr. Al Mohler. He has been on this program once, and I look forward to having him back.

01:50:32

Know the truth. How does this fit in with the God we worship? Yeah, this is a very, it's in a sense a kind of punchy, hard -hitting chapter, not in any kind of a bad way, but he's just very direct in this chapter.

01:50:48

He takes Jesus' words in John 14, where Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and he talks about all the relativism that exists in today's culture, and how

01:51:00

Jesus' claims stand in sharp contrast to that. So what we're trying to do as the book progresses is to talk about what it looks like to be a

01:51:10

Christian who is committed to the things of God and is being changed by the

01:51:15

Holy Spirit. And so holiness, like we just talked about in Hagen's chapter, is part of that, and then also a stand for the truth is a part of that as well.

01:51:25

So that's what Mohler really dives into in his chapter. And we also have someone else who

01:51:34

I've interviewed several times on Iron Sharpens Iron, and he's long overdue for another interview,

01:51:41

Dr. D .A. Carson, quite a brilliant expositor, who has been at several of the conferences

01:51:47

I have been attending recently, not the most recent in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, but he has been at some others that I have been in Indianapolis and others.

01:51:59

What does Dr. Carson mean by, I am the truth, and I'm assuming he's not speaking about himself?

01:52:07

Right, yes, yes. No, what he's talking about is that Jesus Christ makes absolute truth claims, not unlike what

01:52:23

Mohler himself is describing in his chapter, but he gives a focus on the truthfulness of the person of Jesus Christ and the truthfulness of Christ's Word, and talks about how we as Christians are called to grow in our understanding and our commitment to the

01:52:50

Word of God and the person of Jesus Christ. And last but not least, once again

01:52:58

Richard D. Phillips has a second chapter called

01:53:03

Our Holy Redeemer, and if you could expand upon that chapter. Yeah, it's a beautiful chapter on Hebrews chapter 7, and the characteristics of Christ's priestly work, and how

01:53:21

Christ's priestly work of redemption shows him to be our

01:53:28

Redeemer, but also shows him to be a perfect and holy Redeemer. We know, of course, from Hebrews that the writer contrasts the earthly Levitical priests who had to offer sacrifices for themselves, and who were beset by sin and all these other things, and who died, contrasts those imperfect earthly priests with the perfect high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ.

01:53:55

So that's what Phillips is talking about there, and it really just is a beautiful reminder of the contrast, the comparisons, of course, between Christ's priestly ministry and the priestly ministry of those kneel to submit, but really the contrasts between those two ministries.

01:54:17

I have an anonymous listener from New York State who says,

01:54:22

I have heard the host Chris Arnzen on a number of occasions on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio criticize the beliefs of other denominations and religious groups within Christendom.

01:54:38

Is that necessary or even right? Should we just be speaking the truth as we see it without criticizing others?

01:54:46

Okay, that's a valid question. What is your view on that? I think there are times where we need to be very direct in explaining and really shining a spotlight on errors that are out there.

01:55:03

If you look at the role of elders in the Church, when Paul gives this sort of last word to the

01:55:11

Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, part of that is protecting the flock, because there are false teachers.

01:55:18

And so I do think there's room for growing in discernment and helping Christians grow in discernment and also protecting those who may be unaware or just uninformed about false teaching that's out there.

01:55:33

So, you know, I mean, we've certainly all seen situations where that becomes the sum total of everything a person talks about.

01:55:42

It's just criticism of others. But there is certainly a biblical model and, in fact, a biblical mandate for exercising doctrinal discernment and for calling out error.

01:55:54

I mean, the Apostle Paul, even by name, called out error with Hymenaeus and Philetus, correct?

01:56:00

Yeah, absolutely. He called out error with Hymenaeus and Philetus. He called out error to Peter's face.

01:56:07

That's right. And so, you know, he rebuked him to his face, it said. And so there is a place for that.

01:56:14

And then think about, too, the letters to the Church in Revelation. Now, obviously those are inspired letters where the

01:56:20

Lord Jesus Christ himself is giving a message to these churches, but his message in many cases is a message of rejecting false teaching.

01:56:29

And we read that in Jude, we read that in 2 Peter, John, 1

01:56:36

John, he calls out these false teachers as well. So I don't think it's inappropriate.

01:56:42

I think we want to be careful that we're being fair, but at the same time, it's part of what it means,

01:56:49

I think, to lead the Church of Christ. You see, Anonymous, so stop being such a jerk about it.

01:56:55

I'm only kidding. Iron sharpens iron. By the way, I hope my anonymous listener knows

01:57:01

I was just kidding about that. I was trying to play into his critique of me. But anyway,

01:57:07

I think the people that know me are aware of the fact that even though I am very open and strongly convicted about my

01:57:18

Calvinism and my theologically reformed views, and the apprehension

01:57:26

I have about what's going on in modern day evangelicalism, with the ecumenical movement going wild, with more and more evangelicals caving in in regard to ecumenism with the

01:57:41

Roman Catholic Church, and I'm speaking as a former Roman Catholic here, people may perceive that I am always criticizing others.

01:57:49

But I think that I do so with fairness, and I don't do it with ad hominem nastiness.

01:57:55

And if I ever do that, you could call me out on it and point out where I do that.

01:58:01

And if I have done that, I truly do apologize for that to whoever

01:58:06

I have, you know, rubbed the wrong way or what have you. But I'd like you, in about 90 seconds or so, just wrap up and summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners,

01:58:18

Jonathan. Well, with respect to this book, what I want our listeners to continue to think about and be reminded of is, first of all, the sovereignty of God and salvation, that it's

01:58:33

God who brings us to Himself, and it's

01:58:38

God who sanctifies, and it's God who ultimately will glorify us one day.

01:58:44

But secondly, I would want us to think more clearly about this

01:58:52

God as we approach Him in worship. We can get caught up in many very important discussions about the way in which we worship, but I would want us to give at least equal attention to who it is that we are directing our worship to, and the greatness and sovereignty of our

01:59:16

God. And we are out of time, and for those of you who want to learn more about Jonathan Master, go to cairn .edu,

01:59:23

c -a -i -r -n dot e -d -u, and you can also go to cvbbs .com,

01:59:29

c -v for Cumberland Valley, b -b -s for biblebookservice .com, to order books by Jonathan Master.

01:59:34

It's been such a privilege and joy to have you back on the program, and I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater