June 14, 2023 Show with Joel Saint on “Calling Homosexuals to Repentance is an Act of Love”

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 14th day of June, 2023.

I'm so thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest who is also a new sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. His name is Joel Saint, and he is pastor of Independence Reform Bible Church of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, and chairman of Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society.

Today, we're going to be addressing the theme, Calling Homosexuals to Repentance is an Act of Love, love for God, love for His Word, love for our neighbors, and love for those enslaved to their homosexuality.

We're also going to be announcing an upcoming outreach to the LaTitz Pennsylvania Pride Festival, and also a three-day event coming up in September in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, featuring Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Joel Saint. Are you there, Joel? Can you hear me, Joel? I hear dead silence.

Now I've got you.

Now I've got you.

It's great to be back. Messed with my computer screen here. I finally hit the right button.

The Church’s Ministry and Reformation Society

All right. Thank you. Well, tell our listeners about Independence Reform Bible Church of Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

Yeah, indeed. And again, yeah, once again, thanks so much for having me today, Chris. And yes, this is our 10th year. We have been at the Independence Reform Bible Church for 10 years. We meet at the Council of the Christian School right outside of Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

And there are about 120 folks there that meet together. And we preach the whole counsel of God as it applies to all of life, society, education, media. The Bible speaks to all these issues. Therefore, we speak to them.

I have had some people say, well, you shouldn't bring politics in the pulpit. And my response is, well, it's already in the Bible. So if I'm going to preach the Bible, then I better preach it from the pulpit.

And tell us about Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society.

Yeah, the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society has been around for about the same amount of time. We formed the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society in order to address—and this was actually before. So it's actually one or two years before, thinking about it before the church existed.

But we formed it to help church folks address issues that the Bible addresses that they generally don't want to or feel inadequate to address. For example, we're talking about things like criminal justice or even things like Christian foreign policy, sound, honest money, these type of things.

These are things the Bible addresses, many churches don't address. And so that's why we formed the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society. We now sponsor conferences, and this year we're excited about sponsoring a conference, which, Chris, you've helped us out on an awful lot.

It's called The Gospel at War. It's going to be held in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And, of course, we have a real exciting guest that maybe—I don't know, you're probably better at talking about him than I am, but either way, we're thrilled to have James White.

Amen. Well, James White, I'd be shocked if anybody listening to my show is unfamiliar with him, especially since most of my listeners have come from him recommending Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio on his webcast, The Dividing Line.

But he is a Reformed Baptist. He's an apologist. He's a New Testament Greek scholar. He's an author of numerous books. He is an accomplished debater, well over 100 debates now. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 or more debates, all kinds of debates.

He has debated Roman Catholics. He has debated liberal Protestants. He has debated members of cults. He has debated Muslims. He has debated homosexuals. And he has had in-house, friendly, collegiate debates with brethren in Christ, such as the divide between Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians on the paedo-baptist or infant baptism issue.

And I could go on and on with his accomplishments, but I know of no other man on the planet Earth who has his debating skills. And I'm also, as you know, trying to set up a debate as a part of that conference.

But I don't know if I will be successful. Only God knows right now. But that two-day conference will be held Friday and Saturday, September 15th and 16th. And he's also preaching for you on the 17th.

Am I not correct there?

We're looking forward to hearing from him on the 17th, preaching in our service. That's correct.

Yes. So we will keep you updates because we're still in the process of trying to find a venue for the two-day conference. But it is hopefully going to be in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There's a slim possibility that it may wind up being in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I am.

But we will let you know. And the best website for you to keep checking for more details, more updates on that, is futureofchristendom .org, futureofchristendom .org. And by the way, if you want more information about Independence Reformed Bible Church in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, go to irbc .church, irbc .church.

And for more details on the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society, go to midatlanticreformation .org, midatlanticreformation .org. Now, this theme that we are addressing today, calling homosexuals to repentance is an act of love.

This is really coming from the fact that you have this outreach. And I've just been corrected by a listener. I mispronounced the city. I now understand, according to this listener, it's Lidditz. Am I right?

Is that Lidditz?

You are correct. You nailed it. Lidditz, exactly.

Well, I didn't nail it the first time, though. So you are having an outreach to the Lidditz Pennsylvania Pride Festival. And if you could tell us exactly what is occurring at this Pride Festival and why you felt the need to have an outreach to it.

Outreach to the Lititz Pride Festival

Yeah, a lot of my motivation comes from Spurgeon, actually, who talked extensively about preaching and proclaiming out of doors. In fact, Spurgeon says that there's actually more justification for preaching out of doors in the scriptures than there is even indoors.

Interestingly enough, and he asked the question, where would John the Baptist be, for example, if there's no such thing as preaching out of doors? So we have an opportunity now to speak to folks who are coming together.

I mean, this is a horrible thing. It's an abominable thing to come together and celebrate sin and wickedness. Bad enough to commit sin and wickedness where you can't see it. Worse yet to commit it where you can see it.

Worse even than that to celebrate it. And that's what these Pride events are. They are a celebration of sin. There's just no other way to say that. So they come together themselves, and it gives us an opportunity to speak to people, Chris, who are not lining up, shall we say, to come to Independence Reform Bible Church.

But they're there, and we're going to go speak to them, and we're going to minister the gospel. We are going to tell them about the Christ who came to give life and to give it more abundantly.

And when is that happening?

That is happening this Saturday. It's the 17th of June there in Livetz, and the event starts at 10 o 'clock—excuse me—and goes till 6 o 'clock. And we plan to be there to pass out tracts and engage in conversation and introduce the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word to the attendees and the passersby.

And for more details on that, go to irbc .church forward slash Godislove, all lowercase. Irbc .church forward slash Godislove. And the thing that is disturbing—increasingly disturbing—about homosexual activists is that I'm old enough—61—I'm old enough to remember when the rhetoric of homosexual activists and the advocates of homosexuals from the liberal wing of the political arena, whether they're Democratic or Republican, but the rhetoric used to be, homosexuals want to be treated equally with heterosexuals.

They want to be left alone. They want to have everyone treat them with the respect of their privacy. What they do in their bedrooms behind closed doors is no one else's business. But all of that is just straight out the window.

Today, we are being told, you must not only tolerate our existence, you must celebrate our existence among you. We are going to flaunt our behavior, our sexual behavior, in the sight of your children.

We are going to look for every opportunity possible to indoctrinate your children to normalize what we do in their eyes, so they are further ensured to grow up celebrating this depravity and even exploring it in their own lives sexually.

So, they have come a long way, haven't they?

Christ, Children, and the Duty to Warn

Indeed, indeed they have. One of the reasons why we want to be out there is, I mentioned earlier, Christ saying, I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Of course, Christ contrasts that with, the thief doesn't come except for to steal and to kill and to destroy.

One of the things that Christ was big on, he was big on children. Whenever Christ talks about children, he speaks to them in a very loving way. He also speaks in a very threatening way, if I can say it that way, of those who would harm children.

Thinking of whoever would offend one of these little ones, it would be better for him if a millstone were thrown around his neck and thrown into the water. Now, that's quite a statement there. I know we often think, Chris, it would be better for the child.

But actually, Christ says, no, do that guy a favor, put a millstone around his neck and throw him in the sea.

Why?

Because it's that important that you don't offend the children. And yet, this is a celebration of offense towards children. Chris, I've been to these events in the past, and you'll see people bringing little children into these things, which obviously the homosexual community, in order to spread their horrible ideas, they need children because they can't have them themselves.

So this is an important thing for us to be out there with these folks and to share with them the gospel, let them know that what they're doing is wrong, according to the king of kings, the king of the universe.

And at this point, they can bow to him as Lord and Savior, but they will bow to him at one point, now or later, but bow they will. And the time to bow is definitely now to Christ, because right now, while we're alive on this earth, we can embrace him as Savior.

Otherwise, we will meet him as judge.

Now, one thing that obviously we have to make clear, just in case there are people who want to volunteer with you in your outreach, conservative Christians have had a stain on our reputation because of the conduct of some, a tiny minority, but there are some who identify as being conservative Christians who have no interest in leading homosexuals to Christ.

Their primary goal and purpose in life seems to just appear wherever there are a large number of homosexuals gathered in a public place to mock them and to, you know, use ad hominems, God hates fags. Of course, I'm talking about Westboro Baptist Church, which became notorious for that, and they spread their rhetoric to even include the military and all kinds of other groups, not just exclusively homosexuals.

But this strategy, this approach, this is not even anywhere close to resembling Christian conduct. If you have seen the films and the TV footage and the news footage of these folks, they are delighted with beaming smiles to inform homosexuals that they are going to burn in hell.

You never see them pleading with them to repent. You never see any heartfelt compassion exuding from them. They have no interest in leading these people to Christ. They want them to burn in hell, and they are exuberant and giddy about that.

That is a reflection of an unregenerate heart, isn't it?

You know what, I believe it is. If we could understand, I think it was Bunyan that said that there is enough sin even in our prayers to send us to hell. Do any of us understand the great offense that we are without Christ to God?

Or do we think that there is somehow something good in us and we don't really need grace? But I don't see how you could delight in the destruction of your neighbor in the sense of not even knowing what the destruction looks like.

Who knows exactly what hell looks like? But how can you delight in the destruction of going to hell for your neighbor if you've experienced grace yourself? And I'll just throw something else in here. It might be a little controversial here, but I have to wonder about Westboro Baptist Church, to be honest with you, Chris.

I can't figure out why they keep on getting away with stuff. They win their lawsuits. They don't seem to face the sanctions that other less offensive groups tend to face. I don't know. To me, Westboro Baptist Church is doing a whole lot more for the homosexual message than they are for the message of Christ.

Yes, and according to Ezekiel, God's breathed word, breathed out word in Ezekiel 33, which is also repeated in 2 Peter and Titus. God says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. These people have an enormous abundance of pleasure in the death of the wicked, and they themselves are wicked.

They don't recognize that, but they just love telling homosexuals that they're going to hell. Obviously, you and I believe firmly that unrepentant homosexuals are going to hell, and unrepentant fornicators and adulterers who are heterosexual are going to hell.

But we announce that with great sadness in our hearts. We announce this, especially when we are telling loved ones that we know personally. We are heartbroken over this. We're not smiling and laughing as we say this, and carry signs and parade around laughing like witches.

This is a really disturbing phenomenon, and it's interesting to note that the original pastor, the founding pastor who is deceased now of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, Fred Phelps, he, believe it or not, a lot of people don't know this.

He was an attorney, a civil rights attorney for Gale Sears. Remember Gale Sears?

Yes.

The football player?

Yeah, the football player. Chicago Bears.

Yes. He was arrested for protesting, I don't remember where the school was. It was a college, I believe, that was segregated racially back in the 60s. And Fred Phelps defended Gale Sears in court when he was arrested for that.

How about that?

But in spite of that very noble pursuit for justice on the behalf of Gale Sears, he became a very wicked man, and I shudder to think where he is spending eternity now unless he repented. I know that he was excommunicated by his own church because he apparently was telling the congregants of his church, which were primarily made up of his own biological relatives, that they had to be more loving toward one another.

They excommunicated him for that. But share with us, in fact, before you do that, I'm going to go to a commercial break because I don't want to interrupt you mid-sentence. But think about this question.

What do you envision is going to take place as far as your activity and your outreach to the Lititz Pennsylvania Pride Festival and what you think should be elements, primary elements, whenever Christians are involved in something like that?

And we'll have you respond to that when I return from the first commercial break. If anybody would like to ask my guest, Joel St., 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.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are a homosexual and you are starting to feel pangs of guilt over the way you are living. You are starting to recognize that you are living in rebellion against God. And if you do not repent, you will spend an eternity in hell.

And you have some kind of question to ask about that. Well, we understand if you are in that position that you might want to remain anonymous. Or perhaps you disagree with your own church in their manner of outreach to the homosexuals in your community or their lack of it.

Or whatever the question that may compel you to remain anonymous, we will grant your request. But please, if it's just a general question, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Joel St. of Independence Reformed Bible Church of Morgadown, Pennsylvania, and Chairman of Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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We are now back with my guest Joel Saint, pastor of Independence Reformed Bible Church of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, and chairman of Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society. We are discussing calling homosexuals to repentance is an act of love.

Love for God, love for his word, love for our neighbors, and love for those enslaved to their homosexuality. Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. If you have a question of your own, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. So picking up where we left off, Joel, what exactly are the kinds of things that you should be, that you will be doing in your outreach to the Lititz Pride Day Festival?

And what kind of things do you strongly recommend and counsel other Christians when they are involved in similar activity? What kinds of things should they be doing?

Presenting the Problem and the Solution

Yeah, great question. So let's address that. And what do we expect to do? What do we want to do? We want to present the problem and the solution. The problem is that mankind, every one of us born, is born in rebellion against God.

We are not okay with God. We don't have peace with God. The only way we can get peace with God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to explain the problem. You are lost without Christ, but the solution is Christ.

You must believe in Christ. That is how you can understand, that's how you can know that you're going to spend eternal with him. That's how you can know you can have eternal life. And even here, you can have life and have it even more abundantly.

One of the discussions I've gotten into with some of these folks, Chris, oddly enough or maybe not oddly enough, is a discussion over meaning. And I've consistently been told by folks at Pride events that are celebrating this, I've consistently been told that there is no such thing as meaning.

This is a consistent theme, Chris, which is a self-contradictory statement, of course. I mean to say there's no such thing as meaning. And these folks are lost, they don't have Christ, and many of them have great pain.

And we're there to tell them of a Christ who died for sinners, and they need to put their faith and their trust in him. That's one of the things that we, I mean that's where we start. But there's another thing I want to point out, and that is this.

You can be expected to be yelled at, cursed at, screamed at, mocked. All those things will likely happen. But what we... Yeah, go ahead.

And possibly even physically assaulted, as we've seen recently when there were parents protesting that drag queens were participating in children's activities. And that children, that parents were refusing to give in to their children's preferences for pronouns and gender identity.

And because of this gathering that took place where there were parents present protesting this, Antifa showed up. And along with other homosexual activists, they actually were physically assaulting parents.

Yeah, and we've seen even in the case of Loudoun County there in Northern Virginia, where a father was apparently arrested for opposing the rape of his daughter of a self-identifying female, who was actually a male, in the bathroom.

So yes, these kind of things can happen. We know that we're not the first. We know that wherever Paul went in the book of Acts, pretty much, somebody seemed to get hurt. Sometimes it was Paul. Sometimes it was somebody else.

But our Lord went to the cross for us. Do we really love him and love our neighbor, or do we not? And so we can expect to be opposed. We can expect to be mocked. But honestly, Chris, and all this has happened to me.

But, I mean, thinking about that, I've never been physically assaulted. But you think about what I've had to endure compared to what Christ had to endure. And you can't put them in the same category. It's nothing.

Amen.

And do you have any tracks that you recommend that you're going to be handing out?

We will be handing out a track called Good Teacher or God Incarnate by a man by the name of Charles Leiter. And it's a trifold. It's filled with scripture. And it gives you a great outline to explain to someone the problem and the solution.

And the problem is it's the wrath of God. And you know what, Chris? It's the justified wrath of God. It's not like God is just an angry judge and he doesn't know what else to do. We have offended him.

We have seriously offended him and our neighbor. And he's a good God. He's a loving God. He sent his own son to deliver us from his justified, and I emphasize that word, his justified wrath. What a Savior.

Chris, no other religion has a Savior. Other religions have us dying for their God. Christianity has God dying for his people. What a Savior.

Amen.

If it hasn't been done already, some Christian gifted at writing should come up with a tract specifically for the kind of event you are participating in with the title something like Some Christians Were Once Homosexuals Too.

Because as we all know, who are familiar with our scriptures, there is a very profound portion of the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Corinth. After Paul lists all kinds of people who will be damned if they don't repent, and homosexuals are just a portion of those people.

There are quite a number of other different types of sins listed that send people to hell without the blood of Christ. But Paul, he goes from the bad news to the good news in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11, and he says, in reference to, as I was just saying, things like homosexuals and so on, Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of God.

This truth, this God-breathed truth, will be used of God with certainty in the lives and hearts and minds of his elect who are currently in a state of unrepentance and still are living a homosexual lifestyle.

And I hate to use that word lifestyle, it's a death style. But even though you may proclaim that truth hundreds or thousands of times over a lifetime to those who are a part of what they call the homosexual community, and you may see zero results, eventually, when God's elect hear that wonderful promise, eventually, God is going to melt their hearts and replace those hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and breathe the Holy Spirit into them, and they will walk in newness of life, and they will be former homosexuals, just as some of these folks who were in the crowd gathered to hear what Paul was saying, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Don't you think that's a good idea, to have a tract that actually focuses on that powerful and precious text?

Absolutely. I mean, it sounds like a very focused message. You know, the message we have in the tract called Good Teacher or God Incarnate focuses on a more general audience, but the subtitle is, Many think that Jesus was a great teacher, but they don't know what he taught.

And then all throughout the tract is what Jesus Christ taught about himself and about our need to believe in him for eternal life.

That sounds like it's somewhat reflective. Now, I know that C .S. Lewis had a lot of problems with his theology, but one of his greatest statements, and I'm paraphrasing, was that Jesus Christ was either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord.

You cannot have it both ways, where he was a great man and a great scholar or a great mentor of people, a great human being, without him having the logic forced upon us that if he is not God, if he is not Lord, he is a lunatic or a liar.

Because he said those things in his own word. He identified as deity. He accepted worship unto himself. And so it is clear that you cannot play the game of many people who are either liberal or members of non-Christian religions who are too intimidated to publicly vilify Jesus Christ, so they just present a Jesus Christ of their own creation who is just a wonderful good man, but not deity.

Is that something along the lines of where that author of that tract is coming from?

No question about that. And that really even flows over to us, too. Because honestly, if Christ was not the way, the truth, and the life, Chris, if there was another way to gain salvation and come to God the Father, then I would say that Christ himself really was perhaps a lunatic.

I mean, why would he come down from heaven, die that horrific death, embarrassing, painful death, all that he gave up, if there was another way to be saved? If he could be saved by, I don't know, traveling to Mecca or giving alms to the poor or meditating until you realize that all the world was illusion or whatever.

Chris, if there was another way to be saved, why would I believe in a Christ who came down from heaven and didn't even have to? I mean, he would be a lunatic, and frankly, we would be lunatics for even believing in him.

But there was no other way. God the Father, his justified wrath on sinners had to be placated, and either we were going to suffer or his son was going to suffer. And he sent his son to die for his people.

Again, I sound like a broken record. What a Savior.

Amen. Hallelujah. What a Savior. You informed me recently about a young man, I believe, not far from where I'm sitting, in the Redding, Pennsylvania area, who was arrested for being involved in some kind of a gospel outreach to homosexuals.

Am I correct on this?

That is correct. It happened about, let's see, it would be less than a week ago. This past Saturday it happened. He was out testifying. He was across the street from the so-called celebration, and he barely said anything.

He began to say God is not the author of confusion. He had a sign that said, Go and sin no more. That's what his sign said. And as soon as he said the word God, a police officer turned to him, slapped the cuffs on him, kept him in lockup until the pride event was over.

So the police officer effectively stopped the presentation of the gospel until the so-called pride event was over. And he was treated roughly. The police officer had no case because the DA has now looked at the case and decided not even to prosecute.

So it was an unlawful arrest, and he was arrested for preaching the gospel at one of these events. And this is, Chris, I think this is all the more reason why we need to get out there. Because, Chris, we don't have, you know, basically we don't have entertainment as Christians.