September 28, 2016 Show with Daniel R. Hyde on “Content Yet Contending: Jude” PLUS Michael Gaydosh on “Literary Treasures Unearthed”

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 28th day of September 2016, and we've got two very good guests returning to the

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Iron Sharpens Iron program today. The first hour we have on the broadcast

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Daniel R. Hyde, pastor of Oceanside United Reform Church in Oceanside, California, who will be discussing his new book that will soon be in print,

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God willing, Content Yet Contending, which is an exposition on the epistle of Jude.

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And then in the second hour we have Michael Gaydosh, founder of Solid Grand Christian Books, and he's going to be discussing some more literary treasures that he has unearthed and brought back into print through Solid Grand Christian Books.

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But first of all it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Danny Hyde. Hey Chris, thanks for having me again.

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Hey, it's my pleasure, brother. And as we typically do with pastors, because not everybody is familiar with you, and we have people discovering

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Iron Sharpens Iron nearly every day it seems, so they may have not heard you on this program before.

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Tell our listeners something about Oceanside United Reform Church. Sure, thanks. Yeah, people out there listening far and wide know people or find us online.

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We are the Oceanside United Reform Church. We've been around since the year 2000, and basically in a nutshell our church is all about preaching the

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Word and celebrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ that saves sinners. Very simple, very reverent worship and service, but very vibrant life and community together here, so encourage people out there who'd like to know more about our church to find us online at oceansideurc .org.

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Great, and that's the denomination that many who made an exodus out of the

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Christian Reform Church entered into, correct? Yes, that's right.

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Yeah, so the United Reformed, yeah, 1965 was the original founding of the

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URC, the United Reformed, coming out of the old Christian Reform Church, which had its roots back in Europe, Reformation, and yeah, the real root issue of why our churches had to leave and form and go off was the issue of the authority of Scripture.

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Is Scripture the final authority in all matters of faith and life or not?

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And sort of the straw that broke the camel's back was the issue of ordination of women to the ministry, and so that issue alone was decided to start anew, although it had been going on for decades and other issues as well.

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So yeah, our church would stand upon the Word of God, be confident in that, no shame in the gospel, and trumpet that word no matter what the cost.

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Amen, and there are still a remnant of good faithful men that chose to remain in the

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CRC. I believe Joel Niederhood remained in there, if I'm not mistaken, but I still applaud your choice to leave over those very serious issues, especially on the reliability and authority of the

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Word of God. We're going to be discussing a book that is not yet in print yet, but to God willing soon will be,

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Content Yet Contending, which is your new exposition on the

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Epistle of Jude. What led you to take this very short epistle and write an entire book on it?

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Yeah, Jude's always been one of those books that I think a lot of preachers look at it and they think, wow, it's so short, you know, perhaps

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I can do a quick little series of expository sermons through the book, you know, maybe to give you a break or sort of transition from one large book to another.

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And so many years ago I thought that, so I turned to Jude and thinking, you know,

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I can do it in one sermon or maybe two. It turned out to be a little longer than that, a couple of months, in fact.

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It's very short, but it's very, very compact. A lot of biblical Old Testament images and a lot of things in there that really drew my attention to it.

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And then I had a colleague, a friend,

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Dr. Harold Jones, who taught here at Westminster Seminary, California for many years.

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He was, at one point, the editor of Banner of Truth, and he had given some lectures at a seminary level on the

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Epistle of Jude that, again, struck my interest, got me thinking more about Jude.

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So I had gone back over the course of a couple of years, I had gone back to Jude and preached through it again.

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And so after two rounds through it, doing a fair bit of study and thinking and trying to figure out, you know, how does this little epistle apply to our time,

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I thought that it might be a good way to segue into a book. And so, yeah, so that's how

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I got interested. It was basically preaching it, studying it, hearing lectures from a professor that I trusted, and really just taking in.

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Well, if you don't mind, since it is a very short epistle, I'm going to read it. So this is the

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Epistle of Jude. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the cold, beloved in God the

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Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.

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Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about a common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

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For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our

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God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

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Now I desire to remind you, through you, now all things once and for all, that the

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Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

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All angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode, he has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh and exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

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Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh and reject authority and revile angelic majesties.

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But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said,

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The Lord rebuke you. But these men revile the things which they do not understand and the things which they know by instinct like unreasoning animals.

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By these things they are destroyed. Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah.

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These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts, when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves, clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted, and wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the darkness has been reserved forever.

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It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying,

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Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

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These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts.

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They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

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But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostle of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, In the last time there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts.

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These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly -minded, devoid of the

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Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the

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Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our

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Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are doubting, save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

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Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with joy, to the only

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God and Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.

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Amen. Of course, most of our listeners will recognize that as probably the most frequently uttered benediction at the end of a worship service that I've ever heard.

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But even though that is quite a small epistle, it is very powerful, and probably,

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I don't know this for a fact, but it seems probably the repetition of the word ungodly is more frequently made than any other place

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I can recall in the scripture. Yeah, yeah. A lot of repetition, and especially these contrasting true faith, true doctrine with false.

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Yeah, he's constantly, you know, calling them these people. He doesn't even name them.

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He calls them ungodly. They do ungodly things and are ungodly, and so forth.

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Go ahead. It's a very powerful little epistle, and very timely for today as well.

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Oh yeah, this is timeless, obviously. Now, was this being spawned from general evil that was taking place in various ways in different places, or was

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Jude reacting to specific people in the midst of those he was writing? Yeah, there's obviously, you know, lots of discussion who exactly they're writing about, and he doesn't name them.

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He gives hints throughout, and so, you know, he's dealing with definite specific persons.

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You know, are they in one particular congregation? We're not sure, because it's a general epistle that he just writes to those who are called, kept, and loved.

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We're not sure where exactly he's writing, and, you know, to whom.

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It does sound and seem like somewhere in, you know, modern -day

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Israel, Syria, somewhere. I would know the Old Testament that had contact with Judaism, just the amount of Old Testament references that he makes.

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But yeah, you have here this little epistle that's very neglected in our time.

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So small, it seemed to be insignificant, because signs, and sort of tucked away at the end of the

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Old Testament, but it's necessary and important for all times, and as we contemplate, you know, what's going on in the

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Church today, society, culture, how the culture and society is, you know, right in our

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Church, and how it affects us. So yeah,

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I would say, you know, in terms of the kind of error he mentioned at the very beginning about those who crept in, who pervert grace, and turn it into a license to sin.

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And so it's people who are using gospel freedom, or at least pretended gospel freedom, so that they might satisfy themselves, whether financially, or sexually, or with power and position in the

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Church. They're turning God's grace into what it's not meant to be. I have heard, perhaps you have a different opinion on this, but I have heard from some that the third verse, which

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I will read it in a few different translations, we have,

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Dear Friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God's holy people.

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That's the NIV. We have the ESV, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,

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I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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And going back to the NASB that I was reading from, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation,

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I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

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And last but not least, the King James Bible. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

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I have heard that that is a warning that if you have come up with some kind of novel idea that you are claiming to be exegeting from the scriptures, and may likely be exegeting something rather than exegeting it, that this is a warning that if the saints of God have never heard of this concept that you have developed or that you think that you have has been revealed to you, that it is nearly with certainty a falsehood.

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Is that? Yeah, I think I would tend to agree.

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I mean, obviously, the person who's hearing, you know, what is the gospel, just because they've not heard of it, that doesn't mean it's a novel.

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But yes, in general, I would say in the Christian church, you know, whenever we're hearing these new ideas and slogans and all the programs that come out of books, you know, the next big thing, basically, if things sound too good to be true, then it's too good to be true.

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Or perhaps even, you know, there are some horrible things that have been taught that seem very novel.

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Well, I'm certain that the people who have developed these ideas may not think that they're horrible, but they're certainly anticlimactic, and to me, utterly depressing, like the concept of the full or hyper -preterist understanding that Jesus has already come back.

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He's not coming back again physically, invisibly. 8070 was when he returned, and we're not going to be seeing him again.

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This world is going to go on forever and ever and ever. I mean, I don't know how they take joy in that, but that's just another example of something that I think is,

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I mean, I know that there was some precedent, but it's not something that goes back to the ancient church, is it? You mean in terms of that idea of...

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Yeah, that idea specifically, hyper -preterism. Yeah, I mean, I'm not aware of that idea being anything but a novelty in our time and place.

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Of course, you could say Hymenaeus and Philetus in that view. Yeah, but it is interesting, isn't it, that, you know,

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Jude in verse 3, you know, in the first couple of verses, he basically writes to them about, you know, who they are in Christ and the blessings that they have from God.

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They're called, they're loved, they're kept. A really powerful, it's really sort of a mini chain of salvation that we're used to hearing from Romans 8.

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And then he's writing to them that he, you know, he desired to write to them about the gospel, but because of the necessity of what was going on that he was hearing, he had to write to them to contend.

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And so, you know, the Palai book is intense yet contending, and so that's thinking of our

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Christian life in terms of resting in the blessings that we already have in Christ, but at the same time, we have to be active and contentious in a good way, you know, in the world that we live in and in the

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Church that we find ourselves in. I'm not sure about you.

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I mean, I would assume you'd agree. I mean, people don't like the thought that, you know,

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I as a Christian am supposed to contend. You know, we live in a society where it's just not, it's looked down upon to be a person who contends.

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Yeah, in fact, we're constantly hearing today, even from many professing conservative evangelicals, it's not just the backyard of liberalism anymore, where ecumenism is running rampant, and people are being excused for really disturbing heresies that used to be really the exclusive property of liberalism, but now you have professing conservatives doing it all the time with Roman Catholicism and Mormonism and other aberrant heretical teachings and false gospels, where they are considered brethren, just because they are fighting against some moral evils that we oppose with equal fervor.

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But that's a real danger in our day and age, isn't it? For, you know, we used to think that this was something that was just manifesting itself with liberalism, but it's really in our own backyard now, isn't it?

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That's right, yeah, and I'm not sure if you saw this today, Chris, but Ligonier just put out an updated, this survey they did a couple years ago, it's called thestateoftheology .com,

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have you seen that? No, I have not. Yeah, it just came out today, as far as I know it came out today, or at least it came across my desk today, it's called thestateoftheology .com,

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and they have, I think, 49 or so main sort of theological questions that they ask, and they break it down by a person's, you know, religious affiliation, you know, even you know, denominations, so you can filter it out.

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And so I read this today, and you know, remembering that we're gonna talk on the phone today, and it's absolutely appalling.

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So here are three little quick statistics that I pulled out as I browsed over it about today, and these are, and again, the survey, it surveyed 3 ,000

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Americans, they have different backgrounds, and so I filtered out just the so -called evangelicals.

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So these are the so -called Bible believers in our country, in this little snapshot in time, this survey.

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So 52 % of evangelicals either somewhat or strongly agree that everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.

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So half of people in evangelical churches think that people are good by nature.

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And then the next one, 54 % of evangelicals think, quote, even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.

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So 54%, a little bit over half, believe that basically that sin deserves condemnation.

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Only half! I mean, why are we even preaching the gospel that if people aren't in danger, what's the point?

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Just to have you repeat that, because I just want to let you know, you are breaking up a little bit, and perhaps when we go to a break, you can re -phone in or something, but you said that a great percentage of evangelicals did not believe that sin warranted any condemnation, is that what you said?

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54 % of evangelicals, or I should say only 54 % of evangelicals, believe that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.

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Wow. So in other words, basically half of evangelicals think that sin doesn't deserve hell.

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Wow, that's pretty disturbing. I mean, exactly. How do you describe how disappointing that is?

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Yeah, I know. Yeah, there's one more I was going to mention, which is that there's a statement that they ask people to agree with or disagree with, and the statement is this, an individual must contribute his or her own efforts for personal salvation.

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74 % agree. Their own personal efforts, is that what you said? Yeah, so an individual must contribute their own efforts for salvation, and three -quarters of evangelicals agree with that.

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Three -quarters of evangelicals. You know, that's kind of ironic that they would believe in that heresy, because they seem to be more guilty of the sin of easy believism and cheap praise, you know what

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I'm saying? They don't even work at all, let alone to earn their salvation.

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It's so depressing. It's so depressing, and so we have to contend. That's why Jude is so important today.

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We have to contend. Yes, and we're going to go to a break, and if you could, Pastor Danny, if you could call back so that we could perhaps reconnect with a stronger connection, because you are breaking up, and I wouldn't want our listeners to miss a word, and we do have some listeners who are waiting to have their questions asked.

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

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA, and please remember you can remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private issue that you're asking about, but otherwise, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, and we'll be right back after these messages with Pastor Danny Hyde, and don't go away.

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Iron Sharpens today. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsen.

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If you just tuned us in, our guest for the first hour is Pastor Danny Hyde, and we are discussing his soon -to -be -printed book,

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Content and Yet Contending, which is his exposition on the Epistle of Jude.

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And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Coming up on the second hour, Mike Adosh of Solid Ground Christian Books will be joining us. We do have a listener, and this is from a city in Wales that I know well because I have met a pastor who has just retired from there, a very well -known pastor,

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Jeff Thomas, who has written for Banner of Truth and is a very well -known theologically reformed conference speaker.

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And he taught me how to say this city, and I may still be butchering it because it's been a while, since he taught me how to pronounce it correctly, but I think it's

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Aberystwyth, Wales, and perhaps Mike in Aberystwyth, Wales will correct me if I pronounced it wrong.

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But he asks you, could you ask Daniel to comment on verse 5, where Jesus is specifically named in the

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English Standard Version as the destroyer, but not in other translations.

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I find this to be a very powerful testimony that the deity and sovereignty and the power of Christ.

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If you could, Pastor Daniel. Sure, Chris. I'm sorry?

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Can you hear me now? Yes, I can. Okay, awesome. Yeah, verse 5,

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I think I mentioned that NAS says Jesus, correct? Yes, well yeah, for some reason you're breaking up again, and I can't figure out why.

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But he asks, why is it that the ESV specifically names

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Jesus the destroyer, and that's not in any other translations? Oh, sure.

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Basically, you know, there are different manuscripts that exist for all the

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New Testament books, and Jude included. And so this one is one of the difficult textual issues.

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Basically, there are several different readings, and one reading, which is a more traditional reading, is

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Lord, King James, Lord. There are some other readings that say

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God, Christ, and then there's also a reading that says

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Jesus. So the ESV has taken it to be Jesus, which is a very ancient manuscript.

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But even if we still use the traditional text, which says Lord, the point that Jude is making is that this is

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Jesus, even though he may use the term Lord or God who is prized. Because if you look at the previous reference in verse 4, he talks about those who pervert the grace of our

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God into sensuality and deny our only master word, Jesus Christ.

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And in the very next, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, or the

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Lord, saved people out of Egypt and so forth. Even if we don't adopt the reading of Jesus, it still is connecting

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Jesus as Lord in the Old Testament who is saving the

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Israelites. And so there's a lot of textbooks and different readings, and people have different positions on that.

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But I think that the reading Jesus is the best reading, although the reading of Lord still ends up with the same purpose, the same person doing that saving in the

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Old Testament. Well, thank you, Mike. And Mike, now I remember exactly what

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Jeff Thomas said when he was teaching me how to pronounce it. He said, Abirustwith. He said, remember rust.

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That's what the trick was. Mike in Abirustwith, Wales says,

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My eldest son, Chris, is a deacon there at Alfred Place Baptist Church in Abirustwith where Jeff Thomas was pastoring before he retired.

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And Jeff's grandson has just been inducted as the new pastor now that Jeff is retired.

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Oh, and Jeff's wife is very ill. I did not know about that. So please pray for the wife of Jeff Thomas, former pastor of Alfred Place Baptist Church in Abirustwith, Wales.

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Thank you for contacting us, Mike. What would you say as this epistle was obviously intended by Jude to be the sound of an alarm?

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He was basically warning the saints about charlatans and those with evil motives and teachings creeping into the church.

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What do you think in our day and age, especially when it comes to those who are theologically reformed or those who are known for biblical orthodoxy, what would you say that we should be disturbed about and warning others about that it's creeping up around our own midst?

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Yeah, good question. And this is just because it's fresh in my mind.

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I was just reading a website today. I won't mention the website, but it's a website where men who have been pastors now are writing, you know, their stories about their ministries, their ministries crumble for any number of reasons.

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And so, you know, on this website, basically it's people saying, oh, well,

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I, just one example, a man who's a minister, and I don't know his, obviously,

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I don't know his circumstances, but what he wrote describes the fact that he's left his wife to serve various churches.

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He's on his third wife, and he's complaining on this website about how no church will take him, but he really wants to serve

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God. And then you read the comment, which is even more appalling, to see people defend it and, you know, use pious sort of biblical phraseology about forgiveness, and, you know, people are all sinful and needy and broken and hurting, and, you know, why are people judging, you know, this man, and, you know, he should be able to be a pastor because he really has a good heart.

37:51

And I would say, as always, that, you know, this illustrates the need, even in Reformed churches, that we have to always keep the

38:02

Scriptures in front of us, that we can't lose our focus. We need to be biblically liberate people.

38:10

I just mentioned this past Sunday to my own congregation that, you know, we as Christians have been known for generations, for centuries, millennia, for being people of the

38:21

Book, and we can't forget that we're people of a Book, and we have to read that Word.

38:27

We need to preach it. We need to know it and be saturated in it. And so I would say, just as an overall goal, we have to constantly be battling for the

38:38

Bible, but that battle is not over. That's a struggle that's been going on since the

38:44

Garden, and it's never going to end. And when it does, you know, become sort of complacent for us,

38:53

I think we see what we see in our broader, Formed, Evangelical world, where, you know, we adore celebrity pastors.

39:03

We allow them to do what they want to do. When they fall, everybody praises them for how honest they are in their calls.

39:11

You know, no doubt we're going to see certain pastors who have fallen, and we've already seen some who are already starting up new churches, writing books, and we're going to see people, even under the sort of general banner of Evangelical and even

39:25

Reformed, you know, quoting out of context Bible verses to say, well, you know, the

39:33

Lord has so much great fruit, and, you know, if He's a bad tree, why would He have so many good fruits?

39:39

You know, taking those kind of verses out of context. So to me, that's the key battle that I see as a pastor of 16 -plus years.

39:51

I see as, you know, a person who writes, speaks, but especially a pastor of a local church, that there's a constant need to put the

40:01

Scriptures in people's hands, help them read it, help them understand it, help them understand how you apply it, and that it actually is the

40:09

Word of Life. It actually is authoritative for how we not only believe, but also how we live our lives, how we think on a daily basis.

40:19

Yeah, when you say that men like them are mistaken, and that they seem to have developed the conclusion that being a pastor is a right and not a privilege, it seems that some people think that the church owes them some kind of a position of authority, just because they have gifts, or perhaps well -read, learned.

40:44

And in other theological camps other than our own, it might be just because the guy's a good orator, or has drawn very large crowds, or whatever the case may be, or claims of miraculous manifestations.

40:59

But in our camps, it would be more in areas regarding the brain and so on.

41:05

You think that's a large part of it, is they're looking at it as a right rather than a privilege? Yeah, I think so.

41:12

For example, I was reading one of the comments on this website, and somebody quotes out of context

41:17

Romans 11, where it all says, for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. And this person said, calling is irrevocable.

41:25

How dare you judge this person and say he can't be a pastor? Well, go read Romans 11 and come.

41:32

It has nothing to do with local pastors and their calling. It has to do with the calling of God for salvation.

41:39

So it's that sort of biblical illiteracy, coupled with, yeah, an entitlement mentality, you know, that plurality thing, and that those with certain abilities and gifts, whatever they might be, that they're indispensable to God's plan and God's purpose.

42:01

Whereas I would, I've said to my congregation many times, as Paul describes us as Christians, you know, we're jars of hay.

42:08

In other words, we're just plastic cups that drink out of, that are thrown away at a certain point.

42:14

We're disposable. God doesn't need us as pastors, because if I die,

42:19

He'll raise someone else up in my place. I'm not indispensable. I'm just a cog in a huge machine. Amen.

42:27

And when I said amen, I didn't mean that necessarily specifically about you, but what you said.

42:37

Regarding us, the theologically reformed camp, if you will, you know, we have that interesting phrase that Festus cried out against Paul, you are insane,

42:55

Paul, your great learning has made you mad, or Paul, you are out of your mind, your great learning is driving you mad.

43:03

Obviously, he was very wrong, Festus, when he said that to the apostle who was being divinely inspired by the

43:09

Holy Spirit. But do you think sometimes that that could be rightly said of some of our reformed brethren, who really are digging so deeply, looking for something in the scripture that they're throwing out the truth with the dirt that they're digging out.

43:29

And they are really inventing things, maybe unconsciously, but they're trying to be so meticulous, and perhaps even a quest to some with some kind of an unconsciously gnostic motivation, wanting to be amongst some elite group that has seen something that nobody else sees.

43:51

They're coming up with things that are really heretical. I mean, do you think you see that amongst folks that would fly under the banner of reform?

44:01

Yeah, but I think I would describe it a little differently. From my vantage point, it's a similar interest or desire that people have, you know, theologically to dig in, to really know scripture, to really know, you know, how scripture fits together theologically.

44:22

But what I see is people who are just the average sort of stay -at -home mom who is super convinced, because she's read a couple of books, that her particular eschatology, you know, is the biblical position on eschatology.

44:51

You know, many years ago, just as an example, you know, we had some people come to our church, you know, and they were new, and, you know, the wife as well, you know,

45:01

I have this website that I do, this blog that I, you know, I have kids, and then

45:06

I, every night I blog, and it's, oh great, like, what do you blog about? Oh, well,

45:12

I'm, you know, I'm a convinced post -millennialist,

45:17

I'm a convinced, you know, and she had a whole sort of list of eschatological, cultural, ethical, you know, issues that she was, you know, dead set for.

45:28

And I, you know, it just struck me as, why are the average

45:34

Christians in my congregation spending all their time on issues that, they are issues, but things that are, they're not as important as knowing

45:49

Christ, being assured that you know Christ, and, you know, teaching

45:56

Christ your children, and evangelizing the law. And so I find a lot of people sort of huddling around, you know, books, huddling around a blog site, website, and being really convinced of how we consider secondary matters, like, you know, like an eschatological position, as if that was one issue that's so important, you know, to their life, and therefore, if it's important for their life,

46:26

I have to go to everybody else about that issue. And I find that in the Reformed world, and that's just one example.

46:32

I mean, there are other things too, other theological, you know, points of doctrine that people latch on to, you know, and they really care about, they're really passionate about, sort of, you know, falling over.

46:46

So that's kind of what I see, that it's sort of an inward mental focus, theologically, and not having, you know, a heart, and a care, and a concern for the gospel, not just for themselves, but for the law.

47:05

You know, what's going to save a person when they walk into, you know, the local congregation? Is it a view of eschatology, or is it

47:12

Jesus Christ? Yeah, do you think one of the reasons for that could be, especially if you're dealing with those that are from cessationist churches, like typically

47:24

Reformed churches are, where the second coming is going to be the next monumental earth -changing miracle that is going to be globally experienced, and since that hasn't happened yet, unlike what our hyper -preterist friends say, that is what they're focusing on, because they're titillated by it.

47:52

Just like there are others who want to read into the newspaper, and the magazines, and the internet, and the

48:03

TV news that the current events are all fulfillments of biblical prophecy, and they love the excitement and the adrenaline of being a part of the unfolding of Revelation, if you follow me.

48:19

Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I would say it seems to me like both sides of that, you know, issue, and people on both sides, whether you're a pre -Rapture, you know, millennial dispensationalist on one side, or a post -millennialist who thinks that the world is going to keep going on for, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of years, there's just such a, yeah, there's such an interest in, yeah, you know, whether it's being relevant to the news, or whether it's sort of being anti -relevant against the news, and, you know, some people are super excited about what, you know, the

49:02

Rapture that's about to happen, or other people are sitting back and saying, you know, we have nothing really to do, because it's all going to be sorted out millions of years from now, or thousands of years from now.

49:11

To me, you know, it comes down to, you know, priority in the work, you know, are these really issues that are priorities?

49:18

We should certainly hope for the blessed hope of Christ, that is our blessed hope, His coming for us, but it's not for us to know the time of the day and the hour for us to serve

49:33

Christ with our words, and our deeds, and our love, and our preaching, until He comes, and, you know, let

49:42

Him sort out all the timing, all the details, and for us to be busy with, you know, the work of Christ's Kingdom.

49:50

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,

49:56

I have heard that the early church did not know for certain at one point whether Jude was to be included in the canon, and I've also heard

50:05

Roman Catholics say that Jude proves that the apocryphal books are a part of the

50:10

Old Testament canon, since Jude is quoting from it. Do you have any comment on that?

50:20

As far as the issue of the canon, there is some discussion amongst,

50:33

I would say, some people in the early church, you know, whether it was canonical, but it was always read, and, you know, there are certain lists that we have of canonical books in the early church.

50:49

Most have Jude, some don't, but even if a person didn't list it, these are still books that were circulated, or a lot of those were circulated.

51:00

It was included in books of Scripture. It was considered to be a writing that was to be read.

51:09

So, I'm not a complete expert on all the names and places, but it definitely was seen as canonical early, although not by everyone all at the same time.

51:25

And as far as, you know, the apocryphal books, so there's the story in, the story in verse number 9,

51:37

Jude, where you have the Archangel Michael contending with the devil about the body of Moses, saying, the

51:46

Lord rebuke you, and so that is brought up, and people, you know, want to know, you know, where does this come from?

51:53

Is it from an ancient book? And there's also the

51:59

Jude reference, or the reference to Enoch being the seventh from Adam, you know, preaching.

52:07

Is this a reference to an apocryphal book? And I built that a little bit in the book to try to build issues of the canon and whether or not, you know,

52:19

Jude is quoting these other writings. And I think he is quoting writings.

52:26

The issue is why and how he quotes them. Nowhere in Jude, like you have in the

52:32

Apostle Paul or even Jesus, nowhere does Jude say, you know, as Scripture says, a phrase that sets off, you know, a reference to an ancient book as Scripture, as canonical.

52:48

So that's the first thing I would say in response. The second thing is, just like the

52:55

Apostle Paul quotes other writings, he does so for a purpose, and so these people would no doubt have, you know, referenced these books and known these, that's why

53:03

I mentioned earlier, probably written to a Jewish context. These books were floating around as non -canonical, but as Jewish books.

53:15

And so he's using them to prove true points, but so using writings that sort of, you know, using things that they would consider, you know, somewhat, you know, traditional or authentic, authoritative, he's using those to show true doctrine and to bring them back around truth.

53:38

Right, just like you were mentioning in Apostle Paul on Mars Hill, correct? It was not only quoting from Scripture, he was bringing about contemporary extra -biblical teachings and using it to drive home a point, correct?

53:56

That's right, yeah. Paul quotes, you know, in Titus, Acts 17 or 1

54:03

Corinthians 15, you know, the other places as well, you know, sometimes they're written sources, sometimes they're unwritten traditions in the course of argument.

54:17

That's my admission, that those writings are inspired, but that as they're writing, they're using those sources to communicate, under the inspiration of the

54:29

Holy Spirit, a true point of apostolic doctrine that a person who's reading and hearing, you know, would have received.

54:41

Right, and Christians have done that throughout the centuries. John Calvin quoted Augustine, many preachers quote

54:48

Charles Adams Spurgeon or J. Gresham Machen or whoever they're, you know, among their heroes of the faith are.

54:55

They, you know, it's just something that's commonly done and it's a very appropriate thing to do. I would like you to now summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today, especially in regard to your new exposition on Jude that's coming out,

55:11

Content and Yet Contending. Sure, thank you. You know, the book is basically about how this little epistle of Jude writes to Christians to be content in Christ, to know the blessings that we have in Christ, to rest sure, knowing that God is going to preserve us to the end.

55:34

At the same time, as we rest, Christ also commanded to contend in the world for the truth and for the truthfulness of the

55:45

Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles who have deposited a good deposit in the church with the gospel.

55:53

And so it is a timeless but also a timely little epistle for our time in which we see the need for true doctrine, for true preaching, and the recovery and revival of the word in Christian churches in our time.

56:11

So I encourage people to keep their eyes out. No doubt we'll talk about it again, but it'll be out sometime in the near future with Evangelical Press.

56:21

Well, I also want to remind our listeners that the

56:26

Oceanside United Reformed Church is the congregation where our guest,

56:32

Pastor Danny Hyde, is the minister, and their website is OceansideURC, which stands for United Reformed Church.

56:43

OceansideURC .org. Do you have any other contact information or websites that you care to share?

56:50

People can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and also my blog, MeetThePuritans .com.

56:58

MeetThePuritans .com. Yeah, I love that. That was a Joel Beeky book, if I'm not mistaken, the title for a book that he wrote.

57:05

It was. Thankfully, he let us use that name for our blog. Well, free advertising for him, right?

57:16

And well, it's been a pleasure having you back on the program, Pastor Danny. I look forward to having you back, and let us know when the book is in print so we can perhaps revisit this whole subject.

57:28

Sure thing. Bless. All right. Well, God bless you. And don't go away, ladies and gentlemen, because we are going to be joined any moment now by my very first pastor as a born -again believer,

57:41

Mike Gaydosch, who is the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, and we are going to be hearing about more literary treasures that he has unearthed and brought back into print.

57:53

If you would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

58:00

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Mike Gaydosch of Solid Ground Christian Books.

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01:00:24

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Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called. Hoping that you can join

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01:06:39

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen after the longest break in Iron Sharpens Iron history.

01:06:45

And we have joining us for the second hour on the program, my very first pastor, Mike Gaydosh, who is founder of Solid Ground Christian Books.

01:06:54

And we are going to be learning more about literary treasures that he has unearthed and brought back to print.

01:07:02

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Mike Gaydosh. Well, thanks,

01:07:07

Chris. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak with you yet again. I'm very thankful for your ministry and so thankful that the

01:07:17

Lord has opened the door for you through Iron Sharpens Iron. I really appreciate that.

01:07:25

And well, I'm also looking forward to joining you at the

01:07:30

G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, God willing, January 19th through the 21st.

01:07:37

And for those of you who have always wanted to see a wide selection of the books that are available in print from Solid Ground Christian Books, you're going to have your opportunity if you go to the

01:07:51

G3 conference, because along with myself, Mike Gaydosh is going to have an exhibitor's booth there with books for sale, correct?

01:08:00

That is correct. I've been invited personally by Josh, and he has asked me to come.

01:08:08

And I'm excited about the opportunity of being able to work alongside of you, as we did about a year or so ago when

01:08:15

James White was traipsing through northern Florida. Yes, and James White will be there too.

01:08:23

He will. Among other speakers, and I am really excited about this.

01:08:28

I've never been at a conference with this long a roster of speakers, and every one of them worthy of hearing, even if they were speaking by themselves.

01:08:39

So those of you who have not yet registered, I hope that you do so as soon as possible at g3conference .com,

01:08:48

g3conference .com. And please mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when you register as the resource from where you found out information about the

01:08:59

G3 conference. And already, I believe we have five or more people from the

01:09:07

Iron Sharpens Iron audience who have confirmed that they are registering or have already registered.

01:09:14

And of course, there could be many more. Those are the only five that actually specifically told me, contacted me about it.

01:09:22

Doesn't that mean that almost 50 % of your responses would love to hear, right?

01:09:38

Yeah, right. Thanks a lot. Well, 50 % minus one. Goodbye, Mike Gaydosh. Hey, do you have an assistant with you today on the broadcast?

01:09:51

As soon as he heard that you were going to be on the second hour, he already left. In fact, you may have heard the door of the studio slamming shut.

01:10:01

I did hear that. No, no, I do not have a co -host.

01:10:06

In fact, Reverend Buzz Taylor, who you were used to co -hosting with me quite often, he has gone back to his full -time employment.

01:10:14

So we may occasionally have visits from Buzz as a co -host in the future, but he is no longer daily the co -host as long as he is working full -time anyway.

01:10:26

Yeah, okay. That's too bad. He was always a nice balance to you. I won't even say in what way he was a balance.

01:10:36

Well, as I introduced him at a recent pastor's luncheon that I had here in Carlisle for Iron Sharpens Iron, I introduced him and I said that the reason

01:10:47

I had him as my co -host is you have to have a little bit of heresy to keep a program interesting. But anyway,

01:10:56

I understand that you are very enthusiastic about some books that you have brought back into print through Solid Ground Christian Books that you wanted to share with our listeners today.

01:11:06

Yeah, the first thing I wanted to mention is something that I've been actually promoting today through Facebook and through the emails that I send out, and it's actually two books combined together.

01:11:20

One is called The Glorious History of Redemption, and it's a survey of the

01:11:27

Old and New Testaments. And it was first done about almost a hundred years ago by James Boyd, who was an

01:11:34

Old Testament professor at Old Princeton, and J. Gresham Machen, who did the

01:11:39

New Testament survey. And that book we have right now on sale for just $5, it retails for $13.

01:11:49

And then in addition to that, we also are combining that with a book called

01:11:54

Church History 101, and that's a book that was published by Reformation Heritage.

01:12:01

It's a small little hand, kind of a pocket -sized book, which gives you a nice survey of the 20th centuries of the

01:12:10

Christian Church. These were mostly written originally by Sinclair Ferguson, but Michael Haken and Joel Beeke have worked together with Sinclair to produce this book that introduces people to Christian history.

01:12:27

And so the combination of these two books gives you a survey, basically, of biblical history and church history, all for less than $10.

01:12:42

It's $9 .75 for the two books, and for standard shipping it's $4, for priority shipping it's $6, to get these two outstanding books by these wonderful authors.

01:12:57

And that's the first thing that I wanted to mention, was those two books.

01:13:03

What is really helpful about the book that I've titled, The History of Redemption, is every chapter that was written by both

01:13:13

Machen and Boyd conclude with a series of questions, thought -provoking questions that will generate discussion, they can be used for family worship, they can be used for,

01:13:26

I suppose, even for a small group Bible study, but it is a great, great book.

01:13:33

Small, nothing, neither one of these books would be intimidating to people who are beginners at the

01:13:39

Christian faith, and so that would be one thing that I would like to speak about today.

01:13:46

Another thing that I have done fairly recently is a book that Sinclair Ferguson wrote the forward to, and it's a book entitled

01:13:57

The Risen Christ Conquers Mars Hill, and it's a series of 12 essay -slash -sermons that were written by men from the time of the

01:14:12

Puritans up until the 20th century, and I selected 12 of what

01:14:18

I felt were the best representative writers and pastors who were covering the sermon of Paul to the

01:14:30

Athenians on Mars Hill. The beginning is Thomas Machen, I believe he was the first one, and the last is

01:14:37

Greg Bonson. And so you have a real variety of men, men like Cornelius Van Till, Benjamin Warfield, they're just a variety of men whose ministries have touched the lives of people.

01:14:55

Thomas Watts and Jonathan Edwards is just, it's really a who's who, basically, of Christians who addressed that particular subject of Christ, the risen

01:15:08

Christ who conquered Mars Hill. Sadly, J. Adams and some others have criticized

01:15:14

Paul for his preaching at Mars Hill and have said that, in fact, some of them have,

01:15:21

I believe, misinterpreted Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2 when he said that he had determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

01:15:31

J. Adams and some others have interpreted that to mean that Paul came away from Athens somewhat defeated and convinced that he had compromised the gospel and needed to go back to the basics of just simply preaching the cross.

01:15:51

Really? I had never heard that before, I had never heard of an Orthodox, biblically sound Christian thinking that Paul made an error in that.

01:15:59

Yeah, J. Adams, I'm trying to remember what the book was that I read, I think it was a book that was on homiletics,

01:16:06

I believe, in which he criticized Paul and his interpretation of 1

01:16:12

Corinthians 2 where he says, I didn't come to you with words of wisdom. Adams was saying that Paul felt that upon reflection that the very small response there on Mars Hill was reflective of the fact that he had kind of fallen into the idea of using, like him quoting from the pagan poets and things like that, that he had had second thoughts about that.

01:16:46

The problem with J. Adams' opinion about that is that it's merely his opinion, and I think he's flat wrong.

01:16:53

Luke gives us absolutely no indication whatsoever that Paul had any misgivings about the way that he preached that sermon, and certainly

01:17:04

Luke didn't have any misgivings, otherwise he wouldn't have included it in the book of Acts. And to minimize the fact that there were converts that came from that sermon, and some were apparently pretty significant converts, that is, part of the group of the

01:17:24

Areopagus that were converted by that one message. So, you know,

01:17:29

I don't know, whether he was trying to be clever or not, I don't know. He's not the only one who has taken those words of Paul, because, okay, yeah, you can look at the fact that he was in Athens and he went from Athens to Corinth, and, of course, then as he writes 1

01:17:51

Corinthians and he refers to, you know, you can see how a person could come to that conclusion, but I think it's on dangerous and tenuous grounds to criticize the

01:18:05

Apostle Paul. J. Adams has no problem criticizing anybody, so I don't know that he would be criticizing the

01:18:16

Apostle Paul, but I did feel like he was out of bounds when he did that, and I did not feel that his argumentation really had any weight to it.

01:18:27

Well, here's a newsflash, everybody, the next J. Adams book will not be published by Solid Crack Christian Books.

01:18:35

Yeah, well, if it was going to be, I think he's probably going to cancel that now.

01:18:43

Actually, the funny thing is, I have published a J. Adams book on Be Careful How You Listen.

01:18:49

It's on how to get the most out of a sermon. Oh, from Forgiven to Forgiving was a book when you ran

01:18:56

Calvary Press. That was a Calvary Press title that I published many, many years ago when

01:19:02

I was on Long Island and was involved at Calvary Press. So yeah, you're right.

01:19:07

I mean, you know, I don't want to... I've said too much, probably. I think the point that Sinclair Ferguson made in his foreword was that hearing from these 12 men, again, from Thomas Mann and Thomas Watson, you know, these giants of the faith, and hearing them each sort of exegete and apply the sermon of Paul there on Mars Hill is quite an experience to go through all 12 of those men.

01:19:46

And you certainly come away, after reading Greg Monson's, which was the last of the 12, you come away with just a phenomenal appreciation of the, as Peter described it, the wisdom that God gave to Paul that was just incredible.

01:20:06

It was an incredible wisdom. James Stalker said of Paul that if he had never become a

01:20:14

Christian, he still would have been a great man. He was one of the great thinkers of his day.

01:20:20

But obviously, God's intention was, having set him apart from his mother's womb, he called him by his grace, as Paul says in Galatians 1, and he calls him to be of all things the apostle to the

01:20:33

Gentiles, though he himself was a Pharisee, and a Pharisee of Pharisees, and obviously therefore the least likely to ever have anything to do with the

01:20:46

Gentiles. But that book is just a phenomenal book.

01:20:54

The Risen Christ Conquers Mars Hill, that's the book that I published a couple years ago.

01:21:02

In fact, Providentially, we were speaking a bit about Mars Hill in the first hour. Correct.

01:21:08

And thus the tie -in. We've spoken a lot about the book

01:21:19

Pastor's Sketches, and I don't want to reiterate that because your listeners have heard about that so many times before by Ichabod Spencer, but there is another book that is along the lines of that.

01:21:34

In fact, two books that are along the lines of that. One is a recent book, which you've also spoken a lot about on this broadcast, because you have interviewed

01:21:44

Tony Miano several times, and his book Cross Encounters is now available.

01:21:51

And it is a modern Pastor's Sketches. It's 10 years of gospel conversations, and Tony's book has gotten some very, very encouraging reviews, and I'm very thankful that I've been able to publish it and get that out for the people to be able to see firsthand what it's like to engage people in street preaching and one -on -one witnessing and just a variety of ways in which

01:22:22

Tony has confronted people with the gospel of Christ. But there's another book that I don't know that I've spoken about it on your broadcast, and it's a book by John Wells called

01:22:37

The Pastor in the Sick Room. And John Wells was a pastor in New York, I believe it was,

01:22:47

I think his ministry in New York followed the ministry of Ichabod Spencer.

01:22:53

They had a small overlap. Spencer died in 1854, and he pastored in Brooklyn.

01:23:00

John Wells pastored a little bit later than that. I think his ministry began,

01:23:08

I think it did begin in the early 1850s, so there probably was a small overlap.

01:23:13

But John Wells was a very gifted pastor who had a peculiar ministry to the sick and the dying.

01:23:25

He wasn't a chaplain. You might think he was a chaplain because of the book that he wrote and the subject that it covers, but he was a pastor.

01:23:37

He was a pastor who just happened to have, in the providence of God, he happened to have a special gift dealing with the sick and dying.

01:23:48

And the book entitled The Pastor in the Sick Room is actually a book that is made up of three lectures that he delivered at Princeton Seminary in the 1890s.

01:24:05

He delivered these lectures as a result of the invitation that he received from the professors at Princeton to come and speak to the students.

01:24:16

He himself had been a student at Princeton and had been there in the 1840s and had sat under Samuel Miller and Archibald Alexander and others, and he had had such a phenomenal ministry in Brooklyn.

01:24:36

He was also in Brooklyn, New York, which is of course where Spencer was. And John Wells brought these lectures to the students at Princeton, and there were three lectures.

01:24:48

And they're just absolutely phenomenal. They're filled with stories and examples from his ministry, and he gives counsel as to how a pastor needs to approach a person on their sickbed.

01:25:03

He speaks about the difference between the sickbed and the deathbed. He speaks about salvation possible, and in many cases probable, on the deathbed.

01:25:14

And then he has the wrong treatment of the sick and the dying and the right treatment of the same and uses that may be made of their experience.

01:25:23

And his lectures were so well received that the professors and the students wrote to him personally, begging him to put them into print.

01:25:35

And so they were first published back in 1893, and to my knowledge did not appear again until I brought it out in 2004.

01:25:50

So it was over 100 years that this book had been unavailable.

01:25:57

And the subtitle of the book, it's called The Pastor and the Sick Room, the subtitle is Ministering the Gospel to Those on the

01:26:03

Brink of Eternity. Praise God. And by the way, maybe you didn't even know this, but Sinclair Ferguson is coming to Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania to conduct a

01:26:20

Reformation Conference with Mark Johnston, who is from Ireland. He's originally from Northern Ireland.

01:26:27

And Sinclair Ferguson, who is back in Scotland, they are going to be preaching at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I am a member.

01:26:37

And that's going to be Thursday, October 27th, 7 to 9 p .m. It's absolutely free of charge.

01:26:44

And for more details, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org, and Carlisle is spelled

01:26:50

C -A -R -L -I -S -L -E. So that's gracebaptistcarlisle .org.

01:26:59

And I hope that many of our Iron Sharpens Iron listeners, who especially if you are in Pennsylvania, I hope that you can attend that.

01:27:14

So we look forward to seeing you. Now, is that just one night that they're doing that?

01:27:19

Yeah. I remember the good old days of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Merrick, Long Island, when we'd have a whole weekend for conferences.

01:27:31

But yeah, this is just a one -day conference on Thursday, October 27th.

01:27:39

Okay. I wish I could come. I really do. That would be phenomenal. Anybody in that area, if I was within five hours,

01:27:47

I'd probably be there to hear those men. We do have a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who says, oh, this is

01:27:55

Tyler from Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who I understand is also a customer of Solid Ground Christian Books.

01:28:03

He says, do we as Reformed Christians tend to be biased with reading, for example, not reading other men such as Leonard Ravenhill or A .W.

01:28:13

Tozer? Well, I think that's an individual thing.

01:28:20

I think he's saying that as a critique, that we sometimes shy away from non -Reformed people to read.

01:28:28

Yeah, I think some do. I think some do. I think it would be wise to read.

01:28:37

In fact, I sell some of the Ravenhill books on revival. You're better if Mac Tomlinson is listening.

01:28:46

Yeah, that's right. Actually, his biography that he wrote, In Light of Eternity, is actually out of print now.

01:28:56

I just got my last few copies the other day, and I think he's working on possibly doing that in a paperback now.

01:29:03

But the hardcover edition of In Light of Eternity is now out of print.

01:29:10

And so he is, as I said, he is beginning to work on doing a new printing of that in a paperback form.

01:29:19

And so that's just something that we need to be aware of.

01:29:27

I would agree that there is a danger at times of limiting our reading and not being sensitive to the fact

01:29:36

God has used men who would not be considered Reformed, has used them to extend the kingdom, missionaries and others who we would not necessarily agree with in all things and yet have said some very, very good things.

01:29:53

I know that Poser, his book The Knowledge of the Holy, is an excellent book, even though his chapter on the sovereignty of God is sadly very lacking.

01:30:06

Yet nonetheless, the book itself is a very worshipful book and a book that would be very worthy to be read.

01:30:16

So in simple answer to the question of your listener, yeah,

01:30:22

I would agree with him. I think that there is a danger in limiting our reading only to one form, because we read for several different reasons.

01:30:32

And sometimes we can read books by people that we don't agree with in order to understand how they come to the convictions that they came to and for us to be able to at least understand them better, even if we wouldn't be persuaded by them, at least we would understand them better.

01:30:50

And so, yeah, in simple answer to that question, I would agree. Well, thanks,

01:30:56

Tyler. And we're going to our final break of the day. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:31:03

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Mike Gadosh of Solid Ground Christian Books right after these messages.

01:31:15

So we look forward to hearing from you. Chris Arnson here and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia.

01:31:25

And here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:31:31

I hope you join me at the G3 conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church at the

01:31:37

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

01:31:46

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Vodie Balcom, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

01:32:00

G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

01:32:07

That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

01:32:12

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibit booth while you're there. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

01:32:24

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

01:32:30

He will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

01:32:35

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

01:32:41

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

01:32:54

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered,

01:32:59

Christ -exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

01:33:07

That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

01:33:16

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That's solidrockremodeling .com. Solid Rock Remodeling, bringing new life to your home.

01:34:30

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest for the second hour today is

01:34:36

Mike Gaydosh, founder of Solid Ground Christian Books. Their website is solid -ground -books .com,

01:34:44

solid -ground -books .com. And we do have a listener, Pastor Tom in Big Spring, Texas, says,

01:34:54

Mike, it was great to see you last week in Mansfield. Here's a question for you.

01:35:00

Will you be able to offer the works of John Owen again in the future? Will I be able to offer them?

01:35:09

Yeah, hopefully. They're certainly available. They're available from many different people.

01:35:14

I just right now, I'm not able to offer them myself, but I hope that I will be able to.

01:35:21

I do know who Tom is. I'm very thankful for Tom's ministry and his encouragement.

01:35:27

To me, in many ways, we were able to have dinner together a couple times there at the conference and had a wonderful time together with him and Ken Thomas, his dear friend.

01:35:41

But yeah, I would just say sometime in the future, but not right now. Well, thanks,

01:35:46

Tom. And I don't think that he would mind me giving his full name because he is a pastor.

01:35:52

That was Tom Lasseter of Crestview Baptist Church in Big Spring, Texas.

01:35:59

And I don't know any other contact information other than if you want to look him up on Facebook.

01:36:05

But thank you very much for joining us on the program with a question and comment.

01:36:12

And by the way, we heard during the first hour, I don't know how much you heard of the first hour of the program, but we heard from a member of the church where Jeff Thomas pastored for so many years.

01:36:26

He emailed us from Aberystwyth, Wales. And if you want to continue digging into these treasures that you've unearthed.

01:36:39

Yes, I have another one that I wanted to point out that I've not really spoken about before.

01:36:44

It's entitled Memorial Tributes, a Classic Funeral Address as an

01:36:49

Aid for Pastors and a Book of Comfort for the Bereaved. It was edited by Joseph Sanderson, and it contains literally dozens and dozens of brief messages, funeral messages that were delivered in just a variety of contexts.

01:37:08

And some of the men whose messages are found in this book would be C .H. Spurgeon, Thomas Guthrie, John Todd, Henry Scudder, Thomas Biney, Cannon H .P.

01:37:20

Lytton, Theodore Keiler, um, who are some of the others here?

01:37:26

A .S. Robertson, Henry Ward Beecher, William M. Taylor, J .R.

01:37:33

McDuff, a whole variety of people. And there are some, let's see, about 500 pages of sermons, and there are so many sermons and circumstances of...they

01:37:47

have sermons that were preached for those who had died in old age, some in middle age, some in youth, and then even some messages delivered to those who had died in childhood.

01:37:59

And it's really a wonderful, wonderful volume in terms of being able to both comfort the bereaved and also to help pastors to be able to see how, down through the ages, from the time of the

01:38:14

Puritans up until the late 1800s, the way that ministers of the

01:38:21

Gospel ministered to the bereaved in actual funeral addresses.

01:38:26

Another one is called The Light at Evening Time. And this is a book that is becoming more and more appropriate for me, and pretty soon for you as well,

01:38:37

Chris. It's called The Light at Evening Time, a Book of Support and Comfort for the Ages. It's a book that was edited by Stanford Home with an introduction by Stephen King, and Light at Evening Time is just a wonderful, wonderful volume of large print, which is nice for the elderly, large print messages by men such as J .W.

01:39:04

Alexander of Princeton, J .R. McDuff, Joseph Hall, dear friend of Alexander, James Harvey, Henry and Frances Light.

01:39:19

There's hymns, there are James Hamilton, and many of them are very short readings, because obviously as people get older, they sometimes find it more difficult to concentrate for long periods of time, so many of these readings are only a page or two long.

01:39:36

And just a very, very encouraging book that is filled with wise counsel for the aged.

01:39:44

Dr. Beeky spoke of the book and said, it is a practical handbook that provides biblical counsel on virtually every area that concerns the elderly.

01:39:54

Written by the cream of our church fathers and Reformed forebearers, this book is an outstanding collection of treasures for those facing the challenges of their senior years.

01:40:05

Seniors would profit greatly by reading it once a year, and that's called

01:40:10

Light at Evening Time. And speaking of cream, I understand that if you order now for limited time only, you'll get a free jar of Blue -Emu

01:40:20

Arthritis Cream. That would be nice, to get a free bottle of Blue -Emu.

01:40:29

You'll have to talk to Johnny Bench about that. You're not getting that from me,

01:40:36

I'm sorry. I just saw a funny commercial with him holding five or seven hamburgers with one hand, but anyway.

01:40:45

Another volume is a volume that you've had George Grant on fairly recently, and I know

01:40:50

George is very excited about some work that he's doing on Thomas Chalmers.

01:40:56

And I have published the Sabbath scripture readings of Thomas Chalmers, and I have two volumes.

01:41:05

One is the entire New Testament. They're called Spiritual Meditations on Every Chapter in the

01:41:12

New Testament. And what he did is he actually wrote these on the Sabbath afternoons, and they're basically worshipful.

01:41:20

He went through each chapter, he would write some comments, and then he would always end in a prayer.

01:41:26

And the prayer always focused on the particular subject matter of that particular chapter.

01:41:33

For instance, in Matthew 11, he concludes his meditation by saying, Oh, touch me,

01:41:38

Spirit of all grace, into a compliance with his blessed invitation, so that I may find rest unto my soul.

01:41:47

Oh, for his meekness and lowliness of heart, and willingness to take his yoke upon me.

01:41:54

For there is a yoke which his disciples must and do come under, a burden which they all take upon them, but easy and light, because of that love which both serves and suffers cheerfully, because of that grace which enables us to overcome, and in virtue of which the commandments are not grievous.

01:42:13

May I so come, Lord Jesus. And so that's how he concludes the Matthew 11 meditation.

01:42:19

But he has meditation on every chapter from Matthew 1 to Revelation chapter 22, entitled

01:42:25

Sabbath Scripture Readings, Spiritual Meditations on Every Chapter in the New Testament. And then there's a second volume that is called

01:42:32

Sabbath Scripture Readings 2, and it starts in Genesis 1, and I believe it goes through to 2

01:42:39

Kings 11. And can you guess why he stopped at 2 Kings 11?

01:42:45

Why is that? He died. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So he, because he died, he couldn't write anymore.

01:42:55

So 11, and it was only death that stopped him. And, and we have right up to 2

01:43:02

Kings 11 was the very last chapter that he wrote on before he died, and so that was the end of the

01:43:09

Sabbath Scripture Readings that he did. But George Grant, you did have him on fairly recently, right?

01:43:17

Yes, and I'm having him back again next Thursday, a week from tomorrow. Okay, great.

01:43:23

Well, I'm sure he'll be talking about traumas, because it's hard for him, it's hard to talk to him for 20 minutes without having him somehow bring up trauma.

01:43:31

He's really immersed himself in the writings of traumas and in his life, and he's got some things that he's working on that I'm actually hoping to be able to work with him on to bring into print.

01:43:45

A couple of other volumes that I wanted to point out to you as well, some of the, some of the books that I've kind of brought back into life again.

01:43:54

I believe you have a copy of the book The Still Hour by Austin Phelps, subtitled

01:44:00

Communion with God in Prayer. Joel Beakey said concerning this book, comforting, convicting, and correcting,

01:44:11

Phelps' Still Hour is the best short book a Christian can read to stir up his or her sluggish soul and lay hold of God afresh by means of biblical, heartfelt prayer.

01:44:25

Tom Lasseter and a couple of other people were sharing with me about their reading that book, The Still Hour, and they said that it was so convicting, and it really is.

01:44:36

It's an amazing book on prayer. He covers subjects in the book that are just not the kind of subjects you would expect to cover.

01:44:46

He covers such things as indolence in prayer and idolatry in prayer, and they're not all negative like that, but he even has such a thing as unhallowed prayer, distrust in prayer, as well as romance in prayer, faith in prayer, specific and intense prayer, temperament of prayer, continuance in prayer, the reality of Christ in prayer, and then modern habits of prayer.

01:45:15

And it really is a very, very helpful and encouraging, as well as convicting book on the subject.

01:45:22

And then a second book, which is much, much lesser known by Phelps, but a book that I think is absolutely terrific, it's called

01:45:30

Studies of the Old Testament, classic essays to show the perpetuity of the

01:45:35

Old Testament as a living book for all ages. And I think the book itself is marvelous, but the very last chapter is worth the price of the book, and it's entitled,

01:45:48

Christ, the Center of Biblical Thought. And the passage that he's teaching on for that is

01:45:57

Daniel chapter 7, 13, and 14, I saw in the night visions of behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him.

01:46:14

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which will not be destroyed.

01:46:21

And it's just a marvelous, marvelous book on the centrality of Christ, particularly, of course, in the

01:46:30

Old Testament scriptures. By the way, before I forget, I do want to announce that one of your authors that you mentioned today,

01:46:38

Tony Miano, he is going to be on the program this Monday, October 3rd, God willing, 4 to 6 p .m.,

01:46:45

and I do want to give another shout out to Pastor Tom Lassiter of Crestview Baptist Church in Big Spring, Texas.

01:46:55

Since you are a first -time questioner to Iron Sharpens Iron, you are getting a free

01:47:02

New American Standard Bible, a really beautiful, not quite a pocket -sized edition, but one that is small enough to carry around very easily, and maybe a coat pocket, or a briefcase, or a woman can easily carry it in her purse.

01:47:19

It has a beautiful embossed cross on the cover, and if you give me your full mailing address,

01:47:24

Pastor Tom, I will have that shipped out to you, compliments of our friends who publish the

01:47:30

New American Standard Bible, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who are actually mailing it to you at no charge to Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:47:40

And Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service's website is cvbbs .com. C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for BibleBookService .com.

01:47:49

So thank you very much again, Pastor Tom. But I'm sorry there, Mike, I interrupted you there. That's fine.

01:47:54

Tom Lasseter, I have his information in case he just is not listening at the moment, so if you need me to give that to you,

01:48:02

I've got that as well. Oh, that's great. Very faithful customer, has bought many, many books of mine, and he just, you know, bought a bunch more while he was at the conference, so I'm very thankful for his friendship and for the opportunity we had to spend some time together there in Mansfield.

01:48:20

Um, let's see, another book that I have published that would be, I think, encouraging to your listeners is actually a set of books that I published entitled

01:48:34

The American Track Society. You're familiar with those, right? Yes. I did a six -volume set of the publications of The American Track Society, and there are some 30 -some tracks per volume, and there are six volumes that are available.

01:48:52

And the amazing thing is that some of these tracks that are found, like, for instance, in Volume 1, there's a track on family worship that was written by Philip Doddridge.

01:49:05

And these tracks, some of these tracks are actually for sale, for some for as much as $25 and $30 just for one track.

01:49:15

And I now have brought together six volumes of tracks, six volumes of tracks.

01:49:24

Each volume is about, oh, three, almost 400 pages, and the entire set of six

01:49:35

I'm selling right now for $65, which is, considering they're selling the individual tracks, there may be 30 or 40 tracks per volume, and some people are selling the individual tracks for $20 a piece.

01:49:50

So, needless to say, the offer that I'm making is pretty much ridiculous.

01:49:56

And there are some of the greatest tracks ever written are contained in these.

01:50:02

John Flable on Keeping the Heart. There's Matthew Hale on Remembering the

01:50:09

Sabbath Day. The Closet Companion or Help of Self -Examination is one of the most famous of all.

01:50:16

Laye Richmond's The Dairyman's Daughter. Hannah Moore, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.

01:50:23

Richard Cecil's A Friendly Visit to the House of Mourning. Robert Hall on The Work of the

01:50:29

Holy Spirit. It's just on and on and on. Some of the greatest authors ever are found in here.

01:50:37

Divine Songs for Children by Isaac Watts. Parental Duties and Parental Examples.

01:50:46

Some of them are anonymous authors, and I don't know who this anonymous was, but man, was he brilliant.

01:50:53

He wrote some of the best things that I've ever read. That was a joke, Chris. They actually are some of the best things

01:51:06

I've ever read. I wish we knew who it was that wrote them, but a lot of the American Tract Society volumes, they don't have the names of the authors that are attached.

01:51:18

But the ones that do, the fact that they do have many of them, several of them are on the

01:51:25

Sabbath, the role of the Sabbath in the Christian's life. They have The Interpreter's House from Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

01:51:34

And again, Two Mourners by John Flavel. Thomas Goodwin, Growth in Grace.

01:51:41

Unpurifying the Heart by Thomas Goodwin. So again, just some of the greatest authors,

01:51:48

Christian authors, and they have some of their best tracts. And the nice thing is most of them are 8 to 12 pages long, some even shorter.

01:51:58

Very few of them are much longer than 12 pages. So it's just a tremendous volume, tremendous.

01:52:06

I'm very thankful that I was able to get these back into print. Joel Beeky once again said, these publications are of enduring and superlative quality.

01:52:15

They represent the cream of the best writers in the Reformed world from the 16th to the 19th centuries, such as John Flavel, Jonathan Edwards, Archibald Alexander.

01:52:25

Almost without exception, these tracts, which range from 4 to 48 pages each and cover a remarkable variety of subjects, interface biblical, doctrinal, and experiential material in practically helpful ways.

01:52:38

Having often perused these lines in my own study with considerable profit for nearly four decades, I am so grateful to Solid Ground for bringing them back into print once again.

01:52:48

Here is truly a case where the old is better. Wow. We have a listener,

01:52:55

Aaron in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who asks, what to you is your favorite discovery of a virtually unknown author, at least unknown to a 21st century audience?

01:53:12

I would say without doubt, it would be Ichabod Spencer's Pasture Sketches. The only caveat

01:53:18

I would add to that is that I really didn't personally discover him. I am the one who brought him back to the 20th century.

01:53:27

David Vaughn, a missionary in France, is the one who first uncovered him. He then told

01:53:34

Steve Martin, a pastor in Georgia, and Steve is the one who then passed on word to me about Spencer's Pasture Sketches.

01:53:45

And when I finally got around to reading the photocopy that had been sent to me, I couldn't put it down and immediately determined that I was going to print it and publish it.

01:53:56

So without doubt, that would be the one. Ichabod Spencer of Pasture Sketches is the one that,

01:54:03

I would have to say, is the one that has stood head and shoulders above all the others.

01:54:09

There are others. I would say probably right behind them would be the authors of children's books that I've done, which would be

01:54:17

Richard Newton, Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and also

01:54:26

John Todd, those three men. John Todd, Richard Newton, and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

01:54:35

Those children's books are just unsurpassed. They're brilliant, and the

01:54:40

Lord has used them in just mighty, mighty ways. So that's a good question. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to answer it.

01:54:48

And Aaron, if you give me your full mailing address, since you're also a very first -time questioner,

01:54:54

I'll mail you out a free copy of the New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

01:54:59

NASB. It'll be shipped out to you, compliments of CVBBS .com,

01:55:05

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And I would like to also add a name that I never heard of before you republished a couple of his books, and that's

01:55:16

Stephen Ting. Oh yeah, that's right. Stephen Ting is another one that the

01:55:23

Lord has given me. And I frankly do not remember how I came across Stephen Ting.

01:55:30

But you're right. I think that you, unless I'm thinking of somebody else, I think that you found it just at an antique bookstore, something that he wrote.

01:55:39

But I could be wrong. No, I think you're right. I think that it was that. And I don't remember,

01:55:45

I think the first book that I had published by him was Lectures on the Law and the

01:55:50

Gospel. That is an amazing book. Pastor Earl Blackburn has ordered dozens of copies of this book to give out.

01:55:59

And he has said to me many times that it is by far the best thing that he has ever read on the law and the gospel.

01:56:08

The first 12 lectures are on the law, and then the last 12 are on the gospel. And these were just messages that he preached to his congregation, and they really are brilliantly done.

01:56:21

The other book that I did by him is the book on the

01:56:26

Christian pastor. And isn't it, did, I can't remember if I, did

01:56:32

I give those to you at a real good price? Yes, you sold them to me at a very good price, and I gave them out to every pastor a number of years ago when

01:56:41

I was still on Long Island. I gave them to each pastor that attended my Christmas luncheon.

01:56:48

That's right, that's right. And those were lectures that he delivered at the

01:56:53

Boston School of Theology back in 1873. And he at the time was in his mid -70s and had been pastoring for about 50 years at that time.

01:57:05

And I think his students urged him to put those in book form, right? Yes, oh yeah, absolutely.

01:57:12

He got, just like with Wells, with David Wells, the students and professors all kind of joined together and asked him to put them into print, the lectures into print.

01:57:25

And men like him are usually quite a refreshing surprise to those who never knew that there were biblically sound

01:57:36

Anglicans and Episcopalians, because today when we look around us, the majority are either arch -liberals or Romanists.

01:57:46

And you're right. And I do say that with the caveat that there are some very good men of God out there still within the

01:57:55

Anglican and the Episcopal Church. In fact, I'm hoping to have Roger Salter on the program very soon, who's a friend of yours in the traditional

01:58:03

Anglican Church. That's right, that's exactly right. One last book

01:58:09

I'd like to feature today is entitled The Christian's Present for All Seasons, Devotional Thoughts of Eminent Divines from Joseph Hall to William Jay, selected and edited by D .A.

01:58:21

Harsha, with an introductory essay on devotion by W .B. Sprague. What's nice about this particular volume is

01:58:29

Harsha took, he culled out of the writings of numerous men, men such as Richard Stibbs and Jeremy Taylor, Robert Layton, Richard Baxter, John Owen, William Bates, John Flavel, and on and on and on,

01:58:47

Matthew Henry Thomas Wilson, Stephen Charnock, John Howe, Ezekiel Hopkins, Thomas Kent.

01:58:53

And what he did is he culled just shorter comments by these men on a variety of subjects, and it's again one of those books that you can just open anywhere and just read a paragraph here or there, and it'll just fill your soul with delight.

01:59:10

Devotional Thoughts of Eminent Divines from Joseph Hall to William Jay, The Christian's Present for All Seasons.

01:59:17

And we are out of time, and the website, if you care to order that book or any other book by Solid Ground Christian Books is solid -ground -books .com.

01:59:26

Thank you so much, Mike Gatiss, for being a guest again, and I look forward to your next visit to Iron Sharpens Iron, and I look forward to seeing you in Atlanta, Georgia, in January.

01:59:35

Yes, very excited about that, Chris. And I hope that everybody always remembers that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:41

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.