June 15, 2018 Show with Anthony Uvenio on “Starting Your Own Grass Roots Apologetics Ministry”

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 15th day of June 2018.

I'm so delighted to have back on the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program my dear friend

Anthony Eugenio, who is co -founder of New York Apologetics. He is a returning guest to the program and he is an enormous supporter of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Without folks like Anthony Eugenio, this program would not exist, so I cannot thank Anthony Eugenio enough in the human language for his support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And we are going to be discussing with Anthony today, starting your own grassroots apologetics ministry, and we're also going to be announcing two very exciting and important upcoming events here in New York, featuring

Dr. Tony Costa, who is the Professor of Apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back as my guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Anthony Eugenio. Good afternoon

Chris, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to be on the show with you. By the way, do you realize you said good after goon to me?

Are you somehow calling me a goon or something? Or is that a subliminal thing?

Oh, just wait, we've got a long time together, Matt. Well, tell our listeners about New York Apologetics.

I think that everybody should know about it, whether they live in New York or not. Sure, New York Apologetics is an apologetics organization started by myself and Nick Mitchell, who's an assistant pastor at Abundant Life Church of God in Holbrook.

And we got together and decided to start training some people up in apologetics after a debate

I had done at Long Island University, the one in Brookville.

I debated an atheist professor, Amy Karofsky, who was studying for her doctorate in philosophy, and the debate went much better than I had expected.

And Nick helped train me and asked me questions. He role -played an atheist. He's a real good one, actually. So the debate went much better than we had expected, and it parlayed into people wanting more of this type of stuff and more information on how to defend your faith to an atheist.

So we started teaching on the campuses, and it led into a website, and then it turned into a radio show, and now here we are.

Well, praise God. Yeah, praise God is right. Of course, this involves the very theme we are discussing today.

Mm -hmm. Before we go into more details about New York Apologetics and about starting your own grassroots apologetic ministry,

I want to let our listeners know right away about these two events that our mutual friend

Dr. Tony Costa, who is a professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, will be participating in.

First of all, why don't you start with the event that you are more closely linked to. It's going to be held at the

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island, New York. Yeah, Tony is going to be preaching on,

I think it's July 1st, is that Sunday before July 4th? Yes, it is July 1st.

Yeah, July 1st, and yeah, anybody who is interested in hearing him, please feel free to come.

It's Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, New York. You can look it up on Google. It's real easy to find.

It's right off of Route 112 in Medford. But from what I understand, he's going to be teaching and preaching in that service on that day.

Great. Well, if anybody does want more information, Hope Reform Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, is found at the website hopereformedli .net,

hopereformedli .net. And you can call them also at 631 -696 -5711, 631 -696 -5711.

And you can also email Pastor Rich Jensen at rjensen at hopereformedli .net,

hopereformedli .net. And I hope that as many of you as possible can participate in that event.

That's Sunday, July 1st. And the morning worship, is that 11 a .m.?

Morning worship starts at 11, yes. Sunday school starts at 945. Now, do you know if they're having either an afternoon or evening service with Tony that day?

I'm not sure. Being that it's July 4th weekend, we might have off that afternoon. But I'll let you know.

All right, great, yeah. Of course, anybody could also email me at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

The other event that Dr. Costa is involved in is the first Iron Sharpens Iron sponsored event in New York City.

I have been in attendance at many events, many Christian events in New York City, where I've had

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors, booths, and my presence was known there. But this is the first time that I will be orchestrating and hosting, along with Pastor Andy Woodard, of a new

Reformed Baptist church that's being planted in Manhattan, or has been planted, I should say, in Manhattan, called New Covenant Church.

We are cooperating together to have this exciting event with Dr.

Tony Costa at the very historic First Baptist Church of New York City, which is in the

Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's a 1 ,000 -seat historic church.

The pastors of that church in history include John Gano, who was George Washington's personal chaplain.

There is even some legend that has been circulating for quite a long time, a legend that is not completely without actual historic support.

There is a legend that John Gano, the pastor there, actually baptized by immersion

George Washington, even though George Washington remained an Anglican until he died.

And there are people that dispute it, but from what I've heard, the disputers don't really have rock -solid evidence to dispute it.

But that's not what I'm talking about here. Tony Costa will be speaking at this historic church.

We're also the great pastor, Spencer Cohn, pastored in the 19th century.

And I hope that all of you come, whether you live in New York or not, or all of you who are capable of getting to New York, it would mean a great deal to me to have as many people in the

Iron Trip and Zion Radio audience as possible to be there in New York City at the

First Baptist Church of Manhattan on Friday, July 6th, at 6 .30

p .m., and there's going to be two messages spanning the time from 6 .30 p .m.

to 10 .00 p .m. The first message will be defending the Christian faith in the postmodern world, and the second message will be the dangers of cultural

Marxism in society and the church. And also we are in the process of arranging a very small, intimate, informal pastor's luncheon, not to the grand size that I've normally had them, but any pastor is welcome to join us at 12 noon that afternoon, and we are still in the process of arranging where that will be and so on, so keep in touch with me.

But if you want to attend this event or the luncheon or both, call me, or should

I say email me at chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And we'll be giving you more information with more specific details on this event, which

I'm very excited about, and I hope you, Anthony, Eugenio, and as many folks from Hope Reform Baptist and all of those churches that are in fellowship with Hope can come out there on Friday, July 6th.

We'll certainly do our best. If you get me some information, we'll put it up on the New York Apologetics website and the

Facebook page, and we'll get it out there. Great. And, of course, that number there,

I keep saying that number, that email address that you can send in questions to Anthony Eugenio is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Well, how did you first become interested in apologetics to begin with?

I know that you were raised just as I was as a Roman Catholic. The only difference was you were from a family that used your hands a lot when you talked, but we still are both raised

Catholic. Actually, my mom used to hold a wooden spoon. It was an extension of her hand, actually, and that's why

I'm kind of disciplined today. Well, my Polish mother had a wooden spoon that she used as well.

I think it's very common in Italian households. But be that as it may, you know, growing up Catholic, I went to Catholic school my whole life, and then graciously

God intervened in my life and saved me when I was 33 years old, brought me out of Catholicism.

And with the type of mind that I had, I had to know why Catholicism was different than what

I had experienced. So I started doing research online, and I stumbled across James White's debates and Ligonier Ministries.

Both were very, very formative in my early years as a Christian, and I started watching all of James White's debates.

So that was the initial pull into apologetics. And then I met and married my wife, and her mom is a

Jehovah's Witness. Oh, I never knew that part of your story. Yeah, yeah. So that's still, unfortunately, an ongoing thing.

She's still part of the Witnesses. So I had to, you know, really study and understand what they believed and what

I believed as a Christian. And then one of my best friends is the one that's Pentecostal. So I got hit from every different side, as far as coming against traditional

Orthodox Christianity, and I had to battle myself out of that. And as I did that and looked up more and more information online and studied, it just became something that was inherent to my walk with the

Lord and eventually ended up to where we are now. And, of course, it would probably be wise for us to define apologetics because of the fact that there are a lot of new believers in our audience and some non -Christians who listen to this show.

People might think that you're apologizing for being a Christian. And sometimes when we hear

Christians attempting to represent the Christian faith in public, in the media especially, they do sound like they're apologizing for being a

Christian in this multicultural, pluralistic world that we're living in. But if you could, what is apologetics?

Sure. Christian apologists are not people who walk around saying, I'm sorry all the time. That's why God made husbands, right?

So the word apologist comes from the Greek word apologia, which comes out of 1

Peter 3 .15, set apart Christ as Lord of your heart, always be prepared to give a defense or a reason for the hope that lies within you.

So the Greek word apologia means defense or reason. So a Christian apologist is a person who gives a defense or a reason for the things we believe as Christians.

Great. Well, you have given your testimony before briefly on this show.

Why don't you, since we are talking about apologetics and it's deeply rooted in why we must tell those that we love especially, let alone strangers, but those we love especially, and those who

God has providentially put in our paths, why we must tell them that their religion, if indeed it is a false religion, we must tell them that if we truly love them and care about their never -dying souls.

And even in the body of Christ, because we love God and we love his truth, we need to gently and humbly, when appropriate, correct our brothers and sisters in Christ when they are in error, especially when it's serious error.

So tell us why you actually entered into evangelical Christianity from a

Roman Catholic background. Well, I had started dating a woman who is now my wife, and she was going to an evangelical church in Stony Brook, and I started attending with her because as I started to like her more and more,

I said, you know, I better not get too deep into this relationship and find out she's a nut. Let me go check out the church she's going to.

Actually, you know, she should have been thinking that about you. Well, she was, but that's besides the point.

It's a funny story. I should get her on one day. But as I started attending her church, you know, the pastor would get up and he would say things from the pulpit, and it was resonating in my heart, and it got to the point where after going for several weeks,

I turned to her and asked her, I said, are you telling him things about me? I mean, is this how the cult works?

Like, you know, this is how you're going to rope me in, you're telling him things about me, and he talks about it from the pulpit just to get me part of this, and she promised, no,

I'm not doing that. So at the same point in time, I was going to a gym in Smithtown, and one of the guys who

I met there was a Christian, and, you know, he would witness to me periodically as I was working out at the gym.

And then one day, like I told you, a friend of mine is a Winnis Pentecostal, and they don't believe in a trinity.

So I just happened to mention it to this guy. I said, you know, a buddy of mine is a Pentecostal, and he doesn't believe in a trinity.

He says, well, I'm Pentecostal. I believe in a trinity. Why don't you come to my house, and we'll talk about it. And I was like, oh,

I don't even know what Pentecostal is. I don't know if that was a good thing, a bad thing. So to make a long story short, the following week,

I ended up going to his house, and we went into his basement, and there was a gentleman sitting there, and the guy who invited me was there, and then all of a sudden, two guys, three guys, four guys, five or six guys started, you know, piling into this basement, and I started to feel really uncomfortable.

I said, you know, this feels very cultish. I mean, you know, if I had to get out of the basement, and it was one or two guys,

I know I could get out. Seven, it's not going to happen. So listen, this is

New York, Chris, right? So they all start sharing their testimony with me. They start sharing their faith with me, and I was, you know,

I wasn't hostile to it. I was like, wow, that's great, that's great, that's great. So finally they asked me, you know, what's going to happen to you, you know, when you die?

And I said, well, you know, I'm going to heaven. And they said, why? I said, well, I'm a good person.

So one of the gentlemen asked me to read Psalm 51. So I didn't even know where it was in my

Bible, so I penned through, I start reading, and he says, no, out loud. And I was like, uh -oh, this is the cult initiation.

They're going to get me to say that. And now I'm going to be in Psalm.

I was very uncomfortable, but I start reading it out loud, and as I'm reading the Psalm out loud, two things are going on in my head.

The first conversation is, I don't have a clue as to what these words mean.

And then the second thing I was saying to myself was, what am I going to say at the end of this thing to get me out of here?

So I actually get to the last line of the Psalm, and it says, young bulls will be slaughtered on your altar.

And it was at that moment God basically cut my heart wide open, and he said, you could do things your way and be slaughtered, or you could do things my way and live.

And I looked up at them, and I started getting emotional. I said, what do I do? And they're like, what do you mean?

I said, well, you know, what these guys didn't know was I'm a Taurus, and I had statues of bulls, pictures of bulls.

Everything in my life revolved around some kind of bull, right? In fact, everybody who knows you knows that you are always full of bull.

It's good to have Christian brothers like you. So now

God kind of turned the tables on them, because they didn't know me from a hole in the wall, and they had no idea that the last line of the

Psalm talked about bulls being slaughtered, and this would resonate with me. And this is the verse God used to just open my eyes.

So they were amazed, and they said, well, listen, pray with us, brother. So I prayed, and I just asked

God to forgive my sins. And from that moment on, my life radically changed, and I was on this fast -forward track to get all the information

I could possibly get, because I knew people were going to start asking me, what happened to you? Why are you doing this?

Why did you leave Catholicism? So I had to have answers for them. That's the type of person I am.

So that's what precipitated my studying of first theology and the

Scriptures and then these aberrant Christian beliefs as far as Jehovah's Witnesses and when the Pentecostals go.

And, you know, it's something that Catholics, including Catholics in my own family,

Catholics that I know, they will very typically respond when someone they love becomes an evangelical that they're in a cult, or they must be in a cult.

And it's funny, you know, because I've said to more than one Catholic after I left the

Catholic Church and became an evangelical, Reformed Baptist to be precise. So I'm the one who's in a cult.

You're in a religion that has a leader that sits on a throne in Rome, that believes that he's infallible when he defines teaching, a religion that forbids its leaders to marry, a religion that prays to dead people and statues and paintings, and I'm the one that's in the cult.

Okay. Now, the thing that's interesting about that is what

I think they really mean, Roman Catholics, when they hear this. I think it's typically your average nominal

Catholic that says that because they think that they have some kind of security in just the fact that their family heritage is somehow rooted in Catholicism and that they get their babies baptized and they have their babies or their young children confirmed and they go to church on Easter and Christmas and, you know, they have statues in the house and on the front lawn.

They think they have some kind of security in that. But when they see an evangelical who's actually committed his life to Christ, where he may go to church three times a week, he may, you know, refrain from doing a lot of things that used to be a major part of his life, whereas, you know, a more religious

Catholic, I'm talking about the kind of Catholic that goes to Mass every day, they might not look at an evangelical as a cult.

They would look at us perhaps as damned or as in a false religion. But I think it's your average person, because it's not even your average

Catholic that might say that. It's probably your average Protestant even who would say, I'm talking about mainline nominal

Protestant, who would say, man, this guy is a Jesus freak. He's an occult. Yeah, definitely.

And I think, you know, once God does change you and you start pursuing the things of the

Lord, it convicts the people around you. You know, when you start acting in accordance with righteousness, and, you know, my language changed immediately, the things

I watched changed immediately, the way I handled myself at work changed immediately, people started to feel uncomfortable because the things of the flesh, you know, are naturally opposed to the things of the

Spirit. So it kind of makes people feel uncomfortable, whereas before they had no problem, you know, joking with me coarsely, you know, using foul language and that kind of stuff, all of a sudden, you know, that changed, and I politely, you know, excused myself from that.

It just made them feel uncomfortable. And I think that's what happens. On top of the fact that, you know, in a

Roman Catholic's mind, he has this long line of tradition that he's supported by.

Same thing with, like, the Witnesses and these other people. And what I find is this, when you're speaking to somebody in a cult member or as a cult member, or a

Roman Catholic, let's say, they want to win you to their church. You know, the Jehovah's Witnesses want to win you to the

Watchtower. The Mormons want to win you to the Tabernacle. They want to win you to their church, whereas Evangelicals want to win you to Jesus.

They want to win you to a person, not an organization. That's a big difference.

So once you do meet Jesus, you meet the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and he changes your heart, you know, all bets are off.

Now you're in a completely different realm. It's not about an organization. It's about a person.

Amen. Well, as far as New York apologetics, so far, anyway, it seems from what

I have observed, at least for now, the primary emphasis of New York apologetics is bringing

Christianity to those who are agnostics and atheists. It's not yet, at least that I am aware of, been involved in major events that would be more either in -house debates between Christians of opposing theological views, or even other religions like Muslims, or Roman Catholics, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Mormons, or whoever.

It seems to me more targeted towards the agnostic and atheist. Am I right on that? Yeah, in the sense that any of the conferences that we had or the debates we have held at Stony Brook University and the other one at Long Island University, they were targeted towards atheists and agnostics.

However, when we're in a church setting, we are teaching them, aside from arguments against atheism, we're also teaching them about Jesus being the only way.

We're talking to them about the essential Christian doctrines, not the non -essential ones.

We're not going to bring up issues of God's free sovereign grace, or the gifts of the

Spirit, or anything like that, because when we're in a church, we're there to equip them with the information they need to defend

Christianity. It's the pastor's job at that point to teach them whatever doctrine that that particular church holds.

We're not going to start dividing over those things. I mean, at a point in time, once the

United States is fully Christian, yeah, then let's start going. And I don't mean to minimize it.

I mean, those things are very important. Nick and I hold several different views, and we go over those over and over and over again, and we knock heads together.

Nick Mitchell, who you mentioned earlier, who co -founded it. Yes, absolutely. And he's a sharp thinker.

He's a deep thinker. So iron sharpens iron. That's why we're on this radio show, right? So he sharpens me,

I sharpen him, and we join together for the sake of the

Gospel. The Gospel he preaches and the Gospel I preach are the same thing. Repent and believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Now, how someone gets into Jesus is where him and I may see things differently, but it's the same

Gospel. You have to turn from your sins. You have to ask God for mercy and trust in him as your

Savior. So, you know, I think it was Augustine says, in the essentials unity, in the nonessentials liberty, and in all things charity, and that's what we hold to.

Yeah, only a New York former Catholic would say Augustine. Augustine, sorry.

Well, I know both are apparently acceptable pronunciations. The thing about apologetics ministries, and we're talking about starting your own apologetics ministry, grassroots apologetics ministry, in my mind, because in a sense that's what

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is, the way that I think someone listening, if they are interested in starting an apologetics ministry, is there are different levels and different kinds,

I guess, of ministries that could be developed. But I think that while almost anybody who has the resources could start an apologetics ministry, they have to be very careful about how they themselves are involved in it.

For instance, if you have some businessman who is a new Christian, and he's got a lot of finances, he's got a lot of contacts, he's got a lot of resources, and he says, you know something,

I want to put my time and efforts into an apologetics ministry because I'm so fascinated by theology,

I'm so on fire for my new faith. But he must recognize that he is not the person necessarily, well, especially if he is a new

Christian, he's definitely not the person to be the one who is the apologist. To give you an example, as long as I've been a

Christian, I've been a Christian since the 80s, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has always been a platform for greater minds than myself to be the ones defending and explaining and defining and teaching the faith, or debating over it, or what have you.

I am not the Bible answer man, nor could I ever claim to be a Bible answer man.

I don't believe that I am scholarly enough or knowledgeable enough to be in that realm.

But I know that you, for instance, though, that you definitely did your homework when

I saw you debate that female professor. What was the theme on that again?

It was a while ago. It's Does God Exist. Yeah, right. You did a really good job and you did your homework.

So that's an important thing that if someone especially is going to be involved in the apologetic teaching, as the

Bible tells us that we're not supposed to lay hands suddenly on a novice, people have to be very careful in handling this realm, don't they?

They have to be very cautious and they have to realize where their gifts are in the relationship to how this apologetics ministry would run, and they should also be having the support of actual men in ministry, pastors and so on, who are encouraging them in this way, don't you think?

Oh, certainly. I think it's a two -pronged approach.

First of all, I wouldn't recommend that anybody who just decided, hey, I want to be an apologist to go and do a debate. In fact, the way

I got into that debate was I was running a Bible study at my house on Sunday nights and one of the girls who was coming went to that college,

C .W. Post, oh no, Cornell University, Brookville, sorry, and she says, hey, would you be interested in doing a bit of a debate?

So Anthony in his big mouth said, yeah, sure, I'll debate somebody, no problem. And then she set it up and I was like, uh -oh, now my mouth is cut in checks that my body can't cash here,

I better start studying. So I had the basics down and I knew I could maneuver, but it took a lot of effort.

And honestly, Chris, the debate went much better than I expected, and it was truly by the grace of God.

I'm not a scholar. I don't even have a degree in any kind of ministry or reorganization or anything like that.

So it was truly the grace of God. But what I do, the second half of this is

I do want to say this. If you're a Christian, if you are a Christian, you are an apologist, whether you know it or not.

That's right. You're just a good one or a bad one. Exactly. So it's definitely incumbent upon everyone to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within them.

Now, I'm going to give you one of my secrets. It's something that I think everybody should...

I got the best book available for apologetics, and you have to read it. It's called the

Bible. And if you read this book, this is going to train you to see the world through a different set of lenses.

This is going to train you to see the world through Christian eyes, and it's going to bring the world to life to you.

So everything begins and ends with the Scriptures. Now, obviously there's plenty of other resources that can help train you and fine -tune you and teach you the arguments and the methods.

There's several different methods that you can use as an apologist. So what I would suggest is if you feel a hunger for this type of stuff, start looking online.

You can start at our website, www .NewYorkApologetics .com. We have a wealth of resources there.

In fact, we link to a lot of other people's websites like Greg Koekel's Stand to Reason, Frank Turek's Cross -Examine,

Alpha and Omega Ministries, James White, Matt Flick, CARMS, the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.

We have a lot of different guys on our website that you can learn from. Plus our blog. We're constantly putting up new articles on the blog.

In fact, one of the new things that we're going to be starting is called the New York Apologetics Network.

And what it's designed to do is bring together other Christian apologists in New York State who have obviously a heart for apologetics and want to teach and train the youth to make a defense of Christianity.

We're going to get all of them together and start putting all of their stuff up on our website.

We're going to collaborate together and start having them and us disciple new apologists.

There's a guy by the name of Jay Warner Wallace. And he's a great guy.

I've come to know him through the years and going down to Course -Examine Instructor's Academy in North Carolina.

Wasn't he involved in law enforcement or something before he became an apologist? Oh, yeah. He was a detective for 20 -something years and ends up becoming a cold case homicide detective.

That's right. Yeah, and he's the only cold case homicide detective to solve all the cases that he's been given.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. He's solved every single one that he's been on. He's a phenomenal guy.

And one of the things that he teaches other apologists is this. He said, we don't need another million -dollar apologist.

What we need is a million one -dollar apologist. In other words, if we can get the basics into the hearts and minds of all of the students and train them to be one -dollar apologists, well, now we have something going.

Now they can begin to build on the foundation that they have. But, you know, everybody looks at the big guys like, you know,

Ravi Zacharias and Lee Strobel and, you know, those type of guys and say, oh, I could never be that. And in many cases you can't.

But that's fine. God didn't design you to be that. He designed you to be you, to take your talents, gifts, and abilities and use them in the area that he's planted you.

Again, another great apologist who was interviewed on your show, he says, bloom where you're planted.

Take the information you have and affect the people around you, your immediate family, of course, the people at your work.

Any of the people or the sphere of influence that you have, those are the people you start talking to first. And as you start talking to them, they're going to come back at you with questions, maybe questions you can't answer.

And that's okay, because now you go home, you look up answers, you study what it is they were talking about, and then you can come back to them with an answer.

And we have to go to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

USA. And please only remain anonymous if you're asking about a personal and private matter.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the Pastor's Study every

Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, our guest today is

Anthony Uvino, co -founder of New York Apologetics, and we are discussing starting your own grassroots apologetics ministry, and we are also announcing two upcoming

New York events featuring Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, that we will repeat the information for during the remainder of the program.

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

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who has a question, Anthony.

B .B. says, Having hindsight now as a more mature

Christian, what would you have done differently when you became a born -again

Christian in regard to breaking the news to your Roman Catholic family? Are there any mistakes that you made that we can learn from?

Were you overly harsh, or were you overly timid, or were there just some kind of problems that occurred in the manner with which you informed your family of your departure from Roman Catholicism and entering into biblical truth?

That's a great question. In my situation, my family was nominally

Catholic, so I had sat down with my mom and my dad, actually before I got married, and just explained to them what was happening and why

I wasn't getting married in a Roman Catholic church, and they actually agreed with me and sensed the hypocrisy that they've experienced in the

Catholic church with regards to my grandma's funeral and just several different things. The Catholic church had turned them off to begin with, so me becoming a

Christian and starting to bring a new perspective on things wasn't as drastic as it might be in other families.

So I was able to sit down with them and explain where I was coming from and why they needed to hear the gospel and needed to know

Jesus, and thankfully they ended up going to the church that I was going to at the time, and still do.

Oh, wow. Yeah, they've made professions of faith, so I'm blessed in that sense.

My brother, he's been coming to Bible study at my house for the past nine months, and now he's bringing his son, and although he's not saved yet, he's seeking after God.

He hasn't missed a day, so I know God's doing something in his heart. I would say this, though.

There were some friends of mine who, again, they were nominally Catholic, but opposed what

I was doing. They saw it was being, betraying the Catholic Church. What I could have done is been a little bit more gentle in the way

I handled myself with them, and I think it's Hank Hanegraaff who says you want to bring light, not heat, to the conversation.

So I could have done a better job in explaining why I left the Catholic Church and what it is that I now hold to be true.

I would suggest this. If you're going to break it to your Roman Catholic friends and family or whoever it is, be gentle.

Direct the sin issue toward yourself. I recognize that I was a sinner. I lied.

I stole. I used God's name in vain. I looked with lust. I had hateful, prejudiced thoughts in my heart towards other people.

Based on the Ten Commandments, I was guilty before God, and I needed a Savior. Just let it sit there.

Maybe they'll ask you, well, what about me? One thing you could just ask them, have you ever lied? Have you ever used

God's name in vain? Based on God's law, you're a sinner, too, and you need a Savior. If you could get to Heaven by doing good things, why would

God have to sacrifice His Son? So for my family, it wasn't a tremendous shock because they were nominal

Catholics, and thankfully they're going to church now. You mentioned

Hank Hanegraaff saying that you need to bring more light than heat into the conversation. Well, now

Hank Hanegraaff is bringing incense and candles and icons into the conversation because he's converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

When I was listening to him, it was a different story. Right. It is a very strange turn of events in his life.

What's stranger is that he says he really hasn't changed anything, which really bothers me when he says that.

We have another listener who is asking, I guess, somewhat of a related question about your wife.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, how did your wife's family handle her becoming a born -again believer when her family is from a

Jehovah's Witness background? Now, is it just her mother, or is it her whole family? Well, her mom and dad are divorced, and she was living with her mom.

Her brother and her mom lived together, and her mom was going through a real difficult time. She was going to Roman Catholic Church at the time, and two

Witnesses knocked on the door, and they were able to answer questions for her that she had that the

Roman Catholic Church couldn't. So she started going to, and this is my mother -in -law, not my wife, she started going to Kingdom Hall and got indoctrinated, and she would start now telling her daughter and her son how they needed to come.

They never did. My wife ended up going to several different counselors.

One of them happened to be a Christian counselor and pointed her to a church, a Christian church.

So she started going to that Christian church and got saved in a Christian church. So she knew that Jehovah's Witnesses was not the right way to go and would talk to her mom about it, but again, she never had, she was never able to give an answer for the hope that lied within her.

And then when she met me and I became a Christian and I started studying these things, she started seeing how

I was answering her mom, and now she's dived in and started to study that and learn how to talk to her mom also.

So it wasn't a situation where she had to break the news to them.

They were going in two different directions from the get -go. I've got to introduce you and your wife to a friend of mine.

She and her husband live in Staten Island. Deborah Antignano and her husband

Sal, they were Jehovah's Witnesses. They are from Italian Catholic backgrounds.

They became Jehovah's Witnesses and they spent years with the

Jehovah's Witnesses. And just before they were baptized, the

Lord broke through their hearts of stone and gave them hearts of flesh. Praise God. But Deborah is also a remarkably blessed and talented singer.

And she sang at one of Dr. James White's speaking engagements on Long Island. But she has sung all over the place, but I will have to give you her contact information because she might be of help to your wife and communicating, even though she was in the reverse situation.

She was a former Catholic who became a Jehovah's Witness. But still, she would have some,

I'm sure, some help too. Yeah, and you mentioned Dr.

White. Please send him my regards and thank him because he was very, very instrumental in discipling me from afar in listening to his debates and his online presence.

I mean, back then when I was searching him out, searching out answers on YouTube, I came across his website and although YouTube wasn't out at the time, he had lots of articles online that I would read and then

I bought, gosh, it had to be, it seemed like a hundred videotapes of his debates and cassettes and I would listen to him constantly.

So without him even knowing, I mean, he helped me give an answer to Catholics and substantiate me leaving the

Roman Catholic Church. And in a funny sort of way, I learned theology through him because as I'm listening to him and the way he's answering these people and leaving their mouth shut,

I was like, wow, you know, he's coming from this at a much different angle than most other people that I hear.

Obviously then I came to an understanding of Reformed theology. So just tell him thank you when you talk to him.

By the way, were you ever in the audience of any of those debates that I orchestrated for over a decade on Long Island with Dr.

White? Yes, I was at two of them at the Huntington townhouse. One was on the authority of Scripture with, oh,

I forget the Catholic guy. Let's see. Well, I'll list the debates that I had on Long Island.

I had Patrick Madrid. I've had Robert St. Genes. I've had

Jerry Matitix. I've had, let's see, Peter Stravinskis.

I've watched all those, but I wasn't there. Okay, I'll have to, oh, Father Mitch Pacwa perhaps?

Nope, nope. The other one was, can a non -Christian enter heaven?

Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, and oh gosh, Dr. White did a number on that one. Yeah, that was probably one of his more vividly obvious slam dunks, although they all were on some level.

Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. So he was very instrumental in me understanding theology.

Same thing with Ligonier Ministries and R .C. Sproul. That's a tremendous resource. Boy, I mean, what a huge loss for Dr.

Sproul to pass on, but he's left a legacy and a body of work that so many people are blessed by. Yes, he was a very prolific writer, and he's got a lot of things in print and on DVD and CD and so on.

I just want to give my friend Debra Antignano a shout -out. Her website is matteroftheheart .net,

matteroftheheart .net, and you can hear her singing, and you can see an interview she did on CBN giving her testimony.

Let's see, we have Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

Christian says, You mentioned before that your family didn't take your conversion to evangelical

Christianity too hard because they were nominal. I recognize that that is your experience, and perhaps it is the experience of many, but I have found that even the most nominal or the least committed of Roman Catholics or even members of other religions that have just a cursory understanding of those religions and a nominal relationship to them, they can become just as hostile to a family member converting as one who is deeply rooted in the religion.

Have you found that outside of your own experience to be true? Yes, I know that to be true, not with my own experience.

My family handled it very well because they were so delighted to see a raving alcoholic and somebody with very dangerous behavioral patterns become a

Christian and put that aside and repent of it. So there was a little bit of a different reaction because of that by my

Catholic family. But I have seen people whose

Catholic families and Jewish families react in outrage when someone becomes an actual true born -again believer because they believe it is a betrayal of how they were raised, even if they were not raised in some kind of a very religious home.

They just view it as a betrayal nonetheless. Absolutely. I mean, this is the case,

I would say, in just about all people's situations. There are going to be the rare times when people are happy that you've been delivered from alcoholism and God changed the way you live, and they're going to see that and they're going to say, wow, that's terrific.

If you didn't have an alcohol problem and you did this, they would say, what are you doing?

This is crazy. You're joining the cult or something like that. I think, again, I'd like to give a theological answer.

There's only two seeds in this world, two offspring. You're either the seed of the woman or the seed of the serpent. And that battle is going to rage on until the end of time, until he comes back.

And the seed of the serpent gets upset when someone is adopted into the family of God and born of his spirit.

So that's going to be, again, the natural reaction of the flesh, is to oppose the things of the spirit.

The things of the spirit are spiritually discerned, and the man of the flesh cannot know them. In the flesh, no one is going to submit to God's law.

They just don't want it. It repulses them. So when someone becomes a

Christian, we should actually expect that this is going to be the natural reaction. And that's why, at that point, it's so important that we be able to give them answers for why we believe what they believe and use the law effectively to show them that they're sinners in need of a

Savior also. Yes, and we have to go to our midway break. It's a longer -than -normal break. It's 12 minutes because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a 12 -minute break so they can air their own public service announcements and other things.

So please be patient as we take this elongated break. Take this time to write your questions for Anthony Eugenio. Also, take this time to write down the information that our advertisers provide so that you can properly patronize them and not only help them, but in doing so, when you help our advertisers remain in business or remain in existence, you are going to help

Iron Sharpens Iron remain in existence since they support us with their advertising dollars.

So please patronize our advertisers as much as you can. And don't go away. We'll be right back.

Our email address is ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We'll be right back,

God willing, with Anthony Eugenio. Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do, than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

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

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I would like to introduce you to my good friends

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That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

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I think that's the only way you can mention Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, by doing that on their website.

Hopefully they'll make it a lot easier for you to do that when you're ordering online.

But that's for another day and another time for me to get that accomplished there.

Also, I have just a few more very important announcements to make in regard to upcoming events.

First of all, as we have mentioned before, Dr. Tony Costa, who is the

Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Canada, he is going to be preaching at the

Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island on July 1st at their morning worship service.

And if you want more details about that, you can go to hopereformedli .net, and LI stands for Long Island, hopereformedli .net,

you can also call 631 -696 -5711, 631 -696 -5711.

And just about a week later, on Friday the 6th of July at 6 .30pm,

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, in cooperation with New Covenant Church of New York City, are going to be hosting an evening of lectures by Dr.

Tony Costa. And the lectures include defending the

Christian faith in the post -modern world, and also the dangers of cultural

Marxism in society and the Church. That's going to be Friday, July 6th, starting at 6 .30pm.

And the event is actually going to be held at the First Baptist Church of Manhattan, on the

Upper West Side of Manhattan, on the corner of 79th Street and Broadway.

And if you'd like more information, you can email me at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we are also looking for local pastors who are interested in having lunch with Dr.

Costa that afternoon for an informal gathering of fellowship and lunch, and also for Dr.

Costa to give some counsel about some very controversial and timely things going on in the

Church and in society, that he can, I'm sure, be of great help to provide information, updated details, and counsel.

So, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Tony Costa event in the subject line, and I'd be more than happy to help you out.

Then, coming up after that, in August, which is just around the corner as well,

Fellowship Conference New England is being held at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine.

And the speakers at this event include Pastor Tim Conway of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas, my dear friend

Pastor Mac Tomlinson, who is an author, a book editor, and Bible publisher, and pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, Pastor Jesse Barrington, who is going to be my guest coming up on Tuesday, June 26th.

Pastor Jesse Barrington is the pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, which is actually the sister church of Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida, whose radio station,

Grace Life Radio, airs Iron Trumpet and Iron Radio every day, Monday through Friday, in a rerun form.

They air it twice a day, actually, in both morning and evening drive. My friend, Pastor Nate Pickowitz, who's also an author and pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and Ironworks, New Hampshire, and he's going to be my guest,

God willing, on Thursday, the 28th of June. So, all these men will be speaking at the

Fellowship Conference New England. For more details, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

Please tell the folks there that you heard about the event from Chris Arns and Iron Trumpet and Iron Radio.

Then, in November, from the 9th through the 10th, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

The theme is The Glory of the Cross. If you'd like to register, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.

That's November 9th through the 10th in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. Please tell the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about this event from Chris Arns and Iron Trumpet and Iron Radio.

Then we have an event that has become one of my very favorite events of all time that I attend and have in an

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth there. It is the G3 Conference.

If you've never been to a G3 Conference, you've got to make every effort to be there, especially since you have plenty of advance notice now.

It is being held from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

The theme is The Mission of God, A Biblical Understanding of Missions.

The roster that they have, it's always a very long and impressive roster. Some of the speakers are

Paul Washer, John Piper, David Platt, Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson of John MacArthur's Grace to You Ministries, Josh Bice, who is the founder of the

G3 Conference. By the way, that stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory, in case you're wondering. Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio.

Anthony Mathenia, who happens to be Paul Washer's pastor and a really talented speaker. And Stephen Nichols, who's the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C.

Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. And more. So if you'd like to register for this event, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com, and not only can you register there as a tender, being in the audience, you can do the same thing that I'm doing.

You can man your own exhibitors booth at the G3 Conference. They're expecting over 4 ,000 people, so it's money well spent.

And I hope that you can get a booth and get one near to me to promote either your business or your church or your parachurch ministry.

Whatever it is that you do that you believe serves the body of Christ, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com, and register for an exhibitors booth as well. Last but not least, it's my least favorite part of the program, where I have to beg you for money.

I hate doing it, but it needs to be done if we are to remain on the air. If you love the show, you listen to it every day, you share the

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Well, then please consider donating to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I know that since we average about 35 ,000 people downloading our show every month, that there's a lot of people out there who seem to love the show, but I would hope that eventually someday there would be an equal number of people donating.

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So please email me at chrisarensen at gmail .com if you're having trouble finding a church. And if you would like to advertise with us, whether it's your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your professional practice, your special event, send me an email to chrisarensen at gmail .com.

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chrisarensen at gmail .com with advertising in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send a question to Anthony Eugenio, the co -founder of New York Apologetics on starting your own grassroots apologetics ministry.

That's chrisarensen at gmail .com. And we do have an anonymous listener. And she says,

Hi Chris, I am really glad to learn of your guest's website. Is there info there to address the

Hebrew Roots Movement? I have friends who are former Pentecostals and Assemblies of God and Nazarene Methodist members who have switched to this.

I fear for their salvation now. One woman is in hospice. Could you ask if there are any things your guest might know to say to help her snap out of this before it's too late?

And also, could you ask, regarding ecumenical groups, what are the true essentials when there are

Catholics involved who want to teach? Is there a resource I can go to for this that spells out the essentials versus the non -essentials?

I do already plan to use your guest's website soon, now that I know of it. Well, thank you, anonymous.

I have just started hearing about the Hebrew Roots Movement.

And since I've had several people ask me about it, I think that that's a providential thing that God is using to tell me

I have to find somebody who's an expert on it and do a show on it, because I know nothing about it. Do you know anything about the

Hebrew Roots Movement, Anthony? Sure, yes. Actually, not directly on our website, but if you do go to our website, you can click over to Dr.

White's website, aomin .org. He's had several discussions with Hebrew Roots people.

Is it the Hebrew Roots? Is that the same as the black Israelites? Oh, no, that's what

I was thinking. You're right. Because I don't know if they're the same thing. They might be, I just don't know.

They're similar, but they're not the same. They're similar, but they're not the same. We don't have anything up specifically on our website with regards to that, but on Facebook there is a

Hebrew Roots group that you can join. You don't mean to join the cult.

No, no, no, I'm joking. While you're at it, you can join the Jehovah's Witnesses and the

Mormons if you want. You would join that group, and they will give you information with regards to it.

But I tell you what, since I know that you're looking for that type of information, I will get several articles and videos, and I will make a special blog post with that information on it and create a resource that she can go and look that stuff up in.

And why don't you give her, I forget, are you giving your email address out? Sure, it's anthony at newyorkapologetics .com.

And you spell out the New York, right? It's not abbreviated. Right, N -E -W -Y -O -R -K -A -P -O -L -O -G -E -T -I -C -S.

If she has specific questions, she can send them to me, I'll do my best to answer them, and then I'll put up a blog post with all information with regards to the

Hebrew Roots Movement. Great. That's anthony at newyorkapologetics .com.

Right. And you spell out New York in two words. Yes, yes. No space. Also, I wanted to announce

August 11th at Word of Truth Church, Pastor Bruce Bennett is going to be debating

Matthew Luke Broderick on Mary, Sinless Perpetual Virgin or Sinner Saved by Grace.

So if she wants to come out to that and be a part of that, that starts at 6 .30 p .m. Again, it's

August 11th, 2018. She can go on, again, Facebook.

She can type in Bruce Bennett and pull up his Facebook page, or Bine, because we're going to be putting up flyers, because that's coming up in a month or two.

Now, one of the things that she said that would basically be universal, it doesn't have to be about the

Hebrew Roots Movement, she says, let's see, is there any things your guest might know to help this woman who's involved in Hebrew Roots snap out of this before it's too late?

Well, obviously, Anthony, as you know, we are both believers in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, so we can only plant and water seeds and pray that God gives an increase.

No human can snap somebody out of anything before they die. But do you have any suggestions about a cult member in general?

My thought immediately is how no one can deserve heaven by what they do, and that they have to trust in Christ alone and rest in His sacrifice only as their only hope of eternal life, but anything you have to add to that?

Yeah, I mean, the first and foremost thing that we have to tell anybody who's on their deathbed is the gospel.

You know, you're going to stand before God, and you're going to have to give an account of your life. Do you think you've done enough up until this point in your life to escape the flames of hell?

Are you good enough, based on the Ten Commandments, to get in? And the answer is no. Now, one of the things that I love about the

Scriptures is in the culmination of Jesus' ministry is the cross.

That's central. The cross and the resurrection are central to Christianity. At the cross, here's a beautiful picture of a thief on the left and a thief on the right.

One thief looks at Jesus and says, Hey, you're God! Get us down from here! Let's go! What are we doing?

Stop fooling around! The other thief recognizes... That was the New York translation.

The AUV! You don't have the AUV! Sorry. Go ahead,

I'm sorry. At the right time, at the wrong time, you did this to me.

So the other thief on the cross, he recognizes that he's a sinner. You there?

Oh yeah, yeah. He recognizes that he's a sinner. And he recognizes that he's on that cross because he broke the law.

This is one of the thieves there. One of the thieves, right. And he looks to Jesus and he says,

Remember me when you come into your kingdom. He acknowledged Jesus as Lord. He says,

Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus says, Today you will be with me in paradise. The thief repented, looked to Jesus as his

Savior, and he was saved. There was nothing that he could do. His hands were nailed to a cross.

His feet were nailed to the post. He was not able to do any works. Yet he exercised faith in Christ and he was saved.

And that's exactly what I would tell to this woman who's on her deathbed. Not able to do anything good, meritorious in God's sight.

You're going to stand before God and have to give an account of your life. You will be judged based on that.

You need a Savior. Turn to Jesus, repent, and trust in him for your salvation. And the evidence that this was quite a miraculous occurrence is that the thief that asked

Christ to remember him was also initially mocking Christ. People have seen an abbreviated or wrong version in some movies and TV specials because they act as if the one thief was always the nice and kind and compassionate thief and the other was the evil and wicked.

They were both mocking Christ. And then eventually, obviously, the

Lord himself changed that thief's heart because not only did he turn to Christ, he also rebuked the other thief.

Yes, excellent point. And as far as could you ask your guest regarding ecumenical groups, what are the true essentials when there are

Catholics involved who want to teach? I personally would never—well,

I don't know if I would never— well, let me put it this way. I would never be a member of a group or organization that had a

Roman Catholic teaching, but I might visit just so I can have my input later at some point, even when

I'm mingling around with people. But to be a member of an organization where I am under the teaching of a

Roman Catholic, I wouldn't do it. But if you could respond the way you would like to respond.

Sure. Like you, Chris, it would be very difficult for me to co -labor with a

Roman Catholic when we disagree on the gospel. Now, we're united on the fact that Jesus is

God, he's deity, he's God in the flesh. We're united on the trinity. We're united on the fact that there's a heaven and a hell and a judgment.

What we're not united on is how someone gets saved. We're not united on salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

When your gospel includes some form of works that merit salvation, which is what the

Catholic catechism says, then you do not hold to the gospel. The gospel is not according to works.

Now, works are the natural byproduct of true faith in Christ. True works would follow.

The same way when you light a candle, there's going to be light and heat that comes from that candle. If no light and no heat comes from that candle, you know that there's not a flame there.

So those works point to the evidence that you're saved. They're not the basis by which you're saved.

And from what I understand in Roman Catholic theology, there's some trust in those works to get you to heaven.

That is a required belief, according to the Council of Trent. That same council, that 16th century council, which is still officially binding, no matter what

Pope Francis may say and what modern Catholics may say, we are anathematized, accursed to hell, if we believe that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from works.

We are anathematized. In fact, it's funny that you said that. That's Canon 9 of the

Trent, the Canon of Trent. And what I'm trying to do right now is set up a debate between Tony Costa and Tim Staples.

The Catholic guy wanted to call the debate justification by faith alone, have

Tony affirm and Tim Staples deny, but I said, no, let's do Canon 9 of the

Council of Trent, because Canon 9 says, if anyone says you're justified by faith alone, apart from your works, let him be anathema.

I said, you have Tim Staples affirm, and we'll have Tony Costa deny. And now he's trying to worm his way out of that, because he knows he's going to have to bear the burden of proof of that, and he's not going to be able to do it.

Right, so you've got to be very careful about that, because that is the Catholic answers approach, where they want the

Protestant to defend something that can be easily misunderstood by other evangelicals, and they don't want to defend something that, on its surface even, looks like a horrifying or negative thing to believe in.

You've got to be very careful with that, and I would put the burden on them to defend something.

Yeah, listen, this is New York apologetics. We're not letting them get away with it. They're not going to sneak that one by me, don't worry.

Yeah, in fact, even though I enjoyed being at the debate that James White had in Georgia with the…

Oh, Trent Horn. Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed being there, but they purposely insisted on Dr.

White defending a belief that is not universally agreed upon by evangelicals.

I believe it was whether or not a true Christian could lose salvation, and even though we as Calvinists affirm that if you are truly born again, you cannot, there are a lot of evangelicals who really play to the accusations of Rome that if you believe in this, that means you believe you could live like the devil your whole life and still go to heaven, which is something that, obviously, we who are

Reformed reject wholeheartedly. Yes. But anyway, it is annoying that Catholics very often today, the apologists, don't want to defend things that have controversial titles to them, even though they know that their church believes and teaches those things.

Yeah, no, that's why I'm holding his feet to the fire. By the way, the two guys who debated James White, the debate that I was at at the

Huntington Townhouse, first was Gary Machuda. Oh yeah, that was on the Apocrypha. Yes, and the next one was

Bill Rutledge. So those were the two guys, and he did a… Bill Rutland, I think his name was.

Rutland, right, that's right. Bill Rutland, right. And going back to our guest's question about ecumenism, even though we can have friendships and be involved in different kinds of activities with Catholics and others who deny our gospel, the biblical gospel, as far as ecumenism, wouldn't you agree we cannot have ecumenism with a

Catholic that is faithful to what Rome actually stands for, on the gospel?

Absolutely, and this was an issue, I think, two years ago. I forget what the guy's name was, but he's part of the

New Apostolic Reformation. He rented out the L .A. Stadium, and he had

Catholics up on the podium with him, and he was kissing their feet, saying that they're brothers in Christ with us.

And when you compromise on the gospel and add works to it or add anything but faith alone to the gospel, now you're in a completely different realm, and we cannot co -labor with them.

We cannot affirm their salvation because of that. I mean, it's not biblical.

It goes against the biblical command. Right, James White is a very strong opponent, to put it mildly, of abortion, as any

Christian with a heart beating with the Holy Spirit should be, very adamantly opposed to abortion.

But years ago, he had to leave a pro -life group, voluntarily, that is, because they said to him that he could not evangelize the

Roman Catholics involved in the group, nor could he correct them or lovingly rebuke them when they were praying to Mary or praying on rosary beads.

So, I mean, this is something that we have to be very careful about, and it's because of the fact that we love God and even love our

Catholic friends that we would not want to remain silent on these things. And so, it's a very important matter, and it's unfortunately becoming more and more a relic or an antiquated idea of the past that would say that we cannot have ecumenical relations with Roman Catholics, when it's so disturbing to see even some of the most famous of conservative evangelicals.

I'm not saying that Rick Warren is among the most conservative evangelicals, but he is considered an evangelical, and he's a very popular author and speaker amongst evangelicals, and he calls

Pope Francis his pope. Oh, gosh. So, I mean, this is just insane.

But we are running out of time. This is our last commercial break. If you'd like to join us on the air, please do it now or forever.

Hold your peace. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

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We'll be right back with Anthony Uvino of New York Apologetics. Hi, I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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We are now back with Anthony Uvino, the co -founder of New York Apologetics.

We are discussing starting your own grassroots apologetics ministry. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, please do it now or forever hold your peace because we're almost out of time.

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com ChrisArnzen at gmail .com Give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com We have a listener,

Harrison, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

And Harrison says, while the contrast is a much more stark situation when you have

Roman Catholics being compared with evangelical, Bible -believing Christians, the situation is obviously more difficult when you are trying to maintain love and fellowship with those brothers in Christ within evangelicalism that are not within your theological circles, but at the same time, you don't want to either condone their error or you don't want to be overly harsh and unloving about it.

Can you have any suggestions you might give on a balanced way to approach this?

Sure. In fact, I would point to the relationship between James White and Michael Brown.

These are two guys who are at the top of their game. They're both scholars. They love each other. They're committed

Christians. Obviously, James White holds to Reformed theology. Michael Brown is an

Arminian. And these guys get along together. They work together. They co -labor together. And they debate one another because they understand that these things, the things of God, are of utmost importance.

Yeah, they don't gloss over the differences. No, no, definitely not. And the thing I love about New York apologetics, it's almost the same thing with me and Nick.

We're the James White, Mike Brown of New York. Only we're a hundred pounds heavier and a hundred IQ points lighter.

We have to remember that the main thing is the main thing. The main thing is the gospel. Now, are those other matters important?

Absolutely. I would die on that hill. However, what's of central importance is

Jesus Christ, Him crucified, Him rising from the dead. And you being judged before God, you need to know the gospel.

I don't want to say everything else is peripheral because it's not. Those are important matters. But for the sake of the gospel, we get along together.

In fact, the Scripture says, this is how they'll know that you're my disciples, that you love one another.

And love is not the type of thing that you see in these romantic comedies. Love is a decision to put someone else before yourself and accept them for who they are.

My brother Nick, he's a brother in Christ. Mike Brown, he's a brother in Christ.

James White, brother in Christ. We're collaborating for the sake of the gospel. And that's what's utmost and central.

And if I could, I'd just like to give some people a word of encouragement about starting a grassroots apologetics organization.

I'm not a scholar. As you can tell by the way I speak, I'm from New York. There's nothing highfalutin about me whatsoever.

However, I'm blooming where I'm planted. God planted me on Long Island. He surrounded me with certain people who are kind of like me.

So I'm able to witness to them and get through to them. There's also another woman you may have heard of.

Her name is Natasha Crane. And she was just a regular mom. She had two kids. She was wondering, how am

I going to teach my kids about God? Her children started asking her deep questions about God.

So she got online. She started equipping herself with the information to answer her children.

She started a blog called ChristianMomThoughts .com She ends up writing a book talking with your kids about God.

Now she's speaking at conferences across the country. So here's a mom who took a need that her family had, researched the information, started a blog, wrote a book, and now is speaking at conferences and making a difference.

She just started something called Grassroots Apologetics for Parents. Wow. So if you're a parent and you're looking for answers for your kids or for yourself, go onto Facebook, type in Grassroots Apologetics for Parents.

You'll pull up a group. You'll join that group and you'll start getting the answers you need and you'll get the information you need to start a little chapter in your area.

There's a gentleman by the name of Jay Mendenhall. And what he did, he went for all 50 states, he set up Facebook pages called

Apologetics for and then the name of the state. So there's Apologetics Network, I'm sorry,

New York Apologetics Network, Colorado Apologetics Network, Florida Apologetics Network.

He's got all of those set up for each state so that people can get on, join the group, and link up with like -minded people who are looking to defend the

Christian faith. They set up lunches, they set up meetings at coffee houses, they set up gatherings just to get together and talk about the arguments and see how they can make a difference in their communities and in their families.

So I would encourage anyone who has an interest in this to get online, get on Facebook. If you don't like Facebook, buy books, read, start a blog.

It's so easy on WordPress to start a blog. And if you do start a blog, send me an email,

I'll hook you up to our blog. We'll post your stuff as long as we're like -minded. We'll post your stuff up on our blog to get you some more exposure.

Well, while you're at it, why don't you put a link to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio on your website? I really thought we did have that.

Maybe you do. I was kind of just joking, but maybe you do. I think we did.

That just goes to show you we'll put anybody up there. I'm kidding.

You know I'm kidding with you. Yes, well, I mean, there is some truth behind that. But anyway, one thing that I'm hoping and I'm pretty certain you would agree with me though, while you're giving this counsel that everybody and anybody who has a passion for truth and resources to do it, even though they might not have a lot of resources, they might not be rich or even, you know, they might not have a lot of money, upper middle class, but in this day and age, it's a lot easier with the internet to do things and a lot more affordable and so on.

But I'm sure you would agree with me that people have to be extremely careful when they begin to speak about other people's beliefs.

There seems to be an attitude amongst many evangelicals and fundamentalists that as long as somebody is from what may be considered by the majority of Christians historically as a false religion, there seems to be some kind of idea that they have a license, therefore, to not be meticulously careful and truthful when speaking about those groups.

They seem to think that sloppiness in their mockery of other people of different beliefs is okay because those people are teaching a lie.

But the thing is, bearing false witness against your neighbor, which is one of the prohibitions in the

Ten Commandments, that is true even if you are saying something untruthful about an evil person.

Bearing false witness against your neighbor is not just meant that you can't say anything untruthful about wonderful people or your brothers in Christ.

It's okay with anybody. As I have said in the past, if you are a witness to a murder and you're in a court testifying on behalf of the prosecution and you know that the person on trial committed one murder because you saw the murder with your own eyes, you were present, you were an eyewitness, it is still bearing false witness if you say you saw him commit two murders.

Even though this person is an evil person, God forbids this slandering.

So we have to be very careful. We can't be sloppy when we are approaching an apologetics ministry, forming one.

I wouldn't say starting a blog would be an apologetics ministry per se, but here are two things

I would say. Number one, speak with your pastor. Get his input on it.

Get his blessing to do it. Be mentored by him. In addition to your pastor, get a mentor.

Find somebody who is doing apologetics, who is obviously an Orthodox Christian, and ask them to help you.

Again, if you go to our website and you go up on the top button, there's resources. On those resources, it will direct you to people who are experts in apologetics who do this for a living.

Guys like Greg Koekel, James White, R .C. Sproul, anything Greg Bonson. Grab a hold of it.

I even have stuff from Frank Turek up there. These are guys who do this on a day -in, day -out basis.

You want to learn from them first. Before you start teaching people arguments or giving people answers for the hope that lies within you, you need to learn them yourself.

So before you become a leader, you have to become a good follower. I would say you sit under one of these mentors.

Greg Koekel is essential listening for me. His website is str .org.

I would suggest that you listen to that podcast on a regular basis. He's got guys,

Tim Barnett, Alan Schlieman, Amy Hall. These people are constantly putting up information on his website and on their blog that is tremendous.

It's excellent, excellent information. So I would start with those guys, listen to them, learn, and then if it's the desire of your heart to share this, you can start a blog.

You can start a local apologetics group to start talking to other people about the arguments.

I'm not saying go do a public debate. I'm not saying start putting antagonistic material up to start poking and prodding at people.

What I'm suggesting is you get a good foundation, a good basis of knowledge, and then begin to share your faith.

It's not so much about winning arguments as it is about winning souls. The soul is the goal. We're looking to get people to understand, repent of their sins, and trust in Jesus.

If you're able to use the apologetics information to do that, terrific, especially when witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics and when it's

Pentecostals and Mormons, it's essential that you have a good foundation. A great guy to listen to for witnessing to Mormons is

Jeff Durbin. Yeah. He's a guy who... And J. Warner Wallace.

His family is all Mormon. Oh, I didn't know that. Again, J. Warner Wallace, his website...

This guy writes more than anyone else I know. His website is coldcasechristianity .com.

You will find a wealth of information there. Yeah, I've got to get him on the program.

I tried once before your last event that featured him, and I think he had to back out due to family situation, right?

Yeah, his daughter got hurt, and they rescheduled her graduation date from the military, so he had to actually cancel on us and go see his daughter.

You believe that? He left us for his daughter. By the way,

I want to thank you, by the way, for inviting me to be the moderator at the

Frank Turek debate when he debated an atheist at Stony Brook University. I want to thank you very much for that.

That was very kind of you. Oh, no, no. It was my pleasure. Again, think about it. When I was going to those debates, that's actually when

I first met you. You didn't know me then, but I always recognized you, and I listened to you moderate those debates. I'm like, if there's anybody who's going to be our moderator, it would be you.

So thank you for accepting. Hey, my pleasure. And we are out of time, and by the way, Dr. Tony Costa must have been listening to our show today because he emailed me and said he would like to discuss this

Monday on my show the Hebrew Roots Movement. Oh, terrific. So that's what we're going to do this

Monday. Mark your calendars for this Monday, 4 to 6 p .m.,

Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, who will be discussing the

Hebrew Roots Movement. So anonymous listener who wrote the question about Hebrew roots that we could not answer, well, you'll find out your information on Monday, and why don't you write down a few questions for Dr.

Costa on that. Now I want to make sure that you have three minutes of uninterrupted time to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

I erroneously said we were out of time, and I looked at the clock. I looked at a clock that had stopped.

But anyway, if you could. Yeah, sure.

Look, New York Apologetics as an organization was started by two guys who didn't have seminary degrees and still don't.

I don't think that's our field. I don't think that's the people we're meant to reach. There are plenty of other guys who are capable of doing that.

But wherever you're at, just start to dig in. If you have a heart for this or you want to explore this, do some studying, do some research, get a mentor, and get moving.

Again, we don't need another million -dollar apologist. We need a million -one -dollar apologist. Get involved in a local apologetics group in your area.

Even look us up online. Look up New York Apologetics Network. What we're doing on Long Island is we're getting together guys,

Nick and Josh, Vic and Rodney from Abundant Life, me and the guys from Hope Reform Baptist.

We have Pastor Ryan Golan from Centerpoint Church. You know Eli Ayala from Massapequa Reformed.

We even have Jamal Bernard from Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. We got Bruce Bennett from Word of Truth Church.

We have Tim Fox, who's a Biola graduate. All these guys are going to come on board into this network and start pooling our resources together so that we can get this information into local churches.

We have to start educating our youth who are getting attacked in the cultural arena and they're not able to give an answer.

Listen, when you send your kid to a public school, if you don't teach your children, someone else will.

The public schools are going to feed them stuff that is anti -Christian. If we don't protect our kids and get the right information in their minds and hearts to begin with, they're going to fall prey to the society.

So we really have to put, especially now when you see things are heating up in our environment. They're getting to a fever pitch at this point.

We can only say, it's coming. It's here. Now it's, what do we do with it?

We have to take a proactive stance and start moving and getting this information into the hands of all the people in all of the churches.

We have to rise up as Christians to the challenge and be able to give people an answer for the hope that lies within us, again, with gentleness and respect.

I don't want to see anybody get demolished in the public square by not being able to answer a question.

Because if anybody has answers, it should be us. We hold to a Christian worldview.

Christ is the one who created the world. If there's anything that needs to be known, He knows it.

All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Him. So we begin with Him. And that's why

I told you at the beginning, the best book you can read about how to be an apologist is in the scriptures themselves.

Amen. The Bible. Amen. And although it would be a great idea to have a million one -dollar apologists, we don't want any three -dollar apologists.

Oh, God! See, now I was expecting me to say something like that. Not you.

You're polished. I'm not. And I'm assuming that you would agree with me that an excellent way for a person to start a grassroots apologetics ministry,

I'm sure that you would agree that the way that I, just by providence, fell into this myself, is that I began inviting a very gifted person like Dr.

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries out to Long Island to conduct debates and conferences.

And you, anybody, could do that. You could have your pastors give their approval of a certain apologist that you know that's well -read and gifted and talented and experienced and seasoned, and invite them to your church.

And this can start something that could be an enormous blessing that has an impact for decades and decades to come.

Chris, do you realize that I'm part of the fruit of what you did on Long Island years and years and years ago? Oh, is that why people call you a fruit?

All right, brother, listen. Stick to apologetics. Seriously, think about it.

You bringing James White here and making that information available to me and other people that I know, that helped fuel the fire that I had to learn how to defend my faith.

So, yeah, I think that's a great idea. Invite a local apologist in. Not a local. Invite a top apologist into your community to have a couple of talks.

You can hold a little conference. It's not that difficult. And if you need information on that, again, you can email me, anthony at newyorkapologetics .com.

Send me your phone number. We can chat on the phone. I'll help you in any way I can. But what we have to do is get this information out there.

If you do that in your community, guaranteed, there's going to be a couple hundred people who come and hear things that they've never heard before.

And we are now out of time, brother. I just want to make sure that hopereformedli .net

is out there. That's Hope Reformed Baptist Church's website, hopereformedli .net. That's for the

Tony Costa speaking engagement on Sunday, July 1st, on Long Island at the Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, New York.

Don't forget to email me if you want more information about Dr. Costa's New York City speaking engagement.

It's being held at the First Baptist Church of Manhattan in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but it's being sponsored by Iron Sherpins Iron Radio and New Covenant Church of New York City.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. I want to thank everybody who listened today.

I want to thank especially those who wrote in questions. And of course, I want to really thank you, Anthony, for being my guest today.

I look forward to many returns to Iron Sherpins Iron Radio by you. I also thank you from the depths of my heart once again for your generous support financially of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio.

I want everybody to have a blessed and safe and joyful weekend and Lord's Day, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater