March 6, 2017 Show with Stanley D. Gale on “Warfare Witness: Contending with Spiritual Opposition in Everyday Evangelism”

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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, 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.

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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, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this sixth day of March 2017.

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I'm delighted to have back on the program someone who was really a blessing on Iron Sharpens Iron previously.

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We're going to be discussing, God willing, two of his books today. During the first hour we are discussing

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Warfare Witness, Contending with Spiritual Opposition and Everyday Evangelism.

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And then, if we have enough time, we are going to shift gears and discuss a second book of his during the second hour,

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A Vine -Ripened Life, Contending with Spiritual Opposition and Everyday Evangelism.

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And it is our honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today who has been such a blessing to us,

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Dr. Stanley DeGale. Well, Chris, thank you very much. It is a joy to be back with you again.

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I had a great time last time and I'm looking forward to being with you today. First of all, let us hear something about,

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I believe, if I'm not mistaken, are you still with Reformed Presbyterian Church in Westchester, PA?

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Actually, I have shifted gears and I am not any longer. Right. That is what I recall. There was some kind of a transition.

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Are you pastoring another church here in Pennsylvania? Yes. I am a pastor of discipleship at Iron Works Church.

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It is a PCA church, Presbyterian Church in America, church in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

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So I didn't move homes, but I did move working locations. So I head on up a half an hour or so to Phoenixville and serve there.

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And that is part -time. And my other part -time is with developing a teaching ministry.

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I have, as you know, written a number of books. The last one was on finding forgiveness, discovering the healing power of the gospel.

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And so that generated a lot of interest. So I thought, well, how can I import this into churches and to help people to live in and live out the gospel?

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So I've been working. I've been lining up finding forgiveness seminars where I go to various churches for two to three hours.

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And we talk about the gospel, talk about what it means to live in God's forgiveness, how to dispense that forgiveness, a bunch of questions related to that.

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So it's been very well received. Praise God. And this would be this teaching ministry.

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Is this has something to do with community, or should I say houses of prayer, community houses of prayer?

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Yes. In fact, my community houses of prayer website, chopministry .net, has a page on it just related to finding forgiveness, describing the book.

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There's an interview of me on there, and then training events, and then actually booked events.

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So it is a subset of that teaching ministry. Well, let me introduce you to my co -host in studio,

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. It's good to have you back in the studio, Buzz. Good to talk with you. And by the way,

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I want to apologize. I did make an error on the subtitle of the second book that we are discussing today.

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The correct subtitle of A Vine -Ripened Life is Spiritual Fruitfulness Through Abiding in Christ.

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So I apologize for actually just repeating the same subtitle as our current topic,

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Warfare Witness Contending with Spiritual Opposition in Everyday Evangelism. And let me read for our listeners a description of this first book we are discussing.

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Spiritual warfare is a popular topic with no shortage of books addressing the subject.

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However, rather than this important issue being developed from a biblically -founded view, it is often drawn from extra -biblical ideas with God's Word brought to the surface of human notions.

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In Warfare Witness, Stanley Gale sets out to rectify this trend.

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Spiritual warfare forms the backdrop against which we understand life, the work of Christ and our work of ministry in the world in which we live.

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God has not left us without instruction on the subject of the spiritual opposition we face and how we are to wage spiritual warfare.

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In fact, the Bible is full of the counsel of God to equip us for the task. Warfare Witness fixes our attention firmly upon God's Word, enabling us to understand the opposition believers face in reaching others for Christ.

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Jesus has won the war as only he could, but there remains a battle taking place, one that involves us.

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In our spiritual growth, we face a foe, and it is of great importance that we know what this foe looks like and how to deal with it.

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The Lord has not left us to fight this battle alone, and when we look to his Word, we will find it an immense source of strength, guidance, and preparation for the fight.

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So I'm sure that that is igniting some interest in our listeners because that is a very riveting description of this book that we all in the body of Christ need to know the contents thereof.

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But first of all, if you could explain the title, Warfare Witness, it is the witness aspect of the title that I'm curious about when you connect it with the word warfare.

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It's kind of an interesting combination of words. Yeah, I guess that really comes from the whole idea of the church militant.

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Now, we are a church at a war. I know that Piper and others have talked about the church as one of the problems with the church nowadays is living with a peacetime mentality, forgetting that we are to be at war, there's a spiritual war going on, the kingdom of God, the church grows at the expense of the kingdom of Satan, and so the

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Bible talks a lot about that, and the way that we, the mentality we have with the church militant as opposed to a church triumphant says that we need to have our sleeves rolled up, we need to be focused, and at work we've got an enemy who opposes us.

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There are things that we need to do in service of our Lord Jesus Christ and, you know, onward Christian soldiers, that kind of thing.

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So it has to do with that, that the kingdom of God advances only at the expense of the kingdom of Satan, and so this warfare witness is, as we bear witness, the

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Holy Spirit brings the work of Christ to bear and delivers men and women from the clutch of Satan, the tyranny of the devil, and brings them into the glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ, and so we are involved in that, and God uses us as an instrument in his hand.

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Well, I'd like to also to further whet the appetite of our listeners regarding this first book that we are discussing.

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I'd like to read a couple of endorsements. The first is from one of my favorite preachers and teachers

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I've ever heard, who I've also met in person and had lengthy conversations with but have yet to interview.

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I'm hoping that the Lord opens up a door for Dr. Sinclair Ferguson to be on the program.

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He seems to be not very comfortable doing radio interviews, but he is certainly an amazingly gifted communicator, preacher, teacher, and author, and he has written about your book,

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We are at war, engaged in a mighty spiritual battle, but this war, as Stanley Gale reminds us, is being fought in the homeland.

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We need someone with a concern for the church and a pastor's love for it to speak to us about these things.

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This is exactly what Stanley Gale does. In addition to giving helpful counsel on personal witness, the life of fellowship, prayer, and other vital themes, he sounds the reveille in our ears to awaken us to serve with renewed vigor in the king's army.

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And that is Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson, Associate Preacher at St. Peter's Free Church in Dundee, Scotland, and also someone who

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I have had on this program in the past, Philip G. Reichen, President of Wheaton College.

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He says, Warfare witness offers sane biblical guidance for Christian engagement in the invisible war that rages between God and the devil.

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In contrast to many misguided strategies for spiritual warfare, one thinks of spiritual mapping, words of knowledge, binding demons.

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Stan Gale shows what the Bible really teaches about the attacks of Satan and defending against them.

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His approach to spiritual warfare is centered on Christ, rooted in church history, and focused on the ordinary means of grace that the

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Holy Spirit uses to save people in Christ, prayer, and the ministry of God's word.

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As I said, that was Dr. Philip G. Reichen of Wheaton College. And obviously, Dr. Reichen has quite the task ahead of him as he continues to be president of a college that has got some of its own inner battles that most of us who are

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Reformed and conservative evangelicals are aware of. So I'm sure that this has whet the appetites further of our listeners.

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Well, I'm going to give our listeners the email address that they can use to join us on the air with their own question at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter that requires that you not reveal your identity or just makes you feel a lot more comfortable not revealing your identity, like something going on in your home, marriage, or even your local congregation where you're a member.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Well, what exactly are you discussing in the portion of your book under the theme,

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Commissioned for Service? What am I talking about in that? Yes. Well, when our

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Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 28 gave the Great Commission, he acknowledged that he prefaced it by saying that all authority in heaven and on earth have been given to him, which is an interesting statement, because we think here's

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Jesus. He's the creator of all that is the eternal God incarnate, and yet he's given authority.

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Now, didn't he already have authority to begin with? Well, there's a sense in which as God he did, but there's another sense in which he was given authority by virtue of his incarnation, his perfect life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection and victory from the grave.

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And so Jesus was given this kingdom authority, which is imbued with resurrection power.

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It speaks of a kingdom that is redemptive, that delivers people from the bondage of sin and unbelief and darkness and all those other images that the

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Bible gives us of Jesus. On this side of the resurrection, it says, all authority has been given to me, therefore

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I commission you in that authority under my name for the sake of my kingdom to go and make disciples, baptizing them.

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And the idea there of the baptizing is to enfold them into the covenant community, and each local church is an outpost of Christ's kingdom for the advance of the gospel, for the ministry to the saints to keep that church militant with its focus on kingdom work, with kingdom values, kingdom goals, kingdom priorities.

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A lot of times we think of the gospel, we think of just me and my salvation, but the gospel Jesus calls the gospel of the kingdom is the good news that the king has come, and that the king has won, and that the king is building his church through that kingdom work.

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So that's the kind of commission we're called, it's our call as Christians. We have a listener from Charlestown, New Hampshire, Jerry, who asks, it seems that one of Satan's common attacks in regards to evangelism is to entice us to crippling fear so that we either don't proclaim the gospel or do so in such a mealy -mouthed manner that—say that ten times fast—mealy -mouthed manner that is unbefitting of the gospel and the lordship of Christ.

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It is striking that right after Paul explains spiritual warfare and the armor of God in Ephesians 6, he twice requests that the

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Ephesian believers pray for him regarding boldness and evangelism in 6, 19 through 20.

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What words could you give to encourage believers to reject Satan's attack that drive us to fear and instead to speak the gospel in love and unflinching boldness?

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Well that was a very well thought out question by Jerry in Charlestown, New Hampshire. Yeah, that's an excellent question.

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It is rather remarkable to think that the Apostle Paul asks prayer at that close of his description of spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6.

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We think that if anybody would have confidence in his own ability, his own eloquence, that he, having known all the content, knowing all the content of the doctrine, it would have been the

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Apostle Paul. But he realized that the power is not of him. It's not of his eloquence or mastery or persuasiveness.

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It's all of Jesus Christ. And so he says that he's saying that the enemy—and this is what the enemy would have us forget too—he would make us think that it is incumbent upon us and our ability to persuade or convince you that that the gospel is successful, but it's not.

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We are to be faithful in doing that, but it is the Spirit of God who gives ears to hear and hearts to embrace.

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And it's the Spirit of God who convinces and convicts and converts sinners to bow before Jesus Christ as the

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King that he is. And so Satan, I think, makes us think that it is in our strength, and yet the

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Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 says that actually he boasts in his weakness, because it is in his weakness that Christ's strength is made perfect.

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And that's spiritual warfare in general, both in terms of our sanctification, but also our kingdom's service is fought in weakness—weakness that exalts

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Christ and puts him forward rather than ourselves.

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You know, one of the verses in Scripture that most emboldens me, when sometimes you have a fear that you're wasting your time or that you just fear that you're going to receive some kind of negative consequence by being truthful about the gospel to people, typically in our lives, sadly, we are so cowardly and selfish that that may even be that we don't want our friends to give us a look that we are insane or, you know, the littlest things in life can discourage us, such as that when people actually have been tortured and executed for their faith, and still are in certain parts of the world.

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But one of the things that continues to embolden me is from John chapter 10, 27 through 30, when

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Jesus says, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the

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Father's hand, and I and the Father are one. The fact that no matter how inarticulate we are, no matter how much we may stumble and fumble and mumble, the

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Lord is going to bless the faithful proclamation of his word, and his elect will come forth at some point.

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They might not instantly come forth when we are speaking, but the word of God does not return void, and the word will draw his sheep unto

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Christ at some point when he determines them to come. Is that not something that is a precious truth to really focus upon whenever we are intimidated by speaking to people about the gospel?

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What a huge encouragement, yes. It points us to, again, not to ourselves, but to Jesus Christ and his work, his purpose, what makes things effective, and so, yes,

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Satan, again, he tempts us to despair. He has us rely on ourselves rather than in Christ, but the key element of spiritual warfare is standing in Jesus Christ, and so what you're talking about now is standing in the confidence that Jesus will lose none of those the

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Father has given him, and so we speak up, we speak out, but it's effective by the work of God's Spirit that he brings

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Christ to bear. Sometimes I think that the problem isn't so much under -competence as it is over -competence, because we live in a very, well, let's say theologically, we live in a very post -Calvinist age, and I think we have a lot of the same error as the world that thinks if man isn't involved in it, it's not gonna be done correctly, a very humanistic approach to things, because man is the measure of all things, and it's also the human pride that I have to do so much of the work to make sure that it's done right.

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I have to clarify the gospel because the scriptures need my help, and the apostle

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Paul said, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified, and you know, if there was anybody who could have been smart in presenting the gospel, it was

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Paul, and he deliberately set those things aside so that the power would be of God. By the way, that was

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Reverend Buzz Taylor, in case you didn't know. Some people say that we sound a lot alike on the air. You do, as a matter of fact.

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We have to use footnotes. I'm sorry, would you say, brother, I didn't hear you. I said you fooled me.

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I couldn't distinguish you. But it is interesting, when you look at, you know, way back in the

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Garden of Eden, what was Satan's first salvo? He said, did God really say, and what he's doing there is he is making, he's saying, are you going to follow

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God's counsel or your own? And so what he's making, he's making, he's forcing the issue to say, whom will you follow?

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Whom will you serve? Right there. And then he, after he gets us put in the door there, then he says, actually,

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God is not doing you right here. He's withholding good from you.

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And so that's what Satan does. He pits us against God. And that's, actually, that's the whole issue in the book of Proverbs and in Scripture in general, the dividing line between wisdom and foolishness.

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The wisdom is guided by the fear of the Lord, that focuses on God, that submits to him. Foolishness is doing what is right in our own eyes, doing, listening to what we think is best.

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And but always the way of spiritual warfare is to combat those lies with the truth that God has revealed.

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You know, and even, even if we are speaking to a crowd of thousands of people, and none of those people ever come to Christ, because there is not one member of his elect in that crowd, preaching the gospel, proclaiming it, is never a waste of time, because it still brings praise, honor, and glory to him.

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Even the fact that those who hear it are worthy of further condemnation for rejecting the truth that has been more clearly proclaimed to them, even that brings glory to God, does it not?

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It does. In fact, you look at Isaiah 6, Isaiah 55, the same thing, is that as that, as that heat, the sun, light and heat of God's word affects the heart.

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If it's a heart of clay, then it will harden. If it's a heart of butter, then it will soften. But the heart gets the way it is, only by the

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Spirit of God, who gives that fertile soil from which repentance and faith and a new obedience flow.

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By the way, Jerry in Charlestown, New Hampshire, you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

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Warfare Witness, Contending with Spiritual Opposition in Everyday Evangelism, compliments of our friends at Christian Focus Publications, and also compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

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C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for BibleBookService .com, who will be shipping out this book to you,

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God willing, within a week or so, so keep your eye open for a package from cvbbs .com.

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We also have Carmine in Hernando, Florida, who has a question that isn't exactly on the topic, but I think it in some way applies to the topic, it's not completely foreign to it, and he asks, and this is one of those questions that does not have just a yes or no answer, there needs to be further,

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I think, explanation. He says, can a person be saved and born again and not know it?

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A scripture reference will help. Thank you for your answer. And obviously, a person has to know something about the gospel and all that kind of thing before he could have not only any confidence that he's saved, but the others who know that person can have confidence that he or she is saved.

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But aren't there people out there that are so tortured over their sin that they doubt whether or not they are saved?

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Let me see if I can answer the question directly, in the sense that the

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Bible says that we are born into this world dead in sin, we are children of wrath, we are at home in darkness, we don't have ears to hear, but God, in his mercy and grace, makes us alive in Jesus Christ, a new birth.

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And it says in the Bible that the man without the Spirit of God does not understand the things of the

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Spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned. So the way that works out, the way it plays out in our experience, is this way.

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Think about when you came to Christ. The things you had heard 20 times before about Jesus, about the cross, about the

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Bible, you heard them and it didn't either make sense to you, or it was repugnant to you, you wanted nothing to do with it, or it seemed like such foolishness.

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But then one day, all of a sudden it started making sense to you, it had appeal.

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It's almost like the taste buds started to pop at these truths, and it started, your heart started to delight in it.

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Well those are indicative that God has given life when you were dead in sin.

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And so that life is called regeneration, or being born again, the new birth, and so we can't know exactly if we're born, but we can know, born again, but we can see those signs of life, like the crocuses of spring that are popping to the ground now.

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It says, hey, there's life here. Yes, and at the same time, the question, can a person be saved and born again and not know that can be answered in the same way, yes, but for a wrong reason.

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I'm sure that you would agree with me that one of the most, what's the word

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I'm looking for, one of the saddest exchanges on the gospel

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I've ever heard, and when I say saddest, it's because it comes from someone who is a hero, a

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Christian hero to multitudes, countless multitudes, who depend on this person for truth, and it is a conversation that Billy Graham had with Robert Shuler, and basically,

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Billy Graham said that there are people of other religions who are Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and members of other religions who are saved and they just don't know it.

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They are saved because they are believing in God and demonstrating that and following him to the best of their ability, but they just haven't been properly taught about the

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Trinity and Jesus, and of course, I'm paraphrasing. I'm not quoting Billy Graham directly, but he was,

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I am not exaggerating what he was saying. He was certainly saying that there are people who are called from among the

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Muslims and other religions who are saved, but he did not make it clear that they were called out of those things, if you follow what

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I'm saying. Is it Shuler saying this? This was Billy Graham saying this to Shuler. You can see this on YouTube and hear it, and Robert Shuler was so delighted to hear

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Billy Graham say this because he had been believing that for years, he said in the clip. In fact, after the program sometime,

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I'll send you the YouTube link, but it's unless somebody took it down. But that would be a wrong reason to say yes to that question.

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I mean, a person who does not even know the Gospel and does not even know the name of Christ or does not follow

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Christ and trust in his finished work on Calvary, that person should not be viewed as someone who could be born again or saved.

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Am I right? I would say that's right, yes. In fact, one of the great illustrations here,

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I'm talking about things in the context of Scripture, in the context of one way of salvation and Jesus Christ, but I think a great example is in John 11, where here was

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Lazarus in the tomb, and he had been in there four days, and Jesus came and said, roll away the stone, and Jesus said,

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Jesus could have called Lazarus, he said, Lazarus come out, Jesus could have called for hours on end, but unless Lazarus had been given life, then he would not have heard the voice of Jesus Christ.

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However, having that life, there's no way that he could have remained in that tomb. He heard the voice of Jesus Christ, and he came to him, and of course, then he had to get rid of the grave clothes, because they were not appropriate for someone who is now alive.

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But yes, Jesus says, I know my sheep, I call them by name. And so there's this relationship here.

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So yes, the ears to hear, the heart to embrace, responds to the heart, responds to the voice of Jesus Christ that is heard through the faith worked in that heart by the

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Holy Spirit. In fact, we're going to go to a break right now.

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

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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

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USA. And by the way, Hernando, I'm sorry, that's the city he lives in, Carmine in Hernando, Florida.

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We need your full mailing address to mail you this free copy that you have also won of Warfare Witness, Contending with Spiritual Opposition in Everyday Evangelism, compliments of our friends at Christian Focus Publications and our friends at CVBBS .com,

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Crumblin Valley Bible Book Service. So don't go away. We will be right back,

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Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

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Eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Our guest is Dr. Stanley D. Gale, and we are discussing his book for the first hour at least,

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Warfare Witness, Contending with Spiritual Opposition in Everyday Evangelism.

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

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and we may be, if we have time, transferring over to the topic of Dr.

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Gale's other book, A Vine -Ripened Life, Spiritual Fruitfulness Through Abiding in Christ, in the second hour.

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I just wanted to play, just because some people might be too astonished to believe what

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I mentioned earlier about Billy Graham, but here is the clip I was speaking of. And of course, this is not what

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I wanted to play. That was not what I wanted to play, but here we go.

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This is the clip of Billy Graham having a conversation with Robert Shuler.

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Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity? I think everybody that loves

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Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the body of Christ.

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And that's what God is doing today. He's calling people out of the world for his name, whether they come from the

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Muslim world or the Buddhist world or the Christian world or the non -believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God.

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They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their heart that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have.

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And I think that they are saved and they're going to be with us in heaven. This is fantastic.

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I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. There's a wideness in God's mercy.

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There is. There definitely is. So there's proof in the pudding there.

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And Billy Graham sounded there, and I don't want to disparage my primitive

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Baptist friends, but there are a great number of primitive Baptists who are hyper -Calvinists who actually have the same exact explanation.

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They so distort election and remove man's responsibility from it that they would say that there are going to be many welcome into heaven that never converted to Christianity because they were of the elect and just never came to understand why they were saved on this earth, that they will find it out later in heaven.

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But this is totally absurd and an unbiblical concept, isn't it? Well, it is.

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The teaching of the gospel is that it is very much inclusive in the sense that whoever will bow before Jesus Christ will be saved.

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And of course, we know that's a work of the Spirit when we see behind the scenes how that person is able and able to bow.

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So it's inclusive in that the offer goes out to all who will believe, but it's exclusive in that there is no other way of salvation.

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It's only at the name of Jesus Christ that someone will be saved. And so the whole idea of the kingdom picture of Christ, the one to whom all authority has been given, says that there is no other name, no other way of salvation, and a person must bow in repentance and faith before this

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Jesus Christ, forsaking their own ability to save themselves to be their own

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Savior, and also forsaking their own worship, saying that I, Jesus, I step off that throne and you belong there and I'm going to follow you as my

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Lord and Savior, dying to self and living to you. In fact, the Apostle Paul, in the letter of Ephesians, takes great pain to explain why it is

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Christ who has subdued all the authorities and principalities and all that, and that's found nowhere else, only in Jesus Christ.

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We have Joe in Slovenia who asks, please ask

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Dr. Gale to address John 10, verse 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

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I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. This verse is commonly used today in teaching on spiritual warfare, identifying the thief as Satan.

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However, it seems more appropriate within the context of John chapters 9 and 10 to understand that Jesus is referring to the

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Pharisees and other human false teachers who lead people away from God and his truth as the thief.

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How does Dr. Gale understand this verse in context as it would relate to spiritual warfare? Thank you for sharpening us today in Christ our

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Lord. Well, that is a good question. One of the descriptions of this fallen world, as Satan is remarkably called the prince of this world, he's called the god of this age, lowercase g, and he's called that because he wants to receive worship, and as opposed to the true and living

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God. One of the ways that Satan dispenses his false teaching is through the teaching institutions of the world, whether it be the educational system that teaches a truth, alleged truth, other than that which

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God teaches, or from pulpits where supposedly the word of God is preached, but it is just humanistic teaching.

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And we see in scripture people named who are false teachers, who are instruments of Satan.

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So when we think of Satan being a liar, a thief, a murderer, many of these things relate to deceptive, luring, false teaching that's destination is death.

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And Satan uses, like for example, the Pharisees. The Pharisees would have been, in fact

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Jesus says, you're of your father the devil. It's because they were seeking, they were standing against God, they were standing against Christ.

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And so when we think of human instruments, we want to think of them being cut from the cloth of this present evil age, and use of Satan in that way to promulgate false teaching and a false gospel.

42:53

Well thank you Joe for the great question, and also thank you for providing an

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American mailing address where your daughter lives, because we are shipping you a copy of Warfare Witness Contending with Spiritual Opposition and Everyday Evangelism, compliments of our friends at Christian Focus Publications, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

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cvbbs .com. And once again our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com. We have a listener,

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CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, do you believe that a true

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Christian could be drawn away into apostasy, never to return to biblical orthodoxy?

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So in other words, they could be reclaimed basically by Satan. When Jesus says that from John 10, that he said, and John 14 when he says that the sheep are in the

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Father's hand, and that they will never be, Jesus says, I will lose none of those the

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Father has given me. And so what that says, we want to use that as an interpretive grid, so that if someone turns away, if they turn away from Jesus Christ, and they remain in that state, then it means that they were never regenerate to begin with.

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They were what the Puritans would call professors of faith, but not possessors.

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Because the work of the Holy Spirit, and the one who has been claimed by Christ, will persevere to the end.

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And the reason is, is that God is at work in them, but to will and to do for his good pleasure. So no,

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I don't think that, no, I know that scripture teaches that someone who belongs to the light, by virtue of the new birth, can wallow in the darkness, can actually give

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Satan a foothold, for example, be angry, do not sin, do not descend on your anger, and give the devil a foothold, but cannot be reclaimed by the evil one.

45:27

Well CJ, you have also won a free copy of our book, the book that we are discussing today by Dr.

45:33

Gale, Warfare Witness, so thank you very much for your insightful question.

45:40

If you could describe in a little bit more detail this present evil age, and what you say on that, in that section.

45:52

Well, yes, let me open my... Let me, while you're doing that, let me repeat our email address, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

46:00

if you'd like to join us on the air, chrisarnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

46:09

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

46:19

USA. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter that requires or compels you to not identify yourself.

46:31

But Dr. Gale, if you could. Sure. You're asking about the present evil age, and part of our worldview deals with creation, how things began, how things got messed up with the fall, and then how things are restored through redemption, and of course the age to come as well.

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But in describing this, in describing this day in which we live, the

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Apostle Paul, for example, in Galatians 1, says this, Grace to you and peace from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our

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God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. This present evil age speaks of the day in which we live.

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It's the fallen world, and let's go back to Genesis again as we build this worldview.

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In the first three chapters of Genesis, God, who's eternally existent and being in himself, he spoke creation into being, and when there was nothing, something became, and he declared it good.

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And then we find the entrance of sin into the world through the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God, and we find the fall of creation under the dominion of sin, and that fall affects our relationship with God, our relationship with others, our relationship with the world in which we live because of thorns and all that, and also even,

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I don't want to call it our relationship with ourself exactly, but we see anger and all that and some of the fruits of that.

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But in the midst of that, while they were still in the garden, God gave this promise that he would send the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent.

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And so there are these battle lines drawn right then, and then we turn the page to Genesis 4 and find the account of Cain and Abel.

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So the question we face here is, what will life be like on this side of the fall?

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And this is, we share the same side of the fall as did Cain and Abel. So what do we see?

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We see a worship problem where Cain's offering, they're both worshiping,

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Cain and Abel both, but Cain's offering is rejected.

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And why is that? Well, the writer of Hebrews says it's because it was not a faith, and the way we see that in the text is that it says that Abel brought the best of the fat of his flock, whereas Cain just brought his produce.

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Each one brought something related to his occupation, but Cain was not accompanied by faith.

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And then so Cain, of course, he has anger, he kills his brother, and the rest.

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But here's the interesting thing. I think it's Genesis 4 -7. God, in his mercy, speaks to Cain before Cain makes this foolish move of killing his brother.

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And he says, if you do right, will not your countenance be lifted up?

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But if you do not do right, sin is crouching at your door, but you must master it.

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And so that's what life is like in this present evil age. Sin is crouching at our door, but we must master it.

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And the only way we can master it is through the one who can master it, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ and union with him.

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And so this present evil age is the age into which our Lord Jesus Christ was born, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, the cursed death of the cross, binding the strong man, delivering those held captive for himself.

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And so it all focuses on Jesus Christ. But his battleground was this present evil age, an age in which we live.

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In fact, the Apostle Paul says in, I think, Ephesians 5, he says, make the most of every opportunity knowing this, that the days are evil.

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And so God's word has us on alert, on guard, recognizing the constant need for Jesus Christ.

50:56

Amen. I don't know about you, Dr. Gale, but I think that we should keep on this same subject in the second hour, and we'll schedule you for another interview on the vine -ripened life on another date, because I think there's so much to unpack here.

51:13

Okay. If that's all right with you. Sure. We'll remain with the topic of warfare witness for the second hour.

51:21

But we are going to a midway break now. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

51:31

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 of the good old

51:41

USA. And please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

51:47

The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

51:53

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

51:59

And while you're at it, while we're at our break, why not have your call up or email or text your family, friends, and loved ones and have them tune in to this fascinating conversation with Dr.

52:13

Stanley D. Gale, so they can hear at least the second half of this program live, and so that they can also submit questions if they have any.

52:23

Especially if you have lost family, friends, and loved ones, people who you have a burden for their never -dying souls, that you can rest assured that they are one of his before they depart this earth.

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Give them a call, a text, or an email to tell them to listen to ironsharpensironradio .com,

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ironsharpensironradio .com, so that they can not only hear Dr. Gale, but also join us in the conversation by emailing us a question of their own.

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So don't go away. We are going to be right back, God willing, after these messages with more of our conversation with Dr.

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trust discover and enjoy the nasb for yourself today go to nasbible .com 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 lukins 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 nofolk 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 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 you can call us at 508 -528 -5750 that's 508 -528 -5750 or go to our website to email us listen to past sermons worship songs or watch our tv program entitled resting in grace you can find us at providence baptist church ma .org

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that's providence baptist church ma .org or even on sermonaudio .com providence baptist church is delighted to sponsor iron sharpens iron radio welcome back this is chris arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio if you just tuned us in our guest is dr stanley d gale and we are discussing his book warfare witness contending with spiritual opposition and everyday evangelism if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and before i continue with our interview i want to remind you that iron sharpens iron radio is still in urgent need of new advertisers sponsors and benefactors who are willing to donate to see that iron sharpens iron radio remains on the air and one of my most faithful sponsors from the old iron sharpens iron radio program while broadcasting out of new york has returned as a sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio and one sure way all iron sharpens iron radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers including this one who has returned to the iron sharpens iron family of sponsors batterydepot .com

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well we are now back on the air with our interview with dr stanley d gale on warfare witness contending with spiritual opposition and everyday evangelism and if you'd like to join us on the air our email address again is chris arnzen at gmail .com

01:06:49

chris arnzen at gmail .com and please give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside of the usa uh dr gail uh if you could uh tell us more about uh kingdom conflict well uh part of living uh they're the conflict between light and darkness that the john and his gospel uses that uh those metaphors a great deal to speak of the uh that that plays out in our lives for example paul and his letter to the ephesians talks a lot about spiritual warfare and he says you are light in the lord therefore be light he says to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we've been called peter says that you've spent enough time living in the carousing and following the desires of the flesh and paul speaks of the same thing and so at the personal level of our christian walk we want to there's that conflict a conflict remembering that we are we are we belong to jesus christ we're to follow what he wants we're to depend on the gospel as we live out god's grace in our lives but in evangelism there's a kingdom conflict and that we the opened up the show to begin to talk about that the kingdom of god grows only at the expense of the kingdom of satan as the spirit of god uh through the lordship of jesus christ subdues people to himself rules and defends them and restrains and conquers all his and our enemies that's a catechism definition that says that the lordship of jesus christ moves forward the church at the outpost of god's kingdom advances and there is conflict involved so we can expect we can expect to be uh we can expect opposition we can expect uh the world to stand against us to ridicule to mock uh and but we we go in the name of jesus christ we exercise that warfare with the weapons that he uh gives to us and uh so again it goes back to that church militant mentality where it's not just a stroll there is opposition and we need to be alerted to it and prepared for it and engaged in it you know uh dr reichen uh in his commendation of your book that says warfare witness offers sane biblical guidance for christian engagement in the invisible war that rages between god and the devil and that war though as you are probably aware has been caricatured and misunderstood not only by professing christians but but people who understand that there is this never -ending battle between good and evil i mean even people who are star wars junkies and people like that can understand that but this sometimes is very misunderstood i'm sure you'll agree where they think that god is in battle with one of his peers or something that this is some kind of a struggle god is having where he doesn't know that he may whether he will win or lose this fight you know if you follow what i'm saying sometimes it can be caricature caricatured to more resemble the the gods of the uh the pagan uh idolatry uh you know the uh the nordic gods or the greek or roman gods doing battle with one one another but this is far from infinitely far from what is actually going on between a battle between god and satan am i right oh certainly yeah the god and satan are not equal god is not the one with the white hat and satan with the black hat it's god satan is a created being he is an angel he fell with his demons and rebellion and he is limited you know god is infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness and truth satan is a created being who is finite although it is interesting that we're never told there are there are demons there are fallen angels who form an army uh the scriptures tell us of uh against uh they're part of this fallen world and there is an unseen reality that uh there's more than meets the eye that the scripture tells us about this part of a biblical worldview martin luther and him mighty fortress says that though this world with devils filled and so it reminds us that there is this unseen realm and there are things happening you know behind behind the scenes but in terms of this victory this battle this victory christians wage spiritual warfare not for victory but in victory amen when jesus christ was raised from the dead that is that paul says that actually prays that we would know that resurrection power in greater detail so again it pushes us to christ pushes us to his victory one of the one of the things that's popular in spiritual warfare is that uh in fact uh dr reichen mentions this in his uh in his little burb on the book he says there's a fanciful way of doing things that is so popular in fact that's how i was introduced to the subject which is challenging me saying that in my doctoral work that there's this uh idea of spiritual warfare evangelism it's it's uh all the literature on the subject is through these is by these fanciful notions of binding naming them binding them and and uh and all that but um uh the the battle that we wage so what it was as example going back to the strongman thing is that that approach would say we need to by agreement of prayer something like that bind the strongman but that's not that's not the biblical reality we don't bind the strongman christ bound the strongman he exclusively bound the strongman and we plunder spoils in the power of the holy spirit because of what christ has done as an exercise of his of his saving work so he did all the work christ is the binder and we are the ones who plunder spoils um by him by him through a spirit to the glory of his name amen and buzz uh yeah chris i i heard david chilton put it this way once it's kind of like a lion fighting a chihuahua the chihuahua's probably going to put up a really nasty fight but it's pretty obvious who's going to win and obviously none of our analogies can even come close because even even a chihuahua has more of a chance in that fight than satan does um and uh it reminded me when you were speaking about the invisible realm how humorous it was during a conference that i was at uh years ago back in the 1980s a friend of mine dr f lagarde smith was doing a conference on his book that he had written which was fresh off the press in those days uh out on a broken limb in response to shirley mclean's book out on a limb and he was talking about the unseen powers of the demonic that are all around us and just as he was saying that almost as if it was on cue uh a cb radio somehow began to interfere with his microphone and the speakers in the church and another person's voice was starting to speak so it was kind of an untimely thing that was going on but it really actually was a great illustration although unintended about all the things that are going on around us even not only radio and television waves and other things but the demonic realm is encircling us all the time and that's one thing uh i don't know if you would agree with me or not dr gail but that seems to be one thing that reformed scholars theologians and authors have shied away from discussing this kind of thing am i right on this it seems that the market has been cornered by charismatic and sensationalists who distort the proper level of focus that we should have on those things and have caused our fellow reform brethren to run for the hills when regarding a discussion of these demonic things if you could if you could relate to what i'm saying well that's exactly how i was nudged into a study of the topic the advisor for i was looking i was studying the relationship between prayer and evangelism and my advisor for my dissertation this is back in the mid 90s said why don't you start why don't you explore the whole idea of spiritual warfare in evangelism because everything about it nowadays been written by this sensationalistic fanciful view of the really the third wave of the holy spirit where uh where there's the the the binding and the naming where you get together and identify the demons who have hung out that shingle in that particular area and once you identify them and name them you can bind them in prayer and then you're free to go in with they're bound to and reach the area for jesus christ so there's that one side and so much of it is there's you might find a bible reference every now and then but it's it's it's mostly all anecdotal so that they you've got the people heard things and they've gotten stories about this and they build a theology on the basis of these stories and the experiential things rather than the firm foundation of god's truth and then there's the reform camp that uh says uh basically tips its hat at it says yes there's spiritual warfare let's go on to talk about justification or like that yeah but every new testament writer speaks of spiritual this spiritual conflict spiritual opposition every one jesus uh uh spoke a great deal about spiritual warfare in his prayer high priest priesthood prayer in john 17 he says i prayed that you would not take them out of this world but that you would protect them from the evil one and there's a profound awareness of this spiritual opposition and and the the epistle writers don't leave us uh without understanding don't leave us ill -equipped to prepare us for the spirit they look at paul he closes the book of uh of um ephesians with an emphasis on spiritual warfare that he had there was a thread throughout the whole book peter spiritual warfare uh the last chapter james spiritual warfare the last chapter so it's almost like they're saying and don't forget this as you carry out this thing as a witness for jesus christ as an apologist for the gospel as you deal with suffering don't forget there's a spiritual enemy who wants to lure you from jesus christ be alert be prepared be engaged make sure you stay in community and uh so there's all this and so if we neglect that then we are short changing ourselves with the wisdom that god gives conduct of the christian life amen rj in white plains new york says that we see the devil doing a lot of things to job always with the permission of god of course but does joe does i'm sorry does the devil still to this day do things like create boils on people's bodies and cause death and bring calamity uh to their lives using natural forces like hurricanes and other things like that now that is a very difficult question certainly if if the devil does do that he does it only with the permission and the but more than permission the purpose of god in it now for example second corinthians 12 we see god uh sending a thorn in the flesh from satan to paul now now satan would would have been he would have delighted in being able to afflict god's apostle but we see that behind the scenes that this is of god's design for god's purpose to teach paul that his strength is perfected and weakness so we see uh we see god mentioned a number of examples where god uses satan in our lives for the purpose of of his uh of his sanctifying purposes or whatever whatever it might be so if those things happen then it's with the uh with the purpose of god attached and the provision of god to deal with it uh buzz i i really appreciate the way you worded that because we're so used to hearing people say with god's permission but yet it really is his purpose yeah yes and of course uh there are many among the armenians and other uh folks uh people uh involved in the word of faith charismatic movement and and so on who would never think that god is ever involved in giving the devil permission or anything uh or that god is even using uh the the calamities and horrific trials in people's lives uh that they somehow in trying to defend his character as a loving and gracious god they so remove him from these circumstances that you wonder what kind of power they think god has and and in and in these circumstances they are still left with the fact that if god is not actively involved in these calamities and trials and tribulations of humans and even believers uh they have to acknowledge the fact that god's at least watching and and standing by and and in their concept he's just standing by and doing nothing i don't know how they they could have any comfort in that or even worse that the will of satan is trumping the will of god that's even a worse scenario or that god is simply just waiting for them to have the faith to move him right but that still involves him sitting back and watching and doing yes uh but can you comment on that how uh this is obviously outside of any kind of orthodox understanding of of the uh the question of evil well the uh i think it was luther who said the devil is god's devil so a whole idea that satan is on a leash and he has the latitude only that god gives him an interesting uh it's an interesting illustration is with the word the greek word temptation that word can be translated temptation or trial and we know in james that god does not tempt but here's the way it works in trials god brings trials to our lives uh you know we sing him every every joy or trial fall from above traced upon our dial by the son of love god's involved in whatever comes to us but here's the trial and in that trial god does not want our harm he wants our benefit and he brings it to our benefit so that christ might be formed in us which is a description of discipleship of sanctification but here's satan satan is involved in that trial for our harm so it's to distance us from god to rely bring it to rely on ourselves to to close in uh you know to run from god instead of to god and so here's the same word can be translated temptation or trial where god is the author of it god works and has a purpose with it but satan is there present to thwart as he not that that could happen god's purposes but to draw us away from jesus christ yes amen and uh we're going to go to our final break right now if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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that's solid -ground books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or 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

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.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 arnzen and if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours with one half hour to go has been and will continue to be dr stanley d gale we are addressing his book war warfare witness condemning with contending with spiritual opposition and everyday evangelism if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and please give us your first name city and state and country of residence and we have aaron from indianapolis indiana who asks are pastors and missionaries and those more involved in sharing the precious gospel of christ more susceptible to satanic attacks it seems obvious but what does dr gail say idea for a title of a show what does dr actually she says what says dr gail that's a good name for a radio show or a tv show what says dr gail will be right back after these messages so if you could uh comment okay let me see if i can answer that i i do think that leaders are particular targets of satan and i think we see that uh i think we see that uh the apostle paul talking about that but um you would think that leaders uh wouldn't be as susceptible but it all depends the apostle paul had a profound uh sense of a profound humility any leader that has that humility is uh much better fortified against the efforts of the evil one than the leader who is full of himself or herself in pride and peter says that we are god opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble i've known a number of leaders or stories of leaders who have fallen because they were sufficient in their own strength or knowledge or reputation or whatever it might be so i i do think that leaders are a target of the evil one and i think that those leaders uh who best stand are those who rely on the lord in the fear of him with a profound sense of humility yeah so you use the key word there humility because uh some of the most notorious of the televangelists who are charlatans and who have been involved in all kinds of scandals whether they be uh monetary or sexual uh they uh have been so exalted by their followers that i think that they have come to view themselves as untouchable uh teflon preachers and uh don't you think that as much as every man is responsible for his own sin don't you think that uh that we who are christians we who are sheep uh we can be guilty of cooperating in the exaltation of these humor humans to the positions of of uh authority and uh accolades that they receive uh that have convinced them that they are above mere mortal men such as you and i that we that people uh are sinful when they are uh involved in creating these cult leaders uh and not only uh gullible dupes who are victims don't you think that the too much the victim concept is used and that these people are guilty of sin of some level i i understand just what you're saying and really you talk about kingdom conflict uh this is a kingdom conflict where um these who would exalt themselves they end up they end up seeking first their own kingdom and their own reputation or righteousness rather than seeking for the kingdom of god and his righteousness so they almost play into the devil's hands and those fans uh they they can uh they can fan those flames uh to uh uh to others uh of the the pride there's a paul says in i think it's first corinthians 10 12 he says let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall and that's the preface to there is no temptation that is common he says that we need to uh we need to recognize that and then paul moves on to flee from idolatry and so it is idolatry is really part of the you know john closing of he speaks of spiritual warfare in his first epistle and he closes with saying my friend my my brother keep yourself from idols and so this is part of what it is we can make ourselves an an idol we can make people an idol but everything kingdom wise points us to glorifying enjoying serving jesus christ who is the only king amen thank you erin in indianapolis indiana you are also receiving a free copy of warfare witness contending with spiritual oppression and everyday evangelism compliments of christian focused publications so please give us your full mailing address so cvbbs .com

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can ship that out to you and we thank also uh todd and patty jennings at cvbbs .com

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coverland valley bible book service for being faithful supporters of iron sharpens iron radio uh and it's interesting uh to dovetail with what you just said how the apostle paul commends the bereans for checking everything that he taught according to the scriptures they didn't say well he's an apostle so why are we even checking this you know that they they were tested and he commended them for it he wasn't uh his pride wasn't uh bothered by this he commended them for not believing every word he said without testing the scriptures first exactly yeah and uh one of the other uh the other parts of the book that we uh come to is uh unmasking the enemy uh we've been talking about it uh already in some aspects but uh what uh exactly uh are you referring to in regard to unmasking the enemy when most christians may know already hey the enemy is satan of course why do we need to have him unmasked so if you could comment on that well we want to remember the person who is in the cubicle cubicle beside us who is trying to undermine our work and steal from us we might think that person is the enemy and they certainly do oppose us but this paul says these scriptures say that our enemy is not flesh and blood it is spiritual and so that means that uh the that there's a another battle that's under underway other than just for our uh promotion or paycheck or whatever it might be and god's always driving us to the heart where is your heart where what idols are in there whom will you seek whom will you depend on and so we want to keep our bearings that's one of the things that scriptures does that and one of the drawbacks and losing that point of reference is that we have an enemy and he is subtle he is insidious he exercises his schemes and so once we recognize that there's more than meets the eye to the things that are going on in my life and the struggles and the things that are being brought out of my heart then it helps it equips us to deal with him in a way that uh that depends on god and and seeks god and actually loves our neighbor better amen um you come to a uh a section that you've already mentioned uh earlier plundering uh christ spoils if you could go into further depth about that well we don't save anyone uh our persuasiveness does not save anyone it's the jesus christ uh he did not make people redeemable redeemable he actually redeemed the people he actually accomplished redemption at the cross amen so that when uh when we we we uh reach out in the name of jesus christ we speak to people about the gospel we we plead with people as paul did uh and for you if you've reconciled to god we recognize that it is the only thing that makes that effective the only thing that offers any reality of redemption is the finished work of jesus christ that is being applied by the holy spirit often through us as his instruments amen now um there is a verse that many people are very familiar with in fact you i think that many who are not even christians have heard this verse in matthew 16 uh that i will build my church jesus speaking saying i will build my church and the gates of hell or the gates of hades will not overpower it i have heard uh some christian exegetes say that this is wrongly being viewed by many as uh the powers of hell attacking the church but a gate is not a weapon and they say the way that we should be viewing this is as christians victoriously marching through as the as the church the body of christ marching through and snatching uh souls by his grace and by his spirit out from the sentence of hell by uh preaching the gospel to them and and uh seeing them embrace that by his grace and coming to christ is that uh do you think in a proper way of exegeting that text as far as the gates of hell because gate is not known to be a weapon it's it's a it's a wall of defense if you will it is interesting to to really think on the images and the metaphors that our lord jesus christ uses you know there and elsewhere and we think of the idea of gates uh as it's confining and people are in bondage to sin in bondage to unbelief at home in the darkness ignorant of of so many different things in rebellion against god and all that goes along with that but we think of again as i said the kingdom of god uh growing at the expense of the kingdom of satan and so the whole idea is that the the uh mission of christ church the church militant will prevail jesus will lose none of those the father has given him in the the mission of the gospel will claim those for whom he died so that i think it's in colossians let me turn to that passage here i'll quickly give our email address again it's chris arnzen at gmail .com

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if you'd like to join us with a question of your own while there's still time there's only about 15 minutes left chris arnzen at gmail .com

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okay here it here it is this is a prayer the apostle paul in colossians 1 he says may you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy giving thanks to the father who has here it is qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light and that's a kingdom expression the kingdom of light and then here's what it says that christ has done for us and then in other words the gates of hell did not they were not able to keep these people in amen reason he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of and this speaks of jesus christ uh uh and the work of the church pressing forward and it cannot be stopped it will press on and those for whom christ died uh will be part will be delivered from that kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of jesus christ you know uh you have a section on uh the weapon of prayer and perhaps i'll get some people in my own circles of fellowship upset with me but it's see it seems that reformed people unlike our charismatic brethren who very often will pray with much more boldness and confidence we who are reformed are known sometimes unfortunately to almost wave the white flag of defeat before we even uh open up our mouths and i know that we are definitely with certainty to pray according to the will of god but don't you sometimes think that we um do not pray with expectation that our prayers will be answered the way that we are asking them to be answered i think we can be great wimps in prayer like one of the one of the uh i think my one of my might be my favorite book of all the things i've had the privilege to write on is why do we pray if god has ordained all that comes to pass if his will will be carried out why what why do we pray why uh so actually i think a reformed understanding of prayer does not uh disarm us a prayer saying why bother but it actually encourages prayer and gives it a greater expectation because it shows where it fits into the plan of god that enfolds prayer as a means for his ends i could still remember a dear brother uh saying to me um and he is now with the lord so he knows better now but he i remember him saying to me when my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer uh he uh said to me and he was trying obviously to remain biblically orthodox and faithful to the creeds of calvinism but i think distorted that message when he said to me after prayer meeting one night remember brother it's wrong for you to want your mother to survive this battle with cancer if it is not god's will for her to survive and i said to him uh i understand that brother but how am i supposed to know until after she goes home to glory how am i supposed to know whether or not it's god's will for her to survive she's alive right now so obviously i'm praying with with a hope and desire for her to live so we we sometimes in our own attempts at being committed to a creedal uh accuracy we we can sometimes say foolish things can't we well there's this picture in um the book of isaiah and it's hezekiah he's a godly godly king of the southern kingdom of judah and he's got uh this enemy coming against him and he cries out to the lord he calls the lord of hosts god of israel you are enthroned on the cherubim he says uh incline your ears come you know help me in this and here's god's god sends isaiah to hezekiah and this is how isaiah begins he says thus says the lord the god of zero because you have prayed to me every time we rise from private prayer every time we rise from a prayer meeting we should hear those words because you prayed in other words our prayers god uses them in a way that will that will serve his will certainly but will he will listen to our desires and so we can provide a great expectation and thanksgiving knowing that we have a god who hears and a god who responds to the pleas of his children amen you know it's it's funny how people uh will say to me especially those who have never heard this show are you kidding me you talk for two hours on one subject i'm sure you must run out of things to say give me a break two hours well uh obviously the time has already flown by and there are many things i want to address with you that we don't have time to address uh even on this one subject but if you could summarize what you mean by flying the colors of the cross and being battle ready basically that uh that's kingdom a kingdom analogy saying that the the kingdom that the the flag that we fly is the gospel of jesus christ and so we pledge allegiance uh to uh to the gospel we pledge allegiance to king jesus and let me give you uh in terms of spiritual warfare satan has three primary tactics accusation he's he's the accuser the word satan in the hebrew as a verb means to accuse and as a noun it means adversary satan is the accuser we're called to fight that fight him as the accuser by standing in christ what do we stand in we stand when satan accuses us we stand in christ's righteousness we stand in the forgiveness of sin so we stand in the gospel in turn for satan's tactic of temptation we stand not in our own strength but we stand in the resurrection of power of jesus christ that enables us to do all things through him who gives us strength against satan's tactic of of deception we stand on the word of god taking captive every word of christ says it says in colossians to let the word of christ dwell in you richly not to be taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition the basic principles rather than on christ so in each of these satan's accusation we stand in christ and the gospel his righteousness our justification we stand against satan and his tactic of deception by standing on the truth of christ the word of truth and we stand against the tactic of of uh temptation through in the power of jesus christ knowing that we cannot do on our own but that we can do all things through christ who gives us that strength so it's the idea of we god's equipped us and we need to know our enemy we also need to employ those means that he gives us uh for for combating them uh we have uh arnie in perry county uh pennsylvania who asks since second corinthians four describes satan as the god of this world and jesus himself said that my kingdom is not of this world do we not need to be careful on how to rightly demonstrate to those who hear these things that jesus does not somehow have satan as an authority over him on this earth and that jesus still is on the throne and has infinitely more power than satan yes uh we we always need to keep those bearings uh remembering that jesus christ is god jesus christ is lord but we said paul he talks about spiritual warfare a great deal infusions and most the second most is in second corinthians where he speaks of satan as a god now that kind of language should shake us up right away because there's only one god but it says this that satan wants our worship in fact in the book of revelation and i've got another little booklet a primer on spiritual warfare called what is spiritual warfare it's part of pnr's basics of the faith series but it shows the structure of the book of revelation that shows that you know everything happens you know it's a happy ending you know we're with god and glory but the heart of the book what we're drawn to is to recognize that we live in a present evil age which is in the power of jesus christ where he has he reigns on high as a lamb slain he's on the throne but we recognize that satan continues his work he continues to oppress god's people and that book of revelation i think is mainly written to help us to overcome to press it to press on recognizing that our victory our strength and our hope are all in jesus christ well if you could i'd like you to have five uninterrupted minutes or so to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we leave the program today i guess uh i would say one of the things is that we want to be aware because the bible makes us aware of the spiritual warfare that it's the the battle the redemptive battle the conflict of kingdom has been fought and won in jesus christ that all those who are out who are part of this fallen world who refuse to repent and believe and refuse to bow the knee before him acknowledging him as savior and lord they remain as part of this fallen world and what the book of revelation says is that not only will satan be cast into the lake of fire so will all those who follow him so that's a very frightening thought sometimes we get the idea that satan is kind of like the the head honcho of hell or something satan is going to be punished as well as all the fallen angels who have rebelled as all those who are uh who have refused to repent and believe upon jesus christ they will suffer the eternal fate of satan so this is this is a serious matter on the positive side we recognize that jesus said that any who come to him he will not turn away and so here's this offer of salvation saying come to me all you are heavy laden and i will give you rest and that rest one aspect of it is rest from the accusations the torments the the condemnation of satan and we can have deliverance from all those things and freedom as sons and daughters of the living god through faith in jesus christ so this is no this is no extra to the christian life it's part of discipleship where we grow our our sanctification there's an aspect of spiritual warfare in our kingdom service for evangelism there's an aspect of spiritual warfare we need to factor that in with the reconnaissance that god gives us and the way that he's equipped us uh if we would truly listen to the whole counsel of god amen and we have one more question that we'll squeeze in because it's from a first time questioner nicholas in clearwater florida asks does the charismatic practices that usually follow with prayer in tongues put christians in danger of following a false idol slash sense of faith now that's that's a broad that's a broad brush it's hard it's hard to i do i do know that we need to be true to what god has written in his word what in his providence he has caused to be inscripturated written down for us in fact in second corinthians i think it's chapter 10 he says that uh that we need to hold fast to the word of truth that we need to there's a um as we in terms of spiritual armament and that what the spirit has given us he says the spirit himself says is sufficient for all of doctrine and life so we want to be careful when we talk about anything that is extra biblical as necessary for the combat of spiritual warfare yeah i know you think that uh what typically is happening uh with a charismatic and i i understand that there that is a diverse group it's not a monolith and i have many friends and brothers who are charismatic so i'm not trying to broad brush you here but there is a practice going on very often that is very similar to dangerously similar to the practices of eastern religions and new in the new age movement where the mind is being opened and emptied uh during the course of speaking in uh where they are the mind is not focusing on biblical truth and concrete objective uh reality from the scriptures it is like an opening of the mind and letting some kind of a new experience to flow into you don't you think that that sets up a person for dangerous activity in the demonic realm especially if they're not truly born again isn't that yes isn't that exactly what satan did in the garden of eden he opened adam's knee and his mind to to consider something else other than what god had said yes yes amen well guess what uh nicholas uh you are receiving the final copy of the book that we are giving away today warfare witness contending the spiritual opposition and everyday evangelism and because you're a first -time questioner you're also getting a free new american standard bible compliments of the publishers of the nasb and last but not least you're also receiving a free copy of a time for confidence trusting god in a post -christian society by dr stephen j nichols the president of reformation bible college the bible college founded by dr rc sproll and ligonier ministries and they uh told me ligonier ministries told me that i am one of a handful of their favorite radio programs and they have given me uh quite a number of these books by dr nichols to give away to first -time questioners so i thank ligonier for that well uh i know uh dr gail that uh you have a number of different uh websites and so forth that you could be contacted at and uh first of all if you can let our listeners know how they could find community houses of prayer well community houses of prayer includes one aspect of spiritual warfare for evangelism and that could be i could read about that on the website but the website is www .chop

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ministry community houses of prayer chopministry m -i -n -i -s -t -r -y dot net and also on there uh there's uh find the information on finding forgiveness uh that ministry that seminars and workshops and all the rest yes and uh also the presbyterian church in is it iron pennsylvania it's in phoenixville it's called ironworks church ironworks church uh and that's in phoenixville pennsylvania that's ironworks church in phoenixville uh pennsylvania and uh hopefully god willing i will be able to visit you folks sometime because i am in carlisle pennsylvania and i would love to uh pop a visit uh there and that uh website is ironworkschurch .org