August 30, 2023 Show with Jon Harris, Andrew Rappaport, AND Tom Rush on “The Importance of Masculinity”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Opens With Scripture, History, and the Program Theme

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Introductions, the Conference, and Tom Rush's Salvation Testimony

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 30th day of August, 2023, and we have one of those rare programs today when we have three guests on simultaneously, and they are all involved in an upcoming conference, Overcoming Evil, in Speculator, New York, that we will be describing in more detail.

And my guests today are, first of all, let me introduce back to the program a returning guest, John Harris, who is an author and conference speaker, and it's great to have you back on the program, John Harris.

Thank you, Chris. It's good to hear from you, and looking forward to the discussion.

And I also want to welcome back to the program another returning guest, my old friend, Andrew Rappaport, who is the founder of Striving for Eternity Ministries. It's great to have you back on the program.

Did you just call me old?

Man. I know, I hate overstating the obvious on my program, but it's great to have you back. And we also have a first-time guest on the program who is one of the speakers at this conference that I just mentioned that is coming up in Speculator, New York, and this is Pastor Rush, who is an interim pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Fairburn, Georgia, and he is also the founder of TREAD Ministries, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to the program, Pastor Rush.

Hey, glad to be here, Chris. Thanks for the invitation. I'm looking forward to it.

And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away in case they have questions. Our theme, by the way, is not only to promote the conference coming up, but the specific theme is the importance of masculinity.

And if you have a question for our guest today, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

And please only remain anonymous if your questions involve a personal and private matter. Well, first of all, since you are the only first-time guest on the program, Pastor Tom Rush, I would like you, as our tradition compels us to do here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

So let's hear an abbreviation of your story today, brother.

Well, I'll try to be brief with it. I was very fortunate to grow up in a Christian home. My parents were faithful members of the First Baptist Church in the town here in Georgia where I grew up, and they shared the gospel with me.

My tradition goes back, as far as I can trace it, at least back to the war between the states where my great-great-grandfather was a Baptist pastor and a chaplain to the Confederate troops. And so, you know, that has been passed down the line.

My dad was a deacon and Sunday school teacher. My grandfather was also a deacon, Sunday school teacher. His dad was a pastor. So it's kind of been in the family for a while. But, you know, my mom and dad, you know, shared the plan of salvation with me.

And I've always been grateful that our sovereign God, you know, put me in that kind of environment and gave my life to the Lord just before turning eight years old. And then when I was in college, God began to deal with me about a call to the ministry.

I was already committed to the Navy through the ROTC program, so I served in the military but did my first tour of duty and got out, went seminary and been pastoring ever since.

Well, tell us something about TREAD Ministries.

Well, TREAD Ministries, after being a senior pastor for 42 years,.

You're very muffled now for some reason. I don't know why.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Now you're fine.

Is that good?

Yes.

You know, several years ago, about seven years ago, after pastoring for 34 years, I just felt the Lord's call to try to expand my ministry, do some writing, Bible conferences, that sort of thing. The Lord's been very good to me in that regard.

I've had a lot of opportunities to do that. And so I just wanted to raise up TREAD Ministries as sort of a standard against the tide of secularism that seemed to be invading the church. You know, the judgment of God is a real thing, and I think that God's people need to be prepared for the coming judgment of the Lord.

And so that's kind of why we started TREAD, stands for Tom Rush Evangelism and Discipleship. I think evangelism and discipleship go right together. And so that's the reason for TREAD Ministries.

Great. And the website is treadministries .org, treadministries .org.

That's correct, Chris.

And my friend, Andrew Rappaport, why don't you tell our listeners briefly about striving for eternity ministries?

Sure. Thanks.

It's a discipling ministry. We do discipleship a lot of different ways. We have an online academy. We have books. We have a podcast community. We have seminars where we come into churches and train people.

What makes our ministry maybe a little bit different than others is we actually target the smaller churches where most people don't go, most para-church ministries where the church can't afford to have us and we'll come into them anyway.

And we just trust our monthly supporters to help us do that. But we go into churches that can't afford to fly us out and pay an honorarium and we go to them and we'll do a seminar, try and train people up in those in those churches to help that church grow.

So that's that's one of the things we do may be a little different than others. My podcast that Chris, you're aware of is I have two main ones. I do Andrew Rappaport's Rappaport that's wrapped with two P's where we do biblical interpretations, applications to all things Christian life.

And then we have Apologetics Live, which is a live stream Thursday nights, 8 to 10 Eastern Time, New York Time. And we answer any questions people have about God in the Bible. And I say I can answer any question because I don't know is a perfectly good.

Answer.

And the website for that ministry is strivingforeternity .org, right? That is correct. And now, John Speed, it's great to have you on the program again. You're a returning guest. And tell us about this conference that you have coming up in Speculator, New York, September 21st through the 24th.

I unfortunately cannot be there because I'll be in Atlanta at the G3 conference. But tell us about this conference that you are spearheading and speaking at.

Yeah, thank you, Chris. And for those who aren't going to G3 and are in the area, the New York area, Northeast or Mid-Atlantic states, it is a good opportunity to really get to know other guys who are like minded in their values and share some of the same concerns and the same joys and the same love for Christ that you do.

And so, I mean, it really starts there. I wanted speakers who were bold, unapologetic, masculine, willing to take hard stands no matter what the consequences were, not company men. And so that's really the main metric I used when determining which speakers we were going to have come.

So we actually have six speakers. So another speaker is Lance Nidihara, who is a world renowned, at this point, chef. He's won the show Chops twice, but he is in affiliation with Living Waters Ministries.

He's written some materials for them. And actually, my father, who's also my pastor right now, is going to be there, Scott Harris. And I have him doing a session. And then A .D. Robles, who's a popular YouTube podcast guy, he's going to be there as well.

So there's a bunch of us. And Tom Rush is the main speaker. Tom has a vast military experience and pastoral experience. And I asked him, because we're all talking about some different topics, but him specifically, I said, could you just talk to us about being men?

Because right now that is such a controversial thing. But it's also just, I think, a hard thing, especially for younger men who don't have a role model and haven't seen it. They don't know really what being a man is.

And that's probably the most vital, important thing we need right now are some bold Christian men to stand up, take charge, be willing to take shots if need be and do the right thing. And and so that's what we're hoping to do is inspire people.

Forge relationships because we're not just individual men, but we're men as a corporate body. And we want to overcome the evil that's around us.

And there's a whole lot of it. And the specific theme of the conference is overcoming evil and what. That's right, what specific aspects are you speaking about in regard to overcoming evil?

Yeah, so it's going to focus on a number of different areas like Chef Nidihara, who's not here on the podcast, but he runs a campus ministry at the Culinary Institute of America. And so he's going to talk about being on a college campus and being a light in a very evil environment where it's obviously secular, but it's it's really just pagan.

I mean, there's a lot of debauchery. There's a lot of opposition. And he is a very encouraging group. So that's going to be inspirational, I think, for the men who come who are used to getting a lot of bad news.

They're going to get some good news about what God's doing and what he can do and how he can use us. And then, of course, conquering personal evils. I think that's going to be kind of wrapped up throughout the conference.

I know I'm going to talk about that some. My dad's going to talk about spiritual discipline. So overcoming vices that we might have, reoccurring sins. I know for men, pornography is a big one, and it's probably more prevalent than any of us know.

And so I think talking about that, getting it out in the open in an environment where men can actually not feel like there's in a mixed audience, they're going to say something that is inappropriate. They can actually bear each other's burdens.

That's going to be happening. And then Andrew is going to be talking about just overcoming evil in ministry, because there are people coming. There's actually a number of pastors who my sense right now is that a lot of pastors feel like they're beaten down after 2020.

There's been splits in churches. There's been all kinds of fracturing. And how do you overcome the evil that the devil puts up against us in ministry? And so, yeah, these are just a few of the areas, but it's going to be pretty comprehensive, I think.

Now, is Lance Nittahara, the chef, is he the same chef that I saw years ago on Chopped? He was a contestant who won and he shocked everyone, including the judges and the host, by sharing, by splitting in half his winnings with a rival contestant, a woman who was heartbroken that she didn't win because she was going to use the money to visit her, either visit her mother in Italy or take her mother to Italy where they're from or where she is from before she passed on or something like that.

Was that the same?

Yes. Yes.

Wow. That was a landmark episode because it was the only time I haven't seen every episode of Chopped, but I remember everyone, the host and the judges, were crying when he did that. And yeah, and I remember thinking to myself, wow, did he just make a profound statement for the love of Christ?

Because initially, if you if you saw the episode yourself, there was a little teasing going on once in a while because of his old fashionedness. And he used something he used a term about being a chef in the secular world.

And when they were asking him some of the challenges that he faced, he said something like, well, when you work in a kitchen and a secular restaurant, there's a lot of potty mouth going on. And they just thought that was hilarious.

The host and the judges. But he wound up wowing all of them. And I always wondered, especially what kind of impact that may have made on the host who was openly homosexual. So that was quite an episode that obviously I remembered vividly.

And as soon as you mentioned his name and his profession, my memory clicked there.

Yeah, you have a good memory.

Well, that was just a remarkable episode. It really stood out because I don't think I ever saw and perhaps there never was a contestant that shared his winnings with the runner up. So that was pretty remarkable.

Well, as I said before, how do our listeners register for this conference in Speculator.

New York? You go to over yeah, overcoming evil conference dot com, overcoming evil, evil conference dot com. And it's pretty straightforward.

Great. And hopefully I will remember to have you repeat that later on. Just out of curiosity, we are talking about the importance of masculinity today. And I was just wondering, don't judge me for being judgmental or something, but I'm just wondering why Andrew Rappaport has hoop earrings and eye makeup on.

I think Andrew missed that. Unless his unless his photograph is frozen, I think his photograph might be frozen.

I don't have that that I know.

I know. I'm just kidding, Andrew. Obviously, obviously.

But maybe that'll be the how I'll dress for the conference just for you, Chris.

No, I'm going to be in Atlanta.

Remember, that was that was a safe bet that I didn't have to. That was kind of like making a bet where, you know, you're winning.

The History of Masculinity Under Attack

Well, this area of our discussion, this area of life, the importance of masculinity, that is something that is attacked, mocked. It is even the concept of masculinity, which has become automatically coupled with the word toxic in our day and age.

It is viewed as something completely out of place with our culture, and perhaps it is out of place with our culture, but something that should be considered out of place should be considered prehistoric and even evil.

John Harris, if you could tell us from your understanding of history, when did masculinity become an enemy of many in our population? And it may have been going on for a longer time than I even imagined.

Yeah, I think it's been a gradual slide, I think it's a result inevitably, actually, of a classical liberal mindset that says we should emancipate ourselves from the constraints of tradition and family and even now created norms.

And so you have women in the 1840s in the United States who started, they call it first-wave feminism, started. It wasn't just agitating for wanting the right to vote, but it was more than that. They wanted to be in professions that had normally been reserved for men.

They wanted to change that. Some of them actually, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I believe it was, she changed the words in the Bible to take out verses that she felt were against women. And they were doing seances at their annual convention in 1848.

So there was a wickedness to this whole thing. And I mean, I kind of think the only toxic masculinity belongs to feminists. They're the only ones that try to be masculine. And it's a super toxic thing because God did not create them to be that way.

God created them as women to have a certain role. And women are more nurturing. And it's a beautiful thing. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, in a sense. So they do have a lot of influence, but they are not supposed to be taking the responsibility, the hard responsibilities of doing things like going to war and law enforcement and taking the lead in the home and the church.

And this is the way God wired creation. And so you look at the end of 1 Corinthians and Paul says, act like men. This has been ingrained in Christianity for a long time. David's charge to his son Solomon is to play the man.

And there was this understanding they had that there was this thing called masculinity. They didn't even have to give you a 10 point bullet list of what it was. We all kind of knew what it was. It's being courageous and it's being loyal and it's doing hard work and believing in something and striving for that thing and taking dominion.

And so that's what I think it is. And I just think that we're pacified now because we want to emancipate ourselves from God's created order. And it's a sad thing. It leaves people hurt. Families are in ruin.

Boys that are growing up don't know how to act. They don't know how to approach things like even dating and finding a mate. And so this is something I really, you know, I'll pitch it to Tom. I don't know if you're going to him next, but I think that he's someone with just extensive experience with men, with leading men in the military under very hard situations that they're in, where they're stressed out and reminding them, you have a mission, you are a man and you need to complete that mission, even if it's tough.

And so, you know, that that's what we're trying to do.

And you just reminded me of when you mentioned the citation, Play the Man, you immediately transported me within a split second to the Oxford Martyrs back in the the 17th, actually, the 16th century, 1555, who are included in the Fox's Book of Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicola Ridley.

And while they were tied to the stake and moments away from being burned alive, Hugh Latimer said, Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as shall never be put out is uncertain.

And something that is forever indelibly etched in my mind, because you wonder the kind of men that are being raised up in the church today. And for possibly the last decade or more, would such men ever die for their faith if that day may come?

You know, we sit typically in our easy chairs of comfort and we scoff at the notion that we live in a nation that would ever do that to us. But as time progresses and we see what's going on in the media every day, I do not think it would be shocking that within our lifetime, all four of us, that the Christian church might be persecuted with the severity of Rome and Islam.

I mean, that may sound like a crazy exaggeration, but I don't think that we can immediately scoff that off. I don't know what your opinions are, Pastor Rush. You want to comment on that?

Fear of God, Weak Pastors, and the Need for Strong Men

Yeah, you know, Chris, the problem in the church today is, is that so many pulpits have weak pastors in them, right? Weak pastors don't create strong men. And, you know, it's almost like we have sissified the pastorate.

And we have men that are scared to preach the truth, scared to stand for the truth. And I think the problem in the pulpit today is, is that men fear other men. They fear the loss of their reputation from other people more than they fear God.

And we need to teach our men that what is critical is we've got to fear God. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he had a very, very interesting statement, you know, therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

And we've got to get back to understanding what the fear of God is, that it's more important to be concerned about what God thinks than what men think.

Yes, and I wanted to read a meme to all of you that was posted on the Facebook page of a woman who I am going to be interviewing soon, Tuesday, September 12th, if you want to mark your calendars, brothers and sisters.

I have for the first time on my program, Patty Height, who was freed from her bondage to gender confusion and same-sex attraction by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And she founded Out of Egypt Ministries.

She's also going to be a guest speaker at a local church here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Tree of Life Church. And I intend to attend that event. But Patty had a really excellent meme that she posted. Woke culture celebrates boys becoming girls, but not boys becoming men.

It will be our unraveling. I don't think that is an overstatement. Do you, Andrew Rappaport?

No, I mean, I think that, you know, we live in a culture where men have been taught to act like women.

Right.

Even if it's unconsciously. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that most people specifically, consciously, openly have that as their mission. But it just happens to be something that is unconsciously happening.

I mean, obviously, there are some completely insane and demon possessed leftists who have that as their goal openly. But this is something that has just become like a frog in the kettle situation because people don't even realize what distinct gender roles and behaviors should be anymore, even in the church.

Yeah, you know, it's quite interesting. You mentioned the quote earlier about Play the Man, Master Ridley. What you may not know is why they burned those two men where they did. I've been to that location.

Wow.

And what right above where they were burned was where a bishop who signed, you know, to not allow the queen to have Roman Catholicism. And he was adamantly fighting her and they wanted to watch him make him watch his two friends burn to death right outside the window where they had him imprisoned.

And that's why he did what he had done. Now, he actually, you know, when you look at the history, he caved. He caved to the pressure and signed, ended up signing to basically renounce the Reformation.

And he was supposed to go at the church with the queen present to, you know, announce his, you know, his recantation of the Catholic Church and whatnot. And he ended up announcing that he was wrong for signing it and that with his that he knew he would be burned.

And he said, with the right hand in which I signed that letter, that will be the first thing to burn. And they literally dragged him right from the pulpit down about a mile to the same spot where his two friends were burned in front of his eyes.

And they lit him on fire right there. And he basically bent down to make sure that his right hand, the thing that signed that confession would be the first thing to burn. That's a man who stands for the word of God.

That's a man who's going to say, you know what, even when I make a mistake, I'm going in front of the queen knowing the consequences. I will stand up for the truth. And the problem we have today is people don't even know what the truth is.

You have your truth. I have my truth. It means whatever it means to you. No, there is truth. And we had a generation before that understood that. But we have a generation now that's losing that. And that's why they're so palatable and able to be molded in the way that the culture wants them to be.

Amen. We have to go to our first commercial break right now. If any of you have a question for any of our guests or all three of them, submit it to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at Gmail dot com.

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

Let's say you have a son who is not behaving in what would be considered a masculine manner and you have some questions about that. Perhaps you just have a difference of opinion with your own pastors or church in perhaps ignoring this issue.

Or perhaps you're even a pastor and you're disagreeing with your own elders over something that we're saying today. We understand that those would be compelling factors to remain anonymous, but if you're asking a general question, please give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

We'll be right back. Please do not go away.

Conference Promotion and Sponsor Breaks

The Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference. Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic.

Is gay Christian a biblically acceptable identity for a member of Christ's church? So come join us for the sixth Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day Saturday with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reform Bible Church.

This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with a theme of the gospel at war in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

Head to futureofchristendom .org.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, again for the G3 National Conference.

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Go to royaldiadem .com and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with my guests today, which include John Harris, Andrew Rappaport, and Pastor Tom Rush. If you have a question on the importance of masculinity, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Give this first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We have a listener question already from Ted in Moundville, Alabama. And Ted says, I'm a longtime viewer of John's YouTube videos, and I appreciate the balanced approach he brings to controversial issues within the Christian community.

I find myself taken aback sometimes, however, when John throws out phrases such as some of these young guys today or, you know, it wasn't like this when I was a young guy coming up in the ranks because no offense intended.

He looks like he's barely into his 20s. I have a feeling he simply looks young for his age, or maybe I'm just getting too old and cranky. But my question is, John Harris, how old are you exactly? John, did you hear the question?

I don't know why John is muted right now. We can't hear he is.

He is speaking. I see him. It's saying he's trying to speak. But well, I would say that I refer to John as the young man.

Well, why don't you answer the question, Andrew? Do you know how young John is?

I don't. OK, well, I just know he's way younger than me.

Well, Ted, you're going to have to hear your answer at some point later on, because for some reason, John Harris is 34. Oh, there he goes. He's 34, just three years younger than me. I'm just kidding.

Hey, Chris, you know, listen, John and I both have the same problem, and that is, is that we look a lot younger than we actually are. And so I identify with John's problem.

We're in the case for Chris and I, we just act a lot younger than we are.

Yes, and perhaps immature would be a better way of putting it. But anyway, well, thank you.

My dad was born old. I was born old. So, I mean, I'm about, you know, it's kind of like I was born in 1912. That's that's how I view it.

So well, thank you, Ted. And next time, please use up our time with a more important question. The going back to the very important theme of the importance of masculinity. Why is it? I mean, there are some obvious answers that any Bible believing Christian could begin to rattle off.