April 20, 2017 Show with Lt. Col. Kevin Jarrard on “In the World But Not of the World: Being ‘John 17 Christians’ in the 21st Century”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 20th day of April 2017.

Before I introduce my co-host and my guest and topic for today, I do want to let our listeners know that I have finally posted on the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio website, ironsharpensironradio .com, in the archive two old broadcasts of interviews that I had with my dear friend William Norman Grigg, who went home to be with the Lord last week on April 12th at the age of 54.

And as I have mentioned before, William Norman Grigg was a brilliant man, I think, probably on the level of genius without any exaggeration. He was an outspoken Christian libertarian, and he most interestingly was a Mormon convert to Christianity.

And many of my listeners may recognize his name because he at one time was the senior editor of the New American Magazine. Well, William Norman Grigg went home unexpectedly of a heart attack last week, and he has left behind a wife and six children, and if I'm not mistaken, seven siblings, and I believe all of them are still Mormon.

And I'm sure that the majority of his family is still Mormon, other than his wife and children. And I ask of you not only to pray for his wife and children, because obviously they are still in a very deep state of mourning, but also pray for the remainder of his family who are in mourning, but also who are still trapped in a false religion that the Lord rescued William Norman Grigg from by his sovereign grace.

So the two interviews that I have posted at ironsharpensironradio .com are his interview that he conducted with me on August 7th, 2007, on the infamous Meadows, I'm sorry, Mountain Meadows Massacre. That is the massacre that took place, over a hundred men, women, and children murdered by Mormons.

Innocent men, women, and children passing through Utah on their way from Arkansas to California. And this was in the 19th century that they were massacred. He discussed that incident, which interestingly enough occurred on September 11th in the 1800s.

And then I also posted his testimony, William Norman Grigg's testimony of his conversion from Mormonism to biblical Christianity, which I recorded or broadcast originally on August 22nd, 2007. So I hope that you will listen to those in memory, in loving memory of William Norman Grigg and pass those mp3s on to your family, friends, and loved ones, especially if they're Mormon.

I would love to hear reports at some point in the future of Mormons coming to Christ after hearing William Norman Grigg's very moving testimony. He actually broke down crying during that interview, which doesn't happen often on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

So I hope that you all are blessed by that. And today I am so delighted to have back on the program. This is the first time he is my guest. He had been on the program once before as my co-host when we interviewed Staff Sergeant David Carnes, who is the United States Marine that rescued several transit authority policemen trapped beneath the rubble of one of the World Trade Center towers.

And Oliver Stone made a movie of that rescue called World Trade Center. And Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard was in studio with me as my co-host that day interviewing Staff Sergeant David Carnes. But today, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard is my guest.

And he is not only a United States Marine, but he is also an elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia. And we are going to be discussing the theme in the world, but not of the world, being John 17 Christians in the 21st century.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to the studio, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin.

Girard. Chris, it's good to be here. We had a great visit with Staff Sergeant Carnes back on September the 11th. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing him that morning and then hearing his further comments and some of his testimony on your program that afternoon.

But it is good to be here. And I can't think of a more applicable topic for discussion for believers than being in the world, but not of the world. Prepositions have meaning. Take heart, young middle school grammarians.

The prepositions have meanings. In and of mean very different things. And so there's much meaning hidden in those two-letter words.

Amen. And in studio with me again is my co-host, Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Hello. Am I actually here? I'm starting to hear myself now.

Well, I can hear you a little bit for some reason. I don't know what happened, and I don't know what may be loose, but the volume is not quite what it should be.

Everybody's used to the fact that I don't talk very much anymore.

Well, hopefully during a station break we'll be able to resolve that anyway. But I'd like to read John 17, and I'm reading from my favorite translation, the New American Standard Bible. And John 17, we have the high priestly prayer of Jesus in which he says, well, this is the text here.

Jesus spoke these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life.

This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you, for the words which you gave me, I have given to them.

And they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from you, and they believe that you sent me. I ask on their behalf, I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom you have given me, for they are yours, and all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified.

I am no longer in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world. And I come to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me, and I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth, your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as you, father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.

The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, and they may be one, just as we are one, in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you have loved me.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you, and these have known that you sent me, and I have made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them.".

And these are wonderful promises that Christ has prayed to the Father and on our behalf, and I know that some would say that perhaps he's specifically praying about the apostles, but he also apparently is including all of those whom the Father has given him.

Yeah, I think you're right, Chris, in context there, Jesus is talking about the world all the way back to chapter 15, and so why clearly the immediate context is that the apostles, the disciples there, I think every good student of scripture will extrapolate that to all believers through all time, and then this theme is really continued in John's other writings in the New Testament.

First John is filled with references to how we should conduct ourselves in the world, and two quick thoughts about that. One that's mentioned here is that we should not be surprised when we are hated.

That theme is closely associated. We will be hated in the world, we meaning Christians, because of Christ. And the second idea that I think is so critical for a believer to keep ever in the forefront of their mind is the idea that this is not our home.

We are passing through. We are indeed pilgrims, sojourners, and so we must loosen our grip on the world and look towards our eternal destination. Our home is in heaven, and that is a great encouragement to us when we face the persecution that we know will come, the hatred that Jesus tells us that we will experience.

We should fix our gaze on the celestial city as it is, and let that be our hope. Our ultimate hope is not in the things of this world, as comforting as they may seem. And so I've dwelt often on the thought of loosening our grip on this world and looking to the hereafter, looking to Christ as our only hope, not only in the life to come, but in this life as.

Amen. And as you know, there are people professing to be Christians, and many of which genuinely are Christians, who fall perhaps on one side or the other of the spectrum, who have gone too far in one direction or another.

You have those who are the Amish, for instance, who have really separated themselves far more from the world than Christ ever desired of his people. And then you have those on the other side of the spectrum who you can barely distinguish them from the sinners surrounding them.

And obviously, you're going to have those that perhaps, like a pendulum, sometimes are on both sides of that spectrum. You, obviously, you are an enlisted man in the military, you are a United States Marine, and you obviously don't believe that this teaching that we are not to be of the world would lead you so far out of connection with this world that the protection of this nation would be immaterial to you.

You are in this service. In fact, before we even go on with that, some of our listeners may be wondering if you're an elder in Dawsonville, Georgia, why are you here in Carlisle? And that has a lot to do with the United States Army College,.

War College. That's right, Chris. Of course, we know ultimately our orders come from a sovereign God, right? There are just some men that work in the Pentagon that think that they're assigning people wherever they want, but the Lord directs our steps.

And so I'm a reserve officer that spent last year away from home with the Marine Corps in Jordan, and then another assignment this year, serving on active duty as a student at the United States Army War College.

There are a handful of Marines who attend the Army War College each year, and that's where we are. It's been an intellectually invigorating year. I have enjoyed my studies there very much. I would also be remiss if I did not say that my theological instruction as attending Grace Baptist Church here in Carlisle has been equally intellectually invigorating, spiritually invigorating.

We've been greatly blessed by the ministry of Grace Baptist Church, David Campbell, and then the elders once he moved back to the UK. So we are thankful that the Lord has brought us here, and we are hoping that he will use this experience for his glory and for our good.

Amen. In fact, I just today, moments before you came into the studio, I received an email from our dear brother David Campbell, who is now the pastor of the North Preston Evangelical Church in England, and he wishes you greetings, and he says that he misses his times of fellowship with you, and at some point I will find that email.

For some reason, I can't see it right immediately while I'm looking for it, but I will forward that to you when I find it. But even before we go on any further with this topic, the last time you were on as a co-host, I don't believe that we got any sense of your testimony of how you came to Christ.

Tell us something about your own religious upbringing, and not only how the Lord providentially drew you to a saving knowledge of himself, but also how he placed it upon your heart to join the military, and then also how he placed it upon your heart to be an elder in a church.

Sure, Chris. Well, we've been very blessed. In the south, in the part of the south that I grew up in, it's almost assumed that everyone growing up in those days was a Christian. There was much cultural Christianity.

So in those days, if you were not in church, if you did not profess to be a Christian, you were on the outside looking in, but the faith in my family was genuine. I had the blessing of both sets of my grandparents were godly people.

I had godly parents. My father was a godly man. My mother, who still lives, is a godly woman, a member of our church back there in Dawsonville. So from a very early age, I can remember that church was vitally important to our family.

The reading of the scriptures, singing of the hymns, was what we did as a matter of course. We prayed frequently in our home and with others. Everywhere you gathered in the south, there was always prayer, and it was genuine faith, I think, in many cases.

But certainly, the trappings of Christianity were more important than the vitality of Christianity to much of that part of the country where I grew up in. And as that cultural Christianity came under challenge, then I think it caused people to really examine their faith more deeply.

I knew from an early age I loved the Lord, I loved the scriptures. I had an emotional experience as a very young man, but I'm very careful not to trust in an experience that I had of my own sin and of my need for the atoning work of Christ.

I think that probably over time, my conversion took place as I came under greater conviction of sin, greater understanding of my need for the atoning work of Christ, that my righteousness was as filthy rags before a holy God, and my need for Christ.

And so I knew I loved the Lord, I knew I loved His Word, I wanted to please Christ, but my theological development was sort of stuck in that spot. I didn't progress much beyond reading the Bible and loving the Bible.

There was very little theological education that went on. And really, even up through my marriage, I married my second-grade sweetheart who was a godly young woman. And so together, we did the best we could with the little knowledge that we had.

The second-grade sweetheart, wow.

She is a beautiful and godly woman. And early in our marriage, Chris, we attended a church through the providence of God, visited a church at our first duty station, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. And I sat behind Colonel Tom Phillips and his family.

And we had one young son at that time that we were struggling with. He was just a little toddler. And as I watched Colonel Phillips and his family, I said to myself, I don't know what he's doing, but I want to know.

And so he introduced me, as I said, Sir, can you teach me? He introduced me to some great books. And that's one of the themes of my life. The Lord has used great books to move me. And so he put several of Dr. Sproul's books in my hands.

One of our first Bible studies as part of that church was Francis Schaeffer's How Shall We Then Live? And then those introductions led me to the Puritans. And so my theological development moved very quickly to a love of the doctrines of grace and Reformed theology.

And so I'm very thankful for Tom Phillips and his family and the impact they had on my life. And then when we returned home, left active service, we needed to find a church. And so there are churches literally on every corner in the Deep South.

But by that point in history, and so this is 2000 or 2001, Calvinism had been killed for the most part in Baptist life, certainly, except for a small remnant. And so we found Ray Rhodes there in Dawsonville, and Ray and I helped plant Grace Community Church.

I joined along with Ray in that work and so quickly were encouraged as we began to discover that Calvinism wasn't quite as dead as we thought it was, that good men like Tom Askell and the Founders Movement and Dr. Al Mohler and Mark Dever and others had been laboring mightily to return the Southern Baptist Convention to its roots, which are, of course, unmistakably, there's really no argument in the matter.

Southern seminary and Southern Baptists were exclusively, you might say, Calvinist in the early days. And so we're thankful to stand with those other men in that tradition of historical Orthodox.

Reformed Christianity. Yeah, in fact, I want to make sure that I know I'll be doing this later, God willing, but I figure I might as well give the website for your church right now. Also, it's GraceChurchDawsonville .org, GraceChurchDawsonville .org, and that's D-A-W-S-O-N-V-I-L-L-E for Dawsonville.

Also, Ray Rhodes, your pastor, who has been a guest on this program a number of times, he is a published author, and he has a website, BooksThatNourish .com, BooksThatNourish .com. And I know he has a ministry called Nourished in the Word.

Does he have a separate website for that?

For some reason, I'm not coming up with that. Nourishedintheword .org. I don't know if that's active anymore, Chris. He mostly just responds to invitations through the church. Ray does mostly family conferences.

Marriage and family conferences have really been what he has done most of his work in. You may know, of course, he finished his doctoral work at Southern Seminary on the marriage of Charles and Susanna Spurgeon.

Yeah, we're going to be speaking about that very soon. Anytime a church sends its pastor or encourages their pastor to continue their education, the church is the greatest recipient of that blessing. And so our church has been the recipient of all of that work and study that Ray did at Southern Seminary.

And, of course, Spurgeon is one of our great heroes. And little was known about the role of Susanna in his ministry, or not as much was known, I should say. And so Ray has done much to highlight the importance of his marriage to Susanna and her work in helping her husband, and then the work in her own right.

After his death of continuing the work of the ministry. Well, I will cheer the heart of Pastor Ray Rhodes right now by letting him know that you arrived at my studio wearing khakis, not skinny jeans. He was making a joke about, I hope he doesn't show up with skinny jeans.

And I know that must have been a joke because I can't, in my wildest imagination, picturing you being a skinny jean pastor or elder, let alone marine.

That's, you'd be accurate in your assessment of my fashion choices, that's right. I don't own a pair of those types of pants. I've heard that Ray has some though.

And I did find David Campbell's email. He says, do give my warm greetings to Kevin. It was a real delight to get to know him and his family in the weeks before we left. That was David Campbell, the former pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, now pastoring the North Preston Evangelical Church in England.

But we're going to go to a break right now and when we come back, we will be focusing mainly on the subject at hand in the world, but not of the world being John 17 Christians in the 21st century. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages, God willing, with Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am .com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.

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Needs a pastor. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today is Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Gerard, who is a United States Marine, and he's also an elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia.

He's in studio with us today as he, for a year with a few months to go, has been and will be working with the United States War College here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and I'm delighted to have gotten to know him a little bit and that he has been worshiping at the church where I am a member, Grace Baptist Church here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

In studio with me is the Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co-host, and why don't you just try to say a few words. Well, let's just see if I'm on yet. You do sound a little better for some reason, I think. Yeah, well, I can't tell you why, Buzz, but anyway, we'll try to figure that out sometime.

Is this a real microphone you gave me? You might want to just put it closer to your mouth, actually. I don't think that's it. Yeah, it is a hot mic because I heard it rustling, but anyway, we have a lot more important things to talk about right now than that.

We are discussing, as I said, in the world but not of the world, and I want to just read another passage of Scripture to kind of drive this subject home here. In 1 Corinthians 5, we read, beginning at verse 9, this is the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people.

I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a viler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church, but those who are outside God judges? And this is something to remind us that we are not to be as the Pharisees, am I correct, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Jarrett, that we are not to just view the lost world around us as a pariah and not associate with them in any way, shun them basically, and only hang out with people who agree with us and live like us.

The warning of not associating with immoral people is one who is a charlatan among us or a wolf in sheep's clothing or someone who is just making a mockery of Christianity who is claiming to be a Christian, am I right?

I think your earlier.

Description, Chris, is very helpful that you describe the two extremes, the two ditches, if you will, with the road in the center. And one of those ditches is separatism, that we remove ourselves from the world to the greatest degree possible.

The other ditch is being indistinguishable from the world. The question we should often ask ourselves is, if we were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict us? But the other ditch, the ditch of separatism, I think when we begin to fall into that trap, when we start sliding toward that ditch, we're really denying the gospel.

That's how serious that error is. Whenever we start to believe that the enemy is out there somewhere, whatever that looks like, and there are enemies in the world, Scripture clearly tells us that, but the greatest enemy is our own sin.

I mean, the heart is a virtual idol factory. And so whatever sin is out there, we should always view the remaining sin in our own hearts as a believer, as our greatest enemy, and constantly be seeking to put off the old man and put on the new man.

And the Apostle Paul in Romans 12 says, do not be conformed to this world. So we don't want to be indistinguishable to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So the two extremes that you described are equally erroneous. We don't want to be in either ditch. We want to be in accordance with Scripture. We want to live in accordance with Scripture. We want our walk to be in accordance with His Word and to be worthy of the gospel, as Paul explains it.

So there are dangers on both sides, certainly.

And I'm sure that since you providentially in our studio today are in the military, perhaps you could tell us about some of the specific challenges about being in the world and not of the world in the military.

I am not in the military. I have never been in the military. But you have an image that Hollywood conjures up in your mind. I don't know how accurate Hollywood is when they portray the Marines and the military in general.

And of course, I'm certain that some movies and television programs are more accurate than others. But you have a very rough bunch of men who are certainly disciplined, but when they are given liberty to cut loose, you have this image of great immorality and perhaps even men of violence and drunkenness and so on.

And so I don't know if you could tell us about the life of a Christian in the Marines specifically. Are you respected for your faith or are you mocked for your faith? Is it both? You know, give us some an idea of what it's like to be in the military, especially even coming up from the beginnings of boot camp with that same Christian faith and so on and leading.

You further into your military career. Sure. I think some of those stereotypes are based on truth. I think there has always been in martial cultures a degree of immorality that comes from a twisted image of what it means to be a man.

There is what God has ordained manliness to be, and then everything good that the Lord decrees, of course, man finds a way to twist that and to turn it and to corrupt the image of what God intended into something entirely different.

And so, while manliness, the complementarianism that God ordained in Genesis has been corrupted by the world, and so many of your stereotypical ideas of masculinity have been corrupted by the world. And so what some men think to be manliness, of course, is a corruption of that which God intended, and it's often marked by immorality of all sorts, drunkenness, sexual immorality, coarse and filthy language.

All of those are ever present to some degree or another, I think, in a greater degree in the military. And so from my first encounter with military culture, I was faced with a dilemma, you know, choices to be made.

Would I conform to those around me, or would I simply walk with Christ? And I think I'm thankful that I was trained up in the way that I should go, so that when I became older, I won't say old, I was very young when I encountered military culture, that I knew the difference between right and wrong, and I knew the lessons that my mother and father had taught me were ringing in my ears, and I was able to discern what I ought to do and to stand with Christ.

And that sometimes means standing alone. I can remember one deployment, I was at a particular camp overseas with several hundred Marines, and I think it's fair to say I was the only believer on the camp.

There was a chapel service one morning, and I showed up at chapel. The chaplain, who was not a believer, was there, and he said, well, since it's just you and I, we'll just cancel things and go back to bed.

Obviously not a believer.

Obviously, for all sorts of reasons, not a believer. So I let the chaplain go back to bed, and I got on my knees and prayed and wept and read scripture and worshiped as best I could, all alone. And so there is some loneliness, I think, Chris, but the other aspect of military life is that many of the facades are stripped away, and you encounter reality, truth on a daily basis, in a way that sometimes the rest of our culture is shielded from.

And particularly when you are places where you're in danger, in physical danger, and people begin to consider their ultimate destination. I can remember the first time that I was preparing to go into harm's way as we were passing out the ammunition on board the ship where I was, one of my most immoral young Marines came to me and said, sir, is the chaplain going to talk to us before we leave?

And I said, well, why is it that you want to speak to the chaplain, son? You haven't seemed very interested in him up till now. But of course, you know, I said for the chaplain and had him pray for us and pray with us.

And so I have found that when you're faced with the ultimate questions of life and death, Chris, that it creates opportunities for the gospel to do its work. You know, what will happen if you die tonight?