February 19, 2016 Show with Philip DeCourcy on “Testimony of a Royal Ulster Constable During Years of Terrorism in Northern Ireland” plus Joe Thorn on “Judging Another’s Faith: A Response to the Trump vs. Pope Francis Controversy”

Iron Sharpens Iron

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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, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 19th day of February 2016.

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And I am very excited about today's program, as I have often said that at the beginning of my broadcast, but I really mean it doubly this time.

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I've been very strongly recommended by listeners of the Iron Sharpens Iron program to interview our first guest today.

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His name is Philip DeCourcy, and Philip DeCourcy is the senior pastor of Kindred Community Church in Anaheim Hills, California, and speaker on the daily radio program

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Know the Truth. We have him on for the first hour. He's going to be talking about, among other things, his testimony of conversion to Christ while serving as a

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Royal Ulster constable during days of the terrorism that was occurring during the protests of the

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IRA and the residents of Northern Ireland, both on the

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Protestant and Catholic side of the conflict. He's going to be talking about his, not only his testimony of Christ and his conversion to Christianity, but he is going to be just discussing his life as a constable, what lessons that God has given him, that he has learned through that experience and how it has equipped him as a

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Christian man and a pastor, and what advice he can give to all of us today in a day of terrorism, and also during a day where there is much strife between citizens of the inner city and the police and so on, and we are looking forward to that.

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The second hour, we are going to be interviewing author and pastor Joe Thorne, who has been a guest before on Iron, Trump, and Zion, and Joe Thorne is going to be discussing when it is right and wrong to judge someone else's faith, and this is basically a response to the recent controversy between Donald Trump and Pope Francis that has the media buzzing and predominantly has the representatives of the media giving largely wrong answers to these issues, even from some surprising sources,

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I've heard even conservative evangelical pastors giving terribly wrong answers to this controversy.

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First of all, our first guest, as I mentioned, Philip DeCourcy, he was born in Belfast, Ireland, to Christian parents who loved the

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Lord in 1978 at 16 years old. Philip trusted Jesus Christ as his personal savior.

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Growing up in a neighborhood where civil tension was commonplace, many of Philip's friends became involved in acts of terrorism.

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As a result, Philip decided to serve as a part -time reserve police officer in the

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Royal Ulster Constablery in Northern Ireland or North Belfast.

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While some of his comrades were injured and killed during that six -year period, Philip was unharmed.

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To this day, he believes God used this faith -building season to prepare him for ministry, and it is my great honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever on Iron, Sharp, and Zonin.

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Philip DeCourcy. Chris, it's a joy to join you and your listeners today, and I just trust that as we talk about what

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God's been doing in my life, that will be an encouragement to others, and if they hear something of my story and conversion and the gospel and God's redemptive work, that we might apply it to each of our lives.

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So it's a joy to join you, I've admired you from a distance, and I believe we're some mutual friends, so thanks for the invite.

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Yes, and it was largely because of a mutual friend, Cecil Andrews, or I believe he pronounces it

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Cecil Andrews, and some other brethren who know you personally,

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I made it a point to contact you and invite you on the show.

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In fact, this all started really when I fell in love with a quote from your website in describing your basic ideology or your mission statement, part of it was that you allow the

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Bible to run free, and I loved that phrase because as a strong believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace,

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I think that we humans tend to be too caught up with anxiety and fear and are very often driven to compromise out of fear of what sinful men are going to think of us through our proclamation of the gospel, where we should be letting the sovereign

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Lord just do His work and letting the Bible run free and go where it will and proclaim what it will and teach what it will and convict where it will, and I just love that way of phrasing it, and because of posting that on my website and crediting you for it,

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I got the responses that I should interview you. Well, hey, you know, Chris, that's a paraphrasing of words by Apostle Paul in his letter to the

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Thessalonians where he prays that the Word of God would have free course or that it would be, you know, travel and be unimpeded, and certainly, you know, we need to be praying that, and it's, you know, look, we're back to the great masters of the pulpit and church history,

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Spurgeon, you know, often talked about, we don't need to defend the Bible any more than we need to defend the lion, we just need to let the lion loose and it will defend itself, and we need, certainly as the contemporary church, to anchor ourselves to one of the great principles of the

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Reformation, you know, Sola Scriptura, the authority of God's Word, there's power in the

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Word, not in our words, and so, as my mentor, you know, Dr. MacArthur, taught us at the

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Master's Seminary, you know, it's our job to get into the pulpit and let the Bible speak, and we do that through faithful exposition, and so, you know,

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I really am Chris is just an extension of the pulpit at Kindred Community Church, and a philosophy of ministry, our verse for our media ministry is

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John 8, verse 32, you know, Jesus said, the truth will set you free, and so, we want to make sure the

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Word of God is free, to, as God uses it, it does its work, it's what brings people to faith, it's what's convicts of sin, it's what sanctifies the believer, it's what brings comfort to the hurting, the great exceeding promises of God that are, yes and amen, so hey,

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I know that's what you're about, that's what we're about, we're about not getting in the way of God's Word, but just sharing it with confidence,

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I mean, you're dead right, the church has lost its nerve, it is, somehow it has complicated its mission in the world, we're going to end the world and preach the gospel, and have a confidence in the power of the gospel, we're not ashamed of it, and so,

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I find that in my ministry, that as we let the Word of God, you know, go free, and pray that God will break down the barriers of the unregenerate heart, and social antagonism, that the

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Word of God does its work as it did in the Reformation, you know well that Luther said that, as the

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Reformation unfolded, he said to Philip of Amsdorf, you know, while I and Philip of Amsdorf drank

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Wittenberg beer, the Word of God did it all, you know, that's what we're about.

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And I'd like to introduce my co -host, Buzz Taylor, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor, who has been in the pastorate in a number of denominations, as the

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Lord has drawn him into a deeper understanding of the scriptures, he had to leave one place and go to another, and finally arrived where he is today, and is currently not pastoring, but is a member of a theologically faithful Presbyterian church, and it's my honor to have you back as my co -host today,

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Buzz Taylor. Thank you very much, good to be here. And I know that you have currently got a

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Bible study going, and you have a website for that, that is just in its infancy, but it's backporchbible .com.

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Yes, because we have a group of people that meet together every Saturday morning at my back porch, and we just, you know,

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I wanted to use the term table talk, and I thought somebody already used that, in fact two people that I know have used that, so I can't be the third one, and then

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I got to thinking, you know, another really good name would be iron sharpens iron, but somebody used that too, so, but one of the guys suggested, he said, hey look, you know, we meet on the back porch, and it's very informal, it's kind of like table talk started originally, we just get a bunch of like -minded people together, and we discuss what we've been reading, what we've been listening to, and we talk about it, and it's been fun, it is iron sharpening iron, so it's in the spirit of your own program, but yes, we do have a site that has just been started, it's barely filled with anything yet, but yeah, it's back porch bible dot com.

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And Pastor DeCourcy, if you could, before we go into the heart of our discussion today, tell our listeners a little bit something more about the church where you pastor, and the

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Know the Truth radio broadcast, you've already given us the heart of what the broadcast is about, but I'd also like our listeners to know how they can listen to it, and so on.

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Sure, Chris, thank you. Hey, and just to let your listeners know, I know you're on the other side of the coast, but hey, maybe they'll make a journey out to the west coast, go to the

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Disneyland area, we're just north of Disneyland, in that Anaheim area, we're in the

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Anaheim Hills area of Orange County, and the church itself, I've been in there going on nine years, the church is fairly young, it's only about 15 -16 years old, but hey,

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God's good, we're an independent Protestant evangelical church, and we seek to just build our ministry around an expository pulpit, that's the engine that drives us, we have blended and balanced worship, we sing the best of the old, we sing the best of the new, for us it's not a question of what's old and what's new, it's what's theologically correct and what's singable, and we kind of work on that, we're elder -led, we have a church close now at about 1 ,500 and growing, and we're just drawing people from all stratas of life, from businessmen to blue -collar,

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Hispanic, you know, Caucasian, it's just marvelous to see, back to what

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I said, you know, why have we made it so hard for ourselves, let's just take the text of scripture, let's look at the book of Acts, let's especially read the epistles, see what a church ought to look like, godly leadership, church discipline, ordinances, the preaching of the word, the call to discipleship, and then go out into the community and live it, and for us it's working, and we'd love any of your listeners, if they ever visit our area, we would love to host them,

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I think they'll find our congregation very loving, we are truth -based and grace -driven, and that's a wonderful thing, and the reading of the ministry, frankly,

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Chris, it's just a natural extension of that, you know, many of my heroes,

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John MacArthur and Aleister Begg and others like them, you know, I think when you're committed to preaching, that if the

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Lord opens a door for reading or writing, it's just such a natural evolution of what has been several years ago, a couple of men approached me and said they were looking for some fresh voices that were committed to expository preaching, and they said they would help put something together, and that's a story in itself, but several men in the broadcast industry just in God's providence, who

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I think of Roger Kemp, who consults for R .C. Sproul and Swindoll and Begg, you know, he made himself available to us and give us a lot of advice, and in God's goodness, doors opened up, and we're just thrilled, look, you know, there's nothing,

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I didn't go looking at, God brought it to us, and I just, you know, I don't really think, to be honest about it,

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Chris, I don't think a lot about our radio ministry, because it's simply an extension of the pulpit, I think a lot about my pulpit ministry,

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I deliver, content is king, I want to deliver something to a live congregation on a

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Sunday morning that's faithful to the scriptures, that's historic in nature, that calls the church to sanctification and holiness, calls the culture to repentance, and hey, if God wants to use that in other ways, and I think a little bit of the

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Irish accent does help, I mean, somebody, your listeners may enjoy this, a friend of mine was bold enough to say to me one day, he said,

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Philip, you don't have a face for television, but you've got a voice for radio, you know, that's how

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I ended up on the radio and not on television, you know, I'm not an oil painting, but maybe the voice just helps to attract the listener, but I'm thrilled, you know,

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I get up every day, I think it was Robert Murray McShannon, maybe it was Andrew Bonner, my wife from Scotland, and I remember reading once an article by Warren Wiersbe, I think it was

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Andrew Bonner, where he said that all he was was a glorious spectator to what God was doing, and I think that's kind of where I'm at,

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I think all gospel ministers, if God does his work, we stand back and go, hey, this is the

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Lord, it's not us, I just want to be faithful. And you surprised me by calling your accent an

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Irish accent, I know, accent, come on, it's an accent, this is the king's

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English, the king's English. Well, you surprised me by calling it an Irish accent, because I know a number of Ulster men, and they would be quick to correct me and say, it's not

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Irish, it's Ulster. Well, hey, no, believe me, I'm an Ulster man to the bone, but you know what, since we've only got an hour, all the politics of that.

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Hey, I'll tell you this, if anybody wants to get into that, let me recommend a book, totally off the subject, bear with me.

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The story of the Scots -Irish -Presbyterian Protestants, the Calvinistic, Reformed Protestants that came early, the second wave of the

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Irish was more later on with the mass immigration of the Irish Catholics, the famine and stuff, the first Irish were really

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Ulster men, the Ulster Scots, and James Webb, who just tried to run for president on the

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Democratic side, he wrote a brilliant book called Born Fighting, it's the story of the

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Scots -Irish coming to America, and it is amazing, the story of Northern Ireland, the story of Ulster, the story of the early

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Irish Scots -Presbyterians had been hounded by the Anglican Church and the state churches of Europe, they came and basically wrote the

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Declaration and the Constitution, and the Scots -Irish story is

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America's story. In fact, in the book, there's a quote by a parliamentarian in London who said that the

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American Revolution is nothing but a Scots -Irish rebellion. Right, you know, believe me,

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I'm an Orangeman and an Ulsterman to the bone, but you know, I think we've got much bigger fish to fry than that.

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Well, I'll tell you, it's bringing back old memories for me, because I attended Bob Jones University, and this was at a time when one of the most famous Bible conference speakers we had was

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Ian Paisley, and he always made sure that his text contained an

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EF, because we love to hear him say that. Yes, in fact, this is an interesting little footnote, you and I were talking off the air, we wonder how many dots can we connect.

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My wife, June, is from Scotland, but her pastor was a guy called

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David Castles, who often preached at Bob Jones, and also, she came over and went to the

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Whitefield College of the Bible, which was Ian Paisley's school, so, you know, it's a small world.

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You know, Ian sometimes gets lost in the politics of it all, and boy,

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I sat under his preaching on several occasions, and when he did his work in the text and preached, you know,

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Reformed theology set on fire, boy, there wasn't many preachers could touch him.

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Oh, I remember when he would finish a long, long sermon, it's like, what, where's the rest of it, it's over already?

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That's right, he was a captivating speaker. I was at a political rally in Northern Ireland many, many years ago, where he addressed, literally, in the open air, 250 ,000 people, you know, so anyway, too much politics here, let's get back to the main thing.

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Yes, and as far as some similar brethren in Christ that we may know,

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I don't know if you know John Greer and some of the other men from the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. I don't know

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John personally, I know all of them in Greenville, and we'll get many more.

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When I was in Northern Ireland, I was a Baptist, so I was, I went through the Baptist College, which was originally started by Spurgeon's son in Dublin, and then after the partition of Ireland, it came up to Belfast, where you had the greater evangelical

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Protestant community, but while I was among the Baptists, several of my friends were

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Free Presbyterians, and you know, I have his, I think he did a theological dictionary, which is, you know, is still very helpful, so I don't know him personally, but I know all of them.

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I'm sure if we were sitting down over coffee, we would have many mutual friends. Yeah, he's back in Ulster now, and he, okay, and a colleague of his, a friend of mine,

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Dr. Mark Allison, just retired from the ministry to become the new president of Geneva Reform Seminary in Greenville, and Buzz and I attended his going -away party here in Pennsylvania.

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Mark Allison, that is, he was pastoring Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern, Pennsylvania.

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I'll be back in Ulster in about eight weeks. The Baptist churches there have a conference where all the pastors and leaders get together, so I'm delighted to be the main speaker at that, so it'll be nice to get home and see everybody.

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Well, tell us, first of all, now about your upbringing, and you,

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I already announced at the outset of the program that you were raised by Christian parents.

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Tell us something about your own personal journey to Christ, and then how you managed to remain faithful to Christ during a time when you obviously indicated in your bio that friends of yours that you grew up with began to be involved in terrorism and so on.

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Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, you know, I'd love to, and it's a joy. I mean, the Bible encourages us when we get an opportunity to tell what

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Christ has done for us, and you know, testimony has its place. And look, you know, maybe some of our listeners can identify this.

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I grew up in a Christian home, and at the time, I didn't appreciate it. You know, and when you're not saved, and you don't have a love for Christ, and your heart's still unregenerate, and you're dead in your sin, you know, the last place you want to be every waking hour is in the company of a mother and father who love you enough to preach the gospel, and share the gospel.

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And so, you know, looking back on those early years, I didn't come to Christ until I was 16, but I was surrounded by the gospel, and the

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Word of God was sown faithfully by my father, who's a Baptist deacon to this day, just outside Belfast.

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Faithful pastors I sat on who preached the whole counsel of God, and called us to repentance, and warned of heaven, or warned of hell, and wooed us to heaven.

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You know, that all got sowed into the lining of my soul, but you know, I still loved myself and my sin too much to yield to Christ.

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And looking back in those years, you know, from an un -saved and un -regenerate point of view, it was torture.

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And I used to often, you know, love my parents. They were great people. I even recognized that when

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I wasn't saved, but it was like, man, well, you know, it'd be nice to be in another home where you can stay out late.

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You can, you know, sow your wild oats. You can do your own thing. There's no curfews. You know,

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Sunday's not about going to church, and being quiet, and being reflective.

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But you know, you realize on this side, what a privilege. You know,

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John Flavell, or Flavell, however you want to pronounce that. When I got saved, that was one of the early books my father gave me on the doctrine of providence, and it struck me one day to a place where I wept, that what a privilege to be born in a

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Christian home. You know, why wasn't I born in a Muslim home, or a

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Hindu home, or a home where there's no gospel? And so looking back on my story, the one thing

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I want to at least start with is something I didn't appreciate, I've come to truly appreciate.

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And even there may be a listener, someone listening today is kind of growing up in that environment, and maybe as Paul, as we read about Paul, fighting against the pricks.

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God's goading them through the gospel and Christian witness, and they're fighting it. They need to see that that's a wonderful privilege, and it's a tremendous responsibility, because Jesus talks about the different degrees of punishment.

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How much more light had I been exposed to, and if I'd died and gone to hell, how greater my condemnation would have been.

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But God in his goodness didn't give up on me, Chris. I remember being in riot situations in Northern Ireland on the

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Protestant side, fighting with Catholics, and for a time in my life, unknown to my parents,

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I was a little bit involved in soccer hooliganism, so I went to soccer games on a Saturday, and then the whole thing was also tied into the troubles and the conflict.

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But in the middle of often, in the middle of deep sin and violence, the gospel was there, the word of God spoke.

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I remember being in a riot in Belfast, you know, chucking bricks and getting involved, fighting the police who

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I would later join, and yet in the middle of all of that, you know, feeling the tug of the gospel and the convicting work of the

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Holy Spirit, I remember imagining in the middle of a riot, can you imagine this? You know, if I get caught here and get arrested, they'll fraud march me up to my front door.

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And I loved my father enough to go out and break his heart. I'd embarrass him as a deacon.

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And so even though I was enjoying my sin and trying to enjoy my sin,

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I couldn't fully enjoy my sin because God in his goodness kept wooing and pursuing, you know, it's, you know, when we think about our salvation, it's a bit like the old

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C .S. Lewis quote, you know, a mouse no more chases a cat and a man chases after God.

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And I didn't, but God didn't give up on me and he wrestled me to the ground on the 20th of January, 1978.

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I was at another church event. It was more of a youth event. And that night, the speaker spoke on Matthew 24, 44.

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In such an hour as you think not the Son of Man comes, be ready. And here was my thinking,

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Chris and Buzz. I knew I needed to get saved. Okay. I knew

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I needed to get saved. There was a heaven to gain. There was a hell to shun. I knew that Jesus was real.

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I knew the gospel was real, but you know, I know theologically,

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I was in the bondage to my sin. Even if I wanted to break free, I couldn't have, but I knew at some stage

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I want to get saved, but I want to put it off. I want to enjoy the world a little bit.

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And I'll get around to this. And that night, Matthew 24, 44 shattered that because that verse was saying in such an hour as you think not the

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Son of Man's going to come. And the thought that God used to bring me to faith in Jesus Christ and repentance and submission to his

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Lordship was this thought, hey, Philip, you don't get to come to me on your terms.

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In fact, my son could be back ever before you come to him. And that's what really gripped me.

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And God, I know it was God brought me to that place of decision that night where I go, I got to get saved.

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I got to get ready because Jesus could come for me when I'm not, when I haven't already come for him, come to him.

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And so that brought me to faith. And then the light went on, regeneration, faith in Christ, became a baptized believer there at Rothko Baptist Church and began to revite my

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Christian faith in the workplace. I was an engineer as well as a police officer. But, you know, that's, that's the day we don't want to forget, of course, salvations and three tenses.

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And it's a massive work and it fundamentally ends in glorification, which is a done deal according to Romans 8.

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But man, I hope Chris, Buzz, you and me each and every day can't get past the day that we came to Christ.

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And I'll look back and I thank God for the providence of a Christian home. I thank

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God for pastors that preached heaven and hell and faith alone in Christ alone.

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I'm so thankful for parents that never shirked their responsibility.

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You know, this whole thought, Chris, today, it's almost like even evangelical Christians are frightened to press the claims of Christ on their children.

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My father never feared that. He knew it was his responsibility, even in an unregenerate state, to bring his son before the gospel and the claims of Christ.

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And if I didn't like it, well, too bad. His conscience needed to be clear. His love for me made me sit beside him.

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So, you know, I just even want to apply that to our listeners, to the mothers and the fathers in the trenches.

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Do the work. I didn't come to Christ until I was 16. 16 years, my family wondered, you know, would

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I ever get saved? And I remember the night when I got saved, it was late.

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I went in about 1030. I'm going to have to be careful in case I start, you know, weeping, which is not often the

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Irishmen don't weep that much, but our mothers tend to make us weep. You know, if you listen to Donny Boy, it's all about weeping over your mother's grave, you know, so our mothers do get us.

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And I got home and got home, my mom and dad were lying in bed. And I came in just simply said, you know,

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I was kind of, you know, what is this all going to mean? I was thinking about all my buddies and the police, or not the police, the soccer guy.

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Boy, that's going to change how we're going to tell them and all of that. But I just went to the door of their bed and I said,

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Mom, I got saved tonight. And my dad said, that's great, son, put the light on.

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We talked a little bit. And you know, we weren't that much of an emotional family. And so I slipped into the bedroom.

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And within maybe 5 -10 minutes, my mom's in and just kisses me on the brow.

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I'm a 16 -17 year old young man, kisses me on the brow, weeping, and just saying,

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I'm so glad you got saved. And you know, it's just a word to parents, you know, there's power in the gospel.

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So the word of God, live it before your children. But above all, my mom often says this, because young mothers will come to her and say, hey, you know,

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Mrs. DeCourcy, you know, what did you do? You know, Phillips turned out well, he's a preacher of the gospel.

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What did you do? And they're looking for some kind of formula. And my mom just says, you know what?

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She's a very ordinary woman. But she said beyond all that, she says prayer. My mom would say, and because you know,

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I don't know, Chris, where you guys are in this, but I think you'd be with me in this. We've got to remember, as we celebrate the doctrines of grace, there's the means of grace.

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The means of grace is prayer and preaching and holiness. My mom would tell those young mothers, look, there comes a point when your son or your daughter is outside the house, think about me in the middle of riots and all kinds of things.

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But my mother prayed, she prayed that God would save me. She prayed that God would protect me.

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And in his kind goodness, he did. And hey, you know, maybe that's way too long of an answer, but you know, that's kind of what's on my heart, at least for this segment.

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So to all the parents, hey, do the hard work, live it, put your kid under sign preaching in the

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Bible church. Don't worry about whether they like it or not. They're not going to like it until Jesus changed the heart.

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That's not the issue. The issue is you make it sweet to them and trust God to do his work someday. Does that make any sense to you guys?

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I think you'd have a lot to worry about if it didn't make sense. Just to put it in perspective, what year was it when you came to Christ?

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It was 1978. I was 16 years of age. This was the interesting thing.

31:56

This has come back to you, Doug. You know, this is the doctrine of God's sovereignty.

32:02

God saved me. To me, it was an interesting season in my life because to me, it was the time where, you know,

32:11

I was thinking, hey, I'd be out of school soon enough. I'll be earning my own money. I'll get my own apartment and I'll spread my wings a little bit.

32:18

Oh, I'll always honor my mother and father, but you know, I'm not going to live under the strictures of a

32:25

Christian home. Yet that's when God and his kindness saved me before I could get out into the world and kind of do my own thing.

32:33

I'm so thankful for that. So at the age of 16, get saved, get baptized, join Rathkill Baptist Church and then get involved in open air preaching and discipleship.

32:44

Then I have two jobs at that point. I leave school at the age of 16, didn't go into higher education, but I got a good job in an aircraft engineering company in Belfast called

32:53

Shorts. I did a four -year apprenticeship there and did that for almost eight or nine years during that time.

33:01

Then I also joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1982. So I get saved at the age of 16, 78.

33:08

Then I become a police officer part -time when I'm 20. In 1982, in the middle of the troubles,

33:14

I walked out of a very busy police station in North Belfast called Antrim Road Police Station.

33:19

We were bombed. One of our sergeants was shot dead by the IRA coming into the station.

33:26

So you can have introduced me, Chris. It's in the trenches of life.

33:32

We apply our faith. Faith is what works, as Dad says, James. So I began to live my faith in the work -a -day world as an engineer, trying to witness to the guys who would come in.

33:44

All they talked about was their sexual exploits or getting drunk at the weekend. You're going, come on, guys.

33:50

That's broken cisterns. The true life is found in Jesus Christ. Same in the police.

33:56

I've had two seminary educations, but I'm thankful for the street education

34:03

I got in those factories in the police. I think it's prepared me to be an engaging expositor and also to connect with my congregation.

34:14

It gives you a little bit of street credibility with guys. You can tell them, hey, this is where I lived before I became a theological egghead or whatever.

34:25

It builds bridges. So in the middle of that, I joined the police. Maybe we can drill down into that where I learned to trust

34:33

God in the middle of terrorism and horror and violence. And as we look at our own country within inner -city issues, we see this factor of Islamic terrorism.

34:46

I don't wonder if what Northern Ireland went through isn't something that will help

34:52

America deal with what it's going to, I think, deal increasingly with in the days to come.

34:58

In fact, I think this is a great time to take a break. We're going to be right back with Philip de

35:03

Corsi and a discussion on how his experiences in Northern Ireland have prepared him to be a very needed voice in America today during a new age of terrorism for a different reason.

35:17

But don't go away. By the way, if you have a question of your own for Philip de Corsi, shoot us an email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

35:25

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

35:35

USA. You may feel free to remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter that you're asking about.

35:41

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Philip de Corsi. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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38:43

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is

38:51

Philip DeCoursey. At least he's our first guest for the next half hour until 5 p .m.

38:56

Eastern. We are discussing his testimony as a constable in Northern Ireland.

39:02

We are discussing how these events that took place during that period of violence and terrorism between the

39:12

IRA and Protestants in Northern Ireland, how that helped equip our guest to be a much -needed voice in America, his new home, during a new age of terrorism that is taking place.

39:24

Not that Islamic terrorism is anything new, but it seems to be a much more frequently occurring thing in our world that saturates our media daily.

39:34

In our studio with me, again, is my friend, Reverend Buzz Taylor, and he is my co -host, again, on Iron Sharpens Iron.

39:43

If you have your own questions, feel free to email them to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

39:51

And if you could, brother, pick up where you left off. You were speaking...

39:57

Go ahead, brother. No, no, hey, look, you know, my brother wrote something in the flyleaf of a book he gave me some years ago.

40:06

God prepares us for all that he's preparing us for. You know, Providence really wastes anything, and so, you know,

40:14

I think those years in Northern Ireland, in the police, I was in RUC part -time.

40:19

I was an engineer by day, and then a police officer by night for six years, in a really tough area.

40:27

As I said, we lost a sergeant shot dead by the IRA coming into the station.

40:32

Our station had been rocketed a couple of times with our PG rockets. We'd gone through several incidents.

40:40

I wasn't there when some of those took place, but, you know, those were formative years, and I had to flesh out my faith in that kind of environment, and I learned...

40:54

I've grown to, you know, appreciate history, and I think there's a quote that deals with Stonewall Jackson, the great confederate general who said of his theology that his theology taught him that he was as safe on the battlefield as in his bed, and I think that, you know, sometimes the doctrine of God's sovereignty in Providence is...

41:20

it's just a debating point, and that's such a travesty, because I think there's no more comforting doctrine to know that we live between the hedges of God's protection, and so I learned several lessons, and I mean, it was a dangerous time.

41:35

We had 13... over the years of the Troubles, we had 13 ,000 officers. 300 of them were shot dead or killed, 9 ,000 injured.

41:45

I mean, do the math on that. 4 % of the Northern Ireland Police Force were murdered.

41:51

I mean, multiply that up with the NYPD or the LAPD. It's massive, and so, you know, these were brave men, brave women, and, you know, it was my privilege to be among them, and as a

42:04

Christian, I wanted to share this with them, and I want to share with our listeners in the middle of the terrorism, where, frankly, this is the thing about terrorism.

42:12

You don't know when it's going to strike. I remember being on an anti -terrorist weekend that was put on by the British Army, and they told us, on average, a terrorist incident lasts less than two minutes.

42:24

These guys don't hang around for a fight, okay? They hide behind women and children. They hide in the shadows and in the darkness, and they strike, and that's very hard to defend against.

42:35

I mean, look, where my church is, it isn't 10 minutes up the road where that terrible incident happened in San Bernardino.

42:43

14 people shot dead by ISIS terrorists. You know, when's it going to happen next?

42:48

That's the kind of fear factor, and I've learned several things that helped me cope with that.

42:54

Number one, I learned, Chris, that security's not the absence of danger. It's the presence of God, okay?

43:02

We've just got to get it down, in the natural sense and in the spiritual sense.

43:07

We're living in a battlefield, as A. W. Tozer says, not a play. It's a battleground, not a playground, and life is full of trouble and trial.

43:17

Jesus said, in this world, you'll have tribulations. Take the metaphor of Psalm 23.

43:24

You know, God prepares a table for us, where? In the presence of our enemies, because that's where sheep live.

43:32

Sheep live in the presence of their enemies, between lions and hyenas and all of that, and you and I live in a world that's dangerous naturally and physically, and it's dangerous for Christians spiritually, and one of the lessons the

43:46

Lord taught me when I was on patrol in North Belfast, or when I was off duty, because we were more likely to be killed off duty than on duty.

43:54

How scary is that? It means you can never turn it off. You can never be off duty. I carried a service weapon on my person everywhere

44:03

I went, even as a kind of lay Baptist preacher. I was carrying a weapon, because these guys would shoot you on the doors of your church.

44:11

They'd shoot you in a shopping mall, on a golf course, and so I had to learn, hey, if I'm looking for security as in the absence of the threat, it's never going to happen, but you see, security is not the absence of danger.

44:25

It's the presence of God. It's, I am with you in the valley of the shadow of death.

44:31

Jesus said, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you, and I loved Job 1, and I tried to remind myself that every time

44:40

I went out into the darkness of a night patrol, you know, was I in the crosshairs of a sniper?

44:46

Was there, you know, a roadside bomb waiting for us around the corner? But I reminded myself,

44:53

Job 1, you know, we live between the hedges of God's sovereign providence, and Job 1 tells me that, you know,

45:00

Satan can't harm us. Life can't touch us unless God permits that, and I resolved.

45:06

It wasn't easy believing there was an emotional struggle to come to a place of contentment in Christ and a belief.

45:12

Lord, if I'm to die by an assassin's bullet, if I'm to be blown to smithereens in my own car coming home some night, and then that's your will.

45:23

Now, I had a responsibility to protect myself. We're back to our means of grace. The sovereignty of God doesn't paralyze us.

45:31

It doesn't immobilize us, so I did what I could, but at the end of the day, I took great hope, and I found my peace in that, you know what,

45:41

God was watching over me. I lived between the hedges of his protection and providence, and at the end of the day, what about this for a thought,

45:51

Chris? Buzz, I love this. The worst thing that could happen to me was the best thing that could happen to me.

45:58

I mean, what's the worst thing I could lose? I could lose my life on a patrol in Belfast, but for the

46:03

Christian, it's for me to live as Christ, to die as Christ.

46:14

Another lesson I learned was I used the threat of death as a motivation to make me focused in life, because we all live under a sentence of death, all right?

46:27

We tend to look at where our troops are in Iraq or wherever, and we go, man, they're facing death each and every day.

46:36

The same with a police officer in Northern Ireland. Interpol reckoned that at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, the

46:42

RUC officer was one of the most dangerous policing roles in the world, and that was by Interpol, a large international police agency.

46:52

But the reality is we're all under the sentence of death. It is appointed unto men once to die.

46:59

I mean, I was just learning about a man in our congregation who just discovered he's got prostate cancer, and we're hoping that he'll survive through the removal of that.

47:07

But hey, you know, life is a fragile thing, and for a police officer in Northern Ireland, it was in your face.

47:14

And I tried to turn a negative into a positive, because the Bible says in Psalm 90 verse 12, you know, number your days and apply your heart unto wisdom.

47:23

Or better still, Ecclesiastes 7, 1 to 4, where Solomon says, and this is a strange verse, isn't it?

47:33

Better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. And I think our listeners would get this,

47:41

Chris. My life has never been changed at a barbecue or a birthday party.

47:46

Never. But I've gone to funerals, and my heart has been tugged upon. I've made resolve to be a better man, a better husband.

47:55

And so I tried to learn as a police officer to allow the thought of death, the pressure of that possible death, to motivate me to redeem the time, to live for Christ, you know, not to waste my days, to rearrange the price tags of life.

48:14

You know, what's really going to count when you're on your deathbed? Is the thing that we're fussing over today really going to matter?

48:22

You know, we need to get back to us, you know, brothers as pastors, like Richard Baxter, to preach his dying man, you know, the dying man, the dying man is never to preach again.

48:34

It's to live, it's to live and swim in those waters, you know.

48:39

It's the old Samuel Jackson quote, you know, the hangman's noose marvelously concentrates the mind.

48:45

And, you know, so that was another lesson I learned. I think if we'll get time, you know, a couple more,

48:52

I'll squeeze in. Is that good? Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, the third thing I learned, and I've shared this,

48:59

I've shared this at policemen's events, I've shared this at different, you know, contacts in our community.

49:05

I think that the third thing I learned of one more after that, as a police officer in Northern Ireland, I learned that the final act of justice and judgment is in God's hands.

49:17

And I want to be honest, even as a believer, I had to fight hatred. I had to fight a desire to pay back those who hurt my fellow officers or those who were destroying our country.

49:33

And you get into what became very helpful to me, and I think these verses in God's word will help our listeners because, you know, as we see these random acts of terrorism, we think about what

49:45

ISIS and Islamic terrorists are doing to our brethren across the world, burying women and children alive, you know, cutting heads off.

49:56

If there's something in you rises up, like Peter, in an act of emotion, and you just want, you know, you want to cut someone yourself.

50:05

And you know, hold on a minute, that's not Christ -like. That's not in keeping with the gospel. As an individual, that's certainly what a government can do.

50:14

It gets a chance. I had to fight this whole thought of Psalm 73, and if you flip it,

50:21

Psalm 37, where the psalmist talks about, I envied the evil. He was getting away with it.

50:28

So one of the things bugged the life out of me in Northern Ireland was IRA terrorists getting off on a technicality or threatening a witness, or even agencies like Amnesty International, who would come in, and to my surprise, almost defend, you know, the perpetrator of the crime rather than the victim.

50:51

And I used to get angry until I read Psalm 37 and read Psalm 73, and especially

50:58

Psalm 73, where Asaf says, you know, the prosperity of the wicked, they were their arrogance and violence like a medallion around their neck.

51:09

And he says, I got angry, I almost slept, I almost lost my grip on God, my grip on my faith.

51:16

What's the point of being righteous when truth is on the scaffold and evil is on the throne?

51:23

And then you get to that beautiful, kind of tipping point in Psalm 73. I have a message on it on our website if some of the listeners want to go and listen to it.

51:31

It's, until I went into the sanctuary and saw their latter end, and I needed to remind myself, you know, ultimately, you know, it's

51:42

Romans 12, it's Revelation 19 and 20, it's 1st, 2nd

51:47

Thessalonians 1, you know, Jesus promised to the church at Thessalonica was,

51:54

I'm going to trouble those that trouble you. But that's not going to come now, it comes at the end.

52:02

And that's the blessed hope, that's the second coming, that's living with that in mind. And that helped me, and I had to struggle through that.

52:09

And I had to learn, hey, I've got to love my enemy, I've got to pray for them, and I've got to leave vengeance with the

52:16

Lord. And that was another lesson, it wasn't easy, you know, it's a bit like Job and Joseph again.

52:24

And I think given the time here we're about to run out, that the fourth thing I learned was very much a gospel lesson, that God's not the enemy of my enemies, he's not even the enemy of his enemies.

52:40

That's a quote I came across, and this guy's a little bit more theologically liberal, but Martin Niemöller with Bonhoeffer was part of the resistance movement in Germany against Hitler.

52:53

And this is a quote from him as he was imprisoned, because he fought against the

52:58

Nazis, whereas he looked out and saw the gallows that were for him and other men.

53:05

One day it dawned on him, and this is I believe his quote, that God is not the enemy of my enemies, he's not even the enemy of his enemies.

53:14

And this brings us to the radical nature of the gospel, where I needed to remind my fellow police officers, because God did some marvelous work in Northern Ireland.

53:25

Terrorists on both the Protestant and the Catholic side got saved. I met them, I knew them, and it became a radical testimony, like the thief on the cross.

53:34

He's a violent man on the wrong side of the law, he's got no redemptive quality to his life, he's dying because all he did was inflict pain on society.

53:44

And yet Jesus says today, you know, you'll be with me in paradise. And here's the radical thing,

53:50

Chris, and I know you embrace this. Good, in a relative sense, good policemen who die without Jesus Christ go to hell.

54:01

And terrorists who embrace Jesus Christ, repent of their sin, they get to go to heaven, because that's the nature of the gospel.

54:10

I say to our congregation all the time, the gospel's not for good people, it's for bad people.

54:17

And so that was another lesson of Northern Ireland, the radical nature of God's sovereign grace and mercy.

54:25

It is so sovereign and it is so gracious that it's for anybody. You know, sometimes the doctrines of grace, we think it's for that few, but in the bigger scope of things, that doctrine teaches us it's for anybody.

54:38

I mean, it's so radical, it's so sovereign, it's so marvelous that God sets his love upon, you know, the vilest of sinners who truly believe that moment from Jesus apart and received.

54:54

And when I saw that, the surprising, scandalous nature of the gospel,

55:02

I love it. And look, ultimately, God called me to be a preacher of the gospel.

55:07

I loved my years in the police, some of my heroes are those in law enforcement, those in our armed forces,

55:13

I have a heart for them because I know what they're going through. You, a preacher of the gospel? That seems very evident during this interview.

55:21

I mean, at the end of the day, all they do is to get to lock the bad guys up. If we get the gospel to these bad guys, they get free, free from their sin nature.

55:29

Well, not free from their sin nature, ultimately, free from the penalty of this sin. God will do a work in their hearts where they'll progressively give up on the dominion of sin.

55:39

And look, at the end of the day, it's the old John Newton quote. You know, he said when John Newton, who was marvelously saved out of a life of debauchery, slavery, sexual libertinism, and he gets saved, becomes the

55:51

Church of England minister, we know his song, Amazing Grace. He's quoted to have said one day in his life, when he gets to heaven, he's going to be surprised by three things.

56:02

There's going to be people there he didn't expect to be there. There's going to be people not there he expected to be there.

56:11

But most of all, he's going to be surprised that he at all is there.

56:17

This is the marvel of God's grace. And for some, you know, summarizing that question with four lessons,

56:24

I allowed death, trouble, and fear to drive me to the scriptures, to lean upon God, to trust his providence.

56:32

I learned security is not the absence of danger, it's the presence of God. I learned to leave judgment and vengeance with God, and learned to love my and pray for my enemies.

56:44

And I learned that God is not the enemy of my enemies, he's not even the enemy of his enemies, because when we were yet sinners,

56:53

Christ died for us. Amen. What you were saying reminded me of what a friend of mine had to say during an interview.

57:01

Colonel, I'm sorry, Staff Sergeant David Carnes, who was in the

57:07

United States Marines, and he was off duty after the

57:14

Twin Towers came down, and he took it upon himself to search through the rubble to help find victims who were buried in the rubble.

57:26

And he went into an area that they had seemingly given up on, it was all roped off, and there were no crews searching through the rubble.

57:34

And he was used of God to find some police officers that were buried beneath the rubble, and got them rescued before they perished.

57:45

And he was portrayed in a movie, uh, quote... Yeah, I was just about to say that, is he the guy in the movie

57:52

The Trade Center? Yes, yes he is. Where he goes and finds these two officers? Yes he is, and he's a born -again believer in Christ, a devout

58:00

Christian. And he was very, he was very upset by words that were put in his mouth in that movie, because one of the last words he says in that movie, and it might be the very last words he says, when he is leaving that scene after the men are rescued, somebody yells out to him, what are you going to do now,

58:17

Sergeant? He says, I'm going to Afghanistan, somebody has to avenge this. And he took great exception to that, because he never said it, and he realized vengeance is of God.

58:30

It's his duty as an American soldier to defend this soil and this country, but it's not taken upon himself to take vengeance.

58:40

But I do want to quickly ask a question from one of our listeners in Clinton Township, Michigan.

58:47

Jeff says, I am in the company of some pacifists who say we should only preach the gospel to terrorists, and not try to fight against them.

58:56

So what are we supposed to do in our world to defend our children and old people from physical harm?

59:03

Of course, sir. I mean, I'm about to, I'm in a series in our church right now, I'm in Mark's gospel, and I've suspended it, and I'm doing a series called

59:11

Maximum Security, and I'm addressing the issue of Islamic terrorism, and what's a biblical view on security and safety, and I want to give our people several passages on both the natural means of defending oneself and the supernatural means.

59:25

So on the natural side, I believe we should look to government to punish evil, according to Romans 13, and then on a personal side,

59:33

I have a right in a given situation. I don't believe the Bible teaches pacifism. Jesus told his own disciples to go and buy swords.

59:42

I think there are several other passages that if my home is invaded or my life is threatened, it's not a gospel issue.

59:50

I mean, that's the distinction. If I'm being persecuted for my faith, one thing,

59:56

I'll leave Christ to defend me, but if a criminal, this is a lawful act,

01:00:02

I have a biblical right to defend myself, and I would say to our listener, look, I would take your friends to Romans 13.

01:00:08

We've got to remember there are three agencies God works through. There's the church, there's the government, and there's the home, and it's not the church's job to wield the sword, but it can be a

01:00:19

Christian's job in the government of law enforcement or the army. We've got the centurion who came to faith.

01:00:25

We've got Theophilus in Luke 1 who's certainly in government. We've got Jesus addressing soldiers, and he doesn't in any way give the soldiers or us the impression that he's done on armed forces or military use.

01:00:42

So Romans 13 is the clearest verse, 1 through 7. It's the job of the government to wield the sword, and every

01:00:50

Bible commentator I know believes that. It's an act of death.

01:00:55

It can be capital punishment. It can be a just war, which is a whole subject in itself, but look,

01:01:02

I was praying at a prayer practice this morning for the leaders in our own county here in Orange County, and I prayed that, and I reminded them, according to Paul, the government is the servant of God to do good, and I've never quite understand

01:01:16

Christians who argue that it's for the unsaved to do God's work in the government, but it's not okay for Christians to do it.

01:01:25

Look, I never want to take a life, and so far, Chris, I've never had to.

01:01:31

I remember being asked that when I was joining the RUC when they looked, and so I was clearly a Christian in my resume.

01:01:36

The guy said to me, he said, Philip, could you ever take someone's life? And I said, sir,

01:01:43

I hope I never have to, but I believe if I have to for just reasons, God will give me the grace to do it, and then

01:01:50

I quoted to him Romans 13, 1 -7, because the police and the army in a just and a fair society have a

01:01:58

God -given right to take life, to defend innocent life, and so, you know,

01:02:03

I've never understood pacifism. I don't think it's justified biblically. I think also it's a confusion of the role of the church and the role of the government.

01:02:12

Of course it's not the role of the church to pin their enemies against the wall, and we should never even use the government to do that, but it's the role of the government to do that.

01:02:23

It's just, it's biblical, it's God -ordained, and I think Christians can be involved in the armed forces and law enforcement and justly take life if it is the life of someone threatening innocent life.

01:02:36

And we have to leave it there, brother, and I thank you so much for being our guest today. I want our listeners to know that your website is ktt .org,

01:02:46

ktt for knowthetruth .org. Thank you so much,

01:02:51

Philip DeCourcy. We have to have you on for two hours next time, really. Yeah, we'll do it again. I enjoyed it.

01:02:57

Thanks to you and Buzz, and I trust it was a benefit to your listeners. Amen, it certainly was.

01:03:02

It was for me, and I'm sure it was for my listeners. And we are going to be joined by Joe Thorne any moment now, author and pastor

01:03:10

Joe Thorne, and we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Joe Thorne as we address another issue.

01:03:18

We are responding to the Trump versus Pope Francis controversy, and basically on judging another's faith is the primary reason we're discussing this.

01:03:30

So we hope that you don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with Pastor Joe Thorne, and we look forward to receiving your emails with questions at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back this is

01:06:20

Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in our first guest that we had on for our first hour was

01:06:26

Phil DeCoursey of Know the Truth Radio Ministry and we were discussing his testimony about being a

01:06:36

Ulster constable during years of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland and how that equipped him to be a very needed voice in the

01:06:46

United States where he now pastors in a day and age of Islamic terrorism and now we have for our second hour

01:06:54

Joe Thorne who's been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron a couple of times and he's an author and pastor and we're going to be addressing a very controversial subject that really has

01:07:07

Christians divided perhaps even in the same pews of the same congregation but we're going to be talking about judging another's faith and this is largely due to a controversy that most of you have seen and heard on TV and radio and read about in the newspapers and magazines and on the internet the controversy that developed during the comments of Pope Francis regarding Donald Trump but if we could first of all welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Joe Thorne.

01:07:44

Thanks Chris it's always fun to be on I enjoy your show quite a bit. Yeah I enjoy you as a guest and I thank you for being willing to jump in with very little notice on occasion and it's always good to know that you have somebody as solid as you waiting in the wings and I promise

01:08:02

I won't presume upon that always but it's good to know that guys like you are available and I would like to introduce you to my co -host

01:08:11

Reverend Buzz Taylor I don't think that Buzz was on the last time that you were a guest but Buzz has been serving as a co -host from time to time for me and Reverend Buzz Taylor meet

01:08:24

Joe Thorne. Good to meet you Joe. Nice to meet you Buzz good name. And it's because of a very unsightly reputation

01:08:34

I think but anyway Buzz has just to keep you up to speed on who he is he has been a pastor in Fundamentalist Baptist churches in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches in Finley Ohio Church of God congregations and Presbyterian churches and he is currently a member although not a pastor of a

01:08:55

PCA congregation here in Carlisle and Joe tell us something about the church where you currently pastor.

01:09:04

Well Redeemer Fellowship is about eight and a half years old a group of us planted and it is a

01:09:12

Baptist church it is Reformed Baptist and we have seen

01:09:18

God do some really amazing things here I honestly I've never been a member of a church that is this not only theologically robust but also truly gospel centered and where the community is a genuine family where people know one another encourage one another and you know rebuke one another when we need to it's a very special place

01:09:41

I've never felt more at home and I've never felt like I could just you know honestly be myself and walk with the

01:09:47

Lord and with these people with the freedom that I have now. Amen and I know that you have a website joethorn .net

01:09:55

and there is no e at the end of thorn for anybody wondering any other website for the church at all?

01:10:02

The church is redeemerfellowship .org that's right we got the domain what's up? That is that's quite a great uh hey

01:10:11

I have iron sharpens iron radio that's for a while now I think but uh well it's great to have you on the program now as you uh

01:10:21

Joe uh most likely are aware there has been a controversy that has been brewing over the last couple of days that has seemed to have a lot of media play and uh one of the reasons that I wanted to speak about this with a knowledgeable brother such as yourself today is because I've been frustrated listening to people on both sides of the issue saying predominantly in my opinion anyway the wrong thing.

01:10:51

It all came about when a reporter was asking Pope Francis about his views of Donald Trump's statements about building walls to keep out uh illegal aliens uh illegal immigrants crossing the border into the

01:11:09

United States and basically Pope Francis said that if he is only talking about building walls without building bridges then a person like that is not a

01:11:23

Christian and uh Donald Trump who amazingly is the poster boy for judging other people's faith and belief and physical appearance and everything else everything uh he blasted the pope and said how dare he uh judge a person's faith that is totally wrong for a religious leader to judge a person's faith and many in the conservative crowd even have echoed that complaint uh and that used to be the battle cry of the liberals how dare you question somebody else's faith but it seems like a lot of conservatives are saying that now uh we're not here really to put a microscope under the pope's exact statement uh obviously uh you know i believe in a strong defense of our board of our borders here in america and so on i don't want this to be sidetracked into an issue on immigration and what we are to do as a nation in that regard although i'm not going to prevent our listeners if they have questions regarding your opinion on that you feel can feel free to join us on the air with a question about that chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:12:39

chrisarnsen at gmail .com but my main uh concern is this idea that is prevalent uh within modern evangelicalism that we as christians to do the right thing as imitators of jesus christ we should never be judging someone else's faith that that is such a horrible thing to do i've gotten criticism for even organizing live public moderated theological debates between my friend dr james r white of alpha omega ministries he was a world -renowned greek scholar and theologian and author uh when he has debated roman catholic theologians and i have gotten blasted predominantly by evangelicals saying to me oh that's mean how could you do that that's that's not loving in a day and age when we should be really holding hands and uh linking ourselves arm and arm with those who agree with us on the moral principles that are being that are they're eroding away at the hands of the liberals rising to power everywhere we should never be questioning somebody else's faith but is that really true should a christian not question someone else's faith well first of all if the if the any good pope should condemn all protestants theology right i mean of course good pope is an oxymoron there was an answer i wasn't expecting like your trend the council of trends does a pretty good job of saying i'm going so to weigh in on that uh however uh you know majority um yeah listen i think you know people you know they're familiar with that one passage in matthew 7 where jesus says do not judge and they act like that's all that jesus had to say on it when you when you look at jesus ministry jesus makes uh jesus has a problem with condemning people he actually does it a lot he he tends to of the pharisees a lot and he condemns their theology he says that they are not believers he says that they are children of hell i mean jesus does a pretty good job judging and in some senses models for us that we are supposed to judge so yes the bible says do not judge but what it really says when jesus says that man he's saying don't judge harshly don't judge hypocritically um uh romans chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 talk about that those who judge hypocritically and that they're judged themselves uh by by that sin and then you know paul talks about us not judging in first corinthians 5 but he's very specific don't judge non -christians don't judge outsiders uh his point really seems to be we are and he says explicitly we are supposed those who profess christ not harshly but well and in fact he's echoing jesus words right because jesus also said that we are supposed to judge with righteous judgment in john chapter 7 he says so yeah the bible says don't judge but it says don't judge unrighteously harshly or hypocritically it tells us because proverbs 31 9 that we are supposed to judge well and so and by the way all these christians that don't like like oh i don't want to judge i don't want to judge well you know what you're in first corinthians 6 we're told that we're going to be judging the world with jesus in the end you're that judging judgment is going to be a part of our future and it is a part of our faith now but it's not i mean what we need to push back against is hypocritical harsh judgment or judgment on secondary issues that uh and treating them as if they are gospel issues but uh what the bible says about judging is a little bit more diverse or multi -faceted than what most people seem to say online yeah i want to take this quick opportunity to plug a friend's book that he has written todd freel of wretched radio and wretched tv has been a guest on this program a couple of times we most recently talked about a book that touched on this subject judge not and the not is x'd out on the cover and he is addressing how christians really have to begin using biblical discernment when it comes to evangelists because the media especially is being overrun by the most despicable and horrible uh charlatans around and it's just amazing the popularity that they have gained and yet still people will say oh you're not supposed to judge them but todd freel did a did a great job writing a book about that and you could go to wretched radio .com

01:17:21

and look up that book judge not uh and we'll be talking a little bit more about how to get a hold of joe thorne's books on all sorts of subjects in a little bit as well but the irony here is when somebody reacts angrily like donald trump did uh to the pope he was judging he was he was making judgment statements about the the pope and so and it was really interesting to see sean hannity of fox news uh who has been nauseatingly approving of this liberal pope as has have many on the fox news panel they've been very inconsistent when he came to the united states the accolades and the way that they were showing such great reverence to him uh coming here to america and yet they are supposed to be the champions of conservative television uh and yet this man is a communist really and uh but it was interesting to see sean hannity blasting the pope and using the same bad logic and apparent lack of biblical understanding by throwing up judge not lest ye be judged uh as a reason why the pope shouldn't have said anything now i'm not here standing in defense of the pope or the papacy uh i have a confession of faith that i adhere to that has at least in older versions declared that he was an anti -christ amen so so i am not here to uh defend the pope in any shape or form but we have to be consistent and logical when we make these arguments and uh although i couldn't help but smile seeing sean hannity blasting the pope but it's just something that gave me a little warm feeling inside but um the uh there is a a horrible uh judging that goes on amongst professing christians as you are fully aware we have seen that uh a lot uh in you know many who are king james only anti -calvinist groups who are really uh absurd in their rhetoric and declaring uh people as being children of the devil because they believe in calvinism or they use a version other than the king james bible we even have people in our own camp who are theologically reformed who could be just as idiotic right uh towards those outside of our camp and they are totally going against the grain uh when it comes to some of our great heroes of the faith who did not act that way at all men like george whitfield who requested that john wesley preach at his funeral after he died and men like charles spurgeon who had very strong things to say about the theology of arminians and those who were not calvinists and yet embraced uh many of them as brothers in christ and humbly acquiesced that he was not even their match in godly living but if you could comment on that there is a very wrong judging that does go on amongst professing christians correct yeah and we're all guilty of that to some degree right of course we i i wrongly judge people and hopefully the spirit of god convicts me or a good brother is sent by the lord to rebuke me for it and hopefully i'll have the grace of repentance in those situations but yeah it's common i listen i get judged by some christians just because of how i look and it's you know they can be pretty mean sometimes so it's definitely a reality but and we need to push back against that and i my most of my critiques are against the reformed guys i don't poke i don't poke at the pope a whole lot i don't poke at arminians and but i'm i'm definitely more interested in challenging um guys in my group than i am guys in other groups and and we need to work hard to be happy gracious merciful calvinist yes i i definitely have to learn how to do that i mean i have a daisy uh that i hold in my hand and i look at my co -host buzz reverend buzz taylor and i pull the pedals off saying he's saved he's a reprobate he's saved he's a reprobate just kidding but anyway um that that is so true that it is an irony it is a painful irony that we who believes in the believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace who believe in the total depravity of man and who believe that nothing good in our lives comes from anything intrinsically good within ourselves and within our hearts and souls that all of it is of grace and yet we would dare to be impatient with others who often disagree with us on comparatively minor issues right and deem them as morons as uh well yeah idiots and so on the nerve of them believing like we used to exactly that's a good one buzz uh if you could comment on that uh joe yeah well i guess all of this is is is good it's relevant it's practical um but this main issue that that you brought up which is you know evaluating the person's faith right judging a person's um uh you know they're standing before god i i guess i i would want to make it very clear biblically that we can and well people don't like the word judge let's use the word evaluate critically evaluate it's the same thing um we can judge the content of a person's faith if somebody says oh i i've never asked god for forgiveness um that doesn't mean i hate that person it doesn't mean that i think they're stupid it means okay that tells me something about your faith and i'm going to evaluate that based on what the scripture says so you can judge or evaluate a person's faith in terms of its content um you may not be able to judge its sincerity but that even comes into play when we evaluate a person's character because you can look at their conduct and then you make assessments so like when you look in the new testament false teachers are not only condemned we are called to watch out for them to diagnose who they are and to expel them uh church discipline of course is an act of judgment yes and and it's it's supposed to be done graciously mercifully restoratively and here's an example like at our church we're eight and a half years old we've probably had 12 cases of church discipline here because we're all messed up and uh so 12 cases of church discipline and if you were to talk to just about any of those people and say hey what was that like they would say i'm so glad for it it was helpful it was restorative god did great great things and it's because by the grace of god we were able to enter into those situations without a heavy hand but with a a pastor's you know shepherding touch in leading them into repentance and restoring them in their walk with the lord and with the church so in our judging we need to be compassionate but we also need to be accurate and so when we're in so on that issue it applies but then it also applies to one another whether i'm talking to you know guys that practice intinction with communion which i think is just redonkulous uh i i don't i can't wrap my brain around why they would want to dip it instead of sip it like jesus said um uh we can have fun and we can go at it but that's not an essential gospel issue so we need to let our our compassion and our tolerance guide us through the discipline of judging and judging well yeah you just uh you just introduced me to a new controversy what is this controversy with the lord's supper well it's really big among your buzz should know something about it because the pca is dealing with this pretty regularly but uh in communion uh the lord calls us to drink of the cup and we remember him so we break the bread we eat it we drink the cup and uh some practice intinction which is dipping a piece of bread into the wine and then just eating the bread that's loaded with the wine instead of then drinking it um and there's really never a theological argument for that practice it's more of a practical argument that they that they offer but it drives a lot of us insane when we see it even though maybe it's like i said it's not an issue to break fellowship over in my opinion i just think it's a wrong practice but nevertheless it's it's one of those issues where all right we can disagree we can break out our but well the guys that don't practice intinction can break out their bible but it needs to be done charitably and so let me just say this about like trump and all those guys i think every candidate is a dud i don't i'm not interested in i don't think any of them are are great i have major problems with trump i don't want him to be president i definitely don't want bernie sanders to be president either so i feel like i'm kind of stuck so none of this is about the candidates themselves but everything about this aren't we all judging these candidates all of us are judging them based on what they say or what they have done and so this applies as well in the realm of religion and the christian faith right and it's uh it was it was interesting that sean hannity was judging the pope for what he had said and and judging him for judging and then when he was actually having an argument with a roman catholic priest guest on his show which is something else i enjoyed seeing but he he was saying he was bringing well what about all the priests who were child molesters and you know what about judging them well that's a judgment that's a right judgment that's a good judgment but it's still a judgment but um if i was going to judge sean hannity um i i could i could say this he has great hair i really wish i had sculpted from marble i think well i was gonna ask you what was wrong with your appearance that uh you'll be judged for that oh he definitely looks like a bouncer in a biker bar oh okay joe thorne is a scary looking human being well i'm like five foot tall so i'm not very scary oh really you're five foot tall your photographs make you look a lot more ominous than that i always say hey shoot me get on your knees and shoot me facing up so i look big yeah that's what i tell people are you actually five foot tall or is that an exaggeration you know i'm five foot five if i'm okay i'm a short guy but no the tattoos the beard the whatever the the cigars but i just you know people have a hard time with you know me and some people most people don't but some people do and i tend to hear from them and we're going to be going to a break right now if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for joe thorne about judging another's faith our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:28:17

chrisarnson at gmail .com please give us at least your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa and please uh only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter that you're asking about and obviously in a situation like this topic you may very well have something that you want to say without revealing your identity if it involves something that's going on in your local church and so on and in fact we would insist that you be anonymous if you're talking about specific individuals or churches and when i say churches i mean congregations not denominations you could you could criticize openly a denomination if you have some kind of a problem but anyway uh the uh email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:29:02

chrisarnson at gmail .com don't go away we'll be right back with joe thorne linbrook baptist church on 225 earl avenue in linbrook long island is teaching god's timeless truths in the 21st century our church is far more than a sunday worship service it's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant it's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement it's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing we're a diverse family of all ages enthusiastically serving our lord jesus christ in fellowship play and together hi i'm pastor bob waldeman and i invite you to come and join us here at linbrook baptist church and see all that a church can be call linbrook baptist at 516 -599 -9402 that's 516 -599 -9402 or visit linbrookbaptist .org

01:29:53

that's linbrookbaptist .org thrive in financial is not your typical financial services provider as a membership organization we help christians be wise with money and live generously every day and for the fourth year in a row we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the ethosphere institute a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics contact me mike gallagher financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433 again 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the thriving difference we know we were made for so much more than lending faith finances and generosity that's the thriving story we were made to thrive you charles haddon spurgeon once said give yourself unto reading the man who never reads will never be read he who never quotes will never be quoted he will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own you need to read solid ground christian books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the prince of preachers to heart the mission of solid ground christian books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world since its beginning in 2001 solid ground has been committed to publish god -centered christ exalting books for all ages we invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com

01:31:48

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 welcome back this is chris arns and if you just tuned us in our guest right now is joe thorn and he will be for the next half hour uh joe thorn uh who is an author and pastor and has been a great guest on iron sharpens iron in the past uh we are discussing uh judging another's faith and this is largely due to the recent controversy in the media that arose when the when the pope i meant i was almost almost the trump when the pope made some controversial statements about the faith of someone who would believe in the same regard as donald trump believes with building walls for protecting the borders of our country without building bridges and i'm not sure uh you know who is entirely and only and exclusively in favor of building walls and doing nothing else but but anyway the controversy arose that i was just frustrated seeing and hearing that nobody was saying the correct thing at least entirely in response to this issue nobody on either side of the question um and if you'd like to join us with a question of your own regarding judging another's face faith that was before the break we were judging a face that's my face it's it's pretty bad our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

01:33:30

we do have a listener on long island new york cj who writes one thing that confuses me is i have read many great men of the reform faith who say that arminianism is a false gospel and yet in the same breath they will embrace arminians as brothers and sisters in christ how can both be true you have a comment on that that's a very uh controversial question to start the gate right off out of the gate with the questions yeah thanks so easy um well here's the thing it's like um i'll apply this to the um to the catholic church catholic dogma is blasphemy it is it denies uh salvation by christ alone um through faith alone and so uh official catholic dogma will lead someone straight to hell if embraced in its entirety but i know many people who consider themselves catholics who know the lord they love jesus they have they have placed their faith in their trust in christ and um but they're still connected to the catholic church so you you can be catholic quote unquote and and be saved and you can be baptist and go to hell um it's not so much what group you are aligned with uh socially but it does come down to what you believe and when it comes to arminianism it is in in many ways when taken to its logical conclusion of false gospel but uh but non -calvinists and arminian theologians uh have have faithfully preached the gospel many times be it however inconsistent with uh some of the implications of their um of their articulated theology on paper so i like to make a distinction between the official dogma of a particular group or an individual you know um say the roman catholic church or whatever uh and then what individuals may wind up believing on their own yes in fact there are all different kinds of arminians uh you have those who would distinguish between the theology of jacob arminius and evangelical arminianism right and uh i have even heard a nazarene professor from a nazarene university a wesleyan arminian who actually uh declared that arminians are very much in error his fellow arminians are very much in error forever using the term substitutionary atonement and i actually think he's correct in his consistency right but he went to on to say that uh it is totally wrong to believe that christ redeemed anyone on the cross because if he redeemed uh on the cross if he actually finished the work of redemption on the cross completely and he died for the redemption of all men as arminians believed then everyone would be saved and therefore they would be universalists but they're not but that's right so uh that's john owens point right if christ died for all men without exception then all men are saved and we know that biblically christ did not die for all men without exception but that he died for all men without distinction uh and he died for an elect and those people are saved yeah do you think the issue with that particular controversy really rests in who do you trust as the old game show used to be called in the 50s and 60s i believe i think it was johnny carson's first game show that he was host of who do you trust are you really trusting in christ in his finished work or are you trusting in yourself isn't that really what separates the christians from the non -christians or the regenerate from the from the lost and even in go ahead exactly in in any church right so like i'm we're at i'm at redeemer fellowship like this this church is amazing we we we've there's great theology here we you know people we we talk about but we preach the same gospel every week and i have to remind myself and i have to remind everybody here that if we are trusting in something other than jesus for standing before god then we are damned yes it doesn't matter where you go or what club you're in uh if you're trusting in sacraments you're you're lost if you're trusting in yourself you're lost if you're trusting some guru it you're done but you also have to be careful because when we use the word trust in like one of the accusations made publicly against uh those of us who believe in the doctrines of grace is that uh you know we we're trusting in john calvin and not jesus christ that was one of the most absurd statements i've ever heard publicly made that you know because we all have our favorite preachers and so forth it doesn't mean we're trusting in them i mean i remember when y2k was was hitting everybody said was because we trusted in computers and i thought wait a minute the fact that we use them does that mean we trust it you know don't use a computer you're trusting in it you know so god has given so much to the body of christ that we can use and we can benefit from but i i think it's also um though i don't believe the uh chapter divisions uh even in the king james version chris were inspired but i think it's very very providential why don't you say that to me like i'm a king james only as well because you brought up the king james issue earlier okay well i mean that's one of the things that people do judge a lot about but i mean it's i find it very interesting that the very chapter that starts out judge not lest he be judged is the same chapter that tells us there's false prophets that we have to watch out for we have to look at their fruit to know you know thorns don't come you know from you know i'm going to butcher this i've heard john macarthur preach on it many times but you know but you you know when i'm talking about it's all in matthew chapter 7 and i think we just need to realize that it is not telling us not to judge a person's faith even it's telling us not to judge it by a different standard than we would judge our own selves right exactly exactly well what makes this whole thing more complicated as the as i get older and older and older and uh you know there was a time when i used to think wow i really know that i'm in the right place because i'm in a baptist church and then i became uh more convicted wow i'm really know that i'm in the right place because i'm going to reform baptist church and then as you know years go on and you see wait a minute these people who call themselves uh christians evangelicals reformed reformed baptists even within their own camp they there's a lot of division going on here and you have these things that you're hearing about uh practically every year controversies arise within the reform faith where people are either being lackadaisical and saying ah that's no big deal or they're becoming uh really sectarian uh nut jobs some of them uh judging the salvation of people too quickly and and and barring barring brotherhood from those whom christ did really die um if you could comment on that the the way that we have to really be very balanced in this area even as reformed people when we see people rising up with questionable ideas around us yeah i think at the very front end of of those encounters it's important for us to to remember that we are true brothers in christ and that this is someone that god loves this is someone for whom jesus died and this is someone with with whom i can have you know fellowship now if if they are christian and that's true then that should temper the way that we approach uh the the disagreements or the debates and i believe disagreements and debates are healthy and good so when when i'm talking to someone with whom i disagree with we should be able to talk freely and directly about those issues without while knowing like what level of importance do these issues exist if we're talking about somebody who you know is not convinced of calvinism and uh but they know the lord i don't feel the need to bring up calvinism all the time um you know we can be friends and talk and things will come up and it's great but if they're open seas well that's an arminianism taken to its logical conclusion and um i feel a little more uh need to address the theological issues that are at stake because now we're talking about you know eternity which we're really talking about the knowledge of god uh being lost or gained so i think being able to understand uh what's at stake how how high the and how can i you know maintain this relationship and talk to these people in a way that's going to bear fruit calvinist we have a reputation for for um being and i for a long time i know that i did i hope i don't anymore but we have a reputation for being um all about dotting the i's and crossing the t's in our theology and so we have a robust articulate clearly defined faith but the faith feels cold you know it isn't characterized by well at least in the perception of a lot of people and i think a lot of that is on us for for not knowing how to balance um you know the whole conversation and the approach that we have with people that we're disagreeing with yeah uh that that just reminds me of uh another point here um there is also a difference between accepting somebody fully as a brother and wanting him to teach the uh sunday school in your church or be or deacon or elder yes there are men of god that are my heroes that i would not want to be my pastors because they are pato baptist as my co -host buzz is uh and buzz although he i think embraces me as a brother i'm sure he does not want somebody who rejects infant baptism as his pastor so there are different levels yeah of uh fellowship and brotherhood is that you know well chris let me just jump in on that for a minute here sure and correct you on but it was just um uh somebody was asking about uh us the other day i can't remember who it was now but uh it doesn't matter uh made a comment that um that well i mentioned where we disagree because they it was a question where you and i disagree because they know we don't agree on everything you know being one baptist one presbyterian and i mentioned the issue of baptism and they said oh that's a silly thing to divide over and i'm thinking now wait a minute we didn't divide over it i'm still your designated driver but you know but i i wonder you know how do you respond to something like which one of us is supposed to give up our belief right because we don't want to have a silly disagreement yeah and uh it's it's a healthy sign that people care about doctrine and the issue is how do you react to those differences am i right joe yes and let's um let's just consider for a moment the fact that presbyterians and baptists differ but look at who we stole our confession of faith from i mean we we i have the six i have 1689 tattooed on my hand yes yes i'm a subscription guy i i love the 1689 and part of what i love about the 1689 is is we knew like we had that we had the first london confession we had the 44 when we saw what the presbyterians did and the congregationalists did in the sad boy we were like well that's better and we're going to use that to show that we are together we we almost have the same confession we yes in polity we differ on the sacrament and and whatnot but but really we have so much in common there is a necessary division theologically but there is also a great deal of unity between baptists and presbyterians at least confessional baptists and confessional presbyterians yeah the i know you were joking when you said stole their confession but isn't it true that it was just just as you later really described um it was really a demonstration that the baptists of the day the particular baptist who agreed with presbyterians on most issues except for baptism and church polity right uh they were saying hey we are not a cult we are not uh oddballs we're not aberrant we agree with you on nearly everything except these very important issues now these aren't insignificant issues but they're but they're not issues that would bar brotherhood between the groups exactly exactly there is i mean baptists you know the suspicious bunch back in the day you know uh really emerging clearly in the 17th century and when the act of toleration was passed and we could finally you know publish and dissent in the church of england it was a great opportunity to finally like make it known you know that was written i mean they put that together in 77 but published in 89 widely and signed and it showed that yeah we are in the same family right we might have our own different homes right you know but uh and honestly like i view the pca um as my my older more sophisticated brothers i genuinely do and um and i i have great friends in the pca um i have uh i have many of the men that i read and admire are our presbyterian i have john knox tattooed on my arm so i have the 1689 and so we even have another issue of division on should uh we identify should we identify a man with tattoos as our brother i understand more about his appearance now i think it's a little in las vegas 19 that it does not uh reflect favorably uh my tattoos in the minds of many and uh yeah we have we have to be really uh it's not an easy thing in fact it's something that we're never i don't think we're ever going to get right completely until we're in glory because we uh i mean we are judging very often people in the same pews as us in our congregations let alone somebody from different denominations and so on uh so uh we uh we actually have another listener here when another controversial issue we have arnie in perry county pennsylvania who wants to know i am aware that some christians believe the trinity is not even an issue we should divide over and embrace oneness pentecostals as their brothers in christ and give them platforms from which to speak on their television and radio networks and so on is this going way over the board of way over the line of bad ecumenism yes it is um uh i i look at it this way everybody's going to draw a line right now historically the church has drawn lines very clearly um and and one of those inner circles that that that hold orthodox believers together is trinitarian theology yes and so to to treat that as anything other than an essential over which divides believers from from non -believers in many cases certainly at least from orthodoxy and heterodoxy then um we're completely missing the the knowledge of god the trinity right it is not it's not like oh we're talking about god with his names and just these particular ways in which he works we're talking about the nature of god the knowledge of god therefore and so i think it is an essential issue to hold on to it is one over which we can divide it doesn't mean that a one that's pentecostal doesn't know the lord um i'm sure many of them i know many of them do but uh that theology uh taken to its i think logical and practical conclusions is very very dangerous and at the very least that level of error in our theology will create a defect in our piety any defect in our theology will have implications for piety and that is a big deal when td jakes was brought in for the elephant room discussion with james mcdonald and mark kriscoll and all those guys i was actually there i was there i was on the front row watching waiting to see what would happen and i was really disappointed at the the eagerness to embrace him yeah when he would not articulate the faith in an orthodox historic manner now i i also would say that it would be great for them to go hey man you're starting to try to distinguish yourself from one is pentecostalism that's good but here's why it's important to keep going there was a there was a path there to take where you could say i think you're still wrong and this is why uh you need to keep moving in this direction but but i'm glad to see you that you're at least thinking through this and you're not settled uh in your in your oneness background well now what's interesting about what you just said though you acknowledge that yes we one is pentecostal can be saved they can know jesus christ but on the other hand what they say about us you know is that we're not saved because well well some of them do some of them like especially those in the united pentecostal church international yes well they're the ones that were trying to deal with me once trying to get me saved because you know you talk about work salvation i'm not only saved by my own works now but i was saved by the what the man said when my head was under water being immersed now as a presbyterian i have to tell you i was a baptist once so you're trying to figure out when was your head ever immersed but you know i mean because the pastor said jesus instead of the father son and holy spirit you know i'm saved and if he didn't say that i'm not i mean wow but i mean they're judging us definitely by their theology um just go ahead i'm sorry with the one that here's part of my concern here is with with these various groups um i know arminians who have very detailed theology and we would agree on things like total depravity even like you know in in terms of what that means now their view of peruvian grace changes the way that that works um in the lives of people today because of christ on the cross but i've met people within my group that have a robust theology and there's much that we can't agree on but what i tend to find in other groups one is pentecostalism in particular is it is a mess of theology across the world and so it's not like oh well oh so you know buzz buzz has got his his uh his baptist his baptism theology uh different from mine uh but there's much hope that we agree on it is across the board there's a lot oh yes yes yes in fact i do know a brother in christ in rhode island in providence rhode island who's a pastor uh daniel west who's been a guest on my program who was a oneness pentecostal pastor who came to faith in the doctrines of sovereign grace and then quickly subsequently if i have my chronology right uh he became trinitarian and uh he is pastoring over there in providence and i hope to have him back on the program at some point but there is hope even for folks like that uh just since the name was mentioned td jakes i've heard disagreements among people about whether he has truly renounced unitarianism or not i have had people who are convinced that he has in spite of any ambiguity at the elephant room that he's made later statements or something do you are you aware of any of that um no i i hope that he has and then he can begin to address the other areas of prosperity gospel um and and what needs to be addressed i'm not picking on him i mean this is this is relevant i know i'm i'm concerned about any popular preacher's theology because i know that people are listening to people yes and people say like man that guy td jakes can preach and i'm like well man the guy is definitely an exciting communicator but listen to what he's saying and evaluate what he's saying like scripture says judge like the scriptures tell you to do well with righteousness with clarity and and then make your decision don't be captivated by the gifts of an individual but be um be guided by their teaching when it is and when it's not you're gonna have to cut that cord i i actually saw a video a youtube video of lewis farrakhan preaching in a black baptist church in new york city and i agreed with nearly everything he said obviously i knew there was a problem obviously he didn't reveal right the inner workings of most of his theological beliefs but the things that he was speaking about he was rebuking the black church at large for the matriarchal uh component that has developed where you have women in leadership he was blasting them for allowing homosexuals to lead their choirs and he was really going on and on with a lot of things that were very politically incorrect he was actually identifying himself as a christian oddly but i i heard that that's not an un that is not an uncommon thing amongst nation of islam but uh obviously the man is lost he's a false teacher but he has a gift of oratory he has a homiletic gift that we should not let ourselves be captivated by knowing he's a wolf in sheep's clothing but um we do have a anonymous listener who says he's been talking a lot about theology but what about those who refuse to forgive professing believers for past sins even when they're scandalous and they continue to reject them as being not believers they refuse to trust their conversion if you could comment i guess it would be it would be helpful if i if to know if they were speaking about a public figure or or somebody else um so i i think when it comes to like somebody that sins against me i mean are they talking about someone who has sinned publicly or somebody that sinned against them i'm a little confused on that yeah well have to shoot me another email for me to know for certain but when somebody sins against me um i believe my response is to a suffer well b love them and c forgive them now there's debate in the reformed community about whether you only forgive upon the condition of their repentance or not some would say you have to wait for their uh you don't have to but you don't need to forgive them unless they repent others would say no you need to um yeah there would be uh uh we have uh jay adams on one side and john macarthur on the other side of that there you go but but regardless you have to love your enemy and so you know you have to be able to wish them well you have to bless them anyway so whether you technically are forgiving them or not we can debate that um but my position is essentially i think we need to forgive i think we need to forgive uh you know freely that's not necessarily easy and it's easy to hold on to bitterness and grudges when we've been deeply deeply hurt but the people that i've seen flourish in their faith the people that i've seen um walk through great difficulty because of another's transgressions against them are the people that forgive even when there isn't sufficient a repentance coming their way and we have to remember the apostle paul when he was uh the fire -breathing soul of tarsus uh rounding up men and women to be murdered for their faith later became the apostle that wrote most of the new testament for us that's right that's right and so when it comes to public figures that have you know really uh gone the wrong way and we've had we've had a number of well -known pastors that have sinned and sinned uh in a way that's become public and it's not my job to forgive them i can't forgive them they haven't sinned against me um so i think then we're talking about the balance between you know can we can we wish them well and hope that they succeed in ministry or have they done something that has disqualified them from ministry yeah and do we not wish them well and even then if that's the position that we take say like this person should not be in ministry whatsoever um there's a difference between recognizing that and you know hoping that they don't go into ministry and then still recognizing you know what it's possible that god may choose to use them um god uses people in that have really messed up in different ways so i you know we can acknowledge that and we can also restrict ourselves from becoming obsessed with those that have failed and constantly searching out and we are out of time joe i'm sorry and uh his website is joethorn .net