September 30, 2016 Show with Mark G. Johnston on “The Reformation Is Not Over”

The Reformation Conference and Mark Johnston’s Background

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

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

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

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this last day of September, September 30th, 2016 and I'm so delighted to have a guest on for the very first time today, Mark Johnston, all the way from Cardiff, Wales.

He's minister of Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Cardiff, which is a congregation within the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales denomination and he is also a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust and the author of three commentaries in Banner of Truth's Let's Study series including John, Colossians and Philemon and 2nd Peter and Jude and he is also the author of Our Creed For Every Culture and For Every Generation, which is a PNR publishing work and we are going to be discussing the theme, The Reformation Is Not Over and we'll also be discussing a Bible conference right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where Pastor Mark Johnston will be preaching October 27th along with one of my favorite preachers on the planet Earth, Sinclair Ferguson, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Mark Johnston.

Good evening.

Chris, it's... Yes, well I'd also like to right off the bat. Give our email address for any of.

Our listeners that may want to join us with a question of their own. It is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Before we even get into a little bit about your own background, your upbringing in Northern Ireland where you're originally from, let's hear something about Bethel Presbyterian Church and also about the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and.

Wales denomination. And I know that the Calvinistic history of Wales is largely Methodist, isn't it? The very rare Calvinist Methodist group. Then Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones was from that background, was he not?

He was. Yes, and by the way, I don't know if you know my old friend Peter.

Jeffrey who was at least for many years in Port Talbot, Wales, but if you ever run across him, I would appreciate you extending to him my greetings. Peter. Jeffrey who actually at one time pastored Sandfields, which was one of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' original churches.

Yes, and I have the privilege of having Peter Jeffrey sit at my own mother's bedside when she.

Was dying of pancreatic cancer in the 1990s and Peter spent at least a half hour alone with her and was greatly encouraging to me when he emerged from that sick room giving me nothing but reasons to be absolutely confident that my mother would be entering glory with Christ.

He was convinced that she believed in the gospel and I had already come to that conclusion, but it was very reassuring to have Peter Jeffrey add weight to that testimony. So I was very blessed that he happened to be visiting the United States preaching at the congregation where I was a at the time, Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, Long Island, which no longer exists.

It merged with another church and is now Grace Reform Baptist Church of Merrick, Long Island. But the church in Amityville is no stranger to Sinclair Ferguson, another friend of yours, because Sinclair traveled to America to preach there on a number of occasions.

That's where I first met him as well. And the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales, a specific denomination which you said is younger than the congregation where you're.

Pastor. Why was that specific denomination formed to begin with? Yes, it was just the beginning underpinned historic Presbyterianism, an appreciation of the...

Yeah, and if I'm not mistaken, I think Dr. McLeod was one of my pastor's seminary professors, David Campbell. That's correct, he was. Yes, and David Campbell is a precious man of God, and he's definitely going to be missed as he returns to the UK, God willing, in November.

And it's going to be hard to replace a man like that. Now, I know that you were raised in Northern Ireland. I have some friends from Northern Ireland, some of them in the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, and I have other friends in different denominations and backgrounds there.

Tell us something about your.

Specific upbringing there in Northern Ireland. Well, I've understood your mindset and your...

Yes, Thomas Cramner is definitely a fascinating figure from church history. I've interviewed Dr. Ashley Null. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he is one of the foremost living experts on Thomas Cramner.

And what a story about after he recanted the Protestant faith out of fear for his very life, he later, out of guilt overwhelming him, recanted his recantation, and as he was burned alive, wanted his hand that signed his original recantation against.

Protestantism, he wanted the hand that signed that to be burned first. Yes, and of course,.

The 39 articles of religion that he was involved in drafting are a series of teachings that most Reformed Christians of any denomination could embrace, and very clearly in opposition to the heresies of Rome, which is another thing that is very rare today in the Episcopal and Anglican Church, to have such an outspoken position against Roman Catholic heresies.

And I had interviewed a number of months ago Philip DeCourcy, who is a fellow Ulsterman. I don't know if you know Philip. He's now pastoring in California here in the States, but he was a police officer in Northern Ireland, a royal constable, I think is the phrase.

Royal Ulster Constabulary. Yeah, that's right, and he had a very interesting conversion story himself. What was the climate like in your home, in your neighborhood, in regard to that whole conflict with Catholics and Protestants and the IRA and so on?

Was that much a part of your.

Everyday life when you were growing up, or is that something... It was. Yeah, so it was a quite segregated time. You would not have met some person who would never go into a Roman Catholic church and vice versa, except for funerals.

But the practice was that if a funeral was held in the Catholic church, Catholics on their deathbed would... Wow, that's something. Now, a lot of.

People who are raised in Christian homes, such as you, especially with a a pastor for a father and so on, they don't recall a time in their life when they were an enemy of the gospel, an unbeliever. As far back as they can remember, they believed in the things of Christ and in the Bible and the gospel.

Did you have any kind of crisis experience growing up where you realized that you needed to be rescued from sin and you needed to repent and you needed to become something that you were not previously?

...came into the world, and specifically the whole reason why Jesus went to the cross that day. I had it as the day of my conversion, as the day when it all began to crystallize for me, when it began to make sense in a coherent way and gave me the basis for going on from that point.

Well, praise God. And we're going to a station break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com.

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We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guest Mark Johnston after these messages. So don't go away. We'll be right back. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes Solid Rock Remodeling to our family of sponsors.

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He is minister of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Cardiff, Wales, a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust, and the author of three commentaries in Banner of Truth's Let's Study series, one on John, one on Colossians and Philemon, and one on 2 Peter and Jude.

He's also the author of Our Creed for Every Culture and for Every Generation, published by PNR Publishing. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisorensen at gmail .com. Chrisorensen at gmail .com.

I am very happy that Pastor Johnston is going to be speaking right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the 2016 Reformation Conference at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle. He will be speaking with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who is certainly no stranger to most Iron Sharpens Iron listeners, since most of my listeners appear to be Reformed, although not all of them are, but I'm sure that they are very familiar with Dr. Ferguson.

And for more details on this conference, which is being held Thursday, October 27th from 7 to 9 p .m., and it's absolutely free of charge, for more details go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org. That's gracebaptistcarlisle, C-A-R-L-I-S-L-E .org, and you can get directions and other details on this free Reformation conference featuring my guest Mark Johnston and Dr. Sinclair Ferguson.

Reformed Faith, the Doctrines of Grace, and the Charismatic Movement

And before the break, Pastor Mark, we reached a point where you gave your testimony of coming to a vibrant and robust faith in Christ, coming to realize a need of repentance and trusting in Christ. And now that you're a Christian in this period, did you pretty much flow right into the Reformed faith, or did you go through any phases of being an Arminian or a Charismatic or anything like that?

Were there any doctrinal transformations that you went through?

Yes, there was a lot of pressure on those young lads to get an understanding of the faith. And I think it was at that time, I do remember, I found it hard to reconcile the theological argument I had with him.

He wisely didn't argue, but he did in the confines of human nature to interpret itself, and where there are seeming paradoxes, that you live with that tension and you don't allow yourself to go through that.

So that was clear to my mind.

I remember a quote, well, I don't have the quote in front of me, but it was something like, this is a quote by Charles Spurgeon, that all men by nature are Arminian. I think that there is a great truth in that because we, especially in the day and age which we live, or even the day and age which we were raised in, to believe that you were not in control over your own destiny and life, especially when you reached a teenage year and became more rebellious against your parents and so on.

This is something that we had to be shown in the scriptures was not true, that God was sovereignly in control over all things. Do you think that most folks, I mean, obviously I've heard of some people who the Holy Spirit reveals these truths of the doctrines of grace nearly immediately when they are shown the scriptures, but I think that's rare.

I could be wrong, but do you think that most people are by nature, as Spurgeon said, Arminian? And I'm not referring, of course, I don't want to give my Arminian friends and brethren the idea that I'm equating Arminianism with being damned, I don't mean that, but as far as the desire to be the master of your own fate, if you will.

Amen. Did a lot of the development of the spread of the charismatic movement in the 70s, did a lot of that have to do with Christians who were misunderstanding Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones's.

Ideas of a second blessing of the Spirit in the Christian life? And I want to also make.

It clear to my listeners that I have many dear friends and brethren who are charismatic and Pentecostal, many of whom have taught me much in my own life and my own walk with Christ, and some of which are even thoroughgoing Five-Point Calvinists, but I just think that there is a unique element of danger that exists amongst those who are non-cessationists or continuous because of the easy access to fraudulent proclamations of new revelation.

I think that would be one of the most dangerous areas of the charismatic and Pentecostal movement that even the more theologically sound charismatics and Pentecostals I know are fully aware of, and they themselves speak against some of the more bizarre and heretical new revelations that.

Are being claimed. Would you agree with that? I think it's part of that, but also... Yeah, and I'm sure you would agree. The opposite problem that exists in Christendom is just as.

Unbiblical and heretical. The dry, dead formalism where there is no vibrance or joy expressed or even experienced in the Christian faith, at least the alleged Christian faith professed by those involved in this really dry, depressing, anticlimactic faith that they have, and that probably is one of the main reasons that the charismatic movement could even rise up and spread, because this other form of dry, dead Christianity was bearing no fruit and demonstrated that there was no joy or realization what Christ had even saved us from.

So efficient and genuine. Amen. We do have a listener, Linda in Hilltop, Texas. She says,.

My question is, how is the same-sex debate or decisions going on same-sex marriage in Wales.

Or other countries in that part of the world? Yes, that's definitely a frightening thought and very unfortunately realistic one. And by the way... I think that what the Bible is saying, how do we handle them, that's a genuine challenge that we want to reach out to people in that community, and if that was the case for our Lord in ministry, and yielded that kind of fruit from that kind of community, that somehow in our church, see this not just as a...

Well, guess what, Linda,.

You are getting absolutely free of charge a copy of one of our guests' books, and this one happens to be Let's Study John. And if you give us your full mailing address, that will be shipped out to you as soon as possible by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who are sponsors of the Iron Sharpens Iron program.

And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful support of our program and for mailing out all of the free Bibles and free books that our listeners win by submitting questions to our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron.

So keep an eye open for Let's Study John by Mark Johnston in the mail, Linda, and send us your mailing address. Linda's question actually is a good way to segue into a question that I had before the program even started.

I wanted you to give your analysis of the state of Christianity, especially Bible-believing evangelical Christianity, in the 21st century in the UK and also in the United States, because I know that you had spent a time pastoring here in the United States, in fact, in the very state that I'm living in now, Pennsylvania.

And you're also a graduate of Westminster, I believe, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. So if you could give us your assessment of what you see in Christianity in the 21st century in the UK and then contrast it with America, perhaps even give pluses and minuses that you see.

And of course, in fact, you know what I'm going to do before you even do that. I'm going to go to a station break because I don't want to interrupt you mid-sentence. So we're nearly to the top of the hour at this point anyway.

So I'm going to go to our station break, and when I return, you could give your assessment, the spiritual assessment of the UK and the United States when we return. And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, we do have a few of you still waiting to have your questions asked, and I appreciate your patience.

We will get to your questions as soon as possible. But others of you, if you'd like to join them with your own questions, our email address again is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages. Chris Arnzen here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia. And here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White.

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For more details, go to g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arms. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with one hour left to go, is Mark Johnston, Minister of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Cardiff, Wales, author of a number of books.

And he is going to be one of two speakers at the Reformation Conference at Carlisle, or I should say Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle. That is October 27th from 7 to 9 p .m. And for more details on that conference that our guest is speaking at, along with Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org, gracebaptistcarlisle, C-A-R-L-I-S-L-E dot O-R-G.

And please let them know that you heard about the conference from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before the break, Pastor Mark, I had asked you about your personal assessment of the spiritual climate of both the U .K. and the United States in the 21st century.

And if you could just begin to feel free to speak. And you can be as critical of the United States as you wish. And I'd like to hear that from you. I'm hoping we can all.

Learn something from your assessment of things. Yeah. I don't think that that's an inaccurate description. Finding fathers with the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, what lay behind that was, as the explanation thing is, certainly popularized by N .T. Wright on both sides of the Atlantic.

And again, it's almost hard to imagine something like justification being. So those things have all had an impact. But I think just from observation, I think one of the reasons Christianity has lost their influence to such an extent in Britain and in America is because of what I've often described as the evangelical monastery mentality.

It's almost like evangelical monasticism. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I really appreciate that. One thing that I wanted to ask you is, in America, you may remember this since you were here not that long ago, there seems to be a condition where a person is declared to be a Christian merely by the fact that he read a prayer, recited a prayer or something.

And like, for instance, I had someone contact me recently assuring me that Donald Trump had become a Christian because he accepted Christ into his heart or something like that. And is that something that is as widespread a notion in England and in the UK in general and Wales and so on in Scotland?

It will be true in some circles.

That's I don't know if you spoke to the same individual that I did, but years ago, back in the 90s, I had a conversation with an elderly Presbyterian brother in Mississippi. And when I told him, I was on the phone with him, and then I told him that I was from New York.

He said, well, you got it easy in New York, because in New York, you've got to get people saved. But here in Mississippi, we got to get them lost, then get them saved. And in fact, he ran the Mount Olivet Tape Library, I remember.

I don't know if that exists anymore. But we do have a listener in Indianapolis, Indiana, Aaron, who says, please pardon my ignorance on the subject, but how has or will Brexit affect the churches in the UK, if at all?

Okay, so I think churches in those situations will bend over backwards to say, no, you are welcome. And the church has opened doors regardless of your nationality. The gospel is not just for certain nations.

So I think churches that are seeking to respond creatively to this situation will see it as a gospel opportunity and an opportunity to...

Well, thank you very much, Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana. And please give us your full mailing address, because you are also getting a free copy of Let's Study John, Compliments of the Banner of Truth, which has its American headquarters about a five-minute drive from where I'm sitting.

And we thank them for their generosity in supplying these books for our listeners today. I would like you to give a summary of the books that you have written for Banner of Truth. You have Let's Study John, you have Let's Study Colossians and Philemon, and you have Let's Study 2 Peter and Jude.

If you could give us a brief summary, especially for our listeners who are either new in the faith, they may not be saved at all, because we actually have on occasion Muslims and other individuals who listen to this program.

And perhaps if you could, obviously, in giving us a summary of each of those books, you'd be giving a summary of what.

The teachings are in those biblical books. Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely speak freely. ...for himself, he came to work, reformed seminaries, struggled and survived, making ends meet. If they value reformed Christianity, then they're going to invest.

And there's many, and again, with the UK after offer, the preacher imposing his thoughts, his ideas upon the text, but actually opening up the text so that as the people in the pew hear the sermon, they're hearing the Bible speeches about what the text is about, but also it earths it in application.

And that, strikingly, I think, is absent for free. But yeah, in America, reformed churches, in terms of the way they handle Scripture, the way they're able to bring it home to the congregation. And again, I think, you're one thing I noticed in my years in Philadelphia, it's incredibly difficult to advise them, kind of, that there isn't fallout in the UK.

But one thing is, you know, liking men who are technically bishops in the non-conformist world, but they function like bishops. I think where that happens, I think it actually keeps... One of the things I wanted to comment on as you.

Were speaking about, and very rightly criticizing, the hyper-individualism that exists in evangelicalism. But at the same time, I can tell you that when I came to embrace the reformed faith, very early on after my conversion, because when I came from Roman Catholicism to evangelical Christianity, well actually, when I came to evangelical Christianity and a saving understanding of it by God's grace, I was really somewhat of a rebellious pagan, not really a Roman Catholic.

But the whole concept that really revolutionized my faith and gave me an exuberant joy that I never experienced before, was realizing how personal my salvation was. In other words, when Christ died on Calvary, he was not dying for a mass of faceless, nameless humanity that he was hoping he would atone for their sins.

When he was dying on Calvary, he had my name written on his hands and on his heart. He was specifically paying for my sins, and he accomplished that mission perfectly. That really did a... I can't even describe in words adequately how that revolutionized.

My whole understanding of salvation. And we are going right now to our final break of the day. If.

You'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. I apologize to those who are still waiting to have their questions asked. Hopefully we will get to you before the close of the program.

And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. For those of you who have not yet sent in a question for our guest Mark Johnson. And don't go away, because we're going to be back, God willing, right after these messages.

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And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests, Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to.

Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV and occasional guest on Chris's show Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called. Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

It is going to be a bang-up conference called the G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.

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Thanks, Todd, I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's booth.

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This is Chris Arnsett. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program with one half hour left is Mark Johnston, Minister of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Cardiff, Wales. He's also a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust and the author of a number of books.

He will be speaking, God willing, October 27th at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania at their 2016 Reformation Conference from 7 to 9 p .m. That's on Thursday, October 27th. If you'd like more details on this conference that is being held at the church where I happen to be a member, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org.

Not only will Pastor Mark Johnston be speaking, but also Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who is indeed an extraordinary gifted man of God, whose writings and whose preaching have been of great, invaluable importance in my own life.

And we do have a listener. Let's see, we have Jack in Old Town, Maine, who says, I understand that you have written a commentary on the Gospel of John. I just wanted to know if you shared my opinion that in all of Scripture, if you are speaking of one book, the Gospel of John seems to make clear the Doctrines of Grace more frequently than any other area in the New Testament.

Amen. Well, guess what, John, since you are a first-time questioner, not only are you getting the last copy of Let's Study John that we have available to give away, you're also getting a free copy of the New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB.

It's a really beautiful edition with an engraved, or should I say, an embossed cross in the cover. And it is a really perfect size to carry around in a coat pocket, not necessarily a sport jacket pocket or suit pocket, but a coat pocket, or a woman could easily carry it in her purse.

And I hope that you enjoy that Bible. We need your full mailing address, however, to have that shipped out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, who ships out all of our winners, their free Bibles and books.

And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful sponsorship of Iron Sharpens Iron. We do have a listener who just wants to say hello. He's a friend of yours, so I'll give his last name. He says, Mike Iliff, formerly of England, now new resident of Aberystwyth, Wales,.

Just wanted to send his greetings to you. And we have another resident of the UK,.

We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who says, Would you see our Lord's return as happening only when the gospel has been preached in all lands or when the church universal has been.

Reformed totally or both? And Murray in Kinross, Scotland, has a follow-up question. Your comments.

Regarding preachers and preaching, how then can we better make use of men like Jeff Thomas, Sinclair Ferguson, etc., while they are still with us for the benefit of the wider church? Is it more conferences, better use of the internet?

Yes, amen. Modeling what good preaching is like, because an awful lot of what it means to be an effective preacher is learned not in the classroom, but it's learned by osmosis. The other gift that God has given us as preachers is receiving good ministry.

Well, thank you very much, Murray in Kinross, Scotland. Please continue spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron there in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. We always appreciate hearing from you. We have a listener in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, who's obviously using an alias, Lam Lam.