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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 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 Monday on this first day of February 2016.
And we have technical difficulties that have crept back into our studio so for some reason I cannot play my commercials or theme music or anything like that, at least for now. I can't, but that is not going to stop me from interviewing the illustrious and renowned Tony Miano of Cross Connections and we are going to be discussing a very important new book that is soon to be in print via Solid Ground Christian Books, Cross Encounters, I meant to say not.
Cross Connections, Cross Encounters, I apologize Tony. No, no worries. Cross Encounters, Ten Years of Gospel Conversations and it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron.
Sharpens Iron, Tony Miano. Well the honor is mine brother, good to be with you. And first of all,.
Let our listeners who are unfamiliar with you, let them know something about you. I know that you are a retired law enforcement officer and you are involved in open-air preaching and you take that very, very seriously.
You believed that it is an ordained calling that somebody must be sent out from a local church and they must be under authority in order to be doing it appropriately and biblically. You are not someone who endorses lone wolves and mavericks but if you could give us something about your own background and what you are doing now with open-air evangelism.
Sure,.
Well you covered quite a bit there brother. As you mentioned, I am a retired veteran of the Los Angeles. Great and your website is crossencounters .us, correct? It is crossencountersmin .com. Oh wow, I just totally blew that up.
That's okay, it gave me a chance to say it out loud. Crossencountersmin .com and there folks will find my blog. Great and well,.
Tell us something about, and by the way, I just typed in crossencounters .us and I got your website.
It's okay. We've got a couple of domain names that point there. Okay, that just makes me feel a.
Little bit more sane than I just felt a few minutes ago. Tell us something about your new book that is being published by our friends at Solid Grand Christian Books who are sponsors of.
Iron Sharpens Iron. I couldn't be more excited. Every conversation I've had over the last 10 years, 30 ,000 feet called by God. Praise God and I know that it is not yet off the printing press,.
But you can contact solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com or crossencountersmin .com, crossencountersmin .com. This book that inspired you to write this new book, the book I should say that inspired you to write your own book, A Pastor's Sketches by Ichabod Spencer.
Tell us more about why this had such a profound impact on you and it actually has been having quite a profound impact on a whole host of pastors globally who are.
Discovering it for the first time. Yeah, and again, I am so thankful to the Westleys and men like that, but I'm one who's out on the streets all the time. I mean, evangelism is a way of life for me. A Pastor's Sketches fired me up even more to get out on the streets and do evangelism.
This was a 19th century book? Yeah, 19th century. I believe shortly after his death, after a long day of ministry doing door-to-door evangelism, doing house-to-house congregants, he would come home after ministering to his family, he would come home and he would spend two or three or four hours by candlelight writing verbatim about the conversations he had during the day.
And he did this for years and now we have this multi-hundred page volume. Gadosh is republishing a Pastor's Sketches that chronicles these amazing conversations. You get an idea of how he utilizes presuppositional apologetics before it had a name.
Phenomenal how he reasoned when Jesus was on his deathbed. And that's true in my own book as well. Not every story has a happy ending. Not every story is the gospel. Yeah, that brings up a very crucial area of evangelism.
One of the reasons why theology matters or theology and doctrine are very important, unlike what many people in modern evangelicalism would say today, is that it can really affect, radically affect, who we deem to be a genuine brother in Christ and it can affect how that person views the state of their own soul.
That's right. And you were saying before that not everybody immediately responds by saying that they believe in Christ after being evangelized. In fact, the vast majority of people probably do not. That's right.
It's usually a number of encounters, as you call your ministry, cross-encounters. It's usually a number of encounters, either by the same Christian evangelizing them or a number of people that God providentially brings into their path, that chip away at the person's wall that they have erected to shield them from the truth of the gospel.
And the false notion of evangelism that some of the more modern folks that made it famous were people like Jack Hiles and others, where people were being coached and trained to just read, to have people read through a series of brief questions to lead people to make a decision, and sometimes even using trickery of sorts, emotional gimmickry, to get them to decide for Christ.
And very often these people are just saying a prayer or something that is being treated like a magical spell and the person walks away just as lost as they were before, but this time deceived into thinking that they're.
Saved because they've been pronounced as being saved. Right, and we can go all the way back to Higher Continent. Yeah, and Charles Finney, not only did he just have a poor blueprint.
For evangelism, I mean, he also brought the altar call system into the church. A lot of people think that that's the old-time religion, but it's not very old. It only goes back to the 1800s. But he was just a rank heretic.
The man did not even believe that Christ's death on Calvary truly atoned for sin. In fact, anybody who wants to get a hold of a fascinating two-hour interview I did with Jerry Johnson on Charles Finney, send me an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com.
I'll get you the mp3 and, God willing, it will also be archived on my website as soon as we get a webmaster.
Replacement for the program. Put me down for that mp3, Chris, because I'd love to hear that.
Oh yeah, I mean, Charles Finney, a lot of people today, a lot of fundamentalists and others, a lot of mainstream evangelicals and people like Billy Graham and even some reformed people like J .I. Packer and others have pronounced Finney to be a great man of God, of American history, and the man, as Jerry Johnson put it, Charles Finney was a monergist, but not the right kind of monergist.
It was that man alone really is involved in bringing himself to repentance and salvation, and it's really a horrible heresy that even Arminians would, for the most part, think of as being really dangerous and heretical.
Yeah, he was closer to being.
Not only evangelistically, but theologically as well.
Yes, and I have to believe that most of these folks who hold up Finney as a hero have never really thoroughly read what he has written, even in his own systematic theology and so on. I can't believe that they could have actually examined what he said, because fundamentalists are quick to call people heretics, and this man was more of a Pelagian than any Roman Catholic that I know.
Sadly, that is true, yeah.
Yeah, and I'm going to give our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Tony Miano about evangelism, about perhaps ways to bring up the gospel when you are encountering individuals who are lost, or perhaps they think they are saved because they were raised in some kind of a home that professed to be a Christian home in some way, or perhaps it's somebody from another religion, or perhaps it's an atheist, or just a secular humanist, or liberal.
You can shoot us an email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-S-E-N at gmail .com, and perhaps you can go through some of these gospel conversations that stick in your head that are worthy of informing our listeners about that may give the equipment that our listeners need, and even yours truly, the equipment that I need to be a more effective evangelist when I am locking horns with people in the public square, or perhaps just having a polite meal over lunch during a break at work, or what have you, Thanksgiving dinner, Easter dinner, whatever,.
Christmas dinner. Give our listeners some of these examples. Sure, sure. Well, we do not see him at the well. He takes but a touch of Almighty God. He took but a touch, and just being willing to want to engage.
And of course, when you run out of tracks, you can look around.
For the tracks that have been thrown away by the people who didn't even want to read the tracks.
And Chris, you bring up, I hear past the time, ineffectiveness. I hear it all the time. Self is not effective. Every time I see a gospel, I praise God, because that means the person, and she walks up to 30 ,000 feet, flying home from what I did with the Word of God with him, and show him from the Word of God what the gospel is, and begging to get out, or having me arrested for the conversation with the gospel track, like that are in life, or how different.
And one of the things that will happen to most of us,.
Perhaps not somebody who is as seasoned as you anymore, I'm sure that it did happen, though, before, when you were more of a novice, or a new believer, or new at outdoor evangelism, and so on, is that most of us, I'm assuming most of us who evangelize go through this, but we unfortunately allow ourselves to get sidetracked and go on rabbit trails that end nowhere.
I know someone very well who was a professing believer for about a decade back in the 1970s, who later pretty much abandoned the church. He would not say or admit, I don't believe, that he abandoned the faith, or that he abandoned God, but I think through observation of his life that that is largely true, that he did abandon God himself.
Knowing the scriptures somewhat will often bring up theological issues that he knows will have people tongue-tied. He will bring up obscure things like baptism for the dead, and why is that mentioned, and all kinds of things that send people on rabbit trails.
And most of us, when we're not experienced, we bite into the bait, we go for it, and we wind up just getting frustrated, and the person usually winds up being very satisfied that the Christian evangelist has.
Been defeated. But if you could speak for a moment on that. Sure. Yeah, I've run into things, and so then I politely... We're going to go to a break right now, at least we're going to try,.
Try to get a word from one of our sponsors, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Tony Miano, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, that's C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.
Please give us your first name at least, the city and state where you reside, and the country where you reside, if you live outside of the United States, and if this is about a personal and private matter where you feel uncomfortable revealing your identity, or perhaps it's not wise to reveal your identity because of what you're going to ask Tony, you may feel free to remain anonymous, and I will respect that request.
So it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away, we're going to be right back with Tony Miano and our discussion on cross-encounters, 10 conversations, 10 years of gospel conversations.
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See the Long Island Galleries display ad at ironsharpensironradio .com. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you've just joined us, our guest today is Tony Miano. Tony Miano is an open air evangelist.
He is also the founder of Cross Encounters, and he has a new book coming out courtesy of Solid Ground Christian Books. And Solid Ground Christian Books, for those of you who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron, is one of the sponsors of our broadcast, and we thank God for them.
Their website is solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com. And if you would like to join us on the air with a question for Tony Miano, you can email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
We do have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who asked the question, is it a mistake at times to bring up labels that are in-house distinctions that we use, such as Reformed and Calvinist, when you are evangelizing the lost, and they don't even have.
A clue what you mean by those terms? Yeah, CJ, that's a great question. John Calvin, well, any other religion. Christians. Now, obviously, you're not saying that the.
Teachings that we both hold very dear, the doctrines of sovereign grace, that they are not to be brought up, because some of these things lie at the root of man's pride and his inability to, in and of himself, freely choose to believe in and follow Christ, and there are other things involved in those precious doctrines that we, I'm assuming you believe we shouldn't.
Of course, and in fact, we can link it as limited or definite atonement, without using the term going, is that we should hold counsel of the law and the gospel to people.
And of course, there's nothing wrong with using them if you're actually speaking to a professing Christian who is trying to attack those beliefs, or who thinks he knows what you believe, but in reality doesn't.
Right. Now, you know, it's not just reformed people who throw around labels and language that the unbeliever is unfamiliar with. Very often you will hear an evangelist or just a zealous Christian who rightly wants to proclaim the gospel to those he encounters, whether they be friends, family, or just people sitting next to them on a bus or train or plane, but they'll say things using language and catch phrases and buzzwords that mean nothing to the person.
Like, for instance, do you know that you're saved and things like that, when you don't even have any definition or explanation about the.
Soul? Yeah, have you been regenerated?
Are you born again? You know, to the average person, are you born again? That means, are you a member of the Holy Roller Church down the road or, you know, whatever. It could even be a Baptist or a fundamentalist church, but they view that as a denomination or a Christian sect or even a cult.
They don't even know what you're talking.
About when you say, are you born again? Yeah, Chris, when I'm engaging someone I don't know, I find one of the... And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania. He wants to know,.
Well, he says, I am a white Christian and I have found it to be very interesting in my experience when I am passing out tracts and doing any kind of public evangelism that Black people seem to be far more receptive to receiving a tract or hearing a word of evangelism than white people are in my experience.
And I repeat, I say this as a white person. Do you concur?
I do. I absolutely do. It doesn't matter where I'm at in the world again.
It was a man, Arnie. I'm assuming that's a man.
Yeah, I would affirm Arnie's option.
We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania that asks, isn't it very dangerous for a Christian, and I don't mean physically, to venture out into evangelizing people involved in cults aggressively when you know nothing about what they believe?
I'm speaking specifically if you were to be in the nearby vicinity of an event or celebration or special occasion that the cult or false religion is having, where people may have already been warned that there would be Christians trying to evangelize them, and they may be all prepared with a rehearsed script of some kind.
Shouldn't we be very careful as a novice from trying to guess or pretend that we know what they believe?
Well, there's...
It's Harrison.
Harrison. First of all, if he who is in Muslims and westernized, Americanized Muslims don't, a blanket statement for all, but many of them don't know the Quran any better than I do. Because just like there are false converts to Christianity in the United States, there are false converts to Islam as well.
Neither one of them...
Somebody that both you and I are friends with, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, it may surprise some of you because you know that he has written a book called What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, and we read regularly of James traveling the globe debating Muslims and even debating them in mosques.
I personally have arranged several debates between Dr. White and Muslim clerics and apologists, and people listening may have seen him on video doing the same thing, debating these Muslims. But there was a time when Dr. White did not know much of anything about Islam.
I arranged his very first debate with a Muslim, Hamza Abdul Malik, who was a person who I believe was raised in a nominal Christian home, African-American gentleman, who was a convert to Islam. And so when James was debating Hamza, agreed to debate him, he insisted that the debate be on a Christian tenet of faith, a vital core belief of Christianity, which was, does the New Testament teach the deity of Christ?
That was the theme of the debate. So there you have someone as brilliant as Dr. White realizing that the conversation that he had with this man at that time, this was back in the 90s before he had become the scholar of the Quran that he is today, he realized the wisdom in just staying to what he knew, like he knew the back of his hand, and the most important thing that needed to be realized by the Muslim anyway.
So to take a little bit of a different take on what Harrison was asking about, isn't it wise not to start talking about the person's religion.
If you don't know about it? Yeah, no, Chris, great points. And to just piggyback off of what you, now, to your left, that's all you gotta do. That's all you have to do. If you want to make sure a conversation with a Muslim ends, bring up pedophiles.
If you want out of the conversation, that's all you've got to do. If you want to end a conversation with a Mormon, just bring up the polygamy and false prophecies of Joseph Smith, and you're out, man, you're free to go.
But if actually love these people and care about these people, then you are going to start, you may find yourself talking about the religion at some point. But if you begin by attacking...
Amen. And let me repeat our email address, it's chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Chrisarnson at gmail dot com. What are good suggestions that you may have when you are sitting around in your living room after a Thanksgiving dinner, or whatever reason that you have friends or family sitting around that do not know Christ?
What ways that aren't gimmicks, I'm not talking about gimmicks, obviously, but what ways could you recommend that we introduce.
Christ and the gospel into the conversation? Yeah, excellent question. And all professors know. I would think that it would be people who think they're Christians, but I may be wrong. Who do you think it is?
Well, in regard to... I think that's a good point. I mean, you go to some places in the country where people have been baptized six, seven, eight times. They've been in the water so much their skin's pruney.
Yeah, it's hard to talk to the folks like that sometimes. But I would say it's the people who's closest to us. And yet Friendship Evangelism says, go work really hard to personally invest. If you're so invested, then you won't ever talk to them about Jesus.
To your point, how many of you told a lie? Who's going to be the first to admit it? Aunt Bonnie? Uncle Larry? Now, the important thing, Chris... Well, I guess it depends on what your background was. Yeah, that's true.
And you know what? You bring up another good point. Because unfortunately, the way testimonies are shared to die and proclivities... Grandma has passed out. They're blessing her. They've done under her.
But they're actually embarrassed to be in the same room. They spend a lot of time making much of their little time about Christ who's being exalted. They want to stone Paul. Amen. And it's interesting that if.
Anybody would have had a titillating testimony to tell it was the Apostle Paul. And we know very little of the detail. We don't have the gory details of what he did. We just know the facts that he did have men and women brought to their deaths.
But we don't have a step-by-step, blow-by-blow description of it in the scriptures. That's one of the things about the testimonies. It's a difficult subject. Because on the one hand, you don't want to be disingenuous with people and have them think that you're hiding something about your background.
That you are some holier-than-thou person, as the accusation is frequently thrown at us. And on the other hand, there are people, as you know, who glory in their past and really give us every vivid detail in their testimony to glamorize the sin that they were involved in.
That might not be their intention, but that's what they're doing. And it's the same thing that you have seen, or I'm not saying you have seen, but I have seen at AA meetings and things like that, where you have these people, really, it's up one ship, where there's almost a contest on.
Who had the worst background in the room. Yeah, yeah. And you know what, Chris?
And we're going to be going to another break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. We do have a couple of people waiting for their questions to be answered by Tony.
Please give us your first name, at least, if it's not a question that involves a personal and private matter where you must remain anonymous. But if that is the case, you may feel free to remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable.
Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Tony Miano and Cross Encounters, 10 Years of Gospel Conversations.
Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.
We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.
That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either. We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.
If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship. You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled, Resting in Grace.
You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org, that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio.
Welcome back. If you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Tony Miano. He is the director of Cross Encounters and the author of a soon-to-be-released book, Cross Encounters, Ten Years of Gospel Conversations.
Did I get that title right, Tony?
Yes, sir.
And that's being published by our friends at Solid Ground Christian Books in Birmingham, Alabama, and their website is solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com. And we thank Mike Gaydosch and everyone at Solid Ground Christian Books from the bottom of our hearts for all they do to keep Iron Sharpener's Iron on the air.
And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, asks the question, should women be involved in evangelizing men in public other than obviously those who are friends, family, and loved ones, colleagues, et cetera, people they know?
But is it too far a dangerous endeavor for women to be evangelizing men in public, and is it even appropriate?
Wow, that's an excellent question. In fact, I...
By the way, I would like to have you back on to discuss that topic on a future interview, because I want to get rid of some friends that I have.
Look, it worked well for me, Chris. Yeah, the sequel to that is how to make friends and influence people. But to the question, and I begin to share the... This woman said you're...
Yeah, and I'm assuming that although this is not our primary focus of discussion, that you would have very strict warnings even to men in leadership and pastors about counseling women alone.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and something like that, you're looking like I'm having a very pleasant conversation with a woman who's not my wife. And now they're asking themselves questions like, well, who is this woman inside the church?
And I haven't done anything wrong.
We have Christian in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, that wants to know, should you even bother evangelizing someone who is heavily intoxicated?
Excellent question. That's a great question. I would say nine times out of 10, calmly with them. You know, don't say, hey, get out of here, you're drunk, something like that. Quickly and calmly, speak calmly to them.
Get them to take a gospel testimony after test men and women who have woken up the next day, not remembering the night before, pulling a gospel tract out of their pants pocket or out of their purse, and that you have to end the conversation.
You know, with all drunkards, we'll go to hell or something like that. Get a gospel tract into their hand and let the gospel tract do the talking for.
You. By the way, I think that's a good segue into you letting our listeners know where you.
Think they can get the finest in gospel tracts. Ah, well, there are a couple places. The first one I'm going to mention, Idea. I write the text. Ray taught me about writing. If anyone else to hand out a gospel tract, you yourself won't hand out.
And so the gospel tracts, Marv and I, another place, a really, really good place. And if you're on a tight budget, they specialize in tracts written by dead guys. Not all of them, but not all of them, but one of the reasons they do that, I found this so fascinating.
And so he said, Tony, one of the reasons why we focus primarily on dead guys, on dead guys is because their theology never changes. Think about it. Think about it. You publish someone's work. They're squared away.
They're a five-point Calvinist. They go off the reservation, and they end up being Rob Bell's co-host on his Oprah show. And you're stuck with a million pieces of paper you're never going to.
Give to anybody. Right? By the way, I just have to tell this story that still cracks me up when I think about it to this day. I don't know if you're familiar with John Riesinger, but years ago, John said that he knew someone who spent thousands of dollars on printing a reprint of a J .C. Ryle tract.
And J .C. Ryle, as you know, is a great, great man of God from 19th century, low church episcopal, or Anglican bishop, I should say. Solid Calvinist, great man of God. But the guy who brought this tract into print failed to rename the sermon that J .C. Ryle picked.
So this man had boxes of thousands of tracts called Letters to a Gay Friend.
Yeah. Well, hey, Cisco, we could probably unload those for the guy. Probably pretty easy. And obviously... And again, if that upsets you, just email Chris Arntzen at gmail .org.
By the way, Chapel Library's website is chapellibrary .org. Oh, great site. Chapellibrary .org.
Chapellibrary .org. Yes, I've spoken to prison inmates and those who were released from prison,.
Paroled and so on, who said that the Chapel Library tracts had a significant impact on their lives in prison. In fact, the Lord used, in some of these cases, used those tracts to bring them into salvation.
Amen. Amen. And so we thank God for Chapel Library. And yeah, what you were saying before about don't don't give out tracts that you... You have to make sure that you're thoroughly in agreement with the theology in the tract.
Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Whenever a brother or sister... Now, what do you think about something.
That a friend of mine does? He gets a whole box full of tracts and he will go into the local Catholic church that is open for the public to just stroll in whenever they want to pray before an idol or something, and he'll go in the pews and he'll start stuffing the pews with these tracts.
And he does that in other areas where there are areas for free literature or they are not Christian or evangelical, and he just stuffs these boxes and shelves and things with Christian tracts. What do you think about that?
Yeah, no harm, no foul. If he's got a legitimate literature there, go for it.
Great. And so keep doing that. You know who you are if you're listening. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. We do have an anonymous listener who wants to know, is it very unproductive to bring up tertiary things when you are evangelizing Roman Catholics?
I have friends and family members who are Catholic, and I think that I have found it to be most profitable when I just stick to the essence of the gospel rather than bringing up other things that involve eschatological predictions and so on.
Yeah, there's a lot in that question. So Pastor Chuck would walk up to them politely, respectfully, lovingly, and call them to repentance.
Yeah, and I think what the listener was getting at with, is it unproductive to bring up eschatological predictions, perhaps to assault a Catholic, especially in your first conversation, with your notion of the Church of Rome's role in.
The end times or something like that? Oh, okay. Well, listen, I mean, all you have to do is... I shouldn't put that matter out there because I don't have to worry about talking eschatology and what have you, or Mormons or Muslims.
Not that those issues aren't important. We should study all of scripting, including eschatology, but certainly in the context of an evangelistic conversation. The eschatology, I think, it should be limited to the time of the Father's choosing while He came as the sinless Lamb of God.
And you mentioned something that made me think of the danger of, what I mentioned earlier, the danger of rabbit trails, of letting the conversation be derailed off of what the true and necessary and vital topics are regarding the eternal and never-dying souls of men.
You have people who will start baiting us with questions, like the Roman Catholic. Typical question is, why are there 30 ,000 Protestant denominations and things like that? How do you get back on track when these things are thrown at you?
Yeah. Well, one of the people in Lost People, a part-time... Look what he did. Look at the... What a wonderful person. It's here, naturally dead people.
You know, that really gets to the heart of the matter when it comes to the reason why the doctrines of grace are so important when it comes to evangelism. People need not give up hope or be totally paranoid about their own lack of ability to articulate things.
Amen.
The depression and the letdown that people may frequently have when they evangelize, they know that they're being as faithful to the scriptures as they possibly know how to do, and then they see all these people that they're evangelizing walking away, either being indifferent or mocking them.
But we know that God is in control of who receives the truth. We know that he is the one that removes hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh, if you could comment on that.
Yeah, amen. They have been told that they need to be appalled at people away from Jesus and evangelism, and then they don't go out and evangelize. Why? Because they don't want to fail Jesus in their minds.
They don't want anyone going... Trying to give us license to be... All I had to do... That's free...
And it's such a shame and a tragedy what some evangelical denominations do when they yank missionaries off the field just because they don't have a good numbers report to bring back to the denomination, as if they themselves, the missionaries, were somehow not only the ones who plant and water, but also give the increase.
Yeah. Hey, they would...
Yes.
Because he had the audacity to tell them that, unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no part in me, and close to 20 ,000 people split. He's attached barbecue out in the woods, and he got no decisions out of it.
In fact, people hated him more now than they did before. Modern American evangelicalism.
Wow. And we're going to be going to our final break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, we've only got about 25 minutes left. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.
Don't go away. We'll be right back with Tony Miano.
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Miano, I just want to quickly announce that a week from today, that is Monday, February 8th, we've got Todd Freel of Wretched Radio and Wretched Television returning to Iron Sharpens Iron, and he is going to be discussing his new book, Judge Not, and the word not on the cover of the book is crossed out, and the subtitle is Let the Judging Begin, and we're going to have Todd back on, so you might want to tell your family, friends, and loved ones who either love Todd Freel or if you believe they need to hear a message about the crazy false preachers that are dominating the television and radio airwaves, not to mention tragically becoming the best-selling Christian authors very frequently, so mark your calendars for a week from today for Todd Freel on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I also want to let you know that we're going to be just airing one more ad, and we're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away, we're going to be back with, actually we're not going to air that commercial because we're running into a technical difficulty right now, so we're just going to continue with our conversation, and if you'd like to join us on the air, the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and actually we do have a listener before I ask my own, Pastor Gary from Worcester, Massachusetts.
Pastor Gary asks, Tony, do you use the same Arminian methodology as Ray Comfort in utilizing a Billy Graham style of sinner's prayer conversion assurance, or have an altar call type approach to saving sinners, and if so, where do you see this approach in the Bible, and aren't you compromising the power of the gospel?
Isn't this manipulative? Well, he's making a lot of assumptions that you do things, but...
Somebody quick, get a match, let's set this straw man on fire! Well, you want to respond to Pastor Gary? Yeah, Pastor Gary, American evangelicalism over the last 30 years, so where he gets this idea of it, I encourage secret, and Ray is not an advocate regarding altar call, I'm not sure where he got that information, and so I think everything else kind of breaks down at that point, I don't know what else we really need to get into those accusations, certainly those accusations are false, I get myself in a lot of trouble for making it very clear that I subscribe to Tony Miano and Arminian in the same sentence, I'm not sure where Pastor Gary's coming from, but with all due respect, I certainly hope Pastor Gary has with.
This question. Well, in fairness to Pastor Gary about you, he was asking, he wasn't... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But he was connecting those things to Ray Comfort. Yeah, yeah, so that's.
Fallacious to connect that to... Here's the thing about Ray, okay, did I mention I love Ray Comfort? I'm an apologist for Ray Comfort, it's not that he doesn't teach the gospel, he does not advocate...
I told you before the program that I definitely wanted you to address.
As a retired law enforcement officer, and a Christian simultaneously, what your response is to what we witnessed as not only a nation, but globally, people from all over the world witnessed what was happening in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, and New York City, and other places in Chicago, Illinois, where there were protests, which became in some instances riots regarding police or alleged police brutality.
And of course, even you as a retired police officer know that police officers, who are sinners like everybody else, can be involved in brutality, unwarranted brutality. In fact, you were arrested yourself for evangelizing.
At Wimbledon, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, good, okay, I'm glad you connected that dot, because Tony, you were arrested. I want to make sure everyone knows that I was never arrested for.
Police brutality. Oh, no, I didn't mean for brutality, I meant for evangelizing. Yeah,.
Both in London in 2013 of brutality. But to your point, though, to your point, Chris, I like to say about my law enforcement, that we draw from the same law enforcement family, the vast majority, without crying, 1992 LA riots after the Rodney King incident.
So I saw a rioting person, not what rioters, love them, who I think, all under the guise of trying to make themselves look like they understood and were supporting this case. And in some of the other instances, the police officers involved in killing suspects and criminals and so on, they themselves were black police officers.
Exactly, right, right. And unfortunately for some of those officers, and that's disgusting. Now, let's give a scenario,.
You are, let's say that you're still active as a police officer, or you just happen by providence to be in the street when something like that is happening. Obviously, we're not going to encourage people to unnecessarily put their lives at risk by running to a scene such as that to pass out tracks.
Perhaps some people are better suited than others to physically be able to take care of themselves and so on in a situation like that. But what would be your approach in evangelizing people who are really accusing whites of racism and being the cause for all of the horrible ills in mankind, basically, and being across the board supportive of innocent black lives being taken?
Yeah. Well, for one, I would follow the lead, and I would follow every human being.
Amen. And I know that those who listen regularly to my show have heard me repeat this a number of times, but my dear friend, who is now with the Lord for eternity, Dr. Robert J. Cameron, who was a black Orthodox Presbyterian pastor, he wrote a book called The Last Pew on the Left, America's Lost Potential, and it was a book targeting the sin of racism in the church.
But as a black man, Pastor Cameron, or Dr. Cameron, had the courage to also point out that racism is not a skin problem, it's a sin problem, and he was very even-handed about the sin of racism in the black church.
And because of that, a very major Christian publisher, whose name you would immediately recognize, turned down his manuscript, and they said to him, this is the finest unsolicited manuscript we have ever received, but we do not feel comfortable.
Criticizing the black church at this time. You know, speaking about racism and evangelical church, you know where we most see it, Chris? Where? Friendship evangelism.
And maybe if you could very briefly define exactly what you mean by friendship evangelism, because obviously making friends with people is a very good thing. Jesus was a friend of sinners.
Yeah. Yeah, it is very true. You go out and you let your little light shine. People can actually see Jesus. And maybe someday you bring him to church. Talking about biblical friendship evangelism is what Jesus preached.
Most like you to come to your religious club.
Amen. And obviously, we are not to be word-only evangelists when we seek to reach the lost with the gospel. We are to follow the principles set forth in the epistle of James. And also, good works should follow in what we do.
We shouldn't just be telling people, be warmed and.
Filled. Oh yeah, no, absolutely. Just like the mainline liberals succumb to. Exactly. Exactly. Yes, we share an evangelical church. We wouldn't have to worry about welfare or anything like that, because the church would actually be caring for people.
We have so much money, we don't know what to do with it.
Uh, Pastor Gary from Worcester, Massachusetts, has another question.
Oh, I'm in trouble, aren't I? Sorry, Pastor Gary.
It might be a good way to conclude the program. Okay. Yes. Well, how do you finalize your witnessing to people? Do you ask them to pray,.
Pray with them, etc.? No. Okay, great question, Pastor Gary. No, I don't ask anyone. I simply, and that is to call people to repent. They may very well cry out. And I don't want anyone to have any fault they have done for their salvation.
I don't want them looking back to the day. Amen. Well, it's interesting. I encountered a group, a small group of young.
Mormon missionaries, elders, as they call themselves, in the streets of Carlisle, Pennsylvania recently. And after discussing the gospel with them and hearing what they had to say, and then myself evangelizing them, I closed with a prayer.
I said, do you mind if I pray for you? They said, no. They bowed their heads. And I said, the Lord, I ask of you to open their blind eyes, unstop their deaf ears, remove their hearts of stone, replace them with hearts of flesh that they may see and follow and fall in love with the true Christ of scripture and receive eternal life.
I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And they all said, they all said amen,.
But they were still Mormons when I finished. Yeah. And Chris, I've done that too. I've asked people if I can pray for them. And I ask the Lord to save them, but I give them salvation. Yes. Because if my words...
Amen. Well, I want to thank you so much, Tony, for being a guest on the.
Program today. Thank you for having me, brother. I look forward to having you back. And please, if you could, repeat all of the contact information you care to share with our listeners.
Before we go. Sure. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. I said at least one thing I shouldn't have said. And so, Pastor Gary, I hope you'll accept my apologies. But if you want more information about... Great.
And don't forget about Tony's book that should be in print very soon,.
Cross Encounters, 10 Years of Gospel Conversations. And you can get that through Solid Ground Christian Books at solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com. And we thank Solid Ground Christian Books for their sponsorship of Iron Sharpens Iron.
Well, thank you so much, Tony. Thank you, brother. And we'll definitely have to speak about the women preaching issue. Sure. And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote questions in, and perhaps even especially Pastor Gary from Mercer, Massachusetts.
Thank you, and I want everybody to always remember for the rest of their lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner. God bless, and we look forward to hearing from you tomorrow with your own questions on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.