April 19, 2021 Show with “Steve” on “Mentoring & Encouraging Pastors in the Process of Reforming Churches”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlyle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in 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 chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

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

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 19th day of April, 2021.

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By the way, before I start my interview today, and even before I announce my guest and our topic,

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I'd like to ask all of you listening for prayer for my oldest brother,

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John, who is in Justin, Texas. He was rushed to the hospital again yesterday and remains there in need of another blood transfusion, as some of you may know.

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If you listen to this program regularly, I have mentioned in the past that my brother John, who is 76, not only has critical stage emphysema, but he also has cancer right now in his lung, and thankfully, praise be to God, chemo and radiation removed it from his bone and from his colon, and it remains in one lung but has shrunk considerably.

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But he has an aneurysm that grew many times over, which is a walking time bomb, basically.

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And so pray that John also recovers from pneumonia that he has right now, which is probably the most deadly of all of his conditions, especially due to the rapidity with which pneumonia can end a life.

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And from what I understand, many people who are getting chemo and radiation die from the pneumonia before they die of the cancer.

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So I ask you to pray for John. I pray for his healing and also that he makes a very clear and credible profession of repentance of faith in Christ.

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That is what I ask of you to pray more than anything. But today we have a listener.

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I've only done this, I think, two other times in the history of this program, but I have a listener who is going to remain anonymous, well, at least partially anonymous.

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We're going to address him only by his first name, Steve, because he has been bringing the gospel as a missionary to some places that are very dangerous and hostile toward the gospel and towards Bible -believing

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Christians. And predominantly for the safety of those Christians in those areas where he is a missionary, we are going to keep him anonymous and only refer to him by his first name and his role and title at the ministry where he labors.

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He is vice president of operations and management for Anchored in Truth Ministries.

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And today we are going to address the theme, Mentoring and Encouraging Pastors in the Process of Reforming Churches.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome for the very first time ever to Iron Triple Zion Radio, Steve of Anchored in Truth Ministries.

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Thank you, Chris. It's a joy to be with you, and I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. And if you could, let our listeners know something about Anchored in Truth Ministries.

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Okay, Anchored in Truth is the missions arm of our local church here. And our pastor who is celebrating 40 years of ministry this month, he had a desire years ago,

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I've been with him a little over 20 years, and he had a desire that God would use a church in northwest

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Alabama for the glory of God, not only in this area, but around the world.

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Well, he's answering that prayer request today and continues to do that. And so over the course of the last 12 years,

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I've served here twice on staff, one for about nine years, and I've been back for 12 years in different roles as one of the elders and also as the church's mission pastor.

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Now, as you said, the vice president of Anchored in Truth. And so our role is to come alongside like -minded churches and to work with them as like -minded to actually a lot of these churches that we work with and partner with, where they're mission agency.

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And again, we don't have a better name to what we call this, not an association, it's not definitely a denomination, but it is an association of like -minded churches that we work together for the glory of God.

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And what we say is to plant pastors. And so obviously that's church planting.

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And we do that not only in North America, but all over the world.

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And again, our website has a lot of that information on that. And so that's our role.

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We do not separate from a local church. We, Anchored in Truth, does not exist without the local church here, which is

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Grace Life Church in Muscle Shoals. And so because of that relationship, everyone that we send, work with, engage with are connected to a local church.

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And that is a very passionate thing for not only my senior pastor, but all of us as elders and as a church body as well.

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And if anybody wants to investigate more about Anchored in Truth Ministries, go to anchoredintruth .org,

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anchoredintruth .org. And hopefully we will remember to mention that website before the end of the program once again.

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And so we are addressing a very important issue today because it appears, thanks be to God, that the doctrines of sovereign grace,

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Reformed theology, Calvinism, however you want to nickname it, obviously you and I believe it's biblical truth, but it is spreading globally.

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There was a time when amongst Protestants, Calvinism was actually the predominant theology amongst

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Protestants and even amongst Baptists, believe it or not. And then there came a time over the centuries where that dominance dwindled more and more to the point where we who are

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Reformed Christians are now in the tiny minority, it seems, in the evangelical landscape.

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But there is a very visible and tangible and palpable growth and spread of the doctrines of grace, and many of these pastors who have come to the doctrines of grace are in the dilemma of being in churches that are predominantly either not

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Calvinistic, or they might even be hostile towards these things. And there's all different varieties of situations in between.

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You have pastors who are facing the issue of obeying

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God to fear Him more than men and not to compromise from their pulpits and from all other spheres of their ministry, while at the same time they don't want to hit people over the head with a sledgehammer and chase them away before they really understand these teachings.

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So, tell us about your own experience and perhaps even specifically what you want to discuss in the realm of mentoring and encouraging pastors in the process of Reforming churches.

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Well, I think, Chris, my own experience goes back, obviously, with my relationship with our senior pastor,

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Jeff Knopp, and like I said, we've been serving together a little over 20 years, and he has been just a godsend in my life in mentorship, but we at the same time had some of the very same struggles.

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We did exactly what we had been modeled and what we saw in those early days of the life of our church here.

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We would work hard to do anything and everything we could to produce numbers. At that particular time in those years, we would very often lead the state in baptism, and we would just—if anybody and everybody would raise their hand, pray a prayer, walk the aisle,

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I mean, that's what we were all about. And we were just pushing that and pushing that.

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But then that became such a burden, as you and I'm sure a lot of you folks that listen to this and a lot of the pastors that we work with and mentor, it became such a burden to have a

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Sunday that you would faithfully study and faithfully pray and preach the Word of God, but then outwardly it seemed to be nothing was happening, and then you let that go a week or two weeks, and you just had such a burden and a stress on your life as a pastor to make that happen.

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But then in the course of time, as we began to pray together as elders and as our senior pastor began to lead us, it became clear that it was

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God doing a deep work, whether we saw it or not, that God would regenerate man, and we actually had nothing to do with that.

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And so there was a process, obviously, in the area in which we live, and again, just I can't even—we don't have enough time to go over the many struggles locally that we had when we came to the understanding of the

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Doctrines of Grace and started to not only know those and study those, because both of us, you know, have seminary training that we were well -voiced in those things, but implementing those in the local church,

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I mean, and you can only imagine, especially in our area, that that was so unfamiliar, and most of the people in the area, most of the churches, most of the pastors, especially within the

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Southeast here, would—I mean, it was a very bad thing as far as their eye, because we were—seemed to be

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Calvinists, which a lot of people then and even today do not know, and when I was serving as a senior pastor, one of the questions that came to me from that congregation where the pulpit committee took me before them, a

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Q &A time, was one of the men asked, was I a Calvinist, and absolutely,

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I did not have the heart to correct him, and so I went and explained the five points of Calvinism, and I think

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I told them, I said, I'm convinced that every one of us in here would hold to at least three of those with no problem, and so we went through that, and again, there was a lot of stuff in our town that people said that we were hyper -Calvinists, that we had no more invitations, and again, that was not accurate.

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We at that time, and even today, we've given over millions of dollars to missions, and so we, in those early days,

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I mean, Chris, to be honest with you, it was tough. I mean, people that said our friends were no longer our friends, all because of the doctors of grace, all because of that terminology of Calvinism that, again, they had no grasp of what that meant.

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They were just told by either their pastor or a prominent pastor, and again, in the southeast, you can imagine who that prominent pastor was for a lot of people in the southeast, and obviously in the

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U .S. as well, that said it's wrong, and so they didn't do the research, they didn't do the investigating, they just believed that pastor, and so we went through major church splits.

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I had the misfortune of going through two of those, but they were three major church splits here, and there was one time in the life of our church that we were running right at 2 ,000 in small groups, and we split, and hundreds and hundreds left.

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But today, over the course of that, and our pastor sticking around and not running off and not going to another church because of his stickability, that's why we're reaping the benefits today, and it is sweeter than it's ever been.

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It is more Christ -centered than it's ever been, it's more biblical than it's ever been, and again,

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I commend him. I preached here yesterday, and one of my assignments was the role of the pastor, and one of those things that, as we see, when

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Paul taught in Colossians, that one of those is to protect the sheep, and I brought that point out, that he protected us from not only false teaching from outside, but also from inside, and it's been a real, real sweet thing, and because of that, and because of that, all that we went through and all that we have experienced,

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I think we are a little bit more prepared to meet with these new pastors, these young pastors, and we tell them all, it's almost like a recording, that when

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I meet with them and do the vetting and the process, which is a long process, not today, it used to not be that way, it used to be just as quick as you can, but when

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I go with them, I tell them that if you need to have a 20 -year vision, and you need to know that if you go plant this church, if you think it's going to take 2 years, it's probably going to take 4 years, and then again, you need to take time, you need to teach your people these doctrines of grace, and again,

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I think that's also a text where Paul says in Colossians that we lead as with wisdom, you know, we proclaim

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Christ, we admonish, but we do this with all wisdom, and I think that takes patience, and that takes a lot of prayer.

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Amen. By the way, I want to give a shout out to a couple, actually

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I was just mentioning this couple to Steve before our interview, when we were speaking on the phone before going on air,

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I want to give a shout out to Jay and Sandy Jackson, I'm sorry, Jay and Sandy Johnson, Jackson is actually

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Sandy's maiden name, so Jay and Sandy Johnson, who

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I met providentially in Birmingham, Alabama a couple of years ago when

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I was coming home from the Deep South Founders Conference in Mississippi, and I made a stop in Birmingham on the way home, and I decided to treat myself to a meal in a nice restaurant rather than fast food on my final night in Birmingham, and I prayed before walking into this restaurant,

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Lord please let me sit near someone who is open to hearing the gospel, and allow me to introduce my radio program to them, and just have a pleasant evening, and as soon as I walked in, and the place was actually jam packed,

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I was being waved over by who I was later to be introduced as,

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Jay and Sandy Johnson, and turns out Jay is a professional musician, he is a guitarist and vocalist for a group called

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Skinny Molly, and Skinny Molly is named that because it features band members from both

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Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet, many of my peers of my age group will likely remember those groups, they were favorites of mine, as a young man especially, and turns out

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Jay Johnson's father is a world class, very famous blues guitarist from Muscle Shoals, and in fact was featured in a documentary about the blues music of Muscle Shoals, so I just wanted to give a shout out to Jay and Sandy Johnson, and I hope to be traveling through your neck of the woods at some point in the future, perhaps when

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I am going to be attending, God willing, in the future, an Anchored in Truth conference in Muscle Shoals, especially when all of the

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COVID prohibitions have vanished, and there are more activities like that being held, but sorry for that interruption,

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I wanted to just give a shout out to those folks, since I've been thinking about Alabama ever since hearing your voice there on the air here.

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Well, when you're here, we hope you do come, we hope that we can do our True Church conference next year, but if you want to come, there's right down the street from where I'm sitting, is

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Fame Studios, where Jay's dad used to play, he's known as the

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Swamper, and we've had Leonard Skinner here, Ether Franklin, all those big names, they're right down there, you can take a tour, and it's a lot of music here.

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Great, praise God. Well, I myself, when I was first saved, in the 1980s,

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I had just joined the Reformed Baptist Church, where I had remained a member until I moved to Pennsylvania in 2014, but I had remained a member there all those years, from the 80s to 2014.

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That church, just before I became a Christian, maybe two or three years at the very most, had undergone a major split, because my very first pastor, the pastor who baptized me,

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Mike Gadosh, who is the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, a major advertiser on this program, he was invited to candidate for that position as pastor by the former pastor, who was retiring, and the former pastor knew, who invited

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Mike to candidate, he knew that Mike was a Five Point Calvinist, and the church accepted him, and he was officially installed as the pastor, but when

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Mike started to put his money where his mouth was, and actually preached these things from the pulpit, it caused a furor, and about half of the congregation abandoned ship, went to different churches on Long Island that were not

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Reformed, but this is one of the reasons I'm bringing this up, as an encouragement to pastors listening who may be in a frightening situation.

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The Lord replenished far, far more people into the membership of that church than those who left, and it became a thriving

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Reformed Baptist Church there on Long Island, still exists, and at its height,

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I think, rivaled some of the largest Reformed Baptist churches, at least in the

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Northeast of the United States, but this can be a frightening time, obviously, because pastors very often are not bivocational, but even if they are, they really depend on the income that they receive as being a pastor, and they are really facing the possibility of that church permanently closing its doors, or being tossed out on its ear, and run out of town on a rail, and any other kind of euphemism

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I can come up with. Give our listeners who are pastors in that predicament, the same thing, some more words of encouragement.

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Yeah, and what you just said, Chris, is absolutely correct. There is times that the pastors, and we've had some of that experience with some of the people that we have connected with, and so it's a very hard, difficult time, but I'm convinced from what happened here, that it can happen in these churches.

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It may take a little bit more time, and a little bit more energy, but especially with a new church plant, if the pastors would pray often, teach a lot about the

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Doctrines of Grace, and just teach the Scripture, and do it with patience, and do it with wisdom, field questions,

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I think God will honor that. I've seen it happen, but again, as I said earlier, it's not going to happen overnight, especially in an established congregation.

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It's not going to happen quickly, but I think as the people, first of all, love

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Jesus, and love the Word, that's critical, and that's one thing that in the process of helping us here, is that we went through a season of time of really teaching our people how to honor the

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Lord through reading of His Word, and through proper interpretation of Scripture, and then putting a responsibility, not only on our elders to lead and to guide these things, but as the people, to be like the brilliant Christians.

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One of the key things to that was, for us, it was not what we think, or what another pastor said, but what does the

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Bible say? And back in 19, I think it was 1998, 1999, 2000, the church leadership here, we had done everything that, in our denomination, we used to be a part of, had modeled for us, that we knew to do, because that was the thing to do.

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Then we began to explore what the Bible would call us to do, and one of the key things for us in reforming was becoming associated with people like you and others, and by the name of Jay Adams, and Dr.

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Wayne Mack, who is from Pennsylvania, he's living in South Africa now, and folks like that.

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We used to have a guy that we hired to do our counseling here, and then when we got the understanding that we, as elders, are responsible to do that, and we don't put that outside of the local church.

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Counseling takes place in the local church, and that's when I was given the task to call and to see what needed to be done as far as getting some training.

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So I had a phone call with Dr. Jay Adams, who now is with the Lord, and to talk with him about it, and he had told me that I needed to call

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Dr. Wayne Mack, which is part of, at that time, the Master's College with John MacArthur.

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So we began that relationship, and then the church sent me there to get one of my degrees in biblical counseling.

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Again, that was significant because that really took us in that area of saying, hey, let's let this biblical model all the way in California help us.

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And so when we came to the conclusion that scripture was not only sufficient for salvation, but it is also sufficient for sanctification, that really just changed the life of our church.

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And so that right there is also, that I'm convinced, is one of the strong things of a

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Reformed church, is that they hold the sufficient of scripture for sanctification for everyday living.

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And so we implemented that, and then it caused us to explore different other opportunities of the

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Reformed doctrine, the Doctrines of Grace, and started reading and listening.

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But then again, I can't tell you how long our pastor taught on these things. And our folks began to explore, and our folks began to search out for themselves.

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And so it took a time. It took some difficult days. And as I've said, we lost some dear friends that didn't understand.

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But one thing that we have seen, some of those who left have come back.

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Some of those that have seen us go from where we used to be to where we do take things serious of the word of the gospel.

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And so they've seen those things happen, and they've seen that God has blessed that. And so as I said, today is sweeter than it's ever been.

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And we've seen that in the life of some of these church plants. Now, you talked last week to Pastor Timothy O 'Goddess, who serves as the

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Director of Southeast Asia, Franklin Truth. In fact, let me apologize on air to Pastor Timoteo for mispronouncing his first name throughout the entire interview.

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I somehow wrote down Tomateo, and his name, his first name is

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Timoteo. His last name is O 'Goddess, which I believe I pronounced correctly the entire time.

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But I want to apologize. He was too polite to correct me throughout the entire interview.

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Well, Chris, let me say, you're not the first one that's butchered his name, so he's okay. I promise you,

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I butchered it so much until we have spent so much time together. He has stayed in my house, I've been in his house, and so I finally got it,

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Timoteo. But we do a conference over there every November, and there's about a hundred pastors.

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In the Philippines. Yes, we do it at his church, which is Grace Life Church of Quezon City, which is,

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I tell people when they don't know where it's at, but it's right outside of Manila. It's only about ten miles, but it takes about two hours to fill the traffic.

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But his church is located very close to where the Thrilla in Manila took place in the

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Philippines, Muhammad Ali. And so anyway, we have these pastors, and a lot of these, a good number of these, are not

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Reformed. But again, when we get there, and the things we do here today, and the things we teach our pastors that we work with, is we don't make an issue out of John Calvin and Calvinism, we just teach the

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Bible. And again, me personally, I've never referred myself as a

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Calvinist. I just, I hold to the doctrines of grace because the scripture teaches these things.

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And so that's what we've done over the course of a number of years now, and we've seen these men who at one time would just run from the doctrines of grace and just run from anything

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Reformed. They have seen life change. They have seen consistency.

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They have seen the seriousness. And again, I think that's what I saw from a distance before the

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Lord and through our pastor and through the other elders as we started Reforming. I've seen from a distance from John MacArthur and those folks and the

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Trips and all those guys, I saw from a distance a seriousness and a commitment that wasn't in my life as a

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Christian. And then as I came to those and as our pastor led us, again, it took time, it took study, it took energy, but there is a freshness over the last several years here.

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And I've been part of several churches. As I've said, I've been a senior pastor. I've been on church staff in a lot of good churches.

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But there is no doubt if you were to come into Grace Life just because of those teachings and because of the commitment to the

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Word of God and the commitment to glorify Christ and to make Him known among the nations, you just pick out any 10.

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You just come any Sunday and pick out any 10. And I think you will see and the proof of the pudding for any pastor, any shepherd, is the quality of the people that is set up under their teaching.

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And you just pick any 10. I think you would be impressed of their knowledge of Scripture, of their commitment to Scripture, and it goes back to because of the teaching of our pastor and the course over the second part of his 40 years has been the doctrine of grace.

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And he has taught us to love Christ and to love the Word and to make

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Him known. And that's why if, as some of our dear friends in this town used to say, we're hyper -Calvinist and we don't do evangelism.

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Well, if when we baptize folks often around here,

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I don't know how many we baptized in last years, but that water was stirred very faithfully.

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And for a church to give over millions, I think right now in the 40 year history that he's been here, we've given right at $9 million in missions.

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If that is a Calvinist, hyper -Calvinist church, then put the tag on us. By the way, in case some of our listeners who may be millennials or just too young to remember a reference that my guest gave, the

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Thrilla in Manila, that was the third and final boxing match between heavyweights

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Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, which was, when I was growing up in the 70s, a phenomenal and riveting rivalry that took place.

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I've never seen anything quite like it since, the rivalry that existed between those two heavyweights.

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And Ali won that fight by technical knockout. And I wonder if Pastor Timoteo was present at that fight.

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Hey, you know what? I don't know if he was, but I know he knows every detail about it because the

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Filipinos, here's two things in the 89 years that we've had a relationship with them.

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And again, if you go to our website, we've got them all over Southeast Asia. But one thing they do know is they still, to this day, even the younger generation, if you're over there walking in the streets of Quezon City and they know you're a tourist, all they got to do is say to me,

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I'm 6 '3 and 230 pounds, I'm white, so I stick out. And they will say that's where Thrilla in Manila took place.

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That's number one. Number two is NBA basketball. They love that. And so I'm sure

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Pastor Timoteo, if he wasn't in attendance, he can tell you all about it. In fact, the Thrilla in Manila inspired my own nickname to a series of debates that I orchestrated on Long Island, New York with Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and various Roman Catholic opponents.

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Some of them over the decade that I orchestrated those debates were held at the

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Choral House Catering Hall in Long Island. And it was the Thrilla in Manila that inspired me to nickname those debates the

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Quarrel at the Choral. We have to go to our first station break.

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If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Steve, Vice President of Operations and Management for Anchored in Truth Ministries after these messages from our sponsors.

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I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. My friend Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

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G3 Conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme,

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Christ is Supreme Over All. I'll be joined by over 20 other speakers and musicians to lead in the worship of God through preaching, teaching, and singing, including

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John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Conrad M. Bayway, Daryl Bernard Harrison, and Virgil Walker.

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For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com. Chris Arnson and I hope to see you

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September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is James White reminding you that Christ is supreme over all.

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and the

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

43:02

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

43:09

Steve, who is speaking to us anonymously today because he, among his many other duties and roles as a productive member of Christ's kingdom, he is a missionary, oftentimes in places that are very dangerous and hostile for Christians and churches and faithful pastors.

43:34

And so therefore, we are keeping him anonymous today other than his first name and his role and title at Anchored in Truth Ministries, which is vice president of operations and management.

43:45

Today we are discussing mentoring and encouraging pastors in the process of reforming churches. If you have a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

43:58

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. If you live outside the

44:03

USA, only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter.

44:10

I'm assuming that you would agree with me that it is wrong, and I guess depending upon the extent at which this occurs, even sinful.

44:27

I don't want to be too broad brushing in that term sinful when it comes to what I'm about to say, but it can indeed be a sinful thing when it is actually truly categorized as dishonesty.

44:40

But it is wrong for pastors to hide their Calvinism, is it not?

44:47

Mainly, not only because they're lying to men, but mainly because they are dishonoring

44:53

God by hiding an important truth, or important truths, plural, in his words.

45:00

So would you agree with me on that? I 100%, and I think obviously if he is

45:07

Calvinistic, when he preaches, it's going to come out. So there's really no sense in hiding.

45:14

And I would say I have personal experience of that, not me personally, but when

45:20

I was at a former church and there was a pastoral change, and I was a senior executive pastor at the time, there was a guy that was interviewed that I did a little research on him, and everybody that he liked,

45:36

I liked. So I'm thinking we're going to get along good. But the church that was calling him to be the pastor was not a

45:46

Reformed church. And it actually, from day one to the end of his tenure, it was very difficult for him.

45:54

And it was because he was teaching the Doctrine and Covenants, but the place he was at was struggling with some of the things that he was teaching.

46:05

So he came out. But one of the people that did research as well, or some of the people, they actually questioned the pulpit committee, and they asked, was he, and he said no.

46:19

Which again, I think is exactly what you're saying. And as you know, and as I know, you mentioned a few moments ago,

46:31

Charles White, which is, I mean, he don't hide anything. So James doesn't hide anything.

46:43

James is one that he followed and liked. It was pretty clear.

46:49

But yeah, I agree with you completely. It's very obvious that James doesn't hide anything, because even though he has many, many people who love and admire and support him, including myself, as him being one of my oldest friends as a

47:07

Christian, and also somebody who I think has the greatest gift of debating of anyone alive on the planet

47:14

Earth, as far as I'm concerned. But it's evident that he doesn't hide anything, because he probably has just as many enemies inside the church as he does outside.

47:26

Yeah. And I agree. And one of our guys at a church plant, James has been in his church,

47:33

Derrick Milton out of, in prior Oklahoma. So he's had him, I think he's had him there twice. But one of the things that I have experienced myself is

47:44

I have heard, especially young pastors who have come to these truths who are intimidated by the fact and fearful of the fact that many of their friends and colleagues in ministry are vehemently anti -Calvinist.

48:08

And they keep this under a bushel. They hide it. And some of them have justified this because they, now this is the aspect where I agree this is a matter of liberty.

48:25

They do not like to use titles, nicknames, and phrases that are not explicitly in the

48:34

Bible. They don't like the term Calvinist. They don't like the term Reformed. And I think that's well within the liberty of a

48:42

Christian to say I choose not to use those titles. But there is a difference between that and when confronted, are you a

48:50

Calvinist, to simply say no because you don't use that title. I think that that is being dishonest because even if you don't like the title, the person is really asking about the theology.

49:08

And of course, perhaps a good question to answer that question with is what do you mean by that?

49:16

When somebody says are you a Calvinist? Well, what do you mean by that? Yeah. I agree.

49:22

I think that goes back to my statement when I was asked that question in the Q &A time. And that's why

49:28

I tried to take the opportunity to explain to them what that is and what that means.

49:35

So yeah, no, I agree with you completely. Now we, believe it or not, have to go to another break shortly.

49:42

But I want you when we come back from the midway break to basically, and it doesn't have to be too structured, but line out some counsel or spell out or list some words of counsel for our pastors listening that would be approaches to handling the situation of being a

50:09

Calvinist in an anti -Calvinist atmosphere, whether that atmosphere be your own congregation where you happen to find yourself pastoring or candidating or the churches in the denomination that you're in or the fellowship or just all of the evangelical churches surrounding your congregation might be vehemently anti -Calvinist.

50:35

And these men need our prayer. They need our assistance.

50:40

They need our help in any way we can provide it to help them through these rough waters because they could be very ugly.

50:48

In fact, I can even remember the church where I was saved and where I was a member that I mentioned earlier that had become

50:55

Calvinist through the oversight of my first pastor, Mike Adosh.

51:01

Evangelical churches and specifically the conservative Baptist churches of Long Island, New York.

51:11

And when I say conservative Baptist, I mean the denomination, conservative Baptist Association of America.

51:17

Many of those churches, it appears from what I was being told, were spreading the rumor that we were a cult.

51:26

And one of the main reasons we were being called a cult is can you believe that they don't participate in the

51:32

Billy Graham Crusades? So I guess the fundamentalists would be a cult too because they don't participate in those either.

51:39

But if you could just really kind of outline some counsel for our pastors when we come back from the break.

51:47

And if you could, folks, please be patient with us because the midway break is a bit longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

51:55

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because they air their own public service announcements and other local things to geographically localize

52:06

Iron Shepherds Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida, which is a requirement of the FCC. While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials simultaneously while they are airing their local ones.

52:20

So we ask of you please, to use this time wisely, write down as much of the information as you can provided by as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize our advertisers, purchase their products, use their services, support their parachurch groups, visit their churches.

52:41

And when you can't do any of those, please at least respond to our advertisers and say,

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I want to thank you so much for sponsoring Iron Shepherds Iron Radio. Of course, if that's true, if you really do thank them because you love the show.

52:56

So please respond to our advertisers in any way you are capable of responding. So write down that information they provide so that you can more frequently and successfully do that.

53:05

Also send in questions to Steve, the vice president of operations and management at Anchored in Truth Ministries, who's remaining anonymous today because of his work in some dangerous mission fields that are vehemently anti -Christian.

53:19

Write down some questions for him as we continue to discuss the theme mentoring and encouraging pastors in the process of reforming churches.

53:29

That's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away.

53:35

We'll be right back with Steve of Anchored in Truth Ministries right after these messages from our sponsors.

53:43

Music Hi, I'm Phil Johnson, host and executive director of Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

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I hope you plan to join me and Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, for the

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G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd.

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The theme this year is Christ is supreme over all. My friend Chris Arnzen and I will be joined by several of our other friends, including

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Vodie Balcom, Justin Peters, Daryl Bernard Harrison, Virgil Walker, and James White.

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More than 20 other speakers will be joining us, and the lineup this year includes my pastor, John MacArthur.

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For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com.

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Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021.

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This is Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all. Here's what

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Gary DeMar, president of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

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Good to be back. Chris, I always enjoy our time here. I have to tell you, one of the better interviewers out there, and I've been doing this for more than 30 years.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air, so I don't have to brag about myself.

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with your purchases. Before we return to our guest today, who is remaining anonymous other than a first name,

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Steve, and his role and title at Anchored in Truth Ministries, which is

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Vice President of Operations and Management. He's remaining anonymous because he is often involved in missionary work in areas that are very dangerous and hostile towards Christianity and the churches that are promoting and spreading the gospel.

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So, primarily for their own safety, he is remaining anonymous, at least partially.

01:10:25

But before we return to that conversation on mentoring and encouraging pastors in the process of reforming churches,

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I just have some important announcements to make. You've been hearing the ads, no doubt, for the

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G3 Conference where I will be manning an exhibitor's booth this September 30th through October 2nd.

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I'll be manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio there. And this will be my fourth year in a row doing so.

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And I absolutely love every moment of being there, every year that I'm there. And you will too if you attend.

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But we've been announcing in the commercials, at least some of them, because it's such a long roster of speakers, we don't always have the same names mentioned.

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But in some of the ads, Votie Baucom is mentioned. And Votie Baucom, who has written one of the most important books on the heresies of critical race theory and everything else under the umbrella of the woke movement.

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Well, Votie may not be on the roster, unfortunately, because he recently had quadruple bypass surgery.

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And he is recovering here in the United States. And things seem to be going well.

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And I will keep you updated as I continue to be updated. But I want you to pray for Votie Baucom and pray that the

01:11:49

Lord restores him to full recovery and newness of strength and vitality and energy so that he can return to his post as one of the most important preachers, teachers, and writers of the 21st century, as far as I'm concerned.

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So keep praying for Votie Baucom and that we hear good news that he is going to remain on the roster at the

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G3 conference. By the way, if you want any more information on that conference, go to g3conference .com,

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g3conference .com. Also, folks, if you love this show and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to irontrippindesignradio .com,

01:12:30

click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

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If you prefer snail mail, sending in a check the old -fashioned way via the

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We are in urgent need of your financial help due to the damage that the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus pandemic has created.

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There have been so many people in our audience who have been negatively affected and sometimes very seriously damaged by the hysteria of this pandemic.

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Businesses that have either shut down or are on the brink of it or just loss of sales or whatever the case may be for different businesses that people have had to give less or postpone giving at all.

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So we really need your help to replenish that which was lost. We want to thank all of you who have been doing that.

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We want to thank from the bottom of our hearts Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, who just agreed to sponsor this show with advertising for a full year.

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We want to thank Dr. Joe Moorcraft and those wonderful folks, Tim Renshaw and the entire congregation at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, for helping us in such an invaluable and vital way.

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Like knights in white shining armor charging into the rescue.

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Excuse me for this frog in my throat, folks. But thank you folks at Heritage Presbyterian for such a vital sponsorship.

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But if you could also join us in whatever way the

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Lord has blessed you, we really need your help. If you would like to advertise just like Heritage Presbyterian Church, as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, send me an email to chrisorenson at gmail .com

01:14:51

chrisorenson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line and as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe,

01:14:58

I'd love to help you launch an ad campaign just like I recently did for Anchored in Truth Ministries of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, whose vice president you are hearing on this program today.

01:15:12

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01:15:51

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01:16:11

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Also, if you are not a member of a local

01:16:17

Bible -believing church, like Grace Life Church in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, for instance, no matter where on the planet

01:16:25

Earth you live, I have extensive lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe and have already helped many people on all parts of the planet

01:16:34

Earth find churches near where they live, sometimes even just a few minutes from where they live, that they didn't even know existed or they didn't know were biblically faithful.

01:16:43

If you are in that dilemma, you need a church near you that is biblically faithful, I may be able to help you.

01:16:49

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

01:16:54

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest today,

01:17:01

Steve, the Vice President of Operations and Management at Anchored in Truth Ministries in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

01:17:08

We are discussing mentoring and encouraging pastors in the process of reforming churches. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:17:15

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And if you could, Steve, give our listeners, especially those pastors who are in the dilemma of being

01:17:25

Calvinists in hostile territory, while they're trying to not only grow their congregations in biblical ways, but also even maintain them, prevent splits and prevent even the collapse of the church because of the church being at odds with what these pastors have come to believe.

01:17:49

Well, Chris, when you had your break, I was thinking through that question, and I want to respond two ways.

01:18:00

The first one would be a pastor that is in a local church that has, or holds to the doctrines of grace, and the church does not.

01:18:11

That's going to be a very difficult situation. And again, let me clarify this.

01:18:17

I know it's easy for me to say what I'm about to say because I'm in a church that has done that and gone through it, but I do believe that as he is faithful to preach the scripture and to preach through these texts and to do it with patience and to do it with prayer and to do it with time, have as many meetings that need to take place,

01:18:40

God can and would be gracious as he has been here at Grace Life and most of the shows.

01:18:46

Now, I also know that there's many, many churches that the pastors have tried to do that, and again, they were fired because we've had associations with some of them.

01:18:56

There were churches that have dissolved because of the doctrines of grace, and as you said earlier before the break, it is a war.

01:19:04

It is a very, very difficult situation to find yourself in, but I believe that God in his sovereign grace and will can transform and reform the church, but it's going to take a long, long time, as I've said before, even here.

01:19:22

It's taken the course of 20 or 30 years with our pastor and leadership and teaching through these things.

01:19:28

And even to bring me back, it may come to a point that these pastors that are in a church, that the church is not holding those doctrines and they're not going to hold to them for whatever reason.

01:19:39

It could be that they pray that God would put them in another place of service.

01:19:45

The church that God placed me in for a season as I was pastoring, it is a church that is steeped in tradition.

01:19:54

It is a church that is anti -anything reformed.

01:20:00

I mean, you could not get worse in their eyes to be a

01:20:06

Calvinist, a Reform, hold to the doctrines of grace. I mean, nothing can be worse in this particular church's life.

01:20:13

And so it became very clear to me that I could spend the rest of my life killing myself trying to reform the church, or I could pray and ask

01:20:24

God to remove me and place me in a church that I didn't have to fight that fight.

01:20:31

And that's exactly what He did in my life. And that's why He brought me back here to Grace Life Muscle Shoals.

01:20:37

And so that's the first thing that I thought about. The second thing would be a pastor and a church that are holding to the doctrines of grace, but at the same time they're in an association or denomination, whatever it may be, that is not.

01:20:57

And again, I think that's one of the reasons that God has made Anchored in Truth what Anchored in Truth is, because of coming alongside of like -minded churches.

01:21:06

And again, our history, our past has been Southern Baptists. We're no longer affiliated with Southern Baptists. But again, it was part of that and part of that training that we were supporting some of these seminaries.

01:21:16

But to be quite frankly, some of these seminaries were teaching Reformed Theology, but yet they were taking these students and putting them in these churches of the

01:21:27

Southern Baptists that were not, and it was about to kill these guys. And so obviously there are some other reasons that our pastor and us as elders have led to come away from that.

01:21:37

Well, God in His silent grace has sent people our way that we're partnering with and that we are like -minded working together with in some of these pastors that have seen that it's just a time that, you know, it's not going to happen in my lifetime.

01:21:53

So I'm going to move my church and to disassociate with a certain denomination because of the fight

01:22:02

I had to fight. I can't tell you how many difficult conversations.

01:22:09

I mean, it felt like I was a stranger amongst Christian brothers because of home.

01:22:15

Even as I alluded to a little bit, even in our own town, when we would go into Walmart or go into the supermarket, it felt like we were aliens and foreigners.

01:22:25

And I guess in one sense we were. And so I think my answer would be two -fold.

01:22:33

The second one, if you as a pastor or your church is fighting, then one thing

01:22:40

I know and my senior pastor, Jeff Robin, knows that we have fought too long and too hard.

01:22:46

We're not going back. We have a mission organization that God has given us of planting pastors, planting churches, working with missionaries like Pastor Timoteo.

01:22:58

And obviously your influence is far greater, Chris, than I realize.

01:23:05

Because right now, Steve Mezios, who is one of the pastors that we support in Vienna, Austria, is listening to you now.

01:23:11

He just texted me saying, I'm listening. And it's because of Steve and his wife

01:23:16

Catherine and his daughter Anastasia, I ask that you pray as you've asked us to pray for your brother John. And I pray for Anastasia.

01:23:22

She has an eating disorder and she's in the hospital there. Wow. And we're praying that God would give her grace.

01:23:29

And for Steve and Catherine as their pastors, Steve was part of that church that was planted there.

01:23:36

And everything was great. It was growing. I mean, in Vienna, Austria. I mean, everything was growing and great and wonderful until he started teaching the

01:23:45

Daughters of Grace and it emptied out. Well, God has restored some of that. And again, I think

01:23:50

Steve would give testimony to that. It's a sweet fellowship. And so what we do is we come alongside like -minded pastors.

01:23:59

Again, I'll be 60 this week. My pastor is 62. And we're not going back.

01:24:06

And again, what we do is plant churches, plant pastors. We want to come along and strengthen existing churches.

01:24:13

And that's all we do. We're not going to do anything. We're going to preach the gospel. And we started that years ago when the president of the

01:24:20

International Mission Board came to us and said, We cannot reach this world with just the 5 ,000 missionaries.

01:24:26

We need churches to adopt unreached people. But we did that in Peru, and it changed the life of our church. And so we've seen it, and we've seen what

01:24:33

God would do and how God has strengthened the body here. And so we're not going back. And so we're going to preach the gospel.

01:24:39

And you say you're not going back. Are you specifically referring to the Southern Baptist Convention? No, no. And, again, as far as going back to any tricks and any,

01:24:48

I mean, we're not going to play any more games is what I'm saying. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're going to hold to what the

01:24:56

Scripture teaches, whether anybody goes with us or not, and whether if the church empties out or not, because we've seen it those days, and we see where we've had the guys reform our church, and then to hold to the

01:25:09

Scripture and hold these teachings. And, again, also I'd like to add, if it's okay, you mentioned just a few moments ago

01:25:16

Grace Life Church of Lake City, Florida, the radio program. Yes. Those are some of our dear friends.

01:25:23

Pastor Brandon Ellickson is a good friend of mine. Wow. Pastor Brandon and I have actually, you know, Pastor Brandon and I actually stayed in the hotel that Muhammad Ali stayed in.

01:25:32

And I'm convinced that he probably slept on the same sheets. Because, Pastor Timothy, I love him.

01:25:42

He's a dear brother in Christ. I can say that because he's not listening to you because it's about 5 a .m. in the morning right now.

01:25:48

But he understands that as an American, I can't stay in certain places. So he put me there, and that's the last time he made my hotel reservation.

01:25:59

But Pastor Brandon and I have preached in the Philippines, and we were in Hong Kong together.

01:26:05

He's a dear brother. God's blessing him and the folks at Grace Life of Lake City, Florida. We just love them.

01:26:10

And you also mentioned Voti. Voti's being here. We have the privilege of supporting Conrad in Belway, where Voti was working with Conrad there in Zambia.

01:26:19

Yes. And we are actually planning with his son, Dula, that's also there in Zambia, and all his intern programs.

01:26:26

So those are people that you mentioned that are very, very dear to our hearts. Yes, and Conrad is a very dear friend of mine since 1995.

01:26:33

I was in the church, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

01:26:42

That was his very first stop during his very first visit to the

01:26:47

United States from Zambia in 1995. And I happened to have the privilege of being there.

01:26:52

I was a part of the advertising team that promoted that conference.

01:26:58

We had over 500 visitors, not including the people who were already members. We had over 500 visitors over a three -day period.

01:27:06

Many of those visitors were Pentecostal. And people were amening and really being riveted by the messages and blessed.

01:27:18

And Conrad has remained a friend ever since. And I'm actually, God willing, going to be speaking with him tonight by phone at Dr.

01:27:26

Joel Beakey's home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, because I am trying to arrange another interview with Conrad.

01:27:33

And also, he has agreed to be my next Iron Trepans Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon speaker here in Pennsylvania, as long as he can squeeze it into his 2021 schedule and itinerary.

01:27:49

So I would ask you to join me in praying for that. I will.

01:27:55

I will. And please tell him I say hello. He's a dear friend, dear brother, and he's one of our favorites. Amen. Well, we do have an anonymous listener who said, you were speaking about the reality of a pastor who is

01:28:09

Reformed in an anti -Calvinist church, most likely having to leave that church and look for a congregation that is in harmony with him over those teachings.

01:28:22

But on other occasions, you have a church where the pastor, by God's grace, has made a lot of headway with many, if not even the majority of the congregation who have come to at least be tolerant of learning these things or who have come over to embrace them in a full -fledged manner.

01:28:47

But there is a small but loud minority in the church that may even be wealthy that is causing the problems.

01:28:58

Should not a pastor try to stick out the fight there as long as possible before things get too ugly, especially if it means loss of a building in a prominent area where the gospel needs to be proclaimed in truth?

01:29:17

My response is absolutely, because it's exactly what Jeff Nobbitt did here. Jeff Nobbitt, in those early days of Reforming the church, basically ran off all of his millionaires.

01:29:30

And there was also a major church split with a key leader in our town.

01:29:38

But God has replaced those millionaires because he raised up his own. And so my answer to that email response would be yes.

01:29:48

And again, I've just had a conversation with a pastor that came up here to see me this morning that has been through that battle.

01:29:55

And there was one loud, prominent leader, a lay leader in the church, and he was about ready to quit.

01:30:02

And my exact words were to him to say, you know, somebody's got to stand up against him. Somebody has to do it.

01:30:09

And if you quit, then all you're doing is leaving that responsibility for the next pastor. And so I would say absolutely, especially if God's given him favor that there is a remnant of folks there that want that teaching.

01:30:25

You know, Chris, it has been, you know, in the line of work we do, it's historically been for us as pastors, we always give more credence to the people that are the loudest, the people that complain.

01:30:36

And we seem to give a deaf ear to those that really want to grow. And so God has shown us here, again,

01:30:43

I mentioned earlier in the show that we had 2 ,000 in small groups this past Easter.

01:30:48

I think we had almost around 800, 700, 800 or so. But it's sweeter, it's more unified, it's more

01:30:55

Christ -focused, God -glorified than it's ever been before.

01:31:01

So a lot of those deletions are really blessings. And so to this individual, this pastor,

01:31:09

I would say absolutely go and move with those movers there. Thank you,

01:31:15

Anonymous. And if you are a first -time questioner, you have won a free

01:31:21

New American Standard Bible, which all of our new or first -time questioners receive as a gift from the publishers of the

01:31:29

NASB and also from CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will ship that out to you if you are a first -time questioner.

01:31:37

So if you are, please give me your full name by email. I won't reveal that over the air, obviously.

01:31:42

And your full mailing address. We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who wants to know, what books or videos,

01:31:54

DVDs or audio recordings can you recommend where leaders in the churches that you are discussing can sit down in a relaxed atmosphere, as much as possible, that is, and have those that are hostile to these teachings see and hear these doctrines very calmly and clearly articulated and exegeted from the scriptures?

01:32:22

That's a great one. You know, my answer is going to be, is you call AngeredInTruth .org and tell

01:32:27

Elizabeth Burbank, and she will get you the sermon series where my pastor preached through those topics and through those doctrines in the process of reforming the church.

01:32:40

And from experience, that's the greatest thing I could recommend, because there's one who's done it, who's been there.

01:32:47

I can't tell you, Chris, how much anti -reform we once were.

01:32:53

I mean, how much of the system we used to do and how we twisted it and made it work.

01:33:00

But now, no more of that, because of coming to the Doctrines of Grace. And so, he's lived it, he's practiced it for 40 years, he's been faithful, and so that's what

01:33:11

I'd recommend. So that's AngeredInTruth .org, AngeredInTruth .org. And what was the individual's name?

01:33:17

I just remember Burbank, because that's where Johnny Carson used to do his program live. Elizabeth, she is from Scotland.

01:33:26

And again, God put her here. Her dad is Allie McLachlan, and he serves there in Edinburgh.

01:33:34

And Elizabeth is a godsend for me and for our church at Frank and Truth. And so, she's my administrative assistant.

01:33:43

And she's the one that answers the phone call. I would give you the phone number, I have no idea where it is. You can go to the website and find out where it is.

01:33:49

And when you call, that's who you're going to talk to. And you're going to hear someone who talks a whole lot better than me. He talks proper

01:33:55

English. I talk Auburn, Southern, Cajun, but Elizabeth talks proper

01:34:00

English. Elzbeth. Elzbeth. Elzbeth Burbank. And I noticed that the Anchored in Truth voice for the ad on my program is

01:34:09

Scottish. That's actually a friend of Elzbeth that she contacted for us.

01:34:15

And he actually composed even that music. He did it all for us. Great. I also have a recommendation in regard to a book.

01:34:27

Especially if you are in a circumstance where you have Baptists.

01:34:34

It may be a Baptist church that is hostile towards the doctrines of grace.

01:34:40

Or at least a very vocal element of the church is hostile. Because they are deceived or ignorant of the fact that the

01:34:50

Baptist church historically is steeped in Calvinism and Calvinists.

01:34:59

And it may be a shock. A complete shock to many of the

01:35:04

Baptists in that church. As I know it has been even in my own life with Baptists that I know personally.

01:35:10

Who hate Calvinism or at least used to. The book is called By His Grace and For His Glory by Thomas J.

01:35:19

Nettles. And the subtitle is A Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the

01:35:25

Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life. It is mind -blowing the number of Baptists who are very famous.

01:35:32

Baptists who are heroes of Baptist life and history.

01:35:38

That many fundamentalists if not most. Many hardcore independent fundamentalist

01:35:44

Baptists. King James only. Even those that are vehemently anti -Calvinist.

01:35:50

Uphold many of these people, many of these men as their heroes. And they don't even really know how thoroughly

01:35:55

Calvinistic they were. So By His Grace and For His Glory by Thomas J.

01:36:01

Nettles. N -E -T -T -L -E -S And that reminds me I've got to get Dr. Tom on the program again.

01:36:08

It's been too long. By the way he's going to be teaching here. We have a pastoral training institute now.

01:36:15

And Dr. Nettles is teaching here this summer. Oh wow. Yep. And you can find out more about that book by the way folks at Founders Ministries.

01:36:23

Which happens to be a Southern Baptist ministry that is faithful to the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

01:36:29

And they call it Founders because all of the founders of that denomination were thoroughgoing

01:36:35

Calvinists. And even though that today they are a minority obviously.

01:36:40

Calvinist that is. I go to founders .org. Founders .org. And if you order it please order it from cvbbs .com.

01:36:49

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Since they sponsor the show. And they have many different publishers titles.

01:36:56

If they are reformed they definitely have their titles in inventory.

01:37:02

And so that's cvbbs .com. You can order it there. I have to go to our final break.

01:37:08

It's going to be much shorter than the previous breaks. If you have a question please send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:37:17

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com is our email address. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

01:37:24

As always give us your first name at least. Your city and state of residence.

01:37:30

And your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. And only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Chris Arnzen host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Anchored in Truth Ministries is the mission arm of Grace Life Church of the Shoals. Based in Alabama, it supports missionaries in over 13 countries around the world.

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Visit anchoredintruth .org As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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The church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. We are excited to announce another new member of the

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

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Daniel P. Patafuco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

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Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?

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To foster belief in the credibility of scripture as the written word of God. They go to various churches, schools and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts along with a fascinating presentation by Mr.

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Patafuco demonstrating the reliability of scripture. To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition 1611

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01:49:18

Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. This is

01:49:33

Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

01:49:38

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio financially.

01:49:47

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

01:50:00

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

01:50:06

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

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Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

01:50:37

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

01:50:51

Welcome back, and we have a listener from Monroe, New York, Mike, or Michael.

01:50:58

He says, My name is Michael from Monroe, New York, and my Bible of choice is the NASB. Thanks for the plug for our advertiser,

01:51:06

Mike. Mike says, Can your guest elaborate further on the

01:51:11

Pastor's Training Institute, and is it affiliated and under the oversight of the church as a church ministry?

01:51:20

I guess he's wondering if it's a parachurch organization or a ministry under the oversight of your local church.

01:51:26

No, it is a ministry of the local church, the oversight of the elders, and we started this.

01:51:36

It's been going on about a year now, and like I said, Dr. Nettles is going to be teaching a summer block this summer.

01:51:44

In the fall, I think I'm teaching on world missions. We've got our small group leaders that are meeting, and Dr.

01:51:53

Tim Seal is heading that up for us. Dr. Seal has earned a Ph .D., and he has had,

01:51:59

I think, 15 years of teaching in a seminary level, and so now he's with us. It is basically set up so that we can train pastors in various things.

01:52:10

Obviously, they're learning how to preach. That's what Dr. Seal does now. They're going to learn about small groups, learn about missions.

01:52:18

We've had our music guy come teach some, our pastor, all the aspects of a local church, with the hopes of that these pastors that come, these men that come, that we're asking them to be a part of the

01:52:31

Anchor Truth Network, and so we'll plant churches with them. I'll get phone calls monthly, if not biweekly, of churches of people that are saying, we're looking for a pastor that hosts

01:52:46

Dr. Grace or comes up on your mentorship. So now God has given us a tool to do that.

01:52:53

About everything that we have done here, Chris, has been by way of people calling us. We have a church plant there in Des Moines, Iowa.

01:53:03

It started as there were some lay people there that, to be quite honest, there was a group of four or five families that were just tired of playing church and knew of the

01:53:13

Reformation that took place here and our commitment to the biblical teaching, and they said, hey, can y 'all help us?

01:53:19

And that's where it started, and one of the pastors that's there now came out of our fellowship. Y 'all think you're going to talk to Blake Keenum up in Canada?

01:53:28

Oh, Blake was here, and Blake also is part of the product of the mentorship here.

01:53:34

He didn't go through the PTI, the pastoral training institute, but unofficially he did, and now he's passed in there a relationship that we've had with the church in Selkirk, outside of Winnipeg.

01:53:47

So, yeah, there's information. There's a separate website, but you can go to anchor2 .org website, and there's a link there to the pastoral training.

01:53:56

And Dr. Tim Seal heads that up. He's in my office as well, and so he can fill any questions if there's any interest there.

01:54:02

Yeah, if anybody wants to mark their calendars for the Blake Keenum interview that our guest

01:54:09

Stephen just mentioned, Thursday, May 6th, 4 to 6 p .m.

01:54:16

Eastern time here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. I'd like you now to have a few minutes of uninterrupted time to basically unburden your heart and let our listeners know exactly, in summary form, what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before this program comes to a conclusion.

01:54:39

Well, I'm glad you asked, Chris. And I would think that the thing that I would want folks to know about what

01:54:46

Anchor Truth does and what I do and that what we ask God to give us like -minded churches, pastors to work with, that our heart's desire is that God is glorified.

01:54:59

And everything that you see around here, everything that we do, it's all on what is

01:55:05

God glorified. And it's all about that. It's not what we as people want, what we think, what is our likes, our desires, but what does the

01:55:12

Bible say and does it glorify God? Is it Christ -centered? Is it local church -centered?

01:55:19

Those things. And so our heart's desire, obviously, as the mission pastor here, is that we pray and strive that the entire local church family is personally and strategically involved in world missions by mobilizing the laborers through prayer and through finances to the end of glorifying

01:55:40

God among all people. And that's what we strive to do. Again, the entire local church being personally and strategically involved.

01:55:48

And so it's no more that where we would just write checks to a mission organization, we're actually doing it now personally and being strategic.

01:55:57

Because God hasn't called us to be everywhere, but he's called us to be strategically involved. And as I said before, all we do is to preach the

01:56:06

Bible, teach the Bible. That's what we do. And there's a large group of people that is partnering with us, and you can see that on our website.

01:56:15

And we've got people that are partnering with us all over the world. Those people, Timoteo, those others, as we vet through that, we tell people right at the beginning, we want missions to be in your

01:56:25

DNA from the very beginning. So we give a monthly stipend support to all these people that you'll see on our website, but we want them to in turn, from day one, to be investing in missions and for the glory of God.

01:56:38

Amen. We do have time for another question slash comment.

01:56:45

Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania says, Don't you think it is absolutely crucial that pastors going through these times of conflict with those that oppose the doctrines of grace not remain as an island unto themselves and reach out to other pastors who are solidly

01:57:05

Reformed and perhaps even have the experience of making it through the storms that will arise when a bunch of folks are trying to wage war against the doctrines of grace?

01:57:20

Absolutely. And that's one thing that this year we missed greatly was our True Church Conference in February because we call it a family reunion.

01:57:28

That's where all those pastors that are going through so much stuff and struggle, they come together with like -minded people. And we have them.

01:57:34

We host them in our homes here as a church. Again, that's called personalization. We eat with them.

01:57:39

That's called personalization. And our people know that. Our people vacate with them. And so absolutely, it's a group of like -minded pastors that have the same issues, the same battle.

01:57:49

They have a friend. They have someone to come alongside. And so that's one of the great things that God has given me in truth, that to hold each other's hand and pray for each other and support each other.

01:58:01

So, yep, I absolutely agree with your caller. Well, thank you,

01:58:07

Joseph, in South Central Pennsylvania. And I want to thank you, Stephen, for being such a remarkable guest today.

01:58:16

I look forward to your return to the program. And I look forward to interviewing anyone and everyone who is involved in the team at Anchored in Truth Ministries.

01:58:26

I've been extremely impressed by everything that I have discovered from this ministry.

01:58:35

And if anybody else wants to find out more about Anchored in Truth Ministries, go to anchoredintruth .org, anchoredintruth .org.

01:58:44

Also, if you want to find out more about Grace Life Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the church that is the hosting church of Anchored in Truth, go to Grace Life Shoals, s -h -o -a -l -s .org,

01:59:01

gracelifeshoals .org. And don't forget about that book that I mentioned by Dr.

01:59:07

Tom Nettles, By His Grace and for His Glory. In fact, I highly recommend, if you have a

01:59:13

Baptist church especially, where there is conflict over the doctrines of grace, I strongly recommend you purchase a copy of this book for every single person in leadership, if not the entire congregation, if you can afford to.

01:59:28

And get that book, By His Grace and for His Glory, by Tom Nettles, from cvbbs .com,

01:59:35

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write.

01:59:42

I want to thank Luke Baker for arranging this interview, Luke Baker of Anchored in Truth Ministries.

01:59:48

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.