October 21, 2022 Show with Brad Gsell on “Veritas Christo et Ecclesia: Truth for Christ and the Church” PLUS David Reece on “What is a True Church?”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, 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 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 a 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.

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And now, here's your host, 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 Friday on this 21st day of October 2022.

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We have two guests today, one per hour. The first is an old friend who's been on this program before, and the second is a first -time guest who

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I just recently met at a conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, and we'll be talking more about that momentarily.

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But let me introduce our first guest who is returning to the program.

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His name is Brad Zell, and if you're looking that up on the Internet, it's G -S -E -L -L.

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He is the author of a very controversial booklet, The Legacy of Billy Graham, The Accommodation of Truth to Error in the

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Evangelical Church. It is a booklet that every Christian should get a hold of because there is so much ignorance about the very serious errors and even heresies of the late

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Billy Graham. He was such a grandfatherly figure and so godly in many ways that even

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I feel uncomfortable criticizing him, but we cannot let the famous people in the world of Christendom be untouchable.

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We have to treat them as Bereans, and if the Apostle Paul welcomed that kind of examination, anybody should be open to that, and that includes those who love and still uplift

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Billy Graham. But that is not our topic today. I just wanted to give a plug to that very important booklet.

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Brad is also an ordained minister at the Bible Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, North Carolina.

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He is president of the International Council of Christian Churches and of the

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Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions. He is also the editor of Redeeming the

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Time magazine, and today we are going to be addressing the theme Veritas Christo et

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Ecclesia, which means truth for Christ and the church, which happens to be the original motto, believe it or not, of Harvard University, who just appointed an atheist as its chaplain.

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We're also going to be announcing the American Council of Christian Churches Convention in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but let me welcome you back to Iron Troupe and Zion Radio, Brad Zell.

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Well, Chris, it's good to be with you today. It's great to have you back on the program. Just to refresh the memories of our listeners who have heard you and also to introduce you more formally to those who have never heard you on this program, why don't you tell our listeners about the

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Bible Presbyterian Church of North Carolina, where you are an ordained minister. Yes, I am one of the pastors at the

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Bible Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte. Our church was founded in 1966, and the

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Bible Presbyterian denomination was founded in 1937 and 1938 as an answer to the apostasy in the

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Presbyterian Church USA. And for more details on the

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Bible Presbyterian Church of North Carolina, where Brad Zell is one of the pastors, how would they find that?

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Tell us the website. Okay, I think you can find it on Facebook if you just look up Bible Presbyterian Church.

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Okay, and I think you probably should include in there Charlotte, North Carolina, since there are many Bible Presbyterian churches.

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And tell us about the International Council of Christian Churches. Yes, the

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ICCC, International Council of Christian Churches, was formed in 1948 in Amsterdam, the

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Netherlands. And the first meeting was at the church where the pilgrim fathers worshipped before they came to the

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New World. The ICCC started as an answer to the

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World Council of Churches, which is a very apostate organization.

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They include many ministers that deny the deity of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, the literal bodily resurrection, and many of the major doctrines.

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And the World Council just had their world assembly in Germany, and their whole message is a gospel of the

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New World social order and environmentalism and socialism.

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It's a here and now Christianity that will not save anyone.

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The ICCC has churches all over the world, and we will be holding our 21st

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World Congress next June from the 21st to the 28th, 2023, in Collingswood, New Jersey, which is right across the river from Philadelphia.

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And the theme will be declare God's glory among the nations.

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And so we will have those of many races,

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Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Independents, and many others who will be coming together to declare the word of God.

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The ICCC, like the American Council, we in no way try to come down to a least common denominator doctrinal creed that everyone, that that's all they believe, the

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Methodists are Methodists, Presbyterians are Presbyterians, and they hold strongly to their conviction, which was the teaching of Dr.

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J. Gresham Machen at Princeton Seminary back in the early part of the 20th century that we can have wonderful Christian fellowship even with those who are not in our own denomination.

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Yes, the thing that I found fascinating about the conference that you had the last time, perhaps it was a year ago,

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I can't remember exactly off the top of my head, but when you had your convention here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the

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American Council of Christian Churches annual convention, it was a unique experience because I believe most of those men who spoke and gathered there would have considered themselves fundamentalists in some shape or fashion, and yet there was no hostility and animosity and tension between the

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Calvinists and the Arminians in the group, which is something that for fundamentalists you very rarely find that experience.

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Yes, and there again, as I mentioned, that we in no way discount the grand doctrinal statements such as the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. I'm a Presbyterian, so I hold strongly to the

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Presbyterian system of government, and yet we can all have a level of fellowship that recognizing that Christ has believers all over the world.

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So it's a precious time, and I would say that most of our churches, there are different doctrinal views, but there is a strong realization that all men are totally depraved, that we need a

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Savior, and only Christ can save us through the work of His Holy Spirit. Amen.

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And tell us about redeeming the time magazine, where you are editor. Yes, we began redeeming the time in 2009, and this is our 15th year.

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And the Lord is blessed, and we've been able to publish all this time.

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It is available. You can send us a message, and we will be glad to add you to the mailing list.

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And it's a 16 -page quarterly publication, and we publish current news, photos of the

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Lord's work around the world, and also Bible messages.

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Well, if anybody wants to find out more about redeeming the time magazine, go to rttpublications .org,

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rttpublications .org. And as I said at the outset of the program, the theme for the conference, which is coming up, and it's coming up very quickly, actually, it's going to be held

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October 25th through the 27th, which is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week.

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And the theme, as I mentioned before, is the former motto, or perhaps it still is the motto, but it's a motto that is totally being ignored.

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I don't know. You can tell me a bit more about that. But Veritas Christo et Ecclesia, Truth for Christ and the

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Church, the original motto of Harvard University. This, as I said, it demonstrates the downfall of this great institution founded by and for Bible -believing

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Christians, and now they have an atheist as their chaplain, which is quite a shuddering thing to even contemplate.

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Tell us about this theme that you are going to be basing all of the sessions upon at the

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American Council of Christian Churches convention here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania next week. Yes, and incidentally,

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Harvard many years ago changed their motto to simply

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Veritas, so Truth, and I suppose everybody can choose their truth.

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The American Council is in the line of historic Christianity where the truth of Scripture is paramount, and the

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Scriptures are the only infallible and inspired and inerrant word of God. And so in our age today when many believe that truth is relative and you'll hear the phrase that he has his truth, well, we don't each have our own truth.

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Truth is truth. And so the American Council is promoting at this convention the importance of holding only to the word of God and what it teaches, and that that is the truth.

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Amen. And so what are some of the headings of sessions that will be delivered?

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And perhaps you can even share with us some of the speakers. Sure. Yes. Reverend David Zmuk from the

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Pre -Presbyterian Church of Phoenix, Arizona will begin on Tuesday night the 25th at 7 o 'clock, and he will be speaking on the theme that's been presented to start off the convention.

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And then we have a number of breakout sessions that will include things on the history of how the

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Baptists fell from biblical orthodoxy and how the Methodists and how the

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Presbyterians. And then we spoke of Harvard and how it has changed its motto, and now

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Harvard is an enemy of Christ. And as Chris mentioned, they have a chaplain who's an atheist.

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And so Dan Greenfield, the Executive Director of the American Council, will be speaking on the characteristics of educational institutions that abandoned their founding characteristics.

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And then we have Jonathan Peters from Baltimore, Maryland, Deconstructionism, Reformation or Apostasy, and John McKnight from Maryland on the biblical philosophy of Christian education.

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And Kevin Hobey, Dr. Kevin Hobey from New Hampshire, will be presenting a session on C .S.

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Lewis, which should be very interesting. And so the convention will end with the need for godly men in perilous times

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Well, I'm looking forward to being at as many of the sessions as I can.

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This time around I already have shows booked, but I am looking forward to being blessed by as much as the conferences

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I can possibly attend, and I'm looking forward to seeing my old friend John McKnight, the pastor of Reformation Bible Church in Darlington, Maryland, who is a really magnificent preacher.

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Yes, and he's there. And John recently stepped down as senior pastor.

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I don't think we want to call it a retirement, but the new senior pastor will also be speaking from that church,

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Adam Eshelman. So we're looking forward to hearing him for the first time. Well, if anybody wants more information about this convention, the website is accc4truth .org,

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accc4truth .org, and then click on Events, and you should have all of the details that you need.

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And I, as I said, will, God willing, be there for at least a part of the convention, and I'm looking forward to it.

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We're going to our first station break, and if you have any questions for our guest today,

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Brad Zell, please submit them to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We're going to be right back right after these messages. Have you noticed the gap that exists between the

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It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the

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Word of God and is built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the

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royaldiadem .com, mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Brad Zell.

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And Brad, how is it, from your understanding of history, that not only great institutions like Harvard University, Yale, Princeton, and even denominations that began as stalwarts, as bulwarks for biblical faithfulness have crumbled into the ash heap of apostasy?

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It is mind -boggling when you have seen throughout history how some of these organizations, even a local school that is less than a five -minute walk from where I'm sitting,

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Dickinson College, was founded by a Christian, and that is an extremely liberal school today.

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How does this happen? Well, for any who are interested, there's a book by Ernest Gordon that was written many years ago called

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The Lovin' of the Sadducees, and he details each of these institutions and how they fell.

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But generally, there has been an accommodation to false doctrine.

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The average Christian doesn't want to cause waves. He wants to be loving, and so these things enter the church, and they're not dealt with properly by church discipline, and then it doesn't take long until doom occurs.

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I'm most familiar with the Presbyterian Church, and back in the 1920s and 30s, there was a great struggle in these churches, and Harry Emerson Fosdick, a greatly renowned minister, preached a sermon in the

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First Presbyterian Church in New York City, Shall the Fundamentalists Win? And he declared war against those that believed in the word of God, and then

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Dr. J. Grestin Machen from Princeton answered that and other attacks in his book

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Christianity and Liberalism, in which he declared that liberalism was a whole other religion.

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It wasn't Christianity at all. And by 1927, the Presbyterian Church had declared that there were other theories of what the great doctrines of Scripture mean, and that the

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Scriptures weren't the only source of our understanding of God.

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And so it didn't take long until, in the 1930s, men were put on trial, and they left their big churches and founded other churches.

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The Orthodox Presbyterian Church came out of that division, and then the

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Bible Presbyterian Church that I'm a part of also. So we need to be vigilant and never tell the truth, never give up on the truth of God, no matter how friendly we are with people who depart.

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Do you think, from what you understand from history, I'm sure that over the years it has been a combination of both of the things that I'm going to mention, but is it initially more of a theological change, a doctrinal switch, or is it more often before that, which maybe produces the heretical and apostate doctrine eventually, a misunderstanding of the biblical definition of true love?

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There are many professed liberals who identify as Christians who think that they are the champions of loving thy neighbor because they believe that the most essential elements of Christianity have to do with reaching out to the underdog, no matter who the underdog may be, and feeding and clothing and housing the poor.

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Now, I believe that feeding and clothing and housing the poor are very important elements of biblical

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Christianity, but liberals and leftists tend to go about doing those things improperly and unbiblically, and very often they involve wanting to see government programs developed to do those things that actually are robbing from the wallets of other people to get them accomplished.

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But am I making sense here, though? Is it very often in your knowledge of history, people who may think that they are functioning as biblical

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Christians and imitating Jesus, at least the Jesus that they have invented in their mind, when they are seeking to love others, but very often their ideas of bringing that about and manifesting love is a false love.

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It's a love that tolerates sin. It's a love that cares more about the comfort and peace of mind and the prevention of hurt feelings on this earth than it does caring about the eternal destiny of your fellow man.

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Am I making sense? Yes, and that's very true. But Christ said in John 14 and 15,

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If you love me, keep my commandments. And so true love, our last

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Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches in Chile two or three years ago, the theme was about the love of God from 1

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John 4 and verse 10. Herein is love, not that we love

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God, but that he loved us and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. But just a few verses before that,

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John talks about the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And so love can never be divorced from the truth, and that's been a tragic thing that has taken place.

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Now, as I asked in the beginning, do you think that that was the predominant factor in the collapse of all these once great biblical institutions into the ash heap of apostasy?

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Was it that, or was it giving a listening ear to the intellectual and false

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Christian leaders of academia who were basically trying to promote the idea that their discoveries and their theology and teachings were those that someone who is truly intelligent would adopt, and the rest of Christendom are basically behaving like cavemen in ignorance by following outdated ideas in their minds?

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Yes, there's a real elitism among some that are into heresy and apostasy that they look down on the common

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Christian. And I'd also say that in academic settings, there needs to be intellectual freedom to study all sides and to logically assess different viewpoints.

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And I think that is good, but it's taken too far by some of these professors.

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And I do believe that probably the greatest thing is when our eyes are off of God and his truth and we put too much pride in man and his accomplishments and thought that that is a direct link to going down the wrong path.

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Well, we have an anonymous listener who says, I am wondering what your thoughts are on those that choose to remain as long as possible in liberal denominations and congregations because they want to be a light for the truth there and they want to see if they can bring about reformation in these places.

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Is that a proper way for Christians to behave or should we always depart from such institutions?

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I am in the middle of a mess involving this question right now. Yes, well, we certainly need to be patient and trusting in the

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Lord, but the Bible in many places talks about not mixing truth and error and in virtually every situation in the 20th century, whether it was the

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Baptists or the Methodists or the Presbyterians, once the apostates got into control, there was really the losing battle.

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Second Corinthians chapter 6 tells us that what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness or he that believeth with an infidel and then it says come out from among them and be ye separate, sayeth the

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Lord, and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and be a father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters.

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So there is a great promise attached to that and so the American Council and the

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International Council and the Bible Presbyterian Church have always been known as separatist groups, not that we think we're the only ones by any means, but that we can't work within a denomination with men that say that Christ didn't literally rise from the dead, oh that's just a metaphor or an allegory for newness of life and they explain away the scriptures and take out all of God's wonderful power and supernatural leading.

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Yeah, obviously to remain in a church, and some of it would depend upon whether there is a mixture in that specific congregation of Bible deniers, of liberals, of apostates, and those that are true

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Christians, that cannot in any way shape or form function because you're giving a seal of approval upon the apostates merely by being, worshipping with them in their midst and recognizing their leadership.

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Right, and that is true, and so the Methodist, there's the

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Evangelical Methodist Church that came out, there's what was the

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Bible Protestant Church that left the Methodist Church due to the apostasy, and then

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I mentioned the Presbyterians, and there's the Fellowship of Fundamental Bible Churches, and there's conservative

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Baptist denominations, and I think we do much better in obeying the scriptures and separating from that which is evil.

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A denomination loses its integrity as a true church when it fails to discipline those that are teaching false doctrines, and discipline is one of the main signs of a true church.

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So when they fail, when they allow men, one of the denominations,

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I can't think right now, but one of the bishops made fun of the Trinity by saying that it was a

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God of committee, and there's been all kinds of terrible things that have been said by some of these church leaders.

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Yes, and even church discipline, when conducted by leftists, the wrong people are being disciplined for the wrong reasons.

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Even J. Gresham Machen, he was excommunicated, was he not?

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Yes. I'm privileged to be the president of the

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Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions which was started by Dr. Machen, and he was ordered to either disband the mission board or be excommunicated, and so he was put on trial as well as J.

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Oliver Buswell, the president of Wheaton College at the time, and Carl McIntyre and a number of others had to go through ecclesiastical trials, and they lost their churches and their homes and their pensions and everything, but they stood true to Christ.

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Yes, and that all started, did it not, due to Dr. Machen's lack of recognizing as a true

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Christian missionary a very famous female Christian missionary of the early 20th century,

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Pearl Buck, who was denying crucial teachings of the scriptures, right?

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Yes, that's correct, and there were others that were promoting communism even before, many years before Mao even came to power, and there was just much false teaching going on by some of the missionaries.

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Yes, we... Some of the... Go ahead. Some of the missionaries, some of the veteran missionaries came over to the independent board, and we had

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Dr. Albert B. Dodd who served in China for many years and Miss Lee, and I can't think...

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J. Gordon Holdcroft was one of the presidents of the independent board, and they were missionaries to Korea, and so there were many illustrious missionaries that came over and left the

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Presbyterian board and joined the independent board. We have a listener named Robert in Westchester County, New York, and Robert says,

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I agree with everything that you have said thus far, but I am always concerned that many brethren who identify themselves as separatists do not include a vital element into their separatism, and that is humility, and very often it becomes a shipwreck when separatists are accusing truly born -again brethren as apostates or false

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Christians and have no fellowship or communion with them over secondary and tertiary and even lesser issues.

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I am glad to see that the fellowship that you are a part of welcomes fellowship between Reformed and Arminian Christians, but that is not always the case as there are many anti -Calvinist fundamentalists who will have nothing to do with Reformed Christians in any way, shape, or form.

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Yes, and no matter what position we take, and it's a caution to all of us, we must follow the word of God with all humility because all of us are sinners saved by grace, and we cannot be as the

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Pharisees who said, I thank thee that I am not as other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as a republican.

42:52

That attitude is condemned by Christ himself in the scriptures, and most of the separatists that I have known and worked with,

43:02

I praise the Lord for their humility, but I have known some that I didn't appreciate their spirit, and no one should ever, ever rejoice in the downfall of a brother or take relish.

43:19

It's one of sadness when we have to separate from brethren, and none of us is perfect or always does everything right, but it's nonetheless in the scriptures, and so we must obey it.

43:38

Yes, I very recently actually had a very unpleasant telephone conversation with a fundamentalist

43:50

Baptist who was vehemently anti -Calvinist, and when he was first speaking with me on the phone, he thought that I was an ally with him in all things that he stood for, and then when he found out that I was a

44:08

Calvinist, he said, if we are going to have any further communication, it's going to be by text because even hearing your voice, knowing that you're a

44:17

Calvinist is making me sick to my stomach, and the irony is that before he found out that I was a

44:26

Calvinist, he asked me where I was from, and I said Pennsylvania, and he said, oh, the great state of Pennsylvania, one of my greatest heroes of the faith,

44:37

George Whitefield, was always spoke very highly of his beloved state of Pennsylvania, and he gave me an exact quote, so after he, this gentleman found out that I was a

44:53

Calvinist and started spewing venom at me, I said, sir, you do realize that George Whitefield was a five -point

44:59

Calvinist, don't you? And he said, you think I'm stupid? I know that, but George Whitefield lived 250 years ago and accomplished great things for God, and I said to him, and that makes sense how?

45:12

And he hung up on me. Well, when we look back,

45:19

Dr. David Beals, a historian at Bob Jones University, has written quite a bit on the revivals of the

45:28

First Great Awakening and so forth, and he pointed out that almost all the great revivals in American history were

45:38

God -used Calvinist preachers, so a Calvinism that's not evangelistic is not a biblical

45:46

Calvinism, but true Calvinism has a warm love, and some of the dearest passages of Scripture teach

45:56

Calvinism. The Bread of Life passage in John 6 teaches us that Christ said that he was the

46:04

Bread of Life, and then, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and he that cometh to me

46:12

I will no wise cast out. That may be in John 10. That was a good shepherd passage, but then there's also no man cometh unto the

46:20

Father unless the Father draw him, and when

46:26

Paul and the apostles were in Berea, as many as were ordained to eternal life beliefs, so it's impossible to deny that those verses are in the

46:38

Scripture, plus many, many more, and some people cherry -pick just a verse here or a verse there, but we have to compare

46:46

Scripture with Scripture, and so I'm sure I may have someone from a different theological persuasion that might have much to say in rebuttal, but I came from an

47:02

Arminian background and came to love the doctrines of grace, and it was actually

47:11

Charles H. Perkins, the Baptist, that I read a message of his on election, and that's what the

47:18

Lord used in my heart and life, but Reformed people, I've seen some that they're almost proud of their big

47:27

R, Reformed, and they have all the right terminology and everything, and I've seen that with the

47:34

Baptists and others, so the brother that wrote is absolutely correct that we must have humility and realize that we are all sinful creatures that have been saved by the love of Christ and the work of His Spirit in our hearts.

47:54

Yeah, we have to have a correct ladder of priority in regard to what are the truths over which we totally separate and which are the truths that we defend, but very graciously have some kind of division.

48:19

For instance, my church, where I'm a member, and every Reformed Baptist church of which

48:25

I'm aware, confessional Reformed Baptist church, will have very biblically faithful Presbyterians preach from our pulpit, but we would not allow a

48:38

Presbyterian to become a member unless the Presbyterian was baptized biblically, and also we would never allow a

48:49

Pato Baptist into a church office. So, that's, you know, there are areas where you graciously have some kind of division, but we have to be very careful when we completely cut off someone and declare them to be not a brother or sister in Christ.

49:09

Right, and you have that exactly right. I wouldn't be, uh, welcomed as a member in some of the

49:19

ACC churches because of their doctrinal distinctives, but yet we can have wonderful fellowships together otherwise, and I take no offense to that.

49:30

I mean, I, uh, I might have to debate you on baptism someday, but I'm kidding.

49:38

But that is the truth, and I think all of us, uh, the day will come when we'll all find some correction to our theology when we get to heaven, and all things are fully known and perfect, but you're right.

49:59

Your church shouldn't have a Presbyterian member if they don't hold to that, but that's not saying that the

50:08

Presbyterian brother is not a Christian and not even a faithful Christian. Well, I want you to summarize now because we're almost out of time for this hour, and we have a second guest coming up, but I want you to summarize what you want those who attend the

50:29

American Council of Christian Churches convention next week in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, what you want those who attend that meeting to walk away with, what you want to have most etched in their hearts and minds.

50:46

Well, I believe that we need to not be too concerned with theological trends and actions that we see around us, but be faithful to the

50:59

Word of God, love the Great Commission, go forth to tell the world about Christ, and then our ministers must be very doctrinal in teaching the deep things of the

51:13

Word of God so that our congregants will not go into error because they have just had fluff for sermons, and we need to look into the

51:27

Scriptures and do what the Word of God says in our churches. We might be separatists, but that doesn't mean that that's the only thing there is about us.

51:37

We need to preach the Word, be in season and out of season with all longsuffering and doctrine, as Paul told

51:47

Timothy. And so to have historic Christianity based on the

51:54

Bible continue into the 21st century, even though we see much decay and corruption around us, that's the ultimate goal.

52:04

And folks, if you want to find out more about this convention that I spoke of, that we have been discussing, next week,

52:11

October 25th, 26th, 27th, here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, go to accc4truth .org,

52:24

accc4truth .org, and then click on Events. It's always a pleasure to have you on the program,

52:30

Brother Zell, and I look forward to your return. Okay, well, thank you so much,

52:35

Chris. It's been great talking with you. It's been great talking with you as well. And don't go away, folks, because we do have a second guest coming up.

52:43

As I announced in the beginning of the program, we have coming up for our second hour

52:51

David Reese, pastor of Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, who is going to be addressing

52:56

What is a True Church? So send in your questions to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

53:02

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

53:08

Don't go away. We'll be right back. We here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio praise

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Brian Wilson, and the entire family thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville -Presbyterian

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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♪ O hail the power of Jesus' name.

01:00:39

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

01:00:45

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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01:01:07

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

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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A 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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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how He shall be worshipped and how

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Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Purchase frequently, purchase generously at Solid -Ground -Books .com. Before I announce our second guest today,

01:09:01

David Reese of the Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, I just have a couple of important announcements to make.

01:09:08

If you love this show, folks, you don't want it to disappear, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:09:15

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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Also, folks, if you want to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you want to promote is compatible with what

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I believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible because we are just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

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So just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. Remember, folks, when you donate to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, please don't cut in to the money that you have allotted to give to your own local church where you are a member to give to us.

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Never do that. Also, if you're really struggling to survive right now, wait until you are financially back on your feet before you give us a gift.

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Those two things are commands of God in scripture providing for your church and providing for your family.

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01:11:03

Also, last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically -faithful, doctrinally -solid, theologically -sound church like Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, no matter where you live on the planet

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Earth, I have lists, extensive lists of biblically -faithful churches spanning the globe and I've already helped many people in our audience in all parts of the planet

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Earth find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live. That may be you, too, if you are currently without a church home, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:11:36

and put I need a church in the subject line. It's also the email address to send in a question to our guest, our second guest today,

01:11:42

David Reese, pastor of Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, and we are going to be addressing the theme,

01:11:48

What is a true church? It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Ironsharpensiron Radio, Pastor David Reese.

01:11:57

Chris, it's an honor to be on your show. Thank you for having me. And I think this is an important subject that looks like a good paradigm.

01:12:10

So thank you again for having me on the show. My pleasure. Well, before we do that, we have a custom here on Ironsharpensiron Radio.

01:12:16

Whenever we have a first -time guest, that guest gives a summary of their salvation testimony that would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

01:12:28

Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them. And that would include you.

01:12:34

So I'd love to hear your story. I'd be honored to share it. Thank you. So the Lord was kind to put me into a believing household.

01:12:43

I can remember from my youth, my parents teaching me without, they didn't use the reference to the five solas of the

01:12:51

Reformation, but the ideas of the five solas were frequently talked about. So the idea that scripture was the authority, that salvation was by God, by grace alone, and by faith alone, in Christ alone.

01:13:05

And my mom would use this phrase, she would talk about how God cares about the fame of his great name.

01:13:12

And I remember that from my childhood and this idea that, you know, that obviously is

01:13:17

God caring about his glory, but that was sort of the way that she would put it. And so I remember my father taught things and he would watch the news with me and talk to me about worldview and talk to me and he'd kind of analyze the news as a kind of and at the time the only news sources that we were able to find were basically godless, secular news sources.

01:13:36

And he would kind of deconstruct it and explain how to look at things and how to apply the

01:13:41

Bible to that. So I remember my parents reading the Bible to me. I remember being exposed to the gospel from my youth and I can remember my parents talking to me as they were kind of getting me ready for bed one night and talking to me about how

01:13:58

Solomon had asked the Lord for wisdom and that it pleased the Lord that he had asked for wisdom as opposed to great power or riches or something like that.

01:14:10

And I remember thinking how important it was to know the Lord then. And I remember later on being exposed to John chapter 17 and you know

01:14:20

John 17 3 says and this is eternal life to know the only true

01:14:25

God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And so the knowledge of God being the way that God saves us.

01:14:32

And I can remember in high school also my parents having an influence there and engaging with scripture and just kind of thinking through and struggling through some of the parables of Jesus and how striking the words of Jesus are and my grandparents also.

01:14:47

And I can remember in high school engaging with I went to the public school system which I think my parents looking back on it regret that.

01:14:54

But they and so I would encourage everybody who has children in the public school system to pull them out and give them a

01:15:00

Christian education. But I remember there being so frustrated with the liberalism and the godlessness there and it pushed me to think about Christianity more deeply and to be to find answers.

01:15:17

So I remember reading a good deal. So it would be difficult for me to point to a particular moment of conversion.

01:15:24

I can remember several times in my life having a strong sense of being struck by my own sinfulness and my need for salvation.

01:15:33

But I can't recall a very specific moment coming to the knowledge of God. I have many moments

01:15:39

I can think of throughout my childhood where there was a deepening of the knowledge of God and awareness of my own sin and my need of Christ to make payment for my sin.

01:15:48

And I am very grateful for my parents and my grandparents for their role in that and grateful for the

01:15:53

Lord in putting me in a home that was a professing Christian home where I was put under the ordinances of God and under the preaching of the word and to have my parents kind of informally catechizing me by instructing me in the way that I should go.

01:16:08

So that's how I came to the knowledge of the Lord. I have obviously other growth that I can recall, but that's how

01:16:16

I was initiated into eternal life. And how did you come to discover and embrace the

01:16:22

Reformed faith? So I remember in college in particular,

01:16:29

I started to read the Bible more for myself and I was leading,

01:16:36

I even got involved in some of the campus ministries and as I was reading the Bible, people started to, I became a aware of the sovereignty of God.

01:16:44

I remember in the book of Matthew, the Lord Jesus Christ talking about how the hairs of your head are numbered and how a sparrow can't fall from the sky apart from the will of the

01:16:55

Father and thinking God controls everything and being struck by that.

01:17:02

And I remember being anxious about a number of things. I can remember the weight of anxiety falling off of me dramatically when

01:17:10

I became convinced that the Lord controlled every detail of the whole of life.

01:17:16

And so people started to tell me that I was a Calvinist. And I said, okay, it sounds like I should read this guy.

01:17:22

And I started to engage with basically the institutes of the

01:17:28

Christian religion. I started to read Martin Luther and I started to become aware of that, of the

01:17:35

Reformed faith and going, well, this is biblical. And I remember finding the

01:17:41

Trinity Foundation, trinityfoundation .org, with the published works of Gordon Clark and John W.

01:17:47

Robin, and being introduced to the Westminster Confession. And Gordon Clark has an excellent kind of commentary on the

01:17:56

Westminster Confession that's kind of written for an introductory level. And it's also made available as a free set of recordings on their site.

01:18:03

And I remember kind of engaging with that and becoming convinced of the

01:18:09

Westminster Confession as the best confession available for summarizing what

01:18:14

I thought the Bible taught in that time. So that would have been my time in college a couple decades ago.

01:18:20

And so that was significant for me and I was trying to engage with basically the philosophy of the university.

01:18:27

There were people who were, you know, just skeptics and things like that and engaging with the questions of how do you know anything and being able to embrace the idea that the revelation that comes from God is a sure foundation for knowledge.

01:18:43

And how it is able to tear down all false philosophies is something that was so powerful for me and such a balm because I could see the fruitlessness of false philosophy and being able to take the word in a more thorough going and systematic way and engaging apologetically.

01:19:03

It was first for my soul but it also made it so I became a much more effective communicator. And so the benefits of the work of the

01:19:09

Westminster Assembly and having the Confession and Catechisms to organize and systematize doctrine made it much easier to be able to communicate things and to help to disciple other people.

01:19:22

But it also gave greater stability to my own thoughts. And when and how did you become convinced that God was placing a call upon your life into the pastoral ministry?

01:19:35

So I was nominated for office in a local church in Phoenix.

01:19:42

I had a desire already to be able to serve. And I remember actually in college when

01:19:52

I became reformed talking to my father about entering the ministry. And I remember him advising me that he was concerned about me.

01:20:08

And he said, why don't you figure out how to make a living and then seek to serve in the church but not make it something you have to depend upon.

01:20:17

So I went into business. I own a business now. And do not thankfully have to rely upon the church to be able to provide for my living which makes those additional resources.

01:20:28

And it's a good word for people to provide for their pastors. And it's a good thing to take payment for that work.

01:20:35

There's certainly nothing sinful about it. It's a blessing for everybody. But that was the advice my father gave me.

01:20:41

When I was nominated into office sadly in my local church there was soon thereafter a controversy over the doctrine of justification.

01:20:51

And in that controversy over the doctrine of justification, the pastor at the time was starting to teach from John chapter 10 that the saving knowledge of God was an experiential knowledge and that it was not the understanding and believing of doctrine that was sufficient as the means of justification.

01:21:16

But that instead it was some sort of experiential knowledge. And so I objected to that and put forward the assertion that if you understand and believe that God and the gospel that has been revealed from the mind of God, that is only possible by the supernatural work of the

01:21:34

Holy Spirit and it is the sufficient instrument of justification. And so that resulted in sadly having to break away and the organization of basically half of the church we ended up organizing in defense of that doctrine of justification by faith alone and that was a sad thing that resulted in a quick need to organize and then a couple years later

01:21:59

I became the pastor of that church and that church in reform. So that's the process by which

01:22:06

I became pastor and that is going back long before that I had an interest in it while at the same time having my father advise me that he believed it would be prudent given the state of the church to not have to basically go chase a job looking for that but instead just seek to be able to serve in a faithful church and to look for opportunity without having to look for a living.

01:22:32

And someone who works for an ad agency might tell you are you out of your mind?

01:22:39

You're calling your church Puritan Reform Church? The Puritans have such a horrible stereotype connected with them.

01:22:46

They were, according to the myth, to the slander, they were mean -spirited, bigoted, hateful, nasty people, joyless, condemning everyone else but themselves and so on and so on.

01:23:02

So why the name Puritan Reform Church and tell us how that stereotype that I just rattled off is a false one.

01:23:11

So the Puritans are a people who are a joyful people. They, if you read the writings of the

01:23:18

Puritans, you find that they are people who are focused on the mission of God. They're focused on seeking to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

01:23:27

And they are people filled with hope and joy because they are confident of the victory in the

01:23:33

Lord Jesus Christ. And so you're certainly right that the Puritans have a bad rap and people hear

01:23:40

Puritan and they go, what's this? And they do think that. What I've found is it provides an opportunity to explain doctrine in a way that other names would not.

01:23:49

And so when I tell people that I'm the pastor of Puritan Reform, they typically ask, what's a Puritan? What do you mean by that?

01:23:56

And I'm able to express to them, well, Puritanism is simply the idea that we need to be very careful to have the doctrine that is taught in the church be from Scripture alone.

01:24:10

And also, that Puritanism is the idea that we should have the worship that is done in the church and the public worship of God, that it should be only that which we can demonstrate from Scripture.

01:24:27

And then thirdly, that the government of the church ought only to be that which has been appointed by God in His Word.

01:24:37

And so Puritanism is Scripture alone applied to doctrine, worship, and government.

01:24:43

And so when I get to explain that to people, the benefit of the name is it draws questions, and the other thing is it makes it very easy to push people to go read the

01:24:54

Puritans. And you know this, there's a resurgence of people who are reading books from the

01:24:59

Reformation and reading Puritans. And so our goal is to be able to call together and gather together those who are concerned about those same things.

01:25:09

And so the name is a very targeted advertising name that makes it easy for people to know what we're about.

01:25:15

And then people who don't know, who are newer to Christianity, there's an ability to explain it to them.

01:25:21

And right now our church is about half people who have been evangelized to and discipled, and half people who grew up in Christian homes.

01:25:31

And so the people that didn't grow up in the Christian faith that come, they see that there's a shallowness to most of the modern church.

01:25:43

And so the depth and the seriousness of the Christianity at Puritan Reform was a part of what made it attractive to people.

01:25:51

At the same time, it prevents people from entering into a covenant, a membership covenant, you know, without taking it seriously.

01:26:00

It helps to prevent all sorts of vain covenanting that would otherwise occur.

01:26:05

So we found the name to be very fruitful and useful. And I would encourage everyone to be clear about their conviction, and I think that advertising that focuses on a niche audience, in fact, is far more efficient than advertising that seeks to be broad.

01:26:21

Yes. As somebody who's been involved in advertising for most, the vast majority of my adult life,

01:26:29

I have definitely, early on, found that to be extremely true. And whenever I have sold churches an advertising campaign,

01:26:39

I've told them, don't use the sloganry about come to a place where you'll receive a warm hug and a loving greeting, and all this stuff that a

01:26:50

Jehovah's Witness kingdom hall might provide. You've got to be very specific about what you believe, and either or both get the interest of those who already agree with you, or perhaps spark an interest in those who are foreign to what you're standing for who may want to investigate.

01:27:12

So I have always instilled that in the minds of advertisers for decades, and I want to make sure that the listeners know of your website.

01:27:22

I will try to remember to repeat this again before we go off the air, but it's puritanphx .com.

01:27:29

Puritan and phx is an abbreviation for phoenix .com. And at risk of going on a rabbit trail that is not on our major theme here, but please,

01:27:41

I found it so fascinating what you do for a living, the company that you run. When I was at the

01:27:47

Fight, Laugh, Feast gathering of CrossPolitik, I was sitting there riveted listening to you, and tell our listeners about your fascinating business.

01:27:58

Thank you. So my business is called Armored Republic. So you can go to armoredrepublic .com

01:28:04

and see that. But Armored Republic manufactures body armor, and there are other pieces of equipment that are associated with that.

01:28:12

People always ask, do you sell to the military, law enforcement? Sure, yes, we have sold to various government agencies, but the vast majority of our business is to the

01:28:22

American consumer. And that's very intentional. We have focused on selling body armor to free men, and the reason we wanted to do that is

01:28:31

I believe that a rifle, a semi -automatic rifle like an AR -15, is the basic piece of equipment of an infantryman to be able to resist tyranny.

01:28:40

And the second piece is body armor. So if you think about having a good rifle and having body armor, those two things together make it so you can be an effective infantryman, and it is the duty of free men and of Christian men to be able to defend themselves and to be ready to defend other people.

01:29:00

And the ability to gather around a sheriff if he calls for deputization in the event of an emergency or to gather around a governor if he calls for the assembly of the people for defense or militia, those two basic pieces of equipment, a rifle and body armor, make it so you can be effective in those.

01:29:22

And we talk a lot as Christians about resisting tyranny and seeing the crown rights of Jesus protected and the extent of human authority being limited, and we need to be ready to support godly magistrates when they stand up for our rights.

01:29:40

And since 2020, people have been thinking about this a lot more because they have been thinking about all of the governmental overreach and the forbidding of churches to assemble and things like that.

01:29:51

Governors that stood up need to be governors that Christians are appreciating and ready to support.

01:29:59

And if there are future acts of tyranny, we need to be able to support those governors, and so having basic equipment, what we call tools of liberty that are necessary to defend your god -given rights, those pieces of equipment, they help to give you a little bit more of a backbone, because they help you to feel like you're prepared more, but they also make you more ready.

01:30:22

Body armor is also useful for resisting criminals, but I frankly tell people, look, the reason you need to get this, the reason there's a duty for it is to be equipped to be able to resist tyranny and to be able to gather around godly magistrates as there is need.

01:30:35

And so body armor is that tool of liberty, and we try to make it very inexpensive, and to make it so you have deals where there's an ability to equip yourself, and if you have adult sons, we encourage that as well, but the idea of being ready to resist evil wherever it's found.

01:30:52

And the website again is armoredrepublic .com armoredrepublic .com

01:30:58

We're going to be going to our final break, it's going to be a lot more brief than the last break. If you have a question on our major theme, which is what is a true church, submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:31:11

chrisarnson at gmail .com As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

01:31:17

Don't go away, we'll be right back. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

01:31:26

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01:40:38

Pastor Reese, it's amazing that this is a controversial thing to say, but to ask the simple question, what is a true church, raises the ire of some people.

01:40:52

They think that that's a cultic statement, some kind of a statement made out of arrogance that anyone would dare say there's such a thing as a true church.

01:41:02

I can remember when my friend, Dr. James R. White, debated back in the early 2000s, it was a debate that I organized and Barry Lynn was defending the position that homosexuality was compatible with biblical

01:41:17

Christianity and at the end of the debate he chastised very loudly and angrily the audience for daring to say who could be a true

01:41:26

Christian and who could not be. And of course, if you were to ask Barry Lynn, so in other words, the neo -Nazi skinheads who are in some kind of a church, is that a true church?

01:41:37

Obviously, I don't think he would have agreed with that. But tell us, why is this an important question and tell us the main elements that must exist in a true church.

01:41:46

Thank you, Chris. So, it's an important question for two reasons. First of all, you think about individuals and there's this question of whether a person has a credible profession of faith and who you should consider a fellow

01:41:59

Christian and then that can be applied on a corporate level in terms of what churches are true churches.

01:42:06

And I think that's And we're not saying when we make that judgment that we are certain about the eternal state of a person or of all the persons in a body.

01:42:18

Right? There are false churches, there are heretical bodies, there are institutions with idolatry that have saved persons in them.

01:42:27

And the issue is those persons who are saved are sinning by staying in heretical bodies or false churches and it's their duty to be

01:42:38

And when a church has a person who is in open and unrepentant sin, it is the duty of a church to remove that person from membership if they will not repent.

01:42:49

And so, in the same way, there's this obligation to be careful about the holiness of our association in the formation of a covenant bond.

01:43:00

And so, when you are in a church, you are under the influence of the teaching of that church, you are giving your presence, your support, your gift, your money to that body.

01:43:14

And so, you are influenced by the teaching and you are also going to be supporting that teaching by your participation and by your involvement.

01:43:23

And so, it is important for the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ that we not be members of churches that are not true churches.

01:43:34

And it is also important for the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ that true churches exercise discipline and not have members remaining in who don't have a credible profession that are in unrepentant sin.

01:43:48

And so, those two things align together. And so, when we think about a true church,

01:43:54

I think it's really valuable to think about also a credible profession of faith. And that's really what's happening with a church is it's giving a public testimony and you are trying to evaluate, is it credible that these people are faithful?

01:44:06

Is it credible that they are faithful? Is it credible that Is it credible that And so, the word church comes from the word kurios, which is

01:44:14

Lord. This is an assembly that is in submission to the kurios, to the Lord.

01:44:20

That's where you get the German word, the Scottish word, Kirk, and then the word church comes from that. We see this linguistic connection there to that idea of kurios, the

01:44:30

Lord. And so, we are trying to figure out what bodies are bodies that are actually submitting to the

01:44:38

Lord Jesus Christ. So I think that there are three key marks that we have to look for, and you'll find this taught in Scripture, but you'll also find it in the

01:44:47

Reformed Confessions, because in the Reformation, people were really trying to consider, you know, is an institution that submits to the

01:44:55

Pope, is that a true church? And so there were these, a lot of work and thought went in during that time.

01:45:01

So, for example, the Scottish Confession and the Westminster Confession both lay out what are called, kind of, the notes of the church, or the marks of the church.

01:45:11

And those marks are having doctrine that is in accordance with the Word of God, those marks are having worship that's in accordance with the

01:45:20

Word of God, and also having government in accordance with the Word of God. And there's, there are things that are more basic or less basic in each of those categories.

01:45:29

So when we think about doctrine, I think the two basic things you have to examine are, does this church claim that the

01:45:35

Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God, and that it should govern our doctrine, and our practice, and our worship, and our government?

01:45:45

And if it won't say that the Bible is the authority, then that right there, at its root, is something that shows that this is not a true church.

01:45:54

Now, from there, the next thing you have to look at is the doctrine of the gospel. And the word gospel has two senses.

01:46:01

It can be used in a broad sense, the word gospel can refer to the whole counsel of God, everything that's in the scriptures, or it can refer in a narrow way to the saving message, the good news, about what

01:46:13

Jesus Christ did and who he is. And so, if, you know, it's really useful to have, sort of, the five solas of the

01:46:21

Reformation, you know, Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone, if any of those are impaired, if there's an undermining of grace at all, if salvation is by anything other than grace, it's a false gospel, it's a false church.

01:46:36

If there's anything other than faith as the instrument to connect us to the meritorious work of Christ, then that's an impairment of the gospel, that's a false church.

01:46:47

And if they have any other mediator by whom we are saved, then the Lord Jesus Christ, that's a false church.

01:46:54

Now, we can look at the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation as key things there as well, associated with that gospel, but what

01:47:03

I would say, if we're looking for those things, if there's anything that's a denial of those key things, it is absolutely a false church, and you need to not be under that teaching.

01:47:13

And so, separating involves going through a process of Matthew 18, which lays out the idea of, when there's a public controversy, going to engage with the public government of that body and expressing your protest.

01:47:29

And then when you look at the worship of God, in particular, are the sacraments being administered there, the

01:47:36

Lord's Supper and baptism, and those being done in such a way that they are not being used as a sort of false gospel.

01:47:47

For example, in Roman institutions, you'll have them claiming that baptism regenerates a person, whereas the

01:47:52

Lord's Supper transforms into the body and blood of Christ, and those things are idolatrous and heretical, and therefore false.

01:48:00

But you could have other violations or removal of the sacraments, and that would mean that it's not a church, but you should be concerned about worship as a whole.

01:48:09

And lastly, with government, if there's no discipline, there is no church, because there's no distinction between those that are in and out.

01:48:15

And also, if the discipline is done tyrannically, without any sort of public process, then you have not a church, but instead you have a sort of tyrannical institution that is governed by men and not by Christ.

01:48:31

And so those three major markers, in terms of the Word of God and the gospel for doctrine, looking at the sacraments and really the worship of the church, is

01:48:40

God being worshipped in the way he's commanded, and the government of the church, those three markers are the markers to differentiate true churches from false churches.

01:48:49

There's a lot more to say about those, but let me pause there and see if you wanted to add anything. Well, we have an anonymous listener who says,

01:48:58

I am struggling with the idea of leaving my church because I love so many people there.

01:49:03

The church does have the marks that you just listed, but they have music that appears more to be like a rock concert than a worship service.

01:49:15

That is the main reason that I'm leaving. Is that a legitimate reason? So I think that if you go down to detail, you can go down to minute details of anything.

01:49:27

The basic question is, is the church willing to deal with what the scriptures have to say on the subject?

01:49:36

So our church, we practice exclusive psalmody a cappella. So we sing the psalms and nothing else, the psalms from the scripture, and we do not use musical instruments.

01:49:47

So it is our belief that that is the worship that God has appointed. And so I think that that is important.

01:49:55

And I would say that ultimately, if you can show from scripture that the type of worship that is being done is sinful or is contrary to God's word or is an invention of human beings, the appropriate thing to do is to go to the officers of the church in a public governance meeting and to express the reasons why you are concerned about it, why you think it is unbiblical.

01:50:22

Now, if they can argue back and prove to you from the scriptures why they're doing what they're doing, then you ought to submit to the teaching of scripture.

01:50:31

And if instead you find that they are doing things that they are appealing to human beings and to the flesh, and they are unwilling to reform the worship after the word of God, then

01:50:43

I think there's a legitimate basis to leave on the grounds of anything where there's ultimately an unwillingness to apply the word of God.

01:50:51

And you have to be careful and go into detail discussing things with leaders.

01:50:57

And the idea is you're going through much discussion. You're engaging, you're going through the word of God, and you're trying to patiently discuss.

01:51:07

But we can't just engage on everything all at once. What we have to do is we have to pick what is the thing that is most public and most significant.

01:51:16

And you go from the thing that is kind of most disordered up.

01:51:22

That's how the church has to reform. The thing is, there are lots of true churches that are immature in some way or that have some sin element, obviously.

01:51:31

And we all have sin elements. There are failings in my church. We have, you know, every person in the church is continuing in elements of places where they have sin and they are blind to certain things.

01:51:42

So this idea that you have to keep reforming as an individual and also that a church body has to keep reforming, there's a need to continuously reform.

01:51:50

The question is, when you bring the issue up, is there a willingness to go through the matter according to the word of God?

01:51:56

And if there's not a willingness to apply the word of God, then there's a pretense to submitting to that word, no matter what the subject is.

01:52:05

And so if you go through it patiently and there's an unwillingness to apply the scriptures, then you ought to leave based upon an unwillingness to apply the scriptures after much discussion and patience.

01:52:16

Yes. By the way, I'm halfway in agreement with your views of worship. I personally believe that a cappella worship is the most biblically faithful when you use the

01:52:28

New Testament as your blueprint in the regulative principle.

01:52:35

I'm not an exclusive psalmist, and I also have to make it clear that the church where I'm a member is neither a strictly a cappella or exclusively psalmist church, although we have the psalter in our pews and we sing psalms frequently.

01:52:54

But I guess the listener also has to examine if what he is saying, because somebody might describe a church's worship service as a rock concert because they have a hypersensitivity to musical instrumentation, and it may be overkill.

01:53:17

It may be a false description. But ultimately, if their conscience is telling them to leave after it has been biblically informed, they should do so graciously and not leave with an ugly stain, a blemish on the relationship that this person formerly had with the congregation and leaders.

01:53:43

Isn't that a very important thing when somebody leaves a church, that they do so graciously and humbly?

01:53:50

I think when we're talking about fundamental things like the authority of Scripture or the gospel, that it's different.

01:54:01

I think there's a duty to engage in a more sort of assertive protest.

01:54:06

Right, right. I was just speaking of something that only was a division over the kind of music that is in the worship service.

01:54:14

Sure. And so when you're dealing with things that are applications of the law of God in worship, in more detail, I think that it's important to do that in a more gracious and gentle way.

01:54:28

If somebody has the gospel right, and if they have—and we're not talking about something where there's an absence of the gospel or a rejection of the authority of the

01:54:38

Word of God in principle, but there's just disagreement about how to interpret on some of those things. I think that, yes, there should be a leaving that is gracious.

01:54:46

There should be a leaving where you're still able to acknowledge that the other person is a brother, but that you think that they are in error on that point, and so you don't try to destroy that institution.

01:54:58

You don't try to destroy all those relationships. There is a difference in terms of how to engage on different kinds of doctrine,

01:55:05

I agree. By the way, I want to just plug three programs that I did on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio back in 2017, promoting or biblically defending a cappella worship.

01:55:19

They were three interviews with my friend Pastor John Price of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York, who wrote an excellent book,

01:55:29

Old Light on New Worship, Musical Instruments in the Worship of God, a Theological, Historical, and Psychological Study.

01:55:37

If you go to ironsharpandzionradio .com and type in John Price into the search engine, all three of those programs will come up.

01:55:46

And I hope you'll find them interesting, even if you disagree with Pastor Price's conclusion.

01:55:53

In fact, you, Brother Reese, you might find them interesting as well, because the book did receive accolades from exclusive psalmists, even though John Price is only exclusively a cappella and not an exclusive psalmody advocate.

01:56:09

Well, I'd like... That's interesting. I'll definitely check it out. And I'd like you, in the remaining three minutes of time that we have, to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding the subject.

01:56:24

Regarding the subject of a true church, I think it's important that when you are evaluating a church and evaluating whether or not to remain in a church, first when you're examining joining a church, you need to be careful to see how seriously is the

01:56:42

Word of God taken for doctrine. And that exemplifies itself in how the

01:56:48

Word is taught, how much of the Word is gone over, whether the teaching is entertaining or focused on edification of the body.

01:56:57

Focusing on the worship, how seriously is the worship of God focused on God, or is it focused upon people and trying to gain the pleasure of men?

01:57:06

And so what is the worship like? Examine the worship and ask yourself, is this the worship that the

01:57:11

Word of God teaches? And then when you're examining the government of the church, asking, is this the government that Christ has appointed in his church?

01:57:22

Is this how Christ would have his church govern? And is there a concern for discipline, for holiness here?

01:57:29

And so if you examine that, if you look at a church and consider the doctrine, the worship, and the government, and examine them all according to the

01:57:38

Word of God, then what you will find is the ability to discern rightly between those bodies that you can join in honor to the

01:57:47

Lord Jesus Christ and those bodies that it would be sin to join. And so I think those three categories are the main thing

01:57:52

I want to make sure that everybody walks away with, looking at the doctrine, the worship, and the government of the church according to Scripture alone.

01:57:59

Amen. Any events coming up or anything else that you might want to mention to our listeners before we go?

01:58:08

There's—my company is participating in ReformCon, which is a conference about the

01:58:13

Reformation in Phoenix, Arizona. It's hosted by Apologia. And also our church at Puritan Reform, we have worship at 10 a .m.

01:58:24

on the Lord's Day and also at 4 p .m. And so we have morning and evening worship every

01:58:29

Lord's Day with different teachings that are going on there. And so I just want to—if anybody's in Phoenix, make sure they're encouraged to come and participate in the worship.

01:58:40

And also, if anybody's going to ReformCon, I'd be happy to meet you and to talk there.

01:58:46

And now, is ReformCon taking place right now or is it in the near future? It's next week.

01:58:52

Okay. So it's the end of next week. Great. And if anybody's interested in that, send me an email and I will get you that information.

01:59:01

Well, don't forget about the website for Puritan Reform Church in Phoenix, Arizona, PuritanPHX, abbreviation for phoenix .com,

01:59:11

PuritanPHX .com. And also don't forget about the website for Armored Republic, my guest's business, which is primarily body armor,

01:59:21

ArmoredRepublic .com, ArmoredRepublic .com. I want to thank you so much for being such an excellent guest today,

01:59:28

Pastor Reese. I look forward to your return to the program and hopefully for a longer period of time next time.

01:59:35

Thank you, Chris. It was an honor to be here and I enjoyed getting to talk to you. Thank you. Amen. I want everybody who's listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:46

Savior than you are a sinner. Have a blessed and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.