July 19, 2018 Show with Phil Sessa on “The New York Invasion Conference” AND Caleb Bunch on “The Engines that Propel Evangelism”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

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

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 19th day of July 2018, and I'm delighted to have back on the program someone who has only been a guest in a more brief fashion when

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I was doing live on -site interviews conducted at my exhibitors booth at the

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G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. I believe it was two years ago that I interviewed

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Phil Cessa. Today we are going to give him a full hour interview live on the air, and I hope that you enjoy it immensely.

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Phil Cessa is not only a dear brother in Christ, but he is the director of Soul Fishing Ministries, which is a gospel -centered ministry that exists to equip

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God's people to be fishers of men, and we're going to be talking about an upcoming event that Phil is instrumentally involved in orchestrating, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Phil Cessa. Amen. Thank you, Chris, for having me. It was a blessing to meet you at G3 and to see you recently at the

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Apologetics Seminar at Tony Costa. Yeah, that was great to see you there too. I really appreciate my friends coming out to something that was very important to me, and I really am delighted that you made the extra effort to be there for a very important event.

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That was my first New York City event that I orchestrated.

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I've represented Iron Sharpens Radio at New York City events before, but this is the first one that I actually orchestrated along with my friends at the

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New Covenant Church New York City, who were co -sponsors of that event, and if you don't know them already,

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Pastor Andy Ward and his treasurer over there, Gary Rosenblatt, I hope that you get to know them soon because they're a great couple of guys, and I think they're doing an important work there with their church plant in Manhattan.

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Amen. Well, and also I want to let our listeners know that Caleb Bunch is going to be our second guest today in the second hour between 5 and 6 p .m.

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Eastern time, and Caleb Bunch, it has been a joy getting to know Caleb, and I actually was instrumental in securing the building where Caleb planted his church in Massapequa because I happen to be a very long -time friend of Pastor Jim Capo of the

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Massapequa Church of God, and I knew that they would need the injection of life and vitality that Caleb would be introducing into the congregation there by his using their facilities, and Caleb, I've really enjoyed getting to know him, and we'll be talking about more of what he is doing for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he is also a pastor of Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York, and our topic for the second hour is going to be the engines that propel evangelism, so make sure you stay tuned for the second hour as well.

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Well, Phil, even though you have been a guest on the program before, it was a brief interview, as you may remember, and what

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I like to do with first -time guests, and I'll put you in this category even though technically you're not a first -time guest, but since this is your first time doing a full one -hour interview with us during a live program, what

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I typically do with first -time guests is I have them give a summary of their salvation testimony, and if you could do that right after you give our listeners more information about Soul Fishing Ministries.

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Sure. Soul Fishing Ministries is a ministry that we began in 2008, and we began with the vision of simply training people in evangelism and going out to do evangelism outreaches, but since then, up to 2018, our vision and mission has expanded.

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We are still a gospel center ministry, and we exist to equip God's people to both be followers of Christ and fishers of men, and we express that strategy by using an acronym, which is the word

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FISHING, and so, simply said, our acronym FISHING falls into two categories.

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Basically, the first category is dealing with equipping the people of God in the

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Church, and the second category deals with reaching out to lost people, so the acronym goes as such.

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The F for FISHING is our evangelism equipping and outreaches. The I is for interpreting, and so training people in hermeneutics.

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The S is for shepherding, so we're teaching God's design for the family, because we know that seems to be very marred and disjointed, and as we learned at Tony Costa's seminar, many want to redefine the family.

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Well, we want to go back to the original blueprint. No redefinition is needed when you have the right model the first time.

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If it's not broken, don't fix it. HERALDING is the H, and that stands for preaching the gospel both in the

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Church and in the open air. The I is for interceding, the second I.

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Many people we find in churches, they're praying, sort of, but we don't hear real effective biblical

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God having a zealousness for the Lord in prayer.

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We hear a lot of town hall meeting type of prayer meetings where there's more talking to each other than talking to God.

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There's a half an hour spent for prayer requests, and then like, you know, maybe half a minute spent talking to God, where it probably should be the reverse.

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The N says for nurturing, and so we have a major focus on biblical discipleship.

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We believe that Jesus had the best model. He drew men to himself. He trained them. He was with them, and he sent them out to do ministry.

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And then our final one, N, I'm sorry, G is for grappling, which is our apologetics training, which is why we attend events such as Tony Costa's apologetics seminar and other such things.

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We've gone to things by James White, but we also put out things and train people. How do you defend the faith?

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Because the faith certainly needs to be defended, and especially in such a time as this, our faith is being attacked left, right, and center, but we have the corner of the market.

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We have the truth, and that's the only thing that's going to set people free. So that, in a nutshell, is what our ministry is about.

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Now, obviously, Jesus Christ turning men into fishers of men is a very well -known picture and allegory that Christians are connected to, and of course, the symbol, the ichthus, is a symbol of a fish.

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Many people have that connection, but is there something more than just that connection as to why you chose that theme of Soul Fishing Ministries?

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Do you actually ever involve actual fishing for the sea creatures, or do you in any other way connect it with actual fishing?

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Well, we take people out. We take people out into the fishing holes, mostly around the

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New York area, and we go and we share the Gospel in various locations.

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We've pretty much been throughout the five boroughs sharing the Gospel, training churches in biblical evangelism, and even though there are churches galore in New York, there could be a church in every corner, if you will, many of these churches are not really churches.

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I would venture to say, as Jesus described, many of them are really synagogues of Satan.

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They're not preaching and teaching the truth of the Gospel, and so even though there's tons of people in New York that profess to be

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Christians, they are that in name only, and so going out to the highways and the byways and compelling them to come in,

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I mean, New York City, New York, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, I mean, it is a ripe harvest field for the

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Gospel. Right, it's probably the most religiously and ethnically diverse place on the planet

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Earth, but again, I guess you're still using that allegorically. You don't actually take people to fishing holes, literally, you're just...

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Well, once in a while. I took somebody out fishing yesterday. I have caught fish in a particular location yesterday.

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I pulled up an old water pitcher, somehow got attached to it, and it was filled with, like, mud at the bottom, and some barnacles and clams, like, just looked like it was cemented to it.

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Well, just out of curiosity, one more time, not to belabor the whole fishing symbolism, but was fishing ever a part of your life?

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I'm talking about real fishing with real fish that flap around when you bring them up on a boat or a door.

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Sure. My dad took me fishing when I was a kid, and it was always enjoyable, especially, you know, there's, like, a thrill, you know, when you got that fish on the end of the line, you know, that thrill and that passion is just in you to start pulling that baby in, and especially when it would go out on the boats out of, like,

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North Shell and other such places, and we were pulling bluefish, and man, they could fight, but there was just some kind of, like, real...

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You just really got energized when you're fighting to pull this fish in, and the fish is trying everything to run away from you.

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You're pulling in, and it's running away. So, yeah, it's great.

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I mean, I really enjoy fishing physically as well. Well, now it's time for you to give a summary of your personal testimony.

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I want to hear something about the religious atmosphere that you were raised in as a child, if any, and what providential circumstances our

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Sovereign Lord brought about in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you. Absolutely.

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Well, I grew up in a Roman Catholic, basically, neighborhood and environment.

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I have a very difficult time calling Roman Catholicism a church because, being on the other side, you know, knowing the

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Lord now, I don't consider it to be a church, but I did grow up going to CCD, I guess, the

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Catholic training to indoctrinate you concerning what they tell you to believe.

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So I did that. They had communion and confirmation and basically jumped through a lot of the religious hula hoops, which they would call sacraments, and having done that,

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I had no idea really what I was doing. I was just kind of towing the party line, to use the expression, and there was no change of heart.

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There was no weighing of issues of what I was doing. There was no real focus on God between Sundays.

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It was kind of like drive by religion. My father used to like to get to the

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Mass early, get seats near the front, and as soon as you ate the little wafer, when the priests moved to like the center area and we were done, we would zip out and beat the traffic out of the parking lot.

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So I think that tells you a little bit about how serious we were religiously.

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But my dad was consistent. I mean, we went every

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Sunday. My mother didn't come, but my father took me every Sunday. I don't remember ever missing

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Sundays, him making any excuses not to go. But then something radically happened in my life.

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My older brother began to go actually to a Pentecostal Assembly of God church, and he invited my family to go.

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And my parents at that time were basically had the mindset, well, if you're born

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Catholic, you're supposed to be Catholic, you're supposed to be Catholic. And so he said, well, you know, don't knock it until you try it.

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And so somehow he convinced my parents to go. I went, and at age 13,

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I heard the gospel for the very first time. And I basically heard, if all you had to be was a good person to go to heaven,

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Jesus never would have died on the cross for your sin. Now that ripped through my mind like a bullet trying to cause it.

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I mean, I never considered anything of that fact. I never thought about the gospel. Obviously, I never knew the gospel.

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I never understood the gospel. But this hit me like a ton of bricks. It tore through my heart. And I realized that I sinned against God.

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And so they did do the whole altar calling, even though it wasn't really an altar, just a stage where they would rug over it.

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And they would repeat after me, sinner's prayer. You know, so I went through the motions of the magic words in the magic part of the room.

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But I know that God saved me at that point, because I knew I was a sinner. And I never really thought about sin before that.

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I don't even know if I ever considered the Word. And so I was convicted of my sin.

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And when I asked God to forgive me, I mean, I might have been parroting the words after someone else.

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But I mean, what was coming out of my mouth was definitely sown and believed in the heart.

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And so I know I didn't get saved because of the sinner's prayer. But in spite of it,

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God was so kind to save me at such a young age at 13. No one, no one really discipled me at that time.

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Nobody really in the church told me to read my Bible or any such thing. At some point,

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I guess kind of like a baby gets hungry and cries at some point. It took a while.

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I started noticing people would bring their Bibles, and then I got one. I asked my mother for a

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Bible for Christmas, and I began to read it. And I began to devour it.

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Oh, if I can actually take a two -step back. When I was also 13, a priest asked me, what are you going to do now that you're going to become an adult?

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And he said, in the Roman Catholic Church. And I said to him, I'm leaving it. And he said, well, why?

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And I said, because I've been born again. And he said, well, what is that? And I just began to explain, listen, you never told me about having a relationship with God.

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I only had a religion, but now I have a relationship with God. And that's what I need. I needed a relationship with God.

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I only knew about Him, but now I know Him. And I want to keep knowing

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Him, and you don't talk about knowing Him, only knowing about Him. And so I don't remember if he fell off his chair or not, but I'm sure that he didn't, that wasn't the kind of response that he was normally used to hearing, especially from a 13 -year -old.

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Yeah, really. So we, actually, my mother talked me into finishing off the confirmation sacrament.

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She said, you can have a party and get money. And so I followed the advice of my mother at that time.

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We finished it off, then we left, we had the party, and the money came rolling in from family and friends.

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So, but, you know, I mean, I was new in the Lord, and so I wasn't very strong. And, you know,

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I mean, if it was happened today, I mean, it'd be a whole lot different, because now I know a whole lot more now than I knew then.

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Well, you know, as a 13 -year -old kid, you did a lot more than a lot of people who leave the

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Catholic Church do, unfortunately. I think that it's probably rare that someone who is a born -again believer who departs from Catholicism and enters into a truly biblically faithful church, and also, of course, more importantly, a biblical understanding of Christ and his gospel.

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I'm sure that it's rare that they would actually say anything to their former priest about it.

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I know that I, in my mid -twenties, when I got saved, I actually invited one of my favorite priests to my baptism.

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He did not come, but I wrote him a letter. He actually was a high school classmate of my oldest brother, and I always liked him.

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He was a great guy as far as, you know, being a friendly and gracious individual, and was very humble as well.

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But he declined my invitation, but he just said that, I hope one day that you will find what you were looking for in the

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Catholic Church, and you return, which makes sense. I think

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I respect that response a lot more than if he had just said, well, you know, it doesn't really matter where you go to church, as long as you're happy or something, which

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I'm sure a lot of Catholic clergy would do today. But it was something that was important for me to do, to try to evangelize him as best as I could as a new believer.

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And now I know that you are a member of a church that is pastored by my old friend,

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Pete Nicotra, who... Not that old, but... Well, I remember

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Pete. Pete used to be an elder at the North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens, where my friend

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Ed Moore is the pastor. And then, as North Shore Baptist Church does, it planted a church.

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And tell us about this church where you are now a member. Grace Baptist Church is located in Woodhaven, Queens.

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And actually, let me just take two steps back again from my salvation experience, because it actually all ties in.

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The teenager that I became from when I started reading the Bible, I began to bring it to school.

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People began to ask why I had it and what's in it. I began to tell them. So I began to just naturally evangelize.

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I didn't know I was supposed to be afraid or scared or don't talk about religion and politics at the table.

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I didn't know any of those rules. They just began to naturally flow out. I started up a Bible club.

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They kicked it out of my school. I got a lawyer. It got back in. I go to Bible college.

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I'm still in the Assemblies of God. So I moved from the suburbs of Maypeck, New York, into the

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Bronx, because I wasn't originally reared in the Bronx, although my father and mother lived there, and moved upstate.

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So everyone tells me I did it backwards. Most people move out of the city upstate.

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I did it reverse. I moved from upstate into the city. And what took place from there is

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I began to pastor in several Assemblies of God churches, both as a senior pastor and an assistant pastor.

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And then kind of about four years ago, I finally was like, this is enough.

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I need to leave the Assemblies of God. My heart was gnarly inside with so many doctrinal differences that I had, because I was studying and listening to Reform guys and studying

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Reform theology. And I was teaching Reform things in my discipleship group with some men that would meet in my home.

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And so I called up a guy that I discipled who now goes to North Shore as well, who

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I was discipling. And I said, I'm thinking about checking out your church. And he said, you need to speak to Peter Nicotra.

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He said, you two are cut from the same cloth. And so I called up Peter. And we spoke for about an hour and a half.

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And I just shared all my heart with him. And he's very gracious with me. And so we went and we visited the church.

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We visited North Shore. We visited Grace Baptist. We did that for about six months, my wife and I, and then the

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Lord just melted our hearts into Grace Baptist. And I just had a heart that I wanted to serve at this church.

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It's very multi -ethnic. There's tons of different ethnicities there, which

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I absolutely love. And I just wanted to come alongside Pastor Peter and just serve with him.

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I just wanted to help in the church. They did not have a lot of leadership there. And so I knew that that was a big area that he needed help in, just help leading the church.

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And I just really wanted to hold up his arms. Like Moses, his arms were held up.

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I just wanted to hold up his arms and say, where, how can I help you? I've done some things.

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I've done outreaches. I've taught. I've preached. I'm here to help you. Just kind of use me like a blank check.

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And so he began to pray and talk to me and give me opportunities. And I guess when he saw, you know, the areas that God has gifted me in, you know, he let out some more rope, so to speak, and kept me accountable.

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And we began to become close together. And so it was such a blessing because he was very accessible to me.

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So I can call him. He would call me back. I would email him. He would email me back, text me, get back to me.

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And so we were constant communication. And I really needed that, loved that, because I wanted to learn, if you will, the

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Reformed way of doing church. Because, you know, it means different than in the assemblies of God.

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And so in the Reformed church, the Word of God is what's central. The Scripture is what's paramount and what's vital and what drives everything that happens in the services.

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And so I said, man, I need to learn this. I need to come under this kind of authority and be with men who are

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Reformed. And so it was like, it was like I was crawling through the desert, so to speak, and somebody offered me a cool glass of water.

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And so it's been so refreshing, so nourishing since. And so we've been there for several years now.

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And I've been able to serve in different capacities in the church. And so the church,

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Pastor Peter and Pastor Steve appointed me to be an elder in the church, first an elder in training, and then an elder, and the church voted on me, and I became one of the elders in the church.

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So it's myself, Pastor Peter, and Pastor Steve. Pastor Steve who? His name is

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Steve Rafalski. Okay, because I know that Steve Schultz is one of the elders at my second guest's church,

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Pastor Caleb Bontu, who you know. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have this information.

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I will be repeating it, God willing, later, but if you want to find out more about Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York, go to gbcny .org,

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gbc for Grace Baptist Church, ny for newyork .org. We're going to be going to our first break of the day.

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And if you want to send in a question for Phil Cessa about Soul Fishing Ministries and also about an event that he is going to be having, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, 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, God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Phil Cessa and Soul Fishing Ministries.

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Chris Arnzen, and don't forget, please don't forget to pray for Mike Gadosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, as he is going to be getting a very serious and complicated open -heart surgery.

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And as I have been praying and asking you to pray the last several days, this is such a complicated surgery that his own physician, who does this particular type of surgery that Mike Gadosh needs, even though he has already done this surgery, he prefers that Mike go to a specialist that has performed this particular type of complicated heart surgery many more times than he has personally.

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Jesus Christ. So please pray for Mike Gadosh of Solid Ground Christian Books.

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He is such a dear friend and an important person in my life, and I hope to give you wonderful updates very soon about the surgery.

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And we are back now with Phil Sessa. Phil Sessa, who is the founder and director of Soul Fishing Ministries.

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And Phil, I know that you are having a special event that you want to talk about today. Yes. We're going to be hosting our first conference ever, which is going to be titled

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New York City Invasion, and this will take place August 25th, which is a

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Saturday, and it's going to be at Grace Baptist Church, where I serve as one of the three elders.

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Our focus is going to be evangelism, which is probably something good for Soul Fishing Ministries, since that's a major thrust of our ministry.

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And so we're going to have the conference in kind of a two -fold or two -stage process.

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Stage number one is going to be the preaching and the training in the church from around nine o 'clock to around two -thirty, three o 'clock.

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And then after that, we're going to go out to the streets and the highways and the byways in the area of our local church and put into practice what we just learned during the preaching and the teaching and the training hours that we just experienced.

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And so I'm a school teacher as well, and so my favorite thing to do is teach and train people and then send them and let them have opportunity to apply what they've just learned, because sometimes you can hear a whole lot of stuff when

35:56

I train and teach people. When I try to teach teachers how to teach Scripture, I always ask, are you teaching lessons or are you teaching people?

36:07

And so how do we know that people are learning unless we give them opportunity to apply things?

36:13

I don't want just somebody to have a head full of knowledge of how -tos or why -tos, but I want to see them doing it.

36:20

We want to see them putting rubber to the road, putting legs to their prayers. When Jesus had prayed the

36:27

Lord of the harvest after that, he said, go, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves. And so we want to do the training, the praying, and the going all on the same day.

36:38

And so we're very excited that people are going to have a wonderful experience. And so we are going to have several people preaching that day.

36:49

I'll be preaching twice on that day. My focus will be on the urgency of evangelism, which will be coupled with having a zeal, a zeal for lost people.

37:02

Pastor Peter will be focusing on having compassion for the lost. We're going to have the co -director of Soul Fishing Ministries, his name's

37:12

Evans Ahling, actually pronounced Ah -long. He is from Kenya in Africa.

37:21

And if Conrad and Benway is this version of Africa, this brother, he prays like I've never heard anybody pray before.

37:33

All you hear is a tapestry of Scripture just flowing from this brother. He preaches a little bit, but he prays, it almost seems like he would be like Moses on the mountaintop just talking to the

37:46

Lord. And when I'm with him in prayer, if I may, I almost feel like I'm in the

37:52

Holy of Holies when I'm praying with him. It's an absolutely amazing experience to pray with this brother.

38:01

And so I asked him to share on prayer and evangelism, because prayer obviously undergirds evangelism.

38:09

And so he'll be coming with us. He lives up in Poqua, New York.

38:16

I always mispronounced that. And then we're going to have Gary George, a friend of mine. Oh yeah, an old friend of mine going back to the 1980s.

38:25

Ah, you know Gary George! Oh yes, and he has been a guest on Iron Sherpins Iron Radio. And has he ever told you about his testimony about when he almost was trapped in a burning nightclub called

38:38

Gulliver's? No, I've never heard that one. Oh, you gotta hear

38:43

Gary tell you the story about that. He had a broken leg, and I can't remember if it was from skiing or not, but I remember he had a broken leg and he was in a nightclub and the nightclub caught on fire and he barely made it out unscathed due to the cast on his leg and so on.

39:04

But a pretty remarkable story. But anyway, I have many fond memories of fellowship with Gary and hearing him preach and even heard him debate at least once.

39:17

A really precious brother. Love, Gary. Amen. Yeah, I got to meet him at the

39:23

Ocean City Bible Conference, which was a real blessing. Pastor Ed Moore basically went to the highways or the byways and compelled them to go to the conference, and I was one of the guys that Pastor Ed was hunting down to go to the conference.

39:40

And gracefully, at the conference, they allowed us to be vendors for the past few years, and we'll be vending there again this year.

39:47

And I met Gary George there for the first time. Peter Nicotra introduced me to him, and Peter described his evangelism as very

39:57

George Whitefield -esque, from what I understand. Well, he's definitely a powerful preacher, and I'm sure you could hear him from quite a long distance away, just like Whitefield.

40:09

Amen, amen. So I asked Pastor Peter about someone else to come and preach at our conference, and without hesitation, he said, you've got to have

40:18

Gary George. Because some guys can preach about evangelism, but then there's some guys, if you know what

40:24

I mean, who could preach about evangelism, and normally the guys that preach about evangelism with a lot of passion and heart are the guys that are actually out there doing it.

40:34

And so I know Gary's out there doing it. And so he's speaking from many, many years of experience, and with a heart that still burns, and passion for Christ in reaching the lost.

40:47

And so I'm looking forward to hearing him preach at our conference,

40:52

New York City Invasion. Yes, well, I can still remember

41:00

Gary, in his very thick Massachusetts accent, asking me, brother, brother, did you have a potty when you were young?

41:09

Did you potty? And I was like, is he asking me if I was potty trained? What is he saying? But he's a great guy.

41:19

And so tell us about this invasion of New York that you just mentioned.

41:26

Yeah, so being in the Assemblies of God in the past, and I know that they're very missions oriented.

41:36

They send out a lot of missionaries, and they do a lot of stuff in that regard around the world.

41:44

Not a lot of evangelistic things that I see in the

41:49

States, and I wish they went with a message that was a little more potent, and certainly performed.

41:59

So more Biblical, I guess I would have to just say. And of course, we have to make sure that we don't broad brush our

42:06

Assembly of God brethren, because you do find some gems amongst them.

42:12

And did you know Al Stein? No. Al Stein, I'm pretty sure that Ed Moore knows who

42:20

Al Stein was. Al Stein went home to be with the Lord after a tragic automobile accident a few years ago.

42:26

But Al Stein was not only a pastor in the neighborhood Assembly of God in Belmore, Long Island, but he was also a bishop in the

42:35

Assemblies of God, an overseer for all of Long Island. And when I first met

42:40

Al Stein, he was an Arminian who was respectful and curious about the doctrines of sovereign grace.

42:49

And for the last couple of years, at least two or three, that I had the privilege of sharing fellowship with him before the

42:57

Lord called him home, he was a full -blown Calvinist. Yeah.

43:04

Go ahead, I'm sorry. That's happening more often. That seems to be happening more often.

43:11

I mean, listen, when I was an Arminian and didn't really understand the differences in the doctrine,

43:18

I mean, I know I was still saved. I know God still saved me and changed me. And so, yeah, absolutely, there are many people both lost and saved in Arminian and Calvinistic circles.

43:30

There are people that are lost and saved within the circles. That's true. So just out of curiosity, why the word invasion that you're using for your conference?

43:44

Yeah, so when I was back in Bible college, I liked this model that they used, and they used to call it city invasion.

43:55

So a bunch of people from various, Assembly Guide Bible College, they would all go to a particular city and just, quote -unquote, invade that with the gospel.

44:06

So they went to Philadelphia. I went to the one in New Orleans, I think is how you're supposed to pronounce it.

44:14

That's weird. I was just talking about how those in New Orleans pronounced

44:21

New Orleans just about an hour ago with a friend of mine. See that? Coming back.

44:28

Like pepperoni. So I kind of, you know, kind of like you just said, you know, and I wasn't trying to kind of paint with a broad brush, there are things, even though I disagree theologically, there were certain principles and models that I learned that are good models, per se.

44:54

I would just, you know, I would say, okay, I like the concept, but I think that it could be done in a better way.

45:03

More, you know, again, you know, I want to hear Reformed theology being preached and maybe better structures and things like that, but I like the concepts that I learned.

45:15

So over there, it was called invasion, and so the focus was, hey, we're going to come in and we're going to, like, invade this place with the gospel of our

45:23

Lord Jesus Christ. And so, I mean, Satan is running around to and fro, and sometimes

45:30

I think that the Church is very timid when it comes to evangelism. You know, all of the, hey,

45:39

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and kind of soft -pedaling the gospel.

45:46

Well, the gospel is like a rocket ready to take off, and so, yes, do we need to make friends with people to share the gospel?

45:55

Absolutely. But, I mean, it should be bubbling over our hearts like lava just flowing out, not uncontrollably, of course, but, you know, a controlled fire, and so I believe that God wants to take

46:11

His Church and bring and flood the gospel throughout the cities.

46:18

Right, and there's a change in the world, it seems. Yeah, it sounds like what you were describing before about the tepid approach to evangelism, it's as if the gospel has been castrated, for lack of a better term, because you have people who diminish, not intentionally, of course, but they diminish the power and the amazement, they diminish the phenomenon that the gospel is by just talking about good things that may occur, but when you don't talk about the fact that the gospel rescues sinners from not only their own sin, but the condemnation, the eternal condemnation of that sin in hell, when you remove that, it's like you're saying that something is nice when you could be amazing and awesome and powerful and mind -blowing, because if people don't know what they're saved from, then being saved is no big deal.

47:48

I believe it was Michael Horton that titled a book he wrote years ago called

47:53

Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, because the gospel that many people preach today is not really amazing at all.

48:03

No, it's not at all. It's not at all. And speaking of books, R .C.

48:08

Sproul had the book called Saved From What?, and when I heard a testimony from R .C. Sproul, when people would say,

48:14

I'm saved, he would ask them, saved from what? And I mean, that's a fantastic question.

48:21

It's a great probing, heart -probing question to ask people. And yeah,

48:27

I completely agree. It's like, you go from, okay, so your life is good, but it can be better with Jesus.

48:34

And so, as Paul Washer said, you know, we're comparing Jesus to like six legs. I mean, you know, it's like you're at Kittyland Park and you can go to six legs and get on the bigger roller coasters.

48:49

Well, that's not the gospel. I mean, that is not the gospel at all.

48:54

I forgot who said it, but they said Jesus didn't come to make bad people into good people, he came to make dead people live.

49:02

And so, I mean, listen, if I'd be cured of cancer and I was walking by St.

49:09

Jude's Children's Hospital and I looked in the window and I saw all these kids with their hair out,

49:15

I saw sickly looking kids. I know then they don't all per se look sickly, some of them are smiling and happy.

49:22

But I mean, can you imagine you walk through the hallways, you look in the rooms and you're seeing kids dying and you have the cure to cancer, like right in your pocket, you got vials of medication.

49:34

How can you walk by and walk through the hallways of St. Jude's Children's Hospital and not like scream at the top of your lungs and not want every kid to have the cure?

49:46

And that's what I think it's like sometimes. I think like we say we believe the gospel, but then where is that heart to want to bring the gospel and invade our cities and our towns and our suburban communities with the only thing that saves, which is the gospel.

50:10

The gospel must be the thing that drives us and it must be the only thing that we're giving out.

50:19

Just a word of advice though, I got ushered out of St. Jude's Hospital for screaming at the top of my lungs, so you have to be very careful.

50:29

I want you to make sure our listeners know exactly who, other than Gary George, perhaps it's only

50:41

Gary George, who are the speakers at this conference and do you have any topics lined up and everything that they need to know?

50:48

Yes, so we have Peter Nicotia is a pastor elder at Grace Baptist Church.

50:57

He'll be preaching on compassion for the lost. Myself, Phil Sessa, another elder at the church and director of Soul Fishing Ministries, I'll be preaching on zeal for the lost and how to reach the lost.

51:15

Gary George is going to be preaching on the power of the gospel in reaching the lost.

51:22

Evans Olong, the brother from Kenya, although he lives here, is going to be preaching on prayer and reaching the lost.

51:31

And then yeah, so that's it. We have those five because I'm doing two sessions and each of the other brothers are going to be doing one session.

51:42

So those are all our speakers. And then as part of that, we'll have a table set up for vending.

51:52

I believe Wrath and Grace is making some t -shirts up for us. I think they're going to be $20 or maybe a little bit higher than that.

52:01

And so they're really awesome looking, kind of as the city skyline, like New York, a bunch of people looking at the skyline and kind of like see the bat symbol coming up from the

52:11

Batman movies. You're going to see a cross symbol that's kind of beaming into the skyline.

52:18

You're going to see a symbol of the cross kind of beaming up. And on the back, it's going to say Matthew and then in big numbers, 419.

52:28

And then it'll say underneath, I will make your fishers and men. So on the back, it's going to look like a soccer jersey. So really nice.

52:36

But I guess that's just an added cherry on top.

52:41

The shirt's not going to save people, but Christ is going to save people.

52:47

But hopefully it'll be a little motivation factor and help us raise a couple of shekels to put into the ministry to continue to buy things that we need.

52:59

Great. Well, I know that Wrath and Grace makes some very attractive T -shirts. I've purchased a few at the

53:05

G3 conference, actually. Well, I know that your website, again, is soulfishingministries .org,

53:13

soulfishingministries .org. And of course, it's S -O -U -L, not the actual fish soul. But anyway, tell us any other contact information that they need to know.

53:27

Um, yeah, you can email me at fishdub, like the fish in the ocean and the dub in the sky, fishdub1122 at gmail .com.

53:40

If you need to contact me, the number for our ministry is 646 -773 -1221.

53:50

Uh, if you're interested in getting our newsletter, you can call or email me.

53:55

We can, uh, have that newsletter sent out to you. And we're putting out a couple of resources as well.

54:04

If you're ever interested, we have a discipleship manual called Multiplying for the Master, a prayer journal called

54:11

Abiding at the Throne of Grace, and we have a workbook on the

54:16

Book of Jonah. So it's a workbook, uh, half workbook, half leadership, uh, guide that goes with it, and we're putting out a couple more as we come along.

54:27

One is going to probably be called Soulfishing on Evangelism, one on the

54:33

Deity of Christ, and one on the Attributes of God. So if you can be praying for us and for those things, putting out those resources,

54:41

I just want to equip people to do the work of the kingdom and to be fishers of men. Praise God.

54:47

Well, it was great to have you back on the program, Phil, and, uh, God willing, next time

54:54

I'm in New York, we should try to get together again, and I would love to be able to have the opportunity at some point to worship with you folks over there as well at Grace Baptist Church in Woodhaven.

55:04

And, uh, I really appreciate you coming on, brother, and we'll talk to you soon. All right, and I just want to thank you,

55:10

Chris, for the opportunity, and I want to thank you for the Bibles that you gave out recently, you know, to people, to give out to people in their churches.

55:20

You're very generous, very kind, and I thank you for the work that you're doing, and we'll pray for you and for your ministry.

55:27

Thank you for what you do and the way you do it. Well, I really appreciate that, brother, and the credit goes to not only

55:33

God, of course, especially, but to the publishers of the New American Standard Bible for providing us with those free

55:39

Bibles. And for those of you listening, if you are replacing the Bibles in your pews, if your pew

55:46

Bibles are falling apart or covered with children's graffiti, or maybe even adults' graffiti, and you're looking to replace all those

55:54

Bibles, please, please seriously and prayerfully consider going to nasbible .com,

55:59

N -A -S, which stands for New American Standard, bible .com, nasbible .com.

56:05

But thanks, Phil, and we'll talk to you soon. God bless you. Thank you, Chris. All right. God bless you, too.

56:10

And coming up after our break, we are going to be joined by Caleb Bunch.

56:23

Caleb Bunch, who is the pastor of Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York, and he is going to be talking about something very important, the engines that propel evangelism.

56:40

By the way, is this Caleb on the air right now? Hello, is this Caleb? No, I'll hang up.

56:48

I'm sorry. Okay. But we will have

56:57

Caleb Bunch, God willing, joining us after this break. This is our elongated break, so please write down not only questions for Caleb Bunch regarding his subject, the engines that propel evangelism, but also take this time to write down the information that is provided by our advertisers, because the more you successfully patronize our advertisers, the longer,

57:22

God willing, they will remain as advertisers, and that money is what helps keep us on the air.

57:29

But don't go away, because, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages with Caleb Bunch.

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And please always remember to mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before we are joined by our second guest today,

01:04:54

Pastor Caleb Bunch of Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York, I just have a few very important announcements to make.

01:05:02

First of all, coming up very soon, the Fellowship Conference New England is returning to Portland, Maine, August 2nd through the 4th at the

01:05:13

Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine. And the speakers include

01:05:19

Pastor Tim Conway, and he is pastor of Grace Community Church of San Antonio, Texas, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, who is an author, and the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, Pastor Jesse Barrington, who is the pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, and Pastor Nate Pickwitz, who is also an author, and the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmington Iron Works, New Hampshire.

01:05:50

If you would like to register for the Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

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Please tell the folks there that you heard about this conference from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Radio, and I hope to be there myself one day.

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But please, if you live near Portland, Maine, especially, or even if you live far away but are able to get there, please get there because I happen to know these four men.

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They've been on my program, dear brothers in Christ, and they do something unusual, that they don't have a theme that they have picked for the entire conference.

01:06:33

They have each of the men unburdening their hearts with what each of those men in particular most wants to say and proclaim at that conference.

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So it's quite a unique conference, and I strongly urge you to be there. If you can, at fellowshipconference newengland .com,

01:06:51

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. Then we have coming up in November the 9th and the 10th at the

01:06:59

Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

01:07:05

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, and the theme this year is the glory of the cross.

01:07:12

I will be there, God willing, Manning and Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's booth, so I hope that you greet me if you attend during one of the breaks.

01:07:21

The speakers at this year's Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Wynn.

01:07:32

If you'd like to register for the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org,

01:07:39

click on events, and then scroll down to the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

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Please tell the folks at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about this conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:07:53

And then coming up in January 2019, which is a lot closer than you may think, the way time flies by,

01:08:02

I am so excited once again to be Manning and Exhibitor's booth. This will be my third year in a row

01:08:07

Manning and Exhibitor's booth at the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

01:08:14

The G3 Conference is being held once again at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

01:08:23

They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people. And the lineup, which is always awesome, and is equally as awesome this

01:08:33

January, includes Paul Washer, John Piper, Stephen J.

01:08:38

Lawson, Fody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M. Bayway, the pastor of Coboata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, my favorite preacher of all, alive today,

01:08:49

Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you,

01:08:55

Josh Bice, who is the director of the G3 Conference, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and Stephen J.

01:09:03

Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida, the college founded by R .C.

01:09:09

Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more. And the theme of the conference this

01:09:17

January is the mission of God. And if you would like to register, go to g3conference .com,

01:09:26

g3conference .com, and the conference, by the way, is being held Thursday, January 17th, through Saturday, January 19th.

01:09:35

And they are having a special Spanish -speaking edition of the conference on Wednesday, January 16th, so let all of your

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Spanish -speaking friends and bilingual friends know about that as well. That's Wednesday, January 16th.

01:09:51

But go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and also you can not only register to be an attender, but you can also register to man an exhibitor's booth just like I will be doing,

01:10:03

God willing, and with a crowd as large as the ones that gather at the

01:10:09

G3 Conference. It's well worth your investment. As I said, they are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people, so what a great place to have an exhibitor's booth for your church or your parachurch ministry or your business, whatever it is that you are going to be promoting there to benefit the body of Christ.

01:10:29

Well, you can register for that booth there as well at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

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01:14:01

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01:14:12

So keep your ears open for their ads that will be starting soon. And if you'd like to join me on the air with a question for Caleb Bunch, pastor of Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapeak, Long Island, New York, send in your email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:14:29

chrisarnson at gmail .com and give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:14:35

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Today we are going to be addressing the engine that propels evangelism and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, Pastor Caleb Bunch.

01:14:51

Well thank you Chris, it's great to be here. And before I have you give an abbreviation of your salvation testimony, which is what something that we always do with first -time guests,

01:15:01

I'd like you to tell our listeners something about Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York. I'd be delighted to.

01:15:08

Yeah, Redeeming Grace Fellowship is a new church. We were planted here in Massapequa about two and a half years ago.

01:15:15

It'll be three years actually in September. We were planted out of North Shore Baptist Church in Queens, New York, in Bayside, and we were,

01:15:26

I think, a very biblical church plant. A lot of churches are planted by biblical means, by church splits, but we were actually sent out by a church who desired to be faithful with sending some of their best and most gifted members and even some of the elders and deacons to come out and reach an area of Long Island that is desperately in need of more of a gospel witness.

01:15:51

And we have many faithful members that came with us to plant this church, and by God's grace, we are continuing on in the work of the

01:15:58

Lord two and a half years in, and we are seeing people come to Christ and seeing people discipled and seeing people even sometimes occasionally coming out of unhealthy church backgrounds and growing in the

01:16:09

Lord. So we're excited about the ministry here, and we're thankful that God has allowed us to be here at this time to serve him in this way.

01:16:16

Amen, and I'm so delighted that providentially I have had that longtime friendship with Pastor Jim Capo of the

01:16:24

Massapequa Church of God and knew that you needed a place to set up shop, as it were, and knew that they needed a shop in the arm there to bring new revitalized life back into that building.

01:16:41

And so the two things went very well hand in hand, didn't they? Amen, and I'm very thankful you were very instrumental in that connection.

01:16:50

And Jim and I are great friends. You know, as a church who doesn't own any property, who rents a building,

01:16:56

I think oftentimes that's a big struggle for churches that rent. You don't anticipate that your landlord is going to become a dear friend and a dear brother in Christ.

01:17:06

But we're really grateful that that relationship has blossomed and our churches have served the

01:17:11

Lord together. We're not enemies, we're not opposing one another. We serve the kingdom of God together, and that has been an incredible blessing to start our church off on a foot like that.

01:17:22

Amen. Well, please send my deepest regards to Jim Capo. I miss his fellowship immensely.

01:17:29

We were fellowshiping on an average week three days out of the seven, at least a week, when

01:17:37

I was living out on Long Island. So I really miss his fellowship a lot. But please send him my regards and also send my regards to his lovely wife,

01:17:47

Rosemary. Absolutely, I will. Well, let's now hear something about your upbringing, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances the

01:18:01

Lord used in your life to draw you to himself and save you. Wonderful. I love talking about that.

01:18:07

My childhood, I grew up in southeast Kansas in a little tiny town called Chanute, and I grew up in a church that was kind of a little bit of an atypical assemblies of God.

01:18:19

It was strongly influenced by the holiness movement and a lot of revivalism that touched our church background.

01:18:28

My parents were faithful believers, but my church background was not healthy in its theology or in its practice.

01:18:37

So in terms of my personal salvation, it's difficult for me to pinpoint when

01:18:42

I truly came to know Christ, because I'm convinced that I came to know the

01:18:47

Lord at a young age, but the theology under which I was trained at that time taught me that I would come to know

01:18:55

Christ in the saving way if I said a certain prayer, and then I would lose that salvation if I sinned.

01:19:00

So I believed that I became a Christian a hundred thousand times before I was ten years old. Obviously that's not true, but at some point, one of those occasions where I heard the gospel, it became genuine to me, and I understood the weight of my sin and the love of Christ, and truly went to the

01:19:23

Lord with a repentant heart, and he gave me the gift of faith and repentance and regenerated me.

01:19:28

So all of that happened at some point in that journey. I just couldn't tell you exactly when, but what

01:19:35

I can tell you is there was a big transition point at some point in my high school years where I began to realize that the teaching of my home church that I grew up in were not only a little off, but in significant opposition to the

01:19:51

Word of God, and transitioned out of that. My parents were willing to allow me to travel around and search out different churches and try to find something that was a little bit more biblical, and I'm convinced that at that time there were no, and perhaps are to this day still, no churches that are truly faithfully proclaiming the

01:20:14

Word of God in a way that is in alignment with the Scriptures. I would be hesitant to say that about places in general, but I think that's an accurate statement of my hometown.

01:20:28

So by God's grace, over the course of time, I got involved in missions. I served as a missionary in Brazil for a while, without getting into the long details of the story.

01:20:36

I was deported a couple times because of paperwork issues, and then ended up going to northern

01:20:42

Italy for school and served there a little bit at a church plant and at a

01:20:47

Christian organization training educational place. And was really strengthened in my faith.

01:20:54

It's there where I came to know the doctrines of grace, and my relationship with the Lord was just incredibly different after that.

01:21:03

That I understood that God didn't need me, that I needed Him, and that anything that I was going to ever accomplish for the kingdom was all because of Him.

01:21:12

Radically transformed my life and my ministry. And by God's grace, after that,

01:21:18

I was able to come serve in New York for a few years, for about five years, with Ed Moore in Bayside at North Shore Baptist Church, then finished up some seminary over in Southern Samaria, Kentucky, and then came up and planted this church.

01:21:29

So I guess that's about five minutes of my life story. You think you could be a little bit more descriptive about how you came to the doctrines of sovereign grace?

01:21:40

I'd love to hear, and I always love to hear about that. Tell us about that. Absolutely.

01:21:47

Well, first I'll tell you that this is not a story of me being intelligent and figuring it out.

01:21:53

I actually heard about the doctrines of grace when I was in high school, and I became incredibly offended by them, especially limited atonement.

01:22:02

I didn't understand the argument that was being made, and honestly, I think the people who informed me of the doctrines of grace, their approach to it was kind of a cagey, cage -stage -style approach, and it really rubbed me the wrong way,

01:22:18

I think partially because my own personal pride was nicked a little bit when

01:22:24

I was thinking more of myself and less of God than I should. But I also think the messengers were a little bit flawed at the time, and so I struck back against it and fought against it and thought, man, those people are probably not even

01:22:36

Christians. And then I went to Brazil as a missionary, and it just so happened that the

01:22:44

Lord providentially orchestrated it so that I was serving alongside of a Brazilian pastor who also was a

01:22:51

Calvinist. As I was learning Portuguese and as I was growing and understanding what they were teaching at the church, it became more evident to me that he was a

01:23:00

Calvinist. And although we didn't have a great deal of discussion, the simple conversations that we had began to break down some of my walls in terms of the idea that God does have a people of his own, and that from before the foundation of the earth, he had set his love and affection on them, and I began to soften to that.

01:23:22

But what really broke down my resilience, what the Lord did for me was he allowed me to get deported from Brazil, and when

01:23:32

I did... Oh, who hasn't been? Oh, exactly. I'm only kidding.

01:23:38

So my... You gotta tell us why that happened. Why did you get deported? Well, it really comes down to a lot of political nonsense.

01:23:47

You know, the President Bush and President Lula of Brazil were not friendly towards one another, and the

01:23:54

United States had begun deporting Brazilians, quite a few of them actually, during the time of George W.

01:24:01

Bush, and what occurred was one of the people who came here as some kind of a government official from Brazil was required at an airport screening to take off his shoes, which, you know, is a culturally faux pas thing there, you know?

01:24:19

And he had diplomatic immunity, so he was trying to explain to them, I have diplomatic immunity,

01:24:25

I'm not required to do this, and then he was detained, and they forced him to go through a different kind of search, and it really humiliated him, which made the government of Brazil very angry, and then

01:24:37

I got caught in the storm of all of that. And so honestly, it was just a political fiasco that was occurring between our two nations, and I just, by the grace of God, got caught up in the middle of that.

01:24:49

At the time, I saw that as very negative. I thought that, you know, there was no way

01:24:55

God had his hand in this. In fact, I was greatly upset about it, because, like I mentioned before,

01:25:01

I overvalued and overestimated my efforts, and thought, you know,

01:25:06

God, what are these people going to do without me? And I didn't say that out loud, and I don't think I would have, but truly that was the sentiment in my heart.

01:25:14

You know, we were doing a lot of things with children who were desperate and needy, that without the programs that we had set up, they would be on the streets, and not only without the gospel, they would also be without food and shelter and education, and I was a big part of setting some of those systems in place.

01:25:32

So when I was deported, I was not only deeply concerned for them,

01:25:37

I was also very angry at God, and I don't say that lightly, but I was very aggressively angry towards God.

01:25:48

And I was taught in the church I grew up in that if you are not happy with the way things are going in your life, it's absolutely acceptable for you to just go yell at God for a while.

01:25:58

So to my great shame, that was the approach that I had taken towards God.

01:26:05

And by His grace, He allowed me to get back to Brazil. It was a quick turnaround. I think it was in the States for like six weeks or something before I got back, and I served the

01:26:13

Lord there for only like another seven months and then got deported again. So during those seven months that I was there,

01:26:20

I was living on my own in a little cinder block house on the top of a mountain, and in the evenings

01:26:27

I had literally nothing to do but read my Bible. And as I was reading through the Word of God, there were certain things that kept coming up over and over and over concerning the sovereignty of God, concerning His dominion, concerning the way that He is the one who declared the end from the beginning.

01:26:45

And I began realizing more and more that God doesn't need me to be involved in this ministry, that when

01:26:51

I got back, everything was still functioning perfectly fine without me. God doesn't need me.

01:26:57

Everyone is replaceable. But it went deeper than that. I began to understand more about God's relationship to us in a sovereign way, in salvation as well.

01:27:08

And I can explain that only by saying that the second time I was deported, my response in my heart towards God was not one of anger, but one of absolute submission, you know, confusion, but also submission, saying,

01:27:20

God, I trust you that you are going to save the kids here that belong to you, that you're going to protect them, that you're going to bring people in that can serve them, that you're going to, you know, your sheep are going to hear your voice and they'll follow you.

01:27:35

And also for myself, I just trust you that wherever you have for me to go, that you'll lead me and I'll be there.

01:27:42

And the Doctrines of Grace was something I'd never heard systematically taught, but right after I came back from Brazil, I, to this day, don't understand how this happened, but I think a friend of mine applied to a school as a joke for me, and I got in.

01:27:59

And so when I got back, I had a letter waiting for me telling me that I had been accepted to a study abroad program in Italy.

01:28:05

So I took it and I went to Italy and at this school, it was a Christian school, they taught

01:28:11

TULIP, and I said to myself, this is exactly what

01:28:16

God has been teaching me. I just didn't know the words. I didn't understand the vocabulary yet, but this is what

01:28:21

God has been teaching me. And from that point forward, I dug in. One of our textbooks was

01:28:26

A .W. Pink's, The Sovereignty of God, and it just completely and drastically radically altered the entire direction of ministry in my life, just because I began to understand

01:28:38

God in such a better way, a fuller way. Now, I know that you have ministered as a missionary on four continents, and I'm sorry if I missed anything you said in that realm other than Brazil, but where else have you ministered?

01:29:00

Yeah, it's a funny term. My first mission trip was to Australia in 2000 when

01:29:06

I was just a 13 -year -old kid. At the time I was saved, I really do think I was doing missionary work, but like I said, at that time, my understanding of missions was very limited.

01:29:17

Then South America, I would say that what we're doing right now, for me, is more of a mission field, honestly, than South America was, because I felt much more comfortable in the highlands of southern

01:29:29

Brazil than I do in the jungles of Long Island. Yes, as a native

01:29:39

Long Islander, I can certainly empathize with—not that, of course, there's anything physically rigorous or exhausting or anything like that in regard to Long Island or uncomfortable or anything like that, but as far as an indifference to the gospel, that can be very disheartening and frustrating, and of course, people who are very religious and false religions like Roman Catholicism and so on.

01:30:13

Right, and I would say that there's a lot of similarities here to what I've recognized in Italy.

01:30:19

I served there alongside of a school and helped out with a church plant in Udine for a time, and the same spirit that is here is there.

01:30:29

There's just no idea that there's life beyond death.

01:30:35

There's nobody thinking about eternity here, and everyone, if they consider anything about religion, they think,

01:30:43

I'm okay. Just like Italy, the people here, by and large, are religious people. They just kind of set that aside the majority of their week, and then if somebody discusses it with them, they've been baptized in the

01:30:55

Catholic Church, so they're good or something of that nature. So there's an ambivalence towards the gospel that exists that's very similar in those two cultures here on Long Island and in Northern Italy.

01:31:08

So it's a very different battle in terms of missions, but I would consider that the mission field here on Long Island.

01:31:15

Well, I also have to say that I love the names of your children, Asaph, Petra, Athanasius, and Mordecai.

01:31:23

I don't know if I know of anyone who has named their children any of those names, and I don't think

01:31:29

I've ever met anybody with any of those names, except I believe I met a

01:31:35

Petra, at least one Petra, but Athanasius is my favorite of your children's names.

01:31:41

And do you have a nickname for Athanasius, because what would that be?

01:31:47

We call him Athens. We try to build in a nickname with all of our kids, and we give them a very generic middle name just in case they end up hating their first name.

01:31:59

Athanasius, we call him Athens for short, and honestly, people remember his name so easily.

01:32:08

He just fits it. It fits him well. And the name Athanasius means, it's

01:32:14

Athanatos, which the A is a privative alpha there, so it means the reverse of Thanatos.

01:32:21

So what it means is the one who does not die. So we're praying that the Lord would open his eyes to the gospel and that he would live forever.

01:32:29

We're hoping that he would be immortal in that sense. So we also love the early church father,

01:32:35

Athanasius, and the way he protected the doctrine of the Trinity through the grace of God. Yes, and the duty of Christ.

01:32:42

Absolutely. So that's where he received his name, is because of my delight in the writings and the life of Athanasius, Athanasius Contrabundum.

01:32:54

I'm sorry, is that my phone that's creating a little bit of buzz here? Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sure that if your son

01:33:03

Athanasius is either ganged up on by his siblings or by the kids in the neighborhood, you could always remind him about Athanasius against the world and the fact that he was like one of the few standing up against the entire church who were rejecting the deity of Christ.

01:33:23

And he still, rather than pointing to councils and bishops and clergy, he was pointing to the scriptures.

01:33:34

Absolutely. Well, we're going to our final break right now. And if you'd like to ask a question of Caleb Bunch, send in your email now at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:33:42

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. God willing, we are going to be back right after these messages from our sponsors.

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And you could please also consider that if you want to remain anonymous, if your question involves a pastoral question that is personal and private, since Caleb is a pastor, we will welcome questions of that kind.

01:34:11

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And don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back after these messages with Caleb Bunch.

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01:39:20

This is Chris Arnzen, and our guest for the remaining half hour is Caleb Bunch, the pastor of Redeeming Grace Fellowship in Massapequa, Long Island, New York.

01:39:29

We are going to be discussing the engines that propel evangelism. And Caleb, if you could, tell us exactly what you mean by that.

01:39:39

I think that it's really important to consider the fact, you know, especially when we're talking to a Reformed audience, that it's really easy for us to unintentionally slide into a hyper -Calvinistic lifestyle.

01:39:53

Even if we don't think we're hyper -Calvinists, I would say, if we're not sharing the gospel, that's really how we're acting.

01:39:59

We're functioning as hyper -Calvinists, acting as though God's just going to redeem his people without us.

01:40:06

But the mold is that God has designed his kingdom to grow through evangelism.

01:40:12

So one of the things that people always try to figure out as pastors and church leaders is how do we encourage people to be involved in evangelism?

01:40:20

How do we get people psyched up to do it? How do we kind of light a fire under people? And as I was preparing this summer for an evangelism training for our church, one of the things that I began to see more and more is that there seems to be a lack in terms of study materials and books and lesson structures that I've found in terms of two main categories, which

01:40:43

I think are the main engines that propel a lifestyle of personal evangelism.

01:40:49

And those two things are having a proper fear of God and having a proper love for God.

01:40:55

I think those two things combined result naturally in a proper mode and zeal for evangelism.

01:41:03

Yes, and of course, even Armenians can behave like hyper -Calvinists because they're lazy, because although perhaps the reasons behind their lack of evangelism aren't the same specifically as a hyper -Calvinist, but there are many people who are non -Calvinistic, who are fearful of the opinions of men.

01:41:30

They don't want to embarrass themselves by evangelizing. Oh, absolutely. They don't want to lose friends.

01:41:36

They don't want to look like a weirdo. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. They're afraid of losing their job or not getting a job that they're desiring to get.

01:41:49

So there are all kinds of people that are not fulfilling their duty to evangelize.

01:41:55

And even more than that, they're not loving to evangelize.

01:42:04

Evangelism doesn't get their blood pumping. They don't get excited about it. And that should be what we all experience, and many of us, and perhaps even all of us at some point, really fail miserably in those areas, don't we?

01:42:21

Absolutely. Well, honestly, I think one of the things that you find often is people have a thousand reasons why

01:42:28

I don't do this. Last night I was teaching at our evangelism training at our church, and I just asked the group, what are some reasons that you can say, reasons or excuses, whatever term you'd like to use, that you personally don't evangelize?

01:42:42

And we got all sorts of answers. I said, okay, what are the reasons that we should, or may I say, must evangelize?

01:42:49

And I got a few answers. And the answers really boiled down into two categories.

01:42:55

The category of I should love other people enough to share the gospel with them, and the category of God tells us to do it, so we need to do it.

01:43:04

And ultimately, both of those things are true, and I actually think those things are good things to hold on to, but I don't see those as being the primary motivation in the apostles in the

01:43:16

New Testament. The primary motivating factor seems to be a constant realization and awareness of the love of God and the fear of God.

01:43:26

And those two things propelled them to do what it was they were doing. And I think we can see that in not only the way that they carried it out, but also in the way that they presented the gospel to other people.

01:43:42

I can give you a few examples. For example, in Matthew 28, the quintessential passage about missions and evangelism go therefore into all the world, that passage is built around the phrase that Jesus begins with, all authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me.

01:44:00

That's an authoritative, kingly statement, which is designed to give us the proper fear of God.

01:44:07

Whenever anybody saw God as who he is, that's when they fall down. Like Isaiah chapter 6, when he has the throne room experience with God, or when

01:44:17

Peter in Luke chapter 5 sees the miracle of the multiplication of the fish, and he falls at the feet of Jesus and says, go away from me,

01:44:25

I'm a sinful man. I believe that that statement there where Jesus is saying, all authority has been given to me, that's a statement that should result in us being like Peter or Isaiah, seeing the attributes, the character, the authority, the kingly nature of our

01:44:41

Savior, falling down at his feet and responding as, I'm your servant, tell me what to do.

01:44:47

And the response that he gives us is, go therefore, make disciples. Now that phrase, go therefore, that really could be translated as as you're going, the main verb there is make disciples.

01:45:01

So the goal for us is to make disciples, but that's grounded in that previous verse, verse 18, about the authority of Christ, and all the 1068 verses that come before that in the book of Matthew, teaching us about the gospel itself.

01:45:17

So I think all of that is grounded in a love of God, but it's an awareness of his love for us.

01:45:26

So if we look at love that God has for us, that's how we grow in love for him.

01:45:32

I could maybe say this way, that our love for God is never going to surpass our awareness of his love for us, if that makes sense.

01:45:42

That his love for us is infinite, it's unchanging. John chapter 15, verse 9, he says that if we're in Christ, that as the

01:45:50

Father has loved me, or in the same way as the Father has loved me, in that same way, or so I have loved you also, so abide in my love.

01:46:00

And as we become familiar with and aware of and filled with the knowledge of his love for us, and how that looks in the cross, then it fills us with love for him.

01:46:13

I don't know, have you ever done a New Year's Eve resolution, Chris? There's a difference between have

01:46:19

I ever begun one, or have I ever kept one, and those answers would be yes and no.

01:46:27

Have you ever made it to February? I guess that's my question. I don't know that I've ever successfully made it to February with any resolution that I've done.

01:46:36

We're not good at self -motivating, but that's what most evangelism materials and teaching, you know, stuff that's out there will tell you to do.

01:46:45

It kind of starts out by saying, the harvest is plentiful, let's look at the desperate need, and present it in some kind of a, you know, with a metaphor of some kind, and then what they'll do is they'll say, now you need to know the statistics, here's the numbers, go do it.

01:47:02

And it's kind of like the Nike approach, just do it. But if that's your motivating factor, it's just like saying, well,

01:47:10

I'm going to lose 30 pounds by the end of the year. You forget by the time you drive by McDonald's, it's over.

01:47:17

So you have to have a motivating factor for evangelism that's not going to fade away, not flimsy.

01:47:25

That's something you can hold on to, and it can be real and present in your life at all times. Well, I think when you see that first command that we were talking about a moment ago, being rooted in the past love of God, the grace of God, because all authority has been given to Him, all of the rest of that, we can do it.

01:47:46

We must do it. But then he says there's also present grace that we are supposed to experience. And he says, and behold,

01:47:53

I'm with you, even to the end of the age. That's what Paul experienced, for example, when he was in Corinth in Acts chapter 18.

01:48:03

And you know, Christ appears to him and tells him, don't stop, keep going.

01:48:08

I have many people in the city. I would ask the question, why would Jesus tell that to Paul?

01:48:14

And I think the answer is because he was considering stopping and leaving the city without staying there to make disciples.

01:48:23

But what caused him to stay was a genuine realization of the presence of Christ.

01:48:30

Now, somebody might object and say, yes, but he had a vision of Christ that Christ revealed himself in a unique way.

01:48:37

And I would accept that. But then I would say, consider then second Timothy chapter four, which is towards the end of his life.

01:48:45

He says, I believe it's in the middle of the chapter at some point. He says, you know, at my first defense, everybody, everyone left, everyone just completely abandoned me, but Christ stood by me, but the

01:48:58

Lord stood by me. And I would say, does it look like here Paul is saying he had a vision?

01:49:04

I don't think so. But I think what is happening is he has a realization of the exact thing

01:49:09

Christ promised in Matthew 28, verse 20, that I'm with you always.

01:49:16

And that propelled him. And if you continue reading there, he says, and so the gospel was proclaimed to all the

01:49:23

Gentiles. So his motivating factor in being faithful and bold, even in the most extreme circumstances, was not this just do it attitude, but it was the realization of the present grace of Christ with him.

01:49:38

What I've been trying to encourage our people with as we equip them to evangelize is that you're never alone when you evangelize.

01:49:45

You're not on your own. Christ is with you. So you can go tell anyone about the gospel and he's there.

01:49:52

You are not abandoned. The spirit of God is the one who is able to change their heart and you're not.

01:49:57

So you're like the conduit here. You're the bench player who doesn't get off the bench.

01:50:04

You're just sitting there representing the person who's doing the actual work. And I think if we understand the present grace of Christ with us and see his love for us, that motivates us and gives us strength and boldness.

01:50:18

So you mentioned earlier, you know, some people don't, it's not a hyper -Calvinistic approach, but it's just a fear.

01:50:24

You know, I'm afraid. Well, the present grace of Christ, the more we understand that and realize that, it casts out the fear of man.

01:50:32

Because if I know Christ is with me, I'm going to function in his service, not the service of the people that I'm talking to.

01:50:39

I'm more concerned about his, what he thinks of me, than I am about what they do. But also

01:50:45

I know that he's for me. And if he's for me, who can be against me? I love what the psalmist says, what can man do to me?

01:50:52

You know, and if Christ is with me, then I can stand up and share the gospel without fear and with boldness in front of any audience.

01:51:00

And I think there's also future grace that we see in Paul's theology as well. We see that in different places.

01:51:06

For example, in Philippians chapter 1, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

01:51:12

Well, he's arguing there, the reason that I'm still on earth, the reason that I'm still here, is to proclaim the gospel for you, to you

01:51:21

Philippians, so that I might come to you and you might be strengthened. So what he's saying there is, that is to live is

01:51:29

Christ. That is part of grace, because I know all of this is worth it.

01:51:35

All the suffering, if it was up to me, it would be far better just to be in heaven right now.

01:51:40

But I'm here for you, knowing that this earth, the struggle that I will encounter, last time

01:51:47

I was in your city, I was treated terribly and imprisoned, but that's worth it for me to come back there and continue doing what

01:51:53

I'm doing, because I know that to die is gain. Amen.

01:51:59

I think you see that also in, when he speaks about the greater weight of glory that is waiting for him, we talk about that in terms of suffering and struggles, kind of generally and broadly, which

01:52:09

I think we can, but the actual context of what he's saying there in 2 Corinthians chapters 4 and 5, what he's getting at there is,

01:52:17

I'm actually suffering for doing the work of Christ in proclaiming the gospel, but I'm okay with that because that's light and momentary affliction compared to the weight of glory that I will experience on the other side of this.

01:52:32

So I think dwelling in the past, realized aspects of the gospel that Christ died for me and living in the fact and abiding in the fact that Christ's love is present with me and living in the fact that whatever happens to me,

01:52:49

I've got a greater reward on the other side of this life that propels me to evangelize, and that's unfading and constant.

01:52:58

So that's what I mean when I speak about the engine that propels evangelism. You know, we have a listener from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, CJ, and that's not very far from Massapequa.

01:53:13

Not at all. And CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, is a very good question because it's something that I have faced and I think that everybody who shares the gospel or proclaims the gospel is a better word,

01:53:27

I think, experiences. CJ says, Do you have any counsel and guidance for when we are evangelizing and the people that we are speaking with are finding every rabbit trail and every way to take the spotlight off of their own lost condition and need for a savior on to another topic.

01:53:52

It seems to happen nearly every single time I evangelize and I can say that I get quite frustrated and sometimes lose my train of thought.

01:54:02

Do we not have to take control of the conversations in as loving and compassionate a way as we can without acting as if we are ignoring issues that the person we are speaking to may have interest in but at the same time we should not let them drag us away on these rabbit trails.

01:54:22

Well, that's absolutely a wonderful question and I don't think there's a blanket statement way to answer that question.

01:54:29

Part of it plays into it. Part of what plays into this is, is it a conversation that is ongoing with the same individual or is this something that is a one -time conversation with a stranger on the train or at the park?

01:54:43

I would answer differently based upon that. I would also say, for example, if it's somebody who you know well or a family member and they have a lot of questions that seem to be side issues,

01:54:57

I would say, all right, let me do this. Let me write down all of these questions that you have because they're valid and they're not unnecessary but let's write them down and we'll try to come back to those and then redirect your attention to the main point.

01:55:13

But I would say if it's somebody who you don't know at all, you will probably never see again and they're just diverting from any kind of spiritual things.

01:55:22

I have this happen. Sometimes people want to talk about politics or about the, you know, what about the Roman Catholic Church or what about this?

01:55:29

When that happens, it's very easy for people to think you're sidestepping their questions if you don't lovingly say,

01:55:39

I just don't think that's the main point. And I think you can just say that. You know, I agree with,

01:55:44

I agree that that's an important question but that's not the main point. The main point that the Bible talks about is this and then get at their,

01:55:53

I get at that, at their personal relationship with God which probably is a relationship as an enemy towards God.

01:56:00

So I think that it's a difficult thing to navigate and it's very challenging to know what to do sometimes.

01:56:08

But I also think we can shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit, CJ, by trying to present the gospel in a way that is very complex and by creating a lot of unnecessary rabbit trails so the person is now getting question marks in their head about all sorts of different things that we're not trying to actually talk about right now.

01:56:29

So you could begin talking, for example, about, well, there's an argument within our church about Arminianism and Calvinism and I'm a

01:56:36

Calvinist and begin presenting things about that and people begin to wonder, I don't know anything about those words.

01:56:41

What does that mean? And then ask you questions about that, taking away from, not that those are unnecessary or worthless conversations, those are great conversations but that's not your goal in this 10 minute long conversation.

01:56:55

So I think it's very important to as much as possible try to structure your conversations with people in such a way that you're really focusing on the meat and if they keep saying, well, what about this?

01:57:06

What about that? Sometimes they're never going to listen. There's nothing you can do to get them to a point of listening but sometimes you can just say, that's a great question.

01:57:17

I don't think that matters in terms of what we're talking about right now. I hope that answers your question.

01:57:22

Thank you for asking. Well, we are actually out of time now, brother. We've definitely got to have you back on the show soon.

01:57:28

And I know that your website is redeeminggraceny .com. Redeeminggraceny .com.

01:57:34

Can you quickly tell our listeners about the special event that you're having? It's my special event, you mean our evangelism training.

01:57:42

We're just doing that every Wednesday for the next, we'll do three more of them. Actually earlier on today, you had

01:57:49

Bill Sesta on the show. He's going to be teaching not this coming Wednesday but the 1st of August.

01:57:56

Everyone is welcome to come to that. It's something that's open to the public. We just want to be able to equip the saints to be able to proclaim the gospel well.

01:58:04

I'm very different, Chris, than most of the people that you have on your show. And then I am by no means a master of this field.

01:58:11

I'm not an authority when it comes to evangelism. I'm doing this partially because I need to grow in this area.

01:58:18

I love the Lord and I want to be able to proclaim the gospel better and I want my church to be able to do that better too.

01:58:25

So anyone that would like to come, we would welcome, arms wide open, to have people come hear about how to grow and the ability to present the gospel.

01:58:33

The next three sessions will be, the next one is going to be all about apologetics, how to use them wisely and well, how not to use them and how to defend the faith.

01:58:44

Then Bill Sesta is going to come. His goal will be to discuss with us how to turn any conversation that you get into to the gospel.

01:58:52

CJ, that might be a really great time for you to be there. I'm excited about that. I have a lot to learn in that area.

01:58:58

And then the fourth one that we're going to be doing will be the 8th of August. It's kind of a practicum where I'm going to go back and forth from being,

01:59:06

I'll be Roman Catholic man or atheist man and people will just try to share the gospel with me and I'll play devil's advocate so we can see how that plays out as somebody attempts to share the gospel and I'll just try to allow them to use what they've learned in these last few weeks.

01:59:23

Well once again, that website for Redeeming Grace Fellowship of Massapequa, Long Island is redeeminggraceny .com

01:59:32

redeeminggraceny for newyork .com Thank you so much, Pastor Caleb Bunch. I look forward to your return. I want to thank everybody who listened today and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater