June 30, 2017 Show with Dan Phillips on “The World-Tilting Gospel” AND “God’s Wisdom in Proverbs”

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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, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this first day of Fourth of July weekend.

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That's Friday, June 30th, 2017, and I'm delighted to have on the program today somebody that I have never interviewed before.

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His name is Dan Phillips. He's actually a guest today due to popular demand by some of my listeners who have been telling me about Dan and his books.

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Dan has his Master of Divinity degree from Talbot Theological Seminary and he has taught seminary and college classes in New Testament Studies, Hebrew, and Old Testament Theology.

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He's preached and presented seminars on Proverbs and the Sovereignty of God, has written biblical newspaper columns and tracks, has hosted a radio talk show, and has an ongoing conference and pulpit ministry.

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He is most broadly known for his writing on the Pyromaniacs blog with Phil Johnson and Frank Turk, and at his own blog,

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Biblical Christianity, and he pastors the Copperfield Bible Church in Houston, Texas, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron, Dan Phillips.

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Hello, brother. Thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. It's my pleasure, brother, and we are going to be discussing today on Iron Sharpens Iron two of Dan's books.

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The first hour we'll be dealing with the world tilting gospel, that's the world tilting,

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T -I -L -T -I -N -G, gospel, and the second hour we intend to cover his book

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God's Wisdom in Proverbs, but before we even get into all of that, Dan, usually when

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I have a guest on for the first time I like that guest to give an abbreviation or a summary of how the

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Sovereign Lord drew you to himself and saved you and what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in.

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Oh, I'd be delighted to. I had dear parents who I love dearly and miss bitterly, but they did not raise me in the gospel.

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They didn't raise me around the Word of God. Grew up as a basic California pagan, and by the time

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I was in my mid -teens I got into a, we called it a new thought cult. It's a mind science, an early precursor of what we now call

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New Age cults. It's called Religious Science, or also the Science of Mind, very similar to Christian science.

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Yeah, I've heard of that. Was that what A .W. Pink was dabbling in, or was that something else? I had never heard it, so I don't know if he was into that.

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Some actors were. You know Robert Young, Father Knows Best? Yes, yes. Peggy Lee, the singer, was in it.

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I don't know anybody else famous. What horrifies me, though, is a song that came out of that cult

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I've heard in Christian churches. Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. That's from that cult.

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But at any rate, by my early teens I was very deeply involved in that, and basically it's sort of thinking that God is within all of us.

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It's sort of a panentheistic cult. God is in everything. God expresses itself as everything, and so it spiritualizes the

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Bible and finds a deeper meaning in everything. The words mean something other than what

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Christians think they mean. Like the word Christ doesn't mean an individual, it means the principle of sonship, and they believe that we all were

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Christ. We all were sons and daughters of God. We were all manifestations of God, and the way we get to know

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God is by finding God within ourselves. So I followed the prescription. I went within myself to find

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God, and the short in the story, what I found inside myself was nothing like God.

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I found pride, folly, hatred. I found bitterness, covetousness, lust.

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I found... Sin is what I found, although I wouldn't have put that word on it because we didn't believe in sin, but the more

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I got into myself, the more miserable I was because the further I felt from anything like God.

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So the Holy Spirit was, of course, convicting me of sin in this time, and bringing me to a desperate point where I realized that I was a wreck inside, but the

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God I believed in was a God of my own construction. There was no authority for this God. It was not from outside of me.

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It was what I thought was best, and I was a mess. So I started crying out to God to lead me to know him on his own terms, whatever that would be.

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Not my terms, but his. I wanted to know him really, even if it meant being a Jesus freak,

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I prayed, and that was the worst thing I could think of. And I'd read the Gospels. God had brought into my life a

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Christian friend who just was showing me love and not pressing me in any way. That would not have worked with me. An aggressive approach would have just sent me yipping for the hills.

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But he just showed me love and told me if I ever wanted to talk religion, I could, and I said fine, because I knew

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I wouldn't. But as the Holy Spirit convicted me of sin, I got desperate, and I had found him to be real, so I asked him to tell me about his faith.

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So we talked about the Bible, we talked about Christ. I read the Gospel of John. I had read the

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Gospel of John. It bothered me, because it didn't go with our cult very well, especially

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John 14, 6, where Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life.

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No one comes to the Father except through me. Well, I was taught that we all were our own way to God. So here's

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Jesus, who we say is the greatest mystic and the greatest teacher, seeming to say that he's the only way.

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So I had to ask myself, well, if that's what he meant to say, could he have said that any more clearly?

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But if he meant to say what my cult said, could he have said that more clearly? I had to honestly say no.

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What he said absolutely sounded like he was saying he was the only way. Now here's Jesus, and here's me. I'm the authority for my religion.

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Here's Jesus, who on the other hand, was not a fragmented person. He was a whole person.

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His life was a fabric of the miraculous. He did not sin.

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He manifested the works in the presence of God, died, and rose from the dead. So I began praying.

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My friend told me, why don't you ask God if he wants you to believe in Jesus? Because if he doesn't, what are you out?

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Well, I've been considering the person that Christ seriously, and I began praying that way. I also had read some mere

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Christianity, C .S. Lewis. I'd read My Heart, Christ's Home. And so I began praying that way.

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God, I want to know you on your own terms. If I need to know you through Jesus, then I'm willing.

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And so I went to a Baptist church with him,

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Van Nuys Baptist. Harold Thicket was the pastor, and there were hundreds of people there, but it was like he was reading my diary.

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The Holy Spirit was there. I've had those moments, definitely. You know exactly what

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I'm talking about. I felt like he was a prosecuting attorney, and I was just being driven into the corner as he was preaching

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Christ. I knew the truth of what he was saying. So when my friend said, if you want to find out how to know

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Christ, just let me know. I've got all the time you need. So I did. That was February 11, 1973, and cried out to God to save me, cried out to Christ to be my

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Savior and my Lord, and I've never turned back. Praise God. By the way,

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I have to make a clarification when I was talking about A .W. Pink. I mean, I meant to ask, was that the cult that he left, not that A .W.

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Pink? I knew I didn't mean to make that clarification with you, but in case somebody was listening and they start thinking,

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I better get rid of my A .W. Pink books. A .W.

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Pink was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century when it came to the sovereignty of God, and unfortunately he, the last few years of his life, became a recluse and was separated from the church by his own volition, but other than that he was a really brilliant man in his works.

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I highly commend to everyone. When did you realize that you had a call upon your life from God to be a pastor?

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Well, at the time I was preparing to be a minister in the religious science or a rock drummer.

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I was 17 years old and I wasn't sure, but I know that the day that the

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Lord saved me, I was filled with a compelling desire to know the

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Word of God and to do it and to make it known to other people. That just was the strongest desire in my life, and that compelled me.

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I just devoured Scripture. I got as deeply into it as I could, but immediately I had the issue of, well, what do

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I do with my life? I was very involved in this cult, so I had to call everybody and tell them that I'd be resigning from this.

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I wouldn't be doing that anymore. I wouldn't be coming back because God had saved me in Christ. I was living to believe in Christ.

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I didn't have a plan B, obviously. I went to a teacher at my high school who

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I knew was also a pastor, because I didn't know who else to talk to. I didn't have connections in Christian churches.

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I knew that he was a man of a lot of training, a lot of experience, so I told him that the Lord had saved me.

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He was delighted. I told him what I desired, that I wanted to serve God with my life, but I didn't know what to do.

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I hadn't prepared for college. I didn't expect to go to college. I just didn't really know what to do. I just knew I wanted it to be for Christ.

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And he told me that he believed that what he was hearing was a shepherd's heart, and that he was about to start a training school for pastors that would emphasize the biblical languages and the biblical sciences, and that if I was interested, he'd be happy to have me be part of that.

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That was actually exactly what I needed. He had some doctrinal things that I needed to steer around and get away from eventually, but I was not ready to go to anything more formal or more advanced than that, and that actually started me learning

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Greek within the first year of my conversion, and Hebrew the next year, and starting to learn about the

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Word, about doing exegesis and interpreting and preaching the

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Word, stressing the Word, putting it first. So I really started that within a year of my conversion. That was a four -year training school, and I got opportunities to teach and eventually to preach, and when

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I did, people said they were blessed that the Word was open to them. God was graciously bringing

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His Word to their hearts and minds through what I brought, and the more I did it, the more I loved it, the more

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I knew that that's what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, so I just kept on that path. Praise God, and just out of curiosity, one of my closest friends who's a big supporter of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, both with encouragement and financially, is

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Ronald Glass. Ron Glass, pastor of Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island, and he was on the faculty at one time at Talbot.

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I was just curious if you knew who he was or if you ever met him. Oh boy, that name sounds familiar, but I can't take it beyond that right now.

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Okay, and the Copperfield Bible Church in Houston, Texas. Tell us about this congregation. It is an independent church that's been meeting since 1934.

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It started meeting at a, I think, a schoolhouse in 1934, and then moved a few miles down the road, and it's been in our current location since then, and preaching the

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Word of God. They tend to have pastors stay for a good long time. I don't plan to go anywhere, and the teaching that I do is usually verse -by -verse, very biblical.

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That's what the folks wanted, and that's what I do. I was looking for a church to pastor. I was living in California, as a matter of fact, and there was a fellow attending this church who had read my blogs for years and enjoyed my writing, and he knew that I was looking for a church to pastor.

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Well, my predecessor was a good man, good, faithful man from everything I know about him, but one

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Sunday he said that he was looking to resign his pastorate here and move elsewhere, and this fellow who was my reader immediately said,

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I need to get on the Pastoral Search Committee and reach out to Dan Phillips. So he contacted me and said, what would you think about pastoring a church in Houston?

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And I said, isn't it awfully hot in Houston? He said, it's only hot outside.

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You'll have an air -conditioned job and an air -conditioned office. So here we are.

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I've been here for five years. Well, praise God, and for our listeners who would like to pay a visit to Copperfield Bible Church in Houston, Texas, if they happen to already live there, or if they're visiting there, or if they have family, friends, loved ones, or acquaintances that live there, the website is

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CopperfieldBibleChurch .org. That's CopperfieldBibleChurch .org.

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And now I'm going to announce our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Dan Phillips.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. The first hour, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to be talking about the world -tilting gospel, embracing a biblical worldview, and hanging on tight.

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And I want to read just a few commendations for this book that have been written by folks that I have interviewed here on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio.

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We'll start off with John MacArthur, who I'm sure is no stranger to our listeners. He says, pithy -pointed, perceptively biblical,

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Dan Phillips unpacks the gospel's practical implications in this wonderfully readable and supremely helpful handbook.

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My good friend Phil Johnson, who I spent some time with in New York City recently at the

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Foundations Conference, the Conference of Sermon Audio, who has been a guest on this program many times.

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Phil, who is the Executive Director of Grace to You Ministries, the publishing and radio and television ministry of John MacArthur.

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Phil says, I've been reading and learning from Dan Phillips ever since I discovered his blog in 2005.

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His insights never fail to amaze and instruct me. This book reveals why he is such a careful, critical thinker, because his worldview is shaped by Scripture and centered on the timeless truth of the gospel.

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This book is a great tonic for the postmodern tendencies that poison so many young minds today.

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And I'll end with James Hamilton, who was a guest on this program during our eschatology week,

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I believe, that we had last year on Iron Sharp and Zion. James Hamilton says, who would have ever thought that tilting the world would set it right?

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With humor, creativity, and insightful surprises, Dan Phillips captures all the beauty and freshness of the gospel.

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The gospel turns us right -side up, and this book uses sound teaching to cure worldly vertigo.

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That's a great line there. And so, what was the catalyst behind you writing this book?

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There are quite a number of books that address the concept of adopting a biblical worldview.

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What was the need that you find, the vacuum that needed to be filled, that basically was the catalyst for you saying, you know,

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I got to write this book? There's things that I want to say that other people haven't said yet in writing in a concise volume on biblical worldview.

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Well, thank you, it's a great question. As somebody, of course, who is very concerned with the state of the church, the state of professing

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Christians as we see them in America and the world, and thinking about what lies behind this, what lies behind the low state of spiritual reality and of folks' commitments to the glory of God and the truth of the

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Word of God, and how so many people are slip -sliding away from the truth of the Word of God, compromising, bailing out, going off the road in so many ways.

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So this is something that I've thought about an awful lot, and trying to trace to what its source is.

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And I was at a conference, the conference actually where I first met Phil and Frank Turk for the first time in Oklahoma, and David Wells was speaking, and he said something that just, like, lit off fireworks in my mind.

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He put it so very well. He was talking about why the gospel is, seems ineffectual in our day, and of course he traces it to the dominant culture, the dominant worldview of folks, the fact that everything is shifted from God to us, really.

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And the way he expressed it was, he said that people don't think in terms of sin and guilt anymore, they think in terms of value and of shame and of self -image, and it's all subjective, it's all inward.

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And he said that the gospel depends on and is part of an entire worldview, an entire way of looking at the world.

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And then he said, that's why the Bible starts with Genesis 1 -1 and not John 3 -16.

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And it was that statement, that statement just exploded in my mind. I said, that's it. That is exactly it.

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The Bible starts with the creation of the universe, because for the gospel to make any sense to us, we need to see it as set as it is meant to be within God's way of looking at the world that He created, and not our fallen, rebellious way of constructing our own world, like I've been doing before the

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Holy Spirit started deconstructing me. So I thought that what the problem is, is that many people who are becoming

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Christians, and I guess you could put air quotes there, they think of Christianity in the most superficial terms.

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And Christians have not helped. Christians of my early days in the 70s and 80s with the bumper stickers that say,

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Try Jesus, you know, and they're made to look like a Coke bumper sticker, and even now recently

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Rick Warren's saying to try Jesus for six weeks or something like that. So when people present it that way, what the world hears is they hear, and people praise it in ways like, accept the gift of eternal life, or accept forgiveness of sins, or believe that Jesus did this or that for you, believe that He rose from the dead, believe that He died for your sins.

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So what they do is they isolate that bit of the gospel they're hearing that they like, and they just patch it onto their worldview.

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They just add it to what they already believe. So basically they're relativists who live for themselves, who think the universe revolves around them, and Jesus has their back.

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Or, and whenever they do a boo -boo, Jesus is there to make it all right. Or a hundred other things.

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Then they go to a fundamental church, but they've never... their fundamental autonomy, their fundamental way of looking at the world, starting with themselves, has never been challenged.

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And one thing that's obvious about that approach that you mentioned Rick Warren was advocating, try

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Jesus for a certain amount of time, that's clearly a gospel devoid of repentance.

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Because nobody repents of things that they love, nobody leaves the world, the flesh, and the devil behind, and their most cherished activities that are an abomination in God's sight.

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Nobody leaves those, abandoning those on a bended knee with a broken heart if they're trying something as an experiment.

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And not casually. That's right, that's not something you try. That's right, that's right. Yeah, that's something

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I know because I was there. I was not trying Jesus, I was shattered. I was crying out to God to show me himself on his terms, because I knew

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I'd never find him if he didn't reach out to me. And that's what the Holy Spirit does,

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I believe, in the hearts of everyone that he saves. So I looked at the Bible, and I saw the

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Bible starts with God, it doesn't start with man. It starts with the world as God created it and God intended it, and puts man in God's world, living on God's soil, eating

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God's food, under God's instruction. The first thing that Adam hears is God's voice telling him what he's there for, right?

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Be fruitful, multiply the earth, subdue it. Under God, obviously. So, what happens then?

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Then Adam and Eve are tempted in the garden to turn everything on its head. They know everything they need to know about that forbidden fruit.

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God has told them everything they need to know about that. Don't eat it, it'll kill you. That's all they needed to know, right?

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But Satan persuades them that, no, no, no, no. He hasn't told you...what he has told you isn't sufficient, what he's told you isn't reliable.

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He doesn't really care about you like I do. And so he preaches autonomy to them.

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He preaches to them, look, you look at the fruit and you make up your own mind about it. You don't need to...don't think under God.

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Think from yourself. And everything changes there. They eat the fruit and they die. They die instantly.

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They die in their spirits, they die in their minds, their worldview is shattered, and it just takes their body a few hundred years to catch up.

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But what happens there in the garden is an absolute shattering of humanity. So, I start the book there.

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I start the book in the garden, in the garden with creation and with the fall. And I go to Jeremiah 17, 9, and I show that the fall has made our heart into a cave, into a

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Jacob, a deceiver. And our heart in the Bible is not our feelings. Our heart is the center of how we see things, how we evaluate things, what we treasure, how we decide.

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Our heart is the center of us. And Jeremiah says that our heart is a deceiver and that it's incurably sick.

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So in other words, my knower is broken. The way I look at everything is broken.

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My way of thinking, my way of valuing, and so many, again, Christians approach with, oftentimes with the best of intentions and the best of heart, but just not the most biblical of view.

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They approach people as if people fundamentally could think things correctly, and as if you could start where they are and get to Jesus.

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You'll never get to Jesus starting from where we are unless it's as a point of repentance, like you said.

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So one of the things I do in the World's Hilton Gospel is I talk about that, and I talk about the implications of having a broken knower, and the fact that we can't look at the world and reason from what is to what should be, because the world is a broken world.

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We need to go to the Word of God to find out what should be, and what we should be, for that matter. And so when

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I get to just what you said a second ago, when I get to repentance, when I get to what faith means, when

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I get to what the gospel means, I'm ready to present to people that the gospel of Christ is not something that can be added on to an unbeliever's worldview and turn him into a child of God.

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That that's what repentance is. The Greek word methanoeo, some have correctly said that what it means is a change of mind, but then they've explained it in a way that sounds like what

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I'm saying is it's a change of opinion, you know, like I'm changing my opinion about whether Jesus is God or not, and changing my opinion about whether He rose from the dead or not, and if I adopt those two opinions, well,

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I'm a Christian. But no, it's a change of mind in the sense of a transformation of mind.

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A change in the whole way I think. Because before Christ, the whole way I think centers around me.

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I am sovereign. You know, I was sold the line, you shall be as God's, and that is my mission, to be as God.

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And the gospel comes, and what's the first word of the gospel? Deny yourself. Not deny yourself bubblegum, or deny yourself nylons, you know, or rock music.

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Deny yourself! That's a whole lot more comprehensive. That's me turning to me and saying, you're not in charge anymore, and turning to Jesus and saying,

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I want you to be in charge. Did you say deny nylons? Is that a World War II reference? Yes, I'm that old!

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That's what they were... That's a Funday reference. Yeah, that's also a World War II reference. I remember the women had to cut back on using nylons for the war effort because of the material that,

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I don't know, something like that. I'm thinking of the way that fundamentalists have made, you know, here's the things that you, if you stop doing these things, you're not good anymore.

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This is worldliness. Using lipstick is worldliness. Watching movies is worldliness. And that's not worldliness.

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The essence of worldliness is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. It's the thought that I am

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God. I'm entitled to be God. In fact, to the unbeliever, it's an outrageous thought to suggest any other way of thinking.

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You can't imagine any, but that's exactly what the gospel does. And so, if we preach the gospel in a way that an unbeliever hears it and says, well, that sounds pretty good.

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Where do I sign? You probably haven't done it right. Because the gospel that saves people is the gospel that offends people.

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It kills us before it brings us to life. Deny yourself, Jesus says. Take up your cross.

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The cross is not a novelist's workout center, you know? It's not a dumbbell set.

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The cross is where you go to die. So the first thing Jesus says to me is, die. And then he says, follow me.

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Well, how can I follow him if I'm dead? I guess he has to give me life, right? And that's what he does, by sovereign grace, he regenerates me.

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Like Lazarus, he calls him out of the tomb. Calling me gives me the ability to come. Amen.

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Well, we've got a number of listeners already who have emailed questions to you. In fact,

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I am going to email you one and have you answer it when we come back.

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This way, you'll have time to look it over during the station break. Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania has actually four questions, and I'll email you her,

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I'll forward you her email. And if anybody else would like to join those already waiting to have their questions asked and answered, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Don't go away, we'll be right back, God willing, after these messages with more of Dan Phillips.

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Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

32:44

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

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This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go is

34:42

Dan Phillips, pastor of Copperfield Bible Church in Houston, Texas. We are addressing his book,

34:48

The World -Tilting Gospel, during the first hour. And then coming up in the second hour, we're going to be discussing his second book,

34:56

God's Wisdom and Proverbs. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dan Phillips, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

35:06

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

35:15

USA. If you are asking about a personal and private matter, you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable, but only be anonymous if it's about a private matter.

35:26

And before the break, Dan, as you know, I forwarded you an email from Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, and she has four questions.

35:37

I think they're very good questions that are involved in somebody forming a biblically accurate worldview.

35:44

And her first question, it's interesting how she asks three of these questions in the form of the negative.

35:51

What isn't sanctification? I assume that she is coming from the perspective that many people have a false presupposition of what these terms or words mean.

36:01

But what isn't sanctification? Yeah, these are really good questions.

36:07

They're very solid questions. And let me say too that each of them is something that I deal with at some length in the book.

36:13

The first, what isn't sanctification? I've got a table on that in the book and some discussion about it.

36:20

The first thing I want to say about what sanctification isn't is it isn't justification. And that's very different.

36:26

That's the difference between the biblical saving gospel and the false gospel. It's the difference between the biblical saving gospel and the gospel of Rome, of the

36:36

Roman Catholic Church, which combines infused righteousness and justification, puts our works into God's declaration of righteousness.

36:46

So put concisely, justification is God's act in Christ declaring us completely righteous on the basis of Christ's imputed righteousness through our faith.

36:59

That is a once -for -all perfect act in which God is the actor, I'm the recipient,

37:05

Christ is the mediator. Justification, sorry, sanctification on the other hand is, well, another thing that sanctification isn't is it isn't just one thing.

37:15

There are three aspects to sanctification in the Bible. There's one sense of sanctification in which

37:22

I am sanctified positionally the moment I'm saved. Hebrews says we're sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

37:32

So I'm set apart for God's ownership and service by virtue of my salvation.

37:38

I am God's. I belong to God. I'm bought with a price and I'm His. And so in that way

37:43

I'm positionally sanctified. But that begins a lifetime process of sanctification in which

37:49

I grow in my holiness, in my conformity to the image of Christ through the character of God.

37:57

That's something not true of justification. There's no degrees of justification, but there are degrees of growth in the process of sanctification.

38:05

And there also is perfect sanctification when I see Him as He is and I'm conformed to His likeness.

38:13

I could say one more thing that's very important, very topical today. Sanctification is not by faith alone.

38:19

There is some teaching on that, and there always has been, and I'm sure you're familiar with the Keswick teaching of older days of crisis upgrades by abandoning ourselves or yielding ourselves, in which we're told to become passive and let

38:36

Christ live the Christian life through us, and we stop striving. We just yield.

38:41

And that's completely unbiblical, and I do talk about that at great length in the Bible. Sanctification, just the way

38:48

I put it, is all the commands in the New Testament are addressed to me. Not one of them is addressed to the

38:54

Holy Spirit. And not one of them is addressed to Jesus instead of me. I am told to love my wife.

39:00

I am told to flee fornication. I am told to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

39:05

The Holy Spirit isn't told to do those things for me. So maybe that's good for that since there's three other questions.

39:13

Yes, and in fact this aberrant view of sanctification where it is really focusing only on faith seems to have risen its ugly head even amongst some professing

39:27

Reformed Christians, especially it seems amongst some of our Presbyterian brethren. You know what,

39:33

I'm glad you said that because I wanted to say that. My book actually came out before that controversy became more of a hot issue in the,

39:43

I guess, 2013, maybe 2014, and I wish that the book had gotten around more because it anticipated it.

39:49

If the folks who were confused and caught up in that had read World Hope and Gospel, they would have had some biblical insight that I hope would have prepared them to see through the very pious sounding, the very godly sounding, the very

40:03

God -honoring and even Reformed sounding way that some of these people talk and see through it to see what the

40:09

Bible actually says about Christianity and sanctification. And the second question

40:15

Jenny has is, what isn't total depravity? It's an interesting concept that even some of our fire -breathing, hellfire and brimstone fundamentalist brethren disagree with total depravity, which to me makes no sense.

40:32

But if you could, and of course it's likely that they have a total misunderstanding or a different definition of total depravity than the one that has historically been used by Reformed Christians.

40:45

Right. Well, I'll be briefer unless you want me to expand on anything. One thing that total depravity isn't, is it isn't the teaching that everybody is as bad as we could be.

40:57

It is the teaching that we are all as bad off as we could be. It is the teaching that sin has touched every part of our makeup.

41:06

For instance, the people who think, well, we can still trust unbelieving sciences to tell us about psychology and about the history of the earth and about biology, because, you know, it's just science.

41:19

They're just dealing with facts. Well, there's a lot wrong with that statement, including the fact that we're not computers.

41:27

We don't just bloodlessly handle data. We interpret data. There isn't a fact that we don't interpret.

41:33

And we interpret it according to our worldview, and the Bible is crystal clear that our worldview is broken.

41:40

It's sinful. It's deceptive. The second thing that total depravity isn't, is it isn't an excuse for not repenting and believing in Christ.

41:50

We aren't going to be able to get to God and say, well, you're going to have to let me into heaven and not hold me accountable for my sins because I'm totally depraved.

41:59

And we have what is, this time, what is man's responsibility to God?

42:06

Man's responsibility is to respond to the Word of God by trusting and obeying.

42:13

Every time I get a word from God, I'm obligated. That is the existential meaning.

42:20

That's the impact of the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture. But in Scripture, God is speaking to me.

42:27

And so there is no such thing as God just sharing, you know, God just venting, just dropping a thought or two for me to take or leave.

42:33

If God speaks, it binds me. I have to respond to it. So what man's responsibility to God is to respond to his

42:41

Word by believing it and by responding obediently, whatever it calls us to do.

42:47

And the last question from Ginny is, what isn't free will? I had an interesting conversation on free will a couple of weeks ago with Pastor Greg Nichols of Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

43:03

And we were talking about sometimes we who are Calvinists make the mistake of denying free will without giving it any explanation where even our confessions, even our confessions say that we have free will, but there is a caveat behind that.

43:20

It's really that we are free to do as we please, but we only please evil or selfishness before we are regenerate.

43:28

That's the issue. That's right, yeah. Somebody quoted John MacArthur to me as saying, you're free to choose your next sin.

43:36

That's a good way to put it. What isn't free will? It isn't biblical, for one thing.

43:42

It isn't a thing. It isn't well understood either. People who use the word,

43:48

I'm sure, if you ask them to define it, they have trouble defining it. They say, well, it's the power to choose.

43:54

Okay, well, I believe that we have the power to choose. But the expression and the thought isn't biblical.

43:59

I think the most useful thing we can do is define what the will is. And I think

44:05

Jonathan Edwards did really helpful, not easy to understand, but really helpful work in that.

44:11

And as I recall him, he defines the will as the mind making choices.

44:19

It's not a free floating thing like a balloon just floating out there independent of any influence.

44:25

It is attached to my mind. The will is where my mind makes choices. Now, so then when you can, then you can frame it biblically and say, oh, okay, it's the power of the mind to make choices.

44:36

So is the mind free? Well, if anyone's ever read his Bible, or if he's even just read

44:42

Romans, he can answer instantly. No, our mind is a slave to sin.

44:47

We're slaves to sin. We have to be set free. The Son has to set us free. We can't think ourselves free because we're slaves.

44:56

So no, the will, I make choices that I am responsible for. And you said it well,

45:02

I choose according to my desires. I choose what I want to do. But the trouble is, what I want to do is sin.

45:08

That's what I want to do. I want to live for myself. I want to rebel against God. Amen. Well, Jenny, guess what?

45:15

You have received a free copy of the world tilting gospel, embracing a biblical worldview and hanging on tight quite a humorous photograph on the cover of a man sitting in a chair that is attached to a ceiling.

45:30

And we thank Kregel Publications for providing us with these copies that we are giving away.

45:39

Thank you so much, Jenny. And please make sure we have your full mailing address. We have a first time questioner.

45:46

And I hope that this listener in California writes in often just because I love saying the city where he lives.

45:56

This is the first time we've heard from Brennan in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

46:03

And Brennan says, this is my first question to your program, though I have listened for quite a while and I love it.

46:10

I commend you for your diligent work for the gospel and I thank you for giving me something to listen to every day that is edifying to myself and my family.

46:18

If you could ask Dan Phillips what he thinks is the most important thing for a

46:23

Christian to learn for the effective sharing of the gospel. Well, I don't want to sound like a smart aleck, but of course it is the gospel.

46:34

It's most important to learn the gospel. And my book is structured on the clearest statement of the gospel as such in the

46:42

New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says in so many words, brothers,

46:48

I'm going to make known to you the gospel that I preach to you. So I like that. I like simple passages that tell me what they're about.

46:55

That way I don't have to guess. And Paul says this is the gospel and he lays it out. So to know what's in that passage and what's involved in it, and to know

47:05

Christ is the most important thing because Christ is the center of the gospel.

47:10

And we preach Christ, we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel, we preach Christ. And always want to make sure that he's the center of our gospel.

47:18

We're not asking people simply to believe a few isolated doctrines or to accept a couple of spiritual gifts from God like forgiveness and love, but we're preaching

47:28

Christ to them. They need to deny themselves, take up the cross and follow him. They need to come to God through him.

47:35

They need to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ needs to become the center of their life, their

47:41

Lord, their life, their hope. So I hope that's a concise, it's a great question.

47:47

I hope that's a helpful answer. Well, you know, in some ways I'm sure you would agree that the very first chapter in part one of your book is at the core of why not only cults and false churches like the

48:03

Roman Catholic Church, but even some professedly evangelical churches, where they might have their bare -bone elements of the true gospel when

48:12

I'm speaking of evangelicals, but they have a distorted gospel, is when they get wrong knowing

48:19

God and man, which comes first, what difference does it make? The doctrine of God and the doctrine of man are typically blurred or distorted in some way in anybody that has either an out -and -out false gospel like Rome or like the cults, or a distorted gospel like many evangelicals have.

48:39

Wouldn't you say that that's part of the reason that you included that in your book? Oh yeah, absolutely.

48:46

And you're turning me right back to what is the thing I think I feel most keenly as I see people now bailing out and buckling on issues related to homosexuality, related to marriage, related to the role of women, evolution, so many different things.

49:04

When I see how people explain their decisions and their choices and their changes, I think this person's world has never been tilted by the gospel.

49:13

I think this person has never seen what God says about him. He's never been shattered by the root -to -branches understanding that sin has decimated us, and that we don't know anything properly until we know what

49:28

God thinks about an issue. We need to put everything that we think naturally ourselves to one side and test it all by what

49:35

Scripture says, and do it humbly and do it, well, with desperation.

49:42

I mean, this is life -and -death stuff. And you find that people just casually let go of central issues like hell, like the exclusivity of Christ, like the centrality of Christ.

49:54

You realize that here's somebody who's heard a very shallow gospel and has had a very shallow faith, and it's tragic.

50:02

It should not be. Well, Brennan, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, I thank you so much for joining us on the air with a question after having listened to our program for quite a while, and we hope that we keep hearing from you.

50:16

And guess what? Because you are a first -time questioner, not only are you winning, or have you won, the world -tilting gospel, embracing a biblical worldview, and hanging on tight by our guest,

50:28

Dan Phillips, you're also getting a new New American Standard Bible. That's one of those sentences where new is twice in the same sentence.

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Twice, back to back. A new New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

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NASB, who have been sponsoring Iron Trip and Zion Radio ever since we first launched our program back in 2005 and early 2006.

50:51

And we thank you, Brennan, and we hope to keep hearing from you often. Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York says, is it true that in the public sphere that the truth of total depravity is seen in the unbeliever's worldview because they think that Scripture's wisdom is foolishness?

51:09

Is that why men, commonly before regeneration, think that the Scriptures are foolish? Is it because of total depravity,

51:16

Dan? Yeah, absolutely. Proverbs 1, not to steal from our next chapter, but Proverbs 1 says that fools despise wisdom, and the heart of wisdom is the fear of the

51:27

Lord. Real wisdom starts with the fear of God, and that's where the fool starts, with a fundamental rejection of the lordship of God, the centrality of God.

51:38

So they think little of it, they think nothing of it, they disdain it, despise it.

51:43

Indeed. Well, Tyler, you have won the final, actually,

51:49

I'm sorry, it's the second to final copy of The World -Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips. Please make sure you give us your full mailing address, and we'll have

51:57

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service ship that out to you. Let me thank our friends at cvbbs .com,

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that's cumberlandvalleybbsbiblebookservice .com, for shipping out all of our winners, the free

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Bibles and books and DVDs and CDs that they win when they submit questions to our guests.

52:19

Todd and Patty Jennings have been faithful supporters of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio ever since we relaunched the program here in Pennsylvania in 2015, and we are truly indebted to them for their support.

52:34

And now we have the final winner of The World -Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips.

52:41

We have Joe in Slovenia, and Joe says, thank you for consistently having topics and guests who are truly turning the world upside down.

52:51

My question is related to ecumenism and turning the world upside down.

52:57

I love the quote by Martin Lloyd -Jones when he said, in response to those who were gloating over the growing ecumenical movement of his day, you seem to be arguing that if you succeed in bringing together a sufficient number of dead bodies, they will come alive.

53:11

What does Brother Phillips have to say about this quote in light of the Apostle Paul's teachings in 1 Corinthians that true believers and true churches must be separate and avoid partnerships with false forms of Christianity and paganism?

53:26

Are we going to repeat turning the world upside down through ecumenical unions with heretical and herodox expressions of Christianity, or is there a more biblical way?

53:36

If so, what is it? And he says, thank you so much for standing in and for the truth.

53:43

I'm going to forward you this question so you can have time to look it over while we are going to a break right now.

53:50

And if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:57

Chris Arnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dan Phillips. One sure way all

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers. I know you all use batteries every day, so I'm urging you all from now on to exclusively use batterydepot .com

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Call 866 -403 -3768. That's 866 -403 -3768.

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Or go to batterydepot .com. That's batterydepot .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

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Pastors Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastors Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

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01:01:03

Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes, and if you just tuned in to our show today, our guest for the full two hours is

01:01:09

Dan Phillips, pastor of Copperfield Bible Church in Houston, Texas. We just concluded the first hour addressing his book,

01:01:18

The World -Tilting Gospel, but we do have one more question from a listener that we will pick up on before moving on to our second topic for the second hour,

01:01:30

God's Wisdom and Proverbs. So if you have a question on God's Wisdom and Proverbs, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:01:40

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Before I re -read Joe and Slovenia's question,

01:01:49

I do want to make sure that you are aware of some very important events that are coming up.

01:01:56

Fellowship Conference New England is being held in Portland, Maine, August 3rd through the 5th, featuring such speakers as Pastor Don Curran of the

01:02:08

HeartCry Missionary Society, which is the organization founded by Paul Washer, my dear friend

01:02:13

Pastor Mack Tomlinson, who is an author and pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and Pastor Jesse Barrington, who's been on this program, a pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, the sister church of Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida, who owns

01:02:32

Grace Life Radio, which airs the pre -recorded version of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio every day.

01:02:39

And last but not least, Pastor Nate Pickowitz, who we just had on very recently, in fact it was on Tuesday of this week we had him on the program discussing reviving

01:02:50

New England, and he is also pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Ironworks, New Hampshire.

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If you would like to join me at the Fellowship Conference New England in Portland, Maine, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

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fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, and register. Then after that, November 17th through the 18th, in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, the

01:03:13

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology at the

01:03:21

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, featuring Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

01:03:31

If you'd like to join me at the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, which has its theme this year,

01:03:39

For Still Our Ancient Foe, a line from A Mighty Fortress by Martin Luther. If you'd like to join me there, go to alliancenet .org,

01:03:48

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

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Then we have the G3 Conference returning to Atlanta, Georgia, January 18th through the 20th, with a

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Spanish edition of the conference before the English conference on January 17th.

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The speakers at the English conference include Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, H .B.

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Charles Jr., Tim Chalies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace.

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The theme is Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. If you would like to join me

01:04:34

January 18th through the 20th at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, go to g3conference .com,

01:04:40

g3conference .com. Now I'd like to do something, well actually, I have to do something,

01:04:46

I don't like doing it, but I've been urged by my advertisers to do this regularly, and that is make a public appeal for donations and new advertisers.

01:04:57

It makes me very uncomfortable to ask you for money, but if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to support your local church as you always have and provide for your family, which are two things commanded in the scriptures by God to do, you must be able to do those before you help

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01:05:49

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01:06:23

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Just send me an email with advertising in the subject line, and I would love to talk to you about that as soon as possible.

01:06:32

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and that's also the email address for you to ask questions for our guest

01:06:39

Dan Phillips on the topic we are going to be discussing any minute now,

01:06:45

God's Wisdom and Proverbs. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:06:53

and as you know, brother, before we went to the break, we had a listener in Slovenia, Joe, who asks, my question is related to ecumenism and turning the world upside down.

01:07:09

I love the quote from Martin Lloyd -Jones when he said, in response to those who are gloating over the growing ecumenical movement of his day, you seem to be arguing that if you succeed in bringing together a sufficient number of dead bodies, they will come alive.

01:07:22

What does brother Phillips have to say about this quote in light of the Apostle Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians that true believers and true churches must be separate from and avoid partnerships with false forms of Christianity and paganism?

01:07:37

Yeah, well first let me just say real briefly, I really appreciate you making so clear that you want people to put their family and their church ahead of giving the radio ministries.

01:07:47

So many don't make that clear. I really respect you for making it clear. Thank you very much. Do you mind my saying that I should be in Pennsylvania this

01:07:56

October for a conference at Christ Bible Church in Cranberry Township?

01:08:02

Wow. Yeah. Well, I'm going to try to make it a point to be there.

01:08:07

I would love to see you. I was there last year, just loved it. Great people, lovely area, just absolutely loved it.

01:08:14

So Justin Peters will be there. Oh wow, I've had him on the program as well.

01:08:20

Oh, he's such a good guy. We were at a conference together earlier in Ohio and first time I met him. What a great guy.

01:08:27

To answer the brother's question, I'll try to keep it brief. I think the most important thing is just to make the gospel central and not to pretend that it's not.

01:08:37

I did a column at Pyromaniacs called 19 Questions for Signers of the

01:08:42

Manhattan Declaration. See, their idea was that we agree on abortion, so we ought to join hands with other people who do.

01:08:50

And there are ways to do that, but the trouble was that the document said we are

01:08:55

Christians in the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church and Evangelical Church, and we're all

01:09:01

Christians. Yes, I actually did a program on that years ago. Some of the people who signed that declaration were heroes of mine.

01:09:10

It just baffled me. But that's something where I'm pretty much of a fire breather, that a church that historically denies the gospel, like the

01:09:19

Roman Catholic Church, I'm not going to call it Christian, or I'm just going to stop using that word. But it's a biblical word, and I'm not willing to give it up.

01:09:27

But I think if somebody denies the gospel and the strength of Galatians' word, I'm not going to call them a brother.

01:09:32

I'm not going to treat them like a brother. Somebody who's in the Orthodox Church, somebody who's in the Roman Catholic Church, somebody who's in an apostate denomination.

01:09:41

And I don't mean just apostate, because they don't dot this I or cross this T just like I do. I'm talking about central issues of the gospel.

01:09:48

And Rome, we're about to celebrate the 500th anniversary, right, of where it became clear that Rome and the gospel are two different things.

01:09:57

So that's my brief answer, so we can move on. I've been giving too long answers, I'm afraid. No, that's quite all right.

01:10:03

I prefer you give longer answers. It's much easier for me to interrupt you than to pull teeth.

01:10:11

And believe me, I've had some interviews, not lately, but years ago, where I had to really arduously labor at pulling answers out of my guests, even from some surprisingly brilliant people whose names you would recognize.

01:10:29

But obviously, I'm not going to... You're thinking, so did you want to do this interview? Did you want to do this interview?

01:10:37

Well, thank you, Joe in Slovenia, and you won the final copy of the book that we have been addressing,

01:10:48

The World -Tilting Gospel, Embracing a Biblical Worldview and Hanging on Tight by our guest,

01:10:55

Dan Phillips. And thank you for providing an address here in the United States, where your daughter lives in Georgia, where Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can much more affordably mail you this book.

01:11:08

And thanks again for making our discussions more interesting and lively through your thoughtful questions,

01:11:15

Joe. Keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Slovenia and beyond. And now we are moving to a new topic.

01:11:24

We're shifting courses here. We're going to be discussing God's Wisdom in Proverbs. What a beautiful book.

01:11:30

I tell you, Cress Biblical Resources did a great job with the binding and everything on this.

01:11:36

This is a gorgeous, a gorgeous hardback book. Looks like a textbook in a very prestigious seminary or something.

01:11:48

But it's a really well laid out book. I know that this may sound like a silly question because proverbial wisdom is something that all people seem to be drawn to.

01:12:05

And unfortunately, some folks are drawn to proverbial statements and philosophies that are non -biblical and anti -biblical.

01:12:16

But even the lost very often will be intrigued and comforted or be drawn to the wisdom in the book of Proverbs and the

01:12:33

Holy Scriptures, even sometimes the unregenerate, as I said. But if you could tell us, what was the compelling factor that drew you to consider writing this book to begin with?

01:12:45

It's also available in the Logos Bible software format, by the way. Great.

01:12:50

Well, I've loved Proverbs for years, although I'll confess that I probably loved it for the wrong reason at first.

01:12:58

And that really is kind of one of the reasons I wrote the book. I think that it appealed to me because I heard it used by certain prominent people in a way that made it seem like a formula book.

01:13:11

That if you work these principles, then you will succeed. You work these principles and you'll have

01:13:17

God's blessing in your life, your marriage, your family, and whatnot. And it is possible to read the book that way, to read it as if it were a manual giving us...

01:13:26

And I've seen it done. I'm sure you have too. That you do these things and your children will turn out godly, guaranteed, and probably missionaries, you know.

01:13:36

And that you do this and your wife will be happy. And you do this and you'll be rich.

01:13:42

And on the other hand, very much like Job's friends, if you're not experiencing godly children, or good income, or good health for that matter, you probably are violating one of the principles in this book.

01:13:56

And you've got to find those principles and you've got to work them. So some of the things that I work hard to make as clear and accessible as I can in the book, and overwhelmingly obvious, is first of all the genre of Proverbs.

01:14:15

What it is to read a proverb. The fact that a proverb is not the same thing as a law, or an epistle, or a narration.

01:14:23

It has to be read according to what the genre of Proverbs is. You don't read poetry, for instance, like you read a narrative.

01:14:30

You don't read a narrative like you read a letter from your wife. You don't read a letter from your wife like you read an instruction manual in a

01:14:37

TV box. These are different kinds of literature and you've got to read them according to their rules, not according to something you've put on it.

01:14:45

So that's the first thing. Second thing is, I make a fair bit out of something that I discovered in appreciating the genre of Proverbs, that the whole book is presented as an inclusio.

01:14:58

An inclusio is a literary device where you sound a note at the beginning of a work, you might repeat it during the work, and then you repeat it at the end of the work, and that has the force of framing the work, of telling you what the whole work was about.

01:15:16

So, I say a lot of people come to Proverbs and they pick out this proverb and that proverb, like it was so many fortune cookies, right?

01:15:21

So many formulas for success. And this is God's formulas for successful living.

01:15:27

I've seen it handled that way. However, look at Proverbs 1 -7. What does Proverbs 1 -7 say?

01:15:34

It says, The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge, full of despised wisdom and understanding.

01:15:39

And then you look at chapter 9, which begins the first set of long, extended Proverbs, and you find in verse 10, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom, full of despise, and so forth.

01:15:53

So there's the fear of Yahweh at the start and the beginning of the opening section of Proverbs, but what do you see when you turn to the last chapter of Proverbs?

01:16:01

Turn to the last chapter of Proverbs, you see that poem about the powerful, godly woman, and what do you see in verse 30,

01:16:10

Proverbs 31 -30? You see, beauty is deceit, that beauty is...

01:16:15

I got mad and radio nerves. I've quoted that a hundred times. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears

01:16:24

Yahweh is to be praised. So there it is, start of the book, fear of Yahweh, end of the first section of the book, fear of Yahweh, end of the whole book, the fear of Yahweh.

01:16:34

So that tells me that what the whole book is about is not about formulas for success in life, the whole book is about how to live in a

01:16:45

God -fearing manner, how to live my life in the fear of God, and that really affects the way you read any part of Proverbs.

01:16:54

And we already have a listener with a question here, our friend

01:17:01

Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania has joined us again with a question this time on Proverbs, and she says, what a wise choice to have

01:17:12

Brother Phillips today. My question about... My question about God's wisdom in Proverbs regards the parallelism in chapter 26 verse 4 and 5, do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will also be like him, answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.

01:17:37

Please explain how to discern when to apply which half of this parallelism.

01:17:43

Not always easy, is it? Maybe some actual or hypothetical examples will be helpful.

01:17:49

Thank you for sharpening us in God's wisdom, our Lord Jesus Christ, today. That's actually a very terrific choice.

01:17:57

I use that in the book to explain and illustrate the way to read

01:18:02

Proverbs, because obviously you can't take either of those Proverbs as if it were a freestanding, apply -this -in -all -situations law, because they do formally contradict each other.

01:18:15

But they teach us the principle that the way you read Proverbs is you kind of mentally supply the words, mentally supply the words, other things being equal, or in some situations.

01:18:29

And that's what these Proverbs do. In verse 4, it takes the situation where somebody is approaching you with a foolish premise, and the temptation, and the temptation of a lot of Christians, is to accept the premise and argue on his own terms, and then be surprised when you don't end up at a godly conclusion.

01:18:50

I think that's what evidential apologetics does. I think that's what a lot of people do when they deal wrongly with issues of creation and geohistory, that they accept the unbeliever's premises, like a uniformitarianism or whatnot, and then they end up with the unbeliever's conclusions, which is not what they meant to do.

01:19:12

So Solomon warns us not to blithely accept the starting point of the unbeliever.

01:19:19

But then on the other hand, verse 5 tells us about some situations where what you do is you say, okay, I'll tell you what, let's take your starting point and let's flesh it out and see where we end.

01:19:30

And you show that it ends with absurdity. And that is a very biblical way to do evangelism, to do demo work.

01:19:38

So they're a good illustration that you've got to take each proverb on its own terms, and not try to make a universal law out of every proverb.

01:19:48

Now, some proverbs are universal law, and we discern some of those things by comparing it against the whole of scripture.

01:19:54

Like, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. That is universally true. But these verses obviously are verses that apply differently in different situations.

01:20:03

Proverbs 13 .20 is another example that, I don't, that, no,

01:20:09

I don't mean, I mean 16 .7, forgive me. When a man's way is pleased the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

01:20:17

Well, that's the principle that we need to put our relationship with God first. Because God controls the spirits of all flesh, that even the king's heart is in his hands, as rivers of water he can turn in any way he wishes.

01:20:30

So he can make people be at peace with us. But if you try to apply that as a law, why does that come to grief when you look at the prophets, and especially when you come to the

01:20:38

Lord Jesus? Nobody's ways ever pleased God more than Jesus, but nobody was ever hated more than Jesus.

01:20:45

So you've got to, it takes wisdom to apply and understand proverbs. Well, thank you,

01:20:53

Jenny. You have won a free copy of this gorgeous book, God's Wisdom in Proverbs, by our guest

01:21:00

Dan Phillips. And that is a compliments of our friends at Cress Biblical Resources.

01:21:07

And it'll be shipped out to you, compliments of our friends, at cvbbs .com. That's cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com,

01:21:16

whose sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for supporting

01:21:22

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And whenever you hear a book being mentioned on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, please order it through cvbbs .com,

01:21:33

cvbbs .com. We would love to see them supporting this program for years to come, should

01:21:40

God permit that we continue on the airwaves. And we have a listener in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Bibi, who says,

01:21:56

I know that it is more rare today for conservative Christians to be against women working outside the home, but how would you respond to such a person in light of Proverbs 31, which is the famous proverb describing an ideal woman, and among those things that she does is she considers a field and buys it, and other things that would give one the impression that she is not merely just a home buddy, although the psalm is replete with things that she does in the home, she seems to be very much like a very successful modern woman in many ways.

01:22:43

How would you describe that to those who think that women should never be involved in employment outside their own household?

01:22:53

Well, I actually have a section expounding Proverbs 31 in the book, in chapter seven of the book,

01:23:00

It's Skill in Godly Marriage, and yeah, indeed the woman in Proverbs 31, this idealized portrait of the powerful wife, the strong -charactered woman, she does have a home business, she does do financial transactions, she is a very powerful woman with a lot of initiative, but what

01:23:23

I suggest is that the heart of the poem, no pun intended, comes at the start, verses 10, 11, and 12,

01:23:32

I'll read it from the English Standard Version, an excellent wife who can find, she is far more precious than jewels, the heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain, she does him good and not harm all the days of her life.

01:23:52

So, this woman, as you read through the poem, you realize that she engages in business and activities from which she gets a lot of satisfaction, a lot of joy, and her husband and children affirm her at the end of the poem, they rise up, verse 28, her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and praises her, many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all, but what she does, she doesn't do to try to establish her own independent identity and achievements apart from her family, she does it as her husband's helper, her husband's heart trusts in her because she's doing him good, so what she does, she does for the good of the family, she does for the good of her husband and her children, she does it as his partner, and there's the implication that he's prominent in the gates, which is to say he's a leader in that town, he's the leader in that society, in part because of her, that indeed, behind the successful man is a powerful woman, who he knows that he can trust, he doesn't have to worry about whether she's working against him, or whether she's tearing him down, or talking him down, bad -mouthing him, working at cross -purposes with him, that they're a team, and a very successful team,

01:25:09

I hope that's helpful. Well thanks Bibi for the excellent question, you've also won a free copy of God's Wisdom in Proverbs by Dan Phillips, compliments of Cress Biblical Resources, and that will be shipped out to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:25:28

so thanks a lot for your question. We have a question from Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, and Ronald says, you were mentioning that we should never view the

01:25:40

Bible or the book of Proverbs specifically as a book featuring lists of things we do that have guarantees attached to them for a better life.

01:25:54

How do you respond though to the fact that there are Proverbs that seem to read that way, and although Ephesians is in the

01:26:04

New Testament, it has a proverbial sound to it when we read in chapter 6 verses 1 and 2, children obey your parents in the

01:26:15

Lord, for this is right, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.

01:26:27

I know of children that were the apple of their parents' eyes, who were obedient and Christ -like, who were taken off this earth even before the prime of their life.

01:26:40

How does this promise coincide with what occurs in the lives of many people we know and love?

01:26:49

That's a really great question, that's a very perceptive question, so let me come at that from a few different angles.

01:26:56

First of all, I actually hadn't thought of this, but you mentioned my church, which I love,

01:27:01

Copperfield Bible Church, it's a bunch of really wonderful folks, and if anyone's ever in Houston, I hope you'll come by and see us.

01:27:07

We've got the sermons up on Sermon Audio, and I preach through the first 10 chapters of Proverbs, and in those sermons, in the course of those sermons,

01:27:18

I did talk about that question, and I do talk about that question in the book, it's a terrific question, so let me try to give a brief but still substantial answer to it.

01:27:29

So Proverbs, one of the things you have to do is you have to read it in its canonical setting, and its setting in terms of God's unfolding program, and it was not written under the

01:27:40

New Covenant, it wasn't written under the Noahic Covenant, it was written under the Mosaic Covenant, where God said that there would be certain material blessings as the people walked in faithfulness to his laws and his commandments, that he said that they would have prosperity in their fields, and in their barns, and in their families, if they walked according to his laws and statutes, and if they didn't, and went off after other idols and so forth, then they would know his opposition.

01:28:11

So Proverbs falls in that niche of tying, of course the fear of Yahweh is the heart of walking according to God's commandments and statutes, and so right from chapter one on, there is the fact that if you walk according to God, God can make the world work in your interests, or if you walk in opposition to him, he can turn everything against you.

01:28:34

And so those are general principles, and a lot of these general principles are built into the way that God makes the world work.

01:28:43

And I'll try to say this only one more time, but I do talk about this in the book at greater length, but a person who walks according to wisdom principles is spared a lot of anxieties, and fears, and miseries that he doesn't even think about the fact that he's being spared them, because of what his life is.

01:29:01

He doesn't think about the fact that he doesn't have to look over his shoulder to see if a jealous husband is closing in on him.

01:29:09

He doesn't have to watch to see if the warrant officers caught up with him, or if the police are walking up to his door because they finally found him out.

01:29:18

He doesn't have to worry about venereal diseases, he doesn't need to worry about bill collectors because of the gambling debt he's run up, or the things that he's done in a drunken frenzy, you know?

01:29:30

And so all of these things are things that we take for granted if we've lived with the Lord for some time.

01:29:35

The people who don't run into the fact that the world doesn't work. It's still God's world, and these things still bring consequences on you, for which a person who walks in the fear of God is spared.

01:29:46

But at the same time, Proverbs does recognize that these principles don't work out with 100 % accuracy in every case.

01:29:55

For instance, that raising children is not an automatically successful thing, or else it wouldn't make sense that so many verses tell the son to pay attention, and to listen, and to remember these words, and lay them up to heart.

01:30:08

Well, if a godly upbringing just worked automatically, son wouldn't need to do anything, it'd just work like magic, you know, like some formula out of Harry Potter.

01:30:18

Also, Proverbs warns that it's possible to be godly in poor, and he says better is the poor godly man than somebody who's ungodly but has great wealth.

01:30:29

So Proverbs acknowledges the fact that hard things can happen to godly people, and that's kind of where another wisdom literature book lives.

01:30:39

Proverbs lives in one corner of the wisdom literature neighborhood. Job lives in another corner.

01:30:46

Job is the living example of what your friend there has asked about, because Job was a guy who did do everything right, and everything went wrong, and it was because of reasons that he had no idea about, and the counsel of God.

01:30:59

So his friends come along, like people who take Proverbs as a book of legal formulas, right?

01:31:06

His three friends say to him, okay, X, Y, and Z have happened to you, the only reason that would happen to you is because of sin, because if you were working this godly thing you'd be having a happy life and a happy family.

01:31:18

So what's the sin? Let's deal with the sin so you can go back to having a happy life. And of course that was a fundamental misunderstanding on their part.

01:31:27

Well, thank you Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, for the great question.

01:31:32

You've also won a free copy of God's Wisdom in Proverbs by Dan Phillips. Please make sure we have your full mailing address so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to By the way,

01:31:43

I know that Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, at least today, is not guilty of violating the command of God, thou shalt not steal, because she says, she emails me,

01:31:55

I didn't send in that question on Proverbs, it must be another Jenny or someone else. You're absolutely right,

01:32:02

Jenny, it was Joe from Slovenia again, and his email was right on top of yours, so I got the two names confused.

01:32:10

I thank you for your honesty. So Joe from Slovenia, you are getting that second book today, you are getting

01:32:17

God's Wisdom in Proverbs, and we thank you again for the American address where we are shipping this to your daughter in Georgia.

01:32:25

And by the way, let me remind you, Joe in Slovenia, please try to make a vacation arrangement to visit the states, visit your daughter in Georgia during the

01:32:39

G3 conference from the 18th through the 20th of January, so I can meet you face to face and have some fellowship with you.

01:32:46

And don't forget about that G3 conference in Atlanta, January 18th through the 20th, go to g3conference .com,

01:32:54

g3conference .com. We're going to our final break right now, and if anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:33:03

chrisarnson at gmail .com. I advise you email us quickly because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:33:10

And before I go to the break, I'm going to read a question for Dan, and you can answer it when we return from the break,

01:33:17

Dan. RJ in White Plains, New York says, I have heard different interpretations for the proverb that is the source for the name of your show,

01:33:32

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

01:33:41

Would your guest please exegete that passage since I have heard different interpretations of what that actually means?

01:33:47

That's a great question. Thank you, RJ, and we'll have Dan Phillips answer that question when we return from the break.

01:33:55

And once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:34:00

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01:42:24

Chris Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson, and this is the last 15 minutes or so of our program today with Dan Phillips.

01:42:30

We are discussing the book that he wrote titled God's Wisdom in Proverbs. And if you'd like to join us, we would ask that you do so immediately, because we're running out of time.

01:42:41

Our email address for a question is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:42:48

And as you know, right before the break, Dan, our RJ in White Plains, New York, wanted you to exegete

01:42:55

Proverbs 27 verse 17. Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another, because he has heard different interpretations of that text.

01:43:05

So you're sitting there in suspense wondering if you're going to have to change the name of your radio show. Should I draw this out a little bit?

01:43:15

I will not change my title either way, because sometimes I get those who disagree to learn from each other, as Matthew Henry exegeted that text, and sometimes

01:43:27

I get people really angry. So that would be the other way I've heard this is supposed to be understood.

01:43:33

It's a sharp question. That didn't mean to pun, but it's a sharp question. All right, there's the pun.

01:43:40

If I pun, it's usually not. But yeah, I'm aware that there is a different interpretation of it.

01:43:46

I've not found that persuasive. I'm looking at the Hebrew, and the common translation is a perfectly good translation of the

01:43:54

Hebrew text. Very literally, it says, well, fairly literally, it says, iron sharpens iron, and a man sharpens the face of his friend.

01:44:03

Now, there's a pun there, because Solomon himself in Ecclesiastes 10 .10 uses that word face to describe the edge of a sword.

01:44:13

So like iron sharpens the edge of a sword, so a man sharpens the edge of his friend.

01:44:21

He sharpens his friend's wit, his friend's judgment, his friend's character. So, and checking with both the common standard lexicons in the most recent dictionary of classical

01:44:36

Hebrew, they accept the translation sharpens. There is a conjectural reading that reads the

01:44:43

Hebrew text differently, but there's just really no reason to, because it makes sense as it is.

01:44:50

Well, thank you, RJ, and you have also won a free copy of God's Wisdom and Proverbs.

01:44:56

So please make sure we have your mailing address, so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com

01:45:02

can ship that out to you. And once again, we thank Cress Biblical Resources for these books.

01:45:10

What have been some of the proverbs that have had the greatest impact on your life and ministry personally?

01:45:20

Proverbs 1 .7 is the most significant one. That the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom.

01:45:26

That one is just, when you think about it and you understand it in biblical setting, and in fact,

01:45:32

I have a whole chapter devoted to that in the book. It just is a revolutionary, actually it dovetails with the message of the world to the gospel.

01:45:42

Because Solomon does not say that the fear of the Lord is where wisdom leads you. He doesn't say somebody who handles the evidence wisely will end up fearing the

01:45:52

Lord. What he says is, if you want, in Proverbs 1 .7, if you want knowledge, in Proverbs 9 .10,

01:45:58

if you want wisdom, you've got to start with the fear of Yahweh. So you start like the

01:46:04

Bible does. The Bible doesn't start with a series of proofs of the existence of God to appeal to the reason of the unsaved

01:46:12

God -hater, to persuade him that there might be something like God. Instead, it starts with the reality of God and takes it from there.

01:46:21

So that's where wisdom is to be found. We've got to start with God. And that is the whole message of the other book,

01:46:28

The World's Open Gospel, that what happens in conversion is our life outside of Christ is dealt death.

01:46:37

It's crucified. We're supposed to deny it and then rebuild consciously out of submission to the

01:46:43

Lordship of Jesus Christ. And so, Proverbs way, one of the things I suggest in the book is that that is the

01:46:51

Old Testament equivalent of believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved. But Solomon's way of saying it is to start with the fear of Yahweh, that attitude that sees

01:47:00

God as sovereign and absolute, and me as derived and dependent and needing him for everything.

01:47:10

We have, let's see, we have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says,

01:47:18

Don't you think that both the Proverbs and the Psalms dispel the myth that unfortunately many

01:47:26

Christians continue to perpetrate? That the God of the Old Testament is a meaner, more wrathful and fire -breathing

01:47:36

God than the God of the New Testament, who is more kind and merciful and patient.

01:47:42

Yet at the same time, they would understand, of course, that there is only one God. Don't the

01:47:48

Proverbs and the Psalms show completely how patient and loving and merciful

01:47:54

God has always been, both in the Old and New Covenants? Oh, yes, that's another very good question.

01:48:01

I remember that's one of the things that after I was saved in the cult that I was in, we had bought the common line, the

01:48:08

Old Testament and New Testament are fundamentally different. The God of the Old Testament is an angry, fire -breathing volcano demon, and the

01:48:16

God of the New Testament is the cuddlier, nicer, kinder, gentler God of Jesus. So I have to admit that after my conversion, first time

01:48:25

I read the Old Testament, well, that's what I knew about it. And so I was a little worried, what was I going to run into? And I was just overwhelmed with the fact that what

01:48:33

I ran into was the exact same God as in the New. So to be specific to the question, yes, that's clearly the case in Psalms.

01:48:41

Proverbs, a number of Proverbs are simply quoted in the New Testament without the slightest hiccup as if they have to adjust it and make it fit in a different milieu.

01:48:53

For instance, obviously, Hebrews 12 encourages the people he's writing to by reminding them of the voice of the

01:49:02

Father in Proverbs 3, where we read those who the Lord loves, he disciplines.

01:49:09

So Proverbs 3 talks about a father's love for his child and talks about Yahweh's love for his people in the same terms, and says the reason why we feel his discipline is because he loves us.

01:49:23

Thank you, C .J. in Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York. You are also getting a copy of God's Wisdom in Proverbs by Dan Phillips.

01:49:31

Please make sure we have your full mailing address, so Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to you as soon as possible.

01:49:39

Let's see here, we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, what are some of the most difficult

01:49:48

Proverbs for you to understand the full meaning of? That's not fair.

01:49:58

She wants me to admit the ones that I still don't understand. This is

01:50:03

Arnie, so it's a man. Arnie, hey Arnie. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. See, I was so devastated by the question.

01:50:14

Well, it's going to sound like I'm cheating, but the honest truth is none comes to mind, but that's not because there aren't any.

01:50:23

There are a great many. Arnie, let me just tell you this, that I've read Proverbs countless times, but when

01:50:30

I read it, I usually read it with a feeling of, okay, I think I get this verse, but I might find out that I really don't when

01:50:38

I study it closely. And that was my experience when I preached through Proverbs, because obviously, when

01:50:44

I preached it, I had to, first of all, I had to understand the structure. I had to understand the central thoughts so that I could translate it into a sermon and not just a walking commentary.

01:50:56

And when I got to chapter 10, that was challenging, particularly, well, it was actually all challenging.

01:51:01

It was really a workout every week. It was like going to the gym every week in terms of doing the exegesis and making the sermon, but it was a delight.

01:51:10

It was a thrill. But I'd say I don't feel like I understand any of the verses that I haven't studied really, really closely.

01:51:18

So I know that's kind of a cheaty question, but I do not think that I have mastered this book.

01:51:24

In fact, one of the things on my bucket list that I would like to do before I die, if I'm spared, is

01:51:30

I would like to write a commentary on Proverbs, and that would force me to face some of those verses that are difficult to understand.

01:51:40

If I can say this, one of the things in the book that I think might give that kind of experience to a lot of people is

01:51:46

I have a whole appendix dedicated to Proverbs 22 .6,

01:51:52

which I think is the most misunderstood verse in the Bible, at least in the book of Proverbs, certainly.

01:52:00

Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it, is the ESV version.

01:52:06

And countless parents use that as a guarantee that because little Johnny went to Sunday school and they did

01:52:12

Bible reading with him, even though now he's off drinking and whoring and wants nothing to do with Jesus, they're sure he's going to come back one day because that's what this verse says.

01:52:21

This verse doesn't say anything like that. Yeah, I've heard some exegete that to mean that if you train a child according to its proclivities or his or her proclivities, they're never going to depart from those proclivities, whether they're good or bad.

01:52:38

So it's not necessarily something that is a pleasant offer of hope.

01:52:46

It's more of a rebuke. I've heard that from some. What are your feelings about that interpretation? You'll have to read the book.

01:52:55

I do think that that's pretty close to what he's saying, because the fact is that everything about the common translation is wrong.

01:53:05

It's just, it's not in the Hebrew text. I'm delighted to see that the new version of the Christian Standard Bible, I don't know who worked on this, but it's a big change from the last version of the

01:53:18

Christian Standard. That's the Brodman -Holdman version? Yes, that's right, that's right. And the one that just came out this year, their translation of that verse is very, very like my translation in my book.

01:53:31

Listen to their old translation. It was, teach a youth about the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

01:53:38

But their new version is, start a youth out on his way. Even when he grows old, he will not depart from it.

01:53:44

That's very like the version I give. Now, his way, that's what Solomon says. Start out a youth on his way.

01:53:51

It doesn't say God's way. It says his way, and the nearest noun is the youth, the young man.

01:53:57

Well, what is the way of the child in Proverbs? Foolishness. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child.

01:54:04

But the rod of discipline drives it far from him, Solomon says. And on and on. So his way is going to be a foolish way, and what

01:54:11

Solomon is saying is he's warning parents, if you start a child accustomed to getting his own way, well, that's the way he's going to grow up.

01:54:20

He's going to grow up expecting to get his own way, which is the opposite of Calvin. We have

01:54:27

Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, I know this is a bit off topic, but knowing that your guest is from the

01:54:33

Bible Belt, I was wondering if the difficulties that he faces reaching those who they believe themselves are

01:54:43

Christian but are sadly deluded is a great challenge for him and his church in Houston, Texas.

01:54:53

Yeah, that's a great question. Although, let me say, I'm not from the Bible Belt. I'm from California, so I'm kind of from the tie -dye hippie t -shirts.

01:55:01

Well, now you're from the Bible Belt. Yeah, now I'm in the Bible Belt, and that's absolutely true.

01:55:09

Everybody thinks he's a Christian. So, yeah, it's a big challenge. You're absolutely right. The people in this church are just absolutely delightful.

01:55:16

I can tell the first time when I came and candidated and the kind of questions I got in that Sunday school class and whatnot, they were sharp questions.

01:55:24

I knew I was going to have to bring my A -game to this church because they were a sharp bunch of people and still are.

01:55:31

But it's true, the people I've met and talked to, everybody's a Christian. In fact,

01:55:36

I know a lady who just went in the opposite direction. She and her husband just moved to California, and she says it's nice to talk to people there because they don't at all think they're

01:55:46

Christians. They know they're not Christians. And so that starts out as a clear place in talking to a society, all of whom think that they're

01:55:54

Christians because they're Texans or because they're in the Bible Belt and whatnot. So you go down to the gospel and about what it means to live as a

01:56:03

Christian, be a Christian. If it's true that you believe in Jesus, then I'm going to see some of these things in your life and what's this

01:56:09

I'm saying? But yeah, it's a unique challenge. I remember having a conversation years ago with an elderly

01:56:18

Presbyterian brother from Mississippi, and when he heard I was from New York, he said to me, brother, you got it easy.

01:56:29

Because up in New York, all you got to do is get people saved.

01:56:34

We got to get them lost and then get them saved. That's great.

01:56:42

Well, I'd like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air.

01:56:51

That having Jesus as your Lord changes the way you think about and relate to everything.

01:56:57

Having Jesus as your Lord drives us to the Word of God, because that's the Word of the

01:57:02

Lord. That is where God meets us and speaks to us, just as if you're standing in front of us.

01:57:10

And having a real relationship with a real Jesus who's the real Lord changes the way we see everything.

01:57:17

And if we find that we don't see everything different, we should consider whether we really do know him. And if you could, in 60 seconds, as we begin this program with the

01:57:26

Gospel, I'd like you to just present the Gospel in 60 seconds for our listeners. Oh, I'd be delighted to.

01:57:33

God is the center and creator of the universe. It's his universe. It's his world. It's his laws.

01:57:39

And we're his creatures. We're accountable to him. His standards are his standards, not our average.

01:57:44

And judged by his standards, we're guilty sinners. His first law is to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

01:57:51

None of us has done that. That makes us guilty sinners and condemned without hope in ourselves. But he so loved the world that he sent his only son to save sinners.

01:58:00

Jesus Christ took on a human nature. He lived the righteous, God -fearing life that none of us has lived.

01:58:07

He satisfied God's justice by his life. He satisfied God's justice by dying in the stead of his people and satisfying the wages of sin, which is death.

01:58:19

So that all who believe in him may have everlasting life. He died for his people's sin.

01:58:26

He rose for their justification. He ever lives to save the uttermost those who draw near to the

01:58:32

Father through him. So call on him to be saved. Turn to him. Plead with him to be your Lord and your Savior.

01:58:38

Amen. And if anybody wants to investigate or research how to visit Copperfield Bible Church in Houston, Texas, go to CopperfieldBibleChurch .org,

01:58:48

CopperfieldBibleChurch .org. Thank you so much, Pastor Dan, for being on the program. I look forward to you coming back soon.

01:58:54

In fact, if you could hold on, I would like to pick another date to interview you. Monday, we have the entire band of Adams Road who are all ex -Mormons who have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, the musical ministry of Adams Road.

01:59:09

All members will be live here in studio Monday, July 3rd. I hope you all have a safe and God -honoring 4th of July weekend.

01:59:17

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