July 20, 2022 Show with Otis Buckley on “One Urban Pastor’s Journey Into the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace & Shepherding a Flock to Whom These Teachings Are New”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 20th day of July 2022.

I am thrilled to have a first -time guest on the program who I met at a recent

Banner of Truth Pastors Conference in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and after having some conversation with this brother,

I knew that I wanted to interview him, and I believe the discussion that awaits us will be quite fascinating and edifying.

His name is Otis Buckley, and he is pastor of High Point Bible Church, NYC, and we are addressing one urban black pastor's journey into the doctrines of sovereign grace and shepherding a flock to whom these teachings are new.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Otis Buckley.

How are you, Chris, and thank you for having me. It's my pleasure, and it's an honor, and I'm looking forward to a most edifying talk.

Amen, and tell our listeners about High Point Bible Church, NYC. Yeah, so High Point Bible Church, NYC, it's in New York City, and it was a church that was set up and established by my father -in -law, and with his sudden passing,

I, through a series of events in the Lord's providence, stepped into the senior pastor role, and it's been quite a journey, because where I was at the start,

I have grown theologically and come into some new horizons, as it were, and a greater understanding, and so it's just been a wonderful experience.

We've got a great group of folks there, members there, and I came in and I knew that I was needing to shore up some things theologically, and so we started off just walking through the gospel and articulating that and preaching that and understanding that I've been preaching expositionally, verse by verse, book by book, every once in a while, maybe stepping aside to address something that was a pressing matter, but for the most part, it's been expositional, and that's been good both for me, as well as for our congregation.

Praise God. And how long ago did your late father -in -law found the church? Oh, goodness, that would have been about 35, 40 years ago.

Yeah, they had moved around, and at one point they were in Brooklyn and then in Harlem and then in, most recently, the

Bronx, and so that's kind of where we've been since, but like a lot of churches in New York City, if you don't have your own building and you haven't been there a while, it's likely that you're probably sharing a space and so forth, and that's kind of where we find ourselves today, but nonetheless, great community, the love of the

Lord is there, and the Word is being preached every week by His grace. Now what would be a summary description of the church as your father -in -law founded it?

Well, it definitely would have been under the understanding of Pentecostal, Charismatic, which was exactly how

I was raised, and I say that sort of as an overarching term,

Pentecostal, because there's kind of subsets within Pentecostal.

Yes, definitely. Yeah, and so my upbringing would have been more, what would be the term, classical

Pentecostal, and the church before would have been, prior to my arrival, definitely would have been

Charismatic Pentecostal with definitely the word of faith sort of overtoned there.

Yeah, and classic Pentecostalism would involve, most of the time, five -point

Arminianism, where you can actually, according to their teaching, lose your salvation.

Yes, definitely that. You do get a heavy emphasis, well, let me say this, because the thinking is that one could lose their salvation, that, by default, places an excessive emphasis on holiness, and so what that means is then, because you can lose your salvation, then you really need to strive for holiness, and so what it puts you in, it puts that individual, that person with that mindset, with that thinking, it puts them in a burdensome situation where there really is very little assurance, very little peace in their daily walk that they would get from the finished work of Christ, and the

Holy Spirit really becomes more of a tag -along rather than the power within, and so, yeah, there's that.

Yeah, in fact, I have told some of my Pentecostal and charismatic brothers and sisters when we have discussions, sometimes they will wrongly accuse me and all non -Pentecostal, non -charismatic

Christians, and especially Calvinists, of not believing in the Holy Spirit, and I have told them that I rely upon the

Holy Spirit far more than you do because I don't even believe a person's own will can bring them to a point of a saving faith prior to the

Holy Spirit bringing them new life and regenerating them, and prior to Christ giving us a new heart.

We who are Reformed have a stronger emphasis, I believe, on the

Holy Spirit than even Pentecostals do because I think that the tendency can be a very superficial reason to bring up the

Holy Spirit in worship which just typically involves how excited you are and how enthusiastic you are and how boldly you sing and how energetically you dance in the worship and all that.

But before we go into the actual main thrust of our interview today, which is the journey that God placed you on which led to you discovering and embracing what have become known as the doctrines of sovereign grace, also nicknamed

Reformed theology and nicknamed Calvinism and nicknamed free grace, and there are other nicknames that have been developed over the years, over the centuries, but we have a tradition here when we have a first -time guest on, such as yourself, that that first -time guest gives a summary of their salvation testimony, including the kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and the kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. So let's hear your story.

Sure. So, yeah, I was raised in a

Pentecostal household, and let me say at the onset of this that I so thank

God for it because there's such a richness that it's been clear to me that I need it in the way that the

Lord would order my steps over the course of time. But being raised in that context, what that meant was that there were altar calls, so I remember it like it was this morning, that there was an altar call in a particular

Wednesday night Bible study, and I had been, as some would say, feeling the nudge to go down some time before that.

And in that, this particular Wednesday night Bible study, I stood up,

I was 10 years old, and I was very cognizant, if you will, of what it was that I was doing.

I knew that this was me coming forward as a public declaration that I wanted salvation, and everything about that experience would have definitely made

Charles Finney happy. So it definitely had the

Finneyism. But even in that, even in that sort of engineering the moment, as it were, the

Lord still used that. And I came down, and I was taken to the back for prayer, and then prepped for baptism, and I was baptized in that context.

And let me say this too, that that was a... I was under the stream of Pentecostalism that was modalist.

So it was a subalient... Wow, so you're talking about the United Pentecostal Church International, or a different group within Oneness Pentecostalism?

Well, this was definitely Oneness Pentecostal. In fact, it probably would have been the largest, or the second largest,

Oneness Pentecostal denomination, if you will. And it was...

So there really was sort of two. There's like the U -P -C -I, and then there would have been what's called the

P -A -W. And the P -A -W stands for Pentecostal Assemblies of the

World, and just a quick little historical fact on that, it once was Trinitarian.

And due to a series of events, and without getting into the Azusa String Movement, but due to a series of events, it embraced

Oneness Pentecostalism. And so from there, that was the context that I was reared and raised in.

So I was baptized according to the formula of Acts chapter 2, not...

And I say formula, because that's kind of how we think about it. I'm going to say the other thing, but that's kind of how it's taught.

It's taught that it has to be this way, and so that's why I use the term formula. But in any case,

I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. I knew that my life was changed forever, and the next day

I went back to school and told all my friends about it. Had no idea I was setting myself up to be bullied and picked on, but in any case,

I started walking this life, and I knew just through observation, without even much

Bible teaching, what was expected of me. I knew that there were certain things that I couldn't do, so I was really looking for the checkboxes.

No use of profanity, no sex before marriage, no... They can go down this whole list of things that are right and moral and even biblical.

But all in all, it became the thing that I watched out for, which then made me less cognizant of things like pride and so forth, right?

Pride, the mother hen that hatches every other thing. And so I dealt with a lot of that, but nonetheless, growing up, getting through high school,

I started to... Well, middle school and high school, I started to sort of go my own way as a teenager.

And when I say go my own way, I was very much connected to the church, very much involved in the church, very much connected to youth ministry and things like that.

And so we had our outings and our youth retreats and youth camps and all the stuff that youth ministries do.

But even within youth ministry, there was not a lot of people that had a conviction about sin.

And so it was almost like it was... And I said that amongst my peers. It was almost like it was...

You know, well, that's kind of what we do while the grown folks are, you know, watching, but we really sort of have our thing over here, you know?

So like, you know, kids are trying to, you know, sort of live this double life. And so I found myself navigating those waters and, you know, definitely had some mistakes made and so forth.

But because there was this burden of holiness on me, I felt like I really just had to plead for God to forgive me.

I had to really earn. And I was deeply sorrowful, but it was really promoted from a sense of I just want to get back on the right side with God because I don't want to lose my salvation.

Not because, you know, I just, you know, grieved the

Holy Spirit by, you know, having him participate in my sin and really going against the word and will of God, but it was more so, you know,

I just need to get back into the arc of safety, if I can use that phrase.

So I went through some of that in high school, but I still had this lingering conviction on me and so forth.

And then I'd get into young adulthood and, you know, it didn't really get any better.

But then I had this moment where, fast forward,

I turned 30 and I had been pursuing a career in music at that time and in the arts, heavy into the arts and so forth, and nothing really panned out.

I had a modicum of success, but nothing really sustainable that I could live off of.

And I remember sitting in my one -bedroom apartment and I just said, Lord, what is this? What's going on?

And just in my prayer, I just felt like I needed to really take my life more seriously.

Part of that was I was getting older and so my life wasn't necessarily improving economically.

So I get tired of, you know, just sort of living, you know, that way.

And through a series of events, I started getting involved in ministry again through a church

I was attending. And here's what's interesting. So I was working in the media department, television department within a church, and so I'm running camera and I'm editing sermon videos and all these kinds of things, and I'm doing all this stuff.

And I got involved with a group that definitely would have been charismatic and probably more so NAR.

So that would be the New Apostolic Revival? Yes, New Apostolic Reformation as some call it.

Yes, right, right. Yeah, yeah. And so within that, there was a class that I had taken and it was just basically, it was sort of Hebrew roots, but not quite

Hebrew roots. But it definitely had some of those elements in it.

So in other words, it wasn't like a harshness on the Sabbath, you know,

Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. It wasn't anything like that. It wasn't like, you know, dietary restrictions and things like that that I know sometimes you can find in certain

Hebrew communities. But this was more so, and it's just so interesting how the

Lord used this, was really more so getting into the Bible and understanding certain words in their

Hebrew meaning. And from that, it just sparked my curiosity. And I'll never forget,

I had this moment where we were looking at Matthew 18 and 18. What sort of things you find on earth without in heaven, what sort of things you loosen up without in heaven.

Growing up in a car store, that meant if there was something that we didn't like that was going on in our lives, we could bind it.

And if we thought Satan was behind it, we could bind him. And if we thought there was demon activity behind it, we could bind them.

And if there was something in our life that we did want, then we can loose those things.

And so after all, Jesus said, whatever you bind, I'll make sure it happens up here and whatever you loose,

I'll make sure it happens up here and happens down there. And so again, we've looked at that as a formula.

Well, this class I was taking, I realized that wasn't about that at all.

And I started getting into the Hebrew, excuse me, the

Greek text, excuse me, of that particular verse. And I realized, wait a minute, that's not what this text is saying.

And Chris, that became the crack in the dam. So then I started looking at other popular texts within the world of Pentecostalism and Charismatic.

And so I started looking and started investigating. I just started looking at the original languages and I'm like, wait a minute, this isn't what that means, but it's not what that means.

What else do I have a misunderstanding about? And one thing led to another and the

Lord was just sort of laying out breadcrumbs of clarity and of truth and illuminating

His word to me. And I realized

I got to back up and really look at the

Bible again and not try and impose onto the text what

I heard it mean to me or what I imagined it would mean. Because one of the things you got to understand about the

Pentecostal world and the preaching that goes on in the Charismatic world, while there are some who would definitely have scholarly credibility, and I don't want to in any way make it sound like that's not the case, but generally, over and abundantly, there's a ton of allegorizing that goes on.

There's a ton of eisegeting that goes on and you don't know it until you know it.

And it sounds good and it makes for great man -centered preaching, which

I had heard a lot of. I didn't hear that exclusively, but I did hear it mostly.

And so I started going back and saying, wait a minute, that's not right. Well, this isn't right.

That's not right. That's what this means. That's what this means. And so as clarity came, my curiosity just got sparked all the more.

So now I'm looking up YouTube videos. I'm looking up YouTube videos and people like Dr.

Steve Lawson is coming up and R .C. Sproul are coming up. And I'm just listening to tons of R .C.

Sproul and tons of Steve Lawson and John McArthur and tons of Votie Bachelor.

And I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is totally different from what

I had heard. There were times, Chris, I'd be sitting up watching YouTube videos 12 o 'clock at night, one o 'clock in the morning.

Every time they mentioned the book, I put it in my Amazon cart. Every time there was a reference to a podcast,

I'm subscribing to the podcast. So I'm going through a whole season of just ingesting this stuff and imbibing this stuff and looking at it with the scripture because they're going verse by verse and they're expositing.

And I'm like, where have I been? And so all this is happening while or just before me stepping into the pastorate.

Once I stepped into the pastorate, I'm still not totally there yet because you've got to bear in mind, particularly when you're talking about growing up in these environments, there's a whole sociology that we have to consider.

And what I mean by that is there's family, there's friends, there's community, there's long relationships that go 20, 30, 40 years.

What do you do with all of that? How do you reconcile all of those relationships with those that you love dearly?

And yet the Lord is bringing you into this truth. So, you know, you vacillate a little while and I definitely vacillated, went back and forth.

Then I kind of sat on the fence for a while. I didn't push issues, but inwardly, the

Lord was really just, I mean, really just doing a great work in my own heart and my own soul.

And I'm seeing God in His bigness, as we say, big

God theology. And so I realized the only thing

I brought to my salvation was the thing that required it.

Amen. Go ahead. Oh, I just said amen. And when

I latched on to that, the sovereignty of God and salvation, everything else was a domino effect.

And I would talk to friends who were Reformed. You know, I've even heard some people say, yeah,

I'm a four -point, not a five -point. Or I'm a three and a half -ish, but not quite the other two.

And I get it. Limited atonement, that's tough. Or as we would say, particular atonement, that I guess better put.

That's tough. Effectual calling, effectual calling. I mean, that just flies in the face of an altar call.

So what do you do with that, right? So there's all kinds of things that I'm just having to really pray through and work through and talk with people about.

And I'll say this, and if you want to pause here, that's fine, but I'll just make this last point about how the

Lord did it. There was a moment where I reflected back on a lot of things that I had seen and had participated in, conferences that I had gone to.

I'll never forget one day, I was sitting at a particular event, and there was this healing service that was going on, as it was called.

I'll never forget this, Chris. I remember sitting there, and while I absolutely believe that the

Lord can heal today and does heal today, I believe it is completely at His will.

But in the sense of a person going around and wielding this on demand, like it's

Netflix or something and all we got to do is choose it, no. So I remember thinking to myself, something about this is not right.

Something about this just seems fraudulent, and I don't want to place an indictment on a person's character, per se, because let me say this, there's a ton of people who truly are just clueless in those communities, in those gatherings.

They just have no idea. I mean, it's just, the teaching, the understanding is just not there.

The biblical literacy is just not there. So a lot of them are just really coming in with just a ton of hope, and they just really have no idea.

And then you have those who would even go and try and replicate these types of events, younger guys, and I'll tell you,

Chris, they have no idea. They're just watching it modeled, and they've seen it done this way for years.

And so that's the reason why I say I want to be careful about how I categorize and speak about certain individuals.

I'm not saying that people, that everyone in those spaces are necessarily a fraud. I'm saying that what was happening was not real.

It was not legit. It was, in many instances, as we say, psychosomatic, right?

I just remember, this is not adding up. This is not adding up, but I didn't have the language to really articulate that.

I didn't have the theology to really work that through with precision. But I just said, no, something's not right.

One day, I was sitting and just going through the Word and was looking at different texts in the

Gospels where Jesus was healing, whether we're talking about Mark or John. I remember saying,

I don't see it like this. I don't see, in other words, the way Jesus is doing this,

I mean, even the way the Apostle Paul would have done it, I'm not seeing it happen this way. And I said, what's the deal?

And that was the moment that I decided, I think all of us have to come to this moment where I said, you know what?

If the Bible teaches it, even if I wasn't raised seeing it this way, if the

Bible teaches it, I'm going to receive it. I'm going to accept it. If it's the biblical view, it's going to be my view.

Praise God. Regardless if my best friend holds to a different one or my aunt holds to a different one, and I love my best friend and my aunt, but I'm going to go with the

Word on this. Amen. In fact, we're going to pick up right where you left off there because we have to go to our first station break.

And if anybody would like to send in a question for Pastor Otis, our email address is chrisarnson, at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n, at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And I could readily understand that a topic like this may evoke questions that are personal and private because you may have people who are going through a similar journey that Pastor Otis Buckley has gone through and is continuing to go through.

You may even have not only a member of a congregation on that journey, but a pastor just like Pastor Otis was and is.

Well, we can understand that you'd want to remain anonymous at this point, but if it's just a general question, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

That's chrisarnson, at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Otis Buckley right after these messages.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here, excited to announce that my long -time friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading to Washington, D .C.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Welcome back.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire two -hour program is

Pastor Otis Buckley of High Point Bible Church, NYC, located in New York City, as the name would indicate.

We are discussing one urban black pastor's journey into the doctrines of sovereign grace and shepherding a flock to whom these teachings are new.

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

Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and your country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And before I take any of the listener questions that have come in, I wanted to have you clarify a couple of things.

We were talking earlier about the fact that the church that you inherited, basically, was, in its founding, a oneness

Pentecostal church, an anti -Trinitarian church, or Unitarian church. And those churches do not comprise a monolith.

There are differences among them. And I can remember years ago, I arranged a live public moderated debate between my friend

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Robert Sabin, who at the time was one of two of the leading apologists for oneness

Pentecostalism. Robert Sabin began in the United Pentecostal Church International, which was a much more strict organization, denomination, one might even call it a cult, because they believed that Trinitarians were damned, they believed that we were actually tritheists, or, as sometimes

I've heard it phrased, that we worshiped a three -headed monster. And then

Robert Sabin eventually left that group and was, although remaining a oneness

Pentecostal, was in a much more tolerant group that had ecumenical relationships with Trinitarians, much like T .D.

Jakes and folks on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. So where were you in that spectrum, or where was the church in that spectrum?

I'm glad you asked that. So I want to make a couple of things clear, as you just asked. So the oneness

Pentecostal church that I reference pertaining to me was the church I was raised in, not the church that I succeeded my father in.

Ah, okay. So my father -in -law was absolutely

Trinitarian. Absolutely. But the way that I was raised, going back to my early childhood, it was modalist in its view.

And another thing about that is we absolutely had relationships with Trinitarians.

So it was not the rigid sort of approach that you had referenced the other gentleman who had transitioned to a more tolerant

OP group. But no,

I was always raised to be very tolerant, very accepting of Trinitarians.

We just... The oneness environment that I came up in embraced brothers and sisters who were

Trinitarian. Without saying it this way, I guess sort of the tone and the way

I saw it, I'm not saying that my view would be accurate or an accurate representation of those who, you know, of the environment

I was brought up in. But the way it seemed to me, I'll say it that way, was that we had a more perfect knowledge of who

God is. And Trinitarians did not. And so, but it's funny though, because actually, not funny, but interesting, that as I grew up,

I really didn't know the difference. So I didn't know what the big deal was. It really wasn't until later in my adulthood, even a few years before me pastoring, that I said, wait a minute.

No, God is triune. And I just, even just in a very sort of intellectual way, as best

I could, I just started to do away with that oneness view, because it just didn't gel with the

Scriptures. I later, as I grew in my theology, am able now to articulate it more biblically, but at my time, prior to,

I didn't know what all this fuss was about. Now there are a couple of other elements that are involved in some of the stricter oneness

Pentecostal groups. One is the absolute necessity of immersion in water for salvation, and the absolute necessity of speaking in tongues as the evidence for salvation, not just as an evidence of the baptism of the

Holy Spirit, but actually an evidence that is required for salvation. Was your upbringing including those other elements of the more rigid?

Absolutely. Those two, and this is why I say it's kind of a jigsaw the way that it's carved out, the way

Pentecostal sort of beliefs and views are, because you could find some

Pentecostals who would say, no, that's not true. And then you would find others who would say, no, that's absolutely true.

Now, which group was larger? It would have been the ones who said absolute immersion and speaking in tongues.

And so the second baptism, if you will, that was the first baptism, which is just sort of viewed as sort of just the natural process of just going down into water, was viewed as important for salvation.

But to live a life of power, however they would define that, you had to have the, and I'm putting up air quotes here, filling of the

Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. So yes, those two were present in my upbringing.

Okay, well, we do have some listener questions. I will read at least one of them before we go to our midway break, which is rapidly approaching.

We have Mike from Monroe, New York. I have a similar testimony to Pastor Otis, and I was delivered by our

Lord out of the charismatic movement and eventually convinced that this was not biblical. After finding the truth as it is in Jesus, I felt compelled to offer a witness to those within the movement that this was not what

Scripture taught concerning signs, gifts, after the apostolic era, and the finalization of divine revelation and authority of Scripture, which is the doctrine of sola scriptura, in a nutshell.

Does Pastor agree that we who know the truth of this era ought to, in love, address those who remain a part of it so that they may depart and embrace the truth as we did?

Great question. You know, I think we have to look at relationships as they are.

So what I mean by that is just because a person may have a family member who is a part of that or holding to unscriptural beliefs, we have to make sure that, one, we do want to take the

Jude approach, if you will, and there's going to be those where we want to snatch them like brands out of the fire.

But at the same time, we want to look out for those who may be grappling with those distinctives in a very loving way, approach that conversation showing them that from the text.

And one of the things that I've found helpful is not to assume that because I may have the audience or the influence with a friend or a loved one that that's going to be enough to change how a person may think or have been thinking for decades.

But rather, if we're going to proclaim sola scriptura and say, look at what the text says, look at what the

Scripture says, let's look at what the Bible says. But here's the part that in helping those embrace biblical right thinking, we have to understand what is the framework from which they operate.

And I know I'm going to be taking a while to answer this question, but I'll just say it this way. I didn't know how to read the

Bible to even, if someone showed this to me from the text, to even comprehend it.

And I'll give you a key point that I mean here, a case in point. I had to learn that the

Bible does have literary genres, that the Bible does use idiom and hyperbole.

So if I'm talking to someone who thinks that they can literally speak things into existence because the power of life and death is in the tongue, and I highlight those two because those would be two highly held views within Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches.

If I'm talking to someone who has that view, but they don't understand the use of allegory, of metaphors, of analogies, of hyperbole, then they're just coming from such a place of literal thinking that that's why they think they can do that in the first place.

So we're not even starting off with the same framework of even how to read the

Bible. So you can show them anything you want to from the Bible, but if they're not operating and coming from that place, that framework of how to even read it in the first place, like I have done in my own experiences, you'll just go around in circles and circles, and you'll never land on anything concrete.

In fact, let's pick up where you left off because we have to go under the midway break right now. Let's not forget where you left off because I think you were right in the middle of making some extremely valid points.

Thank you, Michael, in Monroe, New York, and keep listening to the show and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

We're going to the midway break, folks, so please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information as you possibly can provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers, even if that just means thanking them for sponsoring the program if indeed you are grateful that our advertisers exist because, folks, we absolutely rely upon our advertisers and the financial support that those advertisements provide to remain on the air.

So if you really love this show and you're grateful that there are people keeping it on the air, thank our advertisers with the contact information that they provide.

And also send in your email to Pastor Otis Buckley at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away.

We'll be right back. Yeah, yeah, we can do it again.

Attention all men in ministry leadership. You're all invited to my friend Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon Thursday, September 22nd, 11 a .m.

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Before we return to what we were last discussing, which was you were highlighting the fact that before you understood the doctrines of sovereign grace by the mercy of God, you and you believe most people in that category before being enlightened to these things didn't even have the tools necessary to rightly interpret the word of God.

Before we continue with that, I want to also clarify something. I'm sure our listener,

Mike in Monroe, New York, would agree with this, and I'm sure that Pastor Buckley agrees with this, but we have to make sure that we are not broad -brushing all of Pentecostals and Charismatics.

There is a wide spectrum of individuals and beliefs within that spectrum, some which would be damnable because it's actually denying salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and it is a works righteousness theology, which

Paul condemned in the book of Galatians as being no gospel at all. But you have others who are believing in the same gospel that my guest and I believe in, whether they be evangelical

Arminians who have a true gospel or even those that believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace who remain in the

Charismatic movement, such as Wayne Grudem, for instance, and Sam Storms, for instance.

They are both thoroughgoing Calvinists, and I have a dear friend now in heaven,

Al Stein, who was an Assemblies of God bishop. He was an overseer for all the churches in the Assembly of God on Long Island, New York, where I'm originally from.

He eventually, by God's grace, became a thoroughgoing five -point Calvinist, and it's really a miracle that he was able to remain in ministry in the

Assemblies of God. And my friend Jim Capo, former pastor of the Massapequa Church of God on Long Island, New York, he is a thoroughgoing five -point

Calvinist. So we can't broad -brush all those folks that come under the umbrella of Pentecostal or Charismatic, and certainly the majority do believe in the

Trinity and reject strongly the heresies of Oneness Pentecostalism.

And would you like to comment on anything I just said there, Pastor Otis? Yeah, well,

I would just like to reiterate absolutely what you said, and that's absolutely true.

The thing is that when we start broad -brushing, we'll end up misunderstanding and misrepresenting, even worse, those who are absolutely born again, those who are absolutely heaven -bound, those who are absolutely our brothers and sisters of the faith.

And I am absolutely sure, positive, and I know that.

I'll also say this, too. You know, I don't have any data to back this up, but it is my sense that, based on things that I hear and conversations that I have, that there are those within the

Big Tent, Pentecostal Big Tent Charismatic, who actually do hold to the doctrines of grace.

But for one reason or another, the position that they may uniquely sit in, they have to be very, very thoughtful in how they communicate that, even in their preaching.

But I was talking with some friends the other day who would have been there in the

Pentecostal space, and me and this person were talking, and we absolutely believe that there are quite a few, more than we probably think or would realize, who do hold to the doctrines of grace.

And we can say if it's right or wrong, good or bad, but they are actually working in those churches and in those communities to really bring the understanding of the sovereignty of God and salvation, at least as a starting point.

I mean, we have to start there. If God is not the one who ultimately saves, then if God doesn't save ultimately, then we've totally misunderstood salvation.

And there are those who are wanting answers to that, and I get calls all the time, messengers and inbox all the time, who are saying, hey, man,

I was listening to your message. I was listening to the sermon last week, and I got some questions. So the Lord will open doors, and the

Lord will absolutely, just as He did me and anyone else that the Lord has saved from the clutches of sin,

He knows how to call His sheep. And so we just have to quote J .I.

Packer, trust the sovereignty of God in evangelism. Amen.

And so going back to where we left off, you were talking about, I don't know if you have anything to add to this, but you were talking about a problem of basically a lack of proper training in congregations on biblical hermeneutics, how to even understand, to begin with, what the scriptures are saying, if you want to pick up where you left off there.

Yeah. So, just again, understanding that the

Bible does have, that there are proper hermeneutics to biblical, to really, if we're to understand the text, then we have to have those biblical hermeneutics, and I have found it to be,

I'm not saying that this is across the board, but I have found it to be when having these discussions with those who don't quite see the text, the way that the text is revealing itself,

I have to ask myself, what is the hinge point of our disagreement?

More than not, I have found that it is, they don't understand literary genre, parallelism, things like that, to even, as you said, have those tools to even explain it.

So my point is, we can explain it all day long, but if we're not operating from the same hermeneutic, then we're just going to keep missing each other.

And that's when things turn into really unpleasant conversations if we don't have that understanding. So we have to be wise on the front end to understand, does this person work with the proper biblical hermeneutics?

If not, then that's our starting point. And I happen to know from experience, and having friendships with Pentecostal and Charismatic brothers and sisters over the decades

I have been an evangelical Christian, that there is a gross misunderstanding about what the doctrines of sovereign grace really mean.

Going back to my friend, Pastor Al Stein, who is now in glory with Christ for eternity, one of the ways that he was able to remain in a pastoral leadership, and even becoming a bishop in the

Assembly of God, is that when they required an annual doctrinal statement to be signed, the issue over eternal security was, by an amazing term of events, you have

Pastor Stein saying that he did not believe that those could be truly saved without producing good works as an evidence, and he called it evidential security.

And they accepted that, his authorities in the

Assemblies of God, because the term eternal security, unfortunately, is twisted by many within evangelicalism, which would convey the idea that you can live a completely repentance -less life, live like Satan himself for the entirety of your life, never repenting, and you will still go to heaven, because of some past experience at an altar call, or raising your hand at Bible camp when you were eight years old.

And many in the Pentecostal movement, especially when you're talking about old -school

Pentecostalism, would see that, rightly, as heresy. And they don't understand, in the doctrines of sovereign grace, we adhere to something called the perseverance and preservation of the saints, that although works of men have absolutely nothing to do with us becoming a child of God, they have nothing to do with our predestination, election, or regeneration, they are a necessary evidence.

And so isn't that a big hurdle for many who are sadly adopting a work -righteousness understanding of the gospel, because they really have perhaps never even been exposed to the right understanding of works being a required evidence rather than a meritorious cause of salvation?

Yeah, all right, so I want to try to thread this needle. So this is a very interesting topic, and it's something that is a hang -up for some in the

Pentecostal space. So let me say this. Old -school Pentecostalism, if I think about the old -school

Pentecostal preachers that were a part of my childhood, and I kind of came on the tail end of what we would call old -school, given just by my age, but they had that sort of old -school, they had one,

I have found, in many cases, more theological training than some of the more recent contemporary ones.

And I'll say that for a fact. Now, let's not say all of it, but you could hear expositional preaching, and you can hear right exegesis, particularly as it pertains to this matter of eternal security.

And there was this understanding that the Holy Spirit is going to enable, empower, and convict of sin, which then, if the

Holy Spirit is truly indwelling a believer, then

He's going to convict of sin. If He convicts of sin, or should I say,

He will convict of sin. That will then drive that believer to a 1

John 1 and 9 scenario. If we confess our sins, He, He being

God, is both faithful and just to forgive us. That's one thing

He does. Then He goes one step further and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

He doesn't just forgive us, but He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Now, here's what's interesting about that.

In most Pentecostal circles and the churches that I was a part of, when we would have the benediction, the classic, classic

Pentecostal benediction is Jude 24. Now unto

Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to prevent you falling before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

To God our Savior who alone is wise in KJV, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power both now and forever.

Amen. But here's what's interesting. Many would deny eternal security, but then close out the service with, now unto

Him who is able to keep you from stumbling. So which one is it? Is it to keep me from stumbling, or is it that it's up to me to keep myself from stumbling?

This is where Biblical hermeneutics is important. And this is sort of fully fresh in my mind.

I'm going to be preaching soon. So there's the temporary fall that every believer will experience, and then there's the final falling, right?

So in a temporary sense throughout my life, I'm going to have sin.

If we say we have no sin, we are a liar, and His truth is not in us. That is, by the way, speaking to the body of believers.

So that is to say, then, that a right understanding of sanctification gives us a right understanding of glorification.

So if I understand that the Holy Spirit empowers me to walk an upright life, that doesn't mean that I have now achieved this level of superhuman holiness by my own volition or my own ability, but I'm working cooperatively with the

Holy Spirit. But even my cooperation in my sanctification is still powered by the

Holy Spirit. And so, but if I'm going to understand that, now I've got to get back to justification.

How am I saved? See, it's God in justification. It's God in sanctification, and it's

God in glorification. And if I unplug any God from any one of those places, then it throws the whole thing off kilter, and now

I'm trying to say, or I'm trying to earn, rather, and I'm saying, hey, it's up to me.

Even though I end the service with, now unto Him. So again, this biblical arm of newness comes into right understanding.

So I may fall this morning. I may fall this afternoon. I may sin this evening.

Here's the beauty, though. Because the Holy Spirit will convict me of sin, not condemnation.

There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, but convict me of sin. And the fact that I even care, that God even cares about how

I'm living, thinking, walking, my motives, and all of the above, I am driven to my knees.

Now, 1 John 1 and 9 says He is faithful and just. See, it's again,

God again. So I've got to see God in every single aspect of my redemption, my sanctification, and ultimately the consummating of my glorification.

So He is my strength throughout all of my life.

And so I can't say I don't believe in eternal security, but then in my service with, now unto

Him, was able to keep me from stumbling. See, again, it was those kinds of apparent contradictions that made me rethink or embrace the doctrine of sovereign grace, because the stuff wasn't adding up scripturally.

Amen. And we have Marvin in Los Angeles, California, a first -time questioner, who says,

I am a leader in a Latino church in Los Angeles. As a leader there, I myself am not as well -versed in Reformed theology as I should be.

And even less so in the case of most members of the church. The small group

I'm leading now is going through Votie Baucom's expository apologetics.

He has a chapter about the importance of creeds, confessions, and catechisms. For most of the people in the group, it was the first time they've ever interacted with that topic at all.

It's like we're discovering our roots for the first time, where with the American Baptist denomination, and for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with that, the

American Baptist denomination, although not every congregation is liberal in apostate, there are quite a number of them, perhaps even most of them in the 21st century, who would be leftist to the point of denying the gospel and embracing homosexuality as a valid activity and so on.

That's my interjection here into Marvin's email. I'm going through a book on Baptist history as well as getting familiar for the first time with the 1689

Baptist Confession. What baby steps would you take to try to get your church familiar with these foundations?

Any books you used? And I'm going to leave his second question, or perhaps that's even his third or fourth question, until after you respond to this.

I'm not even certain whether you are officially confessional, as the church where I'm a member is, but if you could respond to Marvin.

Sure. So, I really appreciate the question. Here's, to the extent that I could respond, here is what

I would say. With regards to book recommendations, a book that was really, really helpful for me, that I think would be very helpful for you in your cases, again, there needs to be a reorienting, a complete reorientation of how the

Bible is used, how any text of Scripture is going to be looked at.

One of the things that's really helpful is, or has been helpful to me, is a book by Eric J.,

I don't want to mess up his last name, but it's Bargaraff, and it's called The Most Misused Verses in the

Bible. The Most Misused Verses in the Bible. And he pretty much nails a lot of those misused verses, but here's what that will do.

If you can provide clarification in just one of those endeared verses in the

Bible, it becomes a crack in the dam, and it helps them understand, if I misunderstood this, what else am

I misunderstanding? Second thing, and I've had to do this, in an effort to bring our congregation confessional, and let me say, there was a confession that was being used, but it was not a confession that you would want to use.

I'll just leave it at that. I had to introduce a new confession, and you may want to consider this.

First of all, the word catechism and the word creed for our congregation would have found it

Catholic, so I couldn't even use those terms.

Yeah, I'm a former Catholic, and my first hearing of those terms immediately transported me to my

Roman Catholic upbringing. Absolutely, absolutely. So I had to be very wise in how

I even talked about these concepts, not using those words.

But since there was a confession prior to, I just hung with that. I stayed with that.

And so I had to reorder, redo our confessional.

I'm not saying that this is the way to go. I'm not saying that this is the best way to do it, but this is the way that I had to do it.

I had to rewrite it. Number one, I'm just shooting for something biblical, all right?

It's got to be biblical, and that was a huge hurdle for me, and it took me probably two years to bring that about.

Which, by the way, be patient. Be very patient. Exhort with all patience.

Teach with all patience. Be patient in this process. God is at work, and He knows what

He's doing. He's working this out in and through you. He has you there. Be patient and trust that He will work this through.

So that being said, I had to rework it. But the most misused verses in the Bible was very helpful for me, and because I am the teaching pastor,

I have the unique ability of being able to introduce those things from the pulpit on a

Sunday morning and teaching on a Bible study and understand how to do that gracefully and graciously, because I have a church that will probably be a little more older.

So people are very, very steeped in their ways. I'm very, very ginger in how

I went about that, while yet still being unequivocal. So, again,

I would say patience. The misused verses in the Bible was very, very helpful for me. There was also the –

I did this. I bought the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster, and those were the first two

I purchased for my own self, and then 1689 and so forth. And this beautiful –

I mean, each one is beautiful in its own regard. I have found that when talking about certain subjects, and that's the thing, you've got to approach this thematically, right?

So approach this with certain themes throughout Scripture, not just sort of here it is, right?

Eternal security, effectual calling, the sufficiency of Scripture, all of these things.

If you can introduce those truths and simultaneously clarify misunderstood verses, it will help you introduce creeds and confessions better.

Or should I say it'll make it – it'll up the receptivity, I believe.

And sometimes you may just have to hang out on one, just one confession.

So if it's, you know, something regarding the Trinity, and you want to reference the 1689, that's going to be – if you can piecemeal this out, you can do this for the long haul and really help bring this

Reformed theology, this understanding there. And I don't know if he's serving as a pastor, as the lead pastor, or teaching pastor or not.

I'm not sure what the ecclesiology is, where he is, but even in a small group, you don't want to do something that is irreverent or undermining to the leadership.

So I would never encourage that. But as the Lord gives opportunity, and you find a theme in, say, the 1689, hang out on that theme.

Don't even call it 1689. Just take whatever that text, that text that is being used to substantiate that statement, hang out there, and don't attribute it to people.

You know, I would reference the Westminster, and I couldn't even reference the Westminster divines, because that sounds like something mystical and spooky.

What do you mean a person's divine? And we'll have you answer

Marvin's last question, or questions plural, when we come back from our final break.

It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks. If you have a question to get in line with the other people still waiting, send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here, excited to announce that my longtime friend,

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Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania for Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastor's Luncheon Welcome back

Pastor Otis Buckley When we left the discussion to go to the last break we have a listener in Los Angeles, California, Marvin who is asking about confessions and creeds and let me just put my two cents in here briefly that I have found it useful over the years when people have a militant anti -creed or confession attitude

I remind them that all these things are are summaries, when they are good creeds and confessions they're summaries of what the

Bible teaches and everyone has a creed or confession it's just either good or bad in fact, my friend

John Thornberry who is retired from the pastoral ministry a very prolific writer, especially on Baptist history he used to be in the

American Baptist Association where our listener, Marvin, is still a member and he was reading in the official denominational magazine that the

American Baptist Association does not believe in creeds or confessions and Pastor Thornberry wrote into the editor and said, do you realize that's a confessional statement?

you're using human words to express something that you believe that's outside of the canonical scriptures so anybody really has a creed and confession if they write something down about their beliefs it's just either biblically faithful or it's heretical or what have you in fact, if you really want to take a strict anti -creedal and anti -confessional position your minister should ascend into the pulpit just read the

Bible and then sit down you shouldn't preach or exegete the scriptures which, of course, the

Bible teaches you must do if you're a faithful minister and even when somebody prays they're using their own words they might be quoting scripture in the prayer but they're using their own words so that's just my two cents about that I don't know if you have any comment on that I wholeheartedly agree

I would even go so far as to say if you are praying publicly in the congregation once again, you are in one way or another summarizing what you believe about God, about His words

Amen Okay, Marvin says was there resistance and I'm assuming he's talking about your introducing sovereign grace to the congregation where you are especially from those who might be more accustomed to a more emotional approach to church and are suspicious of too much doctrine let me just throw in my two cents here

I think that we in the Reformed Church could use a little more emotion in our worship service but anyway, if you want to pick up where Marvin's question ends there

Yeah, oftentimes the thought is especially if there are those who are sort of on the fringes of Reformed theology they're kind of getting somewhat familiar with it if you just look through the window of the

Reformed house it would seem expressionless for sure so I would definitely agree with you on that at the same time what's important is to help them see things from the

Word from the Bible unless they just totally deny the authority of Scripture unless they deny the inerrancy of Scripture then if they can see it from the text and you can explain it from the text that is always the starting point to helping bring about clarity and helping to bring down resistance now, if they you know, deny the inerrancy the authority now notice

I did not support the infallibility notice I didn't say the sufficiency because that can be another challenge for sure but at least if we can agree on the authority sufficiency and inerrancy usually most reasonable people in the congregation will go, oh,

I see it it's right there and that helps with them receiving it and moving forward with it now, does there continue to be or was there any resistance from your congregation

I think is what he's specifically asking I'm sorry no only because only because they were taught that if it's in the

Word you can't refute it there was already that that I had to work with so in that regard

I didn't have an issue now, there's other issues that I faced but that wasn't necessarily one of them okay, thank you

Marvin and since you're a first time questioner send me your full mailing address in Los Angeles, California because you've won a free

New American Standard Bible compliments of the publishers of the NASB and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service cvbbs .com

we'll be shipping that Bible out to you if you provide us with your full mailing address we have time for one last question

Alex in Winter Park, Florida can you ask Pastor Buckley how he navigates showing love and grace for members of his congregation that might still be trying to understand the

Doctrines of Grace while not being domineering and pushing the position on the members of the church individually yeah

I really appreciate that question you know I really had to it's funny if I got introduced to the

Doctrines of Grace but I didn't preach every week I would definitely need to go in a cage but but because I counsel even outside of the pulpit and because I I pray with individually and I talk with and I I move amongst the flock if you will and deal with help them helping pray with them and comforting them in various situations

I had to be very gentle in how I did that so here's the balance that I found boldness in the pulpit gentleness when

I come out of the pulpit that's not to say that I'm not gentle in the pulpit but that is to say that they believe part of what helps with them embracing this conviction of what the

Bible says yes it's the fact that the Bible says it above all but if I came in to the pulpit saying what the

Bible says but my non -verbal or even the way that I communicated it was anything less than I really believe this because this is

God's work I can't be passive in my delivery and expect that that alone is going to help when they see when they feel the heat move from the pulpit and go into the pew by the way, not performance not performance but just the heat which is really what preaching is it's the heat on the teaching with the heat as I preach, that boldness it's kind of like the old story that you've heard about George Whitfield guy shows up, why do you keep coming?

and you don't believe it I believe he believes it when they believe it, you believe it and it's the word the

Holy Spirit makes a difference I believe that was Benjamin Franklin who said that if I'm not mistaken

I think it was Benjamin Franklin that said that about Whitfield why he keeps going to hear him preach yeah, yeah so that same concept

I light a fire in the pulpit and pray to the Holy Spirit really helps both to hear it and meet the preacher and we are out of time brother and I definitely want to have you come back

I want to make sure our listeners have your website hpbiblechurch .org HP for high point biblechurch .org

thank you so much Pastor Otis Buckley for being a superb guest thank you everyone who took the time to write in questions and those of you who listened