September 2, 2021 Show with Frank Brito on “How Eschatology Effects Missions & Church Planting (& the Challenges of Both in Brazil)”

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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 chapter 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 in 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 Thursday.

On this second day of September 2021, at the very strong and enthusiastic urging of my dear friend and one of my favorite guests,

Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, who is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the urging of his wife,

Becky, I have on the program today someone who they think very highly of, to say the least, and I take

Dr. Moorcraft and his wife Becky's opinions very, very seriously.

Today my guest is Frank Brito. He is a translator, missionary, church planter, and pastor, and I'm of course going to have to have him correct my pronunciation of these

Portuguese words here,

Igreja Presbyteriana Reformada de Campo Bom in Rio Grande do

Sul, Brazil. How did I do with that? Well, that was great for an American.

And what does that mean? It means Reformed Presbyterian Church in Campo Bom.

Campo Bom is the name of the city. And by the way, I forgot to ask you if I was even pronouncing your name correctly.

Is it Brito or Brito? Well, yes, that's correct. Brito. Oh, the second one is the way.

Okay. Now, that's interesting. So in Portuguese, they would pronounce that Brito, not

Brito, as a Spaniard would. Well, actually, it depends on kind of like the accent of the person.

There are many accents in Brazil, so don't worry about that. All right, great.

Well, tell us about your church. Well, our church is in southern

Brazil. We have been here in our mission work, doing our mission work ever since 2015, and we are part of an

American denomination, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery. And I'm in that denomination partly due to, well, entirely due to Joe Moorcraft.

He invited me to be there at the time. Well, obviously, as a true

Calvinist, you would say that God used him as the earthly instrument. Oh, yes, amen.

It's really God's providence. And this is a very conservative,

I'm assuming, Presbyterian church, very confessional. And would you also share

Dr. Moorcraft's Theonomic and Reconstructionist views?

Oh, yes. That's one of the main reasons I'm there. It's a very conservative denomination, and they share,

I share all my views with him and with the denomination in general. So that's why

I'm actually there. Well, I understand you do not yet have a website, but folks can find out more about you on Facebook.

Yes. And how would they find you on Facebook? What would they type in?

Well, just type in the name of our church in Portuguese. If you don't know how to spell it, just go on Google Translator, write

Reformed Presbyterian Church in Campobom, and then it will be translated into Portuguese, and you can find out, you can see it there.

And Campobom is spelled C -A -M -P -O -B -O -M. Correct.

Well, before we launch into the specific subject we are addressing today, how eschatology affects missions and church planting, and the challenges of both in Brazil, since you are a first -time guest, as we always do on this program,

I'd like you to give us a summary of your salvation testimony, including the kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. Okay, well,

I was born in Brazil, and I was raised in a very staunch Roman Catholic family, but we moved to the

United States when I was five years old. We moved to New York City, and I was raised as a

Roman Catholic, but at one point, we were invited by friends to visit an evangelical church.

And by God's providence, when we visited this church in New York City, the sermon was about the

Second Commandment, and it was specifically an exposition of the

Second Commandment based on Exodus 20. And because of this sermon, we were convinced that as Roman Catholics, we had been sitting against the

Lord in the worship of images, and that's what convinced us.

That's when I went through a really true encounter with Jesus Christ.

Well, later on, I found out that I actually break all the Ten Commandments, not all, but not only the second, but that would be initially what the

Lord used. And on the following day, we decided, look, if this is what the Bible teaches, we want to follow the

Bible. And that's how I had my encounter with the Lord. It was very difficult in the beginning because not a long time after our conversion, we came back to Brazil.

When you say our, who are you referring to? Okay, I was referring to my family.

You mean your parents and your siblings? Oh, yeah. At the time, I had not yet turned 18.

It was just before turning 18. And it was my mother, specifically my mother.

And then we converted at this church in New York City. And after some time, we went back to Brazil.

Are you saying New York City? Yeah, New York City.

Okay. For some reason, I thought you said France before. Did I misunderstand something? Oh, no, not France.

New York City. I don't know how I got France in my head. All right.

And so I was just a Christian for, well, not a long time in New York City because after that, we came back to Brazil.

And that's when I really began to grow as a Christian. Well, praise

God for that. And how did you discover Reformed theology? Well, when

I became a Christian, I came back to Brazil. The pastor of my church, he would tell all new believers to read the

Gospel of John. And the first time I read the Gospel of John, I kind of suspected that John was teaching the idea of election, the idea that God chooses certain people to be saved.

I suspected that, but because people around me would tell me that's not what it meant, I was like, well,

I'm a new believer, so who am I to question their interpretation? But that was in the back of my mind for several years.

When you say that was in the back of your mind, are you talking about just from what you were reading and hearing read from the text, or did you have some kind of experience hearing or reading a

Reformed preacher or theologian before this? No, up to that point,

I had never heard of anyone. I didn't even have the words like tulip or these theological terms.

I had never heard anyone teach that. I just read the New Testament, and I noticed that in several locations, especially in John and Romans, that the writers, they were saying that we don't have free will.

That's the way I understood it, without any contact with Reformed preachers.

So you said up until the point in your story that obviously non -Reformed people were saying, oh, that's not what's in there, you're misreading it, you're misreading this or something.

Yeah, they were telling me that that was the wrong way to understand it, and I would accept their explanation because I was a new believer, so that's the only people

I knew as a Christian. But I always had that suspicion in the back of my mind.

And then as years went on, I eventually started reading theological websites, especially monergism.

I was researching other stuff, and I found out about monergism and other websites in English, and that's when

I realized that there was actually a position that articulated that, and that's when

I became Reformed in adopting Reformed theoriology.

Now, your understanding of the Portuguese language, which is the dominant language of both

Portugal and Brazil, were your parents from Brazil?

Is that what gave you a heart and passion for that country? Oh, yes.

I moved to the United States when I was five years old. So until I came back,

I didn't really know what Brazil was like. But I have a dad. Both my mom and my dad, especially my dad, they're very patriotic about Brazil.

So they were always telling me about how Brazil was great, and they were always forcing me to read things in Portuguese so I would never forget the language.

So that's kind of how I preserved my understanding of the Portuguese language, because I would only go to school in English in New York City.

But my mother found that very important to make me understand the grammar and all of that.

Now, when you say New York City, which of the five boroughs are you speaking about? Well, I lived in Queens.

A story of Queens. And as I remind my friends from Queens and Brooklyn, since I am a native

Long Islander, although I live in Pennsylvania now, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, I am a native

Long Islander, and I always remind my friends from Queens and Brooklyn, you are Long Islanders, too.

You don't cross a bridge to get to Manhattan. Yeah, that's true. Well, now we are reaching the point in our discussion where we are addressing the theme today, how eschatology affects missions and church planting, and we will continue after that into the challenges of both of those in Brazil, the unique challenges.

But why don't you define eschatology for those of our listeners who are perhaps new

Christians. They've never heard that term. Perhaps they're not even

Christians at all. So just define that for us. Okay, the word eschatology, as many words in theology, it comes from the

Greek, and it means the last things, the study of the last things.

That means it's the field of study which is concerned with things like the purpose of God's creation, how the world will end, and what happens when we die, and how will the world come to its final purpose.

So that would be eschatology, the study of last things. And obviously, since you are the one who chose to speak on this subject, you believe this has a powerful effect on both missions and church planting.

And even before we get to that point, we might as well spill the beans.

If our listeners didn't already guess when you said that you've learned much of what you believe from Dr.

Joe Morecraft, and you've described yourself as not only a Presbyterian, but a theonomist and a

Christian Reconstructionist, you are post -millennial, aren't you? Yes, I am.

And I just thought we might as well spill the beans on that so people wouldn't be distracted by trying to guess or wondering where you're coming from.

So tell us both in a negative and a positive way how you think eschatology affects missions and then church planting.

Let's start with the negative, and then you can go on as we continue the discussion and why this really matters.

Alright, if you think about the way Christ came to the world,

Christ's message was an essentially eschatological message in that the first people to hear

Christ's preaching and his teaching, they had to conclude that he was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and that in fulfilling these prophecies, he should have been identified by everybody as the true

Messiah, as the Christ. So because Christ's preaching and the way he's presented in the

New Testament and the way people had to believe in him was essentially an eschatological matter, there is no way to disassociate eschatology from the way we still continue to preach his message today.

So negatively, I think that if we disconnect proper eschatology from preaching, from church planting, from missions, we are, in a very important way, disconnecting our message today from the way it was originally presented by Christ.

Christ's message was, from the very beginning, eschatological, and therefore our message must be too.

Yes, and while I can guess a negative way right off the top of my head that eschatology can affect church planting, can affect missions, can affect a lot of things, even general evangelism, if you have an overly pessimistic eschatology, and that is coupled with the fact that you believe the church is going to be rescued off of this sinful planet very soon, and many would say, alive today, that are hosting television and radio programs and writing books on the end times or the last days, many of them, if not the vast majority of them, and perhaps even all of them, who are more towards a bent of dispensationalism and also very pessimistic about their eschatology, they would say that Christ's return for the church, at least, the rapture, as they would refer to it, the secret rapture, that's going to happen within our lifetime.

So, if you think that Christ is with certainty going to be coming to rescue the church off of this planet any day, and it could be within this year, but it's certainly going to be soon, you may be not focused on other parts of the mission of the church that is our duty to fulfill here on this planet.

If you think it's going to be a waste of time because we're going to be raptured away very, very, very soon, that's going to have a negative impact on being salt and light in the world, is it not?

If the person who believes that is logically consistent on those beliefs, there are many dispensationalists that don't behave that way, but I think it's because of the fact that, thankfully, they're not logically consistent.

But anyway, go ahead. Well, yes. There's a phrase that somebody says, you don't polish the brass on a sinking ship.

So the extent of your mission is going to depend on how much time you think you have, if you think it extends to future generations, if you think it's just going to go worse and worse, if you think the government will always be the way it is today, if you think that the culture will always either be the way it is today or get worse.

So, yeah, you're not going to put effort on that. We only put effort on what we think we can really win.

So on a practical level, and very negatively, if you don't have a proper eschatology, if you don't believe in a victorious kingdom of Christ in history, you're not going to try to battle for that victory.

And as a part of that whole concept, what other things are being hindered or harmed in the life and duty of Christians individually and the church as a whole by having an overly pessimistic eschatology?

Well, when we look at the West today, when we look at places like the

United States, there's a large number of people who profess Christianity.

But the question we have to ask is, why are there so many professing Christians, but Christians are losing at this point in history culturally?

Why are there so many professing Christians who cannot overturn the cultural tides that have been destroying

Western civilization and civilization elsewhere? I think the answer to that is that they have the wrong mindset.

They have the wrong mindset. They're not prepared to win the battle. They don't fight.

They don't really understand that they have to fight. So we see that. I mean, look at how, for how many years, has abortion been allowed for in the

United States? For many decades. We have seen in the past 10 years in several countries, including

Brazil and the United States, legalizing homosexual marriage and other terrible things like that.

But if there are all these Christians, I mean, they do have the power, I think they have the power to do it, to change that if they have the correct mindset, if they have the correct eschatological view, that would lead them to invest the time and the energy that is necessary to change these aspects.

We see culture being destroyed in several areas. Education, government, you know, our freedoms are being taken away.

And I don't think it's because we don't have really the power to do it. I think we have the power to do it, but as a church we have wrong ideas that have been destroying us.

Well, what positive ways does eschatology affect the life of Christian individuals in the church?

Well, there are many positive ways. We can begin talking about personal evangelism.

If I have an optimistic eschatology, I will have this perspective that my ultimate goal, even if I'm not able to do that alone, but my ultimate goal as a

Christian is to evangelize the entire city. I want to evangelize the entire city, the entire state, the entire country.

I want the entire country, the entire city to be Christian, to be personally Christian, not only culturally

Christian, but to be personally converted. And that personal conversion, it will lead to institutional changes.

It will lead to changes in education. If I have a view that the world will not end in my lifetime,

I'm concerned about what kind of education my children, my grandchildren, my great -grandchildren will receive.

So I'll be working towards resisting anti -Christian ideas in the realm of education.

That will lead us to build schools that will lead us to fight for educational freedom.

If we have this long -term view of evangelistic success, we will not allow for many other bad things that happen.

So we will, as Christians, create alternatives, real alternatives. So we'll be positively creating alternatives because we will believe that our society should and must be

Christian entirely, and therefore we just can't sit around and let things go the way they are.

We've got to create alternatives in all areas of life. And let's pick up right where you left off there.

We have to go to our first break right now. If anybody has a question of your own on eschatology, on the end times, on the last things, the last days, and how our understanding of those things affects missions and church planting, and also how they involve the unique challenges in Brazil in both missions and church planting, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And I understand that there may be some in the audience who are thinking through some of these things that we are addressing, and you are in a church, for instance, that is vehemently anti -post -millennial, or even amillennial for that matter, and you really don't want to identify yourself at this point anyway.

Well, I understand those things. You might even be a pastor going through these same challenges in your thinking, and you don't want to identify yourself because even your fellow elders may disagree with you or your denomination.

Whatever the case may be, we understand in circumstances like that, you would want to remain anonymous.

But if it's just a general question on eschatology, on missions, on church planting, on Brazil, on the scriptures, if it's just a general question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Frank Brito right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Today we are discussing, if you just tuned us in, how eschatology affects missions and church planting and the challenges of both in Brazil.

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One of the other things that I have known and I have heard from missionaries, especially missionaries who were formerly a part of a non -reformed denomination who sent them out, those with overly pessimistic eschatology and, on top of that, those outside of a reformed understanding of God's sovereignty over all things, including salvation, they tend to, these mission boards and these denominations, tend to be very impatient with missionaries they send out, and if they do not see numeric growth rather quickly, they will very often yank them off of that mission field.

Do you believe that what you are talking about today is one of those positive things?

Actually, it's both, when you think about it, because on one side it's a positive thing, if you have an optimistic eschatology in regard to missions because you're going to be more patient.

You're going to say, I might not even be used of God within my own lifetime to bring about enormous growth in a particular area, but I know that those from out of every tribe, tongue, and people and nation are going to come to Christ, and therefore the seeds that I am planting here in this foreign land,

I believe that they are going to bear fruit, even if it's not while I'm alive, whereas the negative effect concerning the one who is overly pessimistic in his eschatology, they're going to be not only impatient themselves, but those who sent them are going to be impatient typically, and say, okay, that's enough, get out.

You know, they're not looking at the big picture because they think everything is going to be over very, very soon, especially in regard to the church's work on this planet.

So, have I made sense so far? Oh, yes, totally. We have to remember that although we should desire all men to be saved, how that will play out and who's going to actually be saved, that depends on the

Lord. All right, let's get into, right now, specifically,

Brazil and the unique challenges that you have faced in regard to missions and church planting.

Okay, you want to know more about Brazil and the context of church planting and the challenges?

Yeah, the dominant religions of the culture that might oppose what you are teaching, you know, a lot of things that are going on there.

Yeah. Well, Brazil is historically a very strongly

Roman Catholic country. John Calvin sent missionaries to Brazil in the 16th century, but most of them got killed.

The survivor, he got to escape back to Europe, and he wrote a book called

A History of a Voyage to Brazil. So, that tells you how hard Brazil has been historically.

Besides Roman Catholicism, we have the influence of African pagan religions here, and you'll have things like worship of African gods and belief in reincarnation and people who seek to speak to the dead.

So, I would say that those are the two biggest religious influences in Brazil, Roman Catholicism and the spiritualist stuff.

However, they're not necessarily distinct. Usually, people follow both things.

They'll go to the mass, and they'll also try to contact the dead and worship African gods. And in the midst of that, the

Roman Catholic Church was also very significant in terms of the growth of socialism in Brazil.

There was a lot of liberation theology here. And, you know,

Pope Francis, he's from Argentina, but he also had a lot of influence in Brazilian Roman Catholic authorities.

So, in that context, I don't believe it's possible to evangelize

Brazil if you don't have a full worldview that will deal with all areas of life, in that when you convert somebody, that person has this whole religious baggage that they bring, this whole worldview that they bring.

And in the context of Brazil, it will frequently be a very mystic worldview,

Roman Catholic, Socialistic, all at the same time. And if you don't have a complete worldview for them to substitute that with,

I believe it is very difficult to evangelize and to see sanctification in Brazil.

If you don't have, if they have a complete worldview, you've got to have a competing optimistic

Christian worldview to put in place. If you don't, what you're going to get is baptized pagans.

So, that's basically the scenario in Brazil. And some things will change depending on the region you're in.

But that has been what Brazil has been historically. And in the midst of all this opposition, in the midst of these competing worldviews,

I really think that it's very important for missionaries who come here and anyone who would want to plant churches to really understand that if you don't offer an optimistic, comprehensive

Christian way of life view, you're just going to have baptized pagans.

Well, if you could, because this word is used a lot, probably especially amongst

Reformed Christians, but not exclusively, please define worldview.

What does that exactly mean? Okay, in simple terms, a worldview would be the way that you see life, the way that you see

God, the way that you see the different aspects of life. In the

Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, He talked about the importance of the eye.

In the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 6, He talks about how your body, in order for it to be light, for the whole body to have light, your eyes have to be good.

So, worldview means that you're going to stop seeing things in a certain way that is unchristian, and you're going to look at not only strictly religious issues, but you're going to look at all areas of life from a

Christian perspective. Education, politics, what humanity is, what a family is, what education is.

In all areas of life, you're going to try to look at it from a distinctively Christian, biblical perspective.

That would be your world and life view. And how would a contrasting theology and a contrasting worldview from, let's just take the dominant religion where you are,

Roman Catholicism, what would be the dominant problems with a Roman Catholic worldview that would conflict with what you're saying?

Well, one of the chief characteristics of Roman Catholicism is authoritarianism.

They have this high view of the Church and a high view of what they would call the

Pope. And basically, that weakens their position before God because, you know, you just trust the

Pope, you just trust the Church, and that's a form of authority which the

Church becomes like a god, okay? And that's a problem for Roman Catholic people.

That becomes a problem in other areas of life because if you're trained to be passive and if you're trained to accept tyranny in the

Church, you're going to accept tyranny in other areas of life. And then you're going to accept tyranny by distinct.

And you're going to accept tyranny, you know, wherever it appears. And when you have a

Christian, a distinctively Christian worldview, you understand that the only absolute authority is

God. The only absolute authority is Jesus Christ. And because the

Triune God is the only absolute authority, all other authorities, they are relative and they are inferior and they are limited.

They are limited in relation to what God has ordained and what God has prescribed.

So I believe that Roman Catholicism, it creates a culture of authoritarianism because of its view of Church authority.

And I think that spreads in a Roman Catholic culture to many other areas of life in contrast to a distinctively

Biblical and Protestant view of authority where authority is limited by God and therefore men, they only have to obey to the extent that you have to obey

God and that's God -ordained. And there's another thing. I believe that a

Roman Catholic culture, it also is a culture where reading and literacy is not something that is very much incentivated in the

Roman Catholic culture. There are places in Brazil where illiteracy is very, very high.

And if you talk to the older generations, like if you talk to older men and women at my church, they will tell you that when they grew up Roman Catholic, everybody would say, look, you shouldn't read the

Bible because if you read the Bible you're going to become crazy. And you shouldn't, you know.

Yeah, that was a very common mindset in past generations.

A few decades ago, that's the way most people in Brazil thought. That only began to change because evangelical churches started to grow in Brazil.

So they started promoting Biblical, reading the Bible and things like that. But if you take a purely

Roman Catholic society, you have this authoritarianism. You just believe in the church and that's coupled with a lot of illiteracy because you don't really need to look into things yourself.

You just trust the authorities. Yeah, one might be able to compare socialism in a political way with Roman Catholicism in a religious way because both entities basically say, trust us, we will take care of everything for you.

Yes, we're the specialists. Yes. Roman Catholicism did not even encourage private scripture or study until the 60s after Vatican II.

And then that gave birth to all different kinds of movements, the charismatic Catholic movement and so on.

By the way, there are people out there who think that charismatic

Catholics are somehow closer to the truth than the traditional mainline

Catholics and perhaps more Protestant. I have found that not to be the case at all.

In fact, charismatic Catholics... Oh, I don't agree with that either. Yeah, very often charismatic Catholics tend to be more involved in Marian devotion and things like that.

But having said that, and I'm not broad -brushing, there are people who are

Roman Catholic who have intense personal Bible studies in their lives that are devoted to reading and studying the scriptures.

So I'm not saying that this applies to everybody, but you will know if you are a

Catholic long enough that those that dominate the population of Catholicism, they leave that up to the priests.

They really don't delve into the scriptures. In fact, honest Roman Catholic apologists have actually mildly rebuked their own audiences over this fact, especially if they happen to be

Catholics that were formerly Protestant. But I have to go to our midway break right now.

If you have a question of your own that you'd like to ask Frank Brito about how eschatology affects church missions and church planting, and also we'll be getting more involved in some of the unique challenges in Brazil, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Please be patient with us as this is the longer than normal break in the middle of the show. Use this time wisely by writing down as much of the information as you can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more successfully and more frequently respond to our advertisers, because the only way that we can survive is if our advertisers continue to renew their advertising contracts.

We need their funding to exist. So keep them happy by responding to them, and if you can't buy their products, use their services, etc.,

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And also send in your questions to Frank Brito at chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

We will be right back after these messages, so don't go away. Thank you. On the theme,

Christ is supreme over all. I'll be speaking there along with over 20 other speakers, including

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Before I return to our discussion today with Frank Brito who is a translator a missionary a church planter and a pastor in Brazil and our discussion is on how eschatology affects missions and church planting before I return to that discussion

I just have a couple of important announcements to make. If you are a man in ministry leadership I ask of you please to do whatever you can to rearrange your schedule in order to be in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on Monday, September 27th 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at the Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle. I am having my next

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon there at the Bongiorno Center and it is going to be

I am anticipating one of the best luncheons that we've ever had because my favorite preacher on the planet

Earth and I'm not exaggerating Dr. Conrad M. Bayway who is pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa he is going to be my guest speaker at the next

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon and so not only are you going to be fed for free and hear

Dr. M. Bayway for free you're also going to be leaving there with a heavy sack of brand new free books personally selected by me that have been donated by major Christian publishers all over the

United States and the United Kingdom so I really hope that you can be there

Monday, September 27th 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.

at the Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for more details please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line I hope to see you there also folks continue to pray for my sister -in -law

Jan the widow of my late brother John who just passed away and entered into eternity with Christ several weeks ago

Jan is in the hospital suffering from COVID and pneumonia and she has been in the hospital for quite a number of weeks and apparently the doctors believe she's going to be remaining there for a number of weeks at least maybe months, maybe longer please pray for her physically and spiritually

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Brazil now send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line that's also the email address where you can send in questions to our guest today

Frank Brito who is a translator a missionary a church planter and pastor in Brazil and we are talking about how eschatology affects missions and church planting our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com and put and send in your question and give us at least your first name your city and state and country of residence only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter and we have an anonymous an anonymous questioner who is remaining anonymous because his family is

Roman Catholic he doesn't want to offend them right at this point but he is saying in regards to the

Catholicism that you are surrounded by in Brazil is it different in any meaningful way from the

Catholicism you experienced in New York I know that sometimes when people go abroad especially in Latin American countries they find a striking difference in the level of idolatry that takes place and the level of ferocious attachment to Roman Catholicism that exists whereas here in the

United States there are probably a predominant number of Catholics that are more nominal and perhaps have even been

Protestantized and not so often in good ways

I'm speaking more to the effect of blending in with modern wishy -washy

Evangelicalism but if you could tell us what your own experiences are in Brazil in regards to Catholicism OK that's a good question in my experience it seems that in New York City priests tended to be more liberal and here they are less liberal in the sense of believing in things like scriptural stories in New York City would tend to say that some more things are not literal and things like that but I would say that Catholicism has a general tendency of blending in to the environment it's in so here in Brazil it's very common for Roman Catholics to that there is a tendency to adapt and to get closer to the cultural environment so in New York City there are more liberals and things like that so that's where they will gravitate to and here they kind of gravitate to things that are more common in Latin American culture but here's another thing

I would add the big difference is that in the United States Roman Catholicism was not as big as a forest as it was in Latin America so for many centuries

Roman Catholicism was I mean many other churches were illegal in Brazil and even up to the time of the 20th century it was very common for real persecution to happen like physical attacks against evangelical churches my my in the generation of my great grandmother the brother of my great grandmother he was a church planter in northeast

Brazil Presbyterian church planter in northeast Brazil and at that time churches would be stoned if you had a

Protestant church in the city that church would be stoned and the pastor would get the death threats and that was very common in Brazil now what happens is that when you have that level of power you have less of a need to adapt yourself to surrounding cultures so when you have less power you need to adapt more so you look like you look more like the people around you so I would say that in Latin America they were more real to their ideals because they had more power and they had all this influence whereas in the

United States they didn't have as much power as they did in Brazil and that's where I get back to the worldview thing you see it's not just a religion like something narrowly defined it's a worldview it's a whole worldview on how you relate to things around you having said all that you said about the church the

Roman Catholic church that is having less of a need in their minds to capitulate to the whims of the non -Roman

Catholic surroundings that they have how if at all do

Roman Catholic priests and bishops and any in authority publicly address the adopting of Roman Catholics in Brazil of the pagan culture now obviously we as Protestants believe that much that is intrinsically a part of Roman Catholicism is already pagan but as far as the

African animism and idolatry and the specific things that are have their origins outside of Catholicism that have been incorporated to the piety and devotion and worship of Roman Catholics in Brazil how is the church standing against that if at all well

I think that that capitulation that's actually part historically part of Roman Catholicism that's part of how they would deal with pagan nations where they went to you know doing mission work they would try to win pagan converts by making

Roman Catholicism appear similar to what they already believed in so that's something that exists since the origin of Brazil they would have that's how they dealt with slaves so they would tell the slaves look you can be a

Roman Catholic because you believe in this African guy well he's

Saint Peter well that's not something that the pagans did in Brazil that's how the

Jesuits here would operate that's not something that the

African pagans or the Indians did that was something introduced by the Roman Catholic so I don't think that practice

I think that's actually very real to that's part of what Roman Catholicism is they adapt the pagan doctrines and the pagan beliefs they adapt they say this is equivalent to that that's equivalent to that and the

Jesuits in Brazil were actually very proud of that they were actually very proud and that's one of the things they will say that Protestants were very radical about if you read some of the older stuff they will say that Protestants they're very radical about eliminating other beliefs now having that said we come back to the issue of how

I believe that Roman Catholic Roman Catholicism with this practice with this view it doesn't really break with paganism it doesn't there's no essential break with paganism so people will feel that they're

Roman Catholics but they'll still have this pagan mindset and that's why

I think that we as Protestants if we don't have a very clear and distinct biblical worldview we're going to fall into that same trap we're going to try to Christianize pagan ideas and pagan concepts not only in strictly religious aspects but in all areas of life we have let's see

B .B. in Cumberland County Pennsylvania and B .B. says how do you respond to the opponents of post -millennialism who say that it is a product of 19th century liberalism that taught that things would just keep getting better and better and better much in the same line as Darwinian evolution that things just progressively improve and therefore post -millennialism is just a part of that false liberal concept okay that's a good question and I would respond that those who say that they're inferring what things really are they're putting the cards before the horse what happens is that you just have to show that post -millennialism it historically precedes 19th century liberalism so if we look at the authors of the

Westminster standards which was from the 17th century you see you know post -millennialism was already there when we look at the

Dutch reform that reformed Christians from the Netherlands if we look at the annotations of the

Bible the Dutch Bible that came from the Netherlands during the 17th century it's early post -millennialist if we look at the church fathers if we read church fathers like Athanasius of Alexandria and others they had an optimistic eschatology so if these people

I mean in the reformation era in the 17th century the

Puritans the Dutch reform if they had a post -millennial eschatology then we can't say that it is a product of 19th century liberalism

I would say that actually the optimism that the liberals had it was actually a byproduct of Christendom they came from a background in the 19th century these liberals they had this background of a

Christian society of Christendom and then they picked up parts of it and they maintained it and they adapted it to their view but the optimism of the liberals it actually came from the

Christians which preceded them so all we have to do is show that Christians before them were already optimistic and then that will prove that the liberals are the ones who stole some of these concepts from us yeah and it is interesting

I'm no historian but from my cursory knowledge of history during the rise of the biblical critics the textual critics and leftism coming out of Germany especially and beginning to pour into the

United States and England there was a decline in post -millennials that's when yeah

I mean the 19th century is the era in which dispensationalism was born pre -tribulationalism did not even exist before the 19th century pre -millennialism did but it was not a dominant eschatology throughout the prior 18 centuries and so therefore it it can't be a product of of of 19th century liberalism because that's when post -millennialism nearly disappeared yeah

I would say that post -millennialism decreased a lot mainly due to things that happened in the 20th century which

I believe was actually a result of all this liberalism and humanism if we look at the way that many of the wars happened you know the two world wars that's a direct result of humanism and liberalism so I would say that the loss of hope the loss of optimism that's a result of when humanism and liberalism grows in a society gets so many disasters that people begin to lose hope we have

John in Bangor Maine who says some enemies of post -millennialism accuse post -millennialists of being far too involved in ecumenism with Roman Catholics and those of other religions who are trying to change the culture for the better in regards to the

Holocaust of abortion and same -sex marriage and other things that all

Christians who love the Lord and his word should vehemently and adamantly oppose but the problem comes when we link arms with those who reject the gospel and Christianize them merely because they agree on the social and moral aspects of the fight being fought would you agree that post -millennialists far too often do link arms with those who reject the gospel in order to rescue and transform the world well

I think that there may be um post -millennialism who fall into the trap into getting um too deep into an involvement with a easily is being accepted by unbelievers maybe you're not doing authentic post -millennial work and I agree that some people who identify themselves as post -millennialists are like that but I would not say that it is the position of the majority of the authors who have not defended

Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County uh says that I have heard those who reject post -millennialism accuse it of works righteousness in that the world will be

Christianized through human effort how is one to respond to such accusations well that accusation um is responded to with the proper understanding of the work of sanctification um scripture teaches us that when we believe in the gospel of grace we are justified not on the basis of our own works but on the basis of the work of Christ His finished work

His complete work that's at which He accomplished on the cross so that is justification we are forgiven and the righteousness of Christ is imputed unto us and because we are justified we are also sanctified that means that um um on the basis of the work of Christ sent the

Holy Spirit into our hearts and then we gotta ask ourselves well what is the

Holy Spirit sent for what is His mission why did God make us temple of the

Holy Spirit well if we read Ezekiel um chapter 36 if we read

Romans chapter 8 and many other other passages the role the mission of the

Holy Spirit is to make us obey the law of God so we are to obey the law of God that is what a life of repentance is and all we have to do is ask ourselves is there any area of life is there any area of my life whether it's whether it's when

I'm working when I'm at my job when I'm um in a class when

I'm studying when I'm at church is there any area of my life in which I do not have to obey the law of God and to be more specific is there any area of my life in which the

Holy Spirit will not empower me to obey the law of God so if the

Holy Spirit is the one who leads me Romans 8 Ezekiel 36 to obey the law of God then it is not works righteousness so when

I'm um if a Christian is in government if a Christian um he's in a university if a

Christian's at work if a Christian um whatever a Christian's doing he has to do it in the power of the

Holy Spirit and if he does it in the power of the Holy Spirit what happens? He's gonna obey the law of God that's what the

Holy Spirit has given us to us for so that is not works righteousness to the contrary to the contrary it is to live a life in the flesh it is to live a life out of the

Spirit out of Christ when we live a life of rebellion in any area of life in any aspect of life if we are practicing the works of the flesh which are contrary to works of righteousness that's when we are living our lives on the basis of our own works and we are rejecting the power of the

Spirit of Christ in our lives and we have to go to our final break if you have a question send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time

Chris Arnson at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

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

U -S -A don't go away we're going to be right back with Frank Brito right after these messages

Hi I'm Phil Johnson host and executive director of Grace to You the media ministry of John McArthur I hope you plan to join me and Grace for the

G -3 conference in Atlanta Georgia Thursday September 30th through Saturday October 2nd the theme this year is

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Justin Peters Daryl Bernard Harrison Virgil Walker and James White more than 20 other speakers will be joining us and the lineup this year includes my pastor

John McArthur for details visit G3 conference dot com that's

G3 conference dot com Chris Arnson and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021 this is

Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all we are excited to announce another new member of the

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Vigneault and thanks for listening. As a mother, I was looking for a magazine that would include devotionals that I could quickly do before school and had theology and doctrine made very simple for children to understand that they could read themselves or I could walk them through.

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That's ignitedbytheword .org. Well, before we run out of time,

I want to have priority in your summation of what you think is most important about this topic before I take any more listener questions, so let us know what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we run out of time today.

Well, in Matthew 28, when Jesus Christ sent his Apostles with the mission of teaching the nations,

I believe it is very important to understand that that is not merely a command. With that command, there is a promise.

Not only his Apostles and the Church was commanded to teach whatever he taught to preach the gospel, but there is a promise that they will, in fact, they will be, in fact, effective.

The Church will be effective in conquering the nations and leading all men everywhere, all nations, all people, all tongues to submit themselves to the rule of Jesus Christ.

What Christ commanded in the Great Commission, that will be true in history.

All nations will come to the Lord. And by the way, just a word.

One of our previous questioners was asking how to counteract or respond to the accusations that the post -millennialism involves works righteousness because they claim that through human effort the world will be converted and Christianized.

Well, the thing that's somewhat ironic about that accusation is that the vast majority of post -millennialists are

Reformed, and Reformed Christians don't Christians don't even believe that their own will, the will that exists in the heart and mind of a unregenerate, lost individual who has a heart of stone, we don't even believe that is involved in our salvation, let alone the salvation of others.

So it's actually somewhat comical that Reformed people could be accused of believing in works righteousness.

I've even heard some anti -Calvinists say that about perseverance and the

Saints, the fact that we believe that persevering is a sign of someone truly being of the elect and truly being justified, that persevering involves some kind of works righteousness, which is ridiculous because we believe that it is

God that is preserving us. God himself is the one preserving us. So, you know, these are these are easily refuted accusations, especially when you're talking about the work of converting the world is not a human work, it is a work of the

Spirit. Amen. And by the way, folks, you might hear me, you're listening to the show today, you might think that I am also a post -millennialist.

I have not yet been convicted or convinced of that position. I am

NOT anti -post -millennial. Many of my guests are post -millennial, and I love post -millennialist preachers, teachers, theologians, scholars, and authors.

I would consider myself an optimistic amillennialist, but I am also open to the fact that I might one day become a post -millennialist.

I'm just wanted to throw that out there because some people think that I'm always identically in agreement with my guests because I'm affirming so much of what they are saying.

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, who happens to be a very faithful supporter and listener of this program.

Greetings, brothers. Are the biblical Christians persecuted by their families and friends?

I'm assuming he means in Brazil, and I'm not really sure what level of persecution he's speaking about.

And then he asked a second question, how big of a problem was slavery in Brazil? So let's start with the persecution.

First of all, what kind of persecution of believers exists in Brazil, and is this happening by the born -again believers own family and friends?

Well, it's not as big as a problem today as it was, let's say, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

But I would say that it still exists in more rural areas, further away from the big cities, in that if you become an evangelical

Christian, sometimes your family will no longer want to have anything to do with you.

Sometimes the local supermarket, they will not want to sell you anymore, so they'll say, well,

I'm not going to sell you because you're not a Roman Catholic anymore. That still happens in some of the more places distant from the big cities.

But not as much as it used to, let's say, 30, 40 years ago. And regarding the second question, can you repeat that part again?

The second part, oh, he was asking about the history of Brazil in regard to slavery, how big of a problem was slavery.

It was much, much, much a bigger problem than it was in the

United States. I think Brazil was a country in the

New World which had the biggest amount of slaves. If you compare the numbers with the

United States, the United States had a very small quantity of slaves.

And we were, we made it illegal, we ended the slave trade after the

United States, and we had like millions and millions more. So I see the

United States, the slave in the United States was very small compared to Brazil. Now, what is the ethnic diversity like in Brazil?

Obviously, it's considered a part of the Latin American countries, but are there a large number of African descendants,

Caucasians, etc.? What is the diversity like? Well, that all depends on what part of the country you're in.

Where I live, which is southern Brazil, most people, or a lot of people, they come from German descent.

And Italians, Germans and Italians colonize where I live. Yeah, I believe the boys from Brazil are definitely from German descent.

I'm only kidding, that's a movie that I won't go into right now. But we are actually, we're actually out of time right now, and I want to make sure you provide any contact information that our listeners can use to get in touch with you if they care to.

Well, if they enter Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, which is

Joe Morecraft's church, there's a section in that website called Missions, and there's some information in case anyone wants to read on some of the work

I'm doing and contact me. I think they have my email there. I think that'll be easier to remember than my

Brazilian, the Brazilian church name. Heritage Presbyterian Church, there's a

Missions section, Joe Morecraft's church, and you can see some information about what we're doing.

Translation, I think they have something on translation there. And my email in case someone wants to contact me is

Brito .Hanover at gmail .com.

And that specific website that Frank Brita was speaking about is

HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.

I want to thank you so much, Frank, for being an excellent guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater