July 20, 2018 Show with Mack Tomlinson on “The Importance of the Psalms” AND “More Good Book Recommendations from a Christian Book Lover”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on 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, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our 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 Friday on this 20th day of July 2018.

I'm so delighted to have a dear friend back on the program today and that is with very little notice because we had originally scheduled Pastor William Hill to be our guest today and Bill is sick so please pray for Bill, nothing serious I don't think, it's just one of those things where he was too sick to conduct a radio program and at last moment we were able to get our dear friend Mac Tomlinson, author, conference speaker and pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas to come on the program.

He's going to be addressing in the first hour the importance of the Psalms and in the second hour he's going to be addressing more good book recommendations from a Christian book lover and we're also going to be announcing the 2019 Fellowship Conference New England and Portland, Maine and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Mac Tomlinson.

Hello Chris, always good to be with you brother. Always good to be with you too and let me give our listeners our email address it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com if you have a question about the Psalms or if you have questions about good book recommendations which is the subject for the second hour and our email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name as always, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Pastor Mac, before we go into the subject at hand, the importance of the Psalms, tell us about Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

Well, we are Providence Chapel, a Reformed Baptistic congregation of just under 200 people north of Dallas and Fort Worth, about 30 miles in the university town of Denton, Texas. Two team of pastors and marvelous believers among us and it's a very loving atmosphere that takes the Bible seriously for preaching and teaching, but it's an atmosphere of love and true fellowship throughout the whole life of the church.

We have several prayer meetings each week and it's just a delight to be a part of Providence Chapel. We would invite anyone who lives in the north Texas area, especially north of Dallas and Fort Worth, to join us at www .providencedenton .org.

We welcome you to Providence Chapel anytime. That's Providence Denton, D as in David,.

E, N as in Nancy, T as in Thomas, O, N as in Nancy .org. Providencedenton .org. Well, the importance of the Psalms. This is a subject that I think needs to be brought back to our minds, especially when we have people like Andy Stanley urging Christians to unhitch the Old Testament from our thinking, although we do obviously view the New Covenant as a new and better covenant.

We cherish the New Covenant. We cherish the accomplishments that occurred in the New Covenant to secure our salvation and there are so many things about the New Covenant that we rejoice over as Christians.

But tell us, first of all, what are the Psalms? I mean, that may seem like a very simplistic question. You would expect most people listening to this show to know what the Psalms are, but we do have new Christians listening on frequent occasions.

We do have, even on occasion, Muslims and those who are not inside the Christian faith. We have people who are even atheists on occasions, and even people who are in cults listen. So why don't you tell.

Us about what the Psalms are to begin with? Well, the Psalms are right at the center of the Bible. Basically, I'm trying to paraphrase the word, and it meant poems set to the music of stringed instruments.

And really it became the Psalter or the Songbook of the Saints. And the Psalms are really very unique in the setting of the Bible. And by the way, I would just remind, especially informing new believers and unbelievers, think of this statistic.

It's quite amazing. In the last 50 years, number 8 on the most selling book list with 33 million copies was Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind sold first. Number 3 was the infamous and evil Harry Potter, which has sold 400 million copies.

The Bible, the best selling book of all time in the last 50 years. Think of this. The second greatest selling book sold 800 million copies. The Bible in the last 3 billion, that's B as in billion, 900 million copies.

And so the Bible is unparalleled in the history of the world. And the Psalms are right at the center of it. The Psalms are unique. Some of only sing the Psalms. The Psalms really are a lot more than that.

Some people have a guidebook. The first Christian experience. In some ways, no book can more equip us because it shows us such joy, the victories and the defeats, the deepest sadness, such as Psalm 38 and Psalm 88.

And they show the highest joys and worship. And so the book of Psalms is very unique because they really are. For instance, Psalm 15, the true worshiper. Psalm 23, I bet many can guess that one. The good shepherd and his sheep.

Psalm 51, godly repentance, which leads to joy. And you could go on and on. Psalm 119 has 176 verses. It's the longest Psalm. And 172 of the 176 speak about the statutes, commandments, law, ordinances of the Lord.

So the theme of Psalm 119 is the glory and benefits of God's Word. So we should know the Psalms. We should live in the Psalms. It will help us worship.

Praise God. We do have a listener. Let's see here. We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says, I have seen the Gideons handing out the New Testament and not the entire Old Testament attached to it, but only the book of Psalms.

I assume that would mean that they also have a very high view of the Psalms, having that only attached to the New Testament. Do you agree with splitting up the Bible that way? Is it right to ever give out, in your opinion, Bibles that either only contain the New Testament or only contain the New Testament and the Psalms without having the entire canon, both Old and New Testaments?

Well, the Gideons have been faithful.

To print the Word of God, both the entire Bible, the Old and New Testament. And ministry opportunity, they do print New Testament with the Psalms. And I do not have a problem with ministries doing that.

Not only the Gideons do that, some Bible publishers do that. They're getting out the Word of God in a more economical way at times, and that doesn't mean the Gideons do not believe the Old Testament is the Word of God.

It's just one of their ways to spread the Word of God, and they feel like it. To publish the New Testament with the Psalms,.

God can use that in the lives of people. Yeah, it's just like if you're handing out a tract that has some Bible verses in it, it's not wrong because you're not handing out, every time you hand out a tract, you're not handing out the entire Bible.

And as long as the book isn't being identified as the entire Bible, I can see nothing wrong with that. And of course, everybody who's a Christian should own an entire canon of the Scripture that includes the.

Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Absolutely. There are ministries that publish the Gospel of John by itself, just as to spread the Gospel itself. Right, amen.

Well, tell us about when in your Christian life, the Psalms, if you can even remember, when the Psalms seem to elevate in their importance to you. I mean, new Christians, they are perhaps in a whirlwind of new information, and they have such a large book in front of them that they are not only to read, but study and remember.

And they may not, right yet at this point in their life, recognize the vital importance specifically and uniquely that the Psalms possess. But can you tell us if you can remember when and why the Psalms jumped out to you as being such a precious and uniquely helpful series of inspired writings?

Yes,.

After I became a Christian when I was 19 in the first part of my college years, I became a consistent Bible reader. And when I came to the Psalms, I realized, unlike any other book of the Bible, they were especially prayers.

There are many prayers recorded in other places in Scripture, but the Psalms were uniquely prayers. It's a book of praise and hymns that has struck me. These writers of the Psalms are actually praying, and they're addressing God in prayer.

And what becomes striking is how honest and transparent they are. For instance, I mentioned David, Psalm 38, Psalm 88. You read those Psalms, and they are uniquely very transparent and honest about how depressed he is, about how low he is.

He has no joy. He has no hope. He feels like he's going to die sometimes. And so they're very honest, and they show that people should be honest with God in prayer. We can express not only our joys, we can show how depressed we are, and that doesn't threaten God.

In fact, just the opposite, he welcomes it. So the Psalms are examples to us, given by God the Holy Spirit, of how we can truly pray with honesty and humility the hardest things we feel and the greatest joys we feel.

And we know that, from what you just said, David is author of some of.

The Psalms, but he's not the sole author. Can you tell us how many authors of the Psalms that we know.

Of? I probably can't, Chris. An Old Testament scholar might not be able to answer that. That's probably the best I can answer, and I'm sorry that that may be an inadequate answer. But there were various men, regardless of who it was, in the book of Hebrews, and candidly some of the Old Testament, but that doesn't take away their authenticity.

I mean, we don't even know for.

Fact who wrote the book of Hebrews, so obviously that doesn't take away anything in regard to the.

Nature of them being God-breathed. That's exactly right, right. So when you read the Psalms, like all the Bible, you have this, it witnesses about itself, divine nature, its majesty, and you realize this book is divine.

It speaks to us, not as an academic book, but as from God, the judge of all the earth, the savior of all men. The Bible is the very words of God, and that's how any true Christian.

Amen. And could you tell us what might be, I mean, this might be a difficult test, because the Psalms vary in their purpose and their application, but if you could tell us some.

Of your own personal favorite Psalms of all. Well, there really are so many. You know, one thing I do, and I would encourage readers, is to read, try to read two Psalms every day, along with your other Bible reading, because you can make them, turn them into prayer.

And what I've begun to do, not all that long ago, is at the top of the Psalm, I will try to write what I think the general theme of that Psalm is. For instance, Psalm 1 is a classic favorite. It's only six verses, but it's a contrast between the godly man and the wicked man.

If you put it in New Testament terms, it's the contrast between the Christian believer and the unbeliever. And so, that's a marvelous one, because it's so rich about how a believer should walk, and it shows us how unbelievers do walk, and how we should not maintain being joined together with unbelievers.

Another, 23, the very well-known Psalm of the Good Shepherd and the Shepherd's Care for the Sheep. And that leads me to say, when you read many of the Psalms, you won't see the name of Jesus Christ there, but many of them are messianic, what we call messianic.

They speak in Old Testament language about the Messiah who's to come. And there are numerous, from 24, the theme is the King of Glory. And you read down into the bottom of the Psalm, it says, who is this King of Glory?

The Lord Strong and Mighty, the Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory. Well, all the Bible tells us that the King of Glory is none other than Jesus Christ, the Lord. And so, again, in Psalm 24, Psalm 110, more, I think, than any other Psalm in the New Testament.

Psalm 51 of Repentance, after David had sinned, committed adultery with another man's wife, it's a Psalm of Repentance, where he cries for mercy, and he's very honest, and he acknowledges his cries out for joy.

And so, the Psalms are so multifaceted. If you have great joy and assurance, you can find Psalms that express that praise to God and joy. If a person has sinned and fallen, they should not give up hope.

They should not go into self-condemnation. Rather, they should go to God, who is merciful and gracious. They can read Psalm 51, and they can see that even the great King David, who was a man after God's own heart, he stumbled greatly, but God restored him, as David cried out to God in repentance.

So many Psalms. Psalm 119 is another favorite. Unlike any other Psalm, it talks about the glory and the majesty and the power and the benefit. I've told, if they are dry spiritually, and they don't know what to pray, and they feel far from God, but they want to seek God, turn to Psalm 119 and just begin to pray it honestly.

Make it your own prayer. Turn it into your own prayer. Begin to pray it. Before long, reality will begin to affect your heart. Spiritual desire. And it's a marvelous Psalm to pray when you want to return to the Lord again.

So many of the Psalms are that way. They are multifaceted. Particularly, I would mention Psalm 121. Do we have static? Yeah, we just have a little static, but it seems to have dissipated there. Okay. Psalm 131, I'm sorry, 121 through 134, I'm sorry, Psalm 120 through 134 are called the Songs of Ascents.

And these Psalms are actually believed to have been specially songs that Israel, the tribes of Israel, would sing as they journeyed up to Jerusalem feast days. Share these, they would sing these together, such as Psalm 121, I will lift up my eyes to the hills from which comes my help.

Psalm 122, I was glad when they said in the Ascents were Psalms for journeys. God's people in the wilderness and in the desert of Israel coming from different places to Jerusalem. The Psalms are just such a marvelous body.

And the beauty of them is it's so unique. The Psalm speaks to every emotion and experience people have, feeling hatred toward people, feeling envy, jealousy, condemnation, joy. One of my favorite Psalms of all is Psalm 107.

Am I still on with you, Chris? Oh yeah, definitely. All right, making sure, sorry about that. Psalm 107 is an amazing Psalm, because if you read it, you see that the Psalmist mentions four different groups.

The Psalm is 43 verses long, and it mentions four different groups. The first group is mentioned in verse four. They are the wanderers, wanderers in the wilderness, and they are lost. They're in a desolate place to dwell in.

They're thirsty, fainting in them. They kind of come to a time of desperation. They cry out to the Lord in their trouble. The second group is found in verse 10. Those who are prisoners are sitting in darkness.

They're bound in affliction and torments. So the first group is wanderers who are lost. The second group is prisoners, whether physical prison or spiritual mental prisons. The third group, 17, says they were fools because of their transgressions.

So basically people have made wrong choices, and now they're reaping the consequences, and they are under severe trials. They feel like they're going to die. Then the fourth group is a completely different group.

It's found in verse 23 in the Psalm, and it's businessmen who find themselves under great pressure. In the Psalmist's day, it was businessmen who were doing business on ships of commerce. Well, their ships come in to businessmen who are courageous and smart, and they are scared to come to their wit's end.

And all four groups in different situations are greatly distressed. They come to the end of themselves, and they know they do not have the answers, the strength, the ability. Every group, if you read through the Psalm, it says the same thing.

Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brings them out of their distresses. Oh, that men would give for his wonderful work. So that Psalm, I really call the theme of it, Grace for which God loves.

He loves to deliver the needy, the desperate, and the helpless. And so it is a marvelous Psalm. Yeah, that's an.

Excellent way to title that. We have to go to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, 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, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. And I'll tell you what, Pastor Mack, I'm going to read you a question that you can answer after the break, and you can have a little time to mill over the answer. We have Bob in Hartsdale, New York, and Bob says, I have often heard from Reformed pastors that we should never complain to God, and yet it seems that the Psalms do contain complaints, and the words themselves, as you know, are God-breathed or inspired.

The psalm that strikes me in particular off the top of my head is Psalm 94 .3, Lord, how long will the wicked triumph? And other things like that, that seems as if the psalmists are complaining. Could you answer that question?

And we will have Pastor Mack answer that question when we come back from the break, and of course we will also tell you a little bit more about the Fellowship Conference New England that's coming up very quickly, August 2nd through the 4th at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine.

We'll be hearing more about that, but we look forward to hearing from your questions at chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages with more of Mack Tomlinson and the importance of the Psalms.

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A weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And once again, I remind you, please pray for Mike Gadosh, the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books. He has given me permission to extend to you our prayer requests for him as he faces very serious, life-threatening, open-heart surgery.

It is such a complicated surgery that his own physician has suggested that he use another physician out of state that is more experienced with this particular complicated, delicate procedure. So please pray for Mike, not only as all these decisions are being made as to when and where and who will perform the surgery, but also that the great physician himself, our Lord, God, and Savior and King Christ Jesus, would guide those surgeons' hands, everyone in that operating room, that he would guide their hands, and that Mike would rise up from that hospital bed a stronger and healthier person than he's been in years, and even a healthier person spiritually because of the trial that he has been through.

We will give you updates as often as we get them. And Mike Gadosh is not only a dear friend of mine and my first pastor after being born again, and the pastor who actually immersed me in the waters of baptism, but he's also a very dear, close, personal friend of my guest today, Mack Tomlinson.

Isn't that right, Pastor Mack? Yes. Brother Mike is a dearest time, and I know he would ask every.

Believer's prayers today for him. Amen. And I also want to extend a prayer request for my family, my brother John, my oldest brother John, who lives in Justin, Texas, just about 10 minutes away from where Mack Tomlinson lives.

My brother John, his wife Jan, my sister-in-law, just experienced a great loss in her family. Her brother Charlie died at 64 years of age. Please pray for that family as they mourn over the loss of Charlie, and also pray that the Lord uses this trial in their lives to bring about a great revival, that people would actually come to salvation as a result of this tragedy.

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Well, we are now back to our discussion with Pastor Mac Tomlinson on the importance of the Psalms, and as you may remember, Pastor Mac, there was a listener who asked you if it is proper to complain to God.

He said that he has heard theologically reformed pastors say that we shouldn't be complaining to God. In fact, I've heard that. I've heard that you should never say to God, why me? You should say, why not me?

And things like that. Well, first of all, is that really sound counsel? And how do you harmonize that kind of admonition to not complain to God with what seems to be complaints by David and.

Other psalmists in the God-breathed words of scripture? Yeah. Well, let me quote one who knows better than I how to answer this question. A psalm of David. David himself said this in Psalm 13. Listen to see if you hear any complaint in this.

How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long will I have sorrow in my heart daily? How long will you let my enemy be exalted over me? So the answer to the question is, yes, the psalmist under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they do pour out complaints to God.

And that simply means they were very transparently honest with God and telling him how they felt at the time. If David in Psalm 88 does the same thing. And so I think I'll just get there quickly. Psalm 88, if you read the whole psalm, which is...

By the way, Pastor Mack, I don't know if you've moved.

Your mouth away from the phone or the speaker, but you're getting a little bit muffled.

Well, is that better? That's much better right now, yes. All right, sorry. Psalm 88 is 18 verses, and the whole psalm is almost complaint. Why do you cast off my soul? Why are you hiding your face from me?

I'm afflicted. I'm distraught. You laid me in the lowest pit and darkness and depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me. So I believe it is biblical and it's right to pour out our complaints to God. Job did it in his sorrow.

I think we should understand that there's a difference between humbly in tears with a broken, honest heart when you're hurting, going to God and telling him exactly how you feel. That is complaining in a right way.

And God welcomes that. He said, which father or mother would not welcome their children if they were hurting, coming to them and pouring out how they feel to them? Complaining to God is biblical. What would be wrong, ultimately, is if we blame God in anger and we accuse him of things, accuse him of.

And there's a difference, complaints and accusing God in anger.

And of course, if you're being chastised for sin, especially if it's unrepented sin, the way that you complain has to be entirely different, acting as if you don't deserve such.

A thing. It would be entirely wrong is what I mean. But as to complaining to God when you're hurting, when you're sad, when you're giving out your heart to God, God welcomes us to do. Think of this. Even the Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, he poured out his complaints to God.

Father, let this cup pass from me if there's any other way. And so Jesus did that perfectly as the true human being, the savior, the friend. And we can follow his example as well.

I guess the major difference, though, is that Jesus was and is perfect and without sin. And he had the right to say things that we never have the right. I'm not saying that we should never imitate his prayers at all.

What I mean is, don't you think that we have to be a little bit cautious when we tread into those waters because he was, in fact, God incarnate?

Yes, we do. But he is a pattern. He is a pattern for us as the human. And at times he did pour out holy complaints to his father in heaven who heard him. In fact, the book of Hebrews says, Hebrews 5, 7, I think it is, says, who in the days of his flesh prayed was poured out who was able to say godliness when we're when we're hurting and when we're when we can humble ourselves, tell God a good thing.

Amen. And one other thing, just not to belabor this issue,.

Don't we also have to be careful not to receive approval for words or actions because we see heroes of the Bible saying or doing them because there are occasions when heroes of the Bible are saying and doing things in sin and to imitate them would be obviously sin as well.

Don't we need to be careful? Let me ask you a question. How would we know, for instance, that when David is complaining to God in the Psalms, that that is appropriate compared to when Peter was denying the necessity of Christ's death to Christ's face, which obviously very famously got Peter to receive the response from Jesus, get behind me, Satan, which was not exactly a comforting reply to his comments.

How do we know the difference between something like Peter's denial of the necessity of Christ to die, which he was saying, obviously, out of a good motive, perhaps because of his love for Christ, but it was still sin nonetheless and wrong and a lie, whether it was an intentionally falsehood spoken statement or not?

And you know,.

How do we tell the difference? Yeah, well, it's not easy. Often, the context of the chapter we're reading will tell us, for instance, when Peter is virtually rebuking, in fact, the gospel will rebuke him.

Well, we know he wasn't just way out of line rebuking the Lord Jesus. It was God who sent Peter back and told him to get behind me, because Peter at that moment was expressing the satanic while, the while of the devil, to get Jesus to bypass the cross.

The context of what we're reading will tell us generally when David is complaining, Lord, my heart is one step from death. And then later in the psalm, the same psalm, he says, I praise you because you have healed me because you've heard me.

So often a psalm that we're reading will tell us or transparent if it's not.

Great. Well, before we go to our midway break, I want, even though we're going to be repeating this information, I want you to whet the appetite of our listeners for the 2019.

Fellowship Conference, New England. Yeah, well, it's actually 2018.

I'm sorry. I was looking at an email about the G3 conference, which is in January of 2019.

Well, God willing, we will have one 2019, but for this year, August 2nd through the 4th, 2018, we will have our 5th or 6th annual Fellowship Conference, New England, which in Portland, Maine could come.

It's three days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We will be finished Saturday noon, so people could be home. It's a marvelous three days of biblical preaching, gospel preaching, pastoral preaching, real fellowship.

We'll have a marvelous, wonderful book discounted. Preachers this year will be Tim Conway from Santa Clara, Jesse Barrington, Dallas, Texas, and Pickowitz from New Hampshire. I'm sorry, the name...

Gilmanton Ironworks.

Yes. Good. That's why I couldn't remember the name of the town.

I say it every single day promoting your conference. That's why I remembered.