July 6, 2016 Show with Dr. George Grant on “The Church Amidst a Culture During Revolutionary Change”

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 Arnton.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living

on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this sixth

day of July 2016.

And I'm very excited about today's show.

I know that I keep saying that about nearly every show, I'm sorry, but this is really

multiplied over many, many times over because I've been wanting to interview Dr. George Grant for

many years and this is the very first opportunity that I have, thanks be to God and his

providence.

Dr. George Grant, who is pastor of Parish Presbyterian Church and

founder of New College Franklin and president of the King's Meadow Study Center and

founder of Franklin Classical School in Franklin, Tennessee.

He is the author of dozens of books in the areas of history, biography, politics,

literature, and social criticism.

And today we are discussing the theme, The Church Amidst a Culture During Revolutionary

Change.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens.

Iron for the very first time, Dr. George Grant.

Delighted to finally be able to be on the show with you,

Chris.

I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing.

Amen, well I really appreciate.

That.

And let me, on air, introduce you to my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Well,.

Hello, it's about time we got to talk to each other.

It is.

So great to talk with you, Buzz.

Thanks.

I'm gonna steal a line from one of my elders at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

who actually said this about the groom at a wedding reception that he was emceeing, but

Buzz today is grinning like the butcher's dog.

He's very delighted that you are on.

I'm delighted as well.

Well, let me explain a little bit about why that is.

Okay, sure, go ahead.

But.

I'm gonna start off with a question to explain why.

So, Dr. Grant, who was the first president.

Of the United States?

Well, the first president of the United States was most assuredly not George Washington.

George Washington was still in the field when the Second Continental Congress

put together what would, for the next 15 years, be the

governing structure of the U .S.

It was codified, in the Articles of Confederation.

But even before the Articles were codified, they had presidents that served

one -year terms.

And the first president of the United States who served two terms was

Virginia's Peyton Randolph.

Peyton Randolph.

Well, I gotta remember that one.

Now you know how I know about you.

I'm missing from the curriculum.

Right, that was the Association of Classical and Christian Schools.

When was that?

Was that the 90s or the 2000s?

I can't remember.

But anyway, that particular message called Dumb and Dumber.

Well, you know how they call sinners in the hands of an angry God our national

sermon?

Well, your Dumb and Dumber was my family sermon, okay?

It was the hit with my homeschool children.

We listened to that thing over and over again.

We really liked it because we did not want to, as you said, you were in that message.

We did not want to feel robbed ourselves.

And I also,.

Just for the record, I also read Bringing in the Sheaves.

Wonderful.

Well, in fact, didn't you write hilarious about Hillary Clinton?

I did.

Yes, I actually did.

At the.

Behest of the Bush number one campaign.

Back in those days, there was a book that was floating around called

Bush.

It was sort of mocking George Bush.

He mangled the English language.

And so, a couple of the senior guys at the White House,

would you be willing to do something that is similar

about Hillary?

Not necessarily intended to be altogether funny, like the Bushism

book.

He tried to make it as humorous as possible.

But at any rate, it's called Hilarious.

And it was about Hillary, published in, this really dates me here, in 1992.

Yeah, I remember that.

And.

I hope that you come out with a newly updated version of it.

It would be a lot thicker.

Yeah.

I don't think there's much funny about it anymore.

Right.

This will actually be a massive tome now.

But as I said, our topic today is The Church Amidst a Culture During

Revolutionary Change.

And our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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

And please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you are

listening outside of the USA.

Before we get into that topic, Dr. Grant, tell us something about Parish Presbyterian Church,

first of all.

Well, it's a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, which is the evangelical,

Bible -believing Presbyterian Church.

I have been a part.

And we are in Franklin, Tennessee, and we've actually, we're part of a church

-planting network I've been a

part of, and we've been in our current location for just

not quite five years.

And the Lord is just really blessed.

We have seen just an extraordinary amount of growth, and we're very grateful

for it.

And the vision we would be, as the name suggests,

we are deliberately aimed at knowing each other, being connected to each other,

careful, planted.

My job is to pastor not just my congregation, but the whole

neighborhood.

Well, one of the reasons why Reverend Buzz Taylor, my host,.

Is smiling so much is because, once again, the Presbyterians outnumber the Baptists on the program.

Yes, in fact, the PCAs.

That's right, yeah.

I happen to be a Reformed Baptist,.

1689 London.

Confession man.

But to be fair, both of us passed through those

at one time or another.

Well, actually, Buzz never passed through the Reformed Baptist waters.

Yeah, I was a Fundamental Baptist once upon a time.

And he was an Arminian then as well.

Yeah, I was a Spurred Baptist.

Really?

Okay.

And then our eyes were opened.

Your eyes are going to be shut in about five minutes.

And you're also founder of New College, Franklin.

Why don't you tell our listeners about that?

New College is a classical college along the lines of the

kinds of colleges and universities that were common in the 18th and 19th centuries.

So, a great books -type curriculum.

And, again, intended to be small enough so that every student can know every professor

and really be mentored rather than simply

figures.

It's a scholarship model.

And the same thing is true of Franklin Classical School on the elementary.

And modeled on, really,

the old covenantal discipleship.

My former church.

Before moving to Pennsylvania, my former church, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, New York, has a

classical Christian school, Grace Christian Academy.

And I know that their motto was not—and I may be butchering it because I don't have it in front of me—but it was not just

teaching children what to know, but to teach them how to think.

Yes.

And they use, in addition to Christian literature, they want the children to be aware of

secular literature, especially classic secular literature, so that they can communicate

and engage in the culture around them without coming off like they are

just ignorant individuals and living in a bubble or something.

And they teach Latin there and so on.

Right.

And that means to know the world that we

are in.

We're not to be absorbed by the world, but we're sent to the world, to

minister to the world, to work in the world, to be ambassadors to the world, to be witnesses to the world.

And we can't do that if we don't know the world.

And last but not least, tell us about the King's Meadows Study Center.

The King's Meadows Study Center is the missional and educational arm of our ministry.

We have a number of different initiatives.

We help start schools, particularly in the Muslim world, that will teach a Christian worldview.

So we have three regular schools in northern Iraq,

and then we

have a network of schools that we're trying to plant throughout China and

Vietnam.

And we've got a brand new school up and going just this year in the Philippines.

So we do educational, missional work.

We also have a curriculum, a sort of integrated humanities curriculum

for homeschoolers.

And even a lot of classical

Christian schools use as the base for their history, teaching of

worldview culture.

We have an

emergency medical relief fund

that we've created as well.

And then we've got a relief fund for persecuted brothers and sisters, particularly in the Middle East, called the

NUN.

A number of different things.

And the website is kingsmeadow .com, for those of you listening who would like to investigate more about that.

Kingsmeadow .com, and obviously the URL does not have an apostrophe after King.

It's kingsmeadow .com.

We hope that you investigate more about that organization.

And for those of you living in Franklin, Tennessee or visiting there, you can

look up Parish Presbyterian Church at parishpres .org,

parishpres .org.

Well, the subject that you actually chose today, the church amidst the culture during revolutionary change,

obviously a very timely subject.

In fact, it could be the subject of any discussion during any era since time began, I guess.

But we are really, many of us are just amazed at how

quickly the culture around us is changing for the worse in

many ways.

Obviously, there are things simultaneously going on in the kingdom of God that are absolutely wonderful,

the spread of the gospel globally and so on.

But when you think about the fact that when Barack Hussein Obama was

running for president, he was opposed to same -sex marriage.

And now, not only does he heartily endorse it, we are living in a time,

in that short time span, where you might lose your job if you're opposed to

same -sex marriage.

You could be fired if you were to say anything against that from your biblical

convictions.

But tell us something about why this specific topic came to mind,.

Other than many things that are obvious.

Yeah, I think it's obvious.

A lot of Christians right now are reeling for all of the

reasons the upcoming election, and they see

dismal choices and yet there's never been a more critical time.

They look at the Supreme Court and the perilous place that we are with the court.

We look at the wider culture, the sudden

wickedness is now declared the new

fundamentalist.

Any ideas that have been normative,

there's no

question they're really important for us.

To be able to acknowledge that is not a temporary thing.

This is a full -on moral revolution, as Al Mueller would say.

And at the same time, it's not...

You mentioned, Chris, we've faced this kind of thing in virtually

every generation.

And the church, Hilaire Belloc,

is a big thing that always survives.

Has constantly been able to find ways to reach the broken, fallen

world in which we live.

The liberating news of the gospel of Christ.

And in fact, in some ways, this radical clarity

that has come because of the moral revolution sets us apart so much more

distinctly from the culture that we're actually freer to preach

a unique gospel than we were when there were so many floating assumptions about

civil religion and in

a new day where we have what

we faced just a few years ago.

I wrote a

book, what I thought was the

coming moral... legislating immorality.

And it was the homosexual movement comes out of the closet.

Now, when I wrote this 20 years ago, the

Moody editors kept having conniption,

and yet, looking back, I underestimated how

dramatic the achievements might be of

this revolutionary movement in overturning 3 ,500 years

standard operating assumptions in Western civilization.

Revolutionary times, and we need to think and the

approach that we're going to now take that has to be entirely different from the approach that we've

had leading up to this point.

Well, we do have a listener already from Rugby, England, Mike.

Well.

And he is in the Midlands in the county of Warwickshire.

I hope I didn't butcher that pronunciation, Mike.

And he asks, over here in the UK, things like the adult Bible class are

quite rare.

Because of that, I'm not sure our leaders are preparing their people to face up to the challenges

to truth the culture.

He may have misworded that, is constantly assaulting us with.

Oh, I see.

Face up to the challenges to truth the culture is constantly assaulting us with.

I guess he means really falsehood.

He doesn't mean...

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

I absolutely believe in the preaching of the gospel.

If I can use the phrase, just doing that, isn't completely equipping believers to confidently

stand firm.

For example, what Dr. James R. White does in his church ought to be happening more than it does,

perhaps, all over there as well.

Would Dr. Grant agree with that, or could he comment on that?

Yeah, I think we have got to completely

rethink how we equip and train disciples.

We've got to be much more vigilant in training our disciples.

We've got to find ways to equip them so

that they can exercise courage, because it takes great courage in this day of

immediate intimidation.

But we also, I think, we've got to...

This is not new.

What's new for us is the fact that, at one time, we enjoyed a

widely assumed sort of cultural basis

that was friendly to Christianity.

That's a rarity, and so, in some ways,

brought back to oldness.

I just got through rereading

for about the third time a wonderful book, first published about the time of the

American...

It was published in Dutch by Guillaume Groen van Prinsteren,

who was the mentor to Abraham Kuyper, the

Christian political action in an age of revolution.

And one of the things that we need for us to

understand, be

bold and

flexible enough to allow certain past privileges to evaporate

so that new opportunities are...

So, for instance, right now, it's very likely that churches will see

the tax -exempt status removed in the next five to ten years.

I think that that's a very real possibility.

It's also

going to change the way we approach it

for God, for the kingdom,

for self -righteousness, etc.

Those kinds of questions purify the church.

Oh, thank you very much, by the way, Michael, over there in Rugby UK.

We also have, from this side of the pond, we have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New

York.

Why do you think America has lost its focus on its rich Puritan and Calvinistic roots, such as

William Bradford, the writer of A History of Plymouth Plantation?

Well, that's a great question, Tyler.

I think that we've been drifting for a very, very, very long time.

And so the loss of that perspective is not new.

I think the battle over marriage was lost not when gay marriage

was made legal, but really and truly

when we started hedging the completeness

and the fullness of marriage with no -fault divorce laws, easy -divorce

mindsets.

We started to erode that notion a long time before.

So, bottom line, I think we lost emphasis long

before we ever noticed it.

The truth is, is that the revolutionaries have been harmed for more than a century,

and they have laid out

one revolutionary, Will Durant,

and you

eventually win the society.

So, the judicial robes, the clerical robes,

the white lab coat of scientists, etc.,

the academic robes of the university.

Then it's a quick and easy step to

capture the rest of the culture.

I will say this, though.

The Bible makes it plain that judgment begins at the house of God.

The whole counsel of God with boldness and clarity, and

we are discipling the generations.

Well, we're going to go to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

If you have a question for Dr. Grant, please, again, please leave your first name, your city and state or country of

residence.

If you live out the side of the USA, we thank you both, Mike from Rugby England and Tyler from

Mastic Beach, Long Island, for being the first two who have written in today, and we look forward to more of you joining us

after this station break.

Don't go away.

We're going to be right back with Dr. George Grant of the King's Meadows Study Center right

after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Zarnes.

And if you just tuned in, our guest for the two hours today is Dr. George Grant of the

King's Meadows Study Center in Franklin, Tennessee.

Before we return to our topic, the church amidst the culture during revolutionary change, I just have a

couple of special announcements from some of those who support Iron Sharpens Iron.

Christ Presbyterian Church, which is an Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Salt Lake City, Utah,

has a conference weekend after next from July 15th through

the 18th featuring Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

The theme of the conference is Who is Jesus?

And this conference includes a dialogue between Dr. White

and a Mormon college professor.

And also on the next day, on the 15th, or on the 16th, I should say, he is having a

dialogue with a Muslim imam.

And some of the topics in this conference include Is the Jesus of Mormonism the

Jesus of the Bible?

Who is Jesus?

The Forgotten Trinity?

And a topic that is very much like our own topic today in today's program, Proclaiming Jesus in a

Hostile Culture.

And if you'd like more information about this conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, you can call

801 -969 -7948, 801 -969

-7948, or go to their website for Christ Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City,

Utah, that's gospelutah .org, that's gospelutah .org.

And last but not least, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held August

4th through the 6th in our co -host, Rev. Buzz Taylor's old stomping grounds in

Maine, in Portland, Maine to be specific, at the

Deering Center Community Church in Portland,

Maine.

And among the many speakers at this event is my dear friend, Pastor Mac

Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

And if you'd like more information about this conference, that I am going to make an effort

to be there myself, and I hope Rev. Buzz Taylor can come with me, but that will be August 4th through the 6th.

And for more information, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, that's

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

And if you'd like to join us on the air today with a question of your own regarding our topic today,

our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, and our

subject with Dr. Grant is the Church Amidst the Culture During Revolutionary Change.

Obviously, since our guest is a theologically reformed scholar, you can ask

questions about reform theology or other matters connected to that, just basic questions on the Christian

faith.

In fact, one thing I failed to mention is that Dr. George Grant was a participant in the wonderful,

really powerful DVD series called Amazing Grace, The History and the Theology of

Calvinism.

And we have interviewed Eric Holmberg and Jerry Johnson on this program, and

I think that that is one of the most powerful teaching series on the subject of Calvinism that I have

ever seen or heard in my entire life, and that's not an exaggeration.

And I thank you, Dr. Grant, for participating in that.

Well, it was a great joy.

It's a role to introduce folks.

I have seen folks use that as sort of an introduction in home fellowship groups

to help folks realize the beauty of the.

Doctrines of grace.

Yes.

Amen.

Well, you know, obviously, Dr. Grant, one of the greatest difficulties that Christians face

is being on one side of the spectrum, pharisaic,

self -righteous, viewing themselves as so holy and clean that they

don't want to dirty their hands by going near the sinners in the community around them who

reject Christ.

And basically, they gather in their own evangelical or fundamentalist

monasteries, and I'm not using that as a literal term, obviously, but they're cloistered together with

people who agree with them and do the same kinds of things that they do and eat in the same kind of places and

so on.

And then you have on the other extreme, those who have succumbed to the temptation

not only to be in the world, but to become of the world.

You could barely distinguish them between anyone that may be in a

nightclub or any other gathering where lost people may frequent and the language they use

and the hobbies they have and the things that they do and the way they dress.

You can't distinguish them from those folks.

And there's got to be that balance that we as Christians tend to

either fall on one side of that fine line or the other, but we have to really maintain that balance

in order to be an effective witness, don't we?

Well, yeah, it's not only a balance, it's a kind of integration.

It's not really détente, it's the world.

It's actually going to the world with the hope of the redemption of Christ.

Part of the problem is that the biblical world view, our view of the world,

on the one hand, that very dwelling place, passing away,

we're here but for strangers,

but household, our true citizenship is in

heaven, things above.

At the same time, this world is filled with, to use the prophet Jeremiah's phrase,

it is filled with dangerous toils and snares.

In tandem with the flesh of the devil, it makes war on the saints.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride of life is not of the Father, 1

John.

Now, out of the world, so we're not to be conformed to

this world, neither are we to love the world, because Christ gave himself for us that he might deliver

us from this present evil world.

So we get this emphasis in the scriptures warning us against the

world.

We're left in the world

and not just left in the world, we're called to work in

it, sit ambassadors to it, and we even have to go to the other most parts of it,

offering a good confession of the eternal life to which we are called.

So we tend to have a kind of

binary approach.

What we have in the scriptures is an integration point.

It's beautifully described by a powerful picture in Genesis chapter 12 when Abraham

was on his long journey.

He pitched his

dream to Bethel

and at

its place of

fellowship

with God.

We have

to have a

vision

of life

between

Bethel so that

we're

fully

invested

in our daily callings, yet

it's

a

really

powerful way of looking at the world.

And unfortunately, because we don't think about these things biblically, we opt for an either

-or kind of mentality, opt out of the

world and set a

cooperator, and we're not to be either.

So we have to go, therefore we can

never be when we go all the way home.

Amen.

Well, when we are spending a lot of time in the midst of this worldly culture,

don't we need our spiritual hazmat suits on, or better put, the armor of God?

I know personally how I really discovered how seared

my conscience was, like a frog in a kettle who didn't realize he was being boiled alive.

I can remember my dear late wife, who was much more sensitive to

things such as dirty scenes in movies or profanity or what have you, and I can still

remember on two occasions going to the movies with her and then realizing when I looked next to me that

I was sitting in that dark theater alone.

And not that there weren't other people in other seats, but my wife was missing.

And thinking that she was in the bathroom, when time went on and on and on, I can still remember on

two occasions walking out into the lobby, and there's my wife leaning against the pinball machine with her arms

folded looking at me and saying, you stayed in there?

You stayed in there?

You actually stayed in there?

And, you know, I have to admit, just like a lot of Christians, we don't even

realize that we are enjoying things that Christians 50, 60,

70, 80 years ago, let alone a couple of hundred years ago, they would have been horrified if you

were viewing and enjoying something like we are today.

Can you have any comment on that?

Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that we have to do is we

have to adjust to the notion that we're not supposed

to be a part of this world system.

So a lot of Christians think it's just normal to go to movies and watch TV and take part in things.

The Bible makes it very plain that we need to guard our eye gates and guard

our ears and guard our hearts so that we don't become feared

by the flames of perdition that are flaring up all around us

in this fallen culture.

But the way we do that is not radical separation.

The way that we do that is by the exercise of real godly

discipline.

And so one of the things that I advocate is that Christians start to recover the old Puritan patterns

of self -examination.

Another great Puritan exercise, one that's described beautifully by Thomas

Boston, is the idea of

we don't do quiet.

First thing

in the morning, we plug our iPods into our heads.

If we're in the car driving, we've got the radio on.

The TV is on.

We've just got constant...

And one of the things that we have to learn how to do, again,

silent...

The call to quiet, thoughtfulness, to meditation is

almost altogether lost.

But it is one of the key tools to enable us to well -evaluate and discern

what's healthy and unhealthy in the world around us.

It will reshape us in ways that we can hardly imagine.

And then the exercise of self -examination...

You know, just sitting down, we know that when you have a well -executed plan,

then you've got to go back and you've got to evaluate, okay, how do we do?

Where do we do things right?

Where do we do things wrong?

It's something that my staff and I do every single Monday after the Lord's

Day.

We say, okay, what hymns worked?

What arrangements didn't click?

What was good?

What was not so good about the sermon?

Was sermon one or sermon two better?

You know, those kinds of things.

We do that in life and we do that in business, but we oftentimes don't do it with our own

heart, our marriages, our walk with

Jesus, so to enable us

to be in the world,.

But not of it.

We do have Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Aaron writes, just wondering, Dr. Grant's thoughts in light of this cultural

revolution, how he might counsel someone regarding the upcoming presidential

election?

Better to refrain from voting at all or choosing the lesser of two evils?

If one can figure that out, Spurgeon said, choose neither, in reference to the

lesser of two evils.

A conundrum.

So I know that there are people who may not only be in the same denomination, but not

only in the same church, but even in the same pew, who disagree over that issue.

Those that would view both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as equally

reprehensible and horrible choices for the future of our nation, and those who would

choose the lesser of two evils route.

Where do you stand on that, in the least, with this election?

Well, I think that the first thing that we have to say is that the conundrum that we are,

take God by surprise, even if it does take all of us by surprise.

Second thing that we have to be able to say is that how we resolve this

conundrum is not, and that means

that we should not resort to bombast when another believer

chooses another direction.

Well, they're armed before us.

And so for us to get our 90s in a knot over our brothers and sisters,

simply because they've chosen a different way to solve this horrid problem than we

have, is really the height.

So I think we've got to be humbled

in this, and as Christians, we ought to be more

vigilant than ever before in praying for our nation.

We have before us two awful choices.

There are lots and lots of small, non -major

party candidates who will be on the ballot, and lots of my friends are looking at

the possibility of voting for one of them.

Part of the problem is that the libertarian candidate is pro -abortion.

So that's not an option.

Then you have lots of smaller parties or independent candidacies.

Many of those candidates are not.

On the ballot in all 50 states.

Like the Constitution Party, for instance.

Constitution Party, which, you know, I was one of the founders of the Constitution Party.

I have great affection for Howard Phillips and that

movement.

I also know that there's just not an easy answer

here.

I may be one of the most corrupt people ever to a major party ticket

in the history of the United States, and that is saying a lot.

You start thinking back to Martin Van Buren or Zachary Taylor, and you know, to top that list is

quite a feat.

But she is, as Robert Caro, the biographer of Lyndon Baines Johnson, has said,

she is LBJ in a pantsuit.

Donald Trump, when it comes

to

major

matters from his business, you

know, we're really

facing a really wretched,

which would you rather vote for, Caligula or Nero?

That's, that is hilarious.

No pun intended regarding your book that is now out of print.

The, I love the, I brought this up before, but there's a meme on the internet with a little boy

crouched toward a electrical socket in the wall, and he's holding a fork,

and the title on the meme or the caption on the meme says,

Hillary or Trump?

Obviously, either choice is going to.

Bring great harm to the child.

And the thing is, you know, people are saying, you know, no matter which one of

these two candidates, and one of these two, unless an indictment comes down, and

if an indictment does come down, it's going to come down on Trump, not on Hillary.

But if an indictment were to come down, then it changes the game.

But otherwise, one of these two for the next four years is going to be in the White House.

And so Christians are saying, at that point, we'll be able to say, eventually, under

God's judgment.

My response to that is, are you kidding me?

We have been under God's judgment for quite some.

Time.

Just look at your pay stubs.

Yeah.

Now, would you agree that obviously, as you said, we should not be

bombastic or self -righteous when criticizing those

that disagree with us on how to respond to the upcoming election,

whether to refrain or to vote for the lesser of two evils?

At the same time, would you not caution our brethren in Christ who are voting for

Trump not to be among those who are are

dancing around throwing confetti and as if they are in a parade

with Nebuchadnezzar, being very excited about the

prospect of Donald Trump winning.

It's almost as if the driving force to it is nothing

more than wanting to be vindictive against Hillary Clinton

and releasing a rabid pit bull on her.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I think one of the things that we're seeing right now is extremism across the board.

I think the best response to

these is to ignore

it.

When people are whipped up into a frenzy and they're frothing, to completely

ignore it is actually more difficult for them to handle than for

me to argue with them.

They want us to argue.

They want us to say, oh, no, no, no.

They want us, and then they'll come back.

I mean, honestly, most people have never, ever in their lives seen an argument

won on social media.

We don't win arguments on social media.

And very likely those who are all whipped up and waving the banners of one

candidate or another in this election are not going to be swayed by

logic or reason.

Or perhaps even though one of the things that we can do is just

knock in our lives, air time in our memes,

air time in

our...

Hmm.

And how do you...

I know I don't want the thrust or the focus of our program to be

political necessarily, but it is a part of our lives.

We have.

And how do you respond to the person that...

Let's say you're voting for the presidential candidate

for the Constitution Party and unless...

General Kessel.

Yes, who I'm actually working on trying to interview him.

But barring any kind of modern -day miracle, that man

is not going to win the election.

And someone who is voting for him, our brethren in Christ

may look at them, and they may even say this to me for even airing such an interview if I

manage to arrange it.

How dare you?

You are...

All you're doing, you might as well just be pulling the lever for Hillary Clinton.

You are...

There's no difference in you not voting for Trump and voting for Hillary Clinton.

They're the same thing.

And how dare you detract people from voting for Trump who is more of a sure winner

than somebody as noble and as Christ -like and as godly and honorable as they may be.

They're not going to win.

So what are you?

Some kind of a nut?

Just stop your detracting people from doing what their duty is as an

American citizen to get us freed from the shackles of this leftist government that we're

currently enslaved by.

That kind of thing.

How do you respond?

And that is the argument that you'll see over and over and over again on Facebook, in Twitter, in

conversations with...

Let's say first of all, it's not a logical argument

to not vote for someone is to not vote for someone.

It's not to vote for someone else.

But you can't use logic

against an illogical argument.

And so it's probably not worth our breath trying to convince

someone.

It is not

our duty to

follow our savior.

And if I, in good conscience,

simply cannot vote

for Donald Trump, does not mean that I am supporting Hillary

Clinton.

It means that I cannot pull that lever.

And therefore, I have to find an alternative.

I have to find something that I can do.

That is an honorable thing to do.

I would say to my friends who are going to vote for Donald Trump, I understand the argument.

I understand the argument of the

immigration madness that we have faced.

I don't like any of the solutions that appear to

be single policy pronouncement that's clear or

grammatically correct.

It's difficult.

You know, I understand the argument.

What I would simply...

Some of us will, some

of us will not be able

to do that.

Understandable given the curricula.

It's not much of a choice.

Well, now, when you have people that are asking questions...

I've had discussions where I hear it over and over again, well, nobody's doing anything about this.

How would you address brothers and sisters in Christ that want to do something about all of this, but we

feel totally helpless because it's like all the decisions are already made.

You know, they probably already know who's going to be president.

And let me ask along with that a related question.

Since I'm talking primarily about Christians wanting to engage the culture, how much do you blame

the church for what has happened in our culture?

I'll take that last question first.

I believe that the responsibility

that we've done the wickedness, but we've left a vacuum.

It was our shoddy approach to art, music, literature, and ideas that

paved the way for substitutes

for art, music, literature, and ideas to gain

freedom and

responsibility.

The overt acts of rebellion were not ours.

And in terms of what we should be doing, when we start to feel helpless, that is the

moment when I say, well, then roll up your sleeves and go to work.

There are a thousand different ways that we can go to work making our world better right in our

own neighborhoods.

If we're really concerned about the direction that our world is going, just to

volunteer at the Crisis Pregnancy Center, it's time for us to launch an

initiative with them for

time for us to make a difference in our communities.

Go be a part of planning commission meetings.

Engage with the wider culture.

Get to know store owners.

Befriend them so that when something objectionable appears on their shelves, you can go

to them as a friend, not as an

adversary.

It's time for us to work jobs.

Amen.

And we're going to have to go to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We do have several people patiently waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Dr. Grant.

We will get to you as soon as possible when we return from the station break.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Sarnes, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. George Grant,

an author of numerous books, and he is also the founder of the King's Meadow

Study Center.

Today we are discussing the church amidst a culture during a

great, disturbing, and dark revolution that is going on.

And we do have another listener in the audience waiting for a question.

Actually, it is a comment more than a question that he would like Dr. Grant to

respond to.

John in Peoria, Illinois, who is in charge of membership

development for Samaritan Ministries International, he writes, number

one, A cannot be non -A, so voting for Castle isn't voting

for Hillary.

That would be Darryl Castle of the Constitution Party that we mentioned earlier.

And number two, a large group of Christians speaking out against the circus and for

a mature Christian candidate will at least send the message that Christians are not going to

participate in that system anymore.

Your comment, if you'd like, Dr. Grant.

I think that's a very, very wise comment.

That's the exercise of good logic and good theology simultaneously.

Our call really is to bring the message of a biblical worldview

and of the hope of redemption.

How on earth can we do that if we constantly accommodate ourselves to the

worst of the worst in the world?

So I totally agree.

Christians need to be speaking clearly on all of the issues of our day

and of our culture, not just politics.

Politics is important, but it is not all important.

The truth is that where people live their lives is pretty remote

from all that goes on in Washington, D .C.

And while Washington, D .C. profoundly affects us more and more with every passing

day, the truth is that we, as Christians,

need to be much more invested in what happens in our neighborhoods and in our communities.

Than what happens in Washington.

Now, don't you think one of the dangers behind being a public

and giddy participant in the

candidacy of somebody like Donald Trump or even another political

candidate, especially when the faith of that person is

clearly nominal at best, the consequences when

someone is presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost

world around them, especially their family, their friends, their colleagues, their neighbors,

and they, with the equal fervency of their gospel presentation, are telling people,

vote for Trump.

He's going to change this nation.

He's going to make America great again.

And if he were to be elected and he turns out to be an

enormous embarrassment to this nation, and that might be even putting it mildly, he

may bring about some horrific consequences and events in this nation that we

don't even fathom right now.

And everyone that heard you preaching the gospel all those years is now saying, why should we

believe you about the gospel when you are all excited about Donald Trump?

Now, again, I'm not speaking about the person who quietly behind a curtain pulls the lever for him.

I'm talking about the person who is publicly very excited and aggressively

promoting his candidacy.

That's what I'm really referring to.

Yeah, you know, this is a question that Martin Lundmuller raised following World War

II about the Germans who were giddily, giddily supportive

of Adolf Hitler and his nationalist movement in 1920

as the Nazi Party grew in those, you know, years between

World War I and World War II.

The truth is, is that we have seen Christians supporting

really wretched cause, setting back the agenda of the Church

years of our naivete and our foolishness.

Here's the thing, regardless of who's to be in

the Lord, not in some candidate, not in some platform, our hope is in the

Lord.

And when we start to confuse where our hope or the hope of our nation

really lies,

careful about this.

And again, I would say to anybody, look, the choices before us are incredibly complex.

Don't oversimplify them.

Don't

try and make this

so much start floating about is

Trump -like tactics to denigrate those

who some of us are going to say one

thing, and some of us are going to be told, I understand the

reasoning for people who will vote for Trump, and

I will not.

I can tell you right now, I cannot and will not vote

very, very likely that I'll be able to say I cannot and will not vote for

Donald Trump.

Try not to be too dogmatic about that, because I know that that can have a lot of sway with a lot of

people.

I want people to wrestle with.

I know Darrell Castle.

I've known him for years.

I'm voting.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, John in Peoria, Illinois, I believe you're a first -time writer today, so

you are getting free of charge a New American Standard Bible, a beautiful new edition

of it in a Leathertex cover, a really beautiful Leathertex cover with an

embossed cross design on it, and it's a really gorgeous Bible,

compliments of the publishers of the New American Standard Bible who sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, so if you give us your

actual full mailing address, John in Peoria, Illinois, you'll receive that free of charge, God

willing,.

Very shortly.

Well, I'm going to have to be a first -time writer.

That's a good deal.

Oh yeah.

Well, you might want to listen and write in a question on Monday.

We have Rosaria Butterfield on.

Do you know Rosaria Butterfield?

I do.

Yeah, so she is going to be on our program Monday, and for those of you who do not know who she is, she's a former liberal and

lesbian university professor who hated most of the things that Christians

cherish in regard to biblical morality at one time, and she has been transformed by

the gospel of Jesus Christ and the blood of the Lamb, and she is now not only a

godly Christian woman and heterosexual, but a wife of a

Presbyterian pastor, a conservative Presbyterian pastor, Bible -believing pastor, and she is going

to be on the program Monday, God willing, to discuss her testimony.

So, Dr. George Grant, you can write in a question and not only will you get her book for free, but

you'll get a free New American Standard Bible.

But we also have right now Nancy in Chippewa Falls,

Wisconsin, who says, Judgment begins in the house of the Lord.

How do we get back to the biblical view?

I agree, this is about marriage, culture, or divorce.

How do we get back to the biblical view?

I agree, we lost it with easy divorce, but I experienced either two

camps, permanence view, even in adultery and or abandonment, or

anything goes, all divorced can remarry.

So many divorces.

So, obviously, she's talking about the two extremes.

You have those who say you can never, as a Christian, get married again after being married, no matter

what the circumstances behind that divorce was.

You could have a spouse who was an unrepentant adulterer, scandalous adulterer, who

not only committed adultery on the other spouse numerous times, but maybe even just left,

abandoned that person.

And then you have the churches that will remarry people no matter what reason.

They may have even been the key party in causing the divorce.

Right.

One of the things about revolutionary times is that we wind up going to extremes, and

both of those extremes.

But the

answer to Nancy's question is simply this,

of America to be alive.

We've got to teach the whole counsel of God.

We've got to wrestle with the truths of Scripture.

We've got to exercise disciplinary

discipling care in

the case of broken relationships.

No divorce, in other words, if a

divorce occurs, have to be engaged

in the process of restoration in whatever ways are possible.

A

widow from

infidelity is now covered by the

church, by the local church.

These are just basic, come

alive in the modern church, if and when we teach.

Amen.

Going back, I already said that I didn't want this to be the focus of politics

today, our subject, but I can't help but wonder what your view of

Christian libertarianism is, because of the fact that I believe the Constitutional Party

was very influenced by Christian libertarianism, very small government.

There are Christians, and of course, not all libertarians are the same.

You have morally liberal libertarians who are basically libertines

and who are pro -abortion and all that kind of thing, but you have solid, conservative, Bible

-believing Christians, and they may not use the term conservative in this case because they're

libertarian, but they are definitely biblically based in their morality and so

on.

But they would say, for instance, I'm

not in favor of the government stopping two homosexuals from marrying each other,

because the government shouldn't even be involved in marriage in the first place.

I'm not in favor of homosexuals marrying people of the same gender at all.

I think it's a damnable sin, but that's not the role of government to be involved in any of our marriages.

That kind of a thing, as you know, the libertarian line would be, I'm not in favor of

drug abuse and so on.

I believe that it's sinful to use narcotics in a recreational way,

but it's not the job of the government to be babysitting us

and preventing us from self -destruction, that kind of thing.

That seems to be where the dominant numbers of evangelical Christians

would be frightened about libertarianism, because they just see

that as another form of liberalism.

And also libertarians are less likely to be in favor of being involved in

foreign military conflicts overseas that don't have a direct threat upon American

soil,.

That kind of a thing.

Yeah, I think the first thing that we have to say is that, again, we are,

sadly, the heirs of the French Revolution and all of the revolutionary movements, the ideological

remainder of the 19th and the 20th centuries.

And so we tend to think in ideological terms, and in terms of

talk about things like conservative, liberal,

and we tend to use them fairly loosely.

You've been pretty careful, Chris, in trying to narrow it and define it, but we're still using the

language of the French Revolution when we use those terms.

And so what I would say is it's time for us, as Christians, to think in biblical terms.

Issues are incredibly complex.

We might have some sympathy with the libertarians on some areas where we say, you know, the government

should not even be in this.

Why are there marriage licenses?

Well, marriage licenses go back to, actually, the New England Puritan.

We could talk about the history there, but this is just not an area

that the government should be involved in at all.

However, once you sort of conceive that, now you're into

inheritance law, tort law, all kinds of other, you know, second and

third -order consequences that you may not have thought about initially.

That's what we're facing right now with gay marriage.

We have upended the entire insurance industry

of the inheritance and tort law industries, so that

we really don't know from day

to day.

What I would say is we've got

to go back to every issue and examine it from a biblical perspective rather than from a

political one, even if it has political

ramifications.

Separate things out.

I've been around long enough to have been involved in the Reagan

administration, and there were a lot of things, a lot

of strong principles,

but that did not mean that I could not engage

in the Reagan

administration.

We're just going to have to do our job,

blame the whole Council of God, and then engage in reformation, an

answer to revolution, hard work

of rebuilding from the ground up.

Amen.

You mentioned Abraham Kuyper earlier, who I believe may have coined the phrase co -belligerence,

where you have conservative Bible -believing Christians linking

arms in public political activism and social activism with people who

have a false gospel or no gospel at all, may even be in a religion that is

overtly an enemy of the Christian religion, but they view the moral

battle as worthy of one where we can link arms publicly but never dilute

the faith that we believe.

How do you view that whole arena of public activism, arm -in -arm with.

People who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Well, one of the things you can do that on an issue -by -issue basis, you can't

do that long -term across the board.

So you can't build a political movement on co -belligerency, but on a particular issue,

you can be co -belligerent.

It's like an

amicus brief with a lawsuit.

You may not actually be able to host

those briefs, but on this particular issue, you stand united.

And I think that's the key.

We tend to want these sort of permanent alliances, again, because we're thinking like French revolutionaries,

we're thinking in terms of permanent ideologies, and the

truth is that we live in a complicated fashion,

only bound together by the scriptures.

We're not going to agree, so

we work as hard as we can on various causes with who

we can, but we don't try and imagine that

this is...

Now, one of the things that I have a lot of evangelical friends that get

all goose -bumpily, that's a phrase.

It is now.

Goose -bumpy.

They really love these national days of prayer and these

gatherings of people in major cities who they're all praying

together to God to bring about great change and revival in this country,

but I do not participate in these things because I just can't understand how they don't see

the improperness of the impropriety of people

linking arms and praying to a different deity than the one that you are praying with,

if you follow what I'm saying.

It just seems to me that it is not something that goes hand -in -hand

with the way the Christian church behaved in the scriptures.

You didn't see...

Yeah, it's hard to imagine Elijah and Jezebel appearing on the same dais together.

Or Paul and the leader of the Judaizers in Galatia.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, we've got to be really, really careful about those kinds of things.

So I guess you would agree with me.

I'm not being...

Yes, I totally agree with you.

At the same time, I think we are called into this world and we, you know, on certain

critical issues, we may stand side -by -side with people that

we most assuredly do not agree with, but we don't have to necessarily appear at each

other's rallies or pray to one another, you know, have some ecumenical service

or something like that.

We, you know, we can exercise real discretion

and at the same time find ways to make a real.

Difference in the world that we live in.

Amen.

We have to go to our final break right now.

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, we have about a half hour left for you to do

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And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our guest, Dr. George Grant, our

email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Oh, in your opinion, Dr. Grant, what is the most disturbing

ways in the third millennium, in the 21st century, that the

church at large, and I'm not even talking about mainline liberal churches, I'm talking about those that profess to be

born again, from all different denominational backgrounds and theological

views, how they are compromising biblical truth in this

day and age.

What would you say are the most significant ways that the church at large is doing that?

Well, there are a host of different things, as you intimate.

To single most disturbing thing, I would say that

it is our lack of attunement to

the teaching of the Word of God.

It is our willingness to be dragged along by either

cultural trends or emotions, or cultural anti -trends,

to be sucked into the pattern of the

brokenness of this world without the proper moorings of the scriptures.

And so, I think, to me, the lack of attentiveness, the lack of time, the lack of

scriptural memory, the lack of

rooting in the scriptures is

the most disturbing.

Now, you have talked a lot about education.

Of course, most of my familiarity with your speaking has been at the Association

of Classical and Christian Schools.

And you have said a lot about reading and about different subjects and so forth.

So, address the idea of education here for a moment, because, well,

you had mentioned early in our conversation about getting a classical education,

and you referred to it as a great books education.

Could you address that and talk about, for example, Christians and sending.

Their children to the public schools and so forth?

First, I would say that one of the great tasks that every parent has

is not just the

raising and admonishing of children.

We are commissioned, we are

tasked to disciple our children so that they

can know the way that they should go all the days of their life.

We can't trade that responsibility off.

We can't somehow excuse our

inactivity in that arena simply because we've hired good

tutors or have great curriculum or anything else.

We are called to disciple our children.

And the most important thing that we fit them for is eternity.

It's not their future financial portfolio, fruitful

and as helpful as that may be.

We're fitting our children for eternity.

And so when we're not

abandoning our primary responsibility and we are ensuring

an ongoing pattern of sinfulness in our children, where we pass our sins

onto them and they pass them on to our grandchildren, so

I would say, you know, first and foremost, it is vital for us to understand

that all of us are in the task of discipling.

I look at

the batch

that now are

beyond anything that we

can see, but the

moral pollution now is beyond bearing.

But there are also a lot of really, what

we've got to do is we've got to be vigilant and careful

and undertake this

righteousness that God calls.

Us to.

Yeah, and one thing that some of our listeners may be unaware of when it comes to parochial schools or private

schools, if you're considering sending your children to one, I know

of evangelical parents who send their children to Roman Catholic parochial

schools.

Now I can't say this for every Roman Catholic parochial school, but I went to one as a grammar

school student from the first through the eighth grade, and way back then in the late 60s

and early 70s when I was in parochial school, private grammar school, I was taught

that evolution was a scientific fact, and I was taught that these stories

of Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark and things such as that in the Old Testament were

fairy tales.

Now the nuns didn't teach us that, but the secular science teachers

did in the Catholic school.

So you're not necessarily safe in sending your kid to a

parochial school just because it's a private school, and when you consider that

evolutionary notion was being taught as fact back in the,

you know, 45 years ago, back in the late 60s and early 70s, what are they

doing now?

I have no idea.

Yeah, and you know, the same thing, I think, Chris, could be said about a lot of Protestant Christian

schools.

We have to be really, really careful, and we have to, if we're going to entrust

our children's education,

that our children

attend hours a day, every single day, for 18 years of their lives.

It's really critical that we be aware of that.

Now one thing that also puzzles me as kind of a dovetail off of what I had

spoken about earlier, the National Days of Prayer and other similar events where

evangelicals are giddily gathering with people of all religions,

locked arm in arm, praying for a change in America.

There are many Christians, perhaps even the majority, at least the ones that you hear in the media and the

public arena, who are conservative evangelicals who lament

the day that there was, that the day that prayer ended in public school, and

they want that to return.

And I always say to myself, well, how on earth could a Christian want prayer,

other than the private right of an individual student to pray and have a Bible club

and all that kind of thing, but to have like a principal of a public school praying over the

loudspeaker or whatever, when the guy might be a Mormon, or he might be, who

knows what he might be, he might be a member of a cult, he might be in the Church of Christ

Scientist, or a Scientologist, or anything that is not a

Christian religion, and why would a Christian want that?

And are you as equally.

Puzzled by that desire?

Yeah, I mean, I'm puzzled by the desire to

provide chaplains even for, you know, the government school,

in the same way that I don't think there is in the wider culture, I don't think we can endorse

the kind of wickedness that occurs in virtually every government -run school.

There are perhaps a few rogue schools out there, but they can be

sure that they're going to face the hammer of the feds before too very long.

What we ought to be doing

to the schools where we can, to minister to kids there, you know, we ought to be

supportive of movements like First

Pride,

but our

own children need to be protected from

going far, far.

And we have Christian in

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,.

Who says, I have seen heroes of the faith of mine

who share so much in common theologically, radically disagree on some of the points

that you have brought up today.

There are men that I love to hear preach and teach who believe a minister of the gospel

should never, under any circumstances, be actively involved with politics

in a public forum.

And there are others that I know from theonomic and other backgrounds

who mock that and say that a pastor, just like anyone else, should be

free to run for office or be publicly involved in any political activity that

anyone else would be.

Where do you think the line should be drawn on this matter?

I'm not sure you can draw a line.

What I would say, the world and all who live in it, for he

founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

We do face a great conundrum right now in the sense that

politics is quite perverse and quite wicked.

And therefore, I think all of the things that we've been talking about, everything that

Chris has said about not...

I do think that pastors need to be very circumspect about

what they say and how they say it.

But at the same time, we can't exempt certain aspects of life or culture

from the call of the gospel.

Jesus did not hesitate to speak directly to the magistrates of his

day.

No, he was...

they were members of the Sanhedrin, and the Sanhedrin was a governing body.

The gospel must... there

is not one square inch in which Christ, who

is sovereign over all, does not say,

mine.

So I would say everything is Christ's.

We've got to be careful about not buying into worldly agendas, not being

partisan in terms of political alignment, because our trust is

in the Lord and not in some politician or some agenda or some platform or some

party.

So I think you're absolutely

right.

We're living in a day of confusion, and therefore,

we've got godly men who take very different perspectives on this, and we

need to not always agree, disagree

in accord with the Word of God, at a time when

everything is straightforward.

Amen.

Well, thank you for the great question, Christian.

Can you say that 10 times fast?

Question 10.

The thing that I have never seen in my lifetime

is Christians, to repeat the same phrase I've been bringing up, Christians not only in the

same denomination or church, but in the same pew, who are vehemently opposed to

their concept on this presidential election coming up, or the response to it.

And I've never seen people so divided over a candidate like Donald Trump within

conservative evangelical Christianity.

I know that one of the things that you had brought up is to largely not get embroiled

in these battles and to be silent in some areas when.

They come up.

Well, I wouldn't say I would.

I mean, I've not been silent.

We've been talking about it for two hours.

I'm not suggesting that we be silent.

I'm suggesting that we not engage in feudal disputes.

Yes, that's what I am.

When people get just, when they're frothing at the mouth, what they want is

for us to engage at that point.

And so my response is, when the conversation.

Becomes irrational, turn it off.

Right.

Well, the thing that I was going to say in response to this is that, isn't it amazing

that, especially when we see this erupt from our own brethren who are reformed and

believing in the sovereign grace of God, as if they have totally forgotten who's on the

throne.

Right.

They think that we are going to cause the end of civilization as we know it,

if we do not vote for Donald Trump or however, whatever side of this issue that you're on, or if you do

vote for Donald Trump, you are causing an end to civilization as we know it.

Right.

And it's amazing how often, and I'm not saying I'm not guilty.

Every time I'm anxious about anything, and I get anxious about a lot of things quite frequently, unfortunately,

every time I'm anxious, I am realizing that I'm forgetting at least momentarily the sovereignty of God

or my life.

But what is your word of rebuke

or edification to the body of Christ as they listen to us, especially those from

among our own circles in Reformed theology or Calvinism?

Well, we pray all the time, Our Father, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven.

And then we don't actually mean it.

That's a travesty.

If we really mean it, if we really mean that the gospel can change everything, can

change every life, then we can enter into these days of difficulty with

optimism and great soaring hope, because Jesus Christ is Lord,

and one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord

to the glory of God.

If we believe that, then that's going to enable us to engage in these very difficult days

where we have to slog through certain moments, knowing that because Christ is on the

throne, because the iron scepter is in his hand, because the Father has handed

him the scroll, because he has taken the golden censer and

all of the prayers of the saints and brought it before the throne of the Most High, that we can

have not

triumphalism, we still have to slog through this awful mess, but it is

incredible confidence and hope because our God is God and we are

not, and therefore we can come to the place

where we despair of our own competency and trust in him.

Excellent, excellent.

We do have CJ in.

Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York.

CJ writes,.

I have always been a patriotic American citizen, and for the first time in my life, I'm

finding it more and more difficult to be very expressive and vocal

and joyful and publicly appreciative of my nation in

the realm of patriotism and patriotic celebration.

I used to believe, as did most of those who I highly respect, that

to be unpatriotic was a sin, but now I am starting to wonder if that is

necessarily the case, especially when it comes in the form of American exceptionalism.

What is your response,.

Dr. Grant?

I certainly sympathize.

I understand the mindset.

What I would say is, first of all, God was sovereign in placing you where you are.

Your history as an American is indeed glorious and exceptional.

I would, if anyone, trick

Bonhoeffer's love of Germany, even in the midst of

Nazism, which he resisted to the point of death, as somehow misguided.

It was not misguided.

He loved his homeland.

It was the place that God had called him, placed him, a place that

was the locus of when he had

an opportunity to escape with his life, he chose.

What I would say is, that's the true essence of

patriotism.

It's not the Fourth of July razzle -dazzle.

It's that resolve that says, God called me here in this

time for this purpose, to raise the name of Christ, and to make this

nation blessed among all the other nations that name the name of Christ.

Amen.

And I have pointed to something interesting to some of my brethren,

who understandably are so disgusted with our nation, or at least the leaders of

it, in this day and age, that they don't feel very patriotic.

But I think that there needs to be some caution used, because when I think about

those brave and selfless and courageous and heroic

black soldiers in our arms forces, even, if you will,

in the Civil War, some of whom actually fought on both sides, some were Confederate soldiers, some

were Union soldiers, but also in World War II,

where they realized they were going home, even in a victory, to a nation where they

were considered, in some cases, in the worst scenarios, not even human,

but they were at the very best, second -class citizens.

And yet, there was enough patriotism in the hearts of many of these

black heroes that they did not look at the evils of the culture

as a reason to totally give up hope what God could do for this country.

And that's what I've kind of done to remind my brethren who are just filled

with nothing but disgust over this country.

Yeah, and I think that maybe some of what might help us is to

change the language that we use.

It's not just patriotism in kind of that old 1950s or

1980s sense of patriotism.

Rather, the truth is that God has us rooted here, and

these are our people.

This is the homeland of our fathers and mothers, and

therefore, we have a vested interest in the hope of the ages and

the battle for freedom.

And therefore, we ought to have deep satisfaction and a love for the

food and the music and the life that is our inheritance, and yet, at the same time,

yearn for real transformation.

John Knox, at the beginning of the Scottish Reformation, cried out, oh God, give me

Scotland or I die.

That ought to be one of us.

Oh God, give me Tennessee.

Oh God, give me Pennsylvania.

Oh God, give me New York or I die.

Amen.

Well, I would like you to, in about.

Two and a half minutes, just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds.

Of our listeners today, Dr. Grant.

Well, I think that the most important thing that I can say is that the

Lord has chosen a

time as this, and therefore, we should not despise

the opportunity that he has given us.

Thomas Chalmers, one of my great heroes, said, oh God, may I number my

days so as to apply my heart to wisdom.

Grant me the guidance of thy spirit and the joys of thy salvation in

these difficult days, that I might fight

for the truth of the gospel, that I might find light and comfort in

prayer, that I might be settled in the principles of the knowledge of

American Christians.

I would never fret again of our nation.

The Bible makes it plain that God will,

God promises, for a

godly, my prayer is, going back to what

we discussed at the very beginning of this two hours, that we would find a way to pitch our tent between Bethel

and Ai and do the

heart revolution.

Amen, amen.

And Dr. Grant, when we go off the air, if you.

Could hold on for just a minute, because I would like to see if I could schedule you to return on the program.

I have my calendar here, if you can do that.

And the website for Dr. Grant's ministry or organization, King's Meadow Study

Center, is kingsmeadow .com, kingsmeadow, kingsmeadow without the apostrophe

s, kingsmeadow .com, and the Parish Presbyterian Church of Franklin, Tennessee

can be found at parishpres .org, where information about it can

be found there, parishpres .org,.

P -A -R -I -S -H, P -R -E -S -DOT -O -R -G.

Thank you so much, and I want everybody listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a

far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

We look forward to hearing from you in your questions the next time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.