July 22, 2024 Show with Jerry Johnson on “Justification By Death: Examining the False Gospel of Sentimentalism”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 22nd day of July 2024.

We just had a historic day yesterday in that Joe Biden, the president of the

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Well, I am thrilled to have back on the program a man

I consider a dear friend and brother in Christ, as well as being one of my very favorite guests to interview on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

His name is Jerry Johnson. He's a very well -known Christian apologist and documentarian, most well -known for co -writing and creating the

DVD series Amazing Grace, the history and theology of Calvinism, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary of existence pretty soon.

And today we're going to be addressing the theme, A Justification by Death, Examining the

False Gospel of Sentimentalism. And he is in a better place now, theology.

And I'm sure that many of you have experienced being at a funeral or a wake or just hearing the news from someone you know about the death of a loved one.

Perhaps you even see and hear it in a news report on television. And you will occasionally hear the person giving you the news saying that this person is in a better place now.

And even if you know that the person that they are referring to never made it apparent that they repented of a scandalous, sinful lifestyle or in the case of just hearing this news from a brother in Christ who is trying to put the best spin on the news that a loved one of theirs died.

And even if this person made no profession of faith in Christ, they are telling everyone that they are confident that dad has now joined mom in heaven or any of these kinds of comments when there is no evidence given or there has been no evidence given that we should have such confidence and peace over this person's death.

Well, we're going to be addressing that today with my friend Jerry Johnson. And it's so great to have you back on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, brother.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate being here. Well, why was it that you were so compelled to address this specific topic today?

Well, before we get started, I want to address another topic, if you don't mind.

All right. I recently, because I'm a

Duvist, I heard your introduction that we interview, what is it, scholars and historians and theologians.

And I thought, what about Duvists? Well, that is certainly a mischaracterization of yourself.

Everybody who knows who you are would obviously receive that as a joke because it's certainly not true.

But go ahead, brother. You know, my pastor is supposed to be listening today because he wanted to take notes and record all my heresies and bring it up.

So hello, Roland. Anyway, anyway, what

I wanted to say was I'm a Duvist because every year I forget my wife's birthday.

I mean, every year without fail. And I'm sitting there looking at the calendar and I know it's coming up.

And then about five days before it comes up, I'm screaming like a chicken with my head cut off.

I'm running around like, what do I do? What do I do? Well, Royal Diadem saved me last year.

And they saved me in a big way. And I got a ring from my wife because she told me years ago, if you can't think of anything else, get me jewelry.

I like that. Really? A woman said that?

That's so hard to believe. It's actually written in the 11th commandment and Jude chapter 2 and Galatians chapter 7.

So anyway, we actually looked at different rings online.

I got her ring size. They fitted it to her specifically.

They FedExed it to me. And it was here before her birthday. I think like one or two days before her birthday.

And she was very grateful. And so I just want to say a shout out to Royal Diadem because they saved me.

Yes, and Royal Diadem saves me with their monthly financial support. And also, for those of you who don't know, and you'll be hearing the ad coming up during our first commercial break, they are giving

Iron Troupe and Zion Radio 100 percent of the profits from any sale of jewelry to an

Iron Troupe and Zion Radio listener simply by that listener mentioning Iron Troupe and Zion Radio when purchasing their jewelry.

Their website is royaldiadem .com. So I urge you to go to that website today.

If you want to kill two birds with one stone, as they say, and get a beautiful piece of jewelry while at the same time helping

Iron Troupe and Zion Radio, you can accomplish that by buying jewelry at royaldiadem .com

and also just mentioning Iron Troupe and Zion Radio, and we will get 100 percent of the profits from that sale.

But thank you, Jerry, for spontaneously and voluntarily doing that. I did not coerce

Jerry to give that plug to my sponsor, and I am very glad that he did. Oh, wait a minute.

You didn't give me any? I thought I was getting a free coffee. Well, that I could promise you.

All right. Good deal. Good deal. Now, you would ask me, because I've been kind of beating the drum on this subject matter, which, you know, the thing is,

I've seen a lot on Facebook that people will say, I want to say happy birthday to my dad who's in heaven.

Or I watched this clip on YouTube one time. It totally shocked me.

But as I was watching this clip of this tragedy, this girl, she was a porn star, had died.

And her friends were talking about how good of a person she was. And she's now in a better place.

She actually committed suicide. And I don't know. I don't know if she's in heaven.

I doubt it doesn't look good for her. Well, obviously, if she repented before she died, because even if somebody commits suicide, sometimes they don't die instantly.

And she may have repented during that if she had a time of lingering death. So, you know, obviously,

Christ saved the chief of sinners, Sola Tartarus, and he could save anybody.

Yeah. And, you know, it's the thing that kind of bothers me is

I've known people that were drunks, that were drug addicts, that beat their wife, that stole any chance they could get.

They would steal from somebody and they're dead now. And I don't know their state.

They could be in heaven, but it doesn't look good for them. But the thing is, most folks today don't believe in justification by grace through faith in Christ alone.

They don't even believe in justification by works. They seem now at least the masses seem to believe in justification by death.

And I think that's the coolest thing that you could ever give anybody comfort is the idea that just because they died, they went to heaven.

We don't know. It's all up to God. And backing up a little bit,

I'm sure you have no problem, as I don't. Maybe I'll find out

I'm wrong in a minute, but I don't have any problem. In fact, I have done it publicly, wishing a loved one that I know is in heaven.

A happy birthday. I have wished my wife, my late wife, a happy wedding anniversary.

But I have also said she's experiencing infinitely more joy in the presence of Christ than any anniversary this earth could possibly provide.

But you're talking about people who are saying this automatically just because somebody died, whether or not they had

Christ covering their sins or not. Yes. And it's not just the concern that I have, which is one of the reasons

I wholeheartedly agreed to do the topic. To cover the topic is because this this this goes on with Chris with professing

Christians. Yes. And they now I'm not saying that you should go to a funeral and voluntarily approach someone and tell them as you're standing in front of the coffin, by the way,

I have little doubt that your loved one is in heaven. Or should

I or should I say, I have little, little doubt that you're that your loved one is in hell,

I should say. You shouldn't you shouldn't say that you shouldn't voluntarily hurt someone.

And on top of that, we don't have infallible knowledge of where someone is because they may have come to faith and repentance, faith and repentance apart from our awareness.

Even if it's your own loved one, unless you're with them when they utter their last breath and they're cursing

God. We don't know if a certain if we've been evangelizing them or somebody else has.

We don't know what may have taken root in their heart and mind.

So I'm assuming you would think that although we should not give people false hope and tell them, oh,

I know your mom's in heaven just because the person died. And they know that they have a heartbroken child here.

We are not to do the other with certainty either. Oh, I know your mom or dad is in hell. You know that.

Yeah, I wouldn't say that, brother. What I would do when I was 40 years old in my 40s,

I should say. I asked my old pastor. All right.

I have a confession to make here. I used to be Reformed Baptist. Do you know what a Reformed Presbyterian is?

What's that? A sanctified Baptist. I'll accept that insult.

I used to be Reformed Baptist. And the pastor at that time, he has since passed away from cancer.

His name was Larry Marlin. And I asked Larry, I said, hey, Larry, what do you do if you are doing a funeral for somebody?

And yeah, I mean, it looks pretty good that they're not a Christian. What do you do?

Because they never made a valid profession of faith. They never had anything, any inclination towards God at all or the gospel.

How do you approach that? Because you're right. You can't tell the family, hey, he's in hell and he's burning or whatever.

You know, you can't do that. That's not being, I guess, sensitive to them.

I said, so what do you do? Because I knew he wouldn't give them false hope, false assurance.

And he said, all I could do is explain the gospel and hopefully they hear it.

And that was it. There was nothing else he can do. But our culture right now seems to believe that if you have an intellectual assent to God or to the

Lord Jesus. My wife and I, we love these so -called murder documentaries like A &E and stuff like that.

And we were watching one about two months ago. And the guy's rationale was, well,

I'm going to be saved anyway. So I'll go ahead and murder this whole family. And I was like, you've got to be kidding.

This was his attitude. You know, how is that any difference than the indulgences that John Testa was selling, you know, when

Martin Luther opposed him? If you believe, well, now it's if you have intellectual assent, let me say.

And a lot of people will have intellectual assent to the God of the

Bible or the gospel or Jesus Christ. But in the end, they don't really believe.

They believe that they're real, but they don't believe the gospel. They don't embrace it. Now, in this case, what you're talking about right now is the errors of professing

Christians, because obviously many people, perhaps the majority in the world, don't look for any kind of evidence that relates to a faith.

They will just say that the person is good. You know, the world was good. The person made them happy.

The person was kind to them. The person was a good parent, a good spouse.

And they believe, if they believe in an afterlife, that that person will be in some kind of better place.

And if they don't believe in an afterlife, they'll just say that they're better off being unconscious or out of existence.

Oops. Sorry, I muted my mic. Wrong way. So, yeah,

I mean, and that's the thing. I sit there and I talk to people and they're like, you know, well, she believed in God or she believed in the gospel.

In fact, that porn actress I'm speaking about, I don't remember her name, but like I said, it was a

YouTube clip. And it happened, you know, probably eight, nine years ago. And she had headlined many pornographic films.

She was an alcoholic and a drug addict. And she was arrested numerous times for stealing.

And she was 24 years old and she committed suicide. Now, I don't know if she's in heaven or not, but I'm not going to give her friends false assurance that that's all you need to do.

And I don't know where people are getting this from. Well, it's because it all goes back to,

I think, a dominant theology that exists in Christendom today.

And I'm not saying that people call it a theology, but it is a theology nonetheless.

And it's a bad theology. People exalt the priority of the feelings of others above and beyond the truth.

And they want to spare the feelings of others as a far more important thing than warning them about the wrath to come if they haven't repented.

And sometimes it's just because they have a misguided compassion for someone.

I mean, we should always have compassion for people who are wounded and hurting and in pain and in a trial of some kind.

But we are not to give them false hope. And we're not to encourage them in their own delusion, because that just further fans the flames of people who believe that all you got to do is not be the worst kind of grotesque, scandalous sinner.

And you don't have to worry about the afterlife. You know, there are people, the way they talk sometimes, you would think that if they actually put it down on paper what they believe about the afterlife, the only people in hell are

Adolf Hitler and serial killers. Right. And, of course, we know that there may be some serial killers in heaven because they repented when they were on death row or what have you.

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So please go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Jerry Johnson, and he is a world -renowned apologist and documentarian, and we are discussing justification by death, and we are subtitling this

Examining the False Gospel of Sentimentalism, and he's in a Better Place Now Theology.

If you have a question, send it to ChrisOrenson at gmail .com and give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

A verse that immediately pops into my head, Jerry, when it comes to people that elevate the importance of sparing people's feelings above the truth is

Proverbs 27, verse 6, Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

And one of the things that I have said to people when they hear about somebody, a friend, for instance, whose loved one dies, that person is dead.

There is no future opportunity to evangelize that person.

This is really an occurrence of the past now, even if it's the recent past.

So I don't think that when you're talking to a person, you need to bring up the eternal state of their loved one.

Of course, if you know that they were a Christian, you can definitely give them all the confidence in the world that that person is experiencing eternal bliss, indescribable bliss in the presence of Christ.

But if you don't know, you don't even have to dwell on that person. You dwell on the people who are hearing you now.

For instance, the pastors that I know that I have the highest respect for at a funeral, when somebody has died that the funeral is a memorial for, they will not dwell on the person who died necessarily, especially as far as their afterlife.

They will dwell on the need for everybody listening to repent and believe upon Christ. Yes. So you would agree with that?

Yeah, just like the person that died, if they truly died in a state of grace, they had genuine faith.

Yes, I would say you're right. You should dwell on the people that are there, but you can give them assurance at that point.

But what gets me and what I see as a cultural phenomenon, because you know

I hang out at the Moose Lodge quite a bit, and I always hear, oh, I want to say happy birthday to my dad who was in heaven.

Well, your dad, I'm sorry, he didn't believe. He didn't repent.

I mean, it doesn't look good for him, but you look at the idea, well, he believed in God.

Well, the demons believe in God and tremble. So it's evidently not a salvific belief.

And so I think my dogs are fixing to come into my office. They like to come in here and make sure, see what

I'm doing. I've got a dog that is very sweet, but she is about the most mischievous dog you have ever met.

She chews everything. We keep hoping she'll outgrow it. She hasn't yet.

That dog needs to repent and believe. She does. She doesn't talk better once we get off the phone.

The thing that strikes me about the he's -in -a -better -place -now theology is that's just as much, typically, a heretical works -based understanding of theology as the other extreme where you have someone being fed a lie like either from the false gospel of dogmatic

Roman Catholicism where people are told that if they are absolutely certain that they are going to heaven when they die, that's the sin of presumption, that we're always to be doubting or questioning whether or not we will go to heaven.

That's horrible and wrong. And the religion of the cults and world religions that teach that you have to jump through all kinds of hoops and be on a works -righteousness treadmill your whole life and you never know for certain where you'll be when you die until you open your eyes after death.

That's one extreme, but it's still a works -righteousness idea that if you say that you know someone you love is in heaven because they were, compared to many people, if not most people, just a nice person.

That is also somehow a meriting of eternal life in heaven.

They did more good than bad. Yeah, the scales. Yeah, I will tell you this.

I was working out the other night and an event hit my mind that, you know,

I was listening to a sermon and an event hit my mind that happened like 25 years ago.

We lived up in the mountains at the time, all right, and we had a wraparound deck and my oldest son and my daughter had got this little pump tent and they wanted to sleep out on the porch in the pump tent and I thought, well, you know, they can't get harmed or I'm going to leave the door open.

If they want to sleep out there, that's okay with me. Well, about 3 o 'clock in the morning, my daughter woke up and she didn't know where she was and she started screaming and so needless to say,

I jumped out of bed, I ran downstairs and I grabbed her and I held her and I said,

Keris, you wouldn't sleep in the tent. You're out on the front porch and she was pretty inconsolable at that time and so I took her back upstairs to Tracy and mine's bed.

I laid her in the bed and I let her sleep with us. Yes, I left my son out on the porch because he was fine.

He would sleep through a nuclear war, I swear, that kid would but anyway,

I thought about that as I was working out and I was able to help my daughter at that time but there's a day

I'm not going to be able to help her and that is on that day and she's going to wake up or some people are going to wake up and they're going to be in hell and they're going to start screaming and there's nothing anybody can do for them.

They rejected the gospel. First off, I did want to... Actually, I have it on number seven on my list but I wanted to talk about the age of accountability because this was something we had to deal with when we were doing the

Amazing Grace documentary because people would ask me, well, what do you do about people that never heard the gospel?

The thing is, people do not go to hell because they have not heard the gospel.

People go to hell because we're born sinners. We're totally depraved.

Every single one of us, you, me, R .C. Sproul, Joe Biden, Donald Trump I don't care who it is, deserves hell.

And I liked what Dr. Kennedy said when I interviewed him for the Amazing Grace documentary.

D. James Kennedy. Yes. He said there's going to be a lot of people in heaven that don't deserve to be there and there's going to be a lot of people in hell that they deserve to be there.

Now, I probably just flattered his quote. In fact, everybody who's in heaven doesn't deserve to be there and everybody in hell deserves to be there.

So this age of accountability, it's something that when you have the belief that people need to hear the gospel or they automatically go to heaven, that would make abortion doctors the greatest evangelist of all time.

Right. In fact, it would be cruel to send out missionaries.

If some aborigine in the darkest jungle of Africa never heard the gospel, then that would be better than if he heard the gospel and rejected it.

In fact, that very thing was something that I confronted

Father Mitch Pacwa with, who is a Jesuit priest, a really nice guy, wonderful guy, brilliant guy.

He debated James White a number of times and I orchestrated two of those debates.

But one time when I was filling in for Andy Anderson on the radio station

I worked for for 15 years, WMCA 570 AM in New York, which still exists, it's a

Salem media affiliate, largest Christian radio network in the world. I was filling in for the talk show host,

Andy Anderson, before I had my own show, and I had both James White on and Father Mitch Pacwa to promote the debate that they were going to be having.

But the theme of the interview was on Islam because both of them have a very thorough knowledge and expertise of Islam in the

Koran and the Hadith and so forth. And I said to Father Pacwa that your catechism teaches that Muslims adore the same one true

God as Christians. And he said, oh yes, I believe that. And I said to him, why would a

Muslim, in your opinion, go to hell? Well, if they had significant adequate knowledge of the

Christian faith and they knowingly and consciously rejected that, they would be held accountable and go to hell.

So I said to him, well, why do you believe in sending missionaries to Muslims? He says, oh, because they need

Christ. And I said, why do they need Christ? You're putting them more in jeopardy by giving them the opportunity to hear the good news of Christ and reject it.

Of course, Roman Catholics have a different idea of what the good news is anyway. But I don't know if Father Pacwa, I don't think he is a dishonest man.

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he really didn't understand the dilemma that he was in because he kept saying, you know,

I don't understand. We need Christ. Everybody needs Christ. And I kept saying, yeah, but according to you, the only way a

Muslim is going to hell is if he understands Christianity and consciously rejects it.

So that's just to flesh out what you were just talking about in a specific example.

Yes. I was at a church at one time. It was not a Reformed church. They were pretty

Arminian. And I can remember their guest speaker that they had said, talked about the

Aborigine in the, I think they're actually from Australia, but he said the deepest, darkest jungle in Africa.

And he said, as long as they're a good Aborigine, I believe they'll go to heaven. And after the sermon,

I said to him, but Christ made it clear that he was the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the father, but through him. And he looked and he said, yeah, you're right.

It's like that thought had never crossed his mind before. And, you know, the thing is, we're either going to believe

Christ words there or we're not. Yeah, this age of accountability, when you reject total depravity, which even your most rank

Arminian would acknowledge. Now, I would believe that they don't take it to its logical conclusion.

But even your worst rank Arminian would say that, you know, that you have to have

Christ. So why can they not connect the dots? I don't know.

If you point it out to them, they can. But Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to the father.

There's not multiple ways. If you're a good Aborigine or whatever you are, that doesn't make any difference.

You have to go through Christ and Christ alone. Now, R .C. Sproul had a sermon that he titled,

What About the Poor Innocent Native in Africa? And at the very end of the sermon, and I hate to be.

What's what's that word they use when you're ruining the end of a movie? Spoiler alert.

Spoiler alert. Well, at the end of that sermon, R .C. Sproul said the reason that there will be no poor, innocent natives.

Who die and are in heaven is because there are no poor, innocent natives.

And he was stressing the word innocent. There is no one who is innocent. And like you said.

When the person is standing before Christ on Judgment Day. When they're asking

Christ, why are you sending me to hell? He's not going to say because you didn't believe in me. He's going to list all the sins that they committed.

If he even needs to do that. And they they are going to hell because.

Of their sin. And just as we believe that salvation through meritorious works.

Of the sinner is a heresy, a damnable heresy. And so is the gospel of salvation by ignorance.

Which is what we're talking about right now. Right. When you believe in the age of accountability.

As I was saying before, the abortion doctors would be the greatest evangelist of all time.

The problem is you're going to be inconsistent at that point with what the Bible says.

And you're going to have to create a whole superstructure of theology that is not biblical.

Right. And the age of accountability, just because there may be listeners who don't know what that term is.

That is the teaching that until you reach a certain age in your childhood or adulthood.

Depending upon what religion it is. You are safe in the eyes of God.

Not necessarily saved, but safe. In that God is not going to hold you accountable for your sins if you are too young.

That's basically the age of accountability. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, if you look,

I'm reading through the Old Testament right now. And this morning I was actually reading the first four chapters of Deuteronomy.

I can't even say it. And it was talking about the children of Israel going into Canaanite villages.

And killing every man, woman, and child. Did those children have the age of accountability?

I mean, the problem is, they weren't guilty before.

They might not have been guilty before a bar of man. But they were guilty, as all of us are, before the bar of God.

And we're all sinners. Yeah, you just reminded me of the

Mountains Meadow Massacre where Mormons in the 1800s killed everybody in a wagon train heading west, passing through Utah.

And they killed all these non -Mormons. But they spared the lives of the children eight years and older and took them and adopted them.

Because they were of the age of accountability. And they would have gone to hell otherwise.

Or something of that effect. But anyway, we have to go to our midway break right now. Please, if you have a question, submit it to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed.

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Before I return to my conversation with Jerry, I almost said

Jerry Bridges, with Jerry Johnson. Jerry Bridges is now in heaven as we speak.

But Jerry Johnson is still trudging through life here on Earth. Before I return to my conversation with Jerry Johnson, we have some important reminders for you.

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Last but not least, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful, Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where on the planet

Earth you live, I have helped many people in our audience spanning the globe find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live, that are biblically faithful.

And that may be you, too. No matter where on the planet Earth you live, if you are without a biblically faithful church home, send me an email to chrisharnson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jerry Johnson, the renowned apologist and documentarian.

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

And we do have a listener for you. We have

Dale in Seaford, Long Island, New York. And Dale wants to know, what do you think of these so -called

Christian theologies that teach that people will have a second chance after death to accept

Christ, some kind of post -mortem evangelism going on? And I've heard about that existing in some churches.

Yeah, actually, I have, too, Jerry. I don't know if you knew that there is a version of that that is taught by Tony Evans, who recently resigned from the ministry.

But I believe this was the very thing that caused John MacArthur years ago to break fellowship with him.

He had a theology that he developed, or perhaps an eschatology, called transdispensationalism, nothing to do with transgenderism, folks.

Transdispensationalism, where people who were ignorant of the gospel, like you were talking about earlier, they had a second opportunity after death to embrace or reject

Christ. And, of course, you do have the false

Roman Catholic teaching of invincible ignorance, which teaches that if you don't have sufficient understanding of Christ and the gospel, you will not be condemned.

But anyway, go ahead, Jerry. What do you think about this idea of the second chance after death? Yeah, brother.

Again, I would like to see where that's biblical, because I don't see it.

So I would say that is a goofy doctrine. I mean, that's all I could say about it.

It sounds goofy. I mean, that's it.

I don't know what else to say. The church has maintained that it's appointed to all men once to die, and then comes the judgment.

It doesn't say that there's a second opportunity to receive the gospel.

In fact, I would maintain that those who are in hell, they probably don't like being there, but they're not going to repent and believe anyway.

I think you could remove the word probably from that sentence. They definitely don't like being there.

All right. There we go. You know, I have never heard of that.

I'm sorry I'm not a big follower of Tony Evans. I never was. But, I mean, the only thing

I could say is that's goofy. That's not in Scripture. But see what happens when you teach a doctrine like the age of accountability.

Then you're going to create an entire superstructure of theology that's not biblical.

And one thing we know is biblical is Hebrews 9, verse 27. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.

Yeah. So, I don't know where they're getting this from. You know,

I couldn't even guess. It's a thing. I've seen it a lot.

They try to defang God. You've got to remember, God's mercy, God is merciful, but he's also a

God of justice. He's also a God of anger. He's also a God of wrath.

He's just as much a God of love as he is a God of wrath. And unfortunately, a lot of the church doesn't believe that.

That they have an image of God that he's some kindly old grandfather in heaven who winks at sin.

And he doesn't. There is a consequence for sin, whether it's laid on Christ or it's laid on the sinner.

Al? Okay, we have

Laramie in Toronto, Canada. And Laramie asks,

Please explain how we can convince those that approach us that say a loving

God would not send people to hell, and therefore we are being far too harsh and cruel in our theology.

It is appointed once to die, and then comes the judgment. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

How can you convince somebody of that? I don't know. I mean, I think the only person that convinced them is the spirit of God himself.

And so, you know, you can sit there and you can argue for the existence of God.

But when the final analysis comes, all you're going to do is convince people that maybe some type of higher being exists.

Unless the spirit of God illuminates the soul and causes that person to be born again, they're not going to believe the word of God.

Right. And doesn't this have to do a lot with that if God were to just let everyone, regardless of their faith and repentance, he would welcome them into heaven along with those that even suffered in the name of Christ and so on, that this would lack justice and God is a perfectly just God.

Doesn't that have a lot to do with why God is not, his goodness does not contradict his other attributes.

Yeah, his attributes are consistent. He's consistently just.

He's consistently merciful. He's consistently wrapped, you know, so whatever it is.

But yes, if Christ suffered and you receive him, but he still lets people go to heaven that didn't receive him, then what would that say for God having

Christ crucified unless we all go to heaven? And we know that there's a hell because Judas was there.

It would have been better for him if he had never been born. There are numerous passages that you could point to that talk about hell.

In fact, Christ talked about hell more than he talked about heaven. And I was a young Christian and I had this, we were at a pastor's conference, and this one pastor said to me, if we really love people, we will tell them about hell.

And I believe that, you know, and that's what Christ did. And there was a lot of people who didn't receive it.

The Pharisees didn't receive it. You know, there were there. So there were a lot of them.

A lot of the Jews, he came unto his own, but his own received him not, you know, they embraced darkness instead of the light.

Christ did not die for them. In fact, he even says, they asked him, tell us plainly, are you the

Messiah? And he said, I already told you, and you do not believe that is because it was not for you.

My sheep hear my voice and they know me. You know, so why does

God choose one person and not another? Why did God choose Chris Hansen and not

Adolf Hitler? I don't know. I know why he didn't choose Chris Hansen.

No offense, brother, because Chris is not noble. Chris is not righteous.

He needs Christ. And that is what all of us need. Amen. Let's see.

We have a Lemuel in Spanish Fork, Utah, who wants to know,

I know there is much debate and dispute amongst brothers in Christ as to the eternal state of babies who die while still in infancy.

I was wondering what you two believe. Well, I could tell you before you start,

Jerry. I'm one of those rare Reformed Baptists that believes and agrees with Charles Spurgeon that infants who die while in infancy are of the elect, that God would not allow them to die while in that state unless they were still, unless they were of the elect, because, not because they are perfect, not because they don't have the sin of Adam, but because wherever I see a description of people being cast into hell, they are going there because of actual active and willful sin that they have not repented from.

And so I'm not alone in this. Spurgeon did teach that.

And I'm not saying that I hold that to such a core belief that my brethren who disagree with me are heretics, but it seems to me that the most prominent view amongst

Reformed people is agnosticism on this. They'll just say, well, we know that there are elect infants, but we don't know whether all infants who die are of the elect.

So they'll just claim ignorance on it. So how do you explain that? Brother, I would say because we're all born and conceived in sin, that we're guilty of hell.

We're worthy of hell. Right, that is without question. Even Spurgeon believed that about babies. I would say

I think Spurgeon was wrong on this issue. All right, show's over, folks.

You know, the thing is, I know that there's not going to be a single person in heaven that deserves to be there.

And there's not going to be a single person in hell that doesn't deserve to be there. So that's the way

I would answer it. You call it ignorance or agnostic, but I don't know.

The thing is, I'm not going to make that judgment. I don't know. Could they all be in heaven?

I sure hope so. Could they all be in hell? I don't know. I know that because of the sin of Adam, they're worthy to go there.

But they don't deserve heaven. So, I mean, whatever God wants,

I don't deserve heaven. And we have somebody.

Let's see here. We have Rodrigo in, let's see, where is

Rodrigo from? Rodrigo is from Bayside, Queens, New York.

And he just is correcting me. He said earlier the children at the

Mountain Meadows Massacre were spared by the Mormons who were eight and younger for a wrong reason.

They were spared so that they couldn't be eyewitnesses. They would be too small to accurately give an account of what happened.

Okay. I'm sorry if I misrepresented the situation. I was really going off memory, and I guess it was faulty.

But can you really reiterate and clarify why this is so important?

I can say with certainty it has nothing to do with you or I having a cruel bent in our hearts where we want to rob people of some kind of peace of mind and joy when a loved one dies.

It's like we are bursting their bubble, if you will, that they are taking comfort in that person being in heaven for reasons that are not biblical.

But the Bible never gives us the liberty to offer hope based on falsehood.

Aren't we to love God and his truth even more than people's feelings?

Now, when I see a post on Facebook, I want to say hello to my father who is in heaven or happy birthday or whatever.

And I happen to know I knew their father. And I mean, the chances that he's in heaven, it doesn't look good.

But ultimately, I don't know. But I only immediately begin typing on my keyboard.

Hey, your dad's in hell. You know, I don't do that. But what

I'm saying is we've got to be so careful that we especially at a funeral, we don't give that false hope.

You know, we need to present the gospel. If you pay attention to my

Facebook page, many times I will put on there something about that false hope.

And, you know, I just want people to know that it's not even an intellectual ascent.

In fact, that leads us into the next subject matter. What is true, fake and brother?

We're getting towards the bottom of the hour. Are you going to have to break for a commercial?

We have one more break. That's going to be in less than 10 minutes. Why? Less than 10 minutes.

All right. That's enough time. Because I wanted to introduce that subject matter. What is true faith?

Now, let me tell you what really brought this about. It was

John MacArthur's book on the Lordship controversy. And the gospel according to Jesus.

Yes. Which is the first in a series of books that he did on that. What I believe, and I actually agree with John MacArthur on this.

Because I saw it many times when I was a southern Baptist with a brain full of mush.

All right. Many times you would go into a church. And you see this on that documentary, the

E &E documentary that my wife and I watched. They believed that they were eternally secure.

There was actually an old ditty. Free from the law, a blessed condition.

We may sin as we please and still have remission. If you believe that you can do that, that is a doctrine straight from the gates of hell.

You are not believing the true gospel. And so, we were watching that murder documentary and that guy was reasoning.

Well, now that I'm eternally secure, I can murder this whole family with impunity.

And what he had done was he had given intellectual assent to a few facts about the gospel.

And that was it. And he didn't believe Jesus was Lord. He didn't believe that he shouldn't commit these sins.

He believed that he could violate the Ten Commandments. And they had no bearing on him whatsoever.

And this was the guy. I'm sorry. He murdered a whole family for this reason or as justification that he could do it.

Because he was eternally secured. And I hate to tell that man, no, you can't.

A true believer is not going to do that, which leads us to the issue.

And this is what I like to say. Justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

That is indisputable. But it is a life -changing faith.

If you don't have a life -changing faith that leads you into the direction that Jesus Christ is

Lord, I would question that faith. And I had a friend of mine.

He read John MacArthur's book, Gospels According to Jesus, or whatever it was.

I read it 25 years ago. And he was adamantly against it because he said, well, that's introducing a worse salvation.

And I used to tell him, John, no one does it. It's not introducing a worse salvation.

Here is what he's saying. True faith is life -changing faith. And he just couldn't see that.

He wanted to maintain justification by grace through faith in Christ alone.

And I agreed with him on that. But the idea that you could be saved and do whatever you want to do, that's not the gospel.

And it's not in the Bible anywhere. There's no example that even remotely comes close to something like that. And, in fact, the irony is you will have these guys.

A lot of them are in independent fundamentalist Baptist King James only churches.

Now, not all. I have to be very clear. I don't want to be guilty of slander and broad brushing.

There are independent fundamentalist Baptists who agree with us on the necessity of repentance for salvation.

Repentance from sin toward God or toward God from sin. But there are some who actually say it's a damning false gospel to say you must repent.

The irony of that is what do they want those who believe in that to do? They want us to repent from it.

They want us to write. That makes no sense. They really it's inescapable that you have to believe in repentance because even if it's a belief that you believe is heretical and damnable.

Well, what are we supposed to do about that? We have to repent from it, don't we? So there you go. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place with that false false theology that you have.

Well, we are going to go to our final break right now. And if anybody has a question that you'd like to add of your own, send us an email pretty quickly because we're rapidly running out of time.

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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Power of Jesus' Name This is

Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

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Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

Hi, this is John Sampson, Pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider

Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions, while always defending the key doctrines of the

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the

Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the Body of Christ to stand with such a ministry, in prayer and in finances.

I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com,

where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. I'm Dr.

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak, and have grown to love,

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King, and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation, and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the

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Joseph Morecraft. It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

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Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you.

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SecureComm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties, and much more.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters, of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Lebel remarked that he felt

God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

I sense that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

Bronx, in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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Now shipping worldwide. And don't forget, folks, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is also paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &

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The Kingdom -Minded Pastor, How Pastoral Partnership Advances the

Gospel. I'm sorry, Advances the Kingdom. The Kingdom -Minded Pastor, How Pastoral Partnership Advances the

Kingdom. And that's tomorrow, the 23rd of July, here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Well, we are now back with our final segment of today's show, with Jerry Johnson.

And we are, in essence, critiquing the prominent gospel of sentimentalism.

Obviously, nobody would call it that, other than what we are describing as a gospel of sentimentalism in our own words today.

But people are guilty of things that they aren't necessarily conscious of.

And how do you minister to people? Because this is a big part of this whole thing.

We both know that we can't lie to people and give them false reasons for having peace of mind after the death of a loved one that has given no evidence that they have believed in Christ.

But at the same time, how do we give comfort to them in the midst of grieving a situation like that?

You know, there are parents whose rebellious teenagers die of drug overdoses or in the midst of drunk driving.

And they may have been murdered in a bar fight, in a nightclub, you know, in the midst of their rebellion.

It could be a whole host of things. It could be their grandfather or grandmother who they loved dearly, but the person, even though they were kind and generous, never gave any evidence that they believed in Christ.

How do we give them comfort? Brother, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

The thing I do know is, if they died without Christ, we can't give them false hope.

So, like I said, I've done a couple of funerals, and you had mentioned somebody dying of a drug overdose.

I knew a kid that read the Puritans, but he would tell you,

I know what they say, but I haven't embraced it. He died of a drug overdose.

And when I was doing his funeral, I was saying, here's what he said he believed, you know, and that's it.

How can I give them comfort? I'm just there for them. I learned a long time ago that sometimes it's better just to say nothing, just be there for the loved ones.

And when they ask you, you tell them the gospel, and that's all you really can do.

I mean, you can't give them false hope. I don't know. If they're Christians, you can assure them that when they are in heaven themselves, there will be no crying and mourning and grieving.

Their will will be in perfect harmony with God's will. And so the time of mourning will come to an end when they themselves are in heaven.

He will dry every tear from their eyes. And we can also assure people that the judge of all the earth always does what is right.

All right. And one of the reasons why

Armenians are typically very inconsistent is when a loved one dies without Christ.

Does that person typically get driven out of their minds with guilt that they didn't evangelize that person one more time, that they didn't evangelize them enough, that they didn't evangelize them with enough love?

And you could go on and on and on with the things that we could have done. Typically, an

Armenian is blessed with inconsistency because they don't typically do that.

But if their theology was true, the logical conclusion would be that they must share the blame of that person spending eternity in hell.

Because if every single human has the potential to receive

Christ after it's been adequately presented to them, why shouldn't we all share in the blame of them rejecting it?

We're not perfect when we present the gospel to people. Yeah, and brother, again, that is a question that I don't know the answer to.

I know what we're called to do. By the way, Dr. John Gerstner, he had done a lecture years ago, and he said,

If I'm in heaven, I'm going to be changed. How can I enjoy heaven, seeing my wife or my mother or whoever, a loved one suffering in hell?

And he talked about how he's going to be changed. He's going to be justified. He's going to be having a new body and a new mind.

And he's going to sit there and look at his mother suffering in hell, and he's going to see God's justice served.

And he said, Even though I love my mother, I will know it's right if God's justice is served.

And, of course, we don't know that those who will be in heaven will see that.

But, I mean, who knows? God may just completely remove that from our minds.

I mean, I love Dr. Gerstner. He's one of my heroes. But I don't know if I agree with him that we'll actually be witnessing people burning in hell when we're in heaven.

I don't either. But I know that if you look at the story of, you know, the rich man and Lazarus.

Yeah, rich man. Yes. And the rich man, Lazarus, I was having a senior moment for a second.

I'm sorry about that. But the rich man could see and he asked

Father Abraham, Could you even dip your finger into water and cool my tongue?

Right. And so we know that they could see in heaven. We don't know if they could see the other direction.

We don't know that. And we also know, although that story is very rarely used, as far as I have experienced, as a proof of unconditional election.

But I use it that way because when the rich man is begging

Abraham to send Lazarus to raise him from the dead and send

Lazarus to his brothers to warn them so that they could repent and not spend an eternity in hell with him, meaning the rich man.

Abraham says they have the prophets and let them hear them.

And if they have the prophets and still do not, they still will not believe, even if one were to rise from the dead.

So, obviously, that is a not only teaching unconditional election and a roundabout way, it's teaching total depravity that even the witnessing of a resurrection.

Somebody being raised from the dead, if somebody is lost and rejects the oracles of God.

They're not going to believe no matter what happens. Right. You look at the children of Israel.

I mean, they saw all those wonderful miracles coming out of Egypt.

And they immediately, when they get to the other side of the Red Sea, woe to God that we were back in Egypt.

They wanted to be back in the house of bondage. Why? I don't know. You know,

I don't know. But God didn't honor them at all with the faith that he gave

Abraham. So and I wanted to look up the the verse because I was kind of butchering it there.

But he said to him, meaning Abraham said to the rich man in hell, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.

Right. So there goes their charismatic movement, doesn't it?

With all their miracles. You know, even if you see a miracle, there are going to be people that say, hey, that's not of God.

Like the Pharisees. Yep. And what they need is they need to have their heart changed and that they can't do on their own.

That could only happen if God chooses them and elects them to be a recipient of his grace.

You know, so. Yeah. By the way, going back to the the heartache that people have when they experience the death of a loved one, when they are convinced that that loved one is lost.

I am so inspired by a dear friend of mine, the woman that led me to Christ, actually, that she boldly evangelizes her children.

And one of them has certainly come to saving faith or she has six adult children, but she warns them that if they die without Christ, when she is in heaven, she will not be mourning over their their eternity in hell.

She will be doing nothing in heaven but rejoicing and praising God. And they cannot count on mom putting in a good word to God on the other side of the dirt.

She is not going to have an eternity grieving over them. And so that is just a part of her boldness when evangelizing them, because she is far more concerned with their eternity than their feelings.

Yeah. And that is true. You know, facts don't care about feelings.

And that's something we need to tell people that they need to understand that the fact is just like that story

I told you about my daughter screaming in that tent, you know, daddy was there to help you when you were little.

But when you if you wake up screaming and you're in hell, there's nothing I can do.

It's not up to me. Well, I'd like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we run out of time.

One thing I really want and I don't know, we're never going to overcome this, but this whole idea that people who die automatically go to heaven, that is something that we need to get rid of this justification by death.

The second thing is, what is true faith? We need people to understand that.

Yes, justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, but is a faith that is life changing.

So those would be the two things I really want people to understand. And I know your listeners do, or at least

I hope they do. Yeah. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners know.

I know that you no longer are running Nicene Council or the wonderful videos, documentaries and other materials that you once had available.

Can people still get a hold of these things? You know what, brother? A lot of them are on YouTube and on Rumble.

And if people like Amazing Grace happen to know the whole things on YouTube, there are actually numerous sites.

I tell people, just put it out there. I don't care. You can monetize it. I don't want any money from it.

Just whoever can watch it. I know the Marks for the Colts is out there. The one on Charles Finney.

Great. Beware of false prophets is out there. The Lakeray Planet Church is out there.

You can just watch them and, you know, hopefully be strengthened by them.

Great. And by the way, one of my favorite interviews is my interview with you on exposing the heresies of Charles Finney.

If anybody wants to hear that, it is archived at IronTripandZionRadio .com. Just type in Finney in the search engine,

F as in Frank, I -N -N -E -Y. Well, it's been a joy, as it always is, interviewing you,

Jerry. And I look forward to your many future returns, God willing, to Iron TripandZion Radio.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. And I want everybody listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater