June 19, 2025 Show with Jeremiah Nortier on “Revival in a Confessional Church”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 19th day of June 2025.

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I'm thrilled to have back on the program a very gifted brother in Christ named

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Jeremiah Nortier, and he is a Christian apologist, he's a debater, he's the host of the

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Apologetic Dog podcast, and he is also pastor of Twelve Five Church, a confessional reformed

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Baptist congregation in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Today we're going to be addressing revival in a confessional church, and we're also going to be announcing the upcoming

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Road to Revival conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee this fall, where Pastor Jeremiah will be preaching on that very theme of revival in a confessional church.

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But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jeremiah Nortier.

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Chris, thank you so much for having me back on. It's great to have you back on. And also, I want my listeners immediately, right now, to mark your calendars for four dates that involve two debates, two days each, that Pastor Nortier is going to be participating in on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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July 10th and 11th, Pastor Jeremiah will be debating

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Nazarene pastor Jared K. Henry, and the theme is going to be the ordination of women to positions of authority over men in the church, and my guest today opposes that.

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And Jared K. Henry, the Nazarene pastor, affirms that practice.

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Just to let you know a little bit about him and the Nazarene, or at least the dominant makeup of the

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Nazarene church, they are not liberal, most of them. They are conservative evangelicals, but they do ordain women into leadership over men in the church.

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So that should be a fascinating debate. I've been wanting to orchestrate a debate on that issue for decades, and I'm glad that this is finally happening.

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So that's July 10th and 11th, which is a Thursday and Friday. And then, two weeks from then, on the 24th and the 25th of July, also a

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Thursday and Friday, once again, Pastor Jeremiah Nortier is debating

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Jared K. Henry, and that time, the two -day debate will be on the question, can a

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Christian attain total freedom from known sin in this life on earth?

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The common way that people refer to that teaching is sinless perfectionism, but Pastor Jared K.

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Henry, the Nazarene who is defending the possibility that Christians can attain total freedom from sin in this life, he does not like the phrase sinless perfectionism, because he believes that it's only known sin that men can be free from, totally free from, and whereas there are always going to be sins that we commit even without our knowledge, that it would be a requirement of omniscience for somebody to claim that they can be free from all sin.

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So that's just a nuance in that. But so make sure you mark down the 24th and 25th of July for that two -day debate.

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And I'm really excited about both of those because I've never had a debate, either a live public debate or a radio debate, on either of those issues, and I'm sure you're pumped up about them too.

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I am. I'm really excited for both. I do a lot of debating

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Church of Christ, I do a lot of debating Reformed theology, things like that.

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And so I feel like this may be a little bit more practical. And so hopefully after doing that, you know,

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I can share some of that content on my channel just to let people know I want to be able to be a voice defending very practical things that broadly evangelicals—biblical, sound, healthy evangelicals—share in common.

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So I want to let people know that I want to throw my hat in the arena on many different topics.

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Great. Well, I'm sure the days are going to fly by and we'll be sitting here preparing for the debate before you know it.

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And I do like Pastor Jared K. Henry. He's a very ironic man, a very humble and gracious man.

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I've interviewed him before when I was actually in agreement with him on something. He was publicly opposing the

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Nazarene Seminary because they had somebody sympathetic towards homosexual activity being acceptable in the

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Christian church. And that person was eventually, thankfully, terminated from the seminary.

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I don't know if Pastor Henry's personal activity opposing that had anything to do with it, but he's a nice guy, but just very, very wrong on both of those issues.

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And just out of curiosity, just to whet the appetite of our listeners, why are those issues so extremely important?

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Why is it so wrong, why is it so dangerous to ordain women into positions of leadership and authority over men?

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Yeah, so not only is Scripture painfully clear on the matter, what a person has to do to misinterpret 1

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Timothy chapter 2, that kind of hermeneutic and gymnastics really will bleed over into everything else, including the gospel.

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So I think that is the gateway. You unhinge the door wide open when you ordain women, everything goes.

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Now, people don't have me saying that, but I just tell them to justify that interpretation or lack thereof.

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It doesn't stop. Does that make sense? And I try to research kind of the arguments on the other side.

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They're so far -reaching to say, you know, women, you know, preached, you know, when Jesus was, you know, when

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Mary and all them saw that Jesus was, you know, arisen and on the tomb, they wouldn't preach. It's like, yeah, but not to a congregation.

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You see so clear qualifications of what a man of God, Paul's words, not mine, of what someone who labors to teach and preach looks like.

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It's just the definition is so pointed. And I think, you know,

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I think the secular culture says, well, women are smart. Women can lead. Women can do these things.

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And I'm the first to say, look, my wife is way smarter than me. But it is a part of God's design that humility and submission be a part of the family and church dynamic.

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And I'm really, Chris, I'm going to press into how it's not just in roles, but by design.

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We see this in every domain of life. And I'm going to say a P word, but there is a patriarchy that is going on that's inescapable that goes all the way back to God.

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And as far as achieving total freedom from known sin in this life, why is that such a dangerous idea?

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Yeah, so I'm going to research some of the nuance, but to me, it's really not going to matter a whole lot because there's a thing called sanctification that we wore against the flesh.

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It's, you know, it's Paul's words, not mine, that, oh, wretched man that I am, you know, who is going to deliver me from this body of death?

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I think there's going to be a deeper anthropology that me and the gentleman are going to have to talk about is the power of sin reigning in our members.

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So to me in this life, you can't attain a perfection at any level.

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Only Christ, you know, was the perfect human. He was able to be a better and second

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Adam. And so the whole point is we are warring against the flesh, we're warring against the pattern of the world and the enemy of darkness.

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And so my whole thrust in that debate is going to say, look, it's great that someone says, yes, we should war against sin, but we're never going to attain the status that only is going to be accomplished in glory and the side of death.

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Well, these should be utterly fascinating events, and I'm looking forward to them.

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And please pray for these events. Pray for both men involved because we don't want

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Pastor Henry to come down with some kind of an illness or have some kind of providential hindrance for him to participate in these events.

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So please pray for them and please spread the word about them. And please listen when we are conducting these events live.

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And now let's go on to have you explain a little bit about the apologetic dog for those listeners of ours who have not yet heard you do your apologetic mastery on that podcast.

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Go ahead. Well, thanks so much. So the apologetic dog, the heartbeat behind the ministry is 1

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Timothy 620, where Paul tells Timothy, oh, Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

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And so the guard dog mentality is all Christians, we should be laboring to defend and guard the gospel of grace that's been entrusted to us.

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And Paul goes on to say to Timothy, avoid irreverent babble, avoid contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

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And so how do we do that? We stand on the gospel of grace that exists in the broader context of our sovereign triune

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God who has revealed himself in his life breathed life giving word. And so that is the framework, the

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Christian worldview where we get truth, knowledge, how we ought to relate to one another and relate to God.

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And so my heart is just to defend, you know, the Christian worldview with the gospel of grace at the center.

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Something that I try to focus in on is evangelize the church of Christ. I believe they've compromised the gospel by confusing the representation of baptism, the wonderful ceremony, sacrament given to the church.

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But that is not the means of how we receive forgiveness of sins, even though not in our justification, even though it has been prescribed to the church, is prescribed for Christians in our sanctification.

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So I try to really bring clarity. My community here in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Northeast Arkansas, there's a lot of church

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Christ. So I just believe there's different gospels afoot. And I've been given tons of opportunities to be able to kind of shed light on that.

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And I have a Facebook group called the Church of Christ Exiles, where many people have come out of the church

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Christ and just need a sense of direction and have lost their community, if you will. And so that's a lot of content that you'll see me kind of contending with, along with hyper -preterism, which is just an awful teaching that just says all biblical prophecy was fulfilled at 70

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AD with the destruction of the temple. Once again, that's kind of prominent in my local area, just not too far from me as a was a

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Baptist church, Southern Baptist Church that essentially got the golden boot because the pastor took a nosedive into that.

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And so people have been knocking on my door, asking me, what is hyper -preterism and why is it dangerous?

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And I just say it redefines all of Christianity. And so those are some things you'll find me out.

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I really, Chris, I talk about a number of different things, but and that's what I've learned with apologetics is you want to prayerfully be sensitive to the needs of kind of the spirit of the age, right, of what needs to be talked about with God's people, with what is creeping up and trying to creep into the church.

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And by the way, folks, you might want to hear a testimony of a former hyper -preterist that is archived on IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

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Many of you are no doubt familiar with the name Jeff Durbin, who pastors alongside

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona.

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Well, Jeff was at one time a hyper -preterist, and he tells his story about how

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God delivered him out of that heresy. And I also conducted a debate on my program between Don Preston, who is probably the most well -known hyper -preterist alive today, the most actively involved in debate and so on.

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He debated a man who was formerly Don's protege and worked alongside him in the hyper -preterist circles at conferences and so on, but was also delivered out of that heresy,

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Sam Frost, and they debated each other on IronSharpensIron, and you could hear that debate.

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If you look up, just type in Frost, F -R -O -S -T, and that will be just one of the number of interviews

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I've had with Sam Frost. I actually disagree somewhat with Sam, though, because I don't know about you,

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Jeremiah, but I am a partial preterist. Sam is no longer any kind of a preterist, but do you have any position on that?

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I do, which, by the way, I have Dr. Sam Frost on my channel all the time, me and him with the collaborations kind of going, so we respond a lot to Don K.

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Preston and some other hyper -preterists that exist out there. So I'm glad that you know him well.

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We'll be doing some content in the near future. When it comes to partial preterism, I tell people, look, there are things in the past that we see in the

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Olivet Discourse. There are things that are just historic facts in the book of Revelation. But what I like about the idealist perspective is really applies the principle of the ongoing battle between good and evil.

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And I think even if somebody is partial preterist, a lot of those applications, we would yes and amen.

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So there's a lot of overlap I see with kind of the partial preterist paradigm, with idealist principles of reading and understanding the book of Revelation.

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So I'm super charitable because we all need to rally together to have that dividing line of saying, look, full preterism is outside the bounds of orthodoxy.

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Yes, and I think that some people use the wrong argument against partial preterism because they will make the claim that it's a doorway to hyper -preterism.

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Now, is it true that likely the majority of hyper -preterists started as partial preterists?

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That's very likely true. But the majority of hyper -Calvinists, I'm sure, started as traditional historic

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Calvinists. And that doesn't mean Calvinism is any less true, just because there is a distortion and a very twisted and warped version of that known as hyper -Calvinism.

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And by the way, for those of you who are listening, who are not from theologically

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Reformed churches, hyper -Calvinists are not those that believe in the five points of Calvinism.

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Hyper -Calvinists, they have a number of traits, maybe you could chime in too,

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Jeremiah, but they typically do not believe it is the duty of Christians to evangelize.

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They don't believe that the gospel is an instrument, the preaching of the gospel.

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They don't believe it's an instrument in the regeneration of lost sinners.

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And there are a number of other things that would make them stand out as being heretical.

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And there are different kinds of hyper -Calvinists. You have some that have an enormous open gate of heaven where even non -Christians can enter into the kingdom of heaven if they live their entire lives without Christ.

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They may still be one of the elect or among the elect. Many in the primitive

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Baptist movement would have that view. And then you have the opposite, very prevalent in the

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Netherlands Reformed churches, where the gates of heaven are much more tightly shut, if it were, or the way is even more narrow than the

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Bible would teach. And you have congregations sometimes with over a thousand people in a

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Netherlands Reformed church, and only a handful of those people receive the

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Lord's Supper because they're the only ones who believe that they're of the elect. But do you have anything to add about that?

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I do. I think one of the biggest, well, there's so many cautions when it comes to hyper -Calvinism, namely that it's just unbiblical.

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But yeah, the distortions come out with, I think the one a lot of people are most familiar with that you brought out is it's not up to us to evangelize, only to share the gospel to those people that give evidence, in air quotes, of them being regenerate.

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And that just flies in the face of all scripture that talks about us sowing seeds and we trust

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God to give the increase. But yeah, that's one thing that rises to the top. The other, and I guess maybe like there's just a lot of different shades of hyper -Calvinism.

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But I really think, from what I've researched there, is kind of a move from, how could we say, you know, how

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God is sovereign, yes, but we would never infuse fatalism, which is a secular mentality that God arbitrarily selects people.

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And then we can conclude that then therefore it doesn't matter how we live our life or what we do. No, those things will give evidence to what

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Christ is doing in and through his church. And so what I'm getting at is in these hyper -Calvinist movements is a form of fatalism.

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And I've heard their exegesis of how God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he shows mercy to whomever he will have mercy, and he hardens whomever he is.

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So they will look into the verb tense that God is actively hardening there, which it is true, but we still have to ask in what way, which the book of Romans, and I would point people to Martyn Lloyd -Jones' excellent commentary on how

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God actively restrains his goodness. In Romans 1, it talks about he hands them over to their reprobate and debased mind.

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So God is active by restraining his goodness, and that is not the hyper -Calvinist move.

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It's God, it commits the heresy of equal ultimacy, that God works in the same way that he works in goodness to the elect, is he works in the hardness of heart and evil and wickedness into vessels fitted to destruction.

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So yeah, those are a few things that rise to the top. It's just out of step, and it doesn't represent who

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God is. And it just popped into my head that our listeners who might want to find out more about hyper -Calvinism,

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I have returning to the program on Tuesday, July 1, Dr. Thomas Nettles, who is one of the world's most prolific and renowned

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Baptist historians and authors. He is returning to the program to defend

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John Gill as not being a hyper -Calvinist, which is the charge against Dr.

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Gill, probably by the majority of Reformed Christians identify

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Gill— I'll be sure and listen to that part. I'd be real curious to hear what all he has to say.

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Yes, he is one of the very few voices amongst sovereign grace -believing

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Christians who defends Gill as not being hyper -Calvins. So that's

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Tuesday, July 1 on Iron Trump and Zion Radio. We're going to our first commercial break, and when we come back, we're going to be more focused on our theme, which is also the theme of the message that my guest today,

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Jeremiah Nortier, is going to be delivering at the Roadmap to Revival conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

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And that theme is going to be Revival in Confessional Churches.

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And if you would like to ask Pastor Jeremiah a question, submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Don't go away, we're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors. I am still praising

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James White here of Alpha and Omega Ministries announcing that this September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday September 18th at 11 a .m.

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday September 21st at 1 30 p .m.

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I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God. I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the Free Pastors Luncheon visit Iron Sharpens Iron Radio dot com.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession, we embrace congregational church government and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost and the glory of our triune

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God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of Scripture, loving, encouraging and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith and we gather around the Lord's table every

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Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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is now shipping worldwide. Now we're back with Pastor Jeremiah Nortier of 12 -5

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Church in Jonestown, Arkansas, and can you tell us something specifically about that church?

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You explained it last time, but the unusual name that you have? Yeah, so our name is 12 -5

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Church in Jonestown. Did I say Jonestown? Drink the

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Kool -Aid, folks! Oh, that's good. So 12 -5 comes from Romans 12, verse 5, which essentially is a verse about the church body.

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Even though we are individually one of another, we are one together in Christ, by faith alone, in Christ alone, all by God's grace alone, to his glory.

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So we are a church plant that, I believe, we just completed around four and a half years.

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And so I love Jonesboro. I've grown up here. But me and Pastor Nathan, in the early days when we planted, we just wanted something distinct.

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We believe that there's a lot of evangelical churches, but we see a lot of lack of discipleship with theological training and sound theology, sound doctrine.

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And so that's what we have aimed to do, is to be a part of a healthy church that aims to honor biblical fellowship, but also contends for sound doctrine, saying, hey, those things can coexist and have a holistic discipleship.

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And so we wanted to be unique in our name with a church and the city of churches.

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There's literally churches on every block, along with any restaurant and bank. So 12 -5 just kind of stands out in that way.

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And we are a confessionally Reformed Baptist, but, you know, we wanted something to kind of pop in the name and not confuse people.

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And some people, when they see the term Baptist, they have a lot of negative baggage with what that means. And so this just kind of gives me flexibility of how to relate to people that, you know, either don't know about Baptist theology at all or maybe have a negative experience, to say, hey, we're probably not like that.

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You know what I mean? So yeah, we're coming up on five years in September.

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Hey, Chris, we planted back during the COVID in September of 2020. Praise God.

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Well, I want to give you folks the website if you're interested in visiting and even joining this church in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

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125church .com, and it's the word 12 and the number 5 church .com.

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The word 12, the numeral 5, church .com. And as we said at the outset of the program, from September 12th through the 13th, in Tullahoma, Tennessee, our dear friend

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Jeffrey Rice of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma is hosting a

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Bible conference called the Roadmap to Revival, and my guest today, Jeremiah Nortier, is one of the speakers.

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The other speakers include the aforementioned Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Jeffrey Rice himself,

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Jonathan Burris, who's been on the program recently, Keith Foskey, who's been on the program in the past,

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Claude Ramsey, who has also been on the program recently, Michael Schultz, who we're still trying to get another interview out of Michael.

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We had technical difficulties the last time, and I have not yet heard back from Michael.

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And Andrew Rappaport, my dear friend, who was just on last week, I believe, on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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This is a good lineup, and before you get into your specific theme, which is our main focus today, tell us about the overall theme of Roadmap to Revival.

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Yeah, so Jeffrey Rice, a really good friend, and, you know, something that we feel passionately about is

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Reformed Baptists, we have the right covenant theology, and we think that, you know,

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God has spoken to us by virtue of covenant, and His Word is broken up into two covenants, old and new.

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And so we know that there's so many other good, healthy churches that maybe do not have the same covenant theology or systematic biblical theology framework as we have, but where there is truth, truth is honored.

37:23

God honors that, and so we really want to bring clarity on what it kind of means to be confessional, just at large, and what that means in application.

37:35

And so I think that's kind of Jeff's overall mindset, because this was kind of put together on short notice.

37:43

You know, unfortunately, the G3 Conference, you know, was canceled, and so I believe it was

37:49

Dr. White that reached out to Jeffrey and was like, hey, y 'all want to do a conference?

37:55

He was like, yeah, sounds like a good idea. So he reached out to me and was like, hey, what do you think about doing

38:01

Revival in the midst of a confessional church? I told him I would love to do that.

38:08

Great. Well, why don't you explain for our listeners, especially those who are not from confessional churches, what does it exactly mean to be a confessional

38:20

Reformed Baptist Church, and might conjure up thoughts in the minds of especially former

38:28

Roman Catholics who are wrongly thinking, wait a minute, these guys have a little booth in their church where they sit down with the pastor and confess their sins, and he absolves them after they are directed to, as punishment, say a number of prayers and so on.

38:47

It's funny. You're like, wait, he didn't say no to that.

38:54

In fact, when you look at Roman Catholicism, it's

39:00

Reformed Baptist that we are probably the most juxtaposed and combative to Rome, in my opinion.

39:09

We Reformed the most. We kept Reforming.

39:16

That's why I tell my Lutheran friends and Presbyterian friends. So it's funny, because I want to do another shameless plug.

39:23

If people go to TwelveFive's YouTube channel, we are actually teaching through the 1689

39:30

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Last night, I taught the first four sections of chapter 3 of God's decree, and I've been reading

39:40

James Renahan's book on his exposition of the 1689. One of the big takeaways of what makes a church confessional is, number one, we realize that we're building on the shoulders of giants.

39:54

We have a historic faith, and I know contrary to Rome, the East and the West, they claim to be the ancient apostolic church, and they've preserved the faith.

40:05

To me, they look at church history exactly backwards. They look at the church fathers as the most mature, and I always push back and say, that's the church in its infancy stage.

40:18

Now, surely Christ has been building His church for 2 ,000 years, and the gates of hell will not prevail, and He has given us the

40:25

Holy Spirit that guides us into all truth. But Christ is sanctifying His bride, not only on the individual level, but He is sanctifying the bride universal, and so we would expect there to be growth, clarity.

40:39

You look at the clarity of the doctrine of the Trinity and so forth, and so anyway. I believe

40:45

Reformed Baptists, we have creeds, confessions, but in their proper context, not as ultimate, not as absolute or infallible, but just to say, hey, there have been giants in the faith that have come before us, and by God's grace, we are trying to continue to reform, right?

41:05

The church is always reforming, and so when we point to the 1689, we just say, hey, this is a great kind of standard to say that we believe

41:14

God's Word is sufficient, and we can demonstrate over time how God's truth,

41:20

His clarity, has shown through the darkness, if you will, and this is just a document that we think really captures a lot of amazing truths, so I do want to recommend our audience of saying go check out the 1689

41:33

Second London Baptist Confession. There's a lot of really good confessions out there, but to me, this captures kind of the the construct of the covenants really well.

41:44

Amen. And how does revival fit into a confessional

41:51

Reformed Baptist church? People also have a very non -historic and unbiblical understanding of revival.

42:04

Many in our charismatic and Pentecostal neighbors' churches would consider us the frozen chosen, and that if they were to ever visit our churches, they would say very often, well, there ain't revival in here, that's for sure.

42:22

These people are singing those stale, worn -out hymns, and they're not moving around when they worship.

42:29

They don't seem very happy. They have an idea that revival is taking place when people are excited about singing and dancing around during a worship service, and some of them will even think that they can bring about revival and even schedule it on a specific day and time—come to our revival meeting this this

42:56

Sunday night or whatever. So tell us about what is revival. We've been covering this actually a lot lately on the show, but it always helps to have more voices of truth explain these important things.

43:14

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this topic because, number one, there's so many things that I want to say, and so I've not figured out how to structure it properly yet.

43:23

But I think there's a lot of confusion, and first I want to say revival in the true sense that is good is just kind of spiritual awakening, meaning true conversion, right?

43:36

Where the Spirit truly regenerate hearts and is indwelling the Saints and compelling us to live to the glory of God.

43:44

And so there's a bar to what that looks like. One of my favorite verses to kind of point people to is, we are to worship in spirit from a heart of zeal and a heart of praise, celebratory, and I want to talk about that a little bit later, but also in truth.

44:01

And so both of those must coexist. And, Chris, I cannot wait. I think I'm going to push a little bit against the grain in the

44:10

Reformed world to say, look, I think there's maybe a little bit of a false dichotomy that goes on, because there is emotionalism versus true conversion, but since we are

44:24

Saints, since we have experienced the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit, we are in the better covenant.

44:30

And I want to wake up our Reformed Baptist brothers to say we can do things well in the new covenant that causes us to celebrate, and it's okay to be loud in some ways.

44:44

We can be emotional in some ways, and I think some of our Reformed brethren look at that as, well, that's only been done poorly.

44:52

That's only been emotionalism. Therefore, anything that's loud and saying well to the glory of God kind of makes the hair on our necks stand up to think, oh no, it sounds like that's a swing of the pendulum.

45:06

And I want to say, no, no, no. We're Reformed Baptists. The new covenant is celebratory, and I think we become all things to all people.

45:15

We realize there's certain context in the world where it's okay if a church convictionally wants to sing a cappella, you know, my exclusive psalmody brothers out there, but I want to say that's not exclusive.

45:29

There are many different ways to celebrate the glories of Christ and His resurrection while, and here's the key thing that I'm gonna really bring up, while retaining the regulative principle.

45:42

And so now I'm gonna say some things that maybe sound a little confusing, but hey, people have to just come to conference to check it out.

45:50

Our Presbyterian brothers really push what's called covenantal renewal, and I have a different understanding of the covenants.

45:57

They have members in the covenant of grace that are unregenerate, so of course for them it's like a re -signing of the contract, if you will.

46:06

But for Reformed Baptists, we understand that all of those in the new covenant have their sin forgiven, that know

46:12

Christ in faith and confess Him as Lord. And so for us, it's not a re -signing of the contract, but it's a celebration of the

46:21

Lord's day. At 12 .5, we often say it's not the Lord's hour, it's the Lord's day. And so, you know, we have a very long service from, you know, not only doing the regular principle of singing the

46:33

Word, praying the Word, reading the Word, seeing the Word, and obviously preaching the Word, but that spills over, if you will, into the

46:41

Lord's Supper, communion. And that also is then shared in a koinonia feast, and so that lasts for a while, and then we do sermon discussion afterwards with whoever preached gets to lead that.

46:51

And then we end with a benediction, so I mean our services are hours. I mean, it's the majority of Sunday.

46:57

My point is, the new covenant is not a renewal for unregenerate members to hear the gospel per se, but it's a celebration that's sanctifying to the saints.

47:11

And so I do want to speak to, you know, some of our listeners that see church as merely as an opportunity to try to appeal to unbelievers.

47:23

And I always push back against that, that Ephesians chapter 2, the church,

47:28

Christ has gifted the bride to equip the saints, not the aints out there.

47:34

Now, by God, the unbelievers can come and hear the gospel and be converted, praise

47:40

God, but the sermons should be aimed to feed the flock, you know what

47:46

I mean? And so that's the primary audience. I think a lot of churches have really goats maybe in leadership of the churches, and they're not even churches at all, but they're the ones calling the shots and everything is kind of sideways.

47:59

So when we get into revival, we're talking about true awakening, we're talking about the Holy Spirit sovereignly at work, and us celebrating those things.

48:08

And so I want to push back against the grain of maybe some of the Reformed world that do kind of get stuck in a rut, if you will, because, you know,

48:18

I talk to Reformed people that it's like, yeah, you walk in and it's cold and still, and it's like, what are we doing? We've been saved by amazing grace.

48:26

So what do you think about that, Chris? Oh yeah, I've always believed that sometimes, although the criticisms by our charismatic and Pentecostal friends are sometimes over -the -top and even slanderous, there is sometimes a truth behind their criticisms in that we should be more joyful than anybody because we owe everything to Christ for our salvation, even our faith.

49:03

I mean, we're the only ones that believe that we did not produce this faith out of our own cold, dead hearts, that it was a gift from God.

49:14

So we should even be more filled with praise for our salvation, and, you know, we should not be—even the beautiful, powerful hymns that we sing should not sound like funeral dirges, and, you know, there should be more joy on our faces and joy in our hearts, especially.

49:40

That does not mean that we have to have a manufactured excitement like what we see in a lot of the aforementioned charismatic and Pentecostal churches.

49:52

But I agree with you, and far be it from me, anybody that listens to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio regularly knows that as much of a zealous advocate for Reformed Baptist theology as I am,

50:12

I also frequently offer criticisms to what I have seen and experienced as well.

50:19

I think it'd be very untruthful and unfair to only be pointing fingers to those outside of your group when you offer criticism, because you're not going to grow at all as a people.

50:34

You're not going to learn from correction, from error and mistakes and so on, if you don't think you have any.

50:44

And I've learned over the years that we are not free from our own tendencies towards particular aberrations and so on.

50:58

And I think that's what I've seen and experienced myself, is we love truth.

51:05

We want to preach the truth to this point. I think some of our

51:11

Reformed brothers, if the scriptures didn't tell us to sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, we wouldn't want to do it and be okay with it.

51:21

Now, I tend to fall in that group myself. It's like, man, give me stimulating truth, conversation about sound doctrine, and that is a good thing.

51:33

But praise God, He not only commanded us to sing, but I think we can sing and do those things well.

51:38

And so here's the swing of the pendulum. The Reformed hear some of the instruments being used and they think, whoa, whoa, whoa,

51:46

I feel something. And I think the pendulum is like, oh no, we're stirring up emotions in a way of manipulation, and we're saying, whoa, whoa, there's a difference between emotionalism and us just having emotions because we're image bearers of God.

52:06

So here's some of the core of what I want to bring out. In fact, could you bring up the core when we come back from our midway break?

52:15

I don't want to interrupt you during this major part. Hopefully I remember it. The core of what you want to bring out, don't forget.

52:23

And it was all to do with allowing more emotion into the worship.

52:31

So if you have a question for Pastor Jeremiah Nortier, whether it's on our specific conversation on revival in a confessional church or in confessional churches, or any question for a

52:48

Reformed Baptist pastor in general, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

52:54

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

53:02

Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Puritan Reformed is a

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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

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

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

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Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831.

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If you visit, have them Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener from Attoy in County Kildare, Arlington, San Diego.

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the

56:20

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Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnson has on the show.

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, New York.

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invidio and thanks for listening. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005.

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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 thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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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

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Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, like 12 .5

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I may be able to help you find a church that's biblically faithful near you, as I have done with many people spanning the entire globe in the

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

01:12:16

So before the break, you were talking about how perhaps some Reformed Baptists may be overly paranoid or hypersensitive about emotions being exhibited by members of the congregation as a sign of some kind of manipulation by those who are leading worship or anything else that would manipulate somebody's emotion.

01:12:46

If you could just—you were about to say the core of what you were talking about. Yeah, that's right.

01:12:52

And I also want to remind your audience that when they're sending in their questions, it's not stump the chum. I'm looking forward to any and all questions.

01:13:01

But yeah, so something I really want to key in on is since we are human beings, we're emotional, and it's okay to express emotions as long as it's coupled and grounded in truth.

01:13:15

We worship God in spirit and in truth. And so I think some of the Reformed crowd really likes that truth part, but oh, the spirit part, you know what

01:13:24

I mean? Which really is getting at the heart, right? Worshiping in spirit is the heart of love, heart of faith. Um, the right motivations, right attitude.

01:13:32

And so I just, I just, I know my tendencies is to not want to sing.

01:13:38

I'm not gifted in those ways. And I've seen, met people, part of the staunch

01:13:43

Reformed, if you will, that, you know, kind of sing the hymns, uh, only without, you know, any instruments, maybe a light cannon.

01:13:52

Here's the thing. That's awesome. That is glorious. What I take issue with is when that kind of, uh, form of worship almost says,

01:14:03

Hey, that's, that's the standard. Everything else is below and weaker or not as mature or something like that, or that is being true to the regular principle.

01:14:13

And to me, that's, it's self -defeating because every, if, if the argument is, if we stir emotion, it's bad.

01:14:20

Well, the problem is everything stirs emotion, whether you don't have instruments or you don't have singing, there's going to be a kind of emotion in that environment.

01:14:28

If singing is done poorly, that stirs up emotion. And then if singing and instruments are done well to the glory of God, well, sure.

01:14:35

That's going to, um, invoke a kind of emotion also. So within a revival and a confessional church,

01:14:43

I really want to maybe push back against kind of this. I think it's more of a

01:14:48

Presbyterian term, a covenant renewal, spiritual renewal of just saying, well, for Reformed Baptists, we're not resigning the contract.

01:14:56

Uh, the new covenant are those that have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Therefore we get to have a celebratory, um, interaction with one another, all to the sovereign triune

01:15:06

God. And we should expect, now I'm going to say this a little bit tongue in cheek, but I'm a little bit serious too. We should expect singing.

01:15:12

We should expect dancing. We should expect, uh, seeing together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:15:19

And that better involve your whole person, your hands going up. And, you know, we actually have people that have come out of, you know, kind of Pentecostal -ness because they see that we, we actually believe the things that we're saying, you know what

01:15:32

I mean? And, and the fact that I've seen a lot of people come out of Pentecostal to, uh, well to say

01:15:38

Reformed Baptists, because we speak about the Holy Spirit a lot, but it's in the proper context.

01:15:44

And so, uh, I just know a lot of, I'll say Southern Baptists don't talk about the Holy Spirit. That is an enigma to them.

01:15:51

And, um, but, you know, being in the Reformed circle, we, we do want to acknowledge and praise, worship the

01:15:56

Holy Spirit in that proper context. So does that make sense? I want to push back against some of the

01:16:03

Reformed tradition that says the regular principle can only function in a certain.

01:16:10

Yes. So whenever, uh, we are speaking about worship, it is a very serious matter.

01:16:19

And, um, I'm sure that as much as you're trying to push back on Reformed tradition, you would be, uh, very opposed to a common notion that for some reason, there are

01:16:34

Christians who think, uh, that just about anything goes into worship because, uh, they don't, they don't think that they don't think that the

01:16:43

Bible is restrictive when it comes to worship. And therefore, you know, you could,

01:16:49

I even know a charismatic pastor locally, uh, who

01:16:54

I love the guy, he's a great guy. And, um, he, uh, when he took, uh, when he was called,

01:17:04

I should say, to be the pastor of this specific congregation, he had to purge a lot of the things that were going on because it was more of an extreme charismatic church before he became the pastor.

01:17:20

And, uh, he, uh, eliminated, uh, things that he thought were unbiblical additions to worship.

01:17:27

Uh, the, there was a whole lot of flag waving and things like that going on in worship that there, there were, there were, uh, spiritual significances to these women predominantly who are waving flags that are nowhere to be found in the

01:17:46

Bible. And, um, so he, if you were to visit this church, uh, you would probably, the first thought in your head, probably not be, oh,

01:17:57

I'm in a charismatic church. But anyway, uh, do you know where I'm coming from here and where there could be an extreme danger in that?

01:18:07

Definitely. So I think what's helpful terminology is there's a difference between the regular principle and the normative principle of worship.

01:18:14

Kind of the normative is if scripture doesn't explicitly forbid it, then it's open game.

01:18:20

And so what me and you are contending for is no, God has prescribed what he wants on the

01:18:25

Lord's day with the saints. And so the regular principle, we kind of point to five principles that we've kind of been already alluding to.

01:18:33

Number one, that is reading scripture, many scriptures. Uh, this is either assumed, um, but Paul explicitly told

01:18:40

Timothy, uh, to not to neglect the reading of scripture. Number two, the pre, uh, the preaching and therefore the hearing of the word.

01:18:47

Number three, prayer. Number four, and this is what we've been kind of touching on singing in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

01:18:54

And number five, the administration of the ordinances slash sacraments. And so these are principles.

01:19:01

This is what I'm trying to tell people. And so principles is exactly that meaning when you apply these principles in certain time periods, certain cultures, the principle is going to be there, but the way it functionally is carried out in its application might sound and look a little bit differently.

01:19:20

And that's all to the praise, you know, and glory to God. And so I think the safety guards are biblical elders and overseers prayerfully discerning, you know, uh, what does, you know, when we're talking about seeing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, um, you know, a lot of these kind of unhinged, uh, gatherings, you know, rarely do they actually sing the hymns, but that's something that Paul, I think was very intentional with.

01:19:49

And so, yeah, I, I'm just saying that when you look into this, you know, I don't think that this is, I've read, you know, it's interesting, uh,

01:19:55

John Gill. I think he actually tried to say that this was meaning psalms, psalms, and psalms. And I, I definitely don't take that view to this, uh, because I've looked into the exclusive psalmity kind of interpretation.

01:20:06

And some say that this is outside the, um, the local worship, which is hard when you're looking at the context of Colossians and Ephesians here anyway.

01:20:15

Um, but there's application of these principles. And so, yes, we, it, to me, it's a heart issue.

01:20:22

That's what both Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 is talking about, making a melody to the Lord in your heart.

01:20:29

And so, that's the key element is you got these principles. If the heart is aligned properly, well, to me, you can't say, well, if there are certain instruments being used, then you're somehow outside of the regular principle, because it's

01:20:45

Paul that invokes the psalms, that there's tons of different instruments, you know, with especially Psalm 150, that everything that your hand finds, sing loudly to praise

01:20:56

God with. And so, yeah, I do think, you know, things need to be done in wisdom. There's orderliness.

01:21:02

Um, 1 Corinthians 14 says, God is not the author of confusion. And so, I think music being sang poorly is a bad thing, right?

01:21:12

It can be distracting, and that will incite a kind of emotion that's not a good one. I think our hearts like harmony.

01:21:18

We like balance and all those things because it reflects the God that we worship. And so, yeah, I just think we need to walk with caution.

01:21:25

We need to walk with balance, but we need to apply these principles, and I think the heart of joy is what we're aiming after when we're worshiping

01:21:34

God in spirit and in truth. We have a listener question for you. Toby in Mormel, Arkansas.

01:21:43

Am I pronouncing that right, Pastor? Possibly. I'm not real sure where that's in.

01:21:49

Okay. Toby in Mormel, Arkansas says,

01:21:56

What is exactly meant by the phrase in Ephesians 5 .19 to sing to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs?

01:22:08

Excellent question. I have a lot of deep convictions about this because I think what that is not saying is your attendance to a local church gathering is meant to be only individualistic between you and the

01:22:24

Lord. Now, that is true. We have our own personal walk with the Lord, but on the

01:22:29

Lord's Day, this is a gathering, not that we neglect it, but to meet together with the saints.

01:22:37

So this is communal. This means when you are singing, you have in mind your brothers and sisters next to you.

01:22:46

And so it's not just you and the Lord. It's not individualistic, but it's corporate. It's family.

01:22:51

And so you have your brothers and sisters in mind when you're singing praise. And for me, that causes me to want to sing louder.

01:23:00

I want them, because when we come to the Lord's table, we proclaim our Lord, His death until He returns, that we still believe these things to be true.

01:23:10

So my point is, our singing is supposed to be corporate. That's why we have corporate songs.

01:23:16

We don't have somebody singing solos and things like that. We believe the liturgy is supposed to be corporate.

01:23:23

And so we do all these things together. Yeah, now sometimes we have somebody, one of the elders leading prayer, but it's corporately.

01:23:30

As we are confessing our sins to God, it's corporate, and we are resting assured in the finished work of Christ.

01:23:36

And so that's the same principle for singing. But here's the thing. When we talk about coming to the

01:23:41

Lord's table, you know, it's not just between you and the Lord. You are telling your brothers and sisters,

01:23:48

I still believe these things to be true. And so if you come to the Lord's table in an unworthy manner, you're not only lying to God, but you're lying to your brothers and sisters.

01:23:58

That's why it's such an important thing to check your heart when you do that. And so my point is, that's the principle on the

01:24:05

Lord's day, is it's not just you and God. You're not to be a consumer, but this is a time to serve one another and to engage with one another in song, hymn, spiritual song, in the teaching, the listening, and the fellowship, the koinonia, which means joint participation.

01:24:24

Now, I've never seen this happen that I can recall anyway. While a congregation is singing praise to the

01:24:32

Lord. But do you think maybe we should take that literally that verse and start a movement where people are joyfully singing and starting to look at their neighbors inside the congregation while they're singing and risk the notion that you might be viewed as a lunatic.

01:24:53

But that would actually bolster the idea that you're actually singing to one another.

01:25:00

Yeah, no, that's good. The principle that we're trying to salvage is the

01:25:07

Lord's day is communal, celebratory. We're a household. We are a family.

01:25:13

Therefore, we have one another in mind. And sometimes that's bearing each other's hardships and burdens.

01:25:18

We are a very family -integrated congregation. And so sometimes I see a family struggling, if you will.

01:25:26

Well, to your point, we should notice those things. I've seen older women in the church see that younger women are struggling with their kids, and my goodness, what an opportunity to go love on them and to help in some of those things.

01:25:41

Okay, Raleigh in Ponchatoula, Louisiana has a question, and Raleigh says, have your views of worship and the regulative principle gotten you in trouble or ruined relationships with you and other pastors of other congregations?

01:26:01

Yeah, I would tell this individual, go to the Apologetic Dog YouTube. I did a whole live stream on the regulative principle, and go read the comments!

01:26:10

So yeah, and I'm okay if some of my Reformed brethren don't like me taking a stance that the

01:26:18

Lord's day is to be celebratory because we exist in the newer and better covenant.

01:26:26

And so yeah, if you got some curmudgeons out there that don't like that, then I'm okay with what

01:26:31

I'm saying going a little bit against that grain. Now, I don't want to be unhinged, like you were saying a second ago, like I don't want this to turn into the normative principle, because I believe what

01:26:44

I'm trying to express is the principle of singing the word in its many different applications and liberties, if you will.

01:26:52

It's not unhinged, but it's retaining the principle that we can sing these gospel truths to the glory of God, and you know what?

01:26:59

We can do it well. We can do it loud and proud, and that doesn't equate to emotionalism.

01:27:08

And so I think that's the pendulum that's being swung, is that there's any kind of emotion that has to be emotionalism, and I'm like, well, that's a self -defeater, if you will, because everything we do stirs a kind of emotion.

01:27:23

Okay, Tom in Uniondale, Long Island, New York wants to know, are you as upset as I am that worship has very much become entertainment and less congregational?

01:27:36

Yeah, well, that's a byproduct of the normative principle, and so what people may hear me saying, you know, as a departure from the regulative,

01:27:44

I argue the opposite. The sweet spot is sticking to those five fundamental principles of worship on the

01:27:53

Lord's Day. I think what I'm pressing into is how we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs should be fresh.

01:28:02

It should be new in the 21st century that we've been building on the shoulders of John. So when

01:28:07

I do look back into church history and see that, you know, God blessed

01:28:13

Charles Spurgeon's church in a particular way, well, I think that is great. You know, how he conducted worship with the theater that he had with tons of people.

01:28:24

I think these principles, you just have to apply them in your context, and so in Jonesboro, Arkansas, we are a saturated city where I think professionalism is honored, and so doing things well, having a pleasing aesthetic, these are good things.

01:28:41

People walk into, you know, 12 .5, and they're going to get a sense of, hey, they're going to get, they're going to feel our hospitality, that we care about how things look.

01:28:53

Now, here's the key to the glory of God, right? We want to be very intentional on this. This is historic.

01:28:59

All the cathedrals, and if you will, were structured in a way to talk about the loftiness of God, and so I'm just saying that we want to be intentional with how things look because a lot of times, here's another thing

01:29:14

I'm saying, there are certain congregations that people are singing, and it's no structure, and those things can be distracting, and I think the reform, we tend to say, well, those things don't matter as long as we have the preaching of the word, and I'm saying, well, if we actually honor the preaching of the word, then we should be doing all things well to the glory of God, and so that does revert back over into how we conduct our singing congregationally.

01:29:47

Now, to this questioner's point, I think when you have the normative principle, you do have people singing solos, and it kind of becomes individualistic all over again, and a me -centered experience.

01:29:59

I think, once again, we can just push back to say, nope, this is all congregational, and we should be thinking intentionally, how can we all sing in a unifying voice?

01:30:12

Amen, and we have Felix in Derry, New Hampshire.

01:30:18

How do you recommend we specifically pray for revival? Oh, great question.

01:30:27

Well, that really starts at the very foundational prayer, right?

01:30:34

We pray for revival in this sense, because revivalism is not just stirring up emotions detached from truth with manipulation and altar calls and all the things, so I do want to…

01:30:51

Are you there, brother? …regular principle and whipping up emotion for the sake of whipping up emotion, but everything we've already been talking about is…

01:31:04

Are you there, brother? You keep freezing. So, I think… Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How is my connection now?

01:31:11

Now, right now, it's good. Can you hear me better? Yep, right now, anyway. Man, whatever

01:31:18

I said, I just remember it was really profound, so I hate that it was lost with the radio connection, so I'll try to salvage what

01:31:26

I can. I'm just kidding. So, the question asked, how do we pray for revival? I think what that means is we pray that the

01:31:34

Holy Spirit truly would regenerate hearts, that Christians, we would be faithful in proclaiming the right gospel in an age where ecumenism is on the rise, and I see people partnering with Rome in the east, and the gospel really seems to kind of fall to the backseat of, oh, we all say the same things.

01:31:57

We all claim to be Christian, even maybe point to the name Jesus and the

01:32:02

Trinity, and therefore, we must all be on the same team. And so, we believe in a very specific gospel of grace.

01:32:08

You've got to not only receive the biblical Jesus, the second person, the triune God, but we receive him the way that he told us, by faith apart from works.

01:32:17

And so, when people have truly tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then that should ring the bells of men's hearts to share that good news with other people.

01:32:29

And so, I think having a Christ -o -centric worship service—it's always focused on Christ—I think we are sensitive to the

01:32:40

Holy Spirit at work. So, we just pray that we would not try to be the Holy Spirit ourselves, but we would just try to be sensitive to the

01:32:47

Holy Spirit at work and trust in him. So, revival is just awakening, true conversion, and that begins not only with prayer but just preaching the right gospel.

01:32:58

There's a related question from Greer in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who says, what will the earth look like, in your opinion, before God blesses us with revival?

01:33:20

Interesting question. I thought it was going to go a different direction. What will the earth look like before God blesses us with revival?

01:33:28

Is that right? Yeah, and maybe even confine the question to a specific or any area, because usually in history, it wasn't a global phenomenon where revival took place.

01:33:42

It was in a specific area. Oh, wow, I see. But I mean, I'm adding to the listener's question here, maybe make it easier.

01:33:50

For instance, where you live, if there was going to be—if you were going to expect to see a revival breakout,

01:33:57

I mean, this is under the sovereign control of God, of course, but would you expect to see something first?

01:34:06

No, that's a good question, because what I think—let me articulate what if I thought

01:34:12

I was in the midst of a revival, what that would look like. Number one, I think people would not treat

01:34:21

Christianity and going to church nominally as an add -on to their life.

01:34:27

I think true revival, you know, at a bigger level, you would see mass people living the

01:34:36

Christian life with the one another's. Because we can't see one another's heart and all of those things, so we can only look at the first and second great awakening.

01:34:48

For one, it's the right gospel. So that's why when some people are like, you know, did this group over here, is this really a revival?

01:34:55

There's a lot of people. When I look into some of the—and I won't name any specifically, but I'm like,

01:35:01

I can't even discern if they are preaching that we're saved by grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone.

01:35:07

So that gives me every indicator that that's not even an actual revival going on.

01:35:13

But if it were being preached and people were coming to the biblical Christ, well, a byproduct of that would be people living their lives in and through their church, not this nominal

01:35:27

Christianity of, you know, well, now it's the summertime, and now

01:35:33

I can take a break and go to the lake every weekend. And these people tell their, you know, church leaders, hey,

01:35:40

I'll see you, you know, come August. So there's an apathy, to get back to the question.

01:35:48

I think what you see before revival is starvation. And perhaps, you know, in the

01:35:56

Bible belt, where there is a lot of quote -unquote Christianity, it is, I think, in my context, you would see a lot of spiritual apathy, a lot of people going through the motions, and then revival would quicken the heart to now have joy in the midst of suffering, because that is a part of the

01:36:15

Christian life. So interesting question, because it's hard to equate, you know, where I live here in the

01:36:20

South with looking back at the first and second great awakening, which, by the way, when you look at George Whitefield, you talk about someone who had a lot of zeal and passion and who spoke boldly, and I guarantee you, when he was singing, he was engaging with his hands.

01:36:39

Well, I know that he was quite the orator, quite a bold and thunderous preacher, and so much so that Benjamin Franklin, who there's no evidence that he was even regenerate, but he was utterly fascinated by Whitefield, and I can't remember off the top of my head the distance that he could hear

01:37:06

Whitefield, because he was like basically doing an experiment on it. And, you know, he kept increasing the distance where he would stand as far as his distance from Whitefield, and it was a pretty far distance.

01:37:25

Then, of course, there was no technology back then for amplification or anything like that.

01:37:33

Let's see, we have Stephen in Pella, Iowa, who wants to know, why have none of the great revivals of history remained permanent?

01:37:47

Well, you would have to ask God that. So, a few thoughts there.

01:37:55

I really think that nothing new is under the sun, and you have spiritual warfare, the enemy at hand, and I think when we see glimpses of true revival, it is for a season, and I would say, you know, our labor in the

01:38:15

Lord is never in vain, and so, my goodness, I'm so grateful for how God has used revival in the past for a particular season, and, you know,

01:38:24

I would say there are seeds of where that has resonated with us today, and so it's taken root.

01:38:32

But yeah, you know, I think, I don't want to offend anybody, but, you know, there's this post -millennial hope where I'm just like, look,

01:38:41

I love the battle cry of the expansion of the kingdom, right? But it's hard to quantify what that is going to look like in real time, and so whether you're pre -mill, all -mill, post -mill, we realize that Christ is building

01:38:57

His church the way that He sees fit. And so, I think it's great to look back at George Whitefield and see how God moved back then, but we live in a time a different time now.

01:39:06

It's still this present evil age, and we still fight with the same spiritual weaponry that George Whitefield did, you know what

01:39:14

I mean? So, there's a point of this where I think that we just continue to lean into the means of grace that God has equipped us with.

01:39:27

But yeah, I mean, we're just, we're to be sensitive where the Holy Spirit is at work, and we don't—this is the thing—we don't want to try to force a revival.

01:39:37

There's a book I'd recommend. I'm trying to think of the name. I think it's Revival and Revivalism, and—

01:39:43

That's funny because I was just looking at it because the listener asked for your recommendations, but go ahead.

01:39:50

Yeah, recommend that book. I'll try to think maybe some more resources, too, but that's the thing is, man, why can't we have church like they did back in the 70s?

01:40:01

Why can't we live in the glory days of whatever that looks like? And I would just say that's not how it works.

01:40:07

We're called to be faithful with little or with much, but if I were to dream what that would look like in Jonesboro, Arkansas, as I would see a number of individuals, their families living their lives in and through the local church, because I think that goes against individualism, and they would faithfully pursue those means of grace to the glory of God just in mass numbers, because we live in a time that is so different than the first and second great awakening, so it is hard to talk about what would it look like right before a great awakening happened and what that would necessarily entail.

01:40:48

So anyway, those are your questions. Yes, we have Ferdinand that was asking from Southampton, Long Island, for book recommendations on revival, and you already mentioned

01:41:04

Revival and Revivalism by Ian Murray, The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism from 1750 to 1858.

01:41:15

Ian Murray in that book was comparing and contrasting the ministries of Asahel Middleton, a name that every

01:41:25

Christian should become familiar with because he was a great man of God and sadly largely forgotten in our day and age, and Ian Murray was comparing and contrasting that wonderful godly ministry with the heretical ministry of Charles Finney, and that's published by Banner of Truth, and you could get it at cvbbs .com,

01:41:54

so please purchase your book there since they sponsor this program. Cvbbs .com,

01:42:01

mention or enter the promo code IRON and you'll get an extra 5 % off.

01:42:08

But do you have any other books to recommend, as Ferdinand was asking? Off the top of my head, if something comes to mind,

01:42:15

I'll definitely pause and recommend them. Well, let me quickly look up an excellent book.

01:42:26

In fact, I think I'm going to reread it. It's called The Power of Prayer, also a

01:42:33

Banner of Truth publication. And it's all about a

01:42:40

New York revival that took place in the 19th century, and I'm looking that up right now, and while I'm looking it up, let me announce our email address one more time.

01:42:59

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com if you have a question for my guest. The book, as I was mentioning,

01:43:07

The Power of Prayer, the New York revival of 1858 by Samuel Prime, quite a remarkable story.

01:43:16

People typically don't think of New York City when they think of revival of any kind, but there was indeed a bonafide revival in New York in 1858, and you'll be fascinated by this book by Samuel Prime, also available through cvbb .com.

01:43:36

Well, we're going to take our final break right now, and if you have a question, submit it immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:43:45

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

01:44:00

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

01:44:07

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

01:44:12

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

01:44:28

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

01:44:35

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

01:44:48

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.

01:44:58

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

01:45:06

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

01:45:11

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

01:45:24

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

01:45:32

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And welcome back. I would like to wish one of my modern day heroes a happy birthday.

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John MacArthur turned 86 today, and I was reminded by my dear friend

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Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's media ministry, grace to you, that John shares a birthday with Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

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And Spurgeon would have been 191 years old today if he, by some miracle, survived.

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And he went home to be with the Lord at a very early age.

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He was, I think, almost a decade younger than me. But happy birthday,

01:53:13

Pastor John. And I want you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today when it comes to revival in the church, and perhaps even specifically confessional churches.

01:53:31

Yeah, all members of the new covenant, those that have been transformed by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, we have something to celebrate, not only on the

01:53:42

Lord's day, but throughout our lives. Whether, you know, we're walking as pilgrims in this sin -cursed world, we have something to be happy about, to sing praise, and we don't have to be ashamed about it.

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We can engage with the one another just in truth. And so that's the thing that I want to kind of impress upon people is

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God is looking for worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth. So yes, doctrinal precision, sound theology, we do all those things that are necessary, but we don't need to neglect the in spirit, from a heart that loves

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Christ, and we do all things well to his glory. So that's the thing that I want to push forward is, especially those of us with a

01:54:30

Reformed Baptist covenant theology, is there is something wholly distinct in the new covenant that is different than the old covenant, the historic covenants that God providentially had a purpose for setting apart an ethnic people,

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Israel. He had purpose in giving the law, but all of those were a part of a time in history that Christ, born under the law, in the fullness of time, that he would fulfill all of those covenants.

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And so he inaugurated a newer and better covenant. I'll a lot of times tell people different blood, different covenants.

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So the new covenant was cut in the blood of God. And basically, we have a high priest that cannot fail to save us and intercede for us.

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That's why we can rest in the promise, he will never leave us or forsake us. So my point is, that should cause us to sing praise with all of our person, all of our constitution, with our church family, and we shouldn't be ashamed of that.

01:55:33

So I'm assuming you disagree with many of our

01:55:38

Presbyterian brethren who share an identity with us as believers in covenant theology, but there are many among our

01:55:49

Presbyterian and Pado -Baptist brethren who will say that there is one covenant with two administrations, and I'm assuming you disagree with it.

01:56:01

Oh, yeah. Along with the framers of our confession as well is, it's about telling them, of course, there are different administrations of the covenant, but it works.

01:56:12

So they got it backwards. When you look at the historic covenants, those are not grace. Where there are sanctions, where there's obligations, where there is the possibility of disobeying, cursing, resulting in death, you have law.

01:56:27

You don't have grace. And so I encourage Presbyterians to go read Galatians chapter 4, because Paul is talking about the two covenants that are juxtaposed, not to be misunderstood.

01:56:39

And he talks about Sinai, the Sinaitic, Mosaic covenant, which is death because it's law, which reflects the holiness of God.

01:56:49

No person can meet that covenant's demands. That is not grace. We need a perfect law keeper on our behalf.

01:56:57

That's the whole point of Galatians chapter 3. But you have Mount Zion, which is representative of the new covenant.

01:57:04

So you got to think Mount Sinai, whoever touched the mountain, Hebrews 12, death, right?

01:57:10

Moses quaked in fear. Mount Zion is the exact opposite. I pray that God would let me cast my son on Mount Zion, right?

01:57:17

That he would taste and see that the Lord is good. And so that is grace, and you can't mix law and gospel there.

01:57:24

And of course, I know that you do not believe that the Old Testament saints were saved by anything but grace, but you're talking about a covenant that was not salvific in the old covenant.

01:57:37

It was an earthly, temporary covenant. Absolutely right. And I point to Abraham.

01:57:43

I would say he became a partaker of the new covenant promise.

01:57:48

And so that's a key term, promise by faith apart from his works. And so, yeah, there's one gospel in the

01:57:56

Old Testament. It was promise right there looking forward to in anticipation. And we have that promise realized in Jesus Christ.

01:58:02

So we look back to everything that he did. Amen. Well, I want to repeat to our listeners all the websites that you need to know.

01:58:11

First of all, don't forget about the website for 12 .5 Church in Jonesboro.

01:58:19

Is it Jonesboro or Johnsonboro? Jonesboro, correct? Oh, Jonesboro. You got it. Jonesboro, Tennessee.

01:58:26

Arkansas. I get the name right and screw up the state. That's okay. Jonesboro, Arkansas. 12 .5church

01:58:34

.com, and that's the word 12, the numeral 5, church .com.

01:58:41

Don't forget about that. Don't forget about the Roadmap to Revival Conference, which is coming up in September before Dr.

01:58:53

White comes to Pennsylvania for my free pastor's luncheon and for his speaking engagement at the church where I'm a member,

01:59:04

Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But the Roadmap to Revival Conference is

01:59:09

September 12th and 13th at the Covenant Reform Baptist Church of Tullahoma, Tennessee.

01:59:16

For information, go to crbctullahoma .org, crbctullahoma .org.

01:59:26

And of course, don't forget about the website for The Apologetic Dog.

01:59:33

And that is theapologeticdog .com, theapologeticdog .com.

01:59:40

Thank you for being such an exquisite guest today, Pastor Jeremiah, and I look forward to your return to the program.

01:59:48

And I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater