February 21, 2018 Show with Ron Glass on “Think What? The Apostle Paul’s Admonitions that We All Think the Same Thing”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. 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 Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 21st day of February 2018.

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And for some reason we're having problems with the opening music and I'm not sure what that's all about. But today, as many of you know,

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Billy Graham went home to be with the Lord at 99 years of age and we are going to plan on doing a program on the legacy that he left and we are not going to pull punches.

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We believe that Billy Graham, although was used in many wonderful ways for the

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Lord and no doubt was a tool in the Lord's hands to lead many to Christ, perhaps even millions, but that does not mean that the ministry has not also done things that those who are from a more conservative

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Bible -believing perspective do not have great concerns over. And we are going to be addressing that at some point, perhaps even

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Friday on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I always feel uncomfortable bringing criticism upon someone who, like Billy Graham, has many wonderful things to commend him for.

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He seems to have had a spotless record in regard to marital faithfulness and things that we unfortunately hear are not parts of the lives of famous people, even those that profess to be

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Christian. There are many things about Billy Graham that we could applaud him for and celebrate, but as I said there are things, especially in regard to ecumenical relationships with non -Christians and the belief that those from other religions may enter heaven with us one day, while believing that Christ saved them, that there are many that don't necessarily need to or ever will believe in Christ, but will nonetheless enter into heaven.

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Things such as that that Billy Graham believed that breaks the hearts of many of us who have a much stronger view of what the

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Bible says in those regards. But stay tuned over the next couple of days and we should have more information to update you with in regard to our program because I think that we need to pray for the

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Billy Graham Evangelistic Association as they are at a crossroads now and we don't know whether they are going to go to the left or are they going to return to Billy Graham's biblical roots, we just don't know.

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So we will certainly be praying about that and we'll keep you updated on a program addressing those issues.

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But today we have returning to the show one of my favorite guests, one of my all -time favorite preachers and one of my dearest friends,

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Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church of Wading River, Long Island, New York. Those of you who listen to my program every day hear the commercials for Wading River Baptist Church at least once a day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes even three times a day.

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And there's a reason why I'm eager to promote Wading River Baptist Church and it's not only because they have been faithful financial supporters of Iron Trip and Zion Radio but because my guest today,

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Pastor Glass, is a biblically faithful expository preacher and I just love being a part of the editing process for his

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River of Life radio program. I edit his sermons to fit within two half -hour radio broadcasts and the

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River of Life program is heard every Saturday at 930 a .m.

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Eastern Time and every Sunday at 730 p .m. Eastern Time globally via live streaming at eastgatebroadcasting .com.

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And today we are going to be addressing, think what? The Apostle Paul's admonitions that we all think the same thing and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Ron Glass.

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Thank you Chris, it's a joy to be with you today. And although we have explained in detail what people can expect at Wading River Baptist Church on many occasions and you air ads every day in my program, for those of you my listeners who are perhaps just discovering this program for the first time today and have never heard of you or Wading River Baptist Church before, why don't you tell our listeners about that?

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Well they'd be in the great majority I'm afraid. We are a small

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Baptist Church located on the north shore of Long Island, directly south across Long Island Sound from New Haven, Connecticut.

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Small town but adjacent to a bunch of other small towns which together make up the extreme eastern fringe of the

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New York City metropolitan area. Our church has been in association or affiliation with the

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Conservative Baptist Association of America since its founding 36 years ago. I just completed last week 25 years of ministry at the church and we have sought to glorify

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Christ God through the systematic exposition of Scripture and the fulfilling of what

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I consider to be the great purpose statement of the church which is found in Acts chapter 2.

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The great five purposes of the church by seeking to fulfill all of those and to bring glory to Christ in an area where there's a great deal of spiritual darkness.

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And if anybody wants more information about Wading River Baptist Church you could go to wrbc .us.

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And why don't you tell us a little bit about the River of Life radio program. Well the

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River of Life program is simply sermons that I've delivered.

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We do different series right now. We're in the midst of a series on the subject of forgiveness and each week's broadcast is half of a sermon.

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And we encourage anybody who wants to listen if you're on eastern

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Long Island you can listen over the air as Chris said at 930 a .m. on Saturday mornings 91 .7

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FM or on the Lord's Day evenings at 730 p .m. Otherwise you can get it via Eastgate broadcasting.

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Yes and once again the website where you not only can you listen via live streaming but you can also get those numbers on the dial where you can hear the program if you are on eastern in eastern

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Suffolk County Long Island. That's eastgatebroadcasting .com eastgatebroadcasting .com.

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Well this is an interesting subject today. Think what? The Apostle Paul's admonitions that we all think the same thing.

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This is something that militates against the modern mindset of many people not only in secular society but even within the

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Christian church. And in some ways that's a facade because those among the liberals or perhaps even more appropriately labeled leftists in society they will say that they are crying out for diversity and tolerance but they really want us to believe all the same thing as well but it's the wrong thing.

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It seems that you can believe just about anything and you will receive the the accolades and commendations and the celebration of the left unless you are a conservative

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Bible -believing Christian. But if you could tell us why this topic think what that you wanted to discuss today.

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Let's break it down into its two parts. The first word is think and that is not a popular thing to do in Christianity today.

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Real thinking, especially hard thinking about the interpretation of God's Word, what

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God's Word reveals, is not particularly prized as a virtue in our churches today.

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So I think the first thing we have to do is say God's people need to go back to thinking.

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And part of that, the reason for that is in order to gain discernment, in order to be able to say this is true, this is not true,

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I can believe this or accept this, I have to reject this. Now my presupposition in this,

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I've looked everywhere in the New Testament and I never see Jesus or Paul or any of the

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Apostles, and in fact even in the Old Testament, I never see anyone saying or condoning the statement, let's agree to disagree.

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But that is generally the accepted orthodoxy in our evangelical churches as it is in our political society and many other things, other societies today, other areas of thinking.

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For example, it even exists in science and medicine. You know,

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I can make one example that comes to mind right away, and that has to do with the argument over whether or not children or even adults should be immunized against diseases.

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Well, some say yes, some say no. Okay, so what's the reasons? Is there truth there, or can we say, well, we can both accept our own views and be right?

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This is a basic problem in philosophy, a basic problem in logic.

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It's called the law of non -contradiction. We have to say this, one person cannot say this is the truth, and another person take the opposite position and say this is the truth, and both of them be correct.

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Both of them may be wrong, but both of them can't be right if they are dealing with the same set of presuppositions, either we're talking about the same thing.

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All right, so what we have to do as Christians is to learn to think.

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Now, when we ask the question, what, that goes to the issue of content of our thinking, and that,

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I think, is hinted at by the Apostle Paul.

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Let me give you some examples of what the Apostle Paul says. Over the years during which he wrote the epistles to the churches, he made this point.

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For example, he says this in 1

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Corinthians, and I think 1 Corinthians probably was the earliest of these where he says this, but he makes a very emphatic case in 1

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Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10. He says, Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and if you look, and I'm reading now from the

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New American Standard, the marginal note says, literally, it means to speak the same thing, and that's true.

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That's the meaning of the Greek text here, that you all speak the same thing, that you all agree.

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For what purpose? That there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete.

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And that's an interesting phrase in the original language as well, because it's a word that was used in medicine in those days, and it really referred to the setting of broken bones.

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So, in order that you be mended, or that you be restored. Now, if you know what was going on in Corinth at that time, in fact, just two verses later, he explains it.

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Actually, he starts in the next verse, I've been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.

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Now, I mean this, that each of you is saying, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.

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All right, so the congregation had fractured into at least four cliques, and the problem was that they were operating off of different assumptions and different factors.

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There's a variety of those, for example, we might think that those who were of Jewish extraction in the

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Corinthian Church may have leaned towards Peter, Cephas, and those who were loyal to the founding pastor, to Paul.

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Those who perhaps enjoyed the eloquence of Apollos, liked him, and probably the remainder said, pox on all your houses, threw up their hands and said, we're just of Christ.

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So you had all of this division. So to mend this, to set the broken bones back in place,

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Paul said, I urge you that you all agree, that you all say the same things, that you may be made complete, how, in the same mind and in the same judgment.

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That's a pretty comprehensive statement. And he says, all of you agree, say the same things, no divisions, be mended or restored, the same mind, the same judgment.

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How much more strongly can he say that? Then you have the statement that he makes in the letter to the

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Romans, and I'm thinking now of Romans, chapter 15, and in the fifth verse he says, now may the

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God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.

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And here his emphasis is on perseverance and encouragement. I mean, he knew he was a mortal man, and he would die.

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He knows that there would be many influences that would, by which

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Satan would attempt to destroy what he had done, to destroy the truth. And so in order for them to persevere and to be encouraged, he says, be of the same mind.

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And the standard is according to Christ Jesus. Now in 2

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Corinthians, and the final chapter, chapter 13, he says in the 11th verse, finally brethren rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like -minded, live in peace, the

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God of love and peace be with you, shall be with you. And then probably later, about the year 61,

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Paul's in prison in Rome, and he writes to the Philippians in chapter 2, after he has exhorted them in chapter 1, verse 27, to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.

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One of the characteristics of that is to stand firm in one spirit. He says, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the

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Spirit, if any affection and compassion, in each of these, he is actually assuming, the language here implies an assumption, a conditional sentence, so assuming that in fact, in the

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Church, there is encouragement or consolation in Christ, there is consolation of love, there's fellowship of the

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Spirit, or spiritual fellowship, and there is affection and compassion. He says in verse 2, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, literally thinking the same thing.

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So, this is not something Paul just said once, or put in an obscure context.

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He says it repeatedly to at least three different churches, in which there was a need for this kind of unity, and really, like here in the passage in Philippians, it's part of a package deal, it's part of a larger unity.

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He goes on to talk about maintaining the same love, being united in spirit, which almost literally can be translated being soulmates, and caring about the same thing, literally being concerned about the same thing, which

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I think if you look at the previous chapter, you can see in Paul's own life, the same thing would be that Christ would now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

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I think the same thing would be the exaltation of Christ in his

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Church. So, when I ask that question, the question really revolves around the importance of unity of thinking, unity of thought.

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That's what I'm getting at here. And I'm going to let our listeners know, our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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If it's not personal and private, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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We have a Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says, in the passage that you cited in 1

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Corinthians 1 verse 12, one part of that passage confuses me, where Paul says, now

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I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.

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It is the last thing that confuses me. Can you explain? That is an interesting thing, because Pastor Ron, you may have experienced this.

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I experience this very often, maybe even every week, when I'm having a conversation, especially if somebody disagrees with my belief in the doctrines of sovereign grace, because those doctrines, as you know, are nicknamed

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Calvinism. And very often, if someone disagrees with me on those issues, they'll say, oh,

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I don't like to believe and teach in the doctrines of men. You know, you could be of Calvin, and somebody else could be of Wesley, but I like to just be of Christ.

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And it's like they're ignorant that that verse is even in the scriptures. And it seems to me that sometimes people say that in ignorance, that there are no traditions that they are importing into their own belief, claiming that they are the teachings of Christ, naively.

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But anyway, what is Paul saying there? I think you put your finger right on it.

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I think that's exactly right. Another example of that, doctrines of grace certainly came to mind, but another example of that that I've encountered a number of times is

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I am personally a Baptist, and I would have people say, well, I'm not a

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Baptist, I'm just a Christian. Right. I mean, we don't have the same kind of outlook

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God has, obviously. But that we can't somehow arrive at the truth.

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And see, that's what I'm thinking that Paul is arguing against here. So when they say,

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I'm of Christ, that probably was the party in the church who said,

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I don't put my allegiance with the smooth -talking, eloquent, and highly intelligent

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Apollos. I really, as much as we appreciate dear

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Paul, who founded this church and who gave us the truth, nonetheless, I refuse to follow a man.

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And then there were those who said perhaps more of the Jewish orientation, they had some affection for the law perhaps, and they could find themselves more comfortable with Peter's outlook on things.

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So they just say, I don't want any of that. All of that is tainted to some degree.

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Just give me a simple gospel. Just give me Christ. That's all. Well, when you do that, you are in fact making some interpretive and theological decisions.

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And one of the things that I think is dangerous here is to think that because you say that, you somehow have retained the purity of the truth.

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When we realize that God's word has to be interpreted, it is written in human language, and it is capable in some places, in some ways, by minds that are trained differently, it will be handled differently.

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So the question that emerges out of that is, is it possible to know the truth?

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Or are we hopelessly restricted? Are we prevented simply by our human, finite minds to obscurity?

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That we can never know for sure what God has said. And that's a big problem today.

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If you look at what is being said, especially by a lot of the millennials today, younger people, especially those who've come to Christ as young adults, they really don't have much background in the faith.

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And then they get themselves into churches who primarily are involved in things other than detailed biblical exposition or doctrinal preaching.

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Those kinds of young people have, in many cases, become disillusioned.

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And they have said, look at Christianity. I go to this church and they believe this.

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I go to that church and they believe something entirely different. And then there's this church over here.

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You have different denominations all claiming that they have the truth.

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And some of these young people, instead of choosing a church or denomination and saying,

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I want to be a part of this, what they have done is they have looked for a consistent doctrinal tradition.

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And that's why we've seen a lot of, especially younger, but not just younger, even some older adults, come out of evangelicalism and go back into churches like the

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Roman Church or the Anglican Church or the Orthodox Church because they have very long traditions of believing the same thing and because they have a theological authority structure.

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Somebody in the organization, differing depending on who it is, but someone or someones will say, this is what we believe and this is what you must believe.

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Well, it makes it easy then because all you have to do is accept their doctrinal position or doctrinal statement or their creed or confession or whatever.

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You accept that and then you don't have to do any hard work in terms of thinking. So that right there eliminates the need to think.

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That, by the way, has been a problem historically because in the churches that have very strong confessions of faith or creeds, that they stand by very firmly.

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That simply eliminates the need for the average church member in those organizations to think.

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They don't have to think. All they have to do is say, yes, we believe what we're told to believe.

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We have an anonymous listener that is asking something that somewhat is a perfect segue to what you said.

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This anonymous listener in New York says, I have a very dear friend who is a member of a church where people apparently are frightened to ever disagree or question the pastor.

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It seems that they have been robbed of the Berean example that the

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Apostle Paul commended. And this church is a

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Baptist church, but it seems to be acting and actually functioning as a cult in many ways.

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Although the theology that seems to be taught, most of it is right on the line biblical.

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What can you say to help me to communicate to this friend of mine who is very discouraged and depressed being a member of this church?

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Well, the thing about it is that what it sounds like is that they almost have a cultic mentality because you can mostly believe the right things, although I have a suspicion that if we were to really go carefully through what they believe, we would find errors.

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But a cultic mentality basically revolves around an individual.

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So my suspicion is that this is a church that's pastored by a very strong personality, somebody who exercises a great deal of authority.

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And then there are threats or there are stated consequences for not following either the doctrine or practice of that church.

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I mean, if I were to sit down with a person like this, I would probably say, you need to go someplace where, first of all, the leadership of the church, the pastor or whoever, is humble, is kind and considerate, and particularly, according to 1

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Peter 5, not lording it over the flock. And then you need to go someplace where you may feel comfortable doctrinally, as far as you know, but you have the freedom to think.

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And that, I think, is really important. I mean, you can't—I can appreciate what this person is going through if they are being basically told what they have to believe and then threatened in some way if they don't follow it.

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I would find another place to worship. Well, thank you, Anonymous, and keep listening to Orange Shepherds Iron Radio and spread the word about the program.

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In fact, if you ever wanted to ask Pastor Glass additional questions off the air, go to wrbc .us,

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and later on you can speak with him if you so desire.

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You said something, and I don't know if I misinterpreted what you said, but it seemed you were being a little critical of churches that are confessional.

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I happen to be a member of a confessional church, and I think that there is great value in creeds and confessions.

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In fact, I think every church really has one once they have some kind of a statement of faith that is really a confession or a creed, whether they call it that or not.

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But, for instance, most churches that I know that adhere to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, members are not forced to be in full agreement with every single article.

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They have room to question as long as it's not something salvific, and the creeds and confessions are basically summaries of what the leaders of that particular congregation believe are important biblical teachings.

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In fact, some confessional churches do not require someone to agree with everything to be a member because they obviously realize a sanctification process could take years for people to understand certain things.

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What is it specifically about confessionalism that bothers you? Most of the churches that I know of that are really confessional churches, when push comes to shove, they tend to exalt the confession over the scriptures.

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These can even be conservative churches. I'm not just talking about the churches that have swaddled liberal theology now.

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I'm talking about evangelical churches. Now, let me give you,

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I'm going to, how shall I say this? Let me say initially that this is where I come back to the importance of thinking.

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There's a presupposition that I'm working off of here. By the way, can you pick up where you left off because we have to go to our first break right now.

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Sure. Okay, and we'll be back in just a few minutes with more Pastor Ron Glass. Don't go away.

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We'll be right back, and our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

34:04

if you have any questions of your own. We'll be right back, God willing. Tired of box store

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Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

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And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

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Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

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And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

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631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

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That's wrbc .us. I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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And we were just going to hear about why you have some critical apprehensions about confessionalism, and if you could pick up where you left off.

39:29

All right, well, in general terms, confessionalism, I think, has to take a backseat to biblicalism.

39:35

God's Word is the ultimate authority, not a confession. Of course, that is definitely true.

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In fact, the Confession says that, at least the 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Westminster both say that.

39:46

They do, but that's not the way that they're handled by many of those who advocate them.

39:55

If a doctrine is not in conformity to the

40:02

Confession or the Creed, very often it is dismissed as unbiblical.

40:08

Now, let me give you an example of this, since you mentioned 1689, which, as we know, is essentially the

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Westminster Confession, the Baptist version of the

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Westminster Confession. In the

40:30

London Confession of 1689, which also was the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, chapter 30 talks about baptism.

40:41

And it says that those who do actually profess repentance toward God, faith in and obedience to our

40:48

Lord Jesus, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance.

40:54

Now, there's a statement which is in direct contradiction to the

41:00

Westminster Confession of the Presbyterians, because they spend a great deal of time defending infant baptism.

41:09

Secondly, same chapter, immersion or dipping of the person in water is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance.

41:20

Again, a direct contradiction to the Westminster Confession, which allows for sprinkling of the baptismal candidate.

41:31

And, of course, that's with infants, as a rule. Now, the question is, which one's right?

41:41

Well, obviously, I believe that the Bible, being a Baptist, I believe that the

41:46

Bible teaches that the London Baptist Confession of Faith is accurately describing the biblical ordinance of baptism.

41:53

Okay, but you see, how you started that out? You said, obviously, being a

41:58

Baptist. First of all, you've made an assumption that it's obvious.

42:04

Second of all, you have brought your denominational affiliation into the argument.

42:10

And this is where we get into big problems. That's one of the reasons. Well, I guess why

42:16

I said it that way was because, obviously, I believe Presbyterians and other paedo -baptists are my brothers in Christ.

42:23

But the reason that I am a member of a Baptist church and a Reformed Baptist church, the reason

42:30

I joined one, is not because, oh, I'm going to find a church that teaches

42:35

Baptistic thinking. I joined a Baptist church because I believe the Reformed Baptist churches are most faithful to the scriptures.

42:44

It was the scriptures that led me to remain within Reformed Baptist churches, not because of some sentimental, traditional, romantic view or attachment to Baptists.

42:58

But that same argument that you've just used could be used by a Presbyterian as to why they're

43:04

Presbyterian. Uh -huh. Yeah, well, obviously, I would hope that a Presbyterian is believing something because they think it is biblical.

43:14

But even, I'm still kind of at a loss as to how you would be critical of somebody, for instance, adhering to the 1689

43:21

London Baptist Confession, since you, at least on that point, you agree with what the Confession is saying, correct?

43:27

Well, sure, I do. But I don't agree with it because it's the London Confession. Oh, of course.

43:33

I agree with what it says as to the extent to which it agrees with scripture.

43:39

Oh, of course. Of course, definitely. But how do you, what do you say to a Presbyterian who holds both to infant baptism and baptism by sprinkling?

43:50

Well, the very reason that I had a debate that I arranged between two dear friends of mine, James White and Bill Shishko, I had a debate because I was challenging, hoping to challenge not only

44:02

Bill, but the Presbyterians and other paedo -baptists in the audience. I was hoping to challenge them to search the scriptures anew and prayerfully, you know, to come to a biblical position on this because I believe that the biblical teaching is clear, very clear on the issue.

44:23

So that was where I'm coming from. It's always, first and foremost, the scriptures that teach us something.

44:30

And my point is only that a Confession is merely supposed to be a summary of what a specific church believes the

44:37

Bible teaches in matters of great importance. Like, for instance, the London Baptist Confession, typically, depending upon who publishes it, is only about 120 pages or so, 120, 130 pages.

44:48

And that's not a very long book. It's not a phone book size creed or something or confession.

44:55

But anyway, I'm sorry if I interrupted you. You could continue with your thought there. Well, so let's go back to your discussion now between these two gentlemen.

45:07

What was the outcome? Well, the outcome was, I believe, that the

45:14

Baptist understanding of baptism was clearly revealed to be the biblical one.

45:22

That was the way I walked away believing. The Presbyterian friend changed his mind then?

45:28

No, I'm not saying that that occurred, no. See, this is my point. What happens is that after we have these discussions where we don't agree, and we lay out the biblical evidence, and I personally believe that there is absolutely no evidence for infant baptism in Scripture.

45:52

You cannot find it. I agree. Alright, so you lay that before our

45:58

Presbyterian friends, and if you have a debate like this, then we go back to the statement that I referred to at the beginning.

46:07

Well, we just have to agree to disagree. Now that's where I have the problem, because Paul says,

46:14

I want you to say the same things. I want you to agree on these things.

46:21

And I know you can make the argument, well, he's talking to the Corinthian church, the Philippian church, the

46:27

Roman church. So within the church, they should all agree. But I think we have to look at it broader than that, because we're representing biblical

46:37

Christianity. And you see, what we're saying to the world is, there are different ways that people who say that they believe the

46:47

Bible are going to regard these different doctrines.

46:53

And therefore, there's no unity between them on this, and the only position we can come to ultimately is we agree to disagree.

47:02

And again, I think that's all the same, that's not good enough. So what's the answer to this?

47:11

Well, the answer to this... Now, I could be wrong, and I stand to be corrected by anybody who wishes to do so.

47:21

But I have yet to meet, for example, a Presbyterian who stands by the

47:27

Westminster Confession. I have yet to meet one who will say, I do not happen to agree with that because Scripture says this.

47:39

In other words, they will disagree with the Creed, and they will agree with the

47:47

Scripture. It's just the issue we were talking about. I mean, how many

47:52

Presbyterians will you find who say, we believe in baptism, believer's baptism, baptism of those who have received

47:59

Christ by grace through faith, and who are immersed? Well, obviously,

48:04

Presbyterians would believe in believer's baptism if the person was not already baptized as an infant.

48:11

And I know that we, you and I, would believe that that is not a baptism if you're baptized as an infant. But I can say that the debate that I orchestrated between James White and my friend

48:23

Bill Shishko, they did not refer for proof of their arguments, either one of them, the confessions that I recall.

48:33

Bill Shishko was using household baptisms in the New Testament to back up his arguments,

48:42

Oiko baptism, as it's called. And I disagreed with his interpretation of those citations where whole families were baptized because I do not believe that there were infants baptized if they were rejoicing with the one baptized.

48:58

In other words, obviously, an infant is not going to be rejoicing with somebody who's being baptized because they would be incapable of understanding of what's going on.

49:08

And even unbelievers rejoicing with the one being baptized doesn't make sense.

49:15

There would be no reason for them to rejoice if their families' lives were being put at risk for the leader of the household being baptized.

49:22

But that's perhaps going too far with an explanation. I can say that I do know

49:27

Presbyterians that attempt to use the Bible to bolster their arguments, but they have not convinced me or even come close.

49:35

The question comes down to this, can we know the truth?

49:43

Now, you see, immediately I can hear the objections. People are going to say, but Pastor, if you say that we can know the truth, then you are probably going to say in the next statement that you happen to know what that truth is.

50:02

Now you are sort of making a cultic leader out of yourself.

50:08

No, that's not what I'm doing, because I obviously do not ever compel belief on the part of a person under threat of some kind of discipline or punishment or whatever.

50:25

If a person comes into our church and they happen to disagree, we had a family that was in our church for quite a long time.

50:33

And I was preaching a series that was very decisively premillennial, and they just finally said,

50:45

I don't believe this. And so they left. Well, if that's their prerogative to find another church, then it may hold positions that are compatible with theirs.

50:56

So I'm not trying to compel anybody by force of coercion, but rather by force of argument.

51:06

An argument that is based on the proper exegesis of Scripture.

51:12

And my observation, what I'm making a case for here, is for an honest study of the text of the

51:23

Word of God, so that you can have the possibility of coming to a meeting of minds.

51:32

In other words, you study the text of Scripture and what the text says you believe and is what you practice.

51:40

Amen. I agree with you 100%. And by the way, I want to let our listeners know that I have edited hundreds of Pastor Ron's sermons.

51:48

And I can barely think of one incident where I disagreed with him on what he was saying.

51:55

I just want to let our listeners know that we are not in some diametrically opposed ways of thinking or theology or something like that.

52:02

We do have differences, but the great dominance of what you preach on, it seems, would be things that I would, as a

52:12

Reformed Baptist, agree with you completely. Right. Now, in our church,

52:20

I have done several series, some doctrinal, some expository through books, that have taken a decisively premillennial, dispensational view, which

52:32

I know you don't happen to agree with. Right. The same thing, I would make the same point.

52:39

I would say we need to come back to the Scriptures and look at what the text says, rather than trying to absorb what a lot of other people have said about it.

52:55

Now, I think that that's okay to do, once you have significantly and, what's the word

53:04

I'm looking for, you have competently exhausted your study of the biblical text.

53:11

And that you arrive at least at a tentative decision based on nothing but the biblical text.

53:18

Then, if you want to bring other sources into the picture, that's okay.

53:26

But, in doing this, as I study, I find very often that these sources are flat -out wrong.

53:35

Or, they have made some mistakes when it comes to the interpretation of Scripture.

53:43

And it's not just my having a gut reaction to what they're saying, or prejudice.

53:50

Because I need to be able to go back and say, look, at this point, you have not accepted what

53:56

Scripture says on this. Now, this all, everything I'm saying here is based on what was actually one of the

54:04

Reformation doctrines with regard to Sola Scriptura. And that is what they call the perspicuity of Scripture.

54:13

That the Bible is understandable. It is not some sort of ethereal, exotic kind of literature that nobody can understand.

54:24

No. A person who is a true believer, who has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, can discern the truth.

54:31

Now, it doesn't happen all at once. You can't say, you know, I got saved last week, and I expect by next week to have mastered the

54:38

Bible. It doesn't work that way. It takes a long time of hard study. And this is why we have teachers, and we have preachers.

54:47

But the thing I would like to be able to say to people in churches is, yes, you can know the truth.

54:55

You are not shut up to a system whereby you have all these different opinions, and you can never know the truth.

55:09

That's all I'm saying. And we have to go to our midway break right now. It's longer than most of our breaks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

55:18

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires a 12 -minute break between the two hours. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

55:28

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

55:36

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Pastor Ron Lewis. Are you a Christian looking to align your faith and finances?

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

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And now we also have to make a couple of announcements before we return to our discussion with Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church and the

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River of Life radio program. The Spirit of the Age and the Age of the Spirit is the theme of the

01:06:38

Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology being sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

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There are two locations where this event will be held. The first is the

01:06:53

First Christian Reformed Church of Byron Center, Michigan from April 13th through the 15th.

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The second is the Proclamation Presbyterian Church of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania April 27th through the 28th.

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And the speakers include Daniel Aiken, Richard Gaffin, Daniel Hyde, Conrad M. Bayway, who is, and I just don't have the words to describe what a powerful, powerful preacher

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Conrad M. Bayway is, pastor of Lusaka, I'm sorry, of Kobwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

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I've known Conrad since 1995, and I just cannot rave enough about his biblically faithful preaching and the power with which he declares and proclaims the scriptures and the gospel.

01:07:40

Richard Phillips is also a friend of mine who is speaking on that roster, and also

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Jonathan Master, David Murray, and Scott Oliphant. If you'd like to register for the Spirit of the

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Age and the Age of the Spirit conference, which is the theme of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org,

01:07:58

alliancenet .org, click on Events, and then click on the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:08:06

And now this next portion of the program is something that I always feel uncomfortable doing, but it is something that is an urgent need, and that is asking you for donations.

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because we surely could use the advertising dollars. And now we are back with our guest,

01:10:13

Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church, Wading River, Long Island, New York, and host of the

01:10:18

River of Life radio program. And we do have a couple of listeners that have questions for you.

01:10:27

Pastor Ron, I do believe, as you do, in the perspicuity of Scripture. Can you tell us, though, what

01:10:33

Peter was saying in 2 Peter 3 about the teachings of Paul being hard to understand?

01:10:41

Well, look at the words, and this is my point with thinking. He says that there are things hard to understand.

01:10:51

He doesn't say there are things impossible to understand. And hard means you have to work at it.

01:10:58

And so we know that Peter struggled with some of these issues. Paul had to rebuke

01:11:04

Peter, according to Galatians 2, because Peter had a hard time tearing himself away from the law.

01:11:11

As a solidly Jewish man, he struggled with that.

01:11:19

But he recognized the truth of what Paul had written. He just said, probably as he had struggled with some of it, he's alerting his readers that they may struggle with some of it, but it is still possible to understand it.

01:11:40

By the way, I think I may have attributed that question to the wrong listener. I don't know if I even mentioned the name of the listener.

01:11:47

That was B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. I'm sorry if I attributed your question, B .B., to someone else.

01:11:54

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says,

01:12:00

Pastor Glass, I just can't seem to understand what your beef is with confessionalism.

01:12:07

I'm sure there are a handful, at least, of very important doctrines that you and your elders believe are required of somebody who would be teaching, especially, or for someone to have authority in your local congregation.

01:12:22

What is the difference between that and having a confession? Well, a confession is a written document that is given a degree of authority that I'm uncomfortable with,

01:12:39

I guess. I know, for example, there are some churches, and again,

01:12:44

I don't mean to be beating up on the Presbyterians, but there are Presbyterian churches where parts of the

01:12:51

Westminster Confession may be read publicly in unison in a worship service.

01:12:59

That almost exalts it to the level of Scripture.

01:13:05

Again, very often, if there is a doctrinal or a biblical issue at stake, the ultimate authority is going to be the confession or the creed.

01:13:21

In other words, we come to a difficult passage of Scripture, and we're not sure how to interpret it, or we say, we know that there are a lot of other

01:13:32

Christian brothers who handle that in a different way, then what are we going to believe?

01:13:39

What are we going to regard as the truth? And very often, it is whatever the creed or the confession says.

01:13:47

So my beef with confessions and creeds, and by the way, that's a Baptist position. Baptists have generally declared themselves to be a non -creedal people.

01:13:59

And the reason that I have that beef is that there is a temptation to exalt the creed over the

01:14:09

Scriptures. When push comes to shove, and you say, either you say,

01:14:15

I don't know what this biblical passage means, or, and this is worse, you say, well,

01:14:20

I can see that it means this, but I don't really happen to agree with that, therefore

01:14:26

I go with the creed. And we could go back to the baptism issue.

01:14:32

There's some other issues, too, covenant theology, for example, and some other issues that I think have to be sorted out biblically.

01:14:45

Let me tell you what, back years ago, I had the privilege of teaching hermeneutics at Talbot School of Theology for a little while on an adjunct basis.

01:15:00

And I remember very distinctly, one of the privileges I had in that was that I very often got the incoming students, the first -year students in the three -year program, the first -year students,

01:15:16

I very often was the first class that they actually sat in. Their first seminary class.

01:15:24

And I taught biblical interpretation, and I would stand up in front of them, and I would say, ladies and gentlemen, you can know the truth.

01:15:33

And I give them the illustration that very often the attitude in our church is you have

01:15:40

Professor Dr. A over here, and he believes one thing.

01:15:46

And on the other side you have Dr. B. These guys have their Ph .D .s, and they are diametrically opposed to each other on interpretation.

01:15:56

So Joe Pucitor, in between, looks at these two gentlemen who have significant academic credentials and says, if they can't agree, if they can't know for sure what the truth is, then how am

01:16:11

I supposed to do it? And they throw up their hands. Well, I explained this in the first class meeting, and I've had students come up to me after the class and say,

01:16:21

Professor Glass, this is what we hope to hear. This is something we want to hear.

01:16:27

Thank you. It was like there was a relief that somebody believed that the truth could be known.

01:16:35

And so that's my concern. Did you have another question,

01:16:42

Chris? Oh, no, no. Well, actually, I do have another listener question, yeah. Yes. And, of course,

01:16:49

Baptists throughout history have divided over the confessional issue. Charles Haddon Spurgeon adhered to the 1689

01:16:57

London Baptist Confession, and many other great Baptist heroes did. But I know that this is something that Baptists do disagree on and have for centuries.

01:17:08

Well, but the question is, what degree of authority do you lend it? I can ascribe to this.

01:17:17

This is both the London Confession of 1689, which became the Philadelphia Confession of the churches in the

01:17:23

United States. I can hold to that for the most part. But the point is that it doesn't hold the same degree of authority as the scriptures did.

01:17:34

Yeah, of course not. And if I ever heard a pastor saying that the 1689

01:17:39

Confession was inspired of God or even treated it that way, I would leave the church as fast as I could as if it were on fire.

01:17:48

I mean, I've never heard a Reformed Baptist use the Confession in that way.

01:17:53

But I know that there are abuses with many things.

01:17:58

And even in theologically sound churches, there are abuses of different things. We do have

01:18:04

Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,

01:18:12

I agree with you 100%, Pastor Glass, that the truth can be known because I do believe in the perspicuity of Scripture.

01:18:19

But I'm sure you would agree, or at least I think you would, that on this earth, until we are in heaven, we will never be in 100 % lockstep agreement because we are fallen human beings with finite minds and still battle with remaining sin.

01:18:36

We will never be completely in agreement on everything other than those things that are salvific, if we are a

01:18:43

Christian, of course. Yes, I would respond to that by saying absolutely true.

01:18:49

That is the situation that we face. My concern is that we make progress in reducing that as much as we can in this life in the

01:19:00

Church because of the fact that, one, Scripture is perspicacious, it is clear, and we can interpret it.

01:19:10

Two, because it is to our advantage to know truth.

01:19:16

Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. So the more truth we know, the freer, in a way, that we are going to be.

01:19:28

And the other thing that is very concerning to me, again, is the perception that the outside world has when they look upon us as hopelessly deadlocked over many of these important truths.

01:19:44

Now let me say, and I would like to push on a little bit here, that I think that there are two indispensable cores of truth.

01:19:57

And that is that there is an indispensable core of doctrinal truth. If a Church is going to be truly

01:20:03

Christian, then the Church members need to hold this. And I think this is what Paul was getting at in Ephesians 4 and verses 4 -6, where he said there is one body and one spirit, just as also you were called in, one hope of your calling, one

01:20:19

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all, through all, and in all.

01:20:26

Now it would take a while to take that passage apart word by word, but it can be done. The point is that there is a core of doctrinal truth that we have to hold if we're going to be truly

01:20:39

Christian. And actually, that's a fairly comprehensive statement if you take those apart.

01:20:44

You will see that a great deal of systematic theology is covered in those statements.

01:20:50

You have a statement like John makes in 1 John 4, where he exhorts us not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits, to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

01:21:05

We need to test the claims of those who make claims for religious truth, spiritual truth, biblical truth.

01:21:15

Now he says this is how you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

01:21:21

That's our starting point. If a group of people, if a church, and especially the cults, if they cannot say that Jesus Christ is

01:21:34

God in human flesh, that he is equal to the Father in his essence, and that he was incarnate bodily, he died, he bodily rose again from the dead, and is going to return for his church bodily, physically.

01:21:54

If you cannot say that, then you are not truly Christian. And this is what, you know, in a sense you referred to some of this before we started our discussion with Billy Graham.

01:22:11

And this is a problem not only with him, but with others as well.

01:22:18

That you embrace as Christian those who reject truth that Scripture says is indispensable to being a

01:22:26

Christian. And so he says, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

01:22:34

So you have an indispensable core of biblical truth. Now what I've discovered, when

01:22:40

I was young, they used to refer to the cardinal truths of the Christian faith.

01:22:45

I used to hear that in church all the time. That there were certain truths that you had to believe to be truly

01:22:50

Christian. And what's happened is, over the years, virtually every one of those doctrines has been up for grabs among professing evangelicals.

01:23:01

In fact, could you list all of those? I'm going to go to our break right now, so I don't have to interrupt you. This is our final break.

01:23:07

If you could list all of those within the next 35 minutes or so,

01:23:13

I think that would be very helpful. Well, I don't know about all of them. Okay.

01:23:20

Well, as many as we can get to. And if anybody would like to join us on the air, now is your time to send in your email, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:23:28

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01:26:18

This is Chris Arnzen. And if you haven't already sent in your email, please send it in now because we are rapidly running out of time.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com if you have a question for our guest,

01:26:31

Pastor Ron Glass, of Wading River Baptist Church, Wading River, Long Island, New York, and host of the River of Life radio program.

01:26:38

And if you could, Pastor Ron, start to list as many as you can of those doctrines that are essential for eternal life, essential for one to believe in order to be deemed someone a faithful and genuine, regenerate individual.

01:26:59

Well, what I was saying is that there was a core of doctrinal beliefs that were generally agreed to be what they called cardinal doctrines, which would distinguish those who claimed the name

01:27:14

Christian. So you would have the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the personality and work of the

01:27:23

Holy Spirit and all that involved, like the indwelling and filling and so on. You would have the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone, not of works.

01:27:35

You would have the doctrine of sin, that every human being is a sinner by birth and hopelessly lost without grace.

01:27:49

You would have the doctrine of the inerrancy of the

01:27:54

Scriptures. It used to be, way back then, that it was basically called the infallibility of Scripture, which then had to be refined to the inerrancy of Scripture.

01:28:08

They would also believe in the second coming of Christ in some form, not necessarily specified.

01:28:19

They would believe in the literal heaven and a literal hell.

01:28:26

Those would probably be the main doctrines that would be regarded as indispensable to being called truly

01:28:33

Christian. My point was that in recent years, the last 30 -40 years or so, virtually all of those doctrines have come in for attack on the part of those who claim to be evangelicals.

01:28:48

But generally speaking, and even here there may be exceptions, generally speaking, the only doctrines really that are still agreed upon by all evangelicals are the

01:29:00

Trinity and the deity of Christ. And beyond that, almost everything else is up for dispute.

01:29:09

And that's kind of disheartening in a way. In other words, what I've seen over the years is a sort of retreating, going backwards from certainty to uncertainty in the

01:29:22

Church. Let me say one more thing here. I mentioned about the indispensable core of doctrinal truth, and that there were two cores.

01:29:35

And the other is the indispensable core of Christian values. And these are dependent, of course, on Christian doctrine.

01:29:43

But I think we have a major problem today in this area, in that we have lost our unity on the matter of practical

01:29:50

Christian living. Now, I come to a passage like this one, and I find that there are many claiming to be

01:30:03

Christians in our evangelical churches who simply want to explain this away. It's 1

01:30:08

John 2, 15 -17. Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.

01:30:14

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life, is not from the

01:30:25

Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.

01:30:33

Writing to the Corinthians, after talking to them about the importance of being separate from the world,

01:30:41

Paul says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

01:30:51

Now, in our churches today, what I'm finding is that there is just interminable disagreement, arguing and disagreeing over these things that are usually regarded as debatable or non -essential.

01:31:17

So, issues, for example, let me give you an example now. In light of what

01:31:23

I've just read in these passages, can you sit in front of a television or in a movie theater, listen to the

01:31:31

Lord's name taken in vain and God blasphemed for two hours on end, watch all manner of sin, filling your mind with drinking and drugs and illicit sex and violence of every sort, and some of it glorified?

01:31:54

Can you do that and still please God? Now, it used to be, again, in the past, you say, well, pastor, you're living in the past.

01:32:03

Well, maybe, to some degree, I'm remembering the past. It used to be that Christians didn't do these things, but now they do.

01:32:11

And you can name a whole lot of other things that go along with that. And then I'm not just talking about that kind of thing,

01:32:18

I'm talking about even what we do in the church. For example, there are those in the church, in certain churches, who hold to what's called the regulative principle.

01:32:28

And they would, say, agree with John Calvin, that the church should only sing psalms, nothing else, just psalms, canonical psalms out of the

01:32:37

Old Testament. Other churches say, no, we believe that we are allowed to sing hymns and good gospel songs.

01:32:47

Other churches would say, we can embrace contemporary choruses.

01:32:53

Other churches today would say, there's a place in the church for rock music and even rap music.

01:32:59

Now, the question is, is there any possibility of agreement? Is there any right to expect that we should try to agree on issues like this?

01:33:11

And you can probably think of a lot more issues, but I mean, these are examples. And we have, let's see, we have a few more questions for you.

01:33:21

Let's see here. Oh, okay, we have Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

01:33:31

Christian says, I agree with you that many churches have abandoned their biblical roots, but I would say that, and I think that you may disagree with me, that one of the reasons why they have felt the liberty to be free from their biblical roots is because they have abandoned those statements of faith that once held together those critical doctrines that you mentioned.

01:34:00

When a pastor or group of elders is free to interpret the Bible in any way they see fit, a church is more likely to veer off the true road, off into a ditch, and therefore you have denominations like the

01:34:17

PCUSA, the Presbyterian Church United States of America, which is the most liberal of the

01:34:23

Presbyterians, that abandoned the Westminster and therefore were free to adopt all kinds of liberal and leftist and abominable ideas.

01:34:33

What are your responses to that? Well, one of the key things that he said there was that they've come to a point where they feel that they are able to interpret the

01:34:46

Bible as they see fit. That is a problem, and that's the issue.

01:34:53

Anytime you approach the Word of God, you have to do so with a certain set of presuppositions.

01:35:02

They're axiomatic. Now, you may argue with, and certainly unbelievers would argue with some of these, but you see, even the unbelieving world when it comes to science, when it comes to philosophy, there are certain axioms.

01:35:15

That means certain principles that are beyond dispute, that you take as a given.

01:35:22

And so when you come to the Word of God, there are certain axioms. One is that God is

01:35:29

God, that he is the supreme creator, that he is far above all of us, that he is incomprehensible.

01:35:38

But that God is a God who has revealed himself. He has made at least some of the incomprehensible comprehensible.

01:35:49

How has he done that? He has done that by revealing himself. Scripture tells us how he has revealed himself.

01:35:57

He has revealed himself in his written word. He has revealed himself through his law.

01:36:03

He has revealed himself in human conscience, and he certainly has revealed much about himself in creation.

01:36:09

So God is a God of revelation. Now, if we understand that God has revealed himself in these ways, we are therefore tied to his revelation.

01:36:20

We are not free to develop our own ideas and substitute those for Scripture.

01:36:28

No, what we have to do is take God's revelation. Now, when we get into the weeds a little bit here, we have to understand that God's general revelation, the revelation that he has given to us in creation, is not sufficient to lead us to salvation.

01:36:45

It is sufficient to understand something about the glory of God.

01:36:51

The heavens declare the glory of God. It helps us understand something about the majesty and the power and the greatness of God.

01:37:00

But we need biblical revelation, special revelation, to tell us about the issues of sin and the issue of redemption, of who

01:37:11

Jesus is and what he did when he came and died on the cross for us. So when we come to the

01:37:20

Bible with that understanding, that this is the revelation of God, he has given it to us in human language.

01:37:29

Now, there are certain principles with regard to language. And you can say, well, they're philosophical principles, but they apply to language.

01:37:39

That is, for example, the law of non -contradiction. We make an assumption about Scripture.

01:37:46

If God is perfect, and he is, Scripture declares him to be perfect.

01:37:52

If he is perfect, then any product of his creative acts will be perfect.

01:38:02

And that was the case with material creation until sin entered. But we also know that Scripture itself declares that the word of God is perfect.

01:38:13

You have that wonderful passage in the last half of Psalm 19 that just says it over and over again.

01:38:19

So if God's word is perfect, if God's word is reliable, and Jesus said to God the

01:38:27

Father, your word is truth, therefore, we know that what we need to know with regard to these subjects can be found in Scripture.

01:38:40

Now, the issue that confuses us, the thing where we have the battle, is the interpretation of this perfect revelation that God has given us.

01:38:51

We disagree with the liberals, for example. We say there are no mistakes in the

01:38:57

Bible. And there are no contradictions. So when you come across a contradiction, what you have to understand is you haven't understood it properly yet.

01:39:07

And that demands that you go back and work at it. And so this is a lifetime occupation for a believer, is the study of God's word.

01:39:17

And the more you study, the more diligent you are, the more prayerful you are, the better you will understand that the word of God makes sense, begins to make sense.

01:39:27

Then we are able to make judgments about these issues, whether it's doctrine, or whether it's the way we live, or whether it's the way we worship, whatever it is,

01:39:39

Scripture is our authority. And we can be confident that we know what

01:39:46

Scripture says, that we know that we hold the truth, as long as we have done that kind of thorough study.

01:39:54

So that's my contention. That's my plea to the people of God.

01:40:01

Rather than just taking it for granted out of somebody's theology book, or out of a creed or a confession, study the word of God.

01:40:10

And one of our callers today, early on in the process, made reference to Acts 17 .11,

01:40:17

where the Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica, and they searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.

01:40:24

Now, I've heard of pastors who don't like to be questioned, but I love it. And I hang around after services.

01:40:33

And I have, throughout my ministry in three different churches, four different churches actually,

01:40:40

I have had people come to me afterwards. And I will sometimes stay for a long time after the service when somebody comes to me with a question.

01:40:51

And I say, Pastor, what does this mean? Or what about this? Or I'm not sure I understood this. Or I'm not sure I agree with you on this.

01:40:57

Let's look at the word of God together. Let's come to an understanding of the truth.

01:41:03

And they may go away from me saying, well, I'm not sure I'm convinced yet. Okay. But think about it.

01:41:10

Read it again. Pray over it. And it's amazing sometimes how opinions will change when that attitude is applied.

01:41:19

You brought up the regulative principle before, and there are those who would say that they adhere to the regulative principle who do disagree with each other, even amongst those who use that term.

01:41:34

For instance, you have some who, as you said, are exclusive psalmists or exclusive psalm singers.

01:41:40

You have some that don't use musical instruments. But on those issues, and there are some that do, by the way.

01:41:49

Like, for instance, many Reformed Baptists would believe in hymns because of biblical texts like Ephesians 5 .19,

01:41:59

where we are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and they would interpret that just the way it seems to be plain to understand that we can use hymns and spiritual songs that are not necessarily the

01:42:13

God -breathed psalms. Because even those who are exclusive psalmists have to change the words around to fit into their melodies and so on.

01:42:22

But other than those things that we could grapple over using the Bible, like Ephesians 5 .19

01:42:28

and so on, when it comes to something like music, how do we settle our disputes when it comes to the other things that you were talking about?

01:42:39

The melodies and rhythms and so on that are involved in music where there's harsh, dividing, divisive disagreement, and you even have...

01:42:53

Like, for instance, I'll give you an example. When I worked for WMCA Radio, some of my clients were

01:43:01

Fundamentalist Baptists. They had a program that was titled

01:43:06

The Fundamental Baptist Forum that I helped them to arrange. And when they would have meetings, they would sometimes get into very serious disagreement, even amongst themselves, even though they were very strict and very dedicated to the inerrancy of Scripture and very much against rock music and things that were considered to be modern music.

01:43:35

They even disagreed with each other. Like, for instance, they would say things like, you know, you played a song on the program that sounded too much like a country song, and country music is filled with all kinds of references to licentiousness and drunkenness, and I don't want any kind of music like that on the program if I'm going to be a part of it.

01:43:53

You know, you would have all these finer points being disagreed upon and over.

01:44:00

How do you get through that kind of dispute? That's why

01:44:05

I'm saying we need to think. Just take what you just said as an example, all right?

01:44:12

We don't want anything in our churches that sounds like country music, because country music is filled with all kinds of sensual references and other kinds of sinful things.

01:44:26

All right, so the question is, is the country -style

01:44:31

Christian song that's being sung, is it filled with that kind of content?

01:44:40

Well, if it's talking about Christ, if it's talking about biblical principles, then it simply is a matter of style.

01:44:51

Now, there are considerations even when it comes to style, because in our minds we do make associations between things.

01:45:02

You might hear a gospel song sung in a country style, and your mind, especially if, say, before you were saved, you were very much an advocate of country music and you know all the lyrics with all the sorted stuff, you might have a little problem with that.

01:45:20

All right, if you have a problem with that, then you should separate yourself from that. Other people who maybe have been

01:45:27

Christians since they were kids, but they grew up on that kind of country music, country -style

01:45:33

Christian music, would have no problem with that.

01:45:43

But it's a much larger issue than I could even begin to think here. I, years ago, taught an adult

01:45:53

Bible class. I think we were 16 weeks long on music worship in the church, where I did go into a lot of principles that need to be thought about on these.

01:46:04

I can't touch on those now. But again, it's a matter of thinking it through carefully.

01:46:11

Ultimately, the question is, does this glorify God? Does this magnify Christ? And I would say that certain kinds of music that are more calculated to make you dance or to bring out fleshly kinds of emotions and so on would not be compatible with glorifying

01:46:32

God or Christ. But that's a subject for a lengthy discussion.

01:46:39

John in Bangor, Maine says, Although you want us to base all of our theology on the

01:46:46

Scriptures, because they are the only things that we have that are inerrant, do you believe that we can make much use of great men of history whose writings are not

01:46:57

God -breathed, such as the great heroes of the faith like Charles Spurgeon, like George Whitefield, and the list could go on and on?

01:47:06

Are these valuable tools that we should utilize, or should they be shunned because they are not inerrant?

01:47:13

Absolutely valuable, and I've read many of them and really profited from many of them.

01:47:23

My plea would be, though, that when you read these, that you read them against the background of Scripture itself.

01:47:36

This is one of the problems, though, that you sometimes get when you have a young Christian who is reading these great theologians and may not have grasped the

01:47:49

Scriptures so well that they may then take, at times, human ideas as being representative of what

01:47:56

God has said. And because, as we talked earlier, we're sinful human beings, there are going to be errors that are going to creep into any human writing.

01:48:07

But I have read very profitably some of the Puritan writings and old preachers'

01:48:16

Spurgeon sermons, yes. I used to love to read John Gill, for example, who was such a deep thinker and brought things out that you never usually thought about.

01:48:30

And Jonathan Edwards and others of that sort.

01:48:36

They're valuable. They are God's gift to the Church. He has given great minds to the

01:48:42

Church. And one of the qualities of these great minds is that they inspire us and assist us in the process of thinking.

01:48:52

Amen. And it can be a sign of pride and arrogance if we believe that we don't need anyone to teach us because of the fact that there are even qualifications that the

01:49:07

Bible itself, the inerrant Scriptures, instruct us that there are requirements for teachers.

01:49:14

We're not supposed to just go off into the woods with a Bible and think that we don't need anybody else in order to understand everything that's in there.

01:49:22

No, and I'm not advocating that. Of course. What I'm advocating is that we each resolve in our minds that we're going to think carefully about things we believe and the source of that, which is the

01:49:38

Scripture, and not just necessarily take it at somebody else's face value, take their word for it.

01:49:47

That's my point. And let's see. We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, that asks,

01:50:00

What are your opinions of our Presbyterian brothers? Do you consider men like R .C.

01:50:06

Sproul and James Montgomery Boyce and many others among them to be valuable helps to understanding the

01:50:14

Scriptures in spite of your disagreements with them? Yes, I have had many occasions where I have used their writings.

01:50:26

I have heard them on several occasions, heard Dr. Boyce preach. I have some of his commentary sets, his books, and I find him to have been a fine preacher, a teacher, a very good thinker, and very helpful.

01:50:47

And I would say yes, absolutely. Now about Presbyterians, I'm not seeking to badmouth the

01:50:57

Presbyterians. They just sort of come to mind. I guess one reason that they come to mind is

01:51:03

I have a daughter who is a Presbyterian. She has chosen to go to a PCA church. And so I'm aware of the

01:51:13

Westminster Confession. I've read through Westminster Confession, and there are things there that I don't agree with.

01:51:22

And I don't agree with it not because I just decided not to agree with it, and not because being reared in a

01:51:29

Baptist environment, I said, Oh no, that can't be true. But the attempt that I make is to subject everything to Scripture.

01:51:39

Again, Acts 1711. Can we say that this is true?

01:51:44

Does Scripture say that that's true? If it does, then I will make a change.

01:51:50

I'll give you a classic example of this in my own life. I can still show you. I have my copy of the

01:51:57

Schofield Reference Bible that I got when I was a sophomore in high school. I still have it.

01:52:02

And if I turn to the page that has Ephesians chapter 1,

01:52:09

I have written around the margin, entirely all the way around the margin of Ephesians chapter 1, every single verse in the

01:52:21

Bible that showed that election was impossible. And over the years,

01:52:28

I came to realize I wasn't thinking straight. It said right there in Ephesians 1, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the

01:52:39

Father. But that can't be John 3, 16, and all the standard arguments against it.

01:52:46

And I argued in my mind against election for a long time until I finally realized

01:52:53

Scripture teaches that God chose us before the foundation of the world.

01:52:58

And if I'm going to be faithful to the Word of God, I have to accept that regardless of what my gut feeling is and my prejudices and my desire for human autonomy,

01:53:09

I have to simply submit to God and say, yes, thank you, Father, for choosing me before the foundation of the world.

01:53:17

I can't preach the gospel based on that. But it took time. I had a battle with that.

01:53:24

But eventually, because I fought it through, I changed. Amen, and praise

01:53:32

God for that. I'd like you to have five minutes or so, perhaps four, because we're running out of time, of uninterrupted time that you can summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we depart this program.

01:53:49

And, of course, I want to have time to give your contact information again. Well, I would just simply urge each listener, first of all, don't neglect the

01:53:59

Word of God. Read it. Study it. Go to church and hear the

01:54:05

Word preached by a competent pastor. Bible classes,

01:54:10

Bible studies. Absorb as much of the content of God's Word as possible, because that forms the background against which you listen to sermons and you read books.

01:54:22

So what you need to do is to resolve that you are going to think.

01:54:29

And in your church, where you have disagreements with others or you see disagreements between members, advocate some hard thinking to see if you can't come to an agreement, because it is so much better to have a unified congregation.

01:54:45

And many of these issues can be resolved if you are just willing to think biblically with one another.

01:54:52

Because this is part of the broader plea the Apostle Paul makes. Not only are we to be like -minded, but in that Philippians passage, to maintain the same love, to be united in spirit, and to care about the same thing which, to my mind, according to the context, is the glory of Christ in the

01:55:11

Church. So that would be my plea. I just simply would say, in spite of everything we've said today, sound, converted, evangelical

01:55:24

Presbyterians are my brothers in Christ, and I love them, have no problem with them, as persons

01:55:32

I may not disagree with some of their theology. But I would urge people to say, we can do better than to constantly conclude, let's just agree to disagree.

01:55:48

Well, I want to thank you so much, Pastor Ron, for being our guest today, once again on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:55:56

And I want to make sure that our listeners have all of your contact information. I know, once again, the website for Wading River Baptist Church is wrbc .us.

01:56:11

The website for Faith FM, also known as Eastgate Broadcasting, where you can hear the

01:56:20

River of Life radio program every Saturday at 9 .30 a .m.

01:56:25

Eastern Time, and every Sunday at 7 .30 p .m. Eastern Time, is eastgatebroadcasting .com,

01:56:32

eastgatebroadcasting .com. And do you have any other further information that you care to share?

01:56:39

If you're interested in contacting us, our telephone number here at the church is 631 -929 -3512.

01:56:51

And if you're interested in visiting us, our address is 1635

01:56:56

Wading River Manor Road in Wading River, New York.

01:57:03

Great. And I think it would probably be good for me to reiterate here that in spite of the fact that it may have seemed that we were disagreeing on a lot of things today, that you and I both share a very strong position on the doctrines of sovereign grace, and that we have far, far more in common than we have in disagreement.

01:57:26

Would I be correct in saying that, brother? Hey, iron sharpens iron. Amen. Well, I hope that you all continue listening to the program this week, and I also ask of you to continue to pray for the future of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:57:44

I ask of you to once again consider prayerfully donating to us if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for your church and home.

01:57:54

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com. ironsharpensironradio .com. Click on Support, and you'll be given an address where you can mail a check made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:58:04

And if you'd like to advertise with us, please send that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:58:11

If you would like to promote anything that at least is compatible with what we believe here, whether it's your church, parachurch, organization, business, professional practice, or special event, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:58:26

Also, if you know of any upcoming events that you think that Iron Sharpens Iron would be served well by being present with the

01:58:39

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth, please let me know about that. Please let me know about those events, because I do have sponsors who are enabling me to travel to different parts of the country to set up an

01:58:51

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth, and there may be events that I don't know about that I should know about.

01:58:57

So send me that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Let me know of an event that you think would be ideal to help promote

01:59:04

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I want to thank Pastor Ron Glass for being our guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions today.

01:59:13

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