June 19, 2017 Show with Phil Johnson on “Christlike Polemics: When Loving Rebuke Crosses the Line Over to Malicious Slander & Conduct Unbecoming a Christian” AND “The Gospel According to God: A Study in Isaiah 53”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on 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 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 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. Chris Arntzen Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you a happy Monday on this 19th day of June 2017.

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I hope all of you dads out there had a very blessed Father's Day yesterday. I had a blessed day even though I am not a father.

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I had a very blessed day celebrating Father's Day with someone who's very near and dear to me, the second oldest son of the woman who led me to Christ 30 years ago,

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Joe Ignacio, and his three children, and his girlfriend,

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Mika. We were able to have a wonderful time for Father's Day along with Joe's mom,

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Susan, and Joe's sister, Jade. I had a great time of fellowship, and I ask of you to pray for Joe.

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Joe is not a born -again believer, and he is accompanying me to the

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Founders Conference in New York City, which is a conference that we're going to be speaking about today. He'll be accompanying me, and so I'm asking you to pray for Joe.

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Pray for his salvation. Pray that the Lord unstops his ears and opens his eyes and gives him a new heart over the next several days when

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I'm in New York City. Joe knows, even if he's listening, he's not going to be offended by this because he knows

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I'm very open about the fact that he is not born again and that he needs Christ. He needs to repent and believe upon Christ to be saved.

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He's been a very valuable asset to me in the Iron Trip and Zion Radio program because of technical difficulties that I run into involving the internet and so on and the computer and all that.

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He's a very savvy person in that area and has been very eager to help me whenever he can, and of course his mom is very special to me because she led me to the

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Lord 30 years ago. And I'm also, or we're also, going to be joined at the Founders Conference by,

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God willing, the brother of comedian Ray Romano of Everybody Loves Raymond fame,

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I should say. Everybody Loves Raymond fame is what I meant to say. Richard Romano, he's a friend of mine.

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He's a Christian and he is planning on making it to one of those days, so I'm looking forward to getting together with him.

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It's been two years since I've seen Richard Romano. He's been a guest on this program in the past, so I'm praying for a wonderful time, not only for fellowship but also for edification and education and being challenged and just an all -in -all good time with the brethren in Christ will be there, including my guest that is on today.

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I'm so delighted that Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You, the radio,

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TV, and publishing ministry of John MacArthur, he is on the program again. Phil Johnson has been a guest on this program many times, especially the old

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Iron Sharpens Iron that used to air out of WNYG radio and WGBB radio in New York, and he is going to be discussing a very timely and important topic,

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Christlike Polemics, When Loving Rebuke Crosses the

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Line Over to Malicious Slander and Conduct on Becoming a Christian. That's going to be our topic for the first hour, and depending upon how things go with the first hour, because we may have to take more than an hour to discuss that,

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I'm not certain, but if we have time, God willing, the second hour we're going to be discussing John MacArthur's yet -to -be -released book that's due,

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God willing, in several months, The Gospel According to God, a study in Isaiah 53, which

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I believe will be the book version of a sermon series that John MacArthur preached on Isaiah.

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But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Phil Johnson. Thank you,

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Chris, good to be back with you. And if anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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U .S .A. And if you need to remain anonymous because it's something personal and private you're asking, then you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable.

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And Phil, before we go into the depth of our topic today, our very vital topic,

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Christlike Polemics, tell our listeners, I mean it may seem unlikely, and I'm sure it is unlikely, that there are too many of my listeners that are unfamiliar with Grace to You.

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But you never know, because once in a while I even have Muslims and Roman Catholics and atheists listening to the program.

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So why don't you tell our listeners something about Grace to You very briefly. Yeah, Grace to You is the media voice of John MacArthur, who is pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California.

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And our ministry started with a just sort of homegrown tape ministry back in 1969, and the demands for cassette tapes of John MacArthur's preaching and teaching just sort of skyrocketed in the early 70s.

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By the late 70s we were on a daily radio broadcast, and today we reach the world with recorded teaching resources, video, all kinds of stuff, and it's a thrill to be part of the ministry.

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I actually chuckle sometimes when I see an endorsement from you for my show that was an older endorsement from when we were broadcasting back in New York, and it will say,

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Executive Director of Grace to You, the tape ministry of John MacArthur. The millennials don't even probably know what a tape is.

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No, I still use the word tape all the time. I'll say to somebody, Yeah, get a tape of that sermon.

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And you can tell what age group they're in by whether they raise their eyebrows at that or not. Another time you made me chuckle,

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I think it was the last time I had you on the program, but perhaps you could even let our listeners know about this.

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You referred to the adult, I think it's an adult Bible study in Grace Community Church that you lead, that has kind of become a church of its own, and you referred to it as something like a tiny chapel of 500 or so.

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Do you realize that Reformed Baptists, if you have 100 people, that's a mega church in a

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Reformed Baptist church? Yeah, well, I mean, it's tiny. Did I use the word tiny?

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I would say it's a smaller subset of Grace Community Church, and it is small compared to the entire congregation.

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But yeah, that's right, we have about 500 people on the membership roll of our Sunday school class.

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So it's a large Sunday school class. Great. And how long has Grace Community Church been in Sun Valley, California?

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Goes all the way back to the early 50s. The founding pastor, I think, was a former

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Methodist minister who left the United Methodist Church because of doctrinal and political differences, and started

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Grace Community Church as an independent church. And when he died, they called a Baptist pastor who died himself of a heart attack within a couple of years,

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I think it was. And then in 1969, they called John MacArthur to be their third pastor, and he's been in the pulpit ever since.

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Yeah, and many of us praise God very frequently for him. What a blessing to the body of Christ he is.

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And interestingly, very widely loved by those in my theological circles from a broad spectrum of denominations, even outside of some of John's particular views on dispensationalism and so on.

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He has friends and those who are enormously blessed by him who, even though they disagree with him on certain things, they find that what he preaches that they have agreement with far outweighs anything that they have disagreement with him on.

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Yeah, you know, the uniqueness of his ministry is just verse -by -verse teaching. He takes the text and breaks it down and says, what does this mean by what it says?

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And he's gone through the entire New Testament, every verse in the New Testament that he's done exposition of.

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And when you're just following the biblical text, it wouldn't be an easy thing to go wildly in an unbiblical direction.

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So I think that's what has framed his ministry over the years, and that's why he is beloved.

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Amen. And of course, like all true followers of Christ, he's also hated by those who are enemies of the

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Gospel, enemies of truth, especially because he's a public figure. He's a world -renowned public figure.

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So that always comes with the territory. Yeah, you're right. It's inevitable.

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Jesus himself said, you know, woe to you when all men speak well of you. It does come with the territory.

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If you're going to proclaim the truth, people who hate the truth will respond accordingly.

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Amen. Well, we're going to now get into our theme today, a very vital theme, a theme that I think we should be addressing right now, especially in light of some ugly things that are occurring amongst brothers in Christ or professing

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Christians, and even some among some that were friends at one point.

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It's just so sad to see loving rebuke crossing the line over to malicious slander and conduct on becoming a

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Christian. We're talking about Christ -like polemics. Perhaps, Phil, if you could give a definition to what polemics actually means.

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Wow, I wish I'd looked up the words so I could give you a succinct definition. But polemics has to do with arguing against error and in favor of the truth.

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And in the Church, we typically use the word polemics to talk about correction and needed critique of errors that exist in the

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Church within the body of believers. And we use the word apologetics to talk about defending the faith against errors that assault from the outside.

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So, polemics is by nature argumentative, and that's why it can be dangerous if that's all you ever do.

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You know, we are called to defend the faith, and one of the requirements for an elder in the Church is that he has to be able to refute, you know, false teaching.

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And yet, Scripture also says the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps

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God will grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth. And it's too easy,

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I think, when you spend too much time doing polemics or even apologetics to become argumentative in a way that sort of nullifies or goes against this biblical command to be gentle and kind to all and patient when wronged and all of that.

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Yes, and in fact, wouldn't you agree, I'm sure you would agree, that the thing that is most typically lacking amongst evangelicals today are any sort of polemics.

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I mean, today, polemics would be considered just out -and -out nastiness, even if you're being as kind and gracious as you can be.

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In fact, Chris, I think even you and I we did a radio interview once about the fact that the idea of defending the truth or refuting error has become an odious idea in the

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Church, so much so that people aren't doing that, and it is a duty of Church leaders to refute error, to point out what's wrong, to warn the sheep against wolves that may come even in sheep's clothing, and people don't like to do that today.

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They want everything to be positive, but there's also a kind of overreaction against that where you've got people who have made themselves into sort of full -time critics, and they love the conflict more than they love the truth.

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That, I think, is the real problem, and it's easy for that to happen when someone just devotes himself full -time to being a critic.

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I got an email or a message online earlier this week from a guy who said, look,

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I'm thinking of becoming a full -time apologist. What kind of good advice can you give me? And my answer was, don't, you know.

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If the Lord's calling you to full -time ministry, be a pastor or a teacher or an evangelist and do apologetics well.

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But those are roles in the Church, pastor and teacher and evangelist. There's nothing in Ephesians 4 about being a full -time apologist, and I think we let ourselves in for a grave danger when we devote ourselves full -time to being a critic.

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Yes, and we need to be, I think, very clear how to distinguish just, rightful, appropriate, and perhaps even mandatory polemics in contrast to that which crosses the line.

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I'll give you an example. I have a very good Roman Catholic friend who gets upset with me quite often, especially when he hears about topics that I address on this program, and he will accuse me of being guilty of being mean -spirited and bigoted because I will say things like, the

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Roman Catholic Church has another gospel. The Roman Catholic Church is guilty of idolatry, things like that.

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Roman Catholics, if they are faithful to the dogmas of salvation proclaimed by the

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Council of Trent, are not my brothers and sisters. He thinks that that is nastiness and mean -spiritedness, and I tell him,

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I remind him, no, that's telling you the truth in love. And I told him if I were to start adding ad hominems to that and also slanders, things like, all

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Roman Catholic priests are pedophiles. Or, you know, you could go on and on and on with comments like that that are lies.

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You know, there are, obviously, Roman Catholic priests who are pedophiles. Everybody knows that. In fact, there are evangelical ministers that are pedophiles.

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But there is a difference between what I have said to my Catholic friends and what we're talking about today.

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Isn't there a difference? Oh, there is. There is. And it is difficult for people in these postmodern times to see that distinction, and it's a shame, because pretty much anything you do to refute error or defend the truth is going to be singled out and criticized by people who say, you know, well, you're violating the very thing you're talking about.

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You're not being gentle. You're not being patient. You're not speaking kindly and all of that.

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But, you know, Christ's ministry is the standard, and he was, at times, harsh and blunt and even called names when he was refuting the

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Pharisees. He didn't do that full time, and most of what he said didn't fall into that category.

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He was more concerned with teaching and edifying and all that, but he also saw the need to refute the error.

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In fact, you're not really doing a good job of teaching if you don't refute error.

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You're not fulfilling the full duties and the calling of a pastor and teacher.

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Right. And we can be honest about one of the catalysts for this topic being our discussion today, a mutual friend of ours,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who has been involved since the early 2000s, has been involved in including, amongst his other previous debate opponents, which were primarily, before the early 2000s, were primarily

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Roman Catholics and those who are in cults, those who deny the

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Trinity, and liberals of all stripes. But then, more recently, he began to study and do more research on the religion of Islam.

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In fact, I arranged Dr. White's very first debate with a

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Muslim, with Hamza Abdul Malik, who was a convert from Christianity to Islam.

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I think it may have been nominal Christianity. I don't know how sincere of a Christian Hamza was while identifying himself that way.

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But James doesn't count that one because he was exclusively defending the

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Christian faith and, in fact, the deity of Christ from a biblical standpoint during that debate. He knew very little about Islam at that point in his life, so he doesn't really include it as one of his

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Muslim debates since he wasn't really debating Islam. What year was that? I think it was perhaps 2001, but I'd have to check on that.

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It was at the Bible Baptist Church of Syosset, Long Island, New York, which now has a different name.

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The debate opponent was Hamza Abdul Malik, and I'm sure that I will find out within the time that we are having our conversation today.

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But a very interesting debate. In fact, I believe it was before 9 -11, before 2001, now that I'm thinking about it.

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That's why I asked the date. I remember after September 11th that James, I don't remember how long it was, but Dr.

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White sort of announced that he was going to devote himself to learning something about Islam and making that one of the focuses of his apologetic.

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And I was so thankful for that because I know he's a careful scholar. He doesn't just fly off the handle or debate things on supposition or whatever.

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So I knew he would study the subject and learn it well, even to the point where he took

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Arabic so he could read the Quran in its original language. You've got to appreciate someone who works that hard at the task of apologetics.

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Oh yeah, he has grown light years in his knowledge of Islam since the days of Hamza Abdul Malik.

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He has read the Quran, I don't know how many times over, but has studied it in great depth to the point where the last debates that I arranged for him in New York with Muslims, it was very painfully apparent that he knew more about the

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Quran than the Imams he was debating. And when I say painfully, not for the Christians in the audience, it was painfully apparent to the

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Muslims in the audience that he knew far more, in certain areas anyway, about the

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Quran than his Islamic opponents did. So he has really become one of the individuals in Christian apologetics that is in the forefront today of debating

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Muslims. And this whole clamor arose when people started thinking that Dr.

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White was compromising too much in his exchanges and interactions with Muslims, and then when he had a recent two -day event where a

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Muslim was given more freedom to speak by design at a church on the first day, and then the second day

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Dr. White was given more freedom to speak by design in a mosque, people went into a rage about that, even a couple of whom were

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James White's former friends. But the difference between disagreeing with that strategy, and I'll say right here that I've been accused of treating

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James White like an untouchable, like he is some kind of an idol, that he is some kind of a demigod or something, where he is unapproachable and you dare not criticize him for anything.

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I don't view Dr. White like that at all. And I think that there is a legitimate sphere of reasons why someone might, as a brother in Christ, disagree with that strategy and might make that disagreement known publicly.

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I'll give you an example. I've been arranging these debates since 1995 with Dr.

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White and most recently with Dr. Tony Costa of the Toronto Baptist Seminary, and there have been a handful of people that I love, admire, and respect, a small handful, who have said to me,

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Chris, I would really hope that you don't have debates anymore, public debates, or arrange them because you're giving a platform for an enemy of the gospel to proselytize an audience.

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And although I have disagreed with those brethren, they nonetheless continued to have that view, and I never held it against them,

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I never vilified them, and nor did they ever call me a traitor or a wishy -washy, mushy -gushy, ecumenical, who is having love -fest ecumenical gatherings, and so on.

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In fact, you could hardly call any of the debates that I arranged as a love -fest, although they were done with politeness and respect.

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The differences of the beliefs, when I'm speaking now of debates that I arranged with those who are not

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Christian, the differences of being hinged on salvation itself, that the debate topics were very often, if not always, with non -Christians involving salvific things, that was made very clear, these were not ecumenical gatherings.

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But here, in this case, though, you have people who have disagreed with Dr. White on this strategy that he had, and although some of the disagreement may be valid amongst brothers in Christ to have these kinds of disagreements,

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I mean, we've had debates between paedo -baptists and baptists and other kinds of things that brothers disagree on, that brothers in Christ, even in the same pew of the same church, very often disagree.

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But this has become very ugly, and it has become wicked, hasn't it? It's reached the level, or should

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I say the depths, of actually evil, malicious slander in some of these, in many of these comments that have been made publicly.

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Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, and that's been my complaint over the past couple of weeks or so.

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As this argument has heated up, I'll be candid with you, I prefer the debate format where there's antithesis, where there's close interaction, where rather than just a friendly dialogue where you let the guy give his view in the church, that's not really my cup of tea, and we wouldn't do it here at Grace Community Church.

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But to label someone an apostate because he's done that is entirely unfair, and you have to understand what

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Dr. White's stated motives are, and I agree with his stated motives, this is right, that we should view our

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Muslim neighbors as the mission field, not the enemy. And I think with all the rhetoric that's going around about, you know, radical

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Islam and all of that, Christians are too eager to treat our

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Muslim neighbors as the enemy rather than the mission field. And what

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James is doing is trying to encourage Christians to actually learn something about Islam so that they can talk to their

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Muslim neighbors and give them the gospel, and that's a noble goal. Yes, and also to give credit to that strategy that Dr.

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White had agreed upon with the imam. It was a way for Dr. White to get into the mosque, and he didn't compromise any of his beliefs at all.

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Yeah, that's a great point. You know, for all those who are critical of the fact that the imam spoke in the church, just take a look at the, or take a listen to the

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I almost said tape, audio recording, where James is giving the gospel in a mosque.

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I don't know of anyone else who's been able to go into a mosque and proclaim the gospel.

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So you've got to give him credit for that. And to make him out to be some kind of wretched apostate and grave danger to the body of Christ is exactly the kind of sort of overreactive discernment.

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It's usually called discernment, but it's not very discerning. It's undiscerning, that we don't need that in the church.

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We just don't need that. There are enough wackos on the fringes of Christianity without leading voices in the church trying to manufacture more wackos.

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And the Word of God lists slander amongst some very heinous activity, like in Mark chapter 7, verses 21 to 23, for from within, out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, theft, murders, adulterers, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

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All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. In fact, the

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Ninth Commandment is specifically about that, not to bear false witness against your neighbor, and I think a lot of the material that's been published in this particular controversy really breaches the

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Ninth Commandment. Oh yeah, it's interesting that very often Christians, or professing

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Christians, naively or perhaps unconsciously, because of the fact that they are viewing, just like the

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Pharisees did, things that are scandalously wicked in the sexual realm, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, and all the things that go under those umbrellas, or that umbrella, and things like that, they will overlook as being something that God winks at, slandering your own brother, and they might use the excuse, oh this is just creative hyperbole or something, but this is nothing less than slander and murdering the reputation of a faithful apologist and brother in Christ.

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Yeah, by the way, you know, this is not a new problem. You could look back over the history of the Fundamentalist movement in the 20th century and look at the beginning of that movement and then at the end of it and ask, why did

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Fundamentalism, why did Evangelical Fundamentalism die out in America? And it's because the movement sort of began to turn on itself, and Fundamentalists just treated one another like enemies, because they became so enthralled with the idea of contending for the faith that when they ran out of points of doctrine to contend for, they began to contend over secondary issues, idiotic issues, dress codes, and things like that, and then when they had exhausted that, they turned on one another and just ripped one another to shreds, and that's the danger here.

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Yeah, and we have to go to a break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air, we already have several people waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

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This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in today, our guest today is Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You, the radio,

36:45

TV and publishing ministry of John MacArthur, and we are discussing for the first hour, Christ -like polemics when loving rebuke crosses the line over to malicious slander and conduct on becoming a

36:57

Christian. The second hour, if we intend to keep the different themes as originally planned, the second hour will be

37:07

The Gospel According to God, a study in Isaiah 53, John MacArthur's yet -to -be -released book, due in print soon.

37:14

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Chris Arnsen at gmail .com.

37:22

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And Phil, one of the interesting things we have from God's Word on this issue, we find in 1

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Peter 2, 1

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Peter chapter 2, verse 12, Keep your behavior excellent among the

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Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may be because of your good works, as they observe them, glorify

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God in the day of visitation. Now, I'm sure you would think that it is very appropriate to use this text, even in light of Christians, with Muslims observing us, because of the fact that the very controversy that has arisen involves apologetics to the

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Muslims, and the Muslims are sitting back watching these Christians that were very often involved in dialogue and debate with them.

38:36

They're seeing these Christians pouncing on one of their own who is actually among the more gifted, if not the most gifted, in the area of evangelism to them, and these so -called or professing

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Christians could be planting seeds of doubt in their minds, in these

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Muslims' minds, that this man who has started to make a breakthrough in their thinking, in their minds and hearts, because of the drawing of God, of course, by God's grace, they may start to dismiss anything he has to say.

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If his own so -called brothers and sisters in Christ are attacking him, perhaps he's not even worthy listening to.

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Am I making a valid point here? Oh, absolutely, and that is the very point,

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I think, that passage from Peter's making. It's also what Jesus is saying when he says, look, here's how the world will know that you are my disciples if you love one another, and if we slander one another and deliberately misrepresent a brother's position, then that absolutely undermines the

39:44

Christian testimony. Yeah, that's what—okay, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead, I was going to change the subject, so I won't.

39:53

All right, well, don't forget what you were going to say. I was going to say that you just hit the nail on the head with something.

39:59

The reason why this is so unnecessary is because these folks who are going over the top in their attacks of Dr.

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White, they could be very simply avoiding all this controversy and avoiding their own sin if they were to just stick with things that they have disagreement with on strategy as brethren and not actually slander him.

40:26

These people are implying that Dr.

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White believes that Muslims can enter heaven without bending the knee to Christ, without converting or repenting of their own false religion, and so on.

40:46

Dr. White is not an ecumenist when it comes to Muslims. In fact, Dr. White does not even believe it is a legitimate thing for a

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Christian to pray with a dogmatically faithful Roman Catholic. He doesn't believe in prayer gatherings where you have people who may agree that Jesus is

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God and the Messiah, or maybe even just on the basis of loving

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Jesus, even if they disagree with who that historical and biblical figure is.

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He is totally opposed to those kinds of gatherings where people are praying together, these national days of prayer where you have people of all theological stripes praying together, even if they deny the gospel.

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So if he is against that, he doesn't have any ecumenical relationship with Muslims.

41:36

Yeah, I mean, all you have to do is listen to the gospel presentation he gave in that mosque to understand he's not compromised the gospel.

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He may irritate people by letting the Muslim guy talk, and like you said, it's fine to disagree with that and even criticize that, but to step over the line and question the fidelity of a brother who has devoted his life to the defense of the gospel, that's just more sinful than what they pretend he's guilty of.

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Yes, and one of the things that you just mentioned just triggered something in my head, but it flew out just as quickly as it flew in.

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But you were going to say something before. Yeah, I was going to say this is a... part of this is rooted in changes that are taking place in the broader culture, where it's obvious,

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I think, to everyone that things are becoming more polarized over issues that have to do with religion and morality.

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You've got, you know, Islam versus Christianity, and there's an obvious difference in the way even the secular press treats

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Muslims and Christians. They'll handle Islam with kid gloves, but they don't mind blaspheming

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Christ or accusing Christians or whatever. So Christians naturally feel like they're under siege right now, and then you've got the homosexual issue, where the government has brought all its powers to bear to try to force

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Christians to basically violate their own moral stance.

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And it's easier for Christians then to think, okay, the enemy here is the Muslim guy that lives next door to me, or the homosexual that lives down the street, when in fact, like I said in the beginning, they are not our enemies.

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They are the mission field. And if you can't keep that straight in your mind, you're not going to be a good evangelist.

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And in fact, if you can't keep that straight in your mind, and you don't want to acknowledge that, that your

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Muslim neighbors are your mission field and not your enemies, then really you should be quiet.

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Yeah, that pause of quiet was just a coincidence. I wondered if you were literally being quiet.

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I had myself on mute accidentally there. And most of my listeners, I think, wish that I had the mute button on for myself more often.

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But the thing that flew out of my head before was, you also have Dr. White's book,

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What Every Christian Should Know About the Quran, and he has not changed his belief at all in regard to the

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Muslim from what he has written. So you have a written documentation of what he believes in regard to Muslims, and the

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Quran, and Islamic theology. And in fact, it's ironic that some of those who are filled with vitriol against him now have wonderful things to say about his book, or they're remaining silent about the book either way.

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Yeah, I've seen that. And I don't understand it. I don't know what actually launched this attack against him and his ministry.

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But, you know, very strange. Well, I mean, it could be that he is very openly gracious and polite and patient with...

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Not always. I've had him argue with me. I was going to say that recently he's been very polite and patient with Muslims that he has had in his debates and dialogues.

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And of course, he's always been restrained. And I've never seen this.

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In fact, what I had said in my Facebook post, which is kind of humorous, for years, for 22 years,

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I've been collaborating with Dr. White on various debates and so on. And the thing that I have had to battle and grieve over is the slander that he's a nasty, vicious, bigoted man.

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And in fact, I challenged a number of years ago, a very well known

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Roman Catholic apologist to debate James on the mass. He initially agreed.

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Then he called me and said, I have to back out of this. And he wasn't giving me a clear answer until I kept pressing him.

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He finally said, well, to be perfectly honest, some colleagues of mine have warned me that James is an unscholarly brute.

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And if I debate him, it will be like a mild mannered professor entering a cage with a professional wrestler.

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And I said to this Catholic, do you believe that gossip is a sin? He said, of course

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I do. I said, why are you doing it now? He goes, well, what do you mean? I said, have you ever seen a debate that James White has participated in?

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And he said, no. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to have several of James's debate videos shipped to you.

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And why don't you form an educated opinion by viewing them and then get back to me?

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The man called me back two weeks later, apologized to me. He said, you're absolutely right.

47:00

I watched the debates. James White is far from being unscholarly. He is quite the contrary, an impressively brilliant individual.

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And in fact, now I am declining your invitation because he is far above my league when it comes to the topic of the mass.

47:17

So that is what we, that I and those of James's friends and colleagues who have worked with him on arranging his speaking engagements and debates, that is the slander that we have for 22 years been predominantly defending him against.

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Now it's this cream puff ecumenist who is Mr. Rogers reincarnated.

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It's just ridiculous. Just because he is showing restraint and treating people with the same integrity, patience, and dignity that we all expect others to treat us with, just because he's treating

47:55

Muslims that way, they are in an uproar. Yeah. He's getting soft in his old age.

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That's what they think, which is just ridiculous. But let's go to some of our listener questions before we run out of time, because we do have a number of them.

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And while I'm looking up the questions here, you can, if you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

48:26

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. I have two questions for you from Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

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And I have to enlarge the font on our email because the lettering is small. Okay. Of late, there have been a handful of discernment and polemic ministries that thrive on criticizing other ministries' apologetic and evangelistic outreaches.

48:52

In fact, those discernment and polemic ministries raise money in various ways to support themselves.

48:59

And that's the crux of the situation. Because of the need to make money, they are constantly on a war path and spend an inordinate amount of time criticizing in unfair and unbiblical fashion, other individuals and ministries.

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And even worse, many who follow them do so blindly, believing every word that spews from their mouths and every 10 second audio or video snippet of conversation that is by necessity due to the brevity of that 10 second snippet, completely taken out of context, instead of thoroughly investigating on their own to see if these discernment and polemic ministries are being truthful and wise in discernment.

49:39

What is the best course of action that faithful and studious believers should do concerning these discernment and polemic ministries?

49:50

And obviously, we can't or we shouldn't be guilty of slander on our side either by broad brushing all of these people who are having problems with Dr.

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White as being only in this to make more money or something. But obviously, this does exist, that phenomenon certainly exists.

50:09

Yeah, it's also a good reminder, it is a kind of slander to judge somebody's motives when you can't see them.

50:17

So I want to be careful not to do that. But there are evidences that I think some organizations deliberately thrive on controversy because it increases listenership and donorship and all of that.

50:32

And in fact, most of the large ministries that are focused mainly on discernment, they're not always wrong.

50:40

I would say the majority of what they say is valid criticisms of various trends and false teachers that they criticize.

50:49

There's a lot of good things that they say. I wish they could be as edifying as they are legitimately critical, but it seems like they get the idea that criticism is really what they're called to, and that's all they ever do.

51:03

So in answer to the question, this is my answer. I would evaluate a ministry that focuses on discernment and apologetics, polemics, all of that.

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Evaluate them by asking yourself, do they ever do anything other than criticize?

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Do they ever broadcast or publish anything that is purely edifying and positive and didactic teaching rather than polemics?

51:33

And if not, if all they ever do is polemics, then I would say be on guard because that is a surefire recipe for becoming imbalanced and twisted and begin to think that maybe you're the only one that's right.

51:47

One of the interesting phenomena that you see when you look at some of these so -called discernment ministries is that the people who found them and run them often are not themselves even church members.

51:59

They're typically not churchmen. They're people who meet in their own living rooms or whatever, because they can't find a church that's solid enough for them to even join with other believers in worship.

52:12

And that's a clue that somebody has sort of veered off balance and become hypercritical to the point where you really need to be careful.

52:24

Yes, and thank you. Oh, by the way, Jenny's second question to you is, are you going to speak at the

52:31

Foundations Conference? And if so, what will be your topic? Yes, I am speaking at the

52:36

Foundations Conference. It's not in my mind right now what time, which day

52:41

I'm speaking, but I think it may be Friday morning. But whatever, if you're there, you can look at the schedule.

52:47

And they asked me to do a message that I've done. It's one of the downloaded messages at Sermon Audio, and so I'm going to do an updated version of it called

52:56

Marching Orders for a Backslidden Church. Excellent, excellent.

53:03

Looking forward to that. And I will be there, God willing, as you know. Yeah, I look forward to that.

53:08

This Thursday and Friday, and I'm looking forward to having some time of fellowship with you as well. By the way,

53:14

Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, you have won compliments of Banner of Truth, the book

53:24

John MacArthur, Servant of the Word and Flock by Ian Murray.

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Ian Murray's biography of John MacArthur. Banner of Truth heard about our interview with Phil Johnson today and wanted us to provide some of the copies of this wonderful book to those of you who had questions.

53:45

So you have won that book, and please give us your full mailing address, and that will be shipped to you, God willing, in a week or so by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

54:06

That's cv first time questioner, and she is from Madison, Ohio.

54:15

Her name is Kimberly, and her question is, and there must have been a typo here or something because the first sentence doesn't make sense to me,

54:25

Phil enter heaven without, and I'm not sure what that means, but the actual question is, would you invite

54:32

Yassir Khadi to Grace Community Church and let him speak about his religion of Islam unchallenged?

54:39

Do you think by Dr. James White doing so that he might have caused confusion amongst his brothers and sisters in Christ?

54:48

Yeah, I mean, that's a valid question. I think I already answered the part about would we do that at Grace Community Church. The answer is no.

54:54

I can't see us having an event like that because we don't want to turn the pulpit over to somebody, anybody who, it wouldn't be just Muslims.

55:02

We didn't have a Mormon or a Roman Catholic or anybody like that come and speak from the pulpit of our church.

55:09

I can see in, you know, classroom environments and stuff like that where an exchange like that might be something we might do, and yeah,

55:18

I think one of our concerns would be the potential for confusion, and so like I said,

55:24

I think there are valid criticisms that could be made. What I object to is the rush to anathematize a faithful brother over a disagreement that really has to do with methodology.

55:36

Yes, and when his motives are known globally for decades...

55:42

Right. I mean... And a long pattern of faithful defense of the gospel.

55:49

You'd have to have more than a single meeting with a Muslim imam for me to say, yeah,

55:56

I'm concerned about whether he's losing his grip or not. I know that's not the case, and if you listen to both sides of that dialogue that he had, you'd have to say, yeah, he admirably defended the gospel, proclaimed the gospel in the context of a mosque, and to me that sort of outweighs whatever criticism

56:17

I might have about the methodology. Yes, and I like the antithesis of a debate because it makes the truth clear for me.

56:31

That's just the way I think. I like the antithesis. That's what I've always enjoyed about James White's ministry.

56:39

I listen to his debates with great profit, and I think that's more valuable than a dialogue.

56:45

But again, that's a methodological preference of mine, and it's not something I would have ever thought anybody should start a major internet war over.

56:56

Right, and of course, you know, there are certain circumstances that may prevent the debate format that you would desire, and as long as the truth is not compromised,

57:11

I don't see anything invalid about what had taken place.

57:17

Now, let me ask you another question to play the devil's advocate here. Don't you think, and I'm not saying that you and Grace Community Church are guilty of this at all, but don't you think that there is a degree of superstition that could be adhered to, perhaps unconsciously,

57:36

I'm assuming, it would be unconsciously for a Christian to have a superstition regarding the building where they worship?

57:43

No, that's a great point. That is actually a valid point. The Church is the people, it's not the building.

57:50

So it's not the location is sanctified or anything like that, but when you meet in the building, it's the

57:58

Church that comes together. And so I just, something in me would recoil from the idea of giving any cultist or unbeliever a platform to sort of put his views in a, put his religious beliefs, his false religious beliefs, in a positive light in front of the

58:21

Church. I just, I wouldn't do that, but I also wouldn't, you know, if somebody hadn't asked the question,

58:27

I wouldn't make that a public issue either with what Dr. White has done.

58:32

Now, if the Church disagreed with you on that, as one obviously did, would you be vehemently opposed to that Church?

58:40

No, I certainly wouldn't anathematize that body if they were, you know, faithful in every way to present.

58:48

And like I said, it's a difference in methodology. And while that's not unimportant, it's something we could certainly discuss.

58:58

It's not worth the sort of public, nuclear campaign to discredit the person who you disagree with over.

59:08

Right. And, and of course, everybody knew that was attending these events, these two events, this two -day event,

59:16

I should say, that this was not just an ecumenical invitation to Imam to evangelize or proselytize the audience.

59:25

They knew that that's not why he was there. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that the possibility that someone in the

59:34

Church could be so deceived that they might actually be tempted to become a Muslim is so minimal.

59:40

It's probably not worth, it was certainly not worth all the debate and discussion that it's generated.

59:48

Yeah, we have to go to a break right now. And if this is our longer than normal break in between the two hours, if anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

59:59

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

01:00:05

USA. And by the way, Kimberly, from Madison, Ohio, you have not only won a copy of John MacArthur, the biography by Ian Murray, Compliments of Banner of Truth, but you've also won as a first -time questioner a

01:00:24

New American Standard Bible. So please give us your full mailing address and we will have Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service ship those two items out to you as soon as possible.

01:00:33

Thank you for joining us on the discussion today, Kimberly, and we'll be right back, God willing, right after these messages.

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That's chefexclusive .com. Welcome back. This is

01:10:14

Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than an hour to go is

01:10:21

Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You, and we are discussing

01:10:26

Christlike Polemics. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

01:10:32

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Before we return to our discussion with Phil, I have some very important announcements to make.

01:10:39

First of all, this Thursday and Friday, June 22nd and 23rd,

01:10:46

Sermon Audio's event in New York City, the Foundations Conference, is going to be held featuring our guest today,

01:10:54

Phil Johnson, and other speakers, six other speakers to be exact, and those speakers include

01:11:00

Stephen J. Lawson, Joel Beeky, Todd Friel, and others. If you would like to join me and Phil Johnson at the

01:11:08

Foundations Conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com

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to register, and I have good news for all of you who cannot make it to the Foundations Conference physically in Manhattan.

01:11:21

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or at sermonaudio .com, so you won't be left out if you cannot attend, but I would urge all of you, especially those who have easy access to Manhattan, please join

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Phil and I at the Foundations Conference this June 22nd and 23rd, and go to thefoundationsconference .com

01:11:49

for more details. Then after that, August 3rd through the 5th, Fellowship Conference New England is being held in Portland, Maine at the

01:11:58

Dearing Center Community Church. Speakers include Pastor Don Curran, who is the

01:12:04

Eastern European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society, the organization founded by Paul Washer, my friend

01:12:10

Pastor Mac Tomlinson, who is an author and pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, Jesse Barrington, who's been on this program recently, pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, and Pastor Nate Pickowitz, who is our guest two weeks from today, or two weeks from now,

01:12:30

I should say, on the 27th of June, Tuesday the 27th of June, Nate Pickowitz will be discussing his book

01:12:39

Reviving New England, and he is also the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire.

01:12:45

If you'd like to join me at the Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

01:12:51

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. Then in November from the 17th through the 18th in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, the

01:12:58

Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology is being held, including speakers such as Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

01:13:09

The theme is For Still Our Ancient Foe, one of the lines from A Mighty Fortress by Martin Luther.

01:13:16

If you would like to join me at the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org,

01:13:23

alliancenet .org, then click on events, and click on Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, and I hope to see you there.

01:13:32

And then last but not least, the G3 Conference returns to Atlanta, Georgia this

01:13:38

January, and that will be January 18th through the 20th, and speakers include

01:13:44

Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, Voti Baucom, H .B. Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, Dr. James R.

01:13:50

White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace.

01:13:58

If you would like to join me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where I will have an exhibitor's booth, please go to g3conference .com,

01:14:08

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01:14:16

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01:14:30

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01:14:43

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01:14:50

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01:15:08

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01:15:29

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01:15:39

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01:15:45

And now we return to our discussion of polemics with our guest Phil Johnson.

01:15:52

And we have a listener in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Tony with an

01:15:59

I. Tony says, one of the more troubling aspects of Dr. White's approach for me is that Kadhi was permitted to teach

01:16:08

Islam, his religion of peace, in the Lord's sanctuary. I think the idea that the sanctuary is just a building is off -base.

01:16:18

Does Scripture not record even the physical sanctuary as something to guard in holiness and purity?

01:16:25

Phil? Well, the sanctuary in the New Testament is your body. Your body is the temple of the

01:16:32

Holy Spirit, and Scripture stresses that repeatedly. There's nothing in the New Testament about the church building being a place that has to be sanctified in that way, where you have to take off your shoes or any of that.

01:16:48

You know, I don't oppose that sort of thing. I've spoken in churches where, in India in particular, where it's the custom that you remove your shoes before you even go in the pulpit.

01:16:58

And I'll do that, but I think that's rooted in a kind of superstition that doesn't really have any basis in the

01:17:06

New Testament. The church is the body. It's the group of believers. It's not the building.

01:17:13

And I understand the desire to keep the building solely for the

01:17:18

Lord's use, and I don't think that's invalid necessarily, but I think we do need to take care not to let superstition creep into our thinking.

01:17:29

One of the problems with Roman Catholicism is the way so many things, so many physical items became sanctified in a superstitious way.

01:17:41

Now they worship relics and statuary and things like that.

01:17:48

We don't want to go down that road. Well, Tony, thank you for your question, and you have also won a free copy of the book

01:17:56

John MacArthur, Servant of the Word and Flock by Ian H. Murray, Complements of Banner of Truth and Complements of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

01:18:06

We'll be shipping that out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and please give us your full mailing address,

01:18:13

Tony, where that book can be mailed to you. And we have another listener.

01:18:21

Let's see. Daniel in Bakersfield, California. Daniel says, my question for Phil Johnson is, polemically, what do you do when a new

01:18:34

Christian comes up to you praising a heretical Christian resource?

01:18:39

Do you immediately correct them and tell them what they are viewing or reading is heresy?

01:18:45

Or do you listen and then come back to them later with evidence that proves the error of the

01:18:51

Christian resource? This just happened to me recently when a new Christian in our church who came up to me and told me that I should rent this amazing movie called

01:19:03

The Shack. I know The Shack is heretical on numerous points, but what do I do? I don't want to embarrass her.

01:19:10

Sorry for the length of the question, but I hope my question makes sense.

01:19:19

That's not even your longest question so far. My answer to that would be, you need to correct that person as gently and as quickly as possible, and I understand the desire not to embarrass, and that's a valid issue in certain contexts.

01:19:38

I can think of contexts where, in a conversation like that, I might say, hey, let's talk about that later, because I know that movie and I have some concerns about it.

01:19:47

Maybe that's all you say in the moment, but be sure you follow up and give that person a basis to understand why this is not a good resource and it actually poses some significant dangers.

01:20:01

Be careful to explain that as gently but as clearly as possible.

01:20:07

Yes, it's your duty to do that, I would say, in the most timely manner possible.

01:20:13

That doesn't necessarily mean on the spot, but it does mean as quickly as you can.

01:20:19

Yeah, and obviously, you shouldn't go by hearsay if you're condemning a certain book or CD or DVD or ministry or individual.

01:20:30

The part about researching it yourself would only be required if you didn't already know for a fact that this person or ministry...

01:20:40

Good point. Good point. If you've read negative reviews and you know that there's something worth being cautious about here, but you couldn't really articulate it in the moment, then it would also be good to say, listen, yeah,

01:20:53

I'll look at that movie and then let's discuss it together, and then you can give her an intelligent critique.

01:20:59

Well, Daniel, you have won the final copy that we have of the book by Ian Murray, John MacArthur, Servant of the

01:21:08

Word and Flock by Ian H. Murray, Compliments of Banner of Truth, which will be shipped out to you.

01:21:15

Please give us your full mailing address, and Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will get that out to you as soon as possible.

01:21:22

That's cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. We thank you for your question today.

01:21:29

It reminds me of when I first was challenged by a

01:21:35

Roman Catholic to organize my very first Roman Catholic versus Protestant debate in 1995.

01:21:45

I believe I was challenged by an individual in 1994 at a barbecue, a Roman Catholic friend of mine.

01:21:52

My friend Robert Posh, Roman Catholic attorney for Doubleday Books at the time, used to have barbecues and family gatherings or parties,

01:22:01

I should say, where the sole purpose was to invite people of different religious views so that they can eat, drink, and argue.

01:22:10

And I met this individual who became my friend subsequently, Greg Lloyd, who is a very conservative

01:22:18

Roman Catholic, has his own apostolate, and he challenged me to organize a debate.

01:22:25

And when I was looking for the right individual to represent my beliefs, I was not very familiar with James White.

01:22:32

I went to my friend Bill Webster of Christian Resources, and he was the first debater of choice that I had in my mind.

01:22:41

And he said, oh no, you don't want me, you want James White. And believe it or not, I said, Bill, I don't know about that,

01:22:49

Bill, because I read in a Catholic magazine that James White is really nasty and hateful, and he won't even shake hands with his opponents.

01:22:58

And Bill Webster laughed and said, that's hogwash, don't believe that nonsense, call him and get him to do this if possible, which

01:23:06

I did. And here we are 22 years later, still involved in things together. And I shudder to think if I had actually believed what

01:23:14

I read in a Catholic magazine, not that all Catholics are liars, but this particular article was certainly slanderous.

01:23:22

So we should be very cautious about believing everything that we read or hear.

01:23:29

We have here Rich from Hanover, Pennsylvania.

01:23:36

I see throughout the church so many instances where people are being led away from sound doctrine by false teachers who produce popular and well -marketed resources, e .g.

01:23:47

Jesus Calling. I'm not familiar with that. Many are familiar with satire being used quite effectively, e .g.

01:23:55

Babylon B, to sound an alarm about false teachers. But to what extent do you think it should be utilized by the church?

01:24:02

Satire is certainly entertaining to read, but I do see where it has the potential to go too far.

01:24:10

Of course, that is true, it could go too far. But even Martin Luther used satire. You see the centuries -old woodcuttings that he was involved in.

01:24:19

But anyway, go ahead. Yeah, Jesus Calling, though, I think it was the best -selling evangelical book last year.

01:24:27

And he's right, it's a really bad book. It's written by a woman who purports to be speaking the words of Christ or recording the words of Christ.

01:24:36

So it's an extra -biblical, supposedly directly revealed message from Christ. And it's peddled as a kind of devotional thing, but you're reading words that purport to be from Jesus that really are nothing

01:24:49

Jesus ever said. And of course, it's a grievous sin to say, thus saith the

01:24:55

Lord, when the Lord hasn't said this. So it's a bad book, and it deserves whatever criticism it gets.

01:25:02

And, you know, I think in certain cases, mockery is appropriate.

01:25:08

You see that with Elijah and the prophets of Baal. I just...

01:25:15

On Mount Carmel. What? On Mount Carmel. Yeah. He was clearly making fun of them.

01:25:22

Right. And Jesus used some sarcasm with the Pharisees in places.

01:25:29

But I think you have to be conservative, or let's say, just be cautious about how much sarcasm you use.

01:25:38

You don't want that to be your sort of default answer to an error.

01:25:43

I think the Babylon Bee, I'm entertained by it. I love it. That's what they do.

01:25:49

And I think they've done a pretty good job of being not mean -spirited about it.

01:25:54

And that's the danger with sarcasm. It easily becomes a way to belittle the adversary in a mean -spirited way.

01:26:04

And that's not the point. The point of legitimate sarcasm is to show the foolishness of the error that you're confronting.

01:26:11

And yeah, sometimes it's funny. I mean, even in Psalms it says, the

01:26:16

Lord who sits in the heavens will laugh. He'll have them in derision. He's laughing at them. Because error is sometimes so...

01:26:27

It's just so ridiculous that laughter and mockery is an appropriate response.

01:26:33

But if you find yourself doing that all the time, if you just automatically default to sarcasm, it's not a good thing.

01:26:42

And I'm surprised nobody's asked about my blog and my record as a sort of polemicist.

01:26:49

I started a blog in 19, or rather 2005, because I was watching the trends with the

01:26:56

Emerging Church, a sort of liberalizing movement in the Church that was all the rage at the time, and nobody was critiquing it.

01:27:03

And it really needed a critique. And so I started my blog with the purpose of critiquing the

01:27:10

Emerging Church. And pretty quickly I realized, look, I can't be negative every day. Actually, I could have been negative every day, but I knew it wasn't healthy.

01:27:22

And so I began to try to salt my blog with things that edify as much as things that critique.

01:27:28

People don't always appreciate that. And there are lots of people today who would tell you that they think

01:27:35

I'm a full -time critic, because I have been overtly critical of a lot of really bad trends in the

01:27:41

Church. And spent almost a decade, actually it was probably a little more than a decade, writing for my blog, mostly targeting the

01:27:50

Emerging Church and some of these Sassanian ideas that were coming out of that community.

01:27:57

And it seemed like everything I wrote generated lots of argument and lots of discussion.

01:28:03

I think there were people who were, in fact I know for a fact, there were lots of people who were persuaded in a good direction by things

01:28:11

I wrote and all that. But the single most effective thing I ever did was a series of sarcastic motivational posters critiquing post -modernism.

01:28:24

I called them the POMotivators. They're still online, just do a search for POMotivator and you'll find those.

01:28:34

Where they sort of defined the jargon of post -modernism and the Emerging Church. And they were all biting and sarcastic and showing the ridiculousness of some of the things that were being said and taught in that movement.

01:28:49

And those posters, I think, were probably more effective than anything else I ever did to persuade people that, look, this is a movement without any real biblical substance and with a lot of really bad ideas at its foundation.

01:29:04

So I'm not opposed to sarcasm. I just think those of us who use it need to be careful. Doug Wilson wrote a book on sarcasm.

01:29:11

I think he called it The Serrated Edge or something like that. And he said something very similar that sarcasm definitely has its legitimate use in the cause of truth.

01:29:25

But you have to be cautious how you use it. It is like a serrated knife. It's sharp and it could be dangerous if you don't use it carefully.

01:29:33

And by the way, Rich in Hanover, Pennsylvania, since you are a first -time questioner, you are receiving a new

01:29:40

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB and compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

01:29:49

We'll be shipping that out to you. And their website is cvbbs .com. So look for that on the return address on the shipping label, cvbbs .com.

01:29:59

Look for that in the mail, and that should be arriving in a week or so. We ran out of the

01:30:04

John MacArthur biographies by Ian Murray, so we cannot send you that, but at least you'll be getting a new

01:30:10

Bible, and we thank you for writing into us today. We're going to our final break right now, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air, we will eventually get to discuss

01:30:23

John MacArthur's new book that is not yet released. It's not in print yet, but The Gospel According to God.

01:30:29

We will try to get to that over the next half hour, but we still have a couple of more listeners that have questions regarding the topic of polemics.

01:30:37

And if you'd like to join us before we run out of time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:30:43

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with Phil Johnson. Tired of box store

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01:33:49

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. This is the 25 minutes of our interview with Phil Johnson of Grace to You.

01:33:57

Our discussion has been on Christlike Polemics, which we will continue that topic for a little bit, and then we will move on to our second intended topic,

01:34:07

The Gospel According to God, A Study in Isaiah 53. John MacArthur's yet to be released book due in print soon.

01:34:15

But right now we have a listener in Slovenia, Joe, who says,

01:34:21

My question is related to the near complete absence of polemics and apologetics in the local church.

01:34:27

Why do we not have polemics and apologetics as ongoing, normal, and regular aspects of the typical life of the local church?

01:34:34

What is generally lacking in our pastors and elders that creates this deficiency in the churches?

01:34:40

If these ministries were part and parcel of the churches across the board, maybe we wouldn't have such issues as you are addressing today.

01:34:48

So there's a complaint that we don't have enough polemics. Yeah. Actually, I think he's exactly right.

01:34:54

And I think the bigger problem in the church is the vast number of pastors and church leaders who absolutely refuse to deal with error or to confront error or refute it or even teach truth with any kind of great clarity.

01:35:14

And it's a reflection, I think, of this sort of postmodern spirit that governs our world.

01:35:19

It's a kind of worldliness where it's become politically incorrect to state with any sort of dogmatic certainty that somebody else's worldview is wrong, that what they believe about God or whatever.

01:35:33

You know, we're supposed to just think that, you know, you have your truth and I have my truth. It's sort of the Oprah Winfrey approach to spiritual things.

01:35:42

And everybody's supposed to be just allowed to have their own private beliefs without any kind of correction or instruction or, you know, biblical input.

01:35:54

You just can make up your own religion these days, and it's considered impolite to tell someone that what they believe is wrong.

01:36:01

And too many pastors and church leaders are intimidated by that sort of attitude into thinking, well,

01:36:09

I'll be perceived as unkind if I say this idea is wrong. And so they just don't do polemics at all.

01:36:16

And the influx of bad polemics today is, in my view, a reaction, an overreaction to the lack of, you know, healthy biblical polemics in the church itself.

01:36:28

I think he's absolutely right, that if pastors were doing their duty, we wouldn't have these ministries that do nothing but criticize other

01:36:37

Christians. And Joe in Slovenia follows up, I recently heard a sermon of yours on Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, featured as an example of a good sermon on Chris Rosebrough's Fighting for the

01:36:50

Faith program. So that is a great compliment, because he is a polemicist, though I see some shortcomings with his

01:36:58

Lutheran understandings of the Lord's Supper and Baptism. I find his style very satisfying, but some tell me that he offends them.

01:37:07

If you are familiar with his work, please critique it for me. Do you think Chris Rosebrough engages in Christlike polemics or slander, and how do you define

01:37:17

Christlikeness when it comes to polemics? Well, Christlikeness would be...well,

01:37:24

let me back up and answer those questions in order. Yes, I am familiar with Chris Rosebrough, he's one of my favorites. I love to listen to him.

01:37:30

I think his sermon critiques are extremely helpful, very instructive. He does engage in some biting sarcasm, and there are times when

01:37:39

I think, you know, maybe his humor stepped across the line and he made a joke that I wouldn't have made, or he said something that I wouldn't have said.

01:37:47

But I think in general it's not fair to say that he's unkind or he's unnecessarily offensive.

01:37:55

He does what he does in a spirit of good humor and generally

01:38:02

Christlike, I think. I mean, there are things that all of us do that we look at and say, well, that wasn't very

01:38:07

Christlike. So before I start criticizing what someone else does, let me just confess that I'm not proud of everything

01:38:14

I've ever said or written or put on the internet, and I'm not really in a position to nitpick other people.

01:38:21

In general, I think Chris is one of the best out there. You can learn quite a bit from him. I share your concern about his

01:38:28

Lutheranism, his views on baptism and regeneration. I don't agree with him on those things, but generally when he's dealing with sermon critiques and the gospel and gospel issues in general,

01:38:43

I find myself far more in agreement with him than in disagreement. I count him as a friend and a fellow warrior.

01:38:52

We have Christopher from Suffolk County, New York, who asks, can you compare the way your mentor

01:39:00

John MacArthur has publicly condemned major figures in televangelism, like Joel Olsteen, with the negative approach that you are addressing today with enemies of Dr.

01:39:14

James White? Yeah, that's a great question. The difference is, I don't think

01:39:20

John MacArthur would criticize a person publicly by name in that sort of harsh way unless that person is guilty of seriously corrupting the gospel, leading people astray in a way that damns them.

01:39:37

He's very selective about who he criticizes by name and what he criticizes.

01:39:44

I think he's a good model to follow in those kinds of things. There are people who look at that and say, well, he's critical.

01:39:51

He's critical of Joel Olsteen, so why can't my guy be critical of John MacArthur?

01:39:58

And it's not exactly the same thing when you're attacking someone who is faithfully proclaiming the gospel and making a concerted effort to be biblical and faithful and loyal to what

01:40:13

Christ taught, as opposed to teaching self -esteem and other non -biblical sort of ideas, drawing people away from Christ, or preaching legalism or whatever.

01:40:24

Those things that corrupt the gospel fall into the category that the Apostle Paul cursed in Galatians 1, 8, and 9.

01:40:34

And it's also the category that the Apostle John condemned in 2

01:40:40

John, where he says, somebody comes to you and brings a totally different doctrine, don't receive him at your house, don't even give him a greeting.

01:40:48

And he's not saying there, look, be rude to that person. He's saying don't do anything that encourages this guy in his efforts to subvert the gospel or change the doctrine of Christ or undermine some fundamental doctrine of Christianity.

01:41:04

To me, it's a pretty simple line of demarcation. If a guy is defending the gospel as opposed to corrupting it,

01:41:12

I'd be very cautious about criticizing him publicly. If he does something, uses some methodology that I don't approve of or whatever, and it's very serious, repeated kind of thing,

01:41:22

I would go to him personally before I would attack him on the internet. But if he's publishing stuff and proclaiming stuff that absolutely undermines the foundation of the

01:41:33

Christian faith, then a public rebuke is not out of line, and we're not obliged necessarily to go privately to every famous false teacher that we critique before we point out what's false about his doctrine.

01:41:50

But it better be something really serious if you're going to make a major federal case out of it and accuse the guy of actually being disloyal to Christ.

01:42:01

That's the point I'm trying to make. Yeah, let me ask you a question about your views about something that I did.

01:42:07

I invited on my program a man who's a well -known, very conservative, traditionalist

01:42:17

Roman Catholic, Robert St. Genes, who has been involved in debates that I've organized with Dr.

01:42:24

White on various issues. I invited Robert St. Genes on the air on my show to critique the current

01:42:31

Pope, Pope Francis. The theme was a conservative Catholic critiques the most liberal

01:42:38

Pope in the history of Catholicism. And I made it very clear, even in the opening announcements and every time

01:42:47

I returned from a station break, that this was not an ecumenical program.

01:42:53

I made it clear that the Council of Trent dogmatically proves that the

01:42:58

Gospel of Rome is a different gospel from the Gospel of the Reformation. It's very clear that we have a different gospel than our dogmatically faithful Catholic friends.

01:43:09

But I still got criticism from people for having him on because they said that I gave him a platform to proselytize, which is not why—it was clear that's not why he was on the program.

01:43:20

But I can say that those that criticized me for doing that, they never called me a traitor or a false teacher or a compromiser.

01:43:29

But if you could give your thoughts, does that go? Actually, I didn't hear that broadcast. I'll have to go back and listen to it in your archives because it sounds very interesting.

01:43:37

I mean, I'm curious about that as well. This current Pope disagrees with so much that the previous

01:43:42

Pope stood for, and he seems to disagree with things that are fundamentally almost immovable

01:43:54

Roman Catholic positions, that you wonder, is he going to change this? He's got such liberal political ideas and all that.

01:44:01

I'm curious about what the typical sort of orthodox, conservative

01:44:07

Roman Catholic thinks about this Pope. I would have listened and enjoyed that conversation.

01:44:14

I think as long as you make clear what it is you're doing and why, and don't give him an opportunity to proselytize.

01:44:21

I mean, if he began to use this as a basis for proselytizing people, then you're the host.

01:44:29

You can argue right back to him. So I don't see that as a particularly dangerous sort of thing.

01:44:36

I mean, I wonder about people who are just absolutely afraid to even hear a conversation with somebody they disagree with.

01:44:46

That's not a healthy attitude towards truth and error. I don't think we ought to feed on error, but I don't think we should be afraid of hearing it either.

01:44:56

Right, and I was telling my friends and critics that this was not a worship service.

01:45:02

It was a talk show. And in fact, the only time that Robert went on for a while where I didn't really stop him or challenge him, he was talking about a vision at Fatima that to me was so bizarre that I didn't even think that I needed to say anything.

01:45:23

It was almost, and if you're listening, Bob, forgive me, but it was like I was allowing him to hang himself.

01:45:29

You know what I'm saying? I didn't think that I needed to interrupt him and challenge him on his understanding of Fatima.

01:45:36

I mean, but anyway. Go ahead. Yeah, I think there is some latitude for things like that.

01:45:45

Part of it is just my character, my makeup. I would recoil from the idea of giving a guy a public platform where I know he's going to spew false doctrine.

01:46:00

But on the other hand, I'm also intrigued to hear what he said. I'll go and listen to that broadcast. And we have a listener from Bryan, Ohio.

01:46:10

Scott, it has been suggested that, quote, quote, attacks against charismatic or the word of faith, which

01:46:16

I used to be, are unloving and can even be considered dangerous to do. There is no soft way to expose error because it is deemed as a personal affront on the preacher's anointing.

01:46:28

Is there any way to reason with those who are misled in these teachings? Some of them, yes, and some of them, no, they're not all the same.

01:46:36

And you've got to understand that charismatics are like the rest of us. They have different levels of confusion and conviction, and it's certainly worth having the discussion with them.

01:46:51

What you mustn't do is be deliberately rude or dismissive or whatever.

01:46:57

I mean, it's pretty simple, the principle Christ set up, that you love your neighbor as you love yourself.

01:47:05

And think about that when you're having a conversation, especially a personal face -to -face conversation with someone whom you're trying to influence with the truth.

01:47:17

It's always good, it's always better, I think, in situations like that, particularly one -on -one situations, to be cordial and friendly and gentle as opposed to just angrily argumentative.

01:47:31

That's not going to convince anybody. All right. We'll have one more question from the audience, and then we'll let you, for a little bit, discuss

01:47:39

John MacArthur's upcoming book. But we have, Brian in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

01:47:45

A growing number of local ministers are denying penal substitutionary atonement or redefining it, believing in substitution but not the penal part of it.

01:47:55

I have read the language of penal substitutionary atonement in scriptures and church history. What can a lay

01:48:00

Christian do? I guess he's being in opposition to those denying. Yeah.

01:48:06

Yeah, that is a great question. In fact, that's one of the major issues that provoked me to start blogging back in 2005.

01:48:15

I saw these folks, at the time, most of them associated with the emerging church movement, and the atonement was one of their main targets.

01:48:24

They wanted to get rid of this notion that God punished Christ for the sins of his people, that when

01:48:32

Christ bore our sins, he bore the punishment for them. And it was

01:48:38

God who did this. That's Isaiah 53, which we're about to talk about. It pleased

01:48:43

God to bruise him. That idea is so offensive, and scripture acknowledges that it's offensive.

01:48:50

And yet, that is the nature of the atonement, and I would say if you come to an understanding of that as a lay person, hold the line.

01:48:57

It doesn't matter how much scholarly gravitas goes against you or whatever.

01:49:03

Remember that the atonement has been a battleground among Christians and theologians for years, for centuries, since the beginning.

01:49:11

And you can go back all the way to the beginning, and what you'll notice is that those who are the most sound in their affirmation of the principles of penal substitution, they are the backbone of the

01:49:26

Church through Church history. Those who depart from that tend to be liberals,

01:49:32

Socinians, Unitarians. They eventually drift away from Christianity altogether.

01:49:39

I think the principle of penal substitution is one of the core principles of the gospel that we cannot compromise on.

01:49:48

And one last question from me. Nobody brought up the fact that Calvinists, including you and I, are believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

01:49:59

We tend to have less of a fear, or no fear at all, that Christ's sheep will be led astray by false teachers and apostatized if they are truly his sheep, if they are truly born again.

01:50:14

Don't you think it's kind of strange that some of Dr. White's critics are professedly

01:50:20

Reformed Christians and are behaving as if Christ's true sheep can be snatched from his hand?

01:50:27

Well, yes and no. I don't know that any of them would say Christ's true sheep can be snatched from his hand, but I do think it's legitimate to be wary that when the

01:50:39

Church comes together, they shouldn't be exposed to false doctrine. There are, in every local church, there are,

01:50:46

I think, always a mix of genuine believers and not -quite -believers and some totally fruitless vines like Judas that are on the precipice of abandoning the faith, and pretty much every book in the

01:51:01

New Testament deals with this, sort of the false faith, the temporary faith of a false believer.

01:51:09

It's what the book of Hebrews is all about, and it's the fear Paul expresses towards the

01:51:15

Galatians in the book of Galatians, that there are lots of people who identify with the

01:51:22

Church and profess faith in Christ, but they really haven't embraced him. Jesus himself warned about this, what the imagery of the vine and the branches in John 15 is all about, that there are people who give every appearance of life and leafiness, but they lack fruit.

01:51:39

They're branches that will ultimately be cut off and thrown into the fire. And there is a point in there where Christ himself modeled, and the disciples all modeled, where one of our tasks as ministers is to plead with the congregation for people to examine themselves to see if they are truly in the faith, and if not, the plea of the book of Hebrews is, go on to maturity.

01:52:04

In other words, close with Christ. Be sure your faith is truly anchored in him, that you abide in him, and that you're not just a branch that's attached to another branch, rather than abiding in the vine.

01:52:18

Now, I agree with everything you said, but what I'm talking about is, when you are having an event where you are purposely advertising it as something unique, it's not a worship service, you're not having somebody speak who is being identified as an arbiter of truth, you are, and I'm talking about,

01:52:40

I'm not insinuating that the Reformed folks involved in this are saying Christ's sheep can be snatched from his hand.

01:52:48

I'm talking about when you act that way, when you become so paranoid about the church hearing falsehood, that it paralyzes you and stops you from doing things that could be effective in reaching the lost.

01:53:02

That's basically it. Yeah, I mean, you have to hear and understand a certain amount of falsehood in order to defend the truth.

01:53:10

You know, if you don't know what Mormonism believes, you're not going to be a very effective witness to those

01:53:16

Mormons who come to your door. So there comes a point where, as a mature believer, you need to be exposed to the false beliefs of others.

01:53:25

You can see that that was the case with Paul in Athens, because he actually quoted from the

01:53:31

Greek poets, and he had learned that in all likelihood even before he was a Christian, as a

01:53:37

Jewish person just studying and learning, and that sort of knowledge can be useful in the proclamation and defense of the gospel.

01:53:48

Amen. Well, I don't want us to run out of time without you giving some publicity to John's next book,

01:53:54

The Gospel According to God, A Study in Isaiah 53, and of course I'd like to have you back to dedicate at least an hour to this at some point in the near future.

01:54:04

But tell us about this book that we should be expecting soon. Yeah, it's probably good we didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, because the book will not be out until,

01:54:11

I think, February next year, so it's not really that soon it's coming. But the current best, the current most recent book by John MacArthur is

01:54:20

The Gospel According to Paul, and of course he wrote a book a decade or more ago called The Gospel According to the

01:54:25

Apostles, and before that The Gospel According to Jesus. So it's kind of a theme in his writing, where he's defended the gospel and explained the gospel from various sources in Scripture, and this one

01:54:37

I think is my all -time favorite, because it goes back to Isaiah 53, which is an Old Testament passage, of course, and explains the gospel from the prophecy of Isaiah, and it's just brilliant stuff.

01:54:52

And it's particularly meaningful to me as a new Christian. The very first time I ever heard the gospel preached, the preacher that night was preaching on the crucifixion, and he started out in Isaiah 53.

01:55:04

And I remember as a brand new Christian, not realizing, I'd never heard that the

01:55:11

Old Testament had clear prophecies of Christ and the crucifixion. And when

01:55:16

I saw the crucifixion of Christ in Isaiah 53, from that time until today,

01:55:22

I've never had any doubt about the authority and inspiration of Scripture. It so clearly bears the mark of divine inspiration and authority.

01:55:31

And so I love Isaiah 53, and when John MacArthur about, I guess, three, four years ago said he's going to preach through Isaiah 53,

01:55:39

I was delighted. And it's a great series of sermons, if you've heard them. The book is, of course, a succinct presentation of that.

01:55:48

It'll be about a 250 -page book, and it covers Isaiah 53, and there's also a section on the life and ministry of Isaiah that's very instructive and informative.

01:56:01

But he breaks it down like John MacArthur always does, verse by verse. He goes through and explains from the

01:56:08

Old Testament the meaning of the atonement, what's happening here. And as I said, Isaiah is very clear that this is

01:56:14

God, a sovereign God, sacrificing His servant, who is

01:56:20

His Son, the Lord Jesus, for the sins of His people. Surely our grief

01:56:26

He bore, our sorrows He carried, and yet we esteem Him stricken, smitten of God.

01:56:32

That's what Isaiah says. We look at this and say, this is God doing this, and Isaiah explains why

01:56:39

He did it for us. The chastening for our well -being fell on Him, and by His scourging, we are healed.

01:56:46

It's just a great and uplifting passage of Scripture, and the depth of explanation you get from John MacArthur is just phenomenal.

01:56:56

By the way, he points out something that a lot of people miss. This is like two -level prophecy from Isaiah.

01:57:02

Of course, it's a prophecy of the crucifixion, but more than that, what Isaiah is focused on is a prophecy about something that has yet to happen, and that is the confession of Israel when they are converted, when all

01:57:16

Israel shall be saved, and they recognize Christ as their true

01:57:23

Messiah. And this is the confession they will make, and he explains all that in the book. It's really a good book.

01:57:31

And Murray in Kenroth, Scotland asks regarding this book, if I had enough money to buy just one book on Isaiah 53, why should it be

01:57:38

John MacArthur's rather than John Calvin's sermons? And I think Murray in Kenroth, Scotland must work for the publisher that is bringing this book into print.

01:57:48

Actually, Calvin's sermons on Isaiah are out of print. It's pretty hard to find, and that's one of the things that I purchased and read while I was working on this.

01:58:00

I edited this book for John MacArthur, Chris, and while I was working on it, I purchased and read

01:58:06

Calvin's sermons. I don't know if it's not a great translation of Calvin. He doesn't go into the same depth as John MacArthur.

01:58:15

The sermons you have in the collection of Calvin's sermons are actually taken from shorthand notes that some auditor took down, so I have a feeling a lot of detail is missing from there.

01:58:25

It's a pretty light read, given what I know of Calvin. I was a little disappointed in it.

01:58:35

But there's also a book by James Dunham which goes the other direction. It's like 700 pages long.

01:58:42

He was a Puritan writer who went through Isaiah 53, and he wrote 700 pages on it, and it's even more in -depth.

01:58:49

It's also a very good book, and I would say if you only have enough money to buy one book on Isaiah 53, get a second job and buy both of those.

01:59:02

Well, Phil, it has been such a joy to have you on today. I know that the

01:59:08

Grace to You ministry website is gty .org. Any other contact information you care to share?

01:59:18

Nope, that's it. You can reach me there. You'll be able to find contact info for me there. And don't forget about the

01:59:25

Foundations Conference this Thursday and Friday, where Phil will be one of seven speakers. Go to thefoundationsconference .com.

01:59:35

Phil, if you could hold on for a minute, because I'd like to schedule you for another interview. All right. Thanks for having me.

01:59:40

I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially all of you who wrote in. We were really flooded with questions today.

01:59:47

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.