July 14, 2025 Show with Mack Tomlinson on “One Pastor’s Experience with a Dark Night of the Soul”

0 views

July 15, 2025

July 14, 2025 MACK TOMLINSON,author, conference speaker &pastor of Providence Chapel inDenton, TX, who will address: “ONE PASTOR’s EXPERIENCEwith a DARK NIGHT of the SOUL” Subscribe: Listen:

00:03: Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
00:11: George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
00:16: Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
00:23: Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:09: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
01:15: Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:21: This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 14th day of July 2025.
01:31: Before I introduce today's guest and our topic, I want to let you know that I got off the phone a little while ago, about 1 .30
01:43: p .m. to be more precise, with Phil Johnson, who's been a friend of mine for decades.
01:51: Phil is the Executive Director of John MacArthur's Media Ministry, grace to you.
01:59: And at that time, John MacArthur was still in the hospital, unconscious, and the doctors do not believe that he is going to live past today.
02:19: So, in essence, Dr. MacArthur is on his deathbed, but those of us who are
02:26: Christians know that a deathbed for a Christian is really a launching pad to eternal paradise in the presence of Christ.
02:38: So, those who will deeply miss John MacArthur when he does depart from this
02:47: Earth and enter into eternity, any sadness that anyone may have is going to be buffered by the joy of knowing that he is finally in eternity with the one whom he has been serving so faithfully for so many years, his
03:07: Lord God, Savior, King, and Friend, Jesus Christ. So, continue to pray for John, pray for his family, and pray for Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California.
03:28: I don't even know how they're going to fill his shoes when he goes home to glory, but the
03:37: Lord will preserve his church as he sees fit. And so, just keep all of those folks in your prayers.
03:47: I will keep you updated as I receive updates from Phil and perhaps other folks that I know over there.
03:56: But today, we have a dear friend of mine who will always hold a very special place in my heart because the
04:09: Lord used this brother to minister to my oldest brother,
04:15: John Arnzen, while he was closing in nearer to the day that he departed from the
04:26: Earth and entered into eternity. Mack Thomason was a faithful evangelist and friend to my brother during these last months of his life.
04:43: And I am convinced that the Lord used Mack to lead my brother
04:51: John to eventually and finally embrace the gospel and trust in Christ alone for his salvation.
05:00: I have great confidence from what my brother told me the last communication he had with me over Facebook Messenger.
05:09: I am very confident from his words that my brother was born again and is now spending an eternity with Christ.
05:18: And so, obviously, I am forever in the debt of my guest today,
05:27: Mack Thomason. Mack Thomason is the pastor of, or one of the pastors,
05:34: I should say, of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.
05:40: And today, we're going to be addressing the theme, One Pastor's Experience with a
05:45: Dark Knight of the Soul. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trumpet Zion Radio, my dear friend,
05:54: Pastor Mack Thomason. Hey, Chris, it's always special to be with you and, you know, and mentioning
06:02: Dr. MacArthur. Would it be fitting if I could lead us and our listeners in prayer for Dr.
06:08: MacArthur right now briefly? Oh, definitely. Yeah, I'll do that now. Let's pray together.
06:14: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great legacy and decades of influence that Dr.
06:23: John MacArthur has had on the body of Christ worldwide. Lord, even we think of the late 1960s as he started his pastoral ministry there in California, and he had no idea what you were going to do.
06:40: And we just thank you that you have used him and others such as R .C.
06:47: Sproul to bring the Reformed faith and the biblical gospel to the grassroots of our nation.
06:56: And we do pray for Dr. MacArthur right now that you would minister to his spirit and his heart and that your hand would be upon him.
07:07: We pray for the MacArthur family. You'd give them joy and comfort. We pray for Grace Community Church there, that you would be with their entire congregation, the staff and the elders.
07:22: And, Lord, we pray, Brother John, that you would give him an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our
07:29: Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We thank you for his legacy, and we praise you,
07:35: Lord Jesus, that you use faithful men. So we thank you in Christ's name.
07:41: Amen. Amen. Before we get into the theme of your experience with the dark night of the soul,
07:48: Brother, if you could explain in a little bit more detail what is
07:54: Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and who those fine saints are. Yeah, Providence Chapel is a
08:03: Reformed Baptistic Church in Denton, which is basically 30 miles north of Dallas and Fort Worth in North Texas.
08:16: We have a wonderful church family, wonderful elders. I stepped out of being a pastoring elder last fall, and so I'm an elder emeritus filling the congregation.
08:32: And we have five marvelous pastoring elders and a wonderful church family that loves to pray, loves to love people and share the gospel.
08:47: We're involved heavily in missions worldwide and local evangelism as well.
08:53: So I just invite anyone who's ever in the Dallas -Fort Worth Metroplex area to visit
09:01: Providence Chapel in Denton to worship with us and can contact us anytime.
09:06: And the website is ProvidenceDenton .org, ProvidenceDenton .org.
09:15: And the reason, one of the main reasons that I put Mac in touch with my oldest brother,
09:23: John, is that my brother, John, had been living for many years in Justin, Texas, which is not far from Denton.
09:34: And I'm so glad that they had communication, which I believe led to my brother's trusting in Christ fully for his salvation.
09:45: But today, as I've already mentioned, that we are addressing the theme,
09:53: One Pastor's Experience with a Dark Night of the Soul. Can you explain to us in as much detail as you can when you started noticing something different in your heart and your mind and your spirit that perhaps began to trouble you and how that began to develop and what were the symptoms and so on?
10:23: Yeah, well, Chris, it really started in 2022. I don't remember exactly what month, but it began with just an increasing inability to sleep, insomnia began to set in.
10:39: And I don't even know why. Maybe it was stress from ministry. Maybe it was, I don't know honestly what caused it.
10:47: But weeks led into months and I could not go to sleep.
10:53: Or if I could go to sleep, I would wake up an hour later. And this went on for probably eight to nine months.
11:06: And I think I averaged perhaps two hours a night, but rarely ever more than three.
11:17: And so the insomnia led to physical exhaustion, which led to mental fatigue and mental exhaustion.
11:28: And then, you know, when you get in that condition and nothing changes, it becomes so difficult to even function.
11:37: And I told my fellow elders, you know, that I needed a break.
11:42: They knew what was going on. They were very supportive, very loving. And so I couldn't preach for a while.
11:50: I couldn't attend church. I was just too exhausted. And the physical fatigue led to mental fatigue, which finally led into what
12:03: I would just call, to borrow Dr. Lloyd -Jones phrase, spiritual depression.
12:11: And since I mentioned that title, that phrase, Dr. Lloyd -Jones has a marvelous book titled
12:18: Spiritual Depression that has been used in the lives of countless
12:24: Christians who go through times of just the spiritual depression or what's been called the dark night of the soul.
12:37: That book is a tremendous resource. So mine became spiritual depression in many ways.
12:46: It wasn't. It was rooted in insomnia, but it escalated into just deep, really, depression.
12:57: That was not, it was not chemical related.
13:03: It wasn't heredity because I never had a problem with depression in any chronic way, but I was so exhausted mentally and physically that I began to think down under a cloud of just not being able to function at all.
13:23: And I was kind of a shell of a man in a way. And I was really reduced for three or four of those months to basically having to be at home, sit in my recliner, try to pray, try to read.
13:44: I would have to sleep some during the day, but the nights were always the same.
13:50: I would begin to dread bedtime because I knew I probably wasn't going to sleep.
13:57: And I didn't know how to communicate much about it really. It was hard for me to give expression to it because I was so weak mentally and emotionally.
14:12: And so it just became a very severe period that I didn't know what to do except at night or in the morning.
14:24: I began to pray as a childhood. God, help me. Help me through the day.
14:31: Help me through the night. I need you. And I kind of lived in the Psalms.
14:36: It was the only place I knew to go for primary encouragement. And it was, you know, when you read the
14:47: Psalms, often they're simple prayers rather than theological content like Romans or Hebrews.
14:56: And so the Psalms were my go -to, and that's where they became kind of my lifeline to keep me with some sense of reality.
15:10: But this lasted nine to 10 months as a longer period.
15:17: Now, can you tell us about some of the things that were going through your mind?
15:25: Was it merely exhaustion? Was there any sense that you were perhaps having an attack of Satan and his demons upon you and your ministry?
15:42: I mean, what were the things perhaps going through your mind? Well, in retrospect, you know, it's hard to remember clearly what was going on in my mind.
15:58: And at the time, you can't figure it all out. I had not been through any difficult period of ministry before the insomnia started.
16:10: I was preaching. I was pastoring. It was kind of just normal living.
16:19: And so when the insomnia started, though, it began to be a slippery slope where the longer
16:30: I didn't get sleep, you know, a month passes, two months passes, and then suddenly you're exhausted.
16:39: And then you're weak, even mentally, emotionally, you have no strength.
16:45: And so you don't process things well, and you don't really know what's going on. And so I wasn't, you know,
16:57: I wasn't thinking spiritually well to try to figure things out. But what
17:02: I did begin to realize was I was in bad shape emotionally and mentally.
17:15: Now, it wasn't a mental breakdown. It wasn't a—what other word am
17:23: I looking for? It was not a— A nervous breakdown? Nervous breakdown, right.
17:29: It wasn't that. It was purely rooted in physical exhaustion.
17:35: But then it began to sink down into spiritual depression. And this is where it's very probable that I began to be under some spiritual warfare, primarily in my mind, because in the middle of the night when
17:59: I would sit in my recliner in my study, I would leave the light off because I wanted to try to doze off to sleep.
18:09: So in the darkness, I would be sitting there praying simple prayers like,
18:17: Jesus, could I just sleep some tonight? Help me, Lord.
18:22: Help me through the night. But then I would feel condemnation come on my mind suddenly.
18:34: And the condemnation came in the form of regrets from the past, like thoughts that weren't even accurate often, like, you know,
18:45: I've not been fruitful enough. My ministry is probably over, and I've not served
18:56: Christ the way I should have or could have, and I would feel condemnation about it. But even then, thoughts of moments of sin in my childhood when
19:08: I was a young teenager, suddenly thoughts of a memory would come up when
19:14: I stole something or when I did something else.
19:21: Things that had not bothered me at all really in 50 years suddenly vividly came to my mind, and I would feel condemned, and I couldn't stop the feelings of guilt and condemnation.
19:39: Even though, knowing the gospel well like I know it,
19:45: I knew intellectually those sins were forgiven, and they hadn't bothered me in a half a century now we're talking.
19:56: Still, the condemnation for them was very real in my mind, and I had such deep grief over them, just as if I had just committed them.
20:08: And so, at that point, I do think the
20:15: Lord was sovereignly allowing me to be tested.
20:22: You know, any spiritual warfare a Christian goes through is
20:27: God allows it for our good, and we have to believe that, and the
20:32: Bible teaches that. So, what that did for me in my weakness,
20:39: I had to remind myself when I would have thoughts of, you know, something that I did that was just so grievous, lying to a family member or, as I said, stealing something.
20:54: In the moment of my condemnation in the middle of the night, I would say to myself,
21:01: I know Christ forgave me for that. I know
21:06: He forgave me because I came to know Him when
21:12: I was 19. I'm just preaching to myself today. I'm talking to myself in those moments.
21:18: And so, I said, I know those sins are forgiven. So, Father in heaven, help me right now.
21:25: Lord Jesus, You are my refuge. You died for me. You paid for those sins, and I trust
21:32: You. I trust You. That's all I could do. That's all I could pray.
21:39: And so, for over those months, whenever that would happen, or I would feel so, have so much desire even for sleep,
21:51: I got through those months by praying simple prayers like a child, such as,
22:00: Jesus, help me right now. I need You. And the
22:05: Psalms, whether a verse like, what time I am afraid,
22:11: I will trust in You. Verses like that literally became my lifeline that kept me hoping in Christ, and He never left me.
22:27: And I knew He was with me, but I couldn't sense the presence of God.
22:32: I had no feelings of faith. I felt dry and empty and desolate.
22:41: But the whole time, Christ used His word, the Bible, to keep me because I kept making myself go to it and pray what
22:54: I could remember. You know, as you are fully aware, in Revelation 12 .10,
23:06: the Scriptures refer to Satan as an accuser of the brethren. And I can't help but to be reminded of that as you say that, out of nowhere, sins that you committed over a half a century ago begin to plague your mind and conscience.
23:30: And I can't help but wonder if you think that those are the efforts of Satan to begin to plant seeds of doubt in you as to whether Christ did really fully accomplish the work of redemption on Calvary on your behalf.
23:51: Well, yes, Satan is always the accuser of the brethren.
23:58: You know, Romans 8 says that God is for us and not against us if we're in Christ, and that He is not our accuser.
24:10: Who shall bring anything, any charge against God's elect, it is God who justifies.
24:15: So it is always Satan who is the accuser of the brethren. But in my experience,
24:23: I was able at times to remind myself of the truth. But what
24:29: I could not get relief from was the cloud of offense and feeling of condemnation.
24:41: It wouldn't stop every night or many nights.
24:47: And so I was utterly weak, both mentally, spiritually, and physically.
24:55: But when I would doze off and I would, let's say, wake up at 530 a .m.
25:02: and I would see the morning had broken, the morning sunlight was coming into the window. It was like relief would come to me.
25:10: I would say, I made it through the night. Thank you, Lord. And I would have some hope in the morning time.
25:18: And that became my best time. You know, I would try to read the
25:24: Word, and sometimes it would minister to me, sometimes it wouldn't. But by afternoon, you know,
25:32: I needed to try to sleep some, and I did. But it was a cycle of months of mornings were better, afternoons became harder because I was tired.
25:46: But then the dreaded nighttime would come, and by 8 p .m.,
25:52: I would have this sense of dread come over my mind that I was going to have to try to sleep.
25:59: And I was just dreading the night coming. And I would just pray again,
26:06: Lord, it's nighttime. Get me through tonight.
26:12: Help me in whatever way I need help. Help me. Give me tonight what
26:17: I need, Jesus. I trust you. I ask you. I depend on you,
26:24: Lord. And, you know, nine or 10 months, it continued.
26:56: And finding a correlation between sunlight and mental health.
27:02: Now, obviously, there's a lot of things in the so -called scientific realm, especially in regarding the mind, that are nothing but garbage and false teaching, but not everything doctors tell us are without merit.
27:19: And, you know, there have even been studies about some of the Scandinavian countries where there are seasons with very little sunlight for a long period of time and so on, where the depression in the minds of the residents of any particular area that experiences that, the depression rates increase.
27:46: And, you know, you have suicides that increase and so on. Do you think that there was anything like that going on there, that the sunlight was helping you in a physical way?
27:57: Or is it just that you found a reprieve from the nightmare of having to battle insomnia?
28:06: Well, that's very, very possible. I have not—I hadn't thought about it in that context really much, but it very well may be true.
28:16: I think what I felt more than anything—remember the Scripture that says, weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning?
28:26: Yes. When I saw the morning light, I realized the nighttime was over, and I had a reprieve from the darkness.
28:40: And so it just—it brought me relief. It brought me emotional relief.
28:47: It brought me mental relief. And so, yeah, it was very real in that regard.
28:54: And I was always grateful for the morning to come. Well, we're going to our first commercial break, and we'll be returning with our discussion on Mack Tomlinson's Dark Night of the
29:08: Soul when we return from the commercial break. And we'll also be telling you about a conference that is taking place this week,
29:17: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, July 17th, 18th, and 19th at my former church before I relocated to Pennsylvania, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, which was where I was so blessed to have membership all of my
29:43: Christian life, starting in the 80s. It actually began as Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, Long Island, and then merged with First Baptist Church in Merrick, which became the
29:57: Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick. And so there is a conference called the
30:05: Fellowship Conference New York that Mack Tomlinson is participating in along with another speaker, and we'll be telling you in more detail all about that when we return from our first commercial break.
30:20: If any of you have questions for Pastor Mack Tomlinson, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
30:36: If you are asking a very personal and private question, which could be very easy to understand why a topic like this would evoke personal and private questions, you may remain anonymous.
30:53: We just ask for your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you are asking a general question.
31:01: And don't go away. We are going to be right back right after these messages from our sponsors.
31:20: James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend
31:28: Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,
31:34: I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pre -Pastor's
31:40: Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30
31:47: p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the
31:53: Bible is the Authentic and Inherent Word of God. I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.
31:59: For more details on the free pastor's luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.
32:05: That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.
32:15: That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.
32:31: Still praising God for the addition of Gold Wealth Management to the
32:37: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio family of advertisers. They are veteran owned and operated and built on the values of honor, courage, commitment, and service to others.
32:48: The same values that were instilled in the owner during his eight years in the Marine Corps. Gold Wealth Management is offering free reports on current market conditions.
32:59: The threat of BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
33:06: The coming digital currency and how to protect your savings and retirement accounts with real assets like physical gold and silver.
33:16: There is absolutely no pressure and no obligation. Request your free reports today.
33:23: Call 623 -640 -5911. That's 623 -640 -5911.
33:33: Or visit goldwealthmanagement .com slash iron.
33:38: That's goldwealthmanagement .com slash iron. And tell them
33:45: Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. Don't wait. Be informed. Be prepared.
33:51: With Gold Wealth Management. CEO and President of Lebanonfield Credit Union.
34:10: And we're excited to be part of the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio family. At Lebanonfield Credit Union, we're proud to serve the community with six convenient locations across Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.
34:20: And we're growing. We offer competitive rates on everything from loans to savings. And we're dedicated to providing top notch member service.
34:29: We pride ourselves on the credit union movement of people helping people. We are deeply involved in our community, supporting local events and organizations that help make a difference.
34:38: When you join Lebanonfield Credit Union, you'll immediately notice the difference. Our focus on meeting your financial needs with personal care and a friendly touch.
34:47: LFCU can also offer you better rates and lower fees than our competitors. To find out more, please visit us online at LebanonFCU .org.
34:57: Membership eligibility is required. Federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration. Terms and conditions apply.
35:08: This program is sponsored by Hope PR Ministry. Hope PR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.
35:20: We are dedicated to sharing Reformed Biblical content every Wednesday and Friday. Tune in for sermons, lectures, and interviews exploring distinctive
35:30: Reformed doctrines. If you are looking for Christ -centered content, simply search
35:35: Hope PR Ministry on your favorite podcast platform to begin listening today.
35:42: Hope PR Ministry also offers Morning Meditations, a daily podcast featuring
35:47: Reformed devotionals designed to nourish your soul. Start your day with these spiritually enriching messages by tuning in to Morning Meditations, wherever you get your podcasts.
35:59: I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the
36:07: Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.
36:14: At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune
36:29: God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.
36:37: In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every
36:43: Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.
36:51: That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.
37:31: or any one -of -a -kind piece of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications,
37:40: Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered. No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step -by -step through every stage of the process and even hold a high -tech internet virtual visit using state -of -the -art jewelry design technology to serve you.
37:57: They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you.
38:05: From rough design to digital model to photorealistic image to wax prototype model to the finished product, they're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way.
38:20: This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed and well beyond your expectations.
38:28: Visit royaldiadem .com. That's royaldiadem .com today.
38:34: Sterling Vanderwercker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager,
38:41: Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
38:54: And Royal Diadem loves Iron Sharpens Iron Radio so much that not only do they provide for us every single month automatically a financial gift, but on top of that, they will give us 100 % of the profits from any sale of jewelry to an
39:17: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener who mentions Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when making a purchase of jewelry at royaldiadem .com.
39:26: So please, if you are interested in purchasing jewelry for yourself or someone you love and you love
39:33: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, please purchase your jewelry at royaldiadem .com
39:39: and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio so that we will receive 100 % of the profits from that sale.
39:44: That's royaldiadem .com. Mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we're now back with my dear friend,
39:52: Pastor Mac Tomlinson. I just wanted to let you know, Pastor Mac, that a dear mutual friend of ours,
40:00: Mike Gaydosh, who was my very first pastor, now living in Port St.
40:08: Lucie, Florida. He texted me and was wondering if your dark night of the soul began the day that you met me.
40:21: No, it actually probably began the day I met Michael Gaydosh. It goes around, comes around,
40:30: Mike. Lord, if Mike can try to put that on you, you and I both will put it back on him.
40:36: I love Michael Gaydosh. I love that guy.
40:41: Me too. And I can still remember him plunging me beneath the waters of baptism like it was yesterday.
40:49: But before we go on with this very important story of yours,
40:55: I want you to describe this week's conference, the
41:01: Fellowship Conference New York, which is going to be held Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week, July 17th through the 19th.
41:08: Well, first of all, any believers in the Long Island area or all five boroughs of New York, the greater area, that love true fellowship and biblical preaching, warmhearted preaching, and even corporate prayer meetings.
41:28: There will be two corporate prayer meetings on Friday morning and Saturday morning. It's not a large conference.
41:36: There's opportunity to eat meals with the speakers, the preachers, ask questions.
41:45: The fellowship of the church there that hosts us is always so gracious and wonderful.
41:56: And so it is basically from Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon, there will be six sessions of worship with six messages and meals, lunch served those days.
42:15: And I just encourage anyone in the greater Long Island area that it's not too late to register at illbehonest .com
42:27: or you could even reach out to me through Chris for information on the conference.
42:37: And I'd be happy to put you in touch with the host pastors. It's always a special time, though.
42:43: It is. It's a true time of biblical worship, of true fellowship and enjoying the things of Christ.
42:51: It is all centered around the glory of our great
42:57: Savior, Jesus Christ and his kingdom. And so we welcome you to join us if at all possible.
43:04: Just drop in and you can register at the door. And it's a it's a very special few days together always.
43:14: Well, who else is speaking other than yourself? Well, Michael Durham from our church in Denton at Providence Chapel.
43:26: Michael is pastor for 25 years in Kentucky, and now he's travels full time across the
43:36: U .S. and in other countries around the world. And in our Tenera ministry,
43:42: Michael is a wonderful preacher and a warm hearted brother in the faith. And another one of our elders at our church,
43:51: Brian Elsie, will also speak. So there'll be three of us preaching the six sessions together.
44:00: Great. And once again, the website to register is I'llBeHonest .com forward slash
44:06: FCNY for Fellowship Conference New York. I'llBeHonest .com
44:13: forward slash FCNY. And God willing, we'll repeat that towards the end of the program.
44:20: We do have some listeners who have submitted questions, and we have
44:29: CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York. And CJ wants to know, was your dark night of the soul involving the doubting that you were truly born again and would go to heaven?
44:47: Well, a very important question for me. No, it did not include that. As a
44:55: Christian, I'm grateful that in my journey as a Christian, I never struggled with doubting or lacking assurance of my salvation.
45:08: So when I began to go through that almost a year of death, that was not a battle for me.
45:17: As hard as it was, in my heart, I knew that I was a believer because I had been rooted in the gospel.
45:27: And that the basis of our assurance is what Christ did for us and nothing in our performance or nothing in how well
45:36: I'm doing spiritually. So I did not have that battle during this period of doubting my salvation at all.
45:48: I'm sure that other Christians who experience this do have that unfortunate thought race through their heads.
45:58: Yes, I'm sure that's often true. And many Christians, this is a big battle for them.
46:06: Even if they're not in a period of depression, they battle the issue of not having assurance that they're a
46:16: Christian. So this is one of the hardest things to go through as a believer, whether you feel like you're doing okay spiritually or whether you're going through a very difficult time.
46:28: It's always hard to lack assurance of salvation.
46:38: Yes. Well, we thank you, CJ. Make sure you provide for us your full mailing address there in Lindenhurst, Long Island, a town that I lived in for 10 years, many years ago.
46:54: And guess what? I got a big surprise for you.
47:00: Eerdmans Publishing is going to be providing you with a free copy of a book that has meant a lot to my guest today,
47:14: Mack Tomlinson. And that book is Spiritual Depression, a classic by Dr.
47:22: Martin Lloyd -Jones. Spiritual Depression, Its Causes and Cure, 21
47:29: Enduring Sermons from One of the 20th Century's Greatest Preachers. And we thank
47:35: Eerdmans Publishing, Eerdmans .com. But CVBBS .com,
47:42: Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, our sponsors of this show, will be shipping that out to you.
47:48: So make sure you get us your mailing address. Well, Chris, I was just going to say,
47:58: I would just issue to CJ an invitation to join us if he can, since he lives on Long Island, to drop by the conference and let us meet him.
48:16: We would be delighted for that to happen. Yeah, that's less than a half hour away from Lindenhurst.
48:24: So we hope that you can attend, CJ. And we have, let's see, we have
48:36: Doreen in Park City, Utah. And Doreen wants to know, how were you getting along with your wife and others during this time of darkness spiritually?
48:52: Did you have a short temper with them? Did you want to be isolated from them?
48:58: Were your conversations with them existent at all? Tell us more about that aspect.
49:07: Yeah, very good question. Well, my wife, Linda, was such a wonderful support.
49:16: We've been married 47 years. And, you know, she knew, first of all, she knew the insomnia was bad.
49:25: And then that takes on a life of its own when you sink down to mental exhaustion, too.
49:33: She wasn't sure what she could do. And there wasn't really anything anyone could do except she prayed for me.
49:42: She encouraged me. She was there for me.
49:48: And so, you know, she was just a marvelous support as a wife.
49:56: You know, I don't remember that I was able to talk a lot.
50:03: And I couldn't, you know, when something like that is happening and it's kind of organic, you don't know where it's leading.
50:13: You don't know what, you know, how long it's going to last. You don't know how to analyze it or figure it out.
50:20: You're just day by day trying to survive. And so she was—it couldn't have been more wonderful to me during that period of time.
50:31: Well, Doreen, you've also won a free copy of Spiritual Depression by Martin Lloyd -Jones.
50:37: Thanks to our friends at Eerdmans .com. By the way, that book publisher is spelled
50:43: E -E -R -D -S -M -A -N -S.
50:49: I'm sorry, E -E -R -D -M -A -N -S. And as I said, their website is
50:56: Eerdmans .com. And we thank our friends at CVBBS .com
51:03: for shipping these books out to you. So make sure that you get us your full mailing address in Park City, Utah.
51:12: And let's see, we've got another question. From Oklahoma, and I was just looking at it.
51:23: Oh, Bixby, Oklahoma. We have Terry in Bixby, Oklahoma, who asks,
51:31: Did thoughts of suicide ever enter your head during this time? Well, it's a very honest, important question.
51:41: And I'm grateful it could be brought up. For me personally, I did not have that battle happen.
51:52: It doesn't mean it couldn't have. I could have sunk down to that. But I was not tempted with that temptation.
52:01: I'm so thankful. But I do know what I did realize.
52:10: Sometimes I could process how low I was feeling, how bad I was feeling.
52:16: And I would say to myself, this is so hard. I don't know what to do except pray.
52:26: I don't know when this is going to end. But what kept me was my theology, meaning
52:35: I knew God was my father. I knew the Bible teaches that he is good, that he is in control of my life.
52:46: Even the hairs on my head are numbered, which means he intimately is in control of everything about me.
52:55: I knew he is good. And I knew
53:01: I had examples in Scripture like Job. My situation didn't compare to Job's.
53:09: But I had the record of history in the Bible where I saw God bring his children through the hardest things.
53:18: So I never stopped believing in my heart. My father is with me, though I can't feel it.
53:25: He loves me, though I don't feel it. He knows what's going on, though I don't.
53:31: I don't know why I'm going through this, but I am his, and all that I am to do is to trust him like a little child.
53:44: Amen. That's all I could do. You can pick up where you left off there because we have to go to our midway break. Okay. Don't go away.
53:51: We're going to be right back after this commercial break, folks. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an
54:05: Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island. I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother
54:14: Chris Arnzen in the highest esteem, and I'm thrilled that you're listening today. I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for Reformed Christian literature for decades now,
54:28: Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Well, with the economic nightmare that we're all currently enduring,
54:39: CVBBS .com, I want to enable you to build a wonderful personal library of the best literature that the
54:47: Reformers, the Puritans, and the great Christian minds of today have to offer, and at affordable prices.
54:54: Not only does CVBBS .com offer up to 50 % off retail prices, but you'll get an added 5 % off orders of $50 or more by using promo code
55:09: IRON, I -R -O -N, an added 5 % off all of your orders of $50 or more from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.
55:21: That's CVBBS .com, making the joy of reading the finest in Christian literature more affordable.
55:31: Oh, and make sure that you tell them you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget, folks,
55:41: CVBBS .com is now shipping worldwide. Puritan Reformed is a
55:48: Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.
55:58: Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.
56:05: We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.
56:18: We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt
56:24: Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.
56:31: Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.
56:38: Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com
56:46: Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.
56:54: Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Arn Sharpen's Iron podcast. I consider
57:00: Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big, penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the
57:09: Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the
57:16: Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.
57:21: This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.
57:27: Knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.
57:35: I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting
57:40: Arn Sharpen's Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?
57:49: I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com
57:55: where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. When Arn Sharpen's Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the
58:10: New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the
58:18: Arn Sharpen's Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the
58:23: NASB. I'm Dr. Joe Moorcraft, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the
58:32: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Anthony Uvinio, founder of thereformrookie .com
58:39: and co -founder of New York Apologetics, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
58:44: I'm Pastor Tim Bushong of Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and the NASB is my
58:50: Bible of choice. I'm Eli Ayala, founder of Revealed Apologetics and staff member with the
58:55: Historical Bible Society, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the
59:05: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the
59:14: NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the
59:24: NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep
59:30: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?
59:36: Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
59:45: Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.
59:57: Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com
01:00:06: website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the
01:00:13: Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.
01:00:23: Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show at any time, day or night.
01:00:30: Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnzen has on the show.
01:00:39: Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the
01:00:45: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com
01:00:51: podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We are dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a
01:00:58: Reformed Baptist perspective to beginners in the faith as well as seasoned believers. From Keach's Catechism and the
01:01:04: Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking
01:01:13: Biblical truth. And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689
01:01:19: London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.
01:01:24: Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. This is
01:01:36: Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.
01:01:42: Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support
01:01:47: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our
01:02:04: Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end from which we strive is the glory of God.
01:02:10: If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us on Lord's Day in worshiping our
01:02:25: God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.
01:02:33: Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org That's gracechurchatfranklin .org
01:02:41: This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our
01:02:47: Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.
01:02:56: I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.
01:03:10: I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,
01:03:15: Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.
01:03:23: It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim
01:03:41: Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
01:03:48: I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.
01:03:57: For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.
01:04:03: That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.
01:04:12: That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
01:04:26: I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
01:04:48: Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the
01:04:58: Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity, by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.
01:05:05: It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.
01:05:16: Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.
01:05:28: For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.
01:05:36: For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,
01:05:45: heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.
01:05:52: Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. James White here of Alpha and Omega Ministries announcing that this
01:06:18: September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend
01:06:23: Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th, at 11 a .m.,
01:06:28: I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris' Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastor's Luncheon at Church of the
01:06:37: Living Christ in Loisville. Then, on Sunday, September 21st, at 1 .30
01:06:42: p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the
01:06:48: Bible Is the Authentic and Inherent Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.
01:06:54: For more details on the Free Pastor's Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:07:00: That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.
01:07:10: That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.
01:07:19: Welcome back. Before I return to Pastor Mack Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and his story of his experience with a dark night of the soul, we have some important reminders for you.
01:07:35: Please, folks, if you really love this show and you don't want it to go off the air, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,
01:07:43: click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card.
01:07:50: And if you prefer snail mail, mailing a physical check at your post office to a physical address, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click
01:08:00: Support at ironsharpensironradio .com where you can mail your checks, made payable to Ironsharpensironradio.
01:08:08: If you want to advertise with us, whether it's your church, parachurch ministry, your business, your private practice, like a law firm or a medical firm, or maybe it's just a special event you want to promote, whatever it is, as long as it's compatible with my beliefs,
01:08:23: I would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we're just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as your donations.
01:08:30: So, please, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.
01:08:37: As urgently and as desperately as we need your financial support, I always want you to remember that I never want anybody from my audience giving less money than they're accustomed to giving to their own local church on the
01:08:53: Lord's Day in order to bless Ironsharpensironradio with a financial gift.
01:08:59: In other words, never cut into the financial resources that you have set aside specifically for your
01:09:05: Lord's Day giving to your own church in order to bless us with a financial gift. Never do that.
01:09:11: And if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're back on your feet, more financially stable, before you send us a financial gift.
01:09:19: But, if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family and you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and even trivial purposes, well, if you love this show, please share some of that money with us.
01:09:34: Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful,
01:09:42: Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, well, no matter where you live in the world,
01:09:52: I have helped many people spanning the entire globe in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live, that are biblically faithful, and that may be you too.
01:10:05: So, no matter where you live in the world, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:10:11: if you are in need of a biblically faithful church. But I need a church in the subject line.
01:10:17: That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Mack Tomlinson, pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.
01:10:26: He's actually now an elder emeritus, having stepped down last fall from active preaching and teaching duties.
01:10:36: And we are discussing his Dark Night of the Soul. And we do have a question from Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.
01:10:48: And Seth says, several years ago, my wife and I returned from three years of serving on the mission field.
01:10:57: After a few weeks back here in the United States, we both started to sink down into what
01:11:06: I can only describe as depression. Do you have any advice for missionaries coming back from the mission field on how they can communicate these feelings of depression and weariness with their sending church?
01:11:22: And Seth, that's a great question. And I hope you're still listening. If you could clarify,
01:11:30: Seth, if there was any specific reasons that you may know of for the depression, like did you feel like you failed on the mission field?
01:11:38: I don't even know where you were on the mission field. It could have been satanic things going on in that country.
01:11:45: But whatever, I'm just curious if you wouldn't mind clarifying with more information. But Mac, if you could help out our listener,
01:11:55: Seth, with his questions. Yeah, well, you know,
01:12:03: I think, you know, it's so hard to know how to answer these important questions because not one answer fits all, of course.
01:12:15: But I think for, you know, missionaries who've given years and hard labor on the mission field and they love it, it's their life, it's their calling, if for whatever reason they have to return back to the
01:12:29: States, it's often a real adjustment for couples coming back.
01:12:37: We've seen it. You suddenly, you're back. Maybe you don't want to be back.
01:12:44: Maybe you didn't want to leave your work. And so the adjustment can often be hard.
01:12:52: You suddenly, you're starting over again. Things are uncertain. Maybe you don't have a home, you're renting or you're living with people, and you're kind of can be in limbo.
01:13:08: And I think depression can just start for any undefined reason, and you don't know why you're feeling it.
01:13:19: So I think in that case, a critically important thing would be for missionaries to come home to a trusted church family with elders they know, love them, to elders that they trust and they have a relationship with.
01:13:43: And then when they realize, like this couple did, Seth and his wife, they realized they were in depression, that's when the body of Christ is truly needed.
01:13:56: And I said earlier that, you know, no one could help me.
01:14:02: Linda supported me, but she couldn't. She wasn't going through exactly what I was going through.
01:14:08: But what I did do was I talked to my elders.
01:14:14: I would sometimes meet one of them for breakfast or lunch. And I tried to share, and I was honest.
01:14:23: I had to humble myself and say, you know, brother, I'm going through a very hard time, and I don't know how to figure it out.
01:14:33: But I feel cast down. And the nights are so hard because of the lack of sleep.
01:14:41: Pray for me. And I need your prayers. I need your pastoring.
01:14:47: And I said that to all five of my fellow elders at the time. So my church didn't fully know what
01:14:57: I was going through, but the church did know that I was not well in some ways and I was needing a break.
01:15:08: And so my whole church family was praying for me. Close friends were praying.
01:15:13: And I did need to avail myself of connecting with brothers or couples that Linda and I are close to because it did help to be with other
01:15:26: Christians. Even if I was quiet and I just kind of had to sit there and I might say, you know, they might ask me questions and I would answer the best
01:15:38: I could. Or they might just say, you know, brother, we love you and we're here for you.
01:15:44: And I might say, you know, it means a lot for you to come. And I meant it.
01:15:50: And so I don't think there's a simple answer for Seth's question except missionaries coming back can go through difficult periods and they need their local church and they need loving pastoral care by pastors who love them.
01:16:12: Amen. And by the way, Seth did respond to my requests for some more clarification.
01:16:22: He says, I think he, meaning you, Mac, answered it perfectly.
01:16:28: We returned home in a hurry because my dad was gravely ill. We were dealing with feelings of leaving in a hurry and leaving our work undone.
01:16:39: And we were in Papua New Guinea. Now, isn't Papua New Guinea where Jim Elliott was murdered?
01:16:49: He was in South America in, oh, I'm going blank,
01:16:56: Ecuador, I think. Is it right, Ecuador? Jim Elliott fans out there will remember.
01:17:03: No, Jim Elliott was not in Papua New Guinea. He was in South America with the
01:17:11: Aka Indians, but the location of his country fails me.
01:17:27: That's all right. Yeah, don't worry about that. If anybody listening knows, perhaps you can let us know where the
01:17:38: Aka Indians were and where was Jim Elliott murdered, which later resulted in Jim Elliott's wife, the late, why is her first name escaping my head?
01:18:01: Elizabeth Elliott. Yeah, Elizabeth Elliott. She returned and bravely evangelized these very same people.
01:18:09: And there was a revival of salvations taking place and so on.
01:18:16: So that was a good end to that story. And it's amazing how she was able to overcome any bitterness and hatred towards these people and demonstrated such fearless love toward them.
01:18:36: Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry that I've forgotten the country, but you'll have some response to it.
01:18:41: It was South America, maybe Ecuador, but I'm sorry I'm not retrieving it.
01:18:48: That's okay. And so, in fact,
01:18:57: Bill in Uniondale, Long Island, New York, said that he was killed in Ecuador.
01:19:06: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What was I going to say?
01:19:12: Oh, now give us a fast forward to when you began to see daylight, not literally, but spiritually, break through the darkness and you realized that your season of the dark night of the soul was beginning to end and what exactly you attributed it to, other than, obviously, the mercy and love and kindness of a sovereign
01:19:40: God. Yes. Well, one thing,
01:19:47: I'll begin to answer that right away, but one thing that came to my mind during the break, the last break, because I knew in my mind that my problem began with insomnia and a lack of sleep, and before that I had been basically mentally healthy, stable, and therefore
01:20:15: I knew that going to see a doctor was no answer, and I knew that I didn't want to take some kind of psychiatric medication or prescription meds.
01:20:33: I didn't want to risk that and I didn't believe in that normally, and I'm not saying there aren't cases where that's valid, but that needs to be approached very cautiously through the wise direction of hopefully a
01:20:49: Christian doctor, but I knew that I just didn't think that I should do that because I knew for me that my help was rooted in physical exhaustion that led to mental and spiritual struggles, and so in my case, the
01:21:17: Lord kept me just trusting Him, going to the Bible, reading it, praying it like a child, and hanging on, and so what happened with me was one of my granddaughters,
01:21:38: Kyla, who is now in college, at that time, she was a junior in high school, and she had desired to visit
01:21:48: LSU University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a college visit weekend because at that time, she was considering studying marine biology, so she knew that I would go to Baton Rouge periodically to speak in a church that I'm good friends with, so she asked me in her junior year, would
01:22:18: I consider taking her to Baton Rouge for a weekend visit to LSU, and so her request came to me when
01:22:29: I was doing fun before the period of spiritual darkness, and I said, I'd be glad to take you.
01:22:35: We'll have a fun weekend. Well, the weekend got set, and in October of 2023, we were scheduled to go to Baton Rouge.
01:22:51: Well, then my difficult period started, and so the date came,
01:23:02: September came, and then October 1st, and I was doing very poorly, and I told
01:23:11: Linda, I said, I don't think I can do it. I don't think
01:23:16: I can stand to drive 10 hours, 20 hours round trip. I don't think
01:23:21: I can be around people. You're going to have to take her, and she said, that's fine, sweetheart, if I take her.
01:23:33: So two days before we're supposed to go, the thought comes into my mind, and it was simply this.
01:23:44: You know, if Linda takes Kyla, and I stay here alone, I'll be miserable, and I promised my granddaughter
01:23:53: I would take her, so I'll choose to take her because I told her
01:24:01: I would because if it's hard to go, it'll be harder perhaps to stay here alone, so I told
01:24:08: Linda the next day, I said, I want to go. I want to keep my commitment, and so I chose to go, and it was hard, so we went, and I was with a longtime friend.
01:24:25: We were staying in their guest apartment in their home in Baton Rouge. He was the pastor of the church.
01:24:31: I'd known him for 50 years, and he's one of the finest
01:24:41: Bible teachers and pastoral counselors that I've ever known.
01:24:47: He did not know what I was going through, and I showed up on Thursday night, and he had wanted me to speak on Sunday, and when
01:24:57: I arrived, I told him, Mark, I'm not doing well. I'm struggling with things, and I just don't think
01:25:05: I can speak Sunday, and he said, that's fine. No problem, so Friday, we went to LSU, to the campus, and while his wife and Linda and a grandson and my granddaughter
01:25:20: Carla did a two -hour campus tour, I sat in a
01:25:25: Starbucks on LSU campus with my friend Mark, and he and I are so close,
01:25:32: I began to share and tell him my journey. I began to have words that let me begin to describe the previous 10 months, and the more
01:25:45: I was able to talk with this trusted friend, the more I was able to express things that gave some clarity to it, and so it was just God's moment because we talked for two hours, and he just listened, and he didn't ask questions.
01:26:08: That's all he did, and you know, when someone is going through a severely difficult period of time, the wisest thing any
01:26:18: Christian or pastor can do is to listen, and to listen well, and to ask questions, and that's all he did, so the family comes back.
01:26:33: We leave to go to lunch. We have lunch for an hour, and I was feeling some relief emotionally, so we get in the car to go back to their home, a 30 -minute drive, and it's just he and I in the car, and as we got in the car,
01:26:50: I began to talk more, and in a deeper way, suddenly,
01:26:58: God enabled me to be more transparent. I began to share with him the condemnation of those sins from a half a century earlier.
01:27:09: I began to share with him the real spiritual battle that I felt, and Chris, the only way
01:27:22: I can describe what happened is over the next 25 minutes, he began to share.
01:27:30: Now, remember, four hours earlier, he had no clue about my experience.
01:27:39: He had no idea what I had been going through, but he listened for three hours, and then as I kept sharing in the car, he would begin to talk with Scripture or with biblical wisdom, and the best way
01:28:00: I can describe it is when he would share something for a minute or two, suddenly, some spiritual light or understanding would come on in my mind, and I felt more free, and he would keep talking, and then it would happen again, and within 20 minutes, the darkness was gone.
01:28:35: I felt free, and it was God's sudden unexpected hour that he ended my 10 months of darkness.
01:28:50: I couldn't believe it. I got back to his house, and sitting in the driveway,
01:28:55: I said, Mark, it's all gone. I feel free.
01:29:01: The feelings of condemnation are gone. A sense of comfort came.
01:29:10: It was like the spiritual clouds were blown away, and spiritually there was bright sunshine just like it was outside that day in Baton Rouge, and it was suddenly gone, and it never returned after that.
01:29:31: Praise God. It was astounding. It was so surprising and sudden, and it was
01:29:41: God's purpose to end it that weekend, and in retrospect,
01:29:48: I knew that he put in my heart to go because God wanted to use his trusted longtime pastor friend of mine as the instrument to speak truth in my life that would finally set me free from that period of darkness, and I had such joy.
01:30:12: I couldn't believe it, and the next day, I was able to speak at his church, and I didn't have anything prepared except I just spoke from a psalm that was very life -giving, and the one thing
01:30:28: I left out is I dreaded going to his house to sleep because I knew
01:30:35: I would probably lay in the guest bed all night and not be able to sleep, but from Thursday night, we arrived, and that night, in a bed that I wasn't used to,
01:30:52: I slept six hours, and I woke up, and I realized I had slept six hours, and I couldn't believe it.
01:31:00: The next night, I slept seven hours, and the next night, I slept eight hours, and it was just like the
01:31:09: Lord said, I'm ending this for my child, and this trial is over, and none of it in my case has ever returned, and I'm so thankful that God brought me through it, but in looking back,
01:31:31: I was forced, so to speak. I had to trust my heavenly
01:31:38: Father, and I had to stay in His word and had to pray like a child, and God will honor those who trust
01:31:46: Him. Hallelujah. How recent was that when you broke out of that 10 -month period of darkness?
01:31:56: That would have been October of 2023. Praise God.
01:32:03: Yeah, I was wondering. That was obviously after my oldest brother,
01:32:09: John, entered into paradise with Christ because he passed in 2021.
01:32:18: Yeah. So you had already been used in powerful, meaningful ways evangelizing my brother before this darkness set upon you.
01:32:33: Yeah, that was special to connect with John. I have vivid memories of him. He was at a hospital, you know, 20 minutes south of my home between Denton and Fort Worth, Texas.
01:32:45: Yeah, so that was special and meaningful for me to be available to he and his wife and Jan.
01:32:54: Yeah. Amen. By the way, I don't think I mentioned to Seth. I can't remember.
01:32:59: Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, you have also won a free copy of Spiritual Depression, Its Causes and Cure, 21
01:33:10: Enduring Sermons from One of the 20th Century's Greatest Preachers by D.
01:33:17: Martin Lloyd -Jones. We thank Eerdmans Publishing once again for providing these books.
01:33:24: And we want to thank Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com, for shipping them out to our winners today.
01:33:34: And let's see here. We had a listener in Alabama.
01:33:50: I was just looking at, oh, Sammy in Birmingham, Alabama, says, forgive me if you've already addressed this.
01:34:00: I'm tuning in late. But did your depression ever lead you to being angry toward God?
01:34:13: No, it did not. But, you know, Sammy, I would just say it's easy for that to happen.
01:34:27: And I think those most sensitive to being tempted to be angry can often be those who endeavor to walk with God or believe in Him the most or trust
01:34:41: Him the most because they believe behind, as William Cooper wrote, behind the founding providence,
01:34:51: God is behind the hard providences. He's involved. And when we can't understand, we can get angry.
01:35:02: We can begin to doubt and question why. But for me, you know,
01:35:09: I have had a history of challenges. Lynn and I lost our first child on the due date.
01:35:17: She died without warning in 1979. And so, and then
01:35:26: I've had two open -heart surgeries. I've had other physical challenges.
01:35:33: And so I've been through church split where it broke our heart for a church to have problems years ago.
01:35:44: And so when Christians go through hard things, you gain experience.
01:35:52: And then God brings you through the fire into a better place and you learn to trust
01:36:00: Him and you become more equipped for the next trial. So, you know, when this happened in 2022,
01:36:10: I had been a Christian 49 years. And so I guess
01:36:16: I'm trying to say, the longer we walk with the Lord, the more He takes us through and the more we learn to trust
01:36:24: Him. So in 2022, when this happened to me,
01:36:32: I didn't get angry. I never felt that at least.
01:36:38: I just couldn't find, I couldn't find God and I couldn't understand. But really, it was so hard that sometimes
01:36:50: I would kind of cry gently. I just didn't know if I could take anymore.
01:36:57: And I would just say, Father, help me right now. Jesus, help me now. And so I wasn't thinking theologically.
01:37:06: I wasn't processing things. I was just trying to survive. Amen. Well, we're going to our final break right now.
01:37:16: And if you have a question for Mack Tomlinson, make sure you submit it to us as soon as you can before we run out of time.
01:37:24: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We are accepting anonymous questions from folks who have personal and private matters to ask about.
01:37:38: That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And by the way, Sammy, in Birmingham, Alabama, you've also won a free copy of Spiritual Depression by D.
01:37:49: Martin Lloyd -Jones, compliments of Eerdmans Publishing and compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cbbbs .com.
01:37:58: We'll be shipping that out to you. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.
01:38:15: It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.
01:38:21: Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,
01:38:29: Dr. Joe Moorcraft. Hi, I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.
01:38:39: One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.
01:38:47: Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
01:38:56: Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
01:39:02: Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.
01:39:07: Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the
01:39:12: Hanover Presbyterianship, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great
01:39:22: Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the
01:39:30: Reformers, Scripture alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.
01:39:35: Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity. For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit
01:39:43: HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. That's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.
01:39:49: Or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831.
01:39:57: If you visit, tell them Joe Roiligan, Arne Sharpen's Arne, radio listener, and Latoy in County Kildare, Arlington, sent you.
01:40:11: Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.
01:40:22: Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.
01:40:29: We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.
01:40:42: We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt
01:40:48: Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.
01:40:55: Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.
01:41:02: Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com
01:42:07: PuritanPHX .com PuritanPHX .com
01:42:22: PuritanPHX .com PuritanPHX .com
01:42:37: PuritanPHX .com PuritanPHX .com PuritanPHX .com www .GoldWealthManagement .com slash iron That's www .GoldWealthManagement
01:42:45: .com slash iron Don't guess. Don't delay.
01:42:51: Get the information you need to make a sound, informed decision. Tell them
01:42:56: Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you. That's Gold Wealth Management. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005.
01:43:18: The publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.
01:43:24: It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the
01:43:33: NASB. I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina.
01:43:44: And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the
01:43:50: First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York. And the NASB is my Bible of choice.
01:43:56: I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia. And the NASB is my
01:44:02: Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jesse Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardenville, Nevada.
01:44:08: And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.
01:44:17: And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in South Lake, Texas.
01:44:25: And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York.
01:44:33: And the NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep
01:44:39: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?
01:44:45: Consider restocking your pews with the NASB. And tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:44:55: Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.
01:45:03: Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today has been Mack Tomlinson, Elder Emeritus at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.
01:45:16: And I am so disappointed that the one time I was in Denton, Texas for a
01:45:21: Bible conference at Denton Bible Church, Mack was out of town, so I could not visit with him, unfortunately.
01:45:31: But I'm looking forward to having that opportunity again. And I do recall with great fondness the last time
01:45:40: I did go to the Fellowship Conference in New York and had such wonderful fellowship with you and the other brethren there.
01:45:48: So I look forward to that day, brother. We have Baxter in Gladstone, Oregon.
01:45:56: And he wants to know, did you have any negative experiences from other brothers in Christ who may have been well -meaning, well -intentioned, but nonetheless gave you horrible advice and counsel, perhaps even scolding you or blaming you for something that brought this depression on, something like Job's friends, so -called?
01:46:23: Well, thankfully, I did not. I think I wasn't around a lot of people during those months.
01:46:33: My wife, you know, and loving pastors, fellow pastors, and our deacons and godly friends.
01:46:44: So thankfully, no. But, you know, people who,
01:46:51: I would just say this, people who act like that towards suffering people, you know,
01:46:58: I call them useless know -it -alls. That's all they are to me.
01:47:04: They don't have wisdom. They're judgmental. And they have no sensitivity and no tender love toward people who are suffering.
01:47:14: So, you know, they just should really be ignored as much as possible.
01:47:21: I mean, don't get bitter and hold a grudge, but people who act like that, they shouldn't be listened to because they won't be of any help to people.
01:47:32: Thank you, Baxter. You've also won a free copy of Spiritual Depression by D. Martin Lloyd -Jones.
01:47:40: Compliments of Eerdmans Publishing and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cbbbs .com,
01:47:48: who will actually be shipping the book out to you. Please make sure you give us your full mailing address in Gladstone, Oregon.
01:47:55: If you could, before we run out of time, I'd like you to provide for our listeners some perhaps do's and don'ts of how to have victory over the darkness of one of these dark nights of the soul that may enter into their own lives at some point, and they'll have some wise counsel ahead of time to know how to hit this head on.
01:48:29: Yeah, well, it's so difficult to kind of give I'm happy to try to answer that as best as I can, but, you know, one size doesn't fit all, right?
01:48:45: Because there may be various causes of someone's spirit of depression or spiritual darkness.
01:48:52: So don't, I would say, do not withdraw from trusted
01:48:58: Christian friends who are godly and truly supportive and wise. Be willing as you can to give expression to what you're going through, and don't be afraid to do that.
01:49:15: If it's trusted people, you know, who love you, they should know to keep things with confidentiality and don't no matter how much you attempted to, don't stop reading the
01:49:37: Bible, especially the Psalms. Do not think that this is unique to you and that no one's ever gone through it before.
01:49:49: That's not true. The Bible says just the opposite. No trial or temptation or testing is unique to us.
01:50:00: 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, I think that's the right reference, but it's common to many others that God will, with the temptation always, give us grace that we may be able to endure it.
01:50:16: So, and no matter what you feel or no matter how hard and dark it gets, make your heart.
01:50:27: Keep praying simple prayers like a little child who is hurting and crying would ask their mother or their father for help.
01:50:38: You know, simple prayers. Jesus, help me. Help me today. I cannot do it.
01:50:45: You help me, please. The simplest prayers. You know, you think of Peter when he was told, the
01:50:54: Lord told him to walk on the water, and he stepped out, and he began to walk, and then suddenly he saw the waves and the wind, and he got afraid, and he began to sink.
01:51:08: Well, what did he pray? He didn't pray, O thou
01:51:14: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, O thou that dwellest in the heavens, shine forth.
01:51:20: No. He said, help. And so, keep praying, and because God is faithful, and he has allowed this for reasons unknown, but then the reasons later become clear.
01:51:40: He lets us go through suffering because 2 Corinthians 1 says he will become the
01:51:47: God of all comfort to us in order that we may comfort others with the same comfort with which we've received from God.
01:51:58: So, that would probably be my best answer to that question. Any of the don'ts?
01:52:05: You already said don't listen to people that are know -it -alls, but you had a unique phrase for that that escapes my mind right now, but...
01:52:16: Useless know -it -alls. Yeah, there you go. Well, any other don'ts that you can think of?
01:52:21: I mean, there's some obvious ones. Don't resort to self -medicating yourself with alcohol or other drugs, prescription or otherwise.
01:52:35: Well, not really, Chris. I mean, I do think to put it in the positive, do avail yourselves of trusted
01:52:46: Christian friends and trusted pastors who want to be available.
01:52:53: And even if you don't feel up to it, try to say yes to a time with them.
01:53:01: Even if you say one morning this week, come by for 30 minutes.
01:53:10: Don't become a recluse, but do let others who love you be in your life.
01:53:18: You know, if I had not done that with my friend in Baton Rouge, who knows how long my trial would have lasted, but it was another brother in the faith who was godly and mature that God chose to use to end my period of darkness.
01:53:37: And he often uses not only the Bible, that was my lifeline, but he uses his church, the body of Christ.
01:53:49: And we need the body of Christ when we're going through the hardest things.
01:53:56: Amen. And I know that when I sink into deep depression, which
01:54:04: I am no stranger to that, as everyone who knows me well is fully aware of.
01:54:11: But I know that sometimes it's very difficult to pick up a Bible or a wonderful Christian book that relates to that subject of depression.
01:54:22: And so I automatically am thinking that it's wonderful during those times to listen to the
01:54:33: Bible through an audio venue or a wonderful Christian book through the same kind of audio venue.
01:54:43: Books on tape, as they used to call them, but they have different names now. Anything else you could think of in that regard?
01:54:52: And I'm sure you agree with that, that this can be very difficult to pick up a book and start flipping through pages where you're not just reading words and sentences and paragraphs as sometimes happening when you're depressed, but that things are really sinking in.
01:55:11: Yes. During that 10 months, I don't think I read from any book. I didn't try to read a book.
01:55:18: I didn't read, as best I remember, the only thing in the
01:55:23: Bible I read was from the Psalms because I knew already in my mind, those prayers are written by men who were depressed and downcast and sad or hurting.
01:55:42: And I knew the Psalms were kind of God's antibiotics for a sick heart and spirit.
01:55:50: So I camped out in the Psalms. And when I would read a Psalm, something would, you know, strike me like David said,
01:56:01: I'm poor and needy, Lord, heal me. I'd pray that. So the
01:56:06: Psalms have simple prayers and that's what I grabbed onto. Well, I want to read to you,
01:56:14: I don't think I ever read it to you before, but I wanted to read to you one of my final communications with my oldest brother,
01:56:27: John, who you evangelized while he was dying. And one of the main ways we would communicate when he was too weak to talk verbally was through Facebook Messenger.
01:56:43: And after he told me that the doctors offered no hope that he would live very long,
01:56:52: I fled with him to trust in Christ alone for his salvation.
01:57:00: And John replied this way, I pray the three prayers I know,
01:57:05: Chris, plus I have a short talk with God, ask for his forgiveness of my sons, admit my frailties to him and dedicate my day and night to him every morning.
01:57:17: I ask him if today is the day he takes me to take me into his arms and into his kingdom so that I can worship him in wondrous glory for eternity.
01:57:31: I do the above every day. And I thought that that would give you encouragement to know that your labors were not in vain evangelizing my brother because I think that's sufficient evidence for me to have peace that he is with Christ.
01:57:47: Well, that's very, very special to hear. And yes. Well, thank you for sharing that with me for the first time.
01:57:55: That's special, Chris. I mean, my brother did say more than the thief on the cross. So I do have a lot of confidence because of that testimony of his that he's he is with Christ eternity.
01:58:10: Well, I want to make sure that I give the websites for not only
01:58:15: Providence Chapel, but also for the the first, the
01:58:23: Fellowship Conference New York, a conference that's coming up this
01:58:29: Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Well, first of all, Fellowship Conference New York.
01:58:35: You can find out the details at I'llBeHonest .com
01:58:41: I'llBeHonest .com forward slash FCNY that's forward slash
01:58:49: FCNY for Fellowship Conference New York and also
01:58:55: Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas can be found at ProvidenceDenton .org ProvidenceDenton .org
01:59:04: I want to thank you not only for your friendship and your brotherhood with me, but I also want to thank you for doing such an extraordinary job today talking about a very personal and private matter.
01:59:18: I want to thank everybody who listened and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater