September 23, 2016 Show with Anthony Uvenio on “Love-Fueled Apologetics: Rescue from Religious Error is a High Act of Love” PLUS Bruce Bennett on “God and Government: A Christian Response to Politics”

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 23rd day of September 2016, and before I introduce my guests and my topic or topics, plural,

I just want to let everybody know that I received the very sad news just about two hours before my program today, perhaps even less, the sad news which is buffered by sweetness that this morning my very dear friend and precious brother in Christ, Don Blinn, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, went home to be with his

Lord God Savior, King, and friend, Jesus Christ, whose grace he proclaimed unwaveringly and passionately for many decades.

Don was 87 when God called him home. He baptized my precious late wife,

Julie, and was her very first pastor and gave her away at our wedding, and nearly 20 years later prayed most beautifully at her funeral, and he was a constant source of mentoring and encouragement and at times loving chastisement when needed to me, beginning in my earliest years of my new faith in Christ.

He had very little formal education and was primarily a self -taught man with an awe -inspiring encyclopedic mind, and I have rarely met a man so prepared and eager to meet his

God in eternity as Don Blinn. Please pray for his lovely wife, Marie, their children, grandchildren, great -grandchildren, and all the saints at First Baptist Church of Lindenhurst, Long Island, and I was very pleased to hear, after hearing of Don's passing,

I was very happy to hear from one of his daughters, Debbie, that his entire family was surrounding him at his bedside at home while he was resting peacefully when

Don took his last breath before opening his eyes in the presence of his

Messiah, and I was very comforted to hear that, and although I am not charismatic,

I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea about modern revelation, it took me aback because just last night

I had insomnia and was wondering if the Lord was going to enable me to get back to Long Island, New York to visit

Don Blinn before he went home to glory, and I didn't know that Don was sick or anything like that,

I just knew that he was an elderly man, and it's just amazing to me that when

I turned on my computer, the first thing that I saw was a note from another friend who was also a member of Don's church years ago, and she had informed me of Don's passing, so I just had to give that tribute to a precious friend who had a lot to do with my own spiritual and theological growth, especially as a new

Christian about 30 years ago, and today I am delighted to have on the air someone who is a relatively new friend in Christ, although it's been a number of years, our friendship doesn't go back to the 1980s as mine did with Don Blinn, but I have been delighted to get to know and enjoy the friendship and fellowship and brotherhood of Anthony Eugenio.

Anthony Eugenio is co -founder of an organization called New York Apologetics, they have been involved in organizing conferences and theological debates and so on, in fact

I had the honor and privilege of moderating a theological debate that Anthony will tell you about in a moment, and I in turn am going to,

God willing, have Anthony moderate a debate that I am currently working on here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that I hope occurs within the next several months, but today we're going to be talking about love -fueled apologetics, rescue from religious error is a high act of love, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to On Sharpens Iron, Anthony Eugenio.

Thanks again Chris, I really appreciate the friendship and having me on, this is just a real blessing for me, and just to let you know,

I know you a lot longer than you know me because, and you'll hear this as part of my testimony, as I was growing in the

Lord, I started attending the debates that James White was doing on Long Island, which were supported by you and moderated by you, so I used to know you shake your hand and all that stuff well before I was an apologist.

Wow, that's good to know, in fact I don't know if I ever knew that until just now. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's great to know, well I will never know how the Lord has used those many debates and conferences that I arranged with Dr.

James R. White, and I'm sure he will never know to the full extent how many lives were touched and blessed, and perhaps even souls who came to salvation as a result of those events, and we at least for 10 years had

Roman Catholic debates on Long Island at various venues, and we branched out into debates with liberals and homosexual activists and one -ness

Pentecostals and Muslims, in fact I arranged Dr. White's very first debate with a

Muslim, Hamza Abdul Malik, which took place at the Bible Baptist Church of Syosset, which

I believe is called Shelter Rock Church now, and there are a lot of fond memories of Dr.

White, and I hope to revive some debates with him as well in the future. Well, this issue that we are discussing today, it also involves your personal testimony of salvation out of Roman Catholicism, and one of the reasons that I titled our topic today,

Love Fueled Apologetics, Rescue from Religious Error is a High Act of Love, is that people, as you know

Anthony, immediately have a knee -jerk reaction when they hear a discussion like we're going to have.

They immediately think that you, whoever is speaking apologetically, and I don't mean in the modern sense of the term of apologizing or saying you're sorry, but anybody who is explaining why a certain religious belief is in serious error and defending a biblical opposing view, when people hear that kind of a discussion, they immediately recoil and say, this is bigotry, this is arrogance, this is sectarianism, this is pride, this is just all kinds of horrible, you know, accusations could be hurled against people like you and I who are having a discussion like this, but you,

I know, wholeheartedly agree that true apologetics, when done in a right spirit, is fueled by love, love for God, first of all, love for His Word, and love for the person that you are trying to correct who is in serious error, am

I right? Absolutely, I mean, you know, we demand truth in every single aspect of our lives.

When we go to the bank and we go to withdraw some money, we demand the truth from the bank teller, how much money is in the bank.

When we go to the doctor and was sick, we demand that he tell us what the actual diagnosis of our condition is, and if either one of those people lied to us, we would say that they're not loving.

It's so funny that we just don't apply this when it comes to the spiritual and faith aspect of our life.

Why would we be upset if someone was to tell us something that is a truth, especially of the

Christian faith? Yes, and isn't it interesting, and this happens over and over and over again, when people will sometimes, even foaming at the mouth and yelling at you, they will say, how dare you, who do you think you are, you're nothing but a judgmental, arrogant, proud bigot, and right there, that person doesn't even realize that they made a very serious judgment call upon you.

Exactly. Most people like to, you know, they'll say, oh, it's not right to judge other people.

So in my typical fashion, I go into question mode, I said, well, is it wrong to judge? And they say, of course it's wrong to judge.

And I said, well, then why did you just judge me? It's okay for you to judge me, but then when I call you out on it, listen, we're called to judge by Scripture.

Jesus says, you know, don't misjudge people, but when you judge, take the log out of your own eye, and then you can do well to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

So we're called to help one another. Now, I agree that there are some people who are arrogant and conceited when they begin to tell you the truth, and it comes off wrong, but if it's done in a loving spirit,

I think that's the essence of what Christianity is. We're someone created in the image of God with infinite value and worth.

It's our duty as Christians to point them to the Savior. And even people who may think that you are wrong, those of the opposing side, they should at least respect that you are trying to rescue their eternal souls through the grace of God by alerting them to this dangerous and deadly error that they're holding on to.

Certainly but you know what happens, and obviously scripturally we're coming from the same point of view. You know, men actively suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

They hate the light because their deeds are evil. So the natural reaction of the flesh is to lash out at somebody who would tell them this truth, and it's only by the

Holy Spirit and the power of God moving upon their heart and their mind that they're going to understand and come to the truths of the

Christian faith. But that does not alleviate us of the responsibility to proclaiming the gospel to every creature under heaven and earth, no matter what the repercussion is coming back to us.

And I'm going to give our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question. It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable for some reason. Perhaps you're asking a question about a theological position held by your pastors or your church, and you don't know whether it's true or not, so you'd rather not identify your name and location.

That's understandable, but if you can, we would prefer that you at least give us your first name, city, and state, and country.

Well, let's start before we even get into more depth about New York apologetics.

Let's start with your beginnings, the way you were raised, what kind of religious atmosphere, and you know, what were the things that the

Lord had providentially brought into your life that gradually eventually brought about a radical change in your heart and mind and your belief system?

Yeah, I actually was raised on Long Island as a Roman Catholic. I went to Catholic grammar school and Catholic high school.

In fact, in Catholic grammar school I won the Christian Leadership Award, which, you know, looking back is amazing considering that I didn't even know

Christ at that point. You know, and again that's one of the providential things that, you know,

God has me reflect back on, and he kind of gives me a glimpse into the fact that he had me even back then in the palm of his hand and directed me in a certain direction.

Now, after I graduated high school, I went to college, and you know, just trying to find my way in life.

I was success -oriented. I wanted to, you know, be a successful businessman, which it ended up happening, and I was living in Port Jefferson, and things were going really, really well for me, but there was one aspect of my life that was deficient.

I didn't have the love of my life. I didn't have the woman in my life that I, you know, that I always dreamed that I would have, and as God's providence would have it, a friend of mine set me up on a blind date.

Now, I never would have gone on a blind date outside of the fact that, you know, him and his friend were continually hounding me to call this girl, call this girl, call this girl.

So finally at a certain point in time, I called this woman, and we had a nice conversation on the phone, but then things happened, and it was two months between me actually talking to her and meeting her for the first time.

So the night that I decided, okay, look, this is it. Either we're gonna go out together, or this is never gonna happen.

She agreed. She said, okay, great. So I took her out, and in New York Italian fashion, I went to a steakhouse because I like to eat, and lo and behold, she liked to eat too, and we were sitting there eating a steak, 32 -ounce porterhouse,

I might add, and she cleaned the whole thing, the whole plate, and that was the girl for me.

Because I look good on radio. I looked in on radio, you know that, right? Was this

Frank's Steakhouse, Benny Jams? No, it wasn't. It was Pace's.

Oh yeah, that was one of my brother John. In fact, my brother John may be still listening to my show.

He is a Roman Catholic, and sometimes we bump heads, but I remember him raving about Pace's.

I never was able to get there before moving out of Long Island, but who knows, maybe if it's still there,

I'll go there one time. God, I'm sorry. Oh, if you're out, we'll do that. But as we were eating this delicious steak, you know, the food has my attention.

God put a pretty girl in front of me. She has my attention. She mentions Jesus to me. That is the first time

I've met this girl. God got my attention with the food and the pretty girl, and now all of a sudden,

Jesus gets mentioned. Now, living in New York, Italian, out at a nice steakhouse, the last thing

I'm thinking I'm gonna hear about tonight is Jesus, right? So I kind of dismissed it and dropped her off that night, and the next day

I was talking to a buddy of mine. I'm like, you know, I went out last night with a really nice girl, but she talked about Jesus.

And he said, so? And then I was just like, hmm, okay. So I really didn't pay it any mind, but as I started to date her, you know, every

Saturday night I'd have to bring her home early, because Sunday she was going to church. So as I began to progress in this relationship,

I decided to join her at church before I got involved with a nut, you know what

I'm saying? I didn't want to get involved with a Jesus freak. So I ended up going to her church.

I ended up going to her church, and it was amazing, because every time the pastor gave a sermon, it seemed like he was reading my mail.

To the point where I looked at her and I said, are you telling him things about me?

I really thought the fix was in, Chris. I'm saying, this is not right. This is not right.

So again, as Providence would have it, as this is going on, a buddy of mine joined a church down south, and it's a

Oneness Pentecostal church, and now he starts questioning me about the Trinity. Now, being a raised

Roman Catholic, you know, I had somewhat of an understanding of what it was, but this pushed me to start really researching it.

So I started reading Scripture, I started looking up things online, which is how I came into contact with James White, and I was actually working out in a gym one morning, and the guy who

I normally work out with wasn't there, and some other guy comes over, and he's like, do you mind if I work out? I'm like, no, go ahead. So I don't know what, for what reason,

I said this out loud. I said, you know, a buddy of mine, he's a Pentecostal, and he doesn't believe in the

Trinity. Did you ever hear anything like this? I don't know what possessed me to say that, Chris.

And the guy looked at me, he goes, I'm Pentecostal, I believe in the Trinity. I'm like, oh no,

I don't even know what a Pentecostal is, what is it? So he graciously invited me to his house the following week to explain it to me.

So I said, okay, let me go to his house and see what this is all about. So the following week,

I met him at his house, and he walks me into his basement, and there was a gentleman sitting down on the couch, and I sat on the far end in a chair, and it's him and his friend, and all of a sudden, one guy, two guys, three guys, four guys, five, it's like six guys started coming down into his basement.

Now, being from New York and Italian, I said, what am

I doing? I said, I know I can take three. I'm not getting out of the basement.

And you probably didn't, when you ate at that steakhouse, you probably didn't have your back to the window, either. I'm sitting down there, and they start sharing their testimony with me, and telling me how they came to know the

Lord, and I'm like, that's terrific, and I'm just, I'm feeling very uneasy at this point.

So one of the guys, he's telling me his story, he says, listen, read Psalm 51. So I'm like, okay,

I don't even know where this is in the Bible, so I'm flipping around, flipping around. Finally, I find Psalm 51, and I start reading it to myself, and he says, no, no, no, read it out loud.

And now I'm saying, oh, man, this must be the cult in this initiative. They're gonna, you know, they're gonna prick my finger, and I'm in.

So I start reading this Psalm out loud, and there's another conversation going on in my head.

As I'm reading this out loud, I'm saying to myself, I don't understand a word of what

I'm reading right now. What am I gonna say at the end of this thing to get me out of here?

Well, lo and behold, I get to the end of the Psalm, and it says, and young bulls will be slaughtered on your altar. And with that,

God cut my heart wide open, because what those guys didn't know, and again, this is an act of God's providence, what those guys didn't know was that I was born on April 22nd, and I was

Zodiac sign was Taurus, and I identified with bulls. I had statues of bulls, pictures of bulls.

I was gonna get a bull tattoo on my arm. I mean, basically, at that point, you know,

I was faced with God telling me I could do it my way and be slaughtered, or I could do it

His way and live. So the two things that we've learned that may surprise Christians is that for some reason

God and His infinite wisdom used a blind date with a Christian and an unbeliever and astrology to bring you to Christ.

Unbelievable. So at that point, you know, my chin sank into my chest, and I really started to tear up and get emotional, and I lifted my head and I said, well, what do

I do? So they looked at me, and they said, what do you mean, what do you do? I said, well, it says young bulls will be slaughtered on your altar.

And they said, so? So then I begin to tell them how, you know, I identify with bulls.

I got statues of bulls, pictures of bulls. You know, my life was around, like, you know, I identified with that. Now, they were blown away at God's providence.

Like, how did He pick Psalm 51 in that particular verse to get me to read it? And that's when they led me in prayer, and from that moment on, it was like fast forward.

I couldn't get enough. I had to devour the Word of God. I started searching online for all different, you know, theological things because people were asking me questions, and I was the type of person that I had to know the answer.

I need to give people an answer for what I believe. I'm not somebody who just takes things by blind faith.

So that was my quest, and one of the things that came into my mind was, well, what happened to me, and why would the

Catholic Church not tell me what these guys told me? So I started looking up the differences, and that's when

I came across James White and his debates. And again, providentially,

I must still have two and a half boxes full of his videotaped debates that I watched over and over again, and cassette tapes in my car.

And then I started going to the debates at the Huntington townhouse, and that's where I came in contact with you and him.

And, you know, he really shaped my theology, because every time he's battling with these

Roman Catholics, he would explain that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

There's nothing that we can do at this point. It's God's sovereign grace upon us that opens our eyes and opens our ears to hear his voice and convert us.

And it was just a watershed thing in my life when I came to the end of my rope and realized that I had nothing to do with my salvation.

This was a complete act of God, an act of God alone. In fact, it was when

I was reading John chapter 1 that said, hold on a second, let me just pull it up real quick, that says he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And that really, again, cut me to my heart and took the pride out of anything that I was thinking about me coming to the

Lord. It wasn't because I was smart. It certainly wasn't because I'm good -looking, because I'm not. And it wasn't because I'm charming, even though I am.

This is a complete act of God. And again, as I started to read

Scripture, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, you're saved by grace through faith and that, not of yourself. It's the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.

I couldn't boast in front of my friends and say, listen, you know, I'm going to heaven because I chose

Jesus and this is what I did. I got baptized, I did this, I did this, I did this, as if my resume was good enough to get me into heaven.

I realized that it was Jesus's resume that gets me into heaven. I am saved by good works, they're just not mine.

So and that's, I think, a big difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, especially

Reformed Protestantism, in the sense that, you know, it's nothing to the cross

I bring, simply to the cross I cling. It's His work and His work alone in my heart that causes me to be born again and compels me to follow

Jesus and keep His commandments. Yeah, there are many people,

Roman Catholics especially perhaps, who are scratching their head or even getting angry and saying, now wait a minute, we agree with you on the

Trinity, we agree with you on the deity of Christ, we agree with you on His virgin birth,

His sinlessness, we agree with you that He rose bodily from the grave, that He ascended into heaven, we believe that His atoning death is necessary for anyone to enter into heaven, and they will go on and on with all these similarities, and they may even hear you saying that, well, we believe that salvation is by grace alone and through faith alone, in Christ alone, and they may just look at that as some kind of a theological nuance.

But isn't it true that one of the reasons why those who have come to embrace the doctrines and the gospel of the

Reformation, that we get so passionate about this and we see that there is a chasm of difference between the gospel of the

Reformation and Catholicism, is that we believe that it is very obvious, and it is the logically consistent conclusion to draw, that if you have the ornate and very complicated and works -oriented and ceremonial oriented, sacerdotal oriented gospel of Rome, that you are robbing

Christ of His glory, you are robbing Him of the credit that is due only to Him, they rob

Him of the worship that is due only to Him, even though they would never call it worshipping

Mary and the saints, that's exactly what they're doing, whether they call it that or not, because when you examine their adoration and veneration of Mary and the saints, their veneration is no different than worship.

The physical acts and the words spoken, there's nothing different about the way that they venerate

Mary and the saints and worship God. And the concept of purgatory, how people need to suffer in addition to Christ's suffering in order to be purged, all of these things, wouldn't you say that that is a key factor, that they are robbing

Christ of His glory? Oh certainly. Listen, when Jesus died on the cross,

He said, it is finished, and that's the Greek term, tetelestai, which means paid in full.

Now, as a good New Yorker, if I told you, Chris, go to this restaurant, I got the bill.

When you got there, you wouldn't offer the guy money, you said, Anthony's got my bill, right? The very fact that you offered money to pay for the meal...

I would go to the bathroom after the waiter gave the check. I always revolve everything around food, you can tell, right?

The very fact that you would offer the man money to pay for the bill would show that you didn't trust me and what

I told you to do. Now, as far as I'm concerned, Jesus paid for the meal. I don't owe the tip. He paid for it lock, stock, and barrel, and this is a point of contention, because as you know,

Dr. White and the Reformers would say, the issue was never the necessity of the cross, it is the sufficiency of the cross.

The cross in and of itself is sufficient to save me apart from my work.

Now, I did a presentation at Hope Reform Baptist Church several years ago, at Bruce Bennett's conference on Unlimited Atonement, and the illustration that I used was, when a woman goes shopping, her goal is to buy something and bring it home.

If she bought something and left it in the store, would she say that she bought it?

No, she would have failed to do what she likes to do. Now, Jesus left heaven to purchase, to come to earth to purchase a people for himself.

Now, he either buys, owns, and brings you home, or he fails in that mission.

When you say that we have to add some kind of work to the finished work of Jesus, what you're saying is, it's not enough.

It's insufficient. He can't save me without my help. And the way I see it is, any help that I offer ruins the salvation that he came to bring.

That's right. If I try to touch the Mona Lisa with my paintbrush and a little bit of paint, anything

I do to that painting would ruin it. It would no longer be a masterpiece. It would be a wreck because I touched it.

Yes, and in fact, the Apostle Paul, the only thing that we know of that the Judaizers were insisting upon, in addition to everything else that Paul believed himself, was that you had to be circumcised.

And that one thing made Paul say, that is not even a false gospel.

It's no gospel at all. And he said that those who proclaim such a false gospel are to be accursed.

And yet, people want us, over and over and over again, especially in the 21st century, they want us to be nicer than Paul.

And they think they are nicer than Paul. Right. One of the things that really got me, because when

I came to know the Lord and I started reading the scriptures and studying theology, one of the things

I picked up was the Roman Catholic catechism. And the Roman Catholic catechism says that the

Muslims, together with them, worship the one true God, and have a stake in God's rewards or heaven.

Now, it was odd to me that they excommunicated Protestants because of our faith in Jesus without works, but then allowed

Muslims to partake in heaven and say that they're worshiping the one true

God. It seems like they had a brotherhood with Muslims rather than us as Protestants, and here we are, like you said, we have so much in common, except for the fact that we trust in Christ alone, without anything added to Him for our salvation.

Right, and I can't help but be certain that if the drafters of the modern

Catholic catechism were alive during the Council of Trent, the

Council of Trent would have pronounced a death sentence on them, because that kind of stuff was completely foreign to 16th century

Roman Catholicism. But we have to go to a break right now, and if you'd like to ask a question of Anthony, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Anthony Uvino and his testimony, and more of a discussion on his organization,

New York Apologetics. I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,

Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.

We hope to see you there. Learn more at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

Thanks, Todd, I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's booth.

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Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

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

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnsin. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the first hour is Anthony Uvinio, co -founder of New York Apologetics.

We are discussing love -fueled apologetics. Rescue from religious error is a high act of love.

Then following Anthony during our second hour, 5 -6 p .m. Eastern, we'll be discussing

God and government, a Christian response to politics with our guest, Pastor Bruce Bennett, who ministers at Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.

And he is going to be discussing his seventh annual Bible conference tonight through Saturday in Farmingville.

So you want to stay tuned to hear more about that. Our email address is chrisarnsin at gmail .com,

chrisarnsin at gmail .com. And we have Joseph from Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

And I'm still a relatively new resident of Pennsylvania, so I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, if it's

Ephrata or Ephrata, or it could be something else. But Joseph asks,

I understand that your motivation behind criticizing

Roman Catholicism is motivated from love, but don't you agree that there are some over -the -top born -again

Christians who are indeed very nasty and mean -spirited when they approach this subject and others?

Oh, certainly. I think that you can find that in any denomination. I think that you can find that in any of the people in the world's religions, which, again, would just bear witness to the truth of Scriptures that talk about men having depraved hearts.

You know, we constantly sin in this world, and because of that, we need a

Savior. Now, just when someone comes to know the Lord, obviously everything about them doesn't change all at once.

You know, I often ask people when I start doing Bible study with them, how do you unmarinate a steak?

You know, my life, I came to know the Lord at 33 years old, and I was marinating in the world for that long.

How do you just unmarinate? Well, the way you unmarinate a steak is that you take it out of the old marinade and put it in the new marinade, and over the course of time, the new marinade seeps in.

So that's what should happen to you as a Christian as you continue to read God's Word, participate in church, and grow.

Those things in your life that are abrasive should start to fall off. You should start to grow in the fruit of the

Spirit. Now, if you're not growing in the fruit of the Spirit, that's time to pause and take inventory and say, okay, am

I really a Christian, first of all, and why am I not growing? You know, you may need an accountability partner.

When you're involved in a, especially a Reformed Baptist church, you're going to be held accountable for the things that you do and say, and rightly so.

Oh, and don't I know it. The pastor is intimately involved with your life, which is the way

I think it should be, and they practice church discipline. I know that is taboo in today's

American Christianity, church discipline. What are you talking about? Yeah, in modern evangelicalism, that's just totally foreign to their ears.

And when you realize that the pastor is going to have to give an account for your soul, and he's doing this because he loves you, well, then the picture changes.

You know, you understand that discipline is a part of Christianity, and God disciplines those He loves. So we should certainly be involved with the fellowship, we should be monitoring ourselves, check yourself to see whether you're in the faith, right?

Make your calling and election sure. We have to constantly be reassessing ourselves and making sure that we're acting in love.

And, you know, for Joe and Ephrata, you know, I apologize for other Christians who may have come off abrasive to you, but there are well -meaning, loving

Christians who would embrace you and seek to disciple you and open the Scriptures to you and help you get to the point where you need to be, obviously, in love.

No one can get to God, no one can get to the Father except through the Son. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true

God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Knowing Jesus is paramount, crucial, vital to your eternal life.

You cannot have one without the other. So if you know of a Jesus who doesn't finish the work on the cross, but needs your help,

I don't believe that you know the Jesus of Scripture. And that is of vital importance.

You need to know that the Jesus who died on that cross, that his work on the cross, the person and work of Jesus on the cross, is sufficient to save you if you place your faith and trust in him fully.

Again, nothing to the cross I bring, simply to the cross I claim. Amen. And guess what,

Joseph? You, since you're a first -time questioner, you're getting a free New American Standard Bible, a really gorgeous version of it with an embossed cross on the cover, compliments of the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible, and you'll be getting that shipped to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, Todd and Patty Jennings, who have been supporting

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio faithfully since we relaunched, and they ship out our listeners free

Bibles and books when they win them by submitting questions, absolutely free of charge to us and to you.

So go to cvbbs .com for more information on Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and keep your eye open in the mail for that Bible.

And we need to have your full mailing address, by the way, Joseph, not just Ephrata or Afrita or whatever it is, and we'll get that out to you.

And of course, not everybody who says they're a Christian is a Christian, wouldn't you agree,

Anthony? Like, for instance, I do not believe that the folks from the God Hates Fags group are regenerate people.

They bring a message of condemnation that has nothing to do with a call to repentance.

In fact, they don't even believe that homosexuals can repent.

They believe that they are irreversibly consigned to hell, and they are very happy about that, if you notice that.

Their hearts aren't broken over unrepentant sinners. They seem to be very delighted that homosexuals who don't repent are going to hell.

And of course, as I just said, they don't believe a homosexual will ever repent. So wouldn't you say that that's also an important factor, that not everybody who's walking around with some kind of a banner or who is in your face saying that you have a false religion and they are claiming to be

Christian, not all of them are Christians? Absolutely. I mean, you know, again, 1 John says, they went out from us, but they were not of us.

They speak, they talk Christian -like, but their hearts are not converted.

In fact, Jesus says, they worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They're hypocrites.

You know, the scariest verse in Scripture is Matthew 7, 21. You know, Jesus says, you know, they're going to come to me on that day and say,

Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, cast out demons, perform miracles? He says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

I never knew you. He didn't say I knew you at one point in time, and then I forgot about you. He says, I never knew you.

So if the motive of your heart, if your heart is happy and rejoicing that someone is going to hell, you do not have a converted heart.

Love rejoices in the truth. It hates falsehood. So your heart would break for somebody who's going to hell because you don't want that for him.

God saved you out of his mercy and grace, and because of that, you owe

God your life. He calls us to be disciples, salt and light to the people around us.

If we're not being salt and light, and we're pushing them into hell, gladly, something's wrong. We are not reflecting the love that Christ showed us.

Right. Amen. And I have that harsh criticism about the

God Hates Fags group, Westboro Baptist Church. I have that harsh opinion of them that I don't believe that they are regenerate, even though they are

Calvinistic Baptists on their website. They even have the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith as their statement of faith, which is something that I and my congregation that I belong to adhere to.

And yet we would recognize that, now obviously I don't know the hearts of all of those people, but they are acting like unregenerate people, and I have no hope or confidence that they are saved.

We do have a listener in Kinross, Scotland, Murray, who says,

Can we say of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he is speaking the truth with love when he speaks of whitewashed sepulchres, hypocrites, a brood of vipers, you are of your father the devil?

Are we justified in using our Lord in these examples as a role model when the situation demands as long as our heart is right?

What is your opinion on that? Oh, I think if you're speaking to, Jesus was speaking to the religious leaders of the time, the

Pharisees and the Sadducees. These were men who should have known better. They were teachers of the law, they were the scribes, they were the ones teaching it to the people.

In fact, he says, you know, you make one convert, you make him twice as much a son of hell than what he was.

So what Jesus is pointing out is their hypocrisy in teaching the traditions of men for the commands of God.

The Pharisees turned this into an ego and a pride thing. They were making money on the people who were coming to the temple for sacrifices, right?

That's when Jesus overturned the table of the money. So when we have people who are in positions of authority, who are telling the world what the gospel is or who

Jesus is, if they are not in accord with sound doctrine, we not only have, we have the responsibility to call that person out, call them to repentance if they're not in line with sound doctrine.

Amen, I agree with you a hundred percent. And it's very interesting that in the scriptures, you only have

Jesus using that level of harshness towards religious leaders. And of course, at one point he said to one of his own apostles,

Peter, get behind me, Satan. But you don't have Jesus saying to the woman at the well, get away from me, whore.

Or you don't have him saying things like that, you know, you filthy whores and homos and things like that.

You don't have him speaking that way to the lowly sinner who is not in any kind of a position of religious leadership or respect.

He has just a totally opposite approach to those people. Isn't it true that that's really the only time he unleashes that kind of harshness, like even with the money changers in the temple?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, especially it's mostly found in the Gospel of Matthew, which is written to the

Jews because of their mistaken understanding of the scriptures and how they should have known

Jesus as the Christ. I mean, he gave them every reason. He told them, basically, you know,

I am my father all one. If you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins. What did the Jews do?

The Pharisees, they picked up stones to stone him because him, a mere man, claimed to be God.

So they were accusing him of blasphemy. Meanwhile, he fulfilled all these prophecies.

Again, as a teacher of the scriptures, they should have known, they should have easily identified

Jesus as the Messiah, but they didn't. So Jesus goes on to pronounce woes on the scribes and Pharisees.

You know, you stranded in that, you swallow a camel, you're whitewashed sepulchres, you're white on the outside, rotten on the inside, you're brood of vipers, which hearkens back to Genesis 3 .15.

You know, they're the seed of the serpent, he's basically saying. That's pretty harsh criticism.

But when you stand up and Scripture bears witness to the fact that to seek to be an elder is a noble task, but you're going to be given a stricter judgment for that.

Jesus was demonstrating that the scribes and Pharisees were going to experience a stricter judgment because they claimed to know the scriptures and teach them to others.

And I think we find that deficient. Again, in the American church, we have so many people who want to be pastors, who end up being pastors and deacons and elders, and are not qualified to do so.

And my heart goes out because they're misrepresenting the scriptures and teaching things that are not in accord with sound doctrine.

We really have to reassess where we are in America, theologically, and start getting back to the scriptures and exegeting them properly.

If not, you see what's going on in this country. We're going to reap the results of the church not doing what it's supposed to do in society.

We do have a question, and this kind of made me chuckle because it's something that you and I were just talking about not long ago.

I'm sorry? Steak? No, I don't mean on the show today.

I mean, maybe a week or so ago. Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York says,

Do you think that presuppositional apologetics are more effective than evidential?

I don't know if you've reached a point of completely being settled on that issue yet, because we both admire heroes of the faith, even of the present day, that are on both sides of that.

Like, for instance, R .C. Sproul is an evidentialist, but the late Greg Bonson, who is considered a modern -day king of apologetics, he was a presuppositionalist.

And Dr. James White is a presuppositionalist, and so on. And I believe

Frank Turek is an evidentialist. And so we do have people on both sides of these issues that we admire.

But have you ever come to a settled opinion on that yet? Actually, I'm reading a book by Scott Oliphant called

Covenantal Apologetics, and it's explaining the presuppositional approach and method, and it is phenomenal.

It's excellent. I really love the way the guy is unfolding it and explaining it to the reader.

It's accessible. There's some deep things in there that make you pause and start to think.

But I understand where he's coming from, and I see it as a position. Now, the confusion for me, and I'm still learning about this, is that a presuppositionalist does use evidence, as well as the evidentialist does.

Now, if an evidentialist is using evidence, thinking that the evidence is going to change the sinner who's in rebellion to God, if they think that that evidence is going to change their heart, well, then

I would disagree with yes. Because it's only the Holy Spirit and the Gospel that's the power of God unto salvation.

So a presuppositionalist would argue from God to the evidence, whereas an evidentialist argues from the evidence to God.

But it could be any God, and that's what I think the presuppositionalist would object to, because there is only one

God, the triune God of Scripture. And apart from Him, there is no other

God, and there's no way to know anything but Him. You know, Scripture says that we know

God, we're just suppressing that truth. Yes, Romans 1. Yeah, Romans 1 is what

I think a lot of presuppositionalism is based on. Because sometimes when we get in discussions with non -believers, we let them take us away on rabbit trails far away from the

Gospel, and we never return to the issue of the Gospel, because they are saying, prove to me that the

Bible is the Word of God, and prove to me that God exists, and things like that, which we cannot physically prove either of those things.

Well, what we can do is disprove the lies about the Bible and about God.

Not all of us can. I have the knowledge of textual manuscripts that James White and others have, but there are things that men really do in their heart of hearts know are true, and yet, as Romans 1 says, that they suppress those things.

Absolutely. And one of the things that we've done at New York Apologetics, myself and Nick, my partner, we've come up with something called the side -by -side tactic.

So anytime we're discussing theism with an atheist, what we do, we do something called the side -by -side tactic.

We take our worldview, and we hold it up against theirs. So we're doing a comparison.

So we can argue it from a presuppositional standpoint or an evidentialist standpoint, and let's say we're using the argument for morality, all right?

So the atheist understands and knows that morality exists. He just has no way to justify objective morality in his worldview.

So we erect that next to our worldview, which posits God as the only objective source for morality, and morality flows from God's nature.

Without God, you have no objective morality, and then it becomes subjective. So when you put them together side -by -side,

Chris, you'd be surprised just how quickly people can see the difference. Especially if you're, you know, if you have access to a blackboard like we do sometimes on the college campuses, and we're talking to the free thinkers or the skeptics group or the

Christian clubs on campus, you know, we'll draw something on the board, and we'll put a line between and say, okay, how can you have objective morality in an atheistic worldview?

What do you ground it in? And that's usually an empty space. Well, as a theist, what do we have? We start with God.

In the beginning, God. That's where, especially from a reform perspective, everything begins and ends with God. It's all

God. So from a presuppositional standpoint, we argue from the existence of God to the existence of morality, and even from an evidentialist point of view, we all know epistologically that morality exists.

The question becomes, how can it be objective without God? And by the way,

Tyler, I'm sure that my guest today, Anthony, will be willing to talk to you during breaks tonight and tomorrow if you go to the conference that Anthony is attending tonight and tomorrow that is being hosted by my second guest,

Pastor Bruce Bennett. He is having a conference that is not far from you. It's in Farmingville, Long Island, and that's not far from Mastic Beach.

And it's on God and government, a Christian response to politics. And the website where you can get all of the information on how to get to Word of Truth Church is wotchurch .com.

wotchurch .com. So Tyler, I hope you can make it to that conference tonight and say hello to Anthony and also

Pastor Bruce, who's my second guest, and perhaps you can have a much more thorough conversation about that.

Yeah, that'd be great. And well, now, where in your journey did you and Nick, how did you meet

Nick and how did you come to the conclusion, hey, we've got to start an apologetics organization called

New York Apologetics where we talk about presuppositionalism and superlapsarianism and stuff like that?

You know, again in God's providence, I was hosting a Bible study and one of the persons who was attending the

Bible study was also attending a church that Nick is an assistant pastor at.

And when she was going to college, she said, she asked me, would you like to do a debate with an atheist?

You know, so me and my big mouth said, yeah, sure. I set it up. No problem. So a couple of weeks later, she says, well,

I got the date and I got the person. Here's what we're going to do. And I was like, oh, you know, maybe my tongue cut a check that my mind can't cash at this point, but I said, all right,

I'm going to go through with this. And she said, you know, there's a pastor at my church who would really love to talk to you about this and help you along in it.

I said, terrific. So she put me in contact with Nick and he came to the house and we started talking and we hit it off immediately.

He's just a great guy, great personality. And he was real instrumental in helping me structure my arguments for that particular debate and actually kept me from going down a road that I was going to go down, which probably would have sabotaged the whole thing.

But as you saw, you know, you watched the debate that the people at LIU Post loved it.

They want more of it. It actually opened the door on campus for us to go there and do more things.

And that's when Nick and I said, you know what, we should do a website. So he's really good at that stuff.

So he put together a website called New York Apologetics dot com. That's turned into a real source of all kinds of evidence and arguments and theological things that are going to help you give a reason for the hope that you have.

So we really saw a need for apologetics in New York and specifically on Long Island, because all of the conferences, all of the guys who you hear about are mostly

West Coast or Texas somewhere. There's no real apologists in New York.

So we started New York Apologetics and we said, we need to bring apologetics to Long Island.

So we started organizing some people together. We've gone to several different college campuses, trained some people up in apologetics.

We've gone to several churches, given them apologetic material and trained them up in some of the arguments. And then we decided to do that debate at Stony Brook University, which we dropped a bomb on Stony Brook University when

Dr. Turek came in there and debated Michael Sherman. As you know, you were in the middle of it. Yes, I was the moderator of that debate.

You were right in the middle. And it was just amazing how the atheist in that debate just refused to abide by any rules and regulations.

But I guess that is very much logically consistent with being an atheist. His morality was subjective at that point.

Yes. But in fact, I even found myself disagreeing with both debaters at some points during the debate.

But I really enjoyed it. And I still have people to this day who say, hey, were you the guy that moderated that debate?

Oh, great. Great. Listen, I knew you were the moderator for James White's debate.

Again, like I said, when I saw you back in the Huntington townhouse and places like that, I knew you were the guy.

So it was easy for me. I told Nick, I said, I got the moderator, I know who we're going to use. And he agreed afterwards.

That was a great choice. So that really brought a lot of exposure to New York apologetics and then getting trained up at Cross -Examine

Instructors Academy with Dr. Frank Turek was a big help because we got to meet a lot of apologists that you might have heard of,

Jay Warner Wallace, Greg Kokel, guys like that really, really sowed into us and took us to the next level.

So now we're putting together a curriculum so that we can bring it to churches, train them up and then leave them with something that they can either play on the computer or DVD and teach their youth group.

Because as you know, once kids leave high school and go into college, they're going to get attacked.

And if they don't have real good reasons for what they believe and why, it's a good chance that they're going to fall away.

So I just want to make sure that they're given the correct information and they have something to stand on.

And listen, Christianity is a picture of reality. It's a picture of the world the way it actually is.

Everything makes sense in a Christian worldview. Once you step outside of it, that's when you have the problems.

But you know, the real problem is most people are on the outside and the church has to step up and do its job and give them the gospel, not just evidence.

And your website is newyorkapologetics .com and New York is spelled out. It's not the abbreviated version.

newyorkapologetics .com. Anthony, you know you have an open door here as long as we have a free studio that day with no guests and we would love to have you back soon.

Keep me updated on all of the activities you're doing so I can promote them. And I want to thank you again from the bottom of my heart for being not only a verbal encourager and a true

Barnabas to me in word and in writing, but also in your benevolence and your charity and your grace toward me.

And it's been appreciated more than you can imagine. Chris, the pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

I really appreciate it. It's my pleasure, brother, and we look forward to having you back. God bless you. God bless you too.

And coming up in just a matter of minutes is Bruce Bennett, who is the pastor of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, and he is going to be discussing the conference that we've been talking about God and government.

So don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with Pastor Bruce Bennett. Thriving Financial is not your typical financial services provider.

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Where Christ finds people and changes lives. Welcome back.

This is Chris Zarnes, and if you just tuned us in, our second guest today is Bruce Bennett, pastor of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, and he is announcing the

Word of Truth Church's seventh annual Bible conference tonight through Saturday, and we're going to be talking about that more during our discussion on today's topic,

God and Government, a Christian Response to Politics, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, my dear friend,

Pastor Bruce Bennett. Hey Chris, thanks so much for having me on today. Hey, it's my pleasure,

Pastor Bruce, and why don't you, once again, for those of our listeners who have just discovered this program and perhaps never heard you before, let our listeners know about Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island.

Word of Truth Church is a Reformed denomination, a Reformed group of believers, non -denominational, who meet together to exalt the glory of God in the

Gospel and then through the Word we look to have Christ uplifted in all that we do, say, and think as we present the doctrines of grace in an open but cautious atmosphere, welcoming the

Holy Spirit. Some would call us charismatic. We're not charismatic truly in that word, but we're endeavoring to welcome the

Holy Spirit as best as we can, and we have more of a contemporary worship style as opposed to a strict psalm -based or like a strict hymn -based hymnody of music during musical worship.

So we're in Farmingville, kind of in the center of Suffolk County, looking to reach the folks with the glorious Gospel of God's grace.

Great, and tell us about your seventh annual Bible conference that starts tonight and goes through Saturday.

Yes, so one of the burdens that God has placed on my heart in teaching the body of Christ is to recover a

God -centered view of all things, and I think one area that especially needs to be addressed in these times is

God's view of government, and we're going to be having a conference this weekend starting tonight, as you mentioned, dealing just with that subject, and we're calling it a biblical examination of government, a

Christian response to politics, and we're inviting several area pastors and also a professor from the

King's College in New York City to join us in diving into this topic and breaking it down in a way that believers can better understand this topic and how to impact this area more effectively for the glory of God and for the advancement of God's justice, righteousness, and peace here on the earth.

And so tell us, I know that David Innes is one of the speakers. I've had David on this program even recently.

He's a professor at the King's College of Politics, and who else is going to be speaking there?

Okay, so this evening I'll be presenting starting at 7 p .m. the general overview of the topic, a little bit about myself.

I've also run for political office three times, and I serve as a committeeman in my political party.

So I've had some hands -on experience also by vocational. My other job is teaching history law and government in a nearby high school outside of New York City.

I've been teaching for over 26 years now, and most of that teaching has been along these very lines.

So I have the academic and the practical experience, but most importantly the biblical exposure and biblical understanding of this topic.

So I'll be presenting kind of an overview of this this evening at 7. Tomorrow morning we'll begin our second session led by Pastor Rich Jensen from Hope Reform Baptist Church in Medford, and he'll be discussing the proper view of implementing

God's law to civil government, and then

Dr. David C. Ennis from the King's College will be presenting at 11 .30

a .m., and we have lunch, and then we have session for 1 .30.

Pastor Dave Corson will be speaking on the allegiances of us to the kingdom of heaven, and that being our primary allegiance, and then our secondary allegiance to our nation here on earth.

So in the sense of service, of course, we've got our primary service, and the

Lord always comes first, obviously, and then the civil government would be our next priority in terms of outward expression of bringing the gospel and justice, the call to justice to our neighbors.

And then finally, after dinner at 5 .45, section 5,

Dr. David C. Ennis will be presenting for the last session, and then we'll have a roundtable discussion with all of us.

Anthony Avino, who you've sat on, will be leading that discussion with a

Q &A involving the audience. So that'll be how we're going to wrap it up tomorrow night, starting at 7 p .m.

And please give my greetings to all of those brothers, because I know them all and have known them all for quite a number of years, and I've got to get my friend

Dave Corson back on the show, because it's been the longest period of time since I've interviewed

Dave Corson. He was live in the studio on Long Island when I used to broadcast from WNYG radio, and I dearly miss that brother.

He's a wonderful brother in Christ. And I don't know if you've ever seen Dave laugh, but Dave has a laugh like I can't even describe it.

It's unhuman. And I was at a

Broadway play with him and his wife, and my late wife and I were there, and I was laughing more at Dave laughing than I was at the play.

But what a wonderful brother. All of those brothers. And Pastor Rich Jensen has been such a monumental friend in my life, in the darkest hours of my life, as you have.

And I just thank God for all of you. And are there any known differences right now between any of the participants politically, any differences that you are aware of?

No, I think we're all on the same page. If anyone's going to be giving sort of a balance to where most of this will be headed, which is, for lack of a better word,

Christian activism, Christian participation, at least in terms of prayer, being aware of the issues, contacting your elected leaders and voting, at a minimum.

Pastor Corso will just give us that gentle reminder that our allegiance is to Christ and His Kingdom alone, and no matter what happens, ultimately, as we try to, in a constitutional republic that we've been granted to live in providentially, too much is given, much is required, we've been given that responsibility to uphold the foundation of this country, which is a

Christian constitutional republic. Pastor David will remind us that regardless of where it ends up in terms of the civil government, we know it's not going well right now,

Christ is still on the throne, and the true government, Christ's government, which is increasing every day in His people and through the

Church, will continue to grow and will continue to conquer. So he's just going to remind us of that as an encouragement.

And this issue of politics is something that, I don't know if you'll really appreciate how much it divides

Christians, even theologically like -minded Christians, and even Christians perhaps in the same pews at church, you'll never appreciate how much it divides them until you're on Facebook.

Because I have become utterly amazed at the viciousness that Brethren in Christ have towards each other when it comes to political issues, and I also find it ironic that some of the staunchest

Calvinists that share our theological views of God's sovereignty over all things act as if you don't have some kind of full -throated, zealous, enthusiastic support for Donald Trump.

You are going to be responsible for having Hillary Clinton elected and bringing the

United States into the category of a third world country in the next four years. I don't want

Hillary Clinton to be the President of the United States by any stretch of the imagination either, but I don't think it means that it requires of me to lie about what my opinions are of Donald Trump either.

But if you could comment on what I just said. Yeah, one of these things that I believe has just been so neglected in the body in terms of confronting directly, indirectly, we make overtures, we'll make statements like, hey, don't forget to vote, and things like that.

But as far as systematic teaching, it's been grossly wanting. It's interesting, if you go back to some of the sermons, especially in the late 18th century, you know, after the revolution, before the revolution, there was quite a bit of explanation going on as pastors elaborated on the various governments that God has ordained, namely self -government, family government, church government, and then civil government.

And of course, any discussion about this from a Biblical perspective has to fall with that. You know, the idea of just somehow letting things go, say, the way they are, as a lot of Christians want to approach it, not to discuss it like that, is untenable because the scripture at length unpacks our responsibilities on the various level of government, and especially on civil government, how it should be minimal, how it should be small, but where it does exist, it has to promote justice based on God's categories, and to promote the

God -given liberties that he's given us, that he will receive glory in the various calling that he's put on our life.

And very few churches are responding to that call directly, and even fewer are going even to the depths of where they should actually unpack, in a systematic way, a call to have a civil government like many of the early pastors in our country's founding were calling men to hold up a

Biblical view of civil government, where people would actually use the scripture in jurisprudence, that they would actually use it to formulate laws, they would actually use it to make sure that justice was being actually ordered in the streets.

So I think that's the problem. The church is disengaged. I'm seeing hopeful signs that we're re -engaging, especially thinking right now of Wayne Grudem's book that he just published recently called

Politics According to the Bible, a Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture.

I think it's works like this that are going to be a catalyst, re -engaging the pulpit, the pastoral ministry in the church to reignite

Christians to really engage with politics, not in a tongue -in -cheek way, not as like, oh, be careful what you say there, but from a

Biblical perspective, we could actually say that, for example, Donald Trump would be the more Biblical pick.

He's not the ideal pick by any stretch, but he would fit the category of moving the needle closer to justice as compared to Hillary Clinton, and we would therefore be obligated to vote for him because of that.

And if we shirk from that responsibility, then God will hold us responsible. And I think you can make a very good case in Scripture for that claim

I just made. So you would not believe that a

Christian who refrains from voting just because they don't, according to their conscience, want to be a participant in an earthly sense in the raising up of a leader that they believe to be dangerous, evil, fraudulent, whatever the case may be, just because they're the lesser of two evils, you don't think that that is at all an appropriate action, or even a better term, a refrain from action, from a

Christian to say, look, I'm just, I'm sorry, but I just cannot in good conscience pull the lever for Donald Trump during this election.

Well, they would have to give a defense for that position, which I don't think right now, given what we know about Trump, would actually be tenable.

I think that Donald Trump's character is obviously flawed, but whose character is not flawed, first of all?

People say, well, he crosses the line. Okay, so if he crosses the line, exactly how does he cross the line? And then what we have to do is go by the issues.

So if his character is fatally flawed, then of course we dismiss him at a whole course, but I don't think he's fatally flawed in terms of his character.

The Bible doesn't give us a measure like it does for the church government. It doesn't give us in civil government, a measuring line other than you should love righteousness.

In terms of Donald Trump's stated position on the issues, he says he loves righteousness on most of the pertinent issues, whereas Hillary Clinton is taking the opposite view on the issues of dealing with morality, which every government does deal with morality.

Let's understand that. Every issue that's going to be voted on as a policy or the ultimate law is going to deal with some matter of morality.

His stated positions are far more towards God's view on how a government should look than Hillary Clinton's.

So I would just say that a Christian who's saying that has to defend that position because his character fails what test?

There is no definite test for character for a civil leader, whereas there is for church government.

And again, on the stated positions, he is in line with virtually every one of the positions that the scripture would take on all different issues before us, whether it's the environment, whether it's the issue of abortion, homosexuality, the issue of taxes, the expansion of government.

Is he perfect? No, I think Ted Cruz and others were far closer to the ideal even from him, but compared to Hillary, he'll move the needle far more close to God's standard than Hillary would.

And by not voting, you are voting. So they're actually going to be helping to elect her, given that she's leading right now in the national polls.

So I would say that they would be responsible for this country, as you alluded to before, possibly losing its way to the point of becoming a third world country.

It's very possible. Well, there are those, I've even interviewed two candidates for president of the

United States with independent parties, people that probably the majority of my audience has never heard of before, and then, of course, the majority of the country.

But Darrell Castle with the Constitution Party and Tom Hoefling with America's Party, and both of them seem to put forth the case, and others that support them, is that the only way that we are ever going to bring about transformation and even our political system in America with the constant two -party choices that we are offered is to get conservatives to realize if you don't start setting forth

Republicans who are not compromising some of the core ideals of not only the

Constitution, but many of the biblical moral principles that we stand for, if you continue to produce these less adequate or inadequate candidates, we're not going to vote for you until something changes.

So therefore, they would even view perhaps the election of somebody like Hillary Clinton as being the kind of chastisement this nation needs to snap professing conservatives out of their slumber, if you follow what

I'm saying, and so they will vote for somebody that their conscience agrees with, even though they know the person's going to probably or certainly lose.

How do you respond to that kind of thought process there? I'd say it's an overreaction.

We're living in such a critical time right now, $19 .6 trillion federal debt, a moral atmosphere where almost eight out of ten

African -American children are born out of wedlock. For the first time in American history, there are more children in the

United States living without their biological mother and father in their home than are living with their biological mother and father.

We also have, for the first time in American history, a country that's now Roman Catholic. I don't know if you know this, but the

United States of America is now officially a Roman Catholic country. Really? When did that happen? Months ago, according to, yeah, because of immigration patterns.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Coming from Latin America and by profession, we're now 50 .1

Catholic, 49 .9 Protestant. So we're clearly in trouble in so many different areas.

As far as the economic situation, it's unprecedented that that debt is such an incredible time bomb.

Normally, if this was, let's say, 30 years ago and Donald Trump was running, I'd say, you know, run for the hills.

I mean, forget about it. No way. But he is, lack of a better word, our only hope right now in terms of moving the needle in civil government towards any semblance of trying to recover this thing.

The way Hillary has stated her position, she's going to continue Obama's legacy. And this president has done so much damage to this country morally and economically with Obamacare, doubling the debt, among other problems, excessive regulations, executive orders, the

Iran deal. I mean, there's just so many things that he's botched up that we're literally a

Titanic headed to the iceberg. And only Donald Trump right now has access to the wheelhouse to be able to steer this thing.

So Hillary doesn't even know where the wheelhouse is. So we've got to put someone at least who has a shot at turning things around, in my opinion.

So I would say that those people just simply are overstating the case, and they're actually going to do more damage than harm.

I understand where they want to go with this, but if you don't have a country to salvage, then what good is sending, you know, another message?

If people don't get the message after eight years of Mr. Obama, I mean, when will they get the message?

I mean, this man single -handedly redefined marriage. I mean, how do you get away with that? You know, so among many other things, we could just go on and on about this president's overtly socialistic actions on such incredible, humanistic and social actions, has done such incredible damage to this country.

We are that Titanic headed for an iceberg. We've got to get some relief quick. We've got to start steering the ship in a different direction quick.

And it may not be the best, ultimate direction, but at least it's a different direction under Mr.

Trump, so it'll bring us closer by no means to the ideal. So that's the way

I see it at this point. How do you respond to those that have a more libertarian leading, who are

Christians, who are theologically reformed, they abhor abortion and all these other things that the conservative

Republican would abhor and they stand arm in arm with them, but they see this dangerous, growing power in the federal government that they are really frightened by or concerned over with both parties.

They see a very little difference into the size of government that both candidates would be promoting.

And they see also that the independent libertarians are seemingly growing in some degree in popularity in the nation.

And therefore, if they see that the Republicans are losing votes to libertarians, perhaps the

Republican candidates that they're pushing forward will take more seriously the concept of very limited government.

They will want to appeal in a more genuine way to those who do not want a totalitarian government over us because of the fact that obviously the founding of this nation was diametrically opposed to that.

How do you respond to that group of Christian brothers and sisters in Christ who have that view? Yeah, and I've looked into the libertarian position and I understand the history of libertarian thought and like that.

People know about Gary Johnson's candidacy as a libertarian party nominee and so on.

But of course, there are many reasons why libertarians would say that he's not even truly that, that they're in favor of all kinds of gun control laws and they're really very inconsistent.

And of course, they don't believe in the liberty of life for the unborn either. And so they are in a different category, but unfortunately the most popular one in that group, in the nation that is.

Right, and I would go on and say that after examining the libertarian platform, and our listeners should be reminded that every political party has a platform.

The Republican Party's platform is just about as conservative and close to the biblical view of the various issues that you can get.

If folks haven't had a chance to read it, they can get a hold of that on the web and take a look at it.

But the libertarian party actually diverts itself away from biblical issues too many times.

And for that reason, libertarianism as just a political philosophy is not biblical.

It's not as biblical as the Republican platform is right now. The Republican platform is very conservative and close to the

Bible. On a national level, you can get the conservative party here in New York would have a very biblical platform as well.

And the Republican Party has taken, from my perspective here in New York, a very conservative approach that would match closer to a biblical alignment than the libertarian party would.

So I wouldn't even consider a libertarian candidate because they're just so against scripture on so many different issues.

Right. Well, like I'm saying, I'm not even talking about Gary Johnson and the libertarian party because I am disgusted by Gary Johnson's giddy support of same -sex marriage and abortion.

I mean, he would like to throw a parade in favor of those things, I'm sure. I'm not even talking about that.

I'm talking about more of the people that are in the area of the Constitution Party and other parties that are

God -fearing Christians who abhor abortion and seek to defend the biblical understanding of marriage and that kind of thing.

That's where I'm coming from. I'm not talking about the libertarian party, as it were.

Right. So the way I respond in that sense to, for example, the Constitution Party, and you're right, they would be very even closer than the biblical worldview.

I would say great, yeah, that's great, but right now we can't support them in terms of voting because they're not viable.

And until they become viable, we have to respect the two -party system that we have.

And they would have to get into the Republican Party because they're the closest, obviously, to where they come from and then try to influence the

Republican Party from that position. But the history of third parties in this country is that, yes, they can influence parties, but they can't make any substantial changes until those people actually go into those parties and get their positions dealt with in the main two -party system.

If you study the history of politics, whether it be today or in the past, invariably there's going to be two parties that emerge as a strong party.

Even in parliamentary governments, like in Israel or in Britain, you're going to inevitably have two dominating parties.

And all the third parties, for lack of a better word, obviously it could be 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, or whatever, in a parliamentary system that have representation in the parliament, can only get their agendas passed if they align themselves with one of the major parties.

You know what I'm trying to say. Here in America, it's very similar in that you're going to have to eventually get into the

Republican Party from the conservative side of things to do anything, because you're simply not going to be able to get enough votes nationally to be able to put yourself in a position where you can actually make change.

So until we have either a switch to a parliamentary system where third parties have more power or something changes drastically in America, it's a wasted vote.

And especially now at this time of crisis, if you and I were driving,

Chris, we had an accident and I'm paralyzed, I can't even move,

I'm crushed by the steering wheel, and I said, Chris, do mouth -to -mouth, because I'm having trouble breathing.

Sorry pal, meet you in heaven. I don't know if you're in EMT, I don't know if you're a first aid responder, you may not even have a clue how to do mouth -to -mouth.

But I'm feeling the air go out of my lungs, I'm like, Chris, help me, help me, do mouth -to -mouth,

I can't breathe anymore, I'm having trouble breathing. And you're like, well, I don't know what to do, I can't put my mouth on mine, what's the matter?

In other words, we're in a state of desperation right now that even somebody as deeply flawed as Donald Trump is, although there's some signs of his maturation, and he has apologized,

I was thankful of some of his renegade statements. We're in that position right now, people don't realize that we're in such borrowed time on this economic time bomb of national debt.

We have no gold standard anymore, the money could literally lose its value overnight if we have a severe economic collapse, you have no idea about that.

Since 1971, we've had no gold standard, so the money is a pure fiat currency, and when you own 20 trillion in the hole, what does that mean about your money?

So, I mean, we have such a crisis situation, we have a major terrorist event, or a major earthquake in LA, or San Francisco, whatever, for the last 20, 30 years since I have it.

If this major earthquake, or major national catastrophe, or major terrorist event, or other act of God happens,

America, with all economic forecasts, is basically finished.

We will be an unrecoverable state, we'll be looking for handouts from other nations, because we couldn't, we can't put more debt out there, we simply can't stick our hat out, and here, fill our hat with, you know, more taxes, and so on, it just, we don't have the money.

All right, we're going to be going to a break right now, it's our final break of the show, actually, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Bruce Bennett, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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We do have a couple of listeners that I'll get to in a second, Bruce, but just out of curiosity, how would you respond to my concern?

There is a very well -known pastor in Texas, amongst other people, who passionately and vociferously in the media support

Donald Trump, not so much because of the things that we should fear about Hillary Clinton, although that's involved in some of the speeches and so on that are given, it's because they think that Donald Trump is just a wonderful guy, the perfect man for the job, our man during this hour.

We've got to get this superb candidate in the office, and when somebody that enthusiastically in public is endorsing a man like Donald Trump with the same enthusiasm that they spread the gospel and even with the same urgency, who knows what this person that most

Christians would agree is not a believer, who knows what he will do in that office that may bring an enormous dark spot on our nation's history and may embarrass

Christians nationwide for being so public in their vocal, full -throated support of him, and people begin to look at us like we don't have any discernment, that we helped bring upon this country whatever kind of negative things may happen as a result of his election, and to me it does disturb me when

I see people who are taking that type of a tactic, not what you're even saying now, because I even remember the last time

I had you on the program, you were very concerned about Donald Trump's behavior during the primaries, but it just seems to me inappropriate especially for Christian leaders to be that publicly excited about Donald Trump.

That's where I'm coming from. I would concur. The gospel has to always be forefront and center of our mission.

It should never be compromised, and the proclamation of Christ, his cross, his call to repent and believe, the standards of righteousness that come out of scripture calling a nation to repentance always has to be forefront, and that has to be our primary passion.

Our love to our neighbor is after our love to God, and our love to God is, of course, representing

Christ and his gospel first and foremost, and so that should never be compromised. We do have an anonymous listener in New York who asks, my pastor is endorsing

Donald Trump from the pulpit. Do you think that that's ever an appropriate thing for a pastor to do during a worship service?

And I assume he means any candidate. I'm assuming he's not just speaking about Donald Trump, but is that an appropriate thing for a pastor to specifically endorse a candidate from a pulpit?

Yeah, well, first of all, it's illegal. There may be churches, as we both know,

African -American churches do it all the time with impunity. It's not necessary.

It's illegal, and it's not necessary. So it's a violation of New York state law here in this state because you lose your religious incorporation, non -profit status.

Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go 501c3 in order to become a non -profit. You're already a non -profit under federal law, but each state has its own laws, and one of the very, very specific laws for the religious incorporation law here in New York is that you cannot use your ministry as a church to endorse a particular candidate.

With that said, you can have that candidate in to speak to your church as long as you invite his opponent or opponents to conform to the law, and you can also speak on the issues that the candidates are dealing with and promote issues.

To specifically take a person's name and to endorse it is not wise, and it's illegal.

So is that your understanding, that these primarily African -American churches who have every election cycle have liberal candidates in their pulpits?

Of course, I'm not talking about every black church or even every major black church. Donald Trump even spoke at one recently, but I'm saying that it has been for decades a very commonplace thing for a liberal candidate to be speaking from the pulpit of an

African -American church, and it seems like you just don't see that very often in a predominantly white church.

Is that what they're doing? Are they going by the book in most cases that you're aware of? It's legal to invite a candidate for any public office into your church, and they can speak to whatever extent they'd like to speak as long as you've extended a similar invitation for a similar time to his opponent or opponents.

So there's no problem with that as long as they've extended that likewise invitation. So I would be curious to see, for example, in the churches in Harlem that typically have

Hillary or Bill or somebody of the Democratic Party, and have they extended a similar invitation to anyone who they're going against.

So that would be where they would run into the problem. And how about the pastors that are on Fox News supporting

Trump? Are they in any violation of any laws in that regard? Well, now you're dealing with federal

IRS regulations that under Lyndon Johnson were promulgated, and to my knowledge, as long as you're out of your church, as long as you're not speaking in the capacity of the officiant in that particular church, representing that particular church, and speaking in favor of a candidate as far as an endorsement.

Well, even they're identified as the pastor of so -and -so church every time. Yeah, there's a fine line there which

I couldn't speak authoritatively on as to how the IRS code. It's not statutory law.

It's regular law. It's a regulation that was promulgated from Lyndon Johnson via executive order.

I believe it was 64 he did it, or he could have. Don't call me on the year, but anyway, he's responsible for it.

And that IRS regulation, I believe, would probably allow that.

But if they were doing it from behind the pulpit or in their own church building, then from what

I'm familiar with, it would be a violation of our current IRS law. And the only sanction they would face is they would lose 501c3 status and or lose possible tax deduction privileges that they may have enjoyed on the federal level.

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says, how do you respond to those frustrated

Christian Republicans like I am who are so disgusted with the

Republican Party? Because whenever they seem to rise up in power in places of authority, little to nothing is ever done in regard to their promises regarding the abolishing of abortion and other things.

No matter what Supreme Court justices are appointed, no matter what Republican politicians win elections, we just see millions of babies being murdered just as if there were

Democrats leading the show. What is your response to us who are just totally frustrated and disgusted over this?

I would say quite simply, don't give up. If you look at recent history, we'll take Ronald Reagan as an example.

He was consistent in his pro -life policies. He did appoint solid justices to the bench.

Anthony Kennedy turned out to be a huge disappointment. But Anthony Kennedy, when he was appointed initially, was supposedly pro -life.

Let's look at Robert Bork. So you had a Democratic Senate. What we need to do is make sure we have a

Republican Senate, get a Republican president. Then we're going to get our justices in, and we'll start changing things.

By the way, it shouldn't even come down to this. The Supreme Court should not have this power. It was actually unconstitutional for them to have a final say on what should be matters of legislation.

Because in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says all legislative authority has been granted to the Congress. All these things are supposed to be decided by the

Congress. But until that changes and it comes back to the

Congress for proper adjudication, we have to hold steady and keep voting for the pro -life

Republicans, conservative Republicans, because eventually we'll align the White House with the Senate. Then that president can get what he wants accomplished.

Because if you don't have two branches, we're not going to get anything accomplished. What people have to be reminded of also, by the way, is if Hillary gets in, which would be a huge tragedy for America in so many different ways, if we keep the

Senate, we can stop a lot of what she would want to do. That would have a tremendous breaking effect on the wickedness she would like to promulgate in this country.

Okay, we have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, who says, How are you so sure that Donald Trump is going to be really faithful to his opposition to abortion when many of those

Republicans who are most vocal in the media, day after day after day, beating the drum for his election were pro -abortionists like Rudy Giuliani and others that were not ever really truly conservative or pro -life individuals?

Well, the makeup of the Senate right now is that we do, amongst Republicans, is that we do have a majority of the existing

Republicans in the Senate. And again, we need both the

Senate and the presidency to make any substantial changes in this country. The problem with whether it be George W.

Bush, who lost in 2006, or with Ronald Reagan, who most of his tenure had to do with the

Democrats in the White House, and I'm saying Democrats because the Democratic Party has embraced a humanistic or naturalist philosophy that in terms of economics is expressive of the socialism in terms of governmental power is lurking towards totalitarianism.

And they are vehemently pro -abortion, vehemently anti -marriage.

So we understand that unless you get the White House in conjunction with the

Senate, you're not going to make progress in the Senate. The Senate that's there is sufficiently pro -life, so there shouldn't be any worry.

If Donald Trump keeps his word, and here he gave us names of people to deploy, and every one of those names passes muster in terms of their pro -life credentials.

So we just have to take him on his word. It's all we have right now. Like I said, we don't have the luxury of having somebody else come in who we'd ideally like to have.

I'll go back to my illustration before. If I'm driving a car, it's me and Chris, and I happen to crash into a tree, and I'm about to die, and Chris is my only lifeline to just compress the air in my lungs, give me a lot to the ambulance, guess what?

I want Christopher to be the guy who's putting air in my lungs. Right now, Trump is the only person that I can see out there in the political landscape that has any chance of getting this country going in the right direction.

Hey brother, I'm getting a little uncomfortable with these analogies you keep bringing up. By the way,

Christopher, if you want to pick Pastor Bruce's brain more and all the speakers at his conference, since you're in Suffolk County, why don't you head down to Farmingville and go to the conference, and during the break speak to these people, and also hear what they have to say during the sessions, and the website is wotchurch .com,

wotchurch .com, and invite some folks from your own congregation with you, wherever that may be.

I want you to have at least four minutes to really unburden your heart to leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before they leave the program today.

Scripture talks about loving your neighbors, you love yourself, and we've been given the privilege of living in a constitutional republic, whereas Ben Franklin told a woman who asked him what kind of government was created here in the

United States, that a republic, if you can keep it, and that's the charge.

We have the charge to love our neighbor, we have the charge to preserve our governmental structure such that the standards of justice,

God's law, is obviously pro -life, pro -marriage, limited government, etc.,

would be erected through our participation, at the very least by praying, contacting our legislators as to the issues, and of course voting at a minimum.

And right now, whether it is a substantive choice on any level, it could be for president, it could be senator, state legislator, it could be for county legislator, town trustee, whoever, we have to select, if there are two candidates running it, we have to select the candidate who's going to move the needle of justice and righteousness closer to God's standard than by not voting, whereby we will allow a vote for, in many cases, or most cases, for the candidate who's going to bring the needle away from that standard.

Now, no one's saying that that needle's going to be put to the perfect standard. Only when Christ comes back will that needle be put into the perfect position.

Our job is headed towards that perfect position as far as we can push it.

And as much as we be active in, for example, protesting abortion, protesting various evil things in our society, the largest power we have to change these policies is actually by getting involved by, again, contacting our legislators and voting, and really considering also running for office ourselves.

So we should really be thinking about these things in a more systematic way, engaging more consistently instead of just cursing the political atmosphere off because we're not getting involved with it.

We have to get involved at the very minimum by being aware, contacting, and voting.

And for one, other candidates will bring that needle of justice and righteousness closer to the standard.

So I pray that we arrive at that conclusion because if we don't turn around things quickly, we don't have much future.

Now, how do you respond to those who are concerned, again, about the level of authority in government that they think

Donald Trump may bring about, even in his own statements about generals listening to anything that he commands them to do and so on?

Almost in some of his discussions, you get the imagery of a police state. Those things are often very appealing to us when somebody that we like or have a lot of affinity with is in charge, but we forget that the next four to eight years when somebody else is elected that may be in direct 180 -degree opposition to all that we hold dear, that person and that government will have the same authority over our lives.

And sometimes Republicans naively pave the way for those things. Like, for instance, even some of the things involved with Homeland Security and so on.

How do you respond to that? If I didn't see Donald Trump humble himself by apologizing for his prior statements, if I didn't see

Donald Trump listening to advisers who've been placed around him, if I didn't see Donald Trump choose a running mate like the man he chose, then

I would have reservations about divorcing him. But because of who he chose as his running mate, because of the advice he's taken, because the presidency is the most heavily influenced in terms of advice and advisers and counselors of any office on planet

Earth, I don't think Mr. Trump's opinions are so concretized that he will not be open to sound counsel, which he's already taken heed to, thankfully, and shown that he's teachable and he does have enough humility to listen to sound advice in this area.

So I think he's redeemable to some degree. He's been redeemed in that area. And I think it's a sign of what's to come that he will take sound advice and not give in to these statements that I think are just him thinking out loud and then seriously coming from his heart statements about him abusing authority and like that.

And last but not least, I'm assuming that being a post -millennialist, you think first and foremost that transformation can only come through this nation by the spread of the gospel and by wicked sinners repenting and turning to Christ?

Amen, brother, absolutely, positively. Well, I want to remind you all that the conference is tonight through tomorrow.

And for more detail, go to WOTChurch .com. WOT stands for Word of Truth.

Church .com. WOTChurch .com. Thank you so much, my friend and brother.

Look forward to having you back again in the future. I want to thank Anthony Uvino from New York Apologetics for being on as well during the first hour.

His website is NewYorkApologetics .com, and New York is spelled out N -E -W -Y -O -R -K -Apologetics .com.

I hope you all have a safe, blessed, joyful, and God -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

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