October 5, 2018 Show with Christopher Hutchinson on “Rediscovering Humility: Why the Way Up Is Down”

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October 7, 2018

October 5, 2018: CHRISTOPHER HUTCHINSON, author, U. S. Army veteran (including a combat tour during Operation Desert Storm), & Senior Pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia, who will address: “REDISCOVERING HUMILITY: Why The Way Up Is Down”

00:01: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:23: Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.
00:32: 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.
00:46: 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.
00:56: Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon
01:05: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
01:14: This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this fifth day of October 2018.
01:23: Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, about the Reformation Conference this
01:29: Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania featuring guest speaker
01:38: Mike Abendroth and Mike is a pastor at the Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
01:45: He's the author of a number of books and he is a popular conference speaker and a guest a number of times on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:55: The theme of the conference is Why the Reformation Still Matters. That's this
02:00: Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which happens to be a new sponsor on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
02:10: If you want more details go to gracebfc .com forward slash conference gracebfc which stands for biblefellowshipchurch .com
02:20: forward slash conference. You can also call the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at 717 -652 -5229.
02:29: 717 -652 -5229. But today we have, for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, at the highest of recommendations of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service who happens to be a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we have
02:49: Christopher Hutchinson who is an author, a U .S. Army veteran, including a combat tour during the
02:58: Operation Desert Storm and he is currently the senior pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia, which is a congregation in the
03:09: PCA denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. Today we are addressing his book, Rediscovering Humility, Why the
03:16: Way Up is Down and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Chris Hutchinson.
03:23: Thanks for having me, it's a privilege. And Pastor Chris, before we go into a summary of your salvation testimony, which we typically have our first time guests do,
03:37: I would love for you to give a little bit more details to our listeners about Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church of Blacksburg, Virginia.
03:44: Oh wow, okay, well we're pretty much a normal vanilla PCA church, really, that's really what we try to be.
03:55: So that means we're a biblical church. You have to be very careful using phrases like this in this day and age of hypersensitivity and political correctness.
04:04: Okay, oh I see what you're saying, well let me describe it a little bit more, we're a normal PCA church.
04:10: We preach Christ and his gospel every week, that's the main thing, is to lift
04:17: Christ up. But we happen to be in a college town, so we are right next to Virginia Tech, and we reach a lot of international students, so if you were to come into worship on a typical college
04:29: Sunday, we would not look very vanilla at all. We're quite multi -ethnic, quite multi -racial, very international in flavor, and I love that.
04:41: Oh yeah, it represents the description of the church in Revelation, that those from out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation worshiping the
04:52: Lamb. Exactly, yeah. And the PCA is one of the conservative denominations within Presbyterianism.
05:01: Some people who are less familiar with Presbyterianism and Reformed Theology immediately jump to the wrong conclusion.
05:10: As soon as they hear Presbyterian, they automatically think, oh you mean like the liberal church down the road with a female pastor who is also a lesbian and they endorse all kinds of things like abortion and so on.
05:23: But that is not at all the case with the PCA and the OPC and the
05:29: RPCNA and a number of other conservative and Reformed and biblically solid
05:35: Presbyterian denominations. Yeah, that's right, and we're all, those denominations you all mentioned are part of a larger group called the
05:43: North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, I think it is, NAPARC, and we all have basic beliefs of God's Word, the scriptures are infallible and authoritative, and we have to stick with them even if we don't understand all of it or don't like it or if our culture goes against it.
06:01: We have to stick with God's Word, and that's part of humility, really. Amen. And now, if you would, give our listeners somewhat of a summary of the account of your salvation, the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances the
06:20: Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. Yeah, well thanks very much.
06:25: Well, I was raised in the church. I was baptized young, we do that, and my parents were great parents, and we had a normal, middle -class upbringing, and we were part of the
06:38: Episcopal Church, and a fairly middle -of -the -road, progressive type of church where the gospel wasn't terribly clear.
06:46: But one day when I was about 10, my parents came home, and they had just been on a retreat, and they basically just said in so many words, we just became
06:55: Christians. Wow. They were brought to the Lord through the charismatic movement in the
07:00: Episcopal Church. Wow. So, neither being Reformed or Presbyterian is really in my background, so they brought
07:09: Christ into our home in a really meaningful way, reading scriptures every day, praying, and through that time,
07:17: I actually grew more religious, but I wasn't yet converted. I actually became more self -righteous.
07:23: I mean, I identified myself as evangelical, as born again, but I always thought that Jesus was for the sinners that were out there, outside the church.
07:34: And so when I was about 17, a couple things happened. One is my brother, my older brother, went off to college, and he became a
07:42: Christian in college and came back, and really for the first time, we became real brothers, and he started to care for me and love me and give me great
07:51: Christian books to read, so that had a big influence on me. Also, I started to read the
07:56: Bible myself every day, and that helps. And then by the end of my junior year in high school,
08:02: I really realized that I was the sinner. Now, that's not surprising to most of your listeners, but I really, where I was was,
08:14: I remember in Sunday school one day listening to the parable of the prodigal son, and I said to the
08:20: Sunday school teacher, this is in my Episcopal church, I said, what's wrong with the older brother? He's never left.
08:26: That's just like me. So there's a wonderful chance for my Sunday school teacher to give me the gospel of grace, where no, you are the sinner, you do, we're all prodigals.
08:35: But he didn't, because he didn't know how to really give the gospel. But the
08:41: Holy Spirit was working on my heart. He literally changed me from a gospel of works and self -righteousness, which is not gospel.
08:52: That's not good news. He brought me to the gospel of grace, that God saved me entirely by his grace, and all
08:58: I had to do was believe. So that was around May of my junior year in high school.
09:04: I don't have a day, I don't have a conversion moment, but I clearly looked back by the end of May and said, wow,
09:10: I've just been born again sometime. And everything changed at that point.
09:16: No, well, it's always nice to hear refreshing testimonies, because most of my Presbyterian guests, I think, say, well,
09:21: I can't remember the day that I wasn't a believer. No. It's very much law and gospel for me.
09:28: I was convicted by the law of God, and then I knew I needed a Savior. Amen. And so how did you discover
09:36: Reformed theology, and when did you come to embrace it? And then after that, or maybe even before that, how did you know that you had the call into ministry?
09:46: Yeah, great couple of questions. A couple influences on me, maybe two or three.
09:53: One was, once I was saved, I immediately started looking for another church.
09:59: And I asked my parents permission, and they gave me permission, and there happened to be an evangelical
10:05: PCUSA church in our town called Fourth Presbyterian. So this is all in Bethesda, Maryland, where I grew up, right outside of DC.
10:15: And so this was a great, large congregation with a wonderful preacher named Dr. Rob Norris, who did a blurb for my book.
10:23: Wow, that name is very familiar. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful, godly preacher and humble man.
10:30: And so I sat under his preaching for several years. They eventually left that denomination and joined the evangelical
10:38: Presbyterian church. And then my brother was involved at InterVarsity at Duke University, and that was actually a very
10:47: Reformed student group down there at the time, even to a point of some controversy, just explicitly
10:54: Reformed. And so he would bring home influences, J .I.
10:59: Packer, John Stott, people like that. So it was just reading, and even reading
11:05: C .S. Lewis, who I know is not explicitly Reformed, but just his emphasis on humility, really, and on grace.
11:13: And so pretty early in my theological trajectory, if I can say that word,
11:19: I realized humility had to be at the center of the Christian walk. And I really started looking around at the different theologies around me.
11:29: And I had been pressured a little bit to go on the charismatic side, and then I was being influenced by those Reformed guys.
11:35: I did not want to say Anglican at that time. And so I said, clearly, the
11:41: Reformed theology is the best expression of putting humility at the center of the
11:47: Christian life. So that's more or less how I ended up here. And how did you realize that you had a call upon your life to become a pastor?
11:58: Yeah, boy, another good question. Pretty early, I was leading my fellow
12:05: Christians and even non -Christians in Bible studies and so forth. I mean, really had some leadership opportunities early on, went on to college, continued some leadership things within our varsity again.
12:19: But then I was in ROTC, so I owed the Army several years, which was fine and glad to do it.
12:28: And so I wasn't quite sure where I would end up career -wise.
12:34: But after going through... In fact, I really wanted to go on the mission field in some degree.
12:39: But having gone through Desert Shield and Desert Storm, I'd gotten all the adventure out of my system. My wife and I had just gotten married a month, basically, before I was deployed, surprisingly.
12:52: And I thought, I probably need to get out of the Army really to work on my marriage, honestly. And wanted to test my gifts.
13:04: She had actually already begun seminary up at Gordon -Conwell in Massachusetts while I was deployed.
13:09: And they had a thing where two of us could go for the price of one. So I said to my church at the time, which was
13:15: Independent Presbyterian down in Savannah, Georgia, I said to them, I may feel called to ministry.
13:20: So in our system, you submit yourself to the local church elders, they evaluate your gifts, and they say tentatively, yes, we think you may be called.
13:28: So I did that. Went off to seminary. Still wasn't sure. Thought I might end up being a history teacher or something.
13:37: And here's the part of the deal which was important for me, is I had always been involved in very large, successful, growing churches.
13:45: And frankly, that intimidated me. And I did not think I could do that. But when we were in seminary, we got involved in a little teeny congregational church, still reformed, up on the coast of Massachusetts.
14:00: And it was about a hundred, two hundred people, blue collar, who just loved the
14:07: Lord. And I said, I think I could do something like this. If I could find a little church like this that would take me as their shepherd,
14:13: I think I could do this. And so I was really in seminary where I would say the call was confirmed. Well, let me just move back a little bit and find out why you had this desire, which actually came to fruition, to enlist in the military.
14:31: Oh, sure. Well, my dad was a 20 -year Navy veteran, and he went to the
14:37: Naval Academy. And he told both my brother and I, he really wanted us to serve in the military, to serve our country.
14:44: We're a very patriotic family. But he said, I don't want you to go to an academy because I want you to have a real life in college.
14:52: So he was very kind. He said, if you can get an ROTC scholarship, whatever else
14:58: I've saved up for you can be yours at the end of college. So we made a good deal.
15:03: And this was back in the 80s when ROTC paid a good bunch of it. So it was service to country.
15:11: That was one motive. Another was to help pay for college. And then also just the aspect of getting some world experience.
15:24: See, I grew up white, middle class, vanilla, if you will. And I wanted to get in there in the world and interact with people from different stations in life.
15:33: And the Army was great for that. So it really was a sense of service.
15:40: And I was in the Medical Service Corps, which our whole motto was service above self. Wow. I'm assuming that you may have seen and enjoyed
15:49: Hacksaw Ridge, which I thought was phenomenal. Yeah. Oh boy. I did see it.
15:55: I mean, I have to be careful watching war movies. I try to avoid all the gore too much. But yeah, that's a great lesson.
16:04: The phrase that stays with me when it says, Lord, give me one more. Yeah. Lord, give me one more.
16:10: What a hero. Yeah. And when you're sitting there watching that movie, you're saying to yourself, this can't be true.
16:16: And then at the end, they have the surviving comrades in arms that he rescued, at least some of them giving testimony, the actual people, not the actors.
16:27: Yeah. Giving testimony to concur that the movie was actually true. But anyway,
16:34: I highly recommend it to our listeners, if you haven't already seen it. And by the way, I just had a thought that came in my mind.
16:40: I've got to introduce you to Colonel Kevin Gerard, who's in the
16:46: United States Marine Corps. He's also a pastor in Dawsonville, Georgia, along with Ray Rhodes.
16:56: And he's a Reformed and Baptistic Christian and loves to give out books, purchase books and give out books to soldiers.
17:09: And he loves Thoughts for Young Men by J .C. Ryle that he orders from Solid Ground Christian Books.
17:16: And I will definitely let him know about this, because this is obviously, I think, right up the alley of that kind of reader.
17:24: I hope so. And I use several illustrations from my Army days. Those were wonderful years of growing up and learning how to serve people and getting beat up.
17:37: Still going on and trying to serve the Lord above all in that very secular environment.
17:46: Praise God. Well, if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own about humility, our email address is
17:52: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
17:59: Please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the
18:05: USA. Well, what were the circumstances in your life, perhaps not only personal experiences, but biblical studies or something that drew you to the point where you said,
18:18: I've got to write a book about humility? Oh, gosh. It's always, it's been on my heart for literally decades now since my conversion and since entering the pastoral ministry.
18:33: And I think two things. One is, I really do believe it's at the center of the Christian life. And I organized the book around the three times
18:40: Jesus says, if anyone exalts themselves, they will be humbled. But if anyone humbles themselves, they will be exalted.
18:48: And that's kind of the gospel right there, where the God of glory only lives with those who humble themselves before him.
18:58: That's Isaiah 57. And then you see that spelled out through the rest of the epistles when
19:04: Paul and Peter and James and John say, what does it look like to follow after Christ? And it's by picking up your cross.
19:11: It's dying to yourself and having more of Christ and putting others first like Jesus did for us.
19:17: Praise God. So while I'm learning that,
19:23: I've also joined the evangelical sub -movements within Christianity in America.
19:29: And I realized how much of evangelicalism doesn't pay much attention to humility.
19:35: It's very much about numbers and outward glory and political influence sometimes.
19:42: And I thought there was something missing. So I thought maybe another book could be helpful.
19:50: And so I also was reading about it. I read a lot about it in the theology of Jonathan Edwards, who very much understands the logic of humility, because everything is by grace.
20:03: Probably the most cited giant of the faith from history on this program by my guests is
20:11: Jonathan Edwards, as you well should be. And yeah, I took a class upon him with George Marston at Duke when
20:17: I was there. So that piqued my interest. And I read
20:23: Andrew Murray's little book actually over there in the desert. I grabbed it in the little bookstore in Georgia before I went over there and I put it in my rucksack.
20:32: So that's a wonderful little book on humility by Andrew Murray. But none of these books on humility that have been written in the past 10, 20 years have dealt with humility in the church or Christian culture.
20:44: It's all about individual piety, which of course is where we need to start. But then how should that affect radio shows or conferences or the way we conduct worship services or do evangelism?
20:57: And so that's, I thought that needed to be addressed. And so that's what I spent the second half of the book on. You know, so in other words,
21:05: I should not be using Rush Limbaugh as my role model for radio hosting. I'm not even going to go there.
21:12: Talent. What is it? Talent on loan from God? Yeah. No, I will go there a little bit.
21:20: I do think a lot of conservative Christians get a lot of their cues from talk radio and that it does not reflect the heart of Christ a lot of times.
21:31: Right. And I think that they use these in their politics. But as far as the braggadociousness and the cruelty to political enemies and mocking people all the time,
21:42: I think it's done a lot of damage to the conservative church. Right. Not to say that we cannot glean information that happens to be factual and so on.
21:51: Right. But it's the braggadocious character that we have to avoid as Christians.
21:59: Well, this may seem like a very simplistic question. It may seem even like a foolish question to listeners who hear me ask it, but I think it's important because people may even unconsciously have a wrong definition or there may be varying definitions.
22:19: But in your opinion, from what you know about the scriptures and what you know about actual vocabulary accurately used, what is the proper definition of humility?
22:33: Yeah, that is a great question, and I'm a little stubborn about that. I actually refuse to give a definition in the 240 pages of the book.
22:43: Isn't that obnoxious? I say, you know what, let's not let Webster tell us what it means.
22:49: Let's just look at all the different biblical stories. You can look at the etymology, if I'm saying that word correctly.
22:57: Humilitas, I believe, means from the earth, from the dust. So as you look at the biblical stories and you see different men and women in the
23:08: Old Testament show meekness before God and become servants to others, all of that, of course, leads to our
23:14: Lord Jesus Christ. He is God Almighty, all -powerful, omnipotent everywhere, and yet he, as everyone knows who listens to your show, became a little baby for us and then humbled himself even to the point of death, death on a cross.
23:35: He died as a criminal. So that is the marker of the Christian life, to try to imitate
23:41: Christ in his service to others. Amen. And the concept that many people who are falsely professing to be
23:55: Christian themselves or those who are just members of secular society who have a high regard for Jesus but it is really a
24:06: Jesus of their own imagination or a Jesus of greeting cards or a Jesus of fictional
24:11: TV and movies, they have this notion about Jesus in regard to his humility that makes him very approachable to them but in such a way that it diminishes his righteousness, his glory, his power, his omnipotence.
24:37: I know people who will use vulgarity when speaking in the same sentence as Jesus and they'll say,
24:52: Jesus is my friend and he likes to crack a joke with me now and again.
24:58: He laughs in heaven when he hears me say that. And they are not afraid of this
25:04: Jesus. They love the Jesus, the baby Jesus in the manger, and they love the
25:11: Jesus that seems to be nothing more than a hippie blowing kisses to everybody and just being nothing but meek and mild.
25:21: But this is a total, a really twisted understanding of what humility is, isn't it?
25:28: It is, yeah. And I address that in a couple of chapters. One is called humility and truth.
25:36: I call that hope for fools. It's where Paul says if you want to become wise, first become a fool.
25:43: And so people who think they can define who Jesus is or who God is from their own thinking, that's not humility at all.
25:52: Real humility is submitting to what God has revealed. And it's not arrogant to then repeat that.
26:00: If God has told me something and I know he has in his word, then the most humble thing
26:07: I can do is believe it and tell others about it. So that's the first thing. And then you have to receive
26:13: Jesus as he is, as he has revealed himself to be, both judge and savior, both king and servant, both priest and sacrifice.
26:24: And the second place I deal with this is the chapter on humility and the gospel, which is you begin with the gap between a holy
26:33: God and our sinfulness. And you can look at Isaiah 6 where God reveals himself to be holy, holy, holy, the famous teaching that R .C.
26:43: Sproul reminded the church of decades ago. And so our only hope then is a
26:49: God who saves us entirely by grace. And that's one reason I'm Reformed, is the more we realize our own sinfulness, the more we exult in God's grace because it's our own.
27:00: Amen. Well, we're going to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is
27:06: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
27:12: Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the
27:17: USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
27:25: That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.
27:30: Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Pastor Chris Hutchinson and our discussion on humility.
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34:36: That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,
34:47: Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.
34:55: He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.
35:00: You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the
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35:32: That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.
35:41: Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget to keep praying for the recovery of Mike Gaydosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, who, if you listen to this program enough, you know that he is home from the hospital recovering after very serious, dangerous, life -threatening, and complicated open -heart surgery.
36:05: He is recovering well. He is gaining new strength every day, according to his own personal report to me.
36:13: And so keep praying that the Lord raises him up to newness of strength and health and vitality, and even in a spiritual sense, as well as a physical, as a result of this trial that our loving and gracious Lord has placed him in.
36:27: And I would really appreciate it if you could help Mike out by placing a huge order for books with Solid -Ground -Books .com.
36:37: While he was laid up in the hospital, he suffered a really serious dip in sales.
36:45: So please go to Solid -Ground -Books .com. Start doing your Christmas shopping today at that website.
36:53: Help replenish with new orders that which was lost during this time of sickness that our brother had to endure.
37:05: And please, make sure you always tell him that you heard about Solid -Ground -Books .com from Chris Arns and Anion Trip and Zion Radio.
37:12: One more reminder, before we return to our guest today, Chris Hutchinson, on our theme,
37:19: Rediscovering Humility, Why the Way Up is Down, I just wanted to remind you that our new sponsor,
37:25: Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is conducting their Reformation Conference tomorrow and Sunday.
37:31: That's Saturday, October 6th, and Sunday, October 7th, at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church on 1250
37:37: Colonial Road, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The featured speaker is Pastor Mike Abendroth, who is a prolific writer, a published author, and a very popular conference speaker, especially among those who are theologically reformed.
37:52: And he has been a guest on Anion Trip and Zion Radio a number of times. His theme will be, Why the
37:57: Reformation Still Matters. Go to gracebfc .com forward slash conference gracebfc, which stands for biblefellowshipchurch .com
38:07: forward slash conference or call 717 -652 -5229 717 -652 -5229
38:14: We are now back with Pastor Chris Hutchinson of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia, discussing his book,
38:23: Rediscovering Humility, Why the Way Up is Down. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com
38:34: We do already have a question from Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks,
38:43: It is interesting that a military man has written a book on humility because, in the minds of many, being a
38:50: Christian is bad enough when joining the service because people wrongly think that you are going to be weak or pacifist, but adding humility on top of it seems to be counterproductive in the minds of many misled people who have this idea of machismo and braggadocio being equivalent to strength and courage.
39:14: If you could nail that one down for our listeners so that they can more fully understand why humility is actually a perfect ingredient to a dedicated soldier wanting to defend not only his comrades in arms but his nation.
39:28: Oh yeah, what a wonderful question. And that's one thing I do want to talk about in the book is every
39:34: Christian needs to bring Christ with them into their workplace and that means humility is at the center and if you are called to be a military officer or a soldier or a sailor or a marine, you need to bring that with you.
39:46: Jesus did not tell the Roman centurion to leave the service nor did Peter tell
39:51: Cornelius to do the same. A couple thoughts. One is a quote that I have in the book which is credited to George Marshall it seems like he took it from someone else but it's a wonderful quote and if you might remember,
40:05: George Marshall was the chief of staff during World War II so he was over MacArthur he was over Eisenhower and George Marshall said there's no amount to the end of good you can do in this world as long as you're willing to let someone else take the credit.
40:25: And he was a man of great service and who put his country first, an incredibly accomplished man, an incredibly competent man, but you never hear about him as much as you do about Patton and these other guys.
40:38: So that's the one thing is you put your others ahead of you, you put your country ahead of you, you put human rights ahead of you so even going into combat the
40:51: Geneva Convention and human rights is more important than winning the battle for the Christian, believe it or not. And you trust the
40:58: Lord and so others will see that as you are since you are doing it for the
41:06: Lord, you're not caring about your life as much. So again, it all gets down to motive. I remember another story where we were trying to figure out which branch of the army to go into.
41:17: I tried the Navy first and decided there was too much metal surrounding me and all those machinery and everything
41:22: I really wanted to be on land. So God and his sense of humor stuck me in the mechanized infantry. But before I got there we were trying to figure out which branch to serve in and I remember an infantry officer coming to talk to us and he was showing us slideshows of his combat tour in Grenada back in the day in the 1980's and he said, here's why you want to go infantry.
41:49: When you go infantry everyone else works for you. Every other branch works for you.
41:55: And I thought that's really not a Christian worldview. What he could have said was you want to go infantry because that way you serve everyone behind you.
42:04: See that? There's the difference. One says go infantry because everyone's working for you. The other says
42:09: I want to go infantry because I take the bullets and serve the people behind me. It's not the position, it's the heart that you bring to the position.
42:19: Well thank you Arnie and please give us your full address in Perry County, Pennsylvania because you have won a free copy of Rediscovering Humility, Why the
42:28: Way Up is Down compliments of our friends at New Growth Press and it will be shipped to you compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CVBBS .com
42:39: who ship out all of our winners Bibles and books and other items when they submit questions to our guests.
42:46: So thank you very much for contributing an excellent question to our program today. Let's see, we have
42:53: CJ in Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York who asks, could you differentiate between being a humble person and allowing yourself to become a doormat?
43:09: Yeah, that's another really wonderful question. I think first of all, you begin with humility towards God and I talk in the book about what humility is not and one of the things it is not is denigrating yourself and the gifts that God has given you.
43:33: So a humble person is an objective person and if you happen to be a terrific painter, then you don't deny that, you just say it came from God.
43:42: It's literally a gift and you paint paintings to the glory of God and to serve others and to bring pleasure to others.
43:50: And that's true whether you're a teacher or an accountant or a car mechanic. You are gifted in those things, don't deny that.
43:59: And so when it comes time to conflict and maybe that's where the question is going, you want to put truth first and God's glory first and stand for that.
44:12: So sometimes humility means taking some errors. Sometimes humility means being courageous because you're wanting to do what
44:21: God wants, but you have to fight in the right way. You don't just give in.
44:26: You don't just say, okay, you're right, no problem. But you have to do it with gentleness and respect as you're having the argument as Peter tells us in our evangelism, 1
44:37: Peter 3 .15. You have to do it in a listening way where you actually listen to the other person and try to understand what they're saying before you try to change their mind and who knows, as you listen to them, maybe you'll realize they are right and you are wrong.
44:55: I think keeping that balance of putting truth first and realizing you're not always right, that's part of the
45:04: Christian walk and probably the best guide for that is the book of Proverbs. Just read the book of Proverbs and the
45:11: Sermon on the Mount and just pray for the Holy Spirit to help you with that. I guess we have to be careful about how you would define being used as a doormat because obviously
45:24: Jesus Christ received silently scourging and torture and crucifixion but there are those that are wrongly abused who their beating and their abuse and their torture is not something that is of value to anyone.
45:52: Obviously Christ's death is what was necessary for all of his people to be saved so I guess we have to be careful about what we mean by doormat.
46:04: If a wife is being abused by a husband and she is just a punching bag and you have a husband who is a moron or just an evil person who is trying to twist what it means to be a submissive wife she needs to go to her elders.
46:22: She needs to even call the police. I want to be very clear about that.
46:27: Humility does not mean letting someone else commit criminal acts against you. Humility in that case is submitting both of yourselves to the authorities so an abused wife needs to call the police.
46:40: Sadly but that's what she should do. And you have also won a free copy of the book that we are discussing today on humility so please make sure that you give us your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com
46:58: can ship out your own copy of Rediscovering Humility, Why the Way Up is down. Before we go into any more listener questions
47:06: I would like you to really lay out primary elements that have to be included when understanding humility biblically.
47:16: Well some things I've already talked about. One is God's holiness. You start with him. You don't just start with nature and your own thoughts.
47:24: You start with who God is. Once you've properly understood God then you need to understand yourself.
47:29: So I'm just relying on John Calvin here. What he says is the two important things for everyone to begin with truth is knowledge of God and knowledge of self.
47:40: And you realize that we are sinners and we live alone by mercy. Every good gift we have is by mercy and grace alone.
47:48: As Paul tells the Corinthians, what do you have that's not been given you? Then you realize so that's the first thing.
47:56: God's holy. I'm sinful. Then hopefully once you've received his grace of salvation through Christ then the next step is to say
48:05: I have been called to be in community. And so if I really love God it's going to show itself by the way
48:10: I love others. They're sinners just like me and there's going to be a bunch of mess and we're going to have to work things out.
48:18: The main way for me to grow in Christ is to humble myself before my brothers and sisters in Christ and serve them and be united with them in Christ.
48:31: That's just called life in the church. Yes, putting others, their interests, their needs, their well -being before your own is something that the best of us find very often difficult to do.
48:50: Some more than others. In fact, I think it's what we're seeing on our televisions and on our computer screens during the
49:04: Senate hearing with Judge Derek Kavanaugh this is doing something not only in the heart and minds of people
49:15: I frequently see and correspond with but in my own heart and mind you cannot help sometimes or maybe
49:25: I shouldn't use that phrase that you cannot help but because of our remaining sin in our hearts and minds even if we're regenerate
49:34: I feel the stirrings and the uprising of hatred in my heart and mind against these evil people that is so transparent that they are looking out for their own political gain and their own agenda rather than truth and how do we face these kinds of things with humility but at the same time with righteous indignation because in a case like this it's not we who are being slandered and being not only slandered but slandered with unbelievable and astronomically wicked being guilty of astronomically wicked deeds that would even be equivalent to war crimes in a sexual nature gang rape and all these kinds of things it's not us who are receiving that in the judge
50:37: Kavanaugh case it's somebody else so how do we as Christians not become too passive and soft in the way we react to this but without remnants of hate especially overt hatred that sometimes bubbles up out of us yeah that's a great point gosh you're asking some great questions well
51:03: I do talk a little bit about the church's attitude towards culture so I think the first thing we begin with is that we have a counter culture within our secular culture the church needs to set a different way it's not about winning it's not about power and control because our model is a king who came and became a servant he who is rich beyond all splendor for our sakes became poor and so the church needs to try to imitate our lord
51:35: Jesus in the way we encounter the culture wars we need grace so that sinners democrats, republicans, independents, libertarians socialists, all of them they can come to our church and hear about the cross and they can hear about the resurrection and that's primary not whatever thing the media is telling us is primary so we need to let our marching orders be taken from the word of God the story of the gospel not from the latest controversies usually but we do have to address the sins of culture and say and basically say look we are sinners too we have found bread we don't deserve
52:20: God's grace and you don't either and so we look at the kind of church
52:27: Jesus gathered around him and his apostles one of them was a tax collector for Rome so he was a traitor if you will serving big government he was a government bureaucrat
52:38: Matthew the tax collector and then another was Simon the zealot who from his title we know is in favor
52:45: I guess of killing Romans if given the chance and Jesus brought them together and said I've come to do something greater something more important I've come to bring grace to all kinds of sinners
52:56: Jews Romans, Arabs Cretans, Scythians Barbarians and so the gospel breaks down these political these walls of anger and it's really hard to do on Capitol Hill we can't fight our battles there we've got to do it under the word and under sacrament and prayer together in the body of Christ I know that doesn't directly answer your question but I really think the
53:24: New Testament brings us a third way of dealing with these things it's called the church we have an anonymous listener who says what advice do you have to young ladies especially single young ladies who seem to be drawn to young men who are filled with pride and arrogance that is so heavily promoted in the hip -hop culture and even much of what is taught in public schools in regard to self -esteem there seems to be absent from the interests of many young women young men who are potential spouses that are humble young men there are men that do not stand out in the crowd with loud voices and pride young men who are being viewed wrongly as perhaps insecure or even cowardly just because they are humble how can we correct this erroneous notion in the minds of many young women who are seeking for a spouse especially in regard to our
54:33: Christian young ladies and sisters in Christ Boy, what a wonderful question a couple texts
54:41: I would go to one is Ephesians 5 when it talks about what a godly husband is and he is someone who is like Christ was to his church so he is someone who lays down his life for his wife gave himself for her sacrificial so we want our young ladies to seek out the spirit of Christ in the men they would admire how do you get them
55:09: Romans 12 one comes to mind so after Paul is given the doctrine of the gospel he then says that we should let our minds be renewed and no longer conform to the ways of this world thinking of this world but have our minds renewed and then he goes on to describe what that looks like and he begins with love he begins with life in the church and love and so we need even though they can watch
55:35: Netflix and they can get on the internet and Facebook and be influenced by the world we need to have them influenced just as much or more by the scriptures and by Christian fellowship around them so that what appeals to them is godliness and not the glitter of this world and I can assure you that the vast majority of women who wind up marrying proud and arrogant young men after a while when they see that their opinions are being treated as nonsense and that they may even become treated like dirt or as objects they are going to long for the day that they married a humble man and humility as we have been saying throughout does not equate to weakness it can equate to the height of strength right and humbly bearing whatever trials the lord has sent our way and a lot of that has to do with relationships and choices that we've made but knowing it's all from god's good hand and we have to go to our midway break right now if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com
56:54: c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com please give us your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the
57:02: USA please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter and by the way our last anonymous questioner please give us off the air of course your full name and your full mailing address because you also won a free copy of the book that we are discussing right now by our guest pastor chris hutchinson on humility so send us that information to chrisarnsen at gmail .com
57:26: so that our friends at cumberland valley bible book service cvbbs .com can ship that out to you as soon as possible don't go away god willing we'll be right back with pastor chris hutchinson and by the way this is a longer than normal break so this is the time when grace life radio 90 .1
57:44: fm in lake city florida needs to air their own advertisements and public service announcements to localize iron sharpens iron radio to lake city florida so use this time wisely please be patient with us during this longer break and use this time wisely to write down information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently patronize them and the more you patronize our advertisers the longer they are more likely going to advertise on our program and we rely upon those advertising dollars to exist also please send in questions during this time to our guest pastor chris hutchinson chrisarnsen at gmail .com
58:25: don't go away we'll be back after these messages from our sponsors tired of box store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship 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 and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you call them at 631 929 3512 for service times 631 929 3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us
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01:03:13: Gotta tell you, for my money, Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best.
01:03:19: Iron. Criticizing iron. I think that's what it's called.
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01:03:32: G3 Conference, which has almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country. And it is.
01:03:37: It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.
01:03:43: It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight for me.
01:03:49: So tons of stuff going on. Tons of great speakers. And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear Chris Arnzen's laugh.
01:03:55: And that's worth the price of admission alone. If you would like to join Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers, and me, g3conference .com,
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01:06:12: Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.
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01:06:57: That's liyfc .org. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.
01:07:11: I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.
01:07:16: Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.
01:07:23: Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the
01:07:29: Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.
01:07:37: Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many
01:07:43: Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.
01:07:49: He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Currently, his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more and in approximately 10 different states.
01:08:02: In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the
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01:08:19: I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.
01:08:26: Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.
01:08:33: Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:08:40: That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:08:56: I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.
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01:09:29: That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.
01:09:42: Their website is cvbbs .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the
01:09:53: Church, and to Christ. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com.
01:10:00: That's cvbbs .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
01:10:07: And you can also call cvbbs .com at their toll -free number, 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231,
01:10:16: Monday through Friday between 10 a .m. and 430 p .m. Eastern Time. And cvbbs .com
01:10:23: also happens to be a favorite source for excellent Christian literature of my guest today,
01:10:30: Pastor Chris Hutchinson, whose book we are discussing and whose book, I believe, is featured on the front page of the cvbbs .com
01:10:38: website, Rediscovering Humility, Why the Way Up is Down, published by our friends at New Growth Press.
01:10:45: But if you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio and you order at least $50 worth of merchandise, you will not only receive free shipping on your entire order, but you will also receive the book, the journalable,
01:11:00: Psalm 119, published by Reformation Heritage Books, absolutely free of charge.
01:11:06: Make sure you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Before we return to our guest,
01:11:11: Chris Hutchinson, on our theme, Rediscovering Humility, Why the Way Up is Down, just have a few more exciting announcements about events that we hope that you attend, including one that I've already mentioned but bears repeating, the event being held by our new sponsor here at Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
01:11:35: Their Reformation Conference on the theme, Why the Reformation Still Matters, is being held, God willing, tomorrow and Sunday, that's
01:11:43: Saturday, October 6th, and Sunday, October 7th, at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church on 1250
01:11:48: Colonial Road in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The speaker is Mike Abendroth, who is the senior pastor at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts, and he's the author of a number of books.
01:12:00: He is a very popular conference speaker and a guest very often on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
01:12:08: And if you'd like more information about registering for this two -day conference, go to gracebfc .com
01:12:14: forward slash conference, gracebfc, which stands for biblefellowshipchurch .com,
01:12:20: forward slash conference. You can also call 717 -652 -5229, 717 -652 -5229, and we thank
01:12:29: Pastor Josh Miller and the saints at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for being new sponsors of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
01:12:39: Also, there's an event where I am going to be manning an Iron Sharpen's Iron exhibitor's booth next month.
01:12:45: That's November 9th and the 10th in Quakertown, Pennsylvania at another
01:12:51: Grace Bible Fellowship Church, this one at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
01:12:57: And this is the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
01:13:04: The theme is the glory of the cross, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, and Timothy Gibson and Carlton Winn.
01:13:14: Once again, that's November 9th and the 10th at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania. For more details, go to alliancenet .org,
01:13:23: alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.
01:13:29: Then, coming up in January, the event that I am so thrilled to attend for the last three years, well, this will be my third, actually, in January.
01:13:38: From Thursday, January 17th, through Saturday, January 19th, that's the G3 Conference.
01:13:45: This stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory to be held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
01:13:55: They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people there this January. And so I would strongly urge you to not only register to attend as an audience member, but also to register for your own exhibitor's booth, just as I will be manning, because when you have 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 people milling around, that is an excellent place for certain to have an exhibitor's booth for your church, parachurch, organization, or business, whatever you want to promote amongst a crowd that size.
01:14:26: The speakers this year, or this January, I should say, include my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, John Piper, Stephen J.
01:14:35: Lawson, Voti Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M. Bayway, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, the
01:14:42: Executive Director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you. We have Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J.
01:14:50: Nichols, the President of Reformation Bible College, the Bible College founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more are on that lineup.
01:14:59: Go to G3conference .com, g3conference .com to register for attendance or even for your exhibitor's booth.
01:15:08: Last but not least, if you love Iron Trip and Zion Radio, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please donate as frequently as you can and as much as you can to Iron Trip and Zion Radio by going to irontripandzionradio .com,
01:15:19: click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card, or you can also mail in a check the old -fashioned way to the address that appears on the screen when you click support at irontripandzionradio .com.
01:15:34: Please always remember that I never want anybody to siphon money away from their regular giving that you're accustomed to to their local church where they are a member.
01:15:43: Never do that and never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Those two things are commands of God supporting church and family.
01:15:52: Providing for my show is not a command of God, obviously, but if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, and you love the show and you don't want it to disappear, please go to irontripandzionradio .com,
01:16:03: click support, then click, click to donate. Now, if you want to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
01:16:10: put advertising in the subject line. As long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, you don't have to believe identically with me, but you need to be promoting something that's compatible with what we believe, then we would love to promote whatever it is you're doing or whatever services you provide.
01:16:27: That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Also, if you are without a church home, if you're not prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God, so please rectify that situation immediately.
01:16:38: If you're having a hard time, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put I need a church or something similar in the subject line, and I have lists of faithful churches all over the world, and I can help you find a church just as I have already done for a number of the
01:16:52: Iron Trip and Zion listeners, even in other parts of the world like Australia. So I look forward to hearing from you at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
01:17:00: and that's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest, Pastor Chris Hutchinson, and Pastor Chris is not only an author, but he is a veteran of the
01:17:13: United States Army and won a tour at least of Operation Desert Storm, and I'm just looking forward to the rest of our interview, and I hope you are as well on the theme of humility.
01:17:29: That's rediscovering humility, why the way up is down. Our questions can be sent to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
01:17:39: and Pastor Chris is also the senior pastor at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia.
01:17:49: So send in the emails to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
01:17:57: If you could, Pastor Chris, continue to compare and contrast true humility with the false concepts that develop in people's mind when it comes to humility.
01:18:12: Yeah, thanks. That's a great question. And by the way, I just want to commend you for when you were asking for money, you said, please put your family and your church first.
01:18:21: That is so rarely said, and I just want to commend you for being humble in that regard. Well, I really appreciate that.
01:18:27: Really, it shows you it's a ministry of integrity, so I appreciate that.
01:18:33: Yeah, I actually have a whole chapter on false humility because I think even reflected in some of the questions we've heard, people think of it as a kind of personality type or a demeanor, where you can say, all shucks, well,
01:18:47: I think a lot of politicians are able to kind of fake humility well. So a couple things about it.
01:18:54: One is humility is not something you can work yourself. If Benjamin Franklin once said, look, if I could make myself humble, then
01:19:04: I'd quickly become proud of my humility. And so it's not something that you just work out with your own flesh because then you just,
01:19:12: Paul warns about that in Colossians, you just become proud of your own ability to die to yourself, and you start bragging about your humility.
01:19:21: That's terrible. Another thing it's not is, as I mentioned earlier, it's not denigrating the good things
01:19:27: God has given you. They are from the Lord. You should celebrate that and use those gifts to serve others.
01:19:33: It's not just a personality. It's not saying the words humble. And sometimes people say something like,
01:19:40: I'm really proud of what I've done here, and yet they kind of say it in a humble way. They might use the wrong word, but we shouldn't just jump on people because they might say
01:19:51: I'm proud of having finished college or I'm proud of having served in World War II or something like that.
01:19:59: So we want to not be legalistic about our application. And the last thing is it's inconsistent.
01:20:06: I think you mentioned that earlier. We all are going to struggle with different forms of pride through the rest of our lives.
01:20:11: I'm humble in some areas of my life. I don't really brag very much about accomplishments, but I really like to win arguments.
01:20:21: So you just have to recognize where we're all inconsistent and give each other space and time and patience.
01:20:27: I'm struck with what Paul says in Philippians 3 when he's arguing what the
01:20:32: Christian life looks like, and then he says, and if you're not convinced, God's going to show you in time,
01:20:38: Philippians 3 .15. So he's patient with his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
01:20:44: Amen. We have a question from Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,
01:20:49: I often hear people say that they are proud of their race.
01:20:55: They are proud to be black. They are proud to be white. They are proud to be Asian or Hispanic. They may mean this in a completely appropriate way, but far too often it seems that it is nothing more than arrogance and looking upon oneself as being superior to others.
01:21:11: Shouldn't better terms be used like, I am unashamed to be black or white or Hispanic or Asian?
01:21:18: Is there a confusion being set forth by using the word pride in wrong ways?
01:21:25: Yeah, boy. I think that fits right into what I had just said.
01:21:31: I think we should be very careful not to jump on people if they're trying to put forth a biblical concept of human dignity, but maybe using the wrong word.
01:21:41: We're in a tricky place right now because our society generally tells us to not think we're sinners, to build up our own self -esteem, and, of course, that's very dangerous.
01:21:52: Then we're not objective about ourselves. We're not humble towards changing and repenting.
01:22:00: But we also are part of a society which has, in fact, inflicted great harm on minorities at times, and so one of the ways that they're trying to restore their human dignity, for instance, to say
01:22:13: I'm proud of being African American, I don't think we should jump on them for that, given the history there.
01:22:21: Give them a little slack on that and just talk about Christ. I think maybe, let me just…
01:22:29: May I never boast of anything except for the cross of Christ. Exactly, exactly.
01:22:35: Whenever you talk about race or politics or how to make our society better, you have to tread very carefully.
01:22:43: But when we can talk about Jesus and his grace and his gospel, it's a lot easier to grow in humility when we can major on the majors.
01:22:51: Now, when you suggest or counsel us not to be legalistic and jump on people, don't you think that it should be according to the context of why and when we are hearing things like that?
01:23:07: Yeah. Because you have this constant back and forth of people who are saying
01:23:15: I am proud of being black and then you'll have racists responding to that.
01:23:21: Well, they could be proud for being black, I'm proud to be white. And this goes back and forth and it really is nothing more than a race war, even if it doesn't include violence.
01:23:33: It's a competition on who is superior, even if those words aren't used.
01:23:39: And we just have to be careful about being proud of anything, even American.
01:23:46: As I was saying earlier or as the listener mentioned, I am certainly unashamed for being an
01:23:53: American. I am grateful for being an American. I love being an American, even though I'm dismayed by much of what goes on in this country, including the wholesale slaughter, the
01:24:04: Holocaust of the unborn. But when it comes to pride, it is a delicate issue that we have to absolutely examine our motives for saying that we're believing it.
01:24:17: Right. You said a couple of really important things. One is context. And so one way to really get at that is to ask questions and say what do you mean by that or how have you come to that position?
01:24:31: And just listen. James 119 says be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.
01:24:40: And that's a great verse for preachers like me to remember, at least Monday through Saturday.
01:24:45: Sunday morning we get to talk a lot. And we need to remember that on social media.
01:24:52: It's really hard to listen because we want to get our point across and we do it in these little quick tweets or posts.
01:25:00: So face -to -face conversation, listening to Christian and non -Christian alike, showing them respect as human beings, and praying.
01:25:09: I mean, as a Calvinist, I believe God's in control. I can't change their minds. Maybe the best thing
01:25:15: I can do is to shut up and listen and pray for them and let God get to work.
01:25:21: Great. We have, let's see here, Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says,
01:25:28: Is it completely appropriate to say that you are proud of your children?
01:25:37: Well, yes and no, right? I think normally it's an innocent statement.
01:25:43: I mean, I'm very proud of our two daughters and what they've been able to do in service to Christ with their gifts.
01:25:51: But you're saying that knowing that all good gifts are from God. Psalm 16, 2,
01:25:57: Apart from you I have no good thing. Again, 1 Corinthians 4, 7, What do we have that has not been given us?
01:26:04: So our children are gifts from the Lord, Psalm 127 and Psalm 128. So I think we do delight in seeing
01:26:13: God at work in other people, and we can brag about God's work in other people.
01:26:21: Paul does that throughout his letters. He brags about the very people he's writing to, and then he rebukes them.
01:26:28: But first he commends them for the grace of God he sees in them. So I think in that sense, of course, we can say we're really proud of what our sons, our daughters have been able to do.
01:26:42: The issue of being attacked, being wounded, being mocked, the secular society and false
01:26:55: Christianity offers as an antidote the power of positive thinking, the power of self -esteem.
01:27:04: How do we counteract the wounds that many of us have received and maybe receive daily, or we see the wounds being inflicted upon children and others, or just anyone that we may know for any number of circumstances, how do we have them or how do we ourselves counteract this with a biblical appropriate level of self -worth, or even more importantly, that we are worth much more than sparrows in the eyes of Christ?
01:27:48: We who are Reformed have often been accused, and sometimes it's not without evidence that these things have been taught or said or believed, but we have been accused of viewing humanity as garbage.
01:28:06: Our view of total depravity sometimes extends beyond what the Bible teaches, and we forget that Jesus Christ did not die for garbage.
01:28:16: He did not receive the wrath of his own Father for garbage. He was not the propitiation for sins for garbage.
01:28:24: So how do we respond to being attacked and having our esteem and confidence and view of ourselves just destroyed without becoming proud?
01:28:36: I think you've already said so much, which is just learning your Bible. So when
01:28:42: I first became Reformed and I realized everything was to God's glory, we're saved by grace alone, therefore
01:28:49: God does it all, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he gets all the glory, I was loathe to ever compliment somebody.
01:28:56: I was just thinking, because our culture builds people up so falsely and puffs people up so much,
01:29:03: I didn't want to add to any of that. But yet, the more I read the Scriptures and I saw what you said, what
01:29:10: Jesus says about us in Matthew 6, what Paul says about the churches he writes, what the
01:29:18: Psalms say, that we are the apple of God's eye, so just as you get a more thoroughly consistent biblical worldview, you realize that every single person has the dignity of God, and he values them all highly, and especially those that the world casts off, the lowly, children, the marginalized, the mentally disabled, and so that's a huge theme in Corinthians where Paul is rebuking this proud church who has some wealthy people and people with lots of gifts, and powerful speakers, and he writes to them in chapter 1 of 1
01:29:55: Corinthians, Consider your calls, brethren. Not many of you are wise, not many of you are wealthy, not many of you are noble, but God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
01:30:07: And so, part of the gospel is to tell people, yes, you are weak. Yes, if left to yourself, you would go to hell.
01:30:17: You would be nothing. But God, the gospel is so great, he receives you entirely by what
01:30:23: Jesus has done. So we find all our dignity, all our worth in the righteousness of Christ, 1
01:30:29: Corinthians 1, 30 and 31. And so therefore, Paul says, let him who boasts, boast in the
01:30:36: Lord. And so that fills us with dignity. I mean, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies already if you are in him.
01:30:45: So that's a long answer, but Christians have two senses of worth. One is that we're created in God's image, but secondly, we've been bought with a price, and God esteems us highly, as you said already.
01:30:59: We have an anonymous listener who says, I know that you and your guest,
01:31:06: I guess he's speaking to me, are Calvinists, and why is it that some of the most proud and arrogant
01:31:13: Christians I've ever met are Calvinists? Right, and I'm one of them. And I want our listener to be aware of something, even though I think that many of us are that, are arrogant and proud
01:31:31: Calvinists, and that all of us perhaps at some times can act that way. I have been in the
01:31:37: Christian radio industry since the 1980s, and I have met many different kinds of Christians from all different kinds of theological perspectives and denominations and fellowships and brotherhoods, and there are proud people in all of them.
01:31:55: And even, you know, you have the charismatic element that would say, why will
01:32:02: Calvinists be in heaven before anybody else, because the Bible says the dead in Christ shall rise first.
01:32:07: You know, you have all kinds of, you have fundamentalists who hate
01:32:13: Calvinists and have pride sometimes in their anti -intellectual positions.
01:32:19: But you could go on and on and on. But we should be wanting to clean house in our own circles, and wouldn't you agree that we are the least, we should be the least ones that have the character traits or flaws of pride and arrogance, because the doctrines of sovereign grace are intended to exalt
01:32:40: God and humble man to the dust. Amen, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think there are a couple things
01:32:48: I can say. That's one reason I wrote this book. I didn't write it to Calvinists in particular. It's written to a general
01:32:54: Christian audience. In fact, one of my endorsers is a Methodist bishop, who is my chaplain at Duke, and he is a very humble man.
01:33:03: And so it was an old Puritan that said, if I can get this right, that the two things that give him, the things that amuse him is, if I can get this right, the consistencies of God and the inconsistencies of Christians.
01:33:21: And we are inconsistent, and yet we're saved by grace. And so there are lots of Calvinists that don't live up to the doctrine we profess.
01:33:30: And it's ironic, and I want us to proclaim the truth in a way that reflects the doctrines we believe.
01:33:37: That we are nothing but sinners saved entirely by grace.
01:33:43: And so what that does for us is, while we're standing on truth, it makes us gentle and generous towards people who disagree with us on the issue of soteriology and on other issues.
01:34:00: It helps us, as I look at Ephesians 4, where Paul says, therefore now, a walk and a manner worthy of the calling you have received.
01:34:11: So that calling is by grace. Then he says, make every effort to keep the unity of the
01:34:18: Spirit and the bond of peace. And before he says that, he says, be completely humble towards one another.
01:34:24: That's chapter 4, verse 2, and I'm paraphrasing these. And so the whole point is, is grace leads to humility, which then leads to unity across the church.
01:34:35: So I'm united to fundamentalists that love Jesus. I'm united to Methodists that love
01:34:40: Jesus. I'm united to mainline Christians that love Jesus, despite some of the positions of their official church.
01:34:47: And so that hopefully then, well, hopefully that gives the doctrines of grace a better flavor.
01:34:59: Amen. And do you think that one of the reasons maybe that appears to stand out more when we who are
01:35:07: Reformed or Calvinistic are proud and arrogant is because it just happens to be a historical reality that Reformed people tend to gravitate more to a love for literature and academia and higher schools of learning and so on, and therefore there's a unique kind of pride that comes out of that?
01:35:35: Oh, I think so. And so one of my models in this was a professor of mine in college. I think I can use his name.
01:35:41: Again, he was kind enough to blurb for the book. His name is George Marsden, one of the most brilliant historians that there was.
01:35:48: I mean, he wrote a biography on Jonathan Edwards. And yet he modeled humility for us in the classroom.
01:35:56: And I remember talking to him about this, and he basically said, well, Calvinists understand grace when it comes to salvation, but we don't always understand it in terms of knowledge.
01:36:09: And that there is just a whole lot we don't know. Right. And that to be a true Calvinist remembers
01:36:15: Deuteronomy 29, 29, and I'm putting words in his mouth, that the secret things belong to God.
01:36:20: And sometimes we feel like we've got to spout off it, like we know everything. Right. Especially about things we really don't, that we're not experts in.
01:36:29: And we could just sometimes be a little more quiet. Amen.
01:36:35: Well, we have to go to our final break right now. This is your final opportunity to send in a question to our guest,
01:36:41: Chris Hutchinson, about his book on humility, Rediscovering Humility, Why the
01:36:47: Way Up is Down, published by New Growth Press. Our e -mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
01:36:53: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.
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01:39:09: God bless you. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?
01:39:16: Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
01:39:21: Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the
01:39:28: London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect
01:39:34: Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do, than how men view these things.
01:39:41: That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.
01:39:47: We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.
01:40:00: If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.
01:40:06: You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.
01:40:13: Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled,
01:40:19: Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org, that's providencebaptistchurchma .org,
01:40:27: or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:40:49: James White here, co -founder of Alpha Omega Ministries, and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
01:40:55: I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnson will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 Conference, from January 17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme,
01:41:07: A Biblical Understanding of Missions. Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Bodhi Balcombe, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, yours truly, and many more.
01:41:20: I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to g3conference .com,
01:41:26: that's g3conference .com. My name is
01:41:36: Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.
01:41:42: I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.
01:41:48: I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.
01:41:54: It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.
01:42:01: You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.
01:42:09: They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.
01:42:15: If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit
01:42:25: New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc
01:42:32: .nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the
01:42:42: Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am
01:42:54: .com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the
01:43:00: Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.
01:43:06: Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.
01:43:17: Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.
01:43:24: His name is Dan Buttafuoco. Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.
01:43:32: Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the
01:43:38: Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.
01:43:46: Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many
01:43:52: Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.
01:43:58: He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.
01:44:12: In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the
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01:44:28: I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.
01:44:35: Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.
01:44:42: Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail dot com.
01:44:49: That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Listening to Christian radio can be a big gamble spiritually.
01:45:15: Even many of the major Christian networks that include excellent biblically faithful teachers on their lineup sadly often also include the worst of doctrinally dangerous heretics.
01:45:25: If you are a lover of the doctrines of sovereign grace, you need not fear listening 24 hours a day to FirstLoveRadio .org.
01:45:34: They feature Christ -centered programming from Reformed pastors and teachers you can rely upon for theological soundness and biblical faithfulness, such as Dr.
01:45:43: W .R. Downing, Dr. Peter Masters, Pastor Joe Jakowitz, Pastor Robert Gifford, Al Martin, Edward Delcor, and more.
01:45:53: FirstLoveRadio .org also livestreams my Iron Trepans Iron Radio program daily.
01:45:59: Please stick around on FirstLoveRadio .org after Iron Trepans Iron Radio is over to continue being blessed by the unwavering proclamation of the gospel of sovereign grace.
01:46:10: Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. And the mighty fortress reminds me of the
01:46:25: Reformation Conference that you cannot forget about being held tomorrow, Saturday, October 6th, and Sunday, October 7th, hosted by the
01:46:35: Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, our latest sponsor of Iron Trepans Iron Radio.
01:46:40: The theme is Why the Reformation Still Matters. The speaker is Mike Abendroth, who is a pastor, author, conference speaker, and frequent guest on Iron Trepans Iron Radio.
01:46:50: And if you would like to register, go to GraceBFC .com.
01:46:55: GraceBFC, which stands for Bible Fellowship Church. GraceBFC .com forward slash conference.
01:47:02: And you can also call 717 -652 -5229. 717 -652 -5229.
01:47:08: Please make sure you tell Pastor Josh Miller and the folks at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that you heard about their conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Trepans Iron Radio.
01:47:17: We are now back to our final segment of today's show with our guest, Pastor Chris Hutchinson.
01:47:24: He is a senior pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia. We are discussing his book,
01:47:29: Rediscovering Humility, Why the Way Up is Down. If you have a question of your own, our email address is
01:47:36: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And please send in your question right away if you intend to write one, because we are rapidly running out of time.
01:47:49: And Pastor Chris, if you could, before we get so caught up with listener questions that we do run out of time before having you make this clear,
01:48:00: I want you to at least have five minutes of uninterrupted time where you could lay out what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners when it comes to rediscovering humility.
01:48:12: Gracious. Well, that they'd have more of Christ. I talk about that in the book, that you can't really make humility an explicit goal, or it will elude you.
01:48:24: It's like trying to hammer down Jell -O with a hammer. If you're going to get rid of your pride by smashing it with a hammer, it doesn't work.
01:48:35: To paraphrase Robert Murray McShane, for every look you look at your pride and your failure here, take ten looks at Christ and his love for you.
01:48:47: One of my favorite verses is Psalm 45, 4, which is a psalm about a bridegroom.
01:48:54: It's a wedding psalm, and I'm sure the bridegroom is talking about Jesus, the Messiah, and it says,
01:49:00: He rides forth victoriously on behalf of truth, meekness, and righteousness.
01:49:06: So I take that to mean Jesus is fighting for us. He's obviously conquered the devil.
01:49:12: He's forgiven all our sins. He's pushing back our worldly enemies. But more than that, he's fighting for us to be more like him.
01:49:20: He's fighting for us to have his heart of meekness. With all the troubles and trials we have in this life, we want to look more like Christ.
01:49:29: So that's really the heart of the book, right in the middle of the book. We've talked about truth and humility. We've talked about the gospel and humility.
01:49:37: Now I want to grow in Christ. I want to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, knowing it is
01:49:43: God who is at work in me. And what that looks like is to look like Jesus in his first coming, not the
01:49:50: Jesus of victory who comes again in glory. That will come by and by. We'll get that by and by.
01:49:57: This isn't a name it, claim it, or prosperity gospel at all in the New Testament.
01:50:02: It's a gospel of the cross. And I think once you start to see that, when you start looking for the cross on every page of Scripture, you see it.
01:50:12: And you see, this is how I become more like my God. This is how I become more godly, as I begin to look like Jesus on his way to Calvary.
01:50:23: I put others before me. I die to myself. I endure the sufferings that God has ordained for me, because they're working out a greater thing in me than my own happiness.
01:50:33: They're working out in me holiness. They're building up in me character and hope, as Paul says in Romans 5.
01:50:39: They remind me of the glories awaiting me in heaven. So when
01:50:45: Jesus, one of the places Jesus talks about humbling ourselves is Luke 14. First, he says, don't invite yourself up to the wedding table.
01:50:53: Don't promote yourself. Let others do that. But then secondly, he says, when you throw a feast, throw it for those who cannot pay you back.
01:51:04: Because you will be rewarded at the resurrection of the righteous. So that's a large part of humility, is really believing that heaven is real, that you're not living for this world and its rewards.
01:51:16: You really believe the gospel. You really believe that everything
01:51:21: God's promised to you in Christ is true and will be evident to you.
01:51:27: Faith will become sight. As the author of Hebrews says, here we do not have a lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come.
01:51:38: So it's ultimately an optimistic message. It's not just dying to yourself and feeling terrible about this life.
01:51:46: It says everyone who humbles themselves will be exalted. So it's remembering that promise as well.
01:51:53: Amen. And we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says that don't we have to be careful not to buy into the modernist lie that to critique, criticize, rebuke, or chastise those who are in error is a sign of pride that we should avoid.
01:52:14: Isn't, very often, the correction of those whom you know and love who are in error a great act of love?
01:52:26: Yeah, and there's the balance where Paul says in Ephesians, speak the truth in love.
01:52:33: And again, I think Christians, we err one way or the other too much. We're all about truth, truth, truth, especially on the conservative side.
01:52:42: Or on the other side, we think more about love when it's really not loving them to speak the truth.
01:52:48: But part of why I wrote this book is to help us speak the truth with humility in a humble way.
01:52:55: Yes, it's humble to submit to truth and to help our friends that are in error. If somebody's addicted to drugs, the best thing to do is tell them, that's a danger, get off those drugs and let us help.
01:53:06: But then you come alongside them and you help them as a fellow sinner. And it's all about doing what's best for them.
01:53:16: So yes, standing for truth is the humble thing to do, but you have to do it in a way that reflects the heart of Jesus.
01:53:23: Yes, obviously many of us, maybe even all of us at some time, we seek to correct error with pride and arrogance and nastiness.
01:53:35: Our main goal is to win an argument or to look smarter or superior to somebody else rather than to have them join you in celebrating and enjoying and believing and rejoicing over certain truths that we may have.
01:53:49: Yes, and that's the other thing is you can't convince people. The Holy Spirit has to do it.
01:53:56: Patience, prayer, listening, suffering with them, serving them, may go a lot further than winning an argument.
01:54:05: Amen, and if any of our arrogant Calvinist friends listening want to be directed to somebody who's a great role model,
01:54:13: I think, for correcting error with great humility and love, and that would be George Whitefield and his friendship with John Wesley.
01:54:20: There you go. And John Wesley, even though sometimes he responded with love, his vitriol and the heat of his argumentation with his friend
01:54:32: George Whitefield sometimes far surpassed the light that came from him. And obviously, since he was an
01:54:38: Arminian, we would say that light was often not true light. Yeah, a little diminished, maybe.
01:54:45: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. I was going to say a little diminished. Right, right, right. Still there. Yes. We have an anonymous listener who says,
01:54:54: One thing that drives me up a tree is when people falsely act as if they are humble when people compliment and praise them for their gifts by giving all of the credit to God when it actually reaches a heretical level.
01:55:16: And this, I think, is especially true amongst some of my friends in the arts or when it comes to literature.
01:55:23: If they have written a beautiful song or a poem and someone says, Wow, that is beautiful,
01:55:29: I love that. They say, Oh, this came directly from God to me. This is the Holy Spirit.
01:55:35: I have nothing to do with it. They're actually elevating themselves as being a prophet or an orator of divinely inspired extra -biblical information rather than actually being humble.
01:55:48: Yeah, that's a good point. And I've experienced that many times amongst friends and acquaintances.
01:55:56: Right. Again, just you want good theology. We don't believe in God immediately giving those kinds of gifts, but he works through means.
01:56:06: He works through your parents. He works through your education. You had wonderful teachers. He gave you arms and fingers to write the good music or play the good music.
01:56:17: And so what I have found, if somebody tells me,
01:56:23: Pastor, good sermon, the most humble thing I can do is just say, Thank you. And move on.
01:56:29: Thank you. Glad it was helpful. Or sometimes I say, You know, it was a great text. All I did was get out of the way.
01:56:36: It was a great text, and I talked about it. So to go on and on and on about the gifts
01:56:43: God has given you and how humble you are is really a way of practicing your righteousness before men.
01:56:49: And so I spend a lot of time talking about that from Matthew 6 and Matthew 23, where the religious leaders of Jesus' day showed off how holy they were, how connected they were to God by the size of the phylacteries on their foreheads and the length of their prayers and so forth.
01:57:09: And Jesus really goes after them and says, That's not really what humility is. Humility is really just not talking about yourself that much.
01:57:18: Yeah, and you're going to be elevating whatever it is you've created, whether a piece of literature or music or whatever it is, you're going to be elevating it far above what the person complimenting you ever intended.
01:57:32: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, you know, you could say, All right, calm down. I'm not stapling this poem next to Revelations in my
01:57:39: Bible. I love what C .S. Lewis says about this somewhere. He says, A humble man could have designed the most beautiful cathedral in Europe and not care that he did it.
01:57:49: In other words, he just loves the piece of beauty it is, and he would have been just as happy if somebody else had designed it.
01:57:56: Amen. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the contact information they need to get a hold of you.
01:58:02: First of all, I know that the website of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia is gracecovenantpca .org.
01:58:13: That's gracecovenantpca, which stands for presbyterianchurchinamerica .org. And, of course, people who want to find out more about your book can go to the website of New Growth Press.
01:58:25: That's newgrowthpress .com, newgrowthpress .com. But they can also order it from cvbbs .com.
01:58:32: In fact, I would prefer that you do that because you're not going to hurt New Growth Press at all by doing that.
01:58:38: cvbbs .com, who sponsors Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And they do have this book in stock. They have told me this beforehand.
01:58:45: And it's cheaper there than Amazon, so go there. Great. Or New Growth. Oh, great. Well, go to cvbbs .com.
01:58:51: Make sure you tell Todd and Patty Jennings that you heard about them from Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And don't forget about the
01:58:57: Grace Bible Fellowship Church conference this Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th. That's the
01:59:03: Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, featuring Mike Abendroth on Why the Reformation Still Matters.
01:59:08: Go to gracebfc .com, gracebfc, for biblefellowshipchurch .com.
01:59:14: Or call 717 -652 -5229, 717 -652 -5229.
01:59:19: It has been such a joy interviewing you, Pastor Chris Hutchinson. I look forward to your return. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions.
01:59:28: And I want you all to have a safe and blessed and joyful weekend and Lord's Day. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater