April 16, 2019 Show with Flip Michaels on “Five Half-Truths: Addressing the Most Common Misconceptions of Christianity”

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 16th day of April 2019.

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And I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest today. His name is Flip Michaels, and he is the author and associate pastor and staff elder at Grace Life Church of Anvil, Pennsylvania.

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We are going to be addressing his book, Five Half Truths, Addressing the Most Common Misconceptions of Christianity.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Flip Michaels. Yes, thanks for having me.

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And you know what? It is my honor to be on the program. When I think of the living spiritual giants that you've had on this program, and then you invite me on the program,

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I am truly humbled to be a part of it. Oh, praise God. Well, you know, I was going to introduce you as Pastor Flip, the pastor of St.

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Geraldine's Cathedral, but I thought twice about it. Well, I guess I said it anyway, didn't

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I? And I guess the millennials listening might have no clue what that joke means.

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Exactly. It was a reference to a world -renowned comedian in the 1970s,

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Flip Wilson, the only other person I know of by the name of Flip. Actually, I think I did hear of a couple of other people named

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Flip, now that I'm thinking Yeah, we're out there. There's a few of us out there, for sure. Hey, I was born in 1970, so I have no clue what you're talking about.

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Well, you would have been around, but you would have been very young, because Flip Wilson was on TV probably somewhere around the early 70s to about 76, 77, 78.

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But before we have you give your personal testimony of salvation, which is what we typically do with first -time guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, when they're

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Christians, that is, because there are a few occasions when I have a non -Christian on the show who has something of great importance for the church at large to hear, but the vast majority of my guests are

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Christian, but before we have you give your personal testimony of salvation, tell us about Grace Life Church of Anvil, Pennsylvania, which

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I know is in the Hershey, Pennsylvania area. Yeah, we're not too far from Hershey, and I'm really blessed to be a part of it.

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Grace Life is just about eight years old, and I serve with a lead pastor named

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Dave Cunningham, a terrific guy, and some wonderful elders. I would say we minister to around 250 people, and so we started out, as I said, about eight years ago, and maybe 80, 90 people, and so we have a little more than doubled since that time.

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It's been a healthy growth and a real blessing to be a part of it. Something I can tell you with a number of the guys that you've had on this program is we do something each year, and we just had it here again.

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We have a retreat for our church called the Grace Life Getaway, and we invite somebody to be a guest speaker, and we take our church generally.

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We keep in the Northeast. We were in Pennsylvania this year. We had Tom Askell with us this year. Oh, great.

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Tom Askell is a dear friend of mine. He was terrific. He was absolutely terrific in dealing with issues, you know, concerning the social gospel and justice and all that, and it was just wonderful.

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Well, thanks a lot, Flip. Flip, if I knew that, I would have been there, right, because I love Tom Askell. Well, maybe we didn't tell you on purpose.

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No, I'll get you word for the next one here, absolutely, but we just finished that up just about two weeks ago here, and so we're still on that hike, and so it was really neat for our church to be exposed to his teaching and to get grounded in that area as well, so it's all good.

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Well, praise God, and I hope that you—I'm going to be giving more details a little later on, but I hope that you and the men at Grace Life Church of Anvil come out to my pastor's luncheon that I am having on May 23rd,

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Thursday, May 23rd, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Dr. Tony Costa, who is the professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, is our speaker at the luncheon.

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It's free of charge, and the theme of the message is going to be how the

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Dead Sea Scrolls vindicate the reliability of the scriptures, and most of the major Christian publishers in the

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United States and the United Kingdom donate free books. They donate 100 copies of each title that I select from each publisher, and that way every man who attends can leave with a heavy sack of books, typically a couple of dozen books, sometimes more, and so it's a really worthwhile thing for men in ministry leadership to attend.

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And it's free of charge, so this was an annual event that became a biannual event.

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This was started by my precious late wife, Julie, in the 1990s when she recognized that since I had been in the

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Christian radio industry most of my adult life going back to the 80s, I had been involved in Christian radio and secular radio before that, and she recognized that I had so many friends who were pastors, most of my friends are pastors, and she said why don't we forego giving each other

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Christmas gifts this year and treat your friends who are pastors to a pastor's luncheon?

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And I said, you know, that's a great idea. And I did that, and we had a guest speaker who was my pastor at the time,

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Mike Gaydosh, who now runs Solid Ground Christian Books in Port St.

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Lucie, Florida, but at the time he was my pastor in Amityville, Long Island, New York, and we had some free books that we gave away, and the luncheons continued, and they grew so large

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I had to start getting corporate sponsorship to help fund the luncheons, and they have continued after my precious wife went home to be with the

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Lord, and I continue them to this day in her honor and memory, and we do things exactly the way that she insisted they be done.

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There is no ulterior motive or hidden agenda, there's nothing for sale at these luncheons, there is no

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Amway representative trying to convince somebody to join Amway or anything like that, no slam against Amway, I'm just saying that there's no hidden or ulterior motive, and so I hope as many men listening who are in leadership positions, whether they are pastors, elders, and I think that those are the same office, by the way, deacons, leaders in parachurch ministries, just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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and I will register you for this free event. And as far as anybody wanting to visit

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Grace Life Church of Anvil, Pennsylvania, if you happen to be either living in that area, or you're visiting that area, or you perhaps have loved ones in that area, the website is gracelifepa .org,

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just out of curiosity, I don't know if I asked you this before, but Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida, who also runs a radio station, 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Grace Life Radio, they run Iron Trip and Zion Radio twice a day in a pre -recorded format, they air us in morning drive, 8 -10

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AM, and they air us again at 8 -10 PM. Are you in any way affiliated with Grace Life in Lake City?

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No, we're not, and you know, it is interesting, it's a great question, because I think over time here, that name,

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Grace Life, has become very popular. You know, when we started Grace Life, we were,

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I think, the only Grace Life that was really, I'm sure there were a few, I'm sure it was Grace Life London, or out there.

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There's one very famous one in Muscle Shoals, famous amongst people who believe in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, that is, and they are connected with the one in, somehow, in Lake City, Florida, and there's also at least one in Texas.

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The Grace Life I knew of when we had, we love the name of Grace Life and decided to go with it, was

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Phil Johnson and I think Don Green at the time, probably, it was

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Mike Riccardi I bet, because I know it's Mike Riccardi now, but anyways, they, what is it called, Grace Life Pulpit, I think they have,

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I forget what they call it, but Grace Life is in the title of their Sunday School ministry, which is the size of a church in and of itself, but I know that existed.

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But no, since then, there has been a number of Grace Lifes that have popped up, and we do get that question from time to time, it's almost like its own little denomination, and you know, just with any of these words today that relate to a church, you have to define them, because there are

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Grace Lifes that are all over the map, you know, some are obviously solid and conservative and others are not, and so you have to really be careful with that.

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Yeah, so that's Grace Life, which is one word, as they do spell it at Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida as well.

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And yeah, Phil Johnson cracked me up when he was talking about his

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Bible study at Grace Community Church in Lake City, Florida, where John MacArthur is the pastor, and he said that his group is somewhat like a small chapel of about 500 or so.

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I had to laugh, because I said, Phil, do you realize that amongst Reformed and Sovereign Grace -believing

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Christians, 500 is a mega -church? Right. Anyway, well, now we are going to enter into your personal testimony.

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If you could give us a summary of your salvation story, what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances did our

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Sovereign Lord raise up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you? Sure. I'd love to,

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Chris. You know, I am a New Yorker at heart. I was born in New York. I was born in Bayshore, New York.

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You're kidding me. I didn't know that. I was born and raised in Amityville, New York. When you said

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Amityville, I kind of knew this prior. I was like, okay, all right, we've got a Long Island guy here. So, yeah, definitely.

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I started in New York, but as a kid, I moved up and down the East Coast, and just a transient childhood.

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My dad was just moving from different jobs, and so I was Long Island, Fire Island, I think you know those locations well, and then down in Florida, Fort Myers, Florida, North Fort Myers, Florida, when it was honestly it was probably a town growing into a city.

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It became the fastest growing city in the nation, I think, at one time, but it's huge now. I don't recognize it. And then moved to Virginia, Northern Virginia, Washington, D .C.,

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up to Connecticut, and back to New York, and so I had moved up and down the East Coast, and I really didn't have any

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Christian influence inside or even outside of the home all those days. There was no exposure to the

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Gospel, and I, you know, I look back and I try to think back, even as a kid, if I'd ever given any thought really to God and the

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Gospel, and I think when we talk about being blind and God opening your eyes,

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I truly was blind, because I just, I really don't have any recollection of I came to faith in Christ at 23, 24 years old.

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So I really, prior to then, I just don't really have much of a memory of really giving that, sadly, any thought.

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So for me, it really started back in 1993, so I was about 23 at the time, and I was working in a

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New York radio station, a secular radio station, and there was a disc jockey named

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Barbara who was doing the afternoon shift, and she had quickly earned the reputation as being the resident

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Jesus freak, and I was warned by these co -workers not to engage her in any kind of truth -seeking debates, which is perhaps what the

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New Yorker in me would do. It only encouraged me to do so, to do that, and I remember Barbara is a great example of what it means to share the truth in love, because I would have these conversations with her.

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I was, I'm trying to remember, I think I was the production director at the time, so I was handling, actually, creative services director, so I was handling all the morning show bits, and I was handling commercials and so forth, so I was in and out of the studio a lot, especially when she was doing her air shift, and I began to challenge her with what were half -truths concerning Christianity, which obviously gets to my book, and she never backed away from my harsh words that I'd become so accustomed to delivering as insults.

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She would politely and firmly challenge me in those conversations, and so the first half -truth

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I remember throwing her away was that the Bible was written by a bunch of old men, and I would always emphasize the old men.

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It was just a way, just kind of, just to push it even further from me, and I would talk about Jesus walking on water, which now

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I know is Matthew 14, but I'd say, you know, it was just a product of something like the telephone game.

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It was a beautiful day along the Sea of Galilee, and He's probably just skipping stones, and now 2 ,000 years later, you want to tell me that He's walking on water?

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And what happened in our conversations is that she was patient with me, and those conversations caused me to look up the answers on my own.

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I had loved history, I still do, and so it didn't take long to discover that the Bible's not a product of the telephone game.

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It's not an assortment of fairy tales bound together, but rather it has more manuscript evidence than any of the classical works

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I was even required to read in school, you know, like Homer and Plato and Caesar. Their works pale in comparison.

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When you talk about percentages of manuscript evidence, generally speaking here, you're talking about 13%, 15 % compared to the

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Bible, 99 .99%. You know, even Bart Ehrman admits to that, by the way.

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As much as he loves to attack the Scripture and has made that his life's passion to destroy the reliability of the

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New Testament, or the Bible in general, he admits to that, actually, when he is pressed in cross -examination in a debate.

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Well, you know, that was big for me. It led me down a path to really see that the

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Bible's indeed authentic. You know, it's unlike anything out there. And so it really caused me to start reading it, and while I was doing that, and she had given me my first Bible, it also,

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I started to see it was accurate. You know, I started to see historically through, and obviously this gets into the book a bit, too, because the book really is my personal testimony, although I don't mention myself in it until the very end, but, you know, historically through archaeology, you know, you have these, just one example

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I mentioned in the book that was profound for me in coming to faith in Christ was really seeing these royal seals.

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They have over 400 seal inscriptions now that have been found, and these are like personal signatures of Old Testament people.

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They have these monuments. The one I was really struck by was, it was in 1993, it was the same year, they found from the house of David, King David was found.

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And so, for me, that was just tremendous, because I just, all of a sudden, I started to see the whole Old Testament come together.

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And then that pushed me on the science side. So scientifically, you have all these observable discoveries that these individuals in human history are stated having done, where they were first stated in the

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Bible many, many years prior. Everything from blood to hydrology to planets. You know, you have 17th century discovery that life is in the blood.

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Well, if you read the book of Leviticus, you would know that it's in the book of Leviticus prior. So it started to really bear the full weight of God's authority when

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I started to see this. So I was looking at, you know, the authenticity, the accuracy, and I started to really get, ask myself the question,

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I was left with the question of, you know, is this book, is the Bible, is the Word of God, does Scripture really bear the full weight of God's authority?

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And when you learn how we got the Bible, you're confronted with that reality, that it indeed, it does deserve to be called the

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Word of God. And so, as I shared with you, Barbara, she had purchased for me my first Bible. As a matter of fact,

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I still have it today, and she encouraged me to read it. And I did begin in the book of beginnings. I started in Genesis, and the creation account was amazing to me, and it still is.

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And the first promise that's in there, the glimmer of the gospel that's there in, what is that,

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Genesis 3 .15 concerning Christ, where it speaks of the victory of Jesus over Satan, that struck me as well, and it led me to skip over to the

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Gospel of John. And I began reading about Jesus himself, and I never really, as I said before,

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I never really disputed that Jesus was truly a man, honestly, in my 24 years, I said, I gave it little to no thought.

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But in the Gospel of John, I became confronted with his claim to be the Son of God. And so there were verses like John 5 .18

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that clearly states the Jews hated him because he was making himself equal with God. And then you have these verses that we know,

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John 8 .58, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Or, you know, you have

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John 10 .30, I and the Father are one. And obviously we know John 14 .6,

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I am the way, I'm the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me.

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And so after reading these words, I really was again confronted with truth, that Jesus never ever claimed to be merely a good teacher.

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You know, he revealed himself as the Son of God who led the way to the Father. And so that really struck me with, if God is who he really says he is, if the

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Word of God is really the very Word of God, the Bible, if Christianity's claims are exclusive, they're not inclusive, then

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I started to become aware of who God is and aware of myself. And so my eyes were open to my sin before a holy and righteous

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God. And I knew I needed to make things right with my Maker. And again, Barbara was...those

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conversations were instrumental. She was helpful in that area. She would challenge me to repent and believe.

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She was very consistent in that, and I'm grateful for her doing that. I should tell you that I had lost touch with her.

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It has been many, many years. And we were just talking about Tom Askew. When Tom was here, I was having dinner.

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We were having a group dinner with Tom, and I was telling Tom this story. And Tom said, you know, you should just put something out on Facebook and see if you can find her.

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And I thought, I don't know if I want to do that. He said, no, go ahead and do it. I'll help. So about two weeks ago,

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I took an old picture of Barbara and I and put it out on Facebook. And Chris, in 90 minutes, in 90 minutes, they tracked her down.

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Praise God. This is amazing. Yeah, so I hope to connect with her, meet with her this spring, which will be really, really special.

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But anyways, I realized these things that I've written in the book, that God doesn't grade on a curve, that I needed to place my faith in Him alone.

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And so it was in a radio station during a commercial break that I had prayed out loud to God. I truly was broken over my sin.

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And the promise that I was holding to, I still hold to this day, of course, is Romans 10, 9 and 10, that if you confess with your mouth

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Jesus as Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, how appropriate for this

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Easter week. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

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And so I placed my faith in Christ alone for the forgiveness of my sin, and that was the beginning of a new life, a wonderful journey.

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And you know, we were talking about Phil Johnson real quick here, and that became instrumental, coming to faith in Christ and turning me really into Christian broadcasting, and I know you and I have that same connection with Salem in our background.

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And I ended up being the ops man and running a radio station in D .C.,

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WABA, for a period of time. And my commute would be almost two hours each way at one point. It went from 45 minutes each way to about two hours.

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Your life passes before your eyes, by the way, when you're commuting like that, as some of your listeners will know.

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And the reason why I bring this up is because I ended up, I guess I could say I was trained informally for years during my commute, because I would consume every single cassette that would come from Grace to You, MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Master's Seminary, Chapel, anything

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I could get my hands on. And it was such a blessing to spend time with him. Not too long ago at a

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Grace Life getaway, we had Phil Johnson out here as well, so he was at the top of my list to write the foreword.

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So I just was so grateful for what he has done, and obviously John MacArthur.

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And then that helped me transition into full -time ministry out here in Pennsylvania. I had many lay ministry opportunities, and I started obviously doing broadcasting, working broadcasting out here in Harrisburg, but obviously trying to serve on the side.

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And so you lead the Awana Children's Ministry I was doing, and Sunday School, and Men's Ministry, and then before you know it,

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I'm an elder, and before you know it, I'm involved in the hiring of a lead pastor. And that ended up being the gentleman

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I mentioned earlier, Dave Cunningham, and as I want to say fate, but obviously the providence of God would have it, they turned around the elders, including

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Pastor Dave, and turned around and said, Hey, we'd like to bring you aboard, and that became my vocational ministry opportunity, and that was really 2011.

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And so I left 20 years of broadcasting. I got to do—honestly, I worked with some really good people, and I got to do everything

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I ever wanted to do in broadcasting. It really was a joy to do it, and I am just so grateful now to be in pastoral ministry.

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I love what I do. It's just such a privilege. Praise God. Well, I don't know if you ever, when you were working for WAVA, what was the—or as we used to call it,

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WAVA—what are the years that you worked there? Oh boy.

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It was definitely the 90s. It was probably mid -90s. Yeah, mid -90s too.

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What would that be? Would that be 98? I don't know. I'm going to have to pull that out. I was just wondering if I ever met you, because I used to go to the

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Sandy Cove Conference Center in Maryland when we would have our sales summit, and I know that you just said you were a board op, so I don't know if you would go to that kind of a thing.

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But the WAVA team, at least the people involved in sales, were there when I would be there, and so I just don't know if I ever met you face -to -face before.

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I don't think so, because I was totally in operations, and when I—the highest position

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I had there was operations manager, and that was great. I really enjoyed running that, but I mean,

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I might have been down in Sandy Cove. It's possible you and I had a handshake back then, but I don't recall anything more than that.

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But WAVA is still alive and kicking in D .C. and doing quite well. My time there was interesting, because I started to grow in my faith and started to mature in it.

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And so, you know, when you get into Christian radio programming, as I know you know quite well—I've heard some of your testimony as well—you know, you start to wrestle, because some of these programs are not really sound, and so—

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Put it mildly. Yeah, I'm trying to be kind here and not name names, but you know, you do get into programming battles, because you're like, you know what, that doesn't belong on the air.

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It doesn't belong, period. Because it's just antithetical, really, to Scripture. But it was still a very good experience.

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I really am grateful to have done that at WAVA. Praise God. Well, I am thrilled to have you on today, and what led to the writing of five half -truths, something in your own testimony that you just brought up, seems to be involved in the contents, because we have, as the very first chapter, half -truth number one, the

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Bible was written by men, and you just brought that up earlier as being a part of your questioning during your lost years, your lost but interested years, when you were asking questions about the

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Christian faith and challenging people on that. But tell us about how the book came about. You know,

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I would also say that with the broadcasting piece of it, I've always been a writer as well, and so I've written for a number of publications.

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Before I came to Faith in Christ, I had my own column in Billboard magazine. I had done a little writing for the

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Wall Street Journal, in particular online. It had just started online when I was writing for the

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Wall Street Journal, and I'd written for a number of trades and a couple of local newspapers as well.

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So I've always been a writer, and I would honestly state anyone who preaches or teaches generally,

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I think you would say you're a writer if you're creating any kind of manuscript. And also,

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I had decided that I really wanted to go back to school. I wanted to...

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This was very personal for me. My elders were very kind and gracious in that they really didn't see that it was required to do any of this, that I really had done the training on my own, but I really wanted to pursue a bachelor's degree in Bible, which

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I did, and also my master's in ministry, and I did that as well. And so you end up doing a lot of writing in that area, too.

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So I'd always aspired... I had hoped someday I would be able to write a book, and really the funny story with this is that I decided, okay,

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I have enough material here just over the years, and in my own personal testimony,

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I pretty much knew what I wanted to do with it. And I thought, I'm going to go ahead and make a list here of publishers I'd like to pursue and just see what happens.

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I'll pray over it and just see what the Lord's going to do with it. And so Christian Focus Publications, number one on the list, at the top of the list, and I honestly thought as I created this little list,

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I thought, hey, you know, honestly, I know what the Lord's going to do here. It's not going to go anywhere, and I'm probably just going to have to pay to have a couple of them printed and then give it to family members, which would be fine.

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And instead, through some relationships and obviously the hand they got in it and some great people at Christian Focus, it came together very, very quick and very quickly.

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And it was a wonderful surprise. I did not expect it. I did not expect any kind of interest in that.

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And so my very first publisher that I... In my own personal list, like if I had to pick somebody, they were at the top and they ended up wanting to publish the book and to hold my hand in the process, and so I was so grateful for that.

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And so that's really how it came to be. And again, humbled, just completely humbled by it, that the authors, these guys, published the names, and I'm just going, who's

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Flip Michaels? Who's this guy that they want to publish this book? So I am just thrilled that they've taken that on and they've published it and that it's in the hands of so many.

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And honestly, I think it goes without saying as we do these, but because it's all about Christ here, but it's not about my fame in any way.

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It's about His name. Amen. And just to see... There's neat stories, neat interaction

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I've had offline with some people that I've never met before who have read the book or have made a comment, and I've really been touched by that.

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And I'm sure any other side of eternity will learn of others, but again, it's because of His Word.

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His Word's alive. And that's what's doing it. It's because the Word's in there. It's not really anything I've done.

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It's just pointing people, really, to Christ and His Word. Amen. And we love

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Christian -focused publications here, and I interview quite a number of their authors, especially those in America, because it's just easier for folks in America to call in to have an interview.

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But I have interviewed some of their UK authors as well, and we thank them for their generosity, because they typically donate books to give away during the live interviews with their authors.

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So we high them in the highest regard, especially because of the content of what they publish.

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They are very biblically faithful and sovereign grace -centered and so on. But we have to go to our very first break right now, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is

31:08

ChrisArnzen at gmail dot com. ChrisArnzen at gmail dot com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com.

31:17

Please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

31:28

So don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Flip Michaels and Five Half Truths.

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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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

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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If you live on Long Island or if you're visiting the metropolitan New York area, I invite you to join us for worship at The Haven on Sundays at 4 .30

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p .m. We meet at the Ascension Lutheran Church facility, 33 Bayshore Road in Deer Park, New York.

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p .m., 33 Bayshore Road, Deer Park, New York. And I'm sure that area is very familiar to you.

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I'm speaking now to my guest, Flip Michaels, who was born in Bayshore, Long Island, and Bayshore Road in Deer Park can't be very far from where you were raised.

39:53

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I grew up, when I was on Long Island, I grew up in the Islip, so that was my backyard.

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Yeah, I know that area well. Yes. Well, if you're ever visiting Long Island again, and you want to visit a very solid church, visit

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TheHavenLI .com. TheHavenLI .com is the website. And my friend,

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Pastor Bill Shishko, who spent many years as pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, he retired from his post there and has just recently, just,

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I believe, two weeks ago now, has planted The Haven there on Bayshore Road in Deer Park.

40:29

Oh, that's great. I hope that you visit TheHavenLI .com and check out that worship service there and meet the people there.

40:38

We are now joined by my guest, Flip Michaels, to discuss his book, Five Half Truths, Addressing the

40:45

Most Common Misconceptions of Christianity. I just want to quickly read a couple of the endorsements by people

40:53

I know. My friend, Nate Pickowitz, who has been on this guest a number of times on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, and by the way, he's involved in that new documentary that you've got to see called

41:04

American Gospel, Christ Alone. Nate Pickowitz is one of the speakers involved in that.

41:12

And Nate says, frankly, these are not things we can afford to get wrong.

41:17

These essential truths must be rightly divided and contended for. And Flip does just that, a helpful book.

41:25

And another friend of mine who's been a guest on this program a number of times, who's also involved in the

41:31

American Gospel documentary, Justin Peters. Justin Peters says, if you know of someone who is interested in eternal matters but expresses doubts about Christianity, please get this book in his hands.

41:46

I enthusiastically commend it to you. That's Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries.

41:52

So, let's get more in -depth about the chapter that I already mentioned to you before,

41:59

Half -Truth Number 1. The Bible was written by men, and of course we hear this constantly from our skeptic friends who are not believers, and this is thrown up at us very much in the same way that the devil tries to trick

42:17

God's children by telling things that are half -truths, as you have titled your book, because yes, of course, the

42:24

Bible was written by men, but their implication, and typically in what they actually say when they are hurling this at us, this comment, is that the

42:35

Bible was just written by men. But that is the part that's wrong. Absolutely.

42:41

Hey, before I hit that, you mentioned two guys. I've got to say something here. Nate Pickowitz is a great guy, and I just am grateful for his endorsement.

42:52

Got to really know him more through social media than anything else, but so appreciative. And Justin Peters, we could just finish the program here talking about Justin Peters and his ministry and how grateful

43:04

I think I know, because I've heard you interview him as well, but just how we are, how grateful we are for what he does.

43:10

And in fact, Justin Peters, God willing, in January of 2020, he will be my

43:16

Iron Trip and Zion Radio Pastors luncheon speaker. Oh, terrific. He did our getaway last year, a year prior.

43:25

And so we know Justin very well, too, and just grateful for him and his ministry and certainly his endorsement.

43:33

I didn't mean to take away from your question. I mentioned two guys, two guys of many that I love.

43:39

And then one more thing here. You mentioned the movie, and I need to tell you that American Gospel, and then now the second one coming out, and the producer, the director -producer of that,

43:52

Brandon Kimber, is just another great guy. And over the Christmas break, Brandon had invited me up to Cleveland to Alistair Begg's church, and he was the one that actually filmed my seven promos for the book.

44:07

And so there's just connections there that have just been great. And we had connected because a number of the guys that endorsed this book are the same guys in his film, the good guys in his film.

44:19

And so it was a really neat connection. So I didn't mean to take you off - Well, it's kind of providential, because I just had communication from Brandon Kimber today, because he wants to be on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

44:30

It's going to be - Oh, I would love it. Providential. He's a great guy. Yeah, he'll be - that'll be wonderful.

44:35

But back to the first chapter, sorry about that. You know, stating the Bible is written by men as a half -truth, but the whole truth being and inspired by God.

44:45

I shared in my personal testimony a little bit earlier about the activity and how we receive the Bible, and it's an activity of inspiration, you know, special revelation versus natural revelation.

44:57

And natural revelation, as I share in the book and go to Romans 120, for instance, the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal powers, divine nature, these things are clearly seen.

45:09

So, you know, without excuse, we know there's a God. There's no such thing as an atheist, as an example.

45:15

But we see also not just natural revelation, but we learn about the activity of special revelation, inspiration.

45:24

And so I walk through that in the book, and then the authenticity of the book, when we were just talking about here the, for example,

45:30

New Testament copies that are in hand, the manuscript evidence, I think the count is just over 5 ,700 right now.

45:36

It's just amazing. You know, they have, obviously, entire books, letters that were written, portions of that, even just some phrases, some of the

45:47

Greek phrases, and even some of the letters. It's just amazing the amount of copies in hand. And then the accuracy that's involved when we talk about how we got the

45:55

Bible, and historically and scientifically, and then the question of authority. And so after examining those different areas, you really are left with the question, does this bear the full weight of His authority?

46:09

And that is where we can say, yes, yes, it's one long quote from God Himself. Genesis 1, 1 to Revelation 22 -21, it's one long quote.

46:20

And that the divine author literally breathed it out in one seamless book, one singular message.

46:26

It's not a product of the telephone game I was talking about earlier. It's not an assortment of fairy tales bound together.

46:32

And so when you learn how we receive the Bible, you learn it deserves to be called the Word of God. And that really addresses the first half truth, because then it's not just the

46:41

Bible was written by men, it was. It was written by men. But it was inspired by God, and inspired by God.

46:46

That is the whole truth that is there. Praise God. Let me go to one of our listener questions.

46:52

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, who says, Another great show,

46:58

Brother Chris. Brother Flip, would you recommend your book for someone that's unchurched, or someone that's been churched, but has never agreed with the truths of the

47:08

Bible? That's a great question. And the answer is yes and yes.

47:14

The intent of my book really was to two different audiences. And certainly one is an unbeliever who has struggled with these half -truths in some way.

47:24

And that's why I carefully walk through them the way I do. And you need to know as you page through the book that they're footnoted.

47:31

And I don't mean they're end -noted, where there's all these notes at the end of the book that maybe you want to check, but we get lazy as we're reading through.

47:38

They're all at the bottom of the page. And I have a lot of footnotes in there, because I want to arm you with information as you're reading through.

47:45

When I mention a Bible verse, I want you to see that Bible verse. So it's there as a footnote. That's important, especially for an unbeliever.

47:53

But also someone who may honestly be a true believer, but struggles, either struggles with these half -truths in some way, in being able to articulate it to another individual, in discipling another person, this will arm them as well.

48:06

So yes, I think it'd be an excellent help in that area, in either of those roles.

48:12

Well, Grady, pick out one of those friends that you know that are either unbelievers and unchurched, or they are churched but don't agree with the

48:21

Bible as you have stated in your question. Pick out one of those friends, and perhaps after you read it yourself, you can give them the free copy that you have just won, of Five Half -Truths

48:34

Addressing the Most Common Misconceptions of Christianity, by our guest Flip Michaels, with our great thanks to Christian Focus Publications for providing these copies for us to give away.

48:47

And it will be shipped out to you, free of charge by our other friends at CVBBS .com,

48:53

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And by the way, Flip, Patty Jennings, who still works at CVBBS, even though her and her husband sold the company,

49:10

Patty is still working there, at least for the time being, and she told me to send you and your congregation at Grace Life in Anvil, Pennsylvania, her greetings, because she happens to know that you folks are faithful customers of CVBBS .com.

49:27

That is true, and I have yet, to my shame, I have not been out there yet, and I need to, but some of our guys have, and we have a little bookstore in our church, and we want to arm people with solid food, and so some of our guys, especially one of our elders

49:49

I know is in probably regular contact with her, and so yeah, we appreciate what they do, very much so.

49:57

Well hopefully you'll be out for my pastor's luncheon, and you can visit the store before or after the luncheon.

50:03

How can you say no to free books? When you tell pastors there's going to be free books, you know, all we're doing is looking at the calendar to make sure we can be there.

50:14

Much to the chagrin of the pastor's wives. It's very true.

50:20

Well thank you so much, Grady, and make sure that we have your full mailing address in Asheboro, North Carolina, so we can have

50:29

CVBBS .com ship this book out to you. Before I move on to our next listener, one thing that always comes up, well

50:40

I shouldn't say always comes up, but it frequently comes up with skeptics, under this very heading of the

50:47

Bible was written by men, they will, sometimes laughing at you, will say that there are so many things in the

50:59

Bible that even modern science has proven are false, it proves it was just written by men, and they will bring up things like the sun rising and setting, which, you know, obviously that is not a scientific description of what is actually happening with the sun.

51:20

They will bring up the fact that the mustard seed is described in the

51:26

Bible as the smallest of all the seeds, and those who are involved in agricultural science will tell you that that is not true, there are seeds smaller than mustard seeds.

51:37

You could go on and on and on with these kinds of things. How do you respond to why, if the

51:44

Bible is inspired, it says things, as a matter of fact, that if you were actually to put it to a scientific test, are not true?

51:55

You know, typically, I would say my number one response is in the form of a question asking, have they read through the

52:02

Bible? And most times, I will get a response, you know, of no, not really.

52:10

If I really push, I can usually find out that maybe they were in a hotel, and they skimmed the

52:16

Bible quickly, but they really did not make a commitment to do that, they're just looking for these errors that simply aren't there.

52:24

And so I will challenge them to read through it, and I usually, I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I usually will point them to the

52:32

Gospel of John and a good study Bible, a MacArthur study Bible, that would be helpful in that.

52:37

But what I do try to do in those conversations is to get them to see that, you know, when you're reading these passages, you read them like you would read anything else, you read them in their context.

52:49

And so you read them in the culture within they were written, and the message is how the author intended it.

52:56

So you don't bring your own bias to it, you know, you don't isogete the text, you don't bring your own view into it, you exegete it.

53:05

We're trying to learn, really, what the context has to say there around that passage. We want to learn what's being said there.

53:11

So even these arguments pertaining to the harmony of the Gospels, and that there are different perspectives that are shared there, where someone will take it and say, well, they're contradicting each other, but when you really read them in their context, you see that it's not the case at all.

53:27

It really is just different perspectives, which would be natural, because men, the

53:33

Bible was written by men, it was written by kings, it was written by common men, but it was inspired by God.

53:40

And so it's written in their culture, in their life, in their place, in their time, but it's inspired by God.

53:46

And so it's just such a beautiful thread when you look at each of these books, and you go all the way from Genesis, and you take yourself all the way to the end, to Revelation, and you see how it's just one beautiful story, focusing ultimately on Jesus Christ and the glory of God.

54:02

Yeah, in fact, can we pick up right where you left off, because we have to go to our midway break right now. You bet,

54:07

Chris. We have to go to our longer -than -normal break that Grace Life Radio requires us to have in the middle of our show.

54:14

Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, airs this program twice a day in a pre -recorded format, and they have their own commercials and public service announcements that they air midway through our program, while we air our advertisements that are heard globally.

54:34

So please use this time wisely, this longer -than -normal gap or break, use this time wisely to write down the information provided by our global advertisers that you will hear, so that you can more frequently patronize them, because we need our advertisers to exist, and the way that we're going to have our advertisers stick around is to have them hear from our listeners.

54:59

So please try to patronize our advertisers as much as you can, so that we can stick around through their funding that they provide.

55:07

And also use this time to write down a question for Flip Michaels, and send it to chrisorensen at gmail .com. chrisorensen at gmail .com.

55:15

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

55:22

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away, we'll be back after these messages with more of Flip Michaels and five have -truths addressing the most common misconceptions of Christianity.

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Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. I'm Dr.

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Gary Kimbrell, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. God tells us in James 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction.

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In the providence of God, three years ago, I discovered a poor small church outside Lusaka, Zambia, in a township called

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Kabanana, who are taking care of 24 orphans. I found them just at the time when they had lost all their funding.

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What was I to do? Could I just say, God bless you and walk away? The situation of the children said heavily upon me.

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As I was praying concerning this need, it came to me, I trust from the Lord, to tell the orphans' plight to a broader audience.

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The entire need for their clothing, food, education, and some medical services is $73 per month per child.

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If just 50 of us would give $35 a month, we could meet the need. Bethlehem Baptist Church will pay the fee to get the funds there.

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So if you give a dollar, a dollar will get to the orphans. In this season of hope and giving, will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans?

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Please send your gift of any amount to Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi, 39443.

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Or donate through our website, bbclaurel .com. Again, the address is

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Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi, 39443, or bbclaurel .com.

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Did you know that all believers are priests? In 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9, the Apostle Peter describes

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Jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications and even emboss your logo into the leather, making whatever he rebinds a one -of -a -kind work of art.

01:06:01

For more details on Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding, go to ptlbiblerebinding .com.

01:06:09

That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. My name is

01:06:19

Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

01:06:25

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

01:06:31

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

01:06:37

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

01:06:43

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

01:06:52

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

01:06:58

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

01:07:07

New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

01:07:14

.nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Ironson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:07:26

I would like to introduce you to my good friends, Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

01:07:34

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

01:07:42

Since 1987, the family owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

01:07:47

Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

01:08:00

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.

01:08:13

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 church and to Christ.

01:08:26

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com. That's cvbbs .com.

01:08:34

Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And we'll be giving you updated information on the new ownership of cvbbs .com.

01:08:45

As I mentioned earlier, my dear friends, Todd and Patty Jennings who have owned cvbbs .com

01:08:53

for many years. In fact, Patty Jennings' dad owned it for many years previous to Patty and Todd owning it and running it.

01:09:05

But they have sold it for the first time. It is out of their family's hands, but it is still a family -owned business and we will be giving you more details on the new ownership.

01:09:16

And as I said earlier, Patty Jennings, for the time being anyway, is still working there. So if you visit there right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you usually say hello to Patty who's there on the premises.

01:09:27

But if you're ordering online, please make sure you mention that you heard about cvbbs .com

01:09:33

from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, cvbbs .com. And they ship out all of the books and Bibles and other items that our listeners win when they submit questions to us by email for our guests.

01:09:48

So we are now back with our guest, Flip Michaels of Grace Life Church of Anvil, Pennsylvania.

01:09:56

We're going to be returning to our discussion on Five Have Truths, addressing the most common misconceptions of Christianity in a moment.

01:10:04

But I just have some events that are coming up that I want you, the listeners, to be able to attend, especially if you live near where they're being held.

01:10:13

But some of you can even take a plane, train, or automobile to be there, especially if you have the time and the resources to do so.

01:10:22

But the first one, which is being held very shortly. In fact, it's being held starting,

01:10:30

I believe, next week. Yes, it's starting next week, the 25th of April through the 27th.

01:10:40

That's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of next week. It's Dort 400, an event celebrating the 400th anniversary of the

01:10:49

Synod of Dort. And they basically specifically have titled this

01:10:55

Dort 400, Safeguarding the Reformed Tradition. And that is being held at the

01:11:01

Trinity Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan. And the speakers, some of whom have been on this program, include

01:11:11

Professor Ronald Kamenga, Professor Barrett Gritters, Reverend Brian Huizinga, Professor Doug Kuyper, Reverend Bill Lanarac, Reverend Mark Shand, and Reverend Angus Stewart.

01:11:28

As I said, this will be held next week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. That's the 25th, 26th, and 27th of April at the

01:11:37

Trinity Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. If you want more details on how to attend this event, go to Dort400 .org,

01:11:47

and that's spelled D as in David, O -R -D as in David, T -400 .org,

01:11:52

Dort400 .org. And please let them know that you heard about their event from Chris Arns and on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:11:59

Then after that, as I was saying earlier in the program, on Thursday, May 23rd, I am having my

01:12:05

Spring Iron Trip and Zion Radio Pastors Luncheon, featuring Dr.

01:12:10

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. This is a free event for all men in ministry leadership, whether you be a pastor, an elder, a deacon, or a leader in a parachurch organization.

01:12:23

We would love to have you there, and it's free of charge. Just send me an email so you can be registered absolutely free.

01:12:32

It will be held from 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:12:38

And the theme of the message by Dr. Tony Costa, which will also include a

01:12:44

PowerPoint presentation, complete with graphics and maps and charts and so on, this will be on the theme,

01:12:53

How the Dead Sea Scrolls Vindicate the Reliability of the Holy Scriptures. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:12:59

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put, I want to attend the Pastors Luncheon in the subject line, or just put

01:13:05

Pastors Luncheon in the subject line, and I would love to see you there. Then after that, right after that,

01:13:12

May 23rd through the 30th, that's the

01:13:18

Thursday, I'm sorry, Tuesday, May 28th through Thursday, the 30th of May, I will be heading out to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and that's going to be the

01:13:32

East Coast Ministers Conference of the Banner of Truth, and the theme is,

01:13:37

I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Speakers include Jeff Kingswood, who's going to be our guest coming up soon on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:13:45

Terry Johnson is also going to be our guest soon. David Vaughn, Steve Nichols, Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas, who we just had with us on April 8th last week.

01:13:56

If you would like to attend this event, go to banneroftruth .org, banneroftruth .org,

01:14:02

click on Events, and then scroll down to East Coast Ministers Conference, and all of the details that you need will be right there, and please let the folks at the

01:14:11

Banner of Truth know that you heard about the East Coast Ministers Conference from Chris Aronson on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Please look for me if you attend this luncheon, look for me during a break, ask around, do you know where Chris Aronson is, and hopefully you'll be able to find me, because I would love to see as many of my

01:14:28

Iron Trip and Zion Radio listeners as possible if you attend this event. Then, after that, several months after that, in December, the 19th and 20th of December, I will be attending,

01:14:41

God willing, the Foundations Conference in Manhattan. I love this conference. This is a conference that is run by Sermon Audio, and you know, if Sermon Audio is running something, that it's going to be extraordinary as far as the content and the quality and biblical soundness of the speakers there.

01:15:03

That's going to be Tuesday the 29th, and I'm sorry,

01:15:10

I'm looking at the wrong month on my calendar here, that will be, it's the 19th and 20th, it'll be

01:15:19

Thursday the 19th of December and Friday the 20th of December in Manhattan, and the speakers include

01:15:28

Stephen J. Lawson, founder of One Passion Ministries. You've been hearing Dr. Lawson advertise

01:15:34

New Covenant Church NYC daily on this program. They're one of our sponsors, that church in Manhattan.

01:15:40

Stephen J. Lawson is an extraordinary preacher, and you don't want to miss him. Paul Washer is going to be speaking there,

01:15:47

God willing. What a phenomenal preacher he is. He's also in the aforementioned

01:15:52

American Gospel documentary that we were talking about with Flip Michaels earlier. Rev.

01:15:58

Jeff Thomas, who is my guest next week, Wednesday the 24th of May.

01:16:04

We're going to be discussing Martin Lloyd -Jones next week with Jeff Thomas. What a fine man of God he is with such a long career and such a long history of faithfully proclaiming the truths of God's Word there in Wales, now retired from the pastoral ministry and traveling the globe, preaching the gospel so faithfully.

01:16:28

We have Armon Tomassian, who I discovered at the

01:16:33

Foundations Conference a number of years ago. What a bright light amongst preachers he is.

01:16:39

He is a young man with gifts and abilities and wisdom far beyond his youth.

01:16:46

Rev. Armon Tomassian is truly a powerful, powerful preacher who I believe is going to be a household name over the next decade, amongst

01:16:53

Reformed Christians especially, because he is so extraordinary. I'm looking forward to hearing for the first time

01:16:58

Richard Caldwell Jr. and Andrew Quigley, who are also on the roster. If you want more details on the

01:17:04

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

01:17:12

and you'll have all the details that you need for this event on December 19th and 20th in Manhattan.

01:17:18

I would register as quickly as you can to attend this because the venue can only hold about 200 people and that will fill up quickly.

01:17:27

If you don't register soon, you may lose out on attending. Last but not least, if you love

01:17:33

Iron Trip and Zion Radio, you don't want us to go away, you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves, you look forward to hearing the guests and topics that we feature on this program that sometimes are never heard anywhere else.

01:17:47

Please donate as frequently as you can and as heavily as you can by going to irontripandzionradio .com,

01:17:55

click support, then click to donate now. We are in urgent need of your donations.

01:18:01

Again, we, three or four times a year, get into a very scary situation financially when we have bills mounting up that we can't pay for and it looks grim for us as to the longevity of this program existing, so this is one of those times.

01:18:18

Please go to irontripandzionradio .com, click support, then click to donate now. And always remember,

01:18:24

I never want anybody siphoning money away from their regular giving to their local church where you are a member in order to give to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:18:32

Never do that and never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Those things are commands of scripture providing for your church and home.

01:18:40

Providing for my radio show is not a command of scripture obviously, but if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, then please support

01:18:49

Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Give to us as frequently as you can and as heavily as you can by going to irontripandzionradio .com,

01:18:55

click support, then click to donate now. You can also send in a check via snail mail to the address that will appear on the screen.

01:19:03

If you prefer snail mail, make those checks out to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:19:11

and put advertising in the subject line. As long as whatever it is you are promoting is compatible with what we believe here, you don't have to believe identically with me, but you do have to be promoting something that at least is compatible with what

01:19:24

I believe, then we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we really do need your advertising dollars in a big way.

01:19:31

chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. If you are not a member of a local bible -believing church and you're not prayerfully searching for one, you're living in rebellion against God.

01:19:43

You must rectify that situation as quickly as possible and I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world.

01:19:50

I can help you find a church, so please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:19:57

and put I need a church home in the subject line or something similar. If you're looking for a church even in an area where you're going to be vacationing,

01:20:04

I have helped a number of people find churches where they're vacationing as well, so please send me that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:20:13

and let me know of your need. That's also the email address where you can send a question to Flip Michaels regarding Five Half Truths Addressing the

01:20:22

Most Common Misconceptions of Christianity. chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:20:28

Flip, before the break we were talking about that just because things may appear in the bible to contain mistakes at first glance or a cursory review, this is not true at all.

01:20:44

In fact, one thing that's interesting, Flip, and perhaps you would concur with this, but I have a friend, in fact he's an advertiser here,

01:20:54

Dan Buttafuoco, you've heard his ad on Iron Sherpa Design Radio. He is not only an attorney, a

01:21:00

Christian attorney, but he also runs the Historical Bible Society and he gives presentations on how we received the bible in the

01:21:10

English language and he has a collection of some of the finest and rarest and most valuable bibles and books of antiquity that he puts on display in his presentations.

01:21:24

But since he is a lawyer, he brought something very interesting up during one of my interviews with him regarding the very thing

01:21:33

I said, or the very thing that you brought up, how different gospel accounts by different authors would, if someone is just reading it for the each other or that the authors are contradicting each other, but what in reality is occurring, you're just having different points of view from different eyewitnesses.

01:21:57

And Dan, as a lawyer said, one way that you can tell that witnesses are making up a story is if they're all saying identically the same thing.

01:22:07

That's good, that's really good. But if you want to pick up from there where we were talking about the charge, the bible is just written by men, and so on, if you want to just follow through with that thread for just a little bit before we go on to one of your other half -truths.

01:22:22

Sure, you know, I think the point I was trying to make along with what you're saying is that, you know, the human origin can't be denied of writing it.

01:22:32

We certainly know the bible is written by men, and that's incredible to think of in and of itself.

01:22:37

You have 66 books, and you have 40 different authors, and I just started to touch on, I think, that, you know, you have kings, you have prophets, you have a fisherman, a tax collector, even a former pharisee.

01:22:49

So, you know, and these guys represent three different continents, and then the time period is, what, 1600 years?

01:22:55

So, you know, that's amazing in and of itself. But then to realize that it's inspired by God.

01:23:02

You know, not only did men pen those words, but it was God who gave those words to them to write with perfect precision.

01:23:09

And so we need to be careful when we want to poke at this. We want to make sure that we're really reading the word of God.

01:23:16

We're not just cherry -picking verses to try to make a point. And so it is important to push back and make sure that the individual who is challenging, hey, and you know, not to shy away from those lists.

01:23:28

Create a list. Create a list, you know, if you've got those questions. And there are certainly solid resources and individuals to go to to get those answers.

01:23:38

And as I know you've already shared regarding churches, I'm sure you can help point the way with that, too. But it's just important to make sure that we're reading it in its context.

01:23:48

We're not just taking something out of context just to try to make a point. And usually, and I kind of put a ribbon on this, usually when

01:23:56

I'm having those conversations with an individual, I just go back to, have you read it? I mean, have you sincerely read it?

01:24:02

Have you read it like any other book? Have you read it from start to finish? And even just the book of the Bible. Have you, you know, you want to dispute something in the gospel,

01:24:09

John, have you read those chapters? And you can read it in two hours. So have you read through that to understand, you know, what

01:24:19

John was writing there? And again, to have a good help like a MacArthur Study Bible would be a gem for you to be able to work through those.

01:24:26

And again, going to the different points of view from different people who are eyewitnesses, it'd be one thing, for instance, when we're talking about the number of angels at the tomb, it'd be one thing if one of the authors of that eyewitness testimony said there was only one angel, and that would be a statement certainly excluding any more angels.

01:24:59

It'd be one thing if that was said, but just to have one author say there was one, and another say that there was more than one, that is not a contradiction.

01:25:10

That's just somebody seeing something from a different vantage point. Am I right on that? Oh, I completely agree.

01:25:17

And I would go so far as to say that, you know, you can't exhaust the Word of God. So the more you study it, the more you read it, the more you become amazed at its truthfulness.

01:25:29

So you're just blown away. It is, you know, we use this word all the time in the 80s, but it really in some ways should be reserved for God.

01:25:35

It's awesome. It's awesome. I mean, when we look at the Word of God, you know, you can read a passage of Scripture, and you may have some questions, but if you really take the time to work through it, and even the wording of it, over time you really, you become amazed at truly how it all connects in the truthfulness of Scripture.

01:25:54

I would argue that the more you read Scripture, the more you sincerely are teachable, and you're approaching it with humility, you are going to certainly, you're going to be amazed at the

01:26:08

Word of God. You're not going to go the other direction. You're certainly not going to go the other direction saying, oh, it's just full of errors, because as you read it, you'll see that's just not the case.

01:26:16

And if the authors, the divinely inspired authors of the Holy Scriptures, are trying to convey a specific truth, especially to the audience to whom it was originally written, for instance, when we were talking earlier about the mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds, well, if the people in the first century who were reading this knew, according to their own life and experience, that at that time the mustard seed was the smallest seed, the truth that is going to make sense to them is by bringing the information that is commonly known at that time.

01:27:01

The Bible wasn't intended to bring up things that were to be discoveries centuries later to the audience that was basically reading the autographs of the

01:27:15

Bible. It would have taken too long, and it would serve no purpose to bring up things like that, because the truth that was attempted to be told had nothing really to do with agriculture or with science.

01:27:30

Am I making sense here? Amen. Yeah, no, I do agree. Yeah, absolutely, and I think, again, that kind of, it's not the true definition of exegeting, but I think that's what happens is individuals will bring a bias to the text, or bring later information to the text, or just something to it that they're reading into it, a message.

01:27:51

You're trying to mold it into something instead of really exegeting it, really looking at it in the context it was written, what the author intended, in the culture it was written, to determine what that message is, what

01:28:04

God is saying. Right. We have Mary in Cork, Ireland, who has a question,

01:28:09

I am reminded of when Satan tempted Jesus in Matthew 4 to throw himself down, that God would command his angels concerning him, that on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

01:28:25

Wasn't this a half -truth crafted skillfully to throw Jesus off course and bypass the cross, quoting partially from Psalm 91?

01:28:37

Yes, first off, wow, long -distance question, that's just tremendous, that kind of reach.

01:28:44

But yeah, you know, Phil Johnson actually hits that in the foreword of my book, talking about how

01:28:51

Satan uses these half -truths to deceive, and so, you know, it's the half -truth in the

01:28:59

Garden that began, you know, the fall of man, so yeah, absolutely, that is a play on words, on Scripture, and a half -truth they're used to deceive, to manipulate our

01:29:16

Savior. Well thank you, Mary, and continue spreading the word about Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio in Cork, Ireland and beyond.

01:29:24

Here is half -truth number two, all religions are the same. In fact,

01:29:30

I chuckled when I heard something very similar, if not something exactly worded that way, when a clip from the notoriously liberal program

01:29:42

The View was aired on Fox News, one of the hosts of The View was saying that all religions are the same, that they all teach that men should be good, and men and women should be good, and that they should do good to others, and so on, so basically all religions are the same.

01:30:03

And that's kind of interesting to say, when it is not unknown that there is an organization called the

01:30:12

Church of Satan, and we have all different cults that have drawn the attention of the media,

01:30:23

Jonestown, Guyana comes to mind, where the largest mass suicide in American history took place, or actually it was in Jonestown, Guyana, but they were largely

01:30:38

American citizens that perished at that event, and so on, you could go on and on with all kinds of bizarre religious activity, but if you could comment on exactly what you have to say in regard to this commonly said quote or phrase, that all religions are the same.

01:30:58

It is sad that it is said so often, and when you ask me to share my personal testimony,

01:31:06

I have to confess that these half -truths, they were my half -truths. I was the bad guy,

01:31:12

I was using these, and so I say that so that it doesn't sound so arrogant when

01:31:19

I say these statements, a statement like that is just out of ignorance, and we have to be gentle, of course, we want to share the truth and love, but it's not even close to truth.

01:31:31

To assert that there is only one way to understand it shocks postmodern minds, but when you look at these various religions, for example,

01:31:41

Hinduism is a multi -faceted belief system, and it would attack any such claim of exclusivity that Christianity and Christ hold to.

01:31:51

Buddhists can never ever get past what we were talking about before, John 14, 6, I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the

01:31:59

Father but through me. Buddhists are non -theistic, if not atheistic, Jesus revealed himself to the

01:32:05

Son of God who led the way to the Father, Islam also considers that claim to be blasphemous, so you know, all these different various religions,

01:32:13

Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, Wiccans, fill in the blank, you know, with a world religion, they can never ever get past the whole truth claims found in the

01:32:24

Gospel of John, and that's what I do in this chapter in my book, is I take you through the

01:32:30

Gospel of John, because it's a courtroom drama that's taking place there, there are eight witnesses that testify by the

01:32:39

Apostle John in that Gospel, and I speak of four of them, I address four of them in the book,

01:32:45

John the Baptist, the works of Christ, God the Father, because I'm just amazed at God the Father taking the witness stand, you can imagine that, and the scriptures, and so I walk you through that where you can see that God's Word cannot be lumped in with another, because it's unlike any other, there's no way that you can reconcile

01:33:03

Christianity with the religions of the world, the only way you could do that is, obviously, would have to come at the cost of truth, so you would have to, your

01:33:12

Bible, you have to get a new version of your Bible, you have to get the perforated version, because you'd want to punch out the verse that you don't agree with,

01:33:19

I mean, it's just, there's no other way that you'd really be able to function, and so to say all religions are the same is a half -truth, if we were to,

01:33:27

I know we don't want to call Christianity a religion, but we'd say all religions are the same except Christianity, and that's what it says there.

01:33:35

Yeah, in fact, it's ironic that liberals, who are usually the ones saying that, although you might have somebody who's a political conservative who is not a

01:33:45

Christian saying that too, but it's ironic that they would say that, because how on earth could they maintain that logically when they are clearly telling you, as a

01:33:59

Christian, that you're wrong? So how, when you're making an exclusive claim about Christ and the gospel being the only way for salvation, the only hope of mankind, the only cure for sin, the only hope for eternal life, how could you be told that all religions are the same, because then you would be right as well?

01:34:24

So it doesn't even make any sense. It never does. It never does. I mean, honestly, in this,

01:34:30

I mean, as sincere as I can be in it, if you just do your homework, if you just understand a little bit of what these religions represent, and more importantly here, we want to study the real thing, just like the

01:34:42

Secret Service, when they're trying to identify a counterfeit dollar bill, you know, they study the real thing.

01:34:49

They don't waste their time studying all the false, fake things first. They go to the real thing. And so you need to go to Christianity.

01:34:56

You need to, again, I push it back to the, you know, point you to the gospel, John, and study the real thing.

01:35:01

Look at this courtroom drama. Look at at least four VA witnesses that are called to testify, and see the exclusivity of Christianity.

01:35:11

And then start looking at these other religions and where they stand, and you will see right away that it's just not possible.

01:35:19

All religions are the same, but except Christianity. Right, you would have to redefine

01:35:25

Christianity to include Christianity as being the same as all of other religions. Correct.

01:35:31

I mean, we have the Apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament condemning the

01:35:37

Judaizers and saying that they are accursed, and how, why on earth would he be doing that if they were just the same as what he was, if they were saying the same thing that he was saying, he would never have condemned them.

01:35:51

And you know, all these half -truths, these five half -truths that I go through, they're all interconnected, of course, and they build on one another.

01:35:59

So, you know, we just went through the first half -truth and obviously declared that the

01:36:05

Word of God deserves to be called the Word of God. The Bible is the literal words of God.

01:36:11

And so if we recognize the authority of Scripture, then we're going to go to Scripture.

01:36:17

You know, we're going to go to the Word of God and see what it has to say. We're going to study the real thing first.

01:36:23

We're not going to go to, as an example, the Book of Mormon. We're just not going to do that. We're going to go to the authority, to the source, to what

01:36:30

God has written, and then determine are all religions the same. And again, we see that that's just not the case.

01:36:37

They are, they all are, except for Christianity, if we're going to look at it from that perspective. Now, your next half -truth is probably, of all, the most frequently repeated half -truth by those that actually believe in the existence of God, but who reject

01:36:56

Christianity. I think so. God is love, and somebody is pulling their hair out right now saying, how on earth could that only be a half -truth?

01:37:05

God is love is not completely true? Well, if you could explain about that. Sure. You know, it really, like you're saying, it's an issue of semantics.

01:37:14

You know, words change in meaning over time by how they are used, and we find this in so many areas.

01:37:20

We have to, we have to be careful with our words. We have to define them all the time, because they start meaning different things.

01:37:25

You know, fundamentalist today is a scary word. That's a scary word. I mean, years ago, it was a good word.

01:37:32

You know, you believed in the fundamentals of the faith, but you don't want to get on a plane and call yourself a fundamentalist.

01:37:41

You know, it's not a good thing. It's not. And so what happens here is this phrase,

01:37:47

God is love, has been sanitized over time to insinuate that a loving

01:37:52

God could never be a judging one, and that's what I'm getting at here. You know, and saying, hey, you know what?

01:37:58

God is love, meaning I can live however I want. He just wants me happy. It doesn't matter.

01:38:04

Morality is not the issue here. It's my happiness. That's what's important. But the whole truth is that semantics have no sway on scripture.

01:38:12

The culture can't change a timeless meaning of what God has said. And what He has said is not only that God is love, that He is love.

01:38:20

And let's be clear, it is stated specifically twice in scripture, plainly so, that God is love.

01:38:27

But He's also holy, holy, holy. And so His word declares that He is holy, meaning every attribute of His is set apart.

01:38:37

So His love is set apart. It's a holy love. His mercy is set apart. His grace,

01:38:43

His goodness, His justice, and again, His love, they're set apart in a meaning like there's none like it.

01:38:50

It is as high as you can go. That is the example. It's the pinnacle. God is love, but it's a holy love.

01:38:58

And so in that chapter, what I do is I take you to Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6, where he sees that God is being declared as holy, holy, holy.

01:39:08

And the point I try to make in that passage is that when this is what happens with Isaiah, is when you have an awareness of God, it leads to self -awareness.

01:39:18

A God -awareness leads to a self -awareness. And in Isaiah 6, I believe it's verse 5, when

01:39:25

Isaiah is confronted with the holiness of God, I mean, his first response really is, well, what was me, for I am ruined?

01:39:31

And I love how the King James does it. I think it says, undone. I mean, he saw himself doomed to die.

01:39:37

He got to see himself as the sinner he really is, and he actually refers to his unclean lips as you read further in the verses.

01:39:45

And so we see that God is unlike any other. He is holy, and his love is set apart in that way.

01:39:54

So it's not the half truth that God is love in the sense that I can live however I want to live. It is

01:39:59

God is love. This is the whole truth. God is love, and he's holy, holy, holy. I would argue it's a holy love, and certainly it's a holy love because it's rooted in the cross of Calvary.

01:40:11

You know, it's interesting, the same people that might throw that in your face as a way of trying to avoid the consequences of sin, as their way of disagreeing or trying to refute the notion of God's wrath, or of chastisement, or of punishment, etc.

01:40:37

They will be very often the same kind of person that will recoil in horror when a

01:40:43

Christian says that somebody who is a serial killer on death row has become forgiven by the mercy of God because they've become a

01:40:52

Christian. They've repented of their sin. People who are enemies of the Bible are not very consistent logically because very often they are the first to protest something like that.

01:41:06

What do you mean? You're trying to tell me after all that person has done, Jeffrey Dahmer for one, who not only murdered people but ate their bodies, you know, ate parts of their body, and the most disgusting and nauseating and satanic thing that you can think of, you're trying to tell me he is going to be in heaven?

01:41:26

What kind of an idiotic religion do you believe in? So it's interesting how people who reject

01:41:34

Christ and the Bible are not very consistent in their anger, are they? And you know, a book that goes on that kind of thread in a number of different areas that I really enjoyed reading, and I do quote in my book, is

01:41:47

D .A. Carson's The Intolerance of Tolerance. Oh yeah. And it is perfect for the age that we are in.

01:41:54

The Intolerance of Tolerance, highly recommend it, addresses a number of those issues. Just turns it all on its head, which is very, very good.

01:42:03

All right, well we have to go to our final break right now. If you want to join us on the air with the questions, send it in quickly to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:42:10

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p .m. 33 Bayshore Road, Deer Park, New York. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and we are concluding our interview today with the next 10 minutes or so with Flip Michaels, who is an author and the associate pastor and staff elder at Grace Life Church of Anvil, Pennsylvania.

01:51:56

We have been discussing five half truths addressing the most common misconceptions of Christianity. If you want to send in a question, do it immediately at chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

01:52:05

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. And Flip, we have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who has a question.

01:52:13

He said, Regarding the love of God, isn't it also the most common mistruth quoted by our brothers and sisters in Christ who reject the

01:52:23

Reformed faith because they make the claim over and over again that God loves every single person equally, and yet at the same time, many of them believe in the existence of hell?

01:52:34

They cannot both be true. There you go. That's a very good comment, question.

01:52:40

I think so, yeah. I think it's an excellent observation, and I do address that in the book.

01:52:46

I actually break that out into two areas dealing with common grace and saving grace. And so we look at the love of God, certainly through common grace.

01:52:56

He has blessed all mankind in a number of ways. We're going to need that air conditioning soon.

01:53:02

You can see it coming. We certainly have rain. We have medical technology. He's given man knowledge.

01:53:09

There are so many different areas of our life. We see it in our pets. So we really are blessed in that sense that God does love all man, but there is a saving grace that is there, which obviously is

01:53:24

His elect. And that does get into the issue of the Reformed faith and where we land, of course, but the issue of election and sovereign grace.

01:53:35

But I would agree. I think it's a great observation. We can say, though, to some extent, of course we can, that God loves all men in the sense that He has given

01:53:47

His common grace to us to enjoy. Yes, but obviously He doesn't love all men as His children nor as a spouse.

01:53:58

Just as we are reminded by the Apostle Paul, husbands love your wives, just as Christ so loved the church and gave

01:54:07

Himself up as a sacrifice for her, because obviously there was a unique love there that did not apply to every single human that has ever lived.

01:54:16

Yeah, and it's a love like any other. It's, again, a love in the cross and Calvary. Amen. Well, here's one that you obviously have to quickly explain what you mean by Jesus is truly a man because of the fact that that is a truth, because if it were not true,

01:54:38

He could not have been our sacrifice, our perfect substitute on Calvary to receive the wrath of His Father and our

01:54:46

Father on our behalf if He was not truly man. So quickly explain how that is only a half -truth.

01:54:54

Sure. You know, when we talk about Jesus was truly a man, no one really would dispute that the man from Nazareth was named

01:55:02

Jesus existed. You have some of the most liberal scholars, certainly unbelievers. We have secular evidence, which is cited in the book, that point to it that no one's going to dispute that.

01:55:13

But the whole truth is that Jesus was truly a man and truly God. See, He also claimed to be the

01:55:19

Son of God, not merely a good teacher. I mean, He said He's one with the Father. Again, He said He's the way, truth, and the life.

01:55:26

And so this gets into what is commonly known as C .S.

01:55:32

Lewis's trilemma. You know, either he's a liar, he's a lunatic, or he's the

01:55:37

Lord. So if he's a liar, then he knew that he wasn't, but he was stating these things.

01:55:43

If he's a lunatic, C .S. Lewis actually equates him to a poached egg. And it's amazing here, because, you know, you look at this trilemma, and you go, okay, so I really, these are my three choices.

01:55:58

You know, he's lying, because he did say these things. He claimed to be the Son of God, not merely a good teacher.

01:56:05

So the whole truth, Jesus was truly a man and truly God. You've got to address this question of who

01:56:10

Jesus is. So he's either a liar, he's either a lunatic, or, as we know, he is

01:56:16

Lord. And so in our culture today, I really break it down to two camps.

01:56:22

We see that people answer this question, they view this as Jesus either being a swear word or Savior.

01:56:30

And so regardless of really how a person's going to address Jesus Christ in this life, the reality of his dual nature, it remains.

01:56:38

It remains. That whole truth remains, that he is truly man and truly God. There are no other options here.

01:56:44

This is what he has said. He has claimed to be the Son of God. He has claimed to be one with the

01:56:49

Father. And so again, that whole truth is that Jesus was truly a man and truly God. Amen.

01:56:55

And the last half -truth is that our good deeds do matter. And, you know, this is where we get into these statements that you'll hear, where, you know, when

01:57:07

I get to heaven, when I get to the pearly gates, he's going to weigh my good deeds and my bad deeds.

01:57:13

But the problem here is that God doesn't grade on a curve. Our good deeds will never merit salvation.

01:57:19

But even so, you know, man tries to, as we've talked about earlier, devise a number of religious ways to save himself, works, religion, where man is working for this.

01:57:28

But only one work merits salvation, and it's the Atonement. And so the whole truth here is our good deeds matter when preceded by faith, meaning that this really puts human achievement on one side and divine accomplishment on the other.

01:57:43

And the question is, where are you going to place your faith? What are you going to place your faith in? Is it in man's works, or is it in the work of Christ?

01:57:51

And so our good deeds, they do matter, but they need to be preceded by faith. Otherwise, they're nothing but filthy rags.

01:57:59

Yes, they're filthy rags when we show them to God as if we now deserve heaven because of them.

01:58:07

The good works we do are only a fruit that we are saved. They are not a cause or co -agent of becoming saved.

01:58:14

And I so agree, and I add in the book, I do go down this line to make it clear that we're not stating that good deeds, generally good deeds between men is, of course, we want to encourage that.

01:58:31

We want to see compassion. We want to demonstrate love. That's not what we're getting into. We're getting into the salvific, you know, domain here, where we're talking about really what pertains to our salvation.

01:58:44

You know, where am I going to land? Am I going to land on trying to save myself through some kind of works, or am

01:58:50

I going to land on the one work that has saved, would save me, did save me on the

01:58:55

Cross of Calvary, which is Jesus's death on the Cross? Amen. And if you think that you're going to heaven just because you raised your hand at Bible camp when you're eight and have never repented, you are deceived because it says,

01:59:09

James tells us, that faith without works is dead. That doesn't mean that works cooperate with our salvation.

01:59:15

It just means that if a living faith truly exists, a living faith will bear fruit and evidence that it is truly there.

01:59:23

And well, thank you so much. I want to let our listeners know that if they want to visit Grace Life Church in Anvil, Pennsylvania, go to gracelifepa .org,

01:59:32

gracelifepa .org. And if you want to purchase the book, Five Half Truths, go to cvbbs .com,

01:59:40

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