May 14, 2021 Show with Dr. Joe Morecraft on “Proper Heroes Put in Their Proper Place in the Lives of Christians” (Part 2)

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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, and now here's your host,

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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 Friday on this absolutely breathtakingly beautiful May 14th, 2021.

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And I'm always thrilled to have back on the program one of my favorite guests, Dr. Joe Moorcraft, who is an author, and he's the pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia.

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Today we are going to be addressing part two of a discussion that we began last month, almost to the day it was last month, proper heroes put in their proper place in the lives of Christians, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Joseph C. Moorcraft III. And it's always a privilege and pleasure to be on your show,

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Chris. And as we always do, for the sake especially of those who have not heard you before, let our listeners know a summary of what

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Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia is all about. We are a small congregation in Cumming, Georgia, which is just north of downtown

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Atlanta, about 40 miles. We're five years old. We are a member of the

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Reformed Presbyterian Church, head over presbytery, that is committed to the original

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Westminster Confession of Faith and larger and shorter catechisms. People come from all kinds of backgrounds all over the place and are faithful to the

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Lord and carrying out the Great Commission and financing the church and praying. And we have closely associated with us an organization called

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Christian Fine Arts or Forsyth, which is a very large program of some 200 young people from elementary through high school, owned and operated by people in our church, to teach any aspect of music, choir, chorals, marching bands, orchestras.

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You can learn about 10 or 15 different kinds of musical instruments. Christian Fine Arts of Forsyth, and they're not an arm of our church, but they're the people that operate it in our church, and we feel very honored to be connected with them.

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Great. That's actually something that you, I don't believe, brought up in previous interviews. I'm so glad to hear about that.

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And I'm so glad to hear about the arts coming from a perspective of biblically faithful, conservative, confessional

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Christianity, as opposed to the left, which is where we typically hear about the arts being associated.

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I know, and it's extremely important. Amen. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, go to HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,

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HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. And I always like to plug your commentary series on the

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Westminster Larger Catechism. It's called Authentic Christianity, an

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Exposition of the Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism. And it has eight volumes, and tell us about this.

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It represents hundreds of sermons that I preached in the late 20th century, and I had all these notes, and I thought, well,

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I might as well put them in a book, basically, for my children and grandchildren. And if anybody else reads them, that's all the better.

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So I took many years putting all this together, and it is published now by a young man who is an expert at book publishing.

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They're beautiful books. They're hard -backed books, and you can get them at WestminsterCommentary .com.

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WestminsterCommentary .com. And last but not least, tell us about ComprehensiveChristianity .com,

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the website of one of your elders, Tim Renshaw, who happens to be a key person at Heritage Presbyterian Church, with whom

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I have regular contact, and I thank him and you for being a key part of the decision that was recently made by Heritage Presbyterian Church to sponsor

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for a year, and we're looking forward to airing your commercials, and also to getting your print ad to be combined with the

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Iron Sharpens Iron print ad that will be in World Magazine, one of the issues over the next following months.

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But tell us about ComprehensiveChristianity .com. Well, first of all, let me say, we really do believe that Iron Sharpens Iron is an important international arm of the

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Reformed faith, and so we're glad we could participate in some small way. ComprehensiveChristianity .com

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is a website owned by Tim Renshaw, an elder in our church, who spends his time planning, editing, publishing papers and manuscripts that I have that are either out of print or have never been in print before.

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And he's done many things. Some of the books are free. He's put together things I didn't know

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I'd written. He published a 600 -page commentary of mine on Genesis. He has an eight - or nine -volume set of books called

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Comprehensive Study of the Bible, one long sermon on every book of the

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Bible. You can get them from Kindle, e -books, and he also sells paperback books.

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That's ComprehensiveChristianity .com. Great, and hopefully we'll remember to announce that at the end of the program.

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And I actually want to give a shout -out to a pastor in Hawaii.

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Hopefully he's listening today. His name is Pastor Daniel Costales of Berean Bible Church in Hilo, Hawaii, and I hope

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I'm pronouncing that right. He, after a recent discussion with him for the first time,

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I had not known him until very recently, or known of him, a listener in Hawaii, actually two listeners in Hawaii, contacted me for church recommendations, and he was on a list of recommended churches, although not thoroughly confessionally reformed like I am.

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He is a dispensationalist Calvinist, much in the same tradition as John MacArthur.

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But in my conversation with him, one of the very first things he said with great enthusiasm while looking at my website was,

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Oh, you've interviewed Dr. Joe Morecraft, one of my favorite preachers. I consult his sermons on the

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Psalms every time I preach on the Psalms. So I wanted to give him a shout -out today. Small world, brother.

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Yes, it is. That shows you how God is spreading the Reformed faith.

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Ever since the last quarter of the 20th century, throughout the 21st century, the

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Reformed faith has grown more rapidly in the world than it had in the previous 100 plus years.

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Amen. Let me give my brother in Hawaii a little plug here for his congregation,

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Berean Bible Church in Hilo, Hawaii. It is hilobereans .com,

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H -I -L -O, Bereans, B -E -R -E -A -N -S, dot com. And this is part two.

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Both of us agreed that two hours could not contain all that we wanted to address about heroes in the church.

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So we have added a second part to this discussion that we began last month. And I understand it was amazing to me after the show was over that we really did not thoroughly address the 16th century heroes of the faith that God rose up out of the

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Protestant Reformation. Yes, sir. We talked about the need for proper heroes and that God wants us to have heroes that are men and women of character and sound

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Christian faith whose good points we can imitate, whose bravery and courage we can imitate, who we can learn from, and whose mistakes we can learn from as well.

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We don't worship our heroes. We're not blind to their faults, but we do find inspiration and encouragement about them.

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The problem today in the church, however, is because of the rampant ignorance of history in the

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Christian church. Many of the heroes of our young people are modern politicians, musicians, actors, and the like who are ungodly.

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They may be handsome or beautiful. They may be good actors. They may be exciting. They may be powerful men and women, but they are not models for our children to imitate.

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And unfortunately, they are. So I think the importance of these programs that we're having is to simply introduce people who haven't been introduced to them to multitudes of heroes that we have for the past 2 ,000 years.

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And I think we are ignorant of history. And it's only been recently, that is in the past 30 years, that people have recovered, that Christians have recovered the value of history.

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Our enemies, the anti -Christians, have known the value of history longer than we have because they want history on their side so they can say concerning us that we're out of step with history.

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So the problem is they revise history and make the bad guys look good and the good guys look bad.

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So I'm glad we have this opportunity to present some names of some men and women, black and white and Indian, that are godly examples for us to follow.

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Of course, the primary example, the primary hero, the only perfect hero is

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Jesus. And parents must learn how to be heroes for their children as well so that when children think about heroes, their mother and father come to mind.

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And so in our last program together, we got up to the Reformation.

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We talked about the early church and the heroes in the Middle Ages.

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We talked about the Reformation in France, the Huguenots, the courageous

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French Protestants who were slaughtered by the Roman Catholic government and how

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God blessed them and used them in their day.

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I want us to look today, if we have time, at some other eras in that time,

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English Puritanism and Scottish Covenanters.

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Yeah, in fact, something that you just said, including your bringing up the

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Covenanters, reminds me of how important it is for the people in the pew to know, learn, and master as much as possible history because the

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Roman Catholics often make the claim that history is the

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Achilles heel of Protestantism. And they claim history is on their side when it comes to Christianity.

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They make all kinds of claims, like they were the church that was founded by Christ and by Christ's ordination headed by Peter as their first pope.

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They claim that they gave us the Bible and they claim that any differences between Protestant theology and Roman Catholic theology and dogma is because of the innovations and additions or subtractions sinfully made by reformers.

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And we could go on and on about the ways that either the leadership in a clerical sense or in the apologetic realm of Roman Catholicism, they really rest assured that most of their audience is not going to investigate what they say, either about the

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Bible or about history. In fact, many of the Catholic apologists will admit that the

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Roman Catholic population is woefully ignorant of the scriptures. They take advantage of that.

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And so isn't it important that we who are Protestants, not only those in pastoral leadership and oversight and those in seminaries and so on, but also the average person in the pew should know as much as he can about history?

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How true is that? I mean, Christianity is basically history and theology. And you can't understand theology without history and you can't understand history without theology.

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We live in a massively ignorant age. I don't know, I would dare say most

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Protestants could not refute the Catholic claims that you just mentioned about history.

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When, as a matter of fact, you don't have to be a scholar in history to see how false those claims are.

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There wasn't even a Roman Catholic Church until hundreds of years after the

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Apostolic Age. Some might even say, officially, the

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Church of Rome did not become such until the Council of Trent, which is after the Reformation, because there are things that were defined as dogma at Trent that were not defined as dogma by Rome before that, where a

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Catholic cleric or theologian had more liberty to agree with the

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Protestant side of things, but then was condemned after the

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Reformation at Trent. In fact, Council of Trent was a Roman Catholic's attempt to refute the

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Protestant Reformation, and at the Council of Trent there were Roman Catholic priests and bishops that believed in justification by faith in Christ alone.

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But because they believed in the supremacy of the Pope, and because they were in the minority, they lost out.

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And you're right, that's when it hardened in its position. In fact, it kept evolving for several centuries thereafter.

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So, it's a myth that the Roman Catholic Church was founded by Jesus, and it was hundreds of years after that that even

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Augustine, in the 5th century, didn't hesitate to disagree with the

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Pope on occasion. In fact, the majority of Church Fathers agreed with Protestants before the

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Reformation began. They agreed with what the Protestants would eventually champion, and many more areas of crucial teaching that involve salvation than they do with what

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Rome came to adopt after Trent. Yes, that was John Calvin and Martin Luther's point.

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They said that they have no right to claim the early Church Fathers. Calvin particularly over and over quoted the early

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Church Fathers, that is, right after the Apostolic Church, to support the various doctrines and viewpoints of the

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Reformed Church. So, the Reformed faith did begin in the 16th century. It began, so to speak, in the

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New Testament and the Old Testament, and you can see that the early Church Fathers share our view, not the view of Rome.

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But I have heroes in all of those centuries before the

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Reformation, but it's the 16th century and the 17th century particularly that are loaded with men and women that we must teach our children about.

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Last week, I talked about the noble women in France that were sisters or daughters or mothers of kings.

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Marguerite of Devoir, Jeanne d 'Albray, Rene of Pereira.

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Calvin wrote letters to all those women, and those letters to and from them are in books,

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I think called the Letters or Correspondence or something of Calvin of this very day. But they were godly women.

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I mean, all the heroes are not men. There's many godly women throughout the history of the

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Church. In fact, in the 16th century, the English Puritanism, I'm going to mention a couple, at least one.

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But most Puritanism, like Calvinism, has a bad press today. Puritanism, people think, they think of a

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Puritan, they think of somebody that lost all joy of life and that had no concern for art or music or drama or that they were people who wore black suits and black dresses and black hats and that just were waiting to die and go to heaven.

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The Puritans were one of the greatest race of people, so to speak, that ever lived. In the 16th century, they were men and women who wanted to purify

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England, hence Puritans. They wanted to purify the

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Church, they wanted to purify culture, they wanted to purify the state, and by purify,

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I mean bring them all in accordance with the word of God. They wanted to clean house.

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They realized that many of the troubles they were having in England was because they'd forgotten the religion of their father, so they sought to purify it, and they were great men.

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One of the first great Puritans was William Tyndale, T -Y -N -D -A -L.

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William Tyndale was a man who translated the

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Bible from Greek and Hebrew into English. People don't realize it, but when we read out the

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King James Version, it's basically mostly Tyndale from Tyndale's Bible.

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The problem is that Tyndale translated the Bible into English during the reign of Henry VIII in the very early 16th century.

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Henry VIII was one of the bloodiest tyrants in the history of England.

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He martyred hundreds of Lollards, that is, the followers of John Wycliffe, who translated the

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Bible into English out of Latin in about the 13th or 14th century. He was a tyrant, he was adulterous.

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Everybody knows about his six wives, and if I have to make an after -dinner speech someplace that's going to be a short speech,

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I usually say these words to begin, As Henry VIII said to his second wife,

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I won't be keeping you long. But anyway,

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William Tyndale was considered an outlaw. In fact, there's a good biography of Tyndale called

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God's Outlaw. I don't remember the author, but God's Outlaw is a great book young people can read.

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And Tyndale had to flee England because they wanted his head.

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So finally, Henry VIII's intelligence network caught him and brought him to England, sentenced him to be burned at the stake.

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And he was a great martyr and a great faithful man of God.

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In fact, I've been to Barnes & Noble bookstores, which are secular bookstores, and I have seen paperback books that William Tyndale wrote that you can't find in Christian bookstores.

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So go to Barnes & Noble and various places and look for William Tyndale. Translate the

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Bible into English, burned at the stake courageously, and he said that he wanted to put the

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Bible into English so that the average plow boy would know more about the word of God than the

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Pope. And that's the way it's turned out in history. And by the way, I just want to let our listeners know, in the event that they wrongly think my guest is misspelling

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Tyndale with an E at the end, both spellings are accepted as correct, as are many words from that century.

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And his last words were,

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Lord, open the king of England's eyes. Because Henry had outlawed the

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English translation of the Bible. Because even though he left the Roman Catholic Church, because the

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Catholic Church wouldn't condone his divorce to his first wife, he was Roman Catholic in doctrine to the very end.

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And so he did not want people reading the Bible in English. And so Tyndale's last words were,

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Oh Lord, open the king of England's eyes. One year after Tyndale's martyrdom,

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Henry required that all churches have a copy of at least a portion of the

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English Bible. Wow. And by the way, I don't know if you agree with this, but I have interviewed

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Thomas Cranmer scholars, who he was the

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Archbishop of Canterbury when King Henry VIII was on the throne.

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And apparently Cranmer, Thomas Cranmer, who was thoroughly

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Protestant and who viewed Henry as a lost person, he asked

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Henry, if you believe in justification by faith alone on his deathbed, please squeeze my hand.

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And Henry squeezed his hand, and Cranmer accepted that as a sign that Henry had repented of his

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Roman Catholic view of justification. I just thought I'd throw that in. Yes sir, that is true. And Thomas Cranmer is one of my all -time heroes.

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He was Archbishop. He was courageously Protestant and Reformed.

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He was a good friend of John Knox. Part of the wedding service, when I had to perform weddings, marriages, part of the marriage service was written by Thomas Cranmer.

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That's how old it is and how good it is. Cranmer was the

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Archbishop, and Henry trusted him, and you're right.

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In the hours right before his death, Cranmer was in the room preaching the gospel to him.

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And he said, give me some sign that whether you believe the gospel as you have just described.

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Henry squeezed his hand. So I expect to see Henry VIII in heaven someday.

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Amen. By the way, people also might not know about the amazing courage of Thomas Cranmer.

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After he demonstrated cowardice, he recanted Protestantism out of fear of being executed when

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Rome regained power in the Church of England. But then he later recanted his recantation.

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Oh, that is a great story. Before he was burned alive, he first thrust his hand that signed his recantation of Protestantism into the flame so it would be burned first.

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Yes, sir, he did. Can you imagine? He was an old man. They threatened to burn the stake if he didn't recant.

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And out of fear, he unfortunately did. But they decided they were going to burn him anyway.

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So they had him sign a paper recanting the Protestant faith. He's on the scaffold now getting ready to be burnt at stake.

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And just to mock him and humiliate him, they require a public recantation again.

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And old Thomas Cranmer, knowing he was about to die a terrible death, said,

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I recant my recantation. I am a Protestant. And he stuck the hand into the fire that wrote the recantation, as you said.

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In fact, we have to go to our first break right now. We could pick up right where you left off there, brother. Okay. If anybody wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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

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And welcome back to our interview with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III. We are talking about Christian heroes or heroes, proper heroes for Christians put in their proper places in the lives of Christians.

36:40

And our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

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Give us your first name at least. City and state of residence. And country of residence. And right when we left off for the commercial break, you had just finished describing one of the great heroes of the faith, the

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Anglican reformer, Thomas Cranmer. Yes, there were so many great 16th century

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Puritan reformers that we could go all day just on them.

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I would recommend two books. One is easy for even young people before teenage to read.

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It's called Five English Reformers by J .C. Ryle. But then one of the bestselling books in all of history, second of the

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Bible, is Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Foxe's Book of Martyrs. And it goes through history and gives these moving historical accounts of the men and women who have suffered, been persecuted, tortured, driven into exile, and martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ.

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There were also most of the kings and queens during this period in England in the 16th and 17th century should not be our heroes.

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They were the tutors and the stewards. And in many ways, most of them were great obstacles to the reformed faith.

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Henry VIII, as I said, killed the followers of John Wycliffe.

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And Bloody Mary slaughtered hundreds of great reformers.

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And Elizabeth, her primary concern was to keep her crown and the head upon which it sat.

38:37

And then in the next century, James I, Charles I, James II, Charles II, all were tyrants.

38:45

They all believed in the divine right of kings. They believed that the monarchs were the head of the church.

38:53

But in the midst of all those English head of state over those two centuries, there were three great and godly

39:02

Puritans that are worthy of our invitation and to be our heroes.

39:07

One was a teenager. When Henry VIII died, they wanted, and the reformation was accelerating under Thomas Cranmer and various other

39:20

English Puritans. They wanted his son to become king, and his name was

39:29

Edward VI. Edward VI was a sickly teenager.

39:38

But he loved Protestantism and the reformed faith, and one of his teachers was John Knox and some of the other great men.

39:45

And so the reformation really grew rapidly under Edward VI.

39:54

He brought some great reformed scholars from various places in Europe to come and teach and to give advice, one of whom was

40:02

Bucer. Bucer wrote a book. Martin Bucer was German. And Martin Bucer came to England and had a great impact.

40:10

There was also an Italian, Vermigli, that was brought to England to help with the reformation.

40:17

Martin Bucer had written a book to honor Edward VI, and that book is still available.

40:27

It's hard to find at Christian bookstores, but you can find it at large secular bookstores.

40:35

It is, and right now the name has slipped me, but it'll come to me. It is a book on how to reform a culture by the law and the gospel.

40:50

And it was written for Edward VI on how to reform

40:56

English culture by the word of God. So I'll think of that as time goes on.

41:05

But Edward VI had a great impact on England. He died when he was a teenager, and the advisors that were around him realized that the next in line to the throne was

41:21

Henry VIII's daughter, Mary, who was a devout Catholic committed to destroying the

41:28

Reformation in England. And so they wanted to keep her from being queen if they possibly could.

41:37

So they had dying young Edward to appoint as his successor one who didn't have as close a claim to the throne as Mary, but who did have claim to the throne.

41:51

She had royal blood in her veins, and she was a teenager as well.

42:00

And she was queen for nine days.

42:07

She was a Puritan, and you can imagine why she died.

42:17

I've lost her name right off the bat. But she was queen for nine days.

42:23

She was a Puritan. She held the Roman Catholic Church back until Mary's powerful lords raised an army and overthrew her and put her in prison and had her beheaded.

42:44

Lady Jane Grey is her name. Lady Jane Grey. There are several good paperback books on her.

42:56

And because she was such a young woman of character, she read out of the Greek New Testament.

43:02

Because she was such a woman of character, the archbishop, who was

43:08

Catholic at the time, admired her character and he went to her to comfort her in her prison cell right before she died.

43:19

And he said to Lady Jane Grey, even though we disagree on religion,

43:27

I want to comfort you by making you understand that I expect to see you in heaven someday.

43:37

And Lady Jane said to the archbishop or the bishop, she said to him, Sir, we'll never meet in heaven.

43:45

Wow. Because I will be in heaven and you will be in hell. Wow. Talk about chutzpah.

43:53

Yeah, yeah. And she publicly declared Christ to be king of England. And it's great if you go in the town of London where she was beheaded to mark the spot as a crystal pillow where her head fell.

44:10

And she, now I don't recommend this, but nevertheless, she was buried under the communion table in the church there in the

44:19

Tower of London. So Edward VI is somebody that teenagers should study.

44:26

Lady Jane Grey particularly was a tremendous woman. And then in the 17th century, there was the great

44:37

Oliver Cromwell. There is a movie put out on Cromwell about 30 years ago with leading stars in it.

44:46

I think I've seen it 20 times. I watched it again just the other month. Wow, it's that good, huh?

44:52

It is that good. And it's basically historically correct, basically. Oliver Cromwell was a farmer in the 1640s.

45:04

The best biography of Cromwell is by Merle Daubigny called

45:10

The Lord Protector. It's a black, hardback, small book, wonderful book.

45:17

It particularly emphasizes his godly, Christlike character as well as a father and a husband and the advice he would give his children.

45:25

But he was a farmer, and then he got elected to parliament in the 1640s.

45:32

England was going through a civil war. Charles I was a tyrant. He raised an

45:37

Irish Catholic and mercenary army to march on his own people. And so parliament found him guilty of murder and treason, and Charles I was beheaded.

45:52

Oliver Cromwell was the most powerful man in England at the time. He was the head of the army, and he had a principle that was new to him that day, and that is you don't choose officers based upon their title and wealth.

46:11

You choose officers based upon their abilities, character, and military wisdom.

46:20

So he, once Charles I, was executed. The civil war was brought to an end.

46:27

The Westminster Assembly met, and the various confessions were written. Westminster Confession of Faith.

46:36

Cromwell was chosen to be Lord Protector of England. They wanted him to be king, but he would not be king.

46:42

He did not want the title of king. So they chose an old name out of English history to give him as the head of state called

46:49

Lord Protector. And Oliver Cromwell wanted to make

46:55

England a Christian republic. His view was not the majority opinion, and so as a result, there were a lot of troubles during his day, but nevertheless, the

47:07

Puritans began to control Parliament, and under Cromwell's leadership, they wrote a constitution, which was the only written constitution

47:18

England ever had, and you can find the seeds of the United States Constitution in Cromwell's constitution.

47:28

He sought to Christianize England in every aspect of its life.

47:34

And he was the head of the New Model Army, New Model meaning the only soldiers he wanted in his army were what he called, in his words, precious godly men.

47:49

And it was the most powerful army in Europe. It never lost a battle.

47:54

It almost lost one. It had to go into Scotland on one occasion, this is another story, to take a castle because they wanted to,

48:05

Edinburgh Castle, because they wanted to restore Charles II to the throne. And Cromwell said if you do that, he'll kill all the

48:15

Protestants again. So Cromwell took his army to this castle and sieged it.

48:23

But it couldn't take the castle because it was so powerful.

48:30

So they were withdrawing, and so the stupid general in charge of the troops in the castle decided he was going to take his army outside the castle and attack the

48:42

New Model Army while Oliver's army was leaving, which was the biggest mistake of his life, because then

48:49

Cromwell's army crushed him. Cromwell understood his power. He was not after power, he was after godliness.

48:58

But he understood his power. And he had to send his army into Ireland because the

49:09

Irish Catholics had attacked and killed

49:14

Northern Ireland, tens of thousands of godly Reformed Christians in Northern Ireland.

49:21

So in order to put down that rebellion, Cromwell sent his army into Ireland. He's been slandered by saying he committed genocide, killed women and children, which he didn't.

49:33

In fact, there's a book that was written in the past 20 years by an Irish, contemporary Irish Catholic today, called

49:40

Cromwell, Honorable Enemy, that showed that Cromwell's army march into Ireland was not any kind of genocide.

49:49

He had to march there and put down that rebellion. There were some Scottish people that wanted to put a steward back on the throne.

49:57

So he had to send his army into Scotland, and he said, try to kill as few of these men that you possibly can to win the war, because these are godly men.

50:09

So they defeated the attempt to restore Charles II to the throne.

50:16

And the Pope in Rome started persecuting the

50:22

Waldensians. The Waldensians were a group of people that didn't recognize...

50:29

They lived in Central, Middle Europe, Northern Italy, in that area. They didn't recognize the supremacy of the

50:37

Pope. They had a lot of Protestant leanings even before the Reformation. Not perfectly so.

50:43

In fact, we have to pick up on the Waldensians when we return from our midway break, because we have to go to the midway break now.

50:48

Yes, sir. And folks, please be patient with us, because the middle break is a little longer than the other breaks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

50:57

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because they are required by the

51:05

FCC to localize this show and all their programming geographically to Lake City, Florida, and they do so by airing their own public service announcements and other local things, while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

51:19

So, please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information as you can, provided by as many of our advertisers as you can, so that you can more frequently and successfully contact our advertisers, whether it is to purchase their products, use their services, visit their churches, or support their parachurch organizations, or if it is simply to thank them for sponsoring

51:46

Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And that will go a long way to let our advertisers know that you do indeed value this show and you thank them for sponsoring it.

51:57

We absolutely positively depend upon the advertising dollars that come into this program to exist, so please try to respond to our advertisers as much as possible, and further ensure that you will do that by writing down their contact information.

52:12

Also, write down questions for Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III on heroes and their proper place in the lives of Christians.

52:22

And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

52:29

Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and your country of residence. We'll be right back with Dr.

52:35

Joseph C. Moorcraft III right after these messages from our sponsors. Don't go away.

52:42

Music Hi, I'm Phil Johnson, host and executive director of Grace To You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

52:57

I hope you plan to join me and Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, for the

53:03

G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd.

53:09

The theme this year is Christ is supreme over all. My friend Chris Arnzen and I will be joined by several of our other friends, including

53:18

Votie Baucom, Justin Peters, Darrell Bernard Harrison, Virgil Walker, and James White.

53:25

More than 20 other speakers will be joining us, and the lineup this year includes my pastor, John MacArthur.

53:31

For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com.

53:37

Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021.

53:44

This is Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all. Music When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

54:04

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

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NASB. I'm author Gary DeMar, president of American Vision, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Dan Lubenick of West Hills Baptist Church in Huntington Station, New York, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Reverend Buzz Taylor, author of God's Lawson, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Dr. William Webster, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Battleground, Washington, founder of the ministry

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Christian Resources. The NASB is my Bible of choice.

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I'm Pastor Ryan Galan of Central Islip Community Church in Central Islip, New York, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Brandon Smith of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Jackson, Georgia, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart?

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Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

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website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

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Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show at any time, day or night.

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Please be sure to also give it a good review, and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnzen has on the show.

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Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news.

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Subscribe to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

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podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We are dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a

56:42

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56:48

Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking

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Biblical truth. And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

57:08

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. We are excited to announce another new member of the

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Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Bhanu Gadhi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through.

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In Psalm 139, verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the

58:33

Lord like this. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

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He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

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God has designed, and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

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God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to Him.

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When the whole world is searching for a solution, God in His infinite mercy has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be pretty serious.

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Such is the beauty of His design. Knowing that design, how can we not erupt in praise to our great

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God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in His design.

59:26

Thank you. The Wokeness in the

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Gospel conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, June 11th and 12th. Register now by going online to Wokenessandgospel .org

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featuring speakers such as Dr. Owen Strand. If you just buy this ideology, the world's going to be made right.

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No, it's not. Only Jesus Christ makes the world right. Daryl Harrison of the

01:00:01

Just Thinking Podcast. Sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God and consequently to one another.

01:00:09

Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. Like Satan in the garden, woke hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the

01:00:16

Word of God. I don't say that lightly. Also hear from Tommy Nelson, Charles Stolfus, and Rodney Brown.

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Confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today, threatening even to divide the church, and answering with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:00:30

The Wokeness in the Gospel conference coming to Denton Bible Church, June 11th and 12th. Register online at Wokenessandgospel .org.

01:00:42

Here's what Gary DeMar, president of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

01:00:49

Good to be back, Chris. I always enjoy our time here. I have to tell you, you're one of the better interviewers out there.

01:00:56

And I've been doing this for 30, more than 30 years. Wow, that's some compliment. How much do

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I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything. We're in good shape.

01:01:08

I'm glad you said it on the air, so I don't have to brag about myself. Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, airing live

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Monday through Friday, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern Time, at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

01:01:27

Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing 6th grade.

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Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications. But do you know what requires no training at all?

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Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth, Love, Parent, and host of its award -winning podcast.

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That's why Truth, Love, Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents

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God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.

01:02:17

Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com. As host of IronSharpensIronRadio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:02:40

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

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God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654 That's 908 -996 -7654

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:04:01

Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

01:04:07

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider

01:04:13

Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

01:04:22

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

01:04:31

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised

01:04:38

Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

01:04:48

I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com Anchored in Truth Ministries is the mission arm of Grace Life Church of the

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

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He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

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So please visit solid -ground -books .com frequently and purchase generously, not only for yourself to replenish your library and for self -edification, but also as gifts for those you love, both the lost and the saved.

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Go to solid -ground -books .com and always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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And don't forget, you're not only going to be doing solid -ground -books .com a favor when you purchase books from them, and you're not only going to be doing us a favor by keeping a major sponsor happy, you're going to be doing yourself and anyone for whom you are purchasing gifts from solid -ground -books .com

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an enormous favor of incalculable value because they publish nothing but the very finest and reformed

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. That's solid -ground -books .com.

01:08:32

Before I return to my interview on proper heroes put in their proper place in the lives of Christians with my guest

01:08:43

Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, we just have some important announcements to make. First of all, once again, you've been hearing announcements for the

01:08:51

G3 conference where I will be manning, God willing, an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trump and Zion Radio this

01:08:57

September 30th through October 2nd in Atlanta, Georgia, and you've been hearing in the ads, or at least some of them, that Votie Baucom is a featured speaker on the roster.

01:09:09

Well, he has been, hopefully only temporarily, removed from the roster because, as many of you know and as many of you don't know, he suffered an enormous setback health -wise and had to come from Zambia, Africa, back to the

01:09:28

United States to undergo quadruple bypass surgery. I understand that he is recovering and doing well, but he is not out of the woods, so please pray for his complete restoration to full health so that he can return to the roster at the

01:09:44

G3 conference and also so he can stick around on this planet for a lot longer, although heaven is a far better place than this world will ever be, but at the same time, he has a wife and many children who want him around and the body of Christ wants him around here as long as we can keep him because he is such a valuable asset and blessing and gift to the body of Christ.

01:10:05

And speaking of heroes, wouldn't you, Dr. Moorcraft, consider Votie Baucom a modern -day hero? He is one of my heroes,

01:10:12

I can tell you that. Amen. Amen. Well, please pray for the restored health of Votie Baucom.

01:10:20

Also, folks, if you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and you want us to remain on the air, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:10:29

click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

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01:10:47

if you prefer snail mail. And also, if you'd like to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, you don't have to believe identically with me, but you need to be promoting, at the very least, something compatible with what

01:11:00

I believe, then we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we are in urgent need of your advertising dollars as well.

01:11:07

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. Also, please remember, folks, this program, one of the primary reasons

01:11:18

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exists is to be a platform to the local church and pastors.

01:11:27

I do never want to do anything of detriment to the local church.

01:11:32

Therefore, if you are giving to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, please never siphon money away from your giving to your local church where you are a member in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:11:45

In other words, don't punish your church financially by blessing us financially. You might not look at it that way, but in a sense, that's what you're doing if you're siphoning money away, in other words, giving less to your church because you want to support us.

01:11:58

Please don't do that. Also, please don't put your family in real financial peril by supporting

01:12:06

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet. Those two things are commands of God and Scripture providing for church and family.

01:12:14

Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God and Scripture. But, if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands providing for church and family, you have extra money that you have in the bank collecting interest that you use for recreational purposes, trivial purposes, pocket money.

01:12:35

Please use some of that money to help Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exist or continue to exist if you love the show.

01:12:44

And, judging from the fact that between 30 ,000 and 40 ,000 people every month download the recordings of this program and a comparative tiny microscopic handful of my listeners are giving, and I'm not underestimating or undervaluing the great enormous blessing that those who donate to this show are.

01:13:07

I'm just saying that they are comparatively a small handful of people compared to 30 and 40 ,000 people every month.

01:13:15

So, please, to all of you who love this show and you keep downloading our program, you keep listening every day, if you are financially capable and you want us to stick around, please go to www .IronSharpensIronRadio

01:13:28

.com click support, then click click to donate now. Also, folks, if you are not a member of a local, theologically sound, biblically faithful church, no matter where on the planet earth you live,

01:13:42

I may be able to help you find a church, possibly even right around the corner from your home. I have helped people all over the world find churches and on occasion even minutes away from where they live that they didn't even know existed or they did not know these churches that they passed every day were biblically faithful.

01:13:58

So, no matter where you live on the globe, if you are in need of a biblically faithful church, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:14:06

chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to Dr.

01:14:12

Joseph C. Moorcraft III on proper heroes put in their proper places in the lives of Christians.

01:14:19

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Dr. Moorcraft, before I go to any listening questions, before the break, you left off at the

01:14:28

Waldensians. Yes, sir. The Waldensians were a group of people in South Central Europe in the

01:14:35

Middle Ages that did not recognize the supremacy of the Pope, and they were fiercely persecuted by the

01:14:42

Roman Catholic Church. In the 1650s, after Cromwell put down the

01:14:51

Irish Rebellion, the Pope told the Irish soldiers that were left that they were welcome to come into South Central Europe and take over the farms of the

01:15:04

Waldensians, and it didn't matter who they had to kill. So the Waldensians began to be persecuted again with the encouragement of the

01:15:13

Roman Catholic Church. So Cromwell wrote the Pope a letter through his

01:15:20

Latin secretary. His Latin secretary was John Milton of Paradise Lost Fame. And he wrote the

01:15:28

Pope a letter, and he said to the Pope in so many words, You either quit persecuting my

01:15:35

Waldensian brothers and sisters, or I will send my new model Navy to Rome to burn

01:15:42

Rome to the ground. Wow. And the Pope immediately stopped the persecution.

01:15:50

Wow. And that was not the only time in Europe when simply a threat, he didn't have to send any soldier.

01:15:58

By the way, did it say P .S. Merry Christmas? Ha ha ha! Yeah, right.

01:16:05

Yeah. And so he did it in various other places too where there was persecution of Protestants, and he would stop it.

01:16:15

Well, he died a mature death. He died in his fifties. He died in 1658.

01:16:21

I have a Westminster Confession of Faith and a larger and shorter catechism, by the way, that was published in 1658.

01:16:28

And Cromwell, as I said, was in the minority. And so English people have monarchy in their blood.

01:16:39

So when Cromwell died, his son Richard succeeded him. But he was not strong enough to keep things in place.

01:16:50

So eventually what Cromwell's vision was ended and the stewards came back to the throne,

01:17:01

Charles II, and just like Cromwell had predicted, they began the persecution and slaughter of the

01:17:10

Scottish Calvinists and of the Puritans. And that's one of my favorite times of history, but before we get to the

01:17:21

Scottish Covenanters and what happened to them in the middle 1600s,

01:17:27

I want us to come back on this side of the Atlantic for the early 1600s because some of my great heroes are on this side of the

01:17:37

Atlantic in the very early 1600s. We know about Plymouth and we know about William Bradford and great stories connected there.

01:17:50

But one of the places that has been greatly slandered and which Christians know little about is the history of Jamestown, Virginia.

01:18:01

Jamestown was settled in about 1607 and it had a not everybody that were there were

01:18:09

Christians, though the preachers that they said were all Puritans and one of my all -time favorite heroes was one of the founders of Jamestown and one of the very early governors.

01:18:22

His name was Captain John Smith. Captain John Smith had a thick, full reddish -brown beard, mustache.

01:18:34

He was a Puritan. He was a bachelor. He was chaste and he was a swashbuckler.

01:18:46

And the best biography of him was published by Sprinkle Publication by a man who in the early 1800s wrote the biography of Captain John Smith called

01:18:58

William Gilmore Sims. William Gilmore Sims.

01:19:04

Great book. And by the way, you can purchase Sprinkle Publications at cvbbs .com

01:19:11

because with the passing of Brother Sprinkle, I believe they are no longer publishing new books if I'm not mistaken.

01:19:18

No, they are not and I hope that that book is there because it is a great, beautiful, bound book.

01:19:26

Great, great and accurate history of Captain John Smith.

01:19:31

He, uh, you can't believe everything written about him because the books today written about Jamestown are perverted.

01:19:41

There was a movie produced on Jamestown that was absolutely pathetic.

01:19:49

Everybody thinks that John Smith and Pocahontas had an affair, but he was old enough to be your grandfather.

01:19:56

There was no affair whatsoever. And uh, find

01:20:02

William Gilmore Sims. It's something your teenage children can read.

01:20:08

Read it to them. Read it with them. Go to cvbbs .com and look that up, cvbbs .com

01:20:13

and ask them to order it if they don't have it. Yes, sir. He is a great model for young men but his history did not begin at Jamestown.

01:20:25

He was at Jamestown and God used him greatly to keep things on track.

01:20:34

He's the one that helped uh, Pocahontas rescued him. And eventually

01:20:41

Pocahontas was an Indian, obviously. Pocahontas was converted by the

01:20:48

Puritan preacher in Jamestown. She was taught in early reform catechism.

01:20:56

She had to publicly renounce paganism. And she was a godly

01:21:02

Christian and reformed woman. And she had children who she raised in a reformed faith.

01:21:08

Praise God. And one of those children were members of my church. Wow. Great, great, great, great, great grandchild.

01:21:16

Wow. But uh, so Captain John Smith wrote all kinds of things.

01:21:25

You can find things on Google by Captain John Smith that are well worth reading.

01:21:31

But one of my favorite stories is when he was a young man he decided he was going to go into Eastern Europe and fight the

01:21:41

Turkish Muslims. And uh, that were threatening

01:21:47

Christendom. So there is one particular story where, and John Smith was a great warrior, great swordsman.

01:21:59

And uh, there was one particular siege of a

01:22:04

Muslim city that was not going well. And so,

01:22:11

John Smith said, stood outside the walls and he said, send me your best warrior and I'll fight him.

01:22:22

And we'll see how the battle goes. So they sent out this

01:22:29

Muslim man on his Arabic stallion with all his flowing robes and his sword and turban and everything to fight

01:22:41

John Smith. Well, John Smith, though he was chaste, liked to play for the women.

01:22:49

That is, to impress the women. Nothing wrong with that. So he uh, the women were all standing on the walls, the

01:22:58

Muslim women, cheering for John Smith. He was a handsome person. Really? That seems like a life -threatening thing to do.

01:23:06

Yeah, and they all came, and their number one warrior came out. And in a matter of minutes,

01:23:14

John Smith had cut off his head. And so John Smith said, send me your next best warrior.

01:23:22

So they sent their next best warrior out to cut off his head. And John Smith said, do you have anybody else?

01:23:31

So they sent out their third best warrior to cut off his head. So, I mean, he was quite a man.

01:23:38

And what's interesting is that off the coast of New England, there is a private island which has a statue that was done in the late 1800s commemorating

01:23:51

John Smith. I have seen photographs of it. It is in disarray now.

01:23:57

It hasn't been taken care of. But I've seen pictures of what it looked like 150 years ago.

01:24:04

And it was completely politically incorrect. Because on this island, off the coast of New England, there was a pillar commemorating

01:24:12

John Smith. And on the top of this pillar was three Muslim heads. But I think the heads are not there anymore.

01:24:21

Now, do they keep... When did they stop sending out their best warrior? After the three.

01:24:27

He killed three. That was it. The third was the last one. And, I mean, he's quite...

01:24:35

He is a man's man. And a little boy would love a reading about John Smith.

01:24:42

Now, did he ever get married? No, he never did. Did he ever explain why?

01:24:48

No, he never did, that I know of. But he was a Puritan to the end.

01:24:54

You can get some of his books on Google. And William Gilmore Sims on Captain John Smith.

01:25:06

I keep it right here close to me in case you want to read it again. Well, let me ask at least one question for the time being from a listener.

01:25:16

We have a listener who's actually... He's a fairly recent listener who's been sending in questions a lot lately.

01:25:26

His name is Mike from Monroe, New York. And he asks, What is

01:25:31

Joe's favorite Puritan of all time? Actually, I'm sorry, who is

01:25:37

Joe's favorite Puritan of all time? I don't know if you've already mentioned him in this discussion, but if you did, perhaps you can think of your second favorite.

01:25:46

Well, I mean, that's a terrible question to ask. There were so many great

01:25:53

English Puritans. So many. Like I said, I love

01:25:58

Thomas Cranmer. I just don't know how to answer his question.

01:26:05

I hate to say that. But I don't know how to answer his question. Why don't you highlight the life of a

01:26:11

Puritan that you love that you haven't discussed yet? Well, there is a book I was fixed to recommend to you by J .I.

01:26:19

Packer called The Genius of Puritanism. The Genius of Puritanism.

01:26:28

And some of the English Puritans that I like were at the Westminster Assembly. And there are books on those of getting biographical sketches of those who were at the

01:26:43

Westminster Assembly. Now this is going to sound funny, but my favorite

01:26:52

English reformer was John Knox. Now I know

01:26:58

John Knox was Scottish. And I know John Knox is famous for being a

01:27:04

Scottish reformer. But John Knox was a reformer of the Church of England for years before he was famous in Scotland.

01:27:14

In fact, he didn't become a reformer in Scotland until he was middle aged at least. That he preached in England.

01:27:24

John Knox is one of my extreme heroes. He had more influence on the formation of the world view of the

01:27:34

American colonies than even John Calvin. As important as the English Reformation was on the colonies in North America, the

01:27:43

Scottish Reformation had an even greater impact. John Knox started out in life, he was a

01:27:51

Catholic priest for a while. And then God converted him. And he sided with the people that Rome hated.

01:28:01

So they arrested him and had him sent into slavery as a galley slave on a ship for a couple years.

01:28:09

All he did for two years was just row his oars. And one time while he was there as a galley slave, the captain of the ship came by and had an image of the

01:28:24

Virgin Mary. And he required all the slaves to kiss her. And so he would hold the idol down for the slaves to kiss and he would say kiss our blessed lady.

01:28:38

And of course they all would except John Knox. So John Knox grabbed this idol of the

01:28:45

Virgin Mary and threw it overboard. Laughter My kind of guy.

01:28:51

And the captain of the ship said save our blessed lady. He said let our blessed lady save herself.

01:28:58

She's light enough to swim back to the ship. Laughter Laughter So then he escaped being a galley slave and continued his ministry in Scotland.

01:29:16

There are books that John Knox wrote. He wasn't as prolific as Calvin. But there are books that he wrote that you can still find today.

01:29:24

And one of the most important books in the history of the church is the history of the

01:29:29

Reformation in Scotland by John Knox. And it's still being published. He also wrote, helped write

01:29:36

Scottish Confession of Faith and Book of Church Order. That also were two of the most important books written in the past 500 years.

01:29:48

And they're available too. The best biography I know of John Knox is by a man in the 19th century named

01:29:58

Thomas McCree. MC, capital C -R -E -A. And he wrote a great and stirring biography of Knox.

01:30:07

He also wrote another book that I've read twice that's very readable called

01:30:13

The History of the Scottish Church. And man's name is

01:30:18

Thomas McCree, MC C -R -E -A. There is a book on Knox's influence and distinctives.

01:30:31

I think right now his name is Greaves. Richard Greaves. At least that's the way

01:30:38

I pronounce it. And it's on the Reformation and Revolution in Knox's Scotland.

01:30:45

And the great thing about that book is though all of these Scottish Reformers shared a basic world view and a basic system of theology, each one of them had distinctive contributions that the overall

01:31:00

Reformation would be lacking if it didn't have his contributions. And Knox's contributions to the

01:31:08

Reformation were tremendous. For instance, he emphasized the fact that it is the duty of the civil magistrate and of every citizen to oppose and depose tyranny.

01:31:26

And that if you did not stand against tyranny and seek to overthrow tyrants, you were being disobedient to God.

01:31:36

So we got a lot of disobedient Christians today. He was courageous.

01:31:43

He stood in the face of queens and called them to repentance.

01:31:49

Yes, the first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women. That's one of his books.

01:31:57

It's not about the women who host the TV show, The View, by the way. But it could be, anyway.

01:32:06

So there were four women named Mary in Knox's life that he had to oppose all his life and who opposed him.

01:32:20

One was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, named Mary of Guise.

01:32:27

The other was Mary, Queen of Scots, who Elizabeth eventually beheaded for murder.

01:32:36

And the third was Bloody Mary. And the fourth was the

01:32:42

Virgin Mary, as interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church. Those four

01:32:47

Marys plagued him all his life. One of the greatest pieces of English literature that I know, not only to read for the content, but for the way it was written, are the conversations between John Knox and Mary, Queen of Scots, that are still available.

01:33:09

Go to Google. He met with her about three times. And each time he met with her, he left her in tears.

01:33:18

Not because he was mean, but because he was preaching the gospel to her and calling her to repentance.

01:33:24

There was nothing she could do, and she wouldn't repent. So if you can find—now, of course,

01:33:30

John Knox is looked upon as a crazy man. There was a movie that came out, a black -and -white movie, years and years and years ago.

01:33:37

I think Captain Hepburn was in it. And it was on Mary, Queen of Scots.

01:33:43

And John Knox was a crazy man. Now, didn't he even make John Calvin nervous, though?

01:33:50

His boldness? Well, now, that is a very good statement, because he was stricter than even

01:33:59

Calvin was in the early days on the regulative principle of worship. And on opposing tyrants,

01:34:09

Calvin jumped on him a little, but not only did Calvin influence Knox, but Knox influenced

01:34:15

Calvin, because later on, Calvin defended opposing tyrants and adopted

01:34:25

John Knox's view. So, John Knox was a— there's a biography of him.

01:34:34

There are better biographies, but I love the title of this one, called The Thundering Scott. And that's exactly what he was.

01:34:43

I've had the privilege of preaching in his church, St. Giles Church in Edinburgh. And not an official church meeting, but an unofficial meeting there.

01:34:54

They would never have me now. there's a wonderful statue of John Knox there.

01:35:04

When I was there, this shows you how Western civilization has failed to appreciate its heroes.

01:35:12

The grave of John Knox is under parking space—I think it's

01:35:21

S23—in front of a bank. And when I was there, all I was there was a gray square marking without anything.

01:35:31

I think since then they've received criticism and that they've at least put his name on it. But there he is, buried under an asphalt parking lot.

01:35:40

One of the most important men in the history of the West. But there's other distinctive contributions.

01:35:47

Not only was he against tyranny, so my favorite state motto of any state is the motto of the state of Virginia, which says, which translated to English is,

01:36:01

I wish they really believed that, but they don't anymore. Unfortunately, most frequently associated with John Wilkes Booth.

01:36:12

Oh yes, I know it is. And so Knox was a powerful preacher, confronted queens.

01:36:23

He actually had a hand in writing, helping

01:36:28

Cranmer write the 39 Articles of the Church of England and the Book of Common Prayer. Wow. To make sure that there wouldn't be anything

01:36:36

Roman Catholic in it. Now you and I are not crazy about liturgies, but nevertheless, the old

01:36:45

Book of Common Prayer has a lot of great prayers in it. And nothing

01:36:51

Roman Catholic, and that's because of Thomas Cranmer and John Knox. Oh yeah, the 39

01:36:56

Articles of Religion are openly against the idolatry of Rome.

01:37:02

And not only that, but they're reformed, basically. In their soteriology. In fact, the reason the

01:37:09

Westminster Assembly was called in 1643 was not to write a new

01:37:15

Confession, but to make the original 39 Articles even more reformed. That was what they were called to do.

01:37:23

By the way, we have to go to our final break. It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks. So we'll pick up right on the 39

01:37:30

Articles as you were just referring to John Knox's influence with Cranmer on that.

01:37:37

If anybody has any questions, I would ask that you submit them quickly because we're rapidly running out of time and there are a few people in line already that have their questions asked.

01:37:47

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

01:37:52

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. We'll be right back with Dr.

01:37:58

Joseph C. Moorcroft III after these messages from our sponsors. Boys are back in town. Boys are back in town.

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01:48:24

Moorcraft, when we left off before the last break, you were discussing

01:48:30

John Knox's influence over the great British, or English, reformer,

01:48:36

I should say, Thomas Cranmer, in writing the Thirty -Nine Articles, and also in regard to the

01:48:42

Book of Common Prayer. Yes, sir. And then when Thomas Cranmer, who was under Henry VIII and Edward VI, also lived under Bloody Mary in the middle 16th century, and she was determined to purge

01:48:58

England of all of its reformers, so that's when Thomas Cranmer died as a martyr, burned to death.

01:49:05

And Knox's friends begged with him to leave England. They knew he was going to be executed if he didn't.

01:49:12

Knox did not want to go, but all of his friends prevailed upon him, and so he became one of the many, what is called

01:49:22

Marian exiles, who left England because of Bloody Mary's persecution.

01:49:29

And he went to Frankfurt, Germany, to pastor a church of Puritans there, but because they were

01:49:37

Anglican and wanted to use a strict liturgy, they didn't want the great

01:49:42

John Knox. Can you imagine? Your John Knox has come to be your pastor. And they didn't want him because he was not going to go by the

01:49:51

Anglican liturgy. So he goes to Geneva, where John Calvin is teaching.

01:49:58

And he studies under Calvin, and while he's there, he pastors the

01:50:03

English -speaking church of Marian exiles. And it was the men in that church in Geneva, pastored by John Knox, under the oversight of John Calvin, that produced the

01:50:19

Geneva Bible with its notes. And the Geneva Bible predates the

01:50:24

King James Version by many years. In fact, it does not have the high

01:50:33

Elizabethan type of language that the King James has, because the reason it was written in such high

01:50:41

Elizabethan English was to make it suitable for Anglican Catholic worship.

01:50:47

That's funny today, particularly when you realize who are King James -only people. But the

01:50:54

Geneva Bible, if I were to read it to your listeners right now, they would almost think it was a modern version.

01:51:01

It was written for the common man, and it is accurate, and it's the first Bible study

01:51:08

Bible. Because, as you know, it has running commentary on the sides of the page and on the bottom of the page, explaining in an abbreviated way the meaning of the various verses, and it's a thoroughly reformed

01:51:24

Bible study Bible that was very popular in English until King James I came along, and he couldn't stand the

01:51:32

Calvinistic footnotes. And so he banned the publishing of the Geneva Bible in England, and it had to be published on the continent of Europe.

01:51:43

And he wanted to get his authorized version, the King James version, which is an accurate version, but it has no footnotes, it has no running commentary, because he wanted to get rid of that commentary.

01:51:57

Well, it wasn't long before they were publishing the King James version with the

01:52:02

Geneva footnotes. And they're really great.

01:52:09

It's not hard at all today to get a Geneva Bible written in modern

01:52:15

English script. That is, there's no changes in the words, it's just in the way it's written.

01:52:25

And you can get the footnotes, and it's worth getting the Geneva Bible. The United States was not founded upon the

01:52:33

King James version, no matter what anybody tells you. It was founded upon the Geneva Bible. That's what

01:52:39

William Bradford brought to Plymouth. In fact, in 1921, there was a silver, a

01:52:45

United States silver dollar, a half dollar, commemorating Plymouth, and on one side of the coin is the

01:52:55

Mayflower, and on the other side of the coin is William Bradford holding a Geneva Bible.

01:53:02

So it is the Geneva Bible to which America owes its existence.

01:53:10

And one of my favorite comments in any Bible study

01:53:15

Bible is found in that book. In 1 Corinthians 11, and the

01:53:22

New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 11, it says, you know there is that difficult verse that says that women must wear long hair for the sake of angels.

01:53:37

Now understand about the long hair part. But for the sake of angels is very difficult to figure out what in the world that means.

01:53:47

And I have an interpretation, but I'm not willing to die for it. Well anyway, the footnote in the

01:53:53

Geneva Bible to that verse, that a woman must have long hair for the sake of the angels, is this. What this meaneth,

01:54:02

I do not yet understandeth. Yeah, that is a bizarre thing.

01:54:13

So anyway, John Knox, as I said, and let's do the covenanters next time, when the

01:54:22

Scotch Irish came to America, and there is no immigrant group that had a greater influence upon the places where it settled in the history of the

01:54:32

United States than the Scotch Irish. That's not a racist statement, because God blessed them in spite of the fact that they were

01:54:41

Scotch Irish. But when they came to this country, they brought with them the religion of John Knox.

01:54:53

So everywhere they went, they built churches, and schools, and distilleries, and not necessarily in that order.

01:55:08

Now I have heard, perhaps you could let me know if this is an overstatement or not, but I have heard

01:55:15

John Knox described as the father of the Presbyterian Church, or even the founder of it.

01:55:22

Would that be accurate, or is that a bit of an overstatement? No, I think that's an overstatement, but he was, of course, a great defender of churches being ruled by elders elected by the congregation.

01:55:37

That's why the kings of England hated him. They said, you know, like King James had a bumper sticker, so to speak, that says,

01:55:46

No Bishop, No King. He understood the issues. He said, if people don't want a one -man rule in the church eventually, they're not going to want a one -man rule in the state.

01:55:59

And then he coined the phrase, Tom, Dick, and Harry's going to want to vote for the king. So it was that strong emphasis on republicanism, and I, next time, will continue to talk about John Knox's politics, because there wouldn't have been a

01:56:16

Declaration of Independence without John Knox. And if you read the Declaration of Independence in the context of having read

01:56:23

John Knox, you will understand that's not an over -exaggeration. We have time for one question, and it requires a quick answer, because we don't have time for a long one.

01:56:35

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, As much as I share your love for Oliver Cromwell, I was saddened to discover that he was involved in the execution of Puritan Christopher Love.

01:56:48

Is that true, and can you explain it? Well, I don't lead Christopher Love. Because Christopher Love was found guilty of trying to assassinate

01:56:59

Oliver Cromwell. And Christopher Love was executed for trying to assassinate the head of the state.

01:57:07

And why was Christopher Love attempting to do that, or plotting that? There were several of these monarchists who just could not tolerate not having a king.

01:57:18

And not having a king, of many of them, that was Presbyterian. So you had a lot of Presbyterians that were against Oliver Cromwell.

01:57:28

You had the monarchists who were against him. And as I said, he was in the minority.

01:57:35

So I understand the question. I know what the questioner is talking about.

01:57:42

But Cromwell did not murder him. He was tried and found guilty for trying to assassinate the head of the state, and he was legally executed.

01:57:52

Now, Bonson and I, Greg Bonson and I, had a disagreement about Cromwell. Bonson didn't like him, and I liked him for the same reason.

01:58:03

I thought he was wise when he kicked all the Presbyterians out of Parliament. And it wasn't him, it was

01:58:08

Parliament. But while they got rid of the Presbyterians, because all the Presbyterians wanted to restore the stewards to the throne, and get rid of Cromwell.

01:58:17

Bonson didn't like it that he kicked out all the Presbyterians. And even though I'm Presbyterian, I'm glad he did.

01:58:23

So what I tell people is, that Greg Bonson did not like Oliver Cromwell until he met him.

01:58:33

Yes folks, that means they're both in heaven. But we're out of time, and the website for Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia is

01:58:42

HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com I hope that you all have a safe and happy and wonderful weekend, and Christ -honoring

01:58:50

Lord's Day. And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater