July 9, 2025 Show with Matt Schvaneveldt on “Bringing the Gospel of Sovereign Grace to Northern Italy”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. 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 Wednesday on this ninth day of July 2025.

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Before I introduce my guest for the day and my special co -host,

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I want to ask our listeners to continue praying for those in Kerrville, Texas, and the surrounding areas.

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As most of you, if not all of you know by now, there has been a devastating flood there, and the death toll across Texas has risen to at least 119 souls.

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Over 173 people are still missing, with 161 of those missing in Kerr County.

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And this is quite a devastation. 36 of the lives lost were children, and so we want you to continue to pray for those who are heroically out there risking their lives on rescue missions, and pray for the families who have already been informed that their loved ones have perished.

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Pray for those who might still be alive but not yet rescued or even found, that the

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Lord would be kind to them and merciful, and that they would be rescued from this nightmare that has taken place there.

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I have a website of a very solid Reformed Baptist church in Kerrville, Texas, that is an excellent site for enabling you to provide funds and your support for the flood relief efforts of this church.

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It's Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas, and the website is kerrvillebiblechurch .org

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forward slash flood -relief. That's kerrvillebiblechurch .org

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forward slash flood -relief. Kerrville is spelled K -E -R -R -villebiblechurch .org

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forward slash flood -relief. And perhaps at some point in the near future, we'll be able to have someone from Kerrville Bible Church or another like -minded group of brethren in the area who can give us some more updates and also can let us know about ways that we can all be of assistance to them.

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But keep staying tuned to Iron Trip and Zion Radio for more details on that.

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But I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest today, my friend who is the co -host who's been on the program before,

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Brian McLaughlin, who is the president of Secure Comm Group.

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If you listen to this program regularly, you will know that Brian and Secure Comm Group are faithful and generous sponsors of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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And Brian just got back recently from a trip to Italy where he was involved in some outdoor evangelistic efforts in the area.

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And I immediately said to him, I thought it would be a great idea for us to have a theologically like -minded man of God who is either doing mission work or church planting out in Italy to come on the program and Brian could co -host with me.

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And that's exactly what we're doing today. And I have the honor and privilege for the very first time to have on the program

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Matt Swannevelt, a Reformed Baptist Christian church planter in northern

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Italy. And we're discussing bringing the gospel of God's sovereign grace to northern

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Italy. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Matt Swannevelt.

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Thank you. Thank you, Chris. It's a pleasure to be on this program. Actually, I had listened to this program a long time ago when my children were young.

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I remember rocking them to sleep listening to this. For me, it was a podcast being overseas, but it's a pleasure to be on the show.

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Wow. Well, many, many thousands of others have fallen asleep listening to this program. So you're in good company.

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Well, I'm honored that I had such a significant part of the raising of your children, or at least one child.

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And also, welcome back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, my friend Brian McLaughlin.

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I can think of no better way to have a program on Italy than to have

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Arnzen, Swannevelt, and McLaughlin talking about this issue.

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But Brian, welcome back to the show. For some reason, I can't hear you, brother.

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I can't hear you. I heard you fine. My mic is on? Yeah, now it's on.

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My mic is on. OK. All right. Well, pleasure to be here again. And under these unique circumstances of just coming back from Italy and being here with Matt, I think we will have a lot of great thoughts, insights, and stories to tell.

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So looking forward to it. And let me right away give our listeners our email address.

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If you have questions of your own for Matt Swannevelt and for Brian McLaughlin, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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

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USA. Before I pass the baton over to Matt Swannevelt, Brian, why don't you tell our listeners about your experiences during your recent trip to Italy?

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Sure. This is a trip that my wife, who is of Italian descent, has really wanted to take this trip for a long time.

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And it always seemed like, for whatever reason, the trip got postponed.

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Not from anything on my end, trying to sabotage the trip to Italy.

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But it was always something, whether it was COVID, whether it was things with the kids, marriages, babies, whatever.

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But it always got postponed. So the interesting thing is, in our lives, and we've been married almost 43 years, and the

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Lord saved me almost 30 years ago. My wife has remained in the

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Roman Catholic Church for most of those years.

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And it's probably a good thing, and God's timing is always perfect, that God did not allow me to go to Italy many years ago, because it probably would have been a disaster.

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And it's just, I guess, how God works in our heart, how he matures us, how he prepares us for this journey and for things in our lives.

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And so at this point, it was something that,

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I guess, I was looking forward to. And kind of during COVID is when my wife really came to trust the

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Lord and began to attend New Hyde Park Baptist Church full -time with me and really become part of the fellowship at New Hyde Park.

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So praise God. I mean, that's just a blessing.

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Two of my other children are believers. And when we're in Tennessee with my other daughter, we attend a solid

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Baptist church there. So God has just been doing amazing things.

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But going to Italy, I guess I had, I don't know, I guess the thought was, oh, going there,

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I wonder if, you know, my wife is going to be seduced by the whole, you know, the

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Vatican, the pomp, the majesty, the whole thing. But I just, you know, trusted the

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Lord and said, God, you know, her faith is true and real. And you've regenerated her and brought her to faith.

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And, you know, I have nothing to worry about, I guess. It was very interesting because,

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I mean, we went to many cities from the Amalfi Coast, Toronto, Rome, Florence, Orvieto, we went to Venice.

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But Rome, we were in Rome when the new pope was chosen, when the white smoke came out of the chimney.

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And many people were super excited. It was kind of a big thing. And we did not go for that.

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We went to dinner that night, but we had a great dinner. Now, I'm sure you took up James White, our mutual friend from Alpha Omega Ministries, up on his suggestion, because I think he likes the

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McDonald's in Rome. I couldn't do that.

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I could not bring myself to do that. I am still utterly amazed that he will go to a place like Rome and eat at McDonald's.

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And no other places than White. Yeah, if there was an olive garden, he would go there too.

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Yes. What are you going to do? I seriously doubt there is an olive garden in Italy.

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I can't imagine there being. I didn't know that. But the really wonderful thing about Italy is a beautiful country.

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I mean, we were in Pompeii as well and seeing

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Mount Vesuvius. There's just everything about it, the history. But what really was interesting was, and I was really happy that my wife

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Elaine really listening to the guides and listening to the history and listening about to the stories about the

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Roman Empire and how that functioned. And then how the

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Roman church kind of came in after that and how it was, how the government and the church functioned and being from the temples that were built during the

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Roman Empire. Some of those remain. Some of those were converted into churches. Some of them were dismantled and the materials were just used to build other giant monuments.

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And it seemed like each city had a magnificent architectural building called the church.

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In fact, one church, I forget where we were, saw so many churches, took 300 years to build.

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And it seemed like one of the other big, I guess, things that they focused on were filling or not filling the churches, but getting relics into these churches.

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So you saw the superstition in the churches and that they would look for, you know, the bones of this one, the head of another person.

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I think one church claimed to have the finger of Mary's mother. I don't know. It was just after a while.

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I don't know what is going on. I'm actually looking at it.

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It was interesting. But you kind of saw that these magnificent architecture,

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I mean, the craftsmanship, everything about them was absolutely spectacular.

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But after you saw a few of them and they really feel like just they were dead buildings, in fact, very little scripture anywhere.

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Lots of incredible artwork, obviously beautiful sculptures and everything.

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But you really didn't see the Word of God anywhere. You didn't hear, you never heard really any stories of the gospel.

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You know, tons of, you know, of history. Most of the history is, you know, centered around man.

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These things are built really to glorify men. And so it was,

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I think, for anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear, you would not be moved in a faith way to say that this is the true church or this church possesses the gospel.

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You're going to come away from it saying, wow, incredible engineering, architecture, the brilliant, you know, painting, sculptures, and just, but it really is all to honor man.

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And that's what I came away from it. And just listening to my wife, she kind of came away from it the same way.

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Loved Italy, loved everything about it, but it was a was kind of from a gospel perspective, very empty.

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I had many Bible tracts with me that I was able to to hand out. I had some discussion with people about the gospel.

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Actually, the most lengthy conversation

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I had was with a Jewish, with an elderly Jewish man, which was great, which is incredible because cannabism.

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So what brought you here? You know, what was the what did you expect? What did you want to see?

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And how do you how do you view that? And, you know, it was interesting, but not,

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I guess, but not surprising is, you know, whatever religions, religion, you know, be the person that seems to be good enough, you get to heaven.

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But we had a great gospel conversation and was able to go back to the Old Testament, was able to talk about Abraham and how he was justified before a holy

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God. And then talk about Isaiah and Isaiah 53. So and then left him with some literature as well to read.

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And so it was great. I had a great time and just, you know, the seed that were planted.

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We just entrusted the Lord that he will bring the increase. But it was a great experience.

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Well, you are to be congratulated because not too many people would do that on a vacation.

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Would spend their time passing out tracts and evangelizing.

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I mean, I'm assuming that you were speaking in English. Do you speak Italian at all? No, I learned a few words.

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Allora, allora, andiamo, andiamo. I learned a few words. Not with the tracts in English or Italian?

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They were in English. They were in English. You really came prepared, didn't you? Yeah. I guess about everybody speaks

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English there. And it's true at Rome. At Rome, when you were there, it was full of internationals. So it was a great opportunity.

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Yeah. Let me tell you one thing that they have down. And I think Mel Brooks would be very, very proud of that.

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And that merchandising, they have it down.

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When you go to the Vatican, it is like a well -oiled machine of, you know.

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I mean, I don't know how much money they take in there a day. But it has to be in the millions.

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And they have it down. So even when you come out and everything, there's the souvenir store right there.

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And, you know, it's very interesting. But I think for those that know and love the

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Lord, when you see that kind of, I guess, wealth and just pomp,

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I guess. And maybe it's because, you know, my business is in – we do the majority of our work in Manhattan.

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So I'm around the super rich and the places where we provide our services for are in the most expensive buildings and residences and things in the world.

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So you kind of – I mean, so maybe at first when I was younger, that was kind of a big deal.

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It was kind of like you're like a little bit in awe, like, wow. But then after a while, it's just brick and mortar.

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That's all it is. And they have bigger spaces to live in, more of this. But at the end of the day, that's all it is.

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But when you look at all these buildings and all these massive temples and you look at what went into it and the blood and sweat and the money and everything it took to raise the money for these things and how it was done in the name of God and you look at it, it really just leaves you saying, wow, talk about like just not getting it.

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They just don't get it. But that's really every –

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I'd probably say every religion besides biblical Christianity is man some way was trying to earn work or whatever and do stuff like that.

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So that's what I came away with. I appreciated the talent, the effort, and things went into it.

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But it really didn't – it does not translate into the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

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Well, Matt Swannemilt, we have a tradition here on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio when we have first -time guests.

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We have those guests give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which you may have been raised and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

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Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. So let's hear a summary of your story.

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That's great. The amazing part of that I'm a missionary in Italy, as you've already tuned in on our last names, is that I'm from Montana.

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So I didn't even come from New York or New Jersey or someplace like that to get over there.

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But when I was born, my parents weren't Christians. My father was raised in a

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Mormon family, but he wasn't practicing himself. My mother was agnostic.

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Someone invited my mother to a woman's Bible study called

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BSF, and they went through the book of John. It was just my mom going through that study.

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I can't remember exactly what chapter, but the Lord just touched her heart and changed her.

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And praise the Lord, she brought the gospel into our family. So I have three siblings, and so my father got saved shortly after.

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And then I was fairly young when I made a profession of faith. The gospels explained to me clearly.

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So I was around eight and made a public profession of faith and was baptized. And from that point on, we just kind of all grew up together as first -generation

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Christians. And I praise the Lord for those

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Bible studies. It's amazing when you just open the Word of God, the power, and how

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He uses that just to transform lives and transform families. And from that, there was kind of an adventure of, of course, there's different steps in Him preparing me for His call in my life and for ministry.

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And there's certainly different specific phases in that. Probably the one that stands out that was one of the more important was, when

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I was in college, I got a copy of The Holiness of God by R .C.

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Sproul. And I think it was at that point where the Lord really just showed me how big

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He was and how huge He was. And it was in that context that I really felt called to the mission field.

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And so from there, there's kind of a long story of praying about where that might be.

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And I went back to Montana after I finished university and worked as a youth pastor in a church, trying to raise support to go overseas.

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My plan was, my roommate and I in college, he's actually a

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Reformed Baptist pastor right now in Georgia. But we were praying for the ex -Yugoslavian countries.

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And there was tension in 1999 when I was trying to get overseas.

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And it was impossible for me to get a visa in one of the ex -Yugoslavian states.

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And so I brought the youth group of my church on an evangelistic mission trip to central

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Italy in a town called Pescara. And we did mimes and street evangelism and music for about three weeks.

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And it was there that I met a mission organization that was trying to start a church in Trieste, Italy, which is in the northeast corner.

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Couldn't get more far in the northeast than Trieste. It's actually on the border of Slovenia, right on the

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Adriatic Sea. And so it was neat to see that that was as close as I could get to the ex -Yugoslavian countries at the time.

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And there was an offer to work on a church plant there. And so I went back to my church and kind of told them about this opportunity.

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They were very excited and sent me over. And that was in 2000. So this all came about through God's providence to go to Italy because of your inability to get to Yugoslavia.

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That's exactly right. Wow. I don't think so, because I don't think

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I could have learned Serbian or Croatian. I think Italian is probably my limit.

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So God knew what He was doing, obviously. And you didn't have to spend three days in a fish.

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That's good. There's that, too. So God gave you an offer you could not refuse,

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I guess. He did. Before this happened, tell us how you came to discover and fall in love with and embrace the doctrines of Reformed theology.

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That's a good question. I went to Liberty University, not famous for its Reformed theology.

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But as a young Christian, we obviously on our dorm halls, we had lots of debates.

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And probably the most popular debate, of course, was between Calvinism and Arminianism. And I remember debating it back and forth.

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And I actually worked at a church in the D .C. area in the summers. And my friend and I, we brought the conversation to a visiting pastor who was very much trying to convince us about the

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Arminian position. But he says, if you want to understand the Calvinistic perspective, my encouragement would be to read

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A .W. Pink's book, The Sovereignty of God. So I took him up on that, and I read

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Pink. And then from Pink, I think I moved to MacArthur, and MacArthur to Boyce, and Boyce to Sproul, and Sproul to Calvin.

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And so there's that golden chain of Reformed theology that the

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Lord just kind of took me deeper and deeper into His Word. And again, I think understanding just how big

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God is, and it just seemed very clear to me that the right answer to that question.

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Amen. Amen. Well, we are going to be returning to our discussion after our first commercial break. If you'd like to join us on the air, again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

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USA. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

28:22

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries, announcing that this

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September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnson has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th, at 11 a .m.,

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pre -Pastor's

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Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville. Then, on Sunday, September 21st, at 1 .30

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inherent Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the Pre -Pastor's Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

29:23

That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

33:30

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

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I sense that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners.

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And that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

34:46

God bless you. Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, this is Chris Arnzen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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Co -hosting the program today with me is my longtime friend and also sponsor of this program,

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Brian McLaughlin of SecureComm Group. And we have a first -time guest today that we are interviewing on bringing the gospel of God's sovereign grace to Northern Italy, Matt Swannevelt.

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And if you have any questions about this subject, about Italy in general, about the doctrines of sovereign grace in general, our email address is

35:24

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

35:31

And Pastor Swannevelt, from what I understand, you started out as a missionary, but then wound up becoming, by God's grace and providence, a church planter.

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Yeah, that's true. So I came over basically to help out at a church plant.

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And then kind of in the process, the Lord was forming me to plan a church.

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And so I spent 15 years in Trieste in 2000, 2015, working on a church plant, which is that Trieste is the largest city.

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It's the capital of our region. There's 20 regions in Italy. Can you spell that for us?

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Yeah, it's T -R -I -E -S -T -E, Trieste. And it's about almost a quarter of a million inhabitants.

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And so it was so exciting just to see God working in the city that's famous for, it's actually famous for its coffee.

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It's the coffee capital of Italy. They produce some of the most famous coffees there.

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The most famous is probably Il Caffe, which is made in Trieste.

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And so it's also a science center. There's a lot of physics research centers in the area.

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And they have a synchrotron to spin the atoms and do some testing. So it's just a big international community right on the sea.

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It's a beautiful city. And what a privilege to be able to serve the Lord with these beautiful people and just to see the

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Lord work in their lives. And by God's grace, people were converted and the church was formed and we were able to establish elders and a pastor.

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And so I worked on that for the first 15 years. And now the Lord's moved me to a town that's about 50 miles away.

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It's called Udine, U -D -I -N -E, Udine. It's the second largest city in our region.

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It's about 100 ,000 people who live there. And so I've been there since 2021, working on a church plant, actually linked with someone you've had on the show in the past,

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Ken Wells, who served there and worked there for many years. Ken was the one that referred me to you for this interview, actually.

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That's right. That's right. He's just a dear brother. A great example,

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I think also for, certainly for me in my life. It's always amazing to see the godly men that the

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Lord brings into our lives just to train us, to be good examples for us.

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And so when he went back to New York, and as he went back to New York, I was kind of sent over by the church in Trieste to try to help out for a bit.

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And then the church started just to grow up pretty rapidly, quickly.

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And so it's growing. It's been kind of an exciting work that's going on.

38:53

And in Udine, just to give you a reference, in 15 years in Trieste, we went from zero to 50 believers in those 15 years.

39:07

But in Udine, we started with six, and then now we have about almost 100 that are regular attenders in the church.

39:18

So it's nothing that I've seen before in ministry in Italy. So it's been just super exciting.

39:26

There's a wonderful body that loves God's Word, that's very active. And so we really praise the

39:32

Lord. We actually really can see a big difference in what he's doing in northeast

39:37

Italy these past 25 years. The climate's changed. There's a lot more churches.

39:43

There's a lot more activity. So we're very thankful for that. And in Rome, they were saying there's over 900 church buildings in the city of Rome, but only maybe half of those churches are actually being used.

40:08

I'm assuming the churches that are just kind of sitting dormant and empty are either not allowed to be used, and I was kind of trying to ask the question to some of the guys about that.

40:30

It seems like the government there is also very protective about the churches, the church uses.

40:41

Even there was one particular evangelical church,

40:49

I think right around the Vatican, that they were denying them to be recognized as the church because they claimed, well, it doesn't look like a church.

41:02

That's exactly right. That's actually a Reformed Baptist church in Rome.

41:08

Probably one of the best examples,

41:13

I think, for the churches in Italy, and really neat, a neat pastor there who's just done a great job.

41:20

And they were trying to get tax exemption like the

41:26

Catholic Church or for other religious buildings, and it passed for two, but on the last trial or whatever, the whole idea was botched because it didn't look enough.

41:40

There wasn't enough symbols on the wall and things like that, which was a little bit devastating,

41:46

I think, for all of the evangelical churches. Just because when there's a church where there's a precedent, then it's going to make it a lot easier for other churches to be able to go through the same issue.

42:00

In fact, that's probably one of the biggest challenges that we have, I think, in the evangelical church in Italy is there's really no precedent, and there's not a lot of permission.

42:11

So often we have to legally act as if we're a type of association or some kind of official club, but we're not really recognized as a church.

42:23

We don't have the power to marry easily. We don't have power to go into the hospitals or to the prisons.

42:32

I mean, we can get into the prisons. We just can't get out. But to get that legal status for us to be able to be official ministers, to have an official building is a very complicated process.

42:49

And I'm really excited about the association, the organization that I work for.

42:56

It's called Serenissima Ministry Group. And what we're really trying to do is we're trying to now use our resources and the possibilities that we have to try to establish some kind of structure that we probably, our generation, won't be able to reap the benefits of it.

43:17

But our prayer is for maybe our children or our grandchildren, that structure will be in place where we will be able to easily become pastors that are recognized, that will be able to give a pay stub, to have workers who can be paid through the tax system.

43:37

Because right now, it's very complicated. If you want to run a church like a church is organized in the

43:44

United States, it's a very complicated, very expensive process right now. And, Brother Matt, I am a former

43:53

Roman Catholic. I was born and raised in New York, Amityville, Long Island, to be more precise.

44:03

And it is very common in New York and a number of other places in the northeast of the

44:11

United States for evangelicals to be former Roman Catholics, ranging from nominal to very religious

44:22

Roman Catholics. At one time, when I was very young, I was a very religious

44:27

Roman Catholic. I was an altar boy. I believed in all the ritual.

44:34

And one thing I can say that I thank God for, even though I abandoned

44:43

Rome and thankfully was delivered from its false gospel and superstitions,

44:55

I definitely had instilled in my mind and heart a firm belief in God that I never abandoned, even during years of absolute rebellion.

45:10

As a teenager in my early 20s, as much as I was living like the devil,

45:18

I, in my mind and heart, did believe that God was true and that Jesus Christ was

45:25

God and so on. But the average person, at least in northern

45:32

Italy, that you have encountered, the people that are visiting your congregation and, by grace, coming to embrace the true gospel, what is their typical background, or is there even a typical background?

45:49

Do they also range from totally secular to very strongly

45:54

Roman Catholic before embracing the gospel? Or what is the situation there in northern

46:00

Italy that you've experienced? That's a great, that's a good question. And what's neat about Italy is often the answer to that question really depends upon which city you live in.

46:12

For example, in Trieste, which is very commercial, scientific, we found that most of our conversations were with people that come from a secular or materialistic kind of ideology.

46:29

But when we move just a little ways over to Udine, we notice that there's a stronger sense of Catholicism, of kind of being faithfully religious in kind of the traditions of the relatives.

46:47

And so we have noticed that to be more the case in Udine, where there's more conversations with Catholics.

46:56

And kind of to your point, it's really neat how, in God's grace, he uses even the

47:02

Catholic Church not only to protect, I think, some of the morality, while I believe

47:08

Italy is probably the most conservative or one of the most conservative countries in Europe right now.

47:13

And I would say it's primarily due to the influence of the Catholic Church. But also, there was a convert in Trieste who actually became the elder and pastor of the church.

47:27

He's a full -time pastor right now in Trieste. And he came from a

47:33

Catholic background. And it really was kind of as if you're saying he already had that starting point of the

47:42

Bible and the Trinity and a concept of sacrifice.

47:50

And so when we were able to, with him, just open up the Book of Romans and work through it, and when he was listening to the—we were going through a sermon series at the time on the

48:03

Gospel of John. You know, it was neat how God used that kind of fill -in to complete the message of the gospel that was obviously missing for him.

48:14

And we had something similar. There was a man who became a believer a couple years ago in Udine named

48:21

Sergio. And he, when he heard the gospel, believed it.

48:26

And it was so beautiful because he was like, all we need to do is just teach the

48:32

Catholics that this is what the Bible is saying, and everybody's going to believe this because it's so clear, it's so obvious.

48:39

Why would anybody not want to hear this good news? So he was convinced that we were going to have a massive revival just by calling people to a

48:50

Bible study and praise the Lord because that is—he is right. That is where the power is, and that's where we've seen it to be effective.

48:59

It's just getting, I think, getting the Bible open to the message of the gospel to people.

49:05

That's where we see, obviously, lives that have been transformed, which is a different message.

49:11

I went to a funeral last year of a man in our church.

49:16

His father was Catholic and passed away. And at the funeral, the message that was given is this man has not done enough to be able to get into heaven, and his only hope is that we pray and that we give money, and maybe that will get him a little bit closer and pass the offering bag around with the hope that maybe we can cut a few years off of this poor man's time in purgatory.

49:47

So the message against the gospel is very explicit still, even in northeast

49:53

Italy. It's clearly a different gospel. In fact, that's interesting what you just said, because I don't know if you could even say to their credit, but what you have described is an unusual experience for me.

50:12

In fact, I have never experienced a Roman Catholic funeral or wake, as we call the viewing time, at least in the

50:23

New York area. I remember I was surprised when my friend James White had never even heard of the term wake until he started to get to know people from New York and other places.

50:34

But typically, at least in my homeland of New York, where I'm originally from, you get to a

50:47

Catholic wake or funeral, and the priest is really contradicting what the

50:58

Roman Catholic Church teaches about purgatory by comforting those in attendance with the knowledge that this person is in heaven.

51:10

And even if you have known this person who's deceased, and you know that they were very rebellious against God, that never demonstrated any evidence that they were repentant in any way, the priest is giving false hope to those people.

51:31

And I can even remember at my mother's wake, my mother, thank

51:39

God, although she was a Roman Catholic all of her life, when she was on her deathbed at the age of 70, from pancreatic cancer, she made it extremely clear that she had repented of all of the superstitions and acts of idolatry of Rome, and she embraced the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

52:08

But my father, who was a professing Catholic, he was actually a convert from Episcopalianism, he had a

52:19

Catholic wake and funeral, and the funeral director, ironically, who was

52:27

Lutheran, led the people gathered at the wake in a responsive prayer, and one of the things he said was,

52:41

Lord, please deliver Virginia from her prison of misery and torment.

52:47

We pray to the Lord, and everybody says, Lord, hear our prayer. I, of course, being a born -again believer, refused to say that,

52:55

Lord, hear our prayer, because I didn't believe she was in a prison of torment. And I said to my sister, who was parroting this,

53:03

I said, do you believe mom's in heaven right now? She said, oh, of course I do. I said, why did you just say that you were praying for her release from her prison of misery and torment?

53:15

And so that's why, even though that prayer was said, the priest, when he was giving his little message, was just giving a flowery message of the knowledge that my mother was in heaven now, and in this case, he was correct, but not for the right reasons.

53:39

But we're going to have you—we have to go to our midway break, and when we come back, pick up where we left off,

53:47

Brian. Absolutely. And if you have a question, folks, we do have some people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:57

Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

54:05

Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord, in his sovereign providence, has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

54:14

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession, we embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our

54:29

Triune God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of Scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

54:38

In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

54:43

Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

54:51

That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

55:00

This program is sponsored by Hope PR Ministry. Hope PR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.

55:12

We are dedicated to sharing Reformed Biblical content every Wednesday and Friday. Tune in for sermons, lectures, and interviews exploring distinctive

55:22

Reformed doctrines. If you are looking for Christ -centered content, simply search

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Hope PR Ministry on your favorite podcast platform to begin listening today.

55:34

Hope PR Ministry also offers Morning Meditations, a daily podcast featuring

55:39

Reformed devotionals designed to nourish your soul. Start your day with these spiritually enriching messages by tuning in to Morning Meditations wherever you get your podcasts.

55:53

Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

56:05

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

56:11

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

56:25

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

56:31

Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

56:36

Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

56:45

Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com

57:02

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

57:09

I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother

57:15

Chris Arnson in the highest esteem, and I'm thrilled that you're listening today.

57:21

I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for Reformed Christian literature for decades now,

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Well, with the economic nightmare that we're all currently enduring,

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Oh, and make sure that you tell them that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

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And don't forget, CVBBS .com is now shipping worldwide.

58:54

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

59:01

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

59:10

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

59:23

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

59:29

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

59:43

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

59:52

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

01:00:01

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

01:00:06

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

01:00:24

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

01:00:30

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

01:00:36

Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

01:00:44

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

01:01:01

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

01:01:08

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

01:01:17

For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

01:01:23

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

01:01:33

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:01:47

Hi, this is

01:01:56

John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

01:02:03

Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider 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

01:02:15

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

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Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

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This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

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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.

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

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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. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

01:03:24

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

01:03:33

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

01:03:41

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

01:03:46

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

01:04:05

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards. And Dr.

01:04:11

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

01:04:16

Hanover Presbyterian Church, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

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Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the

01:04:33

Reformers. Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.

01:04:39

Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity. For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

01:04:50

That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Or call 678 -954 -7831.

01:04:56

That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

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Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, sends you.

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corum, 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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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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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

01:06:42

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. When Iron Sharpens Iron radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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01:08:42

Welcome back. Before I return to my discussion with Matt Swanvelt, who is a church planter in Northern Italy, and my co -host

01:08:52

Brian McLaughlin. Before I return to this discussion, I want to remind you folks, if you really love

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Go to www .IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. And last but not least, no matter where you live in the world, if you are not a member of a

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01:11:42

Italy, where our guest today, Matt Swanneville, is a pastor, well, please send me an email to chrisarmson at gmail dot com and put

01:11:52

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And that may be you, too, if you are without a Christ -honoring church home. So please, if you are in that predicament, no matter where on the planet

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Earth you live, send me an email to chrisarmson at gmail dot com and put I need a church in the subject line.

01:12:19

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Pastor Matt Swanneville about his church planting work in northern

01:12:27

Italy. That's chrisarmson at gmail dot com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:12:33

And before the break, Brian, you were about to chime in with something? Yes. Thanks. The exact same thoughts that were running through your mind when

01:12:43

Matt brought up that what the priest was speaking about at that Roman Catholic funeral.

01:12:52

I was thinking the exact same thing. Wait a second. I've never heard that before. It's always the person is in heaven.

01:13:00

Most of the time they're reunited with their wife, their father, mother, daughter, their friends, whatever.

01:13:07

They're at a barbecue. That's what the heaven picture looks like. It's never because of their faith, the repentance and faith.

01:13:19

Normally, they were baptized when they were an infant and that baptism is what secures their place to go to heaven.

01:13:34

Then, for no reason that they generally allude to, they start praying for their souls.

01:13:41

Let's all pray for their souls. And I'll go through the Our Father and I'll do Hail Mary. And I'm sitting there after coming to faith for three decades now.

01:13:52

I'm always sitting there. I want to raise my hand like in Welcome Back Carta.

01:13:58

Wait a second. I got a question. You just said this guy is in heaven and now you're saying we got to pray for souls.

01:14:06

Which is it? Is he in heaven? Is he in this place called purgatory?

01:14:12

Do you got to buy these mask cards? What is it? It's a very interesting,

01:14:18

I guess, event or whatever.

01:14:25

And no one questions it. In fact, when my father -in -law passed away,

01:14:31

I guess about 15 years ago, my father -in -law was first -generation American.

01:14:39

His parents came from Italy. My father -in -law, great guy, loved him. He was wonderful.

01:14:46

And I would try to witness to him and he was a Brian. I'm fine. I'm fine. I go to church.

01:14:52

I'm good. I'm a good person. All this stuff. But real quick, when he was on his, at this point, his deathbed, he was in the hospital six months before that, and he was actually crying out.

01:15:07

Why is God doing this to me? I'm a good person. It was very interesting. I remember sitting there going, oh,

01:15:13

Joe, to myself, like you're asking the wrong question. Well, fast forward six months later, and I just kept praying,

01:15:20

Lord, someone bring the gospel to him, if you can allow me the privilege of doing it.

01:15:27

But you've got to set this up. Well, without going through the whole story, God did. And I can remember when the first piece of that was being, you know, my mother -in -law asked my wife that when

01:15:38

I was at the church, could I pick her up and bring her to the hospital to my father -in -law?

01:15:44

I was like, God, are you doing this? And that's exactly what

01:15:50

God was doing. And it was like you were making a movie. Got there. My mother -in -law went out of the hospital room to get ice, and my father -in -law calls me, tells me he's dying.

01:16:04

And then he said, not why is this happening? He said, I'm afraid. That's when

01:16:10

I shared the gospel with my father -in -law. And this is when God prepared his heart to repent and receive

01:16:18

Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and to trust in him that Jesus paid his sin debt in full on the cross and my father -in -law received

01:16:30

Christ and received salvation. Here's the interesting thing. I just was so thankful.

01:16:38

Who do they ask at the Catholic church to speak on behalf of my father -in -law?

01:16:44

They ask the only Protestant in the family. That's me. I'm telling them, why don't one of you guys do it?

01:16:51

This is your church. This ain't my church. You guys, no, no one else can speak. We want you to speak.

01:16:57

The priest actually wanted me to write down what I was going to say, and I refused.

01:17:03

And I said, no, I'm just not, you know, and he's like on the phone. He calls the funeral home. He's basically yelling at me.

01:17:09

Anyway, he does let me speak. Okay, so I give him credit there. And I talk about how my father -in -law, great husband, father, grandfather, friend and everything, and then

01:17:21

I share the story of him, of me bringing the gospel message to him on his deathbed.

01:17:28

I don't talk about Catholicism. I don't talk about anything. I just talked about what God did.

01:17:35

And the funny thing about it was my brother, who's not a believer, after the funeral said that the priest was sitting behind me, smiling and nodding in agreement with what

01:17:53

I was saying. I said to my brother, I said, that's odd, because I basically contradicted everything he just said before that.

01:18:06

And so he looked at me, really, and I explained why, you know, why to him.

01:18:12

And, you know, he just was like, oh, that's interesting. So it's a funny thing.

01:18:17

They'll say the person's in heaven, but they have to pray for them in purgatory. Then I, you know,

01:18:23

I share him repenting and trusting Christ, and they're all in agreement.

01:18:28

So it's really this interesting mix, and whether it's in Italy or wherever, this is the common thread that goes through every culture, through every generation, through every religious system.

01:18:43

Most people think they're not that bad. And religion boils down to I'm going to be okay.

01:18:52

I remember witnessing to one friend of mine, and he said, Brian, look,

01:18:58

I look at it this way. He's an Irish Catholic, American Irish Catholic guy, and he said,

01:19:04

I don't think I'm that good that I'm going to go right to heaven, but I don't think I'm that bad I'm going to go to hell, so I'll probably spend a little time in a place called purgatory.

01:19:13

And it's just an ingenious scheme of the devil to trick a man into thinking that he's okay in his own righteousness, and that eventually

01:19:24

God will accept him. And it's a common theme. And, Matt, when you mentioned your friend, he just thought, and I was the exact same way.

01:19:34

In fact, I was told I should have been locked in a cage the first 20 years after God saved me, because when

01:19:41

I came to faith in Christ, and I was like, how can't people understand this?

01:19:50

Just tell them, and they're going to believe. Because it makes so much sense to us that we've seen in Scripture, this is what

01:19:58

God's Word says. So when we tell somebody, and it doesn't resonate with them, and they don't just say, wow, we, at least before I came to understand being unregenerate and having to be elect, and God having to regenerate this heart of stone and having the veil over my eyes,

01:20:21

I didn't understand that early in my faith. And I'm shaking people, saying, what's wrong with you?

01:20:27

How don't you get this? So once God revealed to me his sovereignty, and that it's not to his saving grace, and opening my eyes, giving me a new heart, and understanding that there go

01:20:46

I, there go we. And I need to remind myself that when speaking with people, is that we plant and we water, but God does the increase.

01:20:57

And I think it's the same everywhere we go, and, you know, trying to communicate with different cultures,

01:21:05

Italy or wherever, we need to navigate through that culture to be able to make those connections.

01:21:12

But the gospel is the gospel, and God will do what he wishes and pleases with.

01:21:18

And we have the privilege of bringing that message to the Lord. Yeah, one of the most notorious examples

01:21:26

I can remember of a globally heard funeral mass where the priest, it was actually

01:21:34

Cardinal O 'Connor, who delivered the eulogy for notorious

01:21:40

Yankees manager, Billy Martin, who died in a drunk driving accident in December of 1989,

01:21:49

Christmas Day, actually. And Cardinal O 'Connor said something to the effect that we can only trust that Billy slid safely home.

01:22:02

And if anybody was going to be tormented in purgatory, according to Catholic belief,

01:22:10

Billy Martin was definitely one of them. By the way, just to let you know,

01:22:17

I had a nearly identical experience with my father's funeral in a

01:22:22

Roman Catholic church. The priest began by just talking about how wonderful a man my father was.

01:22:30

And then when I got up to eulogize him, I said that nobody who is in heaven got there because they were a good person.

01:22:40

And remarkably, later on, the priest got up and contradicted his own words and said, just as Chris said, we can't earn our way to heaven.

01:22:52

We have to trust in Jesus Christ. I was actually shocked. I don't know how fully he meant that.

01:22:59

But anyway, so going back to the original question, in comparison to this very stark and rigid declaration of purgatory that you heard,

01:23:12

Matt, is that a common thing in your area of Italy anyway? You know, that's probably the only time

01:23:22

I've heard the message that clear in Udine, where I live, from a priest.

01:23:31

Obviously, I'm sure Brian, as you saw, that there's all sorts of signs, being also a Jubilee year, 2025.

01:23:40

There's promises. If you walk through doors, there's forgiveness of sins. And I remember the first time

01:23:46

I went to Rome, I went to see the Scala Santa. And supposedly, it's the steps before Pontius Pilate that were imported into Rome.

01:24:00

And if you go up one by one on your knees, praying prayers, there was a sign,

01:24:06

I remember, right next to it with the promise of, I think half of your sins would be forgiven.

01:24:12

So you kind of see signs of it.

01:24:18

You might go to a museum where there's, if you go see a certain painting, there can be some promises given.

01:24:27

But as far as, I think, being that explicit, that was probably the most explicit statement, I think, that I've heard from someone speaking.

01:24:34

Obviously, there's the rituals and the traditions that they have, especially during these

01:24:39

Jubilee years. But it's true. And I would agree with kind of what Brian was saying.

01:24:44

I think the general Catholic mindset, and I think the general Italian mindset, is that people think that they are good enough, that they're not that bad, and there's certainly a lot worse people.

01:24:57

So however it's going to end, they're going to be on the right side of the deal. I think that's probably the default position of most of the

01:25:06

Catholics, and also I think most of the Italians, even the atheists, and the agnostics somehow end up saying something similar.

01:25:14

If there is a God, I know that I'm more good than bad, or I'm a lot better than a lot of people, so I should be okay.

01:25:24

Yeah, exactly. The conversation I had with the

01:25:30

Jewish gentleman was just that, doing the mitzvahs, I'm a good person.

01:25:35

And so it is the common theme that runs through.

01:25:42

I always like the way Ray Comfort does the test, are you good enough?

01:25:48

And he goes through this theory, have you ever told a lie and everything? And I think it's a great way to say, well, so what are you?

01:25:56

If you do this, this, and this, then what are you? And to get people to think about it.

01:26:03

Am I really, am I good enough? The average person doesn't understand the law, doesn't understand that the ability to be good enough is to keep the law perfectly.

01:26:16

And when you can share that with them, that you can never be good enough, and when

01:26:22

God uses that to open their heart to the gospel, it's a wonderful thing.

01:26:33

Okay, we have a question from Isabel in Avon, South Dakota. And Isabel wants to know,

01:26:41

I know that in some areas of New York, Italians are involved in very elaborate superstitious and idolatrous festivals and other outdoor events that feature statues of Mary and the saints.

01:26:58

And this is even heightened in places like South America What is your experience in Northern Italy when it comes to rabid idolatry and superstition in public?

01:27:14

Yeah, yes, the short answer is certainly there's a lot of superstition, even in Northern Italy.

01:27:21

My wife is Italian, and her family lives in a small, beautiful little village kind of in the beginning, right before the

01:27:30

Alps, on one of the big lakes in Northern Italy. And every year there's the parade, where they'll be the procession, where they'll be carrying a big statue of Jesus and Mary and walking through the town.

01:27:45

And so certainly with Mary, that's going to be very, very prominent.

01:27:53

The little church by where they live, there's a picture of Mary stepping on the snake.

01:28:03

I talked with a woman once about the gospel, and her response to me was,

01:28:09

I'm not sure how it came about, but that God is holy, and Jesus is holy, but Mary is the most holy.

01:28:17

So there can be some very aggressive worship of Mary, and certainly she's going to be the one that a lot of Italians in Northern Italy are going to be praying to first.

01:28:34

You can definitely feel that. So yes, there is a lot of superstition. There's going to be more, certainly in Southern Italy, where that's going to be a lot more prominent.

01:28:43

And you can see that in the churches. You can see all of the relics. But also in the streets, there's going to be even more processions and statues and all of that.

01:28:56

Would that be to the level, I don't know how much you have seen, of those kinds of rituals and celebrations in South America.

01:29:05

I've seen them on YouTube. I've never been to South America. But anything close to that heightened idolatry that we see there in those kinds of videos?

01:29:16

I'm not sure I've seen a whole lot of videos from South America. I would guess it's probably, my guess would be that it wouldn't be that extreme, but that would be mostly a guess.

01:29:27

I think I've seen maybe a clip from a movie or something. I've seen some kind of scene from that.

01:29:34

But there's certainly going to be the processions. R .J. in White Plains, New York wants to know, are most of the

01:29:40

Italians that you have encountered even churchgoers? No, definitely not.

01:29:48

I would say the majority of Italians do not attend church. That would definitely be true.

01:29:55

You can see the difference even in the 25 years in the Catholic Church, that church attendance is definitely down.

01:30:02

That older generation that was more faithful is now no longer here.

01:30:08

And so you can definitely feel that there's going to be a difference in church attendance. And probably the biggest obstacle to the gospel that we have is going to be just because Italy is such a wonderful, beautiful place with great food, great culture, great music.

01:30:22

Family is important. Friendship is highly valued. And the real obstacle,

01:30:30

I think, is just the idolatry of very good things that become the most important things.

01:30:37

And so the typical Italian lives for vacation, lives for a good time with his friends, and pursues that with all of their life.

01:30:49

And so when you give them a message that that's not going to be what's going to satisfy them, that's really where you get into the conversations of what is the gospel promising in comparison to what they're looking for.

01:31:03

In fact, the way that I met my cohost,

01:31:09

Brian, was through debates that I hosted and arranged for over a decade on Long Island, New York, where I'm originally from, called the

01:31:22

Great Debate Series that I had with Dr. James R. White, debating various Roman Catholic apologists.

01:31:31

These started in 1996 and went on for a straight decade from there.

01:31:41

But one of the things that I always found interesting is the number of times that I would meet

01:31:52

Catholics who swore that they were believing in the same gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, and that good works, as we who are

01:32:14

Reformed believe, are only a necessary fruit and evidence of genuine salvation and not in any way meriting their salvation.

01:32:24

Now, there are many Catholics who know enough about their beliefs in the

01:32:30

Council of Trent who are fully aware that their church teaches that you have to help to earn your salvation.

01:32:39

In fact, there are a lot of false -professing evangelicals who have that mindset.

01:32:49

And your average person thinks that your bad actions and good actions are put on a scale, and whichever is heavier will determine where you spend eternity.

01:33:01

But your average Catholic, when they hear the true gospel, especially when you add into the mix sovereign grace and the doctrines of Reformed theology, are they totally shocked by this, or do they have any claims of an affinity in any way with those teachings?

01:33:23

Probably the most common response that I get when I share the gospel—and I would agree that there's some confusion, as you're saying,

01:33:30

Chris, just with sometimes, well, aren't we saying the same thing? Aren't these minor differences?

01:33:37

But it really comes out when you talk about the assurance of salvation.

01:33:42

And for an Italian, a typical Italian Catholic, to be able to say, I'm going to go to heaven or I'm going to be in the presence of the

01:33:52

Lord, and that's based only on what Christ has done for me.

01:33:59

For them to be able to say that, it sounds very presumptuous.

01:34:05

It sounds very arrogant to them. And there's a sense of humility, or false humility maybe, that says, no,

01:34:13

I couldn't dare say that I'll be going to heaven because who knows the truth about what

01:34:20

I've really done besides God? Who am I to say that? And I think it's at that point where you really can highlight that, okay, that's the difference.

01:34:29

That's what we're saying. We're saying it's not depending upon what I've done. It's depending upon what

01:34:35

Christ has done. And so it's not presumptuous. For me, it's actually presumptuous to say that what

01:34:41

He has done isn't sufficient for you. And I feel like that's probably the conversation that is the most helpful in trying to move forward in a conversation with someone when you're trying to find the differences.

01:34:55

What does grace mean? A lot of the things sound very similar, but they have different meanings.

01:35:01

And so it's kind of hard to move forward. But it's that conversation I find to be the most effective.

01:35:07

Now, CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island wants to know, in addition to what you mentioned earlier about some restrictions of religious freedom in Italy, what else is the government doing to give you a hard time there?

01:35:26

Yeah, I think, again, that's a good question. I wouldn't say that there's any kind of persecution.

01:35:31

I think this is a good question because I think it really highlights that the biggest challenge that we have as church planners in Italy is that there's kind of a cycle that happens where a missionary goes in and plants a church.

01:35:49

There's a lot of excitement. There's growth. There's joy. And then they establish local leaders, elders, a pastor.

01:35:58

Rightfully so, the missionary leaves, and so it's a local body run by an Italian nationals in the church.

01:36:07

But there's no concept of supporting a pastor.

01:36:15

It's a very foreign concept for Italians in general. Donations and offerings is kind of a strange concept just because of the

01:36:25

Catholic Church, they're used to the idea of an offering is when you go a couple times a year, you find the change in your pocket, and you put it in the box, or you buy the candle.

01:36:34

And so there's a lot of aspects of a healthy church that is going against the culture.

01:36:42

But even when that money is donated, the process for that to actually go to support a pastor is extremely complicated.

01:36:54

And I'm not sure it's the state, the Italian state that's trying to give. The church is a hard time.

01:37:01

I just think that they're trying to get control of abuse of money. And so I think because there's a lot of shortcuts, there's a lot of people not paying taxes, they have a pretty excessive, rigorous tax standard.

01:37:16

And so, for example, the money that's given for me, 70 % of it would automatically be given to the state just from taxes.

01:37:30

And so I would only get 30 out of the 100. And so there are ways that we can try to figure out legal ways to reduce that amount.

01:37:39

But I think it's the whole concept of a bureaucracy, of making it very difficult for someone who's, for something that's not a business, to be able to give support so that these local pastors are going to be able to spend the time in the

01:37:59

Word of God to be able to prepare the sermon, to be able to care for the pastoral needs of all of the church needs that are going to be happening.

01:38:08

And so if you have a pastor that has the time and energy to do that, those churches are going to continue to grow.

01:38:13

But what happens is that doesn't exist really in Italy. And so instead of these churches flourishing, often it lasts for a couple of years until there's some kind of conflict, discouragement in the local leadership.

01:38:29

They're trying to manage a family, a full -time job, a ministry that's growing. And so because of that, the church kind of splits or falls apart until another missionary comes and it kind of starts all over again.

01:38:43

So we really think that our vision for Italian ministry really needs to try to not only establish that culture of giving and donations, but also to try to create the structure where those donations, there's a process that we have where those can be legally given for a paycheck for a full -time worker.

01:39:06

And so I wouldn't describe it as the state giving us a hard time as much as the state just trying to pay all their bills, too.

01:39:19

Obviously, we have health insurance. There's a lot of expenses in Italy through the school system.

01:39:25

So because it's a pretty heavy government to sustain,

01:39:30

I think they're trying to figure out ways to make that happen. We have Cindy in Findlay, Ohio, who asks, is there any subject that should be avoided when witnessing to a

01:39:42

Roman Catholic? And maybe you can even make it more central to the theme today in Italy, in Northern Italy, or what have you.

01:39:53

Sure. Is there something to avoid? I mean, yes,

01:39:58

I would say, and I would guess I even learned this right when I began my ministry in Italy.

01:40:04

I read a book by James White on, I think it's called The Roman Catholic Controversy. Yeah, it's a great book, very helpful.

01:40:12

And I think one of the advices that he gives in that book that I found very helpful is to major on the major issues and not get caught up on small things.

01:40:21

It's very easy to, you know, there's a lot of things I think we can rightfully so nitpick and say, those aren't quite right.

01:40:28

But the real issue is you really, those can become distractions, they can become useless offenses,

01:40:35

I think, in a conversation when you really want to get the conversation centered around the promises of the gospel and the sufficiency of Christ Jesus.

01:40:45

So I don't think you need to worry too much about offending. Italians, they're actually pretty good at it.

01:40:53

They're pretty thick -skinned. They enjoy differences, different opinions, having discussions, even if it gets heated.

01:41:02

They're often, it's not personal. And so I wouldn't worry too much about you're going to say something that would be offensive to them as much as you don't want to get sidetracked on things that are not the real issue.

01:41:16

They're going to need to be born again before they're going to be able, I think, to put everything in place.

01:41:21

And so to really focus in, I would say, on the authority of Scripture and the work and sufficiency of Christ, I think those are probably the two big issues.

01:41:32

Those heated responses that you have experienced, are they primarily people digging their heels in and defending

01:41:43

Roman Catholicism or their idolatry and superstition, or the very notion of the gospel requiring repentance?

01:41:55

Okay, I think the heated arguments really are based off of they're trying to defend their heritage.

01:42:03

They're trying to defend their family. I think, again, what really it all comes down to, even with Catholicism, it's a lot about family.

01:42:13

We have a young man in our church right now who's professing faith in Christ, but he's very hesitant on baptism just because he knows what the cost of that is going to be with his family, very loving, a practicing

01:42:29

Catholic family. He knows what that's going to cause, and so you can feel him drag his feet on that, even if he won't say it explicitly, because that idea of you're not saying something, it's not about saying something against the

01:42:46

Catholic Church, I think, because Italians love to criticize the

01:42:52

Catholic Church. Almost every Catholic has something bad to say about the Catholic Church. What I think is more personal, more offensive to them, harder for them, is this is part of their family, this is part of their heritage, this is part of their identity as an

01:43:07

Italian. Yeah, I can recall conversations that I've had with Catholics, and I can't recall if I remember thinking this myself when

01:43:21

I was a Catholic, being evangelized by Christians, but I do remember hearing it from others after I'd become saved, the question, so you mean to tell me

01:43:33

I'm supposed to think that my grandparents and all my ancestors are in hell? And of course,

01:43:40

I respond, well, I don't know them, and we don't know how God in his mercy may have brought the true gospel to them before they left this earth, and may have acknowledged and embraced the true gospel without your knowledge of that, so I can't make a definitive declaration on the eternal state of your ancestors, but at the same time, that should never be something that prevents you from embracing the truth, because do you just want to follow people into hell that are not born again, that are not embracing the true gospel?

01:44:24

But anyway, we have to go to our final break right now, and if you do want to also jump in and ask a question of your own, our email address is chrisarenson at gmail .com,

01:44:37

chrisarenson at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence, don't go away, we're going to be right back, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Christ. This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

01:50:54

Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com

01:51:25

Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Armisen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Program.

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SecureComm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties, and much more.

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We can be reached at securecommgroup .com. That's securecommgroup .com.

01:51:56

But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

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I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners, and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area, or Queens, or Brooklyn, or the

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Bronx, in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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God bless you. And folks, please don't forget another supporter of this program.

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It's the law firm of Buttafuoco & Associates. If you are the victim of a very serious personal injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the

01:53:48

United States, please call my longtime dear friend, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, at 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, or visit his website, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com,

01:54:00

1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com. And please tell Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, that you heard about his law firm,

01:54:06

Buttafuoco & Associates, from Chris Arnzen on Iron Trump & Zion Radio. I also want to inform you about some excellent programs coming up very soon, one of which begins tomorrow.

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It's a two -day live debate here on Iron Trump & Zion Radio between Reformed Baptist pastor

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Jeremiah Nortier and Nazarene pastor

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Jared K. Henry. They are going to be debating on the ordination of women.

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Can women be ordained into positions of authority over men in Christ's church?

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And Pastor Jeremiah, the Reformed Baptist, will be opposing that view, and Pastor Jared, the

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Nazarene, is defending that view. That's tomorrow and Friday on Iron Trump &

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Zion Radio. And then they will be also debating two weeks from now, on a

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Thursday and Friday, on the issue, Can Christians attain full and total freedom of known sin in this life?

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Once again, Pastor Jeremiah, the Reformed Baptist, opposes that teaching, and Pastor Jared, the

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Nazarene, affirms it. So I hope that you listen to those debates.

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And last but not least, next Tuesday, July 15th, Brian McLaughlin returns as my co -host, as I interview

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Leonardo DiCirico, another man laboring in Italy for the doctrines of sovereign grace.

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And just out of curiosity, Pastor Matt, are you familiar with Leonardo? Yes, we just were talking about him before.

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He's the one that's the pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church in Rome, with the issue of paying the taxes on the building.

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So anyway, that will be a great conversation. He's a godly man, a great leader of a great church in Rome there.

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That'll be a nice interview. Well, Brian McLaughlin, do you have any final questions for our guests today?

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I just want to know why you always put me with the Italians, Chris. I'm sure our listeners in Italy are thrilled with your accent there,

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Brian. I guess my question to Matt, I think we all understand that the strength or the pull of one's culture, family, traditions are powerful.

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But we know the gospel is more powerful, and grace to God is more powerful.

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So I guess an encouragement to you in Italy and in bringing the message of life to those that God brings to you.

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I guess it's just always the gospel will cut through that. It's making that gospel message personal,

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I think, to each and every person. Because one day, we're all going to stand before God, and there's no culture, family member, tradition, or anything that's going to be with you when you stand before a holy

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God. And the question is, on that day, will you be received by God?

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And if so, on what basis? And if it's anything else besides the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, that you will stand condemned in yourself, in your tradition, or in anything else.

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And there's no one that can pray you into heaven. There's no one that can pay enough money, pay enough indulgences to get you into heaven.

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It is only the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That's right. My encouragement to you,

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Matt, as you continue. Thank you. Grazie. And Pastor Matt, can you give us your final thoughts in about 90 seconds?

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And also, make sure you give our listeners a website. Yeah, just final thoughts.

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It's just amazing to me. You know, I've been in Italy now for 25 years, and how exciting it is to see that it's a testimony that God is working.

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We see God changing people's lives. We do see the power of the gospel being preached, and families being changed, hope entering into the lives of a lot of different neighbors and people that we come in contact with.

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So we just praise the Lord for His great power and His mighty hand. Our mission organization, the website is smgi .org.

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smgi .org. If you want to learn more about our ministry, we have works in Italy and in Spain and Albania and France and Germany, but primarily in northern

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Italy. And what does SMGI stand for? Serenissima Ministry Group International.

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And so Serenissima is actually the name of the Venetian kingdom from like 700 to 1700, more or less.

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But it also means like the most peace, the most serenity. And so it's a great name for the ministry that we're doing.

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We're trying to offer that message of peace and hope to the Italians in this area. smgi .org.

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smgi .org. Well, thank you so much for being such a wonderful guest today. Thank you,

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Brian, for being a great co -host with me. I'm looking forward to our discussion next Tuesday.

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

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Savior than you are a sinner. Amen. Amen.