January 19, 2024 Show with Claude Ramsey on “An Overview of the Book of Ezra”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

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

Good afternoon, 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. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 19th day of January, 2024.

I'm absolutely thrilled to have back on the program a dear friend who is a returning guest. His name is Claude Ramsey, and he is pastor of Reformata Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and host of the Here I Stand Theology Podcast.

Today we're going to be addressing the theme and overview of the book of Ezra, and we're also going to be announcing the 2024 Open Air Theology Conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee, on the theme, Why Calvinism, and my guest today, Pastor Claude Ramsey, is one of the esteemed ministers on the roster at that conference, so you'll be hearing more about that momentarily.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Claude Ramsey.

Hello, Chris. Thank you so much for having us back.

And if you could, let our listeners know more about Reformata Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

All right. Reformata Baptist Church is a Reformed Baptist Church. The Reformata in Reformata Baptist Church is the Latin word for Reformed, really, which comes from the larger phrase, Ecclesia Reformata Semper Reformanda Secundum Verbum Dea, which is the church reformed and always being reformed.

The church is, we are in our 15th year as a congregation, as a body. We planted 15 years ago. The congregation, we have three elders, myself and the pastor with two other elders, and three deacons. And the Lord has just truly blessed the church over, particularly over the last couple of years with a lot of good families, a lot of strong, mature Christian families at that.

So it's been a great blessing thus far, and we look forward to see what the Lord's going to be doing in the future.

Amen. Amen. And if anybody wants more details on Reformata Baptist Church, go to Facebook and type in Reformata, which is R-E-F-O-R-M-A-T-A Baptist Church, and that will likely be the only thing that comes up.

Have you ever heard of another congregation with that name in the United States?

No, no, not with just, you know, not with just the name Reformata Baptist Church. There are a few other Reformatas, but they are, they kind of go, you know, a little different route. So we are unique in that.

And tell us about this conference coming up, and it has quite an impressive lineup of speakers, including my longtime dear friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who is not only a speaker on the roster at the Open Air Theology Conference, but he is also going to be debating a brother named Jason Breda, and I can't remember if I'm pronouncing that correctly, if it's Breda or Breda, but they are having a debate on definite atonement or otherwise called particular redemption and limited atonement, and the theme is actually the reform doctrine of atonement is biblical and important.

That debate will be held February 24th in Tullahoma, Tennessee. But the conference, what are the exact dates of the conference, because it begins before the debate, I believe?

Yeah, yeah. So the conference dates are the 21st through the 24th. On the 21st, actually, let me look at my calendar here while I'm explaining this. So the 21st, actually, there will be like a pre-conference.

It's going to be with Jeremiah Nortier and Sam Frost, and they're going to be talking about the dangers of full preterism, which, you know, Jeremiah and Sam Frost both are highly intellectual guys. They know the scriptures, they know what they're talking about.

It will be a fantastic pre-conference, so I would encourage folks to come out for that as well. But as to the actual conference itself, I'll tell you what, Chris, and I'm being completely upfront here, straight up, I mean, I feel like a kid going to a NFL game to get to see, you know, the big-time preachers preach, because, I mean, they've got Andrew Rappaport, he'll be preaching the first sermon, and then they've got Matt Slick added to the roster now as well.

Oh, that's news to me, I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, and so, of course, like you mentioned, James White, Dr. Sam Waldron, he's preaching not to mention Jeff Braden-Habs, Brandon Scalf is another one of the preachers, Dr. Michael Schultz, you had him on, I think, or maybe you had him on here just a while back.

In any case, I mean, it is fantastic. If last year is any indicator of what this year is going to be, you're not going to want to miss it, because the preaching was just phenomenal, I mean, it was pure Scripture preaching, it was beautiful, and then the fellowship, I mean, was just fantastic, folks made new friends and hung out, and it was just a great environment.

And God willing, I will be there, I'm not 100 sure I'll be there, in fact, nobody is 100 sure, because you never know what plans God has that we don't. But I am hoping to be there, and I'm waiting on a very dear friend of mine who's actually a sponsor of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Brian McLaughlin of the SecureCom group, he is hoping to drive from Long Island, New York, pass through Pennsylvania, pick me up, and head to Tennessee together, and I will give my audience updates on whether or not that is happening.

I've interviewed most of the speakers that are on the lineup, and anybody who is on the roster who is listening who I have not yet interviewed, please contact me at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, so I can make sure I interview everybody who is on the speaking roster.

And by the way, you can also look up in the irontripandzionradio .com archive, Claude mentioned Sam Frost not long ago, I arranged a debate between Sam Frost and one of his former colleagues in ministry, Don Preston, one of the leading names in the hyper-preterist movement, and as you know, Sam was, at one time, a hyper-preterist before he repented of that very dangerous theology and ideology, and eschatology, and so it was interesting to have Sam debating Don, who was very closely associated with Sam in ministry at one time.

So you could look that up, you could just type in the search engine Sam Frost, or you could type in hyper-preterism, and you will find, I think it was a two-day debate between the two of them.

Oh my goodness, two days?

Well, on my show, it wasn't like in a public venue, it was on my radio show. So as you know, two hours goes by real fast on a radio show with commercials.

Absolutely.

So, I'm going to give our listeners our email address so that they can join us with questions of their own, chrisarnzen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence, if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and we will broaden the theme of today's show to accommodate listeners who have pastoral questions, because we do have a guest who is a pastor, and so therefore you might have a personal and private question you want to ask him.

But other than that, if you're just asking a general question on the book of Ezra, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Before we even delve into the specific book of Ezra, if you could respond to the growing notion that Christians don't really need the Old Testament that much at all.

In fact, Andy Stanley, the son of the late Charles Stanley, is infamous for declaring publicly that the church needs to unhitch itself from the Old Testament, and many biblically solid people responded in protest and in rebuke and chastisement of Andy Stanley for making such a comment.

If you could tell us why that is a wrong direction, and why even the New Covenant Church needs the Old Covenant Scriptures.

Absolutely. That's a fantastic question, and so important. And it's amazing how this issue has been, I want to say, even in some degrees, not in Reformed circles, but in the larger evangelical church circle, kind of been, I think, been crushed under the rug, swept under the rug.

So the Old Testament is just as important as the New Testament, and the answer to that, to the why of that, is because it's the Word of God. As we've been teaching on Thursday nights, we're teaching a group called Passing the Torch, it's discipling young men who feel like they're being called to the ministry.

And one of the things that we've been communicating here recently is this statement here, and it's basically that Christ is in the Old Testament concealed, and in the New Testament he is revealed. The New Testament is types and shadows where really we have, where God has given his church, he uses what the Old Testament is written in, there's a lot of anthropomorphic terms, which basically just means human language is used to describe divine things.

So we have the divine described in human fashion in the Old Testament, which points us as a shadow and type to our Lord Jesus Christ. And then in the New Testament, we have basically the commentary on the Old Testament.

So folks will steer away from the Old Testament because they'll say it's vague, it's hard to comprehend, it's hard to make sense of, but when we take what God has given us in the New Testament, the New Testament is that commentary to tell us what the Old Testament is about.

And obviously, they both point to Jesus Christ.

Amen. And obviously, there is also the opposite danger of Judaizing. There are professing Christians and messianic movements who import too much of the Old Covenant into the New, and even bind upon their followers an adherence to ceremonial laws and things that were clearly fulfilled and brought to an end during the coming of Christ and his earthly ministry, especially after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

And so comment on that briefly as well.

Well, when you go to the New Testament, again, as our commentary on that issue, that was the one of the primary focuses of many of the letters to the churches. It was that many kept trying to return to the law, kept trying to return to Judaism.

They kept trying to return to a works-based faith and works-based salvation. And what did the Apostle Paul continually say? These things will do no good. They are done away with. The Old Covenant has passed away.

And in the magnum opus of the book of Hebrews, right? So in the book of Hebrews, that's basically what it says in succinct terms. It says, look, in Christ, we have a better salvation. There's a better covenant in the New Covenant.

It's a better way, right? It's complete. It's whole in Christ. Whereas under the law, you never reach the goal because you can't ever attain the goal.

Amen. Well, I know that you have been preaching a series on the book of Ezra. And if you could tell us something about this historic figure, this scribe and scholar in the Old Covenant, actually a direct descendant of Aaron, the chief priest, if you could tell us something more about him.

Yeah, absolutely. So concerning Ezra himself, he was, like you said, a priest. He was a scribe. As Ezra chapter 7, verse 11 tells us, it basically just says that. Ezra, the priest, the scribe, a man learned in the matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel.

Now, what is unique about this book and this historical, it's one of the historical books of the Old Testament, although it's full of prophecy and Christology, eschatology, you've got it all, particularly when you bring in the Haggai and Zechariah sermons.

So you've got it all. But what's unique about the book of Ezra, I think that most folks don't understand that the book itself spans, I mean, anywhere from, it could be 90 to 120 years. Of course, there's not an exact date on it.

But that book, this short book, the short book of Ezra, Ezra doesn't even show up until the 6th or 7th chapter. I think it is right now. I'm not looking directly at the text. And it's virtually been about 70 to 80 years since the children of Israel returned to Jerusalem that Ezra shows up.

But God has provided for them direction, encouragement, strength through his spirit and through his word that came through Haggai and Zechariah. So it's really a fantastic book full, full of good information and good spiritual knowledge for the church.

Amen. Well, go through step by step the primary reasons that you wanted to discuss this, the primary reasons why this is an important book, even for the New Testament people of God and the primary ways that we can benefit from understanding this book.

Absolutely. I will do my best here, sir. So number one, I would say the chief purpose and reason for us as a body at Reformation to go through the book of Ezra verse by verse expositionally, because number one, it leads us to worship the Lord.

It leads us to worship God because of his faithfulness and because of his sovereignty. And number two, if there was a secondary primary secondary primary reason, if you would have it that way, it would be for this, because what we what we're doing in looking at the book of Ezra itself is gaining a contextual knowledge of what was taking place when the children of Israel came back.

Not only just the conditions, right, that they were coming back to, but the who were the kings, what what went down, basically the challenges and the obstacles that they faced. And then it would be that the third focus would be to understand the significance and the importance of the preached word of God.

Because what so often many, you know, preaching is relegated to something that not necessarily everybody's looking for when they go to a church. A lot of folks will look for children's programs. They'll look for good, good singing or they'll look for this or they'll look for that.

But preaching should be at the center and preaching should be the focus of the worship time when the church gathers on the Lord's Day on Sundays.

Amen. And that is a primary reason why many, not all, but many of the reformers, Puritans and their descendants, even architecturally, moved the Lord's table where Rome had it as the place of prominence because of their idolatrous practice of the mass being the primary thing.

Those following the principles of the Reformation and the Puritan era, which we believe to be biblical, of course, the prominence is in the center where the pulpit is, the proclamation of the God-breathed, inerrant word from that pulpit.

And therefore, typically in a reformed church, the Lord's table will be on the same level with the people below the pulpit, but the pulpit has been moved to the center. Now, I'm not saying that architectural positions and things like that have any kind of vital and required obedience because it's not specifically a biblical thing to even—I'm not even sure that the word pulpit is in the Bible.

Maybe you can correct me. But it does show you that there was a move of God's people to recognize that the proclamation of the word should be the focal point. Am I overstepping here?

No, no, no. I think that's exactly right. And as far as the pulpit phraseology goes, actually, in Nehemiah—let me look that up real quick here.

While you're doing that, I'm going to give our listeners our email address while you're looking that up.

Yeah.

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

Yeah, so in Nehemiah, which is basically, you know, it's the companion book. So in Ezra, the temple is rebuilt. In Nehemiah, the broken down walls are rebuilt and worship is restored. But in Nehemiah chapter 8—I'll read from 5 so we get a little context.

But so the scripture says, when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities. Now all the people gathered together as one man in the open square that was in front of the water gate.

And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month.

Then he read from it in the open square that was in front of the water gate from morning until midday before the men and the women who could understand in the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

So Ezra the scribe stood on a platform of wood, which they had made for the purpose. So we see there that he and then he stood above all the people. All the people stood when he opened it. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God.

So yeah, some translations actually use the term pulpit there, which is pretty awesome really. It's a good principle. It's a good pattern because basically it was just a way of setting the priest or the minister above the people, not in a sense that he's better, but in the sense that it's an elevation of the word of God.

Right. And I love the nickname that has been given to the pulpit, the sacred desk.

Amen. So I would say this, you know, preaching matters. Preaching has been the means by which God has proclaimed his word throughout history. I mean, we have it set forth in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

We see that the preaching and not just preaching anything, William Perkins said that the scriptures are to be the exclusive subject of preaching. So when we think of preaching, we ought not ever to think of anything else.

As Christians, I think our mind ought to go to the proclamation of the word of God. I mean, we have the proclamation beginning in Genesis, right? When Adam and Eve sinned and fell in Genesis 315, the Lord told them, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That's referred to as the Proto-Evangelion, right? So that was a looking forward to Christ. And if in the New Testament, a New Testament counterpart in a significant verse that teaches us the importance of preaching, 2 Peter chapter four or chapter two, verse four and five, I believe it is.

Let me make sure I'm quoting this correctly. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.

And if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah in the scripture refers to Noah as a herald of righteousness with seven others. When he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, that word herald means preacher, a proclaimer of the news, the word of God.

So it's always been the means through which God's called sinners to repentance and salvation.

Amen. And we're going to our first commercial break. If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question of your own, submit it to Chris Arnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence.

We'll be right back with Claude Ramsey and his overview of the book of Ezra right after these messages from our sponsors. Do not go away.

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Go to royaldiadem .com, royaldiadem .com, and make sure you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Claude Ramsey, pastor of Reformata Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and we are giving an overview of the Book of Ezra.

If you have a question, please submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Before you go into some more of the particulars of the Book of Ezra, I think that a listener question that really is hinging on something that you said earlier would be an important question to ask pretty much at the earliest point possible in the conversation.

We have Gustav in Duval, Washington, who says, can you please differentiate between preaching and teaching and or between preaching and lecturing? And one thing that I'm going to ask you too, in addition to Gustav's question, is wouldn't you say that preaching always involves teaching, but teaching does not always involve preaching?

I think that was perfectly phrased right there, and that's the truth. So to the question, which was a fantastic question, and again, to refer to what you said, Mr. Arnzen, absolutely true there. So Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this, preaching is logic on fire.

It's one thing to simply communicate biblical information or information of any kind and just leave it at that kind of passionless communication of knowledge. That would be lecture, where there's no emotion.

It's just kind of a rote reading of what you have before you, and then you sit down and you're done. But preaching is, and really it goes into this, really, so I had this set up to talk about in this next section.

It's the difference between experiential theology and intellectual theology. So Gustav, I would say you can have an intellectual knowledge of God, but you must also have an experiential knowledge of God.

Just to know that you must be born again is one thing, but to be born again is another thing. And so when you're born again, I mean, we can take the, I mean, and I'll use physical illustrations from the scripture.

I mean, think about the man blind from birth, whom Jesus took and spit in the mud and wiped it on his eyes and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And the scripture says he came again seeing, and there was a big deal made about that.

The Pharisees wanted to say this and that, and there was a big hubbub to do with it. And what happened though, that man who had been blind, who had no experience with sight, was now able to see, and it was simply because of Jesus Christ and for no other reason.

So the preaching of the gospel should be, and I'll say this, and again, there are different styles. There's nothing wrong with a quiet lecture style preacher. If he is preaching and proclaiming the scriptures verbatim, word for word, then as a Christian, we can't help but say amen and hallelujah to it.

But when a man preaches the scriptures word for word, verbatim, truth for truth, idea for idea, and he does it with passion, what happens is it makes a connection. It makes connection with the congregation.

It makes a connection with the hearers. And it's almost like, and I know it sounds weird and it's maybe a lame excuse, but it's like a conduction of electricity in one sense, right? Where the congregation, the hearers of the preacher who is preaching with passion and zeal and fervor, really understands and knows that the man who's preaching to them has been born again and has experienced the power of God in their lives.

And so they can kind of trust what they're hearing and kind of go with that. So the difference between a lecture and preaching is that the heat is turned up and the emotion is ramped up. And I know emotion doesn't make the sermon, but it certainly is helpful.

Yes. In fact, I am speaking with right now, a man who certainly has a gift for passionate preaching of the gospel. You will never visit Reformation Baptist Church and hear a dry, lifeless, sterile, impotent sermon there.

Pastor Claude combines the fire of his passion to see the lost come to Christ and also to see Christ's children edified with the solid teaching of the word. And both, I believe, are important. If a man truly believes in what he's saying and he believes that these teachings from the scripture have eternal consequences, I don't know how he could be passionless.

Amen. And I know that there are a minority of Reformed people, at least those that profess to be, that are actually intentionally not being emotional when they preach because they think it's a manipulation of the emotions.

And there are people who do that. There are people in Charismatic, Pentecostal, and other circles, maybe even Fundamentalist Baptist circles, who do use emotion to manipulate people. But we're not talking about that.

We're talking about a herald of the gospel, if he really believes that if his message is rejected, people will spend an eternity in hell. There's got to be some kind of emotion there. And sometimes, men of God who are soft-spoken are still emotional when they preach.

Yes.

And they have passion even though they're soft-spoken.

Yes. And so, to kind of round off that answer for Gustav, I would say this, to put it in a succinct statement, I would say the knowledge of God disconnected from experience does nothing for a person other than giving them enough knowledge to go to hell with a head full of information.

But the knowledge of God connected to experience is life and it's liberty to the one whom the Lord calls to salvation.

Amen. And if you could move on to the next important element of the book of Ezra that we should be retaining in our minds and hearts.

So, I would say the next important element that we need to retain is, again, to understand the importance of preaching and the role of preaching. So, the role of the preacher, as William Perkins taught in his work, The Art of Prophesying in the Call to Ministry, the role of the preacher is to gather the elect together.

So, concerning the book of Ezra, when we just think of the sheer mass, the numbers that came in the first wave of the exile from Babylon back to Jerusalem to begin the rebuilding process, the scripture says there were 42 ,360 people in that first wave.

42 ,360 besides their male and female servants who were 7 ,337. Now, without the heralding, the proclamation of the word to gather and to focus the saints, I can imagine that this must have been a lot like trying to herd cats.

Have you ever heard that before?

No.

Yeah. So, you know, if you've got several cats in a room, they're not gonna be like cows where they're all gonna go together and run together. They're gonna run every which way. So, you could imagine having 42 ,360 people on top of 7 ,000 with their servants, trying to get them focused and centered in one mind, in one accord, in unity.

And so, in Ezra, that's exactly what takes place with the preaching of the word of God by Haggai, by Zechariah, and by...