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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 Arnson.
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 Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 11th day of June, 2024.
Before I introduce my guest and topic, I want to remind you that the new Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon is already scheduled. We just had one last Thursday featuring world-renowned author and expert on the Puritans, Dr. Joel Beakey, but now we've got one coming up Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.
And we are going to be featuring another first-time speaker, Dr. Joseph Boot, author and founder of the Ezra Institute. So I urge you to mark that on your calendars, giving you plenty of advance notice.
And if you'd like to register, it's absolutely free. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. And not only is the admission free when you're lunch free, but everyone who attends my Iron Sharpens Iron Radio free pastor's luncheons leaves with a heavy sack, sometimes two heavy sacks of free brand new books generously donated by Christian publishers all over the United States and United Kingdom, and also personally selected by me.
So if you can make it to Perry County, Pennsylvania on Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., I would strongly urge you, if you're a man in ministry leadership, to attend this event. And we hope to start seeing you every year at these events.
The crowd is growing. We had a record-breaking crowd last Thursday. Over 250 men were there. And we're hoping to even beat that record this fall. So just mark down on your calendar Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.
And it is going to feature, for the first time, Dr. Joseph Boot, founder of the Ezra Institute. But today, I am thrilled to have a returning guest who is an old friend of mine. In fact, he is one of my oldest Christian friends, especially one that still remains in contact with me.
For some reason, not all of them do, but my guest today does. And I was just reminiscing on social media with my friend Bosco Lau, who first met me in the early 90s at Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, Long Island, where I was a member at the time before moving to Pennsylvania.
And he met me because he attended an apologetics conference that we had there featuring my guest today, Kenneth R. Samples. And Ken is a senior research scholar with Reasons to Believe, an adjunct instructor of apologetics at Biola University.
He's an author and former co-host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast. And today we're going to be addressing sin as a disorder of the good. It's my honor and privilege and thrill and joy to have you return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, my old friend Ken Samples.
Chris, it is so good to see you. I think our friendship goes back 30 years, and I remember fondly coming to New York and I remember going out to dinner with you and your lovely wife and I enjoyed that so much.
Yes, that was one of our very favorite restaurants, which unfortunately is no longer in existence. Sherry's French Gourmet Restaurant in Babylon, Long Island. It was right on the water. Our table had a window overlooking the Great South Bay.
And I can distinctly remember having a blessed time of fellowship with you and Julie. And Julie always fondly referred to you as Mr. Sampson, even though she knew how to pronounce your name correctly, but she just liked calling you Mr. Sampson, as in Sampson and Deliah.
And it was a memory that is forever etched in my heart and mind.
Yeah, she was a lovely, lovely woman, dedicated Christian, and I miss her.
Yes, I miss her obviously enormously. But today we have a fascinating topic. But before you do that, I want you to let our listeners know about a new book that you're expecting to be in print this fall.
Yeah, I'm excited about this book. It is entitled Clear Thinking in a Messy World. And the subtitle is A Christian Guide to Logic, Reason and Cognitive Bias. I think we're living at a time where lots of people have lost their mind.
Whatever gave you that idea?
I think that thinking carefully and critically and in a biblical context, being a person who uses discernment is really important. So I have chapters on the laws of logic, on informal logical fallacies, and A Colleague contributes areas of cognitive bias.
I'm really excited. I've written a number of books, but this is a book, Chris, I've wanted to write for 30 years. So I'm so pleased that the Lord has allowed me to do it and it should be out in the fall.
Great. Well, I'm looking forward to having you back on the show when that book is in print and we'll address that subject. But today, as I've already announced, our subject is sin as a disorder of the good.
If you could, I mean, this may sound like a no brainer, especially when the majority of my audience is Christian already, but perhaps there are still people perhaps new in the faith who may get a general idea of what sin is, but they might not even as a Christian understand it clearly to the depth of how the Scriptures describe it.
So if you could start off with a working definition of sin.
Yeah, I think that a good definition is anything thought, word, or deed that is contrary to the moral character of God. Now, the Greek New Testament word for sin is hamartia. There are a number of definitions we could use missing the mark, breaking the commandments.
That's probably the most emphasis, both old and new. We've broken the commandments of God. Those commandments reflect the moral nature of God. So when we break them, we are going against God. I think one of the most diabolical elements of sin, though, is what Paul discusses, the apostle in Romans 1, where sin leads to a sense of deception.
And, you know, part of the problem with being a sinner is that you're not always aware that what you're doing is sinful. So original sin, of course, is the idea that Adam and Eve rebelled against God.
And from that original sin came an original sin would include the fact that we die physically. It also means that we have a corrupt moral nature, a sin nature, if you will. And thirdly, that we're guilty in Adam.
That third part is the controversial part that some people push back. But I believe the Bible teaches original sin. And I think if you have a low view of sin, you will probably also have a low view of grace.
I have a high view of sin and I have an even higher view of grace.
Yes, I remember being so disappointed watching one of my very favorite talk show hosts, Tucker Carlson, who identifies as a Christian. He obviously needs a lot more instruction in the true doctrines of the Christian faith, however, even though he is right on the mark with so many things, especially in regard to politics.
But I was watching Tucker and he was rightly dismantling the woke movement and the social justice warrior movement. And the aspect that he was targeting in his strong denial and refutation of these dangerous movements was the idea that white people could possibly bear the guilt of the sins of people centuries ago, or even as recent as the Jim Crow situation down south in the 1960s and prior, who had nothing to do with those activities.
And he was right there. He was correct on that. But then he went further and said, it is absolutely abominable. And, of course, I'm paraphrasing here because I don't remember exactly what he said. But the essence of what he said was, it is abominable and outrageous to ever think and teach that somebody could be held responsible for sin from the moment of their birth.
And that was where it became very vividly clear to me that he doesn't understand the very vital teachings that were denied by Pelagius' original sin. And, of course, we who are Calvinists go even further in describing it as total depravity.
But this is something that your average person, even your average person that might think they're a Christian or identify themselves as a Christian, and, of course, Tucker Carlson might be a truly born-again believer, but just in his infant stages of understanding the faith.
I mean, even Christians can be wrong on serious issues. But this is really the root of our whole need for Jesus Christ coming to the earth and our whole need for his perfectly sinless life and obedience to the Father and his sacrificial substitutionary propitiatory sacrifice on Calvary, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven, and his being seated at the right hand of the Father, is it not?
Yeah, the fundamental flaw I think there, and I like him as well. I like his political analysis. I think he's got a lot of courage. But if it's unfair, if it's unjust for God to hold me accountable for what Adam did, then I think it would also have to be unjust for God to hold Christ accountable for what I did.
Yeah, there you go. And so it's such a critical thing. I mean, we talk about Christ being the second Adam. The first Adam rebelled against God, broke the commandments, and all of his progeny followed into that.
And thus I do believe in original sin. I think it's biblical. And again, when I engage people about this topic, they will often bring up that issue. You know, I'm a sinner, and I do things that are wrong, but I'm not guilty in Adam.
And I say, well, be careful now because if Adam is not a representative, in Romans 5, Paul lays it out that in Adam we all die. In Christ we're all made alive. And so original sin has fallen on hard times.
Even Pope Francis recently said people are born good, which I think is inconsistent not only with Scripture, but with the Catholic catechism and certainly inconsistent with what St. Augustine would have taught.
And of course, the church that he claims to lead as the vicar of Christ on earth condemned Pelagius as a heretic. And that is the core reason they did so.
That's absolutely right. Yes. Well, and even Eastern Orthodoxy, Chris, they believe in people are fallen. They do believe that we have a sin nature, but they deny that we're guilty in Adam.
And so part of I think we only inherit. We only inherit physical death as a result. Is that their spin on it?
Yeah. The area they push back strongly is that we're guilty in Adam. They reject that idea.
Yeah. So you're taking this very important subject today and you are phrasing it in a way that obviously needs further explanation. Sin as a disorder of the good. If you could please explain.
So what we're made in the image of God, we're made to be lovers and worshippers. The intent is for us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. We are intended to worship God.
We're made for God. That's our very purpose. But in our fallen condition. So you have God creating the world. But then out of that comes the fall, the fall. In the fall, we don't stop being lovers and worshippers.
But instead, we begin to use our love and our worship as idolaters. So we then use sin. We you know, some of the sins and I like to put it this way. One of the most diabolical parts of being a sinner is not just that we do bad things, but we take good things and misuse them.
So the idea of disorder, I mean, you can commit gluttony. But food and drink is a good thing. It's a necessary thing. Without it, we would die. But what do we do in our sin? We eat too much. We eat the wrong things.
Money is a good thing. It's nice to have money in your bank account to pay your mortgage to buy groceries. But what do we do with the good thing? We make it an idol. We're accumulating wealth is what we want.
We take sex. God created sex. Sex is a good thing. God likes bodies. We're taught that being faithful, monogamous marriage, you can make love to the glory of God. It honors the Lord. But what do we do with it?
We take a good thing and we misuse it and we have pornography. We have all of these things. So St. Augustine was very fond of saying that oftentimes these are disorders of the good. It's not just that we do bad things.
It's not just that we curse God or we murder someone. We have a way of taking good things and disordering them, misusing them. Augustine liked to use the expression, and so did Luther, the Latin incurvitas unsay.
Sin curves us in upon upon ourselves. And instead of choosing God and loving our neighbor, we love ourselves and we serve our own ideas. And so this idea is a disorder of the good. Again, food's a good thing.
Sex is a good thing.
Money is a good thing. But we misuse them. We disorder them. In fact, when you brought up sex, the very thing that you were talking about in regard to sex was at the core of a debate that I organized several months ago between Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, a conservative, Bible-believing, theologically-reformed Baptist apologist, and a man by the name of Dr. Gregory Coles who identifies himself as a gay Christian.
And he is in a movement that calls themselves Side B, as in boy, Christians. And what they mean by that is that they agree that homosexuality cannot be physically consummated by a Christian. That is wicked, sinful, damnable, when unrepented of.
They agree even that homosexual lust is a sin. But they think that there is nothing wrong with innately having that proclivity and desire for same-sex relations as long as it doesn't fall deeper into lust and even more deeply into physical consummation.
Now, the thing that Dr. Coles, the so-called gay Christian, could not seem to get through his head or into his head, or at least he was giving the impression he couldn't understand what was being said by Dr. White, is that homosexual sin is not the same as heterosexual sin.
They will both send people to hell when they're not repented of. But heterosexual sin is what you were just describing as an abuse of something good. It is a gift of God. It is a design of God intended between one man and one woman in a monogamous marriage for life.
Homosexual sin can never be viewed that way. It can never be viewed as a good thing that can be abused. Am I making sense there?
Yes, absolutely. Genesis 1, 26 through 28, we're created in the image of God. We're created male and female. Jesus appeals to when he talks about marriage, he appeals to Adam and Eve, made in the image of God, made male and female.
And so homosexual sin or homosexual sex is a sin against nature itself. Yes. And that's very different than and I appreciate the way you put that. It's not merely taking a good thing and corrupting it, which heterosexuals are certainly strongly capable of doing and do do.
It is taking in a homosexual context. It is a fundamental problem of sinning against the nature of creation. And that's that's hard for lots of people to hear today. But, Chris, I think there's a fundamental mistake a lot of people make today.
They think that if you disagree with a person's lifestyle, you hate them or you're afraid of them. And they think if you are to are to care for people and treat them respectfully, you have to accept everything they believe in, everything they do.
Look, I can vigorously differ with a person who is gay, but still treat them with respect. I can even have compassion that they feel the same sex attraction. So we need to think in biblical categories, not in kind of postmodern, post-truth commonalities today.
And, of course, those who are anti-Christian. And when I say that, I mean they're opposed to what the scriptures actually teach. And they're opposed to the biblical morality of people who seek to be obedient to those scriptures.
But they seem to have a blind spot. It's more than they just seem to. When they would accuse us as being homophobic and hateful, they can't even recognize that they have the same attitude towards Christians who are trying to open their eyes by the grace of God through the proclamation of his word.
We're trying to see them rescued out of something that is going to ultimately damn them and even harm them possibly physically on this earth. And, of course, there are Christians and there are those that profess to be Christians who can be sinful in the way that they approach this.
They can be self-righteous and cruel intentionally. The gospel isn't offensive enough without us adding our own offensiveness. But there are countless millions of Christians who truly have a heartfelt compassion and love for people who are involved in all kinds of sin, including homosexuality, where they want to see those people rescued.
And as as R .C. Sproul put it, in fact, R .C. Sproul was quoting somebody else. He didn't identify who he was quoting, but he said that Christians are merely beggars who are pointing other beggars to where the food is.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I I think the idea here that, you know, since I was a teenager, I've heard the message that if you have as many girlfriends as possible, if you know you're famous, if everybody knows your name, you're going to be happy and fulfilled.
There's a lot of data that has come out about a satisfied, a contented life. There's a lot of data, Chris, that says that if you're faithful to your spouse, if you have a monogamous relationship, you're going to have greater sexual satisfaction than if you sleep around with all kinds of people.
I like to remind myself when I teach in my church, I remind people you're going to have a greater contentment, a greater fulfillment in life. If you follow the principles that the Lord has made, he made us he made us for himself.
And again, I love the confessions by Augustine. He says, look, I was looking for truth, goodness and beauty in myself and in his other creatures and not in the Lord. And I essentially crashed and burned were made for God.
And what is a very powerful point, I think, Chris, is this, that God will not allow us to be ultimately satisfied in anything other than himself. And it's crucial to remind ourselves when we're tempted sexually to remind ourselves that living a monogamous life, dedication to our spouse, when it comes to money, people who are generous, who use their money wisely, invest it, give.
And, you know, people who have self-control when it comes to food and drink. These people are the people who talk about a greater fulfillment in life. And so following God's morality and following the word of God is following the very being that created us and knows best and desires are our well-being.
And we have to go to our first commercial break. If you have a question for Kenneth, our samples on our subject today, please send it to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. C .H .R .I .S. A .R .N .Z .N. Gmail dot com.
Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence. If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
And obviously, if we're discussing sin, it would be a no brainer that something that we're saying may evoke questions that are in regard to a very personal, private, intimate matter. And you would be compelled to remain anonymous.
So we will grant your request to remain anonymous. But if it's a general question, please give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Ken samples after these messages.
Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the Secure Comm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Shopping Zion radio program. Secure Comm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties and much more.
We can be reached at Secure Comm Group dot com. That's Secure Comm Group dot com. But today I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters, of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur. In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's pleasure when he ran.
His effort sprang from the gifts and calling of God. I sense that same God given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God. 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. 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 Bronx in New York City.
For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit NHPBC dot com. That's NHPBC dot com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672. 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.
God bless you.
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So that's royaldiadem .com. Mention Chris Harns and of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Ken Samples, who is a renowned author and apologist, theologian and philosopher, one of my oldest Christian friends whom I've known since the late 80s, early 90s.
And we are discussing a vital topic, one of those topics that Christians need to be reminded of, sin as a disorder of the good. Unless you have already finished that, or should I say unless you have not already finished the thread you were on before the commercial break, I'd like you to start giving us practical examples on how this is perhaps unconsciously violated by Christians every day who just may not think too deeply.
As deeply as they should about this very issue.
Yes. So we are made in the image of God. And as image bearers, we're made to love God and to worship God. The fall, however, doesn't stop us from being lovers and worshipers. But we take our love and we start loving other things other than God.
We worship other things other than God. And a lot of times, Chris, people take good things and they they love those things. They worship those things. And I like to say that this can happen in three general ways.
Sometimes people without God, they adopt a worldview of sensualism, so they pursue sex and food and fashion. Now, now notice sex, food and fashion. Those are good things, but they're never intended to give you ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction in life.
Another way people do this is what I call materialism, not the atoms and things like that, but the pursuit of money, wealth and possessions. What money, wealth and possessions are not bad things. They're good things, but people make them the central goal, the ultimate issue of their life.
A third is egotism, the pursuit of achievement, prestige and power. Well, achievement, prestige and power are good things. You can use power in a positive, benevolent way. Achievement is a good thing.
People have academic achievements or business achievements. But notice what takes place in this context is that instead of loving and worshiping God, which is the way we were made to be because of our brokenness, our fallenness, we attach that love and worship to material things to temporal things.
And again, what I think is interesting is a person looks at sex. Well, sex is pleasurable. Sex can give you intimacy with another person. It seems like a very good thing. But without God, without God's grace, without having a relationship with God, sex can never ultimately give fulfillment.
Money can never ultimately give fulfillment. Food and fashion. So I think the fallen condition of man is, again, as St. Augustine stated, that being a sinner means not just that you commit bad actions, but that you take very good things and you pervert them.
You try to draw things out of them. They were never intended to give. And again, I think we can see this very specifically with gluttony. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a good meal? Who doesn't enjoy? Hey, I'm going to go out tonight and have some wine and have a nice meal.
Those are good things in our lives. We celebrate times with getting together. But for some people, food and drink becomes their consuming passion. We see it with money again. Money can can be used for very good purposes.
And yet what do we do? Well, if I have more money than you, I want to accumulate more money. I want to have more things. And then we can do it again with sex and with with our own personality. Hey, I want to have attention.
And, you know, Chris, I was that way. I was raised kind of a moderately Catholic. When I became a teenager, I thought I feel an emptiness. I feel a restlessness. I never felt totally satisfied or contented.
I thought, well, maybe if I become a big league ballplayer, maybe if I have lots of women, maybe if I everybody knows my name, I'll be fulfilled. And again, this is the standard fare for people who are separated from God.
Nobody at Cheers Bar in Boston was fulfilled. That was obvious. Everybody knew their name. And that didn't really help matters much.
Yeah. And, you know, I've been watching these videos my whole life about athletes and Hollywood people. And, you know, they get famous and they have lots of pleasure at their fingertips. They have drugs.
They have alcohol. They crash and burn. We were made for God and nothing outside of God will give us that ultimate sense of contentment and satisfaction that we were made to achieve. You can be very poor.
You can be hungry. You people. No one can know who you are and yet be deeply fulfilled in in Christ. So sex is a good thing. Food and drink is a good thing. Money is a good thing. We don't want to use them in ways they were never intended to be used.
My wife cannot meet my existential fulfillment. I need a savior. I need to have an intimate relationship with God. I think there are times where we as Christians, we're looking for other things to fulfill us in a way that only God can.
When you were talking about money in regard to our subject, about how money, there is nothing innately evil about money. Money is not, as it is often misquoted, the root of all evil. It's the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, not every single evil.
But a perfect example of this taking something that is good and even more specifically giving money to God in the form of giving it to the church. What a wonderful, good, godly and obedient thing to do.
But how it was turned into evil in the scriptures, we find in Mark 7 11 with the Korban rule. If you may remember how Jesus was pulling the rug out from the feet of the Pharisees, they acted so pious and religious, but they were defrauding their own parents of being cared for by making these claims.
Oh, no, this money is going directly to God. We can't we can't use that to care for you. This is just absolutely and utterly despicable, which is why Jesus brought it up. Right.
Absolutely. Jesus seems to always be able to detect hypocrisy. He seems deeply offended and angered when people misuse those kinds of things. And so, again, we have to be very careful that we are not taken over by these things.
But I think that there's a very powerful apologetic message here, Chris. And it's the sense that I think that the Bible, historic Christianity, explains the human condition. Blaise Pascal, one of my favorite philosophical scientists.
He says that the human condition is one of greatness and wretchedness. We're great because we're made in the image of God. We can do philosophy. We can create art, put a man on the moon, but we're wretched.
You don't have to have the devil to explain Auschwitz. Human beings misuse things. Think of human trafficking. Can you imagine the indignation, the just indignation of God, seeing people sell children into a life of slavery?
I think Christianity powerfully explains the human condition. I don't think that a Darwinian evolutionary explanation provides the explanatory power. I don't think Buddhism and Eastern religions provide that kind of explanation.
And, in fact, I think the most confirmed biblical doctrine in the world is original sin. I see it every day of my life. So it's confirmed again and again. And if you're troubled, maybe your church has stepped on your toes or you've been offended by Christians.
Remember, the Bible says that we are fallen and even forgiven sinners still struggle with sin. So sin has a lot of explanatory power. It's an equal opportunity employer. All of us sin.
Yes. And let's even go further into this in ways that will probably insult many of my listeners, especially those who are in my own theological camp. You and I, Ken, are both theologically Reformed, a .k .a. Calvinists, a .k .a. believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace.
I being a Reformed Baptist, you being a Reformed Anglican. But we know all too well that there are people among us, our brothers and sisters, perhaps some that we worship with every week, perhaps even some that we uphold as prolific and brilliant writers and so on, who take a good thing, such as being meticulous while exegeting the scriptures and making efforts to preserve the pure doctrine that we can glean from God's inerrant, God-breathed words.
And that's a very good and wonderful and commendable and even obedient thing to do. However, and this may even include you and I in our personal lives when we lose track of what we're doing and fall into this as well, but we could use the very doctrines that are intended to exalt God and humble men, we can use these for exalting ourselves in the midst of our brothers who disagree.
And we could be overly condemnatory, overly cruel toward them, and not even remembering that there was a time when we didn't understand and believe them either. Acting as if we were born with this belief in this teaching.
But am I making sense here?
Yes. You know what I think is interesting is, you know, you mentioned R .C. Sproul before. He talked about cage Calvinism. Cage Calvinism is when you, you know, the Reformed faith causes you to kind of rethink a lot of the things you were taught.
You become enthusiastic. Sometimes you become downright annoying. And so you kind of have to be put in a cage. Of course, I've been around long enough to know that there is also people who are deranged when it comes to Calvinism.
They just flip out. Yes. And, you know, they they have kind of anti-cage Calvinism, if you if you will. But I think you really have struck a very important point, Chris. And that is this, you know, God has been gracious to me.
God has been merciful to me. God has been kind to me. I believe I am saved by grace plus nothing else through faith plus nothing else. So I'm saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, not by good works.
But that saving faith motivates me to love God. It is the fruit of saving faith. It's not the root of saving faith. Even Lutheran Calvin would say faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone. So the area in which you and I, as reformed people, I think sometimes struggle is we believe so deeply in grace.
Then we need to be gracious people. We need to treat each other graciously. And, of course, we also need to treat people who criticize us in a in a gracious, respectful way. It doesn't mean weak. You can be humble.
You can be gracious. But there are times where you have to call things out and speak the truth. But you've you've I appreciate that you have struck that chord. And I I think the one thing that troubles me in my own life is this cognitive dissonance.
I believe so deeply in grace. But there are times where I'm not gracious and it creates a clash. But, of course, I go back to the scriptures. I go back. I confess that sin. I recognize that sanctification is a long process.
I make restitution. I ask people for forgiveness. You're absolutely right. Reformed Christians who who prize grace. Obviously want to see that grace in the way they treat other people. And, you know, I'm the chief of centers when it comes to that.
And I need the grace of God. But it is my desire to be a gracious, kind, loving person.
And we have to go to our midway break, folks. Please be patient with us. The middle break is always a little longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio and 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break so that they can air their public service announcements required by the FCC.
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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, president emeritus and professor of systematic and applied theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.
It is much more than an exposition of the larger catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology. Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.
For details on the eight volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com. For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.
Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you.
When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.
This is Darrell Bernard Harrison, co-host of the Just Thinking Podcast, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Tom Buck at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Kent Keller of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Andrew Rapport, the founder and executive director at Striving for Eternity Ministries, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Mark Romaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Greenbrier, Tennessee, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Christopher Cookston, pastor of Prineville Community Church in Prineville, Oregon, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Matt Tarr, pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.
Hello, my name is Anthony Uvinio, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com 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 Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the search bar.
You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work. Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show at any time, day or night.
Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnzen has on the show. Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news.
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 podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We are dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a Reformed Baptist perspective to beginners in the faith as well as seasoned believers.
From Keech's Catechism and the Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie Podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.
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 Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York. Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invidio, and thanks for listening.
They believe in the credibility of Scripture as the written Word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts, along with a fascinating presentation by Mr. Bottafuoco demonstrating the reliability of Scripture.
To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful, perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a First Edition 1611 King James Bible. This 17th century hand-engraved chart shows the family tree of Jesus Christ going back to Adam and Eve.
This book is complete with gorgeous full-size illustrations of Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel, and an explanation of why the genealogy of Jesus is so important for his claims to the throne of the universe.
Originals of this work are in museums, and nobody has ever made it accessible to the public in a large book form before. You can have your own copy of this 44-page genealogy book for a donation of $35 or more.
Visit historicalbiblesociety .org. That's historicalbiblesociety .org. Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long-time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.
They specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable for everyone. CVBBS has been a family-owned book service since 1987, operating out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
They seek to bring you the best available Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices, and now they're also shipping worldwide. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.
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And please, let our friends at CVBBS know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Armored Republic exists to equip free men with tools of liberty to defend God-given rights against the twin threats of tyranny and chaos. If you own a rifle to resist tyrants and criminals, then you should own body armor and a med kit for the same reasons.
A rifle stops evil, body armor and a med kit keep you in the fight and preserve your life. Armored Republic is a body of free craftsmen united to create tools of liberty. We are honored to be your armorsmith of choice.
Civilian ownership of body armor is about increasing decentralized power and by comparison, reducing the advantages of centralized power. The danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king.
As Americans, we hate the word king applied to any mere man. We are Armored Republic. And in a republic, there is no king but Christ. Arm yourself with tools of liberty at ArmoredRepublic .com.
I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John McArthur. I've been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I highly recommend this show. But today I want to tell you about one of its advertisers, Rare Document Traders.
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Chris Arnzen here, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I strongly recommend a church. I've been recommending as far back as the 1980s, Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.
Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world. They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship God in spirit and truth.
They endeavor to maintain a God-centered focus and to protect worship from the intrusion of carnal entertainments and distractions. Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.
Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbc-nj .org. That's gcbc-nj .org. Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654. Tell Pastor Dunn you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.
Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.
You need to read.
Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Creatures to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.
Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God-centered, Christ-exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at Solid-Ground-Books .com. That's Solid-Ground-Books .com, and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.
Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
And since my guest, Ken Samples, today is a Reformed Anglican, let me highlight some books that my Anglican listeners might particularly enjoy, available through Solid-Ground-Books .com. First of all, Rock of Ages, Augustus Toplady, The Little Known Man Behind the Well-Known Hymn, by Thomas Isham.
Also, The Born-Again Episcopalian, The Evangelical Witness of Charles Pettit McIlvain. And I cannot forget some excellent books by a man who is virtually unknown in the 21st century, even by Reformed Christians, and probably even by Reformed Anglican Christians.
But his legacy of wonderful biblical literature needs to be revived in popularity. We have Lectures on the Law and Gospel, by Stephen H. Ting. Stephen is spelled with a P-H, by the way, and Ting is T-Y-N-G.
And also a book that I have given away at several of my Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio free pastor's luncheons to the men attending these events, The Christian Pastor, The Office and Duty of the Gospel Minister, also by Stephen H. Ting.
A Reformed Anglican who was a pastor in the 19th century of St. George's Episcopal Church, which tragically, it has come to my attention, has begun to compromise in very serious and heretical ways to the whims of the leftist culture, including having a lesbian bishop preach from their pulpit.
If Stephen H. Ting could see what was going on, he'd be turning over in his grave. But you could get all of those books, and many, many, many more, not only by Anglicans, but Reformed Baptists, Presbyterians, Reformed Congregationalists, and on and on I could go.
Go to solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com. Make sure when you make your purchase that you say you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Before I return to my conversation with Ken Samples, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.
If you really love this show, folks, and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, I'm urging you, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card.
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Please never do that, and if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're back on your feet and more financially stable before you send us a gift. The Bible is very clear that we are primarily to use the money with which God has blessed us, which is still God's money, to provide for church and family.
But if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family, and you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and trivial purposes, and you really love this show and don't want it to disappear, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now.
Last but not least, if you're not a member of a Christ-honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally sound, theologically solid church, I have extensive lists spanning the entire globe of biblically faithful churches.
And I've helped people all over the world in my audience find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live. And that may be you, too, no matter where in the world you live.
If you are without a biblically faithful church home, send me an email to chrisharnsen at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to my guest, Kenneth R. Samples.
As we continue to address a very important topic that I hope that we are adequately addressing today, and to remind you, this topic is sin as a disorder of the good. And that's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Before I go to any of the listener questions that have already come in, Ken, I want to take the exact opposite sin from what I mentioned before the break, where Christians, perhaps even especially ones from our theological background, Reformed Christians, take doctrines that are intended to not only exalt God, but humble men to the very dust, making us realize that we are 100 dependent on God's grace and goodness and mercy for every single thing, not only our salvation, but every breath we take on this earth, every beat of our heart.
But when we take that teaching and turn it into an opportunity to be proud and arrogant and look down upon our brothers and sisters who don't quite understand or believe this at least yet in their journey, and we look at them as somehow innately inferior to us, which is obviously sin, there's an opposite sin that is probably a lot more prevalent in the church.
That's where you take something good, like being irenic, like being loving and gracious and kind and tolerant as far as not being overly critical with people who have differences of secondary and tertiary importance.
But you take that attitude of irenicism and you really overblow it to the point where it is wicked, where you never correct anybody out of fear of looking hateful. You never correct anybody out of fear of losing a friend or perhaps a job or a client, or you're afraid of having somebody in your family turn against you because you're fearing men more than God.
Now, this is equally sinful, isn't it?
It is, and I'm glad you brought it up. You know, I like to talk about truth, unity and charity. What I mean is this, that we start with truth. Truth is a sacred thing for Christians. God is truth. Jesus is truth incarnate.
He says, I'm the way, the truth and the life. So we must go after the truth. We must believe it, practice it, support it. There are going to be times where we're going to disagree with non-Christians as well as Christians about Christian truth, and we cannot compromise the truth.
I think of these great biblical doctrines, great Christian doctrines, the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection, salvation by grace, the second coming. So we start with truth. And you're right.
I tend to think that I'm an ironic person, but there are times where it is. I can be tempted not to, you know, hey, this is going to be a hard word. So strength, meekness, humility is never intended to be weakness.
Now, starting with truth. Of course, I want to promote unity. I like to think that John 17, that the church should be one as the father and the son are one. So I think about unity. I think about the areas in which we agree and try to promote it.
And then lastly, charity. I read First Corinthians 13, and my take is that I could understand I could comprehend the Trinity and the incarnation, these incredible mysteries of the faith. And yet, if I am not loving, I'm nothing.
So I like to emphasize, be tenacious about the truth, be like a dog without a bone when it comes to the truth, but also give appropriate credence and attention to unity, and always attempt to be charitable and gracious.
Okay, we have Lee in Zephyr Hills, Florida. And Lee asks, I know that we are biblically commanded as wives to submit to our husbands, but can that be taken to such an extreme that it is sin? Very interesting question.
I can immediately think of something where that would be sin, and that is a wife that does absolutely nothing, says nothing and does nothing while her husband is abusing the children. And that happens.
That has happened for probably centuries. When you hear the testimonies of people who have either been severely beaten and tortured or even sexually molested by their fathers, very often the part of this nightmare and horror story is that the mothers knew what was happening all along and said nothing.
Perhaps that's less frequent in our day and age when women are less prone to be submissive to their husbands. And then that is also a sin when you go the opposite direction. But do you have any thoughts on that, Ken, of maybe how this could be sin in other ways, taking submission to an extreme?
Yeah, I think that certainly Scripture teaches that wives should honor and respect their husbands and seek to be in union with that unity of leadership in the home that is granted to the husband and the father.
But you're right. It would be a sin if a wife were to cover up the fact that the father is abusing the children. I would even say that it would be inappropriate for a wife to be submissive to her husband if if that husband is physically abusing her.
Yeah, you're right. So there are times where I think, you know, there is always family dynamics. We always want to protect. We always want to, you know, care for our family. But there are times where we have to speak up and maybe another area would be if your husband is engaged in, you know, illegal activity or something of that nature.
You'd want to be able to speak up and say, hey, you know, honey, I love you. But, you know, this is wrong. So definitely you can go in the in the wrong direction, even even with good intentions.
Now, here's a more sticky issue. I'm not even sure that Christians would 100 percent agree and say give the same answer. I know what I believe about this. But I believe it is sin for a wife not to be a member of a Bible believing church and not to attend worship services regularly on the Lord's Day.
Just because her husband commands that she does not.
Yeah. And of course, this does happen. Obviously, there are times where, you know, Jesus spoke to this issue. We we must have love for God. That would be characterized as if we, you know, we hated our family.
Jesus is not talking about in any way not loving and caring for family. But our obedience has to go to the Lord just as the state can. The state cannot justly tell us not to go to church. So a spouse cannot tell another one not to go to church.
There are times where, you know, you may have a spouse who is a Christian, maybe the woman and the man is not. There are going to be times where you're going to have to stand up and say, you know, I love you, honey, but the Lord calls me to this and I need to be obedient to it.
And so, yeah, there are times there are challenges. And I like what C .S. Lewis says here. Chris, he says that he said when people fall away from the faith and we have a lot of discussion these days about deconstruction and deconversion, C .S. Lewis says in their Christianity that he doesn't think people hear an argument like the resurrection didn't happen and then become non-Christians.
He says, no, we drift away. We stop praying. We stop reading the Bible. We stop going to church. And this then leads to a falling away from the faith. And I think that's right. There are things that you want to practice.
And God's grace is very powerful in our worship services, our time of prayer, our time of reading and studying the Bible.
OK, we have Brent in Selma, Alabama. And Brent asks, I know that we are to. Just as wives are to submit to their husbands, we are to submit to our employers. And it is also commanded of us in the scriptures to declare the gospel to others.
How do we go about this in a situation where we're employed by someone who wants no part of our Christianity?
Yeah, I appreciate Brent asking that question. You know, I wrote an article many years ago. It was about the what kinds of characteristics would seemingly make people attractive to your faith? Interestingly, you used an employer.
I often give the advice that, you know, if you're really a hard worker, if you are devoted to working, being on time, working hard, not, you know, being a sloth, not being lazy. That's very powerful these days.
There's lots of people who don't work hard. You know, if you've got a non-Christian employer and they see you as a worker bee, they may inevitably ask, where did you get all that? Where's the fire in the belly come from?
And you can say, well, you know, the scripture tells me I need to do all things to the glory of God. I want to honor you as an employer. I think there are ways of making the gospel attractive. And when you have an opportunity to share your faith, to talk about our need for a savior, our need to be redeemed by God, if if that what comes behind that is you're a hard worker, you're you are a person who tries to accomplish good things for the company.
I think that those work work very, very well. And of course, there are times where there are difficulties where, you know, people don't respect Christianity. I mean, I go on social media. I'm on X and boy, people sometimes say very mean things to me because they know I'm a Christian.
But I still think that in that kind of context, pray and ask the Lord, Lord, give me an opportunity to talk to this person. Help me to have an opportunity to share with them. And again, I think working hard, being devoted.
Those are very good qualities. My parents were raised during the Depression. They viewed hard work and they said, look, that speaks to your character. And I was kind of lazy when I was a teenager, but I later learned how important it is to work hard.
And so that would be my my advice in that kind of context.
You said that people can be extremely cruel and nasty to you in social media when they find out you're a Christian. I think the cruelest and nastiest things people have said to me came from those professing to be Christians in social media who disagree with me or something.
I think you're right. Yeah. I think the criticism I've taken is pretty equal from Christians to non-Christians. Yeah, you're right.
You know, that discussion that just came from Selma, Alabama, about the workplace. That reminds me of two other areas where Christians can take something good and maybe even something commanded, but turn it into something sinful.
That is a person who robs their employer of the time that they're being employed to labor in a specific task for that employer by sitting around or standing at the water cooler or coffee pot and evangelizing their colleagues.
It's one thing on a coffee break or a lunch break or after work or before work to evangelize our colleagues, but to be robbing our employer of it, of the time that we are being paid to perform a task that just really reverses anything good we're trying to accomplish, isn't it?
That's a very powerful. That's a great example where you're lazy, you are not working hard, and then you take opportunities at break to talk about your faith. I think people have a right at that point to say, wow, you know, there seems to be some real inconsistency there.
Again, Chris, I think there are some very important things. One of them is being a hard worker. I think that says something about your character. I think other ways to make people open to Christianity is being a person who prizes truth, is careful about truth.
You know, to me, if I say something that is wrong, if I quote the wrong source, I want people to go through my books and I want them to have confidence that I'm a truth teller, that I care about truth.
And I think another way is caring about people, being gracious, trying to help people. These are all ways that make, I think, the faith attractive.
The other sin where something good is being turned into sin that popped in my head during the discussion of the workplace, I don't know if you hate this saying as much as I do. It's been attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but there is some dispute whether he actually ever said or wrote this, but it is preach the gospel and when necessary use words.
I hate that saying because if that was the motto by which Jesus's disciples lived, they would never have been martyred and Jesus himself would never have been crucified other than the orchestration of God himself that had occurred on a human level.
He never would have been executed if he was just doing good things, but there are people who may think that while I'm at work, the only thing that I need to do is be a good worker. I never have to ever identify myself in any way, shape, or form as a Christian and I'll just leave it at my ultimate performance to be a testimony to others that I am a man of God and they'll just have to guess that because of me just working as best as I can and being nice to people.
And of course that goes outside of the borders of a job environment. There are Christians who think that as long as I'm really nice to my neighbors, invite them over to barbecues and bring them food on occasion when they're sick or what have you, and a whole host of different environments where people are being kind and sweet and neighborly, that's good enough.
We don't have to get involved in the muck and mire of risking offending anybody by proclaiming the gospel. That's where a good thing is going too far and becoming a sin, isn't it?
Yeah, and I think that's consistent with our program discussion that, you know, you can take good things and misuse them. Obviously, you don't want to steal from your employer. You want to be a hardworking, supportive person, but people don't become Christians merely by observing behavior.
They hear the great truth of who Christ is, what he has accomplished, how we are called to have trust and faith in his life, death, and resurrection. So it's a both and. I encourage people to work hard, but I also encourage them to look for good opportunities to talk about their faith.
And what's interesting, Chris, from my standpoint is that I think a lot of times if you are diligent and you care about truth and you're honest, a lot of times it's the employer who will bring it up and say, boy, you know, why do you work hard?
Why are you honest? How come you don't sleep around? That gives you an opportunity to say, well, I have deep convictions about the Christian faith. So, yeah, there are times we can take good things and misuse them.
And I don't know if St. Francis said that. I'm sure there are people who have good intentions behind it. But preaching evangelization takes the discussion of truth claims. And so we can't just rely upon our our neighborly niceness.
And before I go to any more listener questions, I'd like you to explore some of those things that clearly spell out our theme that you already had in mind when asking me to discuss this on your show, on my show, I should say.
Yeah, yeah. Well, again, I think a very powerful point for me, Chris, is I think when we are fallen creatures, we are made for God. We are made to love God. We're made to worship God. So, you know, people like Francis Schaeffer and G .K. Chesterton, C .S. Lewis have said that, you know, when you when you fall away from God or when you're in a sinful state, you don't stop worshipping something.
You accept anything or everything. I meet people all the time and environmentalism is their God. Political issues becomes their God. It's their ultimate concern. Again, I think the Bible has great explanatory power that we are.
We need a sense of ultimate fulfillment and contentment. And if we if we don't have a relationship with the Lord, we'll try to find it in other places. And the result is we'll be bankrupt. And I think it's very powerful for Christians to tell themselves, I, I remind myself, hey, can you are going to not only be more faithful to God by being faithful to your spouse, but having a traditional marriage, monogamous, caring, loving.
I am going to have much more fulfillment than people who don't hold that view. You know what? When it comes to money, the Lord provides me with money. I have to be very careful not to think that these material things are my ultimate issue.
So I love what St. Augustine said. I think he's exactly right. We're lovers and worshippers. But when we become fallen, we become idolaters. We we look for love and worship and all of these various directions.
And I think that's exactly what the Bible teaches, that we God made us to seek ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment. And that's found in the gospel, in the triune God, in our savior. And touch on something you said earlier.
You know, Lucifer, he becomes the devil by wanting to be God. And he chooses a good thing. He he doesn't have a fall in nature. He chooses a good thing, exalts the good thing above the great thing. He becomes an idolater.
Adam and Eve. They the fruits good, but they exalt themselves. But Jesus and Philippians to the Carmen Christi there in Philippians to the son. He is God in human flesh, but he doesn't hold on to all of his prerogatives, his benefits.
But takes the nature of human beings, becomes a slave. So I think we see such a contrast there. Adam and Eve and Lucifer, they want to be God. Jesus is God, but he doesn't hold on to all the benefits that come and he becomes a slave for our sake.
You know, I never it never occurred to me before, because you do have a unique voice. But for some reason, your voice today is reminding me of John Warwick Montgomery. Has anybody ever told you that the famous American British lawyer and Lutheran theologian?
Yeah, I know, Dr. Montgomery, John Warwick Montgomery and Walter Martin were very close friends. They taught at the same church. I've taken classes with both of them. And I learned a lot from Dr. Montgomery.
And if if I sound like him and if I'm as thoughtful as him, I take that as a real compliment.
We have a person with an interesting name and a place of residence. Harry from Santa Marichis, Long Island. The reason why both those things are interesting. Harry was my father's name. Santa Marichis was the town of my mother's birth.
But Harry says, isn't the way we raise our children something that could easily become a good thing that turns into sin? We are to love our children and we're not to provoke them, provoke them to anger.
But we can take this love and coddling to such an extent that we do not discipline them.
Yeah, Harry, I appreciate that. And I I. Chris taught me a long time ago that Long Island is a is a very great place. A lot of us who live on the West Coast, we think New York is just New York City. But there is a there is a lot of New York that's country that's beautiful.
Yes, I I have three kids. I love them. I taught them all to pray. I catechized all of them. And yet there there are times where I recognize that I can enable them. Sometimes they have to do things for themselves, not always to have their father reach in and, you know, settle things.
And that is sometimes difficult when you have kids who have challenges and difficulties to know. When do I step in and try to help? When do I step back and allow them to go through these difficult dishes?
You know, to be a parent, it takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of persistence. And, you know, we live in the world and our kids, they also have an Adamic nature and being a parent isn't always easy.
And I'm always asking myself, when do I intervene and when do I hold them accountable and say, you got into this mess? I think you've got to take the steps to get out of this mess. And hopefully the Lord can give me wisdom.
And that's where I love the Old Testament wisdom, literature, Psalms, Proverbs. They have so much wisdom applied to everyday life. Well, we have to go to our final break.
And if you have a question in mind, send it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Don't go away.
I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a Christ-centered, Gospel-driven church looking to spread the Gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family. At Lindbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.
We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.
Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear God's image. If you live near Lindbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship.
For details, visit LindbrookBaptist .org. That's L-Y-N-BrookBaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast of the Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself.
It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world. Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.
I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland. Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is 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.
Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr. Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight-volume commentary on the larger catechism.
Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery, 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 Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the Reformers. Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone. 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. That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Call 7831 -7831. If you visit, tell them Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener from Ottawa in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.
This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee. Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.
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 Lord Jesus Christ.
And, of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God. 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 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. Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org. This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.
I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Jesse Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in Southlake, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com to place your order.
Hi, this is John Sampson, Pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the 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 Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.
I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.
I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one-time gift, or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?
I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com, where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com.
I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love, Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform 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 Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
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. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.
That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711. That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
Chris Arnzen here. I am forever grateful to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for their generous financial support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. But that's not the only reason I love them. CVBBS .com carries the finest in theologically reformed literature from 16th century classics like Calvin's Institutes, 17th and 18th century Puritan treasures like the works of Jonathan Edwards, 19th century volumes by the Prince of Preachers Charles Spurgeon, all the way up to the 21st century with the best of R .C. Sproul, Steve Lawson, Votie Baucom, and more.
On top of their stellar book selection, CVBBS .com offers up to 50 off retail prices with an added 5 off for orders of $50 or more when using the promo code IRON. Visit CVBBS .com today and use promo code IRON.
That's CVBBS .com. Enriching minds and maintaining the theologically reformed influence of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio through their financial support. Now shipping worldwide.
Greetings. This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program. SecureComm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties, and much more.
We can be reached at securecommgroup .com. That's securecommgroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur. In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's pleasure when he ran.
He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God. I sense that same God-given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God. That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners.
For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com. That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672. 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.
And don't forget, folks, this program is also paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco Associates. If you're the victim of a very serious personal injury or accident or medical malpractice anywhere in the United States, call 1 -800-NOW-HURT, 1 -800-NOW-HURT, or visit the website of Buttafuoco Associates at 1 -800-NOW-HURT .com, 1 -800-NOW-HURT .com.
Please make sure you tell Dan Buttafuoco of Buttafuoco Associates that you heard about his law firm from Chris Arntzen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio. We do have Angus in Council Bluffs, Iowa, who says, I have nothing against getting children involved in school plays and other activities, but turning a good thing into bad and even sin comes to mind when we tell our children, even through their teen years or older, that they are certainly Christian because they were raised in a Christian home, when the evidence is mounting that they are certainly not.
Well, Angus, you've raised an important question. In my tradition, we baptize infants. Chris and I differ on that aspect. But I think you are right. It is very easy as a parent to assume that your kids are catechized or to assume that their heart is placed in the right direction of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And any good parent also needs to recognize that when they see signs that their kids are on the wrong track or are not following the Lord, they need to speak up. So, yeah, it's a challenge to be a good parent.
When to intervene, when to step back. Boy, today, to be a good parent, you got to have guts.
Yeah. And it may wind up saving even your child's life physically, should God have mercy, but also, obviously, spiritually, because there's nothing more frightening than the words that I have read in Matthew 7.
Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name and perform many miracles and works in your name? And I will tell them I never knew you be gone. You workers on unrighteousness.
Well, I don't want to hear that.
Yeah. Amen. Well, I want you to really summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.
Well, I like to say that if you have a big view of sin, you have to have a big view of grace. In the Reformed tradition, we talk about guilt, grace and gratitude. The law convicts us of our sinful condition.
Grace saves us the unmerited favor of God. And then gratitude. I, I want to show the Lord that I'm grateful for everything that he does. So sin is a sin is a very powerful and and diabolical thing. But grace is that great power to change everything.
And so I want to encourage your listeners to study their Bibles and to support Iron Sharpens Iron. Chris, you're a smart guy. You are a lot of courage. You have gone through a lot of difficulties and stood up.
And I consider you a good friend. And I pray for you and your program.
Well, I really appreciate that, Ken. And I want to let our listeners know that if you would like to explore the canon of Ken Samples writings, you can find out at support. Reasons .org. Support .reasons .org.
And if you type in samples in the search engine, you will be able to find what is available in the realm of Ken Samples books. And there are a number of them. And in fact, please do yourself a favor. And when you go to the Web site of Iron Sharpens Iron radio, type in the search engine samples, S .A .M .P .L .E .S.
And you will find every interview that I have done with Ken archived there. So you can listen to those past interviews as well. Well, Ken, it has been such a joy. You did a masterful job, as you always do.
I enjoyed every minute of the program, and I hope that the Lord continues to provide many opportunities for future visits from you and future interviews.
Well, thank you. You've always been kind to me for 30 years. You're a good friend. God bless you.
And you are as well, brother. And many, many good memories. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in questions. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.