December 19, 2018 Show with Jason Goodwin on “The Continual & Irreconcilable War: The Flesh Lusting Against the Spirit & The Spirit Against the Flesh”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with 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 hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Introduction to Jason Goodwin and the Deep South Founders Conference

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 Wednesday on this 19th day of December 2018, and I am delighted to have a guest for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jason Goodwin, who is pastor of the First Baptist Church of Shady Grove in Laurel, Mississippi, and he's one of the speakers on the roster at the upcoming Deep South Founders Conference in Laurel, Mississippi.

Today we are going to be addressing the continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jason Goodwin.

Brother, it is a joy to be with you and I'm so thankful to be a part of this conversation at the Deep South Founders Conference in January.

Yes, I am looking forward to, God willing, meeting you and being in Mississippi for the very first time ever in my life, and from what I keep hearing, it is quite a beautiful place and it's always a joy to visit some place in the United States where I have never been before.

All right, we look forward to having you come and join us down there. It's going to be great.

Great. Well, before I go into your personal testimony of salvation, which is something that I typically do when I'm interviewing a guest for the first time, tell our listeners about First Baptist Church of Shady Grove in Laurel, Mississippi.

First Baptist Church, 1888, kind of the North Laurel community for quite some time, the Shady Grove community, and it's an association in this area.

Praise God. Tell us something about Deep South Founders Conference. We will be advertising this throughout the show, but tell us about it.

Well, most important, our keynote speaker, who is Pastor Conrad in Bayway.

Yeah, my favorite preacher alive on the planet Earth. I've known Conrad since 1995, and from the first moment I heard him preaching on a cassette tape, I was totally blown away and I have never stopped singing the praises of this dear brother.

Now, I mean, any time you can get the African virgin to be the main speaker for a conference, I think you're ready to come in and do a Reformation Day conference for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and he did a fantastic job.

It was my first time to ever hear him, and so hearing him bring the word and to preach on the doctrine of sanctity.

Yeah, I am sure that our brother Conrad, although he is a native of Zambia, Africa, and still pastors there at Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, where he is also the Chancellor of African Christian University, I am sure that he has seen much, much more of the United States than I ever have.

I think you're exactly right. I know for this trip...

Yes, I will be at that conference. It's the G3 Conference, and I will be manning an exhibit for his booth there.

So, when he comes to the States, he packs his kit. It's amazing how he is able to do that. Jet lag and everything else, I don't think it ever really slows him down. At least it doesn't seem to.

I met him when he came to preach at the church where I was a member before moving to Long Island. I'm sorry, moving from Long Island to Pennsylvania, before I moved here to Pennsylvania. I was a member of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, and Conrad preached for us in 1995, not long after we became a new church.

Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville merged with First Baptist Church of Merrick, New York, forming Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island. Conrad had never been to the United States before, and he said it was all new to him.

The luxuries and the advanced technology and all that. Now, as I said, he has probably experienced more of this country than I have in these years since 1995.

Undoubtedly.

Conversion Testimony and a Christian Upbringing

Now, as I said before, I would love for you to give a summary of your salvation testimony. What kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you?

I have a boring testimony. I had a mom and dad. My dad was the son of a BMA pastor. Church planner, missionary, growing up. And my mother was raised today. Every time the doors were open, same kind of environment.

We were in Sunday night, Wednesday night. We were always there. My dad was a deacon in our church called Magnolia. We attended First Baptist Church of Magnolia, and they showed us. They're innocent by any means, but they showed us when I made a profession of faith that existed in me between my flesh and spiritually used to bring me to Himself to show me His common grace and having faith that kept me grounded.

Praise God. Well, I don't think it's boring at all, brother, when you consider, especially the religious climate of the world in the 20th and 21st centuries, that you were from a family that was preserved by God's mercy and grace and the faith and that you were raised in such a God-fearing home.

I think that that's a wonderful testimony of the mercy, grace, and power of our Lord Jesus Christ in a day and age when the majority of what we see around us is so hostile towards Him and His Word. So I often find myself correcting my brothers and sisters in Christ when they seem reluctant to give their testimony because they were raised in a Christian home.

No, no, I think you're exactly right. We almost kind of feel ashamed sometimes that we don't have a, you know, a solid type of testimony or anything like that, but I think you're exactly right. I think if you raise someone up in a Christian home, as it is to call someone on the Damascus Road, it's how He works in the lives of unregenerate to bring them to the new birth.

Amen. Well, today we are discussing a very vital aspect of the Christian life, the continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Not only is this war clearly spoken of in the inerrant, infallible, God-breathed scriptures, but it is also a topic in our shared confession that we have, you and I, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, which is just a summary of biblical truth.

It makes no claim to be on the same level or even superior to the scriptures. It even states that in the very pages of the confession. It's merely a helpful guide and summary that unites brothers in Christ of like mind, and this is related to in chapter 13 of the 1689 or sometimes called the Second London Baptist Confession.

In the second paragraph, tell us about the London Baptist Confession of faith in summary form and why this is the particular subject that you would like to speak on today.

The 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Already-Not-Yet Christian Life

Yeah, I think Baptist belief and faith and confession, the 1689 matters a lot of our roots. I say that as our roots, my tradition that I've come out of is more of a kind of a landmark tradition, you know, that wants to trace their roots back to the shores of Galilee, but when we see our first kind of documents as Baptists on what we believe, you know, the 1689, this kind of rings out as early Baptist leaders and what they saw from the scriptures and they saw their traditions around them and putting together, you know, the 1689 and how it just amazes me that here we are, you know, hundreds of years alighting in the same truth that these dear brothers mined for what it means to be Baptistic, what it means to be, you know, Covenantal Reformed Baptists, and how these things that we'll be covering at the deep side.

I've already kind of mentioned, you know, in the day in which we live, the truity in the faith, realizing that we're already and not yet in this fallen world, but yet we know that we stay with, and so that's for me, because I know in my own, what the world needs to see from believers, fighting these things.

You mentioned the Landmark Baptists, where your roots are. Were you from the branch that were Sovereign Grace-believing Landmark Baptists? Because I know that they have a divide amongst them. There are some that are lovers of the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, and there are some that despise those doctrines.

I think my branch was somewhere in the middle. I think we embrace our history.

Yeah, I always love sharing with my Landmark Baptist friends who hate the doctrines of grace, I love reminding them or informing them for the first time that a much-beloved book among them, The Trail of Blood by J .M. Carroll, I love telling them that J .M. Carroll was a thoroughgoing Calvinist.

Yeah, it may be hard for them to come to grips with sometimes, but yeah, that's the truth.

In fact, I don't know if you're familiar with Jack Green. He used to be the editor of the Landmark Baptist Messenger, and he was a thoroughgoing Calvinist as well. I believe he's on the mission field now.

I can't remember where exactly, but he used to be there in Texas editing, I believe, or managing the Landmark Baptist Messenger. But I've heard sermons by him that were quite powerful and quite saturated with the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

Amen, amen.

Well, this topic really leads to a divide, actually, amongst Brethren in Christ about the issues involving the new creation that we are in Christ and how that relates to the old man. There are some complicated issues, some of which people have become decidedly on one side or another in these areas, and there are some that would say that there are things that are going to remain a mystery until we're in glory about this.

But tell us about this. If we are a new creation in Christ, why is it that we sin every day? There's probably not, you know, a minute in our lives where there's not some kind of a sin that we are committing mentally or otherwise.

But tell us about that. This is a very mysterious issue.

No, it isn't our daily sin, and we know that it is, Father, as I am a church member.

I'm going to give our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for our guest today about this very important topic. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I could readily see a subject like this, the continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh listing against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, I could readily see that lending itself to people having personal and private questions that would compel them to remain anonymous.

So you may feel free to remain anonymous, but please only remain anonymous if it is about a personal and private matter. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

We do have a listener, Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks,. Since we who are believers in sovereign grace do not believe that a truly regenerate, born-again believer can lose his or her salvation, it is problematic sometimes when judging whether oneself or a professing brother or sister is truly born again because they have fallen into a season of serious unrepentant sin.

Since the Bible never gives us a timeline where we can say after a certain length of time a person who is still remaining unrepentant can be deemed as a false convert who is never born again to begin with, how do we determine whether we ourselves or those around us are truly born again and brothers in Christ?

I think this is where the low people, when you have a church that has not been baptized, we baptize them with that confession in mind, and so they show that this is a sign of the covenant, that you're confessing Christ, you're coming and you're joining this body of believers under this covenant we made together to believe.

Begin to see things in the life of that believer that is not consistent with what they've confessed, and in love and concern and that love and care for one another, always you're denying to believe and to practice what's going to work in their life, and they're going to realize, hey, I've made a big mistake, I need to go back to these people, I need to confess and tell them they're right.

And yeah, it may take a little bit of time, but ultimately, if there's a way...

Yes, and wouldn't you agree that since there are things involved in the human heart that only God knows, we as fallible, sinful human beings ourselves, even the most godly of Christians, cannot read the heart with infallibility, that we are commanded in scriptures not to make definitive proclamations about those things that only God knows when it comes to these matters.

Even if someone, in theory, is truly of the elect and perhaps truly regenerate, but just in a season of sin, we have to treat them as if they are unbelievers. Not that we know that with 100 certainty, but for their benefit and for the benefit of the body of Christ and for the benefit of the community around us, and for the praise, honor, and glory of God, to remove reproach from the church as much as possible, we have to identify these folks that are in our midst, put them under discipline, and if they continue in their rebellion unrepentantly, we have to go to the next measure of excommunication.

I say this also as one who has experienced church discipline. I, after 18 years of sobriety years ago, fell back into the sin of drunkenness unrepentantly for a number of years, and it was increasing in its severity, and I thank God for the discipline that I underwent by loving undershepherds, whom the Lord used to draw me back to sanity, sobriety, and good standing within the church.

And I also thank Hebron Colony Ministries, a nonprofit Christian ministry in Boone, North Carolina, which is a drug and alcohol recovery ministry, and they also have a sister ministry for women called Grace Home in Santee, South Carolina.

But isn't this the truth? Many Christians find this to be harsh, cruel. How dare you question this person's salvation, because I've known them for years, and just because they're sinning now, I've known that they made believable professions and walked with the Lord for so long.

But even if a person has been walking with Christ for decades, he could still be a false convert, and other than that, even if he is a true convert, we still, according to the Scriptures, if this sin is severe enough and unrepented of, they have to be treated like unbelievers, am I right?

Yeah, I do think that that's the final test, definitely. I think there's three, where we're doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him that he might be ashamed, do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

I think there is that period that you're still warning that person of not repenting, of rejecting wise counsel, rejecting biblical instruction on what they are to do. Then, yeah, then I think that final step, as Christ says in Matthew 18, you treat them like a tax collider, their membership consolidating, because we don't serve the flesh and the spirit, and they're living by the virtues they're living, giving them a continue down the road to hell.

Yes, I might not be alive right now and conducting this radio program, if it were not for the fact that I was placed under church discipline. And of course, there are churches, sadly and tragically, that have abused that necessary element of Christian life in the church, and who have been overly harsh, who have been dictatorial, and have even disciplined people for sins that aren't even really sins.

Yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right.

But at the same time, I thank God for the discipline I received, because I am alive today and may not be because of the severity of my drinking problem or sin of drunkenness. We're going to be going to a station break right now.

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, just like Arnie in Perry County, send us an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, God willing. We're going to be right back with Jason Goodwin, pastor of First Baptist Church of Shady Grove, Laurel, Mississippi, and speaker at the Deep South Founders Conference.

On our theme, the continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, right after these messages from our sponsors. So please don't go away.

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And please make sure you tell Solid Ground Christian Books that you heard about them from Chris Arnsen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with our discussion with Pastor Jason Goodwin of First Baptist Church of Shady Grove in Laurel, Mississippi, also one of the speakers at the upcoming Deep South Founders Conference in mid to late January.

And we are discussing the continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. If you have a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves personal or private matter.

We have a question from John in Bangor, Maine, who says, I know that there is a disagreement amongst Christians that even those who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace and are Reformed Baptists disagree over.

This is the issue of whether in Romans 7, Paul is speaking about himself in the present tense as a born-again believer and an apostle of Christ in regard to his ongoing sin, or is he speaking about his former life as the fire-breathing murderer and zealot soul of Tarsus before his rebirth?

That's a very good question, and I happen to know that our listener is right, that I've even experienced and have been witness to a debate years ago between at least two brothers who disagreed over this issue at the Bunyan Conference in Pennsylvania, and I have heard brothers in Christ who disagree have loving, but sometimes heated discussions where they disagree over this.

In fact, I'm going to turn to Romans 7 in the New American Standard Bible, the updated edition, and we have, starting at verse 14, we have the apostle Paul saying,. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, so into bondage to sin.

For what am I doing? I do not understand, for I am not practicing that which I like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I disagree with the law, confessing that the law is good.

So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

For the good that I want I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin dwells in me. I find, then, the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of the sin which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh, the law of sin.

Very powerful yet controversial passage of the God-breathed word through the writing of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7. So, if you could, give us your take on that.

No big deal, right? No big deal. Here's how I tell him, but he changes his intent. He's talking about the past, and I know even great brothers have disagreed on this, as you said, but it does seem that Paul is, and again, it would make sense that he's talking about the struggle between the flesh.

We continue to fight this flesh, this flesh that we're born in, this flesh that reminds us that we're born again, fighting against this, and this is a real and present fight. What it means to be salvageous, a sanctification, is being fighting against sinful nature, and that's to deny that we're using it.

I don't think he's saying it's okay to give in. I think that he's reminding us that we have to continue to fight against it, be our faith, or believe in our faith.

Even though I agree with you, and I pretty much, for the entirety of my Christian walk that I can remember, have agreed with you that this is a present tense description of the Apostle Paul describing himself, there are words that seem to, at least on the surface, conflict with those of us who are Reformed, who believe in what has now been nicknamed, since the 1980s at least, Lordship Salvation.

We believe that repentance is necessary for true salvation. We don't believe that there are carnal Christians who are still in bondage to sin because they have been set free from their bondage through the death of Christ, and yet you have the Apostle Paul saying, I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin.

And you have these kinds of phrases that he uses that seem so severe, you wonder, is he using hyperbole because of the experiences that he is feeling? He is so furious at his own heart and mind, because he is an Apostle especially, who has been given the very oracles of God that God breathed through him, which he in his own hand penned, or through a scribe, an amanuensis I believe they are called, but how do you explain the severity of the language if he is speaking about himself as a new creation and born-again believer?

I think the severity of the language in our language life, like he does, is not to do...

The Meaning of Romans 7 and the Ongoing Fight Against the Flesh

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, I think that there should be a balance in the Christian life. On the one hand, if the sins we are committing are so severe and egregious and scandalous, we should question our own salvation and fall to our knees in repentance and cry out to God to be saved.

On the other hand, there are Christians who are going through a nightmarish existence, constantly questioning whether they are truly of the elect and truly born-again, and have a joyless faith. How do we strike the balance in this situation?

Oh, that's such a good question. I'm reminded of when he did his bipolar...

He attempted suicide.

Yeah, exactly. You're right. I mean, the very real threat of anxiety, the weightiness of sin in this fallen world is always going to be a strong ecclesiastic Solomon from now on because of everything around us that is affected and damaged and broken by the fall.

We see every thorns and thistle when we're working hard, when we're doing the things that we're supposed to obey His command. We mustn't think that this world in which we are, no matter what we do or anything else, we mustn't confuse this world for the one that is to come.

Ready and not yet. We need to be tossing like joy never comes, and we have to continue even though...

Amen. We have to go to our midway break now. It's a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio... I'm sorry, what am I thinking of? Yes, Grace Life Radio. I got distracted by an email from a listener that came in.

Because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, which airs Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio Daily, they have to localize this program to the Lake City, Florida area with their own public service announcements and commercials.

So therefore, they require of us this midway break where they air their own content. So please be patient with us as we take this longer than normal break. And use this time wisely to write down questions for our guest Jason Goodwin on this very important topic of the war between the spirit and the flesh.

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Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Jason Goodwin and our discussion on the war between the spirit and the flesh.

Christian Accountability, Grace, and the Danger of Shame Culture

James White here, co-founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I'm so delighted. My friend Chris Arnzen will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January 17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme, A Biblical Understanding of Missions.

Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Vodie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, yours truly, and many more. I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to g3conference .com.