November 19, 2020 Show with Scott Christensen on “What About Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday

on this 19th day of November 2020.

And I am thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest who has

one of the most crucial issues he's going to discuss today, one of the most crucial

issues within Christendom that has actually divided Christendom for centuries, the

answer to the question, I should say.

It's also a question that is probably one of,

if not the most frequently asked question by critics

of Christianity and even just critics of theism, the belief

that there is a God and that that God is good.

The question is, what about evil?

And, of course, the fuller question that an atheist might typically ask is, if God

exists, why is there evil in this world, if indeed he is so

good and kind and gracious and benevolent?

But today we are going to seek to address that issue from a

Christian perspective, a theologically reformed perspective, and first and foremost, a

biblical perspective.

What about evil?

A defense of God's sovereign glory.

The title of Scott Christensen's new book, and Scott

Christensen happens to be the associate pastor of Kerrville

Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas, and he also

is the author of other books, including What About Free Will?

But as I said, today we are addressing his latest book, a massive hardback published by

Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, more well -known today as P &R

Publishing, What About Evil?

A Defense of God's Glory, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio,

Pastor Scott Christensen.

Great to be here.

And why don't you tell our listeners, first and foremost, about the Kerrville Bible

Church?

Well, yes,

Kerrville

Bible, I believe,

expository for 20 years, just

selling salvation in

Christ, and it's a

great place to

serve, been there for about

11 years.

Great, and if anybody wants further information about Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville,

Texas, go to kerrvillebiblechurch .org,

kerrvillebiblechurch .org, and Kerrville is spelled K -E -R -R -V, as in victory, I -L

-L -E.

Well, this is certainly quite a thorough,

quite a massive volume that you have written, and it probably needed to be because

of all the questions that are very often thrown at believers,

not only by other believers, but also by atheists and agnostics and enemies of Christianity.

Very often these are nothing more than dodges and rabbit trails to confuse

or to stupefy the Christian who is sharing his faith,

evangelizing, defending his faith, usually the

person, if they are in the category of an atheist or an agnostic, isn't really interested in an answer,

but there are sincere, genuine believers, especially

when they are going through a horrible, painful

trial in their lives.

It might even be that they're the victim of some kind of horrific, unspeakable evil,

and they may be even answering this question, asking these

questions themselves, and in particular the question, what about evil,

especially if they are young believers, but even

a seasoned Christian of many years and even spanning decades, they might even be a senior

citizen, they might even be on the brink of entering into eternity at an

elderly age, and they still might have these questions.

So, just reflecting on the fact that this question has been addressed

over the centuries, on many occasions, even by those who share our Reformed

faith, why is it that you sought out to write this new book on this subject, and

such an impressively large volume on this subject?

Well,

when

I wrote

it, I felt that

there needed to

be something more fuller, and

I really didn't want to

write the subject

for the

last

perspective

on

these questions.

Typically, the problem of evil is

a problem of evil that Christians,

that

is

God's, and

the fact that we as

human beings, and so I try to deal with all those.

I know that we may get some of our open theist

listeners, if there are any, upset that we're not giving them an adequate description of their

views on this, or even those who believe in a middle

knowledge of God theory and all of these other theories, but if you

could give us a brief summary of what their explanation is,

and then we can move on to the truth.

Yes, the

form

of Arminianism

is...

In fact, don't they call themselves, maybe not all of them, but don't many of them call themselves

consistent Arminians?

Yes, personally,

I think open theists are

the most consistent,

whereas open

theists do not

believe one

choice

or

another

with no

indication

would make.

Side A, it doesn't matter if

it preceded that choice, and libertarian

free will says that you could choose one or the other, and nothing determines what choice you would make.

If that is true, then we could never know what Arminians would make before

they made it,

say that God knows the future, determine

the future, Arminianism,

all those things.

And in fact, even though we would recognize as Reformed Christians

that Arminians are being inconsistent when they say this, they would share with us

an abhorrence typically, depending upon how moderate they

are.

There are evangelicals or professing evangelicals who are very

sedated and indifferent when it comes to serious heresies

that arise in the church, but your average

conservative Bible -believing evangelical who believes firmly in the inerrancy of Scripture, believes in the Gospel,

and has a classic understanding of God, they would share with us an

abhorrence and an opposition to the open theist view

that God does not know the future, purely on the basis that He is omniscient and knows all things, even all

things in the future.

...by Calvinists, but by Arminians.

I happen to think

that the open theists are

holding to a time,

and I think they are not.

Free will, then you would know...

So, if you could, give us a classic

answer to the issue

by...

Let's say that there is, as we have unfortunately all witnessed in the

media, we see the horrific mass

shootings at a school, whether it be an elementary school or a high school or a college.

Somebody charges in there, either a student or some other individual, begins shooting people,

seemingly indiscriminately killing them.

He is either arrested or gunned down himself by police.

And what would be the typical, well -meant but

very flawed answer to why this occurred by an Arminian

evangelical Christian?

And then we could move on to the open theist, and then we could move on to what you would

believe to be a biblical answer, which you and I would think is a Reformed answer,

because we believe that Reformed theology is the best

of theologies known to men that accurately reflect the Scriptures.

But if you could, give us those breakdowns of something like that, that is

unfortunately an occurrence that happens all too frequently in our world.

So, in a

frame for your

listeners,

the

trilemma, that

God is all good.

So, if evil exists, years ago

called, why do

good things

happen to bad

people?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

God doesn't want bad things to happen, quote -unquote, to good people.

Of course, we've got a problem already just by calling it Rabbi Kushner.

Nonetheless, is it God simply?

So, that's the basic issue.

If God is all good and all good God, then why would He allow evil in the world?

Yeah, even the late stand -up comic George Carlin,

back in the 70s at least, before he became an atheist, he used to attempt to

defend the goodness of God by basically saying that he was subject

to physical laws that he created.

And he wouldn't phrase it that God was good, he would say that God is a cool

guy, and that He is not responsible in any

way, or He is not the origin or the author or the ordainer

or orchestrator of evil acts, calamity,

or even natural acts of disaster, that He is just the God that loves us,

almost like a deist understanding of God, that He has created all things and set them in

motion, but He's made Himself subject to these very things He created, like nature and so on.

In either case, the way they would

answer this question, what

they're saying is

libertarian

free

will,

and the assumption is that if we were only limited to only make the

choice,

then those choices are not truly free, and if they're

not truly

free, then when

God grants,

and

therefore He gives

us free will.

An open theist would find the Arminian's answer

nearly equally, if not equally, repugnant to our answer as Reformed Christians,

because the open theist would say, if God knew these things were going to happen, if He

knew the Holocaust was going to happen, if He knew that terrorists were going to fly into

the Twin Towers in the Pentagon building and did nothing, that demonstrates just

as much evil on the part of God as if He, according to

us, the Calvinists, ordained them before the foundation of the world.

They see no real difference, major difference, because in one sense they are right.

If you're going to have a complaint with God, ordaining evil acts,

how can you defend the fact that He knew about them and yet did nothing?

Am I right in that little description?

Yes.

Well, in the

philosophical

sense,

evil seems

to be the

rape of little

children,

incinerators,

and so forth.

You can't

stop

Hitler.

God will not stop Hitler or any other agent

in such horrific acts of violence and murder and mayhem.

God can't stop that person, because He would be violating that person's free will, and God must

always respect the free will of His creatures, and therefore He can't do that.

When the Holocaust happens, because there's nothing He can

do, it is a

sacred free will theism.

It is set at all costs.

And we're going to go into what you believe to be the biblical response,

otherwise known by us as the Reformed response, to the mass

shootings that have occurred in schools and other kinds of atrocities.

We're going to hear that when we come back from our first break.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with 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, as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, 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 understand a subject like this that involves evil acts.

I could readily understand that there may be some listeners who are either the victims of an evil act,

perhaps the past perpetrators of evil acts.

They've repented but are haunted by them, or any kind of situation that would compel them to remain

anonymous.

We understand that.

We will grant you the respect to allow you to remain anonymous.

But if it's just a general theological question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state,

and your country of residence.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnson.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go

is Scott Christensen, Associate Pastor of Kerrville Bible Church of Kerrville, Texas.

We are addressing his new book, What About Evil? A Defense of God's Sovereign Glory.

Would you say this falls under the category of the theodicy,

Pastor Scott?

Well, yes.

Theodicy is a term

that was coined for theos and

decay.

And the idea

is high, but

theodicy is

what God

is doing,

why God ordained it

to take place.

In fact, yeah, that key word that you used there or phrase that you used

there is something that's going to come up in a question from a listener soon.

Because there are many Christians, including Reformed Christians, I don't know if they are

mistakenly, you know, accidentally saying this by not carefully wording their statements,

or if it's actually a part of their theology.

But there are even Reformed Christians who talk about God allowing evil

rather than ordaining it and orchestrating it.

In fact, I even know a dear brother, I love him to death, he's a theologically Reformed

pastor who believes there are certain scenarios or events in history where God

allowed evil, permitted evil.

And I have disagreed with him over the use of those terms, but we could get to that in a moment, get back to it, I

should say.

But please, if you could now, give the Biblical answer or the Reformed

answer to why such a horrific and seemingly senseless

event such as a mass murder at a school would occur if

God is indeed in sovereign control over all things, and He is at the same time a loving,

gracious, merciful, patient, and benevolent God.

How does this happen?

So the standard Reformed problem of

evil is what is called the greater good defense,

or

the greater

good

not

determined

at

a certain point,

and therefore God in

the city.

We can say the same thing.

Every intention of the heart of every human being was always evil continually.

So we have instances

in Scripture where God

does the greatest.

What really zeroes in on this notion would be in the

book of Genesis.

Brother Joseph, they

came along as

evil, of course,

becoming a

servant

of his

wife, Potiphar's wife, and so forth.

He interprets the dreams of Pharaoh himself,

prime minister, land of Egypt.

They have this great famine.

They recognize their moral culpability before

Joseph that

I might be

saved

from this famine.

In chapter 50, verse 20, a verse in Scripture in which Joseph

speaks to his brothers, acknowledges once again their moral culpability

for selling him into slavery, and he says to them,

what you did was

evil,

but the evil intentions of Joseph's brothers sovereignly superintended that

same event,

ordained

that

event

to

happen

to

the heart.

Jesus said it is out of the heart.

I have a question for you before I go to a listener question.

There is a text, I think a very important

passage of Scripture, that reflects on God's

sovereignty over evil acts, and I have never

myself heard any kind of adequate, even close to adequate

response to someone who rejects the idea that

God would ever ordain an act of evil, because they think that that

defies his goodness, his grace, his mercy.

They would say that that is a teaching that God is the

author of evil, and we cannot stand for that.

And I'm speaking specifically of the passages in 2 Samuel 12,

and this is the text that most Christians know about

in regard to Nathan the prophet, after he

reveals to David, King David, how

God is going to chastise him for his

wickedness in regard to his adultery with Bathsheba, and even arranging the assassination

of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah the Hittite, in order to cover up

Bathsheba's pregnancy by David.

And if we go to verse 10, 2 Samuel 12,

Nathan the prophet speaking in the voice of God,

Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me, and took the

wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.

This is what the Lord says, Out of your own household I

am going to bring calamity on you.

Before your very eyes I will take your wives, and give

them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives

in broad daylight.

You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight

before all Israel.

Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord, Nathan replied, the Lord has taken

away your sin, you are not going to die, but because by doing this you have

shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.

Now, that's pretty clear, that God himself is not just

allowing some horrible things, which involve adultery,

and which involve the death of a baby, that he is not just allowing them, but he is actually ordaining

them to happen.

Have you ever heard how Armenians respond to that, or those who

are not reformed in their understanding of God's, for ordaining

all things that occur, even evil acts?

Yeah, I'm not sure that I have heard

that.

You could multiply, there's no

doubt, to the

dozens and tens

of thousands of

forms.

I will harden

context.

Equal number of times we read that God hardens his heart, and yet interspersed within that

at the

same time, a

clear example

of that event, as

ensured,.

In fact, we have to go to

our midway

break,.

And we'll have you pick up again on Joseph when we return.

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

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

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

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Before we return to my guest today, Scott Christensen, on his

book, What About Evil?

I just have a couple of announcements to make.

First of all, folks, if you love this show and you do not want it to disappear from

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Folks, I don't have any way of explaining this, but we have

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Click support, then click, click to donate now.

Also, folks, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, and you need help finding a

church, no matter where on the planet Earth you live, I may be able to help you because I've already helped people find

churches in all parts of the world that are biblically sound, sometimes right around the corner from where they live.

They didn't even know these churches existed.

So, send me an email if you are in that category to chrisonzen at gmail dot com.

Chrisonzen at gmail dot com and put I need a church in the subject line.

I have helped many people in our audience find churches near where they live that they didn't know existed.

And they've also found churches through me from the lists that I have

for their loved ones who don't have a church or where they're going on vacation and so on.

So, send me an email to chrisonzen at gmail dot com.

Chrisonzen at gmail dot com and put I need a church in the subject line.

It's also the email address where you can send in a question to Scott Christensen on his book What

About Evil? A Defense of God's Sovereign Glory.

That's chrisonzen at gmail dot com.

As always, please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal

and private matter.

We still have people sending in questions without giving us their city and state of residence.

And I'm not talking about anonymous listeners.

I'm talking about people who are giving their identity, but they're not giving us the city and state of residence or country of residence.

Please provide that in your email.

So, if you could, Scott, pick up where you left off.

You were, once again, addressing Joseph in the Old Testament and how his

brothers attacked him and sold him into slavery and so on.

And if you could, pick up where you left off.

Well, yes.

It's a very fascinating passage.

It's

responsible,

morally

responsible for evil.

There's always a dual explanation for those events.

Number one, God and

humans are the secondary causings.

God is the primary cause

to

bring

judgment to

evil.

Ordaining

perpetrates

evil

in the form of judgment.

This tension

between good and

evil that

they make.

We see one side of the 12.

We see God's ordaining of this evil, though in this particular instance, Absalom was not

brought into the picture.

The fascinating passages are when we see the evil perpetrators.

I would like to point out that

by God, with miracles and wonders, signs which God performed through him and your image, just as you

yourselves know, the

predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.

Right?

So right off, we see that Peter is indicating that Jesus

was delivered over to the authorities by the predetermined plan and

foreknowledge of God.

And then Peter goes on to accuse,

you

nailed, so

here you

see what was going to happen and yet all of it happened via the hands of godless men.

We see the same incident drawn attention to in the prayer of the church in Acts chapter

4.

And in verse 27, it says, Truly in this city, as they are praying to the Father,

they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed,

both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do

whatever your hand and purpose predestined to occur.

So here the believers in the upper room in Acts chapter 4, name names.

They say specifically Herod and put the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel

to the

2 Samuel 12 passage where God says, I will raise up evil.

We see it here too.

God raises up evil men, Gentiles and Jew

tensions.

He wanted to please the people.

He didn't

really,

of course,

without the death of Christ, the greater good of redemption would not have occurred.

And so God uses evil to accomplish his greater purposes and God will never

ordain any evil that does not serve some God has in mind.

Now, of course, we don't always know what that might be.

For example, we look at these

instances of horrific violence.

But the point is, is that from scripture we can understand that God never ordains

anything that is gratuitous.

God never ordains any evil event that will serve no good purpose whatsoever.

Now to us, we may not be able to see that.

When God ordained evil to unfold in Job's life in which seven of his children were killed, in which

all of his possessions were wiped out either by natural means or by evil raiders

that came and stole his property, we see that even though Satan was an instigator

and it happened in

Job's conversation, it happened between God and Satan, and

yet, one that ordained all of this, God gives,

God is taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

He tells his wife in Job chapter 2, he says to her, when she

looks at him and says, why don't you curse God and die?

Right?

This is precisely what Satan wanted Job to do.

When all this evil befell Job, Satan thought that Job would curse God to his face and God

said, we'll have at him.

God determined to happen.

It did happen and Job died,

free of moral

culpability for it, even though secondary agents,

but once again, that's because culpability in scripture is always tied,

never have an evil intention in his heart, and therefore, he can only have good purposes for the evil that

he ordains.

There's no question there's mystery in all of that, and yet, that is a clear testimony

over and over again in scripture.

Yes,.

And we have an anonymous listener who says, I have been in my life the victim of many

evil acts and must confess that I've perpetrated some of my own, especially before

becoming a Christian.

One thing that I have never heard a reformed Christian explain, and I don't mean

that some haven't, I'm probably just not reading enough, but, does God

preordain our thoughts as well as our actions?

Well, yes,.

You could say that the word of Pharaoh, what is being

addressed here, it's his heart,

and what he says,

in other words, God does not infuse evil thoughts,

even though he has

not been

a Jonathan Edwards man.

Sometimes we use that, I think it's very misleading.

The Westminster Confession uses that, and we need that when the Westminster is

saying that he cannot be morally culpable, or

he can't be the direct cause.

I don't like to use the phrase all the time, because I think that ultimately,

John Frame and Wayne Gruta and

theologians like Shakespeare

and Macbeth,

the author will determine what

those

culpability

to Shakespeare as the author.

Shakespeare authored the play, but we attribute the moral culpability to the actors in the play, and I think that's

a good model for us to think about the sovereignty of God.

It's what I call God as a transcendent author

in creation

and of human beings as the author of those actions,

and yet as the author, he remains free of direct culpability for those actions.

So yes, there's a certain mystery there.

Consider, how did God pardon the heart of Pharaoh?

We don't have any explanation of the actual mechanics.

All we know is that

the heart of Pharaoh, even while he can ordain that, there is

tension there that we have to grapple with.

Nonetheless, we can't.

God does ordain these evil things.

Yeah, people.

Make, especially if they're not reformed, they make the error of thinking that man is

somehow morally neutral, and they would slander

those who are reformed with the caricature and the outright lie

that we are saying God is making morally neutral people, forcing them

to do, to think and do evil things that they otherwise would not have done.

And what is clear from the scriptures is that we are all

born into this world, children of the devil.

We are all from the same lump of clay and worthy of hell, and God and his sovereignty chooses to

rescue some of us, not because of anything good we've done, not because of any foreseen

goodness even in our beliefs, but for the reasons that he alone knows.

He chooses some of us and gives us new hearts, and we follow him and obey him,

although imperfectly, but we are not morally neutral people who either are

forced against our so -called wills to either believe or

reject Christ.

Am I right?

That's right.

All of our actions proceed from our fundamental nature as human beings.

So if we have a corrupt nature,

we produce bad fruit.

If the root of the tree is good, so he's talking about human nature there,

and liking it as to trees.

So a bad tree is going to produce bad

fruit.

Anthropology, it's

understanding of the nature of man.

Because we're under this whole

human race, we are born into corruption.

We are born with a corrupt nature that can only make corrupt

for one in this state, pleasing to God.

The only way that they can find choices is if God

transforms that heart.

Or in theology, says he's

faith.

When he the kingdom of God, as Jesus says in John 3, nor

enter the kingdom of God unless they have first been born again.

So you must be born again before you're even capable of making choices that are pleasing to God.

Paul deals with this in Romans 8, that the mindset of

not even able to do so.

There's two things that Paul is saying there.

First of all, he's

saying that

people

don't want

to seek the glory of God

in other natural, unregenerate state.

And so we don't want to seek God's glory, but Paul is also saying we're not even able to do so.

So not only do we not want to do it, we are not willing to do it, we are not

even morally capable.

It regenerates us

by His grace.

And that's why salvation must be holy sufficiently and necessarily

by grace and by grace alone.

Through Christ alone.

Through the means of faith alone.

And that's why the five.

Souls...

Well thank you Anonymous, and you have won a free

copy of What About Evil? A Defense of God's Sovereign Glory by our guest Scott Christensen.

Compliments of our friends at PNR Publishing.

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This book will be shipped out to you, providing that you give us off the air, of course, your

full name and your full mailing address so that our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book

Service, CVBBS .com, so that they can ship that book

out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Sherpa Zion Radio.

So please make sure you get us that email with your full name and mailing address so that

you can take advantage of this gift that you've won from PNR Publishing.

And let's see here.

We have a question from one of our listeners that I actually hinted about earlier.

Let's see if I can find this question.

Where are you?

Yes, Lou from Sharpsburg, Georgia.

Do you believe Romans 9, 22 -24 is a key passage in understanding why God

allows evil?

First, address that passage again.

I know that we've already alluded to it.

And then address the use of the term allows.

Is this really a correct understanding of the way God brings evil

things.

About in this earth?

Yeah, I spend a significant Romans 9,

because I do passage

God, and you notice that,

why does he

still

find fault for who

resists his

will?

And this is the

classic question.

If God determines, then what does it

matter what we do?

We still find fault.

Why does he still find us morally culpable for who resists his will?

Right?

This is a classic question.

On the contrary, who are you, old man, who answers back to God?

The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it?

Paul doesn't answer the question.

He actually goes to

him in autonomy.

The question that I want to be autonomous, I do not want God

in the lore of my particular.

And really, I think this is what stands behind all Chod

sovereignty, and that's what Paul is dealing with

here, and another for common

use.

What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and make

his power

node,

they're

already

on the floor upon

vessels,

the

pair before to election,

whereas there for destruction is in the passive tense.

Yes, God is a divine passive, but God did not act

choose these individuals for, for destruction, they're already

on the path of.

Destruction.

That would be equal ultimacy, correct?

That would be equal ultimacy to believe that God is equally active in both extreme

ends.

Yeah, which we reject.

And if you want to pick up where we left off, you may do so but we have to go to our final break right now.

And our email address is Chris arms and a gmail .com.

Chris arms and a gmail .com if you have a question, send it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Scott Christensen.

As host of Iron Trump and Zion radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

The church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church

in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped, and how he

shall be represent 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

gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com or

call them at 908 -996 -7654.

That's 908 -996 -7654.

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

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.

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from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com.

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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 Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, 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 Reformed Baptist Church

in Coram, 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 Reformed 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 Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa

on Iron Sharpens Iron.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other

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And besides that, they feel so good.

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No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot.

Jeffrey Rice of Post Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.

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For more details on Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding, go to

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That's.

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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 Preachers 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

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Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting

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We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

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present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Welcome back.

Scott,.

Did you basically finish where you were in Romans 9?

Uh, yes.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, because we have a number of listening questions.

I want to try to get to as many of them as I can.

And by the way, Lou, send us your full mailing address in Sharpsburg, Georgia, because you have also won a

free copy of What About Evil by Scott Christensen, compliments of PNR Publishing,

and compliments of CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.

We'll be shipping that out to you at no charge to you or to us.

We have Eric in Mahomet, Illinois, who asks,

in James 1, verse 13, we read, Let no one say when he is tempted,

I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Is there a difference between saying, I am being tempted by God and saying God has ordained all evil acts,

including my own sinful actions?

Yes, yes, this goes back to the saying,.

It's not in you, when

it doesn't, would that would suggest that

God has some kind of evil gains,

the how that how

we know that could

be nothing but good, because it must proceed from the.

Everlasting.

We have another anonymous listener.

Oh, by the way, Eric, give us your full mailing address in Mahomet, Illinois, because you've won a free

copy of What About Evil by Scott Christensen, compliments of PNR

Publishing, and compliments of CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

We'll be shipping it out to you.

Another anonymous listener has to say,.

I am surrounded mainly with Arminian friends and family.

And I have repeatedly told them, if they really want to be consistent, logically with their

theology, they could never rest their heads on their pillows at night, and sleep peacefully,

knowing that people that they personally know, died without Christ, because they would

have to take some of the blame for those people being in hell, whether it be the

infrequency of their evangelism of these people, or the inadequacy of their

evangelism, or any other reason, they would have to take part of the blame.

Do you think I'm being correct in the way that I approach this, as far as their inconsistency, and leaving

God out of the equation, where they deny his sovereignly ordaining these.

Things?

Yeah, I think there's a kind of cognitive dissonance at times with many Arminians.

I think a

lot

of

Arminians

are very genuine

in their

desire,

and yet

there's inconsistency,

to work on people's hearts

for salvation.

And

I'm sorry, we're out of time.

And if anyone wants to find.

Out more about this book that we have been discussing with our guest, Pastor Scott Christensen,

What About Evil? A Defense of God's Sovereign Glory, you can go to

cvbbs .com, where you can purchase that book.

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

And once again, we want to thank our friends at P &R Publishing for providing us with

free copies of this book that we gave away today.

To find out more information about this book and other titles that they carry, go to prpbooks

.com, prpbooks .com.

If anybody wants to visit, at some point, the Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville,

Texas, where our guest is the Associate Pastor, go to kerrvillebiblechurch .org,

kerrvillebiblechurch .org, and that's k -e -r -r -v -i -l -e biblechurch .org.

I want to thank you so much, Pastor Scott, for being such a wonderful guest today.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

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.