July 5, 2019 Show with Mostyn Roberts on “Francis Shaeffer”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

00:23

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

00:31

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

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We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this fifth day of July 2019.

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And now that all of us Yanks have had an opportunity to vent any hostility that we might have had pent up against our friends and brethren across the pond in the

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United Kingdom, I thought I'd have back on the program when it was safe. We have

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Mostyn Roberts returning for the third time here to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. He is an author and a minister at the

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Welland Evangelical Church in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, and he is going to be discussing

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Francis Schaeffer, perhaps one of the greatest Christian minds of the 20th century, and also the topic of a bite -sized biography published by Evangelical Press and written by Mostyn Roberts, our guest.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Mostyn Roberts. Thank you,

02:18

Chris. It's lovely to be back again, and I look forward to discussing Francis Schaeffer with you.

02:25

Yeah, looking forward to this meeting. Great. And once again, for those of our listeners who missed your last two interviews, which were on a different subject, they were on the subject of the life and legacy of Roger Williams, which is the subject of your latest book.

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But for those of our listeners who missed those interviews, why don't you tell them about Welland Evangelical Church in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.

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Well, I have been the pastor at Welland Evangelical Church in Hertfordshire just over 20 years now.

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It's an independent evangelical church. It's reformed in its convictions.

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It is Baptistic. We have a slightly unusual trustee in that,

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It's one of those trustees that I think was called Bunyanesque, in that it says that people who have been baptized as infants can become members.

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It didn't believe that the difference in baptism should be to divide Christians.

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So it's like that. So we have some Peter Baptists to become members, but we are a

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Baptist church. In our practice, we would never baptize infants, and people who come in as Peter Baptists respect that.

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So we're a Baptistic church, but possibly not a

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Baptist church that would satisfy confessional Baptists in that sense. But we'd certainly follow the doctrines of 689

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Confession, for example. So we're a church, not a very big church, about 60 members, and very conservative in our forms of worship.

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And I preach morning and evening most weeks, and we have a midweek Bible study as well. So you're very welcome to come along.

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Our services are at 11 and 630 if you're in the area. We have a website, and you can check all about it on our website.

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And that website is welland -evangelical .org .uk. That's w -e -l -w -y -n -evangelical .org

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.uk. And we hope to repeat that again during the program, especially towards the end.

04:47

Well, you seem to have a fascination, even though you are a Brit, you seem to have a fascination with the

04:56

Christian church in America, the latest book that you've written on Roger Williams, although he was a native to Britain.

05:08

He was an immigrant here to the United States. He is still most well -known, I believe, for the impact that he had on the church here in the

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United States of America. Back then it was just simply America. And now we have a beloved

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American Christian hero, in fact, a hero beloved by people spanning denominational and theological lines,

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Francis Schaeffer. And if you could tell us how you came to discover

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Francis Schaeffer, and then tell us something about his own life that you are aware of in regard to his own salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere he was raised in, and how he came to embrace

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Christ by God's sovereign grace, and also how he came to embrace Reformed theology. Right.

05:58

Well, it's a tale of mistakes in both cases. I'll explain. You picture, in 1975, a 19 -year -old living in Brittany.

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I was born and brought up in Wales, but I had finished my school. I was waiting to go to university, where I was going to read law at the

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University of Cambridge. So I took what later became known as a gap year, which wasn't quite a year, it was six months, and I went to teach

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English in Brittany in France. So there I am, blue jeans, long hair, T -shirt, typical mid -1970s.

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I came back at Easter time to London, and I do not know to this day why or how, but I found myself in a theological bookshop near Oxford Circus called

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Mowbray's. I don't think it exists now as that. Again, I don't know how,

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I find myself on a shelf, I'm looking at some books on a shelf, and I spotted this book, Escape from Reason, by a man called

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Francis Schaeffer. So I thought, oh, it looks interesting. Bearing in mind

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I had done French A -level and had been influenced by existentialist writers, and I was interested in ideas, and I was no doubt intellectually pretentious, as a meadow at age 10 can be.

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I bought this book thinking it's going to be supporting my views about nihilism and the meaninglessness of life, you see.

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So I bought it, took it back to Brittany with me after the Easter holidays, and then read it, and it certainly didn't lead to my conversion directly, but it changed me around.

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I suddenly saw that there was a unity in life. I saw there was a unity behind life. I saw there was a meaning in life.

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And in God's grace, six months later, when I went to Cambridge, I was saved.

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I was converted through the instrumentality of the Christian Union. But that book by Schaeffer had a kind of instrumental place in my thinking at that time.

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I had nothing more to do with Schaeffer until six years later, when in 1980 -81 I read,

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I remember I was in bed and I happened to read The God Who Is There, I'm not quite sure why, and I determined I would go to Libri.

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And I went to Libri, and I was a Christian, of course, by this time, but a fairly confused

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Arminian Christian. Aren't they all? Well, you know, I don't know.

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But I was, whatever, and I wasn't really satisfied with the kind of teaching I was getting. And I decided

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I would, I thought, I took a train to Switzerland. I thought

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I'd spend a couple of days at Libri and then move on and travel around Switzerland. But I had only been at Libri one day and I said,

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I'm not going to move on, Switzerland can wait. I'm staying here for the whole two weeks. And I just got entranced by the atmosphere of Libri there, the teaching.

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I listened to dozens of tapes. I read books. I personally had a meeting with Schaefer, which

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I can tell you about later on. And I really, it really changed me. And from there,

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I became reformed. I went home later that year.

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I bought Calvin Institutes. I read Calvin Institutes over the next eight months. I started reading

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Banner of Truth, Puppets and Paperbacks. I started reading works of Lloyd -Jones. So what

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Schaefer did was introduce me in a wonderful way to the riches of Puritan reformed theology.

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And I think because he spoke the language that I, along with many other young people in those days, could appreciate.

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He was tuned in to the way I was thinking. I hadn't been brought up in a conventional reformed home.

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And so, you know, I needed something which connected with how I thought.

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And he did that. I think just going back to my days in France, the very first time when I wasn't a

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Christian, when I had been teaching in Brittany for six years in 1975, I even had posters on my wall upside down.

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Because I thought, well, why not upside down? If there is no meaning in life, what is the difference between posters upside down and posters the right way up?

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That was the kind of metaphysical nonsense that I was...

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I think Schaefer would have probably said, well, yeah, but you couldn't hang it in midair. You know, you are limited by the reality of the world around you to some extent.

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That's interesting. So Schaefer was instrumental in my, indirectly, in my becoming a

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Christian. Six years later, he was much more directly influential. The whole LaBrie thing in my sort of being devouring and becoming reformed and Calvinistic in my thinking.

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And so I... Oh, I was just going to ask you if you could explain in a little bit more detail what

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LaBrie is and was, of course. Yeah. LaBrie was the organization, the movement set up by Francis Schaefer and his wife in the 1950s.

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Schaefer had been a pastor in the United States, in Pennsylvania, then in St.

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Louis, Missouri for 10 years. He was sent by his denomination at that time to Europe to do some research as to how things were after the war, the

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Second World War, particularly to work amongst children and to find out about what theology, the strength of the churches were.

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And he was quite a... They went back to America, and it's a convoluted story, but he and Edith decided that they should come back to Europe.

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And they did so in about 1948, 49. And they settled in Switzerland in about 1950.

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And then by the Lord's wonderful and often miraculous leading, they, in 1955, they were given permits to stay in Switzerland.

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And to reside and work there. And they set up the organization that became

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LaBrie, which is French for shelter. And so this was a place where young people and others, too, could go to ask questions.

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And they said that, you know, we're here to give honest answers to honest questions. So that was what

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LaBrie started out as. Had nothing to do with the manufacture of cheese, I guess. Absolutely nothing to do with Brie cheese whatsoever.

13:14

No. So that's 55. So it's been going 64 years now.

13:20

So I was there in the 70s. No, no, no. 81, I first went there.

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But I went to the English LaBrie because in late 50s, they set up a branch in England, which in 1961, it started.

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It bought a big manor house in Hampshire in the south of England. Lovely, lovely manor house.

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And since I was living not too far away, for five years, I was working as a lawyer in Kent in England.

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And I used to travel across quite often, two or three times a year for weekends or for weeks. And I just used to study at the

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English LaBrie. And I've got notebooks now. I mean, I've got notebooks and notebooks of notes that I made from listening to tapes and reading books in those days and the discussions we had with people and all this kind of thing.

14:15

So when you had adopted Francis Schaeffer as a sort of mentor, did you, as I have heard some others did in those days, begin to dress like him and wear a hairstyle and beard and pipe and perhaps

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Birkenstock shoes, I think, or lederhosen or whatever it was that he wore?

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No, I never was inclined at all to do that. I must admit,

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I was never a Schaefferette, but I did find his manner of teaching, but not just his.

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I mean, the way the other workers and teachers at LaBrie, men like Jerome Barrs, Ronald McCauley, Barry Segrist at that time, that generation of teachers and workers, opened up the

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Scriptures in what I discovered was a very Calvinistic way, but a very contemporary way.

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And it was so much more satisfying than anything I had really come across in the average Arminian Baptist church up to then.

15:23

Well, I'm going to give our email address right away here in case anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of their own.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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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 of the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Now let's move on to the man himself,

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Francis Schaeffer. What do you know about his personal life experience in regard to what kind of faith he was raised in, if any?

16:00

Yeah. Well, he was born of German immigrant stock in Germantown in Pennsylvania.

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So I guess that's not so far from you. You're in Carlisle. Right. I don't know how far that is from you, but he...

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Not very far. Not very far at all. Not very far. So he had no spiritual input at all.

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His father had nothing but contempt for ministers. He was just a bare attender at his local

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Lutheran church. His mother, Bessie, was a somewhat embittered woman, but they had no spiritual input at all or interest.

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The father, Frank, was also Francis Schaeffer, but let's call him Frank for the moment, wanted

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Francis to do a practical job. He only had really respect for manual skills.

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But Francis showed he was of very high intelligence, but even then that didn't persuade his father to do much to encourage him in anything intellectual.

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But teachers at school helped him, and he became interested in art. He became interested in music, and he was then given the task of helping a

17:25

Russian learn English. And this Russian, who was a count, wanted to learn the biography of Catherine the

17:33

Great. But Francis decided that a different idea would be better, so he went to a shop and asked for a beginner's

17:43

English reading book. But he was amazed to discover that he was given the wrong book.

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He went home with a book on Greek philosophy. So he went home. He read this.

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He suddenly began a love affair with philosophy. As he said, he felt he had come home because he found that the philosophical issues he was reading just outstripped any answers anybody was able to give.

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So he was about to give up on the

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Bible altogether. He began wondering, he said, if he should stop calling himself a

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Christian, discard the Bible altogether. But he thought, well,

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I've never actually read the Bible. Let's give it a fair chance. So at the age of 17, he read the

18:39

Bible through in six months. And he said that what happened was that he found that the questions raised by his philosophy reading were being answered by the

18:49

Bible. And so he began to see interconnections between the worldview of philosophy and the worldview of the

18:55

Bible. He said, what rang the bell for me was the answers in Genesis, and that with these you really had answers, real answers.

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Without these, there were no answers, either in philosophy or in the religion I had heard preached, which is obviously a very liberal kind of Christianity.

19:12

So that was how he was introduced to the Christian faith. And he said that sometime in the six months after finishing reading the

19:19

Bible, he became a Christian. He was not able to put a precise date on it. But he accepted Christ as Savior.

19:26

Interestingly, a little later in that later, he went to a tent campaign organized by an evangelist called

19:40

Anthony Zioli. And he there writes in his diary that 19th of August, 1930, at the tent meeting,

19:51

Anthony Zioli had decided to give my whole life to Christ unconditionally. And he went back to the meeting later in the week, taking other people with him.

19:59

So immediately he was doing what a good Christian disciple does, he takes other people to hear the gospel. So that really was the story of Schaeffer's conversion.

20:09

It was that sort of period of a year or so when he was 17, 18. Can you tell us something more about Anthony Zioli? I have never heard that name before.

20:16

I haven't either. The only interesting thing is that I know other than Anthony Zioli is that it was

20:23

Anthony Zioli's son, Billy, who became the director of the film

20:31

How Should We Then Live, which Schaeffer made in the 1970s. So what a coincidence was that.

20:39

I think it was the How Should We Then Live. There was another film he made as well.

20:47

Whatever Happened to the Human Race. I think it was the first one that Billy Zioli directed.

20:59

So that was quite a coincidence that it was the son of the man through whom I don't know if it was converted, but through whom he'd come through to a public confession of his faith.

21:08

And so tell us now how, as far as you know, how much information that you have in regard to his coming to the

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Reformed faith specifically. Well, we're talking about 1930 -31.

21:27

He's about 18. He's determined now he wants to go to the ministry. His parents are against it, but slowly his father turns around in favor of it.

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And there's this wonderful scene where he's about to leave to go to college in Hampton -Sydney

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College. Is that in Richmond? Hampton -Sydney College? I don't know.

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I think it's in Virginia. I think it is. And his father's saying, Francis, you can't go.

21:57

And Francis is absolutely distraught. What does he do? His calling or his parents? What does he reject? So he says,

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Dad, give me a moment. I go downstairs. And he says he does something which he would never advise anyone else to do. He asked the Lord to help him.

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He said, Lord, I'm going to toss this coin. If it's tails, I'll go. He tossed it.

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It's tails. Okay, Lord, please help me again. If it's heads, I'll go. Okay, toss it again. It's heads. One more time,

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Lord. Tails. It's tails. Three times. Three times he tosses the coin. He said he'd never advise anyone else to do that, but it was for him.

22:30

And so he said, Dad, I'm going. And as he went, his father said, I'll pay your first year. And so that change of heart was obviously terrific encouragement.

22:39

The Lord was in it. So he went to Hamilton College, and then after that, he went to Westminster, which of course was going through some turmoil at that time.

22:49

It's always going through turmoil. Yeah. He left Westminster to go to a faith

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Bible college, which had split away. So he obviously, he must have had

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Calvinistic leanings to want to go to Westminster, I imagine. There's never a discussion of how he came into Calvinism or Reformedism that I've come across.

23:17

I think it seems to have been just instinctive and natural for him to have done that.

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And he was very, he liked J. Gresham Machen. His wife, Edith, who had been brought up in a

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China inland missionary home, was much better educated theologically at that point in time than Francis was.

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And she knew of the work of men like Robert Dick Wilson and people like that.

23:45

So it probably could have been his influence that said, you must go to Westminster because that's where Machen is. At that point,

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Machen left, of course, later. No, it was Princeton that left, wasn't it?

23:57

No, I'm confused. They left Princeton, that's right, and he went to Westminster.

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I beg your pardon. He left Princeton, then he went to Westminster where Machen was, that's right. But he studied there.

24:08

However, interestingly, they left Westminster, Francis and Edith, in about 1936.

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They went to the Bible, Faith Bible College, which was rather more fundamentalist.

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And they went on matters such as non -drinking, non -smoking, that kind of thing.

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And also, Edith, they may not have been fair in this, but they felt that Westminster was a little hyper -Calvinist.

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Edith remembers being told, oh, we can't pray for little things. Don't pray for trivial things in our prayer meeting.

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And I think Edith felt, well, I believe in a God who I can pray to about trivial things.

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I believe in a God who's interested in the little things of life. So I think there was something at Westminster that they didn't quite get on with.

25:05

It tended to be on. And so you see a sort of fundamentalist influence.

25:11

He came into the denomination that was led by Carl MacIntyre. Right, Bible Presbyterian Church.

25:19

Orthodox, is that right? No, Carl MacIntyre was the Bible Presbyterian Church. That's right, the

25:25

Bible Presbyterian. They came into the Bible Presbyterian. A more fundamentalist group than the OPC, Orthodox.

25:30

That's right. They came into the Bible Presbyterian. And, in fact, there's also issues of premillennialism as well, that Schaeffer felt that that was where he was stood rather than with the

25:42

Westminster position. Abstinence from alcohol would be another landmine discussion. That's right. That's very much it.

25:47

Those are the kind of issues. So he started at Westminster.

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He did, I think, two years there and then finished at Faith Theological Seminary, which was the seminary of the

26:06

Bible Presbyterian denomination, I believe, at that time. And he then went into three pastorates with the

26:13

Bible Presbyterian Church, at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Grove City. He was there for three years.

26:19

Then he went to Chester in Pennsylvania for another two years. And then for five years after that, from 43 to 48,

26:28

I think perhaps his happiest pastorate, he was at St. Louis, Missouri. But these were all in the

26:33

Bible Presbyterian Church. So there was something, perhaps a little fundamentalist there, which he felt there was something lacking at Westminster.

26:44

However, again, 48, 49, Schaeffer began feeling very uncomfortable with the hardness and harshness and legalism that he felt and the divisiveness which had come into the

27:00

Bible Presbyterian Church. And so he wrote articles emphasizing the importance of love as well as truth.

27:12

Yes, we must separate from false doctrine and we must separate from moral declension, but there must be love.

27:23

And this became an issue for him. He was very concerned about what he detected as a lovelessness. Yeah, I had heard that there was some rhetoric back then in the early days of the

27:33

Bible Presbyterian Church where such slogans as, kill a commie for Christ and things like that.

27:39

Well, you see, MacIntyre actually called Schaeffer a communist at one point.

27:46

Wow. And what happened was when eventually they decided to come back, the mission board of that denomination ceased, or rather cut their support.

27:59

And eventually the connection with the denomination ended in the early 50s altogether and Schaeffer had to go completely solo and derive his support independently from other sources.

28:15

So it was a kind of, from 38 to 48, 50, he was in that denomination, but I think he got increasingly disenchanted with the legalism and bitterness that he detected and in the end he became persona non grata, really.

28:32

We do have a question that I will have you answer when we return from our first break.

28:38

Okay. Actually, well, she begins with an answer to something that you were puzzled about earlier.

28:46

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania says, you are right, Hampton -Sydney

28:54

College is in Virginia in the city of Hampton -Sydney and it is the oldest private chartered college in the southern

29:04

United States. Okay, right. Thank you. And currently operated by the

29:09

PCUSA, Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Okay. And she also,

29:16

B .B. also asks, what do you believe

29:21

Francis Schaeffer's greatest impact upon the body of Christ has been?

29:27

And of course, that is going to be something that you will clearly reveal piecemeal throughout the remainder of the interview, but you can answer that at any length you wish to when we come back from the first break.

29:45

Okay. If anybody else would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

29:51

As always, please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the U .S .A.

29:56

and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And B .B., give us your full mailing address because you've won a free copy of The Bite -Sized

30:05

Theology on Francis Schaeffer written by our guest today and published by Evangelical Press.

30:11

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38:42

And now we are back with our guest today, Mostyn Roberts. We are today discussing his bite -sized biography published by Evangelical Press, Francis Schaeffer.

38:55

And if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

39:02

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

39:08

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Now, do you want to wait to answer

39:17

BB's question? Because it is sort of a huge question that really is for the climax of the program.

39:27

But that's up to you. Yeah, I could wait. Perhaps if I just fly something here as a possible, something to pick up later on.

39:39

I would say it was the recovery of the idea of what he called true truth.

39:50

In other words, that there is a real objective truth, not only in the created order, created world, but also the word revealed in Scripture.

40:11

And that is inseparable from his insistence on the infallibility of Scripture.

40:18

He was a very strong champion of the inerrancy of Scripture. And his last book,

40:23

The Great Evangelical Disaster, was a wonderful call to arms, really. So I think the idea of truth, the inerrancy of Scripture, the infallibility of Scripture, connected with that was the importance of thinking.

40:39

The Christians had lost the determination to think.

40:48

There was a kind of mysticism. There was particularly the charismatic movement coming in.

40:56

And I had lost the conviction that the life of the mind was essential to living a forbed

41:08

Christian life. So those are the kind of connected areas. I was re -reading

41:14

George Orwell's famous book 1984. You've probably heard of that. And the hero of that,

41:23

Winston, says that freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals four.

41:30

Which sounds pretty banal, but actually it's very profound because what as the book proceeds, the totalitarian state in which they live has so commandeered all the organs of communication and media that everyone is absolutely dependent on simply what the state tells them.

41:58

And Winston at the end is being punished and tortured and he is being forced to say two plus two equals five, simply because the state tells him to do that.

42:10

But in the end he capitulates. But he begins by saying freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals five.

42:16

Freedom is the freedom to say there is an objective reality out there regardless of what the world is saying.

42:24

And it may not be a totalitarian state, it can be a very seductive state. It can be a very seductive media, a very seductive world that's enticing us to forget objective reality.

42:37

Oh yeah, I mean, he was obviously George Orwell and I don't mean this in a religious sense, but he was a prophet, that's for sure, because we are being told today that somebody must be viewed as a male, even if they are a biological female and vice versa, in spite of any scientific and biological and physiological evidence that we have in front of us.

43:01

That's right, and I think Schaeffer, too, was a prophet in a different way, because he could foresee what was going to happen.

43:13

And I think Schaeffer helps us to remember that actually, yeah, Christianity is not just a propaganda campaign to get people to believe the

43:21

ABCs of the Gospel. Christianity is actually about the truth of what is, you know, the

43:26

God is, first of all, a creator God. He is the God who made the heavens and the earth, and the beginning God.

43:32

And his word is truth. And that's where Christianity begins.

43:39

And I think those are the kind of foundational things that Schaeffer helps us with.

43:45

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

43:51

Can you repeat where Francis Schaeffer was born in Pennsylvania? I missed it, and I would like to know if there are any kind of museums or anything that one can visit that pays honor and tribute to this great figure from my state of Pennsylvania.

44:06

Well, my information is that he was born at home, that he was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

44:19

I regret I don't know where that is. His father was a worker in steelworks in that town.

44:31

And that's all I can say. But he was born at home because the doctor who delivered him was, as it was described, rip -roaringly drunk at the time.

44:42

And he managed to tie a sheet to the bed and told

44:48

Bessie, Francis' mother, to pull on the sheet and push. And so Bessie did, and the baby was born.

44:55

But they only discovered in 1947 when Schaeffer was applying for a passport to travel to Europe at the age of 35, that the doctor, being so drunk, had forgotten to register

45:09

Schaeffer's birth. So Bessie, thankfully, was still alive and able to swear before a notary that Francis was born on the 30th of January, 1912.

45:21

But Germantown is the best I can do for a place of birth. Well, Germantown is only about two hours from where I'm sitting.

45:27

It's near, it's a neighborhood of Philadelphia. It's a suburb of Philadelphia. Well, thank you.

45:34

I don't know anything about museums, I'm afraid. I doubt it very much if there is a museum there, but there may well be something there.

45:41

Well, thank you, Arnie, Perry County, Pennsylvania. Give us your full mailing address because you've also won a bite -sized theology on Francis Schaeffer by our guest today,

45:51

Mostyn Roberts. Thank you so much. And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com

45:59

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

46:07

USA. And if you think that we already have that information, just always give us that information anyway because we don't have that information right in front of us when we are announcing our listeners.

46:23

Well, now, when Francis Schaeffer, we reached a point where he became a

46:31

Calvinist, but there was no clear detail of when the lights, how specifically the light switch went on in that area, but perhaps you could let us know what were the things that troubled

46:47

Francis Schaeffer the most, and how did those concerns begin to erupt in him in regard to mainstream evangelicalism?

46:58

I know that he was not thrilled with a lot of what was going on in our midst.

47:04

He I think was one of the first to really identify that a lot of modern evangelicalism was lip service, giving lip service to God, and there was not a lot of actual transformation in the lives of people, nor an impact on the secular society from the church.

47:26

But if you could, let us know something about that. Yeah, I think he didn't...

47:32

One of the interesting things about Schaeffer is you realize he didn't actually start out to be a great revolutionary.

47:40

He really came to Europe in 48 to do, to be involved in children's evangelism, interestingly enough, to work with children and to try to strengthen the things that remain.

47:52

This was the great phrase that they had, to try to, in a world where people were capitulating, not so much to liberal theology as to Barthian theology, neo -orthodoxy.

48:02

He and people like Hans Ruckmacher in the late 1940s, and they became soulmates.

48:10

Both were very concerned that Barthianism, particularly, was fooling people, because it was using the language of evangelical biblical

48:19

Christianity, but actually emptying it of its content, because Barth would say, oh, there are errors in the

48:26

Bible, but nonetheless it's the word of God. Right. Karl Barth is known, perhaps, as the father or grandfather of neo -orthodoxy.

48:37

Precisely, neo -orthodoxy. And that was ironically a response to liberalism, but then included, nonetheless, liberal ideas into its theology and philosophy.

48:50

Well, I mean, Schaeffer called it semantic mysticism, because Barth would say, well, yes,

48:56

I mean, isn't it wonderful how God can reveal himself through errors and mistakes, and Schaeffer said, well, that's nonsense.

49:04

It sounds clever, but actually it's just nonsense. We need a Bible that we can believe in, that is inerrant.

49:12

He and Oliver Buswell and I think one or two others met with Barth in about 1949, 50, 51 in Switzerland, came away feeling quite disenchanted and really feeling that he was something that had to be fought against.

49:34

And I think early on what Schaeffer was having to argue for was propositional truth, that the

49:46

Bible really is propositional truth. It says things that you can believe in.

49:52

It doesn't just become the word of God when it hits you between the eyes, as Barth would have taught.

50:00

We do know that the Bible does hit us between the eyes sometimes, and it's a very special word for you, but Schaeffer would say, well, it is the word of God.

50:08

He took the traditional Westminster line that that was the

50:13

Bible. So this was something he was dealing with very early on. But what happened as they began, they started living in Switzerland, they moved to one chalet to another.

50:25

Young people were coming to them. Priscilla, their eldest daughter, went to study in Lausanne.

50:32

She brought university friends. She got her father to go to cafes. People say today, cafe evangelism.

50:40

It's not new. Schaeffer was doing it in Lausanne in Switzerland in the 1950s. And he was going and talking to students.

50:46

And all these youngsters, and he quickly detected that the real problem they had was that there was a lack of absolutes.

50:55

Everything was relative. And there was no absolutes on which they could actually found their belief.

51:04

And so they ended up in irrationality.

51:12

And so he was able to try to bring people around to seeing that the

51:20

Bible was true. But again, it has to be emphasized, he didn't just do that by teaching them.

51:28

He did that by loving them. He did it by inviting. They came to Libri. Edith was a phenomenally important part of the work because she was providing the home base.

51:39

She was doing the hospitality. She was doing the cooking. She was talking to the girls and helping them to do needlework and stuff like that.

51:47

They had people sleeping in their rooms who had sexually transmitted diseases or infections.

51:56

They lost all their wedding gifts smashed or broken or stolen within the first three years of Libri.

52:03

They were really involved sacrificially in the lives of these young people. So these young people were seeing

52:08

Christianity in action. And they weren't just getting reformed dogma.

52:14

And this was always fundamentally in love and truth. So it was this kind of propositional truth essential.

52:23

We must recover absolutes. We must show what Christianity really is in action. And that was what

52:30

Libri was in those years. Before we go to our midway break,

52:36

I'm going to read a question from one of our regular listeners who frequently contributes questions to our show.

52:44

We always love to hear from Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. Who is also a very generous financial supporter of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio.

52:54

Grady says great show brother Chris. Was Francis Schaeffer encouraged to stay in Europe by his church or did he stay on his own initiatives because this is where God led him?

53:06

We'll have you answer that if you can when we come back from our break. If anybody else wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

53:16

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

53:22

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. This is our longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio requires of us a longer break in the middle of our show because they are located in Lake City, Florida and they according to FCC regulations must localize their programming with their own public service announcements and commercials from the local area.

53:45

So please be patient. While they air their commercials, we're going to be airing our Globally Heard commercials and use this time wisely by not only writing questions down from Austin Roberts on Francis Schaeffer but also please write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them because remember

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I must continually remind you that in order for Iron Shepard's Iron Radio to exist to continue to exist, our advertisers must continue to support us and they're more likely going to do that if you, the listener, are patronizing them or if you're responding to their commercials whenever you can.

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So please write down the information provided. Please patronize our advertisers as often as you can.

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And send in a question for Austin Roberts to ChrisArnson at gmail .com

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ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be back after this station break with more of Austin Roberts and the life of Francis Schaeffer.

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01:11:19

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or if you're calling them, you can verbally tell them this. That's for any amount. Now, if you want my favorite of all time biography,

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A Pastor in New York, The Life and Time of Spencer Cone by my friend John Thornberry.

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This is also a beautiful hardback published by Evangelical Press, much larger than True Love.

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That book requires a minimum purchase of $50 of merchandise. So, if you want

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The Pastor in New York, The Life and Time of Spencer Cone by John Thornberry, you have to add that or include that in the cart at CVBBS .com.

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Then, add on top of that $50 minimum of merchandise. And then, if you enter the coupon code

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IRONSHARPENSIRON, all capitals and all one word, IRONSHARPENSIRON, that price of A Pastor in New York will be deducted from your total.

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And if you want to make life a lot easier, you could just verbally tell them on the phone by calling 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

01:12:38

And once again, a purchase of any amount, you'll receive True Love by Dr. James M.

01:12:43

Renahan if you ask for it. And you have to mention IRONSHARPENSIRON radio as well. And with a purchase of $50 or more, you'll get both books.

01:12:53

You just tell them verbally if you call them that you want True Love by James M. Renahan and also

01:12:59

A Pastor in New York, The Life and Time of Spencer Cone. As I have been repeating, that is my favorite of all biographies.

01:13:06

I just love that book and it is tragic. It is so tragic that Spencer Cone is hardly known at all today when he had such a phenomenal life, faithful to the

01:13:19

Scriptures, faithful to Christ, and should be known much more widely. And as I have been saying, his life should be a major motion picture or documentary.

01:13:28

It's that fascinating. Before I return to Mostyn Roberts, our guest today, who is discussing the life and legacy of Francis Schaeffer, which is included in an abbreviated fashion in the bite -sized biography he wrote for Evangelical Press.

01:13:45

Before we return to that discussion, we just have a couple of announcements to make. First of all, the

01:13:51

Foundations Conference in New York City is going to be held this December, the 19th and 20th, which is a

01:13:57

Thursday and Friday. I am so excited to go there once again to my old stomping grounds in Manhattan, especially during the

01:14:03

Christmas season when it's so beautiful in Manhattan, to this conference. The Foundations Conference is a conference of sermon audio, therefore you could trust it for its theological soundness for sure.

01:14:15

The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, founder of One Passion Ministries, Paul Washer, Rev.

01:14:21

Jeff Thomas, Rev. Armin Tomasian, Richard Colwell Jr., and Andrew Quigley.

01:14:28

If you would like to attend this conference with me, just go to thefoundationsconference .com,

01:14:36

thefoundationsconference .com, and register. This is for men in ministry leadership, so I would register as quickly as possible because the venue can only hold less than 200 people, so I would strongly urge you, before they run out of room, to register.

01:14:53

That's thefoundationsconference .com. Then, in January of 2020, from Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th,

01:15:02

I will once again be in Atlanta, Georgia, more specifically College Park, Georgia, at the

01:15:09

Georgia International Convention Center. I will be manning an exhibitor's booth for Eintrep and Zion Radio at the

01:15:15

G3 Conference. I love this conference. I've been going every year for the last three years, and it is a phenomenal conference.

01:15:24

The three G's stand for gospel, grace, and glory, and they have, as always, an extraordinary lineup of speakers.

01:15:31

The speakers this January include Kosti Hinn, who is the

01:15:37

Reformed Baptist and cessationist nephew of the notorious heretic and charlatan

01:15:44

Benny Hinn. Kosti does not shy away from aggressively seeking to expose his own uncle and all of those in the

01:15:56

Word of Faith movement for teaching the dangerous and deadly and damning doctrines that they are known for in that movement.

01:16:04

The theme, by the way, this January, is Worship Matters, which very much goes hand -in -hand with the theme of exposing false worship, which would be another part of the

01:16:16

Word of Faith movement's heresies, if not blasphemies. So Kosti Hinn will be on that lineup.

01:16:25

Daryl Bernard Harrison has just been added. Oh boy, am I looking forward to hearing him speak.

01:16:30

Daryl Bernard Harrison, such a gift to the body of Christ. David Miller is on the lineup.

01:16:37

Derek Thomas, who is no stranger to the majority of Reformed Christians. My friend

01:16:42

Dr. James R. White, going all the way back to 1995. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is on the lineup.

01:16:49

Jeremy Volo, who has been on this show a number of times. What a phenomenal brother in Christ Jeremy is, a former professional soccer player with the

01:16:58

San Antonio Scorpions, now a Reformed Baptist pastor in Laredo, Texas.

01:17:04

Joel Beakey, the president of the Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. And wow, I just found this out this very second.

01:17:12

John MacArthur is on the lineup at the G3 Conference.

01:17:17

Wow. Paul Washer and Stephen Lawson are also on the lineup at this conference.

01:17:25

Stephen Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

01:17:30

R .C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries. Dr. Tom Askell, the president of Founders Ministries, very good friend of mine for many years.

01:17:38

This is a ministry which is a Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention. Virgil Walker, who

01:17:45

I've heard many good things about, is on the roster. And Voli Baucom, one of the most profound speakers of the 20th century, 21st century

01:17:52

I should say, all on this roster and more. Go to g3conference .com,

01:17:59

g3conference .com and register. I would strongly also urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth at the

01:18:06

G3 Conference because they expect over 5 ,000 people there. Every year they've had over 5 ,000 people since they've moved to the

01:18:15

Georgia International Convention Center. So register if it applies to you, if you have a business or a parachurch ministry that you want to promote amongst the body of Christ.

01:18:25

With a crowd that large, it would be a wise move to register for an exhibitor's booth while they have room. That's g3conference .com,

01:18:31

g3conference .com. And now, once again, even though I feel very uncomfortable constantly reminding you of this,

01:18:39

I need to do it if we are going to remain on the air. That is Iron Trip and Zion Radio. If you love this show, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to irontripandzionradio .com,

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01:20:41

Remember, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church and you're not prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

01:20:48

So please, if you need help finding a church, I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world.

01:20:54

I can help you find a church, just as I have already done for many listeners in the Iron Trip and Zion Radio audience.

01:21:00

I've also helped people going on vacation who need a church in parts unknown, in reference to a local faithful church where they're vacationing.

01:21:10

So, whatever the reason may be, maybe it's a loved one in another part of the country or the world that needs a church near them, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:21:19

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put something like, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can write in a question to Mostyn Roberts on the life of Francis Schaeffer.

01:21:30

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And let me read again the question from Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina.

01:21:39

Was Francis Schaeffer encouraged to stay in Europe by his church or did he stay on his own initiatives because this is where God led him?

01:21:48

Well, I mean, in 1947 he went as a joint envoy, as it were, of the

01:21:57

International Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions that had been set up by Machen in the 30s and also the more separatist

01:22:05

ACCC, which was the American Council for Christian Churches.

01:22:12

And he represented them both. He came back, but in 1948 it was the independent board, apparently, presumably without the

01:22:20

ACC, which decided to send him over. But at all this time he was still, he decided to send him back, and they wanted him to strengthen the things that remain, in other words, to be a missionary in Europe.

01:22:36

And all this time he was still a member of the Bible Presbyterian Church denomination.

01:22:41

So they went over, they eventually settled in Switzerland in 1948 -49.

01:22:51

But what happened in the ensuing years was that there were tensions in the

01:22:59

Bible Presbyterian Church, as I indicated. Eventually in 1956, a bit later, there was a split.

01:23:09

Carl MacIntyre went one way, Oswald Breslau went another. But by this time,

01:23:18

Schaeffer had left. The independent board was no longer prepared to support

01:23:26

Schaeffer. But they stayed anyway, because they were very convinced by now, in the early 1950s, that this was where the

01:23:46

Lord was calling them. So they were sent, but as they stayed in Switzerland, the links with the

01:23:57

Bible Presbyterian Church, and also the International Board of Missions, broke.

01:24:04

And they decided that it was right for them to stay in Switzerland, and they became independent.

01:24:11

Well, thank you, Grady. You've also won a free copy of the bite -sized biography on Francis Schaeffer by our guest today,

01:24:19

Mostyn Roberts, published by Evangelical Press. Please make sure we have your full mailing address.

01:24:26

Thanks for the question. We have another North Carolinian. I don't know if they know each other, but it is a new friend of mine.

01:24:33

Started out just as a listener, now he's become a friend. He and his wife had me in their home last week for two nights in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I was so delighted to be there and fellowship with them.

01:24:47

I'm speaking of Sterling Vanderwerker and his wife, Bronnie, who own and operate

01:24:54

Royal Diadem Jewelers in Greensboro, North Carolina, and they are going to be a new advertiser,

01:25:00

God willing, on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, coming up in the near future. But Sterling sent in this question, since Francis Schaeffer spent time in Switzerland, do you know if and what impact

01:25:14

Cornelius Van Til had on him? I didn't know

01:25:20

Cornelius Van Til was from Switzerland, because he was on the faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary.

01:25:26

Yeah, the connection with Van Til was not to do... Yeah, I mean, it was with Switzerland particularly, but it was that Cornelius Van Til was a tutor, a professor of Schaeffer's in Westminster in the 1930s.

01:25:39

But later in life, Cornelius Van Til, sadly, and this is to some Schaeffer's sadness, criticized

01:25:44

Schaeffer because he felt that Schaeffer was not being true to his, that Van Til's, presuppositional method of apologetics.

01:25:54

He thought that Schaeffer was more evidentialist or something? Yes, he felt that he was more evidentialist, or at least inconsistent in his presuppositionalism.

01:26:04

And so there was a bit of criticism flying around in the air from Van Til towards Schaeffer, and I think

01:26:12

Schaeffer felt a bit saddened by that because it didn't seem a bit unnecessary.

01:26:19

So yes, Van Til certainly would have had an influence on Schaeffer in his student days. The interesting thing about Schaeffer's apologetics, of course,

01:26:27

I think there's a chapter, a bit on it in the book, his main ideas on apologetics really had been there even in as early as 1948.

01:26:43

He wrote in response to a review of a book called The Christian Apologetics by E. J. Carnell, setting out his own views, that the aim of apologetics was to point out to the unbeliever that they were being inconsistent.

01:27:02

He called it taking the roof off or finding the point of tension, because he said the unbeliever is bound to be inconsistent because he's living in God's world, he's living in the image of God, he's living as a creature of God, and yet he's living as if he were autonomous and against God.

01:27:19

So there are going to be points of tension there. But Schaeffer had more or less worked out this outline as early as 1948, even before he'd settled in Switzerland.

01:27:31

And then he became famous as an apologist, and there were debates about, well, exactly what kind of apologetics was

01:27:42

Schaeffer. I mean, he was called a propositional, he was called a

01:27:52

Presuppositional? Evidentialist, a presuppositionalist, an inconsistent presuppositionalist, and all kinds of things.

01:28:01

I think the best thing that I've seen in relation to Schaeffer's own views was a letter he wrote to Colin Dury as the author of another biography of Schaeffer in 1972.

01:28:19

I increasingly realize, say, Schaeffer, that really I have very little interest in theoretical apologetics at all, because to me apologetics only has value insofar as it is related to evangelism.

01:28:31

In this same direction, I have no interest ever in writing another book on philosophy after he is there and he is not silent.

01:28:39

I might write short things, but the reason I do not expect to write another book after the trilogy is because from this point on, it would become more abstract apologetic and abstract philosophy.

01:28:52

And while I believe others may be called to do this, I am quite sure it is not my calling from the Lord. So I think

01:28:59

Schaeffer, you see, was fundamentally a pastor and an evangelist. And he became known through his trilogy,

01:29:11

God Who Is There, Escape From Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. And people get the idea that he was a philosopher, and he certainly could engage with philosophy, he could certainly meet philosophers on their own ground, and he certainly thought philosophically.

01:29:29

But he was never interested in, worried about what category of apologetics he fell into, you know, these kind of rather arid disputes that some

01:29:38

Christians have. Well, thank you, Sterling. And make sure you give me your full mailing address, because you have also won a free copy of The Bite -Sized

01:29:48

Biography. I'm Francis Schaeffer, by my guest today, Mostyn Roberts, published by Evangelical Press.

01:29:55

And we look forward to getting that out to you. We have Mary in Cork, Ireland, who asks,

01:30:02

Is it true that during a day when the Catholic Church had a stronghold in the pro -life movement,

01:30:09

Francis Schaeffer was an early voice amongst Protestants decrying infanticide in the

01:30:15

United States? Yes, certainly. He came...

01:30:23

He is very well known for being probably one of the earliest evangelicals to bring evangelicals into the front line in terms of opposing abortion.

01:30:40

A friendship with Chuck Everett Coop, who became the Surgeon General under President Reagan, I never heard him called

01:30:48

Chuck before. Is that... He might be

01:30:53

Chuck, I just never heard him called Chuck. Dr. Coop. Yeah, I met Dr. Coop, actually, at 10th

01:30:59

Presbyterian Church many years ago at the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology. But, sorry, interrupted you. Well, that friendship began as early as 1955, when he attended one of the children who was ill.

01:31:13

But that continues, and of course it was with Coop that Schaeffer made the film Whatever Happened to the

01:31:18

Human Race? And I think Schaeffer, too, shocked some evangelicals because he said that he was willing to stand alongside

01:31:29

Roman Catholics as what he called co -belligerent. What he said was, they're not allies.

01:31:36

He said, an ally is a person who's a born -again Christian with whom I can go a long way down the road. A co -belligerent is a person who may not have any sufficient basis for taking the right position, but takes the right position on a single issue.

01:31:50

In other words, Roman Catholics, even Mormons, you know, people who would take the stand on that.

01:31:59

And, yeah, I mean, even today, I mean, I have to say, sometimes in this country,

01:32:05

Muslims are taking stronger stands on some of the LGBTQ and transgender issues in education in schools than Christians are.

01:32:17

You know, we would stand with them on some of those issues, the moral issues. We would be a million miles away, of course, on any kind of spiritual issues.

01:32:26

But I think Schaeffer sort of put that view across, yeah. Well, thank you,

01:32:31

Mary and Cork Arland. And we know that you have a relative in the United States who will send that book out to you.

01:32:38

So thank you very much for contributing your question. In fact, right before the show began, off the air, my guest,

01:32:45

Mostyn Roberts, was interested in the fact that we seem to draw listeners in Ireland to this program.

01:32:53

Let's see, we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asked, outside of the

01:33:02

United States and Switzerland and the United Kingdom, how big of an impact that you are aware of did

01:33:10

Francis Schaeffer have on the church globally? Hmm, interesting question.

01:33:18

He certainly had far more impact, I think, in America even than in the UK. I think he, it's a bit, his impact in the

01:33:30

UK was slightly limited by the fact that he was regarded a little bit eccentric because he wore knee bridges rather than goatees.

01:33:39

Coming from people who are kilts, that's not much of a criticism.

01:33:48

I think also he, because he was reformed, but he was rather different from Lloyd -Jones, and there's a very different emphasis from Lloyd -Jones.

01:33:56

They were friends, Lloyd -Jones preached at one of his daughter's weddings in 1958, I think it was

01:34:01

Priscilla. But there was a difference in emphasis, and I think

01:34:08

Lloyd -Jones possibly was rather critical of Schaeffer's, of what he thought was over -emphasis in politics and culture and things.

01:34:16

But the burgeoning Puritan lovers in England in the 60s and 70s just were very suspicious of this rather eccentric, philosophical -sounding

01:34:25

American. But he did get a foothold. There was a big conference in the 60s in Swanwick, and there was a man called

01:34:32

Geraint Fielder who was very involved. And so he certainly was influential, and there was a branch set up in England, but not quite as much as in America.

01:34:40

In Europe, now I'm just looking at the... When I wrote the book, and it may be different now, but there were branches in Rochester, Minnesota, and Southborough, Massachusetts.

01:34:50

Holland, there was a branch in Holland, a branch in Sweden, a branch in Canada and Korea. Germany, Australia, and Brazil.

01:34:58

So there were quite a lot of branches of LaBrie around the world. How influential they were, difficult to tell.

01:35:05

I don't know. But certainly, there were branches of LaBrie in different parts of the world.

01:35:13

We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

01:35:20

And Christopher asks, what is the reason that Francis Schaeffer's son,

01:35:30

Frankie, gave for initially leaving his father's faith and then embracing, more recently in history, atheism?

01:35:40

Yeah. Yeah, Frankie Schaeffer was for a while an Eastern Orthodox. Frankie Schaeffer.

01:35:45

So, yeah, Frankie Schaeffer was the moving spirit behind the Schaeffer films, of course, How Should We Then Live, and sadly,

01:35:54

I have read his books, Crazy for God, and his other book, Sex, Mom and God, and I know that he did move from the fundamentalism, as he saw it, through evangelicalism, through to Eastern Orthodoxy and then atheism.

01:36:13

I just found his... I've just been reading his last books very, very sad, totally, totally.

01:36:19

I think if you need to read those books, may I suggest, if you're interested enough, Crazy for God, Sex, Mom and God, they're not nice books to read, but they would tell you...

01:36:29

I think he just found the whole thing unbelievable, and he lost any kind of sense of credibility once...

01:36:45

I don't know. If I say more, I'll become very critical of Frankie, and I don't particularly want to do that.

01:36:50

Right, right. Believe it or not, he contacted me not all that long ago, wanting me to interview him on his family and his upbringing, and I did not feel comfortable doing that, because I think he was already an atheist at that time.

01:37:05

Yeah, his books are very critical of his parents, which is very sad, really. It's a sad thing to criticize your parents in books,

01:37:11

I feel. Well, I would love to have a debate with him, not personally, but arrange a debate. Frankie, if you're listening, if you want to have a debate on my show,

01:37:18

I'd be open to that. But we are going right now to our final break.

01:37:24

It's much more brief than the last one. If you have a question that you'd like to ask Mostyn Roberts about the life and legacy of Francis Schaeffer, please do it quickly, because we are going to be out of time before you know it.

01:37:37

And once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:37:43

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

01:37:49

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We hope to hear from you soon with your questions.

01:37:56

For our guest Mostyn Roberts on Francis Schaeffer. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

01:38:09

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

01:38:17

Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

01:38:33

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

01:38:46

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

01:39:03

As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:39:10

A 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.

01:39:20

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

01:39:25

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

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God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

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God -centered focus. 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.

01:39:53

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

01:40:19

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, this is

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

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Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

01:40:51

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01:41:00

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

01:41:07

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.

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

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am

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I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

01:41:53

I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a

01:41:59

Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

01:42:06

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

01:42:14

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostle's priority, it must not be ours either.

01:42:21

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

01:42:33

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01:42:40

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.

01:42:46

Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

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Spread the word about firstloveradio .org. Welcome back and this is the final segment of our interview today with Mostyn Roberts on the life and legacy of Francis Schaeffer, who is the theme of one of evangelical press's bite -sized biographies that was written by Mostyn Roberts on Francis Schaeffer.

01:51:27

If you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:51:34

And by the way, mark your calendars for this Monday. Michael Haken, the renowned

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Baptist historian, is returning to Iron Sharpens Iron radio to discuss

01:51:45

Baptists and persecution. So you don't want to miss that fascinating interview. I'm sure it will be fascinating with Dr.

01:51:53

Michael Haken this Monday. But Mostyn Roberts, I want to make sure that you say, before we go into any listener question,

01:52:01

I want you to say what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding the life and legacy of this great man of God, Francis Schaeffer.

01:52:09

There's just a period which I think is very important. It's just leading up to libery. In 1951, when they were settling into Switzerland, Schaeffer himself went through a spiritual crisis.

01:52:22

And he told his wife that for the sake of honesty, he needed to go back to his agnosticism and think the whole matter through again.

01:52:29

So he placed the hayloft famously in one of his chalet bijoux, where they were living at the time.

01:52:35

And he'd go for walks and he prayed and he was quite scared that all this was going to end up.

01:52:41

She said for her it was like a flower of despondence. She sort of prayed for him. But eventually he came through this.

01:52:48

It was about a two -month critical phase at the beginning of 1951. And he was convinced that there were totally sufficient reasons to know that what he called the infinite personal

01:53:00

God existed, that Christianity was true. And as he said, the sun came out, the song came, and he began to write poetry again.

01:53:11

And from that period, he developed a sympathy for people who were struggling, people who did have real doubts, an ability to answer their questions without himself being frightened by them, because he knew what it was like to go through these things, and a tremendous sympathy for them, and a solid foundation for his later adventures.

01:53:31

In a sense, that was a very personal preparation for the apologetics, discussion, and evangelism work he was going to be doing over the next 30 years, based at L 'Abri.

01:53:43

And then, of course, the story of leading up to L 'Abri itself. They were told they had to leave

01:53:52

Switzerland. And then the amazing series of God -given coincidences in which the money kept coming in for them to be able to buy a chalet, they were able to convince the authorities that they should be able to stay.

01:54:15

And Colin Durie, as in another biography, says that that whole section, that whole time in 1554 -55, when they were having to read a new chapter of the

01:54:26

Book of Acts, in itself, it's just worth reading. You'll read about it in Edith's book,

01:54:32

L 'Abri, for example, where she writes of the history of L 'Abri. So there was this kind of real grappling with spiritual issues, and this is what

01:54:41

Schaeffer wanted to make L 'Abri be, that it wasn't just a place to come and hear a doctrinally orthodox story.

01:54:50

It was really somewhere which was grounded in the supernatural, because they were demonstrating the existence of God by faith and prayer.

01:55:01

And in a sense, they'd already gone through this, Schaeffer in his personal spiritual battles, and then in this tremendous test of faith, as God kept, you know, 8 ,000 francs for one day, enough for $1 ,000 for another, and just at the moment they needed the last -minute money, it would come.

01:55:18

So I think it's important, Schaeffer was never charismatic, he never was a mystic, he never made a big issue, but he genuinely did believe that if we're going to live a

01:55:27

Christian life, it's got to be a supernatural life. And otherwise, you're going to go into dead orthodoxy, which he saw was the problem of a lot of the young people who were coming to L 'Abri disillusioned out of Western Christianity.

01:55:45

We have a listener in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, CJ, who says, what was it about Francis Schaeffer that enabled him to hold firmly to the doctrines of Reformed theology, and yet be appealing to those outside of that camp of theology?

01:56:03

For instance, I can remember vividly Pat Robertson on The 700 Club interviewing him at quite great length.

01:56:11

What was it about this man where he could balance his firmed convictions on Calvinism, and yet draw people from different spheres of theology into an interest of his teaching?

01:56:26

Well, you're absolutely right. He held to the Westminster Confession, he started an international

01:56:33

Presbyterian church, he lectured, I've listened to some tapes that he did on the Westminster Confession, so he was always a firm

01:56:38

Westminster man. But he also had his finger very firmly on the pulse of what was going on in the wider world.

01:56:50

And I think there were a number of issues feeding into that. First of all, his own personality. Don't forget, he had a kind of very inquiring intellectual mind.

01:56:58

He had come to faith at the age of 17 from a background of realizing philosophy was asking all the questions, but the

01:57:06

Bible was providing the answers. And that kind of questioning approach to life, which a lot of Christians don't have, never left him.

01:57:18

He was always able to relate to people outside the Bible's world, if I can put it like that, and yet be able to communicate to them the message of the

01:57:28

Bible. He saw himself very much, if I can say this, as Paul in Athens. You know, Paul at the

01:57:33

Areopagus. God is the creator. Begin with God the creator. He's your creator as well as my creator.

01:57:40

You're in his image. You're living inconsistently. There will be a judgment. Christ is the answer.

01:57:47

These are the kind of... But he started with a God of creation, and through Christ, he wanted to lead people back to the

01:57:55

God of creation. But I think that idea of the creator

01:58:01

God was the key to his evangelism, because he could see where unbelievers were being inconsistent and needed to come in to bow to God.

01:58:13

He also taught Christians how to live in creation. So he would say your sanctification must cover every area of life, and there is no area of life, bar those that are inherently immoral, there's no area of life, be it art, economics, or politics, or philosophy, that a

01:58:30

Christian cannot go and be a Christian. And I think it was that sort of wide -ranging idea of the creator

01:58:37

God that enabled him to communicate with people. Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure our listeners remember the website for the

01:58:47

Welland Evangelical Church in the United Kingdom, where Mostyn Roberts serves as minister.

01:58:52

It's welland -evangelical .org .uk, and Welland is spelled

01:58:58

W -E -L -W -Y -N -evangelical .org

01:59:03

.uk. And if you want to order the book, The Bite -Sized Theology, on Francis Schaeffer, published by Evangelical Press, you could go to our sponsor's website,

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, cv, which stands for Cumberland Valley, bbs, for biblebookservice .com.

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If you live in the United Kingdom, it would be better to order from Evangelical Press Books' website, epbooks .org,

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epbooks .org, and you can order right there, less expensively in the United Kingdom.

01:59:36

We want to thank you so much, Mostyn Roberts, for being our guest today. I look forward to your many returns as our guest.

01:59:42

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions. I hope you all have a safe and happy and blessed weekend, and especially a

01:59:50

God -honoring Lord's Day. And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater