February 10, 2016 Show with Brandon F. Smith on “The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists” and Ed Wallen on “Leaving Darkland: How God’s Instruction Manual Gives Effective Prescriptions for Life’s Most Difficult Problems”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 10th day of February 2016 and I'm delighted to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron two guests that I'm eager to introduce to my audience.

During the first hour we're going to be interviewing Brandon F. Smith on his new book,

The Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists, and that may not seem like any kind of an extraordinary title or theme, but there is a lot more controversy to that theme than you may realize.

Second hour we are going to be interviewing Ed Wallen on his new book,

Leaving Dark Land, How God's Instruction Manual Gives Effective Prescriptions for Life's Most Difficult Problems.

That will be our second hour, but first of all it is my honor and privilege to welcome for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Brandon F.

Smith. Well thank you Chris. I'm glad to be here. It's an honor for me to be on the show with you and I look forward to this hour together and just thank you for the work that you do with Iron Sharpens Iron.

Well I really appreciate it. It's always a joy to me that I cannot even describe in words when

I hear from pastors from not only all over the United States but all over the world who have emailed me or called me to let me know that the program is a blessing to them and not only pastors but Christians in all areas of life and even occasionally a non -Christian, even a

Muslim on occasion, but even on occasion I've heard from Muslims who may disagree with me radically in my position but who are thankful that I handled a topic fairly.

But anyway, before we even get into the theme at hand, the gospel history of Georgia Baptists, tell us something about the church where you are pastor.

Pastor Trinity Reform Baptist Church in Jackson, Georgia. We're about 35 miles south of Atlanta, Georgia.

The church is about 15 years old. We're a church plant. I've been an elder at the church that whole time and have been the pastor for about 13 years now and so very thankful for the congregation here.

They've been gracious to us. The Lord has seen us through some trials and frowning providence.

Our first pastor was killed in a car accident. He was one of my best friends but the

Lord saw us through that trial and was very gracious to sustain the church and draw us closer together and so we've continued to be hopefully a faithful witness here south of Atlanta for about 13 years or so.

And why don't you tell our listeners something about, I mean, obviously there's a very strong likelihood that the majority of my listeners know what a

Reform Baptist is, but that there are some that may not be familiar with that.

There may be some who are new listeners who are not themselves theologically Reformed. They are hearing this term for the first time.

Please explain what exactly that means. Well, basically, Chris, Reform Baptists are historic

Baptists. A lot of our Baptist formations from England in the 1600s are

Calvinistic. They're Reformed in their sense of doctrine and salvation. We believe that God is sovereign over all parts of life, including salvation, that God has a people for himself chosen before the beginning of time and he has saved them through his

Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by his perfect obedience on this earth and his perfect death on the cross and his resurrection, that that was the true and one and only sacrifice to save God's people.

We believe that God is sovereign over all of that work in the church and over everything in life.

There's not one thing that he is not sovereign over. And also, it deals a lot with the idea of the covenant, that we are covenantal in the idea that God has always dealt with his people by way of covenant.

He has always covenanted to save his people, and he's always worked through them with him through those covenants.

That kind of gives some of the basics. The term Calvinist, that's a buzzword that can be very, you know, ugly in some terms to people, but it's not really meant to be an ugly term.

It's not a term that we're supposed to get angry about or upset about. It's just a historic term to kind of give an understanding of these doctrines, especially the doctrine of salvation that we hold to.

Great. I just want to read a commendation for this book that was written by a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron.

He's probably been a guest close to five times, perhaps more. But Dr. Tom Nettles, who was until recently on the faculty at the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky before his retirement, and before that he was at the

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and has developed a friendship with me, thanks be to God, over the years, and is a brilliant historian, author of By His Grace and For His Glory, amongst many other things.

And Tom Nettles has said about the gospel heritage of Georgia Baptists, this present volume highlights the early days of theological witness among Baptists in Georgia.

Truly noble were these men. Marshall, Marshall, and Mercer, who grasped the importance of embracing and proclaiming all the truths of God's revelation to men.

Kurt Smith and Brandon Smith have given a clear and vigorous discussion of the early

Baptist witness to the gospel in Georgia. That sinners are reconciled to God, are moved from their condition of condemnation by the mercy and grace of God, apart from any meritorious attainment on the part of man.

Yea, in spite of the massive accumulations of demerit should sound like good news in the ear of any that truly feels the justice of God's wrath and anger against them.

These humble heroes of truth among Georgia Baptists were concerned that the trust that sinners had was fully directed toward Christ alone, with an undiluted sense of their dependence on the divine initiative, continuance, and consummation in their salvation.

I apologize to everybody for stumbling through that for a little bit, but I'm realizing I need prescription glasses very soon.

But Tom Nettles has obviously written some powerful words about your book and about the truths that your book documents.

Well, why did you find the need to write this book to begin with, and what developed an interest in you to write this book?

Well, Chris, that's an interesting little story. You know,

I grew up Southern Baptist, and so I certainly have a Southern Baptist background, and I'm thankful to my family for growing up in a

Christian home, and certainly all the years of encouragement that I had in the faith.

So, I have that background, a Southern Baptist background, which was one piece of that.

But I also went back to do some degree work and was a history major and enjoy history, love history.

And while I was doing that degree work, I took a class that I was supposed to write a what's called a primary source paper or a secondary source paper.

Primary sources being going back to those sources which directly are in the time frame of the historic period or secondary sources, those coming afterwards, people writing about the period.

Well, I wanted to do a primary source paper, and I asked my professor, I said, well, could

I go do a paper on the salvation doctrines of early

Georgia Baptists? And he said, well, yeah, you can do that. He said, but you need to narrow it down.

And so I worked with him on the topic and ended up doing this paper. It was only about a 10 or 12 -page paper.

And I sent it to this friend of mine, Kurt Smith. And I said to Kurt, I said, Kurt, I know you're a good

Baptist historian, and I want you to just read this paper. It's a primary source paper, and I want you to, you know, look at it and make sure

I don't have any problems here or you see discrepancies or things I ought to consider. And so Kurt looked it over, and he got back to me and said,

Brandon, you need to do more with this. He said, you need to continue to do this research and do more with this.

And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, he said, maybe we could, you know, turn from this material into an article or a book.

He said, you know, I've written several biographical sketches for early men in Georgia Baptist history.

And he said, maybe we can do some combination work. And I said, well, okay. You know, Kurt's a really good writer and a very good historian.

And I thought, I don't know about this, you know. I said, but I'll work with him. And from there,

I ended up doing a seminar paper on it, and it turned into more research work and continuing to do research in the archives at Mercer University.

And after a while, we developed this book, and that was really kind of the start of it.

The other thing that happened is Kurt really informed me. I've not kept up with Southern Baptist circles as closely sometimes as I probably should have.

And Kurt informed me that in our own state here in Georgia, as well as among the Southern Baptists, I knew region -wise we were having some discussions about the

Doctrines of Grace, but I didn't realize our own state had quite a bit of controversy over the issue, and quite a bit of that controversy dealt with, historically, what were the doctrines that formed early

Georgia Baptist thought. And there's been a lot of that discussion that's been taking place over the last five to ten years, and Kurt said, well,

I've talked to Dr. Nettles some, and he's, you know, he really thinks it's an important issue, and we need to deal with it.

And so we continued to do the work. Kurt wrote three biographical sketches in the book, and then

I began to piece together materials to show, here's what these men, these churches, these associations in early

Georgia, here's what they believed. And as Kurt put his material together,

I thought, wow, we may have something here. And Dr. Nettles ended up writing the, not only did he give us a commendation, but he wrote the introduction for the book.

So that's kind of how it started. Yes, and the co -author of the book, as you were mentioning his name earlier, is

Kurt Smith, but you two are Smith brothers of another mother. That's right.

Kurt and I have been friends probably since about 2000, about 15, 16 years now, but we share the same last name.

The interesting thing for Kurt, though, one of the biographical sketches he wrote was on Daniel Marshall. And Daniel Marshall is one of the key early figures in Georgia Baptist history, and Kurt is actually, he's kin to Daniel Marshall.

And so through this process, I've learned a lot of things about Georgia Baptist history, but I've learned a lot of things about my friends as well.

Yes, people may think that I was reading a typo before when I said Marshall, Marshall, and Mercer, but Abraham Marshall and Daniel Marshall are two of the individuals that were mentioned in that commendation.

That's correct. That's correct. Daniel Marshall was the pastor who founded the first continuing

Baptist church in the state of Georgia in 1772, and he followed, or his son

Abraham Marshall followed him as the pastor of that church, and that was the Coyote Baptist Church.

Well, 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 give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

United States. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com,

and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. Perhaps you're going to be revealing something that you believe that is at odds with your church or some reason that you may feel the need to remain anonymous.

You may do so. One of the reasons I think that things like what you have written are important is that people view truths that you and I, and all who wear the label

Theologically Reformed, Sovereign Grace, Calvinist, whatever the label that you choose to use, we have been viewed as holding onto beliefs that are ranging from either cultic or out of step with historic

Christianity, or some kind of weird extreme view that has always been a minority or that has always been held to by a minority of professing

Christians, and so on. But this is not the case. The history of the Christian church is rich with those that believed in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, and especially you will hear these slanderous remarks about what we believe from the lips of Baptists, and it's just a sad testimony to the fact that many

Baptists just do not know their own history. Am I right? Yeah, Chris, you're exactly right.

I mean, when I came to the doctrines of grace, when I came to understand God's sovereignty and salvation in 1998, that was a troubling thought for me, because I really did not know any other

Baptist except for this friend of mine, Joey Huggins, who had shown me some historic

Baptist material about the doctrine of grace, and one other pastor that would have called themselves

Reformed, and I was very concerned. I didn't know what quite to do with that, and then even after I became comfortable with what

I believed and what I understood enough to speak about it, within, you know, 18 months to two years, what

I began to see is people, they just didn't know what to do with it. The only thing they knew about it was negative, and the word you used, cultic, was exactly right.

When we planted our church in 2000, I can't tell you the number of times our church was called a cult, and it was all because people didn't understand the historic

Christian faith, that there were men down through the ages, not just Georgia Baptists from the late 1700s, but we're talking men during the

Reformation period. This is the reason the Reformation took place, to show God's sovereignty and salvation.

We're talking going back to Augustine in the fourth century. You know, these type of things were not really known.

Christians are not good at their own history, and Baptists particularly are very impoverished in understanding their history, and so this book really does try to give a perspective to help people understand, not only early

Georgia Baptists, but this is really early Southern Baptist life as well, and it says a lot about Baptist life in America, in a sense, that these early

Baptists in Georgia, they really held to these doctrines, and they held to them not only, you know, in an abstract way, but they held to them very tightly, and their church documents show that, their writings, their sermons show that, and so these men, it wasn't as though they couldn't think, they weren't very thoughtful, wasn't as though they were ignorant or uneducated.

Some of them weren't as educated as others, but even the ones that didn't have the education that some of the men did in early

Georgia Baptists, and even Baptist life in general, they still generally held to these doctrines, but now

Georgia Baptists, they were very, very careful to make sure that people understood their doctrine, and all of their church confessions show you very clearly these are the doctrines they held to.

They held to what would be called total depravity, or unconditional election, or particular atonement, or efficacious grace, or perseverance of the saints.

These are doctrines these men, these churches, these associations held to very outwardly and very thoughtfully.

Yes, and I think, don't you agree that one of the reasons that these precious truths must be reclaimed and must be set forth as the beliefs of many of the heroes of the

Christian faith is because, number one, the great men of God from the past are being slandered when they are being described as rejecting these truths that we call the doctrines of grace, but even more importantly, the level at which the enemies of sovereign grace place man, man and his abilities, man and his innate goodness according to their own system, is really at odds with the scripture, and at odds with the gospel.

The doctrines of sovereign grace, as you and I would affirm, really put the spotlight on how wicked man is, and how incapable he is of even turning to Christ in a saving way, apart from the saving power of the

Holy Spirit doing a work within him initially, and the awesome sovereignty and righteousness and power of God who truly deserves 100 percent of the credit, the praise, the honor and glory for our salvation.

Not 99 .99999 percent, but 100 percent. That's right.

Don't you think that that contrast needs to be really echoed over and over again today?

Well, certainly, because we have a culture that wants to tell people, well, we're basically good.

And even though many conservative churches and conservative Baptist churches still will talk about sin and still have some preaching about sin, but there's not a real biblical understanding of sin, of what it is and what it has done to man and his nature.

And so, the church still holds a little bit of this mentality that, well, we know we're not basically good, but yet we're not near as bad as some people think we are.

And so, these doctrines are important because I've contended all along, if we can get people to understand what the scripture teaches about sin, and they really will believe it, it will be a lot easier for them to hold these other doctrines.

To talk about the doctrine of election won't be so hard. It'll be difficult, but it won't be so hard if we really understand that not one of us is good, not one of us is righteous, not one of us can seek

God or understand God. All our righteousness is at filthy rags. I mean, that type of scriptural language, when you really dive into that and see it, you were once dead in your sin.

What does dead mean? Well, it means that you were exactly dead.

You could not raise yourself. You get people to understand that kind of language and understand it biblically, then the conversations about election and efficacious grace and those things, it becomes a little easier.

It doesn't solve it totally, but it becomes a lot easier because we understand who man is and what he has done is totally against God, and only

God can reconcile man and not leave man to himself.

Yes. And I'm sure that most of those who oppose what we believe and what

Baptists have in the majority historically believed and what theologically

Reformed and Calvinist and Sovereign Grace believers have always claimed, I'm sure if we were to pose the question to the enemies of those teachings, do you believe that God alone saves sinners?

Yes, I do believe that. And do you believe that sinners cannot help save themselves?

Yes, I believe that. I'm sure that they would agree with those questions, and they would answer them in the affirmative, but they cannot logically and consistently answer in the affirmative to those questions.

Yeah. No, not when you see their other doctrines worked out and the practice of the church today, you understand that, well, they're not logically putting those things together.

But you're right, you're asking those questions. And even, you know, many Christians, you ask them, is God sovereign?

Oh yes, God's sovereign. Is He sovereign over all things? Oh yes, He's sovereign over all things. Is He completely sovereign over salvation?

Did you choose God, or did He choose you first? Well, all of a sudden they have to stop and think for a moment.

And so that's why doctrines like this and recovering them from the annals of history are so important.

You know, there are many out there who would say, well, early Georgia Baptists wouldn't have believed in doctrines like that, or even early

Baptists wouldn't have believed in doctrines like that. But it's plain from doctrinal writing that these men believed in things like this.

I mean, here in 1790, the Georgia Baptist Association, it's the first association, it's affirming, we believe in the fall of Adam and the imputation of his sin to his posterity.

Now he's saying, when Adam fell, Adam's sin was imputed.

It was put onto all of those who would follow after. In the corruption of human nature and the impotency of man to recover himself by his own free will ability.

Now, this is writing that took place in the late 1780s and was affirmed in 1790 by the whole association of these early

Georgia Baptists, and they're saying plainly they don't believe in the doctrine of free will. And when you see that kind of language, that flies in the face of modern

Baptist thinking, and really modern Christian thinking for the most part, evangelical thinking.

But modern Baptists, you know, it's all about free will. Well, here's an early Georgia Baptist Association writing that man cannot recover himself by his own free will ability.

How does he do it? We believe in the everlasting love of God to his people and the eternal election of a definite number of the human race to grace and glory, and that there was a covenant of grace, a redemption made between the

Father and the Son before the world began, in which their salvation is secure, and that they, in particular, are redeemed.

Well, this is language that to most modern -day Baptists, and especially

Southern Baptists, but most modern -day Baptists, is foreign. But they don't recognize that is their history, especially in America.

Yeah, it would have been redundant for the free will Baptists in the 17th century to actually use the theme or the title,

I should say, free will Baptists, if that was just commonplace, or if that was the majority.

That would have been redundant if all or most Baptists believed in the concept of free will.

That's correct. I mean, there certainly were Baptists out there that would have considered themselves free will

Baptists. Some of them would have been more Arminian. Some of them would have been maybe semi -Pelagian or something of that nature.

But here, again, most Baptists would have held to these types of doctrines, and so you're right.

I mean, how crazy would it have been for them to put free will Baptists when they weren't really distinguishing themselves from anyone?

Which is the reason why today many, not all, but many Baptists who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, including your church that you pastor, identify ourselves as Reformed Baptists, because we are today a minority.

Oh, by all means. And many times I have to explain to people that we are simply—in the

Southern culture, I say to people, we are historic Southern Baptists, because I think

Southern Baptists need to understand historically, this is who you were.

Now, you may not be that today, and that's fine, but don't try to claim something that you are not.

And so we're in the minority as far as our modern -day

Baptist brothers go, but at the same time I think it's important that we once again remind people there was a time where these doctrines were not the minority.

This was the majority view among Baptists. And we have to go to a break right now. If you'd 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. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Brandon Smith and the

Gospel Heritage of Georgia Baptists. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am

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,

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

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

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.

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

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.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

TV program entitled Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org,

that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our first guest today for the first hour is

Brandon F. Smith, and we are discussing his book, The Gospel Heritage of George Baptist.

Coming up at the top of the hour, we're going to be joined by Ed Wallin, the author of Leaving Dark Land, How God's Instruction Manual Gives Effective Prescriptions for Life's Most Difficult Problems.

If you'd 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. Before I return to our discussion, we do have an email from Lawrenceville, Georgia, and this is not a question, but just a comment from,

I believe her name may be pronounced Noemi, N -o -e -m -i, and I apologize if I am butchering the pronunciation of that name,

Noemi, or Noemi, but she says, This is so exciting,

Chris. I have heard that Pastor Brandon Smith and Pastor Kurt Smith are in the process of writing this book.

I'm from Georgia, and even though I don't know Pastor Brandon Smith personally, I know that he pastors one of the churches in our

G -A -C -B, Georgia Association of Confessional Baptists Association, and our church is a part of it.

I'm at Christ Reformed Church in Lawrenceville, and my pastor is Robert Truelove. I'm sure

Pastor Brandon Smith will recognize that name. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much,

Noemi, for writing, and perhaps you can have a question for our guest if you come up with one.

We'd love to hear from you, and I'd like to also repeat that if you are sending in a question, please give us at least the city and state where you reside, or the country where you reside, if you are sending in a question, and again, that's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and let's go through, I mean, we've already been touching on total depravity, but let's go through.

Your book seems to be broken up in how the Georgia Baptists address the five points of Calvinism, for lack of a better nickname, and let's start with total depravity, because there's a lot of misunderstanding about what that even means.

Well, total depravity is not saying that man is as evil as he could be all of the time.

It's saying that the nature of man has been changed to the point that man is sinful in his nature, he's sinful in his inclinations, sin is his desire, you know, he's no longer innocent as Adam was in the

Garden of Eden, and so it's not that man is as evil as he could be all the time.

There's a lot of misunderstanding about that. People will say, well, you know, there are people who do nice things or decent things.

Well, that's true, they do decent things, but that decency does not necessarily mean that they have done it in pure righteousness.

That was the problem when Adam sinned, is Adam had the ability, he did truly have a free will ability to obey

God or not to obey God, and when he chose to disobey God, his innocence or his ability to obey

God, his inclination to obey God, his desire to obey God, it was damaged and done away with as its first inclination.

Now, after Adam, our first inclination is sin. Unless God changes us, we will always choose sin in accordance with our lives as our first inclination.

Yeah, that touches on the most highly disputed concept and even phrase, free will, because when

Reformed people or Sovereign Grace people or Calvinists, however you want to label it, refer to themselves as objecting to free will, we are not saying that God forces men against their will to either believe or reject in Christ.

Am I right? That's correct. I mean, when I talk to people about it or even our people,

I'll say that we have desires, we have wants, and Adam and Eve, when created, they were created good.

They wanted, they desired to walk with the Lord, but they also had the ability to disobey.

Well, once they disobeyed, that ability to walk, that desire to walk, that want to walk, it was changed.

And so their will is for sinfulness.

It's inclined first to sinfulness. So you're not, you don't really have a true free will.

We have a free agency. We do what we want to do, but the problem is what we want to do, and what we want to do is sin.

Right. Yes, and in fact, I remember having a discussion with a

Roman Catholic many years ago, and I know I've repeated this story on my program before, so I hope

I'm not boring anybody, but a Roman Catholic said to me, you Calvinists make

God into a robot factory.

You believe that we are just robots. And I said, well, define robot.

And he said, well, if you reject that man has the free will to either choose or reject

Christ, that means he's a robot. And I said, is your greatest goal in life to go to heaven when you die?

And he goes, yes, it is. I said, well, are you going to be able to sin in heaven?

He said, of course not. And I said, well, I guess your highest goal in life is to become a robot then.

And he said, what are you talking about? I said, well, if you can't, if you don't have the free will to sin in heaven, that means that you're a robot, according to your definition.

And he said, maybe you can sin in heaven. Our former pastor was the president of Bible College in Australia for a little while, and he had a similar conversation with a person from a

Pentecostal background, and they ended up saying the exact same thing. And he said, no, no, no, that's not the direction

I wanted you to go. You know, that's not where I was headed. I think that's really the problem, though.

People don't understand the difference between true free will and a person being a free agent.

And we are free agents, we are individuals that have been created by God.

The problem is that Adam's sin has been imputed to his posterity, as early

George of Aptos put it, all of those who would come after him. And so that free will is no longer there.

And if there's no free will to choose God, then how are we going to choose him?

How will we trust or repent and believe if that free will is gone?

And that's where the doctrine of election becomes so important. In fact, God himself does not have the freedom to defy his own nature.

He cannot sin. Right. And therefore, according to that earlier stated definition,

God himself would be the eternal robot in the sky, I'm assuming, according to that definition.

And I'm sorry if that appears to be blasphemous, but I'm just saying, according to the logical consistency of that way of defining things.

We have, before we go on to unconditional election, we have Robin. Robin, who is in Griffin, Georgia.

And Robin, I don't know if it's a male or female Robin, because I know both men and women go by that name. But Robin asks,

I thought only Presbyterians were covenantal. How did Mr. Brandon come to the conclusion that historical

Reform Baptists used to be covenantal? Very good question, because even amongst

Calvinistic Baptists, there is disagreement on what the covenant means.

And obviously, we would not be in agreement with our

Presbyterian brethrens who believe that infants by nature of their birth to Christian parents and baptism as infants, which we would reject as true baptism anyway, we would say that they are not in the covenant by virtue of that.

So there are differences amongst Reform believers, if you could explain. Well, I think, first of all, it comes from the historic understanding of covenant in the sense of the biblical language.

I mean, once again, the Georgia Baptists talked about an everlasting love of God, an eternal covenant of grace or redemption made between the

Father and the Son before the world began. Well, the first idea of covenant, before you ever talk about baptism, is understanding what the covenant concerned.

What was it dealing with specifically? And God was making covenant to save a people.

And there have been different signs that God gave to his people, there's been different things that he attributed to that, and our

Presbyterian brothers like to speak about circumcision in the Abrahamic covenant. But we first have to ask the question, how did

God deal with his people? And he dealt with them by way of covenant. He made covenant with his people, and his covenant was an eternal covenant set between the

Father, the Son, and the Spirit before time began. So that's how

I first came to be covenant was to, or covenantal, was to understand the eternal covenant that was given before time, or made before time began.

Then I began to research after that, okay, what does this mean, this eternal covenant, how does this work itself out?

Well, then you start to talk about the historic covenant of promise, and you see the language of covenant throughout the scripture, and God begins, you know, revealing that early on in the scripture.

We see covenantal language with Adam and Eve, and the promise of the seed, and the idea of that continuing through Noah.

You see these historic covenants made with Noah and Abraham and Moses and David.

That's God's eternal covenant being worked out in time, and it's a display, it's showing these truths to God's people of how he's always had a people, he's always working with his people, his covenant will always be confirmed, and so here he is working it out through time and history until that final new covenant is made through the

Lord Jesus. And so that's really how I became, you know, covenantal, thinking about the covenants, versus growing up dispensational.

In my background I would have said, well, there's two peoples of God. There's the

Israel, the nation Israel in the Old Testament, and then in the New Testament there's the church.

They're these two peoples of God. Well, if you're covenantal, you say, no, there's just one people of God, and God has always had his people, and he's been revealing the truth of his covenant to save his people throughout time by way of these historic covenants, but he's never had two different people.

So that's really how I came to be covenantal first, and then I began to ask questions about how does that apply inside the church, how does that work inside the church context.

If God has a people that he has saved, how do we know it? Well, a lot of Presbyterian brothers would say, well, we enter the covenant by way of baptism, by baptizing our children, and we would say, well, no, we enter the covenant by regeneration.

That's how we enter the covenant, and then once a person, you know, has professed faith in Christ, and there's evidence of real faith, then they are given the sign of baptism.

So that's how that's worked out in my understanding of it, and the time that I've spent coming to a covenantal position.

And of course, the very frequent retort from Pato Baptist is that we, as Baptists, have to admit that there are unregenerate people in our churches who are members, may even be deacons, elders, pastors, etc.,

but the difference is that we don't knowingly welcome them into membership.

I mean, if it's a good Baptist church following the precepts of Scripture, I mean, obviously, there's all kinds of Baptists, there are horrible

Baptist churches out there, but if it's operating according to the precepts of Scripture, it's not going to knowingly welcome into membership a man giving no evidence of genuine conversion.

That's the difference, whereas the Presbyterian knowingly realizes he may very well be baptizing a reprobate, he or a unregenerate person, it's because the person hasn't reached an age of being able to demonstrate faith and repentance.

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you're baptizing an infant. This infant does not have the ability at this time to make these kinds of cognitive choices and thoughts, and once again, that even goes back to free will.

What we're saying is, is that God takes a dead sinner, makes him alive, or enables, by regeneration, giving him, making him new in Christ, he now has the ability to choose

Christ, and he does so willingly, all right? And by doing that,

God is working out his eternal covenant. I mean, really, all of these doctrines really are surrounded by Covenantal theology, understanding the covenant, that before time,

God made a covenant to save a people for himself, and in time,

God chooses to work out what he planned or what he predestined to do before time, and so these people are chosen before time,

God is saving them in time, he's making them new creatures in Christ, the

Spirit of God regenerating them, making them new, and now they are enabled to believe.

They didn't have the ability to choose Christ before the Holy Spirit worked in them, regenerated them, but once the

Holy Spirit works in them, they now have the ability to choose Christ, and they want to choose

Christ. They don't come kicking and screaming, they want to choose Christ, because they have been brought from death to life.

They are new creatures in Christ. They may not be the most mature creatures in Christ, but they are new creatures in Christ, and so therefore, they want to believe, and that's really all wrapped up in the covenant.

Noemi writes again with a question, I was wondering if the book talks about Jesse Mercer, was he a

Calvinist? I went to Mercer University at some point, and we are curious, or I was curious about that.

Noemi, that's a good question, and my fellow co -author Kurt Smith has written a wonderful chapter on Jesse Mercer, and the book explains that Jesse Mercer was a

Calvinist. He solidly held to the doctrines of grace. Personally, he pastored a church that solidly held to those doctrines, and he led the

Georgia Baptist Association in keeping those doctrines throughout his time of leadership in the association.

Now, when we say the Georgia Baptist Association, that doesn't mean all of the Baptists in Georgia except in those first few years.

The Georgia Baptist Association was a local association of Baptists, so eventually they trained other men, and those men went out and planted churches in different regions in Georgia, and you have to remember at that time

Georgia was a frontier state, so this is not like present -day Georgia, you know, and all the things.

This is a frontier state. These men are going out to plant churches in frontier areas of Georgia, and as they go out and spread out across the state, they begin to form other local associations, and it's not until the 1820s that they actually start to form a convention of Baptists in Georgia.

So Jesse Mercer really led the Georgia Baptist Association, which was the first local association of Baptists in the state, and they were solidly, solidly

Calvinistic. That association really is the one that held to this abstract in the quorum that I just read from a minute ago.

They affirmed that whole doctrine of Jesse Mercer. He was a young man at the time, but he was a part of that, and really he didn't pastor in the association until the 1790s, but he led that association from his time in the 1790s all the way up until the mid -1830s before he died.

We have Robin again from Griffin, Georgia asking, okay, but what evidence does

Brandon have that Southern Baptists used to be covenantal? Apparently he's conceding that Calvinist is one thing, but covenantal is another.

Okay. Well, you really have it from the language of these confessions.

If you read these early Georgia Baptist confessions, they would often have an associational creed or confession, a statement of belief.

The churches would often have their own written statement of belief. Some churches held to the 1689

London Baptist Confession, which is plainly covenantal in its language. If you were to open the

London Baptist 1689 Confession, chapter seven talks about the covenant, but when you read the writings of some of these early

Georgia Baptist churches that did not hold to the London Baptist Confession, if they wrote their own confession, they have language which talks about this covenant of grace before the beginning of time or an eternal covenant of redemption.

That's the type of language that they would use to show that they were covenantal, and it continued throughout most of the 1800s until probably somewhere in the 1860s and 70s, there starts to be a trickling in of dispensationalism that really starts a downward progression for the doctrine of covenant theology.

So these churches, if you were to read their documents, and you'll see it in the book, you'll see the chapters in the book that I write on the doctrine of grace, you'll see where it's very plain, the language leads to an understanding of covenant theology.

On the other hand, there's still a lot of material to be uncovered about covenant theology among early

Georgia Baptists, and I think it's there, but we just didn't uncover all of it. Well, we're definitely going to have to have you back on.

In fact, we'd love to have you back on with Kurt Smith, your co -author.

That'd be great. But obviously, since we've only got five minutes left, perhaps you could hit the two of the most prominent doctrines within the tulip model of Calvinism that are most problematic for the opponents of sovereign grace, limited or definite atonement or particular redemption, and perseverance of the saints.

If you could go through why these are applicable to the

Georgia Baptists of history. Well, historically, the Georgia Baptists, they saw that sin was so real and true in them that there was no way they could save themselves, and they saw biblically that God must do something first, and that was his election of his people before time.

Well, then they began to read in the Scripture the language of Paul's writings, especially, but they began to read this language of Christ's death for us, a very personal language pointed to the

Church, and when you read their documentation, it's interesting you brought that up.

I was thinking about this a minute ago. They say, we believe that all those who were chosen in Christ will be effectually regenerated, converted, sanctified, and supported by the

Spirit and power of God, so that they shall persevere in grace, and not one of them be finally lost.

Well, they said, if God the Father chose them, then

God the Son had to die for them and them only, and it must be that the

Spirit keeps them, and they are not finally lost. So that really combines unconditional election and the particular redemption and perseverance of the saints all in the same category.

That's correct. That's correct. That's correct, and they saw that. You'll see it worked out in the book that each one of these doctrines is separately taken apart, but yet at the same time, they're woven together to show you how these

Georgia Baptists believed not one of these doctrines could be separated from the other. You needed all of these five doctrines to stand biblically, or none of it would stand.

Yeah, and I really think that in spite of what non -Calvinists say, the unconditional election is really at the heart of what upsets them, because they have a totally,

I think, misunderstanding about the condition of men, and they think that we are saying

God is not electing people who would have otherwise believed.

They would have come to faith in Christ if God had not chosen the others to do so, or what have you.

What they fail to realize is that we believe, as Romans 9 teaches, that we're all from the same lump of sinful clay, and God just chooses to rescue a certain portion of humanity out of that lump.

Well, if you could just finalize in about 30 seconds what you'd like to leave with our listeners today, and we'll have you back,

God willing, in the near future. Well, I think Dr. Tom Nettles' introduction helps you understand how this book is important, not just for Georgia Baptists, but for Baptist history in general.

Early Baptists in the South were impacted by Baptists from the

North and Baptists from England, and these are the doctrines that were inherited by Baptists in the

South from some of these other regions and other countries. And so this book is looking at a line of succession that gives us an idea that these doctrines have been important to Baptists for centuries, and we can't just walk away from them.

We need to understand them. Even if we say, I don't believe it, we need to at least understand them so that we can say, you know what?

I may not believe that today, but that certainly is what Baptists believed in the past. Well, I know that your book will be available,

God willing, in the very near future through Solid Ground Christian Books, and their website is...

First of March. First of March is solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com,

and your own content information for your church and so on. Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, you can look at our website, trinityrbc .org,

trinityrbc .org, and find out more information about the church and also about upcoming events, even in our

Georgia Association of Confessional Baptists as well. Well, thank you so much,

Brother Brandon, and I'm looking forward to having you back. Well, thank you, Chris. It's been a pleasure and an honor to take part in the show today, and Lord's blessings upon you and the rest of the day.

Thank you, Brother. And don't go away, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, because we have our second guest joining us shortly,

Ed Wallen, and Ed Wallen is going to be discussing his book, Leaving Darkland, how

God's instruction manual gives effective prescriptions for life's most difficult problems.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest for the second hour of our program today is

Ed Wallin. He's discussing his brand new book, Hot Off the Press, Compliments of Solid Ground Christian Books.

That's solid -ground -books .com. Solid -ground -books .com.

Leaving Darkland, How God's Instruction Manual Gives Effective Prescriptions for Life's Most Difficult Problems.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Ed Wallin. Well, thank you,

Chris, for having me on. I'll be delighted to try to give you an idea of what this book is about and answer any questions you might have for me.

Well, if you could let us know, before we even get into the book, Leaving Darkland, let our listeners know something about yourself and the church where you serve.

Okay. I'm a retired pastor at present. I spent almost 55 years in a pastoral ministry.

I'm presently at Covenant Baptist near Birmingham, and I have served as many places of leadership in the state convention and as well as the national convention on books, on the boards and agents.

And I love writing, and I love to converse with people about the person and work of Christ.

And that's where I am now. I am retired, and I am working, trying to write some and try to spread the gospel that way.

Well, what led to the writing of this book? I understand there's some very intensely personal and sad circumstances that led you to pick up your pen or sit before your computer and write this deeply meaningful and moving book.

Yes, it has quite a history to it. In 1974, it goes all the way back to when

I was pastoring in Anniston, Alabama. My wife was pregnant when the child was stillborn.

And 17 months later, we had a daughter that came on the scene, and she lived to be 11 years old.

And my wife and she were on their way to Kentucky to visit relatives before school started in the fall.

This would have been August of 86, and they were involved in an automobile accident.

And my daughter was 11 years old, was killed instantly. And my wife had probably had brain damage and some other physical difficulties, and she never really recovered.

And as a result, she died from those. And I was on the radio.

It started in 1991. I had a program for several years daily. And I did a series on the problems

Christians face and God's answers to those problems. And as a result of that, there were a lot of requests about some of the aspects of the things that I covered.

And I then started thinking about putting those things into a book and began to study.

And that's the background to the book. That's where we are now. Most of this book is, well,

I won't say most of it. A lot of it is very personal to me. All of the things that I discuss in the book is not necessarily things that I personally experienced in detail, but to some degree,

I suspect that I experienced a lot of those things that we talk about. And of course, dealt very depth in trying to answer those questions from the word of God.

So this is what the book is about. And I want to repeat our email address if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

For our guest, Ed Wallin, the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

United States. And obviously, you may feel free to remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable, especially if this is involving a personal and private matter you want to ask about.

An old friend of mine, John Thornberry, who has been a guest on this broadcast, writes a powerful commendation for Leaving Darkland.

He says, Leaving Darkland is a contribution towards realism in a day when so many

Christian leaders are deceiving people with false expectations for the Christian experience.

But it is also a message of hope for all of us who have experienced the failures and tragedies of life and get crushed by them.

It is a biblical anecdote for the gloom and doubt which Satan brings even upon the true children of God.

I do not know of a book which has given such a comprehensive catalog of the various negative emotions of true believers, how they affect

God's people, and how they can be managed. And it comes from a man who has walked a special road of grief and sadness.

It is my hope and prayer that Leaving Darkland will help the suffering, afflicted people of God who live in the modern world to press on in serving the

Lord with the dynamic message of this book before them. An excellent and powerful commendation by my dear friend

John Thornberry. First of all, let's go to the title, Darkland.

That's a very captivating title, Leaving Darkland. What do you mean by Darkland? Well, this is the state that when people get into emotional or mental troubles and begin to be depressed or discouraged, and they're down in the dark land of their life, there's seemingly no exit, this is the land they've got to get out of.

And this is where we find the answers in God's word how to leave that dark land and that depressed state in their mind.

And Leaving Darkland, with the emphasis this time on leaving, how are we leaving these states of mind?

Are we permanently able to leave them behind, or is this a way we just rise above them and have victory over the enslavement to them?

Or what do you mean by leaving Darkland? I think all the above. I think there's some things such as discouragement that can put you in a dark land of thinking and an emotional state.

But discouragement is a reoccurring thing, as we state in the book.

I mean, you can get discouraged over and over and over again and it gets you down and it's next door to depression, of course.

And leaving this is going to the word of God, finding the resource in the word of God that gives you the strength and the direction that you are to take in order to get out of that state of thinking.

Because the reason most of the time that you're in that state is because you're thinking improperly about the circumstances of life.

And when we think improperly about the circumstances, we're not thinking scripturally, we're not trusting the

Lord, we're trusting our own evaluation of those circumstances, rather than going to the word of God and seeking answers there.

Now, where were you theologically in your life, in regard to your convictions as a pastor, your stated beliefs and so on, when these tragedies occurred in your life, having lost your daughter and then subsequently your wife?

Where were you then? Did you have the same belief system in regarding God's sovereignty over all things back then, or was that something that developed through the tragedy and subsequent to the tragedy?

No, it's by coming to the Lord. I've always, I was raised, came to the

Lord under Calvinistic ministry. I was really converted under the teaching of Ralph Barnard.

And I was one of his, quote, fair -haired boys, I guess, in a quote. Wow, yeah, he was a fiery preacher, wasn't he?

He was. And I've always, and I grew, certainly, in understanding the sovereignty of God, and lived in Romans 8, 28, and still do, to some degree, when

I begin to question things. There's nothing wrong to ask and question why He's doing it. We just don't question Him in the sense of trying to say you're doing the wrong thing.

It's nothing wrong with us trying to find out why God's doing something, because He does things on purpose. Now, what's

His purpose for this for me? And all through the years in my ministry, that's been a question.

And the answer occurs quite often, well, this is making you a better pastor. You understand people better.

You know how to counsel people better. So it also has a positive purpose to it. Yeah, and we may never know specifically the detailed reasons why

God brings tragedy into our lives, this side of heaven. I mean, in fact, who knows?

We may never know completely, even in eternity. All we do know is that God does work things, all things, together for the good, for those who love

Him and are called according to His purpose. That's the only thing that we're guaranteed to know here on this earth, correct?

Correct. And that's, you know, when you go through this book, you'll find that all of these events that takes place in the life of believers, and this book is written for believers.

Unbelievers can't associate with it completely. They can learn from it. But when you begin to talk about failure and people's failures and distress, stress, all of those things, it's still the sovereignty of God that's involved here.

They need to understand that to come out of dark land. If they do not see that the

Lord has a purpose in them even being in dark land, even though, as you say, we don't understand all the ramifications that's involved in us being in that condition, we do know the answer of getting out of it.

That is to trust the Word of God and recognize that He is sovereign and He is working everything out for His own glory and our good.

Now, it may be easier for us to say now that we have already arrived at our side of the theological aisle regarding God's sovereignty, may be easier for us to say how on earth could anyone find comfort and peace in believing that God orchestrated and foreordained a horrific tragedy in their lives.

But when I think of the alternative, it just seems to be mind -boggling that someone could possibly find comfort and peace and encouragement in believing that the horrific tragedy that they are experiencing somehow happened with God as a helpless bystander or with God as somebody who had his back turned or what have you.

It doesn't seem to make sense to me how anyone could say that it is a horrible thing that we believe

God is in sovereign control over all things, including the death of a child, if you could respond to that.

Oh yes, I agree, but I don't think they can find comfort in anything else. All they're doing is trusting in what someone is telling them or they're trusting in their own evaluation of those circumstances rather than recognizing and acknowledging and submitting to in a right way that this is

God's purpose. Now, what is He doing with me? What is His purpose in allowing this or causing this to take place in my life that will glorify

Him and mature me? And if they don't have that, they have no basis for any answer as to why this has happened.

A very key word that you have repeated throughout this short period of our interview is purpose.

And without the sovereignty of God and His foreordination and orchestration of all things, including horrific events, nightmarish events that we experience, there are numerous occasions in the other system of theology where these things would be purposeless.

I would think that that would just add to the weight of the tragedy and the horror if it was completely and totally meaningless that those things occurred.

I just don't see where people can find any comfort anyplace else. I've said numerous times in trying to explain what

I believe and why I believe it that if I did not believe that God was sovereign and that these things had taken place in my life for a purpose and for His glory and my good,

I'd be a candidate for suicide. What I've gone through with loss of two children and a wife, in essence, in this automobile accident,

I lost my family for life. No posterity.

I mean, it's gone. What do you mean by your chapter,

The Gift Nobody Wants? Well, nobody wants to suffer. Nobody wants pain.

But pain is like, and I think I use this in a book, is like the dashboard on an automobile.

If a red light comes on, something's wrong. And you've got two choices.

You can either go find out what's wrong and fix it, or you can keep driving that automobile until it blows up.

But pain is like that. When we have pain, it tells us something is wrong. Find out what it is and go take care of it.

If we don't have pain, how do we deal with life? I mean, I use an illustration in a book of a little girl who couldn't feel pain.

There is a disease, and I can't remember the name of it, that a person does not feel any pain.

She had to be watched constantly because she didn't know if she broke her leg. She didn't know if she broke an arm. If she put her hand on a stove, for example, no burn.

So pain is a great gift of God. It is that which alerts us to something is wrong.

It's a gift. Pain is a gift that it alerts us to the fact that we are still human beings.

We have pain and we have suffering. And if we don't recognize that all of these sufferings and these things that take place in our lives are gifts of God, then we don't have any hope.

We don't have any answers to what takes place in us. Now, obviously, there are those who abuse the truth that suffering comes from the hand of God, and they will say that it is always a sign of God's disfavor upon a person, that he is punishing them or severely chastising them at the very least.

Now, you and I know not only from life, but even in the pages of scripture, that that can be the reason why somebody is suffering, but it's not always the reason, is it?

No, no, absolutely not. The blind man who sinned his mother and father neither,

I said to the disciples, that he might glorify me or I might be glorified. So there's a lot of reason why

God allows things to happen or causes things. We may never know the answer to that, as you said earlier.

It may be for other people. As a pastor, I've watched people die and watched believers die and watched unbelievers die.

One is suffering, both of them suffering, actually. Watching how they die has an effect on people.

Every event that takes place in our life, regardless of how minute it may be, in my belief, is that God has a purpose in that and he has a message in that.

And we would be better off trying to find out what the message is rather than complain about the gift of pain, for example, or suffering.

And we do have an anonymous listener in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, how has

Ed been faring since those decades ago, since he lost his precious child and wife?

I'm sure that as a Christian he has come to a level of peace over it, but is it still something that brings him grief and to some level haunts him?

Well, you never get over grief completely, particularly if it's a close child or child or close person in your life.

You will constantly be confronted with the memory of my children, my two children.

And you don't concentrate on that, you don't sit around and constantly think about it. But little things trigger your mind.

If you see kids out playing, you see close to the age of my Susan, I think about her.

And there's a point of sadness that takes place there. But still at the same time,

I don't let that grief control me. I know that God has a purpose. I know that that purpose is being accomplished, even though I may not see it.

But you never really get over a certain amount of, I don't know whether you call it grief or not, probably call it more memory of a child when you lose a child.

And I've done quite well since then. The Lord has blessed me greatly. He's given me a wife who is a good theologian and helps me very much in my ministry.

And encourages me in these times when you go birthdays and things like that, your child comes to mind and memories flood your mind of things that happen that you think about your children, your wife and so on.

We do have a listener from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, CJ, who asks,

I have heard some Christian authors and preachers say that it is completely acceptable to be angry with God when you are going through a trial in your life.

But is this really true? No, I do not believe you can be angry with God because when you're angry with God, because an event that takes place in your life, what you're really saying is,

Lord, you don't know how to manage my life. You're managing me. And that's not trusting in the

Lord. That's not acknowledging him for who he is. Yeah, we can be angry with God, but we should not be angry with him.

Absolutely. Right. Now, there are obviously there are people that actually will talk about that like that is some kind of a rite of sons, if you will, that shows our close relationship with God, his paternal relationship over us, and even our friendship with Christ, that we can vent our anger towards him.

But you don't really see God approving of that kind of attitude anywhere in the pages of the

Bible, do you? Absolutely not, because actually, that's really a rebellion against God. That's really, as I said, saying, you're doing wrong with me.

I don't deserve this. That's self -righteousness. And that's totally mistrustful.

That's denying essence of the sovereignty of God. Again, we're going back to that.

If you don't believe in the sovereignty of God, you probably will be angry. In fact, as a pastor,

I have met several people who have lost children, and they were angry at God. It's sinful.

We have a Christian from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says,

Did you find a lot of your strength in the journey by returning to the

Psalms? Oh, absolutely. Psalms and some of the old hymns. Those were very, very encouraging to me.

I actually lived, my base text was Romans 8, 28, and 29.

Those were the bases. But yeah, all through Scripture, you find encouragements. As this book will point out, all of those passages that gave encouragement to me and to other people, the

Psalms is very encouraging. The sovereignty of God is very clear in the Psalms, as he brings about his purpose.

And even in suffering, we find those comforting passages in the

Scriptures, God's love, God's grace, God's mercy toward those who belong to him. And we're going to be going to a break right now.

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

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. We'll be right back with Ed Wallin and Leaving Dark Land right after these messages.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the second hour of this program is

Ed Wallin, the author of Leaving Darkland, How God's Instruction Manual Gives Effective Prescriptions for Life's Most Difficult Problems.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. One of the areas that is often intrinsically wrapped up in suffering and pain from a tragedy is the very important area of forgiveness.

And there is a lot of disagreement, even within the church, on what exactly forgiveness is, when forgiveness is to be extended, and so on.

Even there is difference amongst those who describe themselves as Calvinists in this regard.

I was just curious where you fit in that difference of opinion amongst brothers.

For instance, Dr. Jay Adams, who I'm sure you're familiar with, he believes that forgiveness is only to be given to those who actually first ask for forgiveness, and they demonstrate repentance away from their sin that they've committed against you.

And therefore, the forgiveness is a genuine releasing of debt to that person.

Others that I also admire greatly, like Dr. John MacArthur, would say that we're supposed to forgive anyone who sins against us, whether they ever ask for it or not.

Where do you stand on that very controversial issue? I probably stand with John MacArthur on that mostly.

I guess saying that a person must repent before they're forgiven, as Dr.

Adams advocates, sometimes is a little difficult. There's a story in this book of a young lady who was going to college, and in the summertime she was selling books.

She was out selling books and knocking on doors. She was accosted and raped and killed, and the person was arrested and tried and convicted and went to prison.

Her mother and father got to the point in their prayers that they could forgive this particular person.

They started going to the prison and witnessing to him, taking materials to him and forgiving.

As a result of that, he came to know the Lord. Well, he didn't seek that forgiveness.

And when we think about the Lord forgiving us, most of the time we're not seeking it.

He has to come to us, and all the time he has to come to us in reality and bring us to a place of submission and conviction and confession.

And that forgiveness is completed when that takes place. So there's a little bit of both sides in that,

I think. Yeah, because I'm sure that Dr. Adams would say that we are to obey the scriptures and do good to those who persecute us.

We are to pray for them. He would just differentiate between that and actual forgiveness where you're releasing them of a debt.

Go ahead, I'm sorry. Yeah, but you know, Chris, if you carry a grudge, if you don't forgive them, you're carrying a grudge.

That's hurting you more than anybody. To get relieved from that grudging attitude that you have for something that someone's injured you about or for that's going to cause you the problem, not that person who you need to forgive.

Right. I've heard the analogy, it's like drinking poison and then sitting around waiting for your enemy to die.

Okay. But you know, I think forgiveness, if we're going to be like our

Lord, we can't hold grudges against people. Well, all

Christians must agree that we are to be willing and waiting and very eager to forgive those who come to us and that at least we all can agree on.

And that is a very difficult thing. I am astonished when

I see amazing acts of forgiveness, sometimes on documentaries and the news where you have, and it's typically a

Christian person who is in a courtroom and a murderer who has just slaughtered one of their precious children or something.

In fact, I remember in one circumstance, it was a member of the Ku Klux Klan who was on trial for murder and he was begging the mother of the young man he murdered for forgiveness.

And this precious black Christian woman in the courtroom said, I have already forgiven you.

And I am blown away by that because I definitely have to admit, I hold on to grudges for things infinitely less serious and important than that.

Well, you have an example of, as far as we know it's true, of the Baptist church in South Carolina, where the guy came in and shot all those people.

And their declaration is they've forgiven him. That's tough to do.

Forgiveness is not an easy thing. If you have been injured by a person, to forgive that person, that's tough, but it's also

Christ -like. We have an anonymous listener from Suffolk County, Long Island, again, who asks,

I have had a horrible experience with an ex -spouse that has done what seems to be irreparable damage to my children.

And during the course of this horrible trial and experience, I find it difficult to insist that my children honor their father as the

Ten Commandments insist or command. How do I have them appropriately honor their father without enabling them to give him license to continue in his very evil behavior?

Well, that's a hard question, Bill, without knowing a lot of detail, but I would say this.

If he is persistent or actively involved in hindering his children, then the only thing she can do in that situation is to say, he's your father, and give them some basis on the reason why they can't see their father or be around their father.

I think that's just protecting your child. Now, what do you think in a case like that, what does it mean to honor your father?

I mean, does that mean that you're always to have an overtly caring and approving attitude?

It's one of those difficult things where what does that actually mean when your father or your mother may be endangering the lives of his children, either physically or spiritually?

How do we keep the commandment in those cases? Well, I don't think that that's required of us in that case, because honoring means the person is worthy of honor.

And if he's not worthy of honor or she's not worthy of honor, we shouldn't honor them.

It doesn't mean we don't have respect for them, as this case this lady has.

Her children must have some sort of respect for their father, but they don't honor him. And I wouldn't teach him to honor him until he repents and changes, or the

Lord changes his heart if he ever does. Tell us some more of the examples in your book on how saints have triumphed over tragedy due to the grace and mercy of Christ.

Oh, goodness. Each chapter does that because one of the things

I want them to see in this book is that you don't have to stay in Darkland. You don't want to camp out there.

As you look at the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, there's your basis. That's the foundation of all that we base all of our beliefs on about the suffering.

Our Lord suffered. He is the great example of our suffering, and he did it on purpose, and he did it for a purpose.

And I think the first place we go when we get into these troubles is we go thinking in this category of, he suffered for me, and why should

I not suffer for him? That's one place. So there is a purpose in my suffering to glorify him.

But then you start going to all kinds of scripture. Romans 8, 28. We know that all things, not some things, work together for good to call according to his purpose.

And here we go with that word purpose again. What is the purpose of my suffering?

What is the purpose of this event in my life? What is God doing in this? And if we begin to study the scriptures, read our

Bibles, study constantly, we're going to find the answer to that problem. In most cases, he's going to give us an indication of why we're in that state.

We've been disobedient, or we've done something that's caused this to happen to us other than disobedience that God is using for his glory.

There's a multitude of things that could happen to us. To pick out one particular thing would be almost impossible for me to do, because when you stop and think about if a person is a failure, asking

God, why have I failed? Why are you treating me this way? Well, that's beginning to look into the concept of self -righteousness opposed to God's purpose.

He allows us to fail in order to teach us a lesson that we're not to rely on our own strength and our own abilities, but we are to do that in order to glorify him.

He usually takes us through a lot of failures before he gives us any success in our life.

I don't know whether that answers your question or not, it's just the whole scripture is getting us out of trouble.

One of the vivid examples in our day of someone who recognizes that God's hand was in her tragedy from beginning to end or even before it happened,

Johnny Erickson Tata, the very world -renowned quadriplegic who is not only a

Christian speaker at various conferences, a radio host, an author, and a painter who paints holding a brush in her teeth, a singer, and so on, but she realizes that her diving accident as a teenager,

I believe in the Chesapeake Bay if I'm not mistaken, that left her paralyzed was something that was really a gift of God because she realizes now and realized it at some point after the tragedy occurred, after she was in a very bad mental state of questioning

God over this, when she finally came to peace with God, she recognized that his sovereignty over this was a gift to her because she would never be speaking to the countless millions of people about the love and mercy and grace of Jesus Christ if that had not happened to her.

Absolutely, you'd have the same situation with Fannie Crosby. Yeah. She was blind when she was just a small child and she attributes that blindness to the purpose of God that gave her the ability to write nearly 10 ,000 hymns.

And then yet you have Christians today, especially those who are in the so -called word of faith movement, the extreme

Pentecostal aberrant wing of Pentecostalism that would say that those people are demonstrating that their faith is not adequate.

That's not only nonsense, it's wicked, I believe. Yeah. Well, you have a great example of how other people can help you come out of dark land.

With the scriptures, look at the case with John Newton and William Cowper, great friends.

In fact, they worked together at Noni Church there for 12 years.

And a little tidbit of trivia here, when

John Newton wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace, he introduced it in 1773 to his congregation on Sunday morning, which he did most of the time.

He would introduce it every first Sunday of every year to him, and that was this year. He did the

Amazing Grace. But William Cowper was a man who was plagued with depression, severe depression.

In fact, he tried to commit suicide on several occasions. He tried to drown himself in the Thames or something, right?

He, after that song that day, he went out knowing that depression was coming on him, and went out and wrote the hymn,

God Moves in Mysterious Ways His Wonders to Perform, and Never Darken the Door of a

Church Again. How do you explain that? All the hymns he has written, all the poems he wrote, and his view of scriptures?

Well, John Newton never abandoned his friend. He believed he was the child of God. But he used his depression to write some fantastic hymns.

And you brought up an interesting figure, John Newton, because he is a vivid example of how the perpetrator of evil, the one causing great harm and trial and hurt, both physically and emotionally to others, how he could be rescued out of that enslavement to sin by the mercy of Christ, and can be used mightily of God.

Very often when we talk about a subject like this, we talk about the victims of great, horrible tragedy.

But in John Newton's case, being one who was a slave trader, he was the one perpetrating the evil.

And there may be people who are eventually listening to this program, either on their laptops in a jail cell, or perhaps in a recording at some point.

But they may be thinking to themselves, after what I have done, I am never going to be useful in the kingdom of God.

I'm never going to be acceptable by God. I'm never going to be of any use to anyone.

And some people like that may either be driven to thoughts of suicide, or to actually commit suicide, or to remain in a state of rebellion because they say, what's the use of coming to Christ when he will never receive me?

If you could comment on that John Newton is an interesting person. He's one of my favorite heroes.

John Newton became one of the most compassionate men in Christendom because of his background.

And he became a tremendous inspiration to me.

He's a great example of God's grace in full action. And for that man sitting in that cell, if he can get a hold of John Newton's book, his letters,

Cartophonia is the name of the book, letters of John Newton, it'd be worth his time to sit down and read those letters because they are loaded with information, and encouragement, and theology, and compassion toward people.

Yeah, a lot of people might not even be aware that that famous hymn,

Amazing Grace, was written by a man who was once a very evil, racist, slave trader.

Oh, even worse. Yeah. And that beautiful hymn that even the secular world around us acknowledges in some ways is a beautiful hymn.

By the way, that was an outline to his sermon that morning. Really?

If you could, I really want you to, before we run out of time, I want you to really unburden your heart and mind to leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before this program is over, and maybe give some more insights from your book,

Leaving Dark Land. Well, one of the big reasons I wrote this book, and I trust that people will take it and read it, is that probably there is no person living that doesn't have one or more of these problems in their lifetime.

How are they going to deal with it when they come to it? This is a guide to them to help them to go to scriptures, and what scriptures to use, and encouragement from different writers, and quotes from different writers dealing with these issues, because no person can have joy who's living in dark land.

That's the opposite of joy, and Paul says he wants us to be joyful.

He tells us, you know, be joyful. I say again, rejoice in the Lord, you know, and we can't do that when we're struggling with our hearts broken over some tragedy in our life or over some guilt that's burdened us down that we haven't been able to get off of our chest and really confess.

These are the things that this book deals with. These are the things that people struggle with every day of their lives.

How many people who go out go into periods of discouragement, and where do they go?

What do they do? Suffering, stress, failure. These are some of the things we deal with.

Give you some good examples in the book of portraits of discouragement using some great men,

Moses, Elijah, Jonah. All these men became discouraged. In fact, they all came to the point to where they were so depressed they wanted

God to kill them. So these are the kind of things we have are impatience, the need for recognition.

People are burdened because they do something and nobody recognizes it. Nobody cares. That's something that God's chosen us in his word.

It's something we need is recognition and ministering to people in these conditions.

This book would help them with that. Dealing with fear and death and grief and anger, which we've already talked about.

That's what I want them to see. I want them to see that in the word of God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as he has expressed in his word, in him and in what he has taught us and what his disciples have taught us, is those ingredients that will give us the prescription to get us out of our dark lands, whatever it may be.

That's what the book's about. I think that it touches every person. This book would touch every person in some fashion.

We have Arnie from Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says,

I feel very hopeless ministering to someone I know who is going through a very serious trial because the constant retort to everything

I say is, you have never been in my shoes. You've never walked where I've walked.

You've never experienced what I've experienced. How can we overcome that objection and be meaningful ministers to those who dismiss what we say because they say we are inadequate messengers?

Well, that's a good question. When my daughter was killed and my wife was severely injured,

I got numerous letters from all over the countryside. When I picked up one of those letters,

I could tell you instantly whether that person knew what they were talking about or not. People have good intentions when they say, for example,

I know how you feel. They don't know how you feel. They've never been there. That's what this person is saying.

He's talking about the questioner here. I don't have to know how they feel.

It is good for us to go through these experiences in order that we may minister to another person.

And Paul says that, for instance, God has blessed you so you can bless others, comfort others.

He's the God of all comfort who comforts you, that you may comfort others. But at the same time, knowing the

Word of God, understanding the Word of God is enough for me to counsel a person who is in the distresses of his life or her life in Darkland, pointing them to scriptures that helps them and praying for them and praying with them.

That's the big thing is praying with them in those circumstances. Don't try to tell someone you know what they feel and how they are because you don't.

Yeah, even if somebody else lost their daughter in a car accident, he doesn't necessarily know how you feel because your daughter is not his daughter and the circumstances involving those very unique relationships may be very different.

But you see how they respond if they have. They're totally different. They don't try to tell you they know how you feel.

Right. And we have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, did you ever have a crisis of faith during these trials?

Did you ever come to a position of doubt and has your belief in the doctrines of grace and God's sovereignty over all things ever wavered during these experiences?

I heard a man say one time, a very prominent man, if I didn't mention his name everybody would know it, that he never had a doubt of his salvation in his life.

I have a problem with that. I think there are times, not many, where you begin to think, well now, am

I really related to the Lord? When you have scripture says, make your calling and election sure.

When you have David Brainerd who spent the last three days of his life making sure he had an interest in the blood of Christ.

Yeah, I think because we're sinners, because we're fallen, because we have depraved hearts, we may fall into the category once in a while of doubts.

But that's improper thinking. That's what gets us in our down spirals to go down to dark lands when we begin to doubt and begin to think improperly.

Let me just quickly put this in. When you're dealing with an issue, this is in the book by the way, you have a circumstance, you have a thought pattern, you have emotions, and then you have a reaction or action.

Circumstances is not what causes you to react. It's how you think about those circumstances that causes you to react.

And this is where we get into trouble. We think wrong about the circumstance. We think wrong that it may be that God has judged us.

In most cases, it isn't. That God is judging me. That's wrong thinking unless it's reality.

And if it is reality, you know it immediately. You've done something that's caused this. But the whole point is if we think right, we will act right.

And when we're acting right, we will be in a state of depression and doubt. And for those of our listeners who are in a state of grief and mourning, and people are rebuking them for a prolonged period of grief, what is the response to that?

Obviously, if somebody is being crippled and their lives are being destroyed by their grief, that's one thing.

But don't Christians have to be very careful about putting some kind of time limit on grief? Absolutely.

That's in the book. It's different for different people. And it's different based on the circumstances of how close that person was to you that passed away, your grieving over.

But it's also true that we can't let grief continue to control us.

That's sinful too. That falls into the category of becoming to a state of our mind that we are mistrusting the

Lord. And being absorbed by self -pity. Exactly. Having our pity parties.

Well, I know that the publisher's website is solid -ground -books .com.

They are the ones who published Leaving Darkland. And also, they are sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Any other contact information you care to give? Well, basically that's it.

If they want the book, they order it through him. And I would be glad to answer any question they might have on anything.

I don't mind doing that. edwallen .bellsouth .net is my... edwallen .bellsouth

.net is your email address? Exactly. If they have a question, I'd be glad to answer it for them. That's edwallen .bellsouth

.net. That's right. Well, it has been a real privilege to interview you for the very first time,

Ed. And I do hope to have you back on the program at some point in the near future. And I hope that I did an adequate job on my end asking questions about some very serious and intimate and sensitive issues.

Glad to share it. And I hope everybody who listened was blessed. I thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

And I hope you all remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.