March 3, 2025 Show with Mark Jones on “God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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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 who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this third day of March 2025.

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Before I introduce my guest and our co -host and our topic for the day,

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I just want to remind our listeners to please pray for my sister

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Mary. I first of all want to thank you, all of you, the hundreds of you who have assured me you are praying for my sister

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Mary, who not only recently had a leg amputated but is now back in the hospital with an upper respiratory virus.

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She had tubes, breathing tubes, inserted down her throat until yesterday.

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They were removed so she could eat and drink. She had not eaten or drank in three days.

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Please pray for her physical healing. Please pray for her to be drawn closer to Jesus Christ, that she would shed and repent of any of her false and idolatrous beliefs within the

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Roman Catholic Church. And please pray that she is restored to full health and that I can enjoy her as my sister here on this earth for at least a few more years.

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I also want to thank all of you who had been praying for my brother Andy, who just died last

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Saturday, and I appreciate your continued prayers for me and my family as we mourn and are going to be arranging,

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God willing, at some point in the month or two to follow, arranging a memorial service out on Long Island, New York, where we are from.

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And I appreciate all your prayers. The prayers of the brethren have been indescribably supportive, encouraging, and comforting to me, and I can't say enough to thank you for them.

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But today I am very delighted to have a first -time guest.

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His name is Mark Jones, and he's an author and pastor of Faith Reform Presbyterian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia, which is a congregation in the

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Presbyterian Church in America, also known as the PCA. And today we're going to be addressing one of his latest books,

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God Is, A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Mark Jones.

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Thank you very much for having me. And I also want to welcome back to the show my pastor,

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Simon O'Maney, at Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and he is going to be serving as our co -host today.

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One of the reasons I asked him to do so is that he is actually running a men's book study on the devotional we are addressing today,

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God Is, by my guest, Pastor Mark Jones. So I thought it was ideal to have

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Simon on with us today as a co -host, since he thought so highly of this book that he wanted to do a weekly study on it.

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But it's great to have you back on the program, Simon O'Maney. Thanks, Chris.

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It's a pleasure to be able to discuss this with you brothers this afternoon. Great. Well, first of all,

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Pastor Mark, if you could let our listeners know something more about Faith Reform Presbyterian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia.

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We are, as you mentioned, a Presbyterian Church, and I've been ministering there for roughly 17 years.

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And we have now, in a bit of a strange providential twist, we have two sites.

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So Sunday morning at 9 a .m., I drive to our site we just started in Surrey, which not just started, a few years it's been going, and it's really ballooned in a certain sense.

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And then after that, I drive into Vancouver, where historically we've met for many decades.

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And I preach at the 11 a .m. service, and then we have our 5 p .m. We're one of the few churches,

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I think, in maybe Western Canada that has a morning and evening. So it's a busy

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Lord's Day, but a fruitful one, I hope. And I've got a great, great church body. I'm very grateful to the

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Lord for sustaining me this long in one church, and couldn't ask for anything more, really.

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Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Faith Reform Presbyterian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia, you could go to faithvan .com,

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faithvan .com. And Pastor Simon O'Maney, if you could please give our listeners a description of Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Yeah, we are a body of believers, covenanted together as a church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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We subscribe to the London Baptist Confession of Faith. That's what we believe is a solid and reliable, accurate representation of the doctrines of Scripture.

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We gather, of course, each Lord's Day, and you can find our details on Facebook, or you can find our website by googling

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Trinity Reform Baptist Church, Carlisle. And I have been rejoicing to see the small and new church growing, and I think—are we close to 40 members already?

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We're getting there. We're also blessed with a lot of children. So if, you know, if we were— maybe if we were

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Presbyterians, we could—I don't know if we can add those numbers, Mark, what you think they're at. We have about almost 40 children, so as many, if not more, children than members.

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So we take that responsibility very seriously, and our desiring to train up our children well in the fear and admonition of the

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Lord. Well, the website, once again, is trbccarlisle .org.

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T -R -B -C -C -A -R -L -I -S -L -E dot org.

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And I believe our deacon, Daniel Woolford, has even secured .com

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as well. Well, we have a tradition here, Pastor Mark, whenever we have a first -time guest on this program, of which you are one, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious upbringing that they may or may not have had, and the kinds of providential circumstances that our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that raised them to Himself and saved them.

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So we would love to hear a summary of your story. Thanks.

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Yeah, I grew up in a family that was very—I would say that the

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Cossack word is nominally Christian, and to varying degrees through their lives, my parents.

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So sometimes, you know, we were dragged off to church for weeks on end, and then we wouldn't go to church for months on end, and kind of that pattern.

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But I always had a very strong sense of God and Christianity being true. And I grew up—I was baptized as a baby in the

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Church of England in South Africa. I was the only one in my family, actually. My dad wasn't even baptized, my mom, my sister, and then my younger brother.

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So I was the only person baptized. So I kind of had this feeling that I should be a

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Christian. So growing up, as much as my parents offered certain benefits of what the faith was,

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I also—different parts of my life was closer or farther away from God, but never really what

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I would say truly living for His glory on a consistent basis. I mean, I asked Him into my heart's

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Christ. I heard that's what you're supposed to do and did it several times. And then when you don't have a church life or anything, you can do that with all the good intention in the world.

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But it's, you know, a day later, a week later, you're going to just go back to living how you were. So it wasn't until university,

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I went to the University of Wisconsin to play soccer. I got a soccer scholarship there and thought, you know,

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I had everything going for me and kind of realized quickly that I didn't and got quite depressed and realized that I needed the

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Lord. And I heard some tapes, some cassette tapes that were sent to my dad from South Africa by a friend of his, of a preacher whose preaching was so different than what

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I'd ever heard. And it was listenable. It was interesting. He had a great preaching voice.

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And so I was converted listening to these tapes, I believe, while working for my dad on the roof.

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He owned a roofing company in the summers, and I'd be listening to cassette tapes all day long of sermons and content about the

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Baptist preacher, Albert Martin, that way, and listen to a lot of his stuff eventually.

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So that's sort of how it happened was just university first year and cassette tapes, which

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I don't think many people listen to cassette tapes anymore. But that was my, my entrance into the faith.

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So I'm assuming that, go ahead, I'm sorry. No, sorry. In the first church I went to in Wisconsin, when

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I felt I'm a Christian, I walked down the street and walked in and there was this lady preaching and it turned out it was a

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LGBTQ friendly church. I didn't really know what was happening. So that was the first and last time

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I went in there. I just knew something was off. And yeah, so it took a while to find a good reformed church, but the

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Lord eventually took care of me. So I'm assuming since the preaching of Albert N.

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Martin of Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey, well, the former pastor there before retirement,

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I'm assuming since he was a part of your introduction to the

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Christian faith or you're getting drawn into the faith and into Christ, especially, that your embracing of Reformed theology was very soon after or simultaneous with becoming a

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Christian. Yeah, yeah, kind of always. When I became a Christian, I just, everything

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I believed and upon I believe matched up well with Calvin. And I had a little mini book of his institutes that my dad had and I read through it and it just all made sense to me.

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And yeah, so it was, there was no sort of wrestling with Arminianism versus those types of things.

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It was just a sort of, I knew God was sovereign. In fact, the verse that converted me, I think was Romans 8, 28, that God works all things together for good to those who love him.

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And I just wanted everything to work together for my good, but needed to love him. But it could only be a promise if God was, in fact, sovereign.

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So it wasn't hard for me to embrace Reformed theology. Well, Pastor Simon and I will forgive you for not following Pastor Martin all the way into Reformed Baptist ecclesiology.

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I try. I was in the basement of Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey, listening to his tapes on baptism.

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And I actually can say with a clear conscience, I tried with all my heart to become a Reformed Baptist. OK, well, there is still hope while you're alive.

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But Pastor Simon, what was it about The Devotional Guide to the

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Atropetes of God? What was it about this book that stood out as a book that you wanted to begin a men's study using it?

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Yeah, well, I think the doctrine of God in general is a doctrine that the church needs to recover.

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And it has been encouraging to see maybe more of a resurgence in an interest in that doctrine.

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And so when I had read Dr. Jones' book on knowing

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Christ and thought it was extremely helpful, just even in terms of the organization,

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I think the organization itself, with each chapter being somewhat short and sort of punchy and to the point,

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I think that lends itself to help people understand what could be something quite complex and difficult to understand.

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And I think God is organized in the same kind of way. And I think it's very, very helpful for introducing people who maybe don't have those

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Christian Reformed Orthodox categories for understanding the doctrine of God.

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And so I thought for my own group of guys in our church, that would be something very, very helpful.

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Mark, if I could ask you, what led you to write God Is, was there perhaps a particular need or gap that you wanted to address?

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I don't know if there was a need or gap. I just, after writing Knowing Christ, I always wanted to write something on God because the attributes of God were something that I tangentially studied as I was working on the

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Puritans and Thomas Goodwin. And in fact, there was a book, A Puritan Theology, that I co -authored with Joel Beeke.

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And I remember writing chapters and he'd be like, OK, we need another one this week.

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You've got a week to write on Charnock and the attributes of God. I was like, what? So I managed,

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I think I pulled it off. Maybe the chapter reflects the fact that I should have taken longer.

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But reading Charnock, I thought, OK, this is amazing. But how many people are going to read

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Charnock? So what I wanted to do is take Knowing Christ, take the doctrine of God and almost wrap them up together and put it out.

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So that's why the format of God is very structured in terms of doctrine,

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Christ and then application, because I'm a preacher. So what's the point of these doctrines for how we live the

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Christian life? And I thought if I can just have that threefold focus in each chapter, it would probably be useful to the church in a way that maybe

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Charnock's volumes might be intimidating to the average layperson. I just wanted to read a few commendations for this book by one sister in Christ and two brothers in Christ who

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I have all had on this program a number of times. My friend,

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Rosaria Butterfield, former professor of English at Syracuse University and author of The Secret Thoughts of an

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Unlikely Convert. She is also, for those of you unfamiliar with Rosaria. A former lesbian and leftist and Marxist who was rescued by the sovereign grace and mercy of Christ and is now a vibrant Christian and married to a

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Reformed Presbyterian pastor and just a delight to know and call my friend.

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But she has written about this book in 27 concise chapters.

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God is, invites, equips, edifies, confronts, and challenges

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God's people to know God better and love him more. This is

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Mark Jones at his best, combining his theological breadth and depth with his pastor's heart.

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My longtime dear friend, Dr. Joel Beakey, the aforementioned Dr. Beakey, president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, says most treatments of God's attributes are like vast mining operations that use massive theological machinery to plumb the depths of divine revelation.

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Mark Jones hands us the diamonds of God's perfections already mined out and polished to enrich our souls immeasurably.

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Study this book, read it with your family, discuss it with your small groups, teach it to your church class, and give it to your neighbor.

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This is a gem indeed. And finally, Dr. Michael A .G.

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Haken, professor of church history and biblical spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes, written in the tradition of J.

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I. Packers, Knowing God, Jones's work is an extremely helpful and needful primer on our great

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God and His all -beautiful character, highly recommended as a tool for personal devotion or group study.

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And that's just three of many of the commendations that this book has received. What of the attributes of God can you highlight in this book that you believe many

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Christians get wrong or just have an inadequate understanding or explanation of them?

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Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I haven't really thought about what attributes many

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Christians get wrong. I think probably God's sovereignty,

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God is sovereign or His providence. And I don't mean that they get that wrong. But I think Christians struggle with the reformed view of how secondary causes work.

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In the Westminster Confession, chapter three, section one has a great summary statement of God being sovereign, but also that secondary causes are a big part of how

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God is sovereign and that the liberty of our will is not in any way taken away by God's sovereignty.

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And I think most Christians, when they become reformed, a lot of them kind of almost swing a little too far and don't quite affirm the freedom of the will, which is a phrase that is used all the time throughout

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Reformed history. So that's one where I think we could probably tighten up a little just on how do we speak about both truths adequately.

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And there's other things like God's love. I think Calvinist reform, you know, again, new early cage stages, the popular phrase people use, but God's love for all

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His preachers, you know, and then God's sort of love for His Son and God's love for Himself and God's love for His people.

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And then even God's, you know, unique love that He has for us when we please

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Him. And there's so many different concentric circles of God's love that it's not just one or the other, it's quite multifaceted, but God loves all that He's created.

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He loves even the non -elect in a certain sense. So I think if that's another one

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Christians probably don't do so well on in terms of understanding God's love. And there's no way that we can ever charge

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God with not having loved His preachers and no one will be able to say to God, you never loved me.

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Now, before I have Pastor Simon ask a question, just to clarify, since Romans 8 8 tells us those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God, that would include a willful act of embracing

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Him for salvation and trusting in Him alone for salvation. This text would indicate, since that pleases

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God, it cannot be an act performed by a lost person still in the flesh.

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So when you say that we do have a freedom of the will, even innately as dead, lost sinners,

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I'm assuming what you mean is we have the freedom to make choices and act upon them, but because of our natures, we will not seek to humble ourselves and please

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God by our nature. And we always act according to our nature and we are free to act according to our nature, but we will not freely run to Christ until we are regenerate.

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Am I making sense there? And do you agree with what I said? Yeah, I think we choose freely according to the nature that we have, and those that are in the flesh cannot please

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God. That's, I think, pretty standard Reformed theology. But on the other hand, there's other things like,

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I'm able to use my mouth right now and I'm not being impeded in any way.

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I can move my arm. And there's things like that type of freedom as well.

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It's like a physical freedom, which can be limited, obviously, by sickness or things like that.

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So, you know, there's just different, it's like God's love. There's different ways of understanding these things. And as long as you have the time and patience to explain what you mean, that's why

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I don't like internet drive by theology. I'm not a big fan of theology, whatever, because I just,

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I feel like so much is left to the reader to fill in everything, to make it all make sense.

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So that's why books are important. That's why sermons are important, because it allows the reader, the writer, the speaker to understand exactly what's being said and what's not being said.

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You don't think that Christians are at their most well -behaved on the internet? I've seen my own self not well -behaved on the internet.

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So that's why I'm like, listen, this is not a good place. On Twitter, I just get mad because so much stupidity, and then

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I'm part of it. So now I just look at Liverpool winning games and news about them, which is something

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I'm sure Simon is really happy to embrace with me as well. But as far as the love of God to all of creation, would you not say, to clarify that statement, that he only loves his elect, his children, as a spouse or as a father?

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And that is a privilege that cannot be claimed by those outside of Christ. Yeah, I mean, in the chapter on God's love,

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I believe I start with God has a universal love toward all things.

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You know, the Lord is good to all, his mercies over all that he's made. And then, you know,

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God has a love towards human beings, both elect and reprobate in terms of the fact that he allows his son to shine on the just and the unjust, but then he has a special love towards his people, which, you know,

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Peter will describe in 1 Peter 2 .9, you know, things like you're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

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And there's certain language that's reserved only for the bride of Christ. So again, it's trying to balance all of the different concentric circles is what

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I call them of God's love. And, you know, this is, again, something that you've got to affirm, but then explain why you do that.

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So even, you know, I make a statement and you then go, okay, so what you mean by this is that, and I'm like, yeah, that's precisely what

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I mean by that when it's explained. And that's what the book obviously is attempting to do.

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And even in a summary fashion. And Pastor Simon, you have a question? Yeah, something maybe a little bit more, you know, of a practical question.

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How would you say that our view of God and. You know, having a high view of God impacts our pastoral ministry or preaching, even our worship services in our churches.

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Yeah, I think, you know, everyone would, I mean, every pastor I talk to who has half a soul and half a heart and half a brain would say, and that's most of us, you know, we all want to have a high view of God.

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But then, you know, sometimes it's like, okay, do we have a high view of God? And, you know, if you have

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God's love almost created in a sense to envelop everything else, what role does

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God's trinity or what role does God's holiness, what role does

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God's, you know, majesty, you have a chapter on the majesty of God. How does that affect the way in which you come to worship, the way in which you enjoy worship, the way in which you leave worship?

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And I think what's helped me over the years is to not have a view of God that is somewhat partial, but true.

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So, you know, there's things that people believe about God and it's true, but it's like a half truth, which J .I.

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Packer says, you know, when a half truth masquerades as a full truth, it quickly becomes a complete untruth.

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And so I think, you know, Hebrews 12, 18 to 29, I think, would be a great example of the attributes of God all coming together in a sense when it comes to worship.

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And there's a lot of majesty there, a lot of holiness, but also love. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break right now.

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And if you would like to join the conversation on the air with a question of your own, you may submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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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 of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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But things like that, we will allow you to remain anonymous. But if it's just a general question, please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord and his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost and the glory of our triune

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God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith and we gather around the Lord's table every

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Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother,

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Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

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In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

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He sensed that same God given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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This program is sponsored by Hope PR Ministry. Hope PR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.

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36:40

Welcome back, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is

36:46

Mark Jones. We are discussing his book, God Is, a devotional guide to the attributes of God.

36:54

And my cohost today is my pastor, Simon O'Maney at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who has recently started a men's study on this book,

37:08

God Is. And for more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, go to trbccarlisle .org.

37:17

And Simon, I know that you are itching to ask our guest questions because of your love of this book, if you want to continue and start the next segment with a question.

37:31

Yeah. Earlier, Mark, you mentioned how you frame the book around the attributes of Christ, or each chapter leads into relating the attribute to Christ and then going into application.

37:45

Why do you think that was helpful? Why do you think it's important that our theology of God sort of flows into our

37:52

Christology? My basic understanding of the scriptures is not only that Christ's words on the

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Road to Mass, where beginning with Moses and the prophets, he explains to his disciples how all of the scriptures speak of him in one way or another.

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It's also the fact that he is the clearest representation of God that we can possibly conceive.

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He is the visible image of the invisible God, you know, the exact imprint of his being. You know, there's he who has seen

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Christ, has seen the Father. And so if you really want to understand

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God's attributes as they are revealed to us, you can look nowhere better than in his

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Son, who is the one that God has spoken through and in and by and so on.

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So I think any doctrine of God that doesn't have a rich Christology built into it is probably biblically defective for those reasons, and would then be pastorally defective because you're leading people to possibly a conception of God that is sub -Christian.

39:13

By the way, we do have... And to my shame, to my shame, I haven't read Charnock, but from what you remember, is that something that Charnock does?

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He does in sort of the uses or applications, it comes up quite a bit.

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And then he also will scatter comments throughout in ways in which clearly

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Christ is able to reveal these attributes of God in unique ways. In fact, in some ways, only he can that wouldn't be true of anyone else in terms of the analogy of what it looks like in a person, a human being even.

39:53

So, yeah, I think Charnock did that, but maybe it's something that I've read some books on the doctrine of God, and I haven't really been as convinced of the

40:06

Christological focus as I think needs to be there. We do have a listener question from Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, and he says and asks,

40:18

I know that there are some Christians, perhaps even especially Reformed, who have a very strong rigidity about their views of the attributes of God and other things of God that I think sometimes may be delving into the secret mysteries of God, and yet they are holding them as dogma and judging other

40:42

Christians accordingly. Do you think sometimes we go overboard in thinking that we can know the mind of God without being

40:50

God himself? I mean,

40:56

I assume that the questioner has some specific examples in mind.

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So for me, it's hard to, I mean, in one sense, I'm sure there's people who could go overboard.

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I don't find in my own, I'll just speak in my own context, I don't find people say things and believe things that would be necessarily so rigid based upon unknowables, that's just not something

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I've come across. I mean, we have our problems in Canada, don't get me wrong, but that's not like a huge problem for me in my local context.

41:29

Maybe Simon has a better understanding of it out on the East Coast there, but it's not something

41:34

I deal with a whole lot, to be honest. Do you have any comments on that, Simon? Yeah, I mean,

41:42

I would comment to that and say that, you know, some of it is going to depend on what kind of church tradition you're a part of.

41:50

So for Mark and myself, we are both part of a confessional tradition.

41:56

Not only do we hold to the ancient creeds of the church, but also to the London Baptist Confession and the

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Westminster Confession of Faith, respectively. And in terms of the

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Westminster and the London Baptist Confession, I think they both commonly affirm the same things with regard to the doctrine of God.

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And so, well, I won't speak for Mark, but I think I can. But certainly for myself, when I get into the pulpit and when

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I preach and when I teach, and even in informal ways as I'm teaching Bible studies, that sort of thing, there is a truth that's being confessed and taught, you know, could one call that rigid, perhaps.

42:37

But again, it's being consistent with the truth that we believe Scripture teaches as formulated in our

42:45

Confessions of Faith. Well, Bobby, you have won a free copy of God Is, a devotional guide to the attributes of God by our guest

42:54

Mark Jones, compliments of Crossway, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

43:04

who will be the ones actually shipping the book out to you at no cost to you or to Arien Treppen's Arien Radio.

43:10

So please make sure we have your mailing address so we can have cvbbs .com

43:16

ship that out to you. We have another listener. We have

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CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York. And CJ, this is a very commonly asked question throughout the years that I've been doing this program since 2005.

43:36

What would you say are a bare minimum of the attributes and understanding of God that a person must know in order to consider him or her a brother or sister in Christ?

43:54

Yikes. I mean, I think what we require in the

44:02

Presbyterian Church in America, you know, we have five questions. And one, the first one is, you know, do you recognize you're a sinner?

44:11

So I think the flip side of that would be at least understanding that God is holy. You know, you're only a sinner in relation to the fact that there's a righteous standard, that God is just, he's holy.

44:24

I would say you don't need to have an extremely well -developed theology of these things.

44:29

That's the point of the Church, to instruct and build people up in their knowledge. I mean, otherwise, why would

44:34

Simon have a book study, right? If people had to already know this to come in. So I think, you know, we have to be very careful that what we require of people doesn't go beyond what is required of someone who's saved.

44:47

But I do think we can say someone who's saved knows they're a sinner would then understand that God is just and holy and so on.

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And then they would have to understand that Christ has died for them and forgiven them for their sins.

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And when you understand that to some degree, you're going to know that God is loving, he's good and so on.

45:07

So I think when you look at the core doctrine of what it means to be saved, that, you know, you're going to walk in obedience to God and the power of the

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Holy Spirit, you know, that's part of being a Christian, that you would understand

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God also, you'd even understand his patience, that he's prepared to walk with us in our

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Christian life. He was also patient in not destroying us the moment we came into this world. So I think a lot of doctrines or a lot of attributes would be implicitly understood based upon knowing the gospel.

45:38

But I would never want to say that you've got to articulate the simplicity of God in a way that would satisfy

45:43

Thomas Aquinas. That would be, you know, that would be pretty difficult for pastors, never mind

45:53

Christians, so that's probably where I'm at. Now, this very often comes up in discussions about the

46:01

Trinity, and I don't know if you would agree with this, but some of the guests

46:06

I've had on this program who are Reformed, just as you and I are, they would judge the authenticity of a person's

46:21

Christianity when it comes to the Trinity differently, perhaps, when it comes to a teacher of a false doctrine of the

46:38

Trinity, like somebody who denies the Trinity, a Oneness Pentecostal, for instance, or some other kind of Unitarian, or Modalist, and a person who has been perhaps temporarily duped by these things.

46:54

Because I've often heard from pastors that many people that they have questioned, even within their own congregations, that they deem to be truly born -again, regenerate brethren, when asked to define the

47:13

Trinity, they will very often give a cloudy or misguided or false description, like a

47:20

Modalist description. So is there like a difference between, in your opinion, somebody who is a dogmatic and cultic leader who is declaring a false teaching and demanding that you agree with him, and a person who's just misguided, a gullible person who has been misled by these things?

47:46

Yeah. I think anyone would probably, I would like to hope that anyone would recognize the difference.

47:53

You know, it's the same with Christology. I ask people, does Christ have one will or two wills? And they don't really know.

47:58

I get different answers, and the answer is two wills, by the way. But yeah, they'll sometimes say one, and they're not trying to be evil or heretical, they just don't really have the conceptual tools that they want to piece it all together.

48:13

And even asking guys who are becoming pastors at Presbytery an exam question on the

48:19

Trinity, you know, they sometimes give a basic answer that I would expect my children or wife to give, and I sometimes look for a little more from them.

48:28

So there's always different expectations we have of people. I think that's just normal with regards to Christian theology.

48:36

And so, yeah, I have no hesitation in saying someone willfully teaching heresy is clearly different from someone who's, in a certain sense, sinning in ignorance, but not willfully.

48:48

And just briefly to clarify about the two wills of Christ, so people don't misunderstand you, you're not saying that Christ had two wills that were at odds with each other or anything like that?

49:00

I hope not. So Simon, do you have another question?

49:06

You know, Christ is free of a nature, so he has two natures. He has two wills, human nature, human will, divine nature, divine will, and the human nature always subservient, but in a line with the divine will.

49:19

And Simon, before we... Yeah, this is where I would plug Mark's book,

49:24

Knowing Christ. It's really excellent and really lays out a lot of very important distinctions for knowing

49:31

Christ and understanding the two natures of Christ. And because even what you find as you read through the gospels, there are a lot of questions that arise with respect to Christ, and he does things that no mere human can do, and there's questions of how does he do those things?

49:50

There's the question of Jesus praying in the garden, and Mark's book is very helpful. It deals with a lot of those things that probably the average lay person would do.

49:59

And apparently even candidates for ministry would struggle with, so very, very helpful.

50:06

If I could maybe just comment even on the question that was asked a moment ago. Yes. You know, I think that's where as well,

50:11

I think I'd go back to the creeds. And I think the creeds are very helpful in terms of setting the bounds of orthodoxy for those who are in the church.

50:21

It's one of the reasons why in our church, we regularly recite the

50:27

Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. And I mean, I'm fairly certain that everybody isn't understanding maybe everything, maybe to the degree that they could.

50:37

But Lord willing, that's where as pastors as well, we're seeking to, as Paul said, present everyone mature in Christ and using all of the tools and, of course, the means of grace to do that.

50:51

And Simon, do you have one more question before we go to our midway break? We have several minutes for a question and answer.

51:00

Yeah, I would ask, beyond your book,

51:06

Knowing God, or sorry, God Is, what other books, resources do you think would be helpful as maybe next steps for people to sink their teeth even further into this doctrine?

51:19

I did edit the Crossway edition of Stephen Charnock's Existence and Attributes of God.

51:27

So it's definitely more readable now. It's very intimidating looking at older versions.

51:36

But this one, I think if you've got through God Is, I would jump to Charnock. And you can pick and choose sections and there's even headers and stuff.

51:48

You're like, yeah, I want to learn about this and I'll skip that. And, you know, even just go into the doctrine of God's goodness in his discourse on God's goodness, that would be a very worthwhile study.

51:59

Just I want to really take what is a short chapter in my own book, you know,

52:05

God Is Good, and then read a book on God Is Good. And that's something Charnock would offer.

52:11

Body of Divinity by Thomas Watson is good. You know, there's some good books. And, you know,

52:18

Packers, knowing God doesn't really need a plug. It's sold almost,

52:24

I think, two million copies. He corrected me once. I said, yeah, it's sold a million copies. He said, no, Mark, I think two million.

52:31

You know, sorry to offend you. So, yeah. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now.

52:41

Please be patient as the midway break is a little longer than the other breaks. Please use this time wisely.

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Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence, and we'll be right back after these messages. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

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Welcome back. Before I return to Pastor Mark Jones of Faith Reformed Presbyterian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia, and my pastor

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Simon O'Maney of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And our discussion on God is a devotional guide to the attributes of God by Pastor Mark Jones.

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And the email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:10:23

And Pastor Simon, you have another question for our guest, Mark Jones. For some reason, Simon, you have muted yourself.

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Should be right now. As I think about the doctrine of God and even approaching the topic,

01:10:39

I think one of the most fundamental things to understand is the doctrine of simplicity, because we can even study

01:10:47

God's love, God's holiness and God's sovereignty, et cetera, in ways that almost hold them as contradictory attributes from one another.

01:10:59

Why do you think simplicity is so important? What is simplicity? Why is it so important for us to understand as we approach

01:11:08

God? It's it's actually quite a practical doctrine in terms of helping us conceive of God.

01:11:17

And I know there's some debate on proper understandings of simplicity. And, you know, there are,

01:11:27

I think, I'm trying to keep this as basic as possible. But, you know, God's essence is is is undivided is the first thing to say.

01:11:34

Like there's not parts of God. He's not a pizza. So you don't have like a piece of pizza and go, that's his sovereignty.

01:11:40

So my chapters, you wouldn't say, OK, I put these all together and you get God. And, you know, his eternity is he's

01:11:49

God is eternally, unchangeably, infinitely, blessedly, powerfully good.

01:11:56

So when you think of his goodness, it's it's not a goodness where it sort of arises in God from somewhere.

01:12:05

He he is who he is. And that kind of the simplest way

01:12:11

I could maybe express this is if you look at the cross, you see probably more than anything God's love, but you see his mercy, you see his patience, you see his justice, his holiness, and you should see all of those things.

01:12:25

That's the point is that when God acts, he acts according to his nature. That's why

01:12:31

I said earlier that, you know, God loves even his creatures. He loves animals. Everything that he's made, he loves.

01:12:40

So it's it's an important doctrine because it helps us not to isolate attributes in an unhelpful way.

01:12:47

It's not to say that we can't even say, you know, I don't even have a big problem with saying, you know, God's love is is most richly displayed in a way that we would say sometimes the holiness of God that people go is his most important attributes.

01:13:05

And I'm like, OK, I understand what you're trying to say. But we have to be careful that we don't isolate an attribute from everything else.

01:13:10

And that's really the point of simplicity. Do you think that the the language of perfections is helpful, you know, rather than not not maybe saying that attributes is wrong, but I personally like the language of perfections because I feel like it both holds simplicity to some degree, but also it affirms that there isn't potential within God's attributes so that God isn't just loving, but maybe he'll be more loving tomorrow if I'm a better Christian.

01:13:39

But that no, he is he is the fullness of love. He is love in perfection. Yeah. Yeah. Perfection is a great way to describe it.

01:13:47

And, you know, it's just a good way to to try and, you know, we don't need to balance like,

01:13:54

OK, you know, I can conceive of God perfectly just as I can loving.

01:13:59

I mean, there's certain attributes that are going to be easier for us to conceive even, you know, we don't deny that even when it comes to the simplicity of God.

01:14:08

But we also remember that God's unity is such that we can't he can't act.

01:14:15

Out of accordance with all that he is, and that's really important for us to understand that about God.

01:14:24

We have a question from Isabella in Gotha or Gotha, Florida, not sure how to pronounce that.

01:14:30

And Isabella says, do you think that most heresies and aberrant understandings of Scripture flow from somebody having a wrong idea of the nature of God or the nature of man or both?

01:14:46

Yeah, I mean, Calvin addresses this at the beginning of the

01:14:53

Institute, you know, that we have to have a right understanding of ourself, but also a right understanding of God and which comes first.

01:14:58

It's not easy to discern, but I do think that. I would say, you know, start with God and and all that he is and who he is and his perfections or and and that can save you a lot of trouble, you know, and a wrong understanding of man will get you into some trouble as well, for sure.

01:15:17

You know, we can think of ourselves more highly than we are and that gets us into trouble. So it's not I don't think it's an either or, but I do think that, you know, the first way to combat bad theology probably begins with with God.

01:15:31

And and then, you know, you can start to understand yourself a little better when you understand God, because then you you shouldn't really think of yourself more highly than you are after that.

01:15:42

And Simon, do you have any follow up on that? And yeah, one of the one of the

01:15:51

I think one of the ways that people often think about growing in the knowledge of God, and this gets,

01:16:00

I think, to somewhat of J .R. Packer's thesis in Knowing God. But I think for maybe for a lot of Christians, maybe the thought of if I want to get to know

01:16:07

God more, it's not necessarily through these funky kind of unfamiliar terms like simplicity or impassibility or things like that.

01:16:18

How would you encourage maybe maybe listeners who might even be feeling that way, where they might be afraid that even a book like this using these unfamiliar terms might might even hinder their their relationship with God?

01:16:28

How would you encourage them that this is to know God? Yeah, I think.

01:16:34

I really like what you're doing, where you're doing it in community, and that sometimes can take away a bit of the stress and anxiousness and things about, you know, these big concepts and God.

01:16:45

I mean, we typically think of I'm reading a book. I think majority of the time we talk about a book.

01:16:51

I've read my top 10 books I've read this year. Right. It's everywhere. I would like us to get back to communal reading, like the scriptures are always communally read back in the

01:17:02

New Testament. People didn't just have walk around with their Bibles. So, you know, Jesus reads in the synagogue and he says today, the scriptures fulfilled in your hearing and people are reading together.

01:17:10

So my suggestion, if people are feeling a little bit nervous or anxious about the doctrine of God and reading and these big concepts is read with some friends and work together through things.

01:17:23

That's one easy way. To do that. So, and then of course, you know, at the end of the day, try and pick things that, and this isn't necessarily my book, but a book where it's going to devotionally feed you and that can, that's something where not all books are even intended to do that, there's some books that I would keep away from the average lay person because they're just way too complicated.

01:17:50

So find books like in the Puritan style where there's a lot of uses or practical applications, and that will help you to bridge the theoretical that people talk about with the practical.

01:18:03

And I think if it's not practical in some way, then don't read it. Okay. We have

01:18:10

Cindy in Findlay, Ohio. I understand all of you men are Reformed and also nicknamed

01:18:17

Calvinists. What would be an understanding of God and his attributes that would lead you to think that the person was an authentic hyper -Calvinist?

01:18:30

Yeah, hyper -Calvinist has a different maybe shade of meanings, you know, today than maybe historically in the 18th century and John Gill, different ideas of what a hyper -Calvinist might be.

01:18:45

So in some people's minds, a hyper -Calvinist would be restricting the free offer of the gospel to all.

01:18:55

For others, hyper -Calvinist might be tied to concepts of eternal justification that, you know, when we believe it's just a reflection of what's already true, and variations of that.

01:19:07

And then other people I've heard use the term hyper -Calvinist in the sense of like overdoing the sovereignty of God to the expense of, you know, so it all depends on where I am in the world, who

01:19:17

I'm talking to, whether they understand it historically speaking, or even in that sort of antinomian strain of hyper -Calvinism, where so much emphasis upon what

01:19:27

Christ has done that our obedience, our lives don't get sort of relegated to the sidelines in a very significant way.

01:19:36

So I'm not sure, you know, what the questioner has exactly in mind, but I think it'd be important if you're discussing hyper -Calvinism to ask, you know, what do you mean by it?

01:19:50

What's your basic concern? Like what is, or what are you suggesting? And then go from there, because I've just heard so many variations that it's hard for me to pinpoint anything.

01:20:00

Yeah. I know for instance, that the denomination that Dr. Joel Beakey left is considered by many hyper -Calvinism, hyper -Calvinistic.

01:20:12

And Dr. Beakey, one of the problems he had with the Netherlands reform church that he left was their total lack of assurance, which led him to write his doctoral dissertation on that subject, which eventually led to a popular book based on his dissertation.

01:20:30

And that's one kind of hyper -Calvinism. And then you have on the extreme opposite end that which was demonstrated and still is by many who call themselves primitive

01:20:42

Baptists, where you don't even, in the mind of some of the primitive

01:20:47

Baptists, you don't even need to believe in Christ to be saved. That election seems to be equivalent to regeneration.

01:20:58

And therefore there are going to be people in heaven that had a

01:21:03

God they worshiped that wasn't even Jesus. But so you are right that there are differences, but, and I'm sure you would all agree, both of you, that the term seems to be most often used by those who despise any kind of Calvinism and slander those of us who have a truly biblical and historical understanding of the doctrines of grace, they will call us hyper -Calvinists.

01:21:33

Wouldn't you agree that that's the way it's most often used? It's basically misused, Pastor Jones?

01:21:42

Oh, yeah. I mean, I started waiting for Simon's answer. Well, Simon could pipe in too.

01:21:49

Yeah, I, again, maybe being in Canada, we're not overly caught up with a history of like, you know, and there are some

01:21:57

Dutch denominations and stuff where I think things can be that, but it's not really a pejorative term that gets thrown around a lot here.

01:22:06

I have parts of the U .S. Yeah, no, we don't. I agree. The last time I heard that,

01:22:11

I think I might've had to have written an essay on the topic for a book rather than you bringing up the term.

01:22:18

So, you know, we get shielded from a lot up here. That doesn't mean it's all good, but I don't think anyone in our church would really even know what hyper -Calvinism is.

01:22:30

That's just being honest. And I don't know if anyone has ever accused us of being it because it's not really a slur that's used in our part of the world.

01:22:40

I've heard some vehement anti -Calvinists refer to John Calvin as a hyper -Calvinist, which makes no sense.

01:22:47

But Simon, do you have any comments? Yeah, fortunately,

01:22:53

I'm kind of in the same boat as Mark. I haven't had to engage with any either hyper -Calvinists or those who might accuse me of being a hyper -Calvinist.

01:23:02

So I haven't had a lot of dialogue with others on that topic, to be honest with you. And of course, anybody, whether they are theologically

01:23:11

Reformed, Arminian, or otherwise, can behave like hyper -Calvinists can behave in a lack of evangelistic passion and zeal.

01:23:27

Anybody can behave that way just because of laziness, just because of men being more afraid of men than God, men being ashamed of the gospel.

01:23:41

They don't want to be embarrassed. They don't want to risk losing a job or having a spouse leave them or having family disown them.

01:23:51

They can keep their mouths shut. But I'm sure you agree,

01:23:57

Pastor Jones, that authentic Calvinism, when rightly believed and applied to the life of a believer, does not at all thwart the zeal and passion of evangelism, does it?

01:24:14

Yeah, I hope not, because it's a clear violation of Christ's command to go into the world to baptize and make disciples of all nations.

01:24:25

I mean, I try to just keep things very basic in my church, in my life, and it's clear to me that we believe, as a result of God's love, that we are to go to all people out of our love for them to bring the good news of the gospel.

01:24:43

So, yeah, it's a pretty clear -cut issue for me. And could you point out, before we go to our final break, point out—I know that you said earlier that your motivation for this book, this devotional, was not to correct error in other

01:25:08

Reformed works or devotionals or to supply something that was missed by others, but at the same time to further whet the appetite of the listener.

01:25:21

Can you give us some things that might be just unique about your work that may compel them to want to pick up this book and maybe even do exactly what

01:25:31

Pastor Simon is doing, have a weekly study on it? I just, to me,

01:25:38

I don't know, I've heard a lot of people just say they like the short chapters. It makes it manageable.

01:25:45

You know, you feel you've actually accomplished something when you pick up and you get a few pages and you're like, OK, and it's a crystallization.

01:25:52

It's not meant to be exhaustive. So I think that's the basic thing, is it's not overwhelming. And with Doctrine of God, you are necessarily overwhelmed because we're talking about God, and then

01:26:02

I'm doing my best not to overwhelm in a negative way, but overwhelm in a positive way.

01:26:09

And that's short chapters. That seems to be in accordance with Dr. Beakey's commendation of your book, where you offer us the diamonds that have already been mined and polished and alleviate the reader from the hard work of mining and digging.

01:26:28

But Pastor Simon, perhaps you could give another flog motivating people to buy this book of why you found it uniquely valuable.

01:26:40

Yeah, again, to just reiterate everything that was said, you know, I'll say that all of the brothers that I've been meeting with have really appreciated it and grown from it.

01:26:51

And, you know, it warms my heart as a pastor to be in conversation with another brother.

01:26:57

And he throws in the word simplicity, you know, or he's listening to a sermon and he maybe applies a term that I might not have used in the sermon, but he he's applying it from something he read, perhaps from that book or from somewhere else.

01:27:11

So I think it is an excellent introduction to a topic that can be quite complex, but a topic

01:27:19

I think that is necessary if we want to grow in our knowledge of God.

01:27:27

OK, we have Robert in White Plains, New York, who asks,

01:27:35

I know this is off topic, but can you explain and at least summarize the controversy swirling around amongst

01:27:41

Reformed Christians over the differences on sanctification? Yeah, Simon and I were actually talking about this before the show.

01:27:51

Do you have anything to say that gives people a better understanding of why you take the positions that you do that, for some bizarre reason, have upset other people who call themselves

01:28:01

Reformed? Yeah, again,

01:28:06

I feel like the controversy from my end is quieting down. I mean, it really was at its height with Tillian Shibijan and his book

01:28:14

Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything. And and for a while I thought I was just putting out staple basic Reformed theology from the history of our tradition.

01:28:23

And I don't believe I said anything new or different, but I think we we lost our way somehow in the 20th century with what was

01:28:37

Reformed theology and some form of it emerged. And I think people have kind of seen through Tillian's theology.

01:28:45

I think they've seen the outcome of his own life as well. Sadly, I don't wish that on anyone, but I'm also not surprised that the type of theology he was espousing was connected to living.

01:28:58

And in scriptures, we do see that there is a very strong connection. It's not a necessary connection, but there's a strong connection between false doctrine and false living.

01:29:06

And, you know, we can't deny that with false teachers. So for my own part, if you want, you can read

01:29:14

Antinomianism, Reformed Theology's Unwelcome Guest, a book that I was surprised how well it's done in terms of its publication sales.

01:29:24

It's not quite God is, but it's certainly done a lot better than I expected. And you get an idea.

01:29:29

But it's not really a big, it's not something I come across a lot right now in my own life of debate.

01:29:35

But I'm sure people still talk about these things and stuff. To me, it feels like we just moved from one debate to another in the

01:29:42

Reformed world. And right now it seems to be like Christian nationalism and politics and things like that are really at the forefront of a lot of social media.

01:29:50

So I've been out of the game for a while. I'm too busy pastoring, I guess. Well, it does seem to be,

01:29:57

I guess it's because I'm a radio and podcast host. That I'm hearing more and more from people who are endorsing what seems to be a form of antinomianism and have become very vicious about those who are opponents of their understanding, even accusing us of clouding the vital doctrine of sola fide, justification by faith alone or the imputed righteousness of Christ.

01:30:33

And I just am hearing this from people that I never heard these arguments against our views of sanctification as long as I've been a

01:30:47

Christian and I've became a Reformed Christian probably months after becoming a born -again

01:30:53

Christian. And I don't understand how somebody could claim to believe in the perseverance and preservation of the saints and have their view of what seems to be a fruitless

01:31:13

Christian life as one adequate to give assurance. Am I making sense?

01:31:22

Yeah, I'm a bit surprised, too. I once did a podcast with someone and I had no idea, but they were of a slightly different persuasion, one of the persons on it.

01:31:32

And they decided not to even publish the podcast. And I was like, I just laugh sometimes because I can't make sense of what is, you know, one -on -one

01:31:43

Reformed theology. And it's, yeah, I think there's been, you know, there's context to everything.

01:31:50

There was people concerned about new perspective on Paul's federal vision. And some people started to sort of see it everywhere.

01:31:59

And I'd never read any federal vision. And I was very new to even what the new perspective on Paul was, but I'd been reading a lot of Owen Goodwin, the

01:32:08

Reformed and stuff, and so I was just putting stuff out and people were like, hey, that's not very good and all this.

01:32:14

And I thought, oh, this is news to me. So it takes a while to learn maybe where the culture is at of what they believe.

01:32:23

And now that I do, I think I've got a stronger pulse on how to talk about things and not just assume that people are going to agree.

01:32:32

So, but I do, I have hope that quite a number of people through the years have come around to see a bit more of the richness of the

01:32:40

Reformed view. And so it's, it's not as bad as it, and there's been a lot of good retrieval efforts by a multitude of theologians recently.

01:32:47

So I'm, I'm, I'm in a much happier place, at least with Reformed theology in public than maybe 15 years ago, when it was pretty bleak.

01:32:58

One of the accusations hurled against us is that we are the newcomers on the block comparatively, and these folks seem to put the

01:33:12

Reformers and the Confessions at odds with the Puritans. I can't make sense of that.

01:33:19

Can you? I mean, Simon, did you, were you saying something? Um, well, when

01:33:26

I was in seminary, um, over 10 years ago now, um, some of this stuff was kind of,

01:33:33

I think, raging around then, and it was, you know, very disappointing, very discouraging. And I mean, as far as I could tell in terms of what

01:33:40

I was seeing, maybe those who were sort of promoting and defending, you know, Tulian and that, uh, the things that they were saying were, were at odds with our

01:33:50

Confessions of Faith and our Patechisms and statements on sanctification. And, you know, obviously for the listener, more importantly,

01:33:57

I would say with Scripture. Um, and certainly, you know, I appreciated what, um, our brother

01:34:02

Mark was presenting at that time, both in blogs and in, um, in writings. And, uh, as I could see, it was consistent with what

01:34:10

I had read in the Puritans, even before I'd gone to seminary. And even as I was studying and becoming more familiar with our, our

01:34:17

Reformed understanding of the Faith. Um, so yeah, it was a, well, it's a little bit of news to me that there's a, maybe a resurgence in some of that in terms of the accusations you mentioned.

01:34:28

Yeah. Even amongst professedly confessional Reformed Baptists, which is very strange because I had never heard these things, uh, from the pulpits or pens of confessional

01:34:43

Reformed Baptists until very recently. So it's strange. But, uh, we have to go to our final break.

01:34:50

And once again, if you have a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And also

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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

01:44:53

I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

01:45:01

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

01:45:13

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

01:45:20

Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

01:45:29

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

01:45:39

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

01:46:08

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

01:46:14

I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my long -time friend and brother,

01:46:20

Chris Arnson, in the highest esteem, and I'm thrilled that you're listening today. I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for Reformed Christian literature for decades now,

01:46:34

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Well, with the economic nightmare that we're all currently enduring, cvbbs .com,

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I'm going to enable you to build a wonderful personal library of the best literature that the

01:46:53

Reformers, the Puritans, and the great Christian minds of today have to offer, and at affordable prices.

01:47:00

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That's cvbbs .com, making the joy of reading the finest in Christian literature more affordable.

01:47:36

Oh, and make sure that you tell them you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

01:47:45

And if you didn't have the privilege of receiving a free copy of God Is, A Devotional Guide to the

01:47:53

Attributes of God by Mark Jones, or even if you did win today and want to order more copies to give away as gifts, go to cvbbs .com

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and use promo code IRON to get the extra 5 % off the already discounted prices.

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And keep in mind, folks, that cvbbs .com is now shipping worldwide.

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So no matter where you live in the world, if you're listening, you can order God Is from cvbbs .com.

01:48:23

Please make sure you mention Iron Sharpens Iron radio when doing so. Also, I want to remind you that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Botafugo &

01:48:33

Associates. If you're the victim of a very serious accident or injury or medical malpractice, no matter where you live in the

01:48:40

United States, call 1 -800 -NOW -HURT or visit their website 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com.

01:48:47

Please make sure you mention that you heard about Botafugo & Associates from Chris Arnsen of Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

01:48:54

Also, I want to remind you, with Mother's Day coming up in a couple of months, please consider buying your mom or any mom in your life—your spouse who may be a mom, your daughter who may be a mom, or any other mom in your life—consider buying them a beautiful piece of jewelry from royaldiadem .com.

01:49:15

The added reason I'm encouraging you to do that is that we get 100 % of the profits from any sale of jewelry to our listeners, as long as our listeners mention

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And not only do they have beautiful jewelry already in stock, but you can have one -of -a -kind customized pieces of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications.

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So go to royaldiadem .com today. I also want to plug a couple of events that are coming up.

01:49:49

I'm having a pastor's luncheon, a free pastor's luncheon, as I've been doing every year for quite a number of years.

01:50:00

I now have them twice a year. Free pastor's luncheon in Loisville, Pennsylvania at Church of the

01:50:09

Living Christ. The first one is our spring luncheon on May 1st, featuring

01:50:14

Christian young earth creationist and astrophysicist

01:50:20

Dr. Jason Lyle. That's Thursday, May 1st. And also coming up in September on Thursday, September 18th,

01:50:31

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries will be my keynote speaker at that luncheon, and he'll be,

01:50:39

God willing, preaching at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania the following Sunday on the 21st of September.

01:50:49

For more details on the luncheons, go to ironsharpensironradio .com, ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:50:57

And for more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, go to trbccarlisle .org,

01:51:06

trbccarlisle .org. We have an anonymous listener in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who asked something that made me chuckle, but perhaps you could either agree with the authenticity of this question or not.

01:51:27

This is a quote that's attributed to you, Pastor Mark.

01:51:34

While we Presbyterians argue about men in tights, likely a dig at what

01:51:40

Tim Keller allowed at Redeemer Presbyterian when male dancers danced during a worship service, the

01:51:47

Reformed Baptists are carrying the heavy water on the doctrine of God.

01:51:54

Did you or did you not say that? I think you're muted, brother.

01:52:07

You're still muted. Oh, wait a minute. I'm the one that has you muted. What an idiot. Sorry about that.

01:52:15

It sounds like something I would say, so I'll claim it. It probably sounds like something several years ago.

01:52:26

I think it was at the time that James Dalzell's book, All That Is In God, came out.

01:52:32

That's not to say all the Reformed Baptists have been doing a good job. There's been some that, I guess, there's a reason he wrote that book.

01:52:39

I know there's a bit of a debate going on among Reformed Baptists. I'm not really privy to all the details, but I think it might have been a reference to that book by James Dalzell, and not much more to it than that.

01:52:53

Yeah, there were some guys in tights on a stage once, but I got that out of my mind, so I need to now re -get that out of my mind again.

01:53:07

Pastor Simon, do you have another question for our brother Mark Jones before we run out of time today?

01:53:15

Well, I was just going to say that that image of men in tights on a stage right before the

01:53:21

Lord's Supper has given me a wonderful opportunity to explain to my church, as I teach a new members class on the regulative principle, why it is that we do believe there is regulation with regard to the worship of God, and there are things that we can do, and there are things that we must not do.

01:53:40

Using the Bible as a blueprint. That's right. Yeah, God sets the pattern of worship for us through his own

01:53:50

Word. We do in worship what he commands us to do, and we don't do what he has not commanded us to do.

01:53:57

But yeah, a question for Mark, I guess the question is, when is the Holy Spirit is, or knowing the

01:54:03

Holy Spirit coming out? Yeah, good one. I've currently writing a devotional, well,

01:54:10

I'm seeing if I can. It's harder work than I imagined, a daily devotional on Christology, on knowing

01:54:15

Christ, 365 devotions. So, you know, work on the

01:54:21

Spirit, yeah, that's a tough one, because that's a very controversial topic. And I think there's been some good work.

01:54:29

You know, after reading Sinclair Ferguson's book on the Holy Spirit, I'm kind of like, I don't know if that one's really going to be better.

01:54:36

But maybe a bit more devotional might be the key. Yeah, I haven't gotten to that yet.

01:54:45

I've been tired, you know, pastoral ministry eventually starts to suck all of your life and energy, and you hold on for dear life.

01:54:53

So I'm in the holding on for dear life stage of my life, and maybe in a few years I'll recover and be able to write something like that.

01:55:01

Well, we do have a question from Boris in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

01:55:08

Can you tell our listeners about the unique challenges you face as a pastor in Canada? Yeah, I mean, people ask me a lot of questions in America, you know, are you allowed to do this, say this, what's it like up there?

01:55:23

And, you know, I have to be honest, I preach every

01:55:28

Sunday, whatever I need to preach, and I've never had any issues.

01:55:36

Culturally, obviously, we're in a bad cultural moment, but I don't think it's altogether too different from the

01:55:44

U .S. or parts of the U .S. You know, if you look at California, you could look at Canada, and I don't think there's a whole lot of difference.

01:55:52

So, you know, what I find is I have to just deal with, instead of, you know, is our government,

01:56:00

Trudeau, incompetent? You know, who should we vote for? I deal more with just regular pastoral issues, you know, people just lacking trust in God's sovereignty, people not believing

01:56:12

Christ died for their sins in a way that really gets them to get rid of anxiety.

01:56:17

Like, it's just basic pastoral issues that confront most people that affects my ministry.

01:56:25

But the idea that I can't preach on homosexuality, otherwise I'll be put in jail, or can't talk about disciplining children,

01:56:32

I'll be put in jail, it's not really a reality right now. It may become one. I'm not trying to downplay the trajectory of society, but most of my issues with people are the same issues that most pastors deal with day to day.

01:56:45

You know, we're sinners, and God alone is able to provide solutions to certain problems that emerge from sin, like our guilty conscience and things like that.

01:56:56

So I wish I could give you stories of, you know, me going to jail. I actually don't want to give that story, but you know.

01:57:05

But that's, yeah, it may come. But it's not as bad as I sometimes hear people imagine it to be in Canada.

01:57:15

Well, if you could, in a minute's time, summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:57:24

Well, given the topic of the book, God Is, I think my takeaway from that book is

01:57:31

God is great. And that's not just a pithy phrase to throw out.

01:57:37

He's so great that he deserves our admiration, our devotion, our worship, our absolute focus.

01:57:45

And yet, the way in which we truly see God is through Jesus Christ. And when we see God through Jesus Christ, there's so many practical benefits for the

01:57:53

Christian life that it's the most practical doctrine, God, because it's

01:57:58

God is. But God is revealed in Christ, and Christ does all things for our benefit as his people.

01:58:08

And so there's maximum benefit from knowing God and knowing his Son, Jesus Christ, which is what

01:58:14

Christ prays for in John 17 3. This is eternal life. They know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ to be sent.

01:58:20

And if I can get people to really understand something of John 17 3, that's my joy and my happiness as a minister and writer.

01:58:31

Well, I want to remind our listeners that the website for Faith Reform Presbyterian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia is faithvan .com.

01:58:42

And the website for the church where I'm a member and where my co -host,

01:58:50

Pastor Simon O'Maney, is the pastor, Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that website is trbccarlisle .org,

01:59:02

trbccarlisle .org. I want to thank both of you brothers for being such wonderful guests today, and I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

01:59:15

Make sure we have your mailing addresses, so cvbvs .com can ship out your free copies of Mark Jones's book.

01:59:22

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