December 11, 2020 Show with Marcus A. McKnight III, Esq. on “God’s Wonderful Plan for the Birth of His Son”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing

the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens

another.

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.

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.

And now here's your host Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity

living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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

on this 11th day of December 2020 and

this is the second day of Hanukkah and an ideal time

to reach out to your Jewish neighbors, friends, and loved ones with the message of the gospel

that their Jewish Messiah has indeed come and is the only hope for

mankind for eternal life.

In fact there is some biblical record

of Jesus recognizing we're not sure if he actually celebrated

Hanukkah but he certainly

knew that this was a a festival that was celebrated by the Jews and perhaps he was

taking advantage of it because he knew that there

would be many people gathered to celebrate that day.

He knew that many of his kinfolk would be there gathered so

he used that day to present the gospel of Jesus Christ,

his gospel obviously, and if you're interested in finding out more about that

the actual text in the scripture is from John the

10th chapter 22 through 24.

Then came the festival of dedication at Jerusalem.

It was winter and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon's

colonnade.

The Jews who were there gathered around him saying how long will you keep us in suspense

if you are the Messiah tell us plainly and I'm sure you could find all

sorts of different commentaries and so on that might give you a

better understanding of what was occurring there and John Wesley believed that Jesus actually

celebrated Hanukkah but I don't know if we can be 100 convinced from the texts that that was

the case but anyway that's not what we're talking about today although it is definitely connected.

We are talking about that very gospel that

Jesus provided for not only the Jews but for all of humanity.

We're talking about God's wonderful plan for the birth of his son and to do that we have a

returning guest a dear friend of mine who's also my lawyer and he's also

a very dear brother in Christ and know that is not an oxymoron to have a lawyer

as a friend and a brother in Christ.

His name is Marcus A. McKnight III also very well known to his

friends as Mike McKnight and he is the majority shareholder of the

Carlisle Pennsylvania law firm Irwin and McKnight PC recipient of an undergraduate

degree in 1974 from Drew University of Madison New Jersey cum laude with

specialized honors in economics and a Juris Doctor

in 1977 from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law member of the Pennsylvania Bar

Association and the Cumberland County Bar Association active member in the Carlisle Rotary Club

and past president of both the Cumberland County Bar Association and the Carlisle Rotary Club.

He's also a member of the West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and a

frequent function speaker for CBMC which is Christian Businessmen's

Connection and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio for the

very timely theme, God's Wonderful Plan for the Birth of His Son.

Thank you for joining us again,.

Marcus

McKnight.

Oh yeah,

amen.

And well

before we go

into our wonderful

theme

about God's Wonderful.

Plan for the Birth of His Son.

, why don't you tell us a little bit about the law firm where.

You practice?

Oh wow, I

have a good friend who for years

was a professor of law there, Dr. F. Lagarde Smith.

I wonder if your son had him as a professor?

Beautiful campus, I've

never been there.

But I've seen it on film and photograph and so

forth.

Well in fact the law professor that I mentioned, Dr. F. Lagarde Smith,

who is no longer there but he was for quite a long time, you may recall in the

80s that actress Shirley MacLaine, who was very much involved in the New Age

movement, wrote a book called Out on a Limb and Dr. F. Lagarde Smith, who lived

right next door to her in Malibu, California at the time, wrote a

response to her and that book into the Broken Limb.

I think that was the book that really put Dr. Smith on the map but sorry

to.

Interrupt you there and

you're speaking of

your

son

Matthew by the way,

right?

Amen.

Well I

just.

Thank God that you very successfully served as my attorney

on several occasions when I needed your assistance and they were all successful thanks to you

and the gifts that God has given you.

And if anybody wants to find out more about this law firm you can go to erwinmcknight .com and

that's spelled I -R -W -I -N mcknight .com m -c

-k -n -i -g -h -t that is dot com and well this is a no

-brainer why you wanted to speak on this theme, God's wonderful plan for the birth of the

Son, being the Christmas season, but why don't you start

off by telling us the reason,

the biblical reason, that God needed to send his Son

into this world and be actually born into this

world as a human, the second person of the Trinity who always existed and

always will exist, had for the first time become

a human being, fully human and simultaneously always fully God,.

But

tell

us

about

why

this

occurred.

In

fact

the governor

of

Pennsylvania

would

have

banned

the Last Supper, wouldn't he?

There were too many

disciples for

a gathering.

Now.

Sometimes the sentimental way, the sanitized way

that people imagine Christmas to be,

not only through holiday television programs and greeting

cards and everything that is associated with Christmas, very

often has a very sentimental and sanitized understanding of what occurred.

They might not see the sacrifice even

before Calvary, even before the death of Christ,

God becoming human was in and of itself a sacrifice, was it not?

Sacrifice,

and in fact

you know I

heard just

today

while in

the

car

of a

friend

who was.

Listening to Christian radio, even though I knew this as a doctrine, as a fact

of history, as a theological fact, for some reason it just never occurred to me to

think of it in quite this way before, but I heard an announcer of this Christian

radio network say that Jesus Christ is the only person who ever

chose to be born, and it just struck me as being something

very well put, and I don't know why it struck me as something sounding new, even

though like I said I would have theologically known that, and even historically known that to be

true, but it was.

Just an

interesting

way and a

wonderful way

to

put

it.

That's

right,

and of

course

this is a.

Well -known fact to no doubt the majority of my audience, but just for the sake

of those listening who might be outside of the Christian faith, or

just very new in the faith and they haven't got all their theology right,

Joseph was not a biological parent.

You said that Jesus chose who his parents would be.

Only Mary was his biological parent, but Joseph was, I guess for lack of a better term, you could

call him a stepfather, but he was the earthly

dad, the caretaker of Christ while he was growing up, and it was the Holy

Spirit who conceived Christ in the womb of Mary.

And one thing that I think I should insert here, being

somebody who was raised Roman Catholic, and I love my Roman Catholic

friends and loved ones and family members and neighbors,

but there are some very serious departures from Biblical truth that

they hold to sometimes very tenaciously as core teachings

of their belief system, and one of them is something that involves an

account that you just mentioned about the visitation of the angel to Mary.

Many Catholic apologists are on record as giving credit to the

salvation of all who are going to be inheriting

eternal life.

They give a heretical emphasis on Mary

being someone to whom we owe our

thanks and praise and veneration, because they will say

that Mary had to agree to conceive and

be the mother of the Messiah, that it was up to her, and she could have

rejected this offer, as it were, the way it is often put

by Roman Catholics.

There was no offer there.

There was no request that she do this.

The angel declared and prophesied what would happen.

There was no if, ands, or buts about.

It.

Yes,

but

to

reiterate,

there

was no

request

of

her.

It

was

a

declaration

of

fact and

a

prophecy.

Well, we have to go to our first break right now.

If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question about God's wonderful plan for the birth of His

Son, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n

-z -e -n at gmail .com.

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

if you live outside the USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves

a personal and private matter.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Sorensen, and our guest today, if you just tuned in, is Marcus A. McKnight

III, attorney at law, and most well known to his friends as Mike

McKnight, which is why he insists I call him Marcus.

I'm only kidding.

And we are discussing God's wonderful plan for the birth of his son.

And if you want to pick up where you left off, Marcus?

Well, the truth,

Jodie came together, she

was

found to be with child,

and resolved to divorce her quietly.

Praise God.

And we do have a listener with a question for you.

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

And Ronald says, do you think it's appropriate that we who are

Christians only dwell on the birth of Christ during our

celebration of Christmas without bringing into conversations

and even in our focus of attention in worship, why he came, the very

topic you are discussing today, which includes, obviously, his death, burial, and resurrection?

Thank you very much, Ronald.

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks,

I cannot wrap my head around the fact that Jesus Christ, who was fully man

and fully God, had to grow in his learning.

How could that possibly be for somebody who is fully God?

Yes.

And, of course, the listener is referring to Luke

chapter 2, verse 52, where Jesus grew in

wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.

There is, obviously, some mystery involving this

because he would not have been fully human if even as an

infant he knew and understood and had the wisdom of a 30 -year -old man

that he was when he died on Calvary.

I mean, there is a mystery behind this, is there not, that we can never really fully answer,

especially to adequately satisfy the curiosity of people, because the

hypostatic union is something that, although we can explain it as a

biblical truth,.

We

cannot

really

fully

understand

it, can

we?

Amen.

Well, is there anything that perhaps you can share with our

listeners that you use as devotionals

or anything specific to make the celebration of the incarnation

and the birth of Christ every year?

Of course, we should do this more than just during the Christmas season, but is there

anything that you might want to give as advice or just share with something that

has blessed you and your family and perhaps your congregation.

About

how

to

have

the

right

focus

during

this time

of

year?

In

fact,

we're

gonna

have

to

pick.

Up right where you left off because we have to get our midway break right now.

Okay.

And, folks, please be patient because this is the longer -than -normal break in the show.

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and other local things to localize the program to that area while we

simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

So, please use this time wisely.

Write down the information provided by our advertisers, at least as much of it as you can for as many of our

advertisers as you can, so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize our

advertisers.

And the reason why this is very important is that we absolutely, positively

depend on our advertisers to exist.

We depend upon the funding that comes through our advertisers to exist as a program.

So, therefore, make our advertisers happy whenever possible so that they want to continue being our

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So, please, at the very least, do that.

And also use this time to write down questions for Marcus McKnight III on

the birth of Christ.

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

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives

to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work

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And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes,

or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will

join us some Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior.

Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

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

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They are absolutely essential to our existence, the financial support that they provide.

So please help keep them in business by your frequent and

generous purchases from solid -ground -books .com.

And you're not only going to be doing them a favor, and you're not only going to be doing us at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a favor by keeping our

advertiser happy, you're going to be doing yourself an enormous favor and anyone for whom you purchase books

from solid -ground -books .com because as I said before, they are the publishers of the

finest in Christian literature from the past and the present.

It's solid -ground -books .com.

Before we return to our guest, Marcus, aka Mike McKnight,

and our discussion of God's wonderful plan for the birth of His Son, I just have a couple

of announcements to make.

Mark your calendars for Monday, the 21st of December,

the Monday before Christmas.

For only the second time in the history of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, am I not going to be

hosting this program.

I'm going to have guest hosts filling in for me on that day.

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a very well -known, in fact,

a world -renowned Christian apologist, New Testament Greek scholar, author, debater.

He is going to be joined by a mutual dear friend of both of ours, Pastor Bill

Shishko of the Haven Orthodox Presbyterian Church in

Deer Park, Long Island, New York, and they are going to be hosting my show together as guest hosts.

As I said, it's only the second time in the history of this show that I've had someone else hosting the show.

That only happened one other time, and I almost lost this program permanently

when I had my dear friend Pastor Jim Capo fill in for me in the early

2000s when I was broadcasting out of WNYG and WGBB radio in

Babylon, Long Island, New York, because the general manager was so highly offended by

Pastor Jim's critique, although I heard the recording later, and he did it with love, and I

think that everything he said was appropriate, but he gave a critique of Joel Osteen and his

ministry, and that just set the general manager there into a rage, and she almost

permanently pulled the plug on my show, but thankfully, soon after that, she began to see that

the show was growing globally in our audience because we were always live

-streamed in addition to being a radio show, and when they started getting

calls, back then we did take phone calls rather than emails with questions, but we were getting

calls from all over the world in the United States.

She fell in love with the show and never bothered me again about the content

of the program, but anyway, that was a long way of saying that this is only the second time that somebody else is filling in for me, and

that will be Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Pastor Bill Shishko

of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Deer Park, known as The Haven, and it's interesting that they

debated each other.

Dr. White, being a Reformed Baptist, debated our mutual friend Bill Shishko years ago on infant

baptism, and Bill, being a Presbyterian, obviously believes in infant baptism, and it was an

excellent debate, and you can see that on YouTube, and it is also well known for my stand -up comedy

routine in the beginning of the debate, but I hope that you check that out.

Also, folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please, I'm urging you,

go to ironsharpenxionradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card by doing that.

If you prefer snail mail, an address, a physical address, will appear on the screen when you

click support at ironsharpenxionradio .com, where you can mail a check, made payable, to

Ironsharpenxionradio.

And also, if you'd like to advertise with us, we definitely need your advertising dollars as well, so as long as whatever it is

you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, you don't have to believe identically with me, but you

need to be promoting something that's compatible with what I believe, then please send me an email to

chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

And I want you all to remember that I never want anybody

siphoning money away from your regular giving to your own

local church.

Uh, the amount that you're accustomed to giving to them, I don't want you taking away from that to give to us.

In other words, don't punish your church financially by blessing us financially, and don't put your

family in financial peril or jeopardy if you're really struggling to survive

and make ends meet.

Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and your family.

Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show, and you're blessed

financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, please help us.

There are tens of thousands of people that download this show, the recordings of it, every month, and

yet we only have a small handful of very generous, very loyal, and very

faithful benefactors, contributors, donors, uh, who

I love and am so grateful for beyond my ability to describe in the

English language.

I don't want my very generous listeners to think that I am downplaying

the profound blessing you are to me, but when I say a small handful of folks are helping us,

I'm speaking about the number of people helping us, not the generous gifts that

each of them are giving.

But there is a comparative tiny handful of people that give to this show, and while there are tens of

thousands downloading, it's just, to me, mind -boggling.

So if you love the show, please go to www .IronTrumpDesignRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now, and do

that as frequently as you can and as generously as you can, as long as you do not violate those

two commands to provide for your church and family.

Also, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, no matter where in the world you live, I have lists, very

extensive lists, of biblically faithful churches all over the planet Earth, and I have helped many people in our audience find

churches near where they live in all parts of the world, sometimes just around the corner from where they lived, and they didn't even

know these churches existed.

So if you are in that category, you need a church, whether to join and become a member, as is

your duty as a Christian to be a part of a local Bible -believing church and to submit to the

elders there, or if you're visiting, want to visit somewhere when you're on vacation, or if you want to help out

friends and loved ones looking for a church, send me an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail

.com, and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Marcus A. McKnight III,

also known as Mike McKnight, on God's wonderful plan for the birth of his son.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And Mike, we have an email from Peter in Ocean City, Maryland,

and he says, wow, I am really amazed as I listen again to the trust and obedience of Mary.

We often talk about God's perfect timing.

We read that between the Old and New Testaments, 400 years passed.

Why do you think God chose this particular time to become human?

Thank you, Peter.

I didn't know you were spying on our listeners' day -to -day activities.

Peter, what are the things...

Yes, and of course, a part of what he asks about the specific timing,

why God chose that period, 400 years approximately,

after the Old Testament was breathed out by God in the

Old Covenant, and the exact

timing of that, we don't really know for certain.

But do you think a possible reason to add what you said would be

that it was very important to fulfill

prophecy that Jesus be in a certain physical

Jewish lineage, because it was prophesied in the Old Testament that he would come from this

line.

And if too many years, like a thousand or two thousand years had passed

before Jesus came into the world as a man, as a human, it might

not have been very clear about his ancestry and his lineage from which

he came through intermarriage and all sorts of reasons.

Of course, the temple was destroyed in AD 70, and a lot of the records of

people's ancestry and so forth were destroyed.

Do you think that could be a part of it?

By the way, Peter, if you could make sure that you give us your full

address, if you could email me your full address in Ocean City, Maryland,

since you are a first -time questioner on the show, you have won a free New American Standard

Bible, compliments of the publisher of the NASB, and also

compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

We'll be shipping that book, that Bible, I should say, out to you.

So send us your full mailing address, and we'll make sure that cvbbs .com gets that out to you.

But if you could pick up where you left off, Marcus.

Yes.

Isn't that a law firm?

It should be.

There

are

times

when

we

need

to

do

it.

Well, we have to go to our final break right now.

And by the way, Marcus, I don't know if you were aware of this, and we didn't plan it this way, but did you

know that the last time I interviewed you was on this exact date last year, December

11th?

That's God's planning.

It was our plan.

Well, we're going to be going to our final break.

It'll be much more brief than the last breaks.

So if you have any intention to join us on the air with a question of your own, please try to do so as soon as

possible, because we don't want to run out of time or give you an insufficient or

insufficient amount of time to have Marcus answer your questions if you send it in too late.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live

outside of the USA.

And as always, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

We'll be right back with Marcus A. McKnight III after these messages from our sponsors.

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Have you been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio?

We remain on the air because of our faithful sponsors and because of listeners like you.

There are four ways you can help.

First, do you know potential sponsors who may wish to advertise their goods or services on Iron Sharpens

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Onzen, and this is the final segment of our interview today with Marcus A. McKnight III,

also known as Mike McKnight, attorney at law and frequent speaker

at functions for the Christian Businessmen's Connection, also known as CBMC.

And Mike, why don't you, just before you continue with your final thoughts on today's subject,.

Why

don't

you

let

our

listeners

know a

little

bit

about

CBMC?

And if

anybody

wants to

find

out more.

About CBMC, Christian Businessmen's Connection, the local one in our

area, if you happen to live in Central Pennsylvania, is centralpa

.cbmc .com.

That's centralpa, for Central Pennsylvania, dot cbmc .com.

And the global website is cbmc

.com, cbmc .com.

That's the Christian Businessmen's Connection.

Before I take any more listener questions, I would like you to make sure

that you have at least five minutes of time to summarize what you

most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about the birth of Christ before we run out of time today.

Amen.

Let's see, we have a listener who has a question for you.

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says, one thing that troubles

me greatly about things that occur during this time of year,

when you will have those that profess to be Christians, even

pastors, and even those that profess to be Bible -believing, born -again evangelicals,

when they are in public and they are involved in some kind of a function that involves

both Christians and unbelievers gathered together, they will leave out

things that are crucial to the identity

of the God that we worship, specifically Jesus Christ.

They will speak more generically about God and so forth.

Do you find

this as

offensive

as I

do?

I find

it

offensive.

The Bar

Association

said yes,

and I

said, then no Jesus.

Well, thank you,

Bobby

in Hartsdale,

and for

a

Christian,.

Especially a minister, during the Christmas season, there's absolutely no excuse for not

specifically mentioning the name of Jesus Christ, because everyone expects you to

involve Jesus Christ into the subject of Christmas, since it is well

-known by all to be a celebration of the birth of Christ.

So, even though a Christian should never be ashamed of his Lord

God Savior and King Jesus Christ, and if he is, there's some serious doubt on whether he is a Christian, or whether he's really

regenerate.

But obviously, Christmas, there's zero wiggle room there.

There's no excuse to remain silent about this great precious gift that we have

received when God became man and paid the penalty

for the sins of his people.

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have your email, I'm sorry, your website.

It's again, erwinmcknight .com, I -R -W -I -N -M -C

-K -A -K -N -I -G -H -T .com, that's I -R

-W -I -N -M -C -K -N -I -G -H -T .com, erwinmcknight .com.

I want to thank you so much, Marcus, aka Mike McKnight, for being such a

wonderful guest again.

I look forward to my next time of fellowship with you.

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

I hope you all have a safe and healthy and wonderful Christ

-honoring weekend and Lord's Day, and of course, a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, 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.