October 15, 2019 Show with Dr. Tom Ascol on “By What Standard?”

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 a 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.

We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 15th day of October 2019, and I'm thrilled to have back on the program an old friend who

I love interviewing. His name is Dr. Tom Askell. He's an author, he's a conference speaker, and he's the executive director of Founders Ministries, and he's senior pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida.

Today our main theme is going to be addressing the documentary, the new documentary produced by Founders Ministries, and due to be released this

December, it's called By What Standard? And we'll also be informing you about two conferences where Dr.

Askell will be speaking, the Founders Conference on Law and Gospel in Cape Coral, Florida, and also the

G3 Conference on Worship Matters in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Tom Askell. Thank you so much, Chris. It's always a joy to be with you on this program.

It's always a joy to have you, and for the sake of our listeners who have not yet heard about Founders Ministries, why don't you let them know exactly what that ministry is?

Thank you. Founders Ministries is a ministry that's committed to the recovery of the gospel and reformation of local churches.

We've been around since the organization was birthed out of a prayer meeting in 1982, and we host conferences, we publish books, we also provide online academic courses for seminary education that is accredited by various seminaries, accepted by different seminaries in the nation.

We also encourage pastors and church leaders with different fraternals and resources. We publish articles two or three times a day on our website at founders .org,

and we have a weekly podcast called The Sword and the Trowel that comes out every

Tuesday. Oh, great. Now, how does a local congregation get involved with Founders Ministries?

How are they qualified to be actually a member of Founders Ministries, and are there different levels of involvement they can have?

Yeah, well, one of the ways that people get involved with us is just by getting on our website, and you can sign up on the website if you're a church, a church leader, you can sign your church up if you agree to some basic doctrinal formulations.

We are all, in the leadership of Founders, we're a confessional organization, 1689

Confession of Faith is our confession. However, we don't require churches to be 1689 if they just want to be identified with us, but they must have some kind of confession of faith.

We have several that are listed there that they say they affirm, and then we'll put you on a map of churches throughout the

United States so people can find you if they're traveling through. So you have to be in basic agreement with the direction and the convictions of Founders Ministries.

We do have something we just started this year called the Founders Alliance Membership, which individuals can support, become a member of the

Founders family at different levels. So you can go to the founders .org website and see that, and then churches can become

Founders Alliance churches as well, and there's more information, again, on the website if you just go there and look under Ministries, maybe under Give, you'll see ways that you can become a

Founders Alliance church or a Founders Alliance member. And I know for a fact, since I've had many conversations with you on Founders Ministries over the many years that I've known you, that the reason it's called

Founders Ministries is because all of the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention to a man were thoroughgoing

Calvinists, were they not? Oh, that's absolutely correct. In May of 1845, 293 delegates gathered in Augusta, Georgia to begin the

Southern Baptist Convention. They weren't exactly sure what would be the outcome of that meeting, but they knew that they had to look for new ways to try to support missionaries because of regional tensions and tensions over the whole issue of slavery and other things that were going on at that time.

And each one of those delegates came from churches or associations or institutions that held to the 1689

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, most often in its Philadelphia or its

Charleston iterations, but it's essentially the Second London Confession of Faith. So yeah, without a doubt, the

SPC was formed by those who held to the doctrines of grace. And now tell our listeners something about Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida.

Well, Grace is a church that began in 1983, and I am the second pastor.

I came in 1986. It's a church that had a pretty rough beginning and started out of a split of another church, which sadly too often happens, at least in Baptist churches, and the first pastor was dismissed in an unrighteous way.

I found out all of these details after I got there. You mean in an unrighteous way on behalf of those that dismissed him or on behalf of the pastor?

No, on behalf of the way those who dismissed him. It was not done righteously, and as far as I can tell, once I got there,

I did talk to the pastor that was dismissed, and I had to deal with the people that had done it, and they were not well taught biblically, so it took several years to overcome all that.

But the church today is a thriving 1689 confessional church. God's given us godly elders and deacons and membership that's committed to the

Word of God and trying to make the gospel known around the world in our own community. It's a real privilege and an honor for me to be the pastor of that congregation.

I'm just stunned that God would allow me to have that opportunity. Well, I know that there is a connection between myself and your wonderful congregation.

The first one is that I have two very dear friends who are members there who were first very dear friends of my late wife,

Julie. That's Frank and Carmen Gilliberti, I know, that are members there. And the other strong connection is that the founder of the church where I am currently a member,

Ernie Reisinger, now with the Lord, he was a very long -time member of your church and I believe an elder as well, right?

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Frank is currently a deacon. He's been a long -standing deacon and serving the church, and Carmen, as you well know, just such godly gifts to the congregation.

They serve in all kinds of capacities and are so faithful by their example as well as the way that they give themselves in ministry in various capacities.

Ernie was a dear friend of mine and he actually had retired from Cape Coral and was attending the church when they fired the founding pastor.

And he's the one that I learned about the church from. I actually came to visit him while on a visit to Cape Coral.

I was asked to preach, and after preaching I was asked to be the pastor. That's a long and funny story, but I read the

Constitution on the way home on the airplane and wrote them and told them I couldn't even be a member of the church, much less the pastor, because of the way the

Constitution read. And so they voted to change the Constitution and said, We still want you to come.

So Ernie was the human instrument that got me through Cape Coral. Praise God.

And now let's hear about a couple of events that are coming up. First is, coming up in December, a conference on law and gospel that the

Founders Ministries is conducting at Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral Florida. Why don't you tell us first of all about that event.

Yes, Will, this is a conference. This is our regional conference,

Southeast Regional Conference. It's the second year that we've had it in Cape Coral.

Actually, we had it in January of this year, so we're kind of backing up a bit. We'll be doing it in December going forward, we think.

And the theme is law and gospel, which I don't know that there's a more important theme for evangelicals to deal with at this time than law and gospel.

So the conference will be the 5th through the 7th of December. And we tell people, man,

Southwest Florida in December is a fun place to be because you're not freezing. It's usually sunny and the weather's great.

And we just encourage people to, a lot of people around the world come to Florida in the winter.

So it's good for that reason. But the conference is going to be an excellent opportunity to study this fundamental doctrine.

So we've got Tom Nettles, who will be speaking, and Jeff Johnson, who's founder of the seminary in Conway, Arkansas, Baptist pastor and author, will also be joining us and speaking.

Jared Longshore, who works with me at Founders and at the church, he's an associate pastor, will be speaking and I'll be speaking.

And I just encourage folks to look at founders .org, check out the conference.

The whole issue of the relationship of God's law, God's gospel, is either ignored or largely misunderstood, it seems, in many sectors of the evangelical world today.

And some people think, you know, all they think about when they hear God's law is, well, we're not saved by the law, we're saved by Christ, so we don't have to care about the law.

But the truth is that the God who gave us the gospel also gave us the law. And God loves

His law as much as He loves His gospel. And if we don't understand the law, then we're really not going to have the kind of understanding we ought to have of the gospel, because it's only the broken law that we have broken that makes the gospel necessary.

And Jesus obtains salvation in two ways. First, by keeping the law completely.

He earns righteousness that the law requires of us, that we can't satisfy ourselves. And then

He pays the debt for our lawlessness on the cross, which we must pay if we don't have

His payment credited to us through faith. And, of course, the only way sinners can pay for their sin is in eternal judgment in hell.

So the gospel is built upon God's law. So law and gospel is a very important doctrine for Christians to get straight.

And especially today, when people are talking about justice and talking about what's right, what's wrong, and it seems like they're just making up rules as they go along.

So I would encourage folks to check out this conference. If you can join us, we'd love to have you. And I have interviewed every one of those speakers that you mentioned on your roster for that conference, and I hope to interview them all again many times more.

And that's December 5th through the 7th, If anybody wants more information on this conference on law and gospel at the

Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, go to founders .org, and you can click on Events.

That's founders .org, and then click Events, and you'll have all the information that you need. Now, a conference that has become one of my favorites, if not my very favorite of all time, that I have attended.

This will be my fourth G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, or more specifically,

College Park, Georgia, at the Georgia International Convention Center. I absolutely love this conference, and I am so excited every year when

I pack up my bags and head down south to this conference where I man an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

And I just love the time of fellowship with Josh Bice and many of the speakers who I know personally there.

I love meeting new people that I've never met before, many of whom have been long -time listeners to my radio program,

Iron Trip and Zion, and I've never even heard from them before. It's always exciting to meet new people, and also to become acquainted with people that I've only known by their emails with questions from my guests, who

I finally meet face -to -face at the G3 conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

But I know that you're on the roster there, among many other phenomenal speakers, and it's on the theme,

Worship Matters. I don't know if Josh has given you your exact theme yet.

He usually takes a while to get around to giving everybody their themes, but do you have any idea, other than the main topic of Worship Matters, do you have any idea of what you're speaking on specifically yet?

Yeah, I plan to speak on worshiping God reverently.

That's going to be the focal point that I try to zero in. I'm going to take some cues out of Ecclesiastes and the admonitions that were given there to honor

God in coming to His presence with few words and with serious thoughts and with care about any promises or vows that we make to Him.

So that's on my agenda. I'm looking forward to it. As you said, and I echo what you said about G3, it is an outstanding conference.

Of the larger conferences that go on, I don't know any that are better than G3.

Josh Bice has done an incredible job of not just setting the agenda and the topics and inviting the speakers, but also working hard to maintain the right kind of spirit that you want to see in a conference.

So like you, I enjoy going to it and encourage everyone to come out in Atlanta in January and be a part of this conference.

And I will be repeating this later, but the website to register or just to find out more information about this conference is g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com. And as I have been reminding you, if you have a business or a parachurch organization or a special event or anything that you want to promote amongst a very large number of Christians, especially those that love the doctrines of sovereign grace,

I would strongly urge you not only to register as an attendee, but register for an exhibitor's booth just as I have done in the last four years.

Well, this will be the fourth year in 2020. Because something extraordinary has happened to me and my program,

Iron Trip and Zion Radio, every time I have manned an exhibitor's booth there. And so they have typically over 5 ,000 people attend this event, and I am strongly confident that with the addition of Dr.

John MacArthur onto the roster, I think they're going to have over 6 ,000 people there. That's just my guess, but I think it's an educated guess.

So go to g3conference .com and register not only to attend, but if it applies to you, register for an exhibitor's booth as well.

And they're going to run out of room for exhibitor's booths a lot faster than they run out of room for attendance.

So I would try to, if you want to register for an exhibitor's booth, do so very soon, because as I said, with the addition of John MacArthur, I have a feeling they're going to run out of room very, very quickly.

So now it's time to delve into the main theme today, and that is the theme of an upcoming documentary that you have been a part of producing with Founders Ministries.

By what standard? And if you could tell us about the catalyst to why this documentary became an idea in your head and then eventually is a work in progress that will be released,

God willing, in December. Yeah, well, this idea came up quickly in terms of the form that it now has, but it was really brewing,

I think, over several months. Back in February of this year, PBS released for the first time online a documentary that they had done about 25, maybe 20, 25 years ago called

Battle for the Mind. And that was a documentary that was done not long after Al Bowler became the president at the

Southern Madison Theological Seminary. That documentary was looking at the inerrancy, controversy, or the conservative resurgence within the

Southern Madison Convention. It was well done, but it was done from a very liberal bent and basically portrayed what

Dr. Mohler was doing at Southern Seminary as a bad thing because he was calling for accountability among professors and that required some professors who could not honestly say that they had signed the

Abstract of Principles, Confessional Faith of Southern.

They had to resign from the faculty and others just left. And they were looking at that as a terrible purge that was being carried out by fundamentalists.

Well, as I watched that documentary in February, it just dawned on me how many of the things that were being fed by those that were in the more moderate to liberal camp 20 to 25 years ago, some of those arguments they were making seemed to be the same arguments that are made by some that are regarded as conservatives today.

And it just seemed strange to me. And so those other people that I know watched the documentary as well, they were struck by the same thing.

And so one week before the Southern Madison Convention met in Birmingham this year in June, my associate pastor,

Gary Longshore, and I were talking, and he said, you know, we ought to make another documentary. And it just seemed like a brilliant idea to me, so we quickly put together some ideas about what that would look like, kind of a follow -up on this battle for the mind to see, okay, now 20, 25 years later, what are the issues now?

How are the issues being framed today that back then were being framed by conservatives against the moderate -liberal arguments, but today some of the conservative leaders seem to be making those arguments that the liberals were making back then.

And we were able to talk to David Shannon, who is a filmmaker. He had just had a big project canceled on him the next week.

So we talked to him on a Sunday night, and on Friday morning he left for Birmingham to get a film crew together and begin filming at the

Southern Madison Convention to gather some footage for this film that we hope to release in December.

So it really came together very quickly in terms of a matter of days from the actual hatching of the idea to beginning to film for it.

And then what the event that took place at the Southern Madison Convention gave us a significant turn in terms of the storyline of that film.

Now if you could, why don't you one by one go through some of the main areas that are things that surprised, shocked, startled you, that were items of passionate defense or renunciation by liberals who are now being echoed, or which are now being echoed by many conservatives today, not all.

But tell us about some of those things. Yeah, well the main one that was so evident, and the one that is clearly documentable, is the role of women in church leadership.

Back when Dr. Moeller became president of Southern, of course, we had women who were full bore planning to enter into pastoral ministry.

This was a common theme in the rising generation. So did Baptist Southeastern Seminary as well, had a significant number of women who were planning to become pastors.

In the first forum that Dr. Moeller had with the faculty and students, there were several questions about, what about women, are you going to deny women from being accredited by the seminary with degrees or approved or recommended to pastoral positions?

And so that was just, that was the ethos back then. And today, of course, we have conservatives that are advocating women preaching.

And people who want to maintain that they are true complementarians, to be distinguished from egalitarians, that would be the positions.

Women can basically do anything that men can do, and there's no restrictions based on one's biological sex as to what could be done in the world, in the home, in the church.

But there are conservatives who are saying, of course, women can preach. And even this last Mother's Day, Beth Moore, who is regarded by many as a conservative

Bible teacher, talked about how she was preaching in her home church, and other women chimed in and said, yeah, we're going to be preaching as well.

My friend Dwight McKissick, who's a pastor in Arlington, Texas, talked about having a woman preach in this church on Mother's Day and the approved women preachers.

We've had other Southern Baptist leaders say that they wouldn't be opposed to that. Danny Akin at Southeastern Seminary has indicated that he would not be opposed to having a woman preach on occasion on Sunday mornings.

That's just something that we shouldn't make an issue of. And it just seems strange to me that 25 years ago we were deeply concerned about that because we recognized that the

Bible, in my estimation, clearly distinguishes what the role of men and women is in church and that the office and function of pastors, which would include preaching, is to be limited to qualified, recognized, called men.

And that today that line is being erased or moved somewhat by true conservatives and those who are narratives.

And so it was fascinating. I just thought we ought to look at it and try to document it. So that's the main one that the documentary

Battle for the Mind highlighted that today is different.

We have other issues today that seem to be going along with that in terms of racial reconciliation or anti -racism, as it's typically portrayed by those that are advocating it now, as well as the whole gender debates or gender fluidity or gender dysphoria that gets cast in terms of LBGTQ rights and needs and concerns and how the church should respond to that.

Now, would you agree with me that some of our brethren who are complementarian go a bit too far in the way that they defend exclusively male headship in the church by giving reasons that God never gives?

Like, for instance, they will say things like, men innately by nature are more gifted and designed for speaking and specifically preaching the

Word of God in public. They have abilities intrinsically that women don't have, or at least they have superior abilities in this area.

And I have to remind men that say things like this that I reject that notion.

I think that the Bible's reasons are sufficient, and Paul doesn't even really give a detailed answer as to why men are to be the sole heads in the church and the household, other than that it was

Eve who was deceived. And we're supposed to take that just as a sufficient answer.

We don't need any other answer than that. And it seems that there are men that add an offense on top of this teaching that need not be added.

Am I out of the ballpark with this? No, I mean, there's no doubt that these distinctions the

Bible makes have been taken beyond what

I would be comfortable in trying to argue for biblical boundaries. I think people have done that. They've used it to justify all kinds of abuses.

But I would say when a person does that, he's left the boundaries of what over the last 20 to 30 years has been articulated to be the complementary position, for example, in the

Danvers Statement or in the Nashville Statement on sexuality and such.

So, yeah, I want to be clear that there's no distinction in value that I see the

Bible making between men and women. But God has made men and women differently. What happens is we tend to begin to try, in our day and age, to measure men by women and women by men, so that we think, well, if there's going to be true equality, then a woman must be encouraged to do anything that men can do, and men should be encouraged to do anything women can do.

And God made men and women differently. And it's no slight to my maleness or my sense of worth as an image -bearer of God that I cannot give birth to a child.

That's just not the way to do that. I don't take that as any kind of inferiority.

It's just a distinction. And in the same way, God made men typically stronger than women.

The bone structures of men are different than women, and that doesn't mean that women are inferior.

God made women more beautiful, typically, than men. And there's something about femininity that is inherently beautiful.

Those things are just created by God, by His design, and I don't think we should fight against them, and we shouldn't try to erase those distinctions or begin to measure men by women or women by men in order to determine whether or not there's true equality.

We should measure men by what the Bible calls a man to be and measure women by what the

Bible calls a woman to be. And God is the one who's created the world, and so He's created it with His rules and His principles that we're to follow.

In the church, that certainly means that only qualified men, not all men, but qualified men are called to the office or the function as elders, not women.

Does that mean women can't teach? No, women must teach. The Bible still tells them they must teach. That means women shouldn't be theologians.

They better be theologians. We need good theologians training the generation to come and teaching other women.

What it does mean is that women shouldn't serve as elders. This is God's rules for His house, and we're not free to tinker around with them.

And one of the reasons I was saying what I mentioned earlier about men adding reasons on top of what the

Bible says, saying that intrinsically, by nature, men are better equipped for these things,

I think that one of the dangers of going beyond what the Scripture says is that I think that we have all met women who are superior than many men in their oratory skills.

I mean, you might have women in a congregation, or at least a single woman, who is more highly educated than her own pastor, who is more gifted at counseling and so on, and of course, as you said, women should be counseling other women.

But just because they have these gifts and qualities and character traits doesn't mean they have a liberty to violate the commands of the

Bible. That's right, and it's a misunderstanding of giftedness, which permeates a lot of evangelical thought today.

So there are people, we get this periodically, folks who show up at church, and say, you know, I'm really gifted in music, and I'm looking for a place to use my gift.

Well, that's the wrong attitude. If I'm gifted musically, I shouldn't be looking for a church where I can use my music gift.

I need to be looking for a church where I can serve and where I can be served if I'm a Christian and try to plug in and be a part of a body.

And then if my gift is needed, if there is some need there that I can serve with the gifts you guys give me,

I'll do that. If not, I'm going to look for other needs and try to develop other gifts, believing that God's added me to this body for that purpose.

But it's a complete reversal of the way 1 Corinthians 12, for example, talks about spiritual gifts being for the edification of the body.

So I'm just looking for a body that I can edify. No, that makes it about me. That doesn't make it about the body. And that's true across the board, men, women, in whatever gift we have.

So if we get that straight, then a lot of this other way of thinking of, well, here's a woman, and she's a great preacher, so she ought to be allowed to preach.

She ought to be allowed to be a pastor. No, we come back to what does the Word of God say? Does God give us directions?

And if he does, then we are under obligation to live according to his directives.

And we have to go to our first break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Tom Askell, our email address is

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

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

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say we're discussing something, and you agree with Dr. Askell, but you disagree with your own pastor.

We would obviously want you to remain anonymous. Perhaps you're a pastor, and you disagree with your own fellow elders, or your denomination, or your congregation, and you want to remain anonymous.

Obviously, that would be a good reason. And there are other reasons that would make your question a personal and private one.

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

And don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages with more of Dr. Tom Askell, and by what standard.

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For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Welcome back. And by the way, Dr. Askell, the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, extend to you their greetings.

And I know that Pastor Rich Jensen has been a longtime friend of yours, and someone in his family is a member there.

Was it his son, one of his sons? Yeah, his son Rick was a deacon. He's moved to Houston, Texas since then.

He's been in Houston for several years. But I saw his mother and father -in -law just a few weeks ago when he came into town.

So, yeah, Rick and his family were dear friends and faithful members. Praise God.

Well, we are back now with our discussion on By What Standard, which is the upcoming documentary,

God Willing, to be released in December, a documentary produced by Founders Ministries.

And one thing that I wanted to ask you before we move on to a different subcategory outside of the complementarian -egalitarian divide, what is the distinction between violating a biblical complementarian position and allowing women to speak at conferences, for instance?

I have been at many Reformed conferences, including the G3, where the folks organizing and hosting and leading the conferences are very strong in their positions against women in leadership in the church and in the home, and yet they will have women speak.

We've had Rosaria Butterfield as one of the speakers at the G3 conference, and this

January there are several women speaking. So what would be the difference? Why is this not a violation of a complementarian position?

Yeah, well, in my own taking, this is an intramural debate. Even amongst those that would say women should be allowed to preach on the

Lord's Day, they would do that. Many of them as inerrant as I've mentioned some of them by name.

It's such an intramural debate. It's a debate that we ought to have. I believe what Paul's talking about in 1

Timothy 2 is Lord's Day worship. I think he is speaking there about what ought to be done when brothers and sisters gather together and worship.

I think the same thing is true in the 1 Corinthians 14 passage as well. So when it comes to conferences, you know,

I'm not personally as picky or as thick about that, although I would tell you that I personally would be uncomfortable with a woman standing up to exposit

Scripture in that context. And someone who would take the Word of God and preach it as the authoritative

Word of God in a conference setting, I would be personally uncomfortable to sit under a woman doing that.

And from my memory, that has not happened at the G3 conference. No, it's not. It has not happened.

But to learn from women, absolutely. I mean, my wife is a very competent theologian, and she's taught me many things.

I'm the father of five wonderful theologically astute daughters, and I've learned much from them.

And I've learned from Rosaria Butterfield and others. And I've attended lectures and talks and been encouraged by women in many ways.

But when it comes to this biblical Caruso preaching, the authoritative proclamation of the

Word of God, I would be uncomfortable, I would be unwilling to sit and listen to a woman do that, because I do think that that comes into what the

Bible restricts to God -called men. Like, for instance,

I have a very long -time friend, a woman, Dr.

Latane C. Scott, who is an award -winning author, and her co -author for their latest book, that is, is

Dr. Beth Robinson, who is a licensed professional counselor, and she has been a frequent expert witness in legal proceedings involving sexual abuse.

And I highly recommend that any church that wants to conduct a seminar on the theme of their book that they've authored together,

Protecting Your Child from Predators, I think that they would be an excellent duo to lead a seminar or conference on that, and yet they would not be exegeting the

Scriptures in a preaching manner. This would just be educational information that would be involving something very vital and important, especially in the 21st century.

Well, absolutely. We've done that in our church. We've received instruction about dealing with practical matters in a biblical way, on finances, on home life, on legal issues where we've had experts come in, sexual abuse issues as well, and some of those have been women.

And we have benefited greatly. We have no regard that we're in any danger of violating what the

Scripture says for that. I don't think those things come into question whenever we're talking about what the

Bible means about male leadership in the home, in the world, in the church.

And by the way, both of these women do believe in exclusively male headship in the church.

We have a question from the aforementioned longtime friend of mine, in Cape Coral, Florida.

And I don't know if this is Frank's first time sending in a question, but he's going to win a free

Bible anyway because he could always give it to his wife, Carmen. But his question is,

Oh, it's not a question.

It's a demand. Tom, time to come home. Oh, brother,

I'm ready to come home, I guarantee you. I am homesick. The church and elders have asked me to give myself this season for the next several months to be more available to go out and preach in other churches and conferences and such.

And so I've done more of that over the last few months than I've ever done in this space of time.

And it's been good, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. But, man, I miss and praise

God this church. So not really next week. I've got one more conference in Houston this weekend, and I hope to be home next week.

Yes, our listeners may not have known that you were away in Texas speaking on a speaking tour.

Right. Right. Well, thanks for tricking me, Frank. But I'll still send you a new

New American Standard Bible if you give me your mailing address. So thanks for participating in today's show.

I'm assuming one of the major issues being dealt with in your upcoming documentary, by what standard,

I think you might have touched on it before in today's program, but the social justice issue.

This has become quite a sad and tragic issue that has divided brothers and sisters in Christ, and sometimes in very nasty and ugly ways, where accusations and slanders have been hurled at some for being racist and so on.

And it's really a troubling war that's going on, it seems.

And the thing that makes it more troubling is that the opponents on both sides, although I'm not saying that everybody who disagrees on these issues is handling it in an ugly and God -dishonoring way,

I'm not saying everybody is reacting to the differences in this fashion, but it unfortunately is happening more often than we care to mention.

And it's not that we have conservative biblical inheritance on one side, and liberal apostates who deny the inerrancy of scripture, and many of the pillars of the

Christian faith on the other. The tragedy is that you have biblical inerrantists and conservatives, and even

Calvinists, on both sides of this divide, very often, I'm not saying in every case.

But if you could comment on this, perhaps you could even give our listeners who are not quite familiar with this circumstance, and this divide that is taking place, or has taken place, you could give them a summary of what it's all about, and how...

I mean, I took a big guess here that it was in your documentary, but how would you respond to it?

Yeah, well, that's why I think you framed it pretty well there, Chris. This has been one of the saddest and most difficult issues that I've had to deal with in my pastoral ministry.

And the things that are taking place today in the name of social justice,

I believe, include some of the greatest threats to gospel faithfulness that I've seen in my lifetime.

So it's a very serious issue for me. It took me a couple of years to come to the conclusions that I've come to.

I still want to be open to correction, so I've engaged in dialogue. I've invited people to speak and try to help me see things that I've not seen, if I'm seeing them not clearly.

And I maintain that posture to this day. But last year, this maybe came to a head a little bit when several of us who, like myself, were being very...became

increasingly uneasy with what we were seeing take place in the evangelical world by some of our evangelical leaders and the institutions and others.

We met together in Dallas, and out of that meeting, it was June of 2018,

I think there was maybe 15 or 16 of us at the coffee shop. Out of that meeting, we produced a statement.

It's called the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. You can find it at statementonsocialjustice .com.

So if you just type those words in, statementonsocialjustice .com, which we issued for the sake of Christ and His Church.

And in that statement, we have 14 affirmations and denials. And it's just kind of a basic reiteration of fundamental doctrinal beliefs and ethical expressions.

And we did this because what we saw happening under the guise of promoting social justice was some of these basic doctrines being eroded and ethical positions being eroded.

So we just wanted to reaffirm these things that really should not be all that controversial or problematic for any

Orthodox Christian who reads it. Well, once the statement was issued, I don't know what it is now, but it didn't take long before thousands of people around the world signed it.

I think the last time I checked, it was over 11 ,000 people that had added their signatures to it.

And we have had people that have spoken against the statement and tried to discourage folks from signing it, but despite that, you know, we have these,

I don't know how many, 11 ,000 or so that have signed it. And so you've got Christian leaders like Bodie Balcombe and John McAuliffe, James White, others who signed it,

Tom Nettles, Destos Fole, who signed it, Chris Larson, the CEO of Ligonier Ministries, and others.

The statement kind of lays out the concerns that we have.

Those concerns have been advocated under three headings, at least according to my assessment.

One is the racial issue and racial reconciliation. It's sometimes called, the new language seems to be, anti -racism movement.

Another is the male -female issue or complementarianism, egalitarianism issues that we've just discussed.

A third is issues related to sexuality or, as the language now is being used, gender issues.

So gender dysphoria or cisgender, transgender issues and how

Christians should relate to and think about those issues. Can we talk about gay Christianity or LGBTQ plus Christianity?

And so those three broad categories are being advanced by people in the name of justice for, within the evangelical church, saying we need to change how we have thought about this historically.

And the church has not been enlightened or the church has not been accurate in how we've addressed these things.

And so some of us, we got together and we said, no, we think this is bad. We think this is a play of the devil and we need to resist it.

So that state of social justice was kind of like the line in the sand for many of us.

And yes, we do intend to address these things in the documentary. The documentary, in one sense, is trying to call people back to what does the

Bible say? And by what standard are we going to talk about men, women, roles, and relationships?

By what standard are we going to talk about how different ethnicities are to relate to one another and to live in reconciliation?

By what standard are we to talk about those who suffer from sexual dysphoria and think about biblical sexuality?

And of course, the answer for us is the standard that God has given to us is an inherent, infallible, and finally authoritative, completely sufficient word.

So that's kind of the broad outlines of the battlefield as I see it.

And we're going to continue with that discussion right where we left off when we come back from our midway break. It's a longer than normal break.

Please be patient with us. But we need to take a longer than normal break every day in the middle of the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break so that they can air their own public service announcements and other items that localize

Iron Shop and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, a requirement of the FCC. So please be patient with this longer than normal break.

Also use this time wisely. Write down information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them so that we will remain on the air,

God willing, a longer period of time because we depend on our advertisers. And if they are going to stick around, it is going to be likely because many of you have patronized them.

So please write down their information. And also write down questions for Dr. Tom Askell and send them to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

ChrisArnson .gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be back after these messages with more of Dr. Tom Askell. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and my friend

Chris Arnson and I are excited to be attending another G3 conference together in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th on a theme that is vitally important to all of us,

Worship Matters. I'll be on the speaking lineup with Eric Thomas, Joel Beeky, Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson, Tom Askell, Voti Balcom, and the world -renowned preacher, teacher, and author,

John MacArthur. A fascinating new addition to the roster is Kosti Hinn, nephew of the notorious false teacher,

Benny Hinn. Kosti has repented of the word -faith heresies of his youth and is now a Reformed Baptist pastor and cessationist in California.

Come join me and Chris Arnson at G3 2020, January 16th through the 18th in Atlanta by registering at g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com. See you there. I'm so grateful to our sovereign

God that while manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron, a major Bible conference, I providentially met

Pastor Andrew Smith of Christ Reformed Community Church just south of Jacksonville, Florida, right off I -95 in St.

Johns County. Andrew is certainly the kind of pastor that is a perfect match for my radio show and has already proven to be an ideal guest.

Christ Reformed Community Church shares my conviction that God is both creator and sustainer of the universe.

He rules and reigns providentially over our lives. He directs not only the historical events of the world, but also the personal events of individuals.

I agree with Christ Reformed Community Church that the very purpose of the church is to make disciples, that we are tasked with the responsibility to evangelize locally, nationally, and globally, and that we are to equip the saints for the work of service.

Unlike the man -centered, seeker -sensitive movement, they do not gauge the success of biblical discipleship by how many people are in a church, but by the faithful ministry of God's Word and Gospel.

For more details on Christ Reformed Community Church, visit ChristReformedCC .com.

That's ChristReformedCC .com. Or call 904 -955 -9881.

That's 904 -955 -9881. Tell Pastor Andrew that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm Pastor Andrew Smith, and I'd like to urge you to consider joining Christ Reformed Community Church of St.

John's, Florida, in financially supporting Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I'm Dr.

Gary Kimbrough, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. God tells us in James 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction.

In the providence of God, three years ago, I discovered a poor small church outside Lusaka, Zambia, in a township called

Kabanana, who are taking care of 24 orphans. I found them just at the time when they had lost all their funding.

What was I to do? Could I just say God bless you and walk away? The situation of the children set heavily upon me.

As I was praying concerning this need, it came to me, I trust from the Lord, to tell the orphans' plight to a broader audience.

The entire need for their clothing, food, education, and some medical services is $73 per month per child.

If just 50 of us would give $35 a month, we could meet the need. Bethlehem Baptist Church will pay the fee to get the funds there, so if you give a dollar, a dollar will get to the orphans.

In this season of hope and giving, will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans? Please send your gift of any amount to Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838

Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi 39443 or donate through our website, bbclaurel .com.

Again, the address is Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi 39443 or bbclaurel .com.

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

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

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

God -centered focus. Reading, preaching and hearing the word of God, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship performed with faith, joy and sobriety.

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

.com That's gcbcnj .squarespace

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

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

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

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

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

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

Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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

Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift, or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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

where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, announcing a new website with an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

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Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco. Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled Consider the

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, host of a visit to the

Pastor's Study and I am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on Iron Sharpens Iron.

If you live on Long Island or if you're visiting the metropolitan New York area, I invite you to join us for worship at The Haven on Sundays at 4 .30pm.

We meet at the Ascension Lutheran Church facility 33 Bayshore Road in Deer Park, New York.

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33 Bayshore Road, Deer Park, New York. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

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solid -ground -books .com is a primary sponsor of this program. I don't believe, barring a miracle, we could exist on the air without their financial support.

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And before we return to our interview today with Dr. Tom Askell and the new documentary that's due out in December, By What Standard, a documentary produced by Founders Ministries.

We just have a few upcoming special events that we want you to be aware of. The first is the

Doctrines of Grace conference, a conference of Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship.

This is being held at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York. And it's being held on Friday, November 1st and Saturday, November 2nd.

The themes included at this conference are God's Sovereignty, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Perseverance of the

Saints, Is Calvinism Biblical? and a Q &A roundtable with the audience.

And if you would like to join me there, I intend to be there at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York Friday and Saturday, November 1st and 2nd.

You can go to reformedrookie .com reformedrookie .com

or you can also go to hopereformedli .net hopereformedli .net

You can go to the latter website at least for directions and so on. But I hope to see as many of you in the

Iron Trip and Zion Radio audience as possible at this event, November 1st and 2nd.

And then, coming up in December December 5th and through the 7th is the conference that we already mentioned.

This is the 2019 Southeast Founders Conference in Cape Coral, Florida. And this is a conference on the theme

Law and Gospel. And I am more than honored to promote this event knowing that Dr.

Tom Askell is associated with it. And if you want to attend this event in Cape Coral, Florida, December 5th through the 7th on Law and Gospel, you can register at founders .org

and you can click on events and all of the information that you will need will come up on the website.

Then, later on that month in December on Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th

I will be packing up my bags again and heading back to my old stomping grounds, New York City where I will be attending,

God willing, the Foundations Conference a conference of sermonaudio .com There is no better place to spend the

Christmas season in my opinion, than New York City. And this conference will be held right in the heart of the

Christmas season December 19th and 20th. And this is only for men in ministry leadership.

The venue is so small they can only seat less than 200 people at this event so they have restricted attendance only to men in ministry leadership.

So if you are in that category, whether you are a pastor an elder, and I think they are in the same office by the way a deacon, a parachurch leader you can register.

The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer Rev. Jeff Thomas, Rev. Armand Tomasian Richard Colwell Jr.

and Andrew Quigley If you would like to attend, you can register at thefoundationsconference .com

thefoundationsconference .com And also, the aforementioned conference that Dr.

Tom Askell and many others will be speaking at is the G3 Conference coming up in January, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

As you heard Dr. Askell and I mentioning earlier we don't know of any other conference that has such a large roster of speakers and every single one of them is magnificent.

I mean, it's just an amazing thing that Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Middle Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia has been able to create and maintain it's just awesome, mind -bogglingly awesome and the speakers include once again

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Pastor Josh Bice the founder of the conference, Anthony Mathenia who is the pastor of Paul Washer my dear friend since 1995,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, my other dear friend Phil Johnson who is the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you

Phil Johnson has the dubious distinction of being interviewed on this program more than any other guest since we first launched in 2005 my friend

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio whose ads you've been hearing on this program promoting the

G3 Conference, Derek Thomas who is a world -renowned Presbyterian author and teacher and preacher and conference speaker the aforementioned and my guest today

Dr. Tom Askell, executive director of Founders Ministries Jeremy Volo who

I just interviewed the other day, what a magnificent brother he is a former professional soccer player ordained into the ministry and now studying to further his education at the

Master's Seminary in Sun Valley, California Stephen J. Nichols is the president of the

Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries Kosti Hinn who is the nephew of the world -renowned and notorious heretic and charlatan

Benny Hinn, and Kosti doesn't mind me saying that because he spends much of his time outside of his own pulpit warning people about his uncle and about the heresies of the

Word of Faith movement he is now a cessationist and a Reformed Baptist pastor he was in California as Dr.

James White has been saying in his ads and now he was just recently called to join the pastoral team of a church in Arizona and many more speakers are on this roster and as you heard,

Dr. John MacArthur himself has been added to the lineup if you want to join me there, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, 2020 at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia go to g3conference .com g3conference .com

and remember, I would strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth in addition to registering to attend if indeed you have a business, parachurch, organization or something else that you want to promote to a very large number of people who are

Christians and especially, even more specifically Doctrines of Grace lovers and there have been over 5 ,000 people attending this event annually, and with John MacArthur added, as I said earlier

I think there's going to be over 6 ,000 so register to attend, and also for an exhibitor's booth at g3conference .com

g3conference .com please always remember to tell the folks at the G3 Conference that you heard about it from Chris Arnzen at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio last but not least, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves you love sharing the free downloadable

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and put I need a church home in the subject line there's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

Tom Askell on the new documentary being created by our friends at Founders Ministries that's chrisarnsen at gmail .com

before we move on to another subcategory underneath that umbrella of by what standard if we return for a moment to the social justice issue one of the things that I find puzzling about our brethren on the other side who very often have committed,

I think, slander I'm not saying they all do, those that are advocates of this social justice worry movement but many have committed slander and have even been guilty,

I think, of racism themselves but I find it baffling that they can't see right from the pages of the

New Testament that although the Jews have been persecuted for millennia by Gentiles and they have been subjugated and oppressed and slaughtered and all kinds of evil and vile things have been done to them at the hands of Gentiles we see that the

Jewish Christians who were, if you will, by and large the primary victims of Gentiles they are not given a special status of victimhood that enables them to look at their

Gentile brethren differently and automatically assume that their Gentile brethren are anti -Semites and that they have this special role in the

Church to call out to the Gentiles uniquely to repent of their sin of bigotry.

It's really a universal sin that springs from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and skin color.

And as my friend Dr. Bob Cameron, African American Orthodox Presbyterian pastor who's now with Christ for eternity, he used to say racism is a sin problem not a skin problem.

Isn't it baffling that they have the same scriptures as we do and yet they don't seem to see that this issue especially of past sins doesn't give them some kind of liberty to be calling out to their brethren of a different skin color as if we are the sole arbiter of the sin of racism?

Yeah, that's one of the biggest concerns in that part of the debate and what is being advocated comes right out of an ideology known as critical race theory.

And this view basically says that racism is systemic and that racism is only possible by those who have power or those who are in the oppressive categories against those who are without power or those who are oppressed or those who are in the privileged categories against those who do not have such privilege.

Therefore, it is impossible for minorities to be racist and it's impossible for those that are not minorities to avoid being racist.

But once you start with that presupposition, you don't have to have a conversation because all of your conclusions are already dictated.

And that's where we are in this debate with many people who say that they are advocating for racial reconciliation.

They're doing it on grounds that are completely contrary to the Word of God, which again causes us to want to ask the question, by what standard are you telling me that I am a racist and that it's impossible for others to be racist?

What do you mean by racism? And how do we know? And then how can you say that some groups are inherently racist and other groups have absolutely no way that they can be racist?

That's some of the biggest questions going on right now under the social justice debate.

Yes, and one of the reasons, I've said this many times before on this show, but one of the reasons that this movement disturbs me is not because I think lightly of the sin of racism, it's because I think that it is so serious.

That is why it troubles me because it seems that many of the advocates of the social justice warrior movement are really attempting to fight racism unconsciously with racism.

Right. I agree with you on that. And it downplays, it diminishes the seriousness of those sins of partiality, which do exist and have gone on and are horrible and need to be stood against.

Whenever everything is racism, then you begin to devalue the seriousness of the sin that we should recognize biblically that has flown under that name.

So I reject those arguments, I reject the foundation, and I want to continue to ask, okay, by what standard?

Help me to understand biblically what you're talking about. When someone says, well, because you are a white, able -bodied, male, cisgender, heterosexual, you are inherently racist, you're inherently misogynistic, and you're part of the problem automatically,

I just reject that. We're going to have to get closer to the biblical text and what the

Bible actually says before I'm willing to listen to anything else you have to say when you come at me with those presuppositions.

I reject the presuppositions. And I do that not because I think that everything is just right in the world, not because I think there are no injustices in the world.

I do that because I am for biblical justice, and you cannot be for biblical justice and buy into these faulty presuppositions that are going on in the broad umbrella movement of social justice.

And one of the things that is ironic is that I can remember growing up in the late 60s, well

I was born in 62, but the years I have conscious memory would be the middle to late 60s and the 70s and of course the 80s.

I can remember growing up in an atmosphere where liberals and conservatives who both understood that racism was an abomination.

They used to teach and defend and proclaim that we should be colorblind.

And it's interesting that even though those in minority groups who were the victims of racial hatred and had been harmed not only mentally and emotionally but even physically by racists in decades past especially, they viewed this as an important thing to overcome and to annihilate racism and that was to be colorblind.

Now, the social justice warriors seem to view this as a negative thing and something that is in itself even racist.

I don't even understand that. Yeah, that's exactly right. And Martin Luther King Jr.'s

statement that he looked forward to when we'd be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin, that is a statement that no longer is acceptable to these so -called anti -racist movement advocates today and colorblindness is seen to be a racist way of thinking because the only way you can say that, the argument goes, is if you're a part of the racial majority or the ethnic majority and you have then the privilege of being able to think in terms of colorblindness, but if you're part of the minority then you suffer at the hands of those who advocate that kind of thinking.

Again, there's something going on here that is contrary to what the Bible teaches us about our standing before God as creatures made in His image and our need of redemption that is found only in Jesus Christ and when we come to Christ and receive forgiveness of sins through His life, death, and resurrection, we are all united together as one in Him.

That doesn't mean that your skin color changes, your ethnicity changes, but it means those things are no longer important, nearly as important as what you now have in common in Christ.

So all the things that might keep us separated before Christ are now subjugated to the reality of our main identity and union with Christ.

That's why I stand against this movement, Chris. I'm so concerned about it, because it attacks these fundamental underpinnings of the gospel and of our relationship to God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

We have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Harrison says, I don't know if I misunderstood you earlier, but is there a significant number of advocates of the social justice movement who are including in their platform that we have a softened view of transgenderism and homosexuality which are an abomination in the sight of God?

I don't know if I heard you correctly or not, but could you please explain and clarify?

Yes, we don't have as many, but this is an expression of the same movement, the same worldview.

But what we are seeing is, yes, there are this idea is coming into evangelical churches.

I'll give you a couple of examples. For the last two years, a Presbyterian church in America in St. Louis, Missouri has hosted the

ReVoice conference. ReVoice is a movement that says they're appealing to gay

Christians to try to help them live according to historic Orthodox standards of sexual ethics.

But they talk about gay Christianity. You can listen to some of the talks online at,

I think it's revoice .us, but you can look it up and find it. One of the talks

I listened to from last year was Redeeming Queer Culture, and it talks about the elements of queer culture that will be welcomed into the

New Jerusalem. Wow. That will be redeemed and sanctified. I mean, this is abominable.

This is contrary to the Word of God. You also have another organization that I think is better than ReVoice, if we were to weigh them in the scale, called

Living Out. And Living Out also seeks to advocate for gay Christians and helping gay

Christians to live wholesome lives as followers of Jesus Christ.

And they have articles, some of those articles have been publicized in the last several months as severely problematic.

Articles that were linked to, not on the site, but linked to other sites and encouraging folks to go and read and be counseled by them.

Said things like, what should you do if you're a young adult or a teenager who has same -sex attraction desires and you want to be a

Christian? Well, there's other ways that you can express your sexuality or explore. You can go to a nude beach or you can go to a gay bar.

Things like that. I mean, it's just wow. You're kidding me. No, sir.

I wish I was. It's not. Tom Buck wrote a series of articles that you can find on the Alpha Omega website where James White is the host.

He wrote four specific articles linking to some of these articles and the counsel that is given.

And exposed it. These things are out there and they're good people who are participating in this, but they're wrongheaded in what they're doing.

And it all comes from this same basic worldview that has subtly undermined the authority, inerrancy, infallibility, and sufficiency of God's word.

That's why I and others are trying to speak against this and shine a light on it. Yeah, it seems bizarre or is bizarre.

When I have seen and heard people who claim to be gay

Christians and of course that would be a wide spectrum of ideologies under that umbrella but those that would say

I recognize that homosexuality is a sin it's a damnable sin, I cannot participate in that sin and sometimes

I'm listening to the few from that category that I've heard give lectures and I'm agreeing with everything that they say until they start to refer themselves as gay

Christians because it seems as if they have waved the white flag and said well this is a sin that God cannot deliver me from so I'm just accepting this as my lot in life and I'm going to identify myself with this term and it seems bizarre if you recognize this as a damnable sin and an unnatural sin.

Why would you want to use a label to identify yourself because whether they recognize this or not they are softening the extent of evil that is connected with this sin by calling themselves gay

Christians. Even the term gay is a softening of the abomination of this sin because obviously gay originally just meant happy.

Right, you're exactly right about that and it seems like there's an unwillingness to back up and ask those fundamental questions that you just asked.

For example, last year at the 2018 Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting the national meeting,

Andy Dracot is an associate professor of theology and Christian ethics at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola wrote a paper, he presented a paper, and this is the title of his paper

Walking Across Gender in the Spirit The Vocation of the Church and the

Transgender Christian and so he asks the question, you know, should we consider transgender Christians as having a good self -understanding and he gives an unqualified yes in that paper and he even uses the ordinance of baptism as an analogy to help us think about transgender

Christians, how they died to their old self, their biological identity the one they're born with, and they have risen to a new life as a transgendered identity now.

This was at the Evangelical Theological Society this is a man teaching at the Erstwhile Conservative Evangelical Seminary.

These things are going on. They've been going on. We've largely been asleep, not made aware or not being aware of what's going on.

The statement of social justice in the gospel, what many of us are trying to do now is sound alarms and turn on lights.

That's really the point behind the documentary that Founders is working to produce as well.

I think this is one of the reasons we got so much pushback when we released a brief trailer back in July on the documentary and a lot of people got upset with us.

They said, I can't believe you're doing this. You're just alarmist. Well, there are alarming things happening and it is time for Christians to wake up and see what's going on.

We have John and Banger Main who says, It disturbs me that there are many conservatives who are even opposed to the sin of homosexuality who might even be opposed to those calling themselves gay

Christian but nonetheless who believe that you can be someone after your regeneration that remains for decades with a continuing burning lust for somebody of the same gender.

That doesn't seem to make sense to me if you are a new creation in Christ and although every Christian sins every day you would think that there would be some of the more heinous sins that would be destroyed after rebirth or at least eventually through the process of sanctification.

We would never refer to a bestiality Christian or a serial killer

Christian or a pedophile Christian. Why is it that homosexual Christianity or gay

Christianity seems to be an acceptable concept even amongst many conservatives? I don't have an answer to that question except that I believe we are being played by the devil

I think this is spiritual warfare and I do want to say, however, that I think the sin that remains in the most sanctified

Christian is still damnable serious sin. It's not like a lower quality or lower grade of sin that lives in me than what used to dominate me.

It no longer dominates but it does live within. So I can well understand how someone because of the wickedness of sin, how pervasive it is and ways it affects us that we haven't fully calculated yet could struggle with various temptations various desires or thoughts.

However, as your questioner put at the end of his question I would never expect any

Christian to identify himself in terms of his sexual desires proclivities or past.

We don't have people saying I'm a pedophiliac Christian and yet to be a gay

Christian seems to be okay. Those things are of the same nature.

First Corinthians 6, 9 -11 is important as such were some of you.

We are no longer identified by what we once were as slaves to sin.

Sin remains in us. We are new creatures. My identity is in Jesus Christ because I'm bound to him by faith and I think we do not serve people well whenever we let what we once were dominated by still remain a defining characteristic of our identity.

No. I may have struggles and temptations I will have in various ways, all Christians will to the end of our lives, but we are not identified by those struggles, those temptations or what once used to dominate us.

In Christ we are new creatures and we can't let go of that. Amen. And now we're going to our final break.

It's going to be much more brief than the last break and so if you want to send in a question I would do so quickly because we are rapidly running out of time.

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

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

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away,

God willing we'll be right back with Tom Askell in our final segment on the new documentary that's coming out,

God willing, in December by What Standard. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio daily. We are now in our final segment with Dr. Tom Askell discussing the new documentary that will be,

God willing, released this December on the theme, By What Standard?

And we have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania who says

I have been blessed enormously by both your ministry, Dr.

Askell and, in the past especially, Thabiti Anyabwile and I know that you both had a bit of tension over your differences over the social justice movement.

I was wondering if your public exchanges have been brought to a conclusion and if there is more harmony between the two of you now.

Yeah, well, let me just say I love Thabiti. He's been a long time friend.

We disagree on these things and I'm grateful for the public engagements we've had.

I don't think we've come to a meeting of the minds on some key issues. Certainly, we are having this debate.

Both of us want to honor Christ in the way we do it, but we have some real differences. We have some significant disagreements about how to evaluate what's going on in the world and how to pursue justice in some of those areas.

So, while there's no personal animosity at all, nothing but respect and love for him personally,

I do disagree with the ways that he has articulated his issues and is trying to advocate for what he believes to be just causes.

Yes, and I hope one day to have Thabiti on with perhaps somebody like you or someone who disagrees with him to have a brotherly exchange over this.

I have had Thabiti on my program in the past. Nine years ago was the last time he was on to discuss his magnificent book

The Decline of African American Theology, and it's puzzling because he seems to have taken a very different take on these kinds of issues only nine years ago.

Well, yes, you're not the only one who has suggested that. I've heard Thabiti say that he's not changed his position on some of the fundamental things.

I've not dialogued with him personally about his own pilgrimage in thinking about these things, but I can just say that like you,

I appreciate so much of his work in the past and have disagreements on the way he's articulated some of his concerns about these modern issues.

In fact, I had Anthony Bradley on the program about nine years ago, and he also was a magnificent guest and seemed to take a totally different take on things that he does now.

I would say that absolutely. I feel like Anthony Bradley has gone in a very, very dangerous and bad way.

Well, I want you to have a minute to just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Well, that is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is unchanging. God gave us His Son, and in Him we have everything that we need.

That all the fullness of God dwells in Him in bodily fashion, and in Him we are complete.

And so when people come and try to teach us about how to live better and do so in ways that would detract from what we have in Christ, we need to reject that.

We need to test everything by the Word of God, and if it doesn't comport with what

God has revealed, we must not give in. God's the one who's just. He's the one who defines justice, and justice is that which conforms to His own righteousness.

He's revealed that for us, and Christ, whose righteousness for salvation is revealed to us in His law, which expresses

His own character and how we should live. So I want to just encourage every Christian to be faithful to Jesus Christ, to obey

Him as He has taught us to obey Him, and to do so with a wholehearted joy and confidence that all we have has been provided for us by God's grace.

Amen. Well, I want to remind our listeners about two of the conferences that you are involved in.

The first is the upcoming Founders Conference on Law and Gospel, and as we said earlier, this conference is going to be held

December 5th through the 7th in Cape Coral, Florida at Grace Baptist Church, where my guest

Tom Askew serves as the pastor. If you want more details go to Founders .org, and then click on Events.

And of course, don't forget about the G3 Conference. I will be also in attendance at that one, manning an exhibitor's booth.

That's January 16th through the 18th in Atlanta, Georgia at the Georgia International Convention Center.

Go to G3conference .com Thank you so much, Dr. Askew, for being a magnificent guest once again.

I look forward to your frequent return to this program. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater