October 25, 2016 Show with Scott Klusendorf on “The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture” PLUS Joel R. Beeke on “Fighting Satan: Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 25th day of October 2016.

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I'm so delighted to have for the first hour a guest that I have not yet interviewed and I'm eagerly anticipating a fascinating discussion.

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His name is Scott Klusendorf and he is founder and president of the Life Training Institute.

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We're going to be talking about his book, The Case for Life, Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture. The second hour

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I have a longtime friend back on the program, Dr. Joel Beeke, president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics at Puritan Reformed Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he's going to be discussing his book,

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Fighting Satan, Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat. We're also going to be plugging a couple of Bible conferences coming up, actually a few

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Bible conferences coming up, that I hope many of you listening will join me in attending.

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But first of all, it's my honor and privilege for the very first time ever to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron, Scott Klusendorf.

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Chris, great to be with you, thanks for having me. Before we even get into the Life Training Institute and The Case for Life, your book,

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I'd like to know something about your own personal background briefly, a summary of your testimony, how you were raised, what kind of theological or religious climate you were raised in, and how you came to know

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Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Wow, fascinating. Well, I was raised Seventh -day

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Adventist, and I was in Adventist Academy K through 12, and in my sophomore year of high school we had a week of prayer speaker who surprisingly laid out the

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Gospel in very clear terms, and I responded to that.

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I still look to that time as the day that God found me. And then, two years later, as a senior in high school,

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I began to have grave doubts about the Adventist view of justification and the Adventist view of authority.

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I was convinced that Christ could not be in the heavenlies doing an investigative judgment of believers if he paid for sins once and for all on the cross.

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And then I began to have serious doubts about Ellen G. White as an alleged prophetess, and the bottom line was

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I wandered across the street to an evangelical church and got grounded in the

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Gospel, and eventually met my wife there, and eventually went on to become an associate minister myself.

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I still have a to preach and Mary and Barry, and after that became involved in the pro -life issue.

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So that's sort of the 64 ,000 foot view of my storyline. Well, that's fascinating.

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I have to have you back perhaps sometime to exclusively discuss Seventh -day Adventism because it is a controversial issue.

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I know Seventh -day Adventists that I am convinced are my brothers in Christ, and I think that there are a lot of people, just like there are a lot of people in all religions, who are not consistent with the official teachings of that group, and sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad.

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I know, and you've said it well. There are Adventists who clearly are believers, but there are other

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Adventists whose teachings and whose lifestyle commitments are clearly outside the pale of orthodoxy, and it really depends on whether that Adventist is more evangelical in flavor or more traditional in flavor, and I've even written an article or two about that.

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But yeah, that would be a fascinating discussion sometime. Yeah. I don't know if you're still a

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Seventh -day observer, but was that a big hurdle for you to overcome?

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Huge, huge. It took a long time, and really what I had to do is come to the conclusion that Christ fulfilled the

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Mosaic Law, and as a result we are working through a new covenant, and an understanding of the new covenant having the old one fulfilled in Christ is what really helped out a lot.

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It's when you try to dice out the commandments and say nine apply, but the fourth one doesn't anymore.

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I found that to be a huge stumbling point, and it was recognizing that Christ fulfilled the entire law that really led to the freedom.

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Yeah, I think that the first thing that got me to question the orthodoxy of Seventh -day Adventism is when

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I was visiting a congregation, and a visiting preacher was calling into question the salvation of anyone who would eat a bologna sandwich.

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Yeah, there you go. Talk about bologna, there you go. All right, but as I said,

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I'm not broad -brushing you folks. I do, as I said, have some friends and acquaintances who are

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Seventh -day Adventists, and I consider them my brothers, but not to undermine the serious differences that we have either.

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That's correct, and if there weren't Adventist guys like Desmond Ford out there who were committed to a forensic justification by faith gospel,

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I would have never heard the gospel in the Adventist church, but thank God there were a few of them later dismissed.

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Yeah, Desmond's in Australia, right? Yeah. And he was excommunicated for his view?

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Yeah, they threw him out in 1980 for teaching forensic justification, and they didn't like that.

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But it's interesting, La Sierra University brought him back, Loma Linda University brought him back recently to preach on that, and it's an amazing video to watch, and my hat's off to them for doing that, but Des Ford definitely laid out a clear gospel, and that made a big difference in my life.

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Yeah, well I've got to get a hold of that video and watch that. Yep. Now let's hear about how you came to be involved with Life Training Institute.

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What were the providential steps that the Lord had ordained that led you to that position?

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I love the way you phrase that. So many people say, how did the Lord lead you to this?

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Well, I didn't get a voice from heaven, I don't get secret messages from God, rather I believe

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God sovereignly arranges things so that His people do works that glorify Him, and in my case,

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I was an associate minister at a church in Southern California, and I got invited to a pro -life breakfast in November of 1990.

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I had been pro -life all along, Chris, there never wasn't time where I wasn't pro -life, but I went to this breakfast having really not done much on the issue.

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I would go to the local pregnancy center banquet once a year, give an obligatory donation, and go home and forget about it.

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Well, this speaker who showed up was confronted with a room of only five of us pastors and maybe a handful of other people, spouses and a few others, maybe no more than 20 in the room, where there should have been a hundred for this breakfast, and most of the pastors just stayed home.

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But thankfully, this pastor, or this speaker, stood up, and though the room was small, gave a powerful presentation.

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His name was Greg Cunningham, former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and the guy who wrote the bill that cut off tax funding for abortion.

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But he did something partway through his talk that I had never anticipated, and that was,

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Chris, he actually showed abortion. He showed an eight -minute video that graphically depicted it. I had been pro -life all along, but had never seen abortion.

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And as I watched that video, I wept, and I thought to myself, I'm no different than the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side of the road.

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They felt pity for the beating victim, but they didn't take pity. And Jesus said, that wasn't good enough when it came to loving your neighbor.

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And to make a long story short, six months later, with the blessing of my church, I resigned my associate pastor's role and began pursuing a career equipping pro -lifers to make a case for the pro -life view, and I've been at it ever since.

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Well, praise God. And for anybody who would like to learn more about this organization that we are speaking of, the

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Life Training Institute, LTI, you go to prolifetraining .com,

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prolifetraining .com, and that's all one word, prolifetraining .com.

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And we'll be hopefully announcing that again before the end of the program. You have written a book called

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The Case for Life, Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture, which is basically the mission statement of your organization, it seems.

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If you could let us know what led you to specifically write the book, knowing that there were other pro -life books already in print, what was missing or lacking or something that just needed to be put in print that you didn't see available yet?

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Oh, that's a great question. I'll tell you what it was, Chris. There are a ton of smart guys on the pro -life side.

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I mean, you look at the guys like the Robert Georges, the Pat Lees, the Hadley Arkuses, the

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Francis Beckwiths, and others who have written philosophically on the issue at a very intelligent level and at a very sophisticated level.

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Books that give the pro -life argument a great deal of credibility because they're so well argued.

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The problem is almost no lay people are reading those books. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got a bunch of pro -life books that don't really delve into the deep worldview and philosophical problems confronting us in the culture today.

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Rather, they tend to be more personal, more biographical. I saw a need for a book that was what

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I would call a translator book, where I would take the great pro -life thinking that's out there from the guys like Robert Georges and Beckwiths and Lee and others and make those arguments understandable to lay people and do so within the context of the

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Christian gospel. Here's how we make our case for the pro -life view in a secular environment, but here's how that pro -life case relates to our gospel proclamation as well, and here's how it relates pastorally to men and women who've had abortion and who desperately need the healing that can be found only in the gospel.

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So those were kind of the concerns I had that drove me to write this book. I'm going to let our listeners know how they can join us on the air with questions of their own.

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The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and I fully recognize that when you're dealing with a very sensitive issue like abortion, there may be people out there that would prefer to remain anonymous.

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Perhaps they've had an abortion. Perhaps they are contemplating abortions and abortion.

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Perhaps they just have a very close loved one like a daughter or a sister or a mother who has either had or contemplating an abortion.

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I understand that you would want to remain anonymous in such cases. In fact, I would prefer that you remain anonymous if you're talking about somebody else.

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I'm not obviously going to identify who you are if that's the case, but if it is at all possible, if you could mention your first name, city and state, and country of residence, please do so when you email us at question at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Now there are different approaches even within the pro -life movement, as you are fully aware, on the issue of abortion.

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There are some even conservative Christians who are vehemently pro -life and vehemently anti -abortion who would say that there are certain circumstances when the life of a mother is genuinely at risk when an abortion is acceptable, and there are others who say absolutely not.

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It's always murder from the moment of conception to the moment of delivery. To ever terminate a pregnancy is just a fancy way of murdering a baby.

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Is there a specific approach to this issue that you'd like to discuss as far as abortion being ever a possibility or always prohibited?

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Well, Chris, I think what we need to begin with always is defining our terms and put out there for your listeners the basic pro -life syllogism, the argument that we're making.

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Our argument can be put in a syllogism form as follows. Premise one, it's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.

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Premise two, abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. Conclusion, therefore abortion is wrong.

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Now notice by defining abortion as the intentional killing of an innocent human being, we can bring clarity to the issue, and pro -lifers can defend that syllogism using science to demonstrate that the unborn are distinct living and whole human beings, and philosophy to argue that there's no essential difference between the embryo you were and the adult you are today that would justify killing you at that earlier stage of development.

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Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then, but not now.

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Now once we clarify our basic argument, now we're ready to talk about these cases like the life of the mother, and let's take an exact case from medical science, ectopic pregnancy.

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This is where the embryo, instead of implanting on the inner wall of the uterine cavity, implants on the inner wall of the fallopian tube, the narrow tube that leads to that cavity.

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As that embryo grows in that tube, the risk to the mother is obvious.

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As that embryo grows, she is in grave danger of hemorrhaging to death should that tube rupture, which there's a strong likelihood.

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In that case, if you're a pro -life doctor, here's the choice in front of you. Do you do nothing and lose two human beings, the mother and the child, or do you act in such a way that you save one life even though the unintended but foreseeable result is the death of the embryo?

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And my answer is you act to save the mother's life. Now somebody would say that's the same as abortion.

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No, let's go back to our definitions. We defined abortion as the intentional killing of an innocent human being.

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This is not the intentional killing of an innocent human being. This is acting to save the mother's life with the unintended but foreseeable result that the child cannot survive that procedure.

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That is not the same as abortion. Yeah, wouldn't you say that a parallel would be a case such as twins joined at the brain or something, and when you are separating them knowing there is a very strong likelihood that one of them is going to die as a result, you're not intentionally killing the other twin?

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That's correct. You're exactly doing the greatest moral good you can, given the circumstance in front of you.

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Now there are some who say, well, that's just relativism. No, relativism is do whatever you want, anything goes.

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That's not what's in play here. This is acting to do the greatest objective moral good you can, given the hand you've been dealt.

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It's not saying anything goes. And do you know, for instance, conservative evangelical

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Christians who are on the left to you that you can dialogue with and remain cordial with, or is this something that is such a heinous issue, such a heinous crime against the most helpless and innocent among us that it's impossible to really have any kind of a meaningful friendship with somebody who would view the legitimacy of an abortion for any reason?

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I have debated many people in my career. Most recently, and coming up soon,

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I will be debating again Nadine Strawson, the former president of the ACLU, and she and I are friends.

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And I'll tell you why I take this approach, Chris. First of all, Nadine draws an audience that I get to talk to.

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I want to be her friend. Secondly, she's no more lost in her sins, Chris, than I was in before Christ found me.

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So I want to keep open doors of relationship. That doesn't mean

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I don't go after the substance of her arguments in debates. I do, in fact, do that.

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I go after the substance of her argument, but I don't get personally nasty. I have an idea that I hope to get into the ears of more individuals, especially in the conservative media.

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I don't know if this would ever happen. I don't know if it would require a miracle of some kind to happen, but I'm actually amazed that even conservatives in the media have never, that I have heard or seen, address this or insist upon it.

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I believe that every time there is a major election, such as obviously the race for president of the

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United States, that there should be televised a live or at least a filmed actual abortion taking place.

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Therefore, when people vote, they are going to have more of an education of what is going on.

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In fact, if Hillary Clinton believes that a baby should be legitimately aborted, quote, quote, in the ninth month, we should see that.

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And when people shudder at that, in fact, I was quite puzzled years ago when

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Pat Buchanan, who was the poster boy for conservative politics, and perhaps in some cases still is considered that, when he was being interviewed on a radio program,

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I called in and suggested that he was running for president of the United States for the Reform Party at the time.

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And he said, no, I wouldn't want to do that. And I said, why not? And he said, well, that would be like televising an execution.

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I said, that's my point. And I said, the only reason why the world gasped with horror about the

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Holocaust and did something about it, it was because we all saw the film footage of what happened in those death camps.

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In fact, we didn't even see all of it, but we saw enough of it that we realized this is one of the most grotesque stains on the planet

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Earth's history. And therefore, everybody involved in that must be brought to justice.

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In fact, I know that the American GIs, after they liberated the death camps, they forced local

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Germans, men and women who were living right in the same neighborhoods, to take not only a tour of the death camps, they made them carry dead bodies to their graves and help bury them and so on.

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So seeing is believing in this case. I think that people need to see that.

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Now, what is your opinion of what I just said? Well, I think you're onto something here, and I'll tell you why.

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We don't even need to look at the Germans resisting looking at the atrocities. The Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D.

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Eisenhower, did not believe the death camps existed. And even when he got word that they did, didn't feel it was worth his time to divert his energies away from planning to go look at one.

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But Eisenhower had a Jewish aide who would not quit badgering him about going to see one of the camps.

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And finally, Eisenhower, in frustration just to get rid of the guy, said, fine, I'll go look at one of your camps.

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And the guy put him in the Jeep and drove him out to Ordorf. And Eisenhower gets out of the

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Jeep, walks into the camp. After ducking behind a building and throwing up for several minutes, he came out and said to the aide, you get every company commander on the phone you can within 50 miles of this place.

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I'm told the American soldier doesn't know what he's fighting against or what he's fighting for. When he sees this, he'll know what he's fighting against.

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And it took Eisenhower's Jewish aide badgering him to finally look at the evidence in front of him before the

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Supreme Allied Commander would deal with this issue. The American public does not want to deal with abortion.

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Christian churches do not want to deal with abortion. As journalist Christopher Caldwell points out, the American public wants to think it needs to feel bad about abortion, but doesn't want to do anything to address the actual issue.

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And he's right. This is the problem we face. And when people see abortion, their moral intuitions are reawakened.

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You move people from being merely attitudinally opposed to abortion if they're pro -life, to becoming behaviorally opposed to abortion if they are

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Christian and pro -life, which is what happened in my story. Or if they're pro -abortion, you knock away some of their cocksure arrogance that would say there's no reasonable person who would ever oppose this procedure.

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Hillary Clinton would never look at an abortion procedure, and most politicians don't want to deal with the issue.

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They hope it will just go away. So bringing it to the forefront of the national debate is going to be absolutely essential if we are ever to win this.

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Yes, and even though I think that Chris Wallace did an admirable job as moderator for the last debate,

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I was very upset at one point when Donald Trump had described the late -term abortion as ripping a baby from his mother's womb.

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He should have more accurately said ripping it apart. But when Hillary Clinton said that's not what happens,

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Chris Wallace could have said, tell us, Mrs. Clinton, what does happen? Yes, exactly.

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You did exactly right. When people say your abortion pictures are fake or that's not what happens in an abortion procedure, then what we need to say to people is, then tell me, what does an actual abortion procedure look like?

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Make them spell it out, and you will find out right away that they are simply hiding behind a false notion of what the truth is.

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And I think if someone, a political candidate, wants to make this issue work, they need to be willing to quote abortionists.

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Yes. Warren Hearn, who wrote the book Abortion Practice, the medical teaching text that teaches dismemberment abortions.

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Dr. Hearn says that there is no longer a realistic way to deny what is actually going on in an abortion procedure.

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And here's his quote, listen to this, quote, the sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.

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Does that sound like the intentional killing of an innocent human being? Yeah, not because I say so, but because America's leading abortionist says so.

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Yeah, wow, that is something. We do have a listener,

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CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, is it true that I've heard from Roman Catholic apologists that prior to Roe v.

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Wade, the majority of evangelicals in the limelight, especially in the realms of politics, were in favor of a woman's right to an abortion, and it was the

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Roman Catholics who were nearly exclusively making the protest against legalization of abortion, and that it's a very good question.

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Is that true? Because I've heard the same thing. Yeah, there is truth to that. I don't know the exact numbers.

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For example, the Southern Baptists prior to 1980 were either mum on abortion or moderately in favor of it, and it was only during the ascension of Ronald Reagan's candidacy that they switched.

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Prior to that, the SBC had not taken a strong stand or had even taken a permissive stand.

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We know that mainline denominations remain pro -abortion, denominations like Presbyterian Church USA, evangelical

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Lutherans. Thankfully, you do have a few mainline groups like Presbyterian Church in America and Missouri Synod Lutherans who are pro -life and who do good works to try to end this slaughter.

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But sadly, prior to 1980, it's true the Catholic Church was the leading voice, and I thank

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God for Catholic friends on this issue. Though we differ theologically, we do work together to save innocent human lives, and though we don't hold co -confession, we are co -belligerents in the fight to uphold justice for the weak and vulnerable.

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Now, you mentioned some groups that are liberal Protestant, because even the

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Southern Baptist Convention was saturated with liberals at one point.

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Were there strong conservative Protestant voices who were equally opposed to abortion, along with the

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Catholics that you haven't mentioned? Yeah, there were some. You had Francis Schaeffer, for example.

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You had C. Everett Koop. You had Carl F. Henry. You had others who did speak out against this, and who did put their views known.

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But let's be fair here, that up until recent times, it was a

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Catholic voice that was leading on this, and in some cases that's still true.

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Now, I will say this. Evangelicals have stepped up their game in the world of apologetics.

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We are doing conferences. I just did two conferences, one with 1 ,800 students in Los Angeles and one with 800 students in Dallas this last weekend, where we taught pro -life apologetics as part of a larger

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Christian apologetics conference, and the students are eating it up. We are stepping up our game, training people how to make a case for the pro -life view and to do it persuasively in a skeptical world.

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But while we're leading in that area, in terms of being the public witness against the pro -life view,

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I don't think we can argue that the

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Catholics are anything but the leading voice to this point, and I'm grateful for that.

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By the way, CJ, you are getting a free copy of the book. We are discussing

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The Case for Life, Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture. Just make sure you give us your full mailing address, and that will be shipped out to you.

29:34

Compliments of not only the publishers, Crossway, but also compliments of CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV as in Cumberland Valley, BBS for biblebookservice .com,

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a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron, who ships out all of our winners, free Bibles, books,

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DVDs, CDs, and everything else they win by submitting questions. So keep your eye out in the mail, but please give us your full mailing address.

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And we are going to a break right now. If you'd like to join CJ with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages with more of Scott Klusendorf.

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I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned in, the guest for the first hour is

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Scott Klusendorf, founder and president of Life Training Institute. We're discussing his book,

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The Case for Life, Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture. Our second hour, we are honored with Dr.

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Joel Beeky as our guest, the president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics at Puritan Reform Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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He's going to be discussing fighting Satan, knowing his weaknesses, strategies, and defeat.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Scott Klusendorf on the abortion issue, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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And we do have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know,

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I have heard from a doctor who has come public,

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Dr. Lawrence K. Koening, who is an OBGYN physician, who after the debate, made it known that there is no medical reason that requires aborting or killing a baby in the third trimester that can possibly be of any benefit to a pregnant woman.

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And he wants to know what your opinion is on what Dr. Koening has said, and do you know

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Dr. Koening, or have you heard of what he is speaking about? I don't know him, but what he has stated is consistent with what

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I have read elsewhere. And what that literature seems to indicate is that by the third trimester, we could just as easily look toward an early delivery in many cases, rather than intentionally killing the child.

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There certainly are cases where we may need to remove the child in the third trimester. But to say that the only way we can save the mother is to kill the child, that does not seem to be supportive.

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Well, guess what, Arnie? You are also receiving a free copy of the book that we are offering today,

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The Case for Life, Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture, by Scott Klusendorf.

37:05

We have Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania, who asks, what is the best pictorial aid that you can recommend to show women who are considering abortions in order to prevent them from making that horrific choice?

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Well, it would depend on what the context is, but I will tell you what we use when we speak on abortion, when we speak in churches, in Catholic and Protestant high schools, and when we speak in small groups.

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Our team uses a clip that is available on our website. If you go to the

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LTI video section, a 55 -second clip called This is

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Abortion. And this clip depicts abortion, shows you it.

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It's graphic, it's disturbing, and there's a warning screen so people aren't caught off guard by it. But that clip puts meaning on the word abortion.

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My colleague Greg Cunningham puts it well. When you show pictures of abortion, abortion protests itself.

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That's why I've never considered myself an abortion pro. When I show pictures of it, it protests itself.

38:17

It is an intuitive evil that people can recognize when they see it for what it is.

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Yes, and in fact, don't you agree that most people, especially those who are the activists in favor of abortion or abortion rights, don't you think that the age -old question about when does life begin never really mattered to them?

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Because obviously, now you have late -term abortions occurring, and you have a presidential candidate pushing for a woman's freedom to kill a nine -month -old baby.

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This is really, isn't it, vivid proof that no one who has aggressively been fighting for abortion rights really ever cared when life began anyway?

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Yeah, they don't care. In fact, they simply assume the unborn aren't human. They don't argue for it.

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They just assume it without having to state their reasons. Let me give you an example from history, and then

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I'll give you one that's a little more current. Many of your listeners have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

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In chapter 32, there's a remarkable exchange where Huck Finn is going to visit

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Aunt Sally, and Aunt Sally actually thinks that Huck is Tom Sawyer, but that's a side issue.

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Here's the main point. Huck shows up late for supper, and Aunt Sally says, why were you late?

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And Huck says, well, ma 'am, as he stammers to come up with an excuse, we were on a steamboat, and it blew a cylinder head.

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And Aunt Sally says, well, was anybody hurt? No, ma 'am. It killed a Negro, but nobody was hurt.

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Well, that's good, said Aunt Sally. Notice what was just assumed.

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Now, fast forward to a couple of years ago to the President of the United States, Barack Obama, celebrating

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Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that gave us abortion on demand for all nine months of pregnancy.

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Here's how the President coined his support for that. He said to the public at a national conference on TV, today is a day we celebrate a decision that was good for all

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Americans. Now, listen to the President's words, because this is a country where everyone deserves the right to pursue their own dreams.

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Wait a minute. Mr. President does quote everyone, unquote, include the unborn? Notice he just assumed the unborn weren't human.

40:50

He didn't argue for it. And this was precisely the point that C .S. Lewis was getting at when he said the most dangerous ideas in our culture are those that are simply assumed, not those that are spelled out.

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Warren Hearn, the abortionist in Colorado, is not the guy doing the most damage to the pro -life movement, though his behavior is truly evil when he kills children.

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The guy that's doing the damage is the one who has the mouthpiece and can simply assume the unborn aren't human and convince millions of Americans that the question doesn't matter.

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Yeah, and I'm amazed that there are people who still are completely unaware.

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In fact, most people that I speak to, especially if they're not Christians or not conservative or involved in the pro -life issue, they are completely unaware of what the

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Infant Born Alive Act was all about. They were unaware of what was going on and perhaps still is going on.

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And, of course, Barack Obama voted against that, and he, a senator in Chicago before elected president, was in a state where this first came out, that babies were being put in boxes and put in storage closets to starve to death if they were born, quote, quote, accidentally alive during an abortion attempt.

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If you could explain a little bit more about that. Three times the future president, while he was a member of the state house in Illinois, voted against a bill that provided protection for children who survived abortion procedures.

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This is something that is appalling. But let's make no mistake, Barack Obama and the

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Democrat party is absolutely committed to killing unborn children wholesale.

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Make no mistake about it, and if anybody takes offense at that, they just need to go read the party platform statements.

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And I'm not saying this because I want to be partisan. I'm saying it because it's a matter of fact.

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You have one political party in America that wants to promote the evil of abortion wholesale.

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You have another political party that does a so -so job protecting unborn children, but doesn't promote evil wholesale.

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This is the sad political reality that confronts pro -life Christians today, and it's why more than ever we've got to be able to defend our view in a persuasive and gracious way with people who think there's no logical argument that can be brought to bear on the issue.

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Yes, I have been for a long time very disgusted at the cowardice of professing conservatives and Republicans over this issue who claim to be pro -life, and I can even remember when

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John McCain was running against Barack Obama, and Senator McCain basically brought up the

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Infant Born Alive Act during the debate, which evoked a chuckle,

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I can remember, from Barack Obama, and McCain did not even bother to define exactly what that meant to the audience, which was infuriating.

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You bring up a subject like that, which at least that was a starting point of being admirable, and then after he chuckles and explains it away, meaning

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Obama, he don't pursue it any further, and you don't make him explain in vivid detail what was occurring?

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I'm just astonished. Well, here's why that is. Our politicians are not trained how to make a case for the pro -life view.

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They're given talking points, and one of two things is true about these conservative politicians who are allegedly on our side but appear not to be able to defend our view if they're life -dependent on it.

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The first thing that might be true is they don't really believe our view, and so the best they can do is talking points and try to escape the issue rather than really deal with it.

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The other side of this is you have people on our side who do believe what we believe, but they don't know how to articulate their views persuasively, which is what led me to write the book that I did,

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The Case for Life, because I want people to know how to make that case, and you know what, Chris? Your listeners need to know how to make this case.

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It's no longer going to be the option of leaving the defense of life to a handful of professional apologists.

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Every one of us needs to know how to step up and in a minute or less make a case for the pro -life view, so let me do that.

45:46

Let's say it's Thanksgiving, and your listeners have an aunt. We'll call her

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Aunt Betty. She shows up. She lives in Boston. She shows up at your house, and she doesn't hold your worldview, and over turkey and stuffing, she looks at you and says, now tell me again why you're pro -life.

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Here's your answer, minute or less, and your listeners can tie me if they want. Aunt Betty, I am pro -life because the science of empathy, earliest stages of development, you were a distinct living and whole human being.

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You weren't part of another human being. You were already a distinct whole member of the human family even though you were immature and had yet to grow, and you know what else,

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Aunt Betty? There's no essential difference between that embryo you were in the adult end.

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Differences of size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now.

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Now, I think I got that done in a minute, and you will notice that I advanced an argument. I didn't just make an assertion.

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I didn't just quote a Bible verse. I actually made an argument. Now, Aunt Betty has to deal with my argument.

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Now, make no mistake, she will try to change the subject. Well, that's just your religious view. Wait a minute,

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Aunt Betty. Arguments are true or false, valid or invalid. Calling an argument religious is a category error like saying how tall is the number five.

47:17

You can't just dismiss my argument. You have to deal with it, and the beauty of that soundbite is it forces our listeners to actually hear the case we're making, and then we're in a position to gently point out to them that they haven't refuted it.

47:33

They're just trying to dismiss it. We have a listener in Slovenia who asks, does your guest have any statistical data that sheds light on the percentage of abortions performed on women who claim to be evangelical

47:52

Christians? There are a number of people out there claiming that the evangelical abortion rate is equal to the non -Christian abortion rate.

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I am not persuaded that those statistics are reliable, and the reason is that very seldom is there a clear definition given of what we mean by evangelical.

48:18

I am convinced that if you are a Christian, you are grounded in a local church that preaches the

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Word of God, your chances of opting for abortion are going to be significantly lower than someone who is not grounded in their faith.

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However, I think we do have a problem with a lot of churches that are not preaching on abortion.

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They are not preaching, teaching, and counseling that abortion is a sin. They are not ministering to women who've had abortions and need to find forgiveness, and they're not equipping their people to be salt and light in the culture.

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And in that kind of dismal environment, it shouldn't surprise us that there are people who identify as Christian, who really have no grasp of Christian teaching, choosing abortion when confronted with this kind of decision.

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So I don't have exact numbers, and most of the studies I've looked at can be criticized for terminology.

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It's difficult, but we can say we know there are Christian women choosing abortion, and they're doing it because their pulpits are silent.

49:28

And by the way, thank you, Joe, and thank you for providing an American mailing address.

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We are going to be mailing this book to your daughter in the

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United States, so thank you very much for submitting that question. And have your daughter keep her eye open for the book that we are discussing,

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The Case for Life, Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture. And we want to thank Crossway for supplying these free giveaway books, and we want to thank

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for shipping the map to our winners. And that's cvbbs .com,

50:05

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who has been sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron since we relaunched in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and we thank them for their faithful support.

50:17

What you just said about the fact that there are Christians having abortions, do you think a lot of it has to do, perhaps, with the fact that, sadly, in the

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Christian church, there are not only gossips that are rampant, but those who are very

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Pharisaic, and they're looking down upon and not opening their arms of forgiveness open toward those who have been involved in extramarital or fornicating sexual relationships, where these pregnancies have occurred, and they, just out of either sheer embarrassment, or perhaps the embarrassment of the parents, they're putting their own reputations above the murder of a child?

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There's no doubt that that happens. There's no doubt that we, as a Christian community, need to learn to better deal with sinners in our midst.

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Our churches are full of people who sin sexually, and there are consequences of sinning that way, and one of those consequences is, obviously, we as Christians need to be brought to bear on those situations to provide hope and the necessary corrective needed to make sure that that individual gets their life going the right way again, and that the church as a whole is given a time to reflect and learn what it means to be a believer who lives for the glory of God.

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And when we cover up sins, all of those benefits of learning to grow in grace, learning to walk in godly discipline, learning to move constructively through church discipline, all of that falls by the wayside, and believers are not discipled.

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Well, I know that you are one of the speakers at the upcoming conference that,

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God willing, I will be attending, and where I will be manning an exhibitor's booth alongside the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. That's the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, January 19th through the 21st, and there are 19 speakers at this conference, one of the longest and most impressive lineups of speakers

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I've ever seen in my life at any Christian event, and tell us what you specifically are going to be speaking about at the

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G3 conference. I'll be speaking about making a case for the pro -life view and how we as believers can link our pro -life advocacy with the gospel.

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That has been one of the things, I think, that has been missing. Pro -life Christians either think the only way to talk about this issue is to preach the gospel and that'll solve everything.

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All we gotta do is preach the gospel and everything will be fine. That's false. Other believers say, no, we gotta make a completely secular argument, keep religion completely out of it.

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That's false. There are some contexts where we will tactically lead with a case for life that is non -religious, but as believers, we don't have the option of just saying, we're going to punt on the gospel and not bring it up.

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We are Christians. We are to share our faith, we are to convey the good news, and we need to learn how to do that in a way that is both persuasive and tactically wise.

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Yes, and you were speaking before about co -belligerence. Having said that,

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I'm sure you, having heard what you just said now, you would agree that, although we may work together with those who are not

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Christians, those who have a different gospel than we profess, those who are on the other side of the

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Tiber River, the issue of the gospel is the most important thing on the planet, and we should never refrain from evangelizing our

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Catholic friends and presenting the true gospel to them, even if they're on the same side of the life issue.

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Am I right? Yeah, that's correct. And you know, I'll tell you, I work with Catholics all the time. I speak in Catholic high schools,

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I'd say 65 % of my work is with Catholics, and never once in 25 years has a

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Catholic ever said to me, I don't want you to talk to me about your faith.

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They've been quite polite in listening, and they share their views, I share mine, we discuss these issues, and never once has one of them ever said to me,

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I want you to speak at my conference, but I don't want you to say anything about your relationship with Christ.

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It's never been asked of me. Now, maybe it's been asked of others, but it's never been asked of me. And even when we speak in Catholic high schools, we present the gospel.

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We don't necessarily stand up and say, your religion is wrong, we simply give an accurate depiction of the gospel as the only solution to post -abortion guilt, and the students hear us accurately state that gospel.

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So even in the midst of a pro -life presentation, we are able to accurately convey the gospel to students, and not one

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Catholic school has ever complained to us about that. And I have heard, sadly though, on the other side of the coin, that there have been

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Christian pro -life workers, one of which that I know very well, who had to leave a particular organization because they forbid him from actually communicating the gospel to the

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Roman Catholic co -workers for this specific organization that he worked for. I don't know the situation with that, obviously.

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What I will say is this, I'm fine if a pro -life organization says, listen, our primary activity is saving children, and that means there will be times when we are out doing debates or speaking where we're going to put greater emphasis on our pro -life case than we are preaching the gospel.

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That doesn't make them a bad organization. But I think there's a problem for the Christian whenever you're in an environment where you are told that you can never preach the gospel, because as a

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Christian, you do have an obligation to be a witness for Christ.

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It's not something optional for you to give up. And I think, again, I think if we're wise and we know how to befriend our

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Catholic friends and be kind in our approach to the gospel while being entirely accurate as to its content,

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I have found that to be a very warm environment to build rich relationships and to get people thinking.

57:31

Very briefly before we go, Joe in Slovenia asks, please ask your guest to give us his assessment as to why, in large measure, the preachers in our pulpits are silent on the biblical teaching regarding abortion.

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Why is there such reluctance to be bold about the issue? This generally the case, and thank

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God there are exceptions, so I don't want to paint too broadly here, but here is what I think is generally going on,

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Chris. Many of our preachers do not trust God to protect

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His ministry through them when they preach the inconvenient truth.

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And what they've become is they've become so seeker -friendly, they've become believer -worthless, as a colleague of mine puts it.

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And as a result, they don't want to touch truth that might cause people to leave the

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Church, and that's a direct reflection on their lack of faith in trusting

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God to be their protector when they convey the whole counsel of God. And your organization, the

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Life Training Institute, can be found at prolifetraining .com. Prolifetraining .com,

58:43

any other contact information you care to give? That's the best place to get us, they can look up our

58:49

Facebook page if they want, but the website is a great place to start, and it will have articles there, there's film clips there that will help them, and they can equip themselves to engage effectively.

59:01

Thank you so much, Scott Klusendorf, I eagerly look forward to your return on Iron Sharpens Iron as my guest again, hopefully for the next time, two hours.

59:09

That would be fun, I would love it, Chris. Great, well I look forward to speaking with you in the future, brother. Thank you, look forward to G3, see you there.

59:17

Yeah, you too, God bless. And don't go away, ladies and gentlemen, because coming up in just a few minutes we are going to be joined by our second guest,

59:26

God willing, Dr. Joel Beeky, the President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

59:38

Don't go away, we're going to be right back, God willing, right after these words from our sponsors. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round

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Harvey Cedars, where Christ finds people and changes lives. Welcome back, this is

01:01:15

Chris Arnson, and our second guest today is Dr. Joel Beeky. He is the

01:01:20

President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reform Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

01:01:26

We are going to be discussing his book, Fighting Satan, Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat.

01:01:32

We're also going to be letting you know about a Bible conference coming up in November, where he will be speaking and where I will be in attendance,

01:01:40

God willing, and I'm looking forward to meeting many of you in the Iron Sharpens Iron audience there, if at all possible.

01:01:47

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. Joel Beeky. Good to be with you,

01:01:55

Chris. Yes, and Dr. Beeky, we go back a long way. In fact, I was in contact with you, and in some way, in a peripheral way perhaps, but I was in some way involved in your very first exploration into radio broadcasting.

01:02:13

I can remember that you began to participate as one of the speakers in the

01:02:18

Voice of Sovereign Grace on WMCA in the New York area, just about the same time you launched the

01:02:26

Gospel Trumpet. I remember very well being eager to get you on the air for the first time, because you had not had any radio presence prior to that, and the

01:02:39

Lord did see fit to open those doors, and it's been a pleasure knowing you all these years. Thank you.

01:02:46

Thank you very much. And tell our listeners something about the

01:02:51

Puritan Reform Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where you are president. Okay, well, we began the seminary about 22 years ago, and what we do is we, in the

01:03:08

Reformed Biblical faith, that commends what we call head, heart, hand teaching, ministering to the whole man, electronically to the mind, experientially to the soul, actively to the hands and feet, and we then send these men back to their own countries.

01:03:29

Presently, we have about 150 men, 40 long distance, and about 110 by taking courses, and here, and then we have about half of them from North America, and half from 21 different countries around the world, and God has blessed the work here in a major way, and we're grateful for that, and now we are just on the verge of opening, we hope, a

01:04:00

PhD program as soon as we might obtain a full accreditation for that from ATS, so we have an

01:04:12

MDiv program, three and a half year ministering program, a two -year MA, a master's program in religion, and a

01:04:22

THM, which is for those who are already ministers, a two -year program, a master's of theology.

01:04:29

And the website, for those of you listening, and hopefully we'll announce it again later, but it's prts .edu,

01:04:36

very simple, prts, for Puritan Reform Theological Seminary, dot edu, prts .edu.

01:04:45

You know, there are some Christians in our modern era that would raise their eyebrows and say, why on earth would

01:04:53

Dr. Beeky want to attach the word Puritan to his seminary, because it is so out of touch, it's so out of reality with the times, the

01:05:06

Puritans have so much negative press connected to them, weren't they a bunch of nasty, hateful bigots from centuries past, why on earth would you want to conjure up that name and associate it with your seminary?

01:05:22

Well, if you could explain just briefly why it is that we who love the doctrines of grace in our

01:05:28

Reformed heritage also love the name Puritan. Well, I'm not so much in love with the name

01:05:37

Puritan as I am with the Puritan writers, met by John Bunyan and Matthew Henry, which

01:05:43

I'm sure every listener has heard of, so much progress. These are all Puritans.

01:05:49

It's interesting today that some people will speak negatively about the Puritans, and yet they'll listen to people like R .C.

01:05:56

Sproul, Luther, John Piper, who probably are quoting the

01:06:03

Puritans more than any other group of writers in all of history. It's remarkable, too, that when people complain about the

01:06:12

Puritans, 95 % of the time they are people who've never read the Puritans.

01:06:17

They're just going by what, you know, Nathaniel Hawthorne said in the 19th century, or other people, or just society as a whole.

01:06:25

But the ignorance about the Puritans is astounding. So here's the truth of the matter.

01:06:31

Puritans were the happiest group of people in Church history that I know of, and I've studied

01:06:37

Church history all my life and have my PhD in it from Westminster Seminary.

01:06:44

They bequeathed to us the happy family home where the father exercises loving -headship, and the father and mother exercise

01:06:53

God -fearing leadership over their children. They were the ones who promoted monogamous, romantic marriage.

01:07:04

In other words, that we be devoted fully to our spouse, and don't need mistresses or other people on the side.

01:07:13

That whole idea of a God -fearing happy Christian home that obeys the commandments of the

01:07:19

Lord, loves the Lord Jesus Christ, serves Him with energy, lives for His glory, is something we owe to the

01:07:26

Puritans. The Puritans of the 17th century simply followed all the teachings of the

01:07:33

Reformers of the 16th century. And all they did was say, how do all these doctrinal truths apply to our daily lives in every area of our living?

01:07:45

So how can I be a godly, Reformed husband, wife, child? What's the

01:07:51

Reformed view of work, of play, of recreation? And they wrote books and treatises on all these things.

01:07:58

And so they, more than any other group of writers, took the Bible seriously and said, how do we apply the

01:08:05

Bible to every area of life? Now, the area where they particularly excel, therefore, is bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, as Paul puts it.

01:08:17

And so they will stretch you, they will convict you, they will allure you, they're passionate writers, they will make you fall more in love with Jesus Christ.

01:08:27

I've never known a church where the pastor has really promoted Puritan writings in his church, and people really began to read the

01:08:35

Puritans, where the whole level of the church's holiness did not rise significantly. I've been reading the

01:08:43

Puritans for 50 years in my life, and I'm always having some Puritan book going, but there's just no group of writers that even come close for spiritual depth, spurring on godliness,

01:08:59

Christlikeness, holiness, as a Puritan. They certainly have the richest literature of any period in church history.

01:09:07

That's one reason why 700 titles of the Puritan books have been reprinted in the last 50 years.

01:09:15

In fact, you are also the founder of Heritage Books, heritagebooks .org.

01:09:23

The full title, of course, is Reformation Heritage Books, and many of those titles that you just spoke of can be found there, heritagebooks .org,

01:09:35

for those of you listening, and if you could briefly just let our listeners know more about Reformation Heritage Books.

01:09:43

Yes, Reformation Heritage Books sells about $2 million worth of books a year, probably 1 .2 or 1 .3

01:09:49

million are Puritan titles, and what we do is we do two things.

01:09:55

We print about 40 books ourselves per year from a variety of authors, and then we also carry, we're non -profits, we carry at discount prices 3 ,500 titles from 70 publishers around the world, and the goal is to get good, solid,

01:10:15

Reformed, Biblical literature in the hands of people all around the world, and to do it at affordable prices so that people can really buy these books at a reasonable price.

01:10:31

And once again, that's heritagebooks .org. Today we're going to be highlighting a book available through Reformation Heritage Books, Fighting Satan, Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat, by our guest,

01:10:47

Dr. Joel R. Beeky. Dr. Beeky, I have been a Calvinist for the majority of my life as a born -again believer.

01:10:56

I was raised Roman Catholic. When I was saved, I was an

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Arminian, perhaps not even knowing or ever having heard that title or that name

01:11:07

Arminian before, but the Lord very quickly, in my Christian experience, led me to open my eyes to see the truth, the

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Biblical truth of the doctrines of grace or Reformed theology, which I initially, when accepting them as true, still hated them, but then the

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Lord gave me a great love for them very quickly after that, within a month or so, which

01:11:36

I carry on with me to this day, a great love for the doctrines of grace. But I have noticed that in Reformed circles, you very rarely hear about Satan, especially the specific details of Satan's working on this planet.

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You have Charismatics and Pentecostals probably monopolizing the discussions on Satan, where they see demons under every rock and perhaps blame everyone's sins on a different demon for a different sin.

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Of course, I'm not broad -brushing Pentecostals or Charismatics because there are a wide spectrum of differences within that category.

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But it seems that we who are Reformed don't pay enough attention, in my opinion, to this topic.

01:12:28

What led you to write the book Fighting Satan? Well, that's a good question.

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Actually, I was preaching a series of messages at Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, where Spurgeon once served, and I was asked to do four messages on Satan.

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It wasn't my choice, and I actually kind of disappointed with what they gave me, but I thought, well,

01:12:58

I'll do it. I've never studied this subject in great depth before, and I went to work on it.

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As I went to work, I realized how valuable this study is, because, you see, if we know the

01:13:09

Lord well and we become a threat to Satan and his kingdom, he's going to want to attack us.

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And if God becomes real in our lives, Satan will become real as well. Therefore, we need to know his devices.

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We're in a very intense warfare with him, a necessary war, a spiritual war, a challenging war.

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He's more powerful than we are. Thank God he's less powerful than Jesus is. But we have need to be vigilant.

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Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. Even though our Lord is greater, and he will win the ultimate war in us and for us, we can lose many skirmishes and battles along the way that can dampen and endanger our spiritual life.

01:13:54

So the study I did on Satan and the talks I did really became a boon for my own spiritual life, and I decided later to write them all full and print them.

01:14:07

So my goal is to talk about who Satan is in the Old Testament and how

01:14:14

Satanology developed in the New Testament, and then look at it in church history a bit, and then turn in the second part of the book to looking at Satan's weaknesses, that is, knowing how to fight him defensively and offensively.

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And here I look at the whole Ephesians 6 passage, all the armor that a Christian is supposed to wear, and I also bring in a variety of other writers in church history.

01:14:45

A number of the Puritans, by the way, did write on fighting Satan's devices. And from there, we look at various strategies of how to defeat them, and then

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I conclude the book by looking at our challenge as believers, our challenge as church members, our challenge as citizens to live holy for King Jesus, to defeat

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Satan in our personal lives, our churches, and our nations. And I'm going to give our email address for those of you who wish to ask a question of Dr.

01:15:21

Beeky on this subject, fighting Satan, knowing his weaknesses, strategies, and defeat.

01:15:27

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:15:33

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

01:15:43

USA. Well, if you could start by explaining, and it may seem like a silly question to ask, but there are different understandings of exactly who

01:15:55

Satan is. There is even some disagreement amongst conservative evangelical

01:16:01

Christians, even amongst Calvinists, some who can't really explicitly see the connections of the dotted lines between Lucifer and Satan and so on, so there's not a perfectly uniform and unanimous agreement on some of these issues, but if you could tell me in your understanding who

01:16:21

Satan is, and obviously beginning in the Old Testament and then going over to the

01:16:27

New. Right, okay. Well, the Bible actually has a lot of references to Satan, so it's, there's a few references that are perhaps a bit debated, but the

01:16:41

Old Testament itself has nine different books that refer to Satan. We can say that Satan is a

01:16:50

Hebrew word that means an accuser or an adversary, one who resists, that is, one who resists the work of God, and Satan is really an enemy of God.

01:17:01

We learn from Ezekiel in particular, but also Isaiah, that Satan fell from heaven and that somehow he was trying to usurp

01:17:12

God's throne in glory. He got cast out together with his minions, which we call devils or demons, who were cast out to the earth, and then

01:17:22

Satan approached Eve in paradise to get the crown of creation to fall.

01:17:31

So apparently, Satan was created as a good angel together with all the devils, created as good angels on the first day of creation, and it wasn't but a week or so, or maybe a few more weeks than that, after Adam was created, that early on Satan fell and then challenged

01:17:54

Eve and got Eve and Adam to break covenant with God and to impugn God's authority and became the archenemy of God.

01:18:02

And so Satan always opposes God, opposes his kingdom, has a bitter hatred to do so, so one of his favorite targets is the people of God.

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He can't get at Jesus anymore because Jesus has ascended into heaven, so he wants to get at Jesus' people.

01:18:17

That's why in the New Testament, we read that Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, Simon, behold,

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Satan wants to have you to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.

01:18:32

So Satan is active already in the in Genesis 3, and he's constantly resurfacing throughout the

01:18:42

Old and New Testaments to destroy the people of God. In the New Testament, his personality, his army, his subjects, names are multiplied.

01:18:54

He's more acutely present, and I think one reason for that is because Jesus came to earth, and this is the apex of the battle between the seed of the woman, represented in Jesus, and the seed of the serpent, represented by Satan.

01:19:10

So in the New Testament, he's called all kinds of names, names like adversary, accuser,

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Apollyon, Beelzebub, the dragon, the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the tempter, and he puts all his forces into array, particularly to fight against the

01:19:31

Lord Jesus Christ. And what a battle it was. I mean, what a battle it was in Gethsemane, when

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Jesus is crawling on the ground as a worm and no man, and crying out that the cup of suffering would be removed from him, and all the demons of hell are consuming, as it were, just falling upon him and just seeking to destroy him.

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But he's sustained by God's grace, and he goes through that terrible, terrible affliction in the garden without sin.

01:20:03

He then goes through Gapitha, Pilate's judgment hall, where Satan attacks him again, ferociously, but particularly on Golgotha, or Calvary, we say it, we call it, where all the powers of hell are unleashed upon Christ.

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And he cries out in the midst of the agony, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But he endures to the end, and Satan is defeated as he rises from the dead, and we believe then that the

01:20:31

New Testament is teaching us that Satan is chained, he's still powerful, but he's not in control.

01:20:37

The risen Jesus, who's ascended to the right hand of the Father, is in control of the whole situation.

01:20:43

And so through his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, Jesus Christ single -handedly broke the power of the oppressor, and one day, on the

01:20:54

Day of Judgment, he will cast Satan and all his followers into the everlasting pit of damnation.

01:21:03

We do have a listener, Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who says,

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When it comes to the enemy of our souls, do we as Christians sometimes forget that we serve the

01:21:16

King that has already crushed the head of the serpent? Yes, it's possible to forget that.

01:21:24

That's why, essentially, we are optimistic about our victory over Satan, because Christ is victor.

01:21:33

But that doesn't deny or take away from the fact that the temptations of Satan are very real, and when a child of God backslides, his bright witness for Christ in the world is dampened severely.

01:21:49

In fact, at times, when a child of God backslides and falls to sin, that witness can be all but negated altogether.

01:21:59

And so we, yes, we capitalize on the victory of Christ, and the bulk of our teaching is, of course, about Jesus, and deliverance in Him, and what a wonderful, almighty

01:22:13

Savior He is, mightier than Satan. But we minimize

01:22:19

Satan, we do so at our own peril as well. Well, Tyler, if you give us your full mailing address, you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

01:22:29

Fighting Satan, Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat, by Dr. Joel R.

01:22:34

Beeke. So please provide that for us, and we'll have that shipped out to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:22:43

We thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron. That's a very important thing to remember, isn't it?

01:22:50

Because there is often a great misunderstanding, even by Christians, about the power of Satan on this earth.

01:23:00

Although he is powerful, they sometimes will have this idea in their head that God and Satan are having a tug of war of some kind, particularly over the souls of men.

01:23:15

And really, the final arbiter, or the one that is actually going to bring about the victory of one or the other, is the man himself, by choosing to side with either

01:23:31

God or Satan. But that's really a fictitious scenario, isn't it? Yes, of course.

01:23:38

Of course, Christ is much mightier than Satan, and Satan is, in principle, a defeated foe.

01:23:44

Now, that's why I said he's chained, and he can only do as much damage as the

01:23:50

Lord allows him to do. So what happens, of course, when the sinner is saved is that Christ becomes too strong for that sinner, and makes him willing in a day of his power to receive the

01:24:03

Lord Jesus Christ and believe on him alone for salvation, and Satan has to let go of his prey. So thanks be to God that Jesus is

01:24:13

God and not merely an angel. And yet I say on the other side, an angel is powerful.

01:24:21

One angel killed 185 ,000 Assyrians in one night, and so angels have more power than we do, but less power, thank

01:24:30

God, than Christ does. Amen. We have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, who is asking, please ask

01:24:41

Dr. Beeky if he believes that mental illness is a physical disability or a spiritual phenomenon, like possession or oppression of the devil.

01:24:53

Well, that's a very good question, and there's no simple answer to that. Of course, there are many, many cases where mental illness is a physical phenomenon and can be treated with medication, and the person can do very well and function in society.

01:25:17

There are other cases where the mental illness is very severe and is physical, where there's no known medication yet that can resolve the problem.

01:25:28

But there are also cases where people have come under severe satanic attack and have given way to that satanic attack and lived in all kinds of gross sin, where they've brought themselves down into a kind of condition that seems a great deal like mental illness that is the after effect or the outgrowth of satanic influences impinging upon them.

01:26:03

So this is certainly not a question you can answer with yes or no, but it depends on the individual case.

01:26:13

And it would be very cruel to say that all mentally ill people are somehow possessed by Satan, but it would be also very cruel to people who do have a lot of satanic influence in their life and have not fought against it in a biblical way and have descended into a pit of depression and then some kind of mental difficulties, to deny the truth to them.

01:26:41

Because once you acknowledge that Satan's hand can be in some of these illnesses, of course it also gives help and hope to people, since Jesus is mighty here, and that if they do repent of their sins and turn back to Christ, let go of their sinful ways, gradually over a period of time, many of those sins can be beat back and a greater degree of mental stability can be found.

01:27:09

Well thank you Linda for the question, and I also want to thank Linda for the very gracious offer she has added.

01:27:17

She said that she wants us to give the free book to someone else because she plans on purchasing the book.

01:27:24

So I really appreciate that Linda, that's very kind of you, and we look forward to hearing from you in the future with other questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:27:34

We have Bibi in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

01:27:39

If demons exist today, why is it that it seems that the only people who have exorcists are the

01:27:48

Pentecostals and the Roman Catholics, with few exceptions? Yes, well you see, to have an exorcist, a human exorcist, is not the way the

01:28:06

Bible teaches us to approach demonic activity, and that was

01:28:12

Jesus' role at times, but that is not assigned to us humans.

01:28:19

Jesus was divine, he had the power to do that, but we are instructed by the Word of God that the way to fight

01:28:25

Satan is to put on the whole armor of God, and so to teach people how to wear the helmet of hope, how to take up the shield of faith, how to use the sword of the

01:28:35

Word of God and beat back Satan. And so it's not an exorcist who comes to you, who can throw

01:28:43

Satan out of you, none of us are Jesus, none of us are

01:28:48

God, but what happens is when we learn and are trained to take the

01:28:54

Word of God with prayer and repentance and faith, we may defeat

01:29:01

Satan and we may thrust him back ourselves. There's a wonderful story in Pilgrim's Progress of Christian, the main character, who descends into the valley of humiliation where Apollyon, who is

01:29:18

Satan, is attacking him, and at one point John Bunyan says that Apollyon is over him, ready to give him a final blow and he's going to perish, and Christian reaches out and grabs hold of the sword, the sword of the

01:29:32

Word of God, the Bible, and with one or two blows he thrusts Satan back, and Satan has to speed away when the

01:29:42

Word of God is brought to bear on his devices. So the way to counter Satan, both in Ephesians 6 and of course what

01:29:50

I just told you, that delightful story of Bunyan, is to particularly use the Word of God.

01:29:55

Now that is how Jesus himself fought back Satan in his own life, of course. In Matthew 4, 1 through 11, we read there of three major series of temptations he went through, and with every temptation he answered

01:30:11

Satan something like this, Satan, get away from me because it is written, and then all three times he quoted the book of Deuteronomy.

01:30:22

It is written, for example, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And so when you bring

01:30:27

God's promises, God's truth to bear against Satan, he must flee from you.

01:30:33

Resist the devil and he will flee from you, the Bible says. So we do that by bringing

01:30:39

God's truth to bear, and we do that also by fleeing from sin and not allowing ourselves to drink in and imbibe

01:30:48

Satan's devices. By the way, B .B., you have won a free copy of the book

01:30:54

Fighting Satan, Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat, complements of Reformation Heritage books, so keep your eye out for that.

01:31:02

Please give us your full mailing address in Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. We'll ship that out to you as soon as possible, and we're going to our first break for the second hour, that is, right now, and if you'd like to join us after the break with a question for Dr.

01:31:18

Beeke as well, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:31:23

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages with Dr. Joel Beeke and Fighting Satan.

01:31:38

Chris Arnson here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia, and here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why.

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This is Chris Sarnes. And if you just tuned us in, our guest for the second hour is Dr. Joel R.

01:36:34

Beeky, founder and president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

01:36:40

We have been discussing his book, Fighting Satan. Dr. Beeky is also going to be one of the speakers at an upcoming

01:36:46

Bible conference that, God willing, I will be attending. And that is a conference sponsored by the

01:36:53

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The theme of this conference is the Doctrines of Grace.

01:36:59

And the dates are November 11th through the 12th in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

01:37:05

Dr. Beeky will be joined by Anthony Carter and Tony Merida. And also

01:37:10

Richard Taylor and Timothy Whitmer will be providing workshop sessions.

01:37:16

If you'd like more information about this conference, go to alliancenet .org.

01:37:22

That's alliancenet .org. And you can click on events at the top of the page.

01:37:28

You can also go to alliancenet .org forward slash the -doctrines -of -grace.

01:37:36

That's alliancenet .org forward slash the -doctrines -of -grace.

01:37:44

And I hope that many of you listening show up at the conference. And please register soon so there'll still be room for you.

01:37:52

If you happen to register, please tell everyone at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sent you.

01:38:00

And please make sure you introduce yourself when you arrive. And also, last but not least, our friends at Ligonier Ministries are having a conference as well.

01:38:12

That is this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. They are having this in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

01:38:19

And I'm so delighted that I will be there, God willing, at that conference as well.

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Dr. R .C. Sproul himself is going to be at this conference. He's going to be joined by Stephen Nichols, who is the president of the

01:38:34

Reformation Bible College. Also there will be Derek Thomas, one of the finest preachers on the face of the earth.

01:38:42

Al Mohler is also going to be there, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

01:38:48

And the theme of this conference is the Dawn of the Reformation. If you'd like to attend this conference, go to the

01:38:57

Ligonier Ministries website, Ligonier .org. That's Ligonier .org.

01:39:04

And you can click on events there as well. And I also have a toll -free number that you should call.

01:39:12

And if you call or if you register in any way, please let them know that you heard about the conference through Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:39:19

That number is 800 -435 -4343. 800 -435 -4343.

01:39:26

And that's for the Ligonier Conference this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

01:39:33

We have a listener from Indianapolis, Indiana, who asks a question,

01:39:39

Dr. Beeky, could you discuss why there seems to be more demonic activity in certain geographic locations than in others?

01:39:51

Yes, that's a good question, a broad question. Again, a question that is difficult to answer in generalizations.

01:40:00

But the risk of painting with too broad of a brush, let me say this, that in those cultures where Christianity is very new, where there's been a lot of heathenistic religions, animalistic religions, a lot of superstition, and where not everybody has the

01:40:25

Bible yet, but they're hearing the word and they're just interested. Often, there will be, just as there was in New Testament times, very intense battles with Satan as he doesn't want to lose his prey in an area, in a tribe, in a nation.

01:40:46

And where Christianity is much more established, there is more subtle demonic activity, but often not so open and so blatant.

01:40:59

That's why in certain areas, for example, deep into the African continent, when a tribe gets to hear of the

01:41:09

Word of God and some begin to be believers, there can be this almost tangible sense that people feel of the reality of Satan.

01:41:21

Now, that's not to say, however, that believers in cultured, more

01:41:27

Christian societies don't have certain seasons in their life when demonic activity, demonic devices seem to be particularly intense.

01:41:39

In my own life, for example, I've known several such seasons throughout my life, where it seems like Satan is doing everything in his power to destroy me, to destroy the ministry, to really just wreak havoc of everything associated with God and to God.

01:42:05

And there are certain times where there can be many pressures put to bear upon, particularly, ministers of the

01:42:12

Gospel. Satan really wants to have them. And I think as a whole that ministers experience more

01:42:18

Satanic attack than the average layperson, for example, because Satan knows how useful they can be for the

01:42:26

Kingdom of God. And so he intensifies attacks on those who are leaders in a church, which is also verified by Luke 22, 31 and 32.

01:42:39

Well, thank you, Aaron. And you are getting a free book as well, Fighting Satan, Compliments of Reformation Heritage Books.

01:42:48

And keep your eye open in the mail for that from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:42:55

So if you provide your full mailing address, you can expect that probably in a week or so. Thank you so much for participating on the program.

01:43:04

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know if you've heard of the account of Martin Luther throwing an inkwell at Satan.

01:43:16

Do you think that this is true? Do you think that he really saw a manifestation of Satan?

01:43:22

And if you don't know anything about that incident, do you believe that that is a possible phenomenon?

01:43:31

Right, right. Well, scholars differ a bit on whether that incident actually happened in Luther's life.

01:43:39

And I would argue that whether it happened or didn't happen, Satan was often very real in Luther's life.

01:43:49

And I don't think the idea is that Luther saw a physical presence of Satan in any way, but I think that Satan was so real that if he did throw the inkpot literally, he certainly felt the reality of Satan to an extent that he felt like Satan was right in the room with him.

01:44:12

And that doesn't surprise me at all. I've experienced a few things similar to that myself. And I do think that when one is leading something as large as the

01:44:23

Reformation Truth and bringing it back to the Bible, it's not unusual that Luther is going to be subject to great satanic attack.

01:44:33

Now, I hasten to add, however, a couple other thoughts that I think are worthwhile to share.

01:44:40

One is this. Some people are more emotionally wired than others and more susceptible to times of discouragement, times of depression, and so on.

01:44:55

Luther, for example, was much more emotional than Calvin was. Calvin was more steady.

01:45:01

Luther had many, many severe ups and downs. One day, he left for work, and he said to Katie, his wife,

01:45:07

Katie, I'm afraid that God is dead. And that night when he came back home, because he's so silent, and that night when he came back home,

01:45:16

Katie had all the shades in the house drawn, and Luther first opened the door and said, Katie, who died today?

01:45:22

She said, well, this morning, you said God. It really convicted him, and it brought him back to his right place.

01:45:31

But Luther was susceptible to that. When he was in the Wartburg Castle, which is supposedly where he threw that ink pot, he was very lonely.

01:45:41

He was a people man. He was social. He loved people. And the Catholics were out to destroy him, and Frederick had whisked him away to this castle, and for one year, he was there all by himself, and he persevered.

01:45:55

He translated the whole New Testament, much of the Old, into German in that year, but he often battled severe depression.

01:46:02

And if you're a leader in the Church, and you come into very, very difficult times, and you're rejected, and people are after you to destroy you, and Satan joins in with it, it's an overwhelming experience.

01:46:17

So these things can be very real in servants of God's minds and hearts until today.

01:46:23

Now, when the Scriptures speak of the devil appearing as an angel of light, do you think that that is just pictorial or poetic language, or do you think that there can be some kind of a manifestation of some kind that people see visually?

01:46:42

Well, I don't think that it's common that people see it visually, but I think what the Scriptures are getting after there is this, that Satan comes in all kinds of ways.

01:46:50

So he comes seeking whom he may devour as a roaring lion to frighten you and to destroy you, and so that you don't stand up to persecution, and you're overwhelmed, and your witness is impeded.

01:47:06

Or he can come as an angel of light. As an angel of light, he often comes to deceive people. He comes to tell them, well, look, you go to church every

01:47:13

Sunday. You participate in the Lord's Supper. You know, you're a good nominal Christian. That's all that's expected.

01:47:19

You don't need this vibrant reality every day of being convicted of sin, fleeing to Christ, and pursuing walking the king's highway of holiness.

01:47:30

You're okay. Everything's okay with you. You're going to go to hell. God wouldn't send someone like you to hell.

01:47:36

After all, you're better than your neighbors. You get some free meals for people. You're a pretty decent guy.

01:47:43

Never mind that Jesus isn't number one in your life. That's not that important. You do good to people, so you're going to make it.

01:47:51

You're going to make it. Hell is for drug addicts and prostitutes. You know, that's coming as an angel of light, deceiving people, so that they learn to rest in something that they're doing, rather than in what

01:48:04

Jesus Christ alone has done for their salvation. And I don't care how religious you are. If you're not resting in the righteousness of Christ alone for your salvation through his sacrificial substitutionary blood, that bloody atonement, you're lost.

01:48:20

You're on your way to condemnation. So this may sound like a strange statement, but I actually think there are more people being led astray today by Satan as an angel of light than by Satan as a roaring lion, because there are millions, as far as we can see, who name the name of Christ nominally, but don't show that Jesus Christ is their

01:48:42

Savior, their Lord, their all in all, and their own daily lives, and are traveling to eternity, thinking they're going to heaven, and they're not, because their life is not in Christ, and their hope of salvation is not based on his blood.

01:48:56

Yes, and we have Linda again in Hilltop Lake, Texas, who just has a comment that backs up what you were saying before regarding to the question on heavier demonic activity in certain geographic areas.

01:49:12

She says, as the gospel of Christ took root in Mexico, there was less demonic activity than that seen 50 years ago by my husband's missionary family.

01:49:25

So she just wanted to add that comment there. Apparently her husband had missionaries in Mexico, and there was far more demonic activity going on 50 years ago when the gospel was more of a new thing.

01:49:38

Now obviously there have been missionaries for hundreds of years in Mexico, but I guess more in a profound way the gospel has taken root there, you know, since the last half century.

01:49:52

I would like you to discuss a little bit before we run out of time about some strategies of Satan that we may be totally unaware of.

01:50:05

Yes, yes. Well, one strategy of Satan, of course, he knows the

01:50:11

Bible better than we do, and he can use the promises of God to make people think that they are saved when they don't bear the fruits.

01:50:25

And at the same time, when he has those people, when those people read the threatenings of the scriptures, they don't apply them.

01:50:35

They don't apply the warnings to themselves. That's a typical strategy he would use on the nominal professor of Christianity, but he also uses a strategy of getting to know precisely what kind of sin certain people might fall for.

01:50:57

Now, he can't get inside your mind the way that God can, because God is all -knowing, but Satan goes by your actions.

01:51:05

And so he's been reading human nature for 6 ,000 years plus, but he certainly knows our basic weaknesses and our basic temptations.

01:51:15

So let's say, for example, you have a particular sin that you could easily fall into.

01:51:22

He may draw you to that sin, and he may give you many openings to indulge in that sin, and thereby trying to get you to fall.

01:51:31

I use this example in preaching sometimes. I'm not a very good fisherman, and one day I took my son out to fish when he was young, and I cast out my line, and I immediately pulled in this great, beautiful, large walleye.

01:51:46

And all the fishermen in the area came around me and said, you realize what you caught? You caught a walleye.

01:51:52

That's amazing. And they said, what did you use? What kind of bait did you use? And I said, well, a worm. They said, you caught a walleye with a worm?

01:52:00

And, you know, that's the way we are sometimes. Satan just puts on some easy little temptation, and if we have a weakness for it, we can easily fall.

01:52:09

So he knows, he's got timeless energy for promoting evil, and he knows what can get us, perhaps, to fall.

01:52:17

And then, I think, too, we need to understand that Satan knows how to reason, and some of his devices try to match his suggestions with our corrupt reason.

01:52:32

So, for example, he might come to us and say something like this, well, you know, what you're about to do isn't so bad.

01:52:37

You can't be righteous over much, you know. You can't be living for the Lord all the time, and you're still a whole lot better than your neighbor.

01:52:43

Look what your neighbor's doing, and that type of thing. So he's constantly enticing us, in one way or another, to sin.

01:52:53

That's his forte. That's his expertise. Presenting sin as a virtue, then making little of it when it is committed, but as soon as we realize what we've done, he then turns around and says, oh, you're such a great sinner now.

01:53:11

There's no hope for you. There's no mercy for you. So he maximizes sin and minimizes grace, but then when we do sin, he turns it all around and says, you can't find mercy.

01:53:30

And so he tries to lead us also, in other devices, he tries to lead us from one sin to another sin.

01:53:37

He often knows that we won't fall headlong into some gross sin, so he takes us inches at a time along the way, and that's a pretty clever device.

01:53:46

It's like the frog getting heated up in a kettle of hot water. That's one of Satan's favorite devices.

01:53:53

And then he also tries to influence us to just drink in the worldliness of the culture around us.

01:54:01

If we can really get enamored with visual things, and he likes to bring temptations in through what

01:54:09

John Bunyan called ear gate and eye gate into man's soul. If he can get these things inside of what you hear, wickedness, and what you see, wicked things that you see.

01:54:22

If he can hook you on pornography or whatever, something lesser, as long as you are centered on visual things and worldly things that you hear, he can keep you away from the

01:54:36

Lord Jesus Christ as well. And then he'll do anything in his power to keep you from spiritual disciplines.

01:54:41

I mean, what a joy he has in keeping fathers from doing daily family worship.

01:54:47

I mean, that's the most important thing of fatherhood, and how successful he is. Perhaps more than 50 % of so -called

01:54:55

Christian homes today, the father does not lead his family in daily, consistent family worship.

01:55:02

And what a successful route he makes a family in this regard. But he also hinders us by keeping us from reading the scriptures privately on our own devotional times.

01:55:15

And he's always minimizing or misrepresenting God and his truth. There's just so many ways he comes.

01:55:22

But his main goal? Keep you from Christ, keep you from becoming holy, keep you from being a zealous Christian who bears fruit for the glory and the kingdom of God.

01:55:34

We have a listener in Slovenia who asks a question that's a bit off topic, but I'll let him ask it just because he's in Slovenia.

01:55:47

He is wondering if you've seen the movie The War Room, and if you have any critique of it.

01:55:57

Oh dear. I just need to confess that I don't watch movies at all because I am just constantly overwhelmed with trying to do the work of the

01:56:10

Lord in a direct way through reading, writing, teaching, preaching. So I'd have to say no to every movie he would suggest.

01:56:18

Okay. Well, thank you, Joe, for submitting that question. Keep writing. One of the things that you basically touched on in regard to Satan mixing truth with error and so on as a strategy, as he even did in The Garden.

01:56:40

I have a friend who is a very faithfully committed

01:56:45

Roman Catholic and very superstitious as well, which very often goes hand in hand with that.

01:56:53

And one of the reasons he is so adamant that the Roman Catholic Church is the true church is because of the apparitions of Mary that he is convinced are real.

01:57:06

And when I told him that he is hearing reports of things that if they are real,

01:57:15

I believe that they are Satan. They are just demonic false miracles of some kind, if indeed they are happening at all.

01:57:24

And his response was, how on earth could that be Satanic when the apparitions tell those listening and viewing them that they are to love

01:57:34

Jesus? Why on earth would Satan ever do that? But that's just a part of his strategy, isn't it?

01:57:42

Yeah. So I think you answered your own question. And that's where the danger comes when in Roman Catholicism, another source of tradition is added to be of equal authority with the

01:57:58

Word of God. And so when you have papal authority and what the Church teaches matching the authority of Scripture, then what people say can hold a great deal of authority.

01:58:13

And eventually what the Pope says can hold even more authority than Scripture, because if the Pope contradicts

01:58:18

Scripture and you believe that his authority is equal when he speaks at the cathedra to Scripture, then that result is you're going to believe that you've been misinterpreting

01:58:27

Scripture all your lifetime, and therefore you're going to believe the Pope. So one of the dangers of Roman Catholicism is believing in extra -canonical, extra -scriptural sources of authority.

01:58:40

Now, we believe as Protestants that the Church in its confessions has a certain amount of authority, but that authority is always submissive to the authority of the

01:58:51

Word of God, always subject to it, so that those confessions can be changed at any time they're shown to contradict the

01:58:59

Word of God. So happily in the Protestant tradition, we've always stuck with the principle sola scriptura, and therefore these kinds of apparitional things don't have rootage in the

01:59:11

Protestant faith. And obviously we even have incidents in the Scriptures that talk about false teachers that would name the name of Christ like the

01:59:19

Judaizers, but Paul said that they were to be accursed. But I thank you so much,

01:59:26

Dr. Beakey, for being our guest today. I look forward to your return, and often. I know your website is prts .edu,

01:59:34

prts .edu, and the Reformation Heritage Books website is heritagebooks .org,

01:59:41

heritagebooks .org. God bless you, brother. I look forward to your return. Thank you, brother. God bless.

01:59:47

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