September 14, 2020 Show with Gordan Runyan on “On This Ancient Battleground: Winning the War Between Tyranny & Christian Faith”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensirenradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 14th day of September, 2020.

I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest today. His name is Pastor Gordon Runyon. He's the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church of Tucumcari, New Mexico.

We're going to be addressing his most recent book, On This Ancient Battleground, Winning the

War Between Tyranny and Christian Faith, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Gordon Runyon.

Hey, thanks, Chris. It's really good to be here. I'm glad the Lord has made a way for us. Amen. Well, since you're a first -time guest, as our tradition goes, we always have our first -time guests when they're

Christians, of course, which would make up about 99 .99 % of our guests. We have them give their testimonies of how they were saved, what kind of religious atmosphere they were raised in, and what providential circumstances the

Lord used to raise them up in the faith, to draw them to himself and save them.

But before we do that, why don't you tell our listeners something about Emmanuel Baptist Church of Tucumcari, New Mexico?

Yeah, it's Tucumcari, and I don't expect you to know that.

It's a small town on I -40, roughly halfway between Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Amarillo, Texas.

Tucumcari as a city started out as like a railroad town way back in the Wild West days, and Emmanuel Baptist Church is actually still considered a

Southern Baptist congregation, although for all practical purposes, we're very independent.

And I began preaching there about 11 years ago, and we've had quite a bit of turnover and some turmoil along the way.

But now it's a congregation. Churches with turmoil? I've never even heard of such a thing. Super unusual.

Right. I had a friend who said that he thought it might be a good idea to create a reforming pastor's survival kit, and in it he would have like bottles of Excedrin and tissue to dry and stuff like that.

But we did have some turmoil, just because it was a very run -of -the -mill kind of country

Southern Baptist Church where, for instance, the head of the deacon board confessed to me at one point that he'd never read the

Bible through, and he kind of ruled the place with an iron hand.

I'm sure he was doing the best he could and didn't have evil intentions, but you just can't run the church like a business, which is really all he knew.

And so we did have that kind of turmoil, but now we're a Reformed Baptist Church in the

Southern Baptist denomination, and we like to think of ourselves as pretty active.

We look for ways to help people administer to the community. We look for ways to bear public witness.

We've done things like public abortion, abolition sort of activism, and like I say, we try to keep our eyes open and ask

God to show us opportunities. We're generally a little congregation, but really trying to get some things done, and I'm really pleased with what

God has done in the people there. Well, the

Emanuel Baptist Church of Tucumcari, New Mexico, does not yet have a website.

They're working on that, so if anybody wants more information, you can contact the church at reformnm at yahoo .com,

and that's reform, no ed at the end, reformnm for New Mexico at yahoo .com.

Okay, well tell us something about the home you were raised in, what kind of religious atmosphere existed, if any, and what providential circumstances our

Lord used in His sovereignty to draw you to Himself and save you. Amen. This is the part of the interview

I've been looking forward to, seriously. So thankful for the opportunity to recount the story.

I was raised in a very nominal Christian home, and I mean that we went to church most

Sundays, and my dad would say grace over the evening meal, but apart from those two things, there was really nothing

Christian going on in my home. And the church that they took us to was a small

Presbyterian church here. It's in the PCUSA denomination, and of course that's the big liberal outfit among Presbyterians these days, and hard to even call it a church by my estimation.

But back then, even back in the 70s, I can look back and see they were already kind of losing their commitment to the authority of Scripture, and I'm fairly sure that the whole time

I was there, I never heard a clear pronouncement or explanation of the

Gospel or any kind of message that convicted me at all that I needed to change.

In fact, it was very much the opposite. They were eager to welcome me as a fellow believer without really any close examination of what

I actually believed. And so I grew up believing that I was right with God and everything was good, and if you asked me,

I would have told you I was a Christian. I left for the Navy when

I was 17 and went to boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois, and eventually found myself on a submarine stationed out of Pearl Harbor.

And after I'd been there for a couple of years, I remember distinctly one time

I was standing watching the engine room and there was nobody else around. It was a pretty dead place, and we were at some depth greater than 200 feet in the

Pacific Ocean, and God really began to nag at me. And you might find it interesting, one of the things that he used to nag at me was the old doxology that Presbyterians are wont to sing in, like, every service.

Are you familiar with the doxology? Oh yeah, you mean, praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise thee all creatures here below.

I don't think anybody wants to hear me continue singing, although the doxology itself is beautiful. Exactly.

I was hoping I could get you to sing it. So that's one by my goal. So there

I was, this young kid of about 21 years old, sitting alone in the engine room on a 688 fast attack submarine, and I'm singing the doxology to myself over and over again, and I didn't really know why.

And at some point it began to occur to me that when

I really tried to listen to the words I was saying, it really began to occur to me that that song is calling everything in all creation to give praise and glory to God.

And that had to include me. I was singing a song calling myself to give praise and glory to God, and I knew

I wasn't really doing it. And I knew, kind of without thinking about it very much, I knew kind of instinctively that if there was a

God who was worthy of that kind of praise from all creation, then

He must deserve so much more from me than I had given

Him up to that point. And so I found myself in a little bit of a quandary, and months passed, and God used other witnesses, like my mother -in -law used to like to leave books in my path that she thought

I might pick up and read, and they were Christian books, and so a variety of witnesses like that.

My wife and I eventually, we got transferred to Idaho. Yeah, they stationed

Navy people in Idaho back then. So we were in our new house, and the furniture wasn't set up, and we were living out of boxes.

We had an inflatable mattress set up on the bedroom floor, and we went to sleep with the television on.

And I woke up in the middle of the night, and I'm convinced now it must have been that I was watching a rerun of the 700

Club, and there was an evangelist on there.

It wasn't Pat Robertson. I probably wouldn't have listened to him if, you know, I would have recognized him, but it was some other guy that I didn't know.

And his message, I don't remember it exactly, but his message was just about calling men to be men, and to give

God what He deserves, and to be the man that God's called you to be. And I just knew that that's exactly what

I wanted. And in that moment, my heart really longed to obey that calling.

And it sounds kind of trite, but he gave a sinner's prayer, which is something

I don't do. He gave a sinner's prayer, and I closed my eyes, and there in the bedroom at two in the morning, and repeated the prayer.

And I've got to tell you, I was disappointed because there were no fireworks, and when

I opened my eyes, it didn't seem like anything had really happened. And I was frankly a little bit disappointed, and I went back to sleep.

And when I woke up in the morning, I just had this insatiable, I don't know if hunger is the right word, but there was something in me that was almost panicked because I woke up with the,

I don't know the Bible. I don't know anything about the Word of God. And I had to ask my wife, do we even own a

Bible? And she knew that we did somewhere, and she was able to dig it out of the boxes. And I took it with me on my commute to work, and I had a long commute to work.

It was an hour and a half both ways, but it turned out to be a blessing from God because that was three hours a day

I could just pour into the Bible and pour effort into reading it, and God's pouring the

Scripture into me, and I just couldn't get enough of it. And I began to realize really quickly that in my,

I knew that Jesus was my Lord now, and I had to do what He wanted me to do, but nobody had to tell me to repent is what

I'm trying to communicate. I believe that the Holy Spirit of God when He converted me filled me with faith and repentance because I just noticed at one point that without being told that I must repent,

I could look back on the man that I used to be and was very disgusted, and there were a lot of things that I used to love that I realized now

I hated, and I didn't want to have anything to do with him. And it took a while of attending a local church there for me to realize, oh, repentance, that's what

I did. That's what that looked like. And so I just give all glory to God for that.

Conversion wasn't something that I made happen. It was the power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit who came to me in that moment, after some time of preparation for sure, but He came to me in that moment, and He really made me a new creature.

The illustration I always use is of a puppy dog who's getting into something that you don't want him to get into, and you reach out and you grab him around the scruff of the neck and you put him back in his pen or whatever, and I really feel like that's what

God did with me. He just picked me up and changed me and put me—started me moving in a different direction.

And I can say honestly that my hunger for the Scripture has not diminished since that time, which was in late 1989.

My hunger for the Scripture has not diminished. My love for it has increased. And my desire to preach that kind of gospel of that kind of God who deserves the praise of the whole creation, that just continues to grow.

And my only regret in the whole thing is that I'm not as good a servant as I feel like God deserves.

Well, how did you come to discover and embrace the Reformed faith? Oh, well, there's a man you might have heard of named

Dr. Gary North. Yes, of course. He wrote a little book called 75

Bible Questions That Your Instructors Pray You Won't Ask. Yeah, that definitely sounds like a

Gary North title. It absolutely is. And the first 25 questions, if I remember right, are all about Calvinism and a

Reformed view of salvation. And by the time I was through a few of those questions and I realized this was something different than I had been taught to believe,

I literally picked up the book and threw it across the room where it landed in the corner. And I told my wife,

I'm going to take that book out and burn it on the barbecue. And my wife didn't say anything.

And she just let the book sit there. It became like a piece of furniture in our living room until one day

I picked it back up again and started reading. And I began to realize that everything that he said was right and it made sense.

And one of the things in that book, it has a very large bibliography where if you want to explore these ideas more completely, you can find these books.

And that's what I did. And that started me on my way in a more

Reformed understanding of salvation and really how to read the Bible. Great.

Well, I'm going to announce our email address if in the event that anybody listening wants to email their own question, it's

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

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

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Well, what compelled you to write the book on this ancient battleground winning the war between tyranny and Christian faith?

That's a great question. I made friends with the editor of our local newspaper.

It was a small town newspaper. We were friends on Facebook, and he began to see some of the things

I was writing and posting there. And he sent me a message. He knew I was a pastor at that time.

He sent me a message asking if I'd be interested in writing a religion column for the paper that would appear once every two weeks.

And I thought that was a great opportunity. I wasn't going to be paid anything, but it was an opportunity to spread the word and and do some preaching.

My thought was at the time, I had read that religion article pretty faithfully over the years, and it always seemed to me just very fleshy and kind of what you'd expect to see on evangelical coffee mugs in a bookstore or something like that.

And I knew I didn't want to do that, and that I did want to write instead about things that matter in the real world, and I hope to use that opportunity to introduce one of the middle sort of evangelical believers to doctrines that I believe at least have been really neglected in our day, and that neglect is the cause of a lot of trouble within evangelicalism.

Specifically, one of those doctrines has been the relationship between the

Christian believer and the civil government, and what exactly the Bible teaches about that and how that should look, and what should we do when those governments become overbearing and, well, a biblical word would be beastly.

What do we do when governments become like beasts and tyrants? And the

Bible really does have answers for that. I wanted to draw Christian believers back to the instruction that's found in the law of God, you know, and certainly not as a way of salvation or of making sure that God's on our side or anything like that, but just as the

Protestants would say, as a rule for life. We go to the law of God as a rule for life.

It's still the definition of sin and righteousness, and we can be confident and apply that rule to everything.

And so, doctrines of sola scriptura, presuppositional apologetics, post -millennialism, dive into that a little bit in those articles.

And so what happened is, after I'd been writing that newspaper column for well over a year,

I suddenly had dozens and dozens of these little articles, and to me, it just hit me at one point that these are all very bite -sized things.

They're about 500 words apiece. You can read them in one sitting really easily. They're not aimed at scholars.

They're aimed at real people dealing with real things out on the streets, and I just thought it would be worthwhile to kind of gather these articles up and separate them by their topics and put them in an order that allowed them to kind of build doctrines as they went.

And so far, I've been really happy and humbled by the response to that. A lot of people are using it exactly that way.

My intention is that if you know somebody who needs to be introduced or challenged in those areas, it's not a book that should intimidate anybody, and you can give it out like popcorn or whatever that phrase is, like hard candy.

And with the other book that I wrote about Romans 13, it was the same.

I wanted to keep it very unintimidating and thin so nobody's freaked out by this and it doesn't look terribly daunting or anything like that, just with the hope that these can be passed around and actually do some good.

Great. Well, I hope that the Lord draws more attention to your book as a result of our discussion today.

And if you could also define tyranny, obviously, there have been throughout history governments and individuals who were tyrants or tyrannical, and their barbarism is sometimes too disturbing to even describe.

And then, of course, there are lesser forms of tyranny that are the genesis of what may become something that hideous down the road, but are far less terrifying than that which we know of, which occurred in the days of Nero, for instance, or other tyrants, like Adolf Hitler, for a more modern example.

But describe or define tyranny. Okay. Well, I'm not a very original thinker on this.

I looked the word up, and there's dozens of free dictionaries online and stuff, and when you look up the word tyranny or tyrant, there are commonalities that you'll find in the definition.

And you mentioned one, you used the word barbarism, and when you look up tyranny, you're going to run into the idea of cruelty and unreasonableness in the use of power.

So that's very common to tyrants. The thing that is maybe a little bit surprising is that most definitions of tyranny rightly include the idea of arbitrariness or randomness in the use of power.

The thing that makes a tyrant super scary is kind of that you're not always sure what's going to set him off, and there's an element of unpredictability about him.

Now, the reason I think that is, I think there's a theological reason for that. Dr. Greg Bronson was fond of saying that in any decision that we have to make, in any situation, there are really only two options.

You're either going to govern yourself by the law of God or by the law of man, and there's really no other option.

He used to, of course, he used the word theonomy for the law of God and autonomy for the law of man.

But those are really the only two options, and when you find a ruler or really anyone with power, it can even be in a family or in a church, you can run into a tyrant.

It's when somebody has power and they have specifically and purposely divorced their use of power from the grounding influence of the law of God and God's commandments, and I'm talking about commandments found in both testaments of the

Bible. And so when someone who has power begins to depart from the standard of the word of God, it's really inevitable that you're going to wind up with at least mild tyranny like you're talking about.

And if something isn't done to call that mini -tyrant back to the standards of the word of God, then that tyranny is going to increase and metastasize and just become something that is, like you said, often too horrible to even talk about in polite society.

And so for me, that's kind of what I'm talking about. It's an anti -God, anti -God's -law sort of use of power, which may or may not be legitimate.

The power itself, I mean. Now, this issue, or the issue specifically of obeying earthly governments that providentially for better or for worse, have been placed in authority over you, no matter who you are or where you live, this subject has come up a lot on Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio and even from differing viewpoints.

In fact, even from what appears to be, at times, polar opposite viewpoints.

Because of this whole coronavirus thing, there are those that have refused to close their churches ever, who from the get -go always remained open, never submitted to their local governing authorities, the insistence of their local governing authorities to shut down public services and to exclusively use live streaming and other methods.

And there are those who not only immediately shut down their services and either used live streaming or didn't do anything, really, in the way of public evangelism, and not only that, some of those have been and continue to be very forcefully at times, and of course, this is a mixed bag of people, not all are like this, but some have been forcefully and vociferously condemning those that disobeyed their local government and remained open.

And I include in those who have been seeking to obey their local governments in this area,

I include among them even very conservative and reformed Christian churches. So you have people on both sides of this issue who may be, you may have pastors that have even shared the podium at Bible conferences because they believe so identically in most other things.

And you have people who read the same books and have the same heroes, have the same confessions of faith, they're on the same denomination, and you might even have differences of opinion in the same congregation over these things.

So tell us about your belief that it is a

Christian duty to oppose tyranny in government, in authority, when the

Bible does command us to submit to governing authorities, even those that are evil.

Sure, sure. Well, that's a good question, and it's something you've definitely got to hash out, because those passages do seem, at least on the surface, to exist.

For sure, I want to put people at ease as much as I can a little bit, because I know that when

I say it's right to resist wicked rulers, and in fact it's a duty for the Christian believer to do so,

I know that people may hear something that I'm not saying. And one of the things

I'm not saying, I'm not trying to say that resistance is the same as violence or revolution.

Those are not in my mind when I say we need to resist. I'm not talking about physical warfare or anything rebellious or revolutionary like that.

When I talk about resistance, I'm generally talking about things like public rebuke, public advocacy for reforms, civil disobedience even, and things as simple as using the system that exists against itself when appropriate.

And we see Paul doing that in Acts, for instance. So I'm not saying that resistance equals violence.

So hopefully that calms people down. And I'm also not advocating a generally rebellious or disobedient spirit.

I do believe that we should desire to obey those rulers that have been providentially put in place.

That should be our desire. And it should be our default setting, frankly. I think we should be willing to patiently endure a lot of garbage, frankly.

So I'm not saying anything that I think is contradictory to the ideas of going the extra mile or turning the other cheek.

There's a Reformation -era book on this that you may have heard of called the

Vindice Contra Tyrannos. And this book was written in the middle of things being, you know, they didn't have the gunpowder, but the bullets were flying.

And it was important for them to get their theological decks in a row and ask some of these questions of themselves.

And one of the things they came up with in that book, it's a pen -named author,

Janius Brutus. Nobody believes that was his real name, so I can't tell you who actually wrote it. But one of the things they did stress is that I think the

Christian stance should be to put up with whatever can be put up with. And they do so mildly and cheerfully.

But they did stress that there comes a time when maybe a more active stance against the evil needs to take place.

And there are a couple of doctrines that I think lead us kind of inescapably to this.

In fact, before you go to those doctrines, just remember that's where we left off, because we have to go to our first break.

Sure. And if anybody wants to join us, as I said, we already do have listeners waiting.

I hope they're waiting patiently, but we have listeners waiting to have their questions asked and answered. But if anybody wants to join them and get in line, our email address is

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

And as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away, God willing. We're going to be right back after these messages with more of our guest,

Pastor Gordon Runyon, and our discussion on winning the war between tyranny and Christian faith.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. Here's what

Gary DeMar, president of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

Good to be back, Chris. I always enjoy our time. You, I have to tell you, one of the better interviewers out there, and I've been doing this for 30, more than 30 years.

Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

We're in good shape. I'm glad you're sitting on the air, so I don't have to brag about myself.

Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, airing live Monday through Friday, 4 to 6 p .m.

eastern time, at ironsharpensironradio .com. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this.

I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

God has designed and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to him.

When the whole world is searching for a solution, God in his infinite mercy has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be very serious.

Such is the beauty of his design. Knowing that design, how can we not add up in praise to our great

God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see better things in his design.

Thank you. Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast.

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

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Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com. That's solid -ground -books .com,

and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget folks, always make solid -ground -books .com

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Without the funding they provide, we would likely not exist, barring a miracle of God.

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That's solid -ground -books .com. Where we left off, Gordon Runyon, you were discussing two doctrines that have led you to the position that you hold about opposing tyranny.

Yeah, they sure do help us get there, at least. I was just looking at an article today that I read from J .C.

Ryle, who was a theologian in the late 1800s, and the document was called

Private Judgment. I think you can find it at Grace Gems online. He was talking about the three doctrines of the

Reformation that won the victory, and two that I think are super important to what we're talking about here.

Well, they're all important, but one of those doctrines was Sola Scriptura. I feel like that's gigantic.

If we don't understand that the Scripture really is the one infallible authority over every area of faith and practice, then we're just going to be afloat and adrift and no anchor in the storm and all of that.

We have to have something to really use as a standard for what we're going to call right or wrong or sin and righteousness.

And I'd also stress the Reformed emphasis on the fact that when we say Sola Scriptura, we're not strictly saying the

Bible and nothing else, but we mean the Bible sits alone at the top of that heap of authority.

It's the sole infallible and inerrant authority for the Church. Absolutely. In every area of faith and practice is what our confessions stress, and that would include the area of how we decide to govern ourselves.

And the other thing that I appreciate the stress in the

Reformed camp is that we don't merely believe in Sola Scriptura, but also in Pota Scriptura, where it's the

Bible alone, but it's the whole Bible. We're not red -letter Christians. We're not

New Testament -only believers, but we believe that all the Bible, all

Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for our training in righteousness.

Combine that doctrine of Sola Scriptura with one that is rarely neglected in our day, but it was a big deal during the

Reformation, is the right and duty of private judgment. And this doctrine arises from the fact that we believe that when we meet the

Lord on Judgment Day, we will all stand before His throne as individuals. And we will have to answer ourselves for what we believed and how we acted and what we did.

And nobody's going to be there to cover us, except for Christ, of course. But there won't be a human authority there that we can answer

God's questions about our conduct by saying, well, this guy told me to do that.

No, you're going to have to figure it out for yourself and decide how it is that God has called you to act.

God has also given each individual a conscience. I don't believe the conscience is perfect.

I believe the conscience needs to be trained by the Word of God, just like our minds. But each individual has a conscience that God has given you, and you're not supposed to violate your conscience.

Even if your conscience is wrong, when you violate your conscience, what you're doing is you're deciding to go ahead and take this action that you think on some level might be wrong.

It probably is. And so you're demonstrating your willingness to decide to do what's wrong, even if your estimation may not be quite correct there.

So conscience is a big deal. The Judgment Day as individuals is a big deal.

And also just specific commands of the Scripture. We're supposed to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

You know, we consider the Bereans to be more noble because they were willing to test what they heard against the standard of the

Scripture and not just take it for granted that they were being told the truth. And Paul said to the

Corinthians that the spiritual man judges all things. This is something we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to grow in our discernment and our ability to exercise godly judgment in all things.

So that right and duty of private judgment, I think practically what that means is we don't just do what we're told by anybody, even if it's people that we respect or they're in positions of authority.

If it's in the church, if it's in the family, we may understand that this person has lawful authority over me.

But just because they do doesn't mean I don't think about what they're telling me and I don't hold their instruction up against the standard of the

Word of God. And I think we'd admit that's true not just in civil government, but it's true everywhere.

The Protestants were big on saying, you know, just because a council or a priest or somebody like that, a church authority says a thing, that doesn't make it true.

We have to test all things and hold fast to that which is good. And we do away with the things that are not good.

Even in the family, that's true. In the story of Ananias and Sapphira, Sapphira didn't get a pass because she just went along with her husband's wishes.

In the same way, in the Old Testament, Abigail, the wife of Nabod, she was commended and wound up saving many people's lives by going against her husband's wishes because she knew they were unjust and unrighteous.

And so even the people who are under authority are still supposed to analyze what they're told and only obey the

Lord because it does come down to, on many occasions, it comes down to a choice between we can either obey

God or we can obey men. And my attitude toward everyone in authority over me is,

I want to obey you. I want to be able to cheerfully and willingly give you the obedience that your office says you deserve.

Please let me do that. Please give me orders that are lawful themselves. Don't make me have to choose between obeying you and obeying

God. And I think so once we get sola scriptura, tota scriptura, and that doctrine of the right and duty of private judgment,

I think once we hold these together, it maybe clarifies our duty toward civil government.

It does for me anyway. Great. Well, I'm going to read a question and I'm going to have you answer it when we return from our midway break.

Timothy in Fremont, California, which he called commie -fornia. Timothy says, greetings.

If this question relates to the topic, please ask your guest. What about those never -Trumper

Christians not voting for the lesser of two evils? Seems to me there's only two legitimate choices.

Obviously, capitalism, law and order, Trump's Marxism, pun intended.

And so we're going to have you answer that when we come back from the break because there is a difference of opinion amongst many

Christians on whether some Christians even think it's a sin not to vote because you are not being a good steward of the nation where you have been placed by God's providence.

And other Christians believe it is perfectly legitimate for Christians to exercise their liberty not to vote if they believe both candidates are evil or not worthy of the office, etc.

But if anybody else wants to join us, we do have a lot of people waiting, but you can join us too at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with more on tyranny. Was your business shut down during the

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in his holy word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

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

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Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together. Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

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That's liyfc .org. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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Welcome back. And before we return to our discussion with Pastor Gordon Runyon of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari, New Mexico, on his book,

On This Ancient Battleground, Winning the War Between Tyranny and Christian Faith. Before we return to that discussion, we just have some important announcements to make.

Tomorrow, God willing, on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we have one of my favorite returning guests,

Dr. Tony Costa, who is Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Canada.

He's going to be discussing with me, Why Islam Cannot Bear Criticism. Why Islam Cannot Bear Criticism.

I'm sure that's going to be a fascinating discussion, as all my discussions are with Dr. Tony Costa, who is truly a brilliant brother in Christ.

We have also, for two days in a row following that, on Wednesday the 16th and Thursday the 17th, we have

Jeff Thomas. Anybody who loves the Banner of Truth and has frequently attended their

Bible conferences and has perused their online catalog, they know the name

Jeff Thomas. He is one of their favorite speakers at their public events. He's one of my favorite guests, pastor of Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, for half a century.

There's not many men who pastor one church for over 50 years in existence, and Jeff Thomas is one of those rare and unique individuals.

I'm just really excited about his two days with us on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

The themes that he will be discussing are, The Holy Spirit is

God, and on day number two, asking for the Holy Spirit.

That's this coming Thursday and Friday, the 16th and 17th of September.

Every other day, Monday through Friday, for weeks to come, our show is always got fascinating guests and topics as far as I'm concerned.

In fact, one guest who's a first -time guest that may fascinate you, the MyPillow guy,

Mike Lindell, is going to be discussing his book,

What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO. If you have seen those

MyPillow ads, you might never know that Mike Lindell, before coming to Christ, was a crack addict and infinitely more important than becoming the

CEO of a very lucrative business like MyPillow. He has been serving

Christ in ways that may have even detrimentally affected his business because he is certainly making it known publicly where he stands for the life of the unborn and for Jesus Christ.

Of course, leftists who love pillows and love sleeping well at night may totally ignore his business because of that.

I'm looking forward to having Mike Lindell for the first time on the show, Monday, the 21st of September.

But folks, if you love Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves,

I'm urging you, please go to ironsherpanzionradio .com, click support, then click to donate now.

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You don't have to believe identically with me. But you need to be promoting something compatible with what I believe.

Please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put I want to advertise or just put advertising in the subject line.

And hopefully we'll be able to launch an ad campaign with you very quickly because we are in urgent need of your advertising dollars as well.

We have been hit very hard financially because of this coronavirus pandemic.

Our two largest financial supporters, unfortunately, have put on hiatus any further financial support of this program.

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So, please help us make up for that huge loss in income by giving as frequently as you can and as generously as you can at ironsherpanzionradio .com.

Click support, then click click to donate now. Also, folks, if you are not a member of a bible -believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one, please rectify that situation.

That is, you're disobeying God if you don't look for a church which to join yourself to and to submit yourself to the local elders of that church.

That is a command of scripture. So, please, allow me, if I can,

God willing, allow me to help you in your search by sending me an email to chrisarnsion at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line. I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world and I can help you find a church,

God willing, as well. So, send me that email to chrisarnsion at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

And that's also the email address where you can send in your question to Pastor Gordon Runyon, chrisarnsion at gmail .com,

chrisarnsion at gmail .com. We are discussing his book On This Ancient Battleground, Winning the

War Between Tyranny and Christian Faith. So, please send us your question to chrisarnsion at gmail .com.

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

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And I will re -read the question that we received from Timothy in Fremont, California.

And let me find that question. Here it is. Let's see.

What about those never -Trumper Christians not voting for the lesser of two evils? It seems to me there's only two legitimate choices.

Obviously, capitalism, law and order, Trump's mark... Let's see.

I gotta re -read that. Obviously, capitalism, law and order, Trump's Marxism.

He's using a pun there. And as I said before, Christians are divided over the issue of voting for who they believe are the lesser of two evils.

Obviously, there are many Christians who believe that Trump has been an excellent president and will continue to be an excellent president.

Others are disappointed with him in many areas and are fearful of his character.

And in 2016, I know a number of theologically solid

Christians that chose not to vote. They certainly didn't want to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but they could not bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump either.

Some of those very people, though, have a different story to tell in regard to the next election.

They have said that 2020 is not 2016. And the peril that awaits us if Biden gets into the office because of the

Marxists behind him who will really be running the show and he will be serving as a puppet leader.

They have been committed now to vote for President Trump and hopefully see him re -elected.

So, tell us your opinion about never -Trumpers and those that refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils or those that condone and advocate voting for the lesser of two evils.

Well, that's not a landmine question at all, brother. Well, you write a book like the one that you wrote.

You should be expecting things like this. There you go. That's right. I brought it on myself. Well, I feel for Timothy there in the

People's Republic of California. I really,

I think I'm willing to give a lot of grace to my Christian brothers and sisters and believe that we generally kind of all want the same things from our government in terms of basically we want to just be left alone as much as possible and we want to be able to lead quiet and peaceful lives.

And after that, I think a lot of what we're talking about in this question is is strategies and tactics and arguing over that.

I think we need to be very careful about accusing each other of sin when the Bible hasn't told us to vote or who to vote for or anything like that.

I would caution everybody to understand that the Bible does in several places, in several places, it gives us some broad outlines about what sorts of people we should pick to be leaders over us when we're given the opportunity to do so.

One of those, for instance, is Exodus 18 verse 21 where it says,

Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and you shall place these over them as leaders in thousands and hundreds and fifties and so on.

And that's not the only place. There are several places in the scripture where the people have a hand in kind of picking who's going to be their leader and sometimes they did well and sometimes they didn't.

And I just encourage my fellow believers to take those things seriously. I'm also not going to berate my fellow believers who may not like a lot of things about President Trump but are going to vote for him anyway just out of a sense of self -preservation.

I've got family and friends who are going to vote for him not because they think he's a great candidate but because they're frankly terrified of a

Biden presidency and what that might look like. And I understand that and I'm not going to berate people for that.

I just think that I think the Bible calls us to walk in faith and not in fear which if you're voting out of fear

I'm not going to say you're sinning but the gates of hell will not prevail against the church no matter who is made the president.

And that's part of what we I believe we should have our confidence there and not in any human princes or kings or anything of that nature.

Well two categories of people you didn't mention are what about those people that are and I know some that are theologically actually conservative but they vote very often if not always liberally because they think the

Democratic Party most reflects the compassion of Jesus for the poor, the downtrodden, the underdog, etc.

the persecuted. And they will typically use the excuse of well

I feel my conscience is untroubled voting for a pro -abortionist because Republicans never really do anything about it anyway.

They give lip service to the pro -life movement and then of course you have professing Christians and I have a hard time believing that they're regenerate no matter what their profession is who are just as excited about preserving a woman's so -called white to right to murder her baby in her womb as the candidates who are advocating that themselves.

Even the pastor who was one of those who preached at Congressman John Lewis's funeral has come out with a what he calls a

Christian defense for abortion and I think that that is absolutely satanic and grotesque.

So what about those categories of people those that are pro -life but they say hey

I still believe that Democrats lead the way in caring for the helpless and of course they don't include in that the unborn but they're including the poor and the downtrodden and the underdog.

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to vote for the Democrat because Republicans just give lip service to pro -life and then of course the other category of Christian or professing

Christian Democrats who are actually in their own philosophy and worldview they are actually pro -abortion.

Sure I will address that by urging us all to the same standard and that is the word of God and specifically in this case the law of God where the people the conservative

Christians who are going to vote liberal because it's more compassionate where they've missed it is that the

Bible in Deuteronomy chapter 17 strictly holds the king to the responsibility of not going beyond the commandments.

The king is not allowed to turn either to the right or to the left. He's not allowed to be more cruel.

He's not allowed to be more lenient and he's not allowed to make up his own mission statement as he goes.

I think Romans 13 then confirms this when we find out there that the magistrate what we'll call the magistrate the magistrate has been given a very narrow mission to punish the bad guys and reward the ones that do good.

That's the job and when the king was to be seated on his throne he wasn't allowed to make it up as he goes.

He's supposed to enforce the law as God wrote it and in that law

God does not give the king the authority or the mandate to gather up taxes and give other people's money to people that he determines to be more worthy of that cash flow.

So when Jesus and when all the prophets tell us that we're supposed to do justice and feed the naked and or feed the hungry and close the naked and protect the widows and orphans and strangers when when we are given those duties that's not the same as paying somebody else to do it for us.

You are supposed to feed the poor. When you encounter them you are supposed to be generous.

You're supposed to take care of the orphan and the widow and the stranger. It's you're pawning off your duties and responsibilities on someone else and frankly the only way that any government has a resource or a cash fund in order to help anybody is they first have to get that money through unjust means specifically by violating the eighth commandment which says thou shalt not steal.

I do believe taxation is theft. I believe the bible does not allow the government to just come up with whatever taxes they want.

The bible establishes a right of private property and violating the law of God doesn't suddenly become right just because you wear a badge or you've got a title or you hold an office.

You're still bound by the same commandments and one of those is of course you shall not steal.

If there was a way for the government to help the with its own money quote unquote then sure they should do that but they don't have their own money they just have what they have previously taken from somebody else and the same is then true for uh you mentioned people who are who are just liberal christians and I would call them back in the same way to the law of God.

The only way to be a liberal christian is to come to the point of failing to believe that God has the authority to tell you what's right and wrong.

If he does not have that authority and you're actually reading the bible to find out what he says you're not going to remain a liberal for very long in my view and I wanted to clarify something too if I could go quick before you read the next question.

I mentioned before that I do believe christians should be willing to put up patiently and endure a lot of garbage that that state tries to do so I'm not

I'm not advocating jumping the gun or being violent or anything like that but my point is there does come a time when the unjust actions of the government go from being merely annoying and inconvenient and aggravating and those actions can actually start to destroy people and I would point to the millions of unborn children in the

United States where it's the government who has specifically said these things are good they are right they are a right and we're going to use force to protect this and that's a tyrannical action that actually winds up destroying millions of our weakest neighbors and the things of that nature

I don't believe we can stand by I think we have to at the very least speak up and do so publicly wherever God gives us a voice we have to be willing to take all the slings and arrows from the culture that's going to hate hearing all of that and we have to be willing to just say what we know to be true because we're founded in in God's book well thank you

Timothy in Fremont, California and please give us your full mailing address there so that CVBBS that's

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship you out a free copy of Pastor Gordon Runyon's book on this ancient battleground winning the war between tyranny and Christian faith and we thank

Pastor Gordon for providing us with these giveaway copies. We have

Laszlo in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Let's see

I just had Laszlo's question in front of me and it disappeared. I don't know why these things happen.

I'm very very challenged when it comes to technology. Here it is. Were the 13

British North American colonies biblically justified in rebelling against the rule of the

British Crown and Parliament in 1776? Why or why not?

And I have a follow -up question after that. Okay yeah my view is that the colonies were justified.

They didn't pick up arms in the sense of a revolution. Rush Dooney has pointed out that a revolution is when you try to violently overthrow a government for the sake of installing yourself or or a government of your preference.

So when we use that term and when it has been historically used regarding this war in the 18th century you're saying it's a misnomer.

We're not correctly describing or labeling this war. Yeah I think it's just a kind of a little bit of a sloppy use of terminology.

I'm not really upset about it, but technically I think Rush Dooney was right about that. We really didn't fight a revolution.

We fought a war for independence, for secession. We weren't trying to assassinate the king or kick out the government that was already in place.

We frankly we just wanted to be left alone. And one of the and the other thing

I would point out is that the colonies didn't start the fight. We did.

They did of course sign the Declaration of Independence and declare their political freedom and they knew that that might result in physical hostilities.

They knew that was a live option and turned out to be absolutely true. But it was the king who then in response to the colonies getting a little uppity in his mind it was the king who then sent the

British fleet to float into the harbor at Boston with all their guns visible and stuff like that in an effort to warn the colonists that you know bad things were ahead if they kept on this course of action.

They were looking for peaceful separation which I would point out again if we had a whole bunch of time the idea of secession of peacefully walking away from a previous covenant arrangement that is completely biblical as well.

And so they weren't doing anything rebellious by lifting their grievances and saying we're walking away.

So when the hostilities begin now the colonists of the colonies are forced to defend themselves and try to win their freedom in the middle of a military conflict for sure.

And his second question that is Laszlo from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His second question is conversely was

Canada another British North American colony biblically right not to rebel against the same crown and the same parliament in 1776?

Uh yeah I'm not real big up on Canadian uh politics or history so I want to tread lightly here but I I don't think there was anything mandating that the

American colonies break away but I don't think the fact that they broke away was was simple and if the my initial thought is if the

Canadians all decided as as peace -loving citizens that this is the way they want to go you know more power to them.

We've kind of said the same thing with the coronavirus here where there are churches who dealt with it differently than say my church did and I want to give as much grace to the leaders of those churches and just you know they as best as they were able under the

Spirit of God they did what they thought was best and they're they're not my servants they're the servants of God and and if they are liable for anything

I'm not the one that's going to take it out of them. God will hold them to account for whatever has been done and and so my initial response is to give grace to our northern friends.

And thank you Roslo and you've also won a copy of On This Ancient Battleground, Winning the

War Between Tyranny and Christian Faith by our guest Gordon Runyon. And we have

John in Bangor, Maine who says earlier in the program you gave a caveat that you are not calling

Christians to violence when it comes to overthrowing tyranny but is that not is that not the very reason our founding fathers provided us with the second amendment in the

Constitution to form militias for that very reason? Yeah I would say that's all about self -defense and it's defending against an attacker who's coming to do bad things.

I don't think the reason for the second amendment is so that we can take up arms and and have a

Rastuni definition style revolution but it certainly is there to defend against tyranny for sure.

When tyranny takes up arms and goes out to crush the citizens or you know prove a point or whatever that is,

I do believe the second amendment is there to provide a bulwark against the sort of outrageous tyranny that you mentioned at the beginning of the program.

So I'm not taking violence off the table. I'm just saying that it should be the last resort and we should do whatever we can take whatever avenues are open to us before it comes to that.

So would we have to as a society here in America or other societies globally have to reach the point when the government is mandating how many children households are to have because of overpopulation at least overpopulation in their minds and they begin seizing babies or even children older children from homes and executing them or forcing women to have abortions and that kind of thing.

Is that the kind of level of evil that is being forced upon a society that is required for us to say all right let's get the guns out and we are not tolerating this anymore or what exactly what kind of a scenario are you talking about?

Yeah, I think I'd go back to the concept that government should be held to the same standards and the same laws of God that we are and just because like I say you wear a uniform or a badge doesn't entitle you to do things that nobody else can do and one of those in the hypothetical you just gave me hypothetical here but not in China one of those would be you're not allowed to go to somebody's house and kidnap people you're certainly not allowed to go in and destroy children and yeah there's going to be bullets flying if people want to come to my house and try to do harm to my family and it doesn't matter if you're if you're a government guy or you're just a crackhead or something like that you break into my house and be violent or threaten violence to my family then we're going to have an that may well turn physical.

Yes and you're speaking of even if it's the government that has authority over you. Sure yeah absolutely well

I just think a little bit uh the name Brianna Taylor comes to mind she's the woman who was asleep with her

I think it was her husband might have been a boyfriend but she's asleep in her home peacefully the police do a no -knock raid and wind up shooting both of them and killing her turns out they were in the wrong house and the reason they shot the man was because he actually picked up a gun and tried to defend them and uh those sorts of things that is tyrannical nobody that did the crime of murder in that case has been arrested to date and I I just think we really need to get back to the idea that that just because you hold an officer title it doesn't mean you get to act in ways that the law of god outlaws.

We have to go to our final break right now and uh by the way uh thank you uh listener uh for that question and you have also won a free copy of the book we are discussing on this ancient battleground winning the war between tyranny and christian faith that was john and banger main please give us your full mailing address so we can have cvbbs .com

that's cumberland valley bible book service so we can have them mail out your free copy of the book to banger main we're going to our final break right now if you would like to get in line and ask a question there are still people waiting to have their questions asked but if you want to get in line our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the usa we'll be right back chris arenson host of iron sharpens iron radio here i want to tell you about a man i have personally known for many years his name is dan buttafuoco dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer but not the type that typically comes to mind dan cares about people and is a theologian himself recently he wrote a book titled consider the evidence for the bible ravi zacharias wrote the foreword dan also has a master's degree in theology dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states he represents many christians in serious injury matters all over the country dan is an exceptional trial lawyer he wrote the test for the national board of trial advocacy and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for one million dollars or more and in approximately 10 different states in illinois his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history in new york his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the law journal if you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state i recommend that you call dan consultations are free there is no fee unless you win dan buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878 1 -800 -669 -4878 or email me for dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com

that's chrisarnson at gmail .com so james white of alphanomega ministries and the dividing line webcast here although god has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach preach and debate at numerous venues some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with pastor rich jensen and the brethren at hope reform baptist church now located at their new beautiful facilities in corham long island new york i've had the privilege of opening god's word from their pulpit on many occasions have led youth retreats for them and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my new york debates i do not hesitate to highly recommend hope reform baptist church of corham long island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught discipled and edified by the holy scriptures and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in christ i also want to congratulate hope reform baptist church of corham for the recent appointment of pastor rich jensen's co -elder pastor christopher mcdowell for more information on hope reform baptist church go to hope reformed li .net

that's hope reformed li .net or call 631 -696 -5711 that's 631 -696 -5711 tell the folks at hope reform baptist church of corham long that you heard about them from james white on iron sharpens iron radio when iron sharpens iron radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the new american standard bible were among my very first sponsors it gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the iron sharpens iron radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the nasb i'm pastor nate pickowitz of harvest bible church in gilminton ironworks new hampshire and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor rich jensen of hope reform baptist church in corham new york and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor sule prince of oakwood wesleyan church in toronto ontario canada and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor john samson of king's church in peoria arizona and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor chuck volo of new life community church in kingsville maryland and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor steve herford of eastport baptist church in jacksonville florida and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor roy owens jr of the church and friendship in hockley texas and the nasb is my bible of choice here's a great way for your church to help keep iron trumpets iron radio on the air pastors are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart consider restocking your pews with the nasb and tell the publishers you heard about them from chris arnson on iron trumpets iron radio go to nasbible .com

that's nasbible .com to place your order this is pastor bill saso grace church at franklin here in the beautiful state of tennessee our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support iron sharpens iron radio financially grace church at franklin is an independent autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of god as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our lord jesus christ and of course the end of which we strive is the glory of god if you live near franklin tennessee and franklin is just south of nashville maybe 10 minutes or you are visiting this area or you have friends and loved ones nearby we hope you will join us some lord's day in worshiping our god and savior please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about grace church at franklin our website is gracechurchat franklin .org

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that's l -e -e -s drugs rx .com don't forget to ask about their discount generic drug program welcome back this is chris arnzen and this is the last segment of our interview today with pastor gordon runyon on his book on this ancient battleground winning the war between tyranny and christian faith our email address if you want to join us which you better do quickly if you intend to with a question is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

chrisarnsen at gmail .com we have a man who i will identify by his full name because i think his church is worthy of promotion publicly on this program uh his name is pastor gary wagner he is the pastor of reformed heritage church in los gatos california and uh he from time to time offers us some excellent uh incisive questions so i uh hope that uh that uh we are once again blessed by pastor gary's uh questions he says uh when scripture talks about the poor the afflicted and the oppressed is he not talking about his poor afflicted and oppressed and he spells his in all capitals and i'm assuming what he means by that is god's poor but i'm not really sure i guess he what he is saying and in pastor gary if if i'm incorrect in interpreting this this way let me know uh i uh assume he is saying that christians have an obligation to provide for the poor among us who are christians and that perhaps those who are pagans need not be a primary uh subject of financial support if they are rebelling against christ uh i wouldn't necessarily it depends on the circumstance that you're talking about i wouldn't say that we are to not provide for the needs of the pagan but uh i'm not the guest today our guest today gordon runyon is so what would you have to say about this question and of course gary if i'm miss if i'm misinterpreting you let me know by sending in another email okay well uh i'm going to go with your interpretation of his question and i'm reminded of the new testament admonition that we're supposed to do good to all men but especially to the members of the household of god and i don't think there's anything i don't think there's anything wrong for sure with seeing a need and and meeting it i just like i said i don't think that's the government's job i uh you mentioned you think your thought that maybe that's maybe he's asking more about poor people within the churches and i'd say yes and amen to that that's why we need to have really robust deacon funds and uh we need to be serious about that but i'd point out that the fact that the government at all levels has kind of commandeered for itself the turf so to speak of ministry to the poor to the point that we've had people in various cities who have been arrested for trying to feed homeless people or or give them clothing or something like that because the government wow petition yeah for sure that has happened and and uh and i'm sure they couch it in terms of well we don't know if maybe the food's not good for them and well anyway people go out with a sincere desire to help the poor and wind up in jail for their trouble and government hates competition and one of the things that has done i believe is it's fostered a spirit of apathy toward the poor even within our churches because when we find out that there's a need our immediate thought is well isn't there a program that's supposed to be addressing that or i paid i pay a stupid amount of taxes and you're telling me that the poor still aren't being fed and you know uh my honest belief is if we got the government out of the charity business which by the way in america it hasn't always been in that business if we got the government out of the charity business i think you would see a fire of compassion and giving be sparked again among christians who would suddenly be in the position of seeing nobody's going to do this but me and i need to obey god and frankly i look forward to i think we can do it and gary's second question is what does gordon feel about uh hey reformed pastor you're supposed to say think not feel what does gordon i'll insert that word in there what does gordon think about the doctrine of the lesser magistrate so i'm totally on board in fact there's a book by that name that i recommend highly the doctrine of the lesser magistrates is the idea that if you are in a position of governing authority you have a duty to protect the citizens who are under you and that includes protecting them from tyrannical and unjust orders coming from above you and so it's a it's a form of interposition you know the bible uses not the term but the concept of interposition dozens of times where righteous people stand in the gap so to speak between evil and the targets of evil and frankly there are also many instances of this uh interposition of government uh folks who do the same thing who recognize that the right thing to do is to protect their people and totally on board with that i think that's also that was also an active feature in what was happening during the american war for independence as well that the parliament in the colonies were legitimate governments established by the king and they were acting to protect their own people they were lawful authorities and they were trying to protect their citizens which is always their job and let me just give a quick quick plug to reformed heritage church in los gatos california's website reformedheritage .org

reformedheritage .org and by the way pastor gary did send in an email clarifying that we were correct uh that uh that correct in interpreting his question that the church the church is to be provided for first as far as our obligation as christians he didn't rule out providing for the lost or the pagan but he just said that the first obligation is for the christians and then uh we have uh cindy in finley ohio referencing your comment as to the democrat party being the party of compassion because they attempt to help the downtrodden single mothers and so forth the welfare society only exacerbates the problem of poverty they reward women and girls for having baby after baby with boyfriend after boyfriend providing homes food phones food insurance school meals etc on the surface it seems to be compassionate but it promotes a home without a father millions and millions of boys and girls are being raised without a father the destruction of the family is promoted by the government how is that compassionate how can a society survive and thrive when the government increases poverty when the government destroys the family the welfare system has not solved any problems but increased them and multiplied them the democrat party is responsible for this and the republican party is responsible because they roll over and play dead uh cindy don't you know that women aren't supposed to preach i'm just kidding i mean by the way well i'm not kidding i do believe that but i don't i don't believe that cindy was doing that uh cindy i agree with every word you said you weren't really asking a question but uh i'm assuming you agree with every word she said as well yeah i just i i'm dismayed that she might think that i was recommending the democratic party as the party of compassion i was if i said anything i was trying to say they build themselves that way but i certainly agree with her evaluation that that's not the truth at all uh give me your full mailing address in finley ohio because you've won the last copy of on this ancient battleground by our guest today uh we have uh somebody who i'll also identify by their full name and the ministry that they serve i used to work there part -time alongside this dear brother when he lived in long island on long island new york but i'm speaking of joseph m bianchi the president of calvary press publishing in uh greenville south carolina he asked how do we apply what your guest believes to actual government viz do we vote for candidates that exclusively believe in christian ethics are we compelled to put forth such candidates to charge the political landscape so or change i'm sorry to change the political landscape so that our laws reflect biblical principles so i guess that question really involves is is the primary thing that it is our duty is to vote on that looks that way okay my answer to that would be no that's not our primary duty our primary duty of the church is to preach the gospel and do all the things that are consistent with that in terms of the great commission of course i don't think that he would deny that i think he means i think he means specifically in regard to raising up god is the only one that really raises up rulers but our part in the being the means that god uses to elect officials i guess he's saying is is the voting oh and he also said put forth candidates so yeah i i really again we're kind of back to strategy and what's the what best way to attack it and i actually think what he mentioned is a good idea i personally believe we need to break out of the inherent tribalism that's involved in the really strict two -party system where if you're not voting for one you must be voting for the other and and you're not allowed to have any disagreement with the one you're voting for or you must really be a secret agent of the other we have to get rid of the tribalism where it doesn't matter what my guy does as long as he's wearing my jersey and one of the ways that i think we do this is by putting forward better candidates men who really are biblically qualified to do the job that they're running for and that's a very long -term answer that the mountain that we need to climb to make this really happen is so huge but i really do think it's worth that climb it may take generations but we need to i think we need to have that long -term goal in mind that people that the electorate just becomes used to once again they used to always be used to this back in colonial days but the electorate you need to be used to looking for who has the best biblical qualifications who's the man of god here whose whose opinions and policies are are really in line with what the scripture says okay i'm gonna quick read i'm gonna have to butt in here because i want to quickly read one last it's really comments not question but uh dick guido who's been a guest on this program he's from raleigh north carolina and he's an orthodox presbyterian elder and attorney and he has discussed political issues on this program he says pastor runyon as i have discussed with chris on two occasions on iron sharpens iron i have viewed the matter of civil disobedience to be best analyzed in a spectrum between romance 13 we must obey the powers that be and acts 529 we must obey god rather than man our task then as christians is to determine when where we are on that spectrum in order to biblically respond to particular actions of the civil magistrate but i am not a theonomist though i have benefited greatly from reading from reading in theonomy from readings in theonomy and i'm wondering whether you would have any disagreement with that stemming from your views of scripture if you could quickly answer that because we've got to go no i think scripture is the only place we can appeal to my encouragement would be if you're not if you really don't see the law of god as the standard you're really going to have a hard time appealing to a standard then when the government does whatever it does oh we are out of time and anybody who wants to contact our guest uh send an email to him at reform nm for new mexico at yahoo .com