Interview with Pastor Foskey on the Reformation

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this second day of November 2017, and I'm so delighted today to have a very special guest live from the pride of Florida, Jacksonville.

It's the Jacksonville Kid, Keith Foskey, pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, is our guest today, and we're going to be discussing the core necessity for the Protestant Reformation, and we're also going to be announcing a Jacksonville Reformation celebration that's taking place this Sunday.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time, the very first time I should say, back for I think the third time, Keith Foskey.

I'm doing okay.

I hope you heard loud and clear the Jacksonville Kid by Lynyrd Skynyrd that I was playing.

And unfortunately, the fade-out button wasn't working, so I had to bring the song to an abrupt halt.

But anyway, in studio with me is my co-host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Hello, and thank you for that musical number.

I'm glad that I got to hear it at least.

Well, a lot more people heard it than you, and today we are gonna be discussing, as I said, something that is near and dear to the hearts of not only myself and my co-host and my guests, but I'm sure most of our listeners.

It is involving the Protestant Reformation, and we are going to be speaking about the core of the necessity for that historic event, an ongoing phenomenon.

But before we do get into that topic, Pastor Keith, if you could tell us something about Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

Yes, sir.

Sovereign Grace Family Church is on the north side of Jacksonville, Florida, near the airport actually, and we have been a church, well, we've been a church for over 50 years, but we weren't always a Reformed church.

I actually grew up in this church.

I told this story on a previous episode of your program.

I grew up in this church, and it was part of the Old Disciples of Christ denomination, which if your listeners are familiar is actually one of the more liberal of the Protestant, would consider itself, you know, among the Protestants, but a liberal denomination, and I grew up in that, and wasn't saved in the church, was actually saved through the ministry of a friend who was preaching the gospel, and I heard the gospel, and by God's grace was saved at 19 years old.

And after I got saved, I came back to the church I grew up in and wanted to minister and do something in the church, so I began to work here as just helping the pastor out, doing things around the church, working with youth, doing anything that I could, and then after 9-11, 2001, I felt the call to full-time ministry, felt the call to preach.

It was really a call to preach, and through my time in seminary, I went to a Southern Baptist, not the Southern Seminary, but I went to a Southern Baptist Seminary here in Jacksonville, Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.

I was taught the Bible, and the men that were there were not Reformed, but they were loving men, they loved Scripture, and they taught me the Word, and through the ministry of another friend, Brother Jim Dutton, who is actually here at our church now, he sort of opened my eyes to the Reformed traditions and the beliefs of the Reformers, and through the ministry of Dr.

James White and Dr.

R.C.

Sproul and others, I began to really imbibe that study, and in 2008, by that time, I was already the pastor.

Our former pastor had retired, so in 2008, I began to preach through Romans during Sunday school.

I was preaching through the Gospel of Luke on Sunday morning, and people began to hear things they'd never heard before, and by God's grace, he led us through a time of Reformation, and in 2010, we officially became Sovereign Grace Family Church, so we left not only an old denomination, but even the old name behind it.

It used to be called Forest Christian Church, and we left all that to seek to be a Reformed Church, and so really this church, I guess you could say, is about seven years old.

And I know that the website is sgfcjax.org, S-G for Sovereign Grace, F-C for Family Church, Jax, nickname for Jacksonville, J-A-X.org, and you are having, God willing, this Sunday, November 5th, an event that is involving or features one of my dearest friends, Mike Gaydosh, who was the pastor that dunked me under the waters of baptism, and was my pastor for the first, I would say, ten years, perhaps, of my life as a Christian, was my very first pastor as an evangelical, Bible believing, born-again individual, and he is still near and dear to my heart, and we are in regular contact.

In fact, as you know, the ministry that he founded, the book ministry, Solid Ground Christian Books, is one of the key sponsors of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, and I'm happy to admit that although Mike Gaydosh, I'm sure, would do whatever he could to sponsor my program, even if he wasn't receiving any financial return on his investment, it just so happens, praise be to God, that Solid Ground Christian Books is receiving a financial return on its investment, and I thank all of you in the Iron Sherpins Iron Radio listening audience who regularly patronize Solid Ground Christian Books by purchasing books from Solid Ground Christian Books, and I hear the reports back from Mike Gaydosh that he is very pleased, in fact ecstatic, as to the number of new names being added to his customer base because of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, and I thank him in return for sponsoring the program, because without advertisers like him, my show would not remain on the air, and as I've been announcing lately on this program, if I don't start getting more benefactors and advertisers, we may not remain on the air very much longer, but having said that, I'm so delighted that you are making use of the extraordinary gifts of Mike Gaydosh at this conference, and also tell us about David Burke, who will also be speaking at this conference.

Well, David is a man who's very near and dear to my heart.

Interestingly, we met through a local pastors meeting, used to have met once a quarter, now we meet every other month, and it's a group of pastors here in Jacksonville, all who are who are Reformed, but David is a Presbyterian pastor, and he just retired this past year, but he and I have known each other for many, many years, and I would go to his church, he would host this pastors meeting, and I've just, I've spent many hours talking to him, you know, sometimes sitting in his office, sharing burdens as a young minister with him being an older minister, and he has just spoken to my heart many, many times, and been such a blessing to me.

So this year, when he retired, I said, well, now he's free to preach over at my church, because as you know, as ministers, sometimes hard to get on a Sunday, so I was excited to get to have him on a Sunday morning to preach for us, and I am excited to have Mike as well.

I mean, I think the two of them are going to bring a very powerful message.

Mike's going to be preaching on the formal principle of the Reformation, which is the doctrine of Scripture, and that's going to be at 930, so that's going to be our first session is at 930, taking the place of our normal Sunday school time, and then we're going to have a little break, and then we're going to have our worship service, which will include music and participation, and we're having a baptism this week, a young man received Christ, wants to be baptized, we're going to get to witness that, and then Brother Burke is going to preach on the ancient paths, and his focus is to show from Jeremiah that what we're teaching is not, the Reformation is nothing new.

There's nothing new about the Reformation, it's all, it's the old ancient truths that have always been true, and so that's the focus of this weekend.

Great, and if anybody lives near Jacksonville, Florida, or just wants to travel there, go to sgfcjaxx.org, which is their website, S-G for Sovereign Grace, F-C for Family Church, Jax, J-A-X dot O-R-G.

You could also call 904-757-1800, 904-757-1800, and we hope that many of you listening who are able to attend that conference, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question about the Reformation, specifically about our theme, the core necessity for the Protestant Reformation, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail.com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail.com.

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But one of the things that is brought up in reference to the Reformation, as you know Pastor Keith, is that the Reformation was a horrible, unfortunate, tragic event in the history of the church because it divided the church.

And not only did it divide the church, it gave birth to thousands of baby churches and splits and splinters and divisions and rifts and schisms, and many will call the Reformation not a glorious day where darkness became light and where men, women, and children were free to read the scriptures as they were originally written, and they were able to read the scriptures in their native tongue, and where they were able to believe in the true gospel of the scriptures, the true gospel of Christ, that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, without fear of being tortured and executed, and they will turn that glorious truth on its head and make it into a dark and horrific, historic event that continues to this day.

How do you respond to that declaration, which is obviously typically a declaration of Roman Catholics and a Roman Catholic apologist specifically? Well yeah, it's absolutely true, and interestingly enough, and I just, I didn't get to watch the video, but I noticed that even Ben Shapiro, who's sort of become the golden boy of the conservative talking points movement, had something to say negative against the Reformation.

He had a guest on who was speaking, and Ben himself is a Jewish man.

Right, and I actually love a lot of what he has to say, and admire his gifts.

Yes, but I just found it interesting that I think the man who was on was Roman Catholic and was speaking negatively about this being the 500th anniversary, and it is easy for someone to hear the things that you just said, to hear that the product of the Reformation is division.

If people hear that, then the instinctual sort of guttural reaction is, well, that's a bad thing, because if the product of the Reformation is split, if the product of the Reformation is a lack of unity, then it seems to be like we've gone against what Jesus wanted, because he himself prayed that his people would be unified.

And so it seems as if that would make the Reformation a bad thing, but one of the things that has to be remembered is that division among God's people is not something that began in 1517.

Division among God's people has always been, there have always been God's people who love the truth, and then those who call themselves God's people who don't love the truth.

I mean, you go back to the early councils, and you go back to the time of Arius and Athanasius and the Council of Nicaea, there was division there, and yet it was a necessary division.

I mean, even the Roman Catholics agree that Athanasius had to stand up against the majority of bishops in their own Church who had succumbed to Arianism.

Absolutely, and if you think of Athanasius in the same vein as Luther, and of certainly different issues and different men, but in the idea that here, you know, Luther stood, you know, contra mundum as well.

He stood against the world, as it were.

And so we can, you know, we can say, well yes, the Reformation created all this division, but it wasn't the first divide.

I mean, you go back to, I think it was 1056, you have the division with the Eastern and Western Church, you go back to the councils, there's division between the heretics and the true people of God.

The product of Reformation did bring division, but at the same time, as you said so eloquently a few minutes ago, it also brought the Word of God to the people, and I think it was Luther who said, I can't quote him directly, but basically said if the product of giving people the Word of God is division, then it's a necessary division, because it hasn't kept the Church from error by keeping the Word out of the hands of the people.

Keeping the Word out of the hands of the people has not kept the Church from falling into error.

In fact, it's allowed the Church, the Roman Catholic Church that is, it's allowed it to go so deep into error because no one knew how far from Scripture they were because no one was able to see it for themselves.

And when the Word of God became open for people to read, and the plowman had just as much access to the Scripture as the Pope, then it became obvious that the things that were happening, transubstantiation, the Marian teachings, and all of these, the papacy itself, all of these things were not biblical, and certainly not something that people should support.

So yes, it created division, but it was a necessary division.

Truth always divides from error.

Now we disagree radically with the Church of Rome on a lot of issues.

I mean, we do agree on some core beliefs that are primary and essential beliefs for true Christianity to exist.

We believe with Roman Catholics in the inerrancy of Scripture.

We believe with Roman Catholics in the Trinity and in the correct definition of the Trinity.

We agree and believe along with Roman Catholics in the deity of Christ, in his virgin birth, in his atoning death, his burial, and physical bodily resurrection, his ascension into heaven, his being seated at the right hand of the Father.

We share with Catholics these and other important things, and we, as I said already, we disagree with them also on a multitude of things.

But the things that are at the core of what we are discussing today, the core necessity for the Protestant Reformation, would you not agree that even though we would say a Roman Catholic cannot logically and consistently say he believes in any of the five solos of the Reformation, there is some semantical dancing around some of these solos, where they may share in their profession an agreement with them, such as Soli Deo Gloria, of course, and but when it comes to the core issue that required the Reformation, the core issue that Protestants, I'm sorry, that Roman Catholic apologists get fiery about and are openly objecting to and dismissing and declaring as heresy, are the two solos, Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide.

Would you not agree that those are the two that are really at the heart of the Reformation? Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Because if you were to try to have a discussion with a Roman Catholic on the subject of sola gratia, they would say, yes, it's all of grace, but the Church dispenses the grace, and it's the grace that comes through the sacramental system, and the sacerdotal priesthood, you know, dispenses that grace.

So, yeah, I mean, they would say it's all of grace, but it's, you know, so in that sense, I think you're right.

And then they have to redefine what, not only what grace means, but redefine what all of means.

Yes, absolutely.

They're not saying the same thing we're saying.

It's like Dr.

White says, it's not the necessity of grace, but the sufficiency of grace, and so, you know, we believe that grace is sufficient not only to make men favorable, but to actually save them, and so that's the, you know, while we would agree probably verbally on grace alone, they would have, as you said, a different definition.

But the two elements that I would agree with you 100%, I would say my conversations with Roman Catholics and the ones that, of course, I've heard many debates, some that you have moderated, that are in reference almost always to, what is the authority, and how, you know, how are we justified? And Roman Catholics' view of justification is a future.

They look forward to being justified, and, of course, the Protestant, the biblical view is that having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, present tense, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is our view of justification.

It's done, and by faith we receive what has been done, and we have a current, active peace with God that's not waiting for anything else to happen.

That peace is now.

Yes, and I don't know if James White, our mutual friend, coined this phrase, but I remember years ago finding it really profound, and it really made the issue sink in deeply.

But the way that he described it, he said, and I'm paraphrasing of course, but that the true gospel and the true grace of Jesus Christ give you perfect shalom.

You are truly at peace with God for eternity once you are regenerate.

And the Roman Catholic gospel, which is really no gospel at all, offers, at least to the Catholic mind, a ceasefire whereby God is temporarily at peace with you, but that peace could erupt into a full-blown, full-scale war with God at any given moment.

You have no assurance that if you have peace today with God, you will have peace later today with God, or tomorrow.

And that is really not peace.

That's really a ceasefire, and it's not even really a ceasefire, because those who are at enmity with God have no peace at all with God, but in the Catholic mind they are experiencing a ceasefire, even though they would never perhaps define it that way themselves.

It is clear that's what they're teaching.

Am I right? Oh yeah, absolutely.

And I want to, sort of for a second, sort of go back to something you said earlier, because you asked about the division and the Protestant Reformation creating division.

When we talk about Roman Catholics, you really can't make, you can't really make a unilateral statement about what they believe, because even though there's a boasting...

They said it was impossible to have a great-tasting light beer.

Boom! Award-winning.

That, I apologize for that, that was an unintentional computer glitch there.

Sorry about that.

No worries, no worries.

But you know, there's a boasting of the unanimity of faith, or of the agreement among Roman Catholics, and there may be agreements on paper, but when you speak to Roman Catholics, and you actually engage them, you find that there's as wide a diversity of views among Roman Catholics as there is among Protestants on almost every issue.

I mean, there are people that are Roman Catholic who support gay marriage.

There are people who are Roman Catholic who support abortion.

Now, I will agree that the church hierarchy has condemned these things, at least for now.

We don't know what the current Pope's going to do tomorrow, but there's no unanimity among all Catholics.

In fact, I would argue, and I just recently did argue this point when I was having a conversation slash debate on the UK broadcast Unbelievable, hosted by Justin Brierley.

Yeah, Justin invited me on to give my testimony, and he informed me that there would be a Roman Catholic who is a head of some Catholic apostolate in the UK, and I can't remember the name of it right now, the Catholic Union or something like that, and he's also a barrister, or in America we would call them an attorney, and I didn't know that this was going to be actually a debate, not one as rigidly orchestrated as those that we've seen with Dr.

James White, where there is a moderator and things are timed very rigidly, and there is ample opportunity for each side to equally present their case and rebut the other's case and that kind of a thing.

This was more of a conversational style debate.

But anyway, there is a claim by the Roman Catholic Church, as Mr.

Bogle did in the Unbelievable broadcast, that the Roman Catholic Church is a monolith, that they enjoy unity, that Protestants do not, that we are basically, as has been said by some notable Roman Catholic apologists, sola scriptura is a blueprint for anarchy, and of course they'll throw around the fictitional number of 30,000 denominations and things like that.

But as I said to Mr.

Bogle and to Justin Brierley, the host of that program, that I believe there is a much greater division under what is called the Roman Catholic Church umbrella, those who are members of the Roman Catholic Church in good standing, people who have not been disciplined, people who have not been excommunicated, people who have not been censored, people who are speaking and teaching openly in Catholic seminaries and universities and behind Catholic pulpits, and nothing of any negative consequence occurs by virtue of their notorious heretical teaching, even by Roman Catholic standards, you have such a wide spectrum of people who are still considered faithful Catholics, and yet we who are conservative Bible believing Protestants, and it is not fair to include within the pale of Protestantism, when we're talking about the division that exists because of sola scriptura, it is not fair to include churches that don't even believe in sola scriptura, it's not fair to include liberal mainline Protestants that we don't even believe are Christians, we believe they're apostates, and of course they will even include these Roman Catholics when they come up with these numbers and they bring out all the division that exists, they will even include cults in amongst our ranks, they will include the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons, and it was quite ridiculous watching the program The Journey Home, I'm sure you've seen that program, Marcus Grodi, who's a Roman Catholic host of this program, who was a former Presbyterian minister, no no that was Jerry Medetics, well Marcus Grodi said that sola scriptura leads to such cults as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, which is laughably absurd because neither one of those groups believe in sola scriptura, you have the Mormons who have other books that they consider sacred and actually have superior status in their religion than the Bible because the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants are not filled with errors as they believe the Bible is, because of mistranslations and so on, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, they go exclusively by what the Kingdom Hall teaches.

They cannot be mavericks, they cannot be Bereans and read the Scriptures and declare from them what they personally have been convinced are truths from the Scriptures, they have to be in lockstep with the Kingdom Hall, so they are a closer parallel to Rome actually than to what we are.

Oh absolutely, and I mean their own literature says that those who study the Bible for themselves go back to, this is Jehovah's Witness literature, I'm not quoting it directly, but I've actually preached, we have a, twice a year in Jacksonville there's a giant Jehovah's Witness convention downtown and we have some open-air preachers in our church and we go down and preach, and some of the literature that they have actually says, you know, that by studying the Bible without the faithful witness, which is the Watchtower, by studying the Bible without that, people go back into the heresies of the Trinity and things like that, and it's so funny to hear them say that, because basically what they're saying is, if you study the Bible, you'll believe what Christians believe.

To believe what we believe, you've got to take our extra literature, you've got to take the Watchtower and Awake and all these things, and you've got to have the faithful witness who's doing this, who's leading you.

Because if you only have the Bible, you go into those ancient heresies of truth.

We have to go to our first station break right now.

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Well, we are now back with Pastor Keith Foskey.

He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and we are talking about the theme, The Core Necessity for the Protestant Reformation, and we're also announcing a Jacksonville Reformation celebration that's taking place this Sunday, and we hope that you attend that event featuring David Burke and Mike Gaidosh.

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Pastor Keith, we have a listener from Slovenia.

His name is Joe, and he says, Dear Brother Chris, many people say that the core of the Reformation is the doctrine of salvation, but it seems to me that the doctrine of Scripture is even more basic.

It seems to me that the most basic core of the Reformation is the concept of going back to the original sources.

Isn't it going back to Scripture alone as our soul ultimate, as our soul, he meant to say it, to spell it S-O-L-E, he spelled it S-O-U-L, as our soul ultimate authority for all members of faith and practice that produces all the Reformation doctrines, including Sola Fide? Isn't this the only way to guard against the tyranny of tradition, the chaos of private interpretations, and the absurdity of religious experiences as our guides? Yet these practices are widely prevalent in evangelicalism, and much more so in the Roman Catholic Church.

What is the key to recapturing the core of ongoing Reformation in evangelicalism? Thank you, brothers, for your faithful service to our Lord and His Church.

Excellent question, Pastor Keith, I'm sure you agree, and it is true that Sola Scriptura is really the primary umbrella under which the rest of the Solas logically fall.

The only reason I think that those other watchwords are needed is because there are people who twist the Scriptures, and so therefore the other Solas are more specific about some of these scriptural teachings, but Sola Scriptura is the umbrella, really, or the first domino, if you will, that should, if the Scripture alone is really your sole inerrant infallible guide to all matters of faith and practice, the other dominoes falling should be in line with the Solas of the Reformation.

But isn't our listener correct there? Yeah, I would agree.

I think when we're talking about, it's like Mike's going to be preaching on Sunday, you know, the formal principle of the Reformation is the doctrine of Scripture.

What is Scripture? Is it the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the believer, or does it share its authority with something else, whether it be a Church tradition or a magisterial authority, some type of, you know, Pope or something like that, and that's the key to knowing what is the truth.

Everything, you know, in Protestantism, we have copious amounts of confessions.

We have, in fact, right now I'm teaching through in our Church on Sunday mornings, I'm teaching through the 1646 London Baptist Confession, which is actually the first London Baptist Confession.

It was written in 1644, edited in 1646, and so we say this confession is important because it outlines the truth of the faith, but everything in it is subject to the Scripture.

Everything we do as a Church is subject to the Scripture.

So it is a truth to say that the Scripture is, and the doctrine of Scripture is the foundation of the Reformation.

Where I think, though, he had an interesting part of the question, was when he said, you know, in his mind people focus on the salvation issue as the primary issue, and then the Scripture secondary.

You know, I guess you could argue that from the perspective of Luther and his contribution, Luther, of course, believed in Scripture and translated the Bible into German, but the thing that drove Luther was his concern about his own faith, his salvation.

So I think it could be argued, sort of like if you talk about the human body, you know, you can't live without your brain, you can't live without your heart.

They're both valuable, and they're both, you know, if you lost one or the other, you would die.

So I think that the driving force for men like Luther was knowing how a sinful man could be right with a holy God.

Yes.

Where they found the answer was in the Scripture.

Right, when he started translating the Scriptures from Latin into German.

Yes, yeah, and there in Romans 1, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Where in this do we find relics? Where in this do we find masses? Where in this do we find pilgrimages? Nowhere.

It's from faith to faith.

The just shall live by faith, and so that was the key.

The Scripture was the answer, but the question was how is a sinful man made right with a holy God.

Right.

I think separating the two, I definitely agree with the listener that the formal principle of the doctrine of the Scripture is foundational, and it answered the question, but I think the question was, you know, a question of salvation.

Yes, and that's why when I brought up the issue at the very beginning, I said that the two key solas are Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, and the way that we can eliminate false offers of hope, false Gospels, false systems of religion that teach some other way to inheriting eternal life, the way that we eliminate those is by going to the Scripture alone as our sole infallible authority, and therefore you have the the false traditions of Rome shedding, or should I say being shed from our faith and practice and piety when we were driven into the Scriptures alone, and it's kind of interesting that even the Church of Rome, even though they hold their tradition on an equal par, and in reality they hold it in a superior level, although they wouldn't say that, even though they hold the Scriptures or their tradition on an equal par with the Scriptures, they still only believe that the Scriptures are God-breathed.

You know, it's very ironic, isn't it, that they will not say that a Pope's ex cathedra statements or declarations, even though they'll say they're infallible, they won't say that they're God-breathed.

They won't say that their tradition is God-breathed, and yet they still let those other things trump the Holy Scriptures.

And one thing that is interesting, though, going back to what you were saying about the weight of salvation and the weight of justification by faith alone, in some sense, Sola Fide is more important than the Sola Scriptura even, because we, who are Bible-believing Christians, do believe that there are some within the ranks of the Church of Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy who are genuinely born again, because even if they are incorrect about Sola Scriptura, some of them have found the true gospel and embraced it, whether not knowing that that is not the gospel of their own church, or by consciously rebelling against their own church while remaining within it for some reason.

But that is actually an undeniable fact that we could go to, is that the salvation is really the most primary issue, isn't it? Yes, and Roman Catholicism, you say, you mentioned that there are those that are saved in Roman Catholicism.

Not only would I agree with you there, I would say that there are those outside of the Church of Rome, maybe in Protestant churches or Baptist churches or whatever, that don't really understand Sola Scriptura, but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and have repented of their sins and trusted in Him, and are saved.

They don't understand the principles of Sola Scriptura, they don't understand the weight and authority of Scripture as much as they should, or maybe as we hope that they would, but it's sort of like, I heard Dr.

R.C.

Sproul recently say, you know, believing in justification by faith alone is not what justifies you, it's faith alone that justifies you, you know, and the same could be true of Sola Scriptura.

If a person doesn't believe in Sola Scriptura, that doesn't mean that they're damned, that means that they're wrong, they're confused, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't believe in Christ.

And so we have to be careful how we define what it means to believe in Jesus Christ, and certainly, I hope what I said just didn't start, didn't create a problem.

No, no, not at all.

In fact I was going to say that I even know personally a former Mormon who is now in glory with Christ, William Norman Grigg, who was a friend of mine and a frequent guest on my old program broadcasting out of New York.

He was senior editor for the New American Magazine for a number of years, he was an outspoken Christian libertarian, a very strongly pro-life libertarian, and he was saved, according to his testimony, by believing in the true Christ and true gospel of the Scripture, while a Mormon, and he did not have the, he admitted himself that he did not have the courage to leave the Mormon Church immediately after that discovery, because he still had an entire family trapped in Mormonism, and the day that his wife had come to faith in Christ, true faith in the true Christ, he formally resigned his membership from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And he admits that he should have done that much earlier, but it just goes to prove though that you can have somebody in a cult even, who in their mind and heart know the true gospel and believe it, but they, out of fear, which is obviously a sin, out of a fear or some other delusional notion of bringing Reformation to that group or whatever the thought is, that there are people who remain, for a time anyway, in false churches even while believing the truth.

Yes, and think about within Roman Catholicism, how many people are born into Roman Catholic families, and they're born into a tradition that is generations old, and so to them to deny that, you know, it is what Jesus said, you know, you'll be hated by your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, you're going to have enemies in your own house.

I mean, for a Roman Catholic to deny their heritage, it's very frightening.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, in fact, I met years ago, back in the 1980s, early 1990s, a lovely Jewish woman who was a member of the Messianic congregation whose pastor was and is still a good friend of mine.

In fact, he lives in Jacksonville.

I hope he goes to your conference.

But my friend Richie Saxon was, at the time, the minister at the Beth Yeshua House of Jesus in West Savell, Long Island, and I met a Jewish woman who was a member there, and she started to investigate, as a little girl, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of eight, nine, or ten years old, she started to investigate who Jesus was, because many of her friends were at least professedly Christian, and Protestant, and Catholic, and she just knew about Jesus from their celebrations of Christmas, and Easter, and things like that.

And she began, after discovering who Jesus was, began a private prayer relationship with Christ, and she had to keep it private, because on the on the occasions that she mentioned anything to her mother about Jesus, she would get a hard smack across the mouth and be punished in this Jewish household.

And you have this girl, who I don't know with certainty if she was regenerate, but she traces her rebirth back to those days as a child, because it never left her, that faith in Christ, this private prayer life she had to Christ.

And here you have this Christian girl in a Jewish household, going to synagogue with her Jewish family week after week, and celebrating the Jewish Holy Days and all that.

So it is interesting how you can have God's elect in all these different places, who believe the truth, and yet they are still for some reason locked into a false religion.

But we have to go to our midway break right now, it's a longer break than normal, so I hope everybody's patient.

We have to adhere to the regulations of Grace Life Radio, 90.1 FM in Lake City, Florida.

We have to have a 12-minute break between our hours.

So I hope that you're all patient, and we will be right back, God willing, right after these messages from our sponsors, with more of Keith Foskey and the core necessity of the Protestant Reformation.

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I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests, Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to.

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It is going to be a bang-up conference called the G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D.A.

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Before I return to Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church, we are going to make some announcements about some upcoming events that we want you to be aware of.

The very first one is one hosted by my guest, Pastor Keith Foskey.

That's the celebration of 500 years of Reformation history this Sunday.

And that's November 5th.

And it features David Burke and Mike Gadosh, my very first pastor, after being born from above by the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

That will be held, as I said, this Sunday at the Sovereign Grace Family Church, which is located on North Main Street in Jacksonville, Florida.

And if you would like to attend the 9.30 a.m.

or 10.30 a.m.

service and the fellowship meal and family activities following, why not give them a call at 904-757-1800? 904-757-1800.

Or go to their website, sgfcjax.org.

S-G for Sovereign Grace, F-C for Family Church.

Jax, J-A-X, dot org.

And coming up later on in November, or later on this month, I should say, from the 17th through the 18th, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

And it's not the Reformed Town Conference on Quaker Theology.

It's the Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

And its theme is going to be, For Still Our Ancient Foe, which is a line from that classic Reformation hymn by Martin Luther, Mighty Fortress, in reference to Satan, our ancient foe.

The keynote speakers are Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

If you would like to register for this conference, go to alliancenet.org, alliancenet.org, click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

My co-host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor, and I intend to be there with an Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitor's booth.

So we hope to see many of you there, especially those who live in Pennsylvania and have no excuse not to come.

Then coming up in January, the aforementioned G3 Conference that you heard Todd Friel plugging.

The event is being held from the 17th through the 20th.

The 17th is going to be exclusively a Spanish-speaking edition of the conference.

From the 18th through the 20th is an English-speaking edition of the conference featuring Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H.B.

Charles, Jr., Tim Chalies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

The theme is Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.

If you'd like to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference.com, g3conference.com, and I do intend to be there as well, manning an Iron Trip and Zion Radio exhibitors booth, so I hope to see many of you there in Atlanta, Georgia.

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This program is in all honesty and truth on the very brink of extinction.

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Now we are back with Pastor Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

We are discussing the core necessity of the Protestant Reformation.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail.com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail.com.

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

We do have a listener in White Plains, New York named RJ, and RJ wants to know, Pastor Keith, what is your opinion on having involvement with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people in regard to ecumenical events and joint worship services and things such as that? Are these people going too far with a professed love for their Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends, a love which is sadly deceiving them and will ultimately send them to hell if they do not repent of their false religion and false gospel? Yeah, I would say that an ecumenical worship service that would cross the line of sola fide would be beyond something I would be willing to do.

You know, I can share my pulpit with a Presbyterian, like David Burke, who's going to be with us this Sunday.

He and I differ on a few small things, but he and I both hold to the solas, we both hold to the doctrines of grace, and we believe that justification is by faith alone.

And I know that when he preaches and we worship, we're going to be worshiping together, and those things will be foundational to what we're doing.

So within Protestantism, the lines can be not as hard and fast, but when you say, can we worship alongside a Roman Catholic, I don't think so.

I think that we can have strong debate, I think we can have strong dialogue, and I do think that there are certain ministry opportunities that may come up where I've seen people that go and stand outside of abortion clinics and try to save babies and save women from going through with abortions.

And oftentimes Roman Catholics are out there, and I've seen at times where there's sort of a linking of arms in that regard.

But even then, I have made it my point that I should be preaching the gospel to the Roman Catholics as much as I'm preaching the gospel to the women who are walking into the abortion clinics, because both are just as lost.

Right.

In fact, Dr.

White, our mutual friend, Dr.

James R.

White, years ago he had to part company with a pro-life outreach that he was involved in because they forbid him from evangelizing the Roman Catholics that were collaborating on this effort.

That happened to us.

We had a group that came in that needed— it was a group of young people.

I don't want to mention their name, but this group goes around to college campuses, and they needed a place to house their young people while they were here in town.

And so we allowed them to use our fellowship hall.

And while they were here, we found out that some of what they were teaching was not biblical.

We found out that what they were talking about was basically telling people, you can't use the Bible when you're trying to talk about abortion.

You have to use science and man's wisdom and logic and philosophy, but you can't use scripture because people don't believe in the Bible.

And when we found out they were teaching that here, because they were using our facility, we had to part company.

And we caused some frustration with some people with that.

But we said, no, we're not here just to support anti-abortion cause.

We're here to support the gospel.

And it just so happens that abortion is opposed to the gospel.

But we're not going to deny the gospel so as to be involved with any group that's opposed to abortion, because newsflash, Muslims are opposed to abortion too.

I mean, we've got to be honest and say what's the primary thing, and that's the gospel.

And that's why I don't think we could worship the Roman Catholics without preaching to them.

If a Roman Catholic wants me to come and preach in their pulpit and they'll let me say what I want to say, then I'll go.

But I don't think that's going to happen.

And that reminded me years ago, Narcotics Anonymous were renting the building that the church where I was a member owned.

In fact, I don't even think they were renting it.

I think that we let them use it for free.

And my pastor, or one of my pastors, asked me to visit the meeting to see what was going on.

And he knew that I had an addiction background or an enslavement to drunkenness.

And he knew that I was set free from that.

And he asked me to pay a visit to these folks.

And there were all kinds of bizarre testimonies by these drug addicts or struggling or recovering addicts, however you want to call them or describe them.

All kinds of bizarre stories of how they were able to fight urges to return to their drug abuse.

And they included even religious things.

Like I can still remember vividly a Hispanic gentleman saying that whenever he had the urge to shoot up dope, he started to pray the Hail Mary repetitively over and over and over and over again until the urge subsided.

And so I got up and I gave my testimony and I told the people there that if you want to find true freedom and liberation not only from drugs but from death and damnation, I invite you to receive Christ as your only hope for salvation.

And I invited them to come to worship services at that church where I was a member, where the meetings were being held, the Narcotics Anonymous meetings were being held.

And I handed out booklets by Jay Adams on addiction.

And I had this very large armful of these booklets and I was mobbed by these struggling addicts who were willingly and eagerly taking the booklets.

And then the guy running the meeting pulled me aside and said, afterwards when the meeting was over, he pulled me outside in the parking lot and he said, you can't do that.

And I said, I can't do what? He said, you can't endorse your religion at our meeting.

I said, are you kidding me? I said, people are endorsing all kinds of religious experiences and practices and beliefs as their way to find freedom from addiction.

And because of me being specific about the true Jesus Christ and true gospel of the Bible, I can't say that? And he goes, no, you can't.

So my church had to request that they depart from our building and not use it anymore.

We barred them from continuing their meetings with us because obviously that's a horrible message that you are sending to people that you can find peace and freedom without Jesus Christ.

And in fact, if you start telling people that that's the only place you can find true peace and freedom, you're going to be told to shut up.

It's amazing to me what happens.

People expect the church to be like a social club that, well, it doesn't really matter what happens.

No, we're here for a reason, and we have a central gospel that's foundational, and we're not just here to host the local ice cream socials or whatever.

We have a purpose.

And yeah, that's crazy.

Makes sense.

Well, we have a questioner that is asking something along those lines.

We have B.B.

in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and B.B.

is asking about something that you actually mentioned to me before the program even started.

B.B.

is saying, what is your assessment of Sean Hannity's participation at Pastor Jeffress Church in Texas? I understand Pastor Jeffress.

I don't know how to pronounce that correctly.

Jeffress or Jeffress.

He is a Baptist, and Sean Hannity is a Roman Catholic.

Was this a proper meeting that Pastor Jeffress orchestrated? Well, like I mentioned to you last night, and unfortunately I did not get a chance to investigate it any further, but I don't know the extent of what Hannity did in the church.

My initial thought was that he had spoken from the pulpit.

But you and I, we discussed that, and I'm not sure that that's correct, and I don't want to say that because, again, I could be wrong.

If he spoke from the pulpit, I would disagree with that because that's the place for God's Word to be proclaimed.

That's certainly not a place where you would let an unbeliever get up and simply speak, no matter what the subject.

So that would be, but you had mentioned to me that it might have just been a meeting of some sort.

Yeah, I haven't done any thorough investigation either, and I intend to, but the only thing that I heard was that it caused an uproar, but I heard some describe it as an interview in the church.

It was an interview that took place on the platform or stage, whatever you want to call it.

Some people call it the altar, but I don't.

It's not an altar.

There are no sacrifices.

Right, I know.

But as you know, some of our brethren misapply that term.

But it took place in the quote-unquote sanctuary of the building.

But even if that was what occurred, would you think that that is a safe and proper kind of meeting for Bible-believing Christians and a Bible-believing church should have? Someone who clearly does not believe the gospel, someone who is not born again, should we allow them to have some kind of a prominent presence in the walls of our church building just because we agree with them on some political and moral issues? Well, let me give you, let me just, I want to say something here that I think is important to mention, because you and I would agree that there are times where we might have someone who disagrees or is an unbeliever, and we might bring them in for a debate or a discussion, like Dr.

White was recently excoriated for having his discussion with Yasir Qadhi.

And I think that what has happened with Dr.

White has been very unfair.

You and I haven't spoken...

Yeah, it's actually been sinful to the extent of the attacks upon him have been, I think, at times wicked.

Yeah, because if you listen to what Dr.

White said, he was very clear, we have differences, and even though I appreciate Yasir Qadhi's scholarship, he is a Muslim, and I'm a Christian, and we disagree.

I think where Jeffers, the situation, and again, I didn't see it, but I think where the difference is, is when Jeffers brings Sean Hannity in, he's bringing him in as a voice of moral authority.

He's bringing him in as a voice of political power, and he's bringing him in as somebody who's being accepted as one of us.

And Sean Hannity is, as Roman Catholics, as they come, he is not.

He's not an evangelical.

He's certainly not a Baptist.

He is not one of us.

And to tell you the truth, even the way he describes himself on his own show, he's really a nominal Catholic.

He even says that he doesn't really go to church that often.

So you're talking about a man who's got his own political agenda and beliefs that he adheres to, and some elements of that, perhaps even many, are things that I agree with him on.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ is where eternity is hinged, not on many of these issues that Fox News champions.

And by the way, Fox News doesn't really champion the pro-life issue, nor do they champion the biblical definition of marriage or the biblical design of men and women sexually.

They don't really champion those things that are the unifying factor between Bible-believing Protestants and Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Mormons and many Orthodox Jews and even Muslims when it comes to morality.

No, absolutely.

Obviously, Fox News is right-wing as far as the perspective of, you know, they would be what we would call conservative, but they're certainly not Christian.

They're not putting forward a Christian viewpoint.

And in fact, some conservatives would argue that they are too far to the left.

They really have become a soapbox for Donald Trump, even though they have people on there that disagree with him.

Primarily, those that are in disagreement with Mr.

Trump are openly liberal people.

They're not the conservatives that are anchors on that network.

Sure, absolutely, absolutely.

And it's so frightening to think about just how much influence is given to the media.

And I know that's sort of taking us in a different direction, but just thinking about the fact that a church is bringing in a media personality, for what reason? Well, we're gaining political points, and we're bringing in this person who's talking about politics, and it's scary what's happening.

Yeah, I am intending to write a letter.

I think I'm going to write one to Tucker Carlson because he's the one that I enjoy most by far on Fox News.

I greatly admire him and his abilities.

I would like to write a letter to him asking him to see what he could do to have an abortion televised on Fox News because I'm baffled as to why people who have such an opportunity and ability to reach the hearts and minds of millions, if they claim to be pro-life in any way, why wouldn't they show something like that, that really can give the truth of the matter, rather than just a battle of words.

We can see with our own eyes what is going on, just like the Holocaust deniers had to be forced to witness the newsreels and the films of the aftermath of the Holocaust and the concentration camps, the mountains of skeletal remains and so on, and even the living who were walking skeletons that survived that satanic regime, the Nazi regime.

There are still people today that deny the Holocaust, but many were convinced through those films.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've never thought of doing that on air.

There's places that you can see online the horrors of abortion, but most people are not willing to open their eyes to see that.

I think they should be aired before every major political race when you have a debate, especially between opposing candidates.

If this is supposed to be a freedom for women, then let's see what you're talking about with our own eyes.

But we've kind of gone far afield of what our topic is.

We're too good of friends, that's the problem.

We have to go to our final break right now, and if you'd like to join us, time is running away from us, so if you would like to join us, please send in an email before the program is over.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail.com.

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA, and only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

Don't go away.

God willing, we will be right back with Keith Foskey right after these messages from our sponsors.

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We are now back with the final 25 minutes or so with Pastor Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

We are discussing the core necessity of the Protestant Reformation and our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail.com ChrisArnzen at gmail.com And we have C.J.

in Linenhurst, Long Island, Pastor Keith, who wants to know, how do you respond to the constant drumbeat I am hearing is that the Reformation is no longer needed in the 21st century? Well, I think that my first response is that the reason why people are saying that the Reformation is no longer needed is that the vast majority of people who go to church don't understand what the issues were to begin with.

It's not what is being proclaimed.

It's not what's being taught.

It's not the focus.

And so because they don't understand what the issues are, it's easy to say that it's no longer relevant.

But if we know what the issues are and we know what caused the need for the Reformation to begin with, then it's easy to see why it still remains relevant to this day because the issues have not ceased.

Indulgences are still being given by Rome.

People think that that was something that happened at a very short time period in the 1500s and it ruffled Luther's feathers to the point that he had to write 95 theses, most of which dealt with indulgences, and they think that that was a very specific time point in history.

No, indulgences are still happening today.

The Mass and everything that's taught about transubstantiation is still happening today.

The false views about Mary have only worsened since the Reformation.

The false understanding of the place of Scripture and the authority of the papacy, all of these things have only worsened since the Reformation with the Council of Trent and Vatican II.

You have these documents that have affirmed the opposite of the Reformation, and these things are still held to by those in authority in the Roman Catholic Church.

So this is not something that has gone by the wayside.

This is not something that's no longer needed and is no longer an issue.

In fact, if anything, it's more of an issue now than ever because it's so ignored.

If people are trying to find unity where there can be none, there can be no unity in falsehood.

Yeah.

Every time that your Catholic friends and family members send you a Mass card, if someone in your family or someone close to you has died, that Mass card is one of the many proofs of modern-day indulgences taking place in the 21st century.

Those Mass cards, the money from those Mass cards, are purchasing prayers on your behalf, being performed by either nuns or priests or monks, depending upon who is selling the cards, who are praying for your loved one's release from purgatory.

So this is something that still goes on today.

And that's not even a secretive thing.

If you open up the Mass card, you'll read that.

They're pretty open about it.

Yeah, I was recently at a fair.

We have a booth every year in October.

There's a big agricultural fair that comes to our area, and we rent a booth, and every day we're there handing out gospel tracts and trying to have gospel conversations out of that booth.

And one of the young men who came up, you know, I'm trying to share the gospel, and I asked the question, you know, if you died today, you know, where would you be? And he said, I'd be in purgatory.

I mean, that was just a very simple answer.

He believes he'd be in purgatory.

So these beliefs are not gone.

They're still there.

Yeah, and Pope Francis has declared, you know, indulgences for things that are, you know, those outside of Roman Catholicism find humorous, pilgrimages that people can make to lessen their time in purgatory or lessen the time that their loved ones spend in purgatory.

Following him on Twitter, I believe, earned something.

I don't remember what it was, but I thought that was a little funny.

Yeah.

But this need for the Reformation is not just because we need to continue reminding our Roman Catholic friends that they have a false gospel because of the fact that they also dogmatically, whether the individual Catholic views it that way or not, the Church of Rome dogmatically views the Reformers and their heirs, meaning us, view us as having a false gospel.

So if there's only one gospel, we can't both be right, right? But it's not only for a reminder to our Roman Catholic friends and a reminder to us to evangelize them.

It is also something that is needed quite urgently amongst the ranks of modern-day evangelicals, not even mainline Protestants alone, but Bible-believing or professedly Bible-believing evangelicals.

There are a lot of nonsensical and heretical things going on under the banner of evangelicalism today that would violate at least some of the solas of the Reformation, if not all of them.

And one of them that violates sola scriptura, and I have to be very careful because I don't want to brush, but there are certain things going on under the banner of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement that would defy sola scriptura, things that are involving a focus on new revelation and new extra-biblical experiences that have no root in the Bible itself or that have gone far beyond what the Scriptures teach.

Can you speak on that and why that? Many people might not even be conscious of the fact that that is also a violation of sola scriptura.

Yeah, absolutely.

And one of the Latin phrases that Reformed churches tend to throw out that's very important is the term semper reformanda, meaning always reforming.

And so, you know, not just as you said, it's not just pointing at Roman Catholics, but it's also pointing inwardly.

It's pointing at the greater evangelical church and saying there are needs for reform here as well.

And I do think that within much of Pentecostalism there has been a wide divergence away from the doctrine of sola scriptura.

And what I find to be most concerning is that so many churches have a statement of faith that affirms in some form sola scriptura.

They affirm in some form that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the believer.

But then, as you said, they allow in so many other things, these words of knowledge and prophetic utterances and the interpretation of tongues and things like that that allow for God to say things that he's not saying.

And I'll give you an example that really just is very difficult to even talk about.

But there was a time in the past where we had a child that was sick.

We didn't, but there was a child in the church that was sick, and we were having a fundraiser to try to help the family raise money.

And a man came up to me.

I prayed for the child during the event, and I prayed that the child would be healed.

And the man came up to me later, and he said, You should never do that.

You should never pray that she'd be healed.

You should only pray and thank God that she's already healed.

God told me that she's already healed.

And that young girl is with the Lord today and wasn't maybe a year after that event happened.

And I remember that man every day coming to me and telling me that God told him that that child was healed.

And he told the parents that.

He told everybody that.

And I think about the prophet's burden from the Old Testament, that if a prophet pronounces that which is not true, do not fear him, and he's under the condemnation of God.

And I worry for these folks.

I worry for their presumption.

I worry for their seeking to, as it were, add to God's Word and to speak presumptively for him.

And it breaks my heart.

Yeah, although the consequences were not, or the subsequent occurrences were not nearly as dramatic as what you just said.

About 20 years ago, when I was in my early 30s, I developed pneumonia.

And I remember one of my advertising clients on a major Christian radio station where I worked owned a financial planner organization, financial planning organization, and financial consultants.

And the husband and wife were members of a Word of Faith Pentecostal organization or ministry.

And when I was speaking to the wife on the phone, she said, You sound like you're sick.

What's wrong? And I said, Well, I've just been diagnosed with pneumonia.

And she said, Well, I'm going to pray for you right now.

And she prayed a prayer of healing, where she was demanding evil spirits to leave me, and she was declaring with absolute 100% certainty that I had been healed.

She said to me, after her prayer was over, she said, So what are you going to do now? I said, Well, I have a doctor's appointment.

She said, Why are you going to a doctor? I said, Because I have pneumonia.

She says, No, you don't.

I said, Yes, I have pneumonia.

No, you don't.

I said, Yes, I have pneumonia.

I can still feel it in my lungs.

I can still feel like I'm ready to collapse right now.

There's nothing that has left my body.

I'm going to a doctor.

So I think you got to rethink your theology there, giving people 100% assurance that they're healed of something that could be actually deadly, like pneumonia, but that still sticks into my head, the absurdity of this woman declaring with me, in fact, even mocking me for thinking that I was not healed when it was clear that I wasn't.

Yes, absolutely.

So much reform is needed, and that's where I think the biggest When a Roman Catholic talks about Protestants, he's talking about everybody from Benny Hinn to Joel Osteen to John MacArthur, and that's what's not fair, because to put those three men in the same category is not fair.

It's not true, but that's what happens, is they're put into the category of, Well, these are all Protestant sola scriptura believers.

No, they're not.

Benny Hinn has left sola scriptura way behind.

Joel Osteen, he's an animal all his own, but, I mean, to say that these men are adhering to sola scriptura is nonsense.

Well, I do want to make sure, before we take any more listener questions, that you, in summary, can, uninterrupted for five minutes at least, encapsulate what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before the program is over.

Well, let me just end then with talking about the Gospel, and I mentioned earlier in the broadcast Martin Luther, and he, reading Romans chapter 1, that justification is by faith alone.

He said, you know, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Luther was overwhelmed with his own sense of condemnation.

He knew himself to be a sinner.

He knew that no matter what he could do, no matter what he did, he could never account for even one of his sins.

He could never pay for even one of his sins, and he knew he stood condemned before God.

And if you're listening today and you're out there and you don't know Jesus Christ, you are there.

You may not understand it as well as Luther did, but you're just as condemned.

The Bible says that outside of Jesus Christ we do not have salvation, but all we have is the surety of condemnation.

So if you are there today and you're listening to what we're saying, and I know you've heard us talk about divisions between Catholics and Protestants and you've heard us talk about different things, but the key to all of this, the core principle, the thing that matters most is that you, when you stand before God, you will stand before God in one of two ways.

You will stand before God either as a sinner and you will be condemned for those sins and you will spend an eternity paying for those sins, or you will stand robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

He who, when he died on the cross, paid the penalty for every person who would ever believe in him.

He took the wrath of God in himself, and he, being righteous, provides that robe of righteousness for everyone who believes.

And that's why when we stand before God as believers, we stand not just forgiven, even though we are, and we are completely forgiven, but we stand also having been declared righteousness, having the righteousness of Christ imputed or credited to our account.

And again, if you're there today and you're listening today and you're outside of Jesus Christ, I would urge you, as the Apostle Paul says, God has commanded all men everywhere to repent, and that salvation is repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.

I would encourage you today to repent of your sins.

That means to turn from them, to look at them as God does, and hate them, and turn to Christ for salvation.

And if you're not in a church, find a church that's preaching the gospel.

Get yourself a Bible and begin reading it.

And know this, that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And that is the message of the gospel, and I pray that you would hear it and know it, and know that we care for you and want to see you come to know the Christ that we know and has saved us.

Amen.

And we do have time for one or two more listener questions.

We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

And Christopher wants to know, I know this is a bit off topic, but have you run into hyper-preterists, and do you think that their heresy is dangerous enough to consider them a cult bearing a false gospel? Wow, okay.

Well, the hyper-preterists who would believe that there is no future hoped-for return of Jesus Christ for us now, because he once and for all time came into, or should I say returned in judgment to destroy the temple in Israel in AD 70, and there will be no visible physical return, according to them.

There will be no bodily resurrection of the dead, either the sinners or the saints.

And the hyper-preterists would believe that, and of course there are different kinds of hyper-preterists, but in the majority they would be unified in believing that everything in the scripture has already been fulfilled.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say this.

I would say that the historic view of the Christian church is that we look forward to the coming of Christ, that he will return, and that there will be a day when he returns where there will be judgment and there will be a separating of the sheep from the goats.

And in all of the confessions, going back to the ancient creed, there is that looking forward to the coming of Christ, and anything that would deny that, I would say is something that is definitely unorthodox.

It's definitely something that I would be careful of.

And, I mean, I tend to be hesitant to discuss eschatological perspectives.

Even within our own church, good men differ over millennial positions and things like that.

But if someone were to tell me they didn't believe that Jesus Christ was coming again, I would say that's too far afield.

That's way away from orthodoxy.

The church has always looked forward to that blessed hope of the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I think a denial of that is going too far.

Yeah, I agree with you 100%.

And we do have another Christopher from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

And this Christopher says, A simple answer, I would say no.

A person doesn't have to understand those things.

I mean, I know many, many believers who have never thought to ask the question as to what comes first, regeneration or faith.

I'll be honest with you.

You know, I was saved at 19 and went to seminary at a school that we would call a non-reformed or Arminian seminary, and the issue never came up.

There was never even a question about regeneration and faith and which one preceded the other.

But I do find this interesting.

If you look at the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which I was recently reading, it indicates that faith is the result of having been born again, which means in the sense of logic, regeneration precedes faith, even in that document.

That's a Southern Baptist document, right? Yeah, if you look up the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, it's the one that's currently being used by Southern Baptist churches.

Even it indicates that faith and repentance are the product or the result of regeneration.

So I think while many people understand that, or rather it's in their documents and things, they don't understand it because they've never been faced with that question.

I'm actually shocked that it's in the Southern Baptist official...

I wish I had it in front of me, but I do.

I encourage your listeners to go and find it and read the relevant portion on regeneration, and this is one of those things where I can tell men like Al Mohler had a hand in it.

So this is not a 19th century edition.

This is why I think that men like Mohler and others who are solidly Reformed but yet still Southern Baptist can maintain agreement with that particular confession because they all do.

I mean, you know, your Southern Baptist churches, even the ones who are Reformed, they hold to the Baptist Faith and Message in general.

Some of them would go back to the 1689 or others, but in general they agree with it, maybe with some caveats at certain points, but that particular point on regeneration, I think, is a score for the Reformed side.

If you read it, it definitely reads like a Reformed document.

And don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, that this Sunday at 9.30 a.m.

and at 10.30 a.m.

at the Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, they are having a 500th anniversary celebration of the Protestant Reformation featuring David Burke and Mike Gaydosh.

If you want more details, call 904-757-1800, 904-757-1800, or go to sgfcjax.org.

That's S-G for Sovereign Grace, F-C for Family Church, jax.org.

Thank you so much, Pastor Keith, and we look forward to you returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the very near future.

Well, thank you for having me, Chris.

I enjoyed it and I appreciate it.

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