June 15, 2020 Show with Marc Grimaldi on “The Christ, the Whole Christ, and Nothing But the Christ” (Part 2)

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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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.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 15th day of June, 2020, and I'm delighted to have back on as a returning guest, one of my former pastors, my most recent former pastor, before moving to Pennsylvania.

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His name is Mark Rimaldi, and he's one of two pastors at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, and we are going to be addressing part two of a discussion we began a number of weeks ago on a new book that is coming out, titled

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The Christ, The Whole Christ, and Nothing But the Christ, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Mark Rimaldi.

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Yes, Chris, it is always a pleasure. I appreciate you having me on again. Oh, it's great to have you on, and why don't you tell our listeners about Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick?

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Yes, Grace Reformed Baptist Church, we are, as you see in the title, a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith, is our confession of faith, and we would uphold, especially as the core to our faith would be the five points of Calvinism, but especially the five solas of the

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Reformation as well, that would be the heartbeat of our church, and we hope that if you're in town or you're near our area that you would come to visit us.

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Great, and if anybody wants to look up more information about this wonderful church, where I was a member for, let's see, somewhere starting in the 1980s when it was

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Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, and all the way through 2014, they had merged in 1995 with First Baptists of Merrick and became

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Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, so if you include the Amityville years, it's definitely a couple of decades there, but if anybody wants to find out more information, the website is gracereformedbaptistchurch .org,

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gracereformedbaptistchurch .org. Now if you could, since we are going to try to cover some territory that we didn't cover the first time, give an overview, a summary of what we've already addressed from your book.

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Yeah, we had talked last time probably about the general sense of what the book is about, as you know, the title is

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The Christ, the whole Christ, and nothing but the Christ, and the sub -part of that is why the Christian gospel must be exclusive, and so what

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I try to do with this book is deal with the issue of why Christianity must be exclusive, that it's not an issue of hatred, it's not an issue of disrespect for others or being proud or arrogant, but it really comes down to the necessity that we have as fallen mankind, the necessity that we have to have an atonement, and Christ is that atonement, to pay for our sins, and that why

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Jesus Christ is the only way we can be reconciled to God, because of who God is, and so that's addressed in the book, because of who we are, and because of the need that we have to ensure that we're reconciled to God, so I really get down to why

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Christianity is exclusive, and I deal with those three topics, the Christ, why he is necessary, the whole

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Christ, why Christ as the God -man, Him being fully God and fully man, why it's necessary to believe that and to understand that, for Him to be a viable

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Savior for us, and then the next part is, and nothing but the Christ, just showing that we cannot add anything to that, certainly not take away, but it can't be

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Christ and anything else, and why it's important to believe that Christ alone, in His fullness, is necessary to save us.

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So I think we summarized some of those things, we probably went off into some of those areas a little bit deeper and so on, but we didn't get to the whole thing, but I think that's a little bit of a summary of where we went.

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Great, and I just figured out on my calculator here that I was a member of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, including the

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Calvary Baptist years, for 29 years. Wow. Wow.

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Man, that was some of the worst times in our church history. Just kidding.

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Just kidding. And this issue of the exclusivity of Christ, there are some who think that they are still remaining faithful to that, merely by saying, it is absolutely necessary that Jesus died on the cross and paid the penalty for our sin in order for us to be saved.

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But these folks, which are more prevalent than one might think, they would include the likes of the late

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Billy Graham and others, they will insist that Jesus Christ was the only one that could and did pay the price for sin.

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But, they will say, you don't have to know that. You could live an entire life on this earth as a

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Muslim, and possibly even an atheist, and if you're living your life according to the light you've been given, you may be in heaven with Christians one day.

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Now this is really a lie from the pit of hell, isn't it? Yeah, that's a lie from the pit of hell. The problem with that,

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Chris, as you know, is that completely contradicts what all of Scripture teaches, not only just in understanding the nature of the

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Atonement and the need for us to be in union with Christ, and the importance of faith, as Scripture keeps emphasizing the importance of faith, but in Romans chapter 10, especially, it even talks about how, or the necessity of people from the

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Church being sent out to proclaim the Gospel, to proclaim the salvation that is in Christ alone, because he says,

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Paul says, and it's the center of the dilemma there, he says, how are they going to hear, or how are people going to hear this message and be saved, and be brought into this, unless someone is sent, unless they actually hear the message.

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So there's an urgency for people to hear the message of Christ, and to believe that message consciously, to believe that message, and to trust in Christ, and to repent as well, and so that's emphasized throughout the

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Scriptures, but Paul makes it an extreme necessity in Romans chapter 10, leaving no room for this idea of, you know, if you may not even know it, that's just a way of trying to appeal to everyone, and to appease everyone, not wanting to sound harsh, not wanting to sound like people are condemned, but it's wrong, and it does a lot more damage, even though he had good intentions, perhaps, it does a lot more damage than good.

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Yes, people rail against Calvinism, because they say that it is unfair, that it is unfair for some to have been chosen before the foundation of the world, where God will certainly, through the activity of the

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Holy Spirit, overcome the rebellion of their hearts, that flees from Christ, and with certainty, these specific individuals will have their hearts of stone replaced with hearts of flesh, and they will be saved, and others will be left in their wicked state, and they will go to hell for eternity, and people think that that is unfair, as if those who were among the reprobate, those that are never elected or regenerated by Jesus Christ, as if those other folks, the reprobate, would have otherwise come to Christ willingly, but this is a farce, isn't it?

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Yeah, that's a farce, yeah, the problem is, Chris, as you know, and we see this in Ephesians, the first three chapters, certainly in Romans 9, it's understanding the condition of mankind, what condition is man in?

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Is he in a situation where he's just injured to some degree, or is he dead in his sin? And the scriptures tell us that we're dead in sin, so in Adam, we're all fallen, and none of us, because of that, there's none of us that seeks after God, as it says in Romans, we all become a filthy thing if we become those who do not seek

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God naturally, it talks about the, we speak lies and so on, and so that's our nature, and so if we understand how desperate of a condition our nature is, as far as the deadness of our souls, being outside of fellowship with God in any sense, then we realize that we're not going to naturally choose

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God. Sometimes I use the illustration of if you go to a restaurant, and there's a particular food item on the menu that you absolutely hate, whatever that item may be, let's just say that it's squid, you know, you hate squid, you'll never eat squid, and you look at that menu, and there's squid on there, you can order the squid, it's on the menu, but the reality is you will not order it because you hate it, you're not going to do that, and so the same thing with us, we may make choices in a sense, but our choices only operate from within the bounds of the desire of our hearts, and we cannot naturally desire

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God, we naturally hate God, and so when we think about the gospel being preached to us, it's like preaching to a gravestone, right, that you can't, the bones aren't going to come up out of the ground, they're dead, unless God resurrects those bones, as he gives an illustration of in Ezekiel, where he resurrects those dry bones, or Lazarus coming from the tomb, there's a picture of that, then we can believe, and then that's when life is given.

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One other quick thing in Romans chapter 11, sometimes we, in chapter 9, we forget the later part of that text, where it talks about, as well, that unless God had left us to succeed, we would have all been like Sodom and Gomorrah, and so the scriptures teach that when you look at Sodom and Gomorrah, when you look at the destruction that came upon the earth on Noah's day, that's the general direction that mankind goes, that's the general way that our hearts move in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the direction of what happened at the

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Tower of Babel, we're always moving away from God, but unless we find grace in God's sight, like Noah did, unless God works in us, and regenerates us, and compels us in that sense, through his spirit, nobody is going to respond to the gospel, it's not going to happen, we have no desire, it's that food on the item that we hate, so we won't do it.

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And this, of course, is because we have inherited the sins of our first parents,

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Adam and Eve, in the garden, and from the moment of our conception, we are totally depraved, which

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I know some Calvinists object to this phraseology, that we're not as bad as we could be, because God restrains our evil.

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Perhaps it might be better explained that we do not behave as wickedly as our natural hearts would lead us to, apart from divine intervention of some kind, apart from some kind of restraint of our evil, and therefore, we solely live our lives to please ourselves, even if on the surface, when we go about our lives and do gracious deeds, it seems, sacrificial things, and so on, we're only doing those because of the restraint of our evil of God, and there is some kind of ulterior motive, whether we even recognize it in our day -to -day activities, because we want others to see how wonderful we are, or we could go on and on with a list of reasons, but we're never going to,

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I mean, the Scriptures are clear that we cannot please God in the flesh. Is that Romans 8 .8?

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It's, there's a couple texts in 1 Corinthians also talks about that, but also, yeah, I think it's in Romans, yeah.

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We cannot, man cannot please God in the flesh, and that would include, would it not, offering to God a faith that pleases

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Him enough to allow us to spend an eternity with Him. Most of Christendom, which would be those outside of the

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Reformed faith, believe we could conjure up somehow this faith before we are born again, and offer it to Christ in order to become born again.

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But this is a fallacy, isn't it? Yeah, that's a fallacy. The idea there is that what people are saying, and who would believe that, and there are good people who believe that, but we would say that it's error, and if you left to its natural course, it would be real, it could be real serious heresy.

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But it's like if you have something that's completely dead, right, or even a dead, let's say you have something that's not plugged into the wall, right, that whatever that is, that electronic device is not going to be able to function in any sense, or to do anything positive until it's plugged in first.

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And so in the same sense with us, we're not going to believe, we're not going to come to Christ if we're dead in sin, unless first the

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Spirit of God regenerates us. So there are people who think regeneration follows faith, but that's not true.

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Regeneration precedes faith, and is the only reason we have faith, and then what follows is conversion. So I think that people tend to mix up the idea of conversion, which is the life change that takes place as an evidence of that faith, and starts to move in a new direction.

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That's conversion, you see that change. With regeneration, which is something that's happening inside of us, it's not our action at all, it's not our cooperation in any sense, it's what the

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Spirit of God does so that He gives life, He puts life in us, so that when we hear that gospel, you have two guys in the same pew, hearing the same message, you have

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Joe and Bill. Joe has done the most heinous things from a moral standpoint imaginable.

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Bill has been a morally decent guy his whole life, but he hasn't known the Lord, and Joe is this dog of every sort, with every kind of crime imaginable, and yet Joe hears the message, the same message

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Bill does, and Joe believes, and Bill doesn't. And so the difference between Joe and Bill is not that Joe somehow had some kind of a moral direction in him, some kind of ability to regenerate himself, it's that by God's grace,

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God had reached into the heart of Joe and brought him life so that he would respond to the gospel, and Bill left unchanged.

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And one of the reasons this is right in keeping with the theme today, the theme of your book and the theme of our interview, is because Reformed theology is really the only system of theology that gives 100 % of the credit to God and God alone for our salvation.

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Even though the vast majority of our Arminian friends, especially if they might be in a state of worship, where they're not exactly writing down or describing in pinpoint accuracy their theology and doctrine, if they are in this point of worship especially, or prayer, they're going to sound like they believe just as we do, that they give all the glory to God for their salvation, and that's why

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I guess J .I. Packer said that all Christians are Calvinists on our knees, but they really can't get around that they are, in some sense, helping

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God to save them. I mean, there's really no way around that, is there?

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No, even when you go to, let's say, the most conservative extreme in that standpoint, where you say, okay, there's pervenient grace, so God does everything, and not all

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Arminians would even come here, but God does everything on His part to give you everything that you could possibly need to bring you to believe.

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Everything is there, and they try to attribute it to the glory of God because of that, but there's still, at the end of the day, there's that little switch of belief that you have to flick on, and so there's that, in their mind it would seem like a little thing, but it really is.

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It would be the difference between the individual believes and everybody else, and at the end of the day, there's a sense in which you can still say, look, you know,

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I believed. You know, I did that, and that is contrary, really, throughout the whole theme of Scripture, for God's desire to glorify

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His name, for God's desire to ensure that no one boasts, that if we boast in anything, it's only in the cross of Christ.

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We're bankrupt of anything to boast of in ourselves, and Scripture is very clear in that.

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And so, unless God is the one who does that work completely, giving, you know, regenerating us, faith is a gift of God, all of us would become like Solomon or if God didn't separate a seed from Himself, and I think that's one of the big things.

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When you're talking to Arminians, who again, a lot of dear brothers in your theology, I think as those who are of a

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Calvinist lean, you know, we want to be careful not just to throw things, you know, throw verses at them like spears, and look what it says here, but I think if you present to people a good understanding of anthropology, of the doctrine of man, understanding the reality of man's nature, just how fallen we are, just the inability of man to do those things, if we focus there, it may help to present the bigger picture of why this is necessary, you know, that there is no...and

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also, I think you said, the glory of God. This is the means of God glorifying Himself. Why should

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God, who's created all things, and we've rebelled against Him, and we're all in sin, we're everything that God hates, which is a lot more serious than we even understand, the reality of our natural fallen sinful hearts in the sight of God's holiness is something we talk about, we preach it out, we get a little bit of a notch up on understanding it at times, but I don't think any of us understand the full magnitude of that, because we don't understand the full magnitude of God's holiness.

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But when we understand something of that, and we realize that as God has created all these things, and we're fallen, the fact that He even reaches in and says,

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I'm going to redeem anyone, to expect Him to do that for any other reason than for His own glory is...it's

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like rebellion in itself. It's to think that anybody else should be able to say that we've done anything, when

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God is saving anyone in the condition that we're in, as contrary as we are to God. We should be able to say it's right.

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It's God's right to do that, and to show His righteousness, even His righteous display of wrath on those who are condemned.

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Now, we don't want to see anybody condemned, because we know we deserve and we love others, we want to see people saved, but God has a right as God to display

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His righteous wrath and His righteous justice in the condemnation of the wicked, and also

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His grace and His love to those who don't deserve any of it, but through the condemnation of Christ, receive life.

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That's what Romans 9 talks about. God has the right to do that. And I think a lot of the problem that those outside of the

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Reformed faith have in recognizing the truths of what we believe is that when you observe things from an earthly sense, the way that they think, their ordo salutis, uh, seems to be the accurate one, because a lot of what we who are

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Calvinists believe, if it were not recorded in the Word, we would likely follow along with what an

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Arminian thinks, uh, because, like for instance, you know, you have the psalmist, uh, in Psalm 51, crying out to God, create in me a clean heart,

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O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Uh, and when, when any time a sinner collapses to his knees, uh, like the tax collector in the temple when the

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Pharisee was praying and bragging about himself, uh, and he said,

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I, I thank you that I'm not a sinner like this tax collector. And, and the tax collector with his head bowed down said,

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Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. One of my most, most beloved texts of all of the

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Bible, because that was the verse that my, my mother on her deathbed used to explain why none of her goodness was getting her into heaven.

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But, um, but when we see these things, it looks like their faith is preceding their salvation, but that's just because we don't see the heart of stone being removed.

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We don't see these things going on behind the scenes invisibly, that God is working out sovereignly in the lives of his people.

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Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no physical feeling necessarily associated with, with regeneration.

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There's nothing where God actually, you know, appears to you in some sense. And so, like you said,

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Chris, it's, it's a work that's done inside of us, inside the soul that, that it's not something we can identify with other than when we see the, see the result of it.

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It's like with, with, uh, John, uh, with John, the, the apostle talks about what Jesus said to Nicodemus, you know, when we, when we, we don't see the wind, but we see the result of it.

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When we see the wind, we see the leaves blowing. And that, that's the picture of those who are born of the spirit being born again.

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It's, it's the, it's, it's this work that the spirit does, and you don't really understand how, how, where it's coming from, how, how the

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Lord works those things. But you, you know, it's happened because you see the leaves blowing, you see the wind, you see the, the, the evidence of the wind and what's taking place in the tree.

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Well, same thing in the believer. You start, there's a belief there, there's a faith there, and now it acts, um, with a desire to now serve the

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Lord, to follow him, to listen to his word. Morality starts to come into play in a sense of you, you want to do things that, you know, that are honoring to God.

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You drop those things that you've been doing that have been sinful, and you're in that process of sanctification. So you're, you're, you went from one realm to another.

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And from our standpoint, yes, we, we made that profession, we prayed, we believed, and it doesn't necessarily mean it was at a specific moment, it could have been a gradual thing, but there's a work that God does that we, we can't identify and say, look,

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I remember the exact moment that God regenerated me. No, we might remember the moment we believed, and it might have been right at the same time, you know, maybe it was similar in that sense, but, but we can't, it's not a feeling or something we can, we can put our finger on in a material sense.

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Right. And the, the thing that, one of the reasons why

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I refuse to discount our

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Arminian brethren as brethren, and of course, there are some Arminians who are lost and not, you know, there are some

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Prophetic Caliphants who are lost. Yeah. But one of the reasons that I defend them against accusations that they are, they are all by necessity of their theology damned, is that very thing that I just said before.

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I think that we need to be patient with them because a lot of what they believe is just so logical to them, because that's what they observe in humanity.

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They're not, they should be going by the whole counsel of God in his written word in order to formulate their, their theology and doctrine, but they are overwhelmed by what they see physically.

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Yeah. Yeah. I think there's, there's, like you said, there are a lot of Arminians, I believe a lot that are, that are saved.

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In fact, in the area of practically living based upon the doctrine they have and the light that they have, there are many who put

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Calvinists to shame, you know, in many ways. I'm not all, but I'm saying there are many who do. They're just really out there, zealous for the

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Lord, they love the Lord. They have a solid understanding of the fact that Jesus died for them.

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You know, they believe that they're sinners, so they believe the basic tenets of the gospel. They just, when they get down to it, they just don't come to the same point where we do an understanding where the faith has come from.

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But they'll even say that, you know, that death to God be the glory, and you know, and they'll exalt

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God. There's actually, what I would say, there's an inconsistency there, in a sense, in what they believe, and not allowing it to carry out to its natural course.

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And if they carried it out to its natural course, they probably would wind up in some real heretic, you know, real problematic, you know, direction with concern to doctrine.

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But because they're able to stay in an inconsistent state, and we all can do that, we can live inconsistently to some sense with what we believe.

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You know, when we profess faith in God, and we trust in God, and we know that he's sovereign over all things, how often do we,

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Chris, right, live inconsistently with that understanding of what we know about God's every time we sin?

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Yeah, every time we sin, when we worry, we're afraid. So that's in all of us. So I think that, to a degree, that that's with the

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Arminian, I think there's an inconsistency there, in a sense. And I think that that actually is important, because it's what keeps them to me,

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I believe, in the safe zone, to say that they can definitely be safe, that they believe the true gospel, that they love the

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Lord. Some of them would be, you know, they just outshine us in so many ways, but it's still, at the end of the day, there's still a taint in their doctrine, in some of those root issues.

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In fact, if anybody's wondering, this group of professed Calvinists, and actually some of them don't even call themselves

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Calvinists anymore, because they think Calvin was damned, or is damned, because they didn't think that he went far enough in his own beliefs, and they think he went too far in his toleration of others that disagreed with the tulip, if you will.

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But I'm trying to remember the train of thought that I was just going on.

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Oh, I was saying that, in cases anybody's wondering, historically, this has always been a very tiny minority of those within Calvinism, within sovereign grace theology, reformed theology, those that believe that every other

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Christian outside of the reformed faith is damned, has never been a majority view, and I can't even think of one of the heroes of the faith that reformed people typically universally uphold as a great teacher and hero.

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I can't think of one that had that view. Yeah, there are people definitely in that camp, like you said, thank the

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Lord it's not the majority, but there are some even there today, where you hear them sometimes at debates, and things that they say, and I'll be honest,

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I'm much more repulsed by those individuals than any other. In fact, I'm not repulsed by many in general, but those individuals who condemn everybody, who think that they have every single eye dotted in every t -cross, who would virtually condemn everybody in church history, because everybody in church history, when you go back, there was some erroneous doctrines and things that are not developed yet.

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You go back to the times of the Reformation, there were still things that weren't fully developed yet in their understanding of theology with men who we look up to.

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And so if you have that kind of, in a sense, the irony is that those very people are changing the gospel by enlarging the scope of what the gospel is, by making it more, in a sense, more of a requirement of having perfect theology, in a sense, is what makes you saved.

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You have to have a perfect theology, and if that's the case, right, nobody's saved, and that's why a lot of times those individuals, you give them enough time, they'll turn the canons on each other, and they'll start going after each other for little things, and just a lot of pride there.

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I have a lot more concern for the souls of those individuals than I do for a lot of others, and I would much rather go out in the field, the mission field, or be a part of a church with Armenian brethren than I would those individuals.

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Yeah, I agree. And we're going to our first break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

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

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

32:55

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Mark Rimaldi of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick right after these messages.

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

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

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Thank you. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

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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 Corham, 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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Christ Jesus the King and his doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

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

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

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

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

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with a little less than 90 minutes to go, is

48:30

Mark Romaldi, Pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

48:36

We are discussing part two. This is the second time we've addressed this new book that is yet to come out in print, but is expected soon.

48:49

The Christ, the whole Christ, and nothing but the Christ, by our guest Mark Romaldi.

48:54

If you have questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

49:04

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

49:10

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves personal and private matter.

49:18

And we do have RJ in White Plains who has a question for you,

49:24

Pastor Mark. He says, don't we have to be very careful when we speak in exclusive terms about Christ, which are very, very true, that we not lead the wrong impression that the other members of the

49:39

Godhead, the Father and the Spirit, are somehow not as involved in the universe or in our lives personally as Jesus Christ?

49:51

Yeah, real quick, I'm just going to say the book is actually out. I have it actually out already,

49:57

Chris. I have copies. And if anybody who wants to, including the individual RJ who just sent an email, if they give you their address, if they're within the country,

50:07

I would be glad to send them a free copy. It would be a little difficult for me to send it outside of the country, but not that I would be out of the question.

50:14

So anyway, if they give you the address, I will send them a free copy. Great. But answering that question, okay, so yeah,

50:20

I think the point is when you're dealing with the issue of how an individual is saved, right?

50:29

Obviously the emphasis is going to be on the atoning work of Christ, but yeah, there's no question that it's extremely important not to forget the work of the

50:38

Triune God in all of salvation as well, right? We're not certain we wouldn't be denying that God ordaining all things, even when we're talking about the sovereignty of God in election, and which we've been spending a lot of time just talking about, where we're talking about really the sovereign choice of the

50:52

Father, right? In choosing those who he would redeem his elect before time in Christ, and then

50:58

Christ out of love for the Father goes and lays down his life for those elect. And then when we're talking about regeneration, which we've been talking a lot about as well, that of course is the work of the

51:08

Holy Spirit, right, who regenerates individuals so that they will believe, and of course is involved very intricately with sanctification and so on.

51:16

So yeah, there's no question you don't want to diminish the importance of the Triune God in salvation.

51:22

The main intent of the book that I've written is to emphasize the importance of Christ alone, especially contrasting those kinds of people who would say, well, that doesn't seem to be...that

51:38

seems to be, you know, bigoted or biased in some sense, or it's so exclusive, and why can't you welcome...why

51:45

can't you be more welcoming to all people, and would accuse you of having gospel that's arrogant? And so we're dealing with more addressing the need of man, and the importance of Christ being the sole means of somebody being saved.

52:00

So our faith is...we're justified by our faith in Christ, right, and in Christ alone, and in the whole

52:07

Christ, who he is. And so that's been the focus of what we've been talking about. But of course, he's right in the sense we don't want to deny the importance that we have in this whole conversation.

52:17

We've been talking a lot about the work of the Father and the Spirit, even if we haven't directly stated it, that's what we've been talking about.

52:24

Yeah, and again, when people make those comments about, you know, aren't you being bigoted?

52:35

Shouldn't you be more open? They're more concerned about the feelings of men than they are about God and his holiness and righteousness.

52:46

And they're more concerned about keeping people in error as their friends than they are about offending a perfect and holy

53:00

God. So that goes on and on and on in our lives and has gone on in humanity since it began.

53:10

Yeah, if you have just another illustration, if you...if somebody's in a house and the house is on fire, and they're on the second or third floor, let's say, and there's only one means of getting out, even though there's all kinds of means, there's all kinds of exits, but they're blocked off.

53:28

There's fire in those areas, right? There's only one actual means where the person can get to safety.

53:34

It wouldn't be an unloving thing to tell that individual, look, don't go to that window or don't go to that door because that's going to lead to you being destroyed, to you dying.

53:43

This is the only way here, right? And we would all agree that that would be the loving thing to do. You don't want to steer somebody away from the right way.

53:50

And even though they may be going in the wrong direction and you grab them in a sense and say, no, this is the right way, we would all say, well, of course, that's a loving thing to do.

53:59

But when we're dealing with the issue of the soul and the condition of mankind and his need and who God is, it's even more serious than that, because we're talking about not just immediate physical death, we're talking about eternal, where we are in eternity, you know, and our relationship to God.

54:14

So that's the most loving thing you can do, is present the exclusive nature of the gospel, not arrogantly, but based upon the condition of mankind and who

54:25

God is, and understanding who God is, who we are, and what Christ has accomplished, so that we can be reconciled through that one means.

54:34

So it's important to do that. Yeah, it seems the only time humans get bent out of shape about that kind of thing, where somebody's claiming something exclusive about their religion, the only time they get bent out of shape over that exclusivity is when it comes to something religious or spiritual, especially when it comes to Christianity.

55:00

Because you could have health and nutrition and exercise gurus being adamant that their way that they have discovered is right and the other ways are wrong.

55:14

Now, people may disagree with that person, but they're not going to usually get upset. They're going to say, well, this person's just very convicted about how he has achieved such great fitness and all that.

55:24

I mean, you could go on and on, when it comes to different categories of life, but it seems that only

55:31

Christians get the bent out of shape opponent when it comes to these things, when it comes to exclusivity.

55:40

We have to go to our midway break right now, and it's the longer than normal break. Please be patient with us.

55:46

Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida requires of us this longer break because they air this program twice a day in a pre -recorded format, and the

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FCC requires them to use the middle break to air their own public service announcements while we air our own commercials that are heard globally.

56:04

So please use this time wisely and write down the information provided by as many of our advertisers as possible so that you can more frequently patronize them, which means that they will more than likely remain as our advertisers, which means subsequently that we will remain on the air more than likely because we require their funding to exist.

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So please do that, and also write down questions for Mark Romaldi and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

56:33

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

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USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Mark Romaldi. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

57:04

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

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

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

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We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lindbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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

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

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

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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 pretty serious.

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

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

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Thank you. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the

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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.

01:04:28

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

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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.

01:04:52

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham for the recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

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

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

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

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

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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.

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and always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I just have a few announcements to make before we return to Mark Romaldi and our discussion on his book,

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The Christ, The Whole Christ, and Nothing But The Christ. Actually, it's the second part of a discussion on this book that we began a number of weeks ago.

01:09:41

But before we return to that discussion, I just have a couple of announcements to make. First of all, this

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Friday, from 4 to 6 p .m. right here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we are once again preempting our normal weekly coronavirus update with Pastor Joe Jakowitz of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California, because we had the opportunity and wanted to make sure we matched his schedule to have, for the very first time ever on this program,

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Oz Guinness. And I'm really excited about this. I've been wanting to get

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Oz on the program for quite a long time, and now we finally have the opportunity.

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He will be on Friday, June 19th, for the first hour to discuss his book,

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Fool's Talk, Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. The second hour, we have a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio return, my friend

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Gary DeMar, President of American Vision. He is going to be discussing a book by the late

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Greg L. Bonson that he has brought back into print, Against All Opposition, Defending the

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Christian Worldview. And that is going to be, as I said, this Friday, June 19th, from 4 p .m.

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to 6 p .m. Eastern Time. So we hope that you tune in for that.

01:11:17

Also, coming up in August, I hope that as many of you as possible will join me in heading to Maine.

01:11:32

Actually, wow, I'm looking at this right now for the first time. They've had to postpone the

01:11:39

Fellowship Conference New England in Maine because of the COVID -19 restrictions.

01:11:44

I'm amazed that they think they'll be extended that long into the future. Well, sorry about that, folks.

01:11:51

We'll keep you updated on the Fellowship Conference New England for their new date in Portland, Maine, whenever we hear about that.

01:12:00

It's going to be a good one with Jeff Thomas and Joel Beeky, God willing. And so we hope that you can come out whenever they reschedule that.

01:12:12

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01:14:08

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01:15:26

Well, with some of that money that you've saved, could you help us remain on the air? Go to ironsharpandzionradio .com,

01:15:33

click support, then click click to donate now. And also folks, if you are not a member of a local bible -believing church, you need help finding one, no matter where you live in the world,

01:15:46

I may be able to help you. I've lists of biblically faithful churches all over the planet earth, and I may be able to help you find a church.

01:15:52

I've helped many people find churches that they have either joined, some of them have visited these churches on vacation, some of them have referred these churches to other friends and loved ones who did not know that there was biblically faithful churches in their area, in all parts of the world.

01:16:12

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01:16:17

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01:16:33

chrisarnson 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

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01:16:51

We have a question from Grady, a very faithful listener and financial supporter of this program in Asheboro, North Carolina.

01:17:01

And Grady says, Do you think that Arminianism is the reason for easy -believism?

01:17:09

Here in the South, it seems everyone you ask says they're a Christian because they were urged to walk an aisle, be baptized, or join a church.

01:17:18

It's really heartbreaking that so many know about our Lord Jesus, but do not know

01:17:24

Him. They know about Him, but do not know Him. And that's Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina.

01:17:32

So do you see a connection there? Yeah, that's a good question. What I would say is

01:17:38

I wouldn't broad -brush... I guess I would be careful to say that there are many

01:17:44

Arminians who are sincere, devout Christians, who certainly would be repulsed by people who hold to an easy -believism gospel.

01:17:58

In fact, some of those very Arminians would say that's the fault of Calvinism. Yeah, exactly. They would say that we believe that God's going to save whoever

01:18:07

He's going to save, anyway. And also perseverance of the saints. Yeah. So I mean,

01:18:13

I would definitely say that that kind of lean is more within an

01:18:19

Arminian camp. One's on the spectrum there, but I wouldn't equate all

01:18:25

Arminians with that, like I said, because there are a lot of Arminians who would take a stand and who do, and who would look at such individuals and say, look, if you're not living the life, if there's no repentance, if there's no evidence of salvation, then you're not saved.

01:18:38

So I don't want to identify everything with Arminianism or everybody in there in one stroke.

01:18:47

But I would say that generally the people in that camp, I think a lot of them would hold to an

01:18:54

Arminian theology. But there may be some Calvinists as well, like you said, who think that God's going to save whoever

01:19:01

He's going to save, anyway, and they emphasize that. And so they don't do anything. They call them the frozen chosen, right?

01:19:08

So I guess I would be careful. I wouldn't want anybody to associate broad -brush

01:19:14

Calvinism with people who don't do missions or things like that.

01:19:21

So I wouldn't want them to do that to us. I wouldn't want to do it to Arminianism. So I don't know. I guess to say it that way, that in itself is just an erroneous teaching.

01:19:31

You know, that comes from people like Joel Osteen and, you know, a lot of these guys as well, who don't have a gospel, they don't have a soft gospel, they don't teach repentance, they don't teach the whole gospel.

01:19:42

I think that's more of an issue of people neglecting the area of the whole gospel with respect to repentance and the necessity of bearing fruit, as opposed to just linking it to Arminianism.

01:19:52

I don't think you have to link it to the Arminian link, per se. But I could see some, I could see that connection as well, if you carry it out, you know,

01:20:00

Arminianism to some extent also, I could see that. Yeah, I think it has historically normally come from like a hybrid of Arminianism and dispensationalism that, of course, it's grown much beyond that now.

01:20:17

But the belief in eternal security, and at the same time, believing that anybody, at any time, can be convinced to follow

01:20:31

Christ, if you are diligent enough, and persuasive enough, and eloquent in speech, and so on.

01:20:45

There are some who have said, some very famous people, that if you don't lead somebody to Christ, who's lost, it's really your fault, and that anybody, if the right words are spoken, can be led to Christ.

01:21:00

And they really have a very deluded version of what salvation really is.

01:21:08

They think if you could convince somebody to recite a prayer, that means that they're saved, with certainty.

01:21:17

So I think it does, most of the time, deal with a insufficient or erroneous anthropology, a wrong understanding of the level of depravity of man.

01:21:31

And so there are things that are linked to Arminianism, for the most part. Although, as you said, there are even, sadly,

01:21:39

Reformed churches that have become hyper -grace, if you will, that they really have left the lordship salvation camp, and do not believe in the necessity of repentance.

01:21:54

Yeah. Yeah, and also, Chris, I think of a part of the, and I don't want to say the root, because it goes back even to the time of Christ, you know,

01:22:02

Paul's dealing with some of those issues, you see that in the scriptures, but I think Charles Finney and his work with the altar call is, in some way, you know, is at the root of a lot of that as well, putting your identity with Christ based upon that you walked down the aisle, you know, some kind of action that you did one time.

01:22:20

So as long as you walked that aisle, as long as you did this act, it's almost like you're putting your faith in the act, and not

01:22:26

Christ himself. So I think Charles Finney, in my opinion, is, if I could label a person who's had a huge impact in that way, he would be one individual.

01:22:37

Well, thank you, Grady, it's always great to hear from you. And we're going to get you a copy of Mark Romaldi's book, as he has said, they are now in print.

01:22:46

So keep your eyes open for that. We have Johnny in Queens, New York, formerly from Hong Kong.

01:22:55

There are many, and there's a reason why Mark laughed, he's not an anti -Asian racist or something.

01:23:02

He knows Johnny, as I do. There are many professing Christ followers that proclaim to worship

01:23:09

Jesus exclusively, i .e. Jesus only, oneness, Pentecostals, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

01:23:15

Saints, etc. How do we know that we are proclaiming, following, and trusting the whole

01:23:22

Christ and nothing but Christ? So how do we know that we are proclaiming?

01:23:29

I guess he means the real Christ. Yeah. I think part of that is that we need to understand, and that gets into, like you said, the whole

01:23:40

Christ, is recognizing that Christ is a single person, right, but with two natures, and I get into that in the book, and the importance of believing in Him as fully man and fully

01:23:54

God, and as fully God, while He is shared the same nature, the same essence and essential nature of the

01:24:02

Father and the Holy Spirit, that we recognize that there also is a distinction of personage within the

01:24:08

Trinity as well. And so while we don't understand that to the fullness extent, because you have to understand the fullness of God, we do understand that there are different roles.

01:24:20

One of the ways that we understand the distinction of persons, and why this is important for salvation, is that each of the persons have different roles with respect to creation and with respect to salvation.

01:24:33

And so, for example, the Father didn't die on the cross, right?

01:24:39

He didn't. The Father didn't take on our nature. The Holy Spirit didn't do that either.

01:24:45

Jesus isn't the one who regenerates people, right? That's the work of the Spirit. Jesus is not the source of our election, that's the

01:24:54

Father. So we see the distinction of the persons and how they relate to us in creation and also with respect to salvation.

01:25:04

With respect to the essence of God, obviously we can't grasp the fullness of that or anything close to the fullness of that.

01:25:11

But the reason why that's important is because our faith with respect to salvation has to specifically be in the

01:25:21

Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, we're told that we're to exercise in Acts chapter 20 repentance toward God, right?

01:25:28

We're turning from sin and acknowledging our sin to God, and our faith is in Jesus Christ for salvation.

01:25:34

So while we have a faith in the Father, in a sense, right? His promises and so on, we don't exercise faith in the

01:25:41

Father for dying on the cross for our sins and for redeeming us through His shed blood, right?

01:25:47

That's through Christ. Where that becomes an issue is if you hold to a position with almost like a oneness perspective, where that can become a problem, is you may start to be able to link several religions together and say, well, technically they do believe in this particular faith, let's say in the

01:26:07

Jewish faith, that there is one God, and if they're having faith in that one

01:26:12

God, technically they're still having faith in Christ. You know, in other words, you're connecting everybody together as one person within the

01:26:19

Godhead. So the distinction of persons is extremely important, especially because our faith needs to be grounded in Christ, and in Christ alone, with respect to our salvation, particularly with respect to His shed blood and so on, and not in the

01:26:35

Father in that sense, right? Not when it comes down to the Atonement and so on. It's directly in Christ, and that's what the

01:26:42

Father wants us to do. And it's for the glory of the Father and an obedience to the Father, and our repentance is directed toward God, right?

01:26:50

Which would include, of course, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So I hope that didn't confuse anyone, but I think that's why the idea of the distinction of persons is important for salvation as well, and the oneness.

01:27:02

Even, you know, I didn't get into all the oneness Pentecostal and things like that, but that's a dangerous gospel, because it conflates the work of each individual person, and almost creates a schizophrenic

01:27:13

God, and it really does, when you look at John's gospel and Jesus praying to the Father. It just really brings a lot of problems with it.

01:27:20

Well, thank you, Johnny, and you're getting a free copy of the book as well.

01:27:26

We have Mary in Cork, Ireland, and she says,

01:27:32

I'm sorry I missed the start of your show, so I'm not sure if this was addressed.

01:27:37

In light of all the chaos, conflict, and confusion that's taking place at the moment, when right is wrong and wrong is right, do you think there will be a persecution for Christians sooner than later, as they continue to preach that Jesus Christ is the only way, truth, and life?

01:27:57

He alone is the Savior. We know from Scripture that this message will be hated. Yeah, now that's a good...

01:28:04

I do think, again, I don't know. I wouldn't say that, you know, this is the last final days and all that.

01:28:10

I wouldn't get into that, because they believed that during the, you know, the Reformation times. They believed that all throughout history, there were times where there were these kinds of great upheavals and things like that.

01:28:21

It could very well be, you know, in that sense. I don't know. I don't know the specific time, but I would say that I believe my eschatological view is that, in the end, that the

01:28:31

Church will be thoroughly persecuted and, you know, and cornered, in a sense, as a whole.

01:28:37

But to encourage, was that Mary's said? Yeah. And what she said,

01:28:42

I would say that we do live in a time, and this is especially in our country, but really throughout a lot of the world, at least the big nations that we're aware of, where people are embraced, right?

01:28:55

A postmodern subjectivism where everybody tends to be governed by the law of emotion, like what you feel, as opposed to objective truth.

01:29:06

It's, you kind of create your own law. And so that's what the colleges teach. That's what the media teaches, the movies.

01:29:12

And that's why it's very difficult in this situation that we're in right now to reason with people, because reasoning is almost outdated.

01:29:21

Reasoning, logic, statistics, those kinds of things are out the window. But the encouraging thing that we have is that we know, even when reasoning was in during the time with the

01:29:31

Greeks and following, right? That can't save a person. We do know that the

01:29:36

Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed, is what God uses to cut through whatever it is that is keeping us from the truth.

01:29:45

And so it's better to focus on the Gospel, just getting the Gospel out there and trusting God to give the increase in the

01:29:50

Spirit of God to work, than to trust in, you know, in our own means of trying to meet the culture where it is.

01:29:56

We don't have to meet the culture where it is. We have to meet the culture where God says it has to be met and trusted through the

01:30:02

Gospel. He will rescue people and bring them into the right mind and so on.

01:30:08

So we don't want to take it from a political standpoint. Let's focus on the Gospel, which can reach people, even though they're in this subjective, this mesmerized state of subjectivism.

01:30:19

The Gospel will go through. And of course there are people being persecuted in all various levels now.

01:30:31

More than ever. Yeah, more than ever. You have the persecution returning to Chinese Christians, where there seemed to be a period of grace, or should

01:30:42

I say, of lenience and tolerance, but that is evaporating.

01:30:49

And you have people by being persecuted by Muslims for their Christian faith all over the world.

01:30:56

And to a lot lesser degree, but still very serious, there are people here in the

01:31:02

United States who lose their jobs, their careers, because of their faith, because of things they will not do, or because of things that they believe and have said for their opposition in love to homosexuality and all kinds of things.

01:31:24

And I think what makes it... I think, Chris, like you were saying, and just because of the numerous amount of people we have in the world at this point, that the persecution is even more now.

01:31:36

We don't realize it in our country, but it's more now than it ever has been, especially in the Middle East and some of those nations. But I think one thing that lends itself to what

01:31:44

Mary was saying, at least along the lines of thinking toward the end, is that the way we have the internet and this connection to everyone in the world through electronic means and how an event can take place, like what took place in Minneapolis, that event can be worldwide, and it is worldwide known right throughout a lot of the world, and it's creating things throughout the world, all kinds of protests and riots, and not just in our country.

01:32:11

And it does lend itself to see how this thing can easily become a worldwide issue at any time the

01:32:18

Lord strikes the match, so to speak. Just to speak to what you were saying. Well, thank you,

01:32:23

Mary. And although we don't ship out books overseas, we know that you intend for an

01:32:30

American to get this booklet, so we'll make sure that he does.

01:32:36

And we thank you so much for writing in. Always excellent questions coming from Cork, Ireland.

01:32:43

And we have to go to our last break right now. If you have a question of your own,

01:32:48

I would send it in immediately before we run out of time. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:32:56

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

01:33:03

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

01:33:09

We'll be right back after these messages. This is

01:33:21

Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

01:33:27

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

01:33:36

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

01:33:48

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

01:33:55

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

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

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And guess what, folks?

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Mike Gaydosch, founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, will be our guest this

01:44:45

Thursday, letting us know about new things in print that we should seriously consider purchasing for loved ones, and other things that I'm sure the

01:44:59

Lord will raise up in our conversation. He always does an excellent job as a guest on this program.

01:45:05

And before that, tomorrow and Wednesday, Mack Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, returns as our guest.

01:45:15

And please keep praying that my brother John, who lives about 10 minutes away from Mack Tomlinson in Texas, that he invites or is willing to accept a visit from Mack again.

01:45:33

My brother John is not born again, and he has critical stage emphysema and other things going on.

01:45:42

And I would love to have the confidence to know that he will be with Christ for eternity when the

01:45:47

Lord so chooses to take him off of this earth. So, please keep praying for Mack Tomlinson to be used mightily in the life of my brother.

01:45:58

And of course, I already told you, on Friday, we've got, for the very first time,

01:46:04

Oz Guinness, and we've got returning to the program, Gary DeMar, for the second hour this

01:46:11

Friday on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And now, if you have a question, send it in to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:46:20

chrisarnson at gmail .com. For our guest today, Mark Romaldi, one of two pastors at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

01:46:30

We are discussing part two of a discussion we began weeks ago on The Christ, the whole

01:46:38

Christ, and nothing but the Christ, which is the title of Pastor Mark's new book. And we look forward to hearing from you with your questions.

01:46:50

And we have a question from an anonymous listener who wants to know, how do we convey to those who are heartbroken that they have loved ones who have never heard the gospel and are already deceased?

01:47:06

How can we stop them from having just nothing but a devastating, nightmarish future awaiting them with thoughts of their loved ones?

01:47:18

When, in other words, their loved ones have been deceased and they didn't know the Lord. They didn't even ever hear the gospel at all, according to the knowledge of the listener.

01:47:31

Yeah, and then the individual they're saying, though, who had that loved one happen to them, they're going to have a difficulty in this life.

01:47:37

In other words, thinking about what's going on with their loved ones who passed away. Yeah, yeah, basically, how do we comfort them?

01:47:45

Yeah, yeah, what I would say with that, and that's, of course, a very difficult thing to imagine.

01:47:51

I know anyone, if you think about anyone who is, you know, has not received the gospel, has not received

01:47:56

Christ, that can really torment you just trying to imagine, you know, their condition.

01:48:01

And I think that I would try to encourage them in their own personal walk with the

01:48:07

Lord and talking to them about the grace of God in Christ, and for them to see the goodness of God and, you know, just to encourage them in their own walk and to find comfort in the

01:48:17

Lord and knowing that He is good and He's righteous. And I would also say that, you know, we don't have to figure out who is in hell and who isn't right from the people who have passed on in our lives.

01:48:32

We don't know, you know, this, again, not to give a false hope, but we don't always know, you know, what could have happened at the end.

01:48:42

If we had opportunities to give them the gospel, that's great. In this case, you're saying that they know they never heard the gospel, so that's obviously going to be grievous, but we could just try to encourage them not to focus on that.

01:48:54

I mean, I don't think we have to focus on where people from the past are and are, but we can focus on where people are now, people who are alive, other people in our families who maybe don't know the

01:49:04

Lord, maybe to encourage them and motivate them to give the gospel to them and just to remind them of the goodness of God and His grace and His love.

01:49:11

And I don't think, again, I don't think we're called to think about our loved ones who passed away in those ways.

01:49:19

I don't think that that's something God is saying, you know, that that's a healthy thing for us to do. That would just be the way that I would see it.

01:49:27

Yes, and I've been to funerals where pastors have very rightly deflected the attention from the person in the casket when it is fairly certain, according to the knowledge of everyone present, that that person never made a profession of faith in Christ, where the pastor deflects the attention from that person and onto every individual sitting there with an earshot of what the pastor is saying, where your own heart and mind and soul are challenged about the future if you are not a

01:50:07

Christian, that dwelling on the afterlife of the person who has passed is not important for the person sitting there.

01:50:19

They have to count the cost and so on about their own eternal destiny.

01:50:27

And they have to be challenged to repent and come to Christ. And of course,

01:50:39

I have met people who are certain that their parents or siblings of theirs or somebody else in their family, they are certain they are in hell.

01:50:50

And every time they tell me that, I say, were you with them when they died? Most of the time they say no.

01:50:57

Then I said, how can you be so certain? I mean, you don't know if you've evangelized your parents.

01:51:05

How do you know what the Lord may have finally done with that evangelism, even if you weren't present to hear it?

01:51:11

Our being present does not affect the salvation of anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:51:16

Sometimes I think, like you said, Chris, you think, encourage them when they know they've had the opportunity to give the gospel to them, to be encouraged to know that there was a seed there of some sort, and that we don't know to the very end what

01:51:30

God might have done with that seed. So we can't think about that. But again, even if we didn't, even if, or maybe some people can bear guilt and say,

01:51:38

I wish I did. You can't go back at this point. You can concentrate on what you have in front of you now, learn from that, and just still to commit that to the

01:51:47

Lord. We're not called to go back and think about where all our relatives are and who's where.

01:51:53

That will just be counterproductive and probably cripple us from doing anything effective now in the present.

01:52:00

And in fact, this is one of the precious and beautiful things about the

01:52:06

Reformed faith, because when all is said and done, we know that salvation is of the

01:52:15

Lord, that he is sovereign over it. And if you have a system of theology outside of Reformed thinking, an

01:52:26

Arminian, for instance, really has no excuse to have a peaceful night's sleep if a loved one dies lost, because according to their own theology, if they had been diligent enough and loving enough and Christ -like enough and biblically literate enough to, on a consistent basis, evangelize and show the love of Christ to those people, they would have come in saving faith.

01:52:59

But in essence, if an

01:53:04

Arminian's theology is held logically and consistently, that person's eternal damnation is on their head.

01:53:14

But it seems that God has mercy on these folks with inconsistent and false understandings of things who are our brothers in Christ, because they do typically, after a while, sleep peaceful nights, many nights, because they're not really thinking logically and consistently according to their

01:53:37

Arminianism. They can't really say, according to their own theology, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right and leave it in God's hands.

01:53:50

And there's always the question, what if I did, like you said, more than Haunston? What if I did this? Maybe I could have convinced them.

01:53:59

Well, I want you to, for the next four minutes, summarize what you most want our listeners to remember when we leave this program today.

01:54:09

Yeah, yeah. I think the most important thing to remember, as we've been talking about these things, is that what the book that I have is all about, really, is that to keep

01:54:20

Christ in view, He is our only hope. Christ, who is the Atonement, who brings us into fellowship and relationship with God and with one another,

01:54:31

He is the answer, in fact, to what's going on in society today. The reconciliation of people, whether it's races or whatever it is that's going on that separates us, it really comes down to the cross of Christ that is what brings us all together.

01:54:46

So it encourages us to fix our eyes on Christ as the one who can bring about reconciliation in every sense, as Christ, as His person,

01:54:56

His full divinity, thinking about who He is as God and His abilities as God and also as man, and His ability to identify with us and what

01:55:05

He's accomplished as man for us and is empathizing for us and our weaknesses, and also the exclusivity of His Atonement and of who

01:55:15

He is, knowing that we can rest completely in Christ. There's nothing left in us to merit.

01:55:21

There's nothing that God has left in our court where we're required to do something to merit salvation. It's completely and only in Christ.

01:55:29

And as we focus there, that will actually be the greatest motive that will drive us and compel us to live for His glory and to overcome sin.

01:55:38

The greatest way to overcome sin is to recognize what Christ has done for us to deal with our sin.

01:55:44

And so just to encourage us to fix our eyes on Christ, the whole Christ, and nothing but Christ. Amen.

01:55:51

And by the way, I think I forgot to tell the anonymous listener, if you email me your full name and mailing address, obviously we will keep your confidentiality intact.

01:56:03

But send us that information and you will get a free copy of Mark Romaldi's book,

01:56:10

The Christ, the Whole Christ, and Nothing but the Christ. Well, we do have time for one more listener.

01:56:20

Let's see here. We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

01:56:27

I know that you've written your own book, but are there also other books by great men of God that you can recommend on this subject?

01:56:37

No, I am the only... Wow, there are many, many excellent books that certainly present the

01:56:50

Gospel and Christ crucified. And, you know, the reason why

01:56:56

I wrote this particular book, and maybe there's some uniqueness to it, is that it's short.

01:57:02

It's 70 or 80 pages, and it deals with, as I said, things from the perspective of the fullness of why

01:57:12

Christ is necessary and dealing with the exclusive nature of the Gospel. You'll find that in all kinds of books, any kind of system of theology, any kind of exhaustive work on the cross of Christ, but it'll be probably in larger volumes.

01:57:29

If you want to just get simple Gospel books that you can give out, you know, like Ultimate Questions, there's always a good one of some of Peter Jeffrey's works.

01:57:37

He has a lot of good books on the Gospel. There's a lot of good things in there as well that are short. So I wanted this to be more for, to encourage the people of God, because I do talk about the encouragements that we have from this, and also as a means of something that can be given out to others, especially today when they're questioning the exclusivity of the

01:57:57

Gospel and having an issue with that and seeing that as biased and so on. So I'm hoping there's some uniqueness to it in one sense, but there's definitely all kinds of great volumes out there.

01:58:08

You know, you can get into, you know, Sproul and MacArthur, and all the guys I don't have to name that you're all aware of, that have written tons of books that deal with the cross and details that I don't even get into.

01:58:17

So that answers the question. Well, there's also Sinclair Ferguson's book,

01:58:23

The Whole Christ, which I think that might be his most recent book in print.

01:58:30

Yeah, yeah. That's a wonderful book, yeah. I would urge you to go to cvbbs .com,

01:58:36

C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for BibleBookService .com, and look up The Whole Christ, Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance, Why the

01:58:48

Marrow Controversy Still Matters by Sinclair Ferguson. Well, I want to thank you so much,

01:58:56

Pastor Mark, if you could hold on the line when we go off the air so that I can give you a proper goodbye.

01:59:05

I want to thank everybody who listened today. I want to thank everybody who sent in questions, and any of you that have not yet given me your full mailing addresses, please do so very soon so that I can have these books shipped out to you.

01:59:20

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

01:59:26

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Mack Tomlinson tomorrow and Wednesday, right here on Iron Shop and Zion Radio.