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February 21, 2020
Featuring Interviews from the 2020 G3 Conference with
RAY RHODES, Pastor of Grace Community Church of Gainesville, GA,
An Interview from the 2018 G3 Conference with
BOBBY McCREERY, Founder of “To the End of the Earth” street evangelism ministry,
AND A Discussion from the 2017 G3 Conference with
TODD FRIEL, author, conference speaker & host of WRETCHED TV & Radio
Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister, George Norcross, in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.
Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.
It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, Champaign County, Illinois, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming to ironsharpensironradio .com.
My name is Eric Nielsen, and I'm sitting in once again for Chris Arnzen as we come to our final day of conference interviews. Today we have interviews from three different G3 conferences. Our first interview is with Pastor Ray Rhodes from this past January's G3 conference in 2020.
Ray is the pastor of Grace Community Church of Gainesville, Georgia. The second interview is with evangelist Bobby McCreery of To the End of the Earth Ministries from G3 2018. And finally, from G3 2017, Chris's interview with Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio.
To begin, let's listen in to this conversation that Chris had with Pastor Ray Rhodes.
Here I am again at the G3 conference for an on-site interview at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm here with Pastor Ray Rhodes of Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia.
And it's a delight to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Chris, it's great to be with you.
And why don't you let our listeners know about Grace Community Church, for those of our listeners especially who have not yet heard you on this program.
Yeah, Grace Community Church. We're about an hour north of Atlanta. A church focused on expository preaching and the gospel, God-centered worship. Just a fantastic church. I'm thankful to have the opportunity to pastor there.
Great. And I'm sure that we will repeat your contact information, but what's your website at that church?
It's GraceChurchDawsonville .org.
GraceChurchDawsonville .org, and that's D-A-W-S-O-N-V-I-L-L-E.
That's correct.
Well, one of the latest things that I'm aware of in your ministry is that you have written a biography of Susanna Spurgeon called Susie. Why don't you let us know about that book?
Yeah, Moody Publishers did that and it came out in a beautiful hardback. Doing really well. It's being translated presently in three languages. The Dutch is already out. It's in its third printing.
Did you say the Dutch is already out?
It's already out. Yeah, it'll come out in Russian and Korean, and that's the ones we know about at the moment. It's just done remarkably well by God's grace and good folks at Moody working hard. So we surpassed all of our expectations within just over a year.
It's been out now.
And what was the motivation for you to write this book about Susanna Spurgeon? I don't think that enough attention has been paid to by the body of Christ and publishers and authors about the wives of great Christian men, but what was specifically the motivation for you to approach this autobiography, not autobiography, this biography of Susanna Spurgeon?
Yeah, well, back in seminary in 2013, and I've loved Spurgeon for a long time. I think I read the first full biography of Spurgeon, maybe 1990. So when I went back to work on my doctorate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, choosing a thesis topic, looking into Spurgeon, studying spirituality and his marriage, actually.
And then when it came time to think about maybe doing a book, there was a lot of interest in a Susanna Spurgeon biography. And I had uncovered so much information about her. I just became fascinated with her life in ministry.
And there's only been one other biography of Susanna Spurgeon. It was done in 1903, and it was about 100 pages.
So very small.
It's helpful. It's a good banner of truth has republished that with one of her devotional books. And so there's really not been a substantive biography of Susanna Spurgeon. So it was really a perfect storm.
The interest in Spurgeon, sort of a revival, again, of interest in Spurgeon over the last 10 years. And no one's done this before, really, and a subject that has great interest. And so it really was a blessing as an author to, one, have a topic that folks are interested.
In.
Secondly, to have a great publisher like Moody that bought into it wholeheartedly and gave me the opportunity to dig deeper into the life of this lady that has not really been explored. And I discovered some facts that really floored me about Susanna Spurgeon.
Why don't you tell us about some of these unexpected things you discovered?
Yeah. She was... One of the things that surprised me was that she was so active physically in her teenage years and her early marriage to Spurgeon. We tend to think of her automatically as this invalid, which she was for most of her married life.
But she hiked the major Alps, the mountain passes, while Spurgeon's in his carriage with his publisher talking books and theology. Susie's out in front walking, and she's often ahead of the group.
Was that voluntary?
Yeah.
She loved it. She used to walk to meet him during their engagement period several miles to the Crystal Palace where he first revealed his love for her, and then they had a weekly rendezvous there. So she walked several miles a week doing that.
So I was surprised by that. I was surprised by how prolific of an author she was. She wrote five standalone books herself. She's a major contributor and co-editor of what was the massive four-volume autobiography of Charles Spurgeon.
Which I have, actually.
Oh, you've got one of the four volumes.
Great. Yeah.
I was given that by a pastor friend of mine who's believed now... Well, actually, he just re-entered the pastoral ministry. He was retired from the ministry for a while. But he gave that to me, and it was, interestingly enough, when an Episcopalian minister on Long Island died, his estate was left to his adult children who found the enormous library that this man had accumulated, nothing more than a nuisance and trash, and they were getting rid of it and giving it away.
And that was amongst the things in his library that my pastor friend who discovered this treasure trove in this Episcopalian minister's parsonage, and he blessed me with that great treasure. I was quite amazed by that.
It's a wonderful treasure. Banner of Truth did a really good abridgment, two-volume abridgment of that book, and Pilgrim Publications did the full four volumes in two big volumes. I don't know that they're still publishing now.
I'm not sure. You can get it on eBay and whatnot, the Pilgrim edition, and you can find the four-volume if you want to pay a little bit of money on eBay occasionally also. And I also have a set of those four volumes, and they're just priceless to me.
I know that one of the books that she wrote, although I can't remember the title, but it was a book specifically written to visit people on their sickbed, and I can't remember the exact name of it.
Do you recall the name of that?
Well, she…. Yes, I think I know what you're talking about. She did three devotional books, and the one I think you're referring to is called A Cluster of Camphor.
Yes, that's exactly the one.
And that's her…. In my view, that's her best devotional work. She did two other devotionals. She did two books on the book fund, the first one called Ten Years of My Life and the Service of the Books Fund, and it's really the closest thing to an autobiography of Susanna Spurgeon we have because she puts so many personal details into that, and then a follow-up, Ten More Years, sort of an unknown thing about Susanna Spurgeon.
Her writing career actually started when she was engaged to Charles, and his date nights with Susie, very romantic he was, they would… he'd go over to her home and he would edit his sermons for publication that week while she sat there quietly.
Well, one night he gave her a copy of some of Thomas Brooks' work, and he said, go through and pull out of this book some important quotations, salient quotes, and she did, and it became a book that you and I know now as Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks.
And her name is nowhere to be found on the book, which would have been pretty common in that era as women's names were not often used in books, but this would have been in 1855, I believe. But she says there's a love story between every page because she's working on this, and then Spurgeon gets it published, and it's one of his earliest works as well, Smooth Stones, and Banner of Truth also has republished that book, and it's available today.
Now I'm assuming it would be a mistake for someone to hear about this biography of Susanna Spurgeon and say, well, that would be a great thing for my wife, for my daughter, for my sister, exclusively.
They might not even readily think, well, a man, a brother in Christ, would benefit greatly from this as well. So I'm sure since you found this subject fascinating enough yourself as a man, that male readers would benefit greatly from this as well.
I think so, and I think that we need to read more biographies of godly women in history. It gives us, you know, as the Bible describes the churches, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, and the body is incomplete without a love and appreciation for the whole of the body.
You hear sometimes of churches that target certain age groups, and I just don't think that's a biblical concept. We have a relatively young church, but we're always praying God would give us some more gray hair in our church.
We need the wisdom of the aged.
That's an excellent thing, and a refreshing thing to hear, actually.
Yeah, and we love that in our congregation, but yeah, so there's that, just appreciating the sister's contribution, and she was, again, as an invalid after about 1867 until her death in 1903, she gave away 200 ,000 books to poor pastors.
She served pastors' wives. She kept a regular correspondence with ministers. She actually planted a church after Charles Spurgeon died. She left her home that was under repair to go vacation down to a place called Bexhill-on-Sea.
While she was there, she asked a local where the local Baptist church was located, and he said, ma 'am, there's not one, and that really bothered her, and so she led the effort to plant a church that still exists today, Beulah Baptist Church, Bexhill-on-Sea, and quite the woman she was.
She chose their pastor and sent him to plant that church and supported it financially and through her influence, so just a remarkable story, plus there's a lot of Spurgeon himself in this book. I bring a lot about their marriage.
There's actually, Moody's doing a follow-up. We're doing a book called Spurgeon in Love, where we'll deal more specifically with themes from their marriage. It should be out about this time next year.
So yeah, I think any pastor, any godly man will be, as I was, the more I peel back layers of this woman, the more I wanted to know, because we tend to think of her, again, as this invalid, sickly, homebound, and not really much to say to us today, but she put me to shame in her invalid years and me in relatively good health.
I feel like a lightweight compared to Susanna Spurgeon.
Now, in what ways would Spurgeon's wife, Susanna, perhaps surprise some of us? Ways that she perhaps broke the mold of a, or broke away from, I should say, the stereotype that many Christians may have of what should be expected of a Christian woman and wife that are not biblical requirements of a godly woman, but they may be things that we have developed in our minds as just that, stereotypes, where she may have shown more independence and so on than one might have expected.
Yeah, and Spurgeon always treated her as an equal. I mean, he valued her counsel, and it's sort of a funny thing, though, where Spurgeon did not believe in using instruments in congregational singing, but Susie obviously didn't have a problem with that, because even while Spurgeon's alive, she gave a couple of churches organs, but she specified that they only be used for worship, not for any sort of entertainment or anything like that.
So you can imagine, they had a really happy marriage, but you can imagine that made for some lively discussions in the Spurgeon household.
So this occurred while he was still living?
Yes, and she did again after he died. So yeah, he was obviously very aware of that, and I'm sure he chuckled. They had some lively conversations about that, but just this whole church planting thing she did, sort of not expecting that from a Victorian wife of a non-conformist pastor.
She was really out front with that. She raised money when the tabernacle burned in the late 1890s. Her son Thomas was the pastor at that time, and she was very sickly, but she refused to listen to her doctor and others.
She went to this burned down tabernacle, and just within a couple of hours, people passed by and put money in her hand. She raised, I forget the exact amount now, significant in today's dollars. So she just pressed forward.
People asked her what she was going to do after Spurgeon died, and she said, I'm going to go back to doing what I was doing, serving Christ through the book fund. She did that until she died, and then she had a way in which that would continue on after her death as well.
You recall to my mind a funny story that I wonder if you could confirm was an accurate quote of Charles Spurgeon, but when you were speaking about his conviction regarding exclusive a cappella worship, I had heard a story where somebody approached Charles Spurgeon and said, is it appropriate for a church to have an organ?
Charles Spurgeon said, it is completely acceptable as long as the pipes are filled with cement.
That sounds like him, because I do have a quote that's going to be in the new book where he preaches obviously at churches that have organs, so not everyone shared his view, even among the folks who loved him.
He made a joke about it at the church, and I forget the exact wording, but he said, this is an inovation. As soon as there's an out-ovation, we'll be better off for it. That sounds like a quote that Spurgeon would have, something Spurgeon would have said.
I know that I had interviewed you on this biography of Susanna once before, Susie. What's the subtitle again?
Susie, the life and legacy of Susanna Spurgeon, wife of C .H. Spurgeon.
What can you tell us about the responses that you've received since then? Because when I first interviewed you on it, I don't think it was actually in print at.
That time.
That's right. That's right. I think it was in process at that time. I've been floored. Pastors' wives contacting me, and just showing up here, people say, I read this and was moved to tears. I was so encouraged and challenged.
It's been overwhelmingly positive, and I feel it's very humbling to put something down that you're excited about and passionate about and to see the Lord use it to encourage someone else. How well it's done, and how many people are getting it.
Still, they sold out yesterday within a couple of hours at Moody Table. It's at Shepherd's Conference. They sold a thousand copies at the Shepherd's Conference. I don't know. It just struck a nerve in God's providence at the right time, I guess, in history.
I'm moved by the response, and I'm thankful. I'm just a small-town preacher in North Georgia, and I'm thankful the Lord maybe used me in some small way to bless others. A lot of folks get giving it to their pastors' wives, and ladies' groups that are using it for their ladies reading a study.
It's been used in all sorts of ways, and I'm thankful for that. Thankful for you talking about it. You may not remember, the very first book I published, probably, it may have been 2008 or earlier, maybe, on family worship.
Yes.
You're the first person, I think, that ever interviewed me.
Wow.
Way back yonder.
To see how the Lord has worked in that over the years.
I remember that was through the connection of our dear friend and brother, Mike Gaydosh, of Solid Ground Christian Books.
That's exactly right. I did three of those with him, three family worship books. Was delightful. Those are still People are still using those. I'm still getting responses from those early books. We missed Mike this year.
He didn't make it to G3.
Yes. I was hoping to see him, but it didn't work out. I was just talking during another interview about the importance of the wives of a man who believes he has received a call to the pastoral ministry, that if he is married, that his wife should really believe she has a calling to be a pastor's wife.
If a man who has that call or believes he has that call is not married, it is absolutely essential that he finds a wife that also shares that call, that she is going to have as a dominant part of her life the roles and responsibilities of an undershepherd's wife.
What do you think that not only women in that position who are listening, and even men who are not yet married, who believe they have the call to enter into the ministry, what are those things that they should be looking for, or in the woman's case, desiring to possess themselves that Susanna Spurgeon demonstrated in her life?
Obviously, she is an individual, a unique person, and I'm not saying that people need to be cookie-cutter duplicates, nor could they ever achieve that, but they need not strive to be a cookie-cutter duplicate of a great woman of God.
But at the same time, there are certain things, I believe, that someone could learn from Susanna Spurgeon that should be present in the life of a woman who is going to be the wife of a pastor.
And one of those is that she should share a sense that this is what God's called her.
To do.
The worst possible scenario is if you're pulling against one another, and that will not work. And Susie, in Susie's situation, she was married to a very unique pastor, almost unsurpassed in all of history as far as how popular he was.
He was one of those popular, not only ministers, he was one of the most popular people in the.
World.
He was as well-known as the prime minister of England. In fact, some people, they asked a child, said, who's the prime minister of England? He said, well, I thought it was Charles Spurgeon. So but early on in their relationship, and Spurgeon saw a depth in her in which he believed that he could reveal his love.
He had thoughts of her romantically, but didn't reveal those thoughts until he could see a depth in her of love. But one thing that happened early in their relationship, Spurgeon had her with him, and they were going to preach this huge engagement.
They're engaged at this point. And Spurgeon had a tendency, he would become so laser-focused on the task at hand, he would forget his surroundings, and even his fiancée. So as they go into the building, he just forgets about her.
And he goes to do his thing, and she leaves and goes home, upset with him. And after it's all over, it dawns on Spurgeon, well, where's Susie? And so Spurgeon then chases her down. He gets to her house as quickly as he can after the service.
And she had a very wise mother who could have driven a wall, built a wall of division between them, but brought them together. She had reminded Susie, the man you're marrying is no ordinary man. One, he's a pastor, but he's not even an ordinary pastor.
And you need to support him with all your heart. And when Spurgeon got there, the mother worked reconciliation. But all that to say, that led to Susie making a commitment that she held to for the rest of her life, that she would only support and never do anything to hinder Spurgeon in his public ministry.
And he knew that he had a wife at home who was fully supportive, who was not pouting and sulking, even though sometimes she was sad, she missed him. She was not trying to hold him back. In fact, she was encouraging him outward.
And she was not only very lonely, oftentimes very sick at home. Spurgeon makes sure she had everything that she needed and was cared for, but she never turned away from her commitment to that. And then she joined him in ministry.
So she celebrated the things that Spurgeon did. For example, 1875, she's been sick for a number of years. First volume of lectures to my students comes out. He asked her to read it before it is actually officially on the market.
And she was so excited about that, she said, I wish we could give a copy to every pastor in England. And he said, why don't you make that happen? And she did. I mean, that in the sense that Mrs. Spurgeon's book fund began through volume one of lectures to my students.
So she cheered him on. She celebrated. Spurgeon was prone to deep depression. She was committed to praying for him and reading him. She read poetry to him when he was really sad. When he was feeling like he had been cold in the ministry, she read Richard Baxter to him.
He asked that so that he would be, you know, if you've read any Richard Baxter, especially the reformed pastor, it's hard to get through page one of that without feeling deep conviction. So there was no hesitation.
She was not the reluctant pastor's wife. She loved her husband, prayed for her husband, joined him in ministry, celebrated his accomplishments, and just would not allow anything going on in her life to hinder him in his ministry.
Yes, it's amazing that he is known for battling severe depression in light of the fact that he had such great popularity. But obviously, he didn't have great popularity with everyone because of the conflicts he had and the downgrade controversy and so on that brought to him great, enormous grief and depression.
Yes, and she said that was sort of the straw that broke the back. She believed that was what led to Spurgeon's early death. His friends looked back at the earlier music hall disaster that never left him.
He had effects from that for the rest of his life, something like post-stress syndrome, you know, the disorder. But she believed it was the contrary because in that controversy, people he believed had been comrades with, who had been comrades with him in the ministry, abandoned him.
And in many ways, he was not alone, but he wept over some of his own students that he had trained that did not stand with him during that time.
Well, I want you to just summarize some of the most vital things about the life of Susanna Spurgeon that you want left etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.
Yeah, well, Susie wrote in one of her devotional books that one of the great things that every Christian needs to do is to treasure great thoughts about God. And as we heard at this conference, one of the preachers said, I mean, that will solve so many other issues if we will focus on knowing who God is and trusting God.
And so Susie is an example of trusting God through very hard times, both with her husband and being confined to the sickbed so often in her own life, and yet not quitting, keeping the faith, persevering to the end, and leaving a gospel-centered witness.
I believe her greatest legacy to us, Chris, is Charles Spurgeon. We go into a Christian bookstore, we order a Christian website, Charles Spurgeon still exists today in large part because he had a wife that gave herself to his legacy and her support for him.
And if he had not had her, he said she was necessary to him. That's the word he used, necessary. I don't think we have the Charles Spurgeon we have today had he not had the Susie Spurgeon that he had, the wife that he had in Susie.
Well, praise God. Well, I want our listeners to know that you can purchase this biography of Susanna Spurgeon, Susie, by Ray Rhodes at cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who sponsor Iron Trip and Zion Radio.
And why don't you remind our listeners about Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia and how they can get in contact with you.
Yeah, there's the church website, gracechurchdawsonville .org. And you can also find me at just susiespurgeon .com.
Oh, great. Susiespurgeon .com, and that's S-U-S-I-E, Spurgeon, S-P-U-R-G-E-O-N .com.
And, of course, Moody Publishers. You can get me through Moody Publishers as well.
Great. Well, I want you to also extend my warm greetings to Colonel Kevin Girard. He is a colonel presently, right?
He is.
That's right. And I have very fond memories of fellowship with him and interviewing him. I'd love to have him back on the program. Is he still co-pastoring?
He is. He's a fellow elder with me there at Grace Community Church and indispensable to our.
Church. Great. Well, thank you so much for being on the program today. I look forward to future returns to Iron Trip and Zion Radio from you.
Thank you, Chris. I always enjoy it. I appreciate your ministry, brother.
All right. God bless you.
Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Pastor Ray Rhodes. At this time, we are going to take a break to hear from our sponsors.
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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I'm Eric Nielsen, sitting in for Chris Arnzen, and we are listening to conference interviews from past G3 conferences. This second interview is with Evangelist Bobby McCreery of To The End of the Earth Ministries, and this is from the 2018 G3 conference.
In 2018, Bobby was based out of Decula, Georgia, and he has moved on and is now in the Atlanta.
Area.
And so before the interview begins, I want to be sure to give updated contact information for him. The To The End of the Earth Ministries website is at totheendoftheearth .org. That's totheendoftheearth .org.
Now let's listen to Chris's conversation with Bobby McCreery.
Chris Arnzen at the G3 conference, on site here in Atlanta, Georgia. And finally, after much prayer and patience, I am finally interviewing the very elusive and hard-to-find Bobby McCreery, pastor of Harbert, I'm sorry, Harbin's.
Not the pastor.
Oh.
Just Evangelist.
Evangelist at the Harbin's Community Baptist Church in Decula, is that right?
Decula.
Decula, Georgia. And I have been told to remember how to spell that by just spelling Dracula and then taking the R out of it.
That's it.
And it's an honor and privilege to have you here, Bobby. I first met Bobby McCreery at a conference in Pensacola, Florida, and that was the Jeremiah Cry Conference, right?
Yes, sir. Jeremiah Cry's Herald Society.
That's right. And you were there because that is predominantly a conference made up of speakers, not exclusively, but predominantly made up of a conference featuring speakers that are known to be street preachers.
That's right. That's right. We did also have Dr. White, and he kept remembering to remind us, why do you have me here? I'm not anything like you people.
Yeah. Well, that's not true. I mean, the speakers are predominantly, at least, if not exclusively, Reformed.
Exclusively.
And that might appear to be an oxymoron to a lot of folks that have a stereotype about not only Calvinists, but also street preachers. They might think that a person who's theologically Calvinistic would not care enough to evangelize the lost to be a street preacher, but obviously you guys defy the stereotype.
Well, praise God, brother. I think a lot of what I spend my time doing here at G3 is talking to pastors and saying that's exactly what we do, is defy that stereotype, I hope. Interesting, at University of Georgia, where I minister twice a week, there was one of these Pelagian abusers out there this year calling everybody names, and he ended up getting arrested, and a pastor friend of mine said, none of these kids are going to want to talk to you now for the whole rest of the semester, and it's funny because more came and talked to me after that.
But he said, how are you going to distinguish yourself from this guy, and I said, brother, I hope I distinguish myself from this guy every time I come here and preach. And it's interesting because even a lot of students, they came and said, they give me a hard time a lot of times when those guys don't come around for a year or so, but after brother Jed rolls in the next few weeks, not my brother Jed, but after he rolls in the next few weeks, I hear a lot of, thanks for not being like that guy, and we can see a real difference.
Now in your experience, are most of the street preachers, at least that you have encountered, are they typically non-Calvinists?
So I would say what I think has dominated the street preaching culture over the last maybe century are primarily sinless perfectionists and Pelagians, independent fundamental Baptists, you know, get at it some.
I love those brothers. They do a lot of what I might call beer and cigarette preaching. You know, it's kind of like, if I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't cuss, I'm a Christian kind of thing, you know?
Oh, okay, because I was puzzled there for a minute because I thought that you were talking about a fundamentalist standing there with a beer and a cigarette hanging out of his.
Mouth.
No, no, no. You know, it's kind of that, you know, put down that beer, sinner, put down your cigarette. Will everything be okay then if you don't have those two things?
No.
You need regeneration. You know, I mean, we're preaching Christ. But I think that's a lot of what's out there. You know, when I'm here at the G3, most pastors I talk to, they say, tell me what you do.
I say, I'm a street preacher, and some kind of look comes out. They might try to disguise it a little, but I say, hopefully not like the picture that comes into your mind when you first hear that. And I've got a little booklet.
It's called The Agency That Transformed a Nation by J .C.
Rowe.
It's the first chapter of Christian Leaders of the 18th Century. And he talks about the condition...
Well, that would be the 19th Century, J .C.
Rowe. 1800s?
Well, he's writing about the Christian leaders of the 18th Century before him.
Oh, he wrote about... Oh, I see. Okay, sorry.
Yeah, and in the original publication, it was Christian Leaders of the Last Century. And my friend Jeff Rose from Jeremiah Cry, he actually got me a... He's a great rare book dealer. He got me a first edition of that.
So I always knew it as of the 18th Century, but the one that he got for me is of the Last Century. I was like, this is so cool. But it's the first chapter of that book, and he talks about the condition of England prior to the preaching of Whitefield and Wesley, those guys coming on the scene, and how it was extremely high infant mortality rate, rampant alcoholism, and Bishop Rowe would make the case that open air preaching was the agency, he calls it, that the Lord used to bring England back from the brink of maybe just sort of falling out almost of existence.
It was in such dire straits.
Yeah, I know that the Anglican Church, at least in England, was very opposed to Wesley and Whitefield doing the open air preaching.
Yeah, I don't think it's ever been a widely accepted thing, even within the church. You know, when they threw Whitefield out of the church, you probably know this, Chris, he said, now the world is my pulpit.
And so it's funny, I think, you know, street preachers, there's kind of a lot of club frustration going on because we feel like, why doesn't the church, you know, embrace, well, it never really has, the establishment.
My dear friend Al Baker of Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, passed for many years in Allegheny.
Oh, I interviewed Al many years ago when I was broadcasting out of New York.
Yeah, he said, I'll never forget this, brother, he said, the Lord has never done anything great through the establishment because the establishment no longer expects great things from the Lord. So you know, in that little chapter, Bishop Ryle really sort of, he believes that God transformed England through open air preaching.
So when I talk to pastors here, I say, well, I hope, you know, I refuse to labor with or have any association with, really, brother, other than trying to evangelize heretics. People like Jesse Murrell or Jed Smock.
Yeah, Jesse is quite active on the internet and Facebook.
Anybody listening, please don't Google them if you never heard of them. It's better that you don't know who they are, but I'm already on their dartboard already, so it's okay. But I refuse to labor with anyone like that, and so I'm hoping that through, it's the grace of God who brought me to an understanding of the doctrines of grace and the importance of local church membership and submission to elders, and those are the types of men that I labor with in the harvest fields of the Lord.
So I tell these pastors, I'm hoping, maybe not in my life, but maybe in the next generation, there'll be a conference like this and someone will say, I'm an open air preacher, and people would think of someone like Whitfield, who's on the cover of that book, they'd have a positive thought rather than like a, how'd this guy get in here thought, you know?
So you know, brother, I've been shown much grace by the Lord. I want to be a minister of grace. Those guys that are out there, here's the thing, brother, here's what you can help with,.
Chris.
Let's stop calling those guys open air preachers, those Pelagian deceivers. They're open air abusers. They're not preachers. They don't preach the cross. You know, they're all law, all hell, all condemnation.
They mention Jesus' name a lot. I had a discussion with one, I said, you know, my biggest problem with you guys is you don't talk about Jesus a lot, and he said, the guy preaching just said Jesus' name, I said, well, you mention his name a lot, but you don't talk about his person, his work, his majesty, who he is, what he can do for sinners.
And I said, is it possible that you can't talk a lot about someone you don't know?
Yeah, and that would coincide with Pelagianism, because for those of our listeners unfamiliar with that term, Pelagius and those who followed him either consciously or unconsciously, I'm sure that Charles Finney knew that he was a Pelagian.
I would be surprised if no one accused him of that. But basically, you're removing the necessity of grace from the equation of salvation. And not only are you born innocent, a clean slate where you have a potential of living perfectly, but grace is not required for you to come to a saving knowledge of Christ and to labor and produce the works that would be satisfying God's wrath, basically.
And Charles Finney, a lot of people who laud him as a hero, they don't even realize that he did not even believe that the death of Christ had redemptive value to it.
It's tragic. I think a lot of the people even today that practice a lot of Finneyism, if you will, don't even realize where it really comes from, don't understand the false doctrines that it's rooted in.
And of course, most fundamentalists today that say they love Finney, they are not really Pelagian. Most of them would be non or anti-Calvinist, but they would not be pure Pelagianists, most.
Of them.
In fact, most of them would not even permit somebody who was to be members of the church and yet they laud Finney.
Well, tell us something, I try to do this every time I interview a person for the first time. I don't always successfully do that because I forget sometimes or sometimes I don't have enough time to do it, but I'd like you to give a summary of your testimony of salvation, of what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances arose in your life by God's grace that drew you to himself and saved you.
And then, of course, I'd like to know how you came to the doctrines of grace.
Great. Well, I'll try to make it radio-friendly in length. I was raised by my father's parents, primarily. My parents divorced when I was a year old and 18 months went to live with them. I had a mother that took off, a father that was present but not really a part of my life too much.
So my grandmother is the only Christian in my family that I know of. She took me to church and I prayed the prayer, I don't know, half a dozen times as a young boy and was put in someone's water tank several times.
When I became a teenager, I was just a rebel. I was a wicked sinner, I'd say it like this, once my grandparents couldn't control me anymore, they couldn't control me anymore. So I went out into the world, brother, and all the defilements of this world were enjoyed and promoted by me.
I was the epitome of the Romans 1. They not only know that those who do these things deserve to die, but encourage others to do them as well. So when I was 22 years old, I married my wife, Kara, she was 19, we were both unsaved.
She comes from a family of, her parents are agnostics, and even still today. We were lost, we were young, but in God's providence, he preserved our marriage. So fast forward 11 years into that, and I was a very horrible husband.
We had a daughter, Hannah, who's now 13. When she was four, I had a client at my job. I was working in commercial landscaping, and this guy kept inviting me to his church. And when I say kept inviting me, I saw him once a month, and every time, the first time I met him, you're a Christian?
Oh yeah, when people would ask me if I was a Christian, Chris, I'd say yeah, and hope they'd change the subject real quick. So I'd say yeah, he said, where do you fellowship? And I said, me and God got our own thing going, I don't need a church, all that, no, you need a church, come to my church.
So the third time this guy asked me, I was either going to tell him to take your church and shove it, and probably get fired from my job, and then not know what to do, or say okay I'll go, and that's what I did, hoping that I would just go and he'd leave me alone.
So the first time we go to this church, which is an interesting church, seeker-sensitive, modeled after Saddleback, Rick Warren's church, God works in mysterious ways, so he saves my wife. First time we ever go there.
She's born again. She has the desire to live a holy life and pray and read God's word. And I'm like, oh no, now what? So we're there a year and a half, and I'm still living in sin, she's praying for me, like Peter talks about a wife who wins her husband without a word, and I began to listen to, well here's what happened, one day they had an announcement for a mission trip to go to Bolivia, and I felt compelled to go, I can't explain it.
I was not regenerate, and I was, so the guy who was leading our trip wanted to use the way of the master to train us to go evangelize. So we went through this basic training course, and all these obstacles, I thought I wouldn't be able to go because of money, lost people were sending money for me to go on this trip, so Lord removes all these obstacles, but I'm still not saved.
So after we go through this training, there's a couple months left to go for our trip, and I order some things from Ray Comfort's ministry, one of them being a message called True and False Conversion.
And he talks about a lot of the parables in there, the weed amongst the tares, good fish, bad fish in the same net, and it's really challenging brother, and he's kind of like what are you? And so the Lord used that and his grace to bring me to an end of myself, and there was a day in early 2009 where I was driving up 85 north in my work vehicle, and I had literally probably brother, over the course of three weeks, listened to that sermon maybe a hundred times.
Every moment that I was not talking with a client or a co-worker that I was driving for work, I was listening to it. And I just began to weep and cry out to God and confess all my sin, and I can remember saying if I can't have Jesus, I'd rather not live.
Please just save me, I don't, you know, and I knew enough from growing up in the church as a kid to hear words like the elect, and so I'm saying to God, if I'm not that, just kill me. I'd rather not go on, and you know, God is a, the poor man cried out to the Lord, and he delivered him from all his trouble, Psalm 34.
He made me poor in spirit, I know that now, I don't think I knew that then, and that was nine days before I left to actually go on that mission trip that I signed up to go on when I wasn't saved. God is an amazing God, and so he works in these strange ways.
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Welcome back to the second half of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We were listening to an interview with Evangelist Bobby McCreery that Chris did at the 2018 G3 Conference. Let's return to that interview now.
So how I came to the Doctrine and Covenants is I started reading the Bible. I started reading the Bible and for the first year I was a Christian I didn't read any extra biblical books. All I did was just start just eating the scriptures up and after I was a Christian about a year I signed up to go on an evangelistic outreach to the Super Bowl and I had a 15 hour van ride with like 12 guys in a van to Miami from Atlanta.
And the whole way down and the whole way back there was two brothers sitting in front of me talking about Tulip and the Doctrine and Covenants and I didn't know, I never heard of such things. I never heard of Calvinism, I never read John Calvin, I didn't know there were these kind of terms and I mostly listened.
Sometimes I asked questions but I remember thinking was, this all sounds like what I've been reading in the scriptures over this last year. And I had a dear brother that was with me on that outreach and we're great friends to this day.
We separated doing ministry for a while but because when we got back from that outreach I went out and bought The Potter's Freedom and he went out and bought What Love Is This. So we immediately began to go sort of on separate trajectories but we've now since reconciled and he would say now maybe he's a four point Calvinist or something like that and I'm like it's all or nothing brother.
But we're good brothers now and so yeah, that's how the Lord saved me and that's how I came to the Doctrine of Grace. People would accuse me, point a finger at me, Calvinist this or that and I'd say well can you be that if you've never read John Calvin?
Do we need these labels? Can we just open our Bibles and see what the scripture says? And my favorite thing that Calvin's ever written to this day, people are like Institutes is so great. I mean, have you really read all of it?
I haven't brother, I've read good portions of it but my favorite part is still Prayer. I think the section on Prayer in Institutes is the greatest thing I've read by Calvin. Maybe the greatest thing I've ever read on prayer.
There's a lot of other good stuff but that section on prayer is phenomenal.
What you told me reminds me and I'll try to make this fast but years ago when I was working for WMCA radio selling airtime, I did not have my own talk show at that time, I was approached by a fundamentalist Baptist pastor who was not a Calvinist who said I know a Jewish journalist who's a senior citizen, he's retired and he considers himself a student of the New Testament and he wants to debate me on radio and he wants to purchase some airtime to do it.
So he gave me the person's number and I called the Jewish individual and sold him a two hour block of airtime to debate this fundamentalist Baptist pastor and I'm listening at home to this live broadcast and at some point during the debate this Jewish journalist who had claimed to have read the New Testament many, many times, might have even been as many as a hundred or more.
Of course he, remaining an Orthodox Jew, did not believe in the teachings of Jesus being the Messiah and so on but he knew the Bible very well and he said to this fundamentalist Baptist pastor, so let me get this straight, you believe that before the foundations of the world God chose a certain group of people to be saved to eventually bring to heaven with him but he passed by all the others and did nothing to save them and the fundamentalist pastor interrupts him and says, uh-uh, Ira, hold on a minute, hold on a minute, no, no, no, no, you're talking about Calvinism.
This Jewish guy says, excuse me? You're talking about Calvinism. I'm talking about what? Calvinism. I'm not a Calvinist. What is that? I've never heard this word. I'm talking about your Bible, the New Testament.
I almost fell off my chair.
Praise the Lord.
And I called the radio station and I said to the engineer, you've got to have this Jewish guy stick around after the debate's over because I've got to talk to him and I let him know that he was accurately interpreting what the New Testament said about election and that his opponent, even though he's a Christian, was very flawed in that area and I told him I was going to pray that he actually came to believe and embrace Christ as his Messiah.
And so on.
What a great story.
I hope I can find that tape somewhere. I've got to try to find that pastor and see if he'd be willing to sell me or give me a copy of that recording because it's classic.
That would be great. I'd love to hear it.
One of the things that I wanted to go back to that I want to make sure that we clarify when you were speaking of, I believe it was Ryle who said that God either rarely or never has used institutions. Can you repeat what you were saying?
Oh no, that wasn't Bishop Ryle. That was my friend Al Baker.
Oh, Al Baker. Yes, I know Al.
I know.
You know, he, and I may quote him wrong, he may just have to get on here and correct me sometime, but God has never done anything amazing or remarkable through the establishment because the establishment no longer demands excellence.
They're happy with the status quo. He kind of describes how God uses people that are maybe a little bit outliers or something like that. I heard Pastor Phil Johnson describe us as weird or something like that in one of these Q &As.
You mean in a derogatory way?
No, no, no.
I don't think it was derogatory. He said, you know, maybe take open air preachers and it takes a guy that's a little weird or something and even if it did, I would say, well, I'm very fine with that because I've been called far, far worse by lots of folks.
So, you know, I think that's what Al was getting at is, you know, certainly I think open air preachers are sort of a strange, strange breed. We always have been, but that doesn't, you know, to be clear, that doesn't exclude us from some guys, they take that and they say, well, I don't need the church.
I don't need to submit to anyone. They're a law unto themselves. You know, we've talked about those guys a little bit already.
Yeah, that's why I wanted you to clarify.
Totally unbiblical.
Yes. And in fact, in fact, one of the things I admired about all the guys that I spoke to from the Jeremiah Cry conference that I went to, Tony Miano and some of these other guys, and in fact, I've interviewed Tony on a number of occasions, they have a very strict policy that they will not go street preaching with anyone that does not belong to a local church and also who does not have the blessing of the elders over him to do this because he believes this is actually a calling.
It's not something that anybody should do just because they feel like they have some kind of a gift. And unfortunately, from what these men have told me, and perhaps you can concur, sadly most street preachers aren't even connected in any kind of membership to a local church.
Yeah, I would say sadly that is true, Chris. I'm 100 in agreement with what you said those brothers shared with you. One of the first things I ask a person that wants to potentially labor together is what's your church?
What do your elders think? A lot of times I ask them what's your spouse think? Believe it or not, there's a lot of guys out there that are calling themselves to this type of ministry and they're shipwrecking their home and marriage because their wife is not on board with it.
To any Christian, that's your first ministry. I would even go so far as to say, and Tony believes this, I think he's written about it in his book, I believe that a man who's going to do this should really meet the biblical qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 for an elder.
It's going out and preaching and teaching the word of God. You'd be surprised, brother, how upset some guys doing it get when you say that. First of all, shouldn't any Christian man have an aspiration to meet those qualifications?
That's not the qualifications of a Christian Superman. It's sort of Christianity 101. Sometimes I'll say to a guy, do you think you could be a husband of two wives? Is that what we're getting at? You know what I mean?
It's not like these are, you know, so I think, you know, I, yeah, brother, and I'd have to be transparent when I left my job to go into this ministry full time, I had the approval of my pastor and elder, but I think I rushed it, I think I pressured it, I think I drove it and it was over time that the Lord reformed me through friendships with guys like Tony, a dear brother named John Speed wrote a book called Evangelism, the New Testament, a little booklet where he talks about that, and he did some extensive blog writings about that, and boy, it caused a lot of friction in the open air community because some guys just wouldn't, they refused to see what the scriptures say, I believe, but yeah, and then eventually as the Lord really began to reform my heart, when we found our church in Athens, which is not where we are currently, that church split, sadly, but I went to the elders and they said, we've talked to your previous pastor, we know what you're doing, we've seen some video, we're for it, but if you want this to be a ministry of this church, which I do, and I believe every evangelist should be sent by the church, I believe that's the biblical model, you know, Paul and Barnabas sent out by the church in Antioch, continuing to come back there and report, reporting back to the mother church in Jerusalem, they said, we're going to have to watch over your life, and we're going to have to look at how you are as a husband and a father, and that was a two and a half year process that those guys did that, and was frustrating at times, because I'd been doing the work full time for two years prior to going there, and I'm like, Lord, when's this going to happen, but the Lord was gracious to me and helped me in the times I was frustrated, and eventually those guys after two and a half years came to me and said, we think you're ready to sit before a formal ordination council and everything like that, and you know, I mean, I think every guy that is out doing this work should be at least pursuing that, and you know, we can't be rogues, we can't, Tony calls it nomads, you know, that's just not a biblical model for evangelistic work.
Well, I'd like you to summarize in about two minutes what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.
Well, a lot of people ask me, brother, why do you do what you do, and I say, well, it's very simple, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. I was saved out of a lifestyle of just extraordinary sin, and I love going to places like downtown Athens where there's 50 bars in four square blocks, University of Georgia's number one party school three out of the last 12 years.
I used to live in Lindenhurst, Long Island, and I don't know if it's true, but many people not associated with each other told me that Lindenhurst, Long Island has more bars per square mile than any town in the United States, I don't know if that's still true or not.
Yeah, so places like that, people, you know, you go out there and preach and people say, did you come to beat up the drunks? I say, no, friend, God saves drunks. God saves drunks, he saved me, but what I would like the church to hear out there is most of these type of folks that you encounter out in the street are not going to come into our churches, and so if that faith is going to come by hearing, someone has to take, how will they hear unless someone preaches to them, right?
And how will they preach? We just talked about unless they're sent. So not every Christian church is a preacher or whatever, we're all called to be witnesses and all called to proclaim the gospel, be heralds to wherever we are and whatever context we are.
So the Lord's called me to preach, but he also appointed evangelists to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, so half of what I do, honestly, brother, is preaching to the lost, but on the college campus, I want to also encourage and equip the Christians that are there, these young people who are literally afraid of their God-hating professors and peers and things like that, so I want to put resources like we see around here at the G3 into their hands.
I want to pray for them, I want to get them in my home and encourage them and say, this is your campus, I'm just visiting here. So but, you know, and another thing I'd love listeners to hear is that, yeah, when you hear an open air preacher, hear him out, listen to a guy, you see a guy preaching on the street, listen to what he says, rather than just, you know, let that stereotype rule over you.
That stereotype's there for a reason, and I get it, but brother, you know, I'm a pretty simple guy, I'm not a theologian, well, sorry, RC, forgive me, every Christian's a theologian, but you know, I'm just not the sharpest guy, I'm a very simple man, I love my wife and my four children, I'd rather anyone remember me as just a regular guy trying to obey what the Lord's calling them to do, I'd rather my children know my dad loved me more than anyone ever knew me for evangelistic work, I'm just a regular guy wanting to obey the Lord and what He's called me to, and anyone that wants to get out there into those harvest fields, you can contact me, I'll pray for you, I'll help you any way that I can, I don't know all the answers, but whatever ones I know, you can ask me, I'm an open book.
And how would they contact you?
So Bobby McCreary, and it's bobby at, I wish I would have thought this through better in the beginning, brother, totheendoftheearth .org, all spelled out, so.
And even the word to is not a number?
To, right, yeah, totheendoftheearth .org, right. Why would anyone ever have an email that long, it's so crazy. They can contact me that way, they can find me on Facebook.
How would they contact the Harbin's Community Baptist Church in Decula, Georgia, I think I pronounced it right.
Harbin'schurch .org is the website.
That's H-A-R-B-I-N-S.
Correct. My elders there are Demar Webb and Jeff Thomas. And you know, if your listeners think to pray, we've been back at Harbin since our other church split, and it's a long way from the UGA campus, and my goal is to bring students into the church.
God saves people into the church, and we need the church. So Harbin's is a little far away, I love them dearly. The word of God is preached faithfully there, and Christ is held in high esteem, but we believe the Lord would have us be closer to where we're trying to minister to so that we can bring people in.
When we had our church in Athens, we had college students there in real meaningful membership. They're picking up people that can't, older folks that can't drive themselves anymore. I'm saying glean from these people, don't just sit in a pew on Sunday because you feel like your parents aren't going to pay your tuition if you don't go to church.
You know, come in here and love the church, and that's what I want to do. So we're seeking the Lord long-term as to whether or not, you know, maybe there'd be a church plant there, or if we need to move to another place.
So that's how folks could pray for us as well.
Well, Brother Bobby, it's been such an honor and privilege to finally get you on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. People listening don't know that I have bumped into you at various conferences, and we always intended to sit down and have an interview, and it just never happened.
Our paths kept crossing and so on, and not ever when we could both sit down and actually conduct an interview until now, when God's providence permitted it. But thank you so much. I look forward to having you back on the program again, and I look forward to also sharing fellowship with you in the future.
Chris and Eric, thank you guys. It's an honor and a privilege to be with you, and very thankful for what you're doing, Brother. Press on.
God bless you.
God bless you. Thank you.
You too.
I hope you enjoyed that interview with Bobby McCreary. Again, his website is totheendoftheearth .org.
James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.
And besides that, they feel so good. I'm so delighted I discovered Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding. No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot. Jeffrey Rice of Post Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.
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Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a God-centered focus, reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.
Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at GCBCNJ .squarespace .com. That's GCBCNJ .squarespace .com. Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654. Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine Christian organizations to remain on the air, like the Historical Bible Society. The Historical Bible Society maintains a collection of Christian books, manuscripts, and Bibles of historical significance spanning nearly a thousand years.
The mission of HBS is the preservation and public display of ancient scripture, dissemination of scripture, to provide tools equipping believers and Christian apologetics with evidence for the Bible's reliability, and to introduce Reformation literature and Christian art to a broader audience.
Since 2004, HBS has toured schools and churches throughout the Northeast United States, reaching thousands of believers and non-believers alike who are hungry for knowledge of the Bible. HBS's founder, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, is committed to sharing this collection along with an inspirational historical message that will captivate you and your church.
Come journey through their website, historicalbiblesociety .org. The collection includes a complete 11th century Bible, an actual page of the Gutenberg Bible from 1455, the first book ever printed, the Geneva Bible, the 1611 King James Bible, and much, much more.
Visit historicalbiblesociety .org today. Thank you, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, for your faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.
It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.
I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at the Toronto Baptist Seminary, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Jeff Downs of Knox Reform Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
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Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart? Consider restocking your pews with the NASB and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com to place your order.
Our final interview for the day is an interview that Chris did with Todd Friel at G3 2017. That was the first G3 conference that Chris Arnzen attended. And Todd Friel stopped by for an interview at the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio booth.
This was a very good and interesting interview as Todd gave his testimony of coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, I'm Chris Arnzen from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I'm here at the G3 conference with the person I think I wanted to interview more than anybody else, Todd Friel of Wretched.
Radio.
Okay, that confirms it. You're out of your mind. Steve Lawson is here. Phil Johnson is here. Vody Baucom is here. You're very confused. And Mr. Dapper, look at you with the pocket stuff. There's just one thing missing from this outfit of yours.
You forgot your razor. What's this? Are you trying to become like a cool reformed guy?
No, actually, I just shaved yesterday and I'm very manly.
Good on you.
And for those of our listeners who aren't aware, I'd be shocked if they weren't, but Todd Friel is the host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. And as he said in a recent ad, an occasional guest on Chris's show, Iron Sharpens Iron.
I have been so blessed by your television program on NRB. I don't get the local radio program in a station near where I am, but the NRB television program is a real blessing.
Can I tell you, there are good folks there. We've got a new product that we created called Drunk in the Spirit. It is a screed against the extreme nonsense that is going on in something called the New Apostolic Reformation, which has about 365 million adherents.
I mean, that thing is like pedal to the metal going after it.
Are they actually reviving that Drunk in the Spirit thing?
They're going to air it on NRB. Really? How courageous is that?
Yeah, you're right.
Seriously, that might be the edgiest piece of Christian TV ever aired because the men at NRB, they're serious, and they mean it, and they're about the gospel. So it's a real treat because in so much of not so much radio, but more so in TV media, the Christian TV is not good.
And so when you run into one that is good, it's a joy.
Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of the people that can afford to have TV programs are not necessarily the most faithful to the Scriptures.
Well, I pondered that. Why is that? If you listen to most Christian radio stations overall, it's dominated by John MacArthur. He's on 900 stations. R .C. Sproul. You hear these solid preachers overall because radio is a thinking type of media only.
You've got to think. When you're listening to somebody, blah, blah, blah, you've got to be interested. You've got to be able to keep up. You've got to become educated in the subject matter. It requires thinking.
And so the conservative teaching that we hear overall is good. TV, however, is a visual media, and these rascals who know how to put on a show have gotten there first, and they keep people entertained with the shenanigans and the antics and the big hair and all of the nonsense, and they kind of dominate Christian TV.
And I've got a little life's goal to change that.
Yeah, in fact, I don't know if you remember the late James Montgomery Boyce, but he purposely did not have a TV ministry for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned, and that he thought that the video distracted from what he was saying.
But tell our listeners something about the basic concept of wretched TV and wretched radio. What are the kinds of things that you address and whatnot?
Yeah, we have a threefold purpose. We want to preach the gospel, help people preach the gospel, and teach people how to apply the gospel to their lives, because it is applicable. The Bible does something.
The Christian faith is active. And so we recognize, especially when you come to a conference like this, we're not the deep end of the theological pool. We just want to try to find some folks who don't even know that there's water and to get them to dip their toe into it so that they can start getting immersed with better and better teaching.
So that's what we're about, ultimately, so that the local church will be strengthened, the pastor hopefully encouraged to stay faithful to the Word, and then people that are participating in their local church will simply improve the local church.
Now, one thing that I have been wanting to ask you about that you haven't addressed with me on Iron Sharpened His Arm before is something that you kind of left as a cliffhanger on wretched TV once. You were discussing about pastors needing to hear the gospel, too, because sometimes men behind the pulpit are lost.
And you said at the end of the program, and that would include me. And then you walked away or something and didn't really—you were a lost man who was a pastor.
Thankfully, I wasn't pastoring a church. I studied to be a pastor, and I was a pagan. The application didn't ask, so I didn't tell. And so, I mean, I wouldn't have ever thought this way, but I learned years later that I was just a false professor.
You don't study about Jesus during the day and live like a devil at night. If you keep on sinning, you're of the devil. And I was keeping on sinning. I was present in ongoing sin. I didn't love the Lord.
I wasn't grateful. And interestingly, it's not that the gospel was never presented that Jesus died for our sins. I heard that a thousand times. And this is maybe an encouragement to pastors to ask themselves if they are ever pointing a finger at the congregation to say, and this day, you must respond.
You must repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ now. Today is the day of salvation. Examine yourself. See if you're in the faith. And if not, humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. Nobody ever challenged me.
Nobody ever casted out the gospel net. I heard the gospel, but that's not the same as casting the net. So we need to remember that there are people sitting in our congregations who've never been confronted to see where they are at with the Lord.
And that was me.
So what kind of a religious atmosphere or upbringing did you have, if any? And what were the providential things that the Lord brought into your life that actually drew you to himself in a saving way?
If you had reached the point where you're actually applying for pastoral positions and you realize you were lost, what happened before and what brought you to the point?
You know, I'm grateful for the education that I received because it was a classical education. And so I studied Latin and Greek and Hebrew.
Did all of that. So it was a very fine education. And what I appreciated about it is they were very earnest about theology.
You're talking about the seminary that you went to or your family?
Oh, well, nobody in my family was a believer.
Okay.
Just talking about how I was trained to value the Word of God and theology. So my issue, Chris, was not a lack of knowledge of theology. When I got saved, the reason for it really was what started it was listening to Chuck Swindoll on the radio, you know, his Insight for Living.
And Chuck has a way of teaching without it sounding like theological highbrow business. But I heard exactly what he was doing. It's like, oh, I see what he's doing there. He's taking that theology off the shelf and he's applying it to life.
And I increasingly was listening to him with a fascination that, wow, this all kind of fits together and does something. And so my wife and I, we decided we looked up Chuck Swindoll to see what he was.
And we found out that he was Evangelical Free Church of America. So we took out the yellow pages. That dates the story, doesn't it? We took out the yellow pages and we looked for ECFA churches near us.
Well, one Sunday morning, I went. My wife stayed home. I went. And the pastor was just a godly preacher. And I'm hesitating to tell the story because I'll start to cry. But he read something that simply devastated me.
And I don't think that I would ever share this. I don't think I'd ever preach it. Maybe you've seen it out on the Internet. It's pretty gloppy, but it's a letter to a friend from Jesus. Dear friend, I watched you wake up this morning and I was hoping that you would stop and talk to me, but you didn't.
So I prepared a sunrise for you so when you walked out the door, you might be struck by the creation and talk to me.
Romans 1.
But you didn't. You went throughout your day. I carried you through and I was hoping when you put your head on your pillow that you would stop and talk to me, but you didn't. But that's okay. I'll wait for you because I love you.
And that simply crushed me that I had been the most pride-filled, arrogant, obnoxious, foul jerk that has ever walked the planet. And so I sat there and so the pastor finishes reading this thing and he said, you are dismissed.
And I was like the, you talk about the king of ugly crying. I was like the big blub. You know, I was like heaving and sobbing and snot and wiping off my face. And you are dismissed. And I, what am I going to do just sitting here in a puddle of tears?
And that is when God was breaking me. Could I say it was that moment? Perhaps. I don't think the moment, but I know that that was the season. And I don't even remember what year it was, frankly. But I remember when God got ahold of me and convicted me and crushed me and promised me that he would save me anyway.
And that was the season I got saved. And now, immediately, I knew that everything that I'd been doing as a pretend Christian was just a ruse. And it was fake because I knew the difference. I knew about Jesus.
Now I know him. And it changed everything.
Oh, praise God.
Well, even after that rebirth, has there been any major changes in your theological perspectives over those years?
Oh, sure.
You know, some, but overall, you know, pretty much the same. Conservative, high view of scripture. I've changed my understanding. I would tweak my understanding a bit on eschatology, Lord's Supper, baptism, things, you know, just slightly different perspective.
But like I said, I'm grateful for the education I received. I just wasn't saved. That's all. Actually, I did a little math once because I went to prep too. And we had chapel twice a day, Monday through Friday, and then Saturday.
I think we just had one chapel service and then church on Sunday. And over the course, I ended up over the years, I went to church service, chapel, 2 ,700 times.
And I wasn't a Christian.
Just because you talk about the gospel doesn't mean that people are getting the gospel. So the encouragement would be preach the gospel. Don't, there's a bit of a movement. It's not organized. But in evangelical Christianity, there's a big push about the gospel.
It's all about the gospel. Well, you go and listen to some of those sermons, and they use the word gospel a ton. Isn't the gospel amazing? The gospel is so incredible. I love the gospel. Isn't it gospelicious?
But they never preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. And if somebody complains, preach it to them more because they probably need to hear it because those of us who are born again love to hear it.
Yeah, I think that the perception I get is that most evangelicals, whether they are in the pew or on a TV screen or even a radio station, are teaching that the gospel is that Jesus loves you, so invite Him into your heart.
That's the gospel.
Sure. Yeah, that's not good. Now, look, it's hard every week to try, okay, how do I talk about Calvary again? So I get that there's a bit of a challenge to that, but don't worry, Pastor, you can repeat yourself.
We're okay with that. Use your text to get us to Calvary, and that will make it inventive sounding. You know, it'll be clever enough, unique enough sounding, but get us there. Sir, we would see Jesus, so get to the cross and camp there.
Amen.
Now, you have had an opportunity to interview, I don't know if you've interviewed all of the key speakers here, or all of the speakers, period.
Oh, but Voddie Baucom, who didn't show up, but I'm not going to name names.
That's interesting, because I've been trying to get him on my show.
Completely bailed. You'd think he was living in Africa or something.
But I was wondering if you can summarize, perhaps, the essence of what is most vital that the folks that you interviewed over the course of the time that you've been here, about the, I'm assuming that some of the content had to do with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which is the theme of this conference, obviously.
Anything that you care to share that you could walk away with?
You know, I'd summarize the interviews that I've had with Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson, James White, Nathan Buznitz, Whippersnapper, Audemaster Sem, Sharp. Boy, he gave us a 1500-year history of the Catholic Church, how to understand, when did it get off the rails?
When did this happen? He was a brilliant young man. And I would say that the theme throughout all of those conversations, and we talked about justification, and propitiation, and atonement, and adoption, and expiation, and all the big Reformation words.
But I think I would summarize it based on the t-shirts that we've been seeing walking around here at the G3 conference. Did you see the quote from Martin Luther on the back of the t-shirts from the people who are running this thing?
Did you read the quote?
No, what is it?
I'm paraphrasing, but it's pretty close. Martin Luther, give me Scripture. I'll say it again, Scripture, Scripture, Scripture. Did you hear me?
Scripture. That's really what it says.
It's about the Bible.
And it's about that being our source of authority, our source of everything. The Protestant Reformation was about authority. Is it the vicar of Christ in Rome, or is it Jesus Christ? Is it tradition in the magisterium, or is it the Word of God?
So that the Word just kept coming through, the proclamation of the Word, the recapturing of the Word, the translating of the Word into the language of the people. So the theme really throughout all of it was the authority of the Word.
And what an uncomfortable moment it was recently. As you may remember from our last interview, last week I had a debate, another debate that I organized between a Roman Catholic, Robert St. Genes of Catholic Apologetics International, and my friend Dr. Tony Costa.
If you're not familiar with him yet, you need to be. He's a professor of apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary, a friend of Dr. James R. White, who actually introduced him to me. And they debated on Mary, a sinless queen of heaven, or a sinner saved by grace.
Great title.
And Dr. St. Genes knew that he could not maintain any kind of credible defense for Rome's teachings about Mary by remaining with a biblical discussion. So he kept trying to steer the ship to focus on sola scriptura, which he obviously denies.
And when Dr. Costa had brought up the fact that only scripture is described in scripture as theianustos, God-breathed, it's the only thing that we have that is from the breath of God. And to hear Dr. St. Genes, the Catholic apologist, say, who cares?
He actually said that.
Actually said that. Just means it's a little more special. That's all it means.
He was backed into a corner, running out of arguments, and out of the anger and frustration, really revealed the heart of Catholicism is that, who cares? Because our traditions mean just as much, if not more, because they trump what the Bible says in here.
And you actually had the role of speaking on, it was Peter, the first pope.
You're dismissed.
In fact, I won the Puritan award at the conference because it was a three-point sermon. But the first point actually had 25 sub-points. So I win the Puritan sub-point award with 25. You have to see a group of people say, everybody's up and paying attention because it's just starting.
And we're going to talk about is Peter, the first pope. And I have three points. And the first point has 25 sub-points. Oh, just everybody slumps and just the air leaves the room. 25 points. So I broke it up in three points.
Basically, when we look at it biblically, I'm a theological nincompoop. By myself, without reading commentaries, I was simply able to come up with 25 reasons biblically why Peter is not the first pope.
And a few of my favorites, if you don't mind. It's Matthew 16, 13 through 18 of the contested verses. On the ring of the Sistine Chapel, there are two Bible verses. Thou art Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and I give you the keys to the kingdom.
I only tackle the first one. Is Peter really the rock? Well, if you read the very next story, Jesus now, having said, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church. We, of course, believe it's confession.
The Greek language, you know that. But look at the next story. Jesus now starts to get specific. I must go to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man must be turned over. I'm going to die. And Peter, again, jumps up.
Forbid it, Lord. This was never going to happen to you. And Jesus turned and looked to the new pope, the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, and said, Get behind me, Satan, which is a pretty good sign that he had not simply just been installed as the new pope, that he was a sinner.
And we see this again, then, in Matthew 18. The disciples come and ask Jesus, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Please note, Jesus did not say, Hello, knuckleheads. Weren't you listening? I just said it was Peter.
I'm building my church. He's the most special. Why weren't you paying attention? Apparently, the disciples didn't get that message because Jesus didn't deliver it. He was talking about himself. And even if you want to say that Peter is the rock, okay, what was Peter all about?
Same as Paul, he preached Christ and him crucified. So no matter how you slice it, the cornerstone is not Peter. It's Jesus Christ. I'm sorry. But when you look through the Old Testament, too, in Zion, I lay a cornerstone.
Isaiah was talking about the Messiah. The Old Testament understood who the rock was. Think about Jesus in Exodus 17. And the rock was Christ, 1 Corinthians 10, about the rock and the water and the splitting of it.
The Bible always points to the rock in the Old Testament, Psalm 18. You can read it three times. God is the rock. The rock is God. In other words, the rock is divine all throughout Scripture. So for Jesus to say to Peter, You're the rock, is simply preposterous.
So that was point one, 25 of those, basically. And then we got into, historically, we took a look at the bloody and tawdry history of the office of papacy, which wasn't pleasant. And then we got to my favorite part, which was point three.
Confessionally, Peter was making it clear he was not the first pope. What did he say? The confession that was God revealed to him. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Thou art the Messiah.
He was making the same confession the entire Old Testament had been making. There is a Messiah to come. Look for the Messiah. Because the Bible is all about one subject, that Messiah. And as you make your way through the Old Testament, it's preaching about the Messiah.
It's preaching about forgiveness of sins. It's preaching about the need to be justified. It's the sacrificial system. It's Passover that's a picture of Jesus. It's Isaac that's a picture of Jesus. It's the ladder that's a picture of Jesus.
Assurity, the tabernacle, the bread of life. He's the manna. He's the ark of our salvation. He's the door that we must enter through to be saved. Jesus is in the Old Testament because that is what God is doing.
Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, the reason for the planet is for God to send his son to save sinners that he might be glorified for his loving kindness. With that in mind, Peter was making that confession.
This is the one. And that is why the church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord, not Peter.
And I know that you said you could only spend 20 minutes with us, so I'll let you summarize.
Has it been 20 minutes?
Yeah, believe it or not. Yeah, but if you could let our listeners know in summary form.
You kind of made me sound like a jerk with that. You could only stay 20 minutes, hotshot. Listen, I want to stay married. My wife is down the aisle and I'm looking at her. She's being gracious.
I'll tell you what, you can make it up to me by the next time you're on. Iron Sharpens Iron over the phone. Be on for an hour at least.
Aha, so this is sort of a little scam that you've got going, a little chess game you're.
Playing.
All right, I understand you better now.
If you could summarize what you want my listeners, both Catholic and Protestant or otherwise, with what they should most bring home with them in regard to the summary of what the Reformation stood for.
Because obviously, as Phil Johnson said, and I'm sure you agree, that evangelicals need just as much of a Reformation today as Rome did.
Yeah, yeah, I think he's right, which is a pretty provocative statement. Let me speak specifically to the Roman Catholic who might be listening. I understand you. In fact, all of human history understands you.
We are bent toward working our way to heaven. We just, we want to do something to clean up ourselves. The gospel of Jesus Christ comes along and it crushes that and it announces at its core, the gospel says, no, you can't.
So I understand why you try to do things. You think that baptism is a necessary thing, a work that you must do, acts of love, taking the Eucharist, doing confession, last rites, not committing any mortal sins.
I understand that because that's the way we're all bent. But Jesus has a rather staggering message for you. Stop it. Stop it. You can't. And the reason that even very nice people who pay their taxes and they mow their yard, they even edge the lawn, are not pleasing to God is because every good thing that we do is offered with sin-stained hands.
Think of it like receiving a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And as you look at the flowers and smell them and appreciate them, you notice the hand that is attached to them, that is giving them to you, is connected to Adolf Hitler.
You'd go, you know, okay, look, Adolf Hitler was a wicked man. How many sins did he commit? I don't know, but I know how many I committed. And our hands are dirty. So even the good things that we do are not pleasing to God.
And Jesus has some great news for you. If you've done bad things, and you have, because again, you're like me. You've done bad things. You've broken God's laws. And unlike so often the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, God is serious about justice.
And he is going to judge every deed done in darkness. In fact, the psalmist said, you know my words before I speak them. Even the Old Testament supports what Jesus said when he said, you've heard it said of old, thou shall not commit adultery.
I say, you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. He's going to judge our thought life. My Roman Catholic friend, you have a sin problem like me, like Chris. And the gospel has more news for you.
And this is the good news. Jesus can. You can't, and Jesus can, and Jesus did. Jesus paid it all. All of your sins, past, present, and future, gone. And think about it from this perspective. If you can get to heaven and say, I gave this much money.
I did this many confessional. I said my rosary this many times. I did this many acts of charity. Who can take some credit for your salvation? You can. And he is God, and he will not give his glory to another.
You can't. Jesus did, and he's going to get all the credit for saving you because he's everything you need for salvation. So if you have been relying on the traditions of men, Jesus warned about this in John chapter 6.
You've exchanged the teaching of the word for the teachings of men. It was a rebuke to them. And it's a rebuke to you today if you've been trusting in traditions that are not found in the Bible. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
It is a gift of God, not of works. So that nobody can boast. If you have never repented, told God you're sorry for your sins, turned from your sins, not in perfection, but in a new direction, stopping sinning, and put your trust in Jesus Christ, you have his promise.
He will not cast you out. In fact, he will save you to the uttermost. And it gets even better. Contrary to what the traditions of men teach, you will be in his hand and nobody can snatch you out of it.
You will be eternally secure in the Savior who did it all for you. Repent and trust that good Savior today, and you will inherit everlasting life.
Well, thank you so much, Todd, for being on the program, for making time in this busy schedule at G3 to sit here with me. I'm honored. I'm delighted.
I always love it, bro. I really, I do enjoy it. And I'm sorry to, like, scoot on you.
No, that's quite all right.
I understand.
But I've got about an hour-long ride home with my wife, and it can be a pleasant ride or not.
Or a silent ride.
And that is all up to you. So your call.
All right.
God bless you, brother. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to your return.
I hope these interviews today have been a blessing to you. And as Chris always says, I hope that you will remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater Savior than you are a sinner.