July 13, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor Walt Chantry on his book “Today’s Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic?”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity on the planet Earth listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 13th day of July 2015.

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I'm so honored and delighted to have back again on Iron Sharpens Iron for the second time,

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Walt Chantry, who is one of the pioneers of the Reformed Baptist resurgence in America in the middle of the 20th century.

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He is also the retired pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I am currently a member and where Pastor David Campbell is the current pastor.

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Today we're going to be discussing Walt Chantry's book, Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, now celebrating its 45th anniversary in print.

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And it's my honor and privilege to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron, Walt Chantry. Thank you for having me,

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Chris. You make me feel old by counting years since I wrote the book. Well, in fact,

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Pastor Chantry also has the unique privilege of being the very first in -studio guest of the all -new

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Iron Sharpens Iron. The last time Pastor Chantry was on, he was on when we had the former

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Iron Sharpens Iron between 2006 and 2011 at WNYG and WGBB radio out on Long Island.

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So this is the first time we have had an in -studio guest here for the all -new

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Iron Sharpens Iron here in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. And I'm delighted that he is the first guest.

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And Brother Chantry, as I said, this month, July, marks the 45th anniversary of the publishing of your classic work,

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Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic. I happen to know a number of individuals who have been profoundly affected by this book over the years, and at least one such dear friend,

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Bill Shishko, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, New York, told me this book was used of God as a key instrument to lead him to embrace the doctrines we call

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Reformed, Calvinist, or the doctrines of grace back when he was a student at Bob Jones University in South Carolina.

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And since this book obviously has as its focus the gospel, which is in the very title of the book, perhaps giving a brief definition of what the true gospel of Jesus Christ is would be a wise way to start our program.

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What is the gospel as the Bible defines it? I'd like to do that with just the quoting of Ephesians chapter 2, the first five verses.

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You were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, that is the devil, the spirit that is now at work in the children of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body, the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.

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But God, and here's the gospel, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace, not by your own will, but by grace you have been saved.

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And this certainly goes again with what our Lord Jesus taught the leader of the

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Jews who came to visit him at night, Nicodemus. The Lord Jesus said, you must be born again.

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Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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It's throughout the scriptures of the New Testament, one of the ones that I find attractive is in the gospel of John, where John talks about Christ being a light shining in the darkness, and when this bright light began to shine,

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God sent a man named John the Baptist to tell people that the light was on.

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That's how blind they were. And of course, that theme is carried on in 2

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Corinthians chapter 4 as well, that God needs to open the blind eyes to see the light that he sent.

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So he sends a light of truth and righteousness and beauty in Christ, and then he has to send light into us of knowledge to receive the message.

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And that's the gospel of the New Testament. Well, this book, as you know, was first published in 1970.

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What was the theological controversy that compelled you to write this book in that year? Well, it was not a new controversy.

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It was clear to us who had gone to evangelistic meetings, large evangelistic meetings, that there was a method of trying to persuade man to exercise his will, and that that was the key issue in salvation.

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That somehow the evangelist must find ways to persuade men to exercise their size, their wills, to choose

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Jesus, and that was the factor that brought about salvation.

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I really think that that had become the drift of modern evangelicalism since the days of Jonathan Edwards.

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Jonathan Edwards, you know, left his congregation and was sent to a mission for the

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Indians, and the amazing thing is that the first thing he did when he went to be a missionary to the

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Indians was write a philosophy about man and about salvation within the soul of man.

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And he used the very words of the Amaraldian movement that took place in France.

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Would that be four -point Calvinism, basically? It would claim to be the true

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Calvinism, but it really was under the influence of some humanists who taught in France, and out of the particular seminary where Amarald himself taught, and the basic effort that they were making was to prove that man has a will that has an ability to come to God, and they divided up the man into a natural ability and a moral disability, and this enabled them to say that there was an ability in man to come to Christ, and that the essence of evangelism was to learn how to influence that ability to choose

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Christ. Amaraldianism was denounced along with Arminianism in some of the church councils of Europe following this, but Jonathan Edwards wrote exactly what the

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Amaraldians did, that man has a natural ability and a moral inability, and that that leaves room for us to get hold of man's will to choose

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Christ, and of course there have been many inventions to try to do that in the years since.

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The followers of Jonathan Edwards who loved his teaching claimed that that was his view, that it was an

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Amaraldian view. There needs to be further work done to see whether that's true or not, but it certainly was true in our day that if you went to one of these large evangelistic meetings, there was a persuasion to come forward, and when you come forward, then to raise your hand and as a sign of showing that you wanted the

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Lord Jesus to come into your heart, and then you were taken aside by a counselor who would say, now do you believe you were a sinner?

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And if you hesitated, they'd say, well all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Well then you could say, if we're all in that boat, yeah,

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I was a sinner, and then the next question would be, have you asked

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Jesus to forgive your sins, or even if not, pray this prayer after me, and they would give you the words by which to show that you had a will to receive

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Christ. Then they would give you the assurance, don't let anyone ever tell you that you're not a

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Christian, and don't you ever doubt it. You've just done what is necessary to enter the kingdom of God.

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Well that's a very humanistic approach that was very common in our days, and when we read some of the

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Puritan works about salvation, we thought it was very urgent to write about the subject, and to go back to some of the manner in which the

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Puritans handled the gospel. And I'm going to actually give our listeners our email address if you want to send in a question for Walt, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. This aberrant teaching you address as prominent today, was it, or is it

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I should say, as prominent today as it was in the 60s and 70s in evangelicalism, or is it even more widespread today?

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Well I'm not a historian, and I haven't statistics, but it seems to me it's just as prominent today, and it's difficult to break these habits of what is called evangelism, to emphasize some of the things that our

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Lord Jesus did in the scriptures. What specifically is lacking, and therefore greatly needed in preaching today, and always, in regard to the character of God?

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Well, as you know, today's gospel emphasizes the encounter that our

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Lord Jesus had with a rich, young, apparently someone of the nobility, who came running to him.

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He had been preaching to a multitude about marriage and divorce, and he had been inviting the children to come, and he would take them in his arms and bless them, but he was ready to go up and get up and leave to go to another location, and that's when this young man came up and ran to Jesus.

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And said to him, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

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He was very polite, he knelt to show that he admired this teacher. He had the right question, thinking of the world to come, and not just of the present day.

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What must I do to inherit eternal life? But he called

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Jesus good master, and that's what Jesus took hold of to talk about the uniqueness of God.

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And he told the young man that no one is holy, no one is good but God.

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The young man did not know that Jesus was God, the Son come in the flesh, and our

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Lord Jesus made it clear there is only one good individual in the universe, and that is

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God. He is righteous, he is pure, he is good, and infinitely so.

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And people need to know the uniqueness of God, and that we are not his equal, and that he has a holiness that the angels adore and always will.

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Preaching the law of God is quite controversial. It's quite a controversial issue that even still divides professing

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Calvinists today. How is the law rightly to be preached, keeping in mind that ever since the days of the

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Judaizers, there have been professing Christians who have erred greatly in law preaching to the point that the

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Apostle Paul said, let them be accursed. Yes, well, our

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Lord Jesus Christ in this encounter, after pointing out that only

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God is good, and righteous, and pure, and holy, and then the

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Lord Jesus began to mention a number of the Ten Commandments.

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He certainly mentioned the commandment, thou shalt not kill, and thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, honor your father and your mother.

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He is laying out the commandments that the young man may know what he means by holiness.

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And the young man remarkably says, I've kept all those commandments from my youth.

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I never broke any of those commandments. And our Lord Jesus at that point looked at him, and surprisingly, he loved him.

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Not because he had kept the commandments, but here was an earnest young man so ignorant, and trying to get on the way, not knowing how to do so, and claiming that he was without sin.

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So our Lord Jesus then went to the Tenth Commandment by saying, well, this is what you have to do.

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You have to sell all you have, all your riches, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

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And now the young man understood that he loved the riches too much to sell them, or to obey a command of Christ like that.

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Then he understood that he had within his soul, sin is within the soul, not just in outward actions.

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And so Christ was pressing the matter of the moral law to this young man.

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And it is vital that we preach those commandments because coming to the

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Lord and having forgiveness of sin first requires the knowledge of sin.

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And one of the ways that we see young people coming to Christ is if they have come from homes that taught them the

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Ten Commandments and took them to churches where they were taught the Ten Commandments and pointed out when the

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Ten Commandments were broken by what they did or said, and they are then ready to take the next step to repent of their sins.

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So it's vital to evangelism that people know what the commandments are. Morality is defined by God's Ten Commandments.

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There was a time when I was a boy and I went through public schools in Philadelphia.

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The scripture was read every morning, prayer was made every morning, and the

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Jews knew what the Ten Commandments were, and the Catholics knew what the Ten Commandments were, and the

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Protestants knew what the Ten Commandments were, and we could have a discussion on morality.

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That doesn't mean they were all keeping the commandments, but there certainly was that knowledge which is now swept away from our nation because people do object to teaching the law and because scripture has been ripped away from public schools.

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So would you say that the difference between what you're speaking about, which is mandatory or an essential element of the gospel, the difference between that and what the

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Judaizers were doing was that the Judaizers were imposing the ceremonial law on the

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Christians? Yes, they were certainly, both the ceremonial law and the cleansing laws that they had to follow.

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But in addition, it was that people had to follow these things as Pharisees and Sadducees would follow them.

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And when they came to the Lord Jesus, they criticized him because he spent time with sinners.

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You always have sinners around you, and you're always eating with the tax collectors who are horrible men, who cheat us and are against our nation.

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And Jesus responded to the Pharisees on one occasion by saying, well, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just men who don't need any repentance.

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Amen. Well, you're bringing us to preaching repentance towards God, which is a central theme in your book.

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Some people wrongly think that insisting on repentance as a requirement of salvation is adding the works of men to what

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Christ has already accomplished for their justification before God, just as the aforementioned

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Judaizers were guilty of doing, or as the Church of Rome has done for centuries and made dogma at the

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Council of Trent. As you know, John MacArthur was slanderously accused by many in the 1980s for this when he wrote the

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Gospel According to Jesus, and a great controversy over this issue back then led to the division of many former friends in the faith among fundamentalists and evangelicals.

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What do you mean specifically by repent or repentance toward God, and how is this different from giving men credit for cooperating in their being made worthy of heaven?

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Well, the children's catechism that comes out of the Reformation by both

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Presbyterians and Baptists asks children, what is repentance unto life, repentance unto eternal life?

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And you know, the New Testament sometimes says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and some places it says, repent and believe.

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Well, repentance unto life is a saving grace. It comes from God, just as faith does.

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By grace are you saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves. It is a gift of God to you, not of works, lest any man should boast.

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The Gospel is a gospel of the grace that comes from God to enable us to perform as we should, to receive salvation through Christ.

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And faith is a gift of grace, and repentance is a saving grace that comes from God.

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Whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, where he really understands it and feels it, and apprehension that there's mercy with God in Christ, he understands these two things at once, that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and there is mercy with God in Christ.

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Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God, doth with grief and hatred of his sin, grief that I have sinned, hatred of the sin that I have committed, turns from it to God with full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience.

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And this is what our Lord Jesus Christ was urging of that rich young ruler. You have been holding on to riches, you've made a little god of riches, it means more to you than everything else in the world, even the eternal life that you've been asking about, you've got to turn from it.

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And that's repentance, and that's coming to Christ in the right spirit, sad for our sins, realizing that I need the grace of God in Jesus Christ to overcome my sins.

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And so that is the whole matter of repentance. And the Roman Catholic or the person in another religion who believes that not only does he have the ability to somehow please

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God with his deeds and make himself in part worthy of heaven, this is something entirely different because from beginning to end

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Christ is the Alpha and Omega, and he is the author and finisher of our faith, and therefore he is the one that even gives us the gift of repentance, doesn't he?

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He is, yes. And what specifically do you mean in the book by preaching faith towards God's Son?

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Well, obviously one must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and the work that he has done for sinners.

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He perfectly kept the law for his people, but he also suffered for the sins of his people in breaking the law to bring us to God.

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And trusting in Christ is a matter of essential attention in the matter of coming to God.

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One must not just think, oh, there is a day of judgment, and I've got to be right with God.

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I've got to find a way to receive the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.

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And faith needs an object which has to be Christ, correct? People sometimes treat faith in and of itself as some kind of a virtue that will be pleasing to God, just as long as they have a positive outlook on the future or something like that.

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And when you talked a few moments ago about Roman Catholicism, they have made penances and such things like that to take care of all their sins, which is certainly far short of the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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Amen. We're going to be going to a break right now, and we'll be going to some of our listener questions who have emailed their questions in already after we return from the break.

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And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. I'll be right back with Walt Chantry and further discussion of his book, Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in, our guest today has been a very well -known figure, especially amongst

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Reformed Baptist and Calvinist Christians in the United States, and abroad,

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Walt Chantry, who is a pioneer of the Reformed Baptist resurgence in mid -20th century

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America. He was formerly the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I am currently a member, and where David Campbell is currently the pastor.

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We're discussing Pastor Walt Chantry, or Reverend Walt Chantry's book, Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, which has just reached, this month, its 45th anniversary of being in print.

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And we do have some listeners who have emailed you questions, Walt. We have from Mike in Birmingham, Alabama.

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You have always had a reputation for preaching sermons that were clear, concise, and with an economy of words.

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I have noticed in recent years that many Reformed pastors seem to think they must preach nearly an hour or more for them to be faithful to their calling.

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Do you have advice that you could pass on to young ministers in today's church in this area?

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Advice. A man has to preach from his heart, and some long sermons occasionally can be very beneficial if preached with all the heart.

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On the other hand, I think we must recognize that many of the people, and especially if you want to catch the children and the teenagers along with the adults, they have a listening span that is somewhat limited.

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It would be true of the elderly as well. And one must know when the

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Spirit is upon you, and there's a reason to possibly carry on longer than you intended to if the

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Lord comes in the midst of the church, and it is clear that you want to just shut things down.

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On the other hand, I think that showing the people that you don't have to give a long dissertation in order to communicate the truth is helpful to them in witnessing and talking to others and trying to teach others what they believe.

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We are all witnesses, and we are to preach the Word. It does not seem that in the

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Scripture there were too often that they put people to sleep. Paul did it on one occasion, and someone fell out the window,

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Eutychus and his kin, right? So even he could have gone too long.

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But obviously, he was ordained by the Holy Spirit to go on and on. We do have another listener from Alabama, this one from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

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Ted asks, something that incenses me as a Reformed Baptist is the frequent assertion from our

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Presbyterian brethren that there is no such thing as a Reformed Baptist. Can Rev.

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Chantry explain to the non -theologians among us what their rationale for denying our existence is?

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I think that they identify being Reformed with the arguments that they use for infant baptism and identify

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Reformed with their doctrine of the covenant from the days of Abraham until today.

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That as Abraham's children were circumcised, the Christian's children are to be baptized, and when they draw that line in the

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Scripture, which the Scripture itself does not defend, that's their definition of Reformed.

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Our own definition of Reformed is the Protestant doctrine that came out of the

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Reformation. It is a confessional approach to the truth that tries to show what has been wrong with Roman Catholicism and what is the proper approach to the

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Church and to the truth in the doctrines of the

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Scriptures. The Presbyterians wrote their confession of faith back in the time of the

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Reformation, the 1600s, and the Baptists wrote their confession of faith, copying much of the

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Presbyterian confession of faith in the same 1600s.

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Even prior to the Presbyterians writing their confession of faith, there were

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Presbyterians that influenced an earlier Baptist confession of faith in Britain.

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Many of us know of Spurgeon and other

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Presbyterians who were Reformed in their outlook, if we mean by that the outline of Calvinism.

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Actually, you mean Baptists. Did I say? You said Presbyterians. Presbyterians, okay. Although many

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Presbyterians do love Charles Spurgeon. Yes, they do, and we love many of the

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Presbyterians as well. Right. I was just mentioning to Chris before we got on the air that the

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Presbyterian who really underwrites the

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Baptist view of the covenant, what did

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I say his name was? John Owen. Right. His view of the covenant is very parallel to the

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Baptist view, and so we were learning from some great scholars who were

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Presbyterians at the time, and our confession comes from the 1600s, and we call ourselves

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Reformed because of that Reformation with Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and other leaders caused the growth of confessions of faith and catechisms in a way that the households of faith were armed to teach their children, and the churches were armed to remain

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Orthodox. And Ted also asks about the origins of the phrase

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Reformed Baptist, and when does an association become a denomination? I know that you were one of the pioneers of ARPCA, the

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Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, and that not all Reformed Baptists agreed with that model of church fellowship in a structure that ARPCA had developed.

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What's the difference between that and a denomination, and also if you could answer Ted's question about the origins of the phrase

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Reformed Baptist that you know of? Yeah, I think what was happening in the days when

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Banner of Truth began publishing books from the period of the Reformation, and they were being read in the

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United States, and men were turning theologically in that direction, they would send their young men to Presbyterian seminaries, and the

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Presbyterians would call themselves Reformed, and the Baptists would call themselves Reformed Baptists.

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So we had disputes over that, and sometimes in the seminaries where Baptists and Presbyterians would have a little debate on what is to be done with children of believers.

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So that's where the term came from, and what it was intended to show is that some

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Baptists are confessional. They are devoted to the doctrinal system of a confession of faith, and that a number of churches holding to the same confession can cooperate effectively in many things like missions, theological education, and the planting of new churches in communities where there is no sound ministry presently.

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And before the term Reformed Baptist came into vogue, a lot of the

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Baptists who would have agreed with us theologically in the 19th century and prior would have called themselves

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Particular Baptists, right? That's true. Some would call themselves

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Strict and Convicted. And Particular comes from the doctrine of the

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Atonement, that the Particular Redemption that Christ accomplished for a particular people, rather than making men redeemable and not necessarily redeeming them, the

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Calvinist view is that he actually accomplished the work of redemption for a particular people, and they will truly without question be in heaven with him one day, correct?

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Correct. What do you mean by preaching assurance of acceptance with God?

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Some extreme Arminians teach that we can never have complete assurance while on this earth, and the

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Church of Rome calls this the sin of presumption. And we, as you know,

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Walt, have to admit giving false comfort to those whose lives are marked by an ongoing surrender to sin seems to be the hallmark of modern evangelicalism.

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How do we rightly preach assurance? Well, rightly preaching assurance is wrapped up with our view of repentance and faith.

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If a person truly is grieved with his sin and turns from it, then there will be a change in his life, and there will be a sanctification in his life in which sins are more and more put away and righteousness is more and more put on.

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And there are many passages in the

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New Testament that indicate that sanctification is the path to assurance.

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We have, for instance, in 1 John chapter 3, some verses that speak to this very clearly.

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In the early part of the chapter, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God, and so we are.

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And the reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

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Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when

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He appears we shall be like Him because we will see Him as He is. And everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

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Sin is lawlessness. I'm still in 1 John chapter 3.

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You know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.

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No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen

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Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. I'm reading the

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Scripture now, not a doctrinal book. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as He is righteous.

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Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

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The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil, and no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.

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So there you have looking at your practice, looking at the degree of sanctification in your life as the basis of assurance of where you stand.

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We're going to be going to our final break right now. If you have a question, this is the last opportunity that you'll have.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com is our address. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Don't go away, we're going to be right back with Walt Chantry in our discussion of today's gospel, Authentic or Synthetic.

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It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

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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 Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402, or visit linbrookbaptist .org.

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That's linbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson, and if you just tuned us in, today on Iron Sharpens Iron, we have

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Walt Chantry, a pioneer of the Reformed Baptist resurgence in America in the mid -20th century.

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He's also the author of a number of books. Today we're discussing today's gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, and we have

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Michael, who is in Fort Myers, Florida, asking, would you consider classical

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Arminianism and its various strains under the heading of a synthetic gospel?

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I don't want to condemn everyone who is an Arminian, but the doctrine itself does lead in that direction.

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And the preaching with dependence upon God is another one of the major themes of your book, and that's how you conclude your book.

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Please explain that further. Well, it really goes back to what we started with, and that was that the gospel itself is that we are saved by grace through faith.

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And even the faith is not of ourselves, it's the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

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And if that is the gospel, then we must have the presence of God. And we need to be pleading with God, not somehow grasping onto men and trusting that their decisions are going to make them into Christians, but believing that without the grace of God, poor sinners are without help.

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And so we need to have the feeling of that dependence on God, and it needs to be shown in prayer for any effort to evangelize.

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And if it doesn't come by grace, what we do will not really save men.

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If you wrote this book, Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, obviously the term today is very relevant in this title.

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Although this book is very timeless, things have obviously changed in some ways over the last 40 years, perhaps for the worse.

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What would you retitle the book, Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, if you wrote it in 2015?

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I don't have another title. How would the book be different?

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I think I would feel compelled to talk about certain tendencies in our day, certain tendencies to exalt personalities.

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Certain men put them on a high pedestal instead of lifting up Christ and pointing men to God.

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I think that trying to do both at the same time does not work.

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And then there are many ways in which a fallen society in which we live, people want to be like the society so that people feel comfortable coming into their meetings.

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And that to me is counterproductive. They need to know that the devil is the spirit that works in the world.

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And we don't need to be like the world to attract people to Christ. Do you think a book is in order titled

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Today's God, Authentic or Synthetic? Well, it certainly does resonate that someone could write that and do an effective job with it.

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Over the past 45 years, what has most disappointed you about the

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Evangelical Church's presentation of the gospel? And what has most encouraged you?

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So there you have two opposite questions there. What has mostly discouraged you and what has most encouraged you?

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What has discouraged me is men who know better who have gone off on one doctrinal tangent or another which is not biblical.

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We were talking about the whole matter of creation and some church circles where they no longer believe the word of God that the world was made in six days and no one seems to care that those men carry on in seminaries as leaders and teachers of other men who are going to preach.

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But I think that it is also encouraging to see that there are a number of young men who are very serious about the doctrines of scripture and who long to preach them and are doing very well in training and growing up in churches around us.

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And I think that the other thing that is encouraging is that in the age of the internet there are people in our state of Wisconsin who are constantly looking for a church that teaches the

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Bible, recognizing that in their church it is not taught as much as they would like and other activities are going on instead of it.

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And they are searching and they search the internet and listen to sermons from other churches and if they find a church where it really preaches the word and they hear that consistently over weeks they will leave where they are attending and go to a church that is maintaining the preaching of the gospel.

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Historically it is accurate to categorize all those who do not hold to limited atonement or definite atonement as Arminian, or on the other hand only those who deny all five of the letters of TULIP.

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Is that accurate to describe them as Arminian if they do not hold to all of the five points of Calvinism?

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I do not think that all men are consciously following James Arminius, even if they share some of his beliefs.

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They do not have the system and I think we do have to be careful to sort them through.

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For instance, there are many brethren groups who are weak doctrinally but very strong in human graces and graciousness within the community as a witness to Christ, and I do not know how they would theologically put everything together, but I do not want to throw them into one bucket.

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Your book primarily is addressing people outside of the camp known as Reformed or Calvinist or Sovereign Grace.

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What words of warning can you offer towards those who would include themselves as Reformed, Sovereign Grace -believing or Calvinist in our own camp?

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What is most greatly burdening you to warn our fellow

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Calvinists about today? Well, again, to go back to some of the root things that it is by grace that men are saved through faith, and that faith does not come from them and it does not come from their preacher.

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The preacher is to preach the word. The Christian is to be a witness, a faithful witness to Christ, but the

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Spirit of God and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ must be working to bring salvation to men, and I do not see why they would disagree that the

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Lord himself must arise and save sinners. And do you think that we are not as known for love as we should be?

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Sometimes we can be most cruel to those within our own camp as opposed to those outside it.

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Sometimes we can devour our own, if you will. Am I right on that, do you think?

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I think there is the danger of reacting too strongly when hearing just a statement that someone makes that doesn't qualify for within our doctrinal standard, and there needs to be patience with men and be careful to know what they were thinking.

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Do you think there is room in some ways for biblical ecumenism with Arminian brethren and people who may be dispensational and not specifically within the framework of the 1689

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London Baptist Confession? There's certainly room for fellowship with anyone that we perceive to be a genuine

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Christian. Do you think that there is limits, would the limits be in how we interact within the walls of our churches?

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In an ordinary Baptist church, officers are expected to believe the confession of faith.

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Every member of the congregation is not expected to be that thoroughly instructed, though we would like them to learn more.

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But it's the officers that have to uphold the doctrine and judge the people in the pulpit.

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And in about four minutes that we have left, if you could just unburden your heart and just let the listener know what you most want to have etched in their hearts and minds before they leave the program today.

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Walt. Well, I hope they know that the Lord Jesus is an amazing

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Savior, and they keep going back to the Gospels and to see the amazing things that he said to people.

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And just that little phrase about the rich young ruler who was so far off the path and not ready to follow

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Christ and his words, he looked at him and he loved him. And I think he loved him because he saw a true man who was energetic even off the path.

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But we need to have some of that compassion ourselves within our hearts as we address them and see them astray even.

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Who knows whether that young man came to Christ later just because he was treated lovingly.

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One would hope so. Amen. And in fact, for those of you listening,

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Pastor Walt Chantry is going to be preaching once again at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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We had the privilege, those of us who are members there and who live close by to Carlisle, we had the privilege of hearing

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Pastor Chantry Sunday morning preach a powerful word to us.

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And that was July the 12th. So next Sunday, July 19th,

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Pastor Chantry, God willing, is going to be returning once again to the pulpit of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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And if you would like to visit, whether you live in Carlisle or whether you have friends and family that live near Carlisle, or if you want to take a trip, you've got a one week notice to take a drive or jump in a train or plane to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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It's a beautiful historic neighborhood in Cumberland County. A lot of history, both

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Revolutionary War and Civil War history surrounding us. The website for Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle is gracebaptistcarlisle .org

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gracebaptistcarlisle and that's spelled C -A -R -L -I -S -L -E dot

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O -R -G. And you will have all the information you need to visit Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle.

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I also want to thank the Banner of Truth, because they are giving a free copy of Pastor Chantry's book,

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Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic, to everybody that emailed a question to us today.

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And you should be getting those books shortly, which will be shipped off to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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And their website address is cvbbs .com.

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That's C -V standing for Cumberland Valley, B -B standing for Bible Book, and S for service dot com.

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C -V -B -B -S dot com. And if you are interested in ordering any of Walt Chantry's other books, you can go to their website.

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And also, all the other Banner of Truth titles that may interest you, you can find at that website and also one of our other sponsors' website.

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That's Solid Ground Christian Books. Their website is solid -ground -books .com.

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Solid -ground -books .com. And we thank from the bottom of our hearts those with not only

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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, but also those with Solid Ground Christian Books for sponsoring this program.

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Don't forget to tune in tomorrow. We have Jeff Rose of Jeremiah Cry, and also the

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Herald Society, who's going to tell us why Calvinism does not thwart or hinder evangelistic zeal.

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Thank you, Pastor Chantry, for being our guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened and wrote a question, and hope you always remember that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater