July 15, 2016 Show with Mack Tomlinson on “Biblical Ecumenism & Catholicity vs. Unevenly Yoked” and “Starting a Library”

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

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Now here's our host, Chris.

Arntzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday

on this 15th day of July 2016 and I'm delighted to have back on the

program once again my friend Pastor Mac Tomlinson and he is the

pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas and I am

excited that we are going to be talking about a very important subject.

I've examined this topic on my program on several other occasions but I

don't think that we can talk about it too much because it's something that is a prevalent

issue in the body of Christ especially in the 21st century

and that is the issue of biblical ecumenism and Catholicity versus

unevenly yoked.

The rampant modern ecumenical gatherings that are taking place

everywhere which used to be the sole

backyard, if you will, of the liberal denominations, the mainline churches and so on,

but now evangelical churches are participating in these kinds of events and not only participating, they're leading them

and we're going to discuss what real biblical ecumenism is and Catholicity

versus being unevenly yoked and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron

Sharpens Iron, Pastor Mac Tomlinson.

Hello Chris, always great to be with you.

It's great to be with you brother and first of all, as we always do, let our.

Listeners know something about Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

We're a Reformed Baptistic Church in

Denton, 30 miles north of Dallas -Fort Worth, Providence

Chapel.

Anyone could find us in Denton, find our website at ProvidenceDenton .org

and we love the Lord Jesus Christ and love his word and love his gospel and we're

trying to be a light for the gospel here.

Great and tell our listeners about this.

Conference that you are participating in this August 4th through the 6th,

Fellowship Conference New England in Portland, Maine.

Well this will be the.

Fourth annual conference

in Portland.

The website is NewEngland .com,

all lowercase fellowshipconferenceNewEngland .com and as you said the dates are

August 4th through the 6th and it will be three days of biblical preaching.

Believers have been coming every

year from Canada, Nova Scotia, around New England and as far down as New

York City and Long Island and it's a wonderful time.

We don't have a conference that

majors on the great doctrinal and pastoral truths

of the gospel so we invite anyone who could come

to Portland that first week of August to join and you would have to register at the

website and come if.

Possible.

Now tell us about some of the speakers that are going to be joining.

You.

Ben Preaching, Pastor Charles Leiter from Lake Road

Chapel in Kirksville, Missouri, from

Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, Pastor Michael

Jurch in Paducah, Kentucky and then myself.

For three days there will be nine sessions

divided up pretty evenly among the three days and so

we just hope that the Lord will bring all those He wants here to feed them and encourage

them.

Great and it's on the theme of the impossible.

Can you expand on that a bit?

Well I think the

trailer on the website is

from one of the sermons from last year and so there is no

theme except the preaching will be pastoral, evangelistic, doctrinal

and we don't really even have a theme except Christ and Him crucified

and declaring the whole counsel of God.

Oh is that all?

We'll give a genuine effort but we

sure.

Won't get to do that in three days.

I hope to go, I can't guarantee it but I definitely want to go to this one.

In fact might interest you to know that one of my listeners already contacted me and said that he

has registered for it so it looks like the promotion that

we've been doing at least so far at the very least that you won registration because at least that's the only one I know about right now

but as far as from this program that is.

I would say.

That the atmosphere of that conference is not large.

It's usually less than 200 but they are serious minded Christians

from the northeastern part of the U .S. and as I

said over and but it's a loving atmosphere of loving

Christ, loving his truth, loving the brethren and that's why we call

it the Fellowship Conference because Christians really do find true fellowship with like

-minded.

Brethren there.

And that is also Reverend Buzz Taylor's old stomping grounds.

He lived in Maine for quite a number of years.

For ten years.

And once again that that website is fellowshipconferencenewengland .com

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

Well this is a interesting providential occurrence

Pastor Mac because we had probably close to a month ago scheduled

this topic of biblical ecumenism and Catholicity versus unevenly yoked.

We had already had this arranged for today and

it just so happens that today is the day before a major

ecumenical event in Washington DC and the brother

of a friend of mine actually this person's my friend as well

he said you've got to do a program on this big event that's happening in Washington

DC and he was disturbed by some of the

participants there being side -by -side with men that I would respect and even men that I've

interviewed and so on.

So I looked into it and it's very difficult to discern

what their actual guidelines are in regard to how a speaker

is qualified to be there or how a church or parachurch ministry is being

permitted to work with them.

There doesn't seem there's no doctrinal statement on their website and I'd rather not identify the

name of the the activity because I don't want to unnecessarily advertise it.

But it's one of these big events that involves

a group that even has is well known for having a very soft

approach to homosexuality and

this whole thing is disturbing.

It seems that there are many Christians even ones that have

theologically sound doctrine who are lured by

massive crowds and they think that somehow this is an ideal

place to be spreading the seeds of the gospel because of the largeness of the crowds.

But can that also not be counterproductive because of the message you are sending

to those large crowds?

You may even have the gospel presented but can not the gospel be

undermined by everything else you're doing and the people with whom you are identifying?

One famous example of Pastor Mac would be Billy Graham.

He has a lot to be, he has a lot of things

about him that are highly respectable.

He's a man who's very advanced in age and in

his entire public ministry there has never been a scandal of any kind.

There's never been a sexual scandal, a financial scandal.

There are many wonderful and admirable things that we could say about Billy Graham but he has,

unlike any other figure that I can think of, introduced liberal

ecumenism into evangelicalism.

I don't know of any other person who pioneered that with the magnitude and

strength of Billy Graham and he has even had people on his platform who have denied

essential truths of the faith like the deity of Christ and his bodily resurrection.

He has had Bill and Hillary Clinton sitting on his platform in places of honor

and even said that Bill Clinton would make a fine preacher and

Hillary Clinton would make a fine president and unfortunately

his wish may be coming true.

We can't find out.

Don't tell me Bill's becoming a preacher.

Who knows but you understand what I'm saying here that even though Billy Graham very often,

if not even all the time, has the core elements of the gospel in his presentations,

how much is that undermined when someone can say, well I really don't need to leave

my false religion to follow Christ.

I really don't need to leave the Roman Catholic Church or even the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter -day Saints, or my liberal mainline church.

You know the main thing is that I recite a prayer and so on and what do you make of what I just said

Pastor Mack?

The Catholic Association,

a parachurch organization that are compromised on the gospel

and they do not have a biblical doctrinal foundation.

Our working with them, our association with them does

send a bad message because no matter how much we would we would

try to speak the truth.

Let's say I'm on a platform and I'm speaking with the Roman Catholic priest in a conference for a

liberal high church Anglican, which I've never done and I

know that I'll never be invited to do so.

But if I were invited I would not do it.

Why?

Because my presence, my participation gives

approval to those people's message

and their position.

In recent years it was a very well -known evangelical

who spoke in Tabernacle, Salt Lake City.

And I believe he endeavored to truly state the truth as he

saw it.

And he began at the very outset to say that

he did not at all hold to a doctrinal agreement with them.

Still, I thought in my own mind, is it not

in the Mormon's mind, does that not, his coming,

not make them feel like he's accepting of us.

He's including us.

And so I couldn't agree more.

And Billy Graham, you know, I've studied his ministry over the years closely.

And I remember I used to listen to his sermons in the 1960s and

70s.

And some of them were clear gospel, a

call to repentance and yield to the lordship of Christ.

But the longer his ministry became popular, it was when he was in London, doing

his famous London crusade, that he had liberal Anglicans

and liberal churchmen who totally denied the basic historic doctrine of

the Christian faith.

And he had them on his platform.

He would not take Catholics out of the Catholic Church.

His ministry purposely said to their counselors, we cannot

encourage anyone to leave the Catholic Church or a dead, liberal Anglican church.

We're going to send our converts back into those churches to be an influence.

Well, Martin Lloyd -Jones challenged this greatly.

Lloyd -Jones knew

altar call,

and he didn't say everyone that made a decision in Graham's

meeting, but the

majority, many who made decisions in Graham's meeting.

And his

crusades

ended up not

being truly

converted.

And so Martin

Lloyd

-Jones

challenged

public altar call.

He was greatly criticized.

I mean, as much as I disagree with the so -called altar call, which I know was born out of

Charles Finney and his heretical movement in the 19th century,

but as much as I disagree with it, I do know a conservative

fundamentalist and even a minority of Calvinists who have altar

calls.

But they are very clear that when you are coming

forward and reciting any kind of a prayer, that does not necessarily mean you're saved.

I'm just giving you the opportunity now to publicly confess faith in Christ and so on.

So they do it with more responsibility than some of the other

folks that have these altar calls.

And even though, as I said, I don't like any kind of an altar call, I think that that is at least the more

responsible thing to do, especially when he's acknowledging, unlike some ministries or some

pastors or religious leaders who actually pronounce that all those people who come forward are

without question saved, he's actually admitting that only a small percentage are.

So why doesn't he not worry?

I mean, why does he not warn these individuals that this is not a guarantee that they will

be in heaven?

Right.

Well, you know, I've

often told others, I

answered the altar call so often and with so many public decisions that I wore the

carpet out in our church because I walked to the front so many times to answer the

altar call.

And the simple fact is, the danger

is that in his wonderful little booklet, The Invitation

System, he says the problem is

that people are given the idea that simply because they respond

outwardly and go to the front of a church, they make that synonymous with

salvation.

And they think automatically if they go and they do what the preacher tells them that they've been saved

and no greater mistake could be made because if the Holy Spirit has

not produced conviction and regeneration and true saving faith, then they're only going to

get false assurance.

But the second major mistake about that is, Mr. Murray says that

preachers using altar calls to try to get people down the aisle, it's really

at the root of it is unbelief to

produce conversion.

But that actually goes right along with Finney's theology because he did not believe that the Holy

Spirit...

As Jerry Johnson very rightly put it, Charles Finney was not a

synergist, he was a monergist, but not the good kind of monergist.

He believed that salvation was entirely in the hands of a man.

But if you could, I'm sorry I interrupted you there, I'm sorry.

Well that's fine.

I used to work for an organization that required us to give, when we traveled we were required to give altar

calls and I didn't like altar calls either and I certainly didn't want to give anybody a false assurance of salvation.

So when I gave the altar calls I would say now I want every head up, I want every eye open,

I want you to take a stand for Christ in front of all your friends.

Instead of trying to make it the secret thing like don't let anybody else find out.

Because it's really tricking people.

Because it's making people who are uncomfortable raise their hand, but then everybody's going to see them when

they go forward.

But then they're told also, you listen to some of these radio shows where they'll

tell you, they'll pray that prayer and say now if you said this and you meant it, welcome to the kingdom of God.

And it's like how do they know?

And you talk about false assurances all over the place.

Now I don't want the subject obviously to be derailed to just be speaking about

altar calls because I actually do want to have Jim Elliff or someone from Christian Communicators Worldwide

who have written on that extensively to come on.

I don't know if you're familiar with Jim, he's a great brother, Pastor Mac.

Yes, he's a good friend of mine.

But one thing to clarify before we move on from that part, and I'm not saying that we can't

return to it, but don't we have to make it clear that we are not saying that a

pastor should not be, or a preacher or a vandalist should not be inviting people to Christ.

Absolutely right.

Every true preacher should call people to immediate

faith and repentance.

There's a great difference between trying to get people down the aisle in a public decision

and calling people to come to Christ.

Some of the greatest evangelists in history were passionate about calling people

to come to Jesus Christ and yet they did not use a public altar call.

I just want to reassure our Bible -believing conservative

Christian listeners who have a passion to see the lost come to Christ, I

want them to see that we are not rejecting an altar call for the same reason that a liberal mainline church

would not have one.

They would not have one because they have no concern or even belief that the lost

individuals in their midst are lost or need to be saved, for the most part.

And they have a totally different reason for not doing that.

My guest today, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, and the majority, I would say, of theologically

reformed Christians do not do this because, number one, it's not biblical, you can't find this anywhere.

Number two, it hasn't even been practiced in history longer than 150 years or so.

And number three, it can be dangerous.

It can mislead people into thinking that because of a physical action on their part, like

walking down an aisle, saying a prayer, and just

repeating very often what a pastor is leading them to say, that that is going to save them.

And as my Roman Catholic friend Bob, now living in Colorado,

but he was a friend of mine on Long Island, he used to say when we would get into

theological disputes with each other, he would broad brush me with Billy Graham and

all those that do altar calls, even though I would constantly correct him and tell him that I don't do that.

He would say, you believe that you can just walk down an aisle in a church, say a prayer,

and then you can cry up to heaven to God, you're stuck with me now, nothing you can do about

it.

And obviously there is some truth in his humorous analogy, but I

obviously, and no truly biblically faithful person, believes that that is the case.

But going back to our issue at hand,

these events, when our listeners see an event like this, that is

calling upon, basically indiscriminately, churches,

pastors, ministers, lay leaders, parachurch groups, to join them

for a major event, should not our listeners either do

thorough research or reject the invitation altogether if there is no doctrinal

statement at all to be found in any of their publicity?

Well, I would say so, yes.

I think we need to be.

If I join in cooperation with an event, be it a citywide

crusade, be

it in the city,

usually there's not even the most

basic doctrinal unity.

I'm not talking about everyone having to be a Calvinist.

I'm not talking about not being able to even work with, or fellowship with,

say a godly Arminian.

I'm talking about they will not let there be any biblical

truth set as a minimal standard for what we mean by what is a

Christian, what is the gospel, and what is true fellowship and

cooperation based on.

And when groups are silent and they're very vague,

it's a warning sign that they're wanting to be one and be in agreement, but

when you ask them what, they say, well, we all just need to love each other.

And they might say Jesus is Lord, it means different things to different

people.

Yeah, there are people who say that we are all just united under the

banner of Jesus, but some of the people there may have a Jesus that is no

more God than Jesus, the guy that runs the Mexican restaurant in your neighborhood.

That's right.

It's good to remember that the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, he warned about

another Jesus, another gospel, and another spirit, none of which were

the genuine article.

And we have to go to break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Mac Tomlinson on

biblical ecumenism versus being unevenly yoked, our email address is chrisarnsen at

gmail .com.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, your country of residence,

if you live outside of the USA.

And if you are asking a personal or a private question where you

feel more comfortable not identifying yourself, you can be our guest and we will

respect your wishes.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnsen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today, as we are doing it live from the seashore here,

our guest today is Pastor Mack Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

We are discussing biblical ecumenism and Catholicity versus unevenly yoked.

Later on, we hope to get also into a topic about starting your own personal

library and what should be required elements in that library, or at least highly

suggested.

Required reading.

We would love to hear from you and your own questions.

At ChrisArnsen at gmail .com, we already have a few people patiently waiting to have their questions asked.

As Buzz, my co -host, has said to me, how do you know they're waiting patiently?

I really don't know if they're waiting patiently, but they're at least waiting.

Before I return to our discussion, though, I just have a couple of brief announcements.

Tonight through Monday in Salt Lake City, Utah, Christ Presbyterian Church, a

congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, is having a

four -day Bible conference with Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, who happens to be a

mutual friend of both mine and my guest, Pastor Mac Tomlinson.

Dr. White is going to be including in those four days a

dialogue with a Mormon, Alma Alred, who is an instructor at the

LDS Institute of Religion at the University of Utah.

That's actually going to be tonight at 7 p .m., 7 p .m. Utah time, I'm sure.

And then tomorrow, Saturday, July 16th at 7 p .m., Who is

Jesus? is the theme.

And he is going to be having, under that theme, a dialogue with a Muslim imam.

I'm not even going to try to pronounce that imam's name right now.

And then on Sunday at 9 .45 a .m.,

Dr. White will be addressing the theme, The Forgotten Trinity, a theme that's near and dear to my heart

because Dr. White's book on that same title, or with that same title, was dedicated to me.

And I will never be able to thank him enough for doing that.

It was one of the most precious gifts I've ever received, to have the honor of having my name

in that book as it being dedicated to me.

And Sunday the 11th, I'm sorry, Sunday the 17th at 11 a .m.,

and also Sunday evening at 5 .30 p .m., and Monday night at 7 p

.m. there are other sessions.

The final session is Proclaiming Jesus Christ in a Hostile Culture.

For more information on all of those sessions, for those of you who live near or

in Salt Lake City, or have the means to hop in a plane and get there

as soon as possible, the website for more information is GospelUtah

.org.

That's GospelUtah .org.

And we hope that you enjoy and are blessed by this conference.

But last but not least, there is a conference that we've already mentioned that we want you to attend, and you've got a lot

more time to make plans for.

That's August 4th through the 6th, the Fellowship Conference New England, that our guest today, Mack

Tomlinson, will be speaking at.

He will also be joined by Jesse Barrington and Charles Leiter and Michael Durham.

And this is going to be a time of fellowship, praise, and teaching from

very solid biblical men of God.

And we hope that you go to that website to register as soon as possible, fellowshipconferencenewengland

.com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, and God willing, we will be

repeating that information before the end of the program.

And we do have a listener that we'd like to go to right now, Pastor Jeremy

in Laredo, Texas.

A question I'd love to hear Mack's response to is, in this struggle between knowing whether

or not an issue requires division, for an example, the deity of

Christ, or agree to disagree yet remain in fellowship,

example, differing perspective on church membership, where do the doctrines of grace

fall into line in Mack's understanding?

Well, that's a great question.

Well, thank you, Jeremy, for that question.

This, in my opinion, it takes time to process this.

But my brief answer would be, and it is my firm conviction,

that speaking of the doctrines of grace, of course, most people who know what we're talking

about is referring to the five points of Calvinism historically.

Total depravity, unconditional election,

limited or, and the

final perseverance.

I believe there are many true Christians who

know and love the Lord who do not hold to that system.

In fact, probably a majority of people, when they get converted, have never

even heard of the doctrines of grace.

And so, and then in God's goodness and in His time, they begin to learn the truth and

they grow in the knowledge of the truth as they're taught biblically.

I believe it's a mistake to require doctrinal unity, even on that

level, as a basis of true fellowship.

Because the basis, Martyn Lloyd -Jones has a wonderful little book,

The Basis of Christian Unity, and that book is well worth reading on

this point.

He talks about the fact that the basis of true unity is

a belief in the gospel itself, the death of Jesus Christ for

our sins, and that salvation is only in Him, and that a person must be truly

converted and come to know and love Christ.

If that is true, then any believers who

share that common salvation, they already have a spiritual unity and they should

love one another and be able to have fellowship and not let other differences

hinder their fellowship.

And I could go on here, giving a historic example.

Yeah, sure.

It's well known.

The two British Methodist evangelists, George Whitefield and John Wesley,

were a great example of this.

John Wesley were Anglicans.

They were the leaders of what became known as the Calvinistic

Methodists and

Calvinist

Armenians.

And Wesley not only rejected the doctrine of

election and predestination, he seemed to hate

it and he wrote publicly against it, even publicly

showing his disagreement with George Whitefield.

And Whitefield, the gentleman, he would

respond, but he would not let their differences on some

major doctrine cause him to cease loving John Wesley.

Their differences were improved toward the end of when

he preached at Whitefield's funeral and he made great statements of respect and love and

true Catholic unity.

I don't personally think

that unity is based on the five points of

Calvinism or the doctrines of grace.

I do believe ministry unity, men pastoring together,

ministering together, elders in a church, or local church unity will be greatly

increased when there's doctrinal unity on that level.

But for Christian fellowship in general, I can have true

fellowship with and love for godly Armenians who do not agree with

me.

My view on...

Right, and of course, as you were saying, though, for unity in a church, not only for

pastors, elders, deacons, but Sunday school teachers and so

on, there's everything that would be right about excluding those

that do not agree with the church's confessional statement or system of theology, etc.

Exactly right.

When churches have elders agree

theologically and are not truly like -minded, it's only going to cause problems.

Oh, I've seen it.

I've seen it happen.

I've seen it too.

Because a man will either be silent about his differences and he'll compromise his

conscience, or finally, in his teaching, his differences will come out, and then you have

confusion in the church because the elders don't agree with one another.

So there must be doctrinal unity at every level when we're talking

about church leadership and the local church.

Now, we'll say we probably have people who attend our church who come

in and they're receiving well from the ministry of the church, and they

don't fully yet know what the church believes, and we don't hide any of it, but we don't

treat them in a lesser way because they may not have

theological understanding.

If we see that they have sincere love for the Lord

and the truth, then we embrace them

as we otherwise.

Right.

There is also, I'm sure you would agree, room for

disagreement over less serious issues, even amongst an elder board.

Like, I'm assuming that you would find no difficulty with a church having

one elder who is a non -millennialist, one elder who's a post -millennialist, one elder who is historic

pre -mill, and that kind of thing.

I don't know.

Maybe you don't think that there should be diversity on those amongst elders, but what is your comment about that?

And other things of unsalvific, non -salvific in nature.

Yeah.

There's a funny story, and probably apocryphal, but you may have

heard it, that a man was walking across a bridge in London, and he saw a man who was preparing to

jump off the bridge and end his life.

And he began to talk to him, found out that he was a professing Christian, that he was a Baptist.

When he found out he was a super -lapsarian, he said, Jump, Heretic, jump.

I've told that joke maybe a little bit differently in a lot longer version of it.

Yeah.

We're definitely much more long -winded.

I agree.

I agree with you.

Secondary issues.

And it's important for Christians to come to understand what are

essential issues that are non -negotiable.

Why don't you go through that, actually, in summary form.

Yeah.

Well, the gospel, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the doctrine of the Trinity, the

deity of Christ, justification by faith, the bodily resurrection,

the orthodox tenets of the faith.

There can be no fellowship with people who don't hold to those.

No, obviously.

Okay, I'm sorry.

On secondary issues, eschatology, the millennium, even baptism,

some of my closest friends are Presbyterians who hold to

them.

Yeah, the man sitting next to me does.

Well, I'm a credo Baptist.

I'm a Baptist by conviction, and I believe I would be willing

to die for that conviction.

Brethren that I'm close to and love and who preach in our church at times hold to a

different position.

Now, because that's an ordinance, though, would you not say a church would be very

right to exclude people who disagree on baptism from their

teaching or elder positions?

I would say probably so.

I've known of churches where he was not

fully convinced of his position on baptism, and he still taught or preached

at times, and he was so

mature in his views that he agreed never to address it in his

teaching in church.

And church leaders on those type of issues generally do need to be

in agreement.

But on other secondary things, as I said, eschatology,

ecclesiology issues, those are not essential.

Right, and when I posed my question to you about harmony on the

ordinances, I wasn't saying that it is always wrong for a specific church to allow

diversity on that.

I'm just saying that I don't think it's wrong for specific churches, like those who adhere to

the 1689 London Baptist Confession or those who adhere to the Westminster, to say, although you

are our brothers, if you disagree on the ordinance of baptism, you cannot

participate in the leading or teaching of our congregation.

So I think that those are two different issues, whether a church can have diversity on that

or if they must have diversity on that.

Right.

Do you recall the early days of fundamentalism, when they were obviously concerned

about liberalism in the pulpits?

Of course, we're talking about people involved.

I believe it was Moody and Spurgeon, and I can't remember all the names of those who were involved in the founding of fundamentalism.

But it seems that what they came around as a basis of fellowship was, if I remember this correctly,

was the inspiration of the Bible, the deity and virgin birth of Jesus, the blood atonement, the physical resurrection, and a

bodily return of Jesus.

Right.

Exactly right.

And you know what's interesting in that era of early fundamentalism in the 20th century in America?

J. Gresham Machen, one of the great defenders of Christian faith and one

of the greatest scholars in evangelical history, really, he

had a proper ecumenical spirit, a proper Catholic spirit, and he

invited Billy Sunday to preach at Princeton Seminary.

It was either at Princeton or Westminster.

It may have been Westminster in the early days.

But he loved Billy Sunday because Machen said, he powerfully

preaches the blood of Christ.

And that's also why Spurgeon had Moody preach at the

Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, even though Moody was not a

doctrinally accurate, precise evangelist.

But Spurgeon recognized the power of the gospel through him, so he had him preach for him.

Now, one of the things that you mentioned as an essential is the gospel.

And as you probably know, Pastor Mack, there are a growing number of evangelical ministries

who will allow Catholics to participate, not as members in the

audience.

I mean, I would love to see Catholics in the pews of the church where I worship every Sunday.

So I'm not talking about that.

I mean, they're allowed to participate in leadership for ecumenical events and so

on.

They will say, well, they're completely acceptable because they believe in

salvation by faith, by the scripture, through Christ, by

grace, and to the glory of God.

And they very noticeably leave out the word alone from all of

those.

And many of the ministries that have this ecumenical stance, even in their public

statement of faith, they will leave the word alone out, the pillars of the

Reformation, the watchwords or the battle cries.

That is very important as to differentiate a true from a false gospel, isn't it?

That very one word alone.

Absolutely.

You know, the difference between evangelical Protestant Christianity

and Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, the Orthodox Church has

no doctrine of justification.

They're even worse than the Catholic Church because they have no doctrine

or concept of needing to be made right with God.

Their doctrine is we need illumination and we need

to gain in our knowledge where inwardly we can somehow be

spiritual.

That's the doctrine of Eastern Orthodoxy.

And they actually believe the Atonement occurred in the birth of Christ, not in the death.

Well, Roman Catholicism is a step above that, but still no better.

They have a doctrine of justification, but it has never been, nor will it ever be,

a biblical doctrine of justification.

They believe that justification is through obedience to the Church, obedience

to the ordinances of the Roman Catholic Church, obedience to the priests and to the Pope,

and that it's by works.

And so there is no true gospel, and

therefore there can be no spiritual unity

with gospel.

And one thing that is very often misunderstood,

well, even if it's not misunderstood, those who disagree with what we're saying at least accuse us of

this.

They will say the root of what we are discussing is bigotry, pride,

and hate.

And that is absurd, isn't it?

Because if you believe something with all your heart to be true,

and you believe this truth has eternal consequences, and you believe that to be obedient and

honorable to God means to follow these things that you believe to be true, how could that

possibly be hate?

Now, obviously, there are people who do defend their

religion as being supreme and unique and superior to all other

religions, and they do so from a spirit of hate and bigotry and arrogance and pride.

But that doesn't necessitate that that is your motive.

Obviously, if you want someone to go to heaven for eternity, and you believe that certain things

are required of that, you would want that person to share that truth with you, wouldn't you?

You can call somebody wrong, but you can't always call them hateful and bigoted.

Right.

People would have to, that's

Mark, Luke, and John, they would believe that Christ was the biggest

hater in history, because no one was ever more narrow

in his teaching.

He taught that he was the way, not a way, but the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through him.

And so Christianity, by very definition, is exclusion.

And it couldn't be any other way.

People get upset toward evangelical Christianity and call it

narrow and bigoted simply because they're viewing everything through the lens

of a man -centered, man is the center of all things.

And there's no concept of

God -centeredness.

If we start with God and we say we have to believe what's true and right of

God, and then you work down to the Bible, then

the most loving thing we could do is to hold to the truth as it's

revealed and to tell people the truth only.

And to tell them in love, but to tell them the truth.

Let me give you another example of ecumenism that

I'll have you remark on.

I have pastor's luncheons, and I used to have them just once a year.

Now it's become a biannual event that might even become more frequent.

But the last pastor's luncheon I had, I had nearly 100 men there, I'd say about 90,

and they were from a very broad background.

There were pastors from not only Reformed Baptist and conservative Presbyterian

backgrounds, but there were fundamentalist, freewill -believing Baptists.

There were Church of God, Findlay, Ohio folks.

There were Pentecostals, Charismatics.

The Salvation Army leader was there.

And some other Mennonites were there.

And some in the past, very few, have said to me, why do you

have these luncheons with such a broad group of people?

And I say, well, first of all, they're not teaching necessarily.

I wouldn't have somebody who has radical disagreements with me up at a podium teaching anybody

anything.

And if you believe something is true, and it's very important to you and very serious, why wouldn't

you want men to be exposed to the truth in a

setting like that, where they're relaxed, they're enjoying fellowship and eating lunch and having a good

meal and enjoying just a very enjoyable day?

Why wouldn't you want people that disagreed with you at an event like that so they could learn something possibly?

And on top of that, I give away books, hundreds of

books from publishers that I specifically choose,

who donate these books on specific subjects that I request.

So all of these men are leaving there with a sack of 30 or 40 books that they've gotten

free of charge, and they're going home with them and putting them in their libraries.

Wouldn't that make absolute sense to have that kind of an ecumenical gathering?

Absolutely.

And I'm often in conferences in places and settings.

For instance, sometimes when I travel I'll get invited to speak to pastors' luncheons like that.

There might be a broad spectrum.

There might be an evangelical method there.

There might be an assembly of God there.

There might be an independent Baptist there.

But I believe many of those men do

know and love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

They're truly converted men, and they come from settings where

God has not been pleased yet to have them believe the truth that I believe.

And yet I believe we should lovingly and graciously relate to such men

and seek to be an influence and an encouragement to them.

As Aquila and Priscilla were toward Apollos,

an attitude that I think we should have.

In fact, I can say that I did have a non -Calvinist even speak at

my last luncheon but the issue he was addressing was Islam because he's one of

the most knowledgeable experts on the subject of Islam.

I actually came to know him through Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, a mutual friend, David Wood.

And he had everybody, including the Reformed Baptists there, spellbound by his vast knowledge

on this subject.

And I had no qualms about him not being a Calvinist because he wasn't addressing that.

Right.

In fact, this fall, two conferences in

Texas in October with a dear friend of mine.

He and I both are sharing the preaching.

And we don't see eye to eye on some of these doctrinal specifics,

but we love one another.

We benefit from one another's ministries.

And so I believe it's just a wonderful thing.

Well, we have to go to a break right now.

And if you'd like to join us, we do have a couple of people still waiting, and I apologize that I've kept you waiting so long.

But we'll try to get to your questions as soon as we get back from the break.

But if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson

at gmail .com.

And please remember to give us at least your first name, city and state of residence, and country of residence

unless you are remaining anonymous for a personal and private matter that you want to address.

So don't go away.

We're going to be back right after these messages.

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia.

For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

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We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do

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That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

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If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750.

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You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest for the full two hours today is Pastor Mac Tomlinson.

And he is the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

We are speaking on the subject of biblical ecumenism versus unevenly yoked.

And we are also, perhaps if we have time, going to discuss starting your own personal library.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And I also don't want you to forget about a conference that Pastor Mac Tomlinson is not only

participating in, but he has helped to orchestrate this annual conference.

It's called Fellowship Conference New England.

And that is going to be held this August.

And the website is fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

Fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

It's going to be held August 4th through the 6th.

And it is going to be held at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine,

Reverend Buzz Taylor's old stopping ground.

So if you'd like to attend that conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland

.com.

And by the way, I'd like to pat Iron Sharpens Iron on the back.

You're kidding.

Because I think that Iron Sharpens Iron really demonstrates biblical

humanism.

Number one, my co -host here is a Presbyterian.

I am a Reformed Baptist.

And you just heard an ad by one of my most faithful supporters

ever since my program first began in 2006, Pastor Ron

Glass of Wading River Baptist Church.

He not only supports this program with advertising dollars, he

purchased much of the studio equipment that we use every day on

this program.

And he has been an encouragement to me beyond adequate

explanation.

And Ron Glass, although he is a thoroughgoing five -point Calvinist, he

is just as strong in his views of dispensationalism.

He's a premillennialist and pretribulationalist.

And he knows that I am not.

He knows that I'm amillennial.

He knows that I am not a dispensationalist.

And yet he finds so much value in this program anyway that he eagerly

not only supports it, but was the main catalyst in the relaunching of my program

in Carlisle, Pennsylvania last year.

So I want to just give out another word of thanks to my dear friend, Pastor Ron Glass,

and the congregation at Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island.

And their website is wrbc .us, wrbc for Wading River Baptist Church

.us.

But don't you think that that fits the spirit of a biblically ecumenical

program, Pastor Mack?

Absolutely does.

It's true evangelical unity, the essentials of the gospel.

Yeah, and I actually think, I don't know for certain, but I think I may even have more

Presbyterians as guests on my show than I have Baptists on my show.

See, there's hope for you again.

Yeah, right.

Never going to happen, Buzz, never going to happen.

We do have, let's see, as far as our listeners go that are waiting to have their questions

asked, we have Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Let's see.

Hi Chris, if this is not addressed otherwise, could I get the thoughts of you, Buzz, and Pastor Tomlinson

how to most lovingly yet firmingly explain my absence from ecumenical

gatherings, beliefs, etc. to friends and family when invited when the

topic arises.

No matter how hard I try to explain, I end up sounding like a jerk.

Well, since you're an expert on sounding like a jerk, Reverend Buzz, why don't you...

Well, sounding like a jerk is an acquired taste.

Well, yes, some people are never going to be satisfied with any explanation that you have for that

kind of a thing, but that's a very good question, Pastor Mac, and of course, Buzz, you can also

answer, because I can recall, especially when I was on Long Island,

especially in my earlier days of Christianity after

becoming a born -again Christian and being a member of a Reformed Baptist church,

but at the same time, especially when I was single, I was going to a lot of

gatherings that other churches were having, Bible studies and things like that, especially

when there were four single people when I was a young man in my 20s,

and those churches very often were saying, Hey, you're going to the Billy Graham Crusade?

Is your church involved in the Billy Graham Crusade?

Is your church involved in the Promise Keeper gathering?

Is your church involved in this?

And I would always be, No, no, no.

And they thought that I was like an occult.

So, Pastor Mac, if you could give your advice to this

lady, Erin, in Indianapolis, Indiana, who wants to know how to as lovingly as

possible explain these things to her friends.

Well, I think the very first thing, maintain an attitude of

humility and graciousness.

It's easy to get defensive and proud and respond out of that

spirit, and that never is good.

I would encourage her to get the small booklet by Martin Lloyd -Jones,

The Basis of Christian Unity, because it totally answers the question she's asking.

It shows what is the true basis of unity and what is false unity

and how we shape our views and how we respond.

And I think Buzz was right at the beginning, we won't be able to please or satisfy

people in our answers because they won't know really where we're coming from.

We have to pay graciously.

The New Testament teaches that any true unity is built on a foundation

of biblical truth.

And when the basic truth is compromised, there's no real ability to cooperate

without compromise.

You know, it's interesting.

Years ago, my sister said to me, my sister is Roman Catholic, and she said to

me, when Billy Graham was coming to the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, New York,

she said, can you go with me to the Billy Graham Crusade?

And I said to her, I will go with you, but I must tell you that my church does not

participate in the Billy Graham Crusade, but I will go with you to answer any of your

questions.

And she asked me, well, why don't you participate?

And I said,.

Well, one of the reasons is that the counselors that volunteer

to speak with people who are inquiring about how they can be right with God, how they can

receive eternal life, those counselors are forbidden to recommend any

specific church, denomination, or group, and they're forbidden from forbidding

certain churches, denominations, and groups.

And that, to me, is dangerous, and my church has an agreement with me that that is a

dangerous practice.

And my Catholic sister said, I can understand that, because I know that if people

are being sent to the church where I am a member, they're not going to learn anything.

She actually said that.

But, Reverend Buzz, you're on.

I want to try to dress a little bit deeper than I did.

Is Aaron the person?

Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Okay, yeah.

I said it's an acquired taste, and that's really not an answer.

But I do believe that our guest, Matt Comminson, did answer that very early on, because

I quoted him down here.

I'm not sure if this was even an exact quote.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but he said, Participation presumes approval.

That's right.

And now with Aaron.

Now, Aaron, I don't know all the circumstances, what kinds of things your

church is not participating in, or you yourself are not participating in, whether it's Catholic.

I have no idea the extent of it.

And there are so many different variables in your question that would need to be

addressed.

But in any one of those, though, those who are questioning you, you have, because of your

nonparticipation, an excellent opportunity to, well, shall I say it may be a

teachable moment for them.

It gives you an opportunity to say, Hey, look, you know, well, so -and -so is speaking there, and they don't agree with the Trinity.

Well, why do you or not do you do or don't you think the Trinity is an important thing?

And you can explain.

You can use these as opportunities to teach these people to where, well, maybe they'll

understand, maybe they won't.

But you have to understand there's no guarantees.

Right.

Well, one of the things that I find myself always falling back on, whenever these

things arise, especially with some of my moderate

ecumenical Catholic friends, they get sometimes very angry with me

because I refuse to identify them as my brethren in Christ, and I refuse to

say that their gospel is a true gospel.

And I have to fall back on the church in Galatia, where Paul

had to rebuke them, a church that he planted,

that had been seduced by the Judaizers.

And the Judaizers, Pastor Mack, perhaps you're more knowledgeable on them than I am, but from what I understand,

the only thing that we know with certainty that the Judaizers did was that they

insisted that when a Gentile became a Christian, he had to be circumcised.

From what I understand from the Scripture, that was Paul's only disagreement with them,

and it was Paul's reason for actually, that one reason

was Paul's reason for identifying them as false teachers,

and identifying their gospel as a false gospel, and no gospel at

all, and also said that anybody who brings that gospel should be accursed.

So, from what we know, the Judaizers, because Paul doesn't say that they didn't believe in the

deity of Christ, Paul does not say that they didn't believe in other biblical truths,

his virgin birth, his bodily resurrection, and all these other pillars of the

faith, the Judaizers most likely agreed with those, because Paul doesn't mention them, those other

issues.

So, if Paul rejected this group of people as having a false

gospel, and as being false teachers for that one issue, that added to faith

as the sole requirement of justification, how are we

to respond with religions like the Church of Rome, that heaps

upon men a lot more than that as a requirement, and are we

to be nicer than Paul?

Pastor Mack, wouldn't you say that a lot of people today are really, even if they would never admit this, they are

saying that they are nicer and kinder and more loving than the Apostle Paul?

I certainly couldn't improve on what you've just said.

It's a marvelous point.

Paul saw one specific area, a departure from the gospel,

a denial of the true gospel, and that the people preaching that different

gospel were not true brethren, and could not be entertained.

So, you're absolutely right.

And I also remind people that that doesn't mean I dislike

Catholics.

Now, of course, there are some Catholics I dislike.

There are some Reformed Baptists I dislike.

There are some Reformed people that I struggle not hating.

But, in fact, there are Catholics whose company I actually prefer over

some born -again Christians that I know.

That has nothing to do with the issue of liking or thinking that I'm better innately than them.

I don't.

I know Catholics that put me to shame, and, of course, other people, not only just Catholics,

but that have put me to shame in regard to the kind of husband I

was, put me to shame in regard to the kind of child to

parents, brother to brothers and sisters, members of their churches.

They put me to shame in almost every area.

Community activity, responsibility as a citizen, and all those things.

But that doesn't mean that I can embrace them as a brother if they do not have the

gospel that I believe to be the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But even if we don't, Chris, I'm reminded years ago in my fundamentalist days

when I was working a secular job with another fellow who was a fundamentalist.

And one of the guys that we worked with asked him, what is a fundamentalist?

And his answer was, we hate Catholics.

And I was embarrassed to identify as a fundamentalist at that

point.

That was a very moronic...

But we have to be careful when we do confront people, when we don't participate with them,

they need to understand.

It's an issue of the gospel and it's not our personal feelings.

And of course you know that there are hardcore fundamentalists, even King James -only fundamentalists, that would never say

something stupid like that.

Well, that's true.

Well, I was a fundamentalist at that time also.

I wouldn't have said anything like that.

Right, right.

There are fundamentalists who are very dear friends of mine who would love Catholics to death

by an overpouring of graciousness and kindness to them, but they just have a very

strong abhorrence to their false teachings.

But do you have anything further, Pastor Mack, to add as far as what you would

say are the core elements of things that need to be present before you can be recognized

as a brother in Christ?

I think the main thing that I would like to address, if

I could take the liberty, I have an increasing desire and

burden to see true evangelical Christians who are not of the same

denomination or communion or doctrinal position

to truly have an evangelical unity and show

that.

I think, you know, in our day, in America at least, among the Calvinistic circles,

there are increasingly grievous divisions and arguments

over what many, some of them feel are the point

of technical theology.

When they let those differences cause them to alienate themselves from one another

or reject fellowship with one another or publicly criticize one another, it's

very grievous.

And I believe that's the sin of schism against the body of Christ.

There's never been a day among Reformed Christians when Christian

catholicity was truly needed.

And what do I mean by catholicity?

And Chris, you can interrupt me at any time, ask questions or whatever,

so just cut me off when you need to.

You know what, it might be wise for me, if this is going to be long, because I want you to be as long as you want to be,

why don't I take my final station break right now?

And can you remember where you left off, where you were going to start, actually?

Yes.

Okay, I will go to my break right now, so I don't have to interrupt you mid -stream.

And this is going to be our final break of the day.

And if you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, and for the last 90 minutes and for the next half hour to come,

our guest is Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

And let me just remind you that Pastor Mac Tomlinson is participating in and orchestrating

a Bible conference from August 4th through the 6th in Portland, Maine,

titled Fellowship Conference New England, and the speakers include Pastor Mac Tomlinson,

Jesse Barrington, Charles Leiter, and Michael Durham.

And if you'd like more details on this conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

Fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

And by the way, folks, you just heard an ad for World Magazine.

If you ever hear any of the ads on Iron Sharpens Iron and do not catch the websites

or the contact information, go to my website that you are likely listening to this radio

show on, and that is ironsharpensironradio .com.

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and you can click on any of those ads, and it will take you directly to the website of the

sponsor itself.

So World Magazine is there as well, in addition to all of my other sponsors.

So just remember that if you ever hear a website or contact information that you don't remember later on.

Before the break, Pastor Mack, you were going to define Catholicity because people get bent

out of shape about that.

Some of our more aggressively non -Catholic or anti -Catholic friends and

brethren immediately have a knee -jerk reaction to

that, may go into dry heaves.

They don't understand what you're trying to say whenever the word Catholic or Catholicity comes up.

If you could explain that, and then go into what you were going to discuss about the need of

theologically reformed Christians to break out of our own monasteries that we've created, if you will.

Well, I do think many reformed Christians perhaps can

define what true Catholic, what true unity should be,

but I don't think we often practice it enough.

Catholicity is simply the Protestant evangelicals for

years confessed that they were a part of the Holy, not Roman Catholicism,

but rather the universal body of true believers, all who were true, regenerated

followers of Jesus Christ.

So the word Catholic in church history was an honored word, meaning universal,

embracing all.

So the irony is the Roman Catholic Church, far from being truly Catholic, was in

schism and division from true historic Christianity.

Roman Catholicism has always denied that whenever a person

had saving faith in Christ, if they were outside the Roman Catholic Church,

they denied that that person belongs to the body of Christ and the family of God.

Catholicity truly understood as simply the feeling, the viewpoint,

generated in true Christians by the Holy Spirit, of a readiness to love and

embrace all who belong to Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Now while we should reject false ecumenical unity, and we

should, Reformed Christians today need to make sure that they

are truly maintaining a loving Catholicity toward all Christians,

regardless of their denomination or their communion.

Yes.

J .C. Rall in the 19th century, he said, There is no doubt we all love unity, but

we must distinctly maintain that true unity can only be built

upon God's truth.

We must not withhold our fellowship from any faithful brethren because they do not think exactly

like us.

But we must understand who we try to have unity with, because

we cannot endorse or improve the views of those who have no real love for Christ.

We cannot make people think we are in agreement with them, when in reality we differ

on the most basic, because that is the false unity we must

turn away from.

So while that's true, it seems to me that many sound Christians

today, who are doctrinally, theologically sound, they're very slow to be gracious and loving

and embracing of Christians who don't agree with them.

Yes.

Go ahead.

No, you go ahead.

I think that's a grievous mistake.

I think if I withdraw from Christians who

are true Christians, but are not of my theological persuasion, and I

treat them differently, I'm cold toward them, or I'm not as quick to be willing to have fellowship

with them, then I'm guilty of the sin of schism.

I am treating some Christians with more love than I am other Christians,

and that's wrong.

And it's ironic that the very truths that we who are Reformed

claim to champion, and are the pillars of all we believe and do,

those things, those teachings, are meant to humble us to dust, and to

exalt the glory and power and authority of God alone, and yet we

find ourselves and those in our midst so often being puffed up with pride and arrogance.

That is an absolute oxymoron to be an arrogant Reformed Christian, isn't it?

It is.

It absolutely is.

Let me hurry on to mention, George Whitefield in history was one of the greatest

examples of having a Catholic spirit.

It's told that in 1737 he was criticized by a Church of

England clergy for having any kind of relationship with

dissenters from the Church of England.

And Whitefield said he tried to help the Presbyterians in England

get along with the Anglicans, and he said this, I exhorted them,

meaning the Presbyterians and the Anglicans, to have love and unity, and not let a little

difference about externals cause a narrow -spiritedness, advised them

to come and hear me preach, which they did, and providentially the

message was on the fourth chapter of Ephesians, from which I took occasion to urge on them the

necessity of loving one another with a Catholic disinterested love,

and to be of one heart and one mind.

Amen. Amen.

And I do have a question here that I want to get to from Justin, Texas, and I

will get to that in a second.

But I want to say, and get your opinion on this or your response to it,

I think one of the reasons that we should be aggressively

pursuing fellowship and relationships and friendships with those

brethren in Christ who are from different theological perspectives, different

denominations, brotherhoods, associations, fellowships, is because we can often

learn from them something that we may be blindsided to in our own

fellowship.

I have truly come to appreciate things and learn from brethren

who are charismatic, Pentecostal, and members of other groups

that are even doing things that are being done far

less in the communities of Reformed Christians.

And I don't want to broad brush, because my fellow Reformed brethren do have ministries in the inner

cities, reaching out to the least of these among us, those who

are the poorest, or even among the most outwardly

evil, those who are the prostitutes, and the drug addicts, and the drug dealers,

and all of these folks that, a lot of the folks

that have more of an academic focus in their Christianity, they don't want to get their white

gloves dirty and go into these circles of society

with the Gospel, where they seem to be dominated with charismatic and Pentecostal churches.

At least when I was in New York, that was the case.

And, of course, I don't want to exclude anybody that is not Pentecostal and charismatic doing those things.

That just seems to be the dominant makeup of those doing that kind of thing.

Would you agree with what I'm saying?

Even if we think somebody is dead wrong in certain theological aspects, we can still

learn greatly from them, because they may be doing things that we are

blindsided to them.

These things are escaping our attention unintentionally, perhaps.

Exactly.

I do agree.

And I think a truly Catholic spirit, a Christian that has the

right heart, more to all other Christians, they do believe that they can benefit

from ministries and from other Christians that they don't.

One of the great things I appreciate about the Scottish author Ian Murray

is that he has a right view of appreciating men in history who

were not even Calvinists.

He wrote a book, John Wesley and the Men Who Followed, and

it's a wonderful book on the early Methodist preachers, how valuable their ministry was, how

courageous they were, how zealous they were in how they preached the true gospel.

And so we will greatly lose

out if we're too narrow in who we are open to

receiving from.

Amen.

Let me go to this question from John in Justin, Texas.

It's really more of a statement than a question, but there is some question involved in it.

John in Justin, Texas says,.

It's unnerving when tragedies like last week's killing

of five Dallas police officers hit so close to home.

It's even more unnerving when groups like Black Lives Matter cast the shadow of racism over the

country.

I'm sick with anger and barely controllable frustration when I hear our thoughts and

prayers go out to the victims' families and that love and compassion are the solutions.

What in God's name has happened to this country, our hatred and political divide as a people

and as a country, our governmental corruption and total breakdown of our justice system,

our ideological gridlock, our submission to secularism and political

correctness?

Why have we lost our way?

Now that, obviously, John has supplied one month's worth of topics on Iron Sharpens Iron.

But if you could respond, I do think it is applicable in one way to our discussion at hand

because we haven't addressed the racial barrier in regard to biblical ecumenism.

I think it's something that's sorely lacking in many circles, perhaps even especially Reformed circles where we

are from.

And my friend who is now in heaven, Dr. Robert J. Cameron, a Black

Orthodox Presbyterian pastor, wrote about that in a book, The Last Pew on the

Left, where he addresses the issue of racism in the church not only the racism of

white Christians but of his fellow Black Christians.

And for that very reason that he criticized Black Christians along with white for the sin of racism,

a very major publisher who said it was the best manuscript that they ever received

unsolicited, would not publish it because he criticized Black Christians along with whites.

But if you could comment on what John has to say, at least the best that you can because we only have 15 minutes left.

Right.

Well, it's almost impossible to answer John's question adequately.

I won't be able to off the top of my head.

But it's very easy to look at the social and

racial political climate

and to define and clarify what is the problem.

And I think anyone will remain confused with that answer

unless they look at something that's at a deeper level.

Those things are only symptoms and the outward fruit of man's

deeper basic problem.

The reason societies fall apart and kill one another and are racist

and cannot get along is because man is a sinner.

Societies are filled with sin.

And the only answer in any society is the

gospel of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Until men's hearts are changed, they will not change.

Amen.

Until men's hearts are changed, they cannot relate right to one another.

And I think there's another factor, too, which the world cannot acknowledge or doesn't even know

that's real.

And that is that there's a spiritual world and there are principalities and powers,

evil powers, that are demonic in nature.

And they drive a lot of that.

Men are inhabited who are not Christians.

And many people are controlled by demonic powers.

And when those go unfected and men give themselves over completely to sin,

then they go murder people or they shoot 11 people in downtown Dallas.

Or they drive a truck, as they did in France yesterday, into a crowd and kill 80 people.

The answer to this is sin in the human heart.

And the only answer for it is the grace of Christ.

Amen.

And one of the reasons I think that it touches on the lack of

biblical ecumenism amongst those of different races is I think that sometimes

you have spokesmen in the media responding to things like this, those who

represent, quote, quote, the black community, those who represent, quote, quote, the white community,

etc., the conservative white community, whatever you want to describe it as.

It's really insane and disheartening that in the 21st century that

there is still not forced segregation amongst the body of Christ

in America, but there is voluntary segregation.

And although most of our churches would never ban someone of a different race from

entering and becoming a member, there is little on the part of many, not all, on the

part of many, there's very little aggressive evangelism and outreach and

friendship being done toward those from the different

communities whose skin is different than ours.

And that goes, as my friend, as I was just saying, Robert Cameron, who is now in heaven, he

said that was just as much of a problem amongst the black pastors and churches that he knew.

He would say that the black pastors and members of black churches would be more than happy

if white people were to join their churches, but they would never really as a part of an

intentional effort go into white areas and aggressively

evangelize the lost and try to draw them into their fellowship when they

are saved and so on.

Don't you think that the reason why we often discuss things publicly and

respond to these national tragedies or global tragedies when the different races or

members of different races respond, it's almost as if we're in different countries or universes.

And a lot of that has to do with the fact that the church has perhaps been in great sin in their

lacking of reaching out to those of other skin colors

to be involved in biblical ecumenism.

I do think there's a healthy growth in reformed

churches, and that is they're getting ethnically, because

in Christ there is neither a Jew nor a Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female,

or black or white or skin color.

Right.

And this has nothing to do with a quota system, like we're just going to have Conrad M.

Bayway or Votie Balcom or Eric Redman speak because they're black.

These men are absolutely some of the best speakers on the planet Earth, and we should be taking

advantage of the fact that these are phenomenal gifted men and including them in the things that we do.

And our church here in Denton, we have blacks, we have Hispanics, we have

whites, and we have a wonderful, have

never been an issue, and they shouldn't be, and they won't be when we're clear on

the gospel and what the gospel really means.

Right.

Chris, could I take two or three minutes to finish my thoughts on this?

I know our time is drawing to a close.

I want to give an encouragement on how Christians who are reformed can develop,

cultivate, and increase a Catholic spirit toward all Christians.

Excellent.

Number one, I think we ought to consciously see other believers.

If we're convinced that people are true Christians, we've got to see them first as Christians,

and that will cause us to be able to develop love for them.

Secondly, we've got to try to avoid entering into secondary,

unimportant controversies that cause us to argue.

Thirdly, we need to cultivate a mindset of what the unity of

heaven is going to be like because there will be no divisions in heaven,

and now we have to develop a loving unity for all Christians

because we're going to live with them forever.

Fourthly, we must seek closer fellowship with our Savior, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

because the closer we are to Him and the more we love Him, the more we'll love all Christians.

Amen.

Now, I want to give a test here, and I would like for our listeners and all of us in

their hearts to answer these questions.

Do I have a charitable, loving spirit?

Can I hear a sermon from someone I differ with and benefit from it and

appreciate what is true in it?

Do I read good authors who are not at my theological camp?

Do I have a heart that can embrace and care about any true Christian?

Am I wrongly narrow and judgmental?

Do I have a condescending, critical attitude toward those who are not in agreement with me?

Appreciation for my own communion or

theological camp?

And three more.

Do others know that I have a heart of love toward them

if we don't agree?

Do others see me loving people that I differ with?

And do those who differ with me when I'm with them, do they feel

love by me

communicated to them?

Those are real tests.

Hebrews 13 says, Let brotherly love continue.

Amen.

Well, that was phenomenal, and I would like you to email me that list because I'd like to post it somewhere.

That was absolutely a must -needed, a greatly needed word

to those, especially in our own camp, brother.

And let me, since we still have time for Tyler's question in Mastic Beach,

Long Island, New York.

Do you think we as Christians forget that all false religions worship Satan just

masqueraded in the disguise of their religions?

If you could comment on that, Tyler's question from Mastic Beach.

Was that a question or a comment by our listener?

It was a question because he said, Do you think we as Christians forget this?

He was actually asserting it as a given fact that false religions worship Satan.

Maybe you'd disagree with that.

But he says, Do you think we as Christians forget that all false religions worship

Satan that is just masqueraded in the disguise of their religions?

Well, I think of the Apostle Paul's words to the Ephesians that

the spirit of Satan and demonic powers energize not only the

unregenerate world, but are at work in all the sons of unbelief,

all the children of unbelief.

And I do believe Satan counterfeits religions all the time.

All religions that are not of the Christian faith are satanically invented,

and they are a counterfeit and a deception.

I don't think it means that anyone in other religions all overtly

consciously worship Satan.

No.

But they're under a great delusion that is a demonic deception

away from the truth.

Amen.

And one of the things that I think is very important

in this whole matter is, especially when we're talking about

biblical ecumenism, is that we are very often

rejecting people whom Christ included

among the number of those for whom he died.

Now obviously an Arminian is going to be listening to that in a different way because Christ died for every

single human being that ever lived or ever will live according to their understanding of the Atonement.

But we as Reformed Christians, we believe that Christ died for a

specific number of people.

All of his elect were amongst those who received the benefit of that

death and are delivered from sin and death by that

atoning sacrifice or that redemptive work.

And yet we are very often rejecting some of those very precious souls that

he gave his life for and received the wrath of God upon himself for them.

Could you comment on that?

Yeah, I think if I understand the question right, we do have a, Reformed

Christians have a particular specific definite view of these things

and we hold them very dearly because we believe they come right out of the pages of

Scripture.

And yet we can do that very thing.

We can, by our attitude, our conduct, by our somehow

rejecting others, we can respond wrongly

and have a wrong application or response to the very truths that we hold dear.

So yes.

I want to conclude our program today with the words of John Wesley, somebody who is on the other side of the

theological spectrum than myself and my guest and my co -host.

But he, in responding to George Whitefield, during a

war of words that they were having over the issue of election and predestination,

being in sharp disagreement over that, Wesley wrote to George Whitefield,.

My dear brother, I thank you for yours, May the 24th.

The case is quite plain.

There are bigots both for predestination and against it.

God is sending a message to those on either side, but neither will receive it unless from one who is

of their own opinion.

Therefore, for a time, you are suffered to be of one opinion and I of another.

But when his time has come, God will do what man cannot, namely make us both of

one mind.

Then persecution will flame out and it will be seen whether we count our lives dear unto

ourselves so that we may finish our course with joy.

I am my dearest brother, ever yours, John Wesley.

And I think that we could learn much from those words of John Wesley, and

I hope that our listening audience keeps in mind that very,

very important message from our dear brother, long departed and now in heaven.

And I want you all to remember that the conference that

our guest, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, is running is this August.

And for more details, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

And you can also find more about Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas at

providencedenton .org, providencedenton .org.

Thank you so much for being a part of our program, and I hope you come back very soon, Pastor Mac.

Thank you.

It's always a delight to be with you.

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

than you are a sinner.

I hope you have a safe and blessed and God -glorifying weekend in Lord's Day.