July 19, 2023 Show with Matt Kenitzer on “The Gospel at War with Moralism”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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

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

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

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 19th day of July 2023.

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I'm thrilled to have back as a returning guest someone to discuss a very important topic, a topic that has affected much of modern evangelicalism, and his name is

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Matt Kennetzer, senior pastor at St. John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, and a board member of the

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Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society. We're addressing the theme, The Gospel at War with Moralism, and we're also going to be announcing the upcoming 2023

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Future of Christendom Conference and Debate featuring Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Matt Kennetzer.

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Hey, Chris, it's good to be back with you. It's a thrill to have you back, and tell our listeners about St.

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John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania. Yeah, St. John's Reformed Church, it's an independent

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Reformed Church, and the leadership we would be convicted on, we would land on the 1689

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London Baptist Confession, and it has been rescued out of the

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United Church of Christ, and that happened about 2006. I came here about five years ago, and that kind of brings us into the topic of The Gospel at War with Moralism, because that's really what

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I walked into. So, over the last five years, God has done an amazing work, very gracious and merciful to us, bringing the gospel to bear upon people who have largely been in the dark and lost in a moralistic religion that is not

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Christian at all. By the way, have you met my friends

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Pastor Micah Klaus and Pastor Ed Boyle, who have congregations where they pastor?

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Micah Klaus is actually technically still in the United Church of Christ, but is moving forward to lead that congregation out from that denomination, and Pastor Ed Boyle pastors a congregation that already left the

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United Church of Christ before he received a call to pastor there. Have you met these two brothers? Yeah, no,

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I have not. I think you might have had both of them on, and I caught that, because that was about the same topic, and that's what really sparked me to connect with you.

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Yeah, and by the way, for anybody listening who wants to listen at some point to that interview that I just mentioned featuring

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Pastor Micah Klaus and Pastor Ed Boyle on the theme,

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Is There Hope for the United Church of Christ, just go to ironsharpenzionradio .com and type in Klaus, C -L -O -U -S -E, into the search engine.

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Pastor Micah Klaus is the only person I've ever interviewed on the program, so that will be the only link that comes up.

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So I hope that you take advantage of that later on. If anybody wants to find out more about St.

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John's Reform Church in Friedensburg, Pennsylvania, whether you live near there or in that town, or if you're traveling through on vacation, or if you know folks, you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in or near Friedensburg, the website is sjrcpa .org,

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sjrcpa .org, which stands for St. John's Reform Church, Pennsylvania.

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S -J -R -C -P -A dot org. And I'm also very excited, as you know, to be a part of the orchestration of an upcoming conference and debate being conducted by the

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Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society, the board of which you are on the membership of.

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I don't even know if that was grammatically correct, what I just said. But I'm so excited,

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I was so thrilled that Pastor Joel St. reached out to me and said we want to get

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James White out for our next conference in September, September 15th, 16th, and a worship service on the 17th in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, more specifically

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Mannheim, Pennsylvania. And he said, please, could you do whatever you can do to get

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James White to agree to speak at this conference and possibly even conduct a debate?

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Well, the conference is a done deal. We have 100 percent confirmation from Dr.

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James R. White that he will be the keynote speaker at this conference on the theme,

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The Gospel at War. And we are still working to finalize a debate that Dr.

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White will be having. We thought that we had a debate finalized, but it turned out that due to health issues of the debater that agreed to participate to be

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Dr. White's opponent in a debate, he had to reluctantly bow out.

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So we're back to the drawing board, and we do believe that we are right at the precipice of getting 100 percent finalized confirmation from another debater, and we will keep you updated on that.

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But tell us about the future of Christendom Conference, Pastor Kennitzer.

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Yeah, so we really are developing conferences that really speak to the cultural issues that are going on, swirling all around us, and bringing the biblical worldview to bear upon them.

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And what's really great about the organization that Joel has been spearheading for years is that they are tackling topics like corporate welfare, taxation, all of these things that we are dealing with on a day -to -day basis, and yet many

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Christians are really struggling of how to even think through those issues, let alone walk through them.

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And so the Mars Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society is really passionate about bringing that worldview to bear upon the culture and what we're dealing with.

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So this is a unique conference in that that's a focus, and so there's going to be many, many speakers on many different topics, all swirling around the gospel at war with, and then a certain topic.

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And we are doing expositions is what we're calling them, coining kind of that phrase, and it's about an 18 to 20 -minute exposition on an issue in the culture and how the

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Bible speaks into that issue, how God has revealed His Word to inform us of how to live wisely and not foolishly for the glory of Christ and all of culture for all of life.

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And so it's going to be a very, very unique conference, very practical, very theological, and the connection in those two are going to be great.

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And it's going to be awesome to just highlight the exclamation mark with James White being here.

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He was here the past fall with your event, and he came up to our church here. And so it's going to be good to just build that relationship even more this fall.

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Amen. Well, if anybody wants more details on the 2023

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Future of Christendom Conference and Debate featuring Dr. James R.

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White, which will be held September 15th and 16th with a worship service on September 17th at Spooky Nook Sports and Events, which in spite of its name is a very breathtakingly beautiful facility where Doug Mastriano, when he was a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, held one of his major campaign events.

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And if you want more details on that, go to futureofchristendom .org, futureofchristendom .org.

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You can also go to midatlanticreformation .org, midatlanticreformation .org.

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And register as early as you can, because the earlier you register, the less expensive the registration fee will be.

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And we are now entering into our very provocative theme,

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The Gospel at War with Moralism. Can you please define moralism?

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Moralism is basically you are confronted with the question, how do

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I get into heaven? How am I accepted by the triune

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God? How am I gaining salvation? How do I retain that?

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And the answer with moralism is be a good person and do good things.

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Simple as that. Which is probably what the vast majority of humans who are not regenerate, not born again, think.

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Yeah. Those that actually believe in heaven. Right. And a large, I would say, a large amount of, unfortunately, the quote -unquote

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Christian community. And that's really what I walked into, and not knowing what I was going to walk into, it was a very moralistic tradition that was just entrenched in the answer, be a good person, do good things.

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That's how I'm accepted by God. Now, I'm assuming what you mean by the Christian community is the professing

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Christian community. Exactly. So, tell us how you came to stumble upon this unfortunate discovery.

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Yeah. So, my wife and, at the time, two girls and I were living out in Oregon.

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I had grown up there for a good majority of my life. I was going through my

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MDiv program, and I was about getting done the

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Christmas before June 2018. And so I started, during that Christmas time,

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I started looking around at open churches all across the country, just kind of putting feelers out of what the possibilities could be, and really keeping it wide open to where God may be leading us.

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And this kind of came in with the St. John's Reformed Church.

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I got a Skype interview. So, I did the interview.

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They voted unanimously to bring us out here. So we came out for a visit in March 2018, spent some time here, preached, and preached a very

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Calvinistic, Reformed, clear presentation of the gospel, the sovereignty of God.

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And so they voted, 82 to 1, to extend the call to us, to me as their pastor.

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We went home, went on a camping trip, prayed about it, talked about it, and ended up coming out here

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June 2018. And during that visit, I had some conversations with some people, especially some of the leadership, and hearing about how they had come out of the

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UCC, the United Church of Christ, in 2006. And it was over the homosexuality issue, which was,

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I'm glad that they did that. And during conversations, I asked them, what is

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Reformed? What is Reformed theology? And no one could really give me an answer.

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So, I knew I had some things that I had to address. There was also women in leadership at the time, and during the

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Skype interview, I told them that we would need to address that. And so,

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I knew some things that needed to be done. I knew the church was kind of languishing, kind of falling into more of just a lot of what the churches are going through here, a majority of just decline in a big way.

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And so I really didn't fully know what I was walking into, until I started getting into ministry, getting into doing

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Bible studies and preaching the gospel, and I got opposition over and over and over again.

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And so, that was a lot of tension pretty much right away, with this moralistic religion being confronted with the gospel of God's free grace, that it's

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Christ alone. So, that kind of propelled me into what happened next.

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Yes, a very similar story from Pastor Ed Boyle of the church, which is now

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Trinity Christian Church of New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. He had on his hands, when he accepted the call to be a pastor of this church, which had already left the

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UCC, you have an older group of people who are extremely uncomfortable and even repulsed by the leftist extremes that have taken over most of the mainline denominations.

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And although they recoiled with disgust over the homosexual issues and the transgender issues, and perhaps the abortion issues, or should

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I say infanticide, you had people that were, just as you described and defined earlier, moralists who were unregenerate.

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I'm not saying all of them were in that category in the congregation, but he was facing that dilemma of now pastoring a flock that included unregenerate people who just had a more traditional and moral understanding of social issues.

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Yeah, and it was interesting that kind of dynamic where it was a great thing that they broke away from the

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UCC over that issue, but they still had nothing underneath it.

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And I went, what was interesting is during some of the time of being here,

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I actually preached a sermon against the UCC and my preparation, because I was learning more and more just about the history of it, where these people were coming from, the heavy tradition and the moralism that they were entrenched in.

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And I went through all of the confirmation that the UCC used, and I even traced it back years, and I got different editions of the confirmation material.

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And I went through it, and they had no gospel at all. They denied the, it was like this kind of modalistic view of Christ and the

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Trinity. The definitions of baptism really were like a generational baptism.

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The salvation was basically follow Jesus as the example, do the best that you can.

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He kind of just showed the way. We're all on this type of journey, and so we're going to do the best that we can.

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He's kind of just cheering you on, hoping that you'll tip your scales in your favor. So going through that confirmation material,

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I was astounded how there was no gospel at all. The gospel wasn't underneath the conviction to break away from the

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UCC on the homosexuality issue. There's nothing there. And that makes completely sense when you understand the history of these mainline liberal denominations who have been just damaged and devastated by this moralistic religion.

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Yes, this is a reminder to evangelicals, because even many conservative evangelicals feel so frightened about the left's increase in their influence and domination in our culture, not only here in the

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United States, but globally. They are so terrified of what awaits us in our future.

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We could be, just as Christians of old, we could be one day being imprisoned for our views.

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Who knows the way the insanity is really rapidly increasing and rapidly charging toward us like a snowball that began rolling down a mountain and has become this giant boulder of ice heading towards us.

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Because of this fear, and because of the isolation and feeling like a minority, there is such a strong temptation for conservative evangelicals to become ecumenists with those outside of the

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Christian faith. To embrace conservative Roman Catholics, for instance, as our brothers and sisters.

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Now, I am one who believes in certain levels of co -belligerence.

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I believe in working in the public square with those outside of the Christian faith to bring about more biblically faithful laws into our community, elect more biblically faithful politicians into office, and on and on.

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And that sometimes involves in the work of social approaches to bringing enlightenment to the community and so forth.

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You know, I believe in certain circumstances working side by side with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Orthodox Jews, even

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Muslims, and conservative atheists and agnostics. But there is a difference between that and becoming an ecumenist with these folks.

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And you have an alarming percentage of Christians who are more than happy to embrace

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Mormons as their brothers and sisters who are conservative, that is, because the Mormon cult is becoming more and more enslaved to leftism themselves.

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In fact, in my search for a debater in Lancaster, one of the individuals

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I approached is actually an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University who is a leftist, who is a pro -homosexual.

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He declined my invitation to debate James White. But don't you agree that we have to really be careful about resisting the temptation to fall into the trap of ecumenism to gospel deniers?

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Yes, especially in our culture when we are feeling that pressure more and more, that we then want to give an inch here and give an inch there, so it's either not going to be confrontive to us or uncomfortable, so we kind of give in to that.

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And that is a great temptation for Christians, and it's not helped at all that there has been a lack of clarity on the gospel, on what

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Christianity is, the salvation that's in Christ alone and not by any good thing that you do.

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And so that has been shallow for many years and growing so. I mean, Machen, he fought this very thing way back in his day in different contexts and things that were going on in his time.

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But we've seen just that snowball effect where it's grown more and more and more, and the culture is more and more anti -Christian.

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And the church, the professing church, those who are unregenerate, especially these big denominations that have no gospel and are going the opposite direction, they are going along with the culture, looking like the culture, embracing it, and there's no clarity, there's ambiguity all over the place of what they believe.

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And it's devastating because then you have a lot of people who have no idea what

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Christianity is at the bottom level and how to even engage in life from that worldview.

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So they back away, they give in, they compromise. And little by little, it creeps into the church and ransacks it.

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And that's what we're dealing with a lot with these churches that are in these denominations that are really struggling.

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There are many churches around here that have 10, 20 people, and they're just trying to barely hang on.

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There's a lot of other churches that are beautiful churches that are just empty. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break.

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If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Pastor Matt Kenexer on the theme,

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The Gospel at War with Moralism, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. We'll be right back after these messages, so do not go away.

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The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023

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The Gospel at War September 15 -16 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Featuring Dr.

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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries Come join us for our 6th

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Future of Christendom Conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania and will run from Friday evening through all day

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Saturday with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reform Bible Church.

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Registration is required and lunch will be provided on Saturday. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with the theme of the

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Gospel at War in many areas of our culture including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

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Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be the keynote speaker. You will not want to miss this engaging event.

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Go to futureofchristendom .org James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the

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G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

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Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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We're now back with Pastor Matt Kennetzer of St. John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, and board member of the

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Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society. We are discussing The Gospel at War with Moralism, and our e -mail address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. So please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. So how do pastors and even

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Christians as graciously as possible with love as a motivation approach this situation, which is actually a life and death situation that has eternity in the balance?

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How we approach this issue is not a trivial matter. People may think, oh, somebody is fine and dandy as long as they are opposed to homosexuality and transgenderism and same -sex marriage and abortion.

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If they're opposed to all of these things, that's just fine with me. Well, that's really not sufficient, as we've been saying.

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You could be in the mafia and be against all those things, and yet you love to murder people.

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So tell us how you and what is your counsel to others in our approach to this.

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Well, for one, we need to be resolved and know that the gospel is offensive and foolish to those who are perishing, and it's in our very nature to feel like we are good, that we have a good nature, a good heart, and can do good things that God would be approved of and appreciate.

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So we need to know that God's gospel confronts that very thing.

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And so when we recognize that we are in a society that goes along with the

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Disney motto, follow your heart, and all the other stuff that we hear, and all the, you know, you're good by nature, we need to recognize that, recognize it for what it is and the depth of our spiritual condition, and be ready to give that gospel.

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We're called to serve it up and trust that God will work through it, whether for justice or mercy.

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And so we need to be resolved to fulfill our calling and serve that gospel to all people.

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And then from there, we open up the scriptures. If they are professing

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Christians, then where we need to go to is the standard of God.

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We need to go to His word, what does He say about this, and to do so not in a self -righteous way, where I'm thinking

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I'm better than them, but in a humble way, recognizing that I'm a sinner saved by grace, and that we need to go to what

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God says, we need to submit to His word, even bringing up the issues that we have, and many moralists would reject a lot of the doctrines of scripture itself.

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So going to the word of God and what the word of God says, and to try our best to show that we care about these people, to show that we want them to know the

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Christ that died for them, that we want to help them see what is true.

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And it's interesting to think about, and I've heard people say this before, when you're thinking of it from a human perspective, the moralist is one of the hardest persons to see salvation come to, because of that self -righteous nature of their belief system.

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Now again, obviously, God can crash down any wall, He can save any sinner when

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He wants to in His sovereign grace, but this is a very, very hard context to deal with.

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And so trying the best that you can to show that you love these people, and that was a massive struggle in where I came into, because I prayed before even looking into this church or any others, that God would bring me to a church that He would use to bring the church to life.

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I really looked up to men like John MacArthur and Stephen Lawson, and they had similar stories of churches that they walked into that were in a declining and spiritually dead situation in the majority.

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So walking into that situation, I was praying that God would bring me into a place like that.

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So really trying to navigate and show these people that I cared for them, that I cared for their eternal state, and that I was willing to tell them the truth no matter what would happen.

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And it was a struggle, big time. My wife and kids, we could have just up and left and went back to Oregon and just tried to pretend like nothing ever happened.

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But we knew that God had sent us here, that God was sovereign over us bringing us here and putting us into this position, so we were resolved to be faithful no matter what.

40:23

And there was a lot of pushback, a lot. A lot of people left the church. A good number of the membership left the church angry.

40:33

I was called a lot of different names. I don't know if you're familiar with Archie Bunker.

40:40

Yes, I am. I am old enough to know who Archie Bunker is.

40:46

America's beloved bigot. Well, I was called that, and a lot of other things were slandered against me.

40:56

And so it was hard walking through that suffering, but God was so merciful in changing just the complete dynamic of this church.

41:07

Like as people were leaving and angry, God was replacing, and then more so through going through COVID and all that stuff.

41:16

So it was an amazing time, but it was really hard. But yet the gospel needed to be brought to bear upon these people, and that was the catalyst that God used.

41:30

We have an anonymous listener who has a question for you.

41:37

Wouldn't it be wise to point out to these moralists that their religion is the religion of the

41:43

Pharisees, even if they claim Christ, because they are claiming Christ without a gospel?

41:50

Therefore, the religious aspect of their theological understanding of Christ is rendered null and void, and they are really just modern -day

41:59

Pharisees. Yeah, that's actually what happened a number of different times.

42:06

One of the texts that I constantly went back to, because I would get in conversations with people who had been in this church for years.

42:15

They grew up in it. They were 80 years old, and they were a pillar of the church, and all the range of people.

42:23

And I would ask them the very simple question, how do you get into heaven? And again, they would say, be a good person, do good things.

42:31

And so I brought them to Matthew 5 .20 constantly, and Jesus says that if your righteousness does not exceed the

42:38

Pharisees and the scribes, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And so I showed them that human standard, and I highlighted one of the greatest

42:49

Pharisees during that time, one of the most righteous men, Nicodemus. And I said, are you better than him?

42:58

Because none of us are going to be better than him, better than any of these Pharisees and scribes with this external righteousness that we think that we have in this moralistic religion.

43:09

And so you're never going to measure up. You're never going to do good enough and be good enough.

43:15

And so bringing that exact issue that they are modern -day Pharisees to bear upon and confront them was one of the many ways that God either opens them up and is merciful and saves them or hardens them in his justice.

43:36

And that was one issue. He's exactly right. That's one issue that's what can show the hardness of heart and the deception of this moralistic religion that's not

43:48

Christian at all. We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks,

43:57

How can we be firm about the necessity of good deeds and good works in the lives of truly born -again people, while at the same time making it extremely clear that these good works and good deeds are merely a fruit and evidence of someone who is truly justified and born -again and not in any way an agent of their regeneration or justification?

44:28

Yeah, that's a really, really important question and very relevant to, I think, a lot of what we're dealing with today in many different ways.

44:38

I think what it comes down to is that we need to have a very good, clear handle on the law and the gospel, the uses of the law and the gospel, the relationship between them two.

44:50

And so when we understand that the two uses of the gospel before salvation are for one, to restrain sin in a civil sense, in a societal way, and then two, that the law of God is to be a mirror that the sinner is to look into and see their sin for what it truly is.

45:10

When we understand those two and those are driving us in an evangelistic nature like Jesus did often, many times, he said, here's what the law says, so go and do this.

45:22

And that is so contrary to our modern -day evangelism. But Jesus had a great grasp on the law and how it's supposed to empty the sinner and show them the utter impossibility it is to save themselves in any capacity.

45:39

It's supposed to empty them out, show them their sin, and show them their need for Christ. And so when they're gutted with that law and they have no hope in themselves, then what comes flooding into that void is that beautiful, glorious gospel about Christ and Christ alone,

46:01

His imputed righteousness that we need. So in that light, when we have despaired in who we are by nature, being brought down to the ground in utter mourning over our sin, then

46:19

God brings us up, when He saves the sinner, He brings us up to see that advocate that stood in our place and did everything for us that we could never do.

46:29

And so when that void is created by the law, the gospel comes rushing into that.

46:36

And then from that new life, from the very beginning of that new life, then we have a whole new life that is living and walking according to God's law.

46:47

And that's the third use of the law, the path, the paths of righteousness for His namesake.

46:53

It's that obedience to Christ that is not burdened by the law anymore.

47:00

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. All of that, being conformed to the image of Christ, that life of sanctification, now you are wanting to obey.

47:10

Now you're living according to His law. And you know that where you came from in your salvation, when it was not dependent upon you in anything, you had nothing, you were vile, you were wretched, you were no good, you were worthless, you had nothing to give

47:27

Him. Now you're living in that new life, and you're looking back, living on the gospel in that new life, and now you want to obey the law of God.

47:37

Now you want to do all of those things that glorify Him in that obedience of faith.

47:43

And so I think, I really think the Christian church needs to have a clear, good grasp on the law, the gospel, the differences, the uses, and their relationship with each other.

47:59

Yes, if you are a moralist, you may be, and again, I'm not broad -brushing here, we have to make sure not to slander those, even who are outside of biblical

48:11

Christianity, because bearing false witness against your neighbor is just as sinful if you slander a non -Christian than if you slander a

48:24

Christian. It's just the same sin. But you may be more prone, though, however, if you're devoid of the

48:32

Holy Spirit and you're basing your understanding of who is right with God and who is entering heaven on the base of morality alone, you're going to be more prone to be hateful towards those that disagree with you.

48:52

Prime example, you have Westboro Baptist Church, the

48:59

God hates fags folks. I do not have confidence that those people are regenerate.

49:06

I do not believe that I will see them in heaven. They are thrilled that homosexuals are going to hell.

49:14

They offer them no gospel when they demonstrate publicly. Their faces are typically beaming with exuberant joy when they tell homosexuals that they are going to hell.

49:33

This is a real danger because, well, on the one hand, we are to despise the sin of those who are rebelling against Christ.

49:46

But at the same time, we must always remember, especially we who are theologically reformed, that you may be speaking to somebody who is a member of God's elect, but they just have not yet been regenerate by the grace of God.

50:02

Am I right? Don't we have to remind ourselves of that? Yeah, I think so. And you bring up a good dynamic is that when you look at those situations like Westboro Baptist and stuff where they don't have the gospel along with what they're saying.

50:22

And unfortunately, they claim to be Calvinists. They claim to be adherents to the 1689

50:31

London Baptist Confession. Yeah, well, that's a complete contradiction.

50:37

And so when you're up against moralism and those who are unfortunately within that belief system and driven by it, then you tell them the truth.

50:50

You tell them their condition. You even say things like, if you continue in your sin, you will be in hell.

50:59

You know, that is true. But along with that, and the big if, is key that when you give the person the gospel, then you are giving them what they need.

51:13

You're giving them that life giving message that God works through by the spirit to bring them to life, to show them who they are and who

51:20

Christ is. But an often objection or war against somebody who's presenting the true gospel to them is when you tell them the truth about their condition and their nature and where they're headed, they often say, well, you're playing

51:38

God. You're judging me. You're playing God. How dare you tell me

51:44

I'm going to hell? Well, if I give you the gospel and I'm truthful and say, if you continue in your condition, this is where you're going.

51:56

But here's the gospel. Here's what you need. You're not playing God at all.

52:02

In fact, if you pick up right where you left off, we have to go to our midway break. Sure. And don't forget about the accusation that you're playing

52:09

God. Folks, this is the longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

52:15

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the

52:20

FCC requires of them to localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio geographically to Lake City, Florida, where they're located.

52:28

And they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air, while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

52:37

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information, the contact information as you possibly can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

52:51

We depend on the finances from our advertisers to exist. So please contact our advertisers.

52:59

Either buy their products, use their services, visit their churches, or when you can't do any of that, please at least thank them for sponsoring

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And also, send in your questions to Matt Kennitzer on our theme today,

53:14

The Gospel at War with Moralism. To Chris Orensen at gmail .com. Chrisorensen at gmail .com.

53:19

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. We'll be right back. Don't go away. The Mid -Atlantic

53:26

Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023. The Gospel at War.

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September 15th through the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Featuring Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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Registration is required and lunch will be provided on Saturday. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with the theme of the

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Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be the keynote speaker. You will not want to miss this engaging event.

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Go to futureofchristendom .org. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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I'm very excited to announce that my long time friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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01:11:51

Pastor Matt pick up where you left off before the break yeah so we were talking about the the objection where and this really comes in very easy with someone who is in the moralistic belief system that if you present the gospel and you're truthful about the reality of hell and how all sinners are headed to hell but if they turn to Christ by way of the gospel presented to them on God's terms then they come to everlasting life but when people hear the reality of hell the condition of where we all are headed without Christ many times people come back and say well you're just playing

01:12:42

God you're trying to play God you're judging me and that is again something very easy that comes from the moralistic mindset but if you

01:12:55

Jonathan Edwards hung unbelievers over the precipice of hell and told them if they didn't turn to Christ then they'd be in hell and so was he playing

01:13:06

God no he wasn't he was telling them the truth and giving them the gospel that they need so when the gospel is not there then there may be a person who yes is trying to judge and has very impure motives and anything like that but when you bring the gospel right in after telling the truth about where sinners are headed you're giving them what they need you're not playing

01:13:33

God at all you're loving that person you're giving them the greatest thing that they need and that is the depth of true love from human to human so that is a very easy objection that people can get into and I've heard it a lot being in the context that I walked into when you tell somebody that their true nature according to the

01:13:58

Bible and they come back and say how dare you tell me I'm a bad person that is a fruit of the moralistic mindset and another one is you're trying to play

01:14:10

God but you're not if you're bringing that gospel to bear upon their heart and mind okay we have another listener question

01:14:24

B .B. in Cumberland County Pennsylvania B .B.

01:14:29

wants to know how much negative feedback do you receive from professing conservative evangelicals for your strong approach to these social and moral issues that they may be too frightened to confront a pretty considerable amount

01:14:51

I think when you get into you know I think it's easy especially through the

01:14:59

COVID that we've kind of retreated even more as a church and saying you know it's not our duty to speak into these cultural and societal issues but when you're faithful to the scriptures you you got to go the opposite direction you got to go into them and talk speak into them because the

01:15:19

Bible God says has everything to say about all of life but yet there's this push that either for one says and goes along with the idea redefinition of separation of church and state oh it's not our job to speak into those things we need to separation of church and state we need to obey that so there's giving into that mindset and there's you know others where it's you know it's not it's not something comfortable for us we want ease we want comfort we don't want to be confronted we don't like pressure so we can easily kind of go with the mindset of the

01:16:17

Jews in Jesus' day that they were fearful of the Jews so they didn't speak up they didn't stand up for what was true they didn't have a public witness because they were fearful of getting kicked out of the synagogue which really meant during that time that you were societally marked you're an outcast basically your life was over in a societal way so we don't by nature we don't like that so we back away we are silent we don't feel like we can confront and there's just another issue that the church, the professing church has given into and compromised with the influence of the world saying you need to be quiet about these cultural issues but we need to have a burden for lost souls we need to speak into all of these cultural issues with the word of God that's the standard that we measure everything by so that needs to grow and that is a great combatant to the moralistic mindset and world view

01:17:23

Now that questioner was actually asking about conservatives who were responding negatively to the work of Mid -Atlantic

01:17:33

Reformation Society what about the leftists? I'm almost certain I can remember Pastor Joel Saint saying that there were some outrageously slanderous libelous things hurled out against Mid -Atlantic

01:17:48

Reformation Society from the far left isn't that the case as well? Yeah, that's what

01:17:54

I've heard from Joel that's happened a number of times where they've had some major opposition to what they're doing and what they're speaking against from the left where they've tried to stop events and do things like that so yeah they've been up against that quite a bit because that's the very nature of the organization is to bring the truth of God to bear upon all of life all of culture and so the left is definitely going to raise a fuss about that for sure

01:18:33

Okay, we have Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania Greetings Pastor Matt Does the

01:18:39

Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society offer any resources that can assist pastors struggling to get their congregation to be less complacent and more involved with the cultural battle going on around us?

01:18:55

Yeah, so we we have YouTube videos on the channel we have the

01:19:03

Think and Reform podcast that Luke St. does quite often now he's getting back into that and we're really trying to build that resource library for people so if people are always welcome to email us, get in touch with us and ask those types of questions of what resources we have that can help with the various issues that they're dealing with and that was one of the beginning motives for beginning the

01:19:40

Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society that they wanted to come alongside pastors to help them deal with the complacency, deal with the pietism, deal with the things that were happening so that they can help churches and pastors especially equip them with how to speak into the issues in all of culture, taxation welfare, abortion homosexuality and everything else government schools and all of that so we are kind of at the beginning stages

01:20:20

I guess of building that deliberate resource center for people but people are always welcome to email us, reach out to us and these conferences over the past years have done a very good job addressing a lot of these issues so they can always go back on the

01:20:37

YouTube and go look at past conferences and other videos that we speak into issues like that so...

01:20:44

We have an anonymous listener who says I am in the middle of a heated battle between people that I love dearly over the issue of the church's involvement in political and social issues and both sides of the equation are very conservative and also reformed churches and pastors and the issue is on the one side you have the conservative reformed pastors and churches that believe that the gospel is the only focus of the church in addition to demonstrating love to those not only in the congregation but in the community with the meeting of physical needs and the other political and social issues may be approached by individual

01:21:40

Christians but it is not a church responsibility as an institution the other side is saying that the pastors and the churches are to be in the forefront of the battle on these political and social issues in the trenches and on the front lines how do we convince those that seem to be in disagreement with you that the gospel is to be our only focus and the mixture of activity with the political and social issues seems to be in their opinion bordering on actual heresy yeah that's a that's a hard tension to deal with yeah in fact

01:22:23

I even have heroes that are on the opposite side of that yeah I don't know how much grace community church in Sun Valley California where Pastor John McArthur is the pastor he is one of my modern day heroes who

01:22:37

I've had on this program who's written a wonderful endorsement for this show he seems to have changed with the mandates that we're seeking to disrupt church life at grace community church

01:22:52

I don't know how widespread that disagreement with the government has changed other views in general about their approach but I would never call people a heretic for disagreement over this but just I'm sorry for interrupting you but comment on that please no yeah

01:23:17

I would I would agree I wouldn't call anybody heretic over this either I think that's that's a something that will damage the church quite a bit and we don't need that but how can the gospel cannot be proclaimed in a void in a vacuum it's always attached to life somehow it speaks to the issue of the sinner and the sinner sins and sin is lawlessness before God so the gospel

01:23:52

I mean I've heard I believe Matt Truell has said this and you've had him on the program before he or maybe somebody else

01:24:01

I can't remember but you go to any church dinner and they're having fellowship you know enjoying time together and then you look at the mantra oh just preach the gospel just preach the gospel well but the value in fellowship is amazing in the

01:24:27

Christian life so you can't just pit one against the other and especially with the gospel going into all of society what better context to preach the gospel than what we're dealing with today and so yeah we go to the abortion clinic abortion mill try to go weekly and that is an amazing place to preach the gospel and I've heard objections directly to me why do that why just not go preach the gospel and I'm thinking to myself what better place to go preach the gospel than that that brings it to bear upon the literal life that people are living and dealing with at the very death camp the very place that that's happening so you can't preach the gospel in a void

01:25:23

I think it is the church's responsibility collectively to be the prophetic voice of the world to be the conscience of the state and that's made up of believers that individually need to do it so you

01:25:38

I think you know Matt 1st Timothy 1 about 8 through 10 11 it does give that relation that the law is in relation in accordance with the glorious blessed gospel of our

01:25:55

God so they go hand in hand we need to deal with society and do it rightfully according to the standard of God and use that gospel to bring light to the situation that sinners are in so I don't agree with the concept of it's not the church's role

01:26:20

I believe it is and if the church isn't going to speak to these issues then who is and then if the church isn't supposed to do it then what is that telling the church the people in the church so that's giving them an out for the call that God has given them both individually and collectively as the church and how do we how do we stop churches from disfellowshipping each other over these things any counsel on that because it does happen yeah it does and it's an unfortunate one um it's really difficult

01:27:07

I think clarity we need a lot more clarity on a lot of issues issues of when repentance is truly needed when it's a matter of conscience and is left to the person or when it's not those are really difficult issues and I think we need to I mean throughout church history the church has had unfortunate stains where and I can't remember the name of the

01:27:44

Anabaptist who got thrown in a hole and you remember his name?

01:27:51

James White talks about it. Yeah I did remember it until you just asked me I'm 61 and the memory is going out the window yeah

01:28:01

I can't remember his name either but he got thrown in the well because he wasn't going to baptize his child.

01:28:09

Yeah not in a well in a hole in a dungeon in the church building.

01:28:15

Yeah and he ended up dying there and that's an unfortunate thing that shouldn't happen so you know these we need to know where the line is drawn and I think we unfortunately draw the line in the wrong places we need to know the difference between when to work with somebody, when to not when to have the fellowship and when it's okay to say yeah okay you believe this

01:28:48

I believe this and we are still brothers or sisters in Christ and we're not going to divide over it yet you can you can do your own thing in that area but this is a really important issue

01:29:03

I think that of our witness in society itself more than I think it's still more than 60 % of Americans still say that they're

01:29:15

Christian yet our nation looks the way it is it doesn't make any sense and it really hits this issue of where are we spiritually and what is our concept of our role in this world we are to bring the gospel to bear upon the world the law of God to bear upon the world both of them we are to be salt and light in the world so it's a hard issue but we need to deal with it with love and clarity.

01:29:46

We have another anonymous listener who wants to know would you ever counsel somebody to leave a church who does not agree with you on the church's official participation in the political arena

01:30:03

I would for that person in that situation

01:30:10

I would do everything that you could to talk to the leadership talk to the pastor bring your case to them with a calmness an openness with love in Christ and to show them how important it is and if they're not hearing if they're set in whatever system that brings them to believe that they're not supposed to do that and you've tried and it's really just getting in the way and you feel like you really are not growing there not really a part of that body you need to be all in we need to be all in with the fellowship that we have in churches and so if it gets to that point then

01:31:06

I say yeah you need to try to find a church that you really can feel like you are used you are being a part of and you can grow and that you believe is faithful to the whole council of God.

01:31:23

I think you would probably agree with me that an essential element of this on whether or not to leave is if the church actually forbid you as an individual from being involved this way.

01:31:39

My personal thoughts on this is that depending upon how prevalent reformed churches are in your area or biblically faithful churches

01:31:47

I wouldn't necessarily say a person should leave that church as long as they had the freedom to be as much involved in those political and social things as their hearts and time allowed them to.

01:32:04

You make a good point and I would completely agree. I know people who don't agree on these views that you brought up within their church but yet they are free to engage in them and they have some support from the leadership and the pastor and the church and so they are able to stay there and I think if that is the case then you should try to stay there as long as you can and do and it shows that unity, it shows that that has deep roots in the union that we have in Christ and with each other and that is the main thing and then have the freedom to be able to engage in these things and have disagreements even in those situations.

01:33:00

So if that is a possibility, yeah, you ought to stick it out as long as you can for sure.

01:33:06

Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania wants to know, can you list things that you believe are required of a church to do in the arena of political and social involvement?

01:33:26

Engage in, so there's the difference between because a lot of times when you start talking about this issue and start talking specifics on what people should be doing you can get people coming back and saying, well you want a church run state which they confuse that with, they confuse theocracy with ecclesiocracy, it's not an ecclesiocracy, so we're not advocating for a church run state in many situations so with that, the church is to be involved in formulating whether it's safe haven for abortion and combating abortion in your state and writing up a resolution that you present to those in the jurisdiction of the political arena in your county or in your state to try to keep abortion from happening in your county being involved in those things, being involved in mill ministry going to the very mill to protest what is happening and to stay the hand to stop mothers and fathers from going in there and killing their child, all the while with the gospel running through all of that, going to school board meetings and being either just a presence to hear what's going on in your community or taking the opportunity to speak up when you have critical race theory coming into your school and you raise an objection to it whatever it may be, if you have a pride fest going on in your community, you send letters and emails to those who are in governance, you know, county commissioners or whoever it may be the board who's allowing that to happen in the county you go there, you engage in these story times in libraries to combat all of that there's so much that we need to be engaged in and there's a lot of different situations,

01:35:51

I mean even, you know, it goes to what God told his people when they were going to go to exile in Babylon to live there for 70 years he said, build your homes, have families eat the produce of your gardens and seek the welfare of your city so we need to live those lives that glorify

01:36:17

God we need to establish the home establish the family be fruitful and multiply, have kids when the world is telling you there's too many people and it's overpopulated and we need to bring 7 .5

01:36:32

billion down to 1 billion, you say that is ridiculous, God commands you to have children and so you obeying

01:36:40

God's commands is not going to destroy the world so have families and start home schools or Christian schools, educate them from the home realize what these government schools are doing there's a lot a lot of specifics that I would say, but I would go to text and I've done this with Proverbs 24 10 -12 go to that text and say, okay, where is the exact place that these people are actively going into death or being led to the slaughter, where is that place, and then think in your society and engage in those places and work that way out to you know, so the mill, that's the place that that's happening then legislatively, you deal with that same thing, and then you go to pregnancy centers, that's an area to help that, though it's not so direct, so bring the text to life and ask specific questions, where does that happen in my life

01:37:46

We're going to our final break right now, if you have any intention to send in a question we would ask that you do it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time

01:37:55

ChrisArnson at gmail .com give us a first name at least city and state and country of residence don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors

01:38:08

The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023,

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Evino, and thanks for listening. I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s, and what

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01:53:54

As host of Iron Trump and Zion Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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

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

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They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

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God -centered focus, reading, preaching and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

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All of the other information in that commercial you just heard is accurate, with the exception of the website.

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So use the new website, G -C -B -C -N -J dot org. I also want to remind our listeners that you've been hearing ads for the

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1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com. If you could, Pastor Matt, summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today when it comes to the gospel at war with moralism.

01:56:29

We need to put no confidence in the flesh. We need to look away from ourselves, away from any goodness that we may think we have inside of us or may come out of us.

01:56:40

We need to look away from ourselves, understand what the Bible says about who we are in our natural condition.

01:56:48

When we have a good understanding of that biblically, then we'll see the glory of Christ shining so much more brightly, and His righteousness being just the amazing imputed righteousness that we need that comes from outside of us.

01:57:08

And so we see Christ for who He truly is. And with a topic like this, moralism,

01:57:14

I think when we understand those two concepts, we can just be in awe of God's grace.

01:57:22

It's grace alone. It's His unmerited favor upon us, and it's His power within us to do what

01:57:28

He's called us to do, and that's to come to Christ and live a life glorifying to Him. So it helps us to see

01:57:34

Christ for who He truly, truly is, and we desperately need that in our society today. Amen.

01:57:40

Well, I want to remind our listeners about some important contact information. First of all, if you are visiting

01:57:48

Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, or if you live in or near there, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in or near there, please pay a visit to the website of St.

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John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania at sjrcpa .org.

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S -J -R -C -P -A .org. If you want to find out more information about the upcoming conference,

01:58:18

Future of Christendom conference, on the theme of the Gospel at War, which is going to be held at the

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Spooky Nook Sports and Events in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County, go to futureofchristendom .org,

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futureofchristendom .org, and you can also find out more about the hosting ministry of that event, which is midatlanticreformation .org,

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midatlanticreformation .org. And I just heard word during this live program that the potential debate candidate opposing

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Dr. James R. White at the conference that we are arranging has agreed to participate with one minor detail that we have to have confirmed by Mid -Atlantic

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Reformation Society, so we hope to be telling you more 100 % confirmed information tomorrow, and I will do that if we indeed have the green light.

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I want to thank my guest, Pastor Matt Kennetzer, for being such a wonderful guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

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