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

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

19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports

legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

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

sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

with your own questions.

And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on

the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on

this 19th day of July 2023.

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 Matt Kennitzer, Senior Pastor at St. John's Reformed Church

of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, and a board member of the 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 Future of Christendom Conference and Debate

featuring Dr. 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 Kennitzer.

Hey, Chris, it's good to be back with you.

It's a thrill to have you back, and tell our listeners about St. John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania.

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

In the leadership, we would land on the 1689 London

Baptist Confession, and it has been

rescued out of the 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 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 Christian at all.

By the way, have you met my friends, Pastor Micah Klaus and Pastor

Ed Boyle, who have congregations where they pastor?

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

United Church of Christ before he received a call to pastor there.

Have you met these two brothers?

Yeah, no, 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.

Yeah, and by the way, for anybody listening who wants to listen at some point

to that interview that I just mentioned featuring Pastor

Micah Klaus and Pastor Ed Boyle on the theme, 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.

Pastor Micah Klaus is the only person I've ever interviewed on the program,

so that will be the only link that comes up.

So I hope that you take advantage of that later on.

If anybody wants to find out more about St. John's Reformed Church in

Freidensburg, 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 Freidensburg, the website is

sjrcpa .org.

S -J -R -C -P -A .org, which stands for St. John's Reformed Church,

Pennsylvania.

S -J -R -C -P -A .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 Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society, the board of

which you are on the membership of.

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

But I'm so excited.

I was so thrilled that Pastor Joel Saint reached out to me and said, we

want to get James White out for our next conference in September,

September 15th, 16th, and a worship service on the 17th in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,

more specifically Mannheim, Pennsylvania.

And he said, please, could you do whatever you can do to get James White to agree to speak at this

conference and possibly even conduct a debate?

Well, the conference is a done deal.

We have 100 confirmation from Dr. James R. White that he will be the keynote speaker

at this conference on the theme, The Gospel at War.

And we are still working to finalize a debate that Dr.

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 Dr. White's

opponent in a debate, he had to reluctantly bow out.

So we're back to the drawing board.

And we do believe that we are right at the precipice of getting 100 finalized

confirmation from another debater, and we will keep you updated on that.

But tell us about the Future of Christendom conference, Pastor

Kennetzer.

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.

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 Christians

are really struggling of how to even think through those issues, let alone

walk through them.

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.

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.

And we are doing expositions, is what we're calling them, and coining kind of that

phrase, and it's about an 18 to 20 -minute exposition

on an issue in the culture and how the 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.

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.

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

here.

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.

Amen.

Well, if anybody wants more details on the 2023 Future of Christendom

Conference and Debate featuring Dr. James R. 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.

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

futureofchristendom .org.

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

and register as early as you can because the earlier you register, the less expensive

the registration fee will be.

And we are now entering into our very provocative theme, The

Gospel at War with Moralism.

Can you please define moralism?

Moralism is basically you are confronted with the question, How do I

get into heaven?

How am I accepted by the triune God?

How am I gaining salvation?

How do I retain that?

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

Simple as that.

Which is probably what the vast majority of humans who are not regenerate, not born again,

think.

Those that actually believe in heaven.

Right.

And I would say a large amount of, unfortunately, the quote unquote

Christian community.

And that's really what I walked into, and not knowing what I was going to walk into, was a very moralistic

tradition that was just entrenched in the answer, Be a good person, do good things.

That's how I'm accepted by God.

Now I'm assuming what you mean by the Christian community is the professing Christian community.

Yep. Exactly. Yep.

So tell us how you came to stumble upon this unfortunate discovery.

Yeah, so my wife and at the time two girls and I

were living out in Oregon.

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

I was going through my MDiv program and I was about getting done

the Christmas before June 2018.

And so I started, during that Christmas time, 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.

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

I got a Skype interview.

So I did the interview.

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 Calvinistic, Reformed, clear presentation

of the gospel, the sovereignty of God.

And so they voted 82 to 1 to extend the call to us,

to me as their pastor.

We went home, went on a camping trip, prayed about it, talked about it.

And ended up coming out here 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 UCC, the United Church of Christ, in

2006.

And it was over the homosexuality issue.

Which was, I'm glad that they did that.

And during conversations, I asked them, what is Reformed?

What is Reformed theology?

And no one could really give me an answer.

So I knew I had some things that I had to address.

There was also women in leadership at the time.

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

And so 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.

And so I really didn't fully know what I was walking into.

Until I started getting into ministry, getting into doing Bible studies and preaching the gospel.

And I got opposition over and over and over again.

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 Christ alone.

So that kind of propelled me into what happened next.

Yes, a very similar story from Pastor Ed Boyle of

the church, which is now 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 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.

And although they recoiled with disgust over the homosexual

issues and the transgender issues.

And perhaps the abortion issues or should I say infanticide.

You had people that were just as you described and defined earlier, moralists

who were unregenerate.

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.

Yeah, and it was interesting that kind of dynamic where

it was a great thing that they broke away from the UCC over that issue.

But they still had nothing underneath it.

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

I actually preached a sermon against the UCC.

And against 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.

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.

And I went through it and they had no gospel at all.

They denied that it was like this kind of modalistic view of Christ and the

Trinity.

The definitions of baptism really were like a generational baptism.

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

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.

You know, he's just trying to he's kind of just cheering you on, hoping that you'll tip your scales in your favor.

So going through that confirmation material, I was astounded how there was no

gospel at all.

And so that was, you know, the gospel wasn't underneath the conviction to

break away from the 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.

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 United States, but globally.

They are so terrified of what awaits us in our future.

We could be just as Christians of old.

We could be one day being imprisoned for our views.

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 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 Christian faith to embrace

conservative Roman Catholics, for instance, as our brothers and sisters.

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

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.

And that sometimes involves in the work of

social approaches to bringing

enlightenment to the community and so forth.

I believe in certain circumstances working side by side with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox,

Orthodox Jews, even Muslims and conservative atheists and agnostics.

But there's a difference between that and becoming an ecumenist with these folks.

And you have an alarming number, percentage of Christians who are more than

happy to embrace Mormons as their brothers and sisters who are conservative, that is, because the Mormon

cult is becoming more and more enslaved to leftism themselves.

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

is actually an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University who is

a leftist, who's a pro -homosexual.

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?

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, you know, confrontive to us or uncomfortable.

So we kind of give in to that.

And that is a great temptation for Christians that, and it's not

helped at all, that there has been a lack of clarity on the gospel,

on what Christianity is, the salvation that's in Christ alone and not by any good thing

that you do.

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.

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 and the church, the

professing church, those who are unregenerate, especially those these big

denominations that are, you know, have no gospel and 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.

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

idea what Christianity is at the bottom level and how to even

engage in life from that worldview.

So they back away, they give in, they compromise.

And little by little, it creeps into the church and ransacks it.

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

are really struggling.

There are many churches around here that have 10, 20 people and they're just

trying to barely hang on.

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.

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

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

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

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

We'll be right back after these messages, so do not go away.

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

Gospel at War.

September 15th through the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Featuring Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

Come join us for our 6th 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

Saturday.

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

Registration is required and lunch will be provided on Saturday.

This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with the theme of the Gospel at War in many areas of our culture.

Including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be the keynote speaker.

You will not want to miss this engaging event.

Go to futureofchristendom .org.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

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We're now back with Pastor Matt Kennitzer of St. John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg,

Pennsylvania, and board member of the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society.

We are discussing the Gospel at War with Moralism and our email address is

chrisarnzen at gmail .com, 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 USA.

So, how do pastors and even 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?

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.

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.

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

So, tell us how you and what your counsel to others in our

approach to this.

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.

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

thing.

And so, when we recognize that we are in a society that goes

along with the 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.

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

justice or mercy.

And so, we need to be resolved to fulfill our calling and

serve that gospel to all people.

And then from there, we open up the scriptures.

If they are professing Christians, then where we need to go to is

the standard of God.

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 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 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.

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 Christ that died for them, that we want to

help them see what is true.

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.

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

He wants to in His sovereign grace, but this is a very, very

hard context to deal with.

And so, trying the best that you can to show that you love these people and that was a

massive struggle and 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.

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.

So, walking into that situation, I was praying that God would

bring me into a place like that.

And 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.

And it was a big, it was a struggle, big time.

We, you know, 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.

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.

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.

I was called a lot of different names.

I don't know if you're familiar with Archie Bunker, but it's the...

Yes, I am.

I am old enough to know who Archie Bunker is.

America's beloved bigot.

Well, I was called that.

And a lot of other things were slandered against me.

And so, it was hard walking through that suffering, but God was so merciful in

changing just the complete dynamic of this church.

Like as people were leaving and angry, God was replacing and then more so through

going through COVID and all that stuff.

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.

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

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

of the Pharisees, even if they claim Christ, because they are claiming Christ without

a gospel.

Therefore, the religious aspect of their theological understanding of Christ

is rendered null and void, and they are really just modern -day Pharisees.

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

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.

They grew up in it.

They were 80 years old, and they were a pillar of the church, and all the

range of people.

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.

And so I brought them to Matthew 5 .20 constantly, and Jesus says that if your righteousness

does not exceed the 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 Pharisees during that time, one of the most

righteous men, Nicodemus.

And I said, are you better than him?

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.

And so you're never going to measure up.

You're never going to do good enough and be good enough.

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.

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 Christian at all.

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, 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?

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.

I think what it comes down to is that we need to have a very good, clear handle on the law

and the gospel and the uses of the law and the gospel, the relationship between them two.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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 God brings us up.

When he saves a sinner, he brings us up to see that advocate that stood in our place and did

everything for us that we could never do.

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

that.

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, and that's the third

use of the law, the path, the paths of righteousness for his namesake.

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

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.

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 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.

Now you want to do all of those things that glorify him in that obedience of

faith.

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.

Yes.

If you are a moralist, you may be, and I'm not broad -brushing here. We have to make sure

not to slander those even who are outside of biblical Christianity,

because bearing false witness against your neighbor is just as sinful if you slander

a non -Christian than if you slander a Christian.

It's the same sin.

But you may be more prone, though, however, if you're devoid of the 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.

Prime example, you have Westboro Baptist Church, the

God hates fags folks.

I do not have confidence that those people are regenerate.

I do not believe that I will see them in heaven.

They are thrilled that homosexuals are going to hell.

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.

This is a real danger because, well, on the one hand, we are to

despise the sin of those who are rebelling

against Christ, 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.

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.

And unfortunately they claim to be Calvinists.

They claim to be adherents to the 1689 London

Baptist Confession.

Yeah, well, that's a complete contradiction.

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.

You tell them their condition.

You even say things like, if you continue in your sin, you will be in

hell.

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.

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 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 God.

You're judging me.

You're playing God.

How dare you tell me 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, but here's the

gospel.

Here's what you need.

You're not playing God at all.

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 God.

Folks, this is the longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires

of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize

Iron Trip and Zion Radio geographically to Lake City, Florida, where they're located, 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.

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.

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And also send in your questions to Matt Kennetzer on our theme today, The

Gospel at War with Moralism.

To Chris Ornsen at gmail .com.

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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 Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The

Gospel at War.

September 15th through the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Featuring Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

Come join us for our 6th 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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You will not want to miss this engaging event.

Go to futureofchristendom .org.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners.

From all over the world.

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

he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland,

going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

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If you visit, have them Joe O 'Reilly, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener, and Mattai in County Kildare, Ireland,

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnzen is doing is

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers that strives

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

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes,

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our Sovereign

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mention that you heard about them from Chris Aronson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Before I return to Matt Kennitzer, pastor of St. John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania

and board member of the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society on our theme, The Gospel at War with Moralism, I just

have some important announcements to make.

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

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Before I go to any listener questions, please, Pastor Matt, pick up where you left off before the break.

Yeah, so we were talking about 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 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, I mean, 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 God?

No, he wasn't.

He was telling them the truth and giving them the gospel that they need.

And 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 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 they're true nature according to the 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 God, but you're not if you're bringing that gospel to

bear upon their heart and mind.

Okay, we have another listener question.

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

B .B. 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.

I think when you get into, you know, I think it's easy,

especially through the 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 got to go the opposite direction.

You got to go into them and talk, speak into them.

Because the 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, the redefinition of separation of church and state.

Oh, it's not our job to speak into those things.

We need 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 something that's 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 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.

You're 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 worldview.

Now that questioner was actually asking about conservatives who were responding

negatively to the work of Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society.

What about the leftists?

I'm almost certain I can remember Pastor Joel St. saying that there were some outrageously

slanderous, libelous things hurled out against

Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society from the far left.

Isn't that the case as well?

Yeah, that's what 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.

Okay, we have Seth in Hummlestown, Pennsylvania.

Greetings, Pastor Matt.

Does the 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?

Yeah, so we have YouTube videos on the channel.

We have the 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 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 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, 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 of addressing a lot of these issues.

So they can always go back on the YouTube and go look at past conferences and other videos that we

speak into issues like that.

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 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 hard tension to deal with.

In fact, I even have heroes that are on the opposite side of that.

I don't know how much Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where Pastor

John MacArthur is the pastor.

He is one of my modern -day heroes who I've had on this program who has written a wonderful endorsement for this show.

He seems to have changed with the mandates that were

seeking to disrupt church life at Grace Community Church.

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.

I'm sorry for interrupting you, but comment on that, please.

No, yeah, I would agree.

I wouldn't call anybody a heretic over this either.

I think that's something that will damage the church quite a

bit, and we don't need that.

But 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, I mean, I've heard,

I believe Matt Truell has said this, and you've had him on the program before, or

maybe somebody else, 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

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's happening.

So you can't preach the gospel in a void.

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 I think 1 Timothy 1,

about 8 through 10 -ish, 11, it does give that relation that

the law is in relation, in accordance with the glorious, blessed gospel of our

God.

So they go hand in hand.

We need to deal with society and do it rightfully and

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.

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 people

in the church?

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 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.

It's really difficult.

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—.

Mean, throughout church history, the church has had unfortunate stains where—

and I can't remember the name of the Anabaptist who got

thrown in a hole.

And do you remember his name?

James White talks about him.

Yeah, I did remember it until you just asked me.

I'm 61 and the memory's going out the window.

Yeah, I can't remember his name either.

But he got thrown in the well because he wasn't going to baptize his child.

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

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, I believe this, and we are still brothers or

sisters in Christ and we're not going to divide over it, yet you can

do your own thing in that area.

But this is a really important issue, I think, of our witness in

society itself.

More than—I think it's still more than 60 of Americans still say that they're Christian, yet

our nation looks the way it is.

That 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.

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?

I would—for that person in that situation, 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 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 counsel of God.

And 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.

My personal thoughts on this is that, depending upon how prevalent Reformed churches are in

your area, or biblically faithful churches, 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.

Yeah, 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're 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 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.

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

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?

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,

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 and 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.

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 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 billion down to 1 billion, you say that is ridiculous.

God commands you to have children and so you obeying God's commands is not going

to destroy the world.

So have families and start homeschools or Christian schools, educate them from

the home, realize what these government schools are doing.

So there's 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?

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.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

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.

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

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York,

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening.

Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing sixth grade.

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

A 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.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he

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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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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.

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.

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

natural condition.

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.

And so we see Christ for who He truly is.

And with a topic like this, moralism, I think when we understand those two

concepts, we can just be in awe of God's grace.

It's grace alone.

It's His unmerited favor upon us, and it's His power within us to do what 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 Christ for who He truly, truly is, and we desperately need that in our society today.

Amen.

Well, I want to remind our listeners about some important contact information.

First of all, if you are visiting 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. John's Reformed Church of

Freidensburg, Pennsylvania at sjrcpa .org.

S -J -R -C -P -A dot org.

If you want to find out more information about the upcoming conference, Future

of Christendom conference, on the theme, The Gospel at War,

which is going to be held at the Spooky Nook Sports and Events in

Mannheim, Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County, go to futureofchristendom

.org, futureofchristendom .org, and you can also find out more about the hosting

ministry of that event, which is midatlanticreformation .org,

midatlanticreformation .org.

And I just heard word during this live program that the potential

debate candidate opposing 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 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.

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.

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.