March 5, 2018 Show with Dr. James R. White on “Dr. James R. White In His Own Words on His Friendship With & His Partnership in Evangelism With Dr. Michael L Brown” PLUS Michael Gaydosh on “Why the Voice of the Puritan Thomas Manton Needs to be Heard Today”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet

Earth, listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this fifth day of March 2018, and today is the debut broadcast of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we are on for the very first time on First Love Radio.

This is obviously not the debut broadcast of our program which began in 2005, but it is the debut of our relationship and our partnership with First Love Radio, and I just want to thank from the bottom of my heart

Joe Jackowitz, Eric Santos, Peter Sarkis, Dennard Fagans, Tom Smith, and everyone else on the staff of First Love Publications and First Love Radio.

And today we have to start off our premiere broadcast with First Love Radio, someone who

I have had a tradition of starting the program or launching the program when it was first launched in 2005 on Long Island, New York, when it was relaunched in 2015 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and now that it is being re -relaunched on First Love Radio, we have as our guest, as we have for those first launchings or relaunchings in the past,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and I know that Dr. White is on my program because I have a crowd surrounding the building with torches in hand, so it's gonna be interesting to see what happens.

Oh, wait a minute, that's my neighbors having a tiki party, I'm sorry. Totally got confused there.

And Dr.

White, I'd be surprised if there was anyone listening who did not know who he is, but there are people who listen from time to time who are far outside the orbit of the fellowship that I have.

There are sometimes Catholics and Muslims and unbelievers of various types listening, but Dr.

James R. White is an elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He's a director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, he's the host of the

Dividing Line, a bi -weekly broadcast, and a New Testament Greek scholar, a world -renowned

Christian apologist, a seasoned debater, and a highly sought -after conference speaker and author of numerous books, including

What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran. Today we are addressing with him for the first hour,

Dr. James R. White, in his own words, on his friendship with and his partnership in evangelism with Dr.

Michael Brown, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my friend

Dr. James R. White. Well, it's good to be back with you, and I can't believe it's been 2005 since you've been doing this.

They said it would never last, and they were probably right. In fact, now that I think about it, it was you that said it would never last.

Of course! But anyway, yes, we've been through a lot, and no one should be shocked that I'm friends with Michael Brown, because I have a friendship with you.

So if I can survive Irons, then I can survive pretty much anybody. And of course, you did write my biography,

Is That Moron My Brother. Is That Moron My Brother? We sold, I think, four copies of that.

Your next hour guest really took a bath on publishing that one, but it was a labor of love on his part,

I'm sure. And if you can recall, my favorite commendation that I received, or that you received, for that book was from a prison inmate who said,

I love Is That Moron My Brother? The pages are so soft and absorbent. But anyway, that's only because I've seen the video from time to time again.

That was from, obviously, some of our listeners may not know what I'm talking about, but that was in one of the opening announcements that I did as emcee of one of the many debates that I've orchestrated with Dr.

White going back to 1996, was when the first debate was orchestrated.

We began planning it in 1995, and the first debate was in 1996. Jerry's still making the arguments even as we speak, right?

Jerry Matitix. And it was on all the major dogmas on Mary, usually you take one dogma at a time or something like that, but we did all the dogmas on Mary.

And I remember I talked Jerry out of just doing it on the perpetual virginity of Mary, and I said, no, no, no, no, no, that's not it.

But that was the beginning of history being made on Long Island, and nothing like that back then was occurring on Long Island for sure.

I don't even know if in history anything like that ever happened on Long Island. Those ongoing debates that we had for a decade, and then even after that with Muslims and monist

Pentecostals and and liberals and homosexual advocates and all kinds of things.

But I'm gonna give our email address right now, so if anybody would like to join us with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if indeed you live outside of the

USA. So Dr. White, I think it might be a good idea, just as we gave a brief description of who you are, since our main topic at hand today is a defense of your friendship with and your partnership and evangelism with Dr.

Michael Brown, I think it'd be a good idea to give a summary of who Dr. Michael Brown is. Yeah, you know,

I met Dr. Brown the first time in 1995.

I moderated a debate that he did. He is a converted Jew, and so I moderated a debate he did at Arizona State University with Rabbi Emanuel Shochet, who is no longer alive.

He, obviously his greatest fame, at least especially in the scholarly realm, he has a

PhD in Semitic languages from New York University, and he has written a five volume series called

Answers to Jewish Objections to Jesus, because when he was converted in an Italian Pentecostal church, he was a heroine using a rock drummer from a nominal

Jewish family, and he was converted in a holiness preaching

Pentecostal church. I think it's important to keep in mind that, you know, the context in which your conversion took place is going to have a pretty major impact upon your thinking and your

Christian life after that. And so keeping that in mind, he's written this series of books because once he was converted, his parents started, you know, sending all the rabbis after him, and they were challenging him.

Well, you don't know Hebrew, so you can't really say these things, and so he learns Hebrew and all the rest of this stuff, and that eventually leads to this monumental work.

I mean, it is incredibly in -depth. If you're ever in a dialogue with a

Jewish person, there's about a 98 % chance that the objection, especially if it's a biblical, historical, theological, practical objection to accepting

Jesus as the Messiah, it's been addressed by Dr. Brown with about ten footnotes on each point in those books.

And so it's just tremendous work, and so I was asked to moderate that debate.

That's where we met. We sort of kept up a little bit of contact after that.

In fact, he had to remind me that we had a little bit of a spat over the next couple of years as we debated a particular redemption.

He is an Arminian. He claims to be a former Calvinist. I think it's extremely important to recognize, if you listen to him, especially recently where he's been talking about these things, in Michael's mind, the low point in his spiritual life was when he was a

Calvinist. No, seriously, seriously, absolutely seriously, he feels that it was during that period of time that he had the least, he was in the word, the least, because he was reading so much theology, and during that period of time was actually involved in seeking to have his sister -in -law excommunicated because she received a healing, she claimed.

And so from his perspective, it was all about being accepted in the Academy and, you know, this

Pentecostalism stuff just doesn't really fly if you want to be respected in that way within the

Academy, within a certain perspective. And so, you know, this has come out a number of times, so it's very obvious to me that, even though he's debated, he does debate, he does, he has a national radio program where he not only addresses the

Jewish issues, but he has also written some of the best books out there and done some of the best debates out there on the subject of homosexuality in the

Bible. And so his, I think, 2011, 2010 -2011 book,

Queer Thing Happened to America, a couple years ago, Can You Be Gay and Christian, and he just does a tremendous amount of work in that area and has done excellent, excellent work.

Of the debates that he's done, the person he's debated most often is a fellow by the name of Rabbi Shmuley Botiak.

The second most often person he's debated is me. So we have debated at Southern Evangelical Seminary, there's a lengthy, about three -hour, three -plus -hour debate on pre -definition election there at Southern Evangelical Seminary.

We went to Malaga, Spain, and debated each other on charismatic gifts and healing, and so, and then we've been on each other's programs.

I've had him on the dividing line a number of times where we were debating, doing specific texts, we exchanged biblical texts with one another, and then we did exegesis of those texts, again, primarily on Reformed theology.

He has had me on his program to do the same thing, even though it's easier to do on my program because his is the national program that has commercial breaks every few seconds, just about.

But, and so we have been very, very clear on our disagreements.

He's had me on his program where we've just taken live calls and given alternative perspectives in response to difficult questions where we would have a disagreement with one another.

At the same time, we did a debate together on the Jewish Voice broadcast against Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Good, who are

Unitarians. Yes, so I saw that. Yeah, right, who deny the deity of Christ. And during one of the breaks,

I went out and my daughter was in attendance, and she said, Daddy, she said,

I almost feel sorry for the other guys. And I said, Honey, you're not supposed to feel sorry for the other guys, okay?

That's not how this works. But it was a very strong debate, and if you watched it like you said you did, you can see that there are times when we're sort of finishing each other's sentences.

I mean, it was very obvious the other side were not on the same page. Michael and I were on the exact same page, and he would bring up points to strengthen the point that I made,

I bring up points to strengthen the point he made, and we've certainly looked for other opportunities to be on the same side.

We would love to do a two -on -two debate on homosexuality in regards to gay marriage, or you know, especially what the

Bible says on the subject. We've tried and tried and tried to get people to do that kind of stuff, and we just we haven't been able to work it out yet.

But it's definitely something that we very much want to be able to do. And so he's, you know, when you look at it, he's a now

Arminian, though not in the sense of the radicals.

I mean, he went into IHOP, the International House of Prayer. I need to define that, lest someone get confused.

And he did a debate against emergent church leader Brian Zahn about,

I guess about three years ago, where he was defending penal substitutionary atonement against Brian Zahn in IHOP.

And he very, very often, when I hear him addressing issues such as Reformed Theology and stuff like that, the name that he mentions most often when he says, now, my friend

James White would say, and then he'll raise a very accurate representation of the

Reformed position, and then try to respond to it or something like that. But he really, unlike so many of the books that you get out there, does try to accurately represent the other side.

He has to, because we have engaged in these conversations over and over again.

And so, you know, people have heard that, and so he's very careful to accurately represent these things.

So, you know, given my background, Michael Brown would not be the kind of person that you would expect me to have a close friendship with, let alone to view the individual as a

Christian brother with whom I have serious disagreements in theological areas, and yet cannot begin to make the case that many people are making today that he is the servant of Satan, that he isn't dwelled by a demon, etc.,

etc. And that's what's being said by a lot of folks. I could name names, but I won't in this context these days, primarily because I simply cannot add my view on spiritual gifts to the

Gospel itself. And unfortunately, there are a lot of people, I think, who do add their view of spiritual gifts to 1st

Corinthians chapter 15. There must be a major textual variant that I've never examined there or something, where you have this view that says, you know, it's a view that I defended in debate against Michael Brown, that there are specific apostolic sign gifts that were specifically active for the demonstration of apostolic authority, and that they were attached to the specific

Apostles of Jesus Christ. Not to people sent by the Church, there is, you know,

Barnabas is called an Apostle, other people are called Apostles, they were not the Twelve. There's the

Twelve foundation stones of the City of the Lamb in Revelation, and those

Apostles with a capital A had a particular unique authority, and were given particular unique gifts that demonstrated that authority.

And I believe that you can make a very strong case, but it is a nuanced case.

It does require argumentation. You can't just assume it, you can't just throw it out there as if everyone's going to agree on this, but I made the case in my debate against Michael that I see clear evidence in, for example,

Paul's relationship with many of his fellow workers, you know, leaving people sick, behind, praying that people would be healed, but not knowing whether they're going to be healed or not.

He didn't have, he could take the man who fell out of the window up and raise him back to life, but he had co -workers that he simply could not do that with, and so there was a transitionary period, and I make that argument.

But he obviously disagrees with me, and so we can have debates about that. Well, some people evidently think that that is so clear and so compelling that if you disagree with that, then you clearly are probably not a

Christian, or others have of late, you know, directly said that Michael Brown is satanic and he's being used of God to destroy the

Church, and so on and so forth. So, you know, down through the years, when we would do things together, when we would discuss some of his books on homosexuality, we'd do programs on that, he and I have done two programs together,

I don't know if you've heard them, one on Isaiah 53 and one on Psalm 22, where we have gone through those two texts in the

Hebrew text itself and demonstrated the messianic character of Isaiah 53.

This is very important in dealing with Muslims, for example, because Muslims deny the crucifixion of Jesus, therefore, obviously, they have to come up with something else for Isaiah 53, something else for Psalm 22, and just a few weeks ago, we did a lengthy program on the 22nd

Psalm, walking through not only the meaning of the Psalm, but also the textual critical issues, because there's a textual variant in the text, that's in Psalm 22, 16, the text about, they pierced me, or like a lion, and we went through the

Hebrew, we went through the Greek Septuagint, he's a scholar, and we can work together as scholars on these particular issues.

He's stronger in Hebrew than I am, I'm stronger in Greek than he is, and so we complement each other. And so,

I just can't tell you how many people, Chris, have contacted both of us, we'll share some of the contacts with each other, who have said, you know, given what it's like in Twitter, and given what it's like in Facebook, and given what it's like just in social media as a whole, if the

Internet has just seemed to strip us of civility, and grace, and kindness, and the ability to, in any way, give the benefit of the doubt to anybody, and with all of that going on, and all of the anathematizing just flying around out there, you two have set such a high bar on how to disagree as brothers, to go to the

Word of God, and to address these issues, and yet to, at the end, rejoice in what you have in common.

And so, a lot of people have been extremely encouraged by that, but there are so many others that are troubled by it so deeply, because, basically, of what the fundamentalistic concepts of separationism and associationalism, and I was raised with those concepts, so I get it,

I understand it, you know, even probably when you and I first met, I don't believe

I could have, and that was that, that was right around the time I had moderated the debate, it was like 96, so yeah, it was right around the very same time period.

I get it, I understand the concern, because in a particular mindset, the idea is, if you listen carefully to what that other side is saying, you'll end up compromising.

And the issue of compromise is something that he and I both address very, very often, and yet they're just people that say, no,

I cannot see how you possibly work together with someone with whom you have such serious theological disagreements.

And so, recently it's come to a head because I went through, I wrote up a checklist of fundamentals of the faith in regards to Scripture, the deity of Christ, the

Trinity, so on and so forth, in response to just ridiculously horrible attacks upon Michael by people in discernment ministries, where they just, they were just grossly misrepresenting him, and just throwing context out the window.

I've been the object of that kind of attack repeatedly, especially over the past year, but throughout my adult life, but more so, the more active

I've become, and so I can recognize it, I can see it, and so I respond to some of the things,

I had him on my program and gave him the opportunity to respond to these things, and it's really shown a light on some really important issues.

You know, where do you draw the line? And so, I don't want to just keep going, that was only supposed to be an introduction to who he is.

I already gave you the introduction to everything else, so it sort of laid the issues out on the table and gives you an idea of sort of what's going on.

Yeah, you might not remember this, but a long time ago, but long before any of this happened, before we did any of our

Arminian versus Calvinist debates on Long Island or Queens, you said to me, you know, who

I'd love to debate on the issue of Calvinism versus Arminianism, can you get

Michael Brown? And I contacted Michael Brown and he said that he would be, he would love to do it, but he was just far too busy at that time and it never materialized, but I very clearly remember that because I had known about Michael since the 1980s after I was saved.

He was frequently heard on WLIX radio, which was a big -time contemporary

Christian music radio station on Long Island in the 80s and perhaps even up until the mid -90s.

And Michael also was a professor at Christ for the

Nations Christian College out there in Stony Brook, which no longer exists, but I have known about his existence for a long time.

He is a native Long Islander. Right. And it was interesting that you had somehow heard about, because we were looking specifically for a scholarly

Arminian to do a debate with you. Well, that was because he and I, and he had reminded us, but he and I had sort of debated in writing a little bit on the issue of the

Atonement after that debate that I moderated with him. And so that's probably why

I would have made that recommendation at that point in time, because he was just somebody that I had been having some exchanges with.

So I had forgotten that I had mentioned that to you. But yeah, that certainly makes sense.

Now this issue goes way beyond just you and Michael Brown. It really is basically just a symptom of a problem that we who are

Christians have, and I think that we all have it in some degree or another, but because of the fact that we are finite people, we are fallible people, we are sinful people, we don't always make the right choices on who to have fellowship with, and we don't always make the right choices on when to criticize somebody for having such a fellowship, and we don't always make the right choices as to how deeply and harshly we are to criticize or even condemn someone for having fellowship with people.

And this is something that will probably go on, unfortunately, on the planet

Earth until we're in glory. But perhaps we could go through some of these issues on what you would consider litmus tests for involvement with someone who disagrees with you on a lot of serious things when we return from our very brief first break.

It'll be the only break during our discussion today because we have Michael Gaydosh of Solid Ground Christian Books coming up in the second hour to discuss

Thomas Manton and some other things. But we're going to go to our first break right now. We already have some people waiting in line to have their questions asked and answered, but if anybody wants to join them, once again, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with James White. Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back, this is

Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the first hour with about a half hour to go is

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are discussing James R.

White in his own words on his friendship with and his partnership in evangelism with Dr.

Michael Brown. Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And you said a key phrase before we went to the break, associationism or associationalism, because that is really where the heart of the matter is.

You and I, and most conservative, reformed, Calvinist Christians, believe in separation to some degree.

There are different views on separation. I know a fundamentalist pastor who disfellowshipped another fundamentalist

King James only anti -Calvinist church because they had a softball game and some of the men in the other church showed up wearing shorts.

So they were disfellowshipped, and anybody who had association with them was disfellowshipped.

But on the other hand, in a more sane realm, I can even remember,

I don't know how much, if at all, your position has changed on this, but I can recall in the initial years of our organizing debates with Roman Catholics, you would say to me,

Chris, I'm not going to do any dialogues with these apologists. And of course, back then, the thing that was in vogue, where there were a lot of dialogues between evangelicals and Catholics that were specifically designed to undermine the serious differences that they had and to show a spirit of ecumenical unity.

And that was your reasoning, I know, that you did not want to do that. You wanted to debate these men.

And in fact, I know from some of the debates and things that we've organized together that you had said on a number of occasions that you would not pray with a

Roman Catholic. You would pray for a Roman Catholic, but you would not join in some kind of gathering where there were people who denied the biblical gospel and pray with them with one voice and so on.

So there are obviously views of separation that you even hold to, but this associationism is where it really can get kind of wacky and even heretical to the point where you may be denying someone as a brother in Christ when it is clear that they themselves truly are a brother.

If you could pick up where I left off there. Yeah, well, you know, as an example, there is a recent situation where I disagreed with Michael about whether someone was in fact a

Christian. We had, you know, it's funny, I've been accused of, you know, he never wants to be on record disagreeing with Michael Brown, even though I've debated more often than any other

Christian. And we've disagreed a number of times. And when we did so, his comment back to me was, well, this really illustrates, you know, the fundamental difference in our procedure.

And that is, you have a narrower approach and a greater fear of having wolves in sheep's clothing.

And I have a broader approach and have a greater fear of denying the faith of someone that I'll end up spending eternity with.

And there has to be, obviously, some type of a balance. And Michael and I have talked a number of times about the fact that his influence upon me has been to be much broader in listening to what people have to say and being willing to hear what people have to say.

And my influence upon him has been to encourage him toward discernment and toward being very careful on definitional issues.

So, for example, he would say that at least twice now, I have approached him in regards to the subject of Oneness Pentecostalism with further information for him on the teachings of Oneness Pentecostalism and people who fall into that category and that relationship between Oneness teaching and the

Doctrine of the Trinity. And he was, he responded to someone's question recently, someone had written in, and he was talking about people that he had encountered who are parts of cults, like a

Jehovah's Witnesses. But he says, you know, Jehovah's Witnesses, it's a cult, you follow the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, there's no salvation there.

But I ran into a Jehovah's Witness once that obviously didn't know what Jehovah's Witnesses believed. He claimed to be a

Jehovah's Witness, but when I asked him all the standard questions about who Jesus was, he gave me orthodox answers.

So he says, obviously there are people who think they're part of these groups, but they're really not, they're not really believing that.

And so people jumped all over him because he said the same thing about Oneness Pentecostalism. Ah, I believe all Oneness Pentecostalism is saved, so on and so forth.

And so I contacted him, we clarified that very issue, and on his own program he said, look, if someone believes the

Son is a creature that was simply indwelt by God the Father, there is not a divine person, well of course that's not the gospel, of course that doesn't bring salvation, etc.

etc. But I'm just simply saying I've encountered Oneness Pentecostals that didn't believe those things. So were they being inconsistent with historic

Oneness Pentecostal teaching? Yes. But that was the situation that he was addressing.

So when it comes to those, you know, vital issues, what we have to do is we have to think through what defines the

Christian faith. And, you know, in listening to my betters and my elders and people who have been in the faith longer than I have, though I'm getting up there, that's for sure,

I have, over the years, come to understand that you have definitional truths, and then they're concentric rings.

So you've got definitional truths, and then you have vitally important truths outside of that, and then you have the next ring outside of that, and the next ring outside of that.

And the issue really is, where do you draw the line as to what is definitional of a

Christian? A. And then B, where do you draw the line as to someone that you can work with?

For example, I could never be an elder in Michael Brown's church. He could never be an elder in mine, but he's still a

Christian. So obviously, a fellowship together in the faith and being a part of the same fellowship in the church, not the same thing.

I just heard, I thought it was ironic that in your commercials you had me and you had

Bill Shishko, and you moderated a debate. B. That's right. A. Bill Shishko and I.

You almost fell into a baptistry for some reason, but that issue aside, there you have a situation where we have fellowship in the gospel, but I could never be an elder in his church, he could never be an elder in my church, we are ecclesiastically divided despite the fact that we have so much, a tremendous amount, even more in common than I do with Michael Brown.

A. In fact, you preached at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square where Bill Shishko once pastored until recently.

He retired, but you preached in that church the night before the debate.

B. Right, yeah, exactly. So, and preaching in an OPC is different than preaching at other places.

I mean, you can exhort, but then there's preaching. I actually preach. So, yeah, and so these issues of association, separation, these are rarely thought through very clearly by modern

Christians, and I've not seen Facebook or Twitter help much in this matter.

And of course, sadly, there's a tremendous amount of prejudice. If you are raised in a fundamentalist context, it is very easy for you to look at others, if they are different from you, as automatically being suspect, as automatically there's something wrong with them because they don't see what

I see on every little thing. And to be honest with you, you know, I was raised where that extended all the way to the point of eschatology.

And so, you know, the first time in college that I realized that a college professor that I was learning a tremendous amount from wasn't a premillennialist.

That was an eye -opening experience, like, wow, really? I didn't know. And, you know, and at first it was like, well, then he can't be right in these other things.

And then eventually, you know, process of maturing and realizing, well, actually,

I've been, I've probably, you know, shouldn't assume that you have to look like me and act like me and dress like me in all those areas.

And, you know, what happens is you get movements like the Emergent Church, where you've got people who start that process and go, you know what?

I need to start over with everything. And so everything gets put on the table. And so you start rethinking the

Trinity and the Bible and the whole nine yards. You just throw everything out and start from scratch, rather than going, okay, there are definitional things, there are very, very important things.

So, for example, one of the things I did when I had Michael on, and one of the things I really love about Michael is, despite the way he's treated, you know, once he knows, like, someone like myself loves him and prays for him and we've prayed together, so on and so forth, he'll answer any question.

I mean, the guy has recorded stuff for me while driving the car and on the way to the airport to fly to India and stuff like that.

I mean, he will bend over backwards to answer any question that you throw at him.

It's called, his ministry's called, Ask Dr. Brown. I mean, it's sort of obvious. And so, you know, but he, obviously if he thinks you're trying to trap him or something like that, he's not going to be nearly as willing to do so, and I'm the exact same way.

And so I, when I had him on the program, one of the things that I had mentioned in defending his fundamental orthodoxy as a

Christian was, does he believe in the inspiration and sufficiency of Scripture? Well, people went nuts, and I know why.

I have made the argument that I think there is a dangerous possibility of compromise amongst charismatics if you aren't careful in your understanding what the term revelation means.

You talk about revelation, knowledge, and things like that. I don't know how you can talk about a closed canon. I don't know how you can talk about sufficiency of Scripture, so on and so forth.

So when I had Michael on, because I've listened to this man deal with homosexuals and transgenders and all sorts of people like that, and he's never violated the ultimate authority of Scripture in talking to these people.

It's always been to go back to that. So I asked him a very specific question. I said, Michael, is there anything outside of the canon of Scripture that is theanoustos, the

Greek term for God breathed in 2nd Timothy 3 .16? And unhesitatingly, he said, no, of course not.

There's nothing that is God breathed, that is not found in Scripture. And so despite that, the critics, it's almost like they can't hear what's being said, because it's like, well, that's not consistent.

And for the critics, the whole thing is, look, they recognize this guy's brilliant. They can't hold a candle to the work he's done on homosexuality, the work he's done on Old Testament prophecies, the

Messiahship of Jesus, etc., etc. They realize he's really, really smart. He's not like most of the people on TBN.

So that bothers them to the point where the only way they could ever possibly consider him to maybe be a

Christian is if he just stopped being a charismatic. No, seriously,

I'm absolutely serious. I've come to the conclusion their perspective is the only way that we're ever going to even ponder the possibility that despite his, you know, the guy defends penal substitutionary atonement, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, justification by grace alone, through faith alone, future resurrection, judgment, and is incredibly strong on holiness of living and the sanctifying work of the

Holy Spirit in a person's life, and the necessity for your life to match up to the profession that you make, and all the rest, that kind of stuff.

But the only way that any of that could become relevant is if he stops being a charismatic. So I've just discovered that for many of these individuals, it's not possible from their perspective for a charismatic to be a

Christian. I mean, they don't want to come out straight out and say that, but when you really start pushing, you really start digging and going, okay, why are you objecting to this?

Why are you objecting to that? Eventually it comes down to, well, they just can't possibly be that wrong on something like that.

Now, just out of curiosity, I want to take us off on a rabbit trail, and I hope that Dr. Brown, if he's listening, doesn't get upset with me for asking.

He's doing his program right now, but he may later. Okay. Well, I don't believe that a logically consistent

Arminian can defend substitutionary atonements. Well, you know, the funny thing is, in the debate that he was doing with Brian Zahn, the specific thing that he said is when he brought that very issue up, he said, now, my friend

Dr. James White would say I'm inconsistent at this point, but I don't think that I am, and then he went on from there. So it's not like we have not both discussed it and debated it, and do

I wish that Michael would be able to see that he can hold to particular redemption without having to go back into that time of his life that he identifies with a tremendous spiritual decline?

I really honestly think that that's what's behind it. He himself will admit that that's what he keeps bringing up when this issue comes up.

I see it as being a personal thing, not an issue of, really, of argumentation.

So do all of us have issues like that? And, you know, most of us don't spend, he spends two, three hours a day on the air, aside from the other stuff he does, therefore he is much more liable to being examined along those lines than, well, you know,

I'm in the exact same boat that he's in, but most Christians don't get pushed on that level to think that through.

And so, yeah, I mean, I agree. You listen to the debates that we've done, where we've debated that very issue,

I've pressed very firmly on that. But the question is, if once you have done that, if once you, well, let's use, it's not quite in the same category, but it's similar enough.

Okay, Bill Shishko and I have now debated paedo -baptism. Do either one of us really have a basis to say, okay,

I've made my case, and my case is so clear and so strong that if he doesn't believe me, then that clearly means he's not a

Christian. There are people who do that. You and I have both met both Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists, who will basically have nothing to do with the other.

I could name names on that, but I won't. And the reason is, look, the consistent

Presbyterian will identify my view of baptism as sinful. And I think there is a fundamental biblical undercutting of the meaning of baptism in paedo -baptism as well.

So we don't, so the problem is, if you think it's an important thing, then you leap from that to saying, and this person,

I've explained it to them with sufficient clarity, that therefore if they reject that, well, they're rejecting

God's truth, and therefore I need to separate from them. Now, what kind of separation? Separation ecclesiastically?

Well, yeah, like I said before, Bill and I love the guy, but we're not going to be elders in the same church.

But separate in the sense of, this man is not a Christian, this man is not my brother, this man I cannot cooperate in proclamation of the gospel, et cetera.

No, not at all. But there are a lot of people who would say, yeah. And they will say that they're doing that in the name of consistency itself, and everybody likes to hold me to that one, because I'm always talking about consistency.

There is a consistency that is based upon the clarity of God's revelation, and then there is a recognition that we live in a fallen world, and when it comes to interpersonal relationships between believers, and my inability to read their heart and mind, and to recognize what has given rise, necessarily, to their understandings, their experiences, so on and so forth.

Those are two different things. One is based upon something that is clear, God's revelation. The other is asking me to have information that I cannot have access to at all.

And so it really bothers me, and if I've changed in anything, what I've changed in is

I am now unwilling, in ignorance, to proclaim on someone's spiritual state.

Let's focus upon what someone is teaching. I can't see into hearts. So I've developed a friendship with a

Roman Catholic by the name of Peter D. Williams in London. I don't know if you've heard the debate that we did on the bodily assumption of Mary.

Not yet, but I intend to. Well, I'm shocked. Not that you intended to, but you hadn't already!

But we're going to be doing another debate, hopefully in May. We're working on putting that trip together right now.

Peter D. Williams is a great guy. He's involved in the pro -life movement over there, and all sorts of stuff like that.

And we did a program on Unbelievable, Justin Brierley, I don't know, sometime, I think, September, I forget when it was last year.

Anyway, we were talking about the Reformation, and what we had, what came out, and what people found so refreshing about that program was we treated each other with respect, there was no fist -fighting, there was no, you know, the standard stuff you get.

I mean, you sort of got some of that from your Roman Catholic opponent on Unbelievable when you were on. A few unnecessary shots that didn't really need to be there, etc, etc.

But what came out so clearly was both of us mourn the division that we have, but neither of us can compromise on the reality that we both said, if what you believe is the gospel, what

I believe is not. In fact, there is a classic moment that I don't even know if you remember, but during a cross -examination period that you had with a wonderful guy that you and I both love, but we do not believe he's our brother in Christ, it's

Mitch Pacwa, the Jesuit priest who's a brilliant man, brilliant scholar, who debated you a couple of times during the great debate series that I organized.

And during that cross -examination, or one of the cross -examinations, Father Pacwa asked you, do you think that I'm your brother in Christ?

And you said to him, well, if you believe in the dogmatic teachings on salvation that are contained at the, or that were dogmatically declared at the

Council of Trent, there is no hope in that gospel. And I love the way that you answered that.

You clarified why you would deny brotherhood to him, and it wasn't just because he's a

Catholic and that's the end of the story, you specifically went to the heart of the matter about the dogmatic proclamations about the gospel at the

Council of Trent. Right, yeah, and that's that's what Peter D. Williams would say as well, is yeah, and if you believe in Sola Fide and these things, then there's no hope in that gospel either, and then the argument begins from there.

But here, in a modern context, we're both basically saying, look, we cannot sacrifice the very nature of truth itself on the altar of some type of ecumenical squishiness, despite the fact that, at the same time, and this is where I think a lot of people on our side lose it, we should mourn that situation, we should be praying for those on the other side, not just in some formal, yeah,

I pray the Catholics will hear the gospel type thing, but there should be a real demonstration in our lives that we are concerned about these people and that we're willing to, you know, look, for some

Calvinists, you just don't even want to, you know, walk on the same side of the street, you know, I don't want to get polluted.

I'm not going to sit down and talk to somebody like that or show interest in their life or show them any love or grace or anything like that, because that might be seen as a sign of weakness.

It's that kind of attitude that I'm finding more and more and more, and it's gotten so bad,

Chris, that a pastor contacted me shortly after R .C. Sproul's death, and he narrated to me something that happened in his church the

Sunday after R .C. died. The men were standing around, and this one man commented, he said, well,

I sure hope R .C. made it to heaven, but it's not looking good. And everyone just sort of, not everyone, but most everyone's like, look at him, like, well, what do you mean?

What are you talking about? And he says, well, he was one of those compromised Calvinists like James White.

And it's that kind of, and it's not technically hyper -Calvinism, but it is a, it is a,

I mean, there is a movement arising right now that people call themselves

Dorothean Calvinists, who are basically saying to everybody else, it's five points or hell.

So if you're an Amaraldian, if you're a four -pointer, you're going to hell. You're not saved until you embrace all five points, period, end of discussion, and this kind of thinking is out there.

I didn't realize it was out there, but my goodness, I pray to God I had nothing to do with promoting any of that kind of stuff, because it's certainly never been my perspective.

But those type of folks are out there, and so it requires us sort of examine our own hearts and ask the question, once you realize you might have your own blind spots, then you don't just throw everything out and say there is no truth, but at the same time, you recognize

I'm a debtor to grace, and therefore if I am, if I am not in a position to actually judge someone's heart,

I will judge teaching, I will take any teaching to the Word of God, I will examine anything along those lines, but when it comes to looking inside someone else's heart, it's best to leave that to the one who can actually do that and do so infallibly.

So anyway. And you're not talking about Pope Francis. No, the funny thing is,

Pier G. Williams shakes his head as badly at Pope Francis as I do, so you've got the

Roman Catholics that are going, oh, deliver us. And so does Robertson Jennings, for that matter. Yeah.

But I want to get to some of our questioners before we run out of time. Don in Valdez, Alaska, says, my question for Dr.

White is this. I understand your frustrations with critics of your friendship with Dr. Brown.

However, isn't it disingenuous to think when someone speaks at a conference with someone that they don't have a general idea of who they are?

For when you speak at conferences, don't you have a general idea of who they are?

Also, when someone like J .D. Hall shows his backside when it comes to your friendship with Dr.

Brown, why not simply ignore them? And that is Don in Valdez, Alaska.

Well, two things. We've tried the ignoring part, and it doesn't work. They don't stop. And unfortunately,

I don't want Rich Pierce, my guy here at the office who does everything else that I don't do, having to spend all of his days on the phone responding to the kind of slander and stuff that has been fired my direction by those particular individuals.

So I haven't figured out exactly what to do, but since I have a voice to be able to respond, and many of the people that Hall goes after don't, then at least

I have that opportunity to go toe -to -toe with him, and I don't have any fear of doing that at all, and he knows it. As to the receiving part, no, the answer is no.

I mean, I have a general idea of the people, but let's just be honest.

The conferences that I'm going to be speaking at are going to be much narrower, much, much narrower in their representation than anything that Michael is going to.

Michael is willing to go anywhere to speak on his subjects. He has the fundamental idea that, hold me accountable for what

I teach, not what anybody else teaches. And most of us would agree with that for ourselves, but then we want to apply a different standard to somebody else.

And so when people say, no, he's got to know all about this person, that person. If you look at his schedule, he does not have time whatsoever, given all the

Jewish stuff that he's doing, to be running around, checking out what other people say. And the funny thing was, when he was on my program, he identified that grave -soaking stuff as absurd stupidity that should be absolutely positively rejected.

Did anyone make a headline of that? Did any of the critics go, hey, this is great? No, they ignored it. Utterly irrelevant, and in fact, again, since you won't say that anyone who's ever done anything like that is automatically going to hell, that means you're actually promoting it.

So, you know, does he have a different standard than I do? Certainly does. But is it this, oh well, he knows everything they're teaching and he just doesn't care?

No, I don't think that's the case at all. We have Pastor Jake from Switzerland Community Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

What is the best way from the local pastoral level that elders in the church can shepherd people to have better attitudes about multi -denominational friendships and partnerships such as the great work you've done with Dr.

Michael Brown? The dividing line on Psalm 22 was edifying pastoral and evangelizing.

The entire church benefited from that work together. I think we want to be growing people to see the value in partnering with Christians who are outside of our very specific confessions.

You seem to be charging that hill from the apologetic end very well, but some of these folks who criticize you were at one point young people under the authority of local elders who probably could have done a better job at helping them grow into the

Christians who see more value in the kind of work you're doing. Basically, how can local pastors help grow the next crop of Christians who have a more charitable attitude than your critics?

Well, I can see we're gonna have to be really brief on this because I could wax long on it, but I'm not charging up that hill.

Believe me, this is really one of the last things I ever wanted to be involved with. It just simply has been necessary because I saw a friend with whom

I have disagreements simply being lied about by so many people that I had to say something.

That doesn't mean I agree with everything he says, obviously, but I don't know how to answer that question because the tendency, especially amongst those of us who are more

Reformed, is to be so narrow. I think there has been a positive movement in the fact that you've got

Baptists and Presbyterians and stuff like that, and you know, it's funny, whenever I go to Australia, I've now started hooking up with some

Reformed Baptists in Australia, but the first few years I went there, the only people who wanted me to preach were Anglicans, but they're the

Sydney Inerrancy Believing Justification Preaching, Gospel Preaching, Charles, not

Ryrie, J .C. Ryle, not Charles, J .C. Ryle, Holiness of God Preaching type old -style

Anglicans. So for me, it's just sort of become natural, you know, this is just sort of how it is.

I've met these believers in these other communities, so maybe utilizing illustrations from Ryle and mentioning, oh by the way, this guy was an

Anglican, you know, maybe from the pulpit might be one way of being able to bring that kind of information out, but I'm really not sure because I'm just in such a strange position of being able to travel and have these types of interactions, and most people don't have that opportunity to be able to provide those examples and things like that.

But at least according to my clock, we'd be out of time, so I'll stop it there.

Well, I want to thank you for being on the program. My apologies to Tony in South Carolina and Joe in Slovenia for the fact that we cannot ask your question on air.

We've just run out of time. Perhaps the next time, God willing, Dr. White is on the program with us, we can have your questions asked to him and answered by him.

I know that your website is aomin .org, a -o -m -i -n for Alpha and Omega Ministries dot org.

Thank you so much, brother, for being on the program. I look forward to your return, and hopefully often. Okay, thanks a lot.

God bless. God bless you. And coming up next is my very first pastor after my rebirth, by the grace of God, Mike Gadosh, who is also the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, and we are going to be discussing, among other things, why the voice of Puritan Thomas Manton needs to be heard today.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Mike Gadosh, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. I am

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we have

Mike Gadosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, who will be joining us momentarily with a discussion on why the voice of the

Puritan Thomas Manton needs to be heard today, and other matters. But before we join

Mike for our discussion, we just have a couple of important announcements to make. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is once again sponsoring the

Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology. It's going to be held at two locations, neither of which is

Philadelphia. It is affectionately named that after the long -running conference series that began with Dr.

James Montgomery Boyce at 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I had attended that conference many times, as a new

Christian especially. And this time it's going to be held at two locations.

The first at First Christian Reform Church of Byron Center, Michigan. That's going to be the 13th through the 15th of April.

The second location is Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, right on the border or near the border of Philadelphia.

And that will be held April 27th through the 29th. The speakers include Daniel Aiken, Richard Gaffin, Daniel Hyde, a friend, a mutual friend of my guest

Mike Adosh in mind, Conrad M. Bayway, who I believe is one of the most powerful preachers alive today.

Richard Phillips, who is also a friend of mine and has been a guest on this program. He's the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina.

Jonathan Master and David Murray, who both been on this program as well. And Scott Oliphant, who

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Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology at either or both locations in Michigan and Pennsylvania, go to AllianceNet .org,

AllianceNet .org, click on events, and then click on the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology.

Please mention to the folks at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about these conferences from Chris Arnson on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

Last but not least, it is my time to beg you for money. I hate doing it.

I feel very uncomfortable doing it, and I do it because it needs to be done, and also

I'm being urged to do it by a number of my advertisers who have been supporting this program for a long time with their own hard -earned money, who know that that we are in financial difficulties, and we would love to receive as many gifts from you, the listener, as you can afford to give, with the caveat that I never want anybody to siphon money away from their regular giving that they're accustomed to, to their local church where they are a member, and if you're not a member of a local

Bible -believing church, you have to rectify that, otherwise you are living in disobedience to God, if you are not prayerfully seeking for one anyway, and please never siphon money out of your regular giving to that church, and please never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

Please never take food off of your family's dinner table or forgo paying a bill, but if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, if you're blessed financially above and beyond those two commands, then please consider donating to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

Go to IronSherpa'sIronRadio .com, click support, and then mail us a check made payable to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio to the address you will see there, and also, if you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line, as long as whatever it is you are advertising is compatible with what we believe here on Iron Sherpa's Iron, you don't have to believe identically with what we believe, you just need to be believing something that is compatible with our theology, then please send us an email, and we would love to help you launch an ad campaign, because we certainly could use the advertising dollars, and I am so delighted that my guest today,

I don't even have to tell a white lie or exaggerate when my first guest, when

I can report that my first guest is getting a lot of customers for Solid Ground Christian Books through Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, isn't that correct,

Mike Gaydosh? It is correct, Chris, we've been very thankful that many people recently,

I think I've gone over the records, and I've noticed an increase in customers coming aboard in the past six months, and very grateful, very grateful that we have customers that come regularly and order, and some that come back and order again and again, and so I'm very, very encouraged by my participation with Iron Sherpa's Iron, and I really appreciate the effort that you have made, both in terms of the advertisements that have been put together and fashioned, and also the opportunities that you have given me to come aboard and speak about some of the things that we are working on, and it always happens that whenever we're able to do this that the

Lord sends us some more orders, so I do appreciate that very much. And I know eventually, if we have time,

God willing, you want to address the Messianic Secret and the Messianic Mystery from Matthew chapter 16, 13 through 17, or actually 13 through chapter 17, verse 13.

Correct. But we will get to that if time permits, but right now what

I want you to begin addressing is the Puritan Thomas Manton, and obviously

I know that you don't waste your time and your energy and your resources, and you don't take big risks financially by publishing works that you are convinced are nothing more than repetitious of what else is already in print, or it's not very important.

I know that you have a lot more discernment than that, and there's a reason you are bringing back into print this very valuable set of books, the complete works of Thomas Manton.

And how many volumes is that? It's a 22 -volume set, Chris, and this actually will be,

Lord willing, and it's completely in the Lord's hands as to whether or not the orders come in that allow us to pursue this.

It's completely done on the basis of orders, and the last time that we did this, which was by far the largest project that we have ever done, it was back exactly ten years ago at this time that we made the decision, because we had received enough orders to be able to go forth with the project, and on the 10th anniversary of that first print run, we are seeking to do it again.

And I'll tell you the reason why, initially, the reason why I've decided to give this another shot and see if we can do another print run, because I honestly didn't think in my lifetime that we would do it again.

To do a thousand sets of a 22 -volume set of books is a lot of money, and it takes a lot of time to be able to to garner enough orders, and we are starting to see the orders begin to come in.

I've been encouraged by the early response, and honestly the reason why I was encouraged to go ahead and do this was because of the response that we had to the recent printing of the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith in bonded leather, which we are now doing our third printing, and the encouragement that came to me was that it was

January 7th of this year that an order was placed, an initial order was placed, and it was placed in order to encourage me to do a third printing of this bonded leather

Confession of Faith and the Baptist Catechism in one book, and I was really not too sure whether we would be able to do it or not, and whether the orders would be there.

Well, the encouraging thing is that this Wednesday, just in two days, on March 7th, exactly two months from the day the first order was placed, we will actually be having 2 ,500 copies shipped to us.

They're already printed, and they're now being shipped on Wednesday. We should have them by Monday the 10th and or 12th, and honestly,

I'm in shock that it happened as quickly as it did, that the orders came the way they did, and so because of that, when

I saw that happen, I just last week was asked by a pastor in Nevada if I've thought about doing the the

Manton set, and my initial response was, well, to be honest, no,

I really haven't thought about doing it, but because of what just happened with the 1689

Confession, I thought, well, let's give it a shot. There's no risk really taken in seeking to get orders, and one of the things that I let my customers know is we do not charge them a penny until we actually pull the trigger and are ready to go with the print run.

That's how we did it last time 10 years ago, and that's how we'll do it this time as well, and last time it took two and a half years to get up enough orders to be able to do it, and I think it's important for us to be very good stewards, to not take too much risk involved in the process, because I had been told by several publishers that the last, in fact,

I don't know if they gave me a number, but I was told that every publisher that had sought to bring this set back into print ended up going out of business, and so I determined from the very beginning that I wasn't going to just somehow go into deep debt in order to do this.

I would be willing to wait until the orders came in, and I was guaranteed that the print run was going to be covered, and so that's what we did, and the

Lord was gracious, and it worked out, and now we are doing it again, and the reason why

Manton is so important is because of who he was at the time that he lived.

He was born in 1620 and died in 1677, and Manton was a man who was very, very important.

He was a gifted preacher. He was appointed one of the three clerks at the

Westminster Assembly and preached many times before Parliament during the Commonwealth. Once, Manton chose a difficult text to preach before the

Lord Mayor, and a needy believer rebuked Manton, complaining that he came for spiritual food but had been disappointed.

Manton replied to him, friend, if I did not give you a sermon, you have given me one, and by the grace of God, I will never play the fool to preach before my

Lord Mayor in such a manner again. Manton provided spiritual counsel to Christopher Love prior to his execution in 1652.

You know, that was my DJ name in the 70s. Christopher Love. I'm only kidding. Yeah, they would have beheaded you as well.

I'll get back to that in a moment. But anyway, Manton was called upon to minister to Christopher Love as he was preparing to be beheaded, and it said, despite threats himself of being shot by soldiers from the army who were present that evening,

Manton preached a funeral message to a large midnight audience at Love's parish at St.

Lawrence Jewry. Wow. And he was a godly man, he was a brilliant man, he was a graduate of Oxford.

You do know that my closing comments at the end of every program are basically either a direct quote or a paraphrase of him, that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. Oh, I really didn't know that that was one of his quotes. Don Kistler brought that to mind years ago when

I was at a Bible conference that he was leading on the Puritans, and when he said that, for some reason, just that simple quote by Christopher Love uncorked an ocean of tears that ran out of my eyes.

Oh, that was Christopher Love. I'm sorry, I thought you meant Thomas Manton. So, Christopher Love said that. Wow, that's great. I thought that I had said

Christopher Love. When Oliver Cromwell was offered the crown by Parliament in 1657,

Manton was chosen, along with some other lesser -known names like John Owen, Joseph Gillespie, George Gillespie, to pray with the

Lord's Protector for divine guidance. And after Cromwell finally refused the crown,

Manton delivered the public blessing at the inauguration of the second Protectorate Parliament. Manton became, was a pastor of several different places, and he was ejected from the

Church of England pulpit for non -conformity in 1662 in what was called the

Great Ejection, when there were hundreds of great pastors, men like Thomas Watson and Brooks and Baxter and many, many others who were removed from their pulpits, and Manton was as well.

And he preached his farewell sermon, which is in, actually, a volume of sermons that I've published called

Farewell Sermons, and they're the sermons of men like Watson and these others who were preaching their last, as far as they knew, the last time they would ever preach to their people, they preached these sermons, most of them in a morning and evening setting, and quite remarkable to hear the sermons that came from the hearts of these men.

He died in 1677, and William Bates preached his funeral sermon.

He was remembered at his funeral as the King of Preachers. Wow. Bates said that he had never heard him deliver a poor sermon and commended his ability to represent the inseparable connection between Christian duties and privileges.

Archbishop James Usher described Manton as a voluminous preacher, one of the best in England, and that is certainly evident from his writings, most of which are sermons.

Joel Beakey says the pastoral and doctrinal observations he derives from a single Bible chapter offer an education on how to use a text.

At all times, Manton provides sound exegesis, searching application, and wise spiritual guidance.

Manton's sermons fill 20 of his 22 volumes, over 10 ,000 pages.

They are the legacy of a preacher devoted to the systematic teaching and application of God's Word.

He presents us with the best that English Puritans had to offer in careful, solid, warm -hearted exposition of the

Scriptures. His complete works include expositions of the Lord's Prayer, Isaiah 53, the book of James, and the book of Jude, the latter two of which are some of the best expositions ever written and have often been reprinted.

Ryle said of Manton's work on James, every verse, every sentence is explained, expounded, and enforced plainly, clearly, and usefully, and far more fully than in most commentaries.

In his complete works, he offers numerous treatises on scores of subjects such as the life of faith and self -denial.

Sermons provide detailed expositions of such passages as Matthew 25, John 17,

Romans 6 and 8, 2nd Corinthians 5 and Hebrews 11. He preached a hundred and ninety sermons on Psalm 119, and of them

Spurgeon said, there is not a poor discourse in the whole collection. He is evenly good, constantly excellent.

I think that Manton is timeless in his expositions because he simply went back to the heart of the passage.

He didn't seek to contemporize things too much, but he did speak in terms that were contemporary.

He did address contemporary matters and made application to them, but not so much so that it makes no sense to us today, considering it was over 300 years ago.

In fact, let me let me ask a listener question that lends itself or is a good segue to what you just said.

I don't want to steal too much of his thunder. Don in Valdez, Alaska says, would this series of books you're publishing now be beneficial to a lay person?

And I know that many of us Baptists hate that term, lay person, but... I understand the question, and I think, yes,

I would say that the thing that is so valuable about Thomas Manton is, while he is of course a valuable resource for pastors, for students, for professors in Bible college, he is also valuable for Sunday school teachers.

He is valuable for fathers who want to learn the Scriptures to be able to teach their children.

I'm not saying that Manton could be read to the children, if they're young children, but they can be read by a father who can then simplify the matter and bring it to the level of their children.

And so, absolutely, Manton is for all men. But, you know, obviously it has to be somebody who is not afraid of reading older works, and I think that because of the practicality of his sermons, and he was preaching, most of the time he was preaching to ordinary people, and so he spoke and sought to expound the

Scriptures in a way that ordinary people can follow him. And so I just think that there is really nobody who loves

Christ and loves his Word that would not benefit from reading the sermons of Thomas Manton.

And you can go online and you can read some of these sermons yourself online to get a taste, whet the appetite, to get a sense of how he preaches and how he opens up a text.

In many ways he's typical Puritan, and I mean that in the best sense of the word, where they will go and open up a passage of Scripture by setting it first in its context and then kind of opening the passage and dividing it in the certain points that are covered in that particular text.

And he was very painstaking, as Ryle pointed out regarding the commentary on James, every sentence, every verse explained, expounded, enforced, plainly, clearly, usefully, far more fully than most commentaries.

Again, that kind of language you hear all the time with regards to Manton, as Ryle spoke, plainly, clearly, usefully.

And that's the reason why we're trying to do this again. As I said, I thought that this was a once -in -a -lifetime project.

I completed the thousand sets, they all sold, and I felt, well, okay,

I've done my job, the books have gone out, and I'll never see them again.

I don't even have a set myself. I sold all thousand sets, and I only have a handful of the volumes myself, not because I wouldn't like to have them, but you know, my ministry is to get these things into the hands of others.

And if I do another, if another print run,

I should say, I probably will keep one for myself this time, so I can have it for my family in the future.

In fact, we have to go to our final break right now, and if anybody would like to join us, we do have a couple of people waiting. They have their questions asked and answered, and if anybody else would like to send in a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Mike Gaydosh and more of our discussion on Thomas Manton and other matters.

Linbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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

We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Waldeman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

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That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com. That's CVBBS .com.

Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And you can also call

CVBBS .com toll -free at their toll -free number, 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

And if you purchase $50 or more worth of merchandise, you will get absolutely free the book by Sinclair Ferguson, Faithful God, an exposition of the book of Ruth, which retails for $14.

And I might add that I urge you to order solid ground Christian book titles from CVBBS .com

because CVBBS .com, our other sponsor, is not a publisher but is a book distributor, and they do carry and order books published by solid ground

Christian books. So if you want to get to that $50 mark to win the free book by Sinclair Ferguson, retailing for $14, why don't you go to solid -ground -books .com

and start making a long list of books published by solid ground Christian books, and then go to CVBBS .com

and order them to make your $50 mark. That's just a suggestion. Of course, the only exception that I know of would be this new complete works of Thomas Manton, because the only way that these hardcover books will be going into print is if solid ground

Christian books gets enough orders. So don't order that series through CVBBS.

That one uniquely has to be ordered from solid ground Christian books. And one thing that I don't know if we mentioned today, but nobody's going to be charged for these books on their debit card or credit card unless the books have been already went to the press.

I think I said that, but if I didn't, yeah, we need to make that clear that you place the order now, and you're holding, basically, and you're letting us know that you are going to be purchasing it.

If you give us your credit card information, and you can also pay through PayPal, there will be no charges until we make the decision that we are going to go to print, because the moment we let the company that's going to do the printing know, they're going to want to have between 50 and 60 percent of the entire project up front, and it's going to be well over $100 ,000.

So obviously, we're going to need to have orders to be able to to put that, because we're going to have to obviously send them somewhere about $75 ,000 probably just to get this project going.

So yeah, that's the way that works. Now, you said you had a couple questions? Yes, let's see here.

How can we get our fellow Baptists to realize that not all Puritans were vicious and mean -spirited, in fact, even murderous towards our

Baptist forefathers? Although there were some atrocities that occurred, many of our Baptist brothers and sisters and friends throw the baby out with the bath water and reject all

Puritans as a result. That's a good question. I don't know that I... That was, by the way, that was

Beebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Yeah, I'm not sure what would be the best way. I think simply being informed about different Puritans and where they stood in these matters would be important.

Obviously, they lived in a different time. Separation of church and state was not what it is today, an understanding of those things.

But I think that just being able to have people be informed, if you're informed about the

Puritans, the specific Puritans, and maybe give them a book that would introduce them to the

Puritans. I know Don Kistler has a little booklet that I distribute called,

Why Read the Puritans Today? I think he addresses some of those issues there, but you've also got a lot of other books.

Leland Ryken has done a book on the Puritans, and also J .I. Packer has done an excellent book on the

Puritans. Errol Hulse, a dear friend, the late Errol Hulse did a book on reading the

Puritans. I would say probably getting a book, you yourself need to understand the answer to that question.

You need to get a good book to read, read it, and then hand it on to friends to encourage them that the

Puritans are worth reading. That could be a stumbling block.

I haven't had many people that I've talked to through the years that have said that, but obviously this listener has.

So that would be my statement. You need to be convinced in your own mind, then you need to be able to give them something to read.

Something smaller perhaps, like the booklet by Kistler, which is short, it's only 20 pages or so, or something more substantial,

Errol Hulse's book. There's of course the book Meet the Puritans by Joel Beeky, Reformation Heritage, we sell that book as well, and that you can get quite reasonably.

But that's a large volume, that would be really more for you who've asked the question than it would be probably for a person who objects to the

Puritans because of their rejection of the Baptists. And the

Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 was brilliantly comprised in that it was in many ways a copy of the

Westminster work of the 1640s. And the reason they did that was for the very purpose of declaring their unity with their

Presbyterian brethren and Congregational brethren. And they were brilliant in the way that they did that.

Some felt that they were, you know, I don't know, they were saying they were copying them.

Well, yeah, they did. They acknowledged what they were doing, and they did it on purpose. Because they already had a confession, but they wanted to demonstrate more unity with the

Presbyterian. Exactly. And so that's the thing that we need, that we need to be educated ourselves to make sure we understand and not overstate things and not allow other people to overstate things in regards to the

Puritans. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater would clearly be the wrong thing to do in this case, without a doubt.

And there was another question. Yes, we have RJ in White Plains, New York, who asked the question,

I understand that many, if not most of the Puritans, although Pato Baptists had much more of an understanding of children that Baptists adhere to than many

Pato Baptists today. What I am referring to is that I understand the Puritans viewed their children as a mission field, and they viewed them as lost until they proved otherwise by their lives and their profession, rather than the reverse, that they are to be assumed as Christians until they prove otherwise by their actions and profession that many

Presbyterians hold to today. Is this true? Good question. I have to be frank and say

I'm not certain. I'm not the best person to answer that question. I think that if you were to ask somebody like Joel Beakey, Don Kistler, these are men who...

I'm not the detailed expert in the Puritans as some of these men would be.

I spent most of my life as a pastor. I have spent the last 17 years exclusively as a publisher, but my publishing doesn't...

In fact, the majority of my publishing is really men in the 1800s and early 1900s.

We've only done some Puritans, and because others have done them, and so I don't try to do what others are doing.

The reason why we're doing Manton is nobody else has done it in the last... I don't know how many years, 30, 40, 50 years, whatever it was, but I mean, there are editions that are out there, but they're not really well done.

The volumes are not well done. We have done... They're first -class editions, smites sewn, shrink -wrapped.

We spared no expense when we did these, and we're selling them for just about $300 right now.

The list price on these would be about $1 ,000, and the pre -publication price right now is $299 .95

plus shipping, of course, and I'm needing about 400 orders to be able to pull this off, and so far we're in the 20s now, but we just started.

It's only been a few days, and so I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged that the response has been what it has been, and I understand there are several more that are beginning to be prepared to place their orders, and there's no real risk involved in this.

I mean, if a person says, well, I'm not sure if I have the money or I will have the money, if you can let me know that you're interested, that will help me, and I understand that sometimes people will drop out later on.

That's fine. That only happened a few times the last time we did this, and we didn't have any difficulty being able to pay for the print run, and the

Lord provided us what we needed, so I'm expecting him to do it again.

By the way, I can tell you that when I was at that Puritan conference that Don Kistler was speaking at, he did affirm what the listener was asking about.

In fact, he said that it was a very frequent and dominant practice of Puritans to either forbid or at the very least discourage their children from even singing in a worship service until they demonstrated believable or credible professions of faith and repentance.

That's good. That's good to hear that. I had not heard that before, but I think it's important for us to be growing in our knowledge.

Obviously, I even need to do that myself, and so I appreciate that.

I'm glad you remembered what Don had said about that. That's why I was thinking that reading this booklet would be helpful.

And of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that you or I or many of the guests on this program agree with that severity, but it might be something to consider.

No, but I think the point is that they took seriously those matters.

They would probably, I would assume, would not have given the

Lord's Supper to children who were not demonstrating signs of repentance, and again, there would probably be disagreement even in that area.

But I also wanted to mention too, and I don't know that we will have time to get to what

I was going to say. We can have you back to do that. Okay, but I may be able to at least introduce the theme that we could come back and look at it again.

I've also been encouraged to do the works of William Bridge. William Bridge is not quite as well known as Manton, but his works, they're five -volume works, and some people would be a little bit more familiar with Bridge's work,

Lifting Up of the Downcast. I believe Banner of Truth has published that in one of their

Puritan paperbacks. And William Bridge was also a very gifted man, and we are in the early stages of considering doing that work.

In fact, truth be told, we may be able to do that sooner than Manton, just because it's a much, much smaller project.

It's just five volumes as opposed to 22 volumes. And so the works of William Bridge, which it is on our website now, people can type in the name

William Bridge and they'll see it come up, and all the sermons in the five volumes are listed.

And a Lifting Up of the Downcast was 13 sermons on Psalm 4211, and that would be another

Puritan that we are in the process of considering. We have about 10 minutes left, do we?

Yeah, we have about nine minutes left. Okay, well let me just introduce the thought that I brought to our

Sunday School last week, called the Messianic Secret and the Messianic Mystery. The Messianic Secret has to do with the identity of Jesus and the

Messianic Mystery, what he came to do. In Matthew 16, we have the very famous section where our

Lord asks his disciples, who do people say that I, the Son of Man, or who do people say the

Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others

Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Jesus then asked, but who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now we know as Jesus responds to him, he says,

Simon Barjona, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

And I think that obviously what our Lord is doing there, he is affirming that what

Peter said was absolutely correct, that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God. You think about the fact that for 2 ,000 years, from the time of Abram until this time, the

Jews had been awaiting the Messiah. And there is a sense in which we could say, all the way going back to Genesis 3 .15,

the people of God had been waiting for the Messiah. He's now come, and for the first time he has revealed himself as the

Messiah, has confirmed that he is the Messiah, and what does he immediately do?

He says, he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the

Christ. That's quite remarkable. Yeah, that was one of those great puzzling things in the scriptures.

Well, you have the messianic, that's why it's called the messianic secret, the identity of Jesus. They have finally come to see who he is, not by their own instincts, not by their own insights, but specifically

Jesus says, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. Now, of course, he goes on and speaks about his building the church, he speaks about Peter's role in that confession, in building the church, in the gates of Hades, he's not prevailing against it, but setting that aside for the moment, the first issue has to do with his identity.

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and the

Son of the Living God, even though Peter probably did not fully understand this, that was a declaration of the full deity of Jesus Christ, and you may recall that the

Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus when he called them, they said they were going to stone him because he made himself out to be the

Son of God. And what's interesting here is this messianic secret is immediately followed in all three synoptic gospels by the same thing.

You remember what was immediately, what Jesus immediately began to teach them? He began to teach them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

Now, we know that Peter then took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it,

Lord, this shall never happen to you. Now, we know again that our

Lord immediately, just the same man that he had just said, blessed are you, now says, get behind me,

Satan. You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's.

Now, here we have not the messianic secret, but the messianic mystery. What did the

Jews assume the Messiah would do? He'd be a political hero. He was going to reign.

He was going to reign on the throne. And the Lord immediately, immediately, in all three gospels, it's immediate, the very next thing that our

Lord begins to teach them, now that they know who he is, is to teach them what he came to do.

He uses the word must there, the word day, that significant word, that there was no escape, that he was going to Jerusalem, he was going to suffer, and he was going to be killed and raised up on the third day.

And as I asked our Sunday school class, were the words that Jesus used there simply historical words or parabolic?

Well, they were simply historical. There's no parable involved in that. He spoke straightforward language to them, but they didn't understand.

They didn't understand because they had a block in their mind, Messiah reigns, not

Messiah dies. And over and over again, our Lord spoke.

And if you look at Mark 8, 30 and 31, and then Mark 9, those same verses, and then

Mark 10, those same verses, you will notice that in all three chapters, he speaks straightforward historical language, and he speaks about his coming death in Jerusalem.

And in fact, if you look at the three passages in Mark, in each one, I believe he gives more details about what exactly is going to happen.

And in all three cases, what are we told about the disciples? They didn't understand.

And the Jews today in the 21st century still don't. Christ crucified, 1

Corinthians 1, is what to the Jews? It's a stumbling block. And you remember when

Jesus appears after his resurrection to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, what does he do?

After they make the statement that we had hoped he was going to redeem Jerusalem, what does he say?

Oh foolish and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have written.

Ought not the Christ to have suffered and then entered into his glory.

And we are told, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself.

The messianic secret, Christ Jesus is Christ the

Lord. The messianic mystery, Christ came to die. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And the only way that sinners could be saved is he had to die. The truth of this is demonstrated dramatically on the

Mount of Transfiguration. Again, in all three of the Gospels, immediately following the messianic secret revealed and the messianic mystery.

And then after that, the application of the messianic secret and mystery with the discipleship.

If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

That is followed by, immediately in all three Gospels, the messianic secret and mystery dramatically displayed on the

Mount of Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John see Jesus transfigured before them.

His face shone like the sun. His garments became as white as light. And then suddenly,

Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with Jesus.

And do you remember what they were talking about? Chris, do you remember what they talked about? Not right off the top of my head, no.

In Luke, Luke's the only Gospel that actually tells us what they talked about. They talked about his exodus that he was going to perform in Jerusalem.

They were speaking about his coming death. The disciples couldn't have fellowship with him about his death because they didn't understand it.

So the Father sends Moses and Elijah to speak to him about this. And then, of course, the cloud comes.

This is my beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him. So here we have the messianic mystery and secret are both revealed in a dramatic fashion.

The voice of the Father, this is my beloved Son, hear him. And of course, he tells them as they're going down, don't tell anyone of the vision that you have seen until I am raised again from the dead.

Amazing. Praise God. Well, we are out of time. And I want to make sure that our listeners know that that series or that set of Thomas Manton hardbacks is retailing for $1 ,000, correct, before the discount?

That's right. And the discount price is $299 .95 until March 31st.

That's a pre -publication discount. And you will not be charged on your credit card or debit card until this hardback set goes into print.

And how many volumes again? 22 volumes. 22 volumes. And the website is solid -ground -books .com.

Solid -ground -books .com. Thank you so much, Mike Gadosh, for being our second guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

And 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.