November 28, 2023 with Jinger Duggar Vuolo on “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith From Fear”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 28th day of November, 2023.

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And I'm thrilled to have a returning guest today whose name is

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Ginger Duggar Volo. That last name, Volo, may sound familiar to you because I just recently had my guest's mother -in -law on the program,

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Diana Volo, to discuss her ministry, Swan, and I have also interviewed on a number of occasions.

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My guest's father -in -law, Pastor Chuck Volo, but today we have the honor and privilege of having back on the show

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Ginger Duggar Volo, who is the sixth child of Jim, Bob, and Michelle Duggars, 19 children, and she's a wife, a mother, and Christian author, and today we're going to be addressing her new book,

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Becoming Free Indeed, My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear.

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It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Ginger Duggar Volo. Thank you so much for having me,

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Chris. And first of all, I'd like our listeners to get an idea of the kind of home in which you were raised, because that is really what is the catalyst behind this book to begin with.

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But as far as the theological makeup of the church and the denominational affiliation, was it an independent

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Bible church, non -denominational type of church, or was it a part of a denomination? And any kind of theological makeup that you can recount,

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I know that your husband is a sovereign grace -believing

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Christian, theologically reformed and so on, as is his parents.

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But in contrast to that, tell us something about your own upbringing in church.

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Yeah, so it's interesting. Actually, our setting, where I grew up with my family, we were more so like in a home church setting and didn't have formal leadership.

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And so we didn't have too many elders or deacons or anything. It was more like we would have someone stand up and share a message with us, maybe one of the men in the church.

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And then we would have somebody who would maybe bring a

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DVD of a teacher that they heard that they liked, or we would watch the teachings of Bill Gothard, go through some of his seminars.

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So it was more of a hodgepodge of all different teachings brought together.

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And like I said, no formal leadership. So there was a lack of accountability there.

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We weren't necessarily under a church banner. We would have said we were non -denominational

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Bible -believing Christians, more of a Baptist background. And for some years, my family, we had attended

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First Baptist Church in our area. And it was just a very normal Baptist church setting.

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But then once we moved on to the home church setting, I think that's where the teachings of Bill Gothard—I remember that being very foundational in my understanding of what the

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Word of God said. And often that's what we would listen to on Sundays as well. And I'm assuming that the church of your upbringing, this house church movement, was not a

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Reformed or Sovereign Grace -believing theological background. Definitely not, yes.

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Definitely more—I think it was, you know, my parents had always an emphasis on the gospel, salvation not being by works.

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And that was something that I'm grateful for to this day. They taught us that.

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And at the same time, because of the lack of depth in theology, we were easily led into the teachings of Bill Gothard.

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And so, yeah, it was more like freewill -type teaching.

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And that's kind of just what I grew up under. Well, since you've mentioned

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Bill Gothard, which also has a lot to do with what you have written, tell our listeners about who

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Bill Gothard was and the primary emphasis of his ministry. Yes, so Bill Gothard, he came on the scene, and it was kind of at the time where parents were kind of worried, really, for their kids' safety and also for—just spiritually, they were concerned that their kids were going to get involved in what was happening at that time—sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the 60s and 70s.

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And they were really worried that, oh no, if we don't get a hold of our kids, if we don't figure out how to get to their hearts, then they're going to be swept away.

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So Bill Gothard was a young man. He came on the scene, and he said,

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I've got the answer to all of life's problems. You can come to my seminars, and I will teach you basically how you can keep your kids' hearts, and they will not fall away.

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So there were—at that time, I think a lot of churches got involved, and they started bussing people to his seminars, which filled up massive stadiums all across the country.

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And it seemed great on the outside, because some of these things were not necessarily bad in and of themselves.

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There were some principles that were true, and some of them that I would say were based in Scripture. But sadly, he started teaching things that were outside the

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Bible, or he would take a verse of the Bible, twist it, and make it say whatever he wanted it to say, and then he would have you make a vow at the end of that time to bind your conscience to it.

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So that's what happened with Bill Gothard, and he kind of blew up over that time, and a lot of people would have known the name of Bill Gothard and had at least somebody who had maybe gone to a seminar in their circles in the

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Christian world. And from what I understand, your parents were even heavily involved in Bill Gothard's ministry before they were married, correct?

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Correct, yes. And they attended a couple of seminars and things like that before they were married, and it was all that they pretty much knew for their married life.

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They taught us kids the principles that Bill Gothard would have given to them, and that was something that we all grew up with, we were born into.

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And from what you've already said, obviously, there were good motivations behind what

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Mr. Gothard was teaching, at least initially. In our current world, in the 21st century, the problem seems to be far more—amongst

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Christians and amongst churches—far more in the area of looseness, turning the gospel into a license to sin, turning the grace of God into licentiousness, easy believism, cheap grace.

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That seems to be the largest problem today, but that does not mean that there is not serious and harmful legalism that exists, obviously, especially in the world of the cults.

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But you do have genuine, Bible -believing

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Christians who may be very sound in their theology, who are seriously harming those under their authority with enslavement to legalism and so on.

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And if you could, why don't you tell us some of the primary ways in which

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Bill Gothard's ministry, in your biblically -trained opinion, went off the rails?

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Obviously, we already said that not everything he taught was unbiblical or bad or harmful, and every parent should have a watchful eye over their children, seeking to guard them from exposure to unnecessary temptations and so forth.

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Not that we are to keep them locked in the house 24 -7 or anything like that, but the parents are to guard their children and so on, and even adults are to guard themselves and their spouses and their own children from these types of lures and temptations and gateways to sin.

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But tell us how, in your opinion, Bill Gothard went off the rails, and the primary ways that you believe his teachings were harmful, and especially to you personally.

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Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Chris. I think that it was really based on—these principles were based on the external, and so Bill Gothard would say, okay, don't—so it was based on where you go to purity, right?

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Purity is important, and that matters. It's in scripture. It's talked about everywhere.

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Bill Gothard would think, okay, the word of God is not enough. I need to put a rule on this.

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So he would make you have—commit to like a single service commitment, and he would say, okay, well, since you're young—or even if you're not young, and you could be a 30 -year -old girl who walks into his office, and he would say, are you going to—do you want to serve the

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Lord? And she might say yes, and then he could go into this whole thing about how she should a single service commitment, maybe for five, ten years, and allot this time to the

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Lord, which, if you think about it, it's like that became so prevalent in that setting.

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Now, when you say single service, are you talking about like a specific ministry? No, no, sir.

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So this is how he would lay it out. He would say, I think that, you know, for us to have undistracted devotion to the

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Lord, you can serve the Lord better if you don't have a boy on your mind. So a lot of my grown friends who were of marrying age, some of them in their upper 20s and some of them even in their 30s, would make single service commitments to serve the

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Lord for maybe—pick a number—maybe seven years, ten years, where I'm not going to get married for ten years.

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Well, that in and of itself can create problems, because it's an idea that he came up with to solve a purity issue that he saw was happening.

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The Word of God is not sufficient to keep us from sinning. It's not sufficient to keep us from giving in to the lust of our flesh.

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So we need to add courtship rules where you're not allowed to, you know, hold hands before you're engaged, or all of these things that become rules to prop you up, not realizing that, man, we've got to go back to the beginning.

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We've got to go back to the start. What really matters is that our hearts have been transformed by the gospel, and that's how you're going to keep your young people pure and loving

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Jesus and walking with the Lord is from the transformation that happens at the beginning in salvation, and that will drive and motivate our hearts to love

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God. But we can't just put our kids in a box and say, do this, don't do that.

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And there's a certain time for that. Like when your kids are young and they're at the house, you know, it's like, well, I understand we need to lay these rules.

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It's not without that. But his whole ministry was primarily propped up with rules.

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And so whether that was authority, which was a huge one, which authority is important.

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It's in the Word of God. But his idea of authority was that that children would be under their parents authority all the way up through adulthood.

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If you're in the home and you're a woman, you know, you cannot work outside the home.

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You cannot do anything outside the home. Otherwise, you're opening yourself up to Satan's attacks. Unless you're working for your father, then there's like a level of protection.

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And so a lot of these things just he would get carried away. And I think that we are now seeing the breakdown of that.

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Maybe like I said at the beginning, a lot of people probably do not even understand who Bill Gothard is or what, what, why this matters.

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But I think that a lot of these kids who are raised in it, we're seeing these generations of kids turning out and now they're realizing there are so many negative effects to this.

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It's not something where it's like, oh, this is just Bill Gothard's opinion. We're all these years removed.

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It doesn't matter. But it affects our view of God, because the way that we view

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God is, OK, if I step outside of this box, God is waiting to smite me, which is what

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Bill Gothard would teach. So if I don't, if I hold hands before I'm engaged, oh, no, what is

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God going to do to me if I don't read my Bible for five minutes every day? Like I made this vow. Bill Gothard wouldn't make this vow to read and pray my, you know, to read my

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Bible for five minutes, to pray for five minutes every day. If I don't, what is God going to do to me? It's it's a fear based mindset that is not based in Scripture.

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And it's a man's opinion. And he was very comfortable placing burdens on people that they couldn't carry.

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And so what you're saying is basically you were living under the fear and living enslavement and enslavement to fear that as if God was constantly hovering above you with a sledgehammer waiting to crush you because you disobeyed him in some way, in almost any way.

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Exactly. And ironically, even though that may appear on the surface to many as as someone who is teaching that, they really take sin seriously.

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But what they are failing to recognize is that they are really undermining the serious and prevalence of sin, because if that were the case, if God behaved that way with his children, we'd all be crushed with sledgehammers every minute of the day.

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Exactly. Much in the same way the Roman Catholic Church, at least it used to now, it has become so liberal that it's barely recognizable from historic

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Roman Catholicism. But there was a time when the way that they would distinguish sins from another and so on had the same kind of effect on people.

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But so you discovering the doctrines of grace, did that come about through dating and then marrying

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Jeremy? You know, it's interesting. Actually, that whole perspective for me started before Jeremy, because my sister, one of my sisters had started a relationship with a guy who went to a church that was reformed.

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And it was at that time I was going and driving to visit this young man and his family and all at their church.

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And so sitting through those church services, I realized, wow, they really read the

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Bible differently and they handle it differently than I've ever seen.

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And so realizing that God is sovereign over all, it was a huge shift in my mindset.

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And so when I started reading the Bible, I was like, whoa, how did I not see this? It's everywhere.

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And so that was kind of a shift that happened. But the teachings of Bill Gothard were still there. So foundational in my life that it was not until Jeremy came on the scene that we started to discuss these things.

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And as soon as I saw that it wasn't all based in Scripture, those external rules or traditions really fell off.

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And I saw the word of God as being so much greater than even

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Bill Gothard's opinion. And it was a beautiful thing because I saw then for the first time, really, that the word of God, we don't need to come up with rules and all of this stuff to to keep us from sinning, but that the word of God is sufficient.

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And I think that's something that I was missing for all those years. And I thought, OK, well, I'm terrified that years ago.

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Right. And you're breaking up a little bit. I'm not sure what's happening. But really wrestling through it,

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I was like, oh, no. Like, how am I going to raise my children? Because now what if like what if I raise my children?

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And I because it's a guarantee for success if you follow

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Bill Gothard's principles. But if you don't, he would always teach that your life was going to be one disaster after another.

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But it was amazing because once I saw that this was in Scripture and that a lot of these teachings from Bill Gothard just weren't in Scripture or they were twisted.

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It was so freeing. And I was it actually started. Yeah, that we're not based in like an awe and reverence, but it was based in more of like that, like you said, the sledgehammer, the fear of the sledgehammer coming down.

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And I want to quickly add that because of the fact that I brought up the the distinction between the

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Arminian and the reformed systems of theology, there are professedly reformed people, pastors and churches and denominations that are just as legalistic as what we've been hearing from the

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Bill Gothard seminars and other places. So we're not trying to say that the reformed community is pristine and perfectly separate from that unfortunate behavior and theology, basically.

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Let me quick give our listeners our email address, because you have to leave fairly soon.

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Just to let our listeners know, Ginger has to leave after the first half hour of today's program, and we're going to be joined after that by her in -laws,

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Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo. But our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Ginger, just out of curiosity, did

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Bill Gothard teach that you could lose your salvation? He never would have said that, but I think that the way that his principles kind of—if you followed his principles to a

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T, you could easily get there. I think that because of the way that he taught that everything is relying on you, then

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I think that a lot of people in that setting would wrestle with assurance. Even those who were genuine believers are sitting there wrestling with assurance, because here it's not on God's sovereignty and salvation, where God has chosen you and he will keep you, he will preserve you.

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All of those things were kind of—they weren't just really taught, and so it was more on like, okay, here are all these rules, and if you fail, you just felt like, oh man,

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I've messed up big time. God is not pleased with me, even as his child. I think it's interesting how you can get so many years into this and not read the

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Psalms and the wrestlings that you hear the psalmist talking about, and it's like, well, if you look at that,

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Bill Gothard would just totally— You broke up there a little bit.

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Bill Gothard would just totally what? I'm sorry, and I hope we haven't lost

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Ginger. I'm not sure why I can't hear Ginger right now.

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Ginger, are you there? Ginger, can you hear me? Well, sorry, folks.

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I'm not sure why we cannot hear Ginger. There's some kind of technical difficulty going on, and I hope that our link is restored so that we can continue the discussion.

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And while I am waiting to hear from Ginger again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

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And Ginger's gone. Well, Ginger, are you there?

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Yes, I'm back on. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you fine now. Sorry for that. You were right in the middle of talking about how even though Bill Gothard did not believe you could lose your salvation, go ahead.

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Yeah, he would gloss over a lot of those things and just say, like, he would give you more rules.

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So if you were struggling with whatever it was, or if you were not measuring up, instead of saying that the grace of God covers our sin, that on the cross,

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Christ paid for that and that like God viewing us as father was missing from his teaching.

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So I think a lot of people have this view of like a domineering taskmaster that's just waiting for you to mess up.

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And I think that produced a sense of like, OK, well, I know I can't lose my salvation because he wouldn't say that.

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But he almost made it feel like that. Yeah, you can you could be just as much enslaved to legalism and fear just by believing that God, as you have said, is going to kill you in a car accident if you fail in this way.

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He's going to give you cancer if you do this wrong, that that constant fear as if God is going to unleash a hit man against you for disobeying him.

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Exactly. And that is obviously not living with the joy and liberty and freedom of the grace of God.

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We do have a listener named Chad from Averell Park, New York, and he says,

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Tony Volo was the best man in my wedding 26 years ago. That's Chuck's younger brother.

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I was wondering if Ginger and Jeremy have sat down with an open

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Bible to appeal to Ginger's parents about the errant teachings they've held to.

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And if so, what has been their response? Hmm. Thanks for that question.

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And that's that's an awesome connection there. Yeah. So I have had so many conversations with my family, loved ones.

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And I know that at the end of the day, it's going to be

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I think it's it's such a difficult thing for so many to leave the teachings of Bill Gothard because of how they view these things as scripture.

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So like you said, with an open Bible, I think that a lot of people, even in my family, have maybe walked away from some of those teachings.

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And it's been very encouraging. And at the same time, there are so many that are still following them.

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And so we just pray that even those who are genuine believers there, that they would be able to see what is true and what is not.

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And I think that's just where we leave it to the Lord and trust in his goodness and sovereignty even over that.

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And how have your parents reacted to the book? Yeah, we've had conversations.

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I think it's definitely been difficult for some just because of these teaching teachings being so foundational and all in their lives.

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And but others have been so appreciative of it. And so it's kind of been a mix. It's really been a mix among my family members.

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And so I think that at the end of the day, I just wanted to be able to write this book to help those who are still stuck in these teachings, whether that means family members will come out of these teachings or not.

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I just wanted to be faithful to what God had put before me to do. Well, I believe that, if I'm not mistaken, you and Jeremy have a website where people can learn more about you and your lives and your ministry and your writing.

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Yes, we do. So it is gingerandjeremy .com. And by the way, folks, she spells it with a

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J. J. J -I -N -G -E -R. Gingerandjeremy .com.

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And well, I hope that we can have you back on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio in the near future and perhaps for a longer segment, because this has really got me even more fascinated and more intrigued to hear more about your story.

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But by the way, I want to tell Chad in Averill Park, New York. Thanks to our friends at Thomas Nelson.

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You've won a free copy of Becoming Free Indeed, My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear by Ginger Duggar Volo.

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So make sure we get your full mailing address in Averill Park, New York. And even though Ginger has to leave us, we still have more copies to give away to other listeners who send in questions when we have her in -laws,

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Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo on momentarily. But Ginger, it has been a joy.

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Please send my regards to your husband. And I look forward to even sharing fellowship with you again face to face, as we had the opportunity to do a number of years ago at the

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G3 Conference. Will do. Thank you so much, Chris. It's been wonderful talking to you.

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You too. And don't go away, folks, because as I said, Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo are going to be joining us momentarily, the in -laws of Ginger Duggar Volo.

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And if you have a question for them, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

29:59

Gives us the first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

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38:59

and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now joined by my friends

39:06

Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo. Pastor Chuck Volo is the pastor of Gospel of Grace Community Church here in Pennsylvania.

39:22

And Diana Volo, his wife, is the founder of SWAN, which stands for Scaling Walls a

39:31

Note at a Time. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you both back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo.

39:39

Hello, Chris. We're glad to be with you. And Pastor Chuck, why don't you, first of all, tell our listeners something about Gospel of Grace Church.

39:51

I'm sorry, Gospel of Grace Community Church here in Pennsylvania. Yeah. Well, God has had opened up a door for me among the

40:01

Amish about 18 years ago. And for those years, I was ministering to Amish people.

40:07

God was converting them. They were going off to various Anabaptist churches.

40:13

And I really didn't have a church in that area to bring them to.

40:18

I was helping to start a church in Northern Maryland at the time as well. But about seven years ago, a group of men approached me about starting a church there in Lancaster County.

40:30

And I was glad to do that because I had labored there for all those years. And so we began meeting and I would bring in several friends to preach.

40:41

I was only able to come maybe once a month at first. And they were getting a smorgasbord, a wonderful diet, but it was different every week with different men, gifted preachers.

40:52

And they didn't want to constitute until a full -time preacher was willing to commit, which

40:57

I was willing to do in the providence of God in early 2020. And so we're coming up on our fourth year anniversary in February, and we constituted as Gospel of Grace Community Church there in Kinzers, which is a bit west of east of Lancaster City and west by a couple of miles of the town of Gap, Pennsylvania.

41:23

Well, if anybody wants more details on Gospel of Grace Community Church, go to gospelofgracecommunitychurch .com,

41:32

gospelofgracecommunitychurch .com. That's Gospel of Grace Community Church in Kinzers, Pennsylvania.

41:38

And you are a confessionally -reformed Reformed Baptist Church, correct? Correct. Yeah, we do subscribe basically to the 1689

41:47

London Baptist Confession, and we are thoroughly Reformed, Calvinistic in our doctrine.

41:55

And we have a wonderful cultural diversity in the church, which I really delight in,

42:01

Chris, because anyone who knows Lancaster County knows that the churches tend to be very uniform.

42:07

Instead of unity, they often opt for uniformity, even in the way people dress.

42:13

And so one of the doctrines I've preached in the community for quite a few years is the doctrine of liberty of conscience in areas where the

42:22

Bible doesn't speak clearly. And I'm glad that we have a church that is doctrinally unified in major things, but we have a good cultural diversity, including some former

42:34

Amish, some former Mennonite, a former Hindu, and it's a wonderful blend of God's people under the banner of the cross.

42:44

Now, I'd like to have Diana, your lovely wife, who I recently interviewed again, tell our listeners about SWAN.

42:55

Oh, thanks for asking, Chris, and thanks for having me on your program. SWAN is a nonprofit organization, and it stands for Scaling Walls One Note at a

43:05

Time. And we help children affected by parental incarceration and the resulting trauma.

43:13

And the ways that we help them is by teaching them music. We give them very loving music teachers.

43:22

We share the love of Christ with them through those music teachers, but we also share devotions and prayer, and we also provide some

43:31

Bible classes. Additionally, we provide our students with mental health care.

43:38

So they have immediate access to a mental health professional, and that professional also helps them with trauma management.

43:48

Well, if anybody wants to find out more about SWAN, you can go to their website, swan4kids .org,

43:57

swan4kids .org, and hopefully we will remember to repeat that information before the end of the program.

44:05

Well, continuing the thread that we began with your daughter -in -law, Ginger, Pastor Chuck, since you work so closely with the

44:18

Amish community, you have labored in evangelizing them and seeking by the grace of God and the

44:26

Holy Spirit to lead them out of a false gospel of works righteousness into the true biblical gospel of free and sovereign grace.

44:39

You are obviously no stranger to legalism and the heaviness of enslavement to fear that can exist amongst professing

44:53

Christians. Now, obviously, we want to distinguish between your daughter -in -law's upbringing.

45:01

The gospel was present in that home and in the faith of her parents.

45:08

But nonetheless, there was a stranglehold of constant fear perpetually being yoked upon the family.

45:20

And, of course, the Amish have a false gospel of actual works righteousness.

45:29

But if you could tell us why this is such an important issue, even in the midst of the fact, as I said earlier, it seems that the more prevalent problem we have in the church is anything goes, turning the grace of God into licentiousness.

45:49

But this still exists, and in some ways may even exist amongst liberal churches and easy -believism and cheap -grace churches, but it perhaps manifests itself in a different way.

46:05

But if you could, why is this such an important issue? You're referring to the issue of legalism,

46:12

Chris, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, if there's a group that would call itself

46:18

Christian that defines legalism, I can't think of another that better does that than the

46:26

Amish. They are just choked with man -made rules. They do profess to be Christian, and they do use the

46:33

Bible, although very loosely. In my years of working among them, I have come to call them a cult of culture.

46:41

So it's not like they're aberrant in a particular doctrine, such as the deity of Christ or the

46:47

Trinity, as with the major cults. But they are mainly concerned to propagate and perpetuate a culture.

46:56

But it's a culture that is religious. And it is dictated by so many man -made rules as to how they dress, the fact that they can't drive a motorized vehicle, they can't be connected to the main power grid.

47:11

They are really defined by the legalism of Mark 7 and Matthew 15, where Jesus condemns the

47:18

Pharisees for choking out the Word of God and neglecting the Word of God in favor of their traditions.

47:24

So they are very much tradition -bound. I have come to believe that there are a number of Amish who are converted.

47:31

There are enough Bibles, and there's enough witness in the general community that my estimate would be that perhaps as many as 20 % of the

47:42

Amish might be genuinely converted, but they're very stunted in their growth because they're not going to receive solid biblical teaching.

47:50

They really go by what they call the Adning. It's the German word Ordnung. If we were to define it in brief, if there's

47:58

God on one side, man on the other, and we need to build a bridge between man and God, they would say that the grace of God builds the bridge partway, and then their own works, their own performance of Adning, Ordnung, will carry them the rest of the way.

48:16

So it is a system choked with works righteousness, and they desperately have needed and still need the gospel of God's justifying grace in Jesus Christ.

48:26

Amen. And the Bible is very clear. The precious, inerrant, God -breathed words of Scripture are very clear that not only is unrepentant hearts and licentiousness damning, on the other end of the spectrum, a

48:45

Pharisaic understanding of attaining good favor with God and meriting salvation through one's life and deeds and good works is equally damning.

48:57

They're just damning in different ways. So this is something that we have to be very careful that we are balanced in the way that we present the truths of Scripture and proclaim the gospel.

49:14

Obviously, the way that Paul preached the gospel initially must have led some to think that we should sin so that grace will all the more abound, as he even himself asked the question, should we do that, and God forbid, he says.

49:38

So we have to be very balanced to make sure that we are not teaching a gospel of licentiousness, but at the same time that we equally and as strongly oppose as damning works righteousness salvation.

49:57

And when you two came to meet Ginger, when your son was beginning a relationship with her, perhaps we'll have

50:07

Diana respond, was she still in some way under the effects of that wrong teaching and you could recognize it?

50:19

Yes, she was because it had been her entire life. She was emerging from it, though.

50:25

When she was a chaperone for her sister Jessa, when she was courting

50:31

Ben, Ginger was their primary chaperone. And Ben and Jessa would love to talk about the doctrines of grace and many other doctrines from the

50:44

Bible. And so Ginger started hearing that all for the first time as she was probably about 16 or 17,

50:53

I guess. So it was new to her, but because it was truth and because the

50:58

Holy Spirit dwells within her and is our counselor, she was drawn to it. She was drawn to truth and would read for and study on her own and she was coming to grips with it.

51:12

And then shortly after that season of time, that's when she met Jeremy. And of course, they would continue that conversation and take it to greater depths.

51:22

So it's been a long process for Ginger, but we've always seen the heart of the matter in her that she loves the

51:31

Lord and loves his word. Well, praise God for that. And I'm sure that you two have come to love her as your own daughter, haven't you?

51:45

Yes, we have. Absolutely. We could not imagine anyone better suited for our son than Ginger.

51:51

And we really believe that from the very beginning. You know, I have found that it's not so much where a person is in their current thinking, so much as how teachable are they in their spirit.

52:05

And if a person is open to receive truth from the word of God, they're going to be led into paths of truth.

52:12

And we saw that Jeremy saw that in Ginger from the start and knew that if she was convinced from the word of God about something, she would believe it with all of her heart and follow it.

52:22

And he has certainly found that to be true. We have loved her and seen her so wonderfully suited to our son from the very beginning.

52:32

Well, praise God. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now, folks. The midway break is longer than the other breaks in the show.

52:41

So please be patient with us. It's longer because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

52:47

FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break in the show. Because the

52:52

FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida.

53:00

And they do that with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air in the middle break.

53:08

So please use this time wisely. While they are airing their local announcements, we simultaneously are airing our

53:18

Globally Heard commercials. So please write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can for our advertisers so that you can more frequently contact our advertisers.

53:30

And keeping in mind that our advertisers are absolutely positively necessary for our existence because of the finances that come through their advertising.

53:42

So please respond to our advertisers and send in questions to Chuck and Diana Volo.

53:49

Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

53:55

Don't go away. We'll be right back. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

54:13

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

54:19

He really loves hearing interviewed Dr. Joe Morecraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

54:31

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Morecraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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Dr. Morecraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

54:48

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

54:54

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards. And Dr.

54:59

Joe Morecraft is the author of an eight volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

55:05

Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

55:14

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

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Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the triune God that continues in eternity.

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For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

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Joe Roiland, Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from Attoy in County Kildare, Ireland, sends you.

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Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?

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Much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the Bible. Hi there, my name is

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Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

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01:09:04

Before I return to my guests, Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo, I have some important announcements to make.

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Two things in the Bible are very clear about our finances. We are primarily to use them to support our church and our family.

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If you love this show and you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family, you have extra money in the bank, collecting interest, extra money for benevolent, recreational and trivial purposes, please share some of that with us.

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Then click, click to donate now. Last but not least, if you're not a member of a

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Christ honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound and doctrinally solid church, like the

01:11:33

Gospel of Grace Community Church in Kinzers, Pennsylvania. Well, no matter where you live on the planet

01:11:41

Earth, I may be able to help you find a church, as I have already done many times with listeners spanning the globe.

01:11:49

In our audience, sometimes even helping them find churches within minutes from where they live. So if you're without a church home, that could be you too.

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Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. And put

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I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo.

01:12:13

And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

01:12:21

For those of you just tuning in now, for the first half hour of the program, we had as our guest

01:12:28

Ginger Volo, who is the author of Becoming Free Indeed, my story of disentangling faith from fear.

01:12:38

And currently we have on her in -laws, Pastor Chuck and Diana Volo. And we do have a listener.

01:12:49

Let's see. I was just looking at the question. We have a listener in Coatesville, Pennsylvania named

01:13:02

Cornelia. And she says, well, Pastor Chuck, please explain the differences between the

01:13:10

Amish and the Mennonites and their legalism. Well, hi,

01:13:17

Cornelia. We're actually neighbors of yours. We actually live in Downingtown and travel across the county line.

01:13:26

Well, the Amish really came out of this, the Swiss Anabaptists, and there are a lot of similarities, but the

01:13:33

Mennonites have a great deal of diversity. You have everything from the horse and buggy

01:13:38

Mennonites. In our area, they tend to have black buggies. They're called the

01:13:44

Joe Wengers to Mennonites that are theologically liberal. They don't even believe the biblical gospel and everything in between.

01:13:53

So it's hard to pinpoint Mennonites because there's such a variety.

01:14:00

I would say, though, that what they have in common would be they're both tend to have extra biblical rules.

01:14:10

Both tend to focus on externals like dress. Head covering is very important.

01:14:17

Has a mark of spirituality in both circles for many Mennonites, not all

01:14:22

Mennonites. And they also have rules about facial hair.

01:14:28

The Amish saying you have to grow a long beard and no mustache. Mennonites have various rules about facial hair, depending on what group you're talking about.

01:14:40

So what they have in common are a lot of legalistic rules, a lot of extra biblical rules.

01:14:47

In their theology, they would tend to be agreed as well in that they don't believe, many of them don't believe in the assurance of salvation, the eternal security of the believer, which

01:14:59

I think the Bible clearly teaches. And so that points to a lot of reliance upon personal works to earn salvation.

01:15:08

Although many Mennonites surely know the gospel, understand the gospel and love the Lord and are

01:15:13

Christians. So it depends on what group of Mennonites you're really talking about.

01:15:19

But those are some things they have in common. Also, another commonality is their doctrine of non -resistance.

01:15:26

They believe that as Christians, we should not really participate in politics, in government, and some of them don't even vote, don't be part of the police force or partake in war.

01:15:42

So it's a doctrine of non -resistance based on what Jesus says in the

01:15:47

Sermon on the Mount, do not resist him who is evil. So non -resistance is something they have in common.

01:15:54

Generally, though, the Amish would be more legalistic than most of the

01:15:59

Mennonites in terms of the number of extra biblical rules that they have to follow.

01:16:06

And you can in the more evangelical Mennonite churches find the true gospel much more readily than you would in an

01:16:16

Amish community. Yes, that's why many of our Amish friends who come to a saving knowledge of Christ, when they leave the

01:16:25

Amish, they go to a church that is culturally similar. There are several

01:16:30

Amish Mennonite churches or Beechee churches in Lancaster County, which have the gospel much more clearly than the

01:16:38

Amish do. And yet they're culturally similar. So many Amish tend to go first to those churches.

01:16:47

Well, thank you, Cornelia. And please give us your full mailing address in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, because you have also won a free copy of Becoming Free Indeed, My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear by Ginger Duggar Volo, the daughter -in -law of my guests currently,

01:17:07

Chuck and Diana Volo. And by the way, if you are a first -time questioner, and this goes for all of our other listeners who are submitting questions, if you're a first -time questioner, please let us know because you will also win a free

01:17:23

New American Standard Bible by virtue of submitting a question.

01:17:30

And we do that all the time with first -time questioners. I remember during our conversation recently,

01:17:39

Diana, during our most recent interview, that you brought up something similar, it seemed, to the experience of your daughter -in -law when you were a

01:17:52

Roman Catholic. You were a Roman Catholic before Vatican II seemed to, to a much greater degree, liberalize the

01:18:05

Roman Catholic Church and perhaps lessen to a great degree the fear -mongering that went on, especially before Vatican II.

01:18:17

Now, I'm not saying that Vatican II was a good thing either.

01:18:24

They still presented a false gospel and, in fact, officially declared the

01:18:30

Church of Rome's ecumenism with non -Christian religions. But at the same time, that fear factor was a big part of the lives of Catholics, especially those raised in that religion in the 60s and prior.

01:18:46

If you could tell us something about that, Diana. Oh, yes, I can. Yeah, legalism does lead to fear because we're trying to work our way to a holy

01:18:58

God and that's impossible to do. And we all know that. But the Vatican II was liberating for me in that it helped me to see through the

01:19:13

Catholic Church. For example, we were taught that if we ate meat on Friday, that it was a cardinal sin.

01:19:23

And cardinal sins were more serious than venial sins. They were weighty sins. And you had to spend certain amount of days or years suffering in purgatory if you ate meat on Friday.

01:19:38

And every once in a while, I remember growing up, my mother would just be terrified because she had forgotten it was

01:19:44

Friday and she served us all chicken. And so that instilled fear in us as children.

01:19:52

But then when I was in high school, Vatican II, we were taught by the nuns, was going to release that penalty for eating meat on Friday.

01:20:01

They were going to release that and say, and so they said it would be voted that you can eat meat on Friday and it is no longer a cardinal sin.

01:20:10

So of course, that made me think, well, if I eat meat this Friday, I'm gonna have to suffer years in purgatory.

01:20:18

But if I eat meat next Friday, I won't have to suffer any time in purgatory. So that really helped to dismantle a system that was falling by its own weight in my eyes.

01:20:32

And by the grace of God, giving me that understanding, it was falling by its own weight.

01:20:39

And that's one of the things God did. It helped disillusioned. I was disillusioned with the

01:20:44

Catholic faith. And as a little girl growing up in Catholic neighborhoods where I was in one

01:20:50

Catholic neighborhood, then there was the Polish Catholic neighborhood. There was the Italian one. Side by side,

01:20:55

I thought the whole world was Catholic. And then when you would see television, you would see the Pope in his grandeur and beautiful robes in the

01:21:02

Sistine Chapel. And you just knew that he was a world leader. So of course it was the one true church.

01:21:08

That's what we were taught. So in order for the Lord to prepare my heart for the true gospel, he had to first disillusion me with what

01:21:17

I thought was the one true faith. Well, we praise God that you have come to be freed from that damning legalism and have embraced the gospel of true and sovereign grace.

01:21:34

Oh, I am too because there were other rules. So for example, if you missed, if you didn't go to church on a

01:21:42

Sunday, that was a mortal sin. And that was a sin you could never be forgiven of.

01:21:48

You would just go to hell. It was terrifying. We have, go ahead,

01:21:54

I'm sorry. I'd say that again. That's how I understand it. Yeah, you're breaking up a little bit. Hopefully we won't lose you like we lost

01:22:00

Ginger before. OK. We have Flynn in Cat Town, New York.

01:22:10

I don't know if it's Cat Town or Catown, but I'm assuming it's

01:22:15

Cat Town, New York. And Flynn says, will

01:22:20

Pastor Chuck please explain how in pastoral ways he can convey to his congregation the seriousness of Christians falling into sin, the seriousness of a sinning

01:22:36

Christian needing to examine his life to be further ensured that he is truly saved or perhaps come to the realization that he is lost while at the same time preventing a legalistic structure within the congregation?

01:22:56

Yeah, that's an excellent question. I think the simple answer is we just need to accurately and faithfully preach what the

01:23:05

Bible said. I am one who is committed to expositional preaching, systematic expositional preaching, preaching through books of the

01:23:15

Bible verse by verse, passage by passage. I think if we stick with the

01:23:20

Bible and try not to go beyond the Bible, we're on safe ground. I think one of the things a preacher has to do on a regular basis is make application of the

01:23:31

Bible both to believers and unbelievers. One thing I find is as I preach through the

01:23:37

Bible, I am often finding what the Bible says is true of a Christian.

01:23:43

And so if we're dealing with a particular passage, it may describe how a Christian thinks, how a

01:23:49

Christian acts, how a Christian speaks. And that becomes then a mirror into which someone can look and ask, does my life match what the

01:23:57

Bible says is a Christian? And if it does, then there's grounds for encouragement and assurance.

01:24:05

If it doesn't, then they have reason to question themselves whether they're in the faith. So I think we just need to stick with what the

01:24:12

Bible says about what a Christian is. And if we present that faithfully and repeatedly to the people of God, they get a clear picture of what a

01:24:20

Christian is. And they can take either appropriate encouragement because their lives match that picture or perhaps growing alarm that my life doesn't match with what the

01:24:30

Bible says a Christian is in terms of his or her motivations and her speech patterns and attitudes and dispositions and actions.

01:24:40

So we mustn't go beyond the Bible. We mustn't impose on people's consciences rules that the

01:24:48

Bible doesn't. That's where we're in the realm of Christian liberty. So if we stick with the

01:24:54

Bible and its description of a Christian, I think people will be able to come to an accurate perception of their own relationship to God.

01:25:04

Now, don't you think that discipline is a very vital mark of a true church, that churches must be conducting discipline in doing so without authoritarianism, without hypocritical judgmentalism, without harshness?

01:25:27

But at the same time, it seems that in the broad field of modern evangelicalism, discipline is barely existent in our modern day.

01:25:39

And I'll bet you that many churches that litter the landscape of the

01:25:47

United States never have conducted one day of church discipline for anyone.

01:25:54

Isn't that an important thing? And it's not loving if you avoid discipline, is it?

01:26:01

No, not at all. And when we think of discipline, we might think first and foremost of formative discipline, you know, before we think of corrective discipline.

01:26:10

The vast majority of disciplining that should go on in a church is individuals disciplining themselves according to the word of God.

01:26:20

And of course, if the word of God is faithfully preached and applied, it really helps people to do that.

01:26:27

And if people are reading the word themselves, feeding themselves personally on the word, they are disciplining themselves, bringing their thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ, as the apostle

01:26:37

Paul says, putting off sin and putting on righteousness. So discipline begins with self -discipline by the word and by the

01:26:44

Holy Spirit. And then formative discipline also takes place in terms of the one anothering that God calls us to do.

01:26:51

All the 25 or 30 duties and privileges we have to serve one another, help one another, admonish one another, correct one another, exhort one another.

01:27:03

We formatively help one another in the disciplines of the Christian life by our fellowship, by our interactions.

01:27:11

But when a person is sinning and living in a way contrary to the way a

01:27:17

Christian is supposed to live, and if after being approached personally and then by two or three witnesses, they refuse to repent, then the words of Jesus in Matthew 18, the words of the apostle

01:27:29

Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 are very clear that that person then needs to come under the corrective discipline of the church, literally put out of the church, treated as an unbeliever until such a time as they repent.

01:27:43

And it is a loving thing. The purpose of it is really restorative. It is to, as Paul says, that their spirit may be saved in the day of the

01:27:53

Lord Jesus. It is also to prevent sin from having a leavening or spreading effect within the church.

01:28:00

So yeah, to tolerate scandalous sin in the church is unloving toward the one doing it.

01:28:05

It's unloving toward the church body, and it's robbing the Lord of the church,

01:28:11

Jesus, of the glory that he deserves. Amen. And I wholeheartedly agree with you, even being one who has experienced being placed under church discipline over a decade ago when

01:28:27

I unfortunately delved back into habitual drunkenness after 18 years of sobriety.

01:28:36

And thankfully, my church lovingly placed me under discipline, which led to my restoration and membership and also freeing me from enslavement to that addiction.

01:28:49

So I praise God for that. Let's see. We have

01:28:55

Bonita in Newcastle, New Hampshire, who asks, Have either of your guests ever doubted their salvation?

01:29:07

I'm assuming that Bonita is asking, not before you were saved, but as a seasoned

01:29:15

Christian. You know, I thank the

01:29:21

Lord that I have not had that struggle, Bonita. And I don't know why, because good and godly

01:29:27

Christians do have that struggle. But God has spared that for me, and I'm very grateful that just has not been a struggle that I have experienced.

01:29:37

How about you, Chuck? Yeah, I think I can say the same. The Bible says, the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

01:29:49

And in my 53 years as a Christian, I really have not had an occasion of seriously doubting my faith.

01:29:57

I would say this, though, if you are one who does, very often the very concern for that is a basis of assurance in itself.

01:30:08

Often those who are not saved don't really have much of a concern for it. They have a presumption.

01:30:15

So if you are concerned about that, it may very well be a basis for being assured that you are a child of God.

01:30:25

And praise the Lord at any time, if we are in doubt, we can always go to the cross and repent and believe.

01:30:36

Amen. And pastorally, Chuck, although after counseling with a person, you may have confidence that this is a true brother or sister unnecessarily struggling with this doubt.

01:30:58

At the same time, don't we as Christians have to be careful in desiring not to hurt the feelings of somebody who approaches us and says, you know,

01:31:07

I'm wondering if I'm saved or lost. That isn't a danger to too quickly say, oh, brother,

01:31:15

I wouldn't worry about that at all or what have you. I mean, can't we too quickly offer assurance before perhaps we even know the story as to why this person is experiencing the doubt?

01:31:26

Yeah, that's absolutely true, Chris. I am one who's committed to balance and often recognizing ditches on both sides of the truth.

01:31:35

And the one truth would be to be overly scrutinizing and the other would be to be too presumptuous.

01:31:44

So yeah, if a person came to me and I didn't know them, I would want to ask a lot of questions about how they're living and how they're thinking about their sins and what their disposition is.

01:31:58

And so I would have a lot of questions to ask before I gave any counsel. Ultimately, though,

01:32:04

I would see that I'm not the judge. I don't know any man or woman's heart. But First John is a letter, the first epistle written by the apostle

01:32:15

John near the back of the New Testament, which is very helpful for a person ascertaining whether they're in the faith or not.

01:32:22

John wrote it. He said that you may know that you have eternal life.

01:32:28

I write to you who believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you may know that you have eternal life. And in that letter of First John, he gives several tests of true faith.

01:32:39

You know, whether one confesses his or her sins on a regular basis, whether one seeks to walk as Jesus walked, whether one seeks to obey the commandments of God, not to earn salvation, but out of love for Christ, whether one loves other

01:32:53

Christians. So there are a number of very helpful tests by which one might evaluate him or herself to know whether they're in the faith.

01:33:05

We have a very faithful and loyal and generous supporter of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio sending in a question.

01:33:13

Grady from Asheboro, North Carolina. Greetings, Brother Chris and brother and sister

01:33:19

Volo. I heard of Billy Gothard in the past and that he had a large following.

01:33:27

But what I haven't heard is how that came about. Did he have a charismatic personality and people were drawn to him?

01:33:36

And is his that were drawn to him and his heretical teachings?

01:33:44

I missed just one word in that last part, Chris. Could you repeat the last sentence? Yes. Did he have a charismatic personality?

01:33:53

Yes. And people were drawn to him and his heretical teachings. And I assume

01:33:58

Grady means by that. Yeah. And I can say that I attended the

01:34:05

Bill Gothard Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts in the early 1970s.

01:34:11

And there were some profitable things to be gleaned from those seminars. Yeah, I would say his following is very much attributed to his personality.

01:34:22

He has a very calm manner, a very easy to listen to, winsome sense of humor and a lot of practical principles.

01:34:40

And so, yeah, very much. I think his following was due to his personality and his.

01:34:52

But it really ended up being something of a prosperity gospel. I don't know if Ginger mentioned that, but he's really promising success that if you follow these principles, you will have success.

01:35:04

And like Ginger said, he began to flourish in a time when there was a lot of counterculture rebellion.

01:35:10

It was the hippie era. People were concerned about their children going off the rails. And he was promising, you know, that your children be

01:35:19

OK if you only followed these principles. It was very formulaic. And so I think that also contributed to the large draw that he had.

01:35:28

He would fill large arenas of thousands of people. And I remember being part of that in the 1970s.

01:35:36

Now, when you said he preached a prosperity gospel, he was not a Pentecostal or in the word of faith movement, was he?

01:35:44

No, no, not the prosperity gospel in the sense of Benny Hinn and many others, but in the sense that just like the prosperity gospel says, if you do certain things, you will prosper in your health, you will prosper in your finances.

01:36:02

He was promising that if you followed these principles automatically, it would bring success to you, to your family, to your children.

01:36:11

So it was a variation on the theme, but it was still making promises, really, that God in his word doesn't make.

01:36:20

And by the way, Grady, and all of you who have sent in questions, who I have not declared this good news to, you have also won a free copy of Becoming Free Indeed, My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear by Ginger Duggar Volo, the daughter -in -law of my guests,

01:36:42

Chuck and Diana Volo. And that will be shipped out to you. Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:36:51

So please make sure you give us your full mailing address. And so we want to thank

01:36:57

Thomas Nelson for providing us a limited number of these free books, and also cvbbs .com

01:37:03

for shipping them out. And once again, anybody who is a first -time listener or a first -time questioner, let me know so you can also receive

01:37:14

New American Standard Bible provided by our friends at nasbible .com,

01:37:21

nasbible .com. We're going to our final break right now. If you have a question, please submit it as soon as you can, because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:37:31

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:37:37

Always give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question is a personal and private one.

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Kurt adds something to the discussion. I don't know if you are aware of this, Pastor Chuck and Diana, but Kurt says that Jeremy, your son, ran the

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Shepherds Conference shop a few years ago and bought 20 Spurgeon message pages from me to sell for the conference.

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So I thought you might want to know that. I'm sorry, what was that?

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Oh, I said it sounds like Jeremy. Sounds like the Shep Shop also. Yep. And I also want to remind our listeners, you've been hearing the ads for the

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Historical Bible Society is owned and operated by its founder and president,

01:50:37

Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law. And if you are the victim of a very serious personal injury or medical malpractice, no matter where you live in the

01:50:47

United States, please call 1 -800 -NOW -HURT 1 -800 -NOW -HURT or visit 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com

01:50:55

1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com And please mention to Daniel P.

01:51:00

Buttafuoco of Buttafuoco & Associates that you heard about his law firm on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:51:06

That's extremely important. Well, we're now back with our final segment of today's show.

01:51:13

And if you have a question, submit it immediately because we're almost out of time.

01:51:19

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

01:51:26

And we have Whitey in Cinnamon Sin, New Jersey.

01:51:32

And Whitey says, can you please explain what the unpardonable sin is?

01:51:38

That question comes up nearly every time there's any discussion on sin, on legalism, on assurance, on the necessity of repentance, anything that involves a warning about hell.

01:51:57

People want to know what the unpardonable sin is, and maybe because they're afraid they've committed it.

01:52:02

But if you could, Pastor Chuck, what is the unpardonable sin? Yeah.

01:52:08

Well, in my understanding, as it is recorded in Matthew 12, the

01:52:14

Pharisees were attributing to the devil the work that Jesus was doing by the

01:52:19

Holy Spirit. And I understand that to be not just a one time act of, you know, verbally cursing

01:52:30

God or the Holy Spirit, but a settled disposition of the heart or soul of resistance to the

01:52:41

Spirit of God as he tries to bring us to the truth that is in Jesus Christ.

01:52:48

And so one thing that's important to be said is many people who come concerned that they've committed the unpardonable sin or the blasphemy of the

01:52:59

Holy Spirit, by the very virtue of the fact that they're concerned that they've done that indicates that they have not.

01:53:07

Because someone who has so spurned the truth of God and spurned the ministry of the

01:53:13

Spirit to bring them to that truth really is not concerned about it. So anyone who is concerned about it has not really committed that sin.

01:53:23

So I think that's what it is. It's a settled disposition of soul, of resistance to the truth of God as presented by the

01:53:33

Holy Spirit. It's comparable to the biblical term reprobation, reprobation where God gives a person over to their own sin and they are beyond salvation.

01:53:45

Now, I don't know that we can ever discern when a person has reached that point, but according to the

01:53:51

Bible, a person can reach that point where they say enough times my will be done, my will be done, that God gives them over to their own will and they become reprobate.

01:54:03

They become unapproved. They become sealed in their unbelief and doomed to destruction.

01:54:10

So the way to avoid it is just to respond to every particle of truth from the word of God that we receive.

01:54:18

Especially to believingly receive the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is the only

01:54:25

Savior of sinners and we need to put our trust fully in him and he will take away all of our sins and our salvation will be secure.

01:54:36

Excellent. And that actually, doesn't that teaching that there actually exists an unpardonable sin, it is actually an added proof bolstering the true doctrine of particular redemption also known as definite atonement and limited atonement because obviously everyone for whom

01:55:01

Christ died could not have ever committed that sin because there is no sin so grievous, so wicked, so satanic that a member of God's elect could not be delivered from that sin and that sin could not be atoned for.

01:55:18

So isn't that a part of the arsenal that bolsters particular redemption?

01:55:28

Yeah, yeah, amen. Yeah, God's elect are chosen by the Father, purchased by the

01:55:35

Son and regenerated by the Holy Spirit and they have a life that cannot be lost.

01:55:42

The true believer can never blaspheme the Holy Spirit because he will be kept by the power of God through faith until the final salvation is revealed.

01:55:54

So the important thing is just make sure your faith is fully in Jesus Christ alone, his person, his finished work for the forgiveness of your sins and one need not fear that one has committed that unpardonable sin.

01:56:11

Well, thank you, Whitey. Say hello to Honky for me. And by the way,

01:56:17

Whitey, give us your full mailing address because you've also won Becoming Free Indeed, the book by Ginger Duggarvolo, the daughter -in -law of my guests right now.

01:56:28

And we, in fact, I don't have time for another question. So I'm just going to ask

01:56:35

Pastor Chuck and Diana to summarize what they most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:56:42

Pastor Chuck? Well, there's nothing more central, more foundational or more important than the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we are not saved by any of our own performance, any of our own doing.

01:56:57

But Jesus Christ, the son of God, came, lived a perfect life on our behalf to satisfy the demands of the law of God.

01:57:06

And then he died in our place, in the place of sinners, to pay the price in full for our sins.

01:57:13

So that by trust in him alone, we can instantly know that all our sins are forgiven and we are destined to live with God, with the triune

01:57:22

God, first in heaven, and then eventually on a new heavens and a new earth. And Diana?

01:57:29

Yes. You know, once we are a child of God, we understand that God has such a heart for orphans, for widows in distress, for children who are abused and suffering poverty and trauma.

01:57:45

And so if that is something that resonates with your heart to want to help care for those children, please look up our website, swan4kids .org,

01:57:55

see what we're doing. And you might want to become involved. It's a great website to visit.

01:58:02

You'll see pictures of our students learning, healing, and sharing their music with others.

01:58:09

And you'll hear video clips of what they do and wonderful stories of impact.

01:58:15

I think it will do your heart very good because our hearts are aligned with the God who cares so much for these children.

01:58:22

Amen. That's swan4kids .org. And also, please don't forget about the website for the

01:58:31

Gospel of Grace Community Church in Kinzers, Pennsylvania, which is gospelofgracecommunitychurch .com,

01:58:40

gospelofgracecommunitychurch .com. I want to thank you so much, Pastor Chuck and Diana for being such superb guests.

01:58:49

And also, I loved every minute of interviewing your daughter -in -law, Ginger, once again, during the first half hour of the program.

01:58:56

I look forward to all of you coming back on, and hopefully Jeremy can join us next time. Our pleasure,

01:59:03

Chris. We appreciate you and we appreciate the ministry that you're doing and especially those luncheons you host twice a year.

01:59:11

Very generous, very edifying. And by the way, folks, please, if you are a man in ministry leadership, mark on your calendar

01:59:18

Thursday, June 6th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., because my next free pastor's luncheon will feature

01:59:25

Dr. Joel Beeky. That will be Thursday, June 6th, 11 a .m.

01:59:31

to 2 p .m., 2024 at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater