October 5, 2017 Show with Justin Peters on “Do Not Hinder Them: A Biblical Examination of Childhood Conversion”

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

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this fifth day of October 2017, and I'm so delighted after a very long absence to have as a returning guest today

Justin Peters. Justin received his MDiv and his THM at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He's an evangelist and teacher having preached in 42 states and 23 countries. He's an author, radio host, and founder of Justin Peters Ministries, which is committed to expositional preaching and equipping believers to biblically engage false doctrine.

Today Justin Peters is going to address his new book, Do Not Hinder Them, a Biblical Examination of Childhood Conversion, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron after a very long time.

Justin Peters. Hey Chris, it's so good to be back with you. It was a pleasant surprise to get your call today.

Thank you for this invitation. It's my pleasure, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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

USA. Only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you are asking. And also,

Justin Peters is going to be speaking at the upcoming G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, the

G3 standing for Grace, Gospel, and Glory, and that is a conference that has been conducted annually for a number of years by Pastor Josh Bice and our friends at Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, and that's

Praise spelled P -R -A -Y apostrophe S, Mill Baptist Church, not like you might normally think it would be spelled, because it's actually named after a minister named

Pray, or one of the founding members of that church, perhaps over a hundred years ago,

I believe. But Justin, if you could, I think it would be very helpful for our listeners who have not heard you on Iron Trumpets Iron Radio, or perhaps for some reason they are unfamiliar with you and Justin Peters Ministries.

We do have listeners that are new believers that occasionally let us know that.

We even have listeners that are unbelievers. Some of them are Muslims, some of them are

Roman Catholics, some of them are from other backgrounds, and some of them just have no religious conviction at all.

So if you could, let our listeners who are unfamiliar with you know something about you, the religion of your childhood, and how our

Lord providentially drew you to Himself and saved you. Yes, Chris.

Well, my name is Justin Peters. I was born and reared in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and raised in a

Southern Baptist Church. And I made a profession of faith at a very young age, seven years old.

I say very young, that's not really very young for the Southern Baptist denomination, that's actually pretty typical for children to make professions of faith at five, six, seven, eight, nine years of age.

In fact, if you're nine years of age and you have not made a profession of faith in the Southern Baptist denomination, you're over the hill.

But I did, but I was not truly converted, and you mentioned in my book,

I Do Not Hinder Them, a Biblical Examination of Childhood Conversion. There's a big difference between a childlike faith and a childish faith.

And I had a childish faith. Now, I believe the basics of the Gospel, but that's not saving faith in and of itself.

It has a component of it, but it's not the totality of it. I did not come to genuine saving faith,

Chris, until much, much, much later. Actually, even after I graduated from seminary,

I was actually a preacher when I came to genuine faith in Christ. I had, there seemed to me to be a massive disconnect, a massive inherent contradiction within the

Gospel. On the one hand, I understood that salvation is not of works. I mean, I got that.

I understood that you could not help enough little old ladies across the street to earn your way into heaven.

That made sense to me. Our works are filthy rags. But what I didn't understand is that even though we would affirm that salvation is not of works, it's all of salvation by grace through faith, but then we would turn around and tell people that in order to be saved, you have to repent, which to me seemed like you were doing something.

I mean, repenting is doing something. And the way I viewed repentance is the way, unfortunately, most people view it.

You just kind of will yourself to turn from certain sins. You either stop doing what you have been doing but shouldn't have been doing, you know, or you start to do what you have not been doing but should have been doing.

So it seemed like a work. So how on the one hand can you say that salvation is not of works, but in order to be saved, we turn right around, tell people, well, they've got to repent, they've got to do a work.

So it seemed to me to be this massive inherent contradiction within the gospel itself.

But then God brought to me, absolutely broke me.

I mean, I never had an issue with admitting that I was a sinner. I knew that. But what I didn't have,

Chris, was what Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, when he talks about two different kinds of sorrow over sin, a worldly sorrow and a godly sorrow.

A worldly sorrow, basically, is just a guilty conscience, just realizing that you're a sinner, but that's as far as it goes.

A genuine, and Paul says that leads to death, but a genuine godly sorrow is that sorrow that is vertically oriented, that grieving over our sin.

And we grieve over our sin because we understand that our sin, first and foremost, grieves

God, and we don't want to grieve Him, and so it's a grieving over our sin. And also,

God granted to me genuine repentance, genuine repentance, and that was the missing piece for me, is that I did not understand that true repentance is, in and of itself, granted by God.

God grants us repentance. We can't do it on our own. God grants it to us per 2

Timothy 2 and Acts chapter 5 and Acts chapter 11. We see that genuine repentance is granted by God.

So that's the cliff note version. My full testimony is written out on my website,

JustinPeters .org. People can read the full testimony there. But let's see,

I am a preacher. I'm not a pastor. I'm an evangelist. I travel across the

United States, internationally preaching and teaching God's Word. Most of what

I do, it's not my only interest, but what I'm known for is this seminar that's entitled,

Clouds Without Water. It's a biblical critique of the health and wealth gospel, the prosperity gospel, these

TV creatures that say it's always God's will to be wealthy. It's always God's will to be physically healed.

Send me money, God will bless you. Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, Joseph Prince, these people that you see on TVN and Daystar.

This is this health and wealth prosperity gospel, and I teach against that, that this is not the real gospel.

They have a very distorted view of the nature of God, the person, work of Jesus Christ, a very distorted view of the atonement in a different gospel itself.

So that's the cliff note version. I hope I didn't go too far.

No, no, no, and in fact you and I have a mutual friend, and that is the nephew of one of those infamous names that you mentioned,

Kosti Hinn, the nephew of Benny Hinn, who actually repented of the

Word of Faith gospel, which she now very openly and frequently and strongly declares is a false gospel, the

Word of Faith movement, or should I say it possesses a false gospel and proclaims a false gospel.

And he is now, by the grace of God, not only a cessationist in his pneumatology, but he is a thoroughgoing believer in the doctrines of God's sovereign grace and a really biblically orthodox preacher and pastor and teacher.

And it was such a joy to have him on my program, Iron Trip and Zion. It was also a joy to watch the

YouTube of you interviewing Kosti. Hi. I tell you,

Chris, Kosti Hinn has become one of my dear friends, and I just can't tell you, he contacted me, called me

December the 20th, no, December the, whatever it was, December 28th, 29th of this past year.

Long story short, we made contact with one another, and he has just become one of my dear friends.

I'm just so grateful for him. What a good brother, and he loves the

Lord. He was, as you said, he was enmeshed in this heresy. In fact, he goes, look at his

Twitter description, I think it says, born into heresy, saved by God's grace, something to that effect. He's very clear now that even though he used to work for his uncle, flew all around the world with him, participated in Benny Hinn's miracle crusades.

In fact, Kosti and I realized, as we got to know one another more, we realized that he and I have been at some of the very same

Benny Hinn crusades together on different sides of the theological spectrum on the issue at the time, anyway.

But God saved him, graciously saved him. I don't know if it was five or six years ago or so, somewhere in that neighborhood, and he did exactly what you would expect a genuine

Christian to do. He came out of that deception. I don't want to, I know you've already had this guess,

I don't want to retread that ground, but it's so encouraging to me, because that's what you expect from a believer.

The Holy Spirit is not a weakling, Chris. And one of the great ironies in this whole issue is that people in the

Word of Faith movement and the hypercharismatic stuff, they would look at people like you and me and Kosti, who are,

I'm assuming this is a bit true about you, I'm not, maybe I'm speaking out of turn, but cessationists, and they would say, well you have a very, you have a low view of the

Holy Spirit, you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, you don't believe in his power. To the contrary, as a cessationist,

I am so confident in the person and power and constant working of God's Holy Spirit, that I do not believe that the

Holy Spirit would allow one of his own to stay and remain in that kind of deception.

Amen. If the Holy Spirit is strong enough to save us, he is strong enough to deliver us out of deception.

And so, Kosti did exactly what you would expect a believer to do, came out of that false gospel, and has embraced the true gospel, and loves his family, loves them dearly, but he loves

Christ more. And he loves his family enough to tell them the truth, to speak the truth to them in love, and I've seen

Kosti do that, I think he's just a wonderful example of Ephesians 4 .15

in action, speaking the truth in love. So yeah, getting to know

Kosti has truly been one of the highlights of my ministry thus far. Amen, and I look forward to having him back on the program.

He is returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I'm eagerly looking forward to that. He's going to be discussing the history of the

Word of Faith movement. The last time he was on, he was primarily giving his own personal testimony. And by the way, although I think that you're correct that a lot of Word of Faith movement adherents would think that you and I and other cessationists have a low view of the

Holy Spirit, I'm not sure if Kosti's uncle would think that, because, and you might think this is a strange thing to say, but you'll quickly know why

I'm saying it. Kosti, I don't know if he told you this, but he admitted on my show that his uncle, he is absolutely certain, and he has compelling evidence that he did not disclose on my program, but he is certain,

Kosti is certain, that his uncle is a knowing charlatan. It's not that he is just deceived by a false teaching himself.

Kosti is absolutely certain that he is a knowing and conscious charlatan and deceiver.

So he might, Benny Hinn might not look at us in any odd way theologically, because it appears that he may not even believe a lot of the things that he does himself.

Yeah. Which is a tragedy, obviously, for many millions that have been seduced by him.

Yeah, yeah, you're right, Chris, and I actually wrote my master's thesis on Benny Hinn.

That's right, I remember you saying that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so I know quite a bit about, and of course becoming friends with Kosti has been really enlightening to hear from him, and I'll say this,

I'm often asked, and I think Kosti would agree with me as we talk about this, I'm often asked, do these prosperity preachers know they're a fake, or are they deceived themselves, or do they know they're frauds?

That's one of the more common questions I get. Some of them are out -and -out charlatans.

I mean, what I would call the bottom feeders of the Word of Faith movement, you guys like Robert Tilton, Peter Popov, and Don Stewart, and Mike Murdock, I would throw it there as one of the bottom feeders.

Out -and -out frauds, and they know they are. Some of them actually do, at some level, believe what they're doing, but at the same time, they are also actively deceiving people.

Right. Paul, in 2nd Timothy 3, verses 12 and 13, he talks about those who are, he says, deceiving and being deceived.

In other words, there are people out there who are actively deceiving people, and Benny Hinn is one of them.

He knows that the people he claims are healed on his platform are not healed. He knows that.

He knows when he claims that he saw a man raised from the dead, that that did not happen. He knows that. He knows that he has offered dozens of false prophecies and false visions and all these, you know, and the stories that he makes up.

He knows he's deceiving people, and yet, there is that dynamic that can, both of these dynamics can be at work in the same person.

Even though he is actively deceiving people, somewhere, deep down, he actually is being deceived.

I think there is a part of him that thinks that he is actually doing the right thing, and both of those dynamics can be at work in the very same individual, deceiving and being deceived.

Yes. One person that I know personally very well who was caught up in that, and it was even a pastor in the

Word of Faith movement, and not only that, he was a talk show host on TBN. He was one of those individuals that was not knowingly deceiving people.

He actually believed this stuff, although the adherents of the

Word of Faith movement are not a cookie cutter of one another. He didn't buy into some of the more bizarre theological beliefs, hook, line, and sinker, like Jesus becoming a demonic entity on the cross, and bizarre, very blasphemous things like that.

But my friend, who's also a mutual friend of Kosti, John Sampson, he is now pastoring a

Reformed Baptist Church in Arizona, the King's Church, or King's Church, I should say, and he is not only theologically

Reformed now, but he is also a cessationist as well. And for our listeners, would you say that an inappropriate definition of a cessationist is a belief that the sign gifts have ceased with the apostolic era, with the ending of the apostolic era?

Correct. Yeah, and I'm glad you said that, Chris, because so many people have a misunderstanding, kind of like they do of Calvinism, a misunderstanding of cessationism.

They think, oh, if you're a cessationist, then you don't believe in the spiritual gifts. Well, yes, we do.

We do believe in the more normative service gifts like teaching, administration, and exhortation, gift of hospitality, the gift of giving.

Those gifts are very much in operation, and you see those gifts in every true biblical church.

You see them. What you don't see, however, are the sign gifts, the apostolic gifts, tongues, interpretation of tongues, miracles, physical healing.

Now, I do believe as a cessationist that God not only can, but does, physically heal people today.

Amen. He has the will to do so. Amen. But that's not the same thing as someone possessing the gift of healing.

That's not to say it's apples and oranges. That's two totally different things. When God wants to heal someone,

He does it, and He just does it. But nobody today is walking around who possesses the gift of healing, who can heal people at will, instantly, verifiably.

It's just that gift is not...it's passed out of operation. Nobody has that gift, and you see some of these people on television and on YouTube, like Todd White would be a good example.

This guy, Todd White, with dreadlocks, and he goes around supposedly healing people on the street.

He's going up to people at random, and he seemingly has incredible results. He will even, for example, command people's legs to grow about a half an inch or so.

He'll have somebody sit down in a chair, and he'll hold each of their feet in one of his hands, you know.

Their right foot and his left hand, and left foot and his right hand, because they're facing each other, obviously. And he'll show that one of their legs appears to be a little bit shorter than the other one, and he commands it.

He'll say, I just command you, leg, to grow. I command you to grow, leg. And you see the leg appear to grow right there on the camera.

Well, that's a trick. That's a part of a trick, and charlatans have been doing that for decades.

If Todd White could really heal people at will, if he really had the gift of healing, he could command legs to grow, then why can't he command cancer cells to die?

If he could really command healing, then the first place that guy ought to be going is St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

And if he can empty that place out, heal those kids dying of cancer, go there first.

I'll pay his expenses. I'll pay all of his expenses. And if he can go and heal even one child at St.

Jude Children's Research Hospital, but you wouldn't catch him. You wouldn't catch him in that place.

You know, not in a million years would you ever see him darken the doors of St. Jude. So these people are charlatans, absolutely.

Well, there's one person that I don't think is a charlatan, actually. He owns a barbecue place locally, and he got my waist to grow about 10 inches.

I'm waiting for the video of Todd White to go up to an amputee and that leg to grow.

That's what I'd like to see. Yeah, in fact, they typically avoid, like the plague, even people at their own healing services that are clearly people in that category, in wheelchairs, missing limbs, and things like that.

In fact, Johnny Erickson Tata, in her testimony, says that she was avoided at a healing service when she, not long after she had that horrible accident that left her a quadriplegic.

She went to some healing services and was avoided like the plague because they knew that they could not heal her, and this would be a more vivid evidence that they couldn't heal because she was truly and obviously a quadriplegic in a wheelchair.

That's right. And today she is just like we are, a cessationist. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And yeah, and Kosti, I didn't hear the interview you did with him. We may have already talked about this, but yeah, that's their modus operandi, these faith healers, whether it's

Benny Hinn or some other one. You'll never see someone that looks like Johnny Erickson Tata or someone that looks like me because, you know, we have disabilities that are obvious.

You'll never see an amputee get up on stage. You'll never see a Down Syndrome child get up on stage because those are disabilities, handicaps that are obvious.

You can't get any kind of healing just because you've got some emotionally charged music playing and going on and on in a closed environment, dim lights and, you know, everybody just getting all emotionally excited.

You know, no matter how excited I may get, no matter how happy I may be, you take my crutches away from me,

I'm going down. Right. So, you never, you know, I can't, psychosomatic healings don't work on me, don't work on Johnny Erickson Tata, don't work on a

Down Syndrome child. Those are the people that you never, ever, ever see get up on a platform, on a faith healers platform.

And they could never fall back on accusing someone with Down Syndrome of having a lack of faith because some of those

Christians that I have met who have Down Syndrome put my faith to shame. I mean, if they were up there believing fully in what was supposed to happen, they could not fall back.

I'm saying the faith healers, the so -called faith healers, could not fall back on blaming the one who has the ailment.

Yes, that's right. And by the way, you haven't really discussed yet your own particular personal affirmity.

Yeah, in fact, as I was just saying that about my crutches, I realized that probably not everybody understands.

I was born with cerebral palsy due to an injury either just before birth or during birth.

And so, I was born with CP. I have a moderate case of it. CP can be lighter than the case that I have.

It can also be far more severe than the case I have. I walk on crutches. I can walk on crutches for short distances, relatively short.

If it's longer, I'll need my electric scooter. But I mean,

I can, for the most part, I can dress myself. I can feed myself. I can speak.

Some people with CP, a lot of people with CP have their speech affected. God was gracious in that it did not affect my speech, not the particular flavor of CP I have.

But so yeah, so that's the reference there. But it seems that God put me right at the level of physical capability.

If my handicap were any worse than what it is, I wouldn't be able to travel and do what

I do. I wouldn't be able to travel and preach and teach. He put me right on that threshold.

If I was any more involved in what I have with the CP, I couldn't do what I do. But He's very gracious.

So yeah, so that might have filled in the blanks a little bit. Yeah, well I already know that I definitely have to have you back again in the future to give a fuller treatment of your book, the new book that you've written, that we will be discussing in our following half -hour coming up after the break,

Do Not Hinder Them, A Biblical Examination of Childhood Conversion. But since it was so long since I had you on the program,

I thought it was very important to give this side of your life, and this is the very reason that you mentioned the infirmity that you were born with, is one of the major reasons that you specifically are seeking to expose the

Word of Faith movement, because they are doing such harm, not only physically, perhaps deceiving people into believing that they're well and healed when they still have perhaps a deadly or terminal disease, but also mentally and emotionally and spiritually.

And this is one of the core reasons that you have set out on a mission to expose these individuals, am

I correct? Yes, that's exactly correct, Chris. Not only is there profound physical harm being done to people, people are being exploited, the poor, the sick, the desperate, the widows are being exploited for financial gain, so these prosperity preachers can fly around in private jets and stay in fancy hotel rooms and drive

Bentleys and all that, that's horrible, horrible what's going on, that's egregious enough, but what is even worse than that is that they are distorting the gospel itself, they're bringing reproach on the name of Christ, they are preaching a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different gospel does not save.

So they're bringing reproach on the precious name of Christ himself, bringing reproach on the gospel, and they are leading people to hell.

They are leading people to hell by their, and see, the greatest threat to Christianity doesn't come from Buddhism or Islam or something like that, it doesn't come from without, it comes from within.

It comes from those people who profess to be believers but are not truly believers because they preach a tainted gospel, a little bit of truth, there is some truth there, but it's mixed in with a great deal of error and heresy.

Amen. Well we're going to go to a brief break right now and when we come back we're actually going to be discussing the book, the new book by Justin Peters, Do Not Hinder Them, A Biblical Examination of Childhood Conversion.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, God willing we will be right back after these brief messages with Justin Peters.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And one of those voices that you heard, not the last one but the one before that, to the person imitating

Charles Hedden Spurgeon, is the brother I was just mentioning earlier to our guest

Justin Peters, John Sampson, who was originally from England and now pastors King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, a

Reformed Baptist congregation. And as I was saying earlier, Pastor Sampson was an adherent of the

Word of Faith movement at one time. In fact, not only an adherent but a pastor and a talk show host on TBN representing that heresy.

And he came to, by God's sovereign grace, the doctrines of God's sovereign race and also a cessationist position on pneumatology.

And he has a wonderful and growing church there in Peoria, Arizona. We are interviewing right now

Justin Peters, the founder of Justin Peters Ministries, and we are discussing his new book,

Do Not Hinder Them, a biblical examination of childhood conversion. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We do have a few people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but I want to get a little bit into this discussion before I read their questions.

And even before we go into the subject, Justin, I know that you are one of the featured speakers at the upcoming

G3 conference, which is being held in Atlanta, Georgia, and that is the 18th through the 20th of January when that conference will be held on the theme,

Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. Do you know yet what your topic under that umbrella, that main theme

I just mentioned, what your specific theme personally is going to be there? Yeah, it is a little garbled there,

Chris. Did you ask me what I'll be speaking on at the conference? Yes, that's exactly what I asked. Okay.

Yes, I will be giving a very brief overview of my seminar, Clouds Without Water, a

Biblical Critique of the Word of Faith Movement. So my challenge is to somehow condense about eight hours of teaching into 50 minutes, so it'll be a just kind of a bird's -eye view of the

Word of Faith Movement, outlining some of the major heresies in it, like the

Little God's Doctrine and Positive Confession, and the guaranteed promise of money and healing, and I'll probably also emphasize the sufficiency of Scripture, which the

Word of Faith Movement absolutely rejects, as does Roman Catholicism as well.

So I'll talk about how God does and does not speak to us, and those kinds of things, but yeah,

I'll have video clips of these individuals. I have video clips of Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland and Todd White.

So one of the things that I hope is a strength of my seminars is not just me saying, well,

Benny Hinn said so and so, or Kenneth Copeland said so and so. I have the video clips, and so I'll let people see and hear for themselves what they actually teach.

Perfect. And then point -by -point correct it from Scripture. So that's what we'll be doing.

And if anybody wants more information on registering for the G3 Conference, again that's January 18th through the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia, go to g3conference .com

g3conference .com. The G3 stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory. I will be there, God willing, again with an

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor's booth thanks to my friend Josh Bice and the folks at Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, and also thanks to my sponsors

Battery Depot .com and Lindbrook Baptist Church on Long Island, New York, and also the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible who are paying for my travel for these various conferences and events where I am manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

But we'll be giving you more details about the G3 Conference later on in the program during the second hour.

Now this book, this new book, Do Not Hinder Them, it seems to be a few steps away from the main focus of your ministry, obviously, and I think it might be helpful and important for you to give us a little explanation on where you are in regard to the biblical ordinance of baptism because of the fact that there are very good friends and brothers and sisters in the

Paedo -Baptist community, those that believe in infant baptism, who say that all

Baptists are hindering children, and they will very often use the quote from Jesus Christ himself when he was blessing children and he was rebuking those that were hindering children to come to him.

But if you could tell us where you specifically are coming from and what kind of a church you are a member of, etc.

Sure, sure Chris. Of course my background in being raised with Southern Baptists, but we go to a non -denominational church, my wife and I, Kathy and I, go to a non -denominational church now up here in northern

Idaho. We go to Kootenai Community Church, and so it's not affiliated with any kind of a denomination, but we are

Doctrines of Grace in our soteriology. We have elders, very biblically qualified elders.

Theologically, we would fall right along lines of John MacArthur and where he is. Baptistic.

What's that? Baptistic. You believe in Credo -Baptism or the baptism of believers only, correct?

Yes, right, right. In regards to baptism, yes, I would be Credo -Baptistic.

I do believe that the baptism is for believers, people who have come to a place of genuine faith and repentance, come to become adopted into the family of God through faith and repentance in Christ and his work on the cross.

Now, as you said, there are compatriots in the gospel who believe in Credo -Baptism, baptizing infants, and of course they would be, you know, some of the conservative

Presbyterians, for example, would fall in that camp, and we're certainly compatriots in the gospel together, but I do write my book from the standpoint of Credo -Baptism, that baptism is for believers who have professed faith in Christ, and there's evidence in their lives of having been regenerated.

So my book is, I hate to say the title is misleading, not that it's misleading, but maybe counterintuitive just a little bit, because basically,

Chris, my book deals with some of the precautions that we need to take with children before we baptize them.

Just because a child has made intellectual ascent to some of the basics of the gospel does not mean that regeneration has taken place, does not mean that that child truly understands in a saving way the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And in my book, I contrast the nature of children with the nature of salvation, and when you look through the language of salvation in the

New Testament, it is rather adult -sounding language. We are to deny ourselves, and that's a very strong word in the

Greek, that word for deny, same word used when Peter denied Christ. We are to deny ourselves, we are to take up the cross, and today we've really lost sight of the impact of those words from Christ, taking up the cross.

We just think of taking up the cross as making it through some tough times. I've had people over the years come up to me and they'll say,

Justin, you bear your cross well, referring to my cerebral palsy. Well, my cerebral palsy is not a cross.

My handicap is not a cross. Arthritis is not a cross. Losing your job is not a cross.

Are they trials? Yes, they are. They are trials, but that's not, they're not crosses.

Jesus was saying we must be willing to die for the gospel if called upon to do so.

And so I contrast this, and one of the points that I make is that, speaking from my own denominational background,

Southern Baptist, as I said earlier in our interview, Chris, you know, if you're raised Southern Baptist and you're nine years old and you haven't yet been baptized, you are over the hill.

People say, you know, what's wrong with that kid? Why hadn't he been baptized?

All those other friends were baptized two years ago. What's going on there? It becomes very little different from being a paedo -baptist, because just as a paedo -baptist, when they baptize an infant, there is no evidence of repentance and faith in that infant.

And the same is going very often with those in the Bible Belt, especially it seems, who have a baptistic understanding of the ordinance.

They are automatically very often baptizing their children, regardless of any evidence of repentance and faith, just because they turn a certain age.

Exactly, exactly. A Baptist pastor friend of mine said one time to me, he said, as Baptists we don't believe in infant baptism, we just practice it.

And it is interesting, they are basically paedo -baptists literally, because the term actually just means child baptism, it doesn't even mean infant baptism.

So even though we use it that way, we use it to identify infant baptism.

One of the points I make in my book, Chris, is that, you know, it's very common, as I said, for a child who is five, six, seven, eight years old to be baptized in Southern Baptist Church because he's made intellectual ascent to some basics of the gospel.

But a lot of six, seven, eight year old children believe in Santa Claus, too.

Think about that for just a minute. So we are going to trust a child whose intellectual capacity allows for the belief in a fat man in a red suit who's pulled all around the world on one night on a sled by a team of flying reindeer.

We're going to trust that same child whose intellectual capacity allows for belief in something like that.

We're going to trust that same child to be able to wrestle with sin, repentance, brokenness before a holy

God, a godly sorrow, eternity, the wrath of God, taking up the cross.

You know, it is a... I believe that baptizing children is one of the most dramatic departures that evangelicalism has from what we see in the

New Testament. I mean, you look through the New Testament, you won't find any children being baptized. They're just not there.

No children are baptized, no children are even referred to as disciples in the New Testament, because saving...

the language of salvation in the New Testament is... it is adult -sounding language.

It requires an adult level of understanding that children just, you know, really are not truly capable of.

Now, God can and does save whomever He wants to save, but if salvation...

if God does save a young person, then that young person does not get a junior

Holy Spirit. He receives the same Holy Spirit that we all do. And there should be a change, a marked change, in that person's life.

There should be a godly sorrow over sin, genuine repentance, a hunger for the Word of God, a desire for holiness, a pursuit of truth, a mortification of sin, there should be a love for the brethren.

All of these are marks, proofs, of regeneration, of being in union with the

Lord Jesus. So if you're... I'm not saying... and I have a whole chapter on this in my book, but I encourage people, absolutely,

I encourage parents, teach your children the gospel, absolutely. Teach them God's Word, teach them the gospel, encourage them.

You don't want to discourage them if they profess faith in Christ, you want to encourage that, but wait.

Wait on their baptism. Give them an extended period of time to see if they are bearing genuine fruit in keeping with repentance.

I think that... Go ahead. I was just gonna say, I think the Apostle Paul spoke to this, even though he wasn't specifically addressing baptism,

I think his words are very powerful and very appropriate for this discussion. In 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11, he says,

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child.

When I became a man, I did away with childish things. So the thing that would be odd is that if you are baptizing a person at a stage in their life when they are still holding on to childish things, and therefore they're not really counting the cost, they're not really absorbing mentally what it really means to repent and believe upon Christ, they may have some very basic understanding of who

Jesus is, but another thing, wouldn't you say that the reason why a child's profession is very suspect is because children of Christians, in fact children of anyone, are likely going to be parroting what their parents and what their siblings say.

Just because a child sings at church, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, doesn't really mean that that child understands who

Jesus is, doesn't mean that he understands, or she, I should say also, doesn't mean that they understand what the sacrifice on Calvary really meant, etc.

Am I correct on this? You're exactly, exactly right,

Chris, and one of the points I've made, too, in my teaching, if you take an eight -year -old child raised in an evangelical home, that child is going to adopt the worldview of his parents.

Now he may be very sincere in his beliefs, but it doesn't mean he's on those beliefs, it doesn't mean he really understands, but if you were to take that same child, that same exact child, and raise that child in India, he'd be a

Hindu. You take that same child and raise him in Thailand, he'd be a

Buddhist. You take that same child and raise him in Syria, he'll be a

Muslim. Children adopt the worldview of their parents, that's all they know, they have no life experiences to fall back on, they've never been tested, they've never, you know, that's just the children by their nature are malleable.

And in fact, Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 14, he says, "...do not be like little children tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men."

Children are easily tossed to and fro, and they will adopt the worldview of whatever environment it is in which they find themselves.

That's the nature of children. So, of course, you know, if you're evangelical and going to an evangelical church regularly, of course your child is going to make intellectual ascent to the gospel.

But if you had been raising that same child as a Buddhist, he'd be a Buddhist. Raise that same child as a

Hindu, he'd be a Hindu. So, just because they've made some intellectual ascent to something doesn't mean that they owned it and they understand it.

It doesn't mean it's in their DNA and it's who they are, because children are easily tossed to and fro.

And I'm glad you quoted that out, 1 Corinthians 13, because it's a text that I deal with a lot. There's a difference.

Paul says, when I was a child, I used to think like a child, reason like a child, speak like a child. But when I became a man,

I did away with childish things. There's just a difference between children and adults, and so we've got to be very, very careful.

Well, we better go to the listener questions so we could get as many as we possibly can before you go off the air.

David in Ada, Ohio, he asks a question that has divided Christians for centuries and even still divides

Christians in the same theological camp and possibly in the same pew at church.

Where do infants go when they die before conversion and or before they are old enough to know the difference between good and evil?

Yeah, great question. I actually have a chapter in my book on that issue as well.

Now, not everyone would agree with me on this. Not all who hold to the doctrines of grace would agree with me, but I come down that, yes, children are born sinners.

We are sinners by nature, by birth, and so I believe in original sin, but neither are children doing what

Paul talks about in Romans 118. They are not suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

I believe that when a child, a baby, a miscarriage, an abortion, a baby who dies, a young child who dies,

I believe that they go to heaven. I believe that they, that God saved, they are saved the same way we are, by grace, but God just extends his grace to them, and I flesh that out much more in my book.

John MacArthur has a good book on that subject, by the way, as well, entitled Safe in the Arms of God, and he deals with it much more fully than what

I do in one chapter. He has a whole book on it. Yes, and obviously, and by the way, I agree with you on that, and Charles Spurgeon agreed with you on that, and in addition to a contemporary voice like John MacArthur, Al Mohler agrees with you on that, and obviously, that doesn't prove anything, but you're in good company when

Charles Spurgeon and John MacArthur and Al Mohler are in agreement with you, but this would also imply that these children were of the elect, that God permitted them to die without faith because they were already, before the foundation of the world, among his elect and therefore were ushered into his arms at the moment of death.

Yes, I agree with that, and no one's death, no matter how young, takes

God by surprise, so it's all under the umbrella of God's sovereignty, and when you think about that,

Chris, when you think about how many miscarriages there had been, how many abortions there had been, how many children who have died at early ages, when you add that number up,

I tell you what, there's gonna be a lot of people in heaven. There's gonna be a lot of people in heaven. Amen, and of course,

David knew that his son, who died as a chastisement from his adultery and murder, his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah the

Hittite, that baby that was born from adultery, died as a result of God's chastisement, but David knew that he would return to that child.

Yes, yes, that's exactly right, sure did. And I can't see how that could mean the grave as many protests, because how is that something that gave him comfort?

I have no idea, but we have

David, another David, this one in Bakersfield, California, and I have to enlarge

David's email because the font is microscopic, and I'm 56 years old and in need of new glasses.

Well, I'll be 56, I'm 55, I'm aging myself, I'll be 56 in February. David, I'm sorry, it's not

David, it's Daniel in Bakersfield, California. My question for Justin is, I have two children of my own, one is six and the other is three.

I try to constantly remind them that we are all sinners and we need Jesus as our

Savior, but I don't lead the conversation into any sort of sinner's prayer with them.

I was wondering how much should I motivate them to make a confession, or should

I motivate them at all? Should I just share the gospel with them until they ask about how they can repent?

I don't want to push them into a false notion of salvation. Right, another good question, appreciate that,

Daniel. Yes, the latter option is what you need to do. You're wise not to lead your children into a sinner's prayer.

For one thing, the sinner's prayer is not even in the Bible, and children are very malleable. I mean, I tell them, you can give me any seven -year -old child with no religious background whatsoever, and give me 15 minutes with that kid, in 15 minutes

I'll have him pray in the sinner's prayer. That's just the way children are. So how many people have been led into a false sense of their salvation simply because they prayed a prayer when they were six, seven years old?

They got baptized, and they think they're okay. They may be living in a visual independent sin as an adult, but oh no,

I'm okay because I prayed that prayer when I was a kid. I wrote down the date in my Bible, and I was told if I ever doubted my salvation,

I'd go back and I'll look at that date. Nope, don't even doubt my salvation. So, and I know that Daniel was not doing this, but this is what is happening.

And so Daniel, if you're listening, you're very wise. Wait. Just do what you said in the latter option there.

Continue to read God's Word to your kids. Teach them the Bible. Have those times with them.

Encourage them, but yes, don't lead them in a sinner's prayer, to use that term.

Wait. Wait until they're older. I say in my book, well into their teenage years before you baptize.

Wait until, I mean, at least that, and at least until their upper teenage years. Wait until they have an opportunity, until they have chances to be tempted, real temptation, and a temptation something beyond, you know, not picking up your toys when you're told to.

I mean, real temptation. Alcohol, sexual temptation.

Wait until they have, they come across some persecution, and then see how they handle it.

Then see if their their faith is still as real to them as they thought that it was when they were kids.

So yeah, so wait. Yeah. We have Joe in Slovenia. Thanks so much for having

Justin Peters. He is one of my favorite polemicists. I work weekly with a child evangelism fellowship,

Good News Club for children. As part of each week's program, an evangelistic Bible story is presented to the children.

Usually it is mildly to overtly synergistic, depending on who is making the presentation.

This, as you would expect, is accomplished by using Bible passages out of context and applying them generally to all people indiscriminately instead of contextually.

What type of advice and coaching would you give about how to present the gospel to children without engaging in semi -Pelagianism,

Arminianism, or decisionism? How would one go about talking to other presenters concerning this issue toward the goal of helping them tone down or eliminate the synergism?

Yeah, well, by nature and by conviction—well, I probably shouldn't say by nature—by my new nature and conviction,

I recoil at any hint of synergism, because I think it really betrays a lack of confidence in the gospel and the salvific work of the

Holy Spirit. So yeah, don't water down the gospel for kids.

I remember a couple years ago, Kathy and I, we were aware of this—we knew this 11 -year -old boy at the time, 11 years old, and we were at a church service—actually

John MacArthur's church—on Easter Sunday a couple years ago, and he preached a graphic message out of Revelation about what the tribulation's going to look like, some of the persecution, and the parents of this young boy—and they don't go to MacArthur's church, they go somewhere else, but they were just visiting with us—they were considering baptism for their 11 -year -old, and the parents were actually really upset at the sermon because they thought it was too much for their son to hear, it was too graphic for their son to hear, and he's not ready for that.

Kathy and I were talking about that later, and we said, well, you know, if he's not ready for that, kind of talk, that he's not ready to be baptized.

So don't water it down. Teach them the

Scriptures in context, and then you just trust in God's sovereignty that when the time is right, when that Galatians 1, 15, and 16, when

Paul says, when it please God to reveal Christ in me, you trust the

Lord's sovereignty that the time will come when it pleases God to reveal Christ to these children in all likelihood once they're older.

That time will come, and you can't rush that time, you can't delay it, it's appointed time, it will happen, if that's

God's sovereign will for it to happen. So I don't agree with baptizing any children.

I just, I don't. One thing as we talked about, if a young child dies, they're safe in the arms of God anyway, so what is it from which they are being saved if they're not, wouldn't even be subject to the wrath of God in the first place at that age?

So I'm all about teaching kids the Bible, the Gospel, I have a whole chapter in my book about that, but I absolutely believe that we should be waiting at least well into their teenage years before we baptize them.

So, and I would say to this gentleman, if your conscience is violated by that, then you know, you might need to do something.

We have one last question that we have time for. Abraham in Meridian, Idaho.

Abraham says, what resource or resources would you recommend to disciple a child who has demonstrated an openness to the

Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? I'm in a situation where a senior pastor has pressured us for my 11 -year -old son not being baptized.

Unfortunately, we have at least 10 children in our congregation that have had been baptized at age eight.

So if you could respond to that as briefly as you can, and I know that you have to leave early today, so that is our final question that we have time for.

Okay, sure, there's some great resources available at GTY, Grace to You, for children.

Fundamentals of the Faith is a good, it's not necessarily for children, but it's a good kind of a primer on some of the basics of the

Gospel and the Bible and theology. So I would recommend that.

Let's see, what was the second part of the question? I'm in a situation where a senior pastor has pressured us for my 11 -year -old son not being baptized.

Well, obviously, I think you would agree with that. And then he says, unfortunately, we have at least 10 children in our congregation that had been baptized at age eight.

So it seems like this person's child or children are being singled out.

Yeah, yeah, see, that's unfortunate, too. If I were a pastor, and I'm not a pastor, but if I were,

I would set a minimum age. If I were pastoring, I even say in my book, upper teenage years,

I would encourage your church to set a minimum age, age 15.

At least somewhere in there, say, no matter what, we're not going to baptize anybody under this age.

And that takes that issue that you just mentioned off the table. So it'll take away the potential for disagreement and hurt feelings, say, oh, well, you baptized little

Billy over here, why won't you baptize my little Johnny? Because little Johnny set fire to the church.

Yes, set a minimum age, and that takes away, that takes that off the table as far as, you know, people's feelings being hurt.

Just don't baptize any child under age, say, let's go with it, 15, 16, somewhere in there.

And then have every church,

I believe, before they baptize anyone, regardless of their age, I don't care if we're talking about a 70 -year -old man, have that person give his or her testimony.

If a person cannot give a testimony about how they came to saving faith in Christ, about how

Christ has changed them, then they're not ready to be baptized. Have them give a testimony instead of just asking the typical, do you believe

Jesus died on the cross, was raised from the dead? Yes. Do you accept him as your personal Lord and Savior? Yes.

Well, I baptized you, my brother or sister, you know, on that profession of faith. No, that's not a profession of faith, that's just answering a couple of questions with one word.

Have that person give a testimony. And I guarantee you, if you require people to give their testimony to the elders of the church, to everyone at the baptismal service, they can read it, that's fine.

You can write it out, that's fine, perfectly fine. If they're nervous, that's understandable. But have them, if they can't write out a testimony, if they can't give their testimony, then they're not ready to be baptized.

And if you require people to give their testimony, that will weed out the vast, vast majority of people who really and truly are not ready.

And on the flip side of that, on the more positive side of that, what an encouragement for the church to hear people give their testimony.

I can't tell you how encouraged I've been by listening to people give their testimony as they were, right as they were being baptized.

What a great encouragement. It honors the gospel, it honors Christ, adorns the gospel. So those two things,

I would say. Well, I thank you so much for staying with us five minutes over the time you agreed to,

Justin. And if anybody wants to find out more about Justin Peters' website, it's justinpeters .org,

justinpeters .org. I would love to have you come back very soon to give a more thorough treatment of your book and even to discuss the

Word of Faith movement and many other things, Justin. So keep an eye open for an email from me inviting you back. I'd love to do it,

Chris. Anytime, brother. Thank you. Well, thank you for being such a wonderful guest again today. God bless you, brother.

God bless you, too. Bye -bye. And I hope that you all stay tuned, don't go away, because for the next hour, the second hour of Iron Trump and Zion Radio, we are going to be joined,

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We're going to be hearing an update from him on how he made it through the recent hurricane in Florida, which is his new home and new location for the headquarters of Solid Ground Christian Books.

And we'll be hearing about new books that he has in print, whether they are reprints of old books or new books by contemporary authors.

So please don't go away, because God willing, we're going to be right back with Mike Gaydosh of Solid Ground Christian Books.

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Not only is it free to get in, you will not be sold anything at this event, and not only will you be fed physically with delicious food for free and spiritually with a message from Bill Shishko for free, but you're also going to be leaving that event for free with a sack of free books donated by nearly every major Christian publisher in the

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chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line. Now, we are finally back to the program, and we are going to beginning a discussion with my friend, my very first pastor as a born -again believer,

Mike Gaydosh, who is also the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Mike Gaydosh. Well, thank you, Brother Chris. I appreciate your ministry and the opportunity to be able to to be on today.

I'm glad to be able to follow Justin Peters and his focus on ministering to the children and child conversion.

I was actually thinking about the many, many books that I have published for children and have a whole slew of them that I would like to be able to mention, at least during the next 40 minutes or so.

The first author that I would like to feature, is it okay if I do this?

Oh yeah, quite all right. Okay, what I'd like to do, the first thing I'd like to do is to feature the books of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, or Gallaudet.

He is known today for Gallaudet University, which is the university in Washington, D .C.

that is for the education of the deaf. It's a center in our country.

Gallaudet was the first man to bring deaf education to America back in the early 1820s.

After he had established that firmly, he began to focus his attention on writing books for the young.

He has some just amazing books that he wrote. He has a series that he did that were called the

Child's Book. He has the Child's Book on the Fall, the Child's Book on the Soul, the Child's Book on Repentance, the

Child's Book on the Sabbath. Those books have been just amazing, just amazing books that God has used in the lives of many, many people throughout the world.

In fact, I wanted to give you a sample of something he did. There's also a series that I've published of his called

Scripture Biographies for the Young. I have so far published six volumes.

The first five are in order, beginning with Adam, and going the last so far that I've published goes to Judges, the

Book of Judges. I wanted to give your listeners a sample of his writing to children from the story of the history of Joseph.

This is right after the brothers have sold him into slavery and have returned with the coat of many colors that's now been dipped in blood.

Of course, they allow their father to make the assumption that he had been killed by a wild beast.

Then we are told that the sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. Then this is what

Gallaudet says. He says, Jacob's sons trying to comfort him for the loss of Joseph, whom they themselves had sold into bondage and sent far away from his affectionate father.

They pretending to mingle their sorrow with his when they were secretly rejoicing at the event which occasioned it.

They endeavoring to allay his grief when the deception which they had practiced was the reason why the grief was so excessive.

They calling upon him to dry up his tears when they had it in their power by simply telling him that Joseph was yet alive to furnish a consolation which

Jacob came with which would have turned those tears of sadness to tears of joy.

What base deceivers, what wicked hypocrites, what ungrateful and cruel children.

How is their guilt increasing and how great must be the displeasure of God against them?

You see in all this your own danger. And this is where I love what Gallaudet does, is he turns from the deception of the sons of Jacob to the reader.

And he says, you see in all this your own danger. If you go on indulging sinful thoughts and feelings and committing sinful actions, stop and think of this danger.

Think especially of one striking thing which marked the progress of Joseph's brethren in guilt.

I mean their resort to deception and forfeit. Remember that those who are guilty of wicked conduct wish and strive to conceal it.

Have you not always found it to be so? When you have said or done anything which you knew to be wrong, but those who wish to conceal their evil conduct are strongly tempted to do this by some kind of artifice or even by a downright lie.

You know it is a common saying that those who steal will also lie. It is true.

And it is equally true that those who commit wickedness of whatever kind will practice deception and tell a falsehood rather than be detected.

How mean and cowardly as well as sinful it is to be a liar. Lying lips are an abomination to the

Lord, but they that truly are his delight. Liars shall have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

Fear then to sin. Fear all wicked thoughts and feelings and conduct, for these will lead you to deceive.

And if in your opinion there is great danger of detection, to lie. There is no security against this, but in loving and obeying

God. Have you a heart thus disposed to love and obey him? If you have not, think of the sons of Jacob.

Think of their very wicked conduct toward their brother and father. It all proceeded from their evil hearts."

Wow, powerful stuff. He just wrote, I think his having learned to teach the deaf, which necessitated an incredible amount of patience, is what prepared him to write these books that he wrote in using language and terms that would communicate to the young.

And I just have found his books, particularly the book on the soul, the child's book on repentance, that probably along with the child's book on the fall has sold the most of all of his books.

So anyway, he's the first one that I wanted to be able to introduce your readers to.

He was a man who lived back in the early 1800s. He lived from 1787 until 1851.

And you know, I'd like to, before I have to interrupt you in mid -sentence, I'd like to go to our final break, which is just two commercials, and then

I'll let you come back and promote any of the other books that you wanted to highlight today. Okay.

And this will be our final break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these final messages.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Sarnes, and if you just tuned us in, our guest for the final hour of the program, with about 31 minutes to go, is

Mike Gaydosh, my very first pastor as a believer in Christ. He is also the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books, and we are discussing books that he has available in print, both from the past and also from contemporary

Christian authors. If you'd like to join us on the air with an email, with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com, chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

And before we go into any more books, I just wanted to get an update from you on how you weathered through the recent hurricane down there in Florida in your new home.

It's ironic that you moved there, and a week later you get hit with a massive hurricane, but if you could tell us about that.

Yeah, yeah, it was a nice welcome to Florida. We left St. Lucie on August 18th and closed on the house here, and less than two weeks later we're hearing of an historic hurricane that was about to belt the entire state of Florida, and it did.

It hit us hard, but God is gracious. We didn't even lose a shingle from the house.

We did lose branches from trees and palm trees and things, and it took about a week to clean up afterwards, but no water damage at all, and the house stood strong.

We're very, very grateful. It was a rough time. We went five days without power, and that was hard.

The business itself was shut down for almost 10 days, and so it led to our worst sales month in 12 years in September, which was not shocking under the circumstances.

I mean, we were very thankful to be able to keep working and producing work.

My wife is now my assistant. She's the one that's working alongside of me and is doing a great job.

Our office is better organized than it's ever been, and we're up and serving once again, so we're very, very thankful.

I appreciate your concern. Well, yeah, and that's an extra motivation for our listeners to purchase books from Solid Ground Christian Books to help you overcome the loss from that month, the worst sales month in your history.

So please, if you're listening, with all the holidays coming up, please go to solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com, and order all of your gifts, or at least a lot of them, from Solid Ground Christian Books.

They have a huge assortment there, and one thing that you can count on is that you don't have to worry about getting some bizarre or heretical book from Solid Ground Christian Books.

It's all very solid, as the title indicates, as the name indicates. But since you're talking about books for youth, now this book that I'm going to mention is a book for young and old, but it is intended for youth, or young men in specific.

Thoughts for Young Men, a member of, well, actually he's not a member of Grace Baptist Church here in Carlisle, but he was here for,

I believe, a year, or close to a year, doing some work with the local

War College. But Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard, who's a United States Marine, and he's also a co -pastor, along with Ray Rhodes, who

I know that you are familiar with. Oh, yes, of course. And he was blown away by your edition of Thoughts for Young Men, and I actually reminded him, or informed him,

I should say, for the first time. Did you know that the Solid Ground Christian Books, or Mike Gaydosh specifically, was the first to take that work for young men out of a larger work by J .C.

Ryle and put it separately in its own book form? And he is thrilled with it. He loves the cover with the

Marines and so on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that really was the first book that got me involved in publishing.

It wasn't something I'd ever planned to do. I was pastoring, as you know, and I had been using the material,

Thoughts for Young Men, by Ryle, that I had found in the middle of the book, The Upper Room, that Banner of Truth had been publishing.

And unfortunately, because that volume was so huge and was filled with a whole bunch of different articles, the young men for whom that material was meant rarely would have gotten their hands on it.

And I decided to do it as a separate, standalone piece, which originally it was done that way.

I, in fact, was given a copy of one of the first printings of that book from back in the 1800s.

And obviously, it originally was found as a small book, and we brought it back out again.

And thanks to the help of one of the men in our church, we were able to do 10 ,000 copies back in 1991, the beginning of 1991.

And all 10 ,000 copies sold the first six months. They went all over the world. And I've shared with you before that the buyer now at Westminster Book Service was converted through reading that book.

He himself is Korean, and he was in Australia, and somehow he came across that copy that we had published in Long Island at Calvary Press, and the

Lord saved him through that. And so, you know, we've heard some pretty amazing stories of how

God has used that. Now, since that time, many, many other publishers have picked up and have started to do it.

But I'm thankful that we were the first ones to do it, and at least the first ones in probably 100 years that it had been available again.

And so, I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to do a new edition. And the reason why we put the

Marines on the cover, one of whom is my son Tim, was that we had gotten a request from a chaplain who was in Afghanistan at the time, and he had asked for 200 copies of Thoughts for Young Men.

And I was in need of doing a new print run and decided that that would be a great time to do not just a new print run, but put a new cover on it.

And so, I found that picture for my son when he was in Afghanistan. And so, of course, since they were going to Marines in Afghanistan, it was the perfect picture to put on the cover.

And I'm very thankful for the opportunity that God has given us to be able to publish that book, as well as so many others.

I wanted to mention as well a couple of other authors whose books we've published and have been really, really used of God to speak to the hearts of both young and old alike.

The first one is a man named John Todd. And John Todd lived from 1800 to 1873.

He was a graduate of Yale College and Andover Theological Seminary. His theology was molded by Jonathan Edwards, and he had actually the privilege of pastoring

Edwards Memorial Church in Northampton. John Todd wrote a book that we've published entitled

Feed My Lambs. And that's just an amazing, amazing book on lectures to children.

And what Todd began to do is he began to have children's church on Sunday night, one

Sunday night a month. He would dedicate the evening service to the children.

But what he would do is he wouldn't do what is ordinarily thought of as children's church today.

But he actually had a full -blown church service, and he would preach a full sermon to the children.

And God used those messages so powerfully that they ended up becoming books.

And Todd was determined to speak to the hearts of the children and to the young people.

And so on that particular night each month, he would make sure that the adults would have to stay all the way in the back.

He said he feared that if he looked upon them, that he would be tempted to speak directly to them and not to the children.

And so he even made sure that the children were there in the front and center, so that as he spoke, he spoke to their hearts.

And the messages that he did, the one book, Feed My Lambs, another one that I published is called

Truth Made Simple, Lectures for Children on the Attributes of God. And he just has some amazing, amazing messages, very hearty messages on, is there a

God? God is a spirit. He deals with subjects, God eternal,

God everywhere, God wise, God knows everything, God's power. And his illustrative, his ability to illustrate truth is just masterful, absolutely masterful.

And so I've done three of his books Truth Made Simple, Nuts for Boys to Crack, which is basically parables for boys, and then

Feed My Lambs, which was the first book that I published. And the second man I wanted to mention was

Richard Newton. Now, Richard Newton actually learned how to teach children by reading the book

Feed My Sheep that was published by John Todd.

And Richard Newton tells the story that when he was a young man, he was only 20 or 21, he was asked to serve as a

Sunday school superintendent. And he didn't even really know what it involved, but he said he would be willing to do it.

And he found out very quickly that one of his responsibilities was he was going to have to speak to the entire

Sunday school for about 15 minutes every Sunday afternoon. And he didn't know what to do.

He'd never done anything like that before. And it just so happened, as he said it, it just so happened that this book by John Todd was just freshly published.

And the book at that time was just titled Lectures to Children. And Richard Newton said that that man taught me how to teach children.

And he used that book and broke it into little portions and used it in his messages to the children.

Well, Richard Newton, many years later, when he became a pastor, he began to do a children's church on a

Sunday afternoon once a month. And eventually, he had more than 500 children that would pack the church.

And he would preach to them full -blown 40 -minute sermons. And his sermons were so greatly blessed that the children begged him to have them put into print, which he did.

And I have now since published about 15 of his titles, and titles such as Bible Promises, Bible Warnings, Bible Animals.

And his illustrations are second to none. I've never read illustrations the way that he illustrates truth.

Every pastor would benefit from reading his books because they're so filled with illustrative material that is useful, not just for children, but really for any age.

I can remember when I first discovered him, I would walk around in my neighborhood in Alabama with a copy, an old copy of one of his books, and I would have tears streaming down my face as I was reading these stories that he would be telling, illustrating particular passages of scripture, just so, so powerful.

And Richard Newton became known as, he was nicknamed by Spurgeon as the

Prince of Preachers to Children. And that was what he was known for.

Did Spurgeon already have, while he was alive, the nickname, the Prince of Preachers?

Oh yeah, yeah. He was, he had, he was, their ministries overlapped because his life,

Richard Newton lived from 1813 to 1887. So, and Spurgeon died only a matter of, you know, five years later or so.

And so their, yeah, their ministry overlapped. Spurgeon made that comment after reading his book on the, on his exposition of the

Ten Commandments. And that's when he, he nicknamed him the Prince of Preachers to the Young.

I first learned about it. In fact, it's funny, you mentioned Bill Shishko a couple times before.

And, you know, Bill and I, of course, have been friends from back in 1981 when I first went back to New York.

And, and he had just come as a pastor at Franklin Square and I was in Amityville.

And Bill Shishko is the one who had urged me to publish a book by William Gardner Blakey on the pastoral ministry.

And in that book, Blakey is the one who mentioned the, he had a whole chapter on ministry to children.

And in that he had a paragraph in which he spoke about two Americans who had a peculiar gift at reaching children.

And the one was J. Todd and the other was R. Newton. Well, J. Todd, I already knew because I'd already published the book by John Todd.

R. Newton, I didn't know. And so I did some research and found out it was Richard Newton. And, and so, you know, it was because of Blakey that I actually started finding these old, old copies of Newton's books and started to read them.

And in one of the books that, that I got was, was The Life of Jesus Christ for the

Young, which was actually a four volume work, which I've published in two volumes. And in the frontest piece of that was a picture of Newton.

And above it was the words, The Prince of Preachers to Children, C .H.

Spurgeon. And this was early on. I hadn't even really dug into Newton yet when

I read that. And I thought, wow, we've really landed something here. And so, as I said,

I've published now 15 of his titles. Newton is just an amazing, amazing man.

I just had, I just had a company order 1 ,300 copies of the book Heroes of the Early Church by Newton, which is an amazing book.

He has a book Heroes of the Reformation and Heroes of the Early Church. And both of them are just masterpieces.

Again, these were messages that he would have brought to the children of his church on a

Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia. He was, he pastored, most of the years he pastored, he was in Philadelphia.

We do have a listener, C .J. from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says,

I have heard some of my Presbyterian and other Pato Baptist brethren protest against viewing their children as a mission field since they believe they are in the covenant.

While I understand the dangers on the one hand that Justin Peters was discussing during the first hour in regard to pressuring young children into making, quote, quote, decisions for Christ, on the other hand,

I think it is dangerous to view our children as being among God's people in the covenant and not viewing them as a mission field.

What are your thoughts on this? Well, I'm a Reformed Baptist by conviction, and I believe that our children are a mission field.

I believe that it's a responsibility that we have to bring the gospel to them. I think that it's there to be raised in the atmosphere of the gospel, and I know many

Presbyterians who would recognize the need to bring the gospel to their children.

There are disagreements amongst Pato Baptists regarding this matter.

Yeah, Dr. Joel Beeke, who is more from the Netherlands Reformed community, he is very much adamant that children must be viewed as a mission field, and he's a

Pato Baptist as well. Yeah, I know, and so I think that, to me, it's a dangerous thing to not view the children in that way, but again,

I understand the differences between Pato Baptists and Reformed Baptists or just Baptists per se, but just regarding my conviction,

I believe that it is our responsibility to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and part of that is to just continually be bringing the gospel to them.

One of the things I would recommend that I've not published that I would strongly recommend to families is

J .C. Ryle's Expository Thoughts on the Gospels. I don't have those books.

I'm not even able to, at this time, I don't even sell them. I wish I could. I was actually going to publish them again, but I know they are available.

I believe you can get them through Banner of Truth. I can get them through Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, but Expository Thoughts on the

Gospels by Ryle, it's absolutely amazing, and what

Ryle does in those volumes is, they were intended, they were written, these books were written to be read out loud, and the purpose in which he had in writing these expository thoughts was he wrote for the head of a household to be able to have family devotions with his family, and so if you look at the book or the books, the volumes, because there are several volumes as he goes through all four gospels, they're all almost exactly the same length when you read them.

They're about 12 to 15 minutes in length, and one of the things that he says that he intentionally did, and of course

Ryle was a Paedo -Baptist, but one of the things that he did, every one of those devotions has an aspect of the gospel that is there, the presentation of the gospel, and I'll tell you, it's not just for a family.

A person can read it by themselves personally, a couple can read them as a couple, as well as a family for family worship, but there's hardly anything better that I know for family worship than Ryle's thoughts, or not thoughts, but his expository thoughts on the gospel.

At the same time, I also would want to mention Ray Rhodes. You mentioned Ray earlier as well. Ray Rhodes has published three volumes of books on family worship, and I've published those three books, and they're really, for the last three months of the year, you have his family worship for the

Reformation season, and that covers the month of October. He then has another one, family worship for the

Thanksgiving season, which covers the month of November, and then for the Christmas season, which covers the month of December, and basically he gives a daily, he gives what the day is.

He'll then give a scripture reading, and then a time of prayer and thanksgiving in connection with the scripture.

He'll then give an historical glimpse, and then a theological thought, and then end with some questions and a time of prayer.

But he does a really fine job in his three volumes on family worship, and people who are not used to having family worship are not sure how to start.

That would be a good tool to use, the family worship trilogy that we've done, that covers

October, November, December. It really is the perfect time to dive into something like that and to get started right now in October.

We have another listener in Mechanicsburg, Harrison, who says, are there any biblical topics that you believe are taboo when reading biblical stories to young children, pre -teen children specifically, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, the issue of hell itself, and other issues that might be frightening?

Should we be still bold with young children because they are very vital and important biblical truths?

That's a good question. It's interesting that Richard Newton, in his book on the

Ten Commandments, the one that was so strongly lauded by Spurgeon, he did not preach on the commandment against adultery to the children.

He puts a caveat and explanation there as to why he chose not to do it.

He felt that it was not something that he wanted to address with the young audience that he had in mind.

Of course, as they got older, he would clearly address that, but he showed a real decorum on that in choosing not to address it.

Perhaps there are some subjects that have to be handled with great care.

I don't know about avoiding subjects like Sodom and Gomorrah, though. I mean, there are aspects of that subject which you don't need to go into great detail on, but in terms of God's judgment, that's something we have to deal with really on a regular basis in our lives, is to understand the judgment of God, the wrath of God, and even the concept of the gospel itself, that the importance of the gospel is all rooted in, as Romans chapter 1 verse 18 says,

Paul speaks about not being ashamed of the gospel in chapter 1 verses 16 and 17, and then he gives the reason in chapter 1 verse 18, for the wrath of God is present tense being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

I can hardly imagine there being a time when that would be inappropriate to speak to children about.

Again, you don't have to go into all the details, but I do think that God's justice,

God's judgment, is only fully understood. It's like the pearls of God's love are only understood with the backdrop of the black velvet of judgment.

And so, care, yes, care has to be taken. Maybe there are some specific subjects that you have to be very, very careful about addressing with children.

Certainly, if you're talking about your own children, you have responsibility with your own children of seeking to find when's the right time to talk about certain things.

But when you're dealing with other people's children, like if you were teaching a Sunday school class, you have to be extra careful there.

Dealing with subjects that may be very difficult, you probably shouldn't broach certain things without the permission of parents, and certainly without the aid and understanding of the pastors to make sure that you're addressing the things that need to be addressed.

But I think it's a good idea to read men like Newton and Todd and see how they handled these things, because they were very wise in the way that they handled it.

Another volume that I've done, which has been very popular, is called The Child's Preacher, and it's a series of sermons on systematic theology for the young.

J .C. Ryle actually contributed to this book, along with Alexander Fletcher. Alexander Fletcher was also known as the children's friend, and he was the man that was chosen to perform the wedding of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Susanna Thompson.

He was the pastor who married Charles Spurgeon and his wife, and he did most of the sermons in this book,

The Child's Preacher. And they cover, really, every subject you can imagine that has to do with the

Gospel, beginning with creation, God's wisdom, omnipresence, omniscience, his love, his truth, his justice, his holiness, the necessity of a new heart, the warnings of resurrection and the judgment day to come.

Just seeing the way that these men handled these subjects is a good way to learn, to see how men of an earlier age handled these subjects,

I think is a wise thing to do. I think my favorite of all your volumes for children is

Superlapsarianism for Kids. No, that wasn't mine, Chris.

Maybe Buzz did that one, I'm not sure. We have

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know your position on illustrated books for children that include pictures of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, that's another good question. That's a very, very hotly debated subject. I'm very careful with that.

I try to avoid, as much as possible, pictures of Jesus.

You know, I think that there are warnings that we have to be careful of from the scriptures and a proper understanding of the commandment that we're not to make any image in the fashion that would seek to fashion

God. But again, I know good people on both sides of the matter that think that we can have pictures of Jesus as long as they are.

I mean, I know that some have done pictures that are more generic, or some that maybe only see him from behind, because he was a man.

And I think it's important for us to recognize that and to avoid having any image at all that pictures him as a man.

My mind, I think, is going too far. But I think the danger of having these pictures of Jesus, where he looks in many cases very effeminate,

I just think that— Or very Swedish. Well, yeah. I mean, there's the face itself, because we don't know exactly what he looked like.

I think it's best to avoid that. But the fact that he was a man certainly would not mitigate against having a picture that would at least picture that, that he was a man.

Well, we have about two minutes left for you to summarize whatever you want to have most etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners right now.

I would just say that I would encourage pastors to consider doing something similar to what

John Todd and Richard Newton did so many years ago.

In fact, I've given this challenge in the past, and I know some men who have taken up the challenge and have actually seen

God really use the messages to the children. I know many people today, in Reformed circles particularly, would be very strongly against the idea of children's church, where the children are taken away from the assembly.

And I understand that. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is having a separate time where the children are addressed directly, and directly by the pastor.

And I think that the value of that would be both to the children and to the pastor. Learning how to be able to communicate directly to the children.

And I know I've seen different ways in which this can be done, and that's left up to the individual conscience.

But I do think that it's very difficult to address the children in the midst of a full -blown sermon that's addressed to the adults.

And I know some men have a better ability to be able to apply or speak directly to the children, and that should be done as well during the sermon.

But I think we can do more than that. I think that we need to consider what these men did, and how

God blessed their ministry, and how many, many people were saved and became pastors and missionaries who sat under the preaching of these men when they were young.

And we're out of time, and I want to make sure that our listeners know your website again. It's solid -ground -books .com.

Solid -ground -books .com. Please patronize Solid Ground Christian Books, because they are one of the sponsors keeping

Iron Trip and Zion Radio on the air. So please spend a lot of your holiday gift -giving money at Solid Ground Christian Books.

Thank you so much, Mike, and I look forward to your return to Iron Trip and Zion. Thank you, Brother Chris. Lord bless you now.

And I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater