January 12, 2021 Show with Dr. Joe Morecraft on “How Can We Know if America is Under God’s Judgment?”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 12th day of January, 2021.

And I can tell you without exaggeration, I believe that the question that I am most frequently asked these days, predominantly by other

Christians, probably right next to why are you wearing that shirt with those pants,

I happen to be colorblind, folks. The most frequently asked question

I hear is, do you think that we're under the judgment of God in America?

And today we're going to be addressing the theme, how can we know if America is under God's judgment, gleanings from Isaiah chapter 3 with a very dear friend, a faithful financial supporter and also spiritual encourager of me and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Joe Moorcraft, one of my favorite guests to interview on this program, and from what I have been hearing from listeners, he happens to be one of the favorite guests of a growing number of people in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience. He is an author, he is a pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Joe Moorcraft. Always a pleasure, Brother Chris. Amen. And I'm going to right away give our listeners our email address if they have questions that they want to ask on how can we know if America is under God's judgment.

The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

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

And before we go into the theme, Dr. Moorcraft, please let our listeners know, especially for the sake of those who have never heard you on this show before, let our listeners know about Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

Our church is a small congregation that is wholeheartedly committed to the inerrancy and sufficiency of the

Bible and to the original Westminster Confession of Faith and larger and shorter catechists.

We are a congregation in a small, very conservative evangelical reformed denomination called the

Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery. Our church is about four years old.

We are dedicated to carrying out of the Great Commission and bringing the discipline of the

Word of God to bear upon individuals, upon nations, with the prayer that God would use us in winning the hearts and minds of Americans to Christ.

Amen. And if anybody would like more information on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, you can go to HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,

HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. Well, Dr. Moorcraft, people have said,

Christians that is, Christians who are very often, but not always, from our theological camp of being a

Reformed, whether Presbyterian or Reformed Baptist, but I've also heard this from fundamentalists and others, that we are under the judgment of God.

In fact, I've been hearing this nearly all of my life as a

Christian, that America is under God's judgment. People have often said, perhaps most especially those that are outside of the

Reformed faith, if they are indeed conservative Bible believers, but happen to be

Arminian or something else, they have frequently said things like, the rampant abortion in America is going to bring us under the judgment of God.

The rampant homosexuality in this country is going to bring us under the judgment of God, and you could go on and on and on with the list of the damnable beliefs and practices that flourish in this nation, where people have said, this will bring us under the judgment of God, and very often, a

Reformed response to that is, no, that is a sign we are already under the judgment of God.

But if you could pick up where I just left off, why it is you wanted to address this subject today. Well, as Christians, what

I preached on this subject last Sunday, you can get it on sermonaudio .com or live stream, it's called,

How Do We Know America's Under the Judgment of God on Isaiah 3, but whenever we go to evaluate anything, as Christians, we must base all our evaluations upon the perfect rule of righteousness and truth, which is the whole word of God.

And so in studying the word of God, and in being a student of American history and current events for 40 years, it is obvious to me that America has been and is under the judgment of Almighty God because of its longstanding and accelerating apostasy.

Now let me explain what I mean by apostasy. A church is apostate, or a person is apostate, or a nation is apostate, if at one time it professed allegiance to Christ and to biblical

Christianity and then turned its back on it and finally walked away from it.

And so the churches in this country and the country itself, all the way back to the Mayfire Compact, once confessed that it was

Christian. But increasingly, since at least the early part of the 19th century, at least, we've been walking away from our heritage and our roots into deeper and deeper darkness and rebellion against God.

And so what we have seen this past week is simply the results and fruits and consequences of our apostasy through the years.

And who are we to blame? As bad as the Democrats are, we don't blame them. As bad as the

Republicans are, we don't blame them. As bad as the Communists are, we don't blame them.

We are where we are today because of the church. The church has left its first love.

The church in America has left the foundation. There are some faithful churches here and there, of course, and some faithful preachers.

But as a whole, the church has left the foundation upon which it has been built and we're facing the consequences.

A principle that I lay down in our church over and over, year after year, is that the spiritual condition of the church determines the political, economic, and social condition of the nation in which that church exists.

And that's what we're seeing today. Now, how do I know it? Why am I so sure that the church is under God's almighty judgment and severe judgment and increasingly severe judgment?

Last week was a rollercoaster ride and the ride's not over. There's going to be some time before this rollercoaster ride is over and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

So why do I think pretty confidently that America is under judgment because of apostasy?

And there's all kinds of ways you can approach this in the scriptures. The one that is the clearest to me is

Isaiah 3 because you'd thought it was written last week and given to us.

It is as clear as can be as what God does when he goes to judge a culture.

For instance, let me just give you a quick rundown of the basic points of Isaiah 3.

The first thing in the first verse, it says that God removes everything a nation depends upon for its life when he goes to judge a country and judge a church and judge a nation.

Now, he's addressing the covenant people of God in the Old Testament. These things in Isaiah 3 literally came true in the life of Israel in the

Old Testament. 721, the Assyrians attacked and invaded, destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel.

586, the Babylonians devastated Jerusalem and Israel and then in 70

AD, I mean Judah, in 70 AD what was left of the state of Judah was devastated with the destruction of Jerusalem by the

Roman armies. So we're not talking about fantasy here, we're not talking about fairy tales. We're talking about what

God does in his judgment to a church and a nation that does not repent of its long -standing apostasy.

The first thing he does is he removes everything a nation looks to for support and for life and for sustenance.

The second thing he says in verses two and three is that he removes effective leadership in church and state, military, artisans, industry.

He addresses the elders, the captain of fifty, the experts, artisans, the skillful and chatters, all prophets.

That he removes effective leadership from church and state, a well -regulated state, society and a well -regulated church are gifts of God to people and to the human race.

And when a nation turns from that and in total ingratitude forget what

God has done for it through the years, God removes that well -regulated church and well -regulated state for anarchy and confusion.

And it says in verse four that he will make mere lads their princes and capricious children will rule over them.

That is after having removed effective leadership. Now, I don't want anybody to think it's a pro -Trump speech or a pro -Biden because there's plenty of blame and guilt to go around.

But God says after when I remove effective leadership I'm going to replace it with irresponsible, reckless, immature leadership in church and state.

And brother, do we see that today in church and state? There will be oppression. One faction will go after another faction.

There'll be conflict. There'll be struggle. There'll be riots. There'll be revolutions, etc.

But the scariest thing in this whole passage to me is the last part of verse five.

It says the youth will storm against the elder and the inferior against the honorable.

That is when God goes to judging a nation you're going to see inferior people refuse to give honor to those whom honor to whom his honor is due.

And the youth will storm against the elder. The point of that is that the generation under judgment will seek to erase and rebel against the heritage of its fathers.

Brother, do we see that today? Cancel culture and all the rest. That we live in a culture that's trying to be ashamed of our past, misinterpreting on purpose and revising the history of the

United States into something it never was. And so we see today a deliberate self -conscious rejection of the

Christian heritage of the United States of America. And our people are taught lies.

And this is largely the product of public schools backed by the media, politicians, colleges, universities, preachers, churches, and the like.

I'll give you one example. My wife has had to be gone for a few weeks off and on because of her mother's sickness and death.

And in the meanwhile, I've had to have, because I can't walk and I can't use my arm,

I've had to have home nurses here to help me cook my meals and all that. And two or three of these ladies are black ladies, very intelligent, very godly, very hardworking.

And so I make a point that when they come in my house for several hours every day, I've got a captive audience.

And so I'm going to teach them some things that I know they haven't heard before.

So I ask these ladies, have you heard of the 1619 Project, sponsored by the

New York Times? And of course, they all have. And that is the idea that in 1619 in Jamestown, you had slavery and that America was built on slavery and the oppression of black people.

And everything that America has done, the critical race theory, everything that America has done and all of its institutions are colored and jaundiced by the racism of 1619.

And therefore, reparations should be made toward the descendants of these slaves.

So I tell these dear ladies, I say to them, that's all a lie. It's all a lie.

Dad, I've been teaching about 1619 for 30 years. 1619 in Jamestown, they learned about a

Spanish galleon leaving the coast of Africa for Mexico with treasure.

So they got their two ships and they intervened in the

Caribbean against this Spanish galleon thinking they were going to get gold and silver. But instead, there were 20

Africans on board that were being sold into slavery in Mexico. And they took them back to Jamestown and these

Africans were the first Africans in English North America. And they weren't slaves.

These Africans, and this is a whole other story, these Africans were literate, very literate.

They were skilled from a cattle culture in Central Africa that was professed

Christian, Roman Catholic, but professed Christian. And the kings of this culture sent their children to Europe for education, etc.

And they took Christian names, the ones that were Christians, these 20 Africans, they took Christian names and they sold themselves as indentured servants, that is, not slaves.

But they would sell their time to a tobacco farmer for a certain amount of money and a certain length of time.

And when that was over, they'd sell themselves to somebody else. And then they'd save their money and they'd become tobacco farmers.

And they would hire more Africans, etc. And because there were not any laws limiting marriage, these original

Africans that are married with English people and Indians, so that by the time the first census was taken, their descendants were every color under the sun.

And one of them, one of the descendants of these first Africans was a general under George Washington who fought against the

British. So I say all that to say this. That's a lie, what the

New York Times is telling me. And we could duplicate that over and over and over about revisionist history.

Once, and the liberals and the communists and the anti -Christians have understood this better than we have, our people have, that you want to have history on your side.

And if you can cut a people loose from their history, you've got them right where you want them.

But the problem is most of our people never knew anything about our history in the first place. And so the youth, it says, the youth storm against the elder.

They reject their heritage. They're ashamed of it. They hate it. It is a shackle to them.

It keeps them from being and doing what they want to be and want to do. That's the result.

God often judges sin with sin. And we see that clearly in Romans 1. And then it says that people are going to totally, in verse 6 and following, people are going to completely disregard whether a person is qualified for leadership.

And if he has a nice coat or a nice tie or makes a little more money than the rest, they want that person to be leader over them.

In other words, leadership was gone in both church and state. And it says this in summarizing everything in verse 8.

For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen. Now, I like movies sometimes.

I don't want to pay to see real life movies. I don't go see real life movies. I like science fiction movies or movies where the bad guys get killed real good.

And two of my favorite modern movies are

Olympia Has Fallen and London Has Fallen. And both of them are about how terrorists have captured

Washington, D .C. And with computers, you see the White House blow up, the

Capitol blow up, the terrorists take over. You see London Has Fallen. You see

Westminster Abbey and all these other big buildings. I mean, they're just fascinating movies. America Has Fallen.

And that's not a movie. And that's not computerized.

She didn't fall last week. She's been falling morally and spiritually since the early 1800s.

It's just becoming more and more conspicuous. Judah has fallen.

And why? Because their speech and their actions are against the

Lord. Everything they say is against the revealed will of God.

Everything they do is against the revealed will of God. Their philosophy, their education, their sermons, their legislation, their executive policies.

That all these things, God's word is not the standard that judges what man says as well as his actions.

Everything he says, everything he does. In an apostate culture, is against the living

God. To rebel against the eyes of his glory.

That's audacity. We live before the glorious eyes of God every day of our lives.

And these people know it and they don't care. They shake their puny little fists in the face of God.

We are rebels against God. We want to break free from the chains of his moral and social order.

And we know he's looking, but we're not afraid of him. They deceive themselves into believing. And verse 9 says, the expression of their faces bears witness against them.

And they display their sin like Sodom. They don't even conceal it. Now you can't infallibly tell what a man's character is by the look on his face.

But sometimes you can see it. You can see in a first person's angry face, bitterness, tattooed, pierced face.

You can see the signature of his character. One of rebellion against God.

And of hostility for his social and moral order. They don't even try to conceal it anymore. They display their sin like Sodom.

Now, Isaiah could have used any city in the world at that time. He could have said they display their sin like the cities of Assyria.

Or like the cities of Babylon. Or all the other pagan cities. But he deliberately said to this covenant nation.

He said, you look like Sodom. You blatantly display your

Sodomite culture. Now what was Sodom and Gomorrah? It was the great homosexual cities of the ancient world.

A vast metropolitan area of tens upon tens of thousands of people. Blatantly homosexual.

And God, as we know, miraculously lit fire and brimstone and burned up the whole metropolitan area.

Men, women, and children. Because homosexuality is the burning out of man.

And it's a sign, says Romans 1 and 18 and following, that God has abandoned the culture.

So he's looking at this apostate church and state and nation. And he says, you are

Sodom now. And I'm going to treat you like Sodom.

You act like my enemy, the Lord says in effect. I'll treat you like my enemy. Sound familiar?

I mean we look at it and people just display their perversion.

And if you say anything negative against it, you're bound to be a bigot and guilty of hate speech.

I preached Sunday and I said, I'm going to tell you how you can judge yourself to see how influenced you are by your culture.

Do you call homosexuals gay people? If you call them gay, you are doing what they want you to do.

And you're perverting a word to describe a perverse group of people.

They're not gay. They're perverse. Now, I expect in the next two or four years, for when some preacher says that, he may be charged with a hate crime.

We'll see. I'm going to stay out of jail as long as I can. And it says, woe to them.

He denounces them. They brought evil upon themselves. And then they got the great verse 10 and all this darkness of God's judgment upon an apostate nation.

It says, say to the righteous that it will go well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions.

So even in that apostate culture, there was a minority of righteous people.

Because God wants us to know that he knows how to keep from causing the righteous to perish with the wicked.

In fact, we're going to pick up right on Isaiah chapter 3, verse 10, when we come back from our first break.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air, whether you agree or disagree with our guest, please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Joe Moorcraft. We've got about less than 90 minutes to go. And Joe Moorcraft is the pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

We are discussing the very timely and very important theme that should be in the minds of every

Christian. How can we know if America is under God's judgment gleanings from Isaiah 3?

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And if you could, before we go to any listener questions,

Dr. Moorcraft, if you could please pick up where you left off in verse 10 of Isaiah chapter 3.

Yes, sir. I was going through Isaiah 3 because it clearly describes what

God does to a church and a state and a society in judgment because of its longstanding apostasy.

And it's a pretty gloomy passage until you get to verse 10 where God says to Isaiah, Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions.

That even in apostate Israel, there was a small minority of people that were faithful.

Same way in the United States, that God always has a faithful witness, a faithful church.

And there are faithful people, righteous people in this country. And God's going to assure us, he's assuring us here that he knows how to keep the righteous from perishing with the wicked.

Now, what is a righteous person? A righteous person is someone whom God has declared righteous through faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ and who has been empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a righteous life.

And God's going to protect them. God's going to stand by them in the midst of the most severe judgment in the culture.

That doesn't mean that they won't hurt. That doesn't mean that they won't die. Now, the early

Christians were fed to the lions, but it means that God will be with his people and watch over them.

He knows how to keep them from being judged along with wicked sinners.

They'll eat the fruit of their righteousness, but the wicked in verse 11 is going to go badly for him because he's going to get what he deserves in his life.

And then in verse 12, Oh, my people, their oppressors are children and women rule over them.

I have a lot of sermons and lectures on sermonaudio .com. And the one that by far has been listened to the most is my sermon called

Women's Civil Magistrates. And it says in this verse that one of the signs of God's judgment upon a culture is leadership in the hands of immature, reckless men and women.

Doesn't say they're reckless. But to have women and irresponsible men in places of authority and power in church and state is a sign of God's judgment on that culture.

Last part of verse 12, Oh, my people, those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths.

They have all this advice, they have all this counsel to give you, but they're leading you farther and farther away from me.

And they're confusing you so that you don't even know what the old paths are. One of the saddest things that I saw last week was a young man who was one of the trespassed in the

United States Capitol. And he said, I love Jesus. I believe my sins are forgiven and washed away by the blood of the

Lamb. But what else am I to do? In other words, he was hopeless.

Nobody ever taught him. No preacher had ever taught him. And obviously he went to some church.

No preacher had ever taught him. Nobody in school had ever taught him about what is there to do.

And it's not trespassing in the United States Capitol. People read the psalm as if it was negative, that says if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

And people read that as if to say, well, nothing. We're hopeless. Woe is me.

The foundations of our country are destroyed. And what in the world can I do now but wring my hands?

Except that's the first verse of the rest of the psalm. So the whole psalm says, when the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

A lot. They can work to recover and retrieve the foundations.

So it is pathetic to hear Christians like that.

It broke my heart, this guy. What else can I do? Nobody's ever taught me anything.

That their preachers, their politicians, their school teachers, or maybe even their parents have led them astray and confused the direction of their paths.

And so this section ends in verses 13 through 15. Which says, the

Lord arises to contend, to fight, and stands up to judge the people.

The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and princes of his people.

So God says to a culture under judgment that refuses to repent, that refuses to bow before him, there comes a time when enough is enough and I'm going to stand and fight against you.

And contend against you and bring my severe judgment against the elders and the politicians.

You know the verse in the New Testament that says, judgment begins with the house of the Lord. That's not what it says in Greek exactly.

In Greek it says, judgment begins from the house of the Lord. And then moves on into the culture.

Because of the refusal of the church to repent. And he says, I'm going to stand against you elders and politicians.

Because it is you, and then he directly addresses these elders and these politicians.

It is you who have devoured the vineyard. Chapter 5 of Isaiah, the vineyard is the covenant people of God.

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've devoured the church with all of your policies, with all of your false doctrine in the pulpit, with all of your tyrannical legislation.

You have devoured the church and I'm going to stand up against you. And fight against you.

So this is a powerful, powerful passage of scripture. And we've got to take it seriously.

Because we're seeing it worked out in our lives. There was a Dutchman in the early 19th century by the name of Van Prinsenberg.

Wrote a great little book, all of it in Dutch. But he did write one little paperback that's been translated into English called,

Unbelief in Revolution. And he's explaining the French Revolution of 1789.

That was the first war of its kind in the history of the world because its purpose was to erase

Christianity from France. And to provide liberty, equality, and fraternity. And as long as Christianity was in place, you couldn't have those three things.

So they destroyed Christianity and instead of getting equality, fraternity, and liberty, they got Napoleon Bonaparte and tyranny.

And he said that the French Revolution was inevitable. Once Europe, a hundred years earlier, departed from its

Christian base. And tyranny is what resulted from the rejection of Christianity.

Now, our people need to know what a tyrant is. When we think of tyrants, we think of Hitler.

We think of Stalin. People like that. But that's not exactly what a tyrant is.

A tyrant, a tyrannical government, a tyrannical church, is one that imposes a different law than the word of God upon the people committed to its charge.

When a civil magistrate passes laws that are not based upon the law of God and then requires people to obey them or else, it's tyrannical.

When elders in a church impose rules and regulations upon their church, not based in the word of God but in the experience of the elders, it becomes a tyrannical session.

And tyrannical elders, when a father imposes rules and regulations on his family, not based in the word of God, he becomes a tyrant.

Tyranny is a terrible, terrible thing. Because a tyrant is somebody who's playing

God. He thinks he is the judge, the king, the lawgiver, the savior.

And when I read Isaiah 3 last Sunday, I began Isaiah 3 with chapter 2, verse 22, the last verse, that says,

Stop regarding man. Cease from man. Stop trusting in him and put your confidence in him, whose breath of life is only in his nose.

For why should man be esteemed and worshipped and placed front and center?

Because there is a God in heaven, and he will cause people to bow before him one way or the other.

My grandfather, Morecraft, lived in the early middle part of the 20th century.

He was a rough old guy. And he was the first Joe Morecraft.

And when people's German shepherds would become crazy or mad or vicious or bloodthirsty, they would give these

German shepherds to my granddaddy. And he would chain them to these dog houses in his backyard.

I can see them now, about eight or ten German shepherds. And if you and I were to walk out there anywhere near those

German shepherds, they would do everything to break free from those chains to try to destroy us and kill us.

They'd show their teeth. They'd growl. But when my grandfather would walk among these

German shepherds, they would go around his feet like cats wagging their tails.

Now, why did they do it? Because my grandfather was so sweet and loving to these dogs?

No, sir. Because when he first got them, and he would chain them, and if they dared show his teeth, their teeth to him, he would beat them.

Someday every knee shall bow before the Lord Jesus Christ. Some will do it gladly and voluntarily.

Some Christ will pull their chain to the ground and force them to admit that he is king.

But every knee shall bow. It's the way Christians have to think.

Praise God. Let me go to one of our listener questions.

We have Annie in Columbus, Georgia, who I believe may be a first -time questioner.

I'll bet you that she's red -headed. And I'll bet you she's my daughter.

Well, Annie, guess what?

Since you're a first -time questioner also, you're going to win, or you have won, a free

New American Standard Bible. So make sure that I have your full mailing address so that CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that Bible out to you. And we want to thank the publishers of the

NASB and CVBBS .com as well for making this Bible to Annie in Columbus, Georgia, possible.

But Annie asks, What about verses like, That is a great verse.

I'm glad she asked me that. The Bible says that faith proves itself in love.

That someone can profess to be a Christian and talk about religious doctrine all day long, but if he doesn't practice love, he still is in darkness.

Now, the problem is, in our culture, we don't want to know what love is. Love is defined the way

Hollywood defines it. Love is defined as a feeling. I remember in the old movie,

Guess Who's Coming Home for Dinner, where Sidney Poitier is engaged to this young white woman.

Yes, Sidney Poitier and Spencer Tracy. Yes, sir. She brings him home to introduce him to her father,

Spencer Tracy. And then Spencer Tracy takes her aside and he says to her,

Marry him and stay with him as long as they have the feeling. As long as you feel like loving, stay with him.

And as a result, Christians have taken that and defined love as a feeling. Where the

Bible defines love, in Romans 12, Galatians, love is the fulfilling of the law of God.

That we love another person when we treat that person sincerely, the way

God's word says we're to treat him, whether we like him or not. In fact, we have to pick up where you left off on love, what true love is when we come back from our midway break.

And folks, this is just to remind you the longer break that we have in the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this show twice a day in a pre -recorded format, they require of us a longer break because they air their own public service announcements and other local things that localize

Iron Trump and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, which is a requirement of the FCC. So while they do that, while they air their local announcements and so on, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

So I ask you to use this time wisely. Please write down as much of the information as possible that is provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently patronize them and successfully patronize them.

And that, in turn, will make our advertisers, God willing, want to remain our advertisers.

And that, subsequently, God willing, will mean that Iron Trump and Zion Radio will remain on the air for a longer future because we absolutely positively rely upon, depend upon the finances that come in through our advertisers in order to exist.

So please patronize them when you can. Purchase their products. Use their services.

Visit their churches. When you can't do those things, please just reach out to them to thank them for sponsoring

Iron Trump and Zion Radio. And that's why you should write down their information. Also use this time to write down questions for Dr.

Joseph C. Moorcraft III on our theme, How Can We Know If America Is Under God's Judgment?

Cleanings from Isaiah 3. And because Dr. Moorcraft is a theologian, a scholar, and a pastor, we will permit you to ask questions on a broader scope of issues, even pastoral, if you wish.

But our primary theme is, How Can We Know If America Is Under God's Judgment? It's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing. We will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Without them, without their financial support through their advertising campaigns, we would likely not be able to exist, barring a miracle from God.

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Many of you have purchased frequently from them, and have told them that you heard about them from Chris Orenson and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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We have just a couple more announcements to make before we return to our discussion with Dr.

Joseph C. Moorcraft III. First of all, I want to let our listeners know that we've got

Doug Wilson coming back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And this is largely because of an article that my guest today, Dr. Joseph C.

Moorcraft III, his wife Becky, urged me to read an article by Douglas Wilson, a recent blog article, and it was because of that contact from Dr.

Moorcraft's wife that I contacted Doug Wilson and said, can you be on the show to discuss the gods of civil unrest and Jesus mobs?

And so Doug Wilson has agreed to be my guest on Wednesday the 20th of January.

I think I may have given a wrong date when I made this announcement yesterday. So, this is the right date.

I'm looking right at the calendar. Wednesday the 20th of January here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Doug Wilson returns to talk about the gods of civil unrest and Jesus mobs.

Also, folks, if you have ever heard of a really powerful, profound, dynamic, biblically faithful, and courageous preacher, teacher, and apologist,

Vodie Baucom, I hope that you join me. In fact, even if you don't know who he is,

I hope that you join me because you will discover what a gift to the body of Christ he is. If you join me on Thursday, January 28th, from 8 a .m.

until 12 noon, he is going to be speaking in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania. I will be there, manning an

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor's booth. And I hope that you register for this very important event where Vodie Baucom will be exposing and refuting the heresies of critical race theory.

And we thank God that a black brother like Dr. Baucom is willing to risk even his relationships and friendships with some other black folks in the

Christian world who are pastors and authors and well -known speakers. Some of them are very upset with Vodie for his strong stances against the heresies of critical race theory and the woke movement.

And I applaud him and I thank God for him for taking the stance so articulately and biblically refuting these heresies, these dangerous heresies that are consuming the world and beginning to consume the church.

Thankfully we know that it will not completely consume the church because of the promises of God for the church.

So if you could join me Thursday, January 28th, 8 a .m.

to 12 noon in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania. And if you would like more details on registering, you can email the pastor who is actually orchestrating and hosting this event.

His name is Jacob Tanner and you can email him at Jacob at MtBethelMcClure .com.

MtBethelMcClure .com. Jacob at MtBethelMcClure .com.

Or you can just email me, ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com and I'll make sure that Pastor Jacob Tanner gets your request for registration information.

I hope to see you there Thursday, January 28th, 8 a .m. to 12 noon. In Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania.

Also folks, if you love this show, and I know that many of you do because we have between 30 and 40 ,000 people on average downloading the recordings every single month.

So if you love this show, I'm urging you, I'm pleading with you, please help us financially to exist.

We are in a really dangerous, precarious situation financially because of the fact that the hysteria associated with the coronavirus pandemic has really hurt a lot of people's businesses and livelihoods in the

Iron Sherpa Zion Radio audience. People have cut back or cut out donating to us.

People have cut back or cut out advertising with us because they have been hurt so badly.

So if you are financially able, please help us. If you love the show, if you don't want us to disappear, if you take advantage of this program and the wonderful guests that I interview and the themes and topics that we address, a really wide spectrum of guests and topics.

Please help us, go to www .ironsherpanzionradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card.

By doing that, if you prefer advertising, send me an email to chrisarns in a gmail .com

and put advertising in the subject line. As long as whatever it is you are promoting is compatible with what

I believe, I would be more than happy, more than thrilled to help you launch an ad campaign because we are in urgent need of your advertising dollars.

Also, please remember, I don't want folks siphoning money away from their regular giving to their own local church that they are accustomed to giving to their church in order to give to Ironsherpanzionradio.

In other words, don't punish your church financially by blessing Ironsherpanzionradio financially. Also, please don't put your family in financial peril, in jeopardy if you are really struggling to survive by giving to Ironsherpanzionradio.

Those are two things that are commands of scripture providing for your church and your family. Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of scripture.

But, if you love the show, you benefit from it, you don't want it to disappear, and you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for your church and family, then please help us.

Please use some of your recreational money, please use some of your movie money, your concert money, your conference money, your dining out money, your sporting event money, all those things that are not essential.

If you love us and you don't want us to disappear, please help us. Go to ironsherpanzionradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

Also, folks, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the planet

Earth, and I may be able to help you, just as I have already helped many in our audience, find a church that could be right around the corner from you, and you don't even know it exists, or you don't even know that it's biblically faithful.

I could perhaps help you from these lists that I have of churches all over the planet

Earth. So send me an email if you are in that category, or if you're looking on behalf of a friend or a loved one who doesn't have a church, or if you're going on vacation somewhere and you need a good recommendation for a church.

My email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, but I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, and our theme today is,

How can we know if America is under God's judgment? It's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and Dr. Moorcraft, right before the break, you were comparing and contrasting the false idea of love being a feeling and the true meaning of love, which is the rock group

Boston used to sing, more than a feeling, if you could. Yes, sir.

Christians ought to be the most loving people in the world, and as a matter of fact,

Christians are the only loving people in the world because the Bible says we love only because God first loved us.

But Christians, if we're not loving, no matter how orthodox we are, no matter how much we say we believe sound doctrine, we're

Calvinists. An unloving Calvinist is one of the ugliest things in all of creation, and we prove ourselves to be

Christians by the way we love one another, as long as we understand what love is. Hollywood is not to define love.

Love is not a feeling. Now, love involves feelings, of course, but love is not a feeling.

The Bible defines love in Romans 12 and Galatians 5, that love is the fulfilling of the law of God, that we love somebody when we sincerely and honestly from the heart treat that person the way

God says he is to be treated, and it even says we're to love our enemies.

But you don't have to like somebody. For instance, if I lived in Germany in World War II, I most certainly would not like Adolf Hitler, but I would love him in the sense that I could not treat him in any other way than as God's law requires me to treat him.

And so we must understand what love is. Love isn't just some empty romantic thing. It is a strong and powerful thing of sincerely from the heart treating other people the way

God says they're to be treated. Now, what confuses people is verses like this in Psalm 139.

Now, Psalm 139 is our great anti -abortion psalm. If you want to go somewhere to show the

Bible speaks to the fact that we are made the image of God in the womb and fearfully and wonderfully made by God, we go to Psalm 139.

But Psalm 139 ends with these verses where the same

David who talks about the pre -born children says under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, Lord, do I not hate those who hate thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred.

Search my heart and see if there's anything in there that should not be. Now, the

Bible on one hand says we're to love our enemies. And there you got David saying, do

I not hate those who hate thee? Now, he said that as a godly man under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit. There's another verse that most people don't even know is in the Bible. In 2

Corinthians chapter 19, verse 2, where a prophet named

Jehu says to the godly king Jehoshaphat, quote,

Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the

Lord and so bring wrath on yourself from the Lord?

So what is it? Are we love our enemies or we hate our enemies? And the answer is both.

You say, well, how can you do both? Now, if you ask that question, what you're saying is I believe love and hatred are feelings.

And they're not feelings. There's something far more profound. They're not mere emotions.

To hate the enemies of God and to love them, you can do both at the same time.

You're to treat them the way the law of God says they're to be treated. And if they're enemies of God and seeking to use their energy to destroy a

Christian and moral culture, you are to hate them in that, not that you sit there and grit your teeth against them, but you're to hate them in that you're to oppose them.

You're to expose them. You're to stand against them. You're to seek to thwart all their efforts.

So there's nothing unloving about hatred, godly hatred, that we are to love and hate our enemies at the same time.

And if we have a problem with that, it's because we're letting Hollywood define our definitions of love and hate.

In the New Testament, even, you see Paul bringing down God's curses, praying

God's curses upon people. That is to say, he loved them. He wouldn't treat them in any way that God's word would forbid.

But at the same time, because they were enemies of God, he prayed that God would curse them and stop all their efforts.

In Galatians 1, cursed is everyone. And the word cursed means damned. Cursed is everyone that preaches another gospel than the gospel of the

New Testament. So we're to be the most loving people that ever lived. And we're to hate the enemies of God in that we're to oppose them and to expose them and work against them.

I like what the great Robert L. Dabney said. He was Stonewall Jackson's chief of staff.

And he was one of the greatest theologians, if not the greatest, ever produced in America. And he said, what the world needs is a good hater, which every lover must be.

That if somebody loves somebody, if somebody loves the truth, they're going to hate the non -truth.

If somebody loves his wife, he's going to hate somebody who tries to violate her.

That is, he's going to do everything in his power to keep them from doing it.

So there's nothing unusual or extreme about saying in an evil culture, the righteous, upon whom

God looks with favor, remember a righteous person is somebody who God declares is righteous through faith in Christ, and whom

God empowers to righteous living through the power of the Holy Spirit. That to be righteous means you love what

God loves and you hate what God hates. And the only way we can know that is in the

Bible. So we're to love our enemies, that is, we may not treat them in any other way than God's word commands.

And we are to hate them in that we are to expose and oppose all of their efforts in their rebellion against God's social and moral order.

We've seen a lot of that in this past week. There are people we should not hesitate to say we hate things we hate, but we must be quick to explain what that means.

For instance, Mr. Biden has appointed to his cabinet already a professed homosexual and a professed transgender person.

Mr. Trump has said that he takes great pride in the fact that he's called the most pro -homosexual president in American history.

I hate both of those things. And I will seek to oppose both of those men and their efforts to do those things that are in rebellion against God.

So that is a great question. If Christians in an apostate culture aren't loving, we won't be of any use in changing that culture.

And it's not even loving to those practicing homosexual behavior to support that, because you're helping to support their destruction, not only physically, but also eternally.

That's true. As somebody said, love is tough love. What we do in exposing perversion is not mean.

It's because we don't want these people going to hell. And we want them to see what they are.

Now, one famous Christian preacher, who's supposed to be conservative evangelical, said this stupid sentence.

He said that we don't help people, something like this, we don't help people see that they're sinners by telling them they're sinners.

Now, that is, you have to deny the whole Bible to say that. That sounds like Robert Shuler. No. Okay.

But somebody more recent. But anyway. So, I mean, why would somebody say that?

The Bible, how do we know we're sinners? God tells us we're sinners. Why are we, as Christians, supposed to tell people what

God says? Are we being mean when we tell people you're sinners? Of course we're not being sinners.

We're being mean. We're being loving. But anyway, that's a long answer to a short question. I'm glad Ann asked it.

Okay, we have another question from Grady, a very faithful listener and financial supporter of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina says, Greetings, brothers. Brother Joe, I agree with you that the falling away from the true and living

God began in the early 1800s. Christians started stepping out of the public offices and allowed secularism to fill the void.

This led to the lies of evolution into the schools, leading to a disbelief in the

Creator. Then we allowed the murder of little human beings in the mother's womb, the breakup of the family through divorce, leaders embezzling, lying, stealing, cheating, and committing immorality for their own gain.

Now we're going down the paths of so -called sexual gratification, and that doesn't seem to end.

Do you see this passage in Isaiah where Israel was being rebuked as parallel to Romans 1 and 2

Timothy 3? I do, yes, sir. And, well, at least to Romans 1.

But what we've got to see is that the church has been on this road.

America's been on this road almost from the beginning. You know, there is a verse. I can't remember whether it's

Jeremiah or Isaiah. And I wish I had it here before me to read because it's far better than my simple memory of it.

But it says something to this effect. It says Israel began to fall with the creation of Jerusalem, with the founding of Jerusalem.

That is, it had the seeds of its own destruction in it from the very start.

And that is extremely true of American history. That though we were founded as a

Christian nation, and the ultimate founders in the 17th century were reformed, and Calvinism was always an important consensus of opinion, nevertheless, by the late 18th century, there were already seeds of our destruction in the influence of humanism on people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the like.

They were torn. They could say some things that Christians would love. They would say some things that Christians would hate.

Thomas Jefferson had his own version of the Bible where he excluded everything he didn't like.

And it's a very thin little book. He didn't like the miracles. He didn't like the redemptive history of Jesus.

But he did like the ethics. But I don't want to leave the wrong impression about Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams carried on correspondence for years and years and years until they both died on July the 4th, 1826.

And in one of the last volumes of the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams, and John Adams would witness to Jefferson through those years.

John Adams was older than Jefferson. In one of the last letters, Jefferson said to John Adams, and I quote,

I am a Christian now. Now, I hope he meant by that what I mean by that.

But the point is that there were already these seeds of humanism planted in the last years of the 18th century that we're seeing the fruit of today.

I gave two or three sermons or lectures on sermon audio called

The American Mind of 1776, in which

I talk about the Augustinian and Calvinistic influence upon the American mind.

And I also brought out the influence of the enlightenment, the

European enlightenment and humanism. So those are all on American, I mean on sermonaudio .com.

And of course, you can listen to those for nothing. Thank you, Grady, for the excellent question.

And we have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who asks, in your opinion, is there any place on the planet

Earth that is not under the judgment of God? Well, I don't know what he means by the question.

There are some places more than others. And when a culture is, the more

Christian the culture is, the better off they are. We know there's a judgment day coming at the second coming of Christ when everybody stands before Christ and is judged.

But in another sense, every day is judgment day. We live under the judging eye of God every day of our lives, every individual.

That's like asking a question, is there any individual today that's not under the judgment of God?

And my answer to that question is yes, sir, there are. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So with a culture, though it's never going to be perfect, when a culture turns from its rebellion against God to Jesus Christ, it's saved from oppression.

It's saved from judgment. You know, we often, not me, but people often say, why don't you receive

Jesus as your personal Savior? That's a phrase that's not even used in the Bible. Jesus is not simply a personal

Savior. He's a cosmic Savior. He came to save individuals. He came to save families. He came to save nations.

There's a psalm in which it says that nations are going to be born again in Zion. So I'm trying to clarify.

The answer is Jesus came to save men and nations from the judgment of God.

Not through perfect obedience to the law, but through faith in him and submission to his word.

That's how I'd answer that question. That we all deserve the judgment of God, but Jesus Christ took that judgment in the place of all those who believe in him, whether we're talking about individuals or nations.

And that's why I pray earnestly for America that God would turn its heart to him and it would turn the hearts and minds of Americans to him.

And the church would repent. And in repenting, we would see the alleviation of God's judgment on our culture.

Amen. Could you say that one of the reasons we're even highlighting America being under the judgment of God, not only because you and I are citizens here, but because, as the scriptures teach, that to whom much is given, much is expected.

And this country has squandered more opportunities and privileges than almost anyone, if not more than any nation on the globe.

And we went from being such a light, an example to the world sending out missionaries and people even fleeing persecution because they were worshipping

God in spirit and truth in the lands where they lived, would not tolerate it.

So we have this country that in many ways was built upon Christ being the only king and an allegiance to the scriptures as the only inerrant infallible authority, and yet here we are today murdering millions of unborn children, legally putting a seal of approval on men marrying men and women marrying women, surgically and medically mutilating children sexually because a boy thinks he may be a girl and a little girl thinks she may be a boy and all these ridiculous satanic things going on coming from a land that was and is as blessed as we were and have been.

I will show you how amazing God's grace is. If America had not committed any other sin, it deserves to go to hell for murdering 60 million unborn babies.

But if America will repent of her sins and turn to Christ, God will even forgive

America of murdering 60 million babies. Amen. Amen.

Well, we have to get to our final break right now. This is going to be much more brief than the last breaks. If you have a question, please send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com ChrisArnson at gmail .com We'll be right back with Dr. Joe Morecraft after these messages.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back and we have a question from someone who has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I think my guest today,

Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, will be thrilled to know that this brother is the founder of the

Bonson Project, which can be found at Bonsonproject .com

is the website, Bonsonproject .com. His name is Graham Dugas, I think I'm pronouncing that name right.

He says, can you expound on what Marsonianism is and how, combined with Gnosticism, has emasculated the church leading us into antinomianism, a lot of words here, a lot of fancy Bible book learning words, and pietism that sounds correct to the ears of the simple -minded, but it really amounts to a toxic stew that has led us to our present captivity.

I'm going to have to repeat that. Can you expound on what

Marsonianism is and how it, combined with Gnosticism, has emasculated the church leading us into antinomianism and pietism that sounds correct to the ears of the simple -minded, but it really amounts to a toxic stew that has led us into our present captivity.

Yes, if we had an hour. Spell the first ism.

M -A -R -C -I -O -N -I -S -M. Marcionism. Marcionism, okay.

Marcionism, Marcion did not like the Old Testament. He did not like the law of God.

That's the first thing. Gnosticism is the view that there's only an elitist group of intellectuals that know the truth, and if you're not a part of that elitist group, and the truth is not revealed, it is because of rationalism.

What's the other ism? Pietism? We have antinomianism and also pietism.

Alright, antinomianism, made up of two Greek words, anti - against nomianism, law, against the law of God, those who hate the law of God, and pietism.

Pietism was originally a movement in the 16th century that almost unraveled the

Reformation in that it sought to have an inner spiritual relationship with God and thoughts about heaven, with absolutely no engagement in culture, and know that everything, all of this is neoplatonism.

A disregard for the law of God, all across the board, because the law of God is earthy, it is, we have a form of Christianity today that the only thing you think about is heaven, the only thing you think about is spiritual feelings on the inside, and no real concern for obedience to the law of God.

But I've heard people actually tell me that to speak about the Holy Spirit and the law of God in the same sentence is crazy, it doesn't sound spiritual to say you should obey laws, so there is this dominant form of Christianity today that I'm glad Graham brought out, a dominant form of Christianity, and it is the dominant form in the 20th century and 21st century, that is just concerned with feeling, existential experience, inner feelings, going to heaven when you die, and the reason it originated in the, there's one ism that Graham didn't mention, that the reason that it originated in the 20th century is because in the late 1800s, early 1900s, you had existentialism, that said that my life is basically irrational, subjectivism that says that life is basically in truth is to be found in terms of what you experience and what you feel, and the church in the 20th and 21st century has never escaped that view except for Reformed churches,

Reformed Baptists, Reformed Presbyterian, Reformed Episcopal, but by and large, fundamentalism, non -Reformed fundamentalism is eaten up with a baptized version of all these isms that Brother Graham has brought out, so that it's not really

Christianity at all, I was talking to a woman recently who loved

Joel Osteen, I mean she just loved him up one side and down the other, she loved

Joyce Meyer up one side and down the other, she couldn't keep from singing her praises, and I decided, well,

I've got to say something, I said, I don't even believe Joel Osteen is Christian, neither one of those people even know what the gospel is, and she said, but they talk about Jesus, yeah, and I said, but it's not the

Jesus I believe in, it's not the Jesus of the Bible, and if we could just get

Christians in America to see that using our words, but depriving them of historical biblical meaning is dangerous,

I mean what's more dangerous than a wolf, a wolf in sheep's clothing, if a wolf just came up to you and said,

I'm going to eat you, you'd run from him or shoot him or something, but when a wolf's dressed in sheep's clothing, and uses our terms, but means something completely different by them, we are so ignorant today that we can be devoured by them without even knowing it, so what's interesting today is most evangelicals today in America believed what was condemned by the reformation of the main theology of medieval history, the reformation condemned a view that said, and I'll put it as simply as I can, you have to believe in Jesus before you can be born again, and the whole reformed church condemned that as a lie, most evangelicals today believe still, that you have to believe in Jesus to be born again, the question

I would ask is, how much believing can a dead man do? so you're talking about the ordo salutis, you don't want to give me you take the first step,

God will do the rest, how many steps can a dead man take? and I'm sure you would agree that you must believe in Jesus to be viewed or to be comforted with the assurance that you are born again and to have your sins forgiven, you have to believe in Jesus in order to be accepted with God and have your sins forgiven, but a dead man will not believe in Jesus until God has raised him from the dead, and that is the great point of the reformed faith, if you were to ask me in one sentence to define the reformed faith and distinguish the reformed faith from all modern evangelicalism, we would say you must be born again before you can believe in Jesus, evangelicalism says you must believe in Jesus in order to be born again, how much believing can a dead man do?

and I'll end with this, John 1, 12, and 13, as many as received him, to them he gave the power to be called the children of God, even to those that believe in his name, who were born, not of the flesh, nor the will of man, nor of blood, but who were born of God, why did they believe in Jesus?

not because they were theologically in tune, but because God caused them to be born of him

Amen, we have time for one more question, an anonymous listener in Canada wants to know, my question has to do more with the church in particular, does

Brother Moorcraft think it is better for Christians to leave churches that are on the edge of apostasy or in apostasy and just join solid churches, or is it worth the fight to try and return these churches to soulless biblical teaching and preaching?

Nowhere in the Bible is a church pictured as a mission field, if you go to a church that is liberal, that is on the verge of apostasy or apostate,

I think it's your duty to leave, it's not optional, Acts 19, it says that Paul, when they start speaking evil of the way before the multitude,

God let, Paul left the synagogue and separated the disciples and taught them a school, another place,

I think it is the duty of Christians to leave liberal and apostate churches,

I think you're sinning if you stay in a church that's liberal and apostate,

God has found a reformed church, number one, if you can't find a reformed church, find an evangelical church, but it is your duty before God to leave apostate churches, let them go bankrupt, let the preacher lose his salary, whatever it takes, but leave apostate churches when they start speaking evil of the way before the multitude,

God, Paul separated the disciples Amen Come out from among them and be separate, saith the