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August 11, 2017:
Dr. C Matthew McMahon, founder of A Puritan’s Mind who will address:
“The WORTHY CHURCHMAN, or the Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ” by John Jackson (1600-1648)
Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris 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 Friday on this 11th day of August 2017, and I'm delighted to have back on the program Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, who is founder of A Puritan's Mind, and he's going to be addressing today The Worthy Churchman or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, and this is a book that was written by John Jackson who lived in the 17th century, and it's my honor and privilege to you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. C. Matthew McMahon.
Thank you, Chris, happy to be.
Here, look forward to discussing the topic of The Faithful Minister. Amen, and in studio with me is.
My co-host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello, it's good to be here for that conversation.
And let me right away give our listeners our email address if you have a question for Dr. C. Matthew McMahon on this subject. Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Chrisarnzen at gmail .com, that's c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.
And you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter, perhaps for some reason you're complaining in some way about the pastor of the church where you are a member or something, perhaps you have a strong disagreement with your pastor on theology or a doctrine or practice or something else.
I understand that that would give rise to your wanting to remain anonymous, but other than that, other than a private and personal matter, please just give us your first name, city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.
And as I was mentioning to you, Dr. McMahon, off the air, there is something explosive happening in regard to the expansion of Iron Sharpens Iron's audience. We're getting contacted sometimes on the air and many times off the air every day by listeners who are new to the program, who have never heard of it until recently, who have fallen in love with it.
So there's going to be a lot of folks perhaps listening that have never heard you on this program and may not yet be familiar with a Puritan's mind. So why don't you share a bit.
About a Puritan's mind with our listeners? Well, the whole idea behind what APM was about was taking what was a blessing to me and sharing it with others. Back in 1997 or so, I had already begun reading all sorts of Puritan works that were being put out by Soledad, Gloria, and Banner of Truth.
One became great, sanctifying blessings to me. And in thinking about that, this new fangled thing began called the internet. And I thought, you know, the internet would be a really great place, an instantaneous global network to put out really good information, Christ, about theology, about the Puritans.
I wanted to come away with the same kind of mind that men like Jeremiah Burroughs and Christopher Love and Francis Turton and William Ames and some of these others that I was reading. I wanted to have the same kind of mind that they had about Christ.
And so I thought, oh, Puritan's mind, that's kind of catchy. So let's take that and we'll post some excerpts of their writings and see if we can get people interested in it. And so Christopher Love and William Ames and Francis Turton were the first three that I started posting.
And that basically just snowballed into what it is today. So over the past 20 years or so, we have thousands of pages, hundreds of Puritans, whole lines there for free. That in turn got me thinking about what kind of people will read what it is that we're putting out.
Because generally what we would do is take the actual information. That means that people were reading things in Old English. Sometimes, depending upon the Puritan, William Perkins, Nicholas Byfield, and some of them, they were earlier, a little bit more difficult to read.
So naturally, out of a Puritan's mind of what we were doing there, Emerge Purit decided to take works that hadn't been, and not only publish them, but make them easily readable. And so we would update them in modern English.
And we have about 200, and most of them, John Jackson is one of the really getting into some of the doctrine and hooks. Well, the Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say.
I just, I can hear through, obviously not literally through my headphones, but I can just hear a lot of the listeners thinking to themselves right now, are you kidding? Why would we want to read the Puritans?
Aren't they those starchy, boring, old-fashioned people that nobody remembers?
Right? Yeah, people tend to get dissuaded from reading them for a couple of reasons. One, the world constantly, even brutally cruel within the church in that way. For example, when we run to the Salem Witch Trials, well, that wasn't the Puritans.
Those were the pilgrims who came over from England and separated themselves from the Church of England because they didn't think that the Church of England could be dissuaded from being changed or sanctified in England.
Application. And that was one of the things that made for a faithful minister in that particular manner. Not that they just told you what Scripture said or when they preached. They were eminent in taking that and applying it into your heart, crawling in the back of their head and depositing the truth of God there, placing it in their heart.
Now, preaching for them was not only to the ears, it was to the mind, and they had a very particular way about doing that, which I think we have pushed that off to the side today. It's one of the things, John, that a faithful minister not only understands the Word itself, not only understands what the intent of the Holy Spirit is, but also that he takes it and applies it to the life of the people.
The Puritans were eminent to be, to look in the writings of Augustine. When you read Calvin's Institute, it's almost like you're just reading Augustine. And when you read Augustine, you think that he teaches the world what's in them.
They were the opposite of that. The English Puritans were, and we have a particular application integrating that into their own church, even if we come here out for America, men like Jonathan Edward. Edward was not a Puritan.
He was Puritan-esque. He had much of the same doctrine as the Puritans, and if you read his sermons there, you would read any of the other Puritans, Bridges or Sibbes, and you'll see that they're going to take, explain, and expound it.
Then he's going to pull a doctrine from the text and teach you what that doctrine means, and then he's going to apply it specifically to you, which after years of doing that, the Lord for us here in America chose that Jonathan Edwards would be utilized as one.
And so churchmen in the ministry, they're going to want to preach in the best way. Where are they going to look? They're going to look to the Reformation. They're going to look to the Puritans in that way.
Because they were masters. Yes, you are actually one of the few that I've spoken with who has a thorough knowledge of the Puritans that actually does draw a sharp distinction between Puritans in England and Christians here in the United States, or in America, I should say, who were here even prior to what became the United States of America.
Sure. For instance, I've heard Jonathan Edwards being referred to as the last Puritan, and I've heard that those Christians in New England and Massachusetts had set up what was very near to be a Puritan theocracy in that area.
So these immigrants from England to the United States that were Congregationalists in adherence to the Savoy Declaration and so on, that many of the current day Congregationalist churches who are apostate could actually nonetheless trace their roots back to these Puritans and somehow obviously veered very sharply off the track there of biblical teaching into heresy and apostasy.
But were the ancestors of those who are in Congregationalist churches, especially in New England, were they not properly called Puritans? Or you seem to have a different.
Idea on that. Well, no. They began first to be called precisionists, and they're precisionists with the way they're precise in their doctrine, preaching, and in their lives. But yes, a little after that, the idea of the Puritan came about being those ones who wanted to take and purify the church.
Thomas Cartwright in 1570, he was ejected from his teaching post at Cambridge because he criticized the Church of England and its liturgy and its government, and he called what they were doing pretended.
He says, and I quote, but alas, we have too much reason to complain that Christian religion is fallen from its primitive purity. And so, but when you look at Puritanism in and of itself, if you want to give like formal dates for it, 50s up and through around the 16, middle of the 1660s, where the Act of Uniformity was ultimately passed and Church of England booted out 2 ,000 ministers out of their pulpits, wanted, in words was Puritan-esque, but he didn't live in England, but he followed most of and many doctrines and even the logical order of the way that he preached and taught.
As you can see from reading any of his sermons or his works, it was very Puritan-esque in that way. So the precisionist was a really important term for them in the beginning because it was something in which they were sharply defining.
They were known for, at the same time, logic and such and making that subservient to Scripture, and yet at the same time utilizing that, knowing that you have to be able to think well in order to preach well and study well and such, basically to be some of the greatest.
Preaching that you find in the history of the Christian Church. We have R .J. in White Plains, New York, who says, I heard you just mention moments ago that the Puritans were not the ones responsible for the execution of the witches in Salem, Massachusetts, but I have heard that in England there have been hundreds if not thousands times more witches or alleged witches burned there, and I was wondering who were the perpetrators of those executions?
Were they Puritans or were.
They clergymen in the Church of England? Understanding the historicity of that, I have not dealt so squarely with it to uncover all of it. When you start, if you look at any of the good, what I'm going to call good Puritans, I mean if you look at Burroughs and any of these guys on the Westminster Assembly, none of them had, they didn't have dawdle in such things, they weren't thinking in that particular way to go around persecuting people.
The whole idea, for example, of the Westminster Assembly, they were engaged in putting together what right worship was going to be for Scotland, England, and Ireland, and they were called by Parliament to do that specifically because they needed uniformity in religion.
So who may have persecuted people before then, or maybe the turn of the Reformation up to the start of Puritanism, I don't really know who those people are, because they're none of the good people that I read.
It's not going to be, you know, William Ames and Christopher Love and such. So I think that's one of the problems that people have, is they get this kind of fall-off idea that suddenly when you say the word, that must mean all of them were like that, as much as to say, well, I know a minister scandalously must be just like that, just to think of it that way.
Again, when you're at least, you don't even have to be widely read, you can just be moderately read, or even just pick a few Puritan paperbacks. You'd be like, I mean, you would not find any of those disparagements in any of those works in any of the writings of any of those men.
So reading and studying and looking at most of them are pretty well known to.
Us. Now, earlier in the program, when we first began, you alluded to the Westminster Divines and said that you could elaborate on those men of God, if you could, just to give our listeners more context of where we're coming from.
Why don't you just give a little summary of the Westminster.
Divines? Sure, sure. The Westminster Assembly of Divines, they received their name from the Church of Westminster Abbey, situated in the Western District of the Assembly. Five years, actually, standards.
When these men come together, they chose out a number of different kinds of ministers, independents, Presbyterians, even Erastians. They came together, God's glory, a unified understanding of practice based on solid exposition and doctrine.
They ultimately, once they began to come together, to invite the Scottish commissioners to come over, and so they invited men like Alexander Henderson and George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford, and the Scottish came over, keeping it brief for you, because there's a lot of history that's involved here.
The Scottish commissioners were like, listen, if we're going to come over and we're going to do this with you, then we need to place together a solemn league and covenant, because it would be really silly and spend years, which they did, on all of these different doctrines, put together a confession, put together catechism, put together the Directory of Public Worship and Private Worship and the form of church government that should be for England, Ireland, Scotland, that if when we just felt like it, we could just toss it all away.
No, here's what we're going to do. We're going to covenant together, and we're going to say, when we're sitting on the dotted line, so the Church of England, who were calling all of these men together to have all of them, solemn league and covenant, sure enough, that's what they did.
And the assembly came together to ratify all of these parts of uniformity. They wanted to be uniform in religion, and you lose a lot of people, because a lot of Christians today are like, well, me and my Bible.
It's just me and my Bible. I don't need a confession. I just need me and my Bible. Well, there's a moment that you ask them, well, what is it that you believe about your Bible? Please tell me what you believe without giving me any kind of...open your mouth and start saying, well, I believe the Holy Spirit is such...you're giving a confession.
So what they did is they picked the best mind and put the chapters, theology of...the confession is not a polemic. It's not written in that way. Its work on the confession began in 1644, 1640. Finally, then in 1649, Parliament and lots of committees that needed to be put together to study all of these different things, writing book, and it's amazing how much they acted then on the ecclesiastical aspect, attended the assembly, and worked with them to put together the best creedal formulas that we have.
It wasn't just that we want to sit down and tell people, you know, who God is, but at the same time, we want to show how that's going to practically apply, which is what they do.
All through the larger and shorter. I am going to read you a part of a question here from our second listener. And by the way, RJ in White Plains, I forgot to mention to you, you have also won a free copy of The Worthy Churchman or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ by John Jackson, which is published by our friends at Puritan Publications, the publishing ministry of our guest today, Dr. C. Matthew McMahon.
So thank you for sending in that question. And also our second winner here is Daniel in San Jose, California, who's also won a copy of the book. I'm going to be forwarding you Daniel's email with this question, but I'll also read it right now and you could answer it when we come back from the break.
Thank you for today's show. I always look forward to your interviews with Dr. McMahon. Could you ask him to explain the significance of the stones, the color, their virtue, and how ministers of the gospel today can and should take heed to this Puritan work?
And secondly, could you briefly explain what up to God means in the context of this book? And lastly, explain the importance of The Worthy Churchman, especially in today's culture. You have three questions there, and I'm actually forwarding, as I said, the email to you, so you can mull it over over the break.
And anybody else who would like to join Daniel in San Jose, California with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we do have a few of you already waiting, and we'll get to as many of you as possible before the end of the program.
And so don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with Dr. C. Matthew McMahon and our discussion of The Worthy Churchman. Tired of bop store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?
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Because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you just tuned in to our program, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, founder of A Puritan's Mind.
Today we are discussing The Worthy Churchman or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, a book by John Jackson who lived in the 17th century. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address for a question for Dr. C. Matthew McMahon 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, your city and state, and your country of residence. As I read to you before we went to the break, Dr. McMahon, Daniel of San Jose, California had three questions, and let me read again the first one for you.
You should have these in front of you now. I emailed them to you, but he asks...
I do.
Okay, he asks, could you ask Dr. McMahon to explain the significance of the stones, the color, their virtue, and how ministers of the gospel can and should take heed to this Puritan.
Work? Now, Daniel, thank you for placing us right on track, because that is the sum and substance of the whole work. The idea that, first, Jackson was a brain. He was a very smart man. He wrote, there's actually not a lot of information about his life, but he wrote nine different works, this being the first of the nine that we put together and put out there, a number of others, all of which are, but even in the way that through his works and looking at how he says what he says, how he thinks about things, what he's done is he's taken the breastplate of the high priest and the 12 stones in that breastplate, and he kind of, Exodus 28, 17 to 20, the text says, and you shall set in its settings of stones, even four rows of stones, the first row shall be, and then they name all the different stones and such.
And then he also jumps over to Revelation 21, and he shows that the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all these different pressures, and they link together in that this is something of the Old Testament that was placed on the minister, and in the New Testament, it was placed on the gates of the apostles, also ministers, and so what he did is he took each one of these, and he basically researched how each one these stones have certain virtues and certain ideas associated with their color.
We generally would just read it and say, and this neat-looking ephod, and he was like, no, no, it's much more than that, because what it does is it gives certain virtues away based on each one of these stones.
So his whole book is about being a faith, and he goes through, I don't know if we'll have time to go through every single one of them, so what he does is he sends a vivid account of what they've done with God in that particular way.
And in thinking about that, because I think your, why should we, how ministers today should take heed of that work, the, every aspect that the Puritans put together in talking about pastoral theology and talking about who ministers are before God are, it's eminently important, because in being a worthy, being a faithful minister, there should be that.
And we say, well, we have all sorts of faithful ministers, ministers in general are faithful. Well, there's a little bit more of a dimension to that than just simply saying it. For example, Jeremiah said, and I have this day declared it, that is God's will, to you, that is to the people, but you have not obeyed, and listen to what he says, the voice of the Lord, your God.
Or anything which he has sent you by me, that's Jeremiah 42, 21. So Jeremiah spoke and equated it with the voice of the Lord. Why? Well, because God's people ought to hear God's voice in the mouth of the minister.
And so, if the minister is going to be a sole winner, if he's going to be faithful in that way, working alongside with God, doing what God has called him to do, being a herald, then he's God's voice. Do we, as Christians, really think about the minister in that particular way?
Or when the sermon is over, do we just get up and say, oh, that was a nice sermon? Do we really need to think about what it is that God has done in taking the faithful minister and placing him in the context, and what he is to do?
Now, he's only a man, but we're not talking about him just being only a man. We're talking about him being a worthy churchman, one that's sent by God to be a herald for God, because he is supposed to be the cure of souls in that particular manner.
And in thinking about what that means, he is supposed to be able to do that faithfully in order. It's not simply that he goes out and, because a lot of people are thinking, well, winning souls is converting people.
Well, it's not necessarily all that that's made up to be, because when you're dealing with the sanctification of the congregation itself, the minister wins souls by keeping all of those sheep inside the fold.
So not only is he going up to the byways and highways and come in, but he's also tending to the sheep. He is fulfilling, as Paul said, in Christ's ministry that he was. But what he does do, teachers are then sent out, and knowing that suddenly they may be called by God to give an account of what their ministry was, she came out and said, worry in carrying them in that way.
Paul mentioned in that particular the second stone and the virtue that it's having a minister which delights in the things above, searching out, finding out. And he says that the color itself, which was yellow, the stone was a yellow stone, it demonstrates that the Church is the queen adorned investments of gold, as Psalm 45 9 says, and that wise and good Christians will give worthy ministers their double honor and have in them singular love for their work's sake.
They love their work, they are diligent in it, and they continue to minister to the people in a manner in which brings them the whole counsel of God. I think on that particular point, there's a lot to say, because I think that we've kind of lost the idea of what, like, why do we preach?
Why do ministers preach the Word? Well, they preach to win souls. No, that is not why they preach. Well, they preach to sanctify the congregation. No, that is again not why they preach. They are supposed to be heralds on behalf of God who declare, as Isaiah 52 7 says, your God.
Their message is to be one of the supremacy of God in preaching. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns.
That is their main focus and main message. So the word of deliverance, redemptive preaching in that particular way, is showing that not only that God, he publishes the reason why he acts. He acts because he reigns.
He's the supreme God, the one who is high and lofty and lifted up. So the preacher is supposed to come in, and in every sermon that you hear, and every sermon that we hear, when the preacher preaches, not only are we to hear God's voice, we need to do better in really thinking about what it is that's occurring at that particular moment, but also that the central aspect of every sermon ever ought to be this redemptive preaching concerning Christ.
Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, the preacher can't preach on tithing, or that he can't preach on what it means to have the fruit of the Spirit. They could preach with all sorts of things, but the central message is this colored stone of diligently unfolding divine truth in such a way as to keep God central and supreme.
And I think, personally, that that's not something, generally, that homiletics classes teach in seminary. I say learning, ministers are learning in seminary, ministers are learning in seminary, like three credits on a homiletics class with the Word, and think that it does not tell you how many sermons, after sermon, after sermon, when we hear somebody enter into the pulpit, the first thing that they do, and they start out with an illustration about what the sermon is going to be about.
Maybe, let's say they don't do that first, they read the scripture, start to do right after that scripture is written, an illustration about what the sermon is going to be about, as if the Word is going to tell you that.
What we need, Puritans and to dying men, in 15 -20 minutes, talking about is that they did on the way to the church, had to wait there, and you will know nothing about Jonathan Edwards. You will know a lot about God, but he never talked about his wife and his children, his illustrations, any of anything not about him, as if you read a biography about them, because it's not going to be in their sermon.
They were thinking, when we bring these glad tidings to the church, as commissioned ministers of God, the only way that we're going to have lovely feet in that particular way, is if we bring God's message, be preaching in that particular manner.
And I'm assuming, I don't recall you actually addressing the second question, you addressed the first and the third from Daniel, but the second question Daniel had was, could you briefly explain.
What up to God means, in the context of this book? Yes. Everything that the worthy churchman does, everything that the faithful minister does, is going to be given first and foremost to do and say what the minister to do, in the context of God, first.
And then God will then bless whatever the work is, if that minister is being faithful to the message. I mean, just think about the practical application of that in preaching or teaching, what a minister preaches or teaches.
To use the illustration of Jonah, got swallowed by the fish, he's in the stomach of the fish, rank by the time he's puked up on the beach, and he was, right? So he was probably pretty in bad shape. He gets puked up on the beach, in front of a city, on my family vacation, God commissioned him, and then he has to go, and God says it again, what I tell you to preach, this is the message that you need to be faithful.
Faithful minister, that kind of minister wants people in a killer manner, maybe there's some fear of men that comes in that way, but we need more worthy churchmen, God's manner.
Well, I tell you, that illustration that you gave earlier of the pastor, no it wasn't Jackson, I think it wasn't Jackson, who was found by his wife on the floor weeping over his, who was that? That was John Welch.
That's right, John Welch, right. That really puts me to shame as I reflect upon the very few times that I have been found on the floor weeping, it was usually because I called the pizzeria too late to get a delivery.
I mean, this man, this man is actually really, truly concerned over the souls of his flock. Right, right. That's really awe-inspiring and embarrassing to all of us who, I mean, when we think, even if we're not pastors, how often have we wept over the souls of our own families and our lack of evangelism to them or our lack of even just being.
Obedient Christians in their lives? Well, you know, it's converted under preaching. What happened to converted in that particular way? You know that people who were converted and knew that they were converted at that particular time, they, that was a different, not just another sermon.
It's forming life, changing the preacher, took our hand and put it into the hand of Christ, put it into the arms of Christ, and it was not just another sermon. So why is it, though, that if we have, let's assume we have faithful ministers who are preaching, we have those John Welches, we have those John Jacksons, we have those guys that are concerned about our souls, why is it that we go into listening to preaching and it was just another sermon?
And we're not affected in that particular way, and we don't weep over our sin, and we aren't thinking about it that way. It's not that our lives are supposed to be drab and dreary, but we are to have a real sense of being continually ripped away from the world and brought closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think one of my favorite illustrations in any of the Narnia Chronicles is when Eustace, he goes and he touches, you know, the cup and the treasure on that island, and he turns into a dragon, and everybody's like, where's Eustace?
And he's a dragon, and Aslan has to come, and literally with his claws as he had that. We think that when preachers preach, you know, it's not sharing, it's not musing at the pulpit, it's not a theological lecture, it's supposed to connect us with the intent of the Holy Spirit in the Scripture that's being preached on for the good of our sanctification, and we should be brought either closer to heaven or closer to hell, one way or the other.
And I think that a lot of that is lacking today. I don't think that we are as serious as we could be, and I think that's one of the reasons why the Puritans are so important.
And I'm going to read a question and go to our midway break. Gordy from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, I've already forwarded you his question. He says, there seems to be an inherent, deep, reverent attitude towards the call to the pastorate by Puritan writers.
Do you find this attitude in evangelical circles today to be lacking? What about Reformed Church leaders? And you can respond to Gordy when we come back from the break. And thank you, Gordy, for that question or those two questions.
And if anybody else would like to join Gordy with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.
Don't go away. We'll be right back, God willing, with more of Dr. C. Matthew McMahon and the worthy churchmen. One sure way all Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers.
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For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.
We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.
That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostle's priority, it must not be ours either. We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.
If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship. You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750. Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled Resting in Grace.
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For many years to come. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit.
To the Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am .com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.
Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back, this is Chris Arns,.
And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with a little less than an hour to go, is Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, founder of A Puritan's Mind. We are addressing The Worthy Churchman or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ by John Jackson, who lived in the 17th century.
If you'd like to join us with a question for Dr. McMahon, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. But before we return to our discussion, we have some important announcements from some of our sponsors.
The Gospel of the Reformation 500th anniversary celebration is being held at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, in cooperation with Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship. The guest speaker is Dr. Tony Costa, a dear friend of mine, who is on the faculty at Toronto Baptist Seminary.
He's the professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and joining him on the roster at that conference are Pastor Caleb Bunch, Pastor Bruce Bennett, and Pastor Dave Corson. If you would like to join me, God willing, at this conference, which will be held February, I'm sorry, February, Friday, September 29th through Saturday, September 30th, you can go to Word of Truth Church's website, wotchurch .com, wotchurch .com, or you can call 631 -806 -0614.
631 -806 -0614. Word of Truth Church is located on 1055 Portion Road in Farmingville, New York. And again, the dates for this 500th anniversary of the Gospel of the Reformation celebration is Friday, September 29th, and Saturday, September 30th.
So I hope to see you there. Then the very next day, on Sunday, October 1st, Dr. Tony Costa will also be speaking at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Medford, Long Island, New York. They're located on 3239 Route 112, Suite 1 in Medford, Long Island, New York.
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Then coming up in November, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is conducting their annual Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology. That's November 17th through the 18th, and it will be held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.
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If you would like to join me at that conference, because I am planning also to be there with an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor's booth, you could go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org, then click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.
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The theme is going to be Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. And on the 17th, that is exclusively a Spanish-speaking edition of the conference. From the 18th through the 20th is an English-speaking version of the main conference.
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If you would like to attend the G3 Conference, and by the way, G3 stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory, in case you're wondering. The G3 Conference, if you want more information on registering for it, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com.
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If you are blessed above and beyond your ability to support your local church, as you always have been, and to provide for your family, because those two things are commands of God, supporting my radio program is obviously not a command of God, but if you're blessed above and beyond your ability to support those two things, and please never skim out of your giving to your local church, or siphon out of it in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron, please never do that.
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We now return to our interview with Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, founder of A Puritan's Mind, and as I said, we're discussing The Worthy Churchman or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ by John Jackson, a 17th century Puritan.
And we have a question from Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, that I read to you earlier before the break. There seems to be an inherent, deep, reverent attitude towards the call to the pastorate by Puritan writers.
Do you find this attitude in evangelical circles today.
To be lacking, and what about Reformed church leaders? That's a great question in that particular vein, because it's the means and manner, it's a means of grace. Preaching is a means of grace, and if the preacher is God's voice, and God requires them to be a voice in a certain manner, then it isn't that everything about them ought to reflect what God requires.
Can you find that in evangelical circles, big quotes around evangelical as it came to be, to be lacking? I would say, and this is an, I could say it this way, I was in evangelical circles years and years and years ago in that particular way, in terms of what the question is, because we didn't think of it at that time in that way.
You know, you want to be administered, that may be a good thing. You know, do you like people? Yes. Do you have a hearty handshake? Yes. Do you smile? Yes. Pray a little bit? Yes. Up with the urine? That's what we need.
We need more friendly faces. Make the people feel good. Don't want anyone who's linking that, oh, I'm just being too hard. God is very specific about what He requires those ministers to be like. So I think even in reformals today, I think we still need to up that game a little bit more, because case in point, I went to seminary.
I have lots of friends that are ministers. I have minister friends that come to me, that email me, that talk with me and say, listen, I went to seminary, but I never learned how to do what you're talking about.
I don't understand what this expository preaching, this experimental preaching that Puritans did. I don't know what that is. How do I do that? So I think that there's a lot of that which is lacking, and I hear a lot of frustration from ministers.
Even just in the last couple of days, another person emailed me and they were like, you know, I understand what it is to make my sermons do that, and so they haven't been taught. It happens with theologians and teachers and pastors that know how this works, and they're thinking, that's where our sadness really comes out, because we're thinking, here are these people.
They have a heart. They have the right qualifications. They're the right guys for the job, so to speak, but they just haven't been trained in the way that they need to. They don't have the Paul to the Timothy.
They have the maybe, maybe, the brick-and-mortar seminary. They sat in the class. They took their exegesis class for three credits and their homiletics class for three credits and think that they got everything down.
I remember one of my teachers at a seminary years later said, I love who come back three, four, five years later. I was like, well, by Jeremiah Burroughs, that is one of the things that he's saying about ministers.
One of the things that he does, Burroughs was one of these guys on the assembly. He goes on to like 200 pages, 20 chapters of law, believers who try to live in some legal way. We don't get trained in this way.
We don't get trained on what the Puritans would call. You deal with different people. Pastor walks in. Puritans were sitting in there. They would be like, what are you doing? No, no, no. You need to be able to take this, to be more than just there with them and then walking out the door.
You need to be able to deal with that conscience. What do you do with the person, the young person, the 16, 17-year-old that's in the Christian family, and he is now weeping on his bed because he doesn't know if he's saved or not, and the law is a burden to him.
How does the minister deal with that particular person? What is that in that way? Shine as they are ministering. A lot of times, that's the case. They go, and then when they get to a point where there may be something major, if there's a reverence, I really don't think we're grasping it and holding onto it.
We tend to come out with, which is one of the things that Jackson talks about, and the carbuncle. The carbuncle, the colors, the color of a flame, he says. Burning coal where ministers are fitly signified as having great zeal in what they do.
You know, it's comely for any to be zealous in good things, and so I think that we need to be more zealous in training up a minister, because even right now, I'm dealing with putting together a series of sermons for the congregation that I'm dealing with the idea of what should be happening in the pulpit so that you know, as a congregation, because they're looking for a minister, you know as a congregation what is to be expected of you because God requires you to do certain things based on what these sermons and this preaching and such are about.
So if these things are not happening, if these people are not the voice of God to you, then where does that leave you? That's why Jesus said, if you're not good for nothing, you're useless. There has to be this great zeal, this unmitigated zeal, imbued from the pores of the preacher in that particular way, in doctrine and in piety.
Jesus, in Matthew 21, when he went to the temple the second time he did it, he drove them out, made the whips and the cord, the house has eaten me up, and the they stayed there overnight because it was so tumultuous in the city that he couldn't stay there, so he left and he came back the next day from Bethany traveling to Jerusalem and on the road he saw a fig tree and the fig tree, he saw, Mark says, he saw it afar off and he was excited about it, the text says, because he saw, oh he hungered and he wanted to eat.
He walks up to the tree and the tree only has leaves on it. Now the thing that that was the temple tree demonstrating itself, that it should have fruit, but it has none, because with a fig tree company, the time you have leaves healthy, you should have tons of fruit.
Jesus looks at the tree and he immediately curses it because it's good for nothing. In fact, could you pick up right where you left off with.
Jesus cursing the tree, because we have to go to our final break. Yes, please. We'll pick up right where you left off on Jesus cursing the fig tree, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, now is the time to do it because we're running out of time.
Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors, God willing. Tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?
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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am .com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.
Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study,.
Because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back. We are now in our final 25 minutes or so with our guest today, Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, founder of Puritan's Mind. We are addressing the worthy churchman or the faithful minister of Jesus Christ by John Jackson, a 17th century Puritan.
If you'd like to join us on the air, we are rapidly running out of time, so do so quickly at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and you'll have to get in line, because we already have several people waiting to have their own questions asked and answered, but we'll get to as many of you as time allows.
And before the break, Dr. McMahon,.
You were talking about Jesus cursing the fig tree. Yes, you know, he had gone to the temple. They had turned it into a den of thieves. He drove them out, and on the way back, he saw this tree, and the tree didn't have the fruit that he expected that it should have, and he cursed it, which is a parallel to the temple.
But in thinking about that, it's like what, in terms of Gordy's question, how we think about what ministers or pastors should be doing today, what would churches do if they were at Jesus's time, and they had the temple there, and they knew the situation was bad, would they make a cord, a whip out of cord, and drive them out?
I think that we have that mindset more, that it's more loving to set up a booth right next to them. That seems to be the more loving thing, to win them over, to see if we can, in some way, convert them to our way of thinking or our mind.
The Puritans would never do that, in terms of thinking about what the minister was to do. The Sept John Jackson talks about, says that, its color was blue, signifying the color of the heavens and the loftiness of the mind toward heavenly things, which is the best temperament for a minister's spirit.
You know, think about, I think about the practicality of that Jonah illustration. Imagine if Jonah did go in, and he gave, you know, he said, oh Lord, you know, I know that you want me to say, yet forty days and Nineveh's going to be overthrown, I know you want me to preach that message, but that's a little harsh.
Let's make it a little bit more palatable, because we really need to win these people over. I'll tell you, the Ninevites wouldn't have been converted, and they would have been kicked on the day of judgment against Jonah for not doing what God specifically called.
The city was converted by his preaching, because he preached and delivered what God wanted him to preach. Now, that doesn't mean he had a good attitude about it. Jonah is a case in and of itself. Talk about, you know, being that true, and yet wasn't.
He had certain reasons for that, but yet, you know, we should be trying to congregation in a manner in which demonstrate not only God's directives and will, but also demonstrates Christ loving his people, and he says, my sheep will hear my voice, of being able to preach and teach in a manner in which God wants him to do that.
And if he doesn't do that, people are not going to be converted, they're not going to be sanctified, and so I think in evangelical circles as a whole, we're more thinking about how we can keep the people in there rather than snatch them from the fire, as Jude says,.
In order to bring them to heaven. Well, Gordy, you've also won a free copy of The Worthy Churchman or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ by John Jackson, and we thank Puritan Publications for providing these free copies of this book, and we thank Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com, cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for BibleBookService .com, for shipping out all of our winners, their Bibles and books and other things that they win when they submit questions to our guests.
And now, drumroll please, because we have the final winner of a book today. Let's see here, we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, was John Jackson amongst those who believed in Presbyterian polity at the Westminster Assembly, or was he among the Congregationalists?
Does this difference in church polity really matter much when it comes to the role of the minister that you're speaking of today?
Jackson was not an independent. He, again, we have to gather it based on the information that we have about him, yet we know who the independents were that were at Westminster. He was not one of them, and he was not an Erastian, so by all good and necessary inference, he was in the Presbyterian form of church government.
The Presbyterian form of church government aids in many ways concerning the way that ministers deal with one another in terms of other ministers and the relationship that they have in that particular way.
But in terms of what we're talking about, in the way a minister should be the worthy churchman in that particular way, I'll just tell you one of the people that have had some of the greatest influences for me personally on my life, like Jeremiah Burroughs.
He was an independent. Now, there are a hearty number of them that were in that particular way, so you could be an exceedingly fabulous minister and still not be a Presbyterian, so to speak, as if that's the in thing for Westminster.
Keep in mind, though, that the idea was, even with the independents, it wasn't like they were all going in, and then Jeremiah Burroughs was going to say, well, listen, if they vote and we wind up in the next four years as Presbyterians, I'm out.
I'm not doing it. No, see, that was the whole point of Solemn League and Covenant. Whatever the assembly came as a consensus and vote in looking at Scripture, that was what we were going to go with. And so even in the Presbyterian form of church government, one of the parts to the standards itself, they talk about good preach, how he should be, who it is that is duly qualified for that office.
They talk about it in the larger catechism, in the shorter catechism. It's showing how we're to hear the Word of God comes right out of the larger catechism's idea on the means of grace and what it is that the preacher is doing on behalf of God.
So, in other words, can you be an independent and be a really good preacher? Yes, there were many of who is the voice of God, and so as a result of that, he is to be the cure, govern the church well, to teach the truth by way of demonstrate what the discipline of godliness is really about.
I think I was on speaking about Perkins and the call to ministry, and there was a question about, what do we think that's lacking? Aside from really understanding the office, I think one of the things that's lacking that we can improve on is eminent piety.
That's one of the things that Jackson tackles in a number of the stones in dealing with. You, as a minister, should be fighting heartedly, not only in your own corruption that you're still dealing with, but you're leading men to be righteous before God, and to wear those white garments in that particular way, and to prevail with a hope for them as demonstrating what that actually means.
I think it doesn't matter whether you're talking about Jeremiah Burroughs, or whether you're talking about John Owen, or whether you're talking about Sibbes, or any of those great Puritans, they're all going to still come down to the fundamental ideas of what ministers ought to be like.
And again, for us today, it goes back to, are we training ministers in the right way? Are they learning these things? What do they do when they get to that particular point, and they say, okay, I don't know how to do this.
Where are they getting their information from? That's part and parcel of what was exciting to me about a Puritan's mind, and what we're doing, and putting out some of these books that I think are exceedingly helpful, and that we should get.
Excited about. Amen. Well, thank you Arnie, and as I said, you have won the final copy that we're giving away today of The Worthy Churchman, or The Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ by John Jackson. Please make sure we have your full mailing address in Perry County, Pennsylvania.
Thanks again for submitting another excellent question. And by the way, I have a print of that gorgeous painting by John Rogers, that 19th century artist who painted that classic painting, Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents and the Westminster Assembly Divines.
You must be familiar with it, Dr. Matt. It's one of the most famous paintings of the Westminster Assembly. I have that hanging on my living room wall, the print of it, that is. Let's see, we have Osinachi from Lagos, Nigeria listening, and Osinachi says, Hello Chris, I have been acquainted with your guest through his website for some time, and I'm glad you're interviewing him.
I know he is grounded in the works of the Puritans, so I'd like to hear him explain what influenced these men to preach this way, and how pastors today can emulate their.
Pattern. I think, interpreter, it's a lot of ministers, maybe even running Bible drills. Okay, today we're going to talk 98 verses in prayer, and you jump from one to another, but you really don't blame him for what it is.
I had one good brother, me, to help him think 17 prayers. Take that idea and explain it. You're going to have to explain prayer. Now, this might be a whole bunch of ministers listening right now thinking, I could do that.
Well, not everybody can do that, and what happens is, is that ministers who are not really wide to those systematic ideas concerning, in this case, prayer all through scripture, or haven't maybe thought through what prayer is, and how they might define it, it's difficult then to jump into this mode of trying to be able to take the text, and this would be an answer to this question that you just asked, I would do three things.
I would take the text, read it, and explain what the text says. After I've done that, I would pull a doctrine out of that text. I would explain that, and then I would apply that to the lives of the people.
Now, the Puritans did that constantly. If you read any of their sermons, sometimes they're more or less, but they're always the same. Sometimes they'll call them uses. It's always the same. Read the text and explain it.
Pull a doctrine from the text. Show the people what that means in terms of all of the Christian church for all time should be able to understand x, y, and z, in this case, about prayer. Pray without ceasing, what that means, and then thirdly, apply that specifically to the life of the congregation.
So even when I preach a sermon personally, I'm not saying you, we, our, three. In the beginning, I'm going to be talking about the Apostle Paul and what he's done with the Church of Thessalonica and how that scripture falls out in some of these miscellaneous ideas in the latter part of that chapter.
These are concluding ideas. Then when I get to the second part, and I talk about the doctrine that I'm going to pull out of the text, I'm talking about the Church in all ages, so I'm going to use language like, Christians believe, unbelievers will say, or the Church has always understood.
I've used language like that. And then when I get to the application, then I'm going to apply it specifically to them. You, we. Here's how we should be thinking about it. Have you considered these things?
But what happens is, is that they're teaching today that homiletics revolves around every single point that you bring should be addressed specifically to the congregation, and it should contain an illustration.
I mean, I'm just telling you, if I did that, my sermons would be three hours, because there's no way that I'm going to be able to explain the text, pull a doctrine out of the text, and apply the text with every single point that I need to make concerning that particular scripture, and then illustrate every one of those as if I need to illustrate it, and the word isn't enough.
Again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't illustrate, but they should be very pointed and very precise and very, very well thought using that. We should have the ability as ministers to explain what the text says.
Again, Jonah didn't go in there with lots of illustrations, and specifically what to proclaim, and he did it for some reason, that they helped the text. I don't know, but maybe it's just me. Well, thank you, Osinachi.
Keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Lagos, Nigeria and beyond. We have another overseas listener. We have Joe in Slovenia, and let's see, Joe says,. Dear Brother Chris, as Buzz already mentioned, that today's common view about Puritans is that they are wholly unfit for consideration regarding models for pastors, elders, or especially your average churchmen.
In our day, when so much emphasis is placed on celebrity showmanship instead of pastoral care and secular standards are employed to accomplish church growth instead of faithful preaching, what specifically are those core characteristics of the Puritans that we need to recover to be trustworthy stewards and undershepherds of the flock of God?
Thanks for leading us back to the purity of the Puritans. Well, obviously, you've covered some of what Joe is asking about already, but do you have anything to add?
Well, I think that it's an adjustment to our focus. I think that in terms of taking the preacher and saying, okay, the preacher is one to be God's voice. I think the gravity, the gravity exceedingly, what does it mean for the preacher to have that kind of gravity?
It's a quality that the minister must be great at. So when we employ that word of that idea, that's weightiness. Whenever we talk about, like, for example, we talk about the glory of God, what is it that means that God is glorious?
The Hebrew idea is in terms of weightiness, that it's His presence, it's the part of His being in that way that's weighty. And so I think the minister needs to regain again the gravity of not only the office, but what it is that he's encouraged to do by God, commanded to do by God.
You know, the apostles in Acts 6 said, we're going to preach, and we're going to pray. And the minister better be able to do those two things eminently, because if he's not doing it in his closet, which means that he needs to be eminent in his piety in that manner, to be able to get out, to ever do anything like pray for the congregation, pray in the midst of the congregation, or preach, both of those things come directly out of really understanding the Word.
The people think that when they get up to pray, that just get up and whatever happens to come to mind, and so they pray in that particular way. Dr. Chalmers, for example, he not only in his teaching class, but even when he preached or at church, he would write out his prayers beforehand.
Why would he do that? Does that not squelch the spontaneity of the Spirit? Well, these great Puritan ministers were thinking concerning the Word, everything revolves around the Word. So if you pray, for example, prayer is taking the Word of God, forming it into an argument, and retorting it back to God again.
It's taking its promises, throwing it back on God again, and saying, Lord, make good on your promises, because this is what you say in your work. And so they would pray that way. And some of these men would pray for hours.
Alexander Henderson, on one particular fast day, prayed for two hours, and he preached first. The preacher should be able to pray, but unless they really saturate themselves in the Word and in their private devotions, they're never going to be able to come out of their closet and preach and pray in the way that they should.
Hear from God, deliver God's message, and to do that effectively, you're going to be lost in missing out on the gravity of that idea and of the office. So as much as they should be graven that way, there should be also a simplicity and modesty about who they are as ministers.
They should have a gentleness about them. They should have a loyalty about them, a great amount of integrity, all of those things that we can go through in First Timothy. Talk about all of these different qualifications, that they're that important at the expense of everything else, then we're going to wind up that our idea of what constitutes a really good minister for any congregation that needs a minister and wants a minister right now is that, listen, if he walks through the front door and he shakes my hand, and he has a nice smile, and he has a pulse, let's consider him.
Shooting yourself in the heart, because he is supposed to be leading you as a congregation to the throne. And so if he's not doing that, then how is he going to do that.
For you? You know, one thing that occurs to me that perhaps specifically Reformed men who believe they are called to the ministry should have first and foremost in their minds, well, second to the there are men that I am sure are brilliant, and they have been, you know, at the top of their class and seminary, they have been applauded by faculty and students alike for their brilliance, their articulate abilities, their homiletic abilities, and their hermeneutic abilities, and so on and so on.
But don't these men, even above that, need to have the heart of a shepherd.
Before they even consider an office like this? Oh my, yes. I mean, every single one of them, that John Welch illustration, the care of the soul. I had one gentleman email me, and he said he saw, I have some videos that talk about pastoral ministry, and he said he saw one on catechizing, and he's like, you know, I don't even do that.
Well, you have to care about that. That means that you have to care about not only the mother and the father, but the children. Part of your job is to take the word and minister to all these different kinds of people.
And I had somebody ask me just not but a week ago, they said, well, what exactly did these guys do way back when, when they were discipling people? I said, well, what did you think? They had, like, a Friday night Bible study, and this, that, and they didn't do that.
What they had, they had the Lord's Day morning and evening, and then they went around to everybody's house outside of the prayer meeting. That would be a constituted prayer meeting at some particular point.
They would go around house to house, and they would catechize so that everybody was on the same page. It was part and parcel of what the Westminster Assembly did, putting together the larger catechism for the parents and the shorter catechism for the kids.
And that they would make sure that everybody knew this. It wasn't just that they're looking for a paycheck. They go to church, they preach one time, and they want $80 ,000 a year like we do today. No, what they were doing is they wanted to, they wanted these people to get to heaven.
How am I going to get them there? What am I going to do? That's why we haven't talked about him, and he's not a Puritan, but he's one of the pastor's pastor. His name was Vinay, Alexander Vinay, and he said the minister's life is a life of consecration.
He is consecrated, his family is consecrated, his household is consecrated for the work of the ministry, out of which he has no meaning if it is not consecrated. And so it's like they give themselves wholly over to this, wholly over to wanting to see people get to heaven.
There can be no do this to a be done in the church today in that particular manner, in any age of the church, to get those people to heaven. This was what was first and foremost on their mind, doing what God wants me to do as demonstrating his supremacy in everything that I am in the office.
Amen. Well, I want to give you one minute to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we run out of time.
I don't want people, I don't expect anybody who's listening or any ministers who are listening, I don't want you to be thinking, man, this is just like pummeling me because I don't believe some of these things, or I don't think, but we can't think that way.
We have to be thinking that scripture, and this is the purpose of Jackson's work. We want to take where people are at and bring them even, bring their people further along. And the people themselves, they're not a detriment to us.
Amen. Well, I know that your websites are.
Apuritansmind .com, apuritans, that's plural, apuritansmind .com, and also puritanpublications .com, puritanpublications .com. Any other contact information you care to give?
Well, just one note, on A Puritan's Mind, we have a whole section. It's brand new this year that we basically put out as much free information as we can, and we'll continue to do so, on pastoral ministry and expository preaching.
So even if you're thinking, where do I start? There's a spot on A Puritan's Mind specifically for that.
Amen. Well, I want to thank you so much, Dr. Matt, for being on the program again, and if you could hold on, I'd like to schedule another interview with you. And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in.
I hope you all have a safe and blessed and God-glorifying weekend and Lord's Day, and I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.