July 16, 2019 Show with Cody Curtis on “A Call for Worship Consistent with God’s Word, Rich in Sound Doctrine, & Intelligible for the Sake of Edification”

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 We're 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 the 16th day of July 2019

One of the great blessings that I experienced recently on my way home from Franklin, Tennessee Many of you know that I attended the

Providence Theological Institute Bible Conference in Franklin, Tennessee very recently

That was hosted by Grace Church at Franklin This conference was known as the

John Bunyan Conference And I was not only blessed at the conference itself, but on the way home to Pennsylvania I stopped and spent two days in Greensboro, North Carolina, with new friends of mine,

Sterling and Bronnie Vanderwerker They own Royal Diadem Jewelers in Greensboro, North Carolina And you'll soon,

God willing, be hearing their commercials for Royal Diadem Jewelers here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio But while visiting both

Sterling and Bronnie in their gorgeous home there in Greensboro, North Carolina Bronnie, who is someone with not only personal music talent, but a great interest in and passion for music

She said to me, you have got to meet and interview a friend of ours,

Cody Curtis He is a composer and the leader of a musical group called

Salos And she began to play for me some of the music produced by Salos And I immediately said, yeah, let's get

Cody on my show And she put me on Skype And Cody and I had our initial conversation

And he enthusiastically agreed to be on the program And today is that day

Cody Curtis is my guest for the very first time And today we are going to be speaking about a call for worship

Consistent with God's word, rich in sound doctrine And intelligible for the sake of edification

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Cody Curtis Thanks for having me,

Chris Hey, the pleasure is all mine, Cody And if you could, tell us a bit about this musical group,

Salos That you are a part of, where you serve as a composer And you are the leader of this group

Tell us about this group And after that, we'll have you give your personal salvation testimony

Which is a tradition here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Whenever we have first -time guests But first, let's hear about Salos So our listeners who are going to be hearing your testimony

Will have more of an idea of who you are now Before we even hear more about the testimony of yours

Sure So, Salos, it's a group that my wife and I started in 2012

And we created it with the mission to For us to create theologically rich and artistically excellent music

That leads people to worship God And to study His words That was kind of our overarching mission when we started

It was just the two of us when we began And it has grown since then To a lot more people involved

But we're both still involved more behind the scenes Me primarily was just the writing and engineering

And producing all those things But we just wanted to write music that was

You know, lyrics that are consistent with Scripture Rich in theology, poetic, witty, and imaginative

And intelligible for the sake of edification for believers And also we had some musical goals of You know, when we're writing corporate worship

We wanted to make sure it was congregational It was singable, accessible to contemporary listeners

But also that's creative, imaginative, adventurous, artistic All these things And really we wanted to help to enrich and shape

The current stream of contemporary Christian music In a positive way And so we began that in 2012

With this album called Slave Songs It was one that we recorded in our apartment When we were living in Greensboro Serving at a church with Bronnie and Sterling Vanderwerker And it started off really small

Slave Songs was this album Based on the biblical metaphor of spiritual slavery How we are born slaves of sin

And how through Christ we are ransomed from that slavery And made to be slaves of God And so from there we have

I think we've done three major albums And we can talk about this later perhaps But we are now taking

New Testament letters of the Bible And setting them to music Not in a word -for -word manner But more of a poetic paraphrase

A way of teaching the overarching story of each epistle In a way that is Believers can understand

And those who have never even read these books of the Bible Can come in contact with them for the first time And so trying to use music to teach scripture

To glorify God And to lead people in greater understanding of scripture And so we've been doing that really since 2012

We're now in partnership with Union University Where I work I teach here at the music department at Union And so our goal is really to set all 21

New Testament epistles to music one day And we have three down We've done Romans, Hebrews And we just released

Jude about a month ago Right, and so our listeners Will have even more of an idea of what you are doing

Before we launch into your personal testimony I'm going to play a song from your new

CD on Jude And this is the song Beloved And I hope that you all are blessed by this

And then when we return we'll hear about the personal salvation testimony of Cody Curtis But first here is the song

Beloved by Salos Beloved I have so much to say

So much that I want to write to you

Of a common love, of a common faith Oh give me some time and I will write you that song

Won't you give me some time and I will send it along But something in the wind has called me

Something in the air has caught my ear A whisper of a word of warning

A murmur of a danger coming Something in the wind has called me

Something in the air has caught my ear It's telling me of evil eyes

And it's telling me of darkened nights And it's telling me the time has come for you

For you to fight Remember what your father had said

Do you remember what your mother passed down They told you long ago a seed was sown

To crush the devil and to cast him away The seed was the son of man

He came to earth to suffer and to die as a lamb And then once for all he felt the fall

But now these people try to lead you astray So we sing fight It's time to embrace the battle of faith

It's raging before you Resistance lie you've been told

Don't cash in your soul Don't let it destroy you

Praise God. And now we are back with Cody Curtis, the composer and leader of Solace, that group that you just heard performing that song

Beloved from their new CD Jude. And now,

Cody, as I said earlier, I would love for you to give a summary of your salvation testimony, something about your religious upbringing, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in your life that he used to draw you to himself and to save you.

Yeah, so I was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. My parents, they took my brother and I to church when we were younger.

And so I was exposed to the Christian teaching from a young age and didn't really understand much of it when

I was younger and didn't really have much fruit. I was always a pretty good kid so I obeyed the rules and didn't get into a whole lot of trouble.

But it really wasn't until high school that the Lord saved me.

I went to an all -guy private school when I'd grown up going to the public school my whole life.

And so that was a bit of a shock. And just the Lord surrounded me with a group of guys who were believers.

And they met every Thursday night at this hot wing place in Memphis called

Mr. P's. And they would just gather for fellowship, eat wings, and they'd talk about Christian themes, the

Gospel, and any kind of questions they had, struggles of that sort. And so I started going to that,

I think it was my freshman year, and really just to hang out with some good guys.

And through that, I started to learn more about the Gospel in a deeper way other than just the basics of Christianity that I knew from Sunday school and things like that.

So it was primarily through those conversations that we had that I came to faith.

Other circumstances, too, I was attending Delphi Baptist Church at the time in Memphis and was exposed to some preaching there.

But really, I got involved in the Methodist Church in high school. That's where a lot of those guys

I was referring to, they went to church, Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, and I began serving as one of the piano players in the ministry there.

And really through that involvement, through a lot of guys who invested in me, I was growing in my faith, learning more about what it means to be a

Christian. So I was helping out with youth group stuff, Sunday morning playing piano, and so that was a very formative time in my life.

I came to faith probably about a junior in high school is, I think, when the Lord converted me.

So I kept going throughout high school. I got to college. I went to college at Union University of Jackson, Tennessee, where I work.

And my freshman year here, I grew tremendously. That's the first time

I was exposed to Paul Washer and his sermons online. And I think that really awakened in me a fresh understanding of the gospel, a deeper understanding of the gospel of my sin and how great a

God we have in saving us. So I listened to lots and lots of his sermons and was soaking up all of that.

Also, the preacher I was listening to a lot when I was younger was Tom Nelson in Bible Church.

He's an expository preacher, and he really taught me at an early age how to read the

Bible, how to think about it. And really Paul Washer, Tom Nelson were people that had a big influence in the early years of my faith.

I grew a lot at Union. It's a Christian university. Lots of great chapel speakers.

Had a wonderful network of friends, community here, a great church where we're still involved with, called Pleasant Plains Baptist Church.

Also was a member of Cornerstone Community Church here in Jackson. And so being, trying to involve myself in the local church definitely rooted me more in my faith.

And yeah, since then, I actually got married in 2009 to my wonderful wife,

Melody. And that's when we spent three years in Greensboro, North Carolina. And that's when we also met the

Vanderworkers, started Solos. I went through a year of pastoral training and was able to serve as an elder for a brief time before we moved back to Jackson, Tennessee where we've been here since 2012 and still involved in that local church,

Pleasant Plains Baptist Church, working in residence life ministry for the past seven years. Just investing in students' lives, discipling them, and now moving to a faculty position in music composition at Union.

Well, I am personally looking forward to hearing again Paul Washer preach at two conferences that will be taking place before you know it.

You'll be hearing more detail about these conferences later on in the program, but he'll be preaching,

God willing, at the Foundations Conference in New York City December 19th and 20th.

And I am really looking forward to that. And also at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia January 16th through the 18th.

At the latter conference, I will be manning an Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitors booth. So I am really excited about that as well.

I'm assuming that the preaching and teaching of Paul Washer was used by God to lead you into an acceptance of Sovereign Grace Theology, the doctrines of, as they have been nicknamed,

Reform Theology, Calvinism, etc.? That wasn't the first time

I was exposed to that. In high school, as I wrestled with all of that stuff, and still in the college,

Paul Washer certainly helped shape my understanding of it. I think the first time I really began wrestling with it was through Tom Nelson's online ministry.

He preached at that Bible church that is accessing all of his sermons on a weekly basis. By the way,

I have to just interrupt you a little bit, brother. For some reason, sometimes you get really muffled again with your voice.

I'm sorry. Oh, okay. I'll try to keep it straight. But yeah, so Tom Nelson, his ministry helped to clarify some of those things.

But yeah, then Paul Washer certainly. He doesn't shy away from those topics, and as he preaches about the

Gospel, so yeah, he definitely had a big influence on my understanding of those doctrinal issues. Great.

Well, I'm going to give our email address for anybody listening who wants to join us on the air 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 as always, please 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.

Well, let's now find out a little bit more about your musical background.

How did you first discover that you had a gift for music?

What drew you into a desire to learn music and into even composing music and so on?

Tell us more about the roots of that. It was sort of accidental. Growing up, my brother and I, and my sister as well, we always did sports and were not very much of a musical family.

And I think it was around age 14 is the first time I got into music.

I was really into baseball and soccer later on, and then I had a back injury freshman year of high school, and it prevented me really from pursuing soccer to the degree that I wanted to.

And having the downtime there, I started to explore other hobbies, and I remember my dad,

I'd always save money as a kid, that's just my natural bent, and he said, why don't you go buy yourself a keyboard or something like that?

And I thought, okay, I can do that. Because I think he knew I was interested in music, but I had zero skills, zero known talents, and I couldn't really sing or carry a tune.

But I went to Best Buy and I bought a little keyboard, probably $60. It didn't even have all 88 keys on there.

But I took it home and plugged it in and started trying to make noise out of it.

And it was one of those keyboards that had a built -in song bank, songs that you can learn, and there's a screen on the front that would walk you through how to play a few of these by Beethoven or a rudimentary version of it.

And I would just kind of go through all those songs and listen to them, and I finally worked up the nerve to learn my first song.

My first song I ever taught myself was Let It Be by the Beatles, and it was in the song bank, and so I really would go chord by chord on that song, note by note, and I'd press play and then pause it, and then look at where the little screen was telling me to put this finger or that finger.

And so I learned how to play parts of Let It Be by the Beatles that way and learned some other songs.

And then I started to cover up the screen a little bit and tried to train myself to hear these chords instead of seeing them on the screen.

And so I did that and started to develop my ear. I knew the basics of music but not much, didn't really take piano lessons until I got to college.

And so when I came to college in 2005, I decided to major in music, and I actually didn't have much background in music or training at that point, but Union has a great music program, and so I spent 4 years here learning more of my craft, learning music theory, learning how to play piano, classical composers, music history, all those things that are very important for songwriters and composers.

And I think initially, even when I got into music, even around 14 or 15, I had this desire to write my own music, and none of it was any good, but it was just trying to take what

I had been hearing and regurgitate it in a newer way. So I did that, wrote some songs, and loved it and had some friends who were also some songwriters and did a little bit of it during college, nothing too serious.

And so that's kind of where my musical career started, age 14, going on, and then studied at Union for 4 years.

I had a degree in music theory and literature, piano being my main instrument, learned more about singing.

And then after my wife and I got married in 2009, that's when I graduated from Union, I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and attended the

University of North Carolina at Greensboro for my master's in music composition. So we did that for a 2 -year program.

We ended up living in Greensboro for 3 years, and that was a great experience for me as well, 2 more years of training in the academy and being exposed to different types of music, new ways of thinking about music, and simultaneously being a part of Shepard's Fellowship in Greensboro, where Sterling has pastored.

And that was good for our soul, good time of life. Like I said earlier, I got to spend some time in pastoral training, and so I was part of the rotation of preaching for a season of life.

And so once a month, I'd get to preach through whatever book that the other elders were preaching through.

So I got hand -on experience of expository preaching, and that was really good for me to see the importance of it, not just from the listener, but from the teaching point of view.

You learn a lot when you teach. So we did that for a season of life while working at Chick -fil -A to pay the bills.

And yeah, after that, and that's when we sort of saw this, as I said before, in 2012. And that actually came about when

Sterling, he was preaching through the Book of Romans, and he knew that I was a songwriter, and he was getting close to the doxology at Romans 11 and kind of, you know, talked to me and said, hey, would it be nice if you could maybe write a song on the doxology of Romans 11?

And I agreed to it. His telling of the story, that he gave me like a couple months notice, I remember it being like a week's notice.

He has a better memory than I do, so we'll go with that. He gave me a lot of time, but I guess I just, I put it off.

And I remember maybe like a couple days before writing this song called, Oh, the Depth, based on the doxology of Romans 11.

I wasn't too thrilled about it, but played it and sang it Sunday morning. And of course, everybody in your church is just a rule.

They have to like whatever music you sing. And so they were encouraging. They said they liked it. I was like, well, it can't be that bad. And so that was the first time

I had really written a piece of music that was directly tied to Scripture.

And that song was pretty close to a verbatim setting of the doxology at the end of Romans 11.

And so kind of pocketed that away as an idea. That was a fun experience. And really during that time,

I every now and then would play around with the idea, well, what if I took all of Romans and put it to music?

And I ran the math and there's like 433 verses in Romans and that one song was like three verses.

And so I can't do that. This can be way too long of an album if you do it word for word. And then I had the idea of, well, what if it was more of a paraphrase of it?

Almost like if you think about how a preacher would approach a sermon series through the Book of Romans, maybe map it out on 20 messages or so.

If you're, you know, John Piper, I think, did how many years of it, but yeah. So a more manageable bite -sized way of explaining

Scripture through music. And so I casually started writing other songs from chapter one really just for fun.

And so I had that idea going on in my head around that time, that was 2011, 2012. And then so graduated from UNCG around that time, moved back to Jackson in 2012, started my doctorate at the

University of Memphis in 2013 or so, 14? And that was a three -year program.

So that was important for me just to keep learning my craft, learning my skill, to learn how to be a composer, because what

I want to bring to the table with my contributions to Christian music is an artistic background, one that is trained in classical composition and understands 20th century music and what it means to be a 21st century composer, and to do my best to convey and portray for people the beauty of Scripture in a musical language that is influenced by my training.

And so that's kind of where I am. That's how I've been trained. I've been playing rock and roll since I got into music and so I have a strong background in rock and roll music and I'm not at all opposed to popular music and things like that.

I'm all for incorporating those stylistic ideas into our church music if we're careful and wise about it.

So my background really is coming from a self -taught background in rock and roll church music, then having gone through training of classical music.

And I think that's just created a unique voice in how I approach my songwriting. Well, your story reminded me of two childhood experiences of my own.

When I was a little kid, my parents bought me a toy keyboard, nothing like the one that you mentioned, even as primitive as the one that you mentioned may have been.

This was a toy, actually, and I learned how to play the themes to two television shows that you probably know nothing about because you're too young.

One was F -Troop and one was Kung Fu starring

David Carradine. And I can remember playing the theme to F -Troop at a local mall in an organ and piano store and I actually had a crowd gathered around me while I was playing it.

For some reason, the owner of the store, even though I gathered a crowd there, he unplugged the organ and chased me away for some reason.

But another thing that you reminded me of was, believe it or not, in the Catholic church that I was raised in before my born -again experience in becoming a

Reformed Baptist. While a Catholic young man in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they used to do what is called, or was called, folk masses.

And believe it or not, in the Catholic church, during a worship service, they played and sang

Let It Be by The Beatles. Wow! Because of the line in those times of darkness,

Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom. But we're going to go to a...

I'm sorry, what were you going to say? That's all it takes to justify it into a Catholic tradition. That's right.

We're going to go to our first break right now, but we're going to be led into the break by a second song from the new

Jude CD by Salos, and this is Hidden Reefs. So I hope you enjoy it, and I hope that you stay tuned and send in your questions for when we return from the station break to chrisarnzen at gmail .com

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com for Cody Curtis on a call for worship consistent with God's word, rich in sound doctrine, and intelligible for the sake of edification.

We'd be all right if the wind was in our sails We'd be all right if the wind was in our sails

We'd be all right if the wind was in our sails And we'll all hang on behind These are hidden reefs

Creeping beneath the peaceful seas Far below us, far below us

These are sleeping thieves Waiting to crush and crash and seize Far below us, far below us

These are wicked fiends Greedily eating the corporate face Not far below us, far below us

These teach what they please Tickling ears with poison speech Not far below us, far below When did you hear them come?

See them stir? Could you face them? Creeping to corrupt, to pervert God's grace

Into sex, into lust Deny their words, their disgrace In close below us

And did you hear them come?

Did you know? Did you notice them? Creeping from below, long ago God appointed them to death

But the boat in the throes Will it destroy them right below us?

And we'd be alright If the wind was in our sails We'd be alright

If the wind was in our sails We'd be alright If the wind was in our sails

And we'll all hang on behind And we'll roll the old

Chariot along We'll roll the old Chariot along We'll roll the old the got to tell you for my money chris arnson's radio program is just dubbed criticized i think that's what it's called this is time for your direction radio and tv with phil johnson of grace to you inviting everybody to come to the g three conference which is almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country and it is it's a great conference i love it and chris arnson was there last year he's been there i think every year it's great to see him there you and i actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place which is a highlight tons of stuff going on the arms of great speakers and no matter where you are in the building you will hear chris arnson's laugh that's worth the price of admission alone if you would like to join phil me chris and a cavalcade of great preachers so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers g three conference dot com g three conference dot com and now there's even more 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solid -ground -books .com as often as you can and always mention Chris Arnson of iron sharpens iron radio we are now back with our guest

Cody Curtis he is the composer and leader of Salos a musical group a

Christian musical group and we are discussing the theme a call for worship consistent with God's Word rich and sound doctrine and intelligible for the sake of education our email address if you'd like to join us as Chris Arnson at gmail .com

Chris Arnson at gmail .com and we do have a first -time questioner her name is

Clarice from Jamestown North Carolina hello there Clarice I love the perfume you're wearing

I just had a silence of the lamb flashback I'm sorry but hello

Clarice it's great to have you join us today and she has actually three questions we normally don't take that many questions from a a listener but we will we will indulge

Clarice Cody she has three questions the first is why did you choose

Jude for this latest project that's a good question it took a lot of time to decide which book we wanted to do next so after having done

Romans and Hebrews both of those letters are so hefty and weighty and full of wonderful Christology and about our salvation our satirology for the third album we wanted to do something that was that was different than both of those and for multiple reasons we wanted to do something different one it's important that we wanted to teach our listeners that the other epistles are not the same as Romans and Hebrews and if you expect for example the same out of a letter like Jude or the same out of like even

Ephesians which is you know at one that people's more beloved album letters it people start to draw comparisons between between that and so my approach to setting these letters to music is to try to let each letter speak for itself and so we wanted to just to go ahead and contrast it and in an extreme way and Jude seemed like a a good way to do that also musically it gave us some new opportunities to explore and that had more of a minimalistic chamber music approach for Jude and less less yeah which was just different than what we did for Romans Hebrews like we didn't use any guitars at all on Jude and so Jude being different shorter neglected those are all things that appealed to us and it was also kind of fitting that we did

Romans first which is the very first epistle the New Testament especially Paul's epistles and then

Hebrews which is the first of the Catholic epistles and then kind of just going to the very end for our third one so it was there's a little bit more to it than just that but we wanted to do something really different for our third album was the main reason okay our second question is what was the most challenging aspect of composing it proposing

Jude Jude was looking back it was probably harder to compose music for Jude than it was for Hebrews and that doesn't make sense to even me because Hebrews is about an hour and a half's worth of music and Jude's only 30 minutes were

Jude was tricky because I didn't want to again like I said

I wanted the letter to speak for itself and trying to think of a way to clearly communicate the narrative of Jude in a way that that made sense that was compelling musically it just it just took some time figuring out my pacing it's only 25 verses and I knew

I wanted it to be you know longer than just two songs so figuring out how

I wanted to map that out and so I ultimately mapped it out over 17 tracks using a chiastic form that seemed to be church the letter and gave me some artistic liberty to to do some neat things musically so it just it just took time a lot of time of brainstorming it in my mind before I even started writing the exact song and finally

Clarice asks Romans Hebrews and Jude are wonder are a wonderful blessing

Cody what's your timeline for completing their remaining 63 books

I guess we're gonna have Cody back when he's 112 years old for the final recording who knows what who knows what format that will be in the future

CDs will obviously be totally extinct and and of course

I'll be long dead and there'll be another host of iron sharpens on radio if it exists but anyway what do you actually envision as the remaining books of the

Bible what is your next plan in other words as far as the the other parts of the canon that you have not yet put to music so as of now

I've restricted myself myself to just the New Testament epistles and even that is is a very long -term goal it takes about a year and a half to get a new album out to just the writing price process the recording process all of that it takes about a year and a half or up to two years between albums and so I I've kind of mapped all that out and I think you know if I just restrict myself to that Lord willing oh no

I'll probably be my 60s by the time I finish finish that but I'm not opposed to doing other books of the

Bible a lot of the Old Testament books would be very difficult to do just because of their size and such when you're dealing with narrative it's hard to deal with narrative in a reasonable amount of time so the epistles appeal to me because they're smaller they're self -contained that's where a lot of the the wonderful truth of the

Gospels is really fleshed out and so so really we'll see if I do anything

Old Testament later on I I might oppose also to doing Revelation that one is intimidating to me for obvious reasons so every year and a half we'll come out with a new album and we're not sure what the next one will be just yet we're we're letting our fans vote on that one so for all of our supporters on patreon if you for the certain pledged here we're letting people vote for which official they want us to do next oh wow that's cool well thank you so much

Clarice for being our first time for being a first -time questioner today all's

I know is that for dinner I suddenly have a craving for liver and fava beans but if you don't if you've never seen

Silence of the Lambs you have no idea what I'm talking but Clarice since you are a first -time questioner you have won a free

New American Standard Bible so make sure that we have your mailing address so that our sponsors

CVB BS comm Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to you as soon as possible thank you so much for joining us now

I have a first -time listener with a question who although she is a first -time listener she's no she's no stranger to me now her name is

Brandi brawny Vandeworker and of course I just mentioned her earlier in the program she and her husband

Sterling are the ones that introduced me to our group today solos and our guest today who is a

Cody Curtis and brawny has a question and in fact I had it in front of me and I accidentally deleted it so I'm gonna have to look up brawny's question sorry about that brawny

I will ask it when we return from the break and I assure you

I will find it before we return but what I'm gonna do now since we're going to our midway break

I am going to play another song from solos and then we're going to go right into our commercial break

I want you all to keep in mind those especially those who are listening for the first time that our midway break is longer than our normal breaks because grace life radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City Florida they air this program twice a day in a pre -recorded format and they since they are in Lake City Florida are required by the

FCC to localize their programming to that area so while we air our globally heard commercials grace life radio airs their local public service announcements and commercials for Lake City Florida so please use this time wisely write down questions for Cody Curtis about music and about theology in music etc and also please write down the information that our advertisers provide so you can more frequently and successfully patronize them because without our advertisers

Iron Trip and Zion radio will not exist and the way to ensure that we will have a longer life is by patronizing our advertisers as much as possible because that will further ensure that they remain our advertisers so please write down the information they provide please patronize them as often as you can and send in those questions to Cody Curtis to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com and now here's that song I promised from the new

Jude CD waterless clouds I think that's what it's called this is

Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV with Phil Johnson of Grace to you inviting everybody to come to the

G3 conference which is almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country and it is it's a great conference

I love it and Chris Arnzen was there last year he's been there I think every year it's great to see him there you and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place which is a highlight tons of stuff going on tons of great speakers and no matter where you are in the building you will hear

Chris Arnzen's laugh and that's worth the price of admission alone if you would like to join

Phil me Chris and a cavalcade of great preachers so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers and me g3conference .com

g3conference .com and now there's even more exciting news John MacArthur himself is now also on the lineup at the

G3 conference Thursday January 16th through Saturday January 18th 2020 go to g3conference .com

g3conference .com see you there I'm Pastor Bill Shishko host of a visit to the pastor's study and I am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on Iron Sharpens Iron if you live on Long Island or if you're visiting the metropolitan

New York area I invite you to join us for worship at the Haven on Sundays at 430 p .m.

you meet at the Ascension Lutheran Church facility 33 Bayshore Road in Deer Park New York the

Haven you'll find God's saturated singing gospel rich ministry and great Commission opportunities learn more about us at the

Haven li .com and join us this Sunday at 430 p .m. 33

Bayshore Road Deer Park New York hey this is

Pete Orta former guitar player for the Grammy Award -winning Christian rock band Petra I'd like to invite you to my new podcast called

Christian conversations unfiltered this channel is much different than my sermon podcast the episodes are intimate conversations with people who

I enjoy about topics that I can't really unbox from the pulpit each episode is unproduced unedited and unapologetic conversations that might not only help you answer some relevant questions you might be struggling with but also help create some questions in your head that you might not have even ever thought of the purpose of this podcast is to help people apply their theology while broadening their biblical worldview so go to Pete Orta .com

that's P -E -T -E -O -R -T -A dot -com and click subscribe to podcast and then choose what podcast you'd like to hear if not both and what platform works best for you can't wait for you to join us.

God bless. Chris Sorensen host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years his name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer but not the type that typically comes to mind

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself recently he wrote a book titled consider the evidence for the

Bible Ravi Zacharias wrote the Dan also has a master's degree in theology

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states he represents many

Christians in serious injury matters all over the country Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer he wrote the test for the

National Board of Trial Advocacy and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for 1 million dollars or more and in approximately 10 different states.

In Illinois his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history in New York his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the law journal if you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state

I recommend that you call Dan consultations are free there is no fee unless you win.

Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878 1 -800 -669 -4878 or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com

that's chrisarnson at gmail .com James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here if you've watched my dividing line webcast often enough you know

I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity and besides that they feel so good

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Chris Arnzen host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio announcing a new website with an exciting offer from World Magazine my trusted source for news from a

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I'm Dr. Gary Kimbrough pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi.

God tells us in James 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction.

In the providence of God three years ago I discovered a poor small church outside Lusaka, Zambia in a township called

Kabanana who are taking care of 24 orphans. I found them just at the time when they had lost all their funding.

What was I to do? Could I just say God bless you and walk away? The situation of the children said heavily upon me.

As I was praying concerning this need it came to me I trust from the Lord to tell the orphans plight to a broader audience.

The entire need for their clothing, food, education, and some medical services is $73 per month per child.

If just 50 of us would give $35 a month we could meet the need. Bethlehem Baptist Church will pay the fee to get the funds there so if you give a dollar a dollar will get to the orphans.

In this season of hope and giving will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans? Please send your gift of any amount to Bethlehem Baptist Church 838

Reed Road Laurel, Mississippi 39443 or donate through our website bbclaurel .com.

Again the address is Bethlehem Baptist Church 838 Reed Road Laurel, Mississippi 39443 or bbclaurel .com.

Thank you. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

The church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

God -centered focus, reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

.com That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com

or call them at 908 -996 -7654 That's 908 -996 -7654.

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Thriving Financial is not your typical financial services provider.

As a membership organization, we help Christians be wise with money and live generously every day.

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Again, 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the

Thriving Difference. Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

That's the Thriving Story. Tired of box -store

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Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience, featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

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That's wrbc .us. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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That's nasbible .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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

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

Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And don't forget, you can call

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They have two excellent offers that they are continuing, free offers. The first is, if you want to purchase something of any amount, no matter how inexpensive it is, you will get for free, if you ask for it, the hardcover book,

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Don't forget the two S's back -to -back in the middle. They are a sponsor of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, and we are greatly indebted to them.

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with any purchase, no matter how insignificant. If you want the second book that they are offering for free, that requires a $50 minimum purchase because it's a much larger book.

Also a hardback published by Evangelical Press. And that book, as I keep repeating to you every day, is my favorite of all biographies.

It is A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn, by my friend

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And this book, as I keep reminding people, should be made into a major motion picture, or at least a documentary, because the life of Spencer Cohn is that utterly fascinating.

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The first book, remember, you can get for free with any purchase, no matter how small. Please always remember to mention

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to all of our advertisers when you contact them.

Now I just have to announce a couple of things before I return to my interview with Cody Curtis.

We have some events coming up that I hope you attend. My very dear friend Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, is going to be speaking at a conference at the

Church at Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and that conference is going to be taking place

August 2nd through the 5th at that church, and if you want more details on this conference, go to church at friendship dot org, church at friendship dot org, and please make sure that you tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

The next event that I hope that you attend is one that I am personally attending. This is an event

I mentioned at the earlier part of the program where Paul Washer is on the lineup. That is the

Foundations Conference in New York City, Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th. What better time of year to go to New York City than the

Christmas season, and if you are a man in pastoral leadership or any kind of parachurch leadership, this is a leaders -only conference.

I urge you to go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com

to register. This is a conference hosted and orchestrated by our friends at sermonaudio .com.

The speakers include the aforementioned Paul Washer, Dr. Stephen J.

Lawson, one of the most powerful preachers alive, Reverend Jeff Thomas, another profound preacher and author, my friend

Reverend Armand Tomassian, who is a young man, a young pastor, but he has abilities and gifts far beyond his youth.

He is one of the most powerful preachers I've ever heard, and that's not an exaggeration. I truly believe he's going to be a household name amongst

Reformed Christians over the next decade, Reverend Armand Tomassian. Richard Colwell Jr.

and Andrew Quigley are two on the roster that I have never heard preached before, but if Sermon Audio selected them for this conference, they must be magnificent because Sermon Audio is very rightfully fussy about who they would want to identify with, and I am certain that I am going to be blessed hearing these two men.

So remember, it's Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in New York City. Go to thefoundationsconference .com,

thefoundationsconference .com, and now, or should I say after that, I am going to be packing up my bags once again and heading down south to Atlanta to the

G3 conference, the conference that you've been hearing Todd Friel and Phil Johnson announcing on my show.

This is going to be Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, and they are expecting, as they always do, over 5 ,000 people.

This January, I have a feeling they're gonna have over 6 ,000 people, maybe even more, because John MacArthur, as you heard earlier,

John MacArthur himself has been added to this phenomenal lineup of speakers, and he alone would be worth making the effort to get to Atlanta to go to this conference, but there are many other people on the roster.

The theme, by the way, is Worship Matters. The speakers include my friend

Kosti Hinn, and that name, if it sounds familiar, it's probably for a very horrible reason.

Kosti Hinn is the nephew of the notorious charlatan and heretic

Benny Hinn, and Kosti would not be at all upset by hearing me describe his uncle that way, because a major part of Kosti's missionary,

I'm sorry, his major part of his mission, I should say, is to expose his uncle and the word -of -faith heretics for the dangerous, deadly, and damning deceivers that they are.

He is on the roster, and by the way, Kosti is a Reformed Baptist pastor and a cessationist in California.

Darrell Bernard Harrison is also on the roster, a phenomenal writer, and this brother is also a newly added team member to John MacArthur's Grace to You ministry.

David Miller is a phenomenal preacher, an old -school fire -and -brimstone preacher that I just love hearing him preach.

Derek Thomas, a name that is certainly recognizable to the vast majority of Reformed Christians, author for Banner of Truth, and a world -renowned speaker.

My dear friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. Since 1995, I've known James and have conducted many debates and speaking engagements for him.

My friend Jeremy Volo, who is a former professional soccer player with the

San Antonio Scorpions, he's now a Reformed Baptist pastor in Laredo, Texas. Joel Beeky, another friend of mine going back to the 1990s, president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

As I said before, Paul Washer is also on the roster at this conference, along with Dr.

Stephen J. Lawson. They are both also, in addition to the New York City conference, going to be preaching in Atlanta.

My friend Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace TU Ministries. Stephen J. Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Todd Friel, whose voice you keep hearing promoting this conference, along with Phil Johnson.

Dr. Tom Askell, the president, or should I say the executive director, of Founders Ministries, the

Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention. Votie Baucom, another one of the most profound preachers alive today, and more.

So if you want to go to the G3 conference, go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com, and please tell them that you heard about them.

Chris Orensen and Iron Trip and Zion Radio. I strongly urge you, since there will be over 5 ,000 people attending this, and possibly over 6 ,000 people, if you have a business, a power church organization, a church, a special event, or anything that you want to promote to the body of Christ, I would strongly urge you to register, not only to attend, but to register for an exhibitor's booth, just like I will be manning for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, with over 5 ,000 people milling around, that it is an ideal place to introduce what you're doing to the body of Christ.

So to either attend or to register for an exhibitor's booth, or both, go to G3conference .com,

G3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love this show, you don't want it to go away.

You love listening to the guests and topics that sometimes are never heard anywhere else. You love sharing the free downloadable mp3s with your family, friends, and loved ones.

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Never do that. Never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to IronsharpensZionRadio .com.

Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and your home. Providing for my show is obviously not a command of God, but if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money for benevolent purposes, for recreational purposes, just to lie around in the bank and collect interest, you have that extra money and you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves, please go to IronsharpensZionRadio .com,

click support, and then click click to donate now. And please donate as much as you can and as frequently as you can, and as generously as you can, because we need your donations to exist.

If you want to advertise, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

And by the way, if you are not a member of a Bible -believing church, and you're not even looking for one, you are living in disobedience to God.

So please stop rebelling against God and find a good, solid, biblical church home. And if you need help,

I have lists of churches all over the world that are biblically faithful, and I've already helped quite a number of people in my audience find churches wherever they are, in Australia and other parts of the

United States, wherever they may be. I've also helped people find churches where they're going on vacation or churches where their loved ones live.

So please just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put

I need a church in the subject line or something similar. That's also the email address to send in a question to Cody Curtis.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com and as always, give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. If you live outside the

USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. And much to Bronnie's delight,

I'm sure I found her questions. Bronnie Vanderwerker, the wife of Sterling Vanderwerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers in Greensboro, North Carolina, who will be running their ads on this program in the not -so -distant future,

God willing. But Bronnie has her questions for Cody Curtis of Salos, and they are as follows.

What is the primary goal of Salos? Good question, very much a

Bronnie question. Our primary goal is,

I mean, if we want to glorify God with our music, we want to lead people to a deeper understanding of Scripture.

We want them to worship God through listening to our music, and it's important that we're not just trying to create this emotional experience where, you know, in a very personal sense, you feel closer to God, but we're trying to tie that into theological truth with words from Scripture that you can worship

God in spirit and in truth with your heart and your head. And so we aim that all the music that I write, it does that, even if it's imaginative and seems adventurous, and we are paraphrasing

Scripture, it's all going to that. And also, as I said before, we want to help shape contemporary

Christian music and to enrich it with our own sound and try to add to what's already being out there, just to be an additional voice in what it means to be a

Christian artist. So that's probably how I'd summarize it. And her second question is, how did you find members who were all on the same page doctrinally and theologically?

And perhaps you could, I'll add my own part of that question, tell us something about the other members of Solace.

So whenever we moved back to Jackson, Tennessee in 2012, we didn't know what

Solace was going to be like. It was just my wife and I at that point, and we did some concerts, we did a little mini tour, and we enjoyed it, but I think it exhausted us.

We realized we didn't like being too much in the forefront, so we knew moving on that we would need other people to help us out.

At that point, 2013, I had decided that I wanted to do

Romans as our next project, which was an ambitious album, and just writing it was ambitious, recording it was ambitious.

We had zero money, really, for that project, and so we knew we needed to link arms with other people and their talents.

And so the hard part was finding vocalists who we thought could pull off such a big task.

And through the Lord's Providence, we met Thomas Griffith and Kelsey Leaf, now

Kelsey Edgren, and they were freshmen at Union whenever I started my first year there in residence life.

And so I got to meet Thomas, I was helping out with men's choir, he was one of the singers there, and just immediately knew he had a wonderful voice.

And Kelsey, I heard singing on some open mic night at Union, and was just blown away instantly by her angelic voice, sweet voice that she has.

And so they were the first ones I approached with being a part of Solace and taking the lead vocal roles, and thankfully they both agreed to it, which is amazing because they didn't,

I mean, they had to trust me a lot that I was able to pull off what I had planned. And yeah, they're both believers and on the same page of what we want to do, teaching scripture to people through music.

And then for the instrumentalists, it really was just trying to find anybody we could to help to record these albums and to perform with us.

And so for all of our albums, I think I can say this truthfully, everybody is either a

Union student, a student of Union University, or an alumni of Union University, or closely associated with it.

And so just out of that wonderful community at Union, a lot of faithful believers who are,

I think, recognize the ministry that we're trying to accomplish, they agreed to be a part of it, and thankfully the

Lord has always provided the instrumentalists that we've needed, and moving forward that's always something we're always looking for different musicians who not only have the ability to pull off the music that I write, but also have the heart and the understanding, the desire of what we want to do.

And let's see, Bronnie also asks, so many other groups who start out in Christian music seem to veer to the secular side or get a bit off track.

What do you do to keep your group and music focused centrally on Christ and Him crucified?

The fact that we tether our music so closely to Scripture with these musical adaptations of the

New Testament letters, I mean, that keeps us on course. If we want to, you know, if we're going to stick to this goal of doing all the 21

New Testament letters, then we're dealing with Scripture as it is, and so that definitely helps keep us on track, and that keeps me from just writing what, you know, is kind of on my heart or my own personal experiences.

And some of that is going to overflow into my writing, but it's primarily Word -driven. Just like a pastor, a preacher at a church, he's preaching

Scripture, and he's doing that faithfully, and he's less likely to veer off into his own soapbox topics and things like that.

And also being a part of a local church is important for us, and us being committed to that and committed to growing, and we're not in this for fame or anything like that, and we hope that we never really get famous.

We want our music to be out there, of course, to have a wide listenership, but we're not trying to get on Christian radio stations or win awards or anything.

We just want to be faithful to the Lord and hope that it'll use our music well.

So if our ambitions stay where they are, then I think we'll be in a safe place. Well, I think

Bronnie wants my job, because she's been asking some very good questions. She asks, how do you juggle family and the demands of writing and singing?

That's difficult. These projects, they're long, they take a lot of time and a long time to write, and because I have a full -time job as well, this is sort of a hobby that I do, and so I write always in the background of the mind, and so just trying to set aside family time is important, and just structured writing time when

I can. It's being structured. It's using a calendar carefully, and yeah, not letting solace encompass my life.

It's easy for people like me to get sucked into their ministry, but just recognizing it's just a part of who we are.

It's not a necessity. The Lord doesn't need all those. The Lord doesn't need any of our ministry, and we'll be humble about that, and just praying for time to write and praying for inspiration, so that the time that I do invest into it, if it's fruitful, it's not always the case.

Sometimes I'll spend days trying to write, and it's a lot of work. I'm sorry, brother, you're getting a little bit muffled again for some reason.

Yeah, well some days I'll just walk around, try to write a lot, and won't really have much to show for it, so it's just praying that God will give me fruitfulness in writing, and bless the time that I invest in it.

Okay, now she asks her final question, and she says, now with this question you could tell it's from the

Vanderworkers, when will you be coming back to Greensboro to live and work in a church where we can serve together again?

Yeah, that would be wonderful. We have no plans as of now to do that.

We're putting more roots down in Jackson, Tennessee, but we do plan on visiting soon. We love everybody in Greensboro, and yeah, that was a sweet season of life where we got to do church together, to do life together.

And well, I want to thank Bronnie for making my life a lot easier with these excellent questions, and she says, thanks for doing this,

Chris. I pray the Lord will use it to bless others and bless their ministry. Oh, by the way,

Bronnie, since you are a first -time questioner, you also won a free New American Standard Bible, so make sure

I have your full mailing address in Greensboro, North Carolina, so that I can have CVBBS .com

ship that out to you as soon as possible. We want to thank CVBBS .com for shipping out all of our listeners the

Bibles and books they win by sending in questions to our guests. And we want to also ask you as listeners to please remember to tell your pastors, your deacons, anybody in charge of purchasing

Pew Bibles for your church building, please consider NASBible .com.

NASBible .com, that is the website for the New American Standard Bible, who have been sponsoring our

Interpretin' Zion Radio ever since we first launched in 2005, and even before that they have been sponsoring major events that I have personally orchestrated going back to 1995, including debates with Dr.

James R. White and speaking engagements that he has been involved in, and many other events. They have been so faithful to us, and I would love to hear that churches are either switching their versions that they use in their

Pew Bibles by going to NASBible .com, or their Bibles that they have in their

Pews may be falling apart. They may be filled with children's graffiti, whatever the case is, and you need new

Bibles, go to NASBible .com, and also you may not even have Pew Bibles.

Please remember that you have probably lost people visiting your church from time to time, maybe frequently, maybe every week.

Give them the opportunity to just reach in front of them for a Bible, because they might not own a

Bible. So please go to NASBible .com for that. NASBible .com, thank you very much.

I want to ask a couple of questions of my own. People who listen to this program frequently will know that I have some pet peeves about worship, and I hope that I don't step on any of your toes, but I know that the body of Christ, we do have differences of opinion and convictions on things, but one of the things that concerns me about modern worship is that there seems to be much more of a interest, much more of a concern, or even a strategy to entertain people in the congregation, whether they be saved or lost, rather than incorporate the congregation in joint worship and corporate worship, where people are not just spectators enjoying music, but they are actually fully involved in their participation in worshiping

God and song. And the other side of that is that there are many churches today that use music as a lure to draw lost people into their congregations, because they're trying to appeal to the earthly appetites of the lost, and sometimes, even if they would never say this, admit this, or even be conscious of it, sometimes it's a trick.

You know, you're hearing the gospel amid a spectacular performance or show that's being put on.

Now I want you, as somebody who's a gifted artist, obviously, who can create extraordinary music, how do you respond to what

I just said? Well, I agree with your concern, and yeah, in the corporate worship setting, we don't want to entertain people.

We don't want that to be the goal. We want to engage people with music, and with that, our music should be excellent.

It should be in such a way that people want to listen to it. I mean, they give extremes. If we make our music very dissonant and very, you know, high up there, then people aren't going to be engaged with it.

So, but it should be in service to the word ministry, and when we sing songs, it's this wonderful combination of music with the text.

So, objective word from the text, and then subjective music. Music is subjective. It communicates to us in different ways.

It's a metaphorical language. And so, songwriters and music leaders, it's our job to take those two together in hopes of facilitating

Christian worship, spirit and truth worship, and it's putting an emphasis on the words, and you need to, in order for us to worship

God, I mean, we need to be thinking about what we're singing. And so, one thing that I do in our church is, oftentimes before we lead a song and we sing it together,

I'll draw their attention to what we're about to sing, and maybe I'll just read through one verse of something or try to construct a framework for them to receive the music and that they sing along.

So, it's not just this rote movement of singing, and it's not just this emotional experience.

We do want music to affect us emotionally, but it's more with the foundation of what we're thinking about, who we're singing to, and what we're singing about.

And so, I'm very much an advocate for framing it that way. People in our day, we approach music with such a personal bit.

It's about what I want to hear, it's what I want to listen to, and I need to be entertained in order to feel like, you know,

I had a successful Sunday morning. And I think a lot of that is challenging people's perception and understanding of our kind of corporate singing.

That it's not about being entertained, it's about being confronted with who

God is in the gospel and what the music is trying to do. And so, our church, you know, we're a little church.

We use mainly hymnals, some contemporary songs to be sure, but even if you have something that is impressive musically or elegant or it's just very bare -bones piano and someone's singing, letting it all be for that idea of trying to facilitate this heart and head, spirit and truth, through worship.

Amen. Well, we have to go to our final break right now. It's gonna be much shorter than the last one, and when we go to this break,

I'm going to also play a song to lead us into that break. The next song on our list is

The Body of Moses. So I hope you enjoy this song. And please, if you have questions of your own that you want to ask

Cody Curtis, our email address is ChrisOrenson at gmail .com, ChrisOrenson at gmail .com.

And as always, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back with our conclusion of our interview with Cody Curtis, right after these messages from our sponsors.

I have claimed him for my own. That's when

Michael came up and spoke. Oh, devil, you talk of what you don't know.

I remember when you first rebelled. Long ago, when the angels fell. There's no honor and truth in the words of hell.

He said, give me the body of Moses. Oh, give me the body of Moses. I have claimed him for my own. That's when Michael came up and spoke. Oh, devil, you talk of what you don't know. I remember when you first rebelled. Long ago, when the angels fell. There's no honor and truth in the words of hell. He said, give me the body of Moses. Oh, give me the body of Moses. I have claimed him for my own. That's when Michael came up and spoke. Oh, devil, you talk of what you don't know. I remember when you first rebelled. Long ago, when the angels fell. There's no honor and truth in the words of hell. He said, give me the body of Moses. Oh, give me his flesh and bones.

Give me the body of Moses. God has claimed him for his own.

And though Michael could have had a curse upon his head. Judging that devil to the level of a rebel where he made his bed.

He said, devil, I will rebuke you.

Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away.

Devil, I will take you away. Devil, I will take you away. devil,

I will take you away. I'm pastor

Billy Linhart of Sovereign Grace particular Baptist Church of San of San Angelo, Texas, and I'm thrilled to have joined the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio family of sponsors. We fully subscribe to the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith as a faithful summary of the most vital

Biblical truths, desire to worship the Triune God of the Holy Scriptures in spirit and truth, and seek to make

His glory known in the Concho Valley, West Texas and beyond. Sovereign Grace PBC of San Angelo purposes to center our worship on the

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After Sunday services, join us for a fellowship meal followed by our Ladies Fellowship in our

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Him, come visit us. For details about Sovereign Grace PBC of San Angelo, Texas, email sgbcsa at gmail dot com or visit us at sgbcsa dot com.

That's sgbcsa dot com. Got to tell you, for my money,

Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best. Iron.

Criticizing. Iron. I think that's what it's called. This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV with Phil Johnson of Grace to You inviting everybody to come to the

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It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight for me.

So tons of stuff going on. Yeah. Tons of great speakers. And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear Chris Arnzen's laugh.

That's worth the price of admission alone. If you would like to join Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers and me,

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Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit linbrookbaptist .org. That's linbrookbaptist .org. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, host of A Visit to the

Pastor's Study, and I am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on Iron Sharpens Iron.

If you live on Long Island or if you're visiting the metropolitan New York area, I invite you to join us for worship at The Haven on Sundays at 4 .30

p .m. We meet at the Ascension Lutheran Church Facility, 33 Bayshore Road in Deer Park, New York.

At The Haven, you'll find God -saturated singing, Gospel -rich ministry, and Great Commission opportunities.

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p .m., 33 Bayshore Road, Deer Park, New York. Hi, this is

John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big, penetrating questions, while always defending the key doctrines of the

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

Chris up for just such a time. Knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com,

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I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy. And currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more and in approximately 10 different states.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, 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

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that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

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Firstloveradio .org also live streams my Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program daily.

Please stick around on firstloveradio .org after Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is over to continue being blessed by the unwavering proclamation of the gospel of sovereign grace.

Spread the word about firstloveradio .org. Welcome back and this is the final segment of today's interview with Cody Curtis, composer and leader of the musical group,

Salos. Our email address if you have a question is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com

and send in your question immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. We have another first -time questioner from Jacksonville, Florida, Noah, and Noah says or asks, who are some of your favorite

Christian artists and bands? Hmm. Let's see.

Yeah, there's a lot of them. I enjoy listening to music that... Brother, you're muffled again,

I'm sorry, but can you move your mouth somewhere? Yeah, yeah. Try again. Let's see.

I listen to Josh Gerrins. I listen to... You listen to who? I didn't understand what you said.

Josh Gerrins. Okay. And the siren is one that I really enjoy listening to.

Starburst, because he's very different than what I write. That's such a wonderful lyric. Let's see.

Andrew Peterson. I really listen to his music. All sorts of stuff. It's hard to pick just one.

Okay. And I'm not sure what has changed, but your voice is very muffled, so whatever you could do to try to correct that while we only have a few minutes left, that'd be great.

Noah, thank you so much. You're a first -time questioner, so you have also won a free New American Standard Bible. Please make sure we have your mailing address in Jacksonville, Florida, so that could be sent out to you.

Here is somebody who is not a first -time questioner. In fact, he's a long -time listener and frequent questioner, and that's the husband of the woman we heard from before.

This is Sterling Vanderwercker, and Sterling asks, artists are naturally critical of their own work, so what

Cody said is right. You have to like Salos Music, and all listeners must order their

Romans CD. This is more of an advertisement than a question. But do you have any comment on the part about artists being naturally your worst critic?

I think that's 100 % true. I look back on a lot of the music I've written and kind of cringe at some of it, but that's the nature of it.

You keep growing as a composer, and you always look back and say, I wish I would have done this differently.

But yeah, I'm proud of my work, but I know it has a long way to go. Well thank you,

Sterling, and no Bible for you, since you've probably sent in about 1 ,000 questions to this program.

We have, let's see, we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says that earlier you mentioned that you include rock music in some of your

Christian music. I don't necessarily have an objection to that, but obviously there are lots of different kinds of rock music, and some of those melodies under that umbrella,

I would be strongly objecting to, because of the fact that I am certain that it is absolutely a fact that melodies and rhythms produce moods, and not all moods are appropriate for worship.

I was wondering what your guest has to say to that. I've actually said that identical thing on this program before.

I do believe that there are melodies and rhythms that are not conducive to worship, and someone who

I have interviewed in the past, who wrote the book Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, Dr.

T. David Gordon, when somebody asked a very similar question years ago on my old show broadcasting out of New York, he said, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember exactly what he said, but can you imagine, he said, at the funeral of a precious loved one of yours, without your permission, a trio of kazoo players get up and start playing the kazoo during this very solemn time of tribute and memorial to your loved one, and I think he made a very good point about that, that there are certain rhythms, even music that is very quickly connected to sensuality, there's a reason that they play sensual music in certain places like nightclubs, there's a reason that they play militaristic music in the armed forces, because it instills a preparedness for battle, and those kinds of things, so I think that the listener has a good point.

What is your response to that? Yeah, that's a big topic, I don't think

I have time to fully respond to, but if you think about what rock and roll is, it's a synonym for American popular music in that sense, and if you go deeper and analyze the theory of rock and roll music, it's largely based on blues music, and so harmonically you're borrowing from the 12 -bar blues, heavy emphasis on beats 2 and 4 in rock music, and so it's taking elements from that, that those elements in and of themselves are certainly not immoral, it just depends on how we use those, and just historically we've seen rock and roll artists use those in such a way to cultivate bad things that the listener is referring to, and so those things in and of themselves aren't bad, it's just composers,

Christian composers have to be careful how they use those things, knowing that they could reference in the listener's mind something else, and that's maybe inevitable, but handling them carefully, and I mean, think about using the use of the guitar, electric guitar, things like that from rock and roll music, or chord progressions and certain rhythms, yeah, not all of it is,

I think, is characterized under that umbrella that the listener might be thinking, and so it's picking through, it's being careful, it's digging deeper into what the music is and finding out what can we use from that, because it's all

God's music, what can we use from that to cultivate Christian worship and not, you know, immorality.

Right, and I think that there is also a big difference between Christian recording artists who have a wider field and spectrum and liberty of musical styles when they are performing in a concert, rather than seeking to be an aid to worship, because you could have instruments that totally smother the sound of the congregational singing, or even if you were to have a duet or a trio up there singing, the music can overpower that,

I mean, I've even heard classical music at Reformed churches being played so loudly, as far as a brass ensemble,

I've heard them play so loudly that I can't even hear my own voice coming out of my mouth, so that's not even rock and roll, that's just a traditional classical approach to music, but anyway, well thank you

Susan Margaret, keep listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, I want you now to make sure our listeners have all the contact information they need for you,

I know that for instance, Solos, that website is solos .com,

P -S -A -L -L -O -S .com, do you have any other contact information? Yeah, email, they can always email us at solosmusicatgmail .com,

I would also point them to our Patreon page if they do want to support our ministry, we kind of sustain ourselves and so we're dependent upon support as well, we have a

Patreon page, I think it's patreon .com slash solos, but if you visit our website, solos .com,

you'll learn more about that and more about our group, and all of our music is on our website to listen to for free, you can find it on Spotify, Apple Music, we sell

CDs, we sell other literature that help you to study scripture more, so visit the website, check us out, and learn more about us.

And don't forget about Royal Diadem Jewelers in Greensboro, North Carolina, royaldiadem .com,

royaldiadem .com, thank you so much, Cody, for being my guest today, I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write,

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.