July 14, 2020 Show with Matt Tarr on “The Challenges of the Northeast United States as a Mission Field for a Flourishing Church”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 14th day of July, 2020, and I am so thrilled to be back on the air live.

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This is the first live program of July, 2020, and the reason for that is that many of you know and many of you do not know,

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I'm assuming, that I recently had a scare, a health scare,

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I was not feeling myself, in fact hadn't been for several weeks, and I was feeling sluggish and winded easily and out of breath and lost my appetite, which is a real red flag for anybody who knows me, and my dear friend

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Susan, who led me to Christ in the 1980s, and her son Joe, they noticed that there was something not quite right, and they kept urging me, and in fact badgering me, to go to the doctor for an exam, and I finally acquiesced, and Joe took me to a clinic, and the doctor there, after taking an

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EKG, said, you need to be rushed to the emergency room at Carlisle Hospital, there is something not quite right with your heart, you've got to have some more detailed tests done, and so I obviously obeyed those orders and had a catheter, a catheterization process or procedure on my heart, it was determined that my heart was very weak, and there was fluid in my heart and lungs and in my legs, and that was the result of congestive heart failure.

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Thankfully, thanks be to God, I did not need any kind of surgical procedure, it was determined that medication and a diet change to low sodium, low carb meals, was all that would be required at this time, and I'm already on that, and unfortunately while there,

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I was also diagnosed with diabetes, which I had never known that I had,

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I have no idea how long I've had it, but my dad and his mother both had diabetes, and at least one of my uncles on my father's side, maybe more, had diabetes, so I am now among the family of diabetics in this world, requiring that I take insulin shots every day, so I thank all of you who have been so encouraging to me, the hundreds of you that have been reaching out to me, both those that I know personally and those who are total strangers to me, who heard about this through my dear friend

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Mike Gaydosh, my very first pastor, after becoming a born -again believer, who was publicizing these events and requesting prayer for me on Facebook and other places, and I thank all of you who responded immediately with an outpouring of love and compassion and the promises of prayer, and I cannot thank you more than I am able to say right now, and I don't have the words to thank you adequately for the love that you have demonstrated, and so I appreciate your prayers for this new routine of life that I have to adjust to with medicine and diet, and I am thrilled to be back on the air at the helm of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for a live broadcast, and today we have a first -time guest,

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Matt Tarr. Matt Tarr is pastor at High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, which is a church revitalization effort in northeastern

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Pennsylvania through the Grace Advanced Ministry of John MacArthur. Today, we're going to be addressing the challenges of the northeast

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United States as a mission field and for a flourishing church. We're also going to be announcing the

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Basics of Biblical Counseling Conference, which is a weekend conference for the church next month here in Pennsylvania, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Matt Tarr.

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Thank you, Chris. It's good to be on with you, and I'm glad to hear that you're feeling better. Yeah, I appreciate that, and thanks again for my friend

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Susan and her son Joe, who very well may have saved my life through their badgering and pestering and insisting that I go to the doctor, as I have a feeling

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I would have held out for quite a longer period had they not done that. But first of all, let's hear something about High Point Baptist Church.

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Sure. You know, well, I am blessed with a very sweet and loving congregation, but the congregation wasn't without its turbulent times as well, which naturally would have led to its revitalization or the need for its revitalization.

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It used to be a rather large church for our area, the ballpark figures of about 500 or close to it, and in 2001, the congregation moved from down in town, the

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Wyoming Valley area, up onto the top of a mountain, assuming that they would build a church that could accommodate about 1 ,500 people.

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Now, there were 250 at that time, and the church did grow some, but at the time, then, the church shortly afterward quickly began to change its philosophy of ministry.

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We hear this story again and again, where all of a sudden there's a pressure to create flash growth and we begin compromising on the methods, because those are oftentimes considered to be negotiable in churches, the methods that we use to advance the gospel message, to create maturity in the church, and so forth.

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And like I said, it wasn't too long until the congregation was listening to 15 to 20 -minute sermonettes.

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The secretary, the former secretary, still is in our church, and she can tell me of times when she'd be writing sermons for the pastor and giving him his notes as the service began on Sunday morning.

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And the church began investing its time in entertainment, primarily drama, music, and things of that sort.

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And as you can imagine, it created an unstable environment, to say the least.

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And in that unstable environment, eventually you had a church split. That would go back,

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I suppose, to about 2012. And it wasn't too long after that that one of the men on the pastoral search committee, the pastor had left, in fact, all the pastors had left by that point.

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It was the last pastor that had left that ended up splitting the church. And he heard an ad on Grace to You, Pastor John MacArthur's radio ministry, for this new ministry that he was beginning called

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Grace Advance for Church Plants and Revitalization Efforts, and thought, that's what we need at this point.

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And I was working at Grace at the time. I was still in seminary, working on my

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Master of Divinity, and I began hearing about this church in northeastern Pennsylvania and what they had experienced and what they had gone through.

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And as a young guy, I thought, wow, the first pastor that walks into that situation is going to be so blessed.

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This congregation is just eager to hear from the Word of God. And that's a sweet opportunity to be able to grow and learn from the

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Scriptures with a congregation together. And as the

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Lord would have it, the finances were so severely poor from the debt that they had, it was really difficult to get a man able to come.

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And as time went on, I remember eventually sitting up one morning and telling my wife,

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I cannot get away from this church. I can't stop praying for this church.

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I love this church, and I've never met these people. I want to go. And she says to me,

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I know that. I've just been waiting until you told me. So long story short, the

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Lord sovereignly worked things out so that I could come to assume the pastoral position here.

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It wasn't without its hurdles. And immediately, the Lord just knit our hearts together with our congregation and has done wonderful things since then.

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Our people have been wonderfully generous, and we've been able to make significant payments down on our building so that our debt is manageable at this point.

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But I figured, I was a young guy, very young family. And if the whole thing went belly up,

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I was young enough that my family and I could financially recover. And worst case scenario, we give the building and everything back to the church, and we've got a congregation of maybe 80, 90 people to plant a new church somewhere more affordable.

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And that's a really good scenario, considering what many of the other church plant guys were going through.

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But the love that we have for these people and that they have for us, well,

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I can't speak highly enough of the work of the Word in that regard. And I think that does speak to the issue of how much we have to find the source of our unity and our love for one another in the

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Word. We can't look for these cheap manipulative tactics to try to create the unity, the same manipulative tactics that eventually led to this split here in 2012.

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Amen. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania, go to highpointbaptist .church.

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Highpointbaptist .church. And point is spelt the old -fashioned way with no e at the end.

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Or maybe the e is the one that's old -fashioned way. A really old -fashioned way. But highpointbaptist .church.

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And hopefully we will remember to repeat that information later on. One thing

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I failed to mention to you before the broadcast, Matt, is that here on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, we have a tradition whenever we have a first -time guest, we like that guest to give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the type of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and the providential circumstances that our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you. Yeah, you know, that's a great question.

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I love church history for that reason you mentioned, being able to meditate on the

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Sovereign Hand of the Lord throughout history. And I suppose in my own personal history, I was, you might say that I'm a third -generational pastor at this point.

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My grandfather was saved at 17, 18 years old. I eventually went into pastoral ministry.

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In fact, my dad was born as a missionary kid in Costa Rica. And it wasn't too long after that that they returned stateside because of health issues with my grandmother.

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And my dad served as a lay elder in our church growing up. And so from my youth, we were always taught the scriptures, memorized the scriptures together as a family.

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My dad prioritized prayer. He was a man of prayer. He is a man of prayer and a man of the

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Word. He taught us, I suppose the best legacy that he passed on to his children was to exalt the

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Word, to submit to the Word joyfully. And so that was my youth.

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He taught us to love Christ. And my mother and father modeled what it meant to be a servant of the church.

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So, you know, we're the family that was there whenever the doors were open. We looked for opportunities to serve our church and, you know, even from my earliest days.

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So as far back as I can remember, you know, I cannot point to a regenerative experience like some can, especially who were saved more in adulthood.

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But as far back as I can remember, I loved Christ. I loved His Word.

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I remember being so very excited to learn to read well enough that I could read my

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Bible on my own. And that was the environment that I grew up in.

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Our church was a very sound church. And it went through troublesome years later in life, later in my life, my young adult life.

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And it was eventually when I was in college that I began studying and developing my philosophy of ministry, you might say, on my own because of those circumstances in the church that I grew up in.

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And I took a few, you know, just a small selection of church ministry classes.

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I thought I would be an engineer. I wasn't planning on going into pastoral ministry. But it was that year that I was first introduced to the ministry of John MacArthur on Grace to You.

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And at the same time, in one of my classes, we had to read

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The Purpose -Driven Church by Rick Warren, which was probably just on the tail end of the peak of the purpose -driven life movement at the time.

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And we had to read that book in contrast with Fool's Gold by John MacArthur and the master's faculty, and then develop our own philosophy of ministry based on what we believe the scriptures taught.

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And I remember being overwhelmed by the biblical case that was laid out by Pastor John and the seminary faculty.

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And from that day forward, could not escape the desire to shepherd the flock of God and simply to feed it.

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It's a very simple thing. It's not very novel, which works out well for me because I'm not a very novel person.

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But regardless, I could see the Lord working all those unusual circumstances throughout my life to bring me eventually to a place of just deep -seated concern for the church and deep love for Christ.

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So of course, after that, that was when I, after graduating from undergrad, training in pastoral ministry,

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I went out to the master's seminary in California, as far as I was concerned. If I was, if the

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Lord desired that I was pleased by my desire, I should say, to go into pastoral ministry, then

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He would provide the means necessary to go to the master's seminary. And if I wasn't smart enough to go to the master's seminary to get in, then

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I wasn't going into the pastoral ministry. So that was going to kind of make up my mind for me.

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But the Lord was good in that too. Praise God.

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And I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. MacArthur once, and I hope

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I get that opportunity again, this side of glory. I don't know if I'll be conducting interviews in glory, but I really hope

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I get another shot at having Dr. MacArthur on, and he is certainly one of my modern -day heroes.

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I know that some Christians don't like us to use the word heroes. I don't find anything wrong with using the word heroes, and it's just an honest and,

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I think, healthy concept, as long as you don't turn your heroes into idols. And I had the honor of meeting

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Dr. MacArthur at the last G3 conference, face -to -face. That was the conference held last

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January in Atlanta, Georgia. And I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, thrilled, in fact, when

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I bumped into him in the lobby, which was a very providential occurrence in itself.

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I had to go back to my room for something, and by the time I got out of the elevator, he walked out of a different elevator immediately after me.

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And I said, Dr. MacArthur, my name is Chris Arnzen. I have no idea if you remember me, but quite a number of years ago,

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I interviewed you on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and he immediately said, Of course I remember you, Chris. I was shocked that he said that.

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And I am the very proud owner of a very wonderful commendation that he has written for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, which is one of my most prized possessions.

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But today we are discussing, as I announced earlier, the theme,

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The Challenges of the Northeast United States as a Mission Field and for a Flourishing Church.

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First of all, start off where, why this specific topic was something burdening your heart that led you to want to discuss this today.

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I know that the Northeast United States has a very, very different reputation than it had centuries ago in the 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries.

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The Northeast United States might have even been considered, in fact it certainly was considered, in many ways a bastion of theological brilliance.

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You had the Puritans flourishing in this area and other very solid biblically faithful heirs of the

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Protestant Reformation, and the Northeast is now known as a theologically barren place.

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Of course there are faithful churches still there, but many of the very same churches that were pastored by Puritans, even the one pastored by Jonathan Edwards himself, they have become apostate, they have become promoters of hellish and evil and damnable beliefs and practices like homosexuality and abortion, and it is sadly a rare thing, it seems, to find a biblically faithful church.

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But if you could just pick up where I left off there. Yes, so that is, looking at history,

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I think every pastor should be a student of history, because it's analyzing,

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I think analyzing what has happened to the church in the Northeastern United States that should really light the fire under us now, and has lit the fire under me, if you will, to be really concerned about this particular issue.

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Because, you know, we have had, I remember Dr. MacArthur talking about this, we do have, we share a mutual affection for him.

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I do believe hero is an appropriate word, 1st Timothy 5, showing honor in that way, but I remember him saying that we have had the greatest explosion of sound theology in the history of the church, and that's true, we have greater access to sound theology, the source of Christian maturity in the church, than it ever has in the history of the world.

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And we have seen in the church a recovery much of, of especially the doctrines of grace,

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Reformed theology, and we rejoice in that. But MacArthur went on to comment that that great day has already passed, and it has been circumvented by something else.

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Social work, social causes now motivate the church, and you're seeing that very quickly, consuming our time, and interestingly enough, resulting in a lot of disunity.

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So when we look back, you know, it is hard, it is really hard to imagine the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitefield, and the

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Wesley brothers, going through the Northeastern United States, and thousands of souls genuinely coming to Christ through the power of the proclaimed word, and now seeing it such a place of spiritual destitution.

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The, I think the average evangelical population in the

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Northeastern United States is somewhere between three and four percent, and it's about that in our area, in our, in our county especially, it's a little bit less than three percent evangelical

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Christian. So what happened then? How did you get from a time in history where there was, well, it would be incorrect to say a recovery of the preaching of the true gospel, because it was there.

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You mentioned the powerful preaching of the Puritans that were in New England and so forth, but in the

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Lord's timing, there was a special, um, well, awakening, that's why we call it that, so that many souls would come to Christ, and then very quickly have, have spiritual destitution.

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But there's a really interesting story that maybe, maybe can help with this. You know, going back to Harvard, Harvard was originally established, and many people are already aware of this, but it was originally established as a school to train men for ministry on the continental

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U .S. in response to the liberalization of the seminaries in Europe, and they recognized the need to train pastors in New England in the word of God, who highly exalted the word of God.

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So Harvard is established, Jonathan Edwards' father is trained there. Well, by the time

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Jonathan Edwards is ready to go to school, Harvard had already defected, it had compromised itself, but you can find still on the campus there today, uh, uh, a statement, in fact, it's on their university, uh, seal,

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Veritas Christoedic Quaecea, which, um, I mean, now it's, now it's been reduced to just Veritas Truth, um, versus originally

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Truth for Christ and His Church. Now it's just truth. The implication seems to be truth is relative, truth is what it means to you, truth is so very postmodern, and truth is even whatever you independently feel, your emotions are what governs truth.

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Postmodernism has kind of set the stage for that. And, but, but back at Harvard, it was really interesting that above the doors of the

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School of Philosophy, Emerson Hall there, there were words that were inscribed in stone.

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There's, those words are still there today, and they say, what is man that thou art mindful of him?

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But that was not what was supposed to be inscribed. What was supposed to be inscribed was, man is the measure of all things.

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That's what the philosophy department submitted to, um, to the university to define the philosophy department.

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Man is the measure of all things. That was a quote from the 5th century, uh,

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BC, uh, Greek philosopher Protagoras. And so the, the human, the individual human being rather than God, or any

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God, the God of your construct, uh, was the ultimate source of truth, the ultimate source of value.

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And the president there put a stop to that, that motto describing the philosophy department.

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And he instead quoted Psalm 8 verse 4, who is man?

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What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? But what was happening at Harvard was a slow defection from the truth to a prioritization of what felt right.

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So even in the sense of postmodern emotionalism defining what is truth, truth, whatever is true for you or whatever is true for me, and those things can somehow mutually coexist without contradicting one another, even when they do contradict one another, that's not new to the 21st century.

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And Yale, so Yale was started in response to Harvard's defection to this, this relative truth, rather than exalting the word of God, this departure from the authoritative word of God.

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Jonathan Edwards goes and gets trained there, and by the time Jonathan Edwards is an adult, he's, he, well, he becomes the president of Princeton, which was a new college just recently established.

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It wasn't Princeton Seminary quite yet. Eventually Charles Hodge and other really great men of the faith would become president there.

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But it wasn't too long, of course, till Princeton. Princeton was established in response to Yale's defection.

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They had done the same thing as Harvard. Then Princeton defects from the truth.

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Princeton begins to capitulate to the pressures of liberalism.

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In fact, what we're going to do is pick up right where you left off of Princeton capitulating to liberalism, because we have to go to our first break right now.

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And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

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Let's say you hear something discussed over which you disagree with your own pastor, or perhaps you're a pastor and you disagree with something important with your own elders, or the denomination where you serve, or something like that.

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Perhaps you are a liberal who has been drawn by God and you're starting to question many of the things that you had come to believe, or perhaps you just vehemently disagree with what we're talking about, and you want to remain anonymous.

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Those things are okay, but if you are just asking a general question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, don't go away. We are going to be right back after these messages with more of our guest,

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Matt Tarr, and the subject at hand, The Challenges of the Northeast United States as a

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Mission Field and for a Flourishing Church. We'll be right back. Here's what

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Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

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Good to be back, Chris. I always enjoy our time. I have to tell you, I'm one of the better interviewers out there, and I've been doing this for more than 30 years.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air, so I don't have to brag about myself.

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Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, airing live Monday through Friday, 4 to 6 p .m.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

39:23

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

39:30

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

39:43

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

39:53

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

40:01

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

40:06

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

40:16

Was your business shut down during the

40:32

COVID -19 pandemic, depriving you of earning any money, causing you to default on your rent as you try to survive without income?

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41:07

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. Lindbrook Baptist Church on 225

42:37

Earl Avenue in Lindbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

42:43

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

42:49

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

42:57

We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.

43:03

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lindbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

43:09

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

43:17

Or visit LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. We are excited to announce another new member of the

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Bhanu Gadi earned a doctorate in pharmacy degree and is very knowledgeable on the current coronavirus pandemic.

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Please contact Dr. Gadi so he and his expert staff can give you proper guidance amid all the contradictory confusion we are all hearing in the media.

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Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Bhanu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through.

44:41

In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,

44:46

I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

44:53

He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness and the beauty in what

44:58

God has designed and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

45:08

God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to him.

45:15

When the whole world is searching for a solution, God in his infinite mercy has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be very serious.

45:25

Such is the beauty of his design, knowing that design, how can we not add up in praise to our great

45:31

God like the psalmist did. May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in his design.

45:38

Thank you. Welcome back. This is

45:43

Chris Armstrong. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program today is

45:49

Matt Tarr. And Matt Tarr is the pastor of High Point Baptist Church.

45:57

And that is in Larksville, Pennsylvania, a church revitalization effort in the

46:03

Northeastern Pennsylvania area through the Grace Advance Ministry of John MacArthur.

46:09

Today, we are addressing the challenges of the Northeast United States as a mission field for a flourishing church.

46:16

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

46:25

And please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence. If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

46:35

And we're also going to be announcing fairly shortly during this broadcast, the Basics of Biblical Counseling Conference, a weekend conference for the church next month here in Pennsylvania.

46:47

Pastor Matt, right before we had to break for our first station break, you were talking about the diminishing of biblical truth or its hold to it by Princeton University, one time a bastion of theological truth, where giants of the faith, still highly revered by biblically sound men, once served on the faculty.

47:20

And you had men like B .B. Warfield and others. So tell us about this gradual slide into apostasy, basically, that was occurring.

47:35

Sure, yeah. B .B. Warfield, Charles Hodge, Archibald Alexander, and as we mentioned,

47:45

Jonathan Edwards, of course, for a very short time. But nevertheless,

47:52

Princeton was started in response to the liberalization of Yale, where Jonathan Edwards went to seminary, which was established in response to the liberalization of Harvard, where Jonathan Edwards' father went to seminary.

48:08

So we see that trend. And then, of course, after Princeton defects from the truth, you see

48:14

Westminster in Philadelphia, of course, started in response to that.

48:20

And so the seminaries were consistently liberalizing. There was pressure to appeal to the so -called scholasticism of Europe, which, of course, includes the historical accounts of Christ as they're presented in the

48:44

Gospels. It rejects the miraculous things of the

48:53

Scriptures, the work of God. It appeals to science as an authority, as if science is self -justifiable, and as though there aren't presuppositions being brought in in the interpretation of science and so forth.

49:11

So they just wanted the praise of men. And the men that were being turned out of those seminaries were consequentially, you might say, weak men, because they weren't men that were trained in the

49:27

Word well. And there was something else that was concurrently happening in the

49:33

Church at the same time. Maybe what we would call not the scholastic or seminary

49:39

Christianity. The seminary Christianity, the scholastic Christianity, was weakening in the

49:46

Northeast, where the Great Awakening had just so much recovered sound theological doctrine.

49:56

But pop -cultural Christianity had created an environment that was ready and willing to hire pastors who were poorly trained, either who didn't hold to convictions because theology had a secondary place in the life of the

50:15

Church, or who weren't just ignorant but actually taught heresy and different things in the

50:24

Church. So after the Great Awakening, there was an appetite.

50:31

The Great Awakening brought deep emotion and piety in the

50:36

Church. And Jonathan Edwards actually wrote about that, because he incurred a lot of criticism as a preacher of the

50:44

Great Awakening because of the emotion that it brought. We've all read

50:49

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and we're likely familiar with the context of that story, in which it was erroneously,

50:59

I think, ascribed to Jonathan Edwards that he was a monotone reader of manuscripts.

51:05

Right, I had long believed that mischaracterization of Jonathan Edwards.

51:12

Yeah, I think it's hard to fairly argue that point when we have a lot of his manuscripts.

51:19

And early on, we see you full manuscripts, early on in his ministry.

51:24

But at the same time, what do you do with his writings in which he speaks out against that kind of passionless, monotone reading?

51:36

But then later in his ministry, his sermon manuscripts were really reduced to outlines.

51:42

And we can understand why that would be the case, as he becomes more confident as a preacher.

51:49

By the time he's in his late 40s, early 50s, those are at the library,

51:55

I believe, still at Princeton, you can see them, these little outlines that he would preach his sermons from. It's going to be a short sermon if you're reading your manuscript.

52:04

But we're familiar with that story where Jonathan Edwards is allegedly just reading his manuscript,

52:09

Sinners in the Hands of God, as if that can be read passionless. But all of a sudden, his congregation breaks out in weeping and terror and falling to the ground in holy fear and repentance and exalting

52:26

Christ as their Lord and Savior, believing in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

52:33

And so there's this very emotional environment, and Jonathan Edwards defended that appropriate emotion.

52:42

But what happened in response to the Great Awakening was... After the

52:48

Great Awakening, where was that emotion? Where did it go? In about the mid -19th century, there was a new revivalist named

53:00

Charles Finney, who most Christians have heard about, but most Christians probably aren't aware that Charles Finney was a heretic who denied a biblical justification by grace through faith.

53:17

Yes, unfortunately, he is hallowed as a great hero of Christianity, perhaps especially by fundamentalists who just have not really read much of what

53:30

Finney taught, because if they knew that he was even more consumed by Pelagianism than the

53:41

Roman Catholic Church is, I'm sure that they would be quick to abandon him as a hero.

53:48

But it's mind -boggling, and people as well -known and beloved as Billy Graham have written glowing things about him.

53:59

And J .I. Packer wrote something wonderful in endorsing a work,

54:07

I believe it was his autobiography or at least a biography about him, or perhaps just a reprinting of his theology.

54:17

But anyway, it's a shame to see that so many people have been duped into thinking that he was among the best of the best as far as representations of Christianity.

54:30

Right, and that's something that is so deeply concerning to me, because I'm not sure that most of, you know, evangelical has become such an unhelpfully broad term that it's, oh,

54:48

I don't recall at this point who said, it might have been Martin Lloyd -Jones, it's a term that has come to mean both everything and nothing at all, but...

54:58

Well, we have to actually, I'm sorry it's been so fast, but we have to go to our midway break now, and so we'll have to pick up where we left off there.

55:07

This is our longer than normal break, folks, so please be patient with us. Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

55:12

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a lengthier break in the middle because they air this show twice daily in a pre -recorded format, and they are required by the

55:23

FCC to localize Zion Trump and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, so they air their own public service announcements and other things in the middle of the show that localize this show to that area of the country.

55:35

So while they do that, we air our own globally heard commercial, so please make very good use of this time by writing down as much of the information provided by as many of our advertisers as possible so that you can patronize them and further ensure that we will remain on the air, because if you keep our advertisers happy, they will more than likely remain our advertisers, and we rely upon their advertising dollars to exist.

56:00

So not only write down the information provided by many of our advertisers, but also please send in questions to our guest

56:07

Matt Tarr on the Northeast United States as mission field and also as a place for a flourishing church.

56:18

If you could email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away.

56:23

We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Matt Tarr. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine

56:40

Christian organizations to remain on the air, like the Historical Bible Society. The Historical Bible Society maintains a collection of Christian books, manuscripts, and Bibles of historical significance spanning nearly 1 ,000 years.

56:55

The mission of HBS is the preservation and public display of ancient scripture, dissemination of scripture, to provide tools equipping believers in Christian apologetics with evidence for the

57:06

Bible's reliability, and to introduce Reformation literature and Christian art to a broader audience.

57:13

Since 2004, HBS has toured schools and churches throughout the Northeast United States, reaching thousands of believers and non -believers alike who are hungry for knowledge of the

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Bible. HBS's founder, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, is committed to sharing this collection along with an inspirational historical message that will captivate you and your church.

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Come journey through their website, historicalbiblesociety .org. The collection includes a complete 11th century

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today. Thank you, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, for your faithful support of Iron Trumpets Iron Radio.

58:14

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new beautiful facilities in Coram, Long Island, New York.

58:36

I've had the privilege of opening God's word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

58:45

New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the

58:55

Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

59:00

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

59:06

Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

59:13

That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

59:21

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

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Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus. We are rural and urban, and we are always about the message of Jesus.

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Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York, by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

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Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

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Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

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For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333.

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That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.

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That's liyfc .org. As host of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:02:21

A 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.

01:02:31

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

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

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

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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.

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

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.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

01:03:20

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

01:03:30

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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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.

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And besides that, they feel so good. I'm so delighted I discovered Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding.

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No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot. Jeffrey Rice of Post Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.

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Jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications, and even emboss your logo into the leather, making whatever he rebinds a one -of -a -kind work of art.

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That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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and co -founder of New York Apologetics, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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I'm Pastor Tim Bushong of Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and the NASB is my

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Bible of choice. I'm Eli Ayala, founder of Revealed Apologetics and staff member with the

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Historical Bible Society, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

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Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

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Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

01:07:22

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

01:07:28

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio financially.

01:07:37

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our

01:07:50

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

01:07:57

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

01:08:10

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

01:08:19

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

01:08:28

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

01:08:33

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

01:08:46

We are excited to announce another new member of the

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Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio advertising family, Bhanu Gadi, owner of three

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New York pharmacies, Lee's Drugs of Floral Park, Long Beach Chemists, and Prescription Center of Long Island in Hempstead.

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Please contact Dr. Gadi so he and his expert staff can give you proper guidance amid all the contradictory confusion we are all hearing in the media.

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To find the pharmacy nearest you, call 516 -354 -2000. That's 516 -354 -2000.

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Or order online at leesdrugsrx .com. That's L -E -E -S drugsrx .com.

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Don't forget to ask about their discount generic drug program. Greetings in the matchless name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Bhanu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through.

01:10:02

In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,

01:10:07

I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

01:10:15

He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

01:10:20

God has designed and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

01:10:29

God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to him.

01:10:37

When the whole world is searching for a solution, God in his infinite mercy has given us what we need to address this which can be pretty serious.

01:10:46

Such is the beauty of his design. Knowing that design, how can we not add up in praise to our great

01:10:52

God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in his design.

01:11:00

Thank you. So Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

01:11:17

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

01:11:24

He will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

01:11:29

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

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Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered,

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That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

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Well, please go to solid -ground -books .com for the finest in Christian literature from the past and present.

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And always make sure you tell Mike Adosh and the folks at Solid Ground Christian Books that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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They are a very primary, a very important, vital sponsor of this program.

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And without their help, I doubt that we could exist barring a miracle from God. So please patronize them as often as you can.

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And remember, you're not only going to be doing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a favor by doing that, but you're going to be blessing yourself and anyone to whom you give a gift from solid -ground -books .com,

01:13:29

solid -ground -books .com. And before we return to Matt Tarr, to our discussion, we have just a couple of announcements to make.

01:13:42

First of all, we have heard the great news from Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio that he is returning to this program, and that we are very likely going to be discussing questions to ask the leaders of a church before you join it.

01:14:05

That is most likely going to be the theme. We don't have a date yet, but we will provide that for you as soon as possible.

01:14:11

We think it's going to be either later this month or early August. Also, after a very long absence,

01:14:19

Daryl Bernard Harrison is returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. He's on the staff at Grace TV Ministries with John MacArthur, and he's going to be joined by Virgil Walker.

01:14:31

They both host a podcast together, and we are very likely going to be addressing a

01:14:37

Christian response to Black Lives Matter or something similar, at least as a part of our discussion.

01:14:44

That's going to be on Wednesday, August 5th, here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we've got a lot of other exciting guests and topics coming up shortly, so keep your eyes and ears open for that.

01:14:57

Also, folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please, I'm urging you to go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:15:06

click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card by doing that, and if you would prefer snail mail, if you'd like to mail in a check instead, an address will appear on the screen where you can mail a check when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:15:27

Always keep in mind that I never want anybody siphoning money away from their regular giving to their local church, the amount that they're accustomed to giving their local church.

01:15:38

I don't want anybody taking away from your church to give to us, and please don't put your own family in financial jeopardy if you are having a hard time making ends meet by giving to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:15:51

Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and your family. Providing for this radio show is not a command of God, obviously, but if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money because you have not been doing many of the things that you used to spend money on because of the

01:16:10

COVID -19 quarantining. You haven't been going out fine dining lately.

01:16:16

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01:16:37

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01:16:58

click support, then click, click to donate now. You can also advertise with us by sending me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:17:06

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01:17:29

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01:17:35

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01:17:49

Send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. I want to thank everybody who has been so faithful in giving to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, especially during the

01:18:00

COVID -19 hysteria and those of you who have been helping us make up for the loss

01:18:06

I just mentioned financially. There's a woman in Austin, Texas that I am still hoping

01:18:12

I meet face to face who broke all donation records with the check that she sent in not long ago.

01:18:19

Thank you all from the depths of my heart for all of what you have given, no matter the size, because I know that that means that you really love this program, you really care about it, and that means more to me than anything.

01:18:34

And keep us in your prayers, please, at ironsharpensironradio .com. And now we are back to our guest,

01:18:42

Matt Tarr, who is the pastor of High Point Baptist Church, and this is a church located in Larksville, Pennsylvania, and we have been discussing the challenges of the

01:18:54

Northeast United States as a mission field for a flourishing church. And before we return to our topic,

01:19:01

Matt, can you please tell us about the Basics of Biblical Counseling Conference coming up? Sure, yeah.

01:19:07

The Basics of Biblical Counseling Conference is going to be held at our church August 28th through 29th.

01:19:15

It's a Friday and Saturday. Friday and Saturday, and speaking of COVID, our church will adequately accommodate the social distancing requirements and so forth.

01:19:30

That's one of the blessings of inheriting such a large building. We can accommodate events like this, however your conscience directs you to do so.

01:19:40

But it's going to be an important conference. I believe it's the first ACBC conference in Pennsylvania and the third one ever in the

01:19:50

Northeastern United States, and hopefully there will be more to come, provided there is enough interest.

01:19:58

It's greatly needed in our area, I will say. We have all been called as Christians to make disciples.

01:20:13

That's the substance of the Great Commission. It's described in how we do that by going to all the nations, baptizing, teaching.

01:20:23

But we're making disciples, and that's what Biblical Counseling is. It's teaching another what the scriptures have to say about how we respond to our circumstances, our life's problems, different ways that we feel, and so forth.

01:20:41

And it really draws us back to the authority of God's Word. And this conference is an introduction to help establish the framework that we need to operate on in order to have the confidence that we are competent to counsel, as it has been said.

01:21:01

And ACBC stands for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. And I know that Dale Johnson is your speaker.

01:21:10

What can you tell us about Dale? Dale is the Executive Director of ACBC, so we're very excited to be able to have him come.

01:21:22

He's obviously very knowledgeable in the Word. I know that he was pastoring a church in Florida.

01:21:29

I'm not sure if he's still doing that, since he assumed the role of Executive Director at ACBC, but nevertheless, he's been doing a fantastic job in leading that organization.

01:21:43

Very much, I think, like even you described in your radio ministry, a true parachurch ministry organization, that parakaleo, it desires to come alongside churches, not take the place of And therefore, it's supported by the abundance in giving from people beyond their normal giving to their local church.

01:22:11

It doesn't want to steal away the ministry of the local church, and Dale Johnson is very committed to that.

01:22:17

That's why he wants to equip the people of God so that we're competent to counsel ourselves with the

01:22:24

Scriptures. We're very much looking forward to him being able to come.

01:22:31

We're surprised and thrilled at the same time. We're very excited about that.

01:22:38

Well, and I plan to be there, manning an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth. I have received permission to be manning that booth there, so I hope that as many of you in the

01:22:50

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience who either live near Scranton, Pennsylvania, or who can take a plane, train, or automobile there, join me at this conference.

01:23:02

I'm sure it will be well worth your while, and some of the sessions include the need for biblical counseling, the definition and goal of biblical counseling, progressive sanctification, qualifications of a biblical counselor, secular and integration theories, what makes biblical counseling biblical, and a

01:23:24

Q &A session, and that is Friday and Saturday, the 28th and 29th of August.

01:23:31

It's in the evening hours on the 28th and during the daytime, ending at 5 p .m.

01:23:37

on Saturday. If you want more details on how to register, how much it costs, and all those things, go to biblicalcounseling .com

01:23:45

forward slash Scranton dash PA, for Pennsylvania, dash training.

01:23:52

That's biblicalcounseling .com forward slash Scranton, S -C -R -A -N -T -O -N, dash

01:23:59

PA, dash training, and you will be able to register right there. You can also email me at chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:24:07

to get that website if you were unable to remember it or write it down.

01:24:13

So, I'm looking forward to being there. If you could now pick up where we left off in our discussion on how the northeast

01:24:25

United States went from being a place in the globe that was known globally as being a bastion of sorts of biblical truth and scriptural faithfulness, and now, no offense intended to those faithful ministries who are laboring there now, but has become comparatively a spiritual wasteland there.

01:24:53

Right, yes, and the northeast in general, a spiritual wasteland, and it's helpful to see the consequences that the ministry of Charles Finney has had on that.

01:25:09

And interestingly enough, you had mentioned just before the break that most

01:25:15

Christians are probably not aware that Charles Finney was a heretic, and they would be appalled to know what he actually taught, about justification and salvation.

01:25:27

But it's also a real deep concern of mine that, speaking broadly of American Christianity, I don't think most

01:25:38

Christians would care either, because the climate of contemporary

01:25:45

Christianity may be faintly upholds its own convictions with regards to what scriptures teach, even with the fundamentals of the faith, while at the same time, they're not going to require those convictions for someone else to believe in order to inherit eternal life.

01:26:10

So it's a sentimental affirmation of orthodoxy at best.

01:26:19

And I don't know if you agree with my friend Jerry Johnson's assessment of Charles Finney.

01:26:28

I happen to agree with it, from what I have discovered about Finney. But he said

01:26:34

Charles Finney was not a synergist.

01:26:47

Charles Finney was a monergist, but he was a monergist in the worst way you can be a monergist.

01:26:54

He believed that God had nothing to do with regenerating the soul of a man, that that was all up to a man's decision and activity, and so on.

01:27:07

And therefore, it was a monergism of man, not a salvation solely of God, apart from the aid of man.

01:27:20

Yes, that's an interesting statement. So just in case folks don't understand, monergism is in reference to a singular work.

01:27:32

And so, obviously, in salvation, we would look to God as the singular source of our salvation.

01:27:38

Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, that's the gospel, compact, obviously, together, by grace you have been saved through faith in that not of yourselves.

01:27:50

It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Synergism would say that salvation is the result of both man and God's work.

01:28:04

But Paul is very clear, and very nice, I think, in Ephesians 8, 9, to say that even our faith is a gift from God.

01:28:15

And we've kind of gotten that mixed up in contemporary Christianity, even.

01:28:20

We've adopted a kind of Neo -Pelagianism, Neo -Synergism, where we have said, well, the faith is mine, and I initiated that work of faith, and so now salvation is synergistic.

01:28:37

Now it is my contribution, my faith is my contribution, plus God's grace for eternal life.

01:28:44

So I still need God's grace. But that's what Roman Catholicism teaches. Roman Catholicism is adamant that we cannot be saved apart from the work of Jesus Christ, but they're also adamant that we must meritoriously contribute to our salvation by the sacraments, and so on and so forth.

01:29:07

And so we've kind of actually borrowed a little bit without even realizing how we've adopted that kind of synergism.

01:29:17

And as far as it relates to Charles Finney, that explains his use of his conviction pertaining to monergism, being solely the work of man, that explains his methods.

01:29:35

And boy, that really reminds me of how important it is to have our theology right, and how much our theology does actually govern the methods that we use in sharing the gospel, and preaching the gospel, and in the life of the ministry of the

01:29:50

Church. So Charles Finney, in a time where seminaries have been liberalizing in the

01:30:00

Northeast, and the effects, you know, you're getting into the second, the third generations after the

01:30:08

Great Awakening, Charles Finney comes to the scene, and people are longing to see the kind of response to the gospel that they had heard about in the

01:30:21

Great Awakening. And so he began to adopt this methodology that prized manipulation.

01:30:33

It was less about the content and much more about style, manipulating masses through style.

01:30:44

And so doing that, he emulated the emotional response that people had during the

01:30:51

Great Awakening, but he got it backwards. In the Great Awakening, people had tremendous emotional responses to the gospel in response to the gospel, and in response to the truth.

01:31:05

But Finney was a lot less concerned that emotion was generated through a response to the truth, or through the intellect, or through study and sound exposition, than he was with this kind of sentimental emotionalism.

01:31:26

It would just, it would work you up in a way that you could respond to any appeal he would make.

01:31:34

It didn't really matter what he was actually saying.

01:31:41

And that was interesting, because that was actually something that Friedrich Schleiermacher was an advocate of, at about the same time.

01:31:54

And Charles Hodge, as the president of Princeton before it had defected, spent a great majority of his time writing against Schleiermacher, was responding to this significant change in the 18th century, where rationalism was being prized.

01:32:19

It rejected truth that could not be, well, could not pass the muster of human reason.

01:32:28

So any truth claim that seemed to be irreconcilable with the thought of man in rationalism was rejected.

01:32:41

And so, as he, as Schleiermacher, a liberal, responds to that, he proposed another approach, but that still left man as his own authority.

01:32:57

But it was a lot more appealing to Christians than the rationalistic rejection of the scriptures, because Schleiermacher appealed to something that Christians prized, something that Christians valued.

01:33:14

He appealed to the heart. He said that the heart was basic, it was fundamental to Christianity, and devotion to Christ should have a preeminent place in the

01:33:26

Christian life. But now, feeling was prized.

01:33:33

And so, feeling was the essence of Christianity. And that became the new dogma, that became the authority, experience.

01:33:45

And so, Schleiermacher actually barred doctrinally rich preaching from the pulpit altogether, because he so emphasized experience.

01:33:58

Experience was the object of the preacher. In fact, Ian Murray writes, quoting from Schleiermacher, that the real thing in the religious discourse is an imparting of the religious consciousness.

01:34:11

So, defect from truth, defect from an intellectual investigation of the knowledge of God, and replace it instead with kind of this mindless, emotionally driven

01:34:27

Christianity. And so, by the 20th century,

01:34:35

R .B. Kuiper, I think is how you say his name, I might have gotten that wrong, I'm not very good with names.

01:34:40

Oh, Kuiper. Kuiper, thank you. He wrote that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Protestant ministry is today working as hard at keeping the laity in doctrinal darkness, as was the

01:34:55

Roman Catholic clergy before the dawn of the Reformation. And you read that statement, and that's like a ton of bricks on, well, it should be like a ton of bricks on the conscience of every preacher.

01:35:12

Because of the emphasis that we have made on generating an emotional response, we have lost something that is the true catalyst for Christian, faithful Christian living, and a true response to the

01:35:31

Gospel. So, Finney is advocating the same kind of emotional environment that Schleiermacher was condoning for.

01:35:42

And Schleiermacher died just, you know, roughly at the same time that Charles Finney was ministering.

01:35:52

But Finney caters to the romanticism of America in the 19th century as well.

01:36:07

And people are all too eager to accept the method, even though the message was corrupted, because it seemed to create the response.

01:36:20

You're already starting to see a consumeristic mentality in the pulpit. This was where the altar call was invented, if you will, where, um, if you can create an environment where it seems, you know, sort of using the herd theory, if you can create an environment where it seems many people all are doing something, namely going up to the altar to give their lives to Christ, then many more will come to give their lives to Christ, even though they're not necessarily genuine or sincere.

01:37:00

And Finney was less concerned about that. He was concerned about morality, and he lamented the fact that his revivals seemed to have no long -term effect.

01:37:15

But he wasn't so concerned that people were sincere, obviously. He's not even presenting the true

01:37:21

Gospel, so he's not genuinely concerned about authentic conversion. And that set the stage for the decline of Evangelicalism in the

01:37:33

Northeast and the decline of Evangelicalism in America as a whole, because as the generation that was raised up after those who responded to Finney's sermons, they became disenfranchised with Christianity, because it seemed powerless to them.

01:37:53

The very power of the Gospel that the Apostle Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians had no effect on Mom and Dad.

01:38:00

Dad is still the town drunk. The Gospel absolutely changed nothing, and so you kind of have this stage that is now going to be welcome.

01:38:09

Well, if the Gospel has no power, and what the Scriptures say about how it should change and affect the life of the

01:38:16

Christian, that has no power. Well, the Scriptures as a whole, surely, must be powerless.

01:38:24

And since that was already what was being taught in the seminaries anyway, well, Christianity and the

01:38:30

Bible became totally irrelevant in most of New England. Is that where we get the burnout district from?

01:38:37

I think so. I think so. And it was a little bit different.

01:38:43

I should say burned out, I believe, not burnout like people who are high on drugs. Oh, I understand.

01:38:49

Burned out. Yeah. Right. People who have been, have believed to be defrauded, deceived by a religion in particular, and it has horrific consequences for future generations.

01:39:09

Yes. Yes. And so, you know, northeastern Pennsylvania was, well, in New England, you have kind of, you had this sort of intellectual, well, intellectualism is prized in New England.

01:39:29

There are so many institutions, of course, and so northeastern

01:39:36

Pennsylvania was a little bit different from that. Northeastern Pennsylvania was originally part of the

01:39:43

Connecticut colony, but, and it wasn't untouched by Charles Finney.

01:39:49

He preached in Pennsylvania as well, as well as other places in the south. But while atheism began to become the new norm in New England, the industrial revolution was coming to the

01:40:08

Americas just around the dawn of the American Civil War and after that.

01:40:14

And that brought a lot of migrant workers to northeastern Pennsylvania. So now you have this disenfranchised

01:40:21

Christianity in northeastern Pennsylvania too, because of the preaching, the powerless preaching of Charles Finney.

01:40:34

All these migrant workers are coming from Italy, from Poland, and from South Ireland.

01:40:43

And what we know from those countries, Roman Catholicism is by far the predominant religion.

01:40:50

And so Roman Catholicism became re -established as the new norm in northeastern

01:40:56

Pennsylvania. So we have a comparable evangelical influence in northeastern

01:41:02

Pennsylvania as the rest of New England. But what is different here is that Roman Catholicism still has a firm grip on many people, whereas in New England you're still combating sort of the intellectual indifference or the agnosticism or hostile atheism.

01:41:25

So, and what's interesting though, is that I think what happened as, um, after there was a dissatisfaction with God in New England, because of the seemingly powerless work of God in the lives of people who claimed to know him, they simply became bored with God.

01:41:58

And I think that boredom with God is reflected in contemporary worship.

01:42:06

And worship began changing in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

01:42:13

And through the 20th century, you still had a very high premium on emotionally driven sermons.

01:42:24

The sermonic tone has changed from the 19th century.

01:42:30

The kind of sermonic tone that Charles Finney would have, or even men like D .L.

01:42:38

Moody and John Chapman and Billy Sunday, that sermonic tone is gone.

01:42:44

But the substance has not. Um, the, the content of the message, the form has not so much changed.

01:42:55

Finney's argumentation was, was often built on straw men and emotional appeal.

01:43:00

It wasn't so much logical and the result of doctrinal clarity and precision.

01:43:06

And people weren't changing because of doctrinal precision, because their view of God has changed.

01:43:15

And, and modern preaching reflects very much the same, if you, if you're following me there on that.

01:43:23

And, and, and church music and church methods followed that same line.

01:43:31

And what's, what's so interesting about that, and it gets back to, I suppose, the solution to the problem is getting back to the authority of God's word and evaluating, does it really have something to say about how we conduct ministry?

01:43:48

It starts in the pulpit, but does it have something to say about our music? Does it have something to say about how we conduct our children's ministries?

01:43:56

Does it have something to say how we conduct evangelism? And, and so on and so forth. What is the place of theology in the church?

01:44:03

I think we're at a point in time where even after, you know, kind of going back to where we began, even after we had this massive resurgence of theology, now we're kind of in a place of indifference where evangelicals don't really care so much if somebody else holds to the same convictions, uh, because, well, if, if they can generate the same results.

01:44:36

But if you go back to the beginning of the

01:44:43

Great Awakening, it's really interesting that less than a century before the Great Awakening, church services were designed for the worship of corporate saints.

01:44:54

They had always recognized that unbelievers would be present in the local church, but they recognized that, uh, that the church existed to worship

01:45:10

God. That was, that was the purpose of the church. It was to equip the saints for the work of service, for the carrying on of ministry.

01:45:19

And by the way, we have to go to our final break. It's going to be a lot more brief than any previous break.

01:45:25

I will read before the break to you a question from a listener, and then you can answer it when we come back.

01:45:31

C .J. from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, asks, do you think that much of the reason, or at least part of it, that many of our fine old institutions that were once faithful to the

01:45:47

Bible, not only Ivy League schools, but even whole denominations, caved into liberalism was because that many, if not most, of those that were theologically faithful, abandon those very things within liberalism that are actually reflected in the scriptures, such as being opposed to bigotry and to reaching out to the poor and needy.

01:46:19

And we'll have you pick up on that question. I think it's a very insightful question.

01:46:27

In fact, I think that we can see even in the United States, during the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s, it was a sad commentary that many of your conservative churches and denominations and leaders were not in the forefront of bringing an end to segregation and bringing an end to the bigotry that was targeting blacks and others.

01:47:06

And you didn't have necessarily a

01:47:11

William Wilber's force in the 1960s who was taking up the mantle to try to crush the ugly head of bigotry.

01:47:20

But we'll have you respond to CJ's question yourself when we return.

01:47:25

And if anybody else wants to join us, send in your question now or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:47:32

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. And remember, folks, please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

01:47:44

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

01:47:50

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Matt Tarr after these messages. Chris Arnson, host of Iron Trump and Zion Radio here.

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01:52:50

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and this is our final segment of today's interview with Matt Tarr.

01:52:57

And we had that question, Matt, from CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who wants to know if any of the blame can be laid at the feet of those scripturally, theologically faithful churches when it came to doctrine, who basically let very important things that liberals wound up taking ahold of the mantle and running with in a very disastrous and unbiblical way that led to a social gospel and so on, such as caring for the poor and even the issue of bigotry.

01:53:36

Do we need to even blame those in our own theological family tree for some of this?

01:53:44

Yeah, so that is a very good question, and it's certainly applicable to our age.

01:53:51

And, you know, I think some of it is a matter of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

01:54:01

Is the bigotry a result of Christian liberalism, or did bigotry within Christianity result in liberalism?

01:54:17

I think I said that the way I wanted to. But, you know, what

01:54:23

I would argue is that when we look at bigotry and what it is, we're talking about hate, hate that is contrary to the nature of the gospel.

01:54:35

And there is a remnant of faithful men, even when we're looking at, you know, primarily the era of history that we've been looking at in the northeastern

01:54:45

United States. Cotton Mather, for instance, wrote, I think, if I remember right, quite significantly to stop the

01:54:55

Salem witch trials, which was a tremendous example of bigotry in the late 17th, early 18th century, and unfortunately his words were twisted and misconstrued to even continue to advance those injustices that were occurring.

01:55:19

But I would argue that, um, you know, for instance, if you go back to Nicene Christianity, just after the

01:55:32

Diocletian persecution, or we're going all the way back to the early 4th century when the

01:55:39

Diocletian persecution occurred, there, Christians were the object of heinous bigotry.

01:55:47

They were the objects of anger, the objects of hate.

01:55:54

They endured some of the most horrific persecution that anyone in the world has ever endured.

01:56:01

And when that Diocletian persecution came to an end, it came to an end somewhat gradually as Constantine the

01:56:11

Great took control of the Roman Empire. There was a united Christian front for the first time, but it was a very brief period, because it was shortly after peace came in Christianity that heresy quickly came as well.

01:56:37

And as soon as that heresy came, that's when you started seeing factions, disunity, and so forth again.

01:56:49

All that we're talking about, I think it's symptomatic of the same heart issue as hate, as bigotry, when we're talking about disunity of any kind, we're talking about the same things.

01:57:02

And when you look at the church in Corinth, I think we see the same example of that in 1

01:57:08

Corinthians 1 -4. In 1 Corinthians 1 -4, the

01:57:14

Corinthian church was defined by bigotry, by hatred, by factions. And that's how

01:57:19

Paul introduces the letter. I cannot believe that you were saying, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ.

01:57:28

The church is about to go to a four -way split over this. They were bickering, and Paul calls them in chapter 3, he says, you're a bunch of babies.

01:57:39

You think you're mature, but you're really a bunch of babies. You're infants in Christ. And the reason was because they had compromised on doctrine.

01:57:48

They had exchanged sound doctrine for the methods of the world.

01:57:56

And the methods of the world led to this self -centered mentality.

01:58:03

So, if it's, if it's, if doctrine is the source, and Paul presents the true doctrine as the source of unity, as the source of love and fellowship, which is what he's going to get to, obviously, in chapters 10 and 11 and 12 and 13, then inherently we've addressed the problem of bigotry and disunity.

01:58:32

And so I think, I think the reason we're seeing an escalation of the factions we're observing right now in America is actually the result of a faithless church to believe

01:58:45

Paul when he said in 1st, or rather 2nd Timothy chapter 4, that all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for instruction, for training, and righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, fully equipped for every good work.

01:59:01

So, not sure exactly if that was the question. I might have made it the question.

01:59:08

Well, we are sadly out of time, and I know already that I want to have you back to continue this theme, and I will, if you hold on the line,

01:59:17

I will go over some dates with you. John in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also

01:59:25

Laura in Richboro, Pennsylvania.

01:59:31

We hope to have your questions asked during our next interview. I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information as far as the website for High Point Baptist Church.

01:59:43

It's highpointbaptist .church, highpointbaptist .church. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater