October 29, 2018 with Lowell Ivey on “From Prison to Pardoned: How a White Supremacist Gang Member in Prison Discovered & Found True Freedom in Christ Jesus”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

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

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

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris. Good afternoon,

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

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 29th day of October 2018.

I am really excited about today's program. We are going to be involving today some topics that we have never addressed today, that we've never addressed before,

I should say, on the program that is involved with white supremacy and those involved in that ideology.

To my knowledge, I don't think that we've ever had a whole two -hour program that is largely dedicated to that issue.

Of course, we're not entirely going to be talking about that alone, but our guest today is

Lowell Ivey. He is the pastor of Reformation Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which is a congregation within the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination. It is a mission work of the Presbytery of the

Southeast. He is going to be addressing from prison to pardoned how a white supremacist gang member in prison discovered and found true freedom in Christ Jesus.

We're also going to be announcing the upcoming conference at Knox Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, where Lowell Ivey is one of three speakers.

It is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Honoring Trump and Zion Radio, Lowell Ivey.

Well, thank you, Chris. I feel like I'm the one who is honored and privileged. Thank you so much for the invitation, and it's a great blessing to be with you.

Oh, it is. The blessing is entirely mine, brother. And by the way, a mutual friend of ours,

Pastor Bill Shishko, who is actually retired from the pastorate and is now a domestic missionary with Reformation Metro New York.

He hosts the program A Visit to the Pastor's Study on WLIE Radio on Long Island, but it's also live streamed globally.

Our mutual friend Bill Shishko not only interviewed my guest,

Lowell Ivey, very recently on his program, A Visit to the Pastor's Study, but he was also formerly one of Lowell's professors.

Was that at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in South Carolina? That's right.

He was my pastoral theology professor, and it was a great blessing to study under him.

Yes, Bill Shishko is one of my dearest friends. I've known him since the 1980s, very close to after I got saved.

He was one of my first friends that I developed a friendship with after becoming born again, and we have remained steadfast friends ever since.

He has been an incredible encouragement and blessing to me personally through thick and thin, through some very dark trials in my life, and through times of celebration and rejoicing as well.

By the way, if anybody wants to hear later on, of course I want you to continue listening to us live right now, but later on if you want to listen to Bill Shishko's interview with Lowell Ivey, you can go to visitthepastorsstudy .org.

That's visitthepastorsstudy .org. That is the website for A Visit to the

Pastors Study, the radio program of Bill Shishko. Well, first of all, before we get into your fascinating testimony, tell our listeners about Reformation Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Well, I appreciate that, Chris. RPC, Reformation Presbyterian Church, as you said, is a mission work, a church plant of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church here in Virginia Beach, and it is a congregation that loves the

Reformed faith, a congregation that is seeking to be hospitable and welcoming to those who perhaps don't know the

Reformed faith or are new to it, and we are a congregation that loves evangelism and outreach.

Sometimes people think, well, that doesn't seem to go together, but we truly believe that if you understand the doctrines of salvation by grace alone and all of the things that are distinctive to us as Reformed Christians, you have to tell others about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Praise God. And tell us a little bit about the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination itself.

Well, the OPC was formed in 1936 as a result of what you might call theological liberalism in the mainline

Presbyterian Church. I often tell people that we are a

Bible -believing Presbyterian Church, and the reason I have to qualify that is because so often people are more familiar with those mainline congregations that have departed in many ways from biblical teaching.

And back in the 1930s, there were men like J. Gresham Machen and others who already were seeing that departure taking place in terms of basic biblical doctrine, and they wanted to be a part of a true

Bible -believing Presbyterian Church. Amen. And yeah, the fundamentalist modernist controversy was also what led to, believe it or not, the planting or the forming of a

Christian alcohol rehabilitation ministry in Boone, North Carolina, where I enrolled a number of years ago because I had tragically fallen back into the sin of habitual drunkenness.

And the Hebron Colony Ministries of Boone, North Carolina, is the oldest still -running ministry dedicated to delivering men from drug and alcohol addiction still in existence.

It was started shortly after World War II, and it was started because the man who began the ministry was a pastor in the mainline

Presbyterian denomination, and he could not tolerate the liberalism anymore.

And when his congregation would not follow him out of the

United Presbyterian Church, the main liberal body, the body that became liberal and apostate in many circumstances, he packed up and he moved to North Carolina, and he was seeing a great number of American G .I.'s

return home addicted to alcohol. And so he had a burden to start this ministry, and it began.

And thanks be to God, I was also delivered from that addiction. And I take every opportunity that I can to sing the praises of Hebron Colony Ministries because of the fact that the

Lord used that ministry, perhaps even to save my life, if I had continued on that road.

I have no idea where I would have wound up. But if anybody wants any more information about Hebron Colony Ministries, you can go to their website.

And they are, as I said, in Boone, North Carolina. And the website is hebroncolony .org,

hebroncolony .org, H -E -B as in boy, R -O -N, colony .org. Also, before we get into Lowell's testimony,

I want to make sure you all know about a conference where Lowell is speaking on November 3rd.

It's coming up right around the corner here. November 3rd, which is a

Saturday. And it's this coming Saturday. He is going to be speaking at Knox Reform Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

And he is going to be joined by Jeff Downs, who is the new pastor at Knox Reform Presbyterian Church.

He's going to be officially installed there very soon, if it hasn't happened already.

I knew that it was right around the corner the last time I spoke with Jeff. And the...

He'll be installed Friday night. Okay, Friday night. Great. And I'll be preaching for that installation service.

Jeff is a good friend of mine. So he's invited me to preach for him. It's a great honor to be able to do that.

And then the following day on Saturday, we'll have that conference. Yes, Jeff is going to be speaking on From Drugs to Delivered.

And Fred Sloan, who many of you may have heard last Friday, is going to be speaking on Why Is Prison Ministry Necessary?

He was our guest just this past Friday on the 26th of October. And Lowell Ivey, our guest right now, is speaking on From Prison to Pardoned.

And by the way, Jeff Downs, his name may sound familiar to many of our listeners who also love the ministry of Dr.

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, because Jeff has been a frequent contributor to the blog of Alpha and Omega Ministries for quite a number of years.

That's how I first actually became familiar with Jeff, is through Alpha and Omega Ministries. But if anybody wants more information on the conference that is being held at Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church this

Saturday, you can go to knoxreformedpres .org,

that's k -n -o -x -reformed -p -r -e -s .org, or you can call 804 -779 -7608, 804 -779 -7608, for more details.

That's Saturday, November 3rd, from 9 a .m. to 11 30 a .m.

I'm going to also give our listeners our email address if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Lowell Ivey.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -s -e -n at gmail .com.

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

Well Lowell, I want to hear something about before circumstances tragically arose in your life that sent you to prison, but were actually used by God.

If ever Romans 8 28 has been vividly and tangibly proven in someone's life, it's in yours because your prison experience is actually what led to your having been given eternal life in Christ, which we can all rejoice over.

But before you went to prison, tell us something about your upbringing, what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and then tell us about those tragic events that led you to be incarcerated.

Well, yeah, thank you so much for that. The Romans 8 28 passage is certainly one that's very precious to me, and certainly

Genesis 50 20, what I meant for you will God meant for good. But to answer your question, the

Lord has taken me through a winding road to get to where I am now.

And it began in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I was born there, and my birth mother, whose name was

Brenda, abandoned me in a motel room. She told me that if I got off the bed, she was going to cut me up in pieces and flush me down the toilet.

And I was three years old. So as a three -year -old little boy, of course, I don't remember that.

I just know what I've been told by my adoptive parents. But as a three -year -old little boy, you can imagine the impression that would have made.

And I was there for three days and was found by a private detective hired by my step -grandfather.

My step -grandfather, whom I called Pop, adopted me and my maternal grandmother.

And when I was five, my grandmother died of cancer.

And so at that point, my step -grandfather decided that it would be best for me to have a mother and a father, and I was adopted by a family on his side, my mom and dad.

My dad was in the military, so he was stationed in different places, went from Virginia to Fort Meade, Maryland.

He was in military intelligence. And from there to Munich, Germany, where I did a lot of my growing up.

And I was about 16 years old, began to get in a lot of trouble, doing a number of different things, vandalism, theft, all kinds of stuff, drug use.

And the base commander told my dad that he basically had two options, to send me back to the

States, or I was going to be turned over to the German authorities. And so my dad sent me back to the

States. I went to live with my Pop again, my step -grandfather, who was at that time living in Georgia.

And then when my parents came back, my dad was assigned to Fort McClellan, Alabama. And I graduated high school there and went into the

Army. And that's the beginning of where, that's actually the beginning of the downhill slide.

Wow. You wouldn't think from that point, if somebody didn't know your story already, that that would have been the beginning of the downhill slide, but...

Right. So tell us about that beginning. Well, I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps, but not too closely.

He was in military intelligence. I ended up joining the infantry and went to basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia.

And when I graduated basic training and what they call AIT, Advanced Individual Training, as an infantryman,

I was assigned to a base in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. I was a light infantry soldier assigned to the 25th

Infantry Division, and my job was to be a squad automatic gunner.

I was assigned to a machine gun called the M249 SAW, Automatic Weapon, and that was what

I was doing there in Hawaii. In terms of my life as a soldier, things were okay.

I was doing well. I was doing the job that I was assigned to do. I eventually was about to be promoted, but my personal life was not what it ought to have been, obviously, and I didn't know the

Lord. I didn't grow up in a Christian household. I grew up in a home, the adoptive family that I had.

I'm very thankful to the Lord for them, but the only time that I ever heard the name

Jesus was at mealtimes when we would pray the same prayer every single night.

We'd pray it in Jesus' name, but that was the only exposure that I had, except when

I'd go to see my grandparents who were Southern Baptists in Florida. I did hear the gospel through my grandparents, but there was really no follow -up because I wasn't living in a genuinely

Christian home. So, a home that was Christian in name, perhaps, but there was no encounter with Jesus Christ or His Word in my home.

And so, I think even to this very day, I think if my parents were to be listening to this radio program right now, hear me saying the things that I'm saying,

I'm sure they would be offended to hear what I'm saying, because they would think of themselves as Christians.

But there was no opening of the Bible. There was no instruction.

We didn't go to church. There was no visible fruit in terms of a real, genuine, vibrant relationship with the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so, I didn't know the Lord. I was in the Army. I started doing drugs with some guys.

We did LSD, acid, and I started selling as well, and another soldier came into my room one night to buy some drugs from me, and he left his wallet.

And at first, there was no temptation at all. I just, I picked up his wallet. He had left the room.

I picked up the wallet and went to go find him. I couldn't find him. He disappeared into another barracks room.

And so, I took the wallet back with me, and then a friend of mine came, another soldier, and he started talking about the kinds of things that we could do with this man's wallet.

We could take his ID card and cut the picture out, put my picture on it, re -laminate it, and go and pull out all the money out of his credit union account.

And we could use his deferred payment plan program with that same ID card at the post exchange.

And all of these things were being presented to me, and it sounded appealing because I didn't have that rootedness in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I didn't have any fear of God whatsoever. And so, we did that, and I got caught, and my military lawyer told me that I would do three years in Leavenworth.

I was going to be found guilty. I was going to do at least three years in Leavenworth, and that was it. There was no way around that.

And instead of facing that time like a man, I ran. I went AWOL, and that's where things began to get even worse at that point.

Well, obviously from your testimony that was a part of, or should

I say will be a part of, your conference this Saturday, you entered into a white supremacist gang.

And tell us about how that happened, because I think that there are likely various reasons why anyone would join a and even particularly a white supremacist gang.

Sometimes it's because people actually believe in the ideology of white supremacy.

They may actually have been convinced of the evils of neo -Nazism and white supremacism and that kind of thing.

There are others that just want to protect their own lives. They think that being surrounded by people like that is going to be something that guarantees, or at least more likely preserves that person's safety and life if they are part of a gang like that.

And of course there are posers, wannabes, who for some reason like to dress and act like a particular group, whether it's white supremacists, whether it's mafia wise guys, and they're not really entrenched in any kind of ideology.

They like the image that it puts off. They like people to think that they're involved in that kind of activity more deeply than the reality would present.

So tell us about your own personal entrance into this. Well, my parents were not white supremacists.

They were not racist at all. My dad was a career army officer and for him the only color was the color green.

You know, you're in the military and you're working alongside of people of all different races, and my mother was, interestingly, while my dad was in Vietnam, my mother was protesting against the

Vietnam War as a flower child, a hippie, in the 60s. So very interesting the way that the brought my parents together, very different people, but neither one of them had any desire whatsoever to instill any racist attitudes in their children.

In fact, my sisters and I were taught not to see other people as anything other than people.

So that's how we were taught growing up. It certainly wasn't part of my upbringing, but when

I went AWOL from the army, I wasn't a racist. With AWOL, I went to Los Angeles, California, and I ran out of money and I ended up living on the streets.

I was in homeless shelters and that sort of thing. And then

I ended up meeting a couple of guys that seemed to be very interesting to me.

They had a lot of money and I knew they were doing something big, but I didn't know what it was that they were doing.

It was intriguing to me and I wanted to get involved in what they were doing. I wanted to know what they were doing and eventually

I was able to find out that these guys were robbing places. They were interested in me because of my military experience and they thought that I might be a help to them in their robberies.

So they wanted to test me out and they did. They tested me out and had me do a robbery by myself.

Actually, the first thing that we did was I and one of the other guys stole a handgun from a security guard in a bathroom one night.

We stole his handgun and then we ran from the police for a little while.

There were helicopters flying all over the place. They didn't catch us, but the next thing they wanted me to do was to do a robbery by myself to make sure that I was in the language that I was down, that I was really who

I said I was, that I was willing to do something illegal, and that I wasn't a cop.

I robbed a hotel. They were watching. We got away with it and then from there, started robbing places with those guys from California to Texas.

Then I was arrested in Texas. I think both of these guys probably had some sort of white supremacy ideology that they had picked up when they were in prison.

They had both been in prison. So I was hearing some things, but even then I wasn't in any way persuaded by them.

I was just in it for the money, really in it for the thrill of it.

If you've ever read Augustine's City of God, there's a great section in there where Augustine's talking about how he was tempted to steal pears from somebody's orchard.

He says it wasn't really killing the pears that was the big thing for me.

I didn't need pears. I had plenty to eat. He said it was just the thrill of doing something forbidden.

It was just the thrill of doing evil. That's what it was. That's what was driving me. I wasn't hooked on drugs, although I had done some drugs.

I didn't have those kinds of excuses. It wasn't that I needed the money, although I was running from the army and it was difficult for me to find work.

The main thing was I was just thrilled by the forbidden.

I had just seen a Point Break movie. If you're familiar with that movie, these guys went around robbing places.

It was just the thrill of robbery. Sometimes we would say to one another, this is a better high than any drug can give.

The power, the sense of power of holding a gun to someone's head and demanding money from them and getting the money and getting away with it.

For us, that was a better high than any drug could give. Then when

I got to Texas, I and one of the other two guys were robbing a

Pizza Hut restaurant. What we would do is we would wait until the place would close.

We would be the last ones in there. We would be eating something there. Then they would lock the doors so that nobody else could come in.

That was the moment when we said, okay, now's the time. We demanded the money from the employees.

I held a knife to a woman that was a patron of the restaurant.

And we thought we had gotten away with it, but what happened was there was an employee that had gotten out the back door and called the police.

As we were walking out, the police were coming up into the parking lot of the restaurant.

We ran, and I was finally caught and put into jail.

Again, still at this point, not a racist. But then when

I went to jail and then later was convicted and went to prison, I found myself in a very different world than the world that I was used to and in the

Texas prison system. Prisoners essentially segregate themselves.

It's not absolute. There are some blacks and whites and Hispanics that hang out together, but essentially they segregate themselves into white, black,

Hispanic. And part of that has to do with the history of the

Texas prison system. I won't go too much into that unless you want me to, but there's a self -segregation that's happening.

So when I got to prison, I had come into a different world, a world in which

I had to choose sides. I had to decide what side I was going to be on. Was I going to be with the white prisoners or was

I going to be a quote -unquote sellout and be with the blacks or the

Hispanics? And I decided that the way for me to survive was to hang out with my own kind, so -called own kind.

Now, what I would find out is that the only people in prison that really, at least in Texas prisons, the only people that would cross that racial line were the

Christians, but I wouldn't find that out until much later. And so I began to hang out with, they called it the woodpile, the white guys, and still not a racist, but then as those relationships began to form and as I began to bond more and more with them and as things would happen and there would be riots and fights, they were putting things into my hand to read, literature to read.

It started out with pamphlets and then more involved literature, and eventually

I was reading things like Hitler's Mein Kampf, and I became the guy that you were talking about, the ideological racist over time.

Wow. We're going to get back right where you left off after our first commercial break.

If anybody would like 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. Please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Lowell Ivey and his testimony of being a former white supremacist in a gang in prison and how he came to embrace free salvation in Jesus Christ, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Lowell Ivey. He is speaking about his testimony about being a former white supremacist in a prison gang who came to embrace

Jesus Christ as his Lord God and Savior and deliver him from that hateful and damning and evil ideology, and is now a pastor.

The pastor of Reformation Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, an Orthodox Presbyterian congregation which is a mission work of the

Presbytery of the Southeast. And we are addressing from prison to pardoned how a white supremacist gang member in prison discovered and found true freedom in Jesus Christ.

And we are also promoting the upcoming conference where Pastor Lowell Ivey is going to be one of three speakers.

That's this Saturday. That's going to be held at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, this

Saturday from 9 a .m. to 11 30 a .m. Also featuring Jeff Downs and Fred Sloan.

And for more details on that go to KnoxReformedPres .org. KnoxReformedPres .org.

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

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

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

And before the break, Pastor Lowell, you had reached the point where you actually became convinced of white supremacist ideology.

You were not just a poser or in it merely because of the protection that you might receive being a member of a gang like this in a prison that also included violent black and Hispanic inmates.

So tell us more about the ideology that you truly came to embrace in regard to white supremacy.

Well, it was a gradual process. As I described to you, I didn't start out as a racist.

I wasn't convinced at first by the ideological aspects of what

I was hearing. But as I was exposed to it more and more, and as I was seeing a reality around me that was obviously very different from what

I was used to in the free world, I was seeing a world in which, first of all,

I was now a minority. The first time in my life I'd ever experienced what it was like to be in the minority.

And so part of the false narrative that was constructed for me was, here you are, you're in the minority, and the only people that care about you are your white brothers here.

They're the only people that care about you. They're the only people that are going to be by your side when things go down.

And there were things that were happening in the prison that, at least on the surface, seemed to confirm that for me.

And so the little bubble that I was living in seemed to confirm what

I was hearing and what I was reading. And so as I began to meditate on these things, as I began to think more and more in these terms, my heart and my thinking were shaped.

And obviously I began to become more and more self -consciously white supremacist, or at least racist in my thinking.

I began to believe that there was a need for whites and blacks to be separated.

I began to believe in lots of different conspiracy theories. You know, you can think about this recent shooting in a synagogue.

Yes, the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And in fact, just before I forget, this

Wednesday we have two Jewish believers on my program, God willing, two

Jewish believers who are also theologically reformed. Stephen Atkinson, I'm sorry, let me take that back,

I'm sorry. Stephen Atkinson is actually a Gentile believer, but he is the director of the

North American Division for Christian Witness to Israel. He is a Gentile believer, but the other guest who will be on with him,

Mitch Tepper, is a Jewish believer, and he is the missionary, the recently appointed missionary for the

North American Division of Christian Witness to Israel, a theologically reformed ministry, which is an outreach to the

And they, providentially, back in March of this year, they had already begun reaching out to that very congregation, the

Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They had begun reaching out to evangelize and love the members of this

Jewish synagogue, and they are going to be attending the memorial service there, and they are going to be on the program,

God willing, as I said, this Wednesday. Sorry to interrupt you, but I didn't want to forget that key element of the connection between today's program and that horrific event that just occurred,

I believe it was on Saturday. Not at all, thank you so much, and I look forward to listening to that as well.

But I just mentioned that because, as I would read things in the newspaper, or as I would see things on television, the more and more that I became immersed in this way of thinking, the more that I looked at everything through this racial, ideological lens, and also the conspiracy theories were a part of that as well.

And so I began to see blacks and Hispanics and any other race as the enemies of my people, quote -unquote, and began to see also the

Jews as a people that were seeking to destroy, quote -unquote, my people, and so I needed to do everything that I could to defend my people.

Now, once you get into this kind of thinking, when you begin to distinguish yourself in terms of racial identity, that's what happens.

It doesn't matter what race you are. I saw racists of all different shades when

I was in prison. The white supremacists were not the only racists in prison, by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn't excuse my racism, and it certainly doesn't give me any reason to to boast about that or to excuse that.

I was living in a world dominated by sin.

My heart was in... I was in prison, and that prison was becoming more and more uh...

those bars were beginning to... were becoming more and more of a wall around me, and the prison wasn't so much the bars and the walls.

The prison was inside of my own heart, and I was becoming... in a prison that was even deeper and even worse, and so um...

so eventually what happened was I was put into the prison within the prison.

I was put into solitary confinement for my gang membership or trying to stab a black inmate during a war between whites and blacks, and I praised the

Lord that I wasn't able to harm him, but I was put into solitary confinement.

It's called administrative segregation, and I was there for 10 years.

Wow. From 1997 until 2007.

What prevented you from actually seriously injuring or murdering this other inmate?

Well, what happened was there was a riot going on. Well, there was a war going on between blacks and whites, and so the administration decided to lock us down.

We were locked down, and the only time that you came out of your cell was to go to the shower. There was a black inmate right next to me, next cell over, and they weren't supposed to open...

if it was blacks and whites, they weren't supposed to open the cell doors at the same time, and there were a number of different showers, but they were only supposed to shower by race.

For whatever reason, they opened my door and his door at the same time. He was already in a shower.

He didn't know I was coming out, and he had already shouted to me a few days before that,

I know you have a shank, and that's okay, so do I, and when the doors roll, you know what time it is.

That was his way of saying, you better bring your shank with you, homemade knife. I didn't have one.

I didn't have a shank at that time, but I realized, okay, this guy's pretty serious. I better get something, and this was going on, this, you know, this kind of shouting back and forth was going on between blacks and whites, so I got a shank from somebody in the same gang as me who was a trustee who was able to go in and out of the cell blocks, and he passed that on to me, and when the door rolled, when the doors opened up,

I knew that my neighbor, my next door neighbor was out, and so I went to the shower, but I didn't take a shower.

I was just waiting on him to come back out. I saw his reflection in the, they called it the control pod where the officers would look out at us, and there was kind of a tinted window there, and I could see his reflection on the tier below me, so I waited for him to come up, and when he came up,

I went after him, but he was being escorted by a guard, and the guard saw me coming and stood in between us, and then he looked down and saw that I had a shank, and the guard stepped out of the way.

He didn't want to get shanked, but that gave the other guy time to get away, and so he was able to get away.

He was able to run kind of run around the cell block, and there were stairs on either side, so I wasn't able to catch him.

At one point, he jumped over the rail. I jumped over the rail as well. He hurt himself jumping over the rail, but at that time, the guards came in and shot gas and got the thing, got the situation under control, and I was taken from there to administrative segregation, and I didn't get out for 10 years.

Wow, and we do have a listener in Bangor, Maine. John in Bangor, Maine wants to know, was the gang that your guest,

Pastor Lowell Ivey, involved in the Aryan Brotherhood? You know,

I usually don't talk about it for safety reasons.

You know, I have a wife and children. Right. So, you know, I don't want to mention any particular name.

Yeah, that's quite all right. If that's okay. Sure, that is quite all right. It is interesting that he brought, of course,

I'm not connecting this with you, but it's interesting that he brought up the Aryan Brotherhood. I saw a documentary on that particular prison gang, which is considered the most violent prison gang in our nation because they actually harm and assassinate people outside the walls of prison.

But one thing that was interesting is that even though it may have begun in its origins as a truly ideologically white supremacist gang, it really became a cover just to recruit white inmates, because they were really about the sale of drugs.

And there were people, even in leadership in the Aryan Brotherhood, that were not quote, quote, pure white

Aryans. In fact, one was half Native American, who is now under protection for his life because he exposed other gang members in the

Aryan Brotherhood. So, they are not truly in allegiance to their so -called white

Aryan purity. They're really about money. It's absolutely true that some of the gangs are involved in, they're criminal organizations that use racial ideology for their purposes of recruiting and control.

So, that's absolutely true. I experienced that. Well, as far as you being confined, that's a long confinement, a decade in solitary confinement.

Tell us about that. Yeah. Well, once you're placed into administrative segregation in the

Texas prison system, the only way out is for you to renounce the gang that you're a member of, which obviously is pretty dangerous.

So, at that time, first of all,

I wasn't going to renounce my gang membership at first, because I was still a member of the gang and still very much wanted to be a member of the gang.

But along the way, I was listening to the radio one night and getting the radio dial kind of bored, didn't know what

I wanted to listen to. And as I was scanning the radio dial, came to a country music station that happened to have a program on called

Here Comes the Light. And it was a program that was aimed just at prisoners.

I was in Huntsville, Texas at the time, and that's the hub of the

Texas prison system. So, there were tens of thousands of potential inmate listeners to the program, and I happened to hear it that night.

And the Lord used that program to, first of all, to convict me of my sin, to show me that He is the

God of all people, that He is a God of blacks, whites,

Hispanics, and every race, and also to show me of my need of Jesus Christ, that I couldn't follow

Jesus, that I was a sinner, unable to do anything good. And He was working in my heart to see these things.

And there was a point at which, on one hand, I knew that I wanted to follow

Jesus, but I also knew that my whole identity was this white supremacy, this racial mindset.

That's who I thought that I was. And I couldn't let go of that. I didn't want to let go of that.

I hated Christians. I thought they were weak. Now, that's a very key element.

I don't want you to just quickly slide over that, because a lot of white supremacist groups will claim publicly and emphatically that we are here to preserve our white

Aryan Christian heritage and people. They'll very often throw around the word

Christian. In fact, there is an infamous church that is connected with the

Aryan nations that the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, which is a hub of racist activity.

I don't know if it still is, but it was at one time a central headquarters. And it's interesting that you say you hated

Christians, because unlike that particular group that throws around the word Christian, there are white supremacists who are atheists.

For instance, Tom Metzger is a very famous white supremacist, skinhead leader, former

Klansman, and founder of the White Aryan Resistance, also known as WAR. He is an atheist, and he views

Christianity as you do, or I'm sure I meant to say as you did, as weak, as Hitler himself viewed

Christianity. People make this ridiculous connection between Hitler and Christianity.

He was no Christian at all. He was involved in the occult, and he viewed

Christianity as nothing more than an impotent offshoot of Judaism that had no power to it at all.

But I'm sorry for interrupting you, but if you could please explain your white supremacy in light of the fact that you hated

Christians. Yeah, it's interesting you mention that, because there's a sense in which

I was caught up in some of what you've described. There's the British Israelitism, and there's the

Christian Identity Movement, or the Identity Christian Movement, whatever you want to call it. I've heard both terms used.

And what they would do is they would use the Bible in order to seek to justify racial separation and even racial superiority.

They would seek to find passages in the Bible, and of course they would say that they're the

Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. Interestingly, there are actually some black groups that do the same thing.

They would say that they're the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, and you just need to recognize who you are, your identity, and once you do, the

Bible begins to make sense. But the thing is, is that the Bible was taken completely out of context.

And I was studying some of that sort of thing, but when I say that I hated

Christians, what I mean by that is, I hated true Christians. I hated those who really understood the

Bible, who really believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior, and who took the

Bible, Old and New Testaments, seriously. I hated those kinds of people, because when you talk about turning the other cheek, my response would be, well, if you do that in prison, you're going to die, or you're going to be turned into somebody's sex slave, basically.

So my thought was, this is weak, I don't want to be weak, and this isn't helpful for my race.

It was the idea. This kind of thinking was not helpful. But what happened was, as I was listening to that radio program, on one hand

I was beginning to see my sin and my helplessness for the first time in all of its fullness.

And I was beginning to see Jesus Christ in all of His glory. But there was a point of despair, where I realized,

I don't want... I want this, but I don't want this, and I can't follow

Jesus Christ. There's no way that I can follow Jesus Christ, because what it means is, I'm going to have to change, and I can't make that change.

I am utterly unable to do this. And there was this point where I just went into total, utter despair, like nothing

I've ever experienced in my life. And I knew in that moment that I was going to hell, and that I deserved to go to hell, and that there was nothing

I could do. I was going to hell. And in that moment, the Lord literally shined the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ into my heart, and He changed my heart.

I did nothing. He did everything. He changed my heart, and He changed my will.

He gave me a desire to follow Jesus. I fell on my knees in my prison cell, and I pleaded with the

Lord to change me and make me a new creature in Christ. And I realized that if I was going to follow

Jesus, I was going to have brothers and sisters who were of different races than me, because we would share the same

Father, because we had the same Spirit. And the Lord was unfolding those things to me, and I just wept.

And from that point on, there was a lot of change that had to take place.

I was still struggling with many kinds of sin, but that was the big issue that He dealt with me right from the beginning with.

And I got rid of all of my racist books, my white supremacist books, my occult books, because I was, like you mentioned,

Hitler, I was into the occult. I got rid of all of that stuff, and I wrote The Leader of the

Gang, and I said, I know what you're going to feel like you need to do to me, but I can't serve two masters, and I'm going to serve

Jesus. Amen. And we have to go to our midway break right now. This is a longer than normal break, because this is the time during the program that Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break, because they air their own public service announcements and commercials to localize

Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida. Please take this time to write down information provided by our advertisers, because the more frequently and successfully you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they are going to remain our advertisers, and we rely upon them and their sponsorship funding to exist.

So please patronize our advertisers as much as you can, and write down the information that they provide so that you can do so.

We'll also write down questions for our guest, Lowell Ivey, and that email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Tired of bop store Christianity?

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

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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. 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

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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.nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

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Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

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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.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget to help

Mike Gaydosh climb out of the financial pit that he fell into when he had very serious and dangerous and complicated open -heart surgery recently.

His time of being laid up in the hospital and recovering set him back financially, so please order as many books from Solid Ground Christian Books as you can.

Go to solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com, and please tell

Mike that you discovered Solid Ground Christian Books from Chris Arnzen and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He is a very important sponsor of this program, and not only that, he's a very dear friend. The pastor that actually baptized me in the 1980s after I came to Christ, having been raised

Roman Catholic, and he was my very first pastor and still is my mentor today and dear friend.

And we thank God that our great physician Jesus Christ guided that surgeon through his very dangerous open -heart surgery, and he is recovering at home and still seems to be doing well, and we just cannot rejoice and thank

God enough for that great act of merciful and gracious providence. We are going to be returning to our guest

Lowell Ivey, the former white supremacist who was saved in prison and is now a pastor.

We're going to be getting back to that testimony in a moment. We just have a few special events that we have to remind you about.

We have, first of all, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

The theme is The Glory of the Cross. It's being held November 9th and the 10th, and the speakers include

David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Nguyen. If you'd like to register for this event where I intend to have an

Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org,

click on events, and then scroll down to Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology. Then, coming up in January, from Thursday, January 19th through Saturday, I'm sorry, from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th, the 2019

G3 Conference is being held on the theme The Mission of God, The Biblical Understanding of Missions.

They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people there, so I would strongly urge that you not only register to attend, but if you have a business or a parachurch ministry or a church or professional practice that you want to promote in that crowd of between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people,

I would strongly recommend that you register for an exhibitors booth just like the one I will be manning.

By the way, just to let you know of the amazing roster that they have planned for you, Dr. James R.

White will be speaking, John Piper, Stephen J. Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M.

Bayway, Tim Chalies, Phil Johnson, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J.

Nichols, the President of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries, and many, many more are on that roster.

Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and register for not only attendance, but if it applies to you, register for an exhibitors booth as well.

Last but not least, please, if you love this program and you don't want it to disappear, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly through debit or credit card.

You can also send in a check via snail mail to the address that appears on your screen. Please never siphon money away from your regular giving to your local church where you are a member in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Never do that. Never put your family in financial jeopardy to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Providing for your church and home are two commands of God.

Providing for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show and you don't want it to disappear, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey the commands to provide for church and home.

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and put advertising in the subject line. And we will be more than delighted to help you launch an ad campaign because we truly could use the advertising dollars.

Before I go back, I just forgot here that we have a new event where Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is going to be manning an exhibitor's booth,

God willing, and that is the Deep South Founders Conference. That's going to be held from January 24th through the 26th in Laurel, Mississippi, and the speakers include my friend

Dr. Conrad Mbewe, who is the pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and chancellor of the

African Christian University. Also speaking is Rusty Reed, Gerald Henderson, Jason Goodwin, and Bobby Crenshaw.

That's at the Deep South Founders Conference, January 24th to 26th. I will be there,

God willing, manning an Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitor's booth. For details, go to deepsouthfounders .com,

deepsouthfounders .com. And now we return to our guest

Lowell Ivey, and if you have a question for him regarding his conversion out of white supremacism and the hatred and satanic evil of bigotry while he was in prison, if you have a question in regard to that, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Pastor Ivey, we have come to the point where you actually embraced

Jesus Christ as your Lord, God, and Savior in prison. How realistic was the fear of retribution from your former white supremacist quote -unquote brothers, who might want to take vengeance upon you for abandoning them?

Well, it's funny that you say quote -unquote brothers, because obviously we called ourselves brothers, and they didn't want to regard themselves as a gang.

They wanted to call themselves a family, and yet when it came down to it, there was really no true brotherhood at all, nothing nothing at all approaching what brotherhood is supposed to be.

There was a real threat of retribution for anyone who joins one of these gangs.

You're told that there's only one way out, and that is you've got to die.

You can't get out. You're a member of the gang until death, and so they kind of think in, in a sense, in covenantal terms.

You decide a blood oath, basically. Now, of course, we know that from the

Scriptures that no such oath is binding, but I certainly did take that kind of an oath, and so I knew that it was possible that they could come after me, and I had their tattoos on me, so I had marked myself as belonging to them in one sense, and so when

I did get out of solitary confinement, which was many, many years later, there was always the fear that something might happen to me because of my, the tattoos that I had, and you go into a shower with a hundred other men, and there's no hiding those tattoos, but the

Lord was very gracious and never allowed me to be harmed. I was never harmed by any of the members of the gang that I'd been a part of.

Praise God for that. Well, now let's hear about your journey into embracing

Reformed theology after already being a Christian. Sometimes that's as big of a leap to somebody intellectually and ideologically and theologically as becoming a

Christian to begin with, but if you could tell us about that. Well, that's true, although if you, you know, if you're listening closely, you would have heard very distinctive

Reformed theology in my conversion, and I always say that I was Reformed before I knew what that was, because I knew that whatever had happened to me, which was regeneration, that God had done it.

I didn't do it to myself. I didn't do anything to earn it. I certainly didn't deserve it. I had no desire for God, but He changed my heart, and He set me free, and He set me free in prison.

So in one sense, it wasn't that big of a leap, because I knew that God had done it all, and that all the glory went to Him for my conversion.

But still, there was a bit of confusion. I began reading the Bible on my own for the first time.

I had read it in bits and pieces in order to try to justify my racist thinking, but I'd never read the

Bible as the Word of God, and now I was reading it as the Word of God. God was speaking to me in His Word, and I was learning about people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and I was finding that by faith

I was part of that same family, that Abraham was my spiritual forefather.

I'd been grafted in. This was all so new and just eye -opening to me, and the

Lord was just opening His Word to me as I was reading it there in my prison cell.

But eventually, as I said, I was listening to Christian radio and a lot of good stuff that I was listening to and reading, but there was also a lot of confusing stuff, and I would read things.

A lot of the programs were dispensational, and so I was hearing things and reading things, and then

I was looking at the Bible, and I was saying, this doesn't seem to make sense with what I see in the Scriptures, but everybody's teaching this.

And then I came across a radio program called Renewing Your Mind with R .C.

Sproul. Praise God! And that's where the

Lord really began to help me to become subconsciously Reformed and help me to see what

I already understood on some level, but help me to mature in my faith. And I listened to R .C.

for years and years before they took him off the radio station that I was listening to, and I just grew in my faith that way.

And I remember, actually, the first thing that I remember listening to was his exposition of Romans chapter 9, and it just helped me to to see what

I knew, that it's not of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God alone who does it all.

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He asks,

I was just curious how deeply entrenched you were into white supremacy before your conversion.

I was wondering if that horrific massacre that recently occurred at the

Tree of Life Jewish synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania had occurred while you were still involved in that white supremacist gang, what would your response be?

I would have thought that it was something necessary. I would have thought that probably what

I would have thought was, well, here's somebody who's trying to start the revolution that needs to happen. That's what

I would have thought. I can remember thinking and planning things just like this, what

I was going to do when I got out. I was reading things.

There have been men who have thought that they were going to start some white nationalist revolution.

I was reading books about those individuals. I was thinking about those kinds of things.

I would have thought, here's somebody who's trying to start the revolution. I hope it succeeds.

Wow. Well, it goes to show you, as I conclude my show every day, people who listen to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio every day know that I conclude the program with a quote by Puritan Christopher Love, although they might not know that's where the quote comes from.

I say at the end of every program that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.

This is clearly an example of this truth, because there are people, even

Christians very often, who counteract or perhaps even unconsciously are inconsistent with their own theology and the power of the cross, the power of Christ in saving sinners.

We sometimes doubt that certain people can be saved. We might look at somebody like the evil individual who was guilty of that recent massacre.

We might look at a person who is going through transgender surgery.

We may look at somebody with all kinds of backgrounds. We may look at somebody who is a serial killer now behind bars in custody, and we may say to themselves, that person,

Jesus Christ, could not and would not ever save. But we would be wrong.

And of course we have an example of Saul of Tarsus, who rounded up men and women to be killed for their

Christian faith before he himself became an apostle. Well, amen to that.

In fact, the passage I'm going to be preaching from for Jeff Downs' installation service is in 1

Timothy, where Paul says to young Timothy, this is a faithful and acceptable saying, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom

I am chief. We need to, you know, as ministers of the gospel, and I think this is what

Paul was trying to communicate to Timothy, that the minister of the gospel needs to be the one who is able to say that most passionately of all.

I am the chief of sinners, I'm the worst of sinners, and yet Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners like me.

And then as the minister of the gospel is able to say that of himself, the whole

Church will be able to see that about themselves as well.

Amen. And of course we have to remind our listeners that we are not saying that just because somebody may recite a prayer and use it as some kind of a magical spell, that they will now have a one -way ticket to heaven regardless of whether or not their hearts and minds have been transformed, whether or not they have repented.

They will certainly go to heaven no matter what they do. We are not saying that even though there are many heretical professing

Christians today that would teach that. We believe that if somebody truly comes to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, that is because Jesus Christ himself has given them a heart and those that are truly his, although we all who are

Christians sadly will be sinning in one degree or another until we are in glory with Christ for eternity, our lives will still be marked with repentance, with grieving over sin, with lives of marked godliness and lives that are marked out as being followers and disciples of Christ, not that we have surrendered to our sin and wallow in it unrepentantly.

That's so true, Chris. I appreciate you bringing that out because we have to recognize who we are by nature, that we're sinners in need of a

Savior, but we don't want to remain in our sins. We long for heaven, we long to be completely changed where there's no remaining sin in us, and our whole life is a race to that finish line.

We're not shrinking away from that, we're racing towards that, striving for godliness and holiness, but also depending on the spirit working in us, both the will and to do.

We have to go to our final break right now, it's briefer than the last one. If you would like to ask a question of your own, please do so now because we are rapidly running out of time.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson 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

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

And we're going to be right back right after these messages, so don't go away.

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

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

Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402, that's 516 -599 -9402, or visit linbrookbaptist .org,

that's linbrookbaptist .org. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. 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 apostles' 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 in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org,

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

Iron Shopping's Iron Radio. Iron Shopping is delighted to sponsor

Iron Shopping's Iron Radio. at 631 -385 -8333, that's 631 -385 -8333, or visit liyfc .org,

that's liyfc .org. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

My name is Steve Lawson, Founder and President of Lend Passion Ministries, as well as Teaching Fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

I serve as Professor of Preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

.nyc. Have a great day. Transcribed by https://otter .ai

Even many of the major Christian networks that include excellent, biblically faithful teachers on their lineup, sadly often also include the worst of doctrinally dangerous heretics.

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Well, we are now back with our guest today, Pastor Lowell Ivey. And as we were saying earlier,

Lowell Ivey is a former white supremacist and gang member in prison who found eternal life in Christ Jesus while behind prison walls by the grace and mercy of our sovereign

Lord. And he is now a pastor, an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor.

And he is going to be one of three speakers at a conference that is being held this

Saturday, November 3rd from 9 a .m. to 1130 a .m.

And that conference is going to be held at Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

That's 9 a .m. to 1130 a .m. And for more details, you can go to knoxreformedpres .org,

K -N -O -X, reformed, P -R -E -S, dot org. And you can also call 804 -779 -7608, 804 -779 -7608 for more details.

And we have a for you in Hartsdale, New York.

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says, I have encountered many people, especially the unsaved, who are horrified by the notion of somebody as evil as the assassin at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, who could be granted eternal life merely because they say that they have changed their ways and have embraced

Christ. How do you respond to these people who think that our religion is not only nonsensical, but even dangerous, to offer that kind of comfort to the most evil of vile and satanic individuals among us?

Well, usually how I respond to that is to ask them what they believe of themselves.

Um, we think about Adam and Eve. We know the story. We know what happened in the garden.

What did Adam and Eve do? Uh, they took a piece of fruit and ate it.

And you might think, well, what's so evil about that? Well, it was rebellion against their creator,

God. And there's no one in this world, no one in this world who's not living in rebellion against God if they don't know the word

Jesus Christ. And so, uh, so people who say that really have not understood the depth of their own sin and the fact that they too, uh, no matter what they've, uh, no matter how good they think that they are, uh, in the sight of God, uh, they are deserving of eternal damnation in hell.

And so, um, that's not to say that every, uh, outward manifestation of sin is equal to every other outward manifestation of sin.

Um, uh, killing people in a synagogue, uh, is not equal to, uh, having murderous thoughts in my heart.

Um, nevertheless, uh, having murderous thoughts in my heart will condemn me to hell forever.

Um, and so we just have to, I think we have to make a proper distinction there and understand that, uh, there are degrees of sin, um, and, uh, certainly killing somebody, uh, the outward manifestation of hatred in your heart, um, is, is, uh, is, is wicked, uh, and, and deserving of criminal punishment, uh, and, and, and even, uh, uh, deserving of death by, um, uh, by the criminal courts.

I'm not against the death penalty, for example. Um, but, uh, but the, but the point

I'm trying to make is that, uh, we're all guilty of sin and we all need a savior.

Amen. Go ahead, you could continue. Uh, no, that, that's all

I wanted to say. Okay. I mean, I sounded like a interrupt. There's a lot more that could be said.

Yes. That's really the summary. Uh, yeah. And those that are horrified by a faith that would offer eternal life to the most evil amongst us who believe and repent and are transformed by the

Holy Spirit into becoming new creations in Christ, uh, those that would be repulsed by that kind of quote, quote, religion that would give such hope, peace, and comfort to evil people, albeit ones that have been transformed and repented, they have to really think long and hard about what they would want for people that they love.

If, if it's not themselves, uh, their children, perhaps their grandchildren or their parents or their siblings, if, if they were to become, or perhaps are people who have reached that depth of satanic depravity, they would want some hope for them.

I'm sure. Uh, they would not want an automatic, uh, sign seal and delivered ticket to hell that, uh, offers them no hope.

I mean, of course, there may be some people that, uh, would be that horrified over the actions of people that they love that they would not, uh, even want a hope of salvation for them.

But I think typically, especially parents and maybe even even more, especially mothers who look upon their own children who have committed such heinous acts.

Uh, they would, I'm sure most of them want that, that hope of eternal life for them.

And I think you said something very important because there is a heresy, perhaps it's an overreaction to the

Roman Catholic heresies involving, uh, various levels of sin that require, uh, different responses, uh, of penitence, uh, the, the whole concept of purgatory, uh, and the sacrament of penance and so on that is connected with it, which are heretical, uh, people in modern evangelicalism have run so far away from that, that they, they say all sin is equal and therefore all sin should be treated the same way.

And therefore, if a man becomes a serial adulterer, he should still be given the opportunity to return to the pulpit after a very brief period of contrition, because after all, we're all sinners.

Now that that's an, that's a dangerous extreme to go to, isn't it? Oh, it absolutely is. In fact, I, uh, uh, just a few weeks ago in my own congregation preaching from First Timothy, uh, said to the congregation, if, uh, if I am ever, uh, justly accused and convicted of scandalous sin, uh,

I will not seek restoration to the ministry. And if I do, I want you to dig out the recording of this sermon and, um, and play it back to me, uh, so that I'll be convicted and not seek restoration to the ministry.

Now, uh, I know that there are some situations where, uh, where restoration, uh, after some sort of sin is, is possible.

I was just saying that I will not, uh, do so. And I, and I, um, and I ask my congregation to hold me accountable.

Amen. And I was just referring to people who will use the argument, all sin is sin, we're all sinners, therefore all sin should be treated equally.

It should be as easily overlooked, uh, and forgiven and so on.

Now, of course, uh, forgiveness may always be required of us if the person repents and asks for forgiveness.

And I know that there is even a disagreement amongst reformed Christians over that. I happen to agree with Jay Adams, uh, that, uh, we are only required to forgive when someone asks for forgiveness and demonstrates repentance.

That does not mean we are to withhold love, that we are to not pray for them or do good for them.

It does not mean that we are not always to be ready with our extended arms, willing to forgive.

But what I mean is I think that there is a difference between forgiveness and actually, uh, putting behind us the evil or even criminal acts of others if they, if they don't repent.

But, uh, having said that, uh, we just have to realize that the different sins, even when we go back to the

Old Testament, as you said before, if you had murder in your heart and mind, you would not be put to death just as you would if you were a murderer who actually stoned someone, uh, or stabbed them or murdered them in any other way.

Yeah, and just, you know, so people understand that this is the historic reformed, uh, position, I would direct people's attention to the larger catechism, questions 150 and 151, dealing with, uh, the question of whether or not all transgressions of the law of God are equally heinous, um, in the sight of God.

And question 151 actually gives four, uh, things that cause some sins to be more heinous than others.

So, uh, just direct your attention to those questions in the larger catechism. And by the way, when

I was just referring to somebody stoning somebody else, I didn't mean in the biblically commanded way in the

Old Testament. I'm speaking about cold -blooded murder. If somebody hit somebody with a rock, as did, uh,

Cain to Abel, if somebody were to do something like that, they would be, uh, worthy of the death penalty, whereas harboring that in your heart, although it never warranted the death penalty on this earth, it will, without the covering of Christ's blood, send you to hell for eternity.

Absolutely. And that's, that's really the key is, is to understand that, uh, apart from the blood of Christ, apart from the atonement that was made for us, um, we are all, uh, guilty of, uh, of sin deserving of, uh, not only physical death, but, uh, eternal torment in hell forever.

That's, that's the basic understanding that we have to have before we even begin to see our need for a

Savior. Amen. Uh, we have a Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, was there a transition period when you repented and embraced

Christ where you still were harboring baggages of your wicked racism that took time to overcome, where you eventually saw no distinction between white and black or white and brown or white and yellow or white and red, where you truly embraced and loved those of other skin colors and ethnic backgrounds to you, or was this an immediate transformation?

It's interesting, on, on that particular, uh, uh, aspect of, of sin in my heart, um, that was immediate.

The Lord did away with, with that, uh, with that, uh, hatred. Uh, help me to understand what we read in Acts 17, that, that, uh, that all people are made of one blood, in other words, tracing our lineage all the way back to, uh, our first parents,

Adam and Eve, and, uh, and that there's really no such thing, uh, technically as, uh, as what we would describe as race.

Um, uh, you know, so, so the, the, there are differences in terms of skin tone and the amount of melanin in people's skin, but we're all, uh, of one blood.

We're all, uh, descendants of the same pair, um, and, and so, uh, so I, I began to understand that, uh, relatively quickly.

The Lord helped me to deepen my understanding, and that was immediate, but there were other sins that, uh, that took a long time for, for the

Lord to begin to root out in my heart and life. Amen. And, uh, we've got to remember how seriously

God takes the sin of hatred and bigotry towards those of other skin colors and ethnicities.

We look back even to, uh, Moses's, uh, sister, uh, who was angry at Moses for marrying an

Ethiopian, correct? And God strikes her with leprosy, uh, so, and makes her white as snow from leprosy, ironically.

Uh, and, uh, of course, we know that if you cannot love your brother whom you have, whom you have seen, you cannot love

God whom you have not seen. Absolutely, yeah, and, and the idea of the sin of partiality is, is there in the book of James.

Uh, you know, I urge your listeners to, to look at that very carefully. Uh, God doesn't look on the outward appearance.

God looks on the heart. Amen. And what

I'd, what I'd like you to do is also address the, there is a syndrome going on now that I equate with the old legend of the boy who cried wolf.

There are so many people using the accusations of racism and bigotry, uh, that have basically crossed the lines into wicked slander, where you're actually bearing false witness against your neighbor.

Whether or not you support Donald Trump and his policies as your president, uh, we are constantly hearing these accusations of racism, not only against him, but anybody who agrees with him on immigration, uh, anybody who's conservative or Republican is being accused of racism, especially if they happen to lack melanin content in their skin, and they happen to be white.

Uh, but this actually dilutes what the real sin is, doesn't it?

When we constantly, it's almost like just white noise, pardon the pun. It's like background, background noise, where you just become immune to what it really is.

I mean, when people who are actually guilty of this sin, uh, arrive on the scene, we may be less likely to take it seriously as a society because of the fact we constantly hear the drumbeat of racism.

Right. If everybody's a racist, then there's no such thing as racism, right? There's no distinguishing value to the term at all.

I think the important thing for us as Christians is to recognize that we operate from the judgment of charity.

We don't impute motives to people that we don't have any evidence of. What we do is we think the best, especially of other believers, but we think the best even of those that are our neighbors, and we seek to show the love of Christ to them, no matter who they are, no matter what their race is.

And sometimes, you know, I will say that some people, it's going to take more effort because of cultural biases that they have, but you press through and you seek to demonstrate who you are in Christ, and let that speak for itself.

Well, I want you to take a couple of minutes to address those listening. Perhaps a loved one has shared this

MP3 with them, or perhaps they're listening live. They happen to be truly a racist, a bigot, a white supremacist, or perhaps even a black supremacist.

I want you to speak to their hearts right now. Well, the only thing that I can say is that you need

Jesus Christ. You may not believe that you need Jesus Christ, but one day you will face him.

You will stand before him, and he is the judge of the entire universe, and he has a rod of iron in his hand, and he rules the nations, and you will stand before him to be judged.

However, you're called in Psalm 2 to kiss the sun. You're called to make peace with the

Lord Jesus Christ, and that's, in one sense, it's a command, but in another sense, it's a gracious offer.

Come to me, repent, and I will grant you peace and life. And I can tell you, you don't have peace right now.

That's what's in your heart. You don't have peace with God, and you can't have peace with men. You need the peace that's only found in Jesus.

Amen. Well, folks, if you want more information about the church where our guest,

Lowell Ivey, pastors, you can go to Reformation -OPC .org.

Also, if you have interest in going to the conference this Saturday, November 3rd, go to KnoxReformedPres .org.

And if you want to listen to our mutual friend, Bill Shishko's program,

A Visit to the Pastor's Study, you could go to VisitThePastorStudy .org,

VisitThePastorStudy .org. I want to thank you so much, Lowell, for being our guest today.

Thank you for having me. I look forward to your frequent returns to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Yes, Lord, thank you so much.

Hey, my pleasure. And I hope that all of you listening always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater