April 30, 2020 Show with Michael Hammer on “One Man’s Journey From Secular Judaism to Reformed Baptist Theology by God’s Sovereign Grace”

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 30th day of April 2020.

Once in a blue moon we have a listener who becomes a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I was so blessed not long ago receiving a very lengthy letter from a listener who was informing me just how much this program blesses him which is a blessing to me that I can't even describe in the

English language. But it also turns out this listener has a fascinating story to tell about his own life and the journey that he has taken from secular

Judaism to reformed Baptist theology and the sovereignty of God and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Michael Hammer.

Hello Chris, thank you for inviting me on the show. I appreciate this opportunity to talk about my personal experiences in hopes that it will edify those who are listening.

And if you don't mind I'd like to open with a brief prayer. That's quite all right. All right.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your great mercy upon those of us who are in Christ Jesus that while we were yet sinners he suffered and died on the cross to free us from the penalty of our sins so we could become your adopted sons and daughters.

We pray that at this time would be edifying to all who listen that your word would be presented clearly and accurately that above all that your name would be glorified.

We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. And one of the reasons that I wanted

Michael to give his testimony today is that he, as I already let you know from the theme of our program today from secular

Judaism to reform Baptist theology and the sovereignty of God, he is theologically reformed and that is something that is extremely rare amongst

Jewish Christians, the vast majority being in dispensationalist churches and so on or coming from a dispensational background.

And obviously since one of my greatest heroes alive on the planet earth is

John MacArthur I have no ill will towards my dispensationalist brothers and sisters but it just so happens that I am not from that point of view and I love the doctrines and the theology and the eschatology that I embrace and am not going to shy away from them.

So I take advantage of programs like this to just tell the story of somebody who came to embrace the similar theology that I have today myself.

Well first of all when you say that you were raised in secular

Judaism, and by the way our guest, although he lives in Princeton, New Jersey today, is originally from the

Bronx and then he moved to Long Island as a child, but when you say you were raised in secular

Judaism, exactly what does that mean? Obviously it's right on the face of the term there, you were not some kind of a deep, your family was not a deeply religious or orthodox

Jewish family or anything of that nature, it was much more nominal, but if you could explain in your own words.

Yeah Chris it was more of a cultural Judaism, you know we would recognize certain holidays but there was no attendance at a temple ever except on the day

I was bar mitzvahed, and so the things that we did as a family were very much what you would see in any family that was a gentile family that didn't believe in Christianity, and it was a good childhood.

I want to stress that I had a very happy childhood, my memories from the Bronx when I was in my first four years there are obviously very slim, like most people their early days are not strong in their memories, but I remember a single bedroom apartment in a high -rise,

I remember playing in the stairwells, and I remember the first day we went out to what would become my new home in Levittown when my parents went out there to look at a house and ultimately it became the one that we lived in.

The friends that I had growing up were mostly secular Jews like myself,

I do remember one of my friends who fell by the name of Mitchell Zinman, his parents apparently had some kind of either conservative or orthodox background because for Sukkot, which is a festival, they would put a tent outside their home and they would spend time in that.

But most of my friends were Jewish, I had a few non -Jewish friends, and I can honestly say that throughout my entire childhood never once did

I receive any kind of pejorative about my Jewishness or any kind of slur, and I think that probably has an impact on the difference between me and my parents who in an earlier time,

I think there were more things like that that they were subjected to. The holidays we celebrated were largely, it was mostly

Hanukkah, and it was kind of, as I could tell looking back, it was kind of like keeping up with the

Christians with their Christmas, and you know, so we'd have eight days of Hanukkah and each day there would be a small gift for each of myself and my brothers, and then on the last day there would be a bigger gift.

But by and large that was really what it was like living in my home. My grandparents on my mother's side, they had a little stronger cultural impact and I believe they're the reason why

I actually went through Bar Mitzvah as well as my two younger brothers, and if I could

I'd like to talk a little bit about that. That started, the preparation for that started at the age of 11, and it involved having a teacher come into my house and there was other children of my age that were being taught at the same time.

We were being prepared by being given the history of the Jews, doing studies in the

Bible, which of course for the Jews that would be only the Old Testament, which they call the Scriptures. And learning

Hebrew to the best of our ability, it lasted two years, and I would have to say that at the end of those two years while I could read

Hebrew fluently in terms of pronouncing the words off of a written page, my understanding of the language was probably no better than a fifth grade level.

I'm sorry, make that a second grade level. Now just to interrupt you for a second, is that a common thing for somebody raised in a nominal secular

Jewish home to learn Hebrew? I really couldn't speak to that. It was my personal experience, and it was the experience that my two younger brothers had, and of course the other children that were with us during that training.

And we take turns going to different houses, so there was one fellow, I remember his name, that was in my particular class, his name was

Barry Flax, and he and I would study together at times to prepare for this.

Great, and just out of curiosity, at this point in your life when you're a kid, and you are, as you described yourself, a secular

Jew, and most of your friends would be in that category, did you give any thought to God at all?

Did you wonder what God was like, or did you perhaps have some doubts whether he existed?

Tell us something about that at this point in your life when you're a teenager. I can't really say with much detail.

We're talking about an experience that happened over 55 years ago, and my memories are somewhat vague.

I mean, there may have been thoughts at the time when the information was being presented to me. I don't recall the teaching being really focused on what being a

Jew was really about. It was more a cultural training, even though learning

Hebrew, learning the Holy Scriptures, and the history of the

Jewish people were important parts of it. I didn't sense a focus from the teacher on, well, this is what we believe.

You know what I'm saying? It was more of an understanding of what my background, my ancestry was, to a degree.

I really can't speak to it. I would say that after this was all said and done, when my bar mitzvah was over, it was things back to business as usual, so to speak.

It really wasn't that there was any follow -up or anything like that.

Now, did you know, either in your neighborhood, or I believe you mentioned your mother's side of the family, but I can't remember exactly the description you gave, but did you know any truly religious

Jews or Orthodox Jews that made you wonder why you were different than them, why they had a far greater zeal to learn more from the

Torah and the, as you called them, the Holy Scriptures that we would call the

Old Testament? I can give you a one -word answer to that, and it's no, in all honesty.

To be honest with you, I have never really been in the company for any length of time with a truly

Orthodox Jewish person, other than ones that have converted to Christianity.

Go ahead. So you pick up where you left off about being bar mitzvahed and your journey from there.

Okay, so on the day of my bar mitzvah, talk about clueless, my parents woke me up one morning.

They said, okay, it's time. And I'm like, what? And the thing is that I look back on the date, and in the

Bible that I was given by the rabbi, it says the 29th day of Teshuvan, the

Hebrew year is 5727. So I look back into a

Hebrew calendar, and it turns out that was November 12th, 1966. So my birthday was on the 4th, so it was actually the

Saturday after my birthday. So that might have been a little bit while I was taken off guard. I don't remember my parents saying, it's coming up, it's coming up.

They just kind of, one morning, it's time to go. And I remember being driven to the temple, and it was the

East Nassau Hebrew congregation out on Long Island, a very Orthodox temple where the men sat in the front and the women sat in the back together.

And everything was pretty much done in Hebrew. And I was not alone as a bar mitzvah there.

There was another young man who was also being bar mitzvahed, which I later found out was a child of parents that were members of that temple.

And interestingly, I don't know what the reason was, but you know, when you're being bar mitzvahed, you're expected to read from the haftarah, which is from the prophets and from the

Torah, and you chant a lot of it. You actually sing it. And I had to learn the actual proper inflections for the singing.

And when we were both being bar mitzvahed, the other young man, whose name I don't know, did only about a third of the chanting and the singing that I had to do, which

I don't know why that happened. It was just something I remember looking back and being curious why he did so much less than me.

But in any event, after the bar mitzvah, of course, you have this big party and everybody gets together and you dance the hara and stuff like that, because those are the cultural things that even secular

Jews back then would commonly do. And that's pretty much the way my childhood was up until that point.

And as I said, from that point on, until I left for college, things were pretty much the same.

There wasn't really any pushing of religion, because my dad basically is an atheist and my mom was an animist.

I would have to quit. She said, always say to me, I see God and the birds and the trees and things like that. And there's truth to that.

I mean, the Book of Romans. Yeah, Romans 1, but that only leaves us with no excuse.

Right, exactly. So going from there, I'm going to jump to starting of college, which was at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.

And the interesting thing there was, and I saw this throughout my life looking back, is how the hand of God directed my path in ways that I didn't recognize until much later on.

I had originally applied to several colleges. One of them, one that was actually my first choice, was the

State University in New York at Stony Brook. And I didn't get in, even though I graduated in the top 10 % of my class and had excellent

SAT scores. I found out later why, but that's not a topic for discussion here.

Well, you got my curiosity. We can talk about that offline. Okay, sure. So anyway,

I ultimately selected Colorado State University. I also went to the University of Colorado. I was not that crazy about that place.

But Colorado State University is where the Lord led me as an unsaved secular Jewish young man at the age of 17, because I was always the youngest one in my school and the youngest one in the neighborhood.

So I started rather young. And when I first moved into my dorm room,

I met my first roommate, a fellow named Tom, who professed

Christianity. And he would talk to me about Christianity, many opportunities, and he introduced me to a bunch of other young men that were members of a group called the

Navigators, which I'm sure you've probably heard of. Oh yeah, yeah. And we'd have friendly debates over the history of the

Bible, whether or not Noah's Ark was real, whether or not the Red Sea was parted by God so that the

Israelites could leave Egypt, evolution, you know, all the things that become points of contention between somebody who's unsaved and somebody who is.

These were always friendly debates. These young men were very loving, and they invited me to do things with them on a regular basis.

So we would get together and have fun. There was a house church that we would meet together at.

At that time, I did not fully understand ecclesiology, so I wasn't being driven towards that, even after I became saved for some time afterwards.

So that was the way that that first school year went, but at the end of the school year, I found out some rather shocking things about my roommate.

The first one was that he was living in the dormitory with me as a roommate. Having flunked out of the school, he wasn't supposed to be there anymore, and I had no clue about this.

He had met my parents, and tragically, he was a child of a broken family.

I knew it hurt him deeply, and he had talked to me about lots of suicide and even attempts at it.

These were things that I learned as I got to know him better. My last day there after finals, we met one last time there, and he told me he no longer believed.

He became apostate. While he's busy saying,

I really can no longer believe this, he's encouraging me to continue believing in the faith that I had come to believe in.

That's interesting. It was a very, very strange thing, but I need to step back a little bit here, because I skipped over something.

Yeah, I think you skipped over the point where you were saved. I was like, did

I miss something there? So during this time that I'm meeting with the navigators and with my roommate, and we're talking about God and things of the

Bible, I became convinced of the historicity and the accuracy of the biblical texts, at least to the extent that I kind of reclaimed my

Jewishness at that point. Yeah, in fact, I know a number of Jewish Christians who are far more

Jewish than their nominal Jewish families are, because they have actually fallen in love with the biblical history of their people, and they take seriously these

Old Testament stories and these ceremonies and holy days and so on.

So it's kind of interesting. Yeah, and one of the things that I found particularly pertinent,

I'm going to list several of them, but one of them was how plainly the failings of the

Jewish people are exposed, particularly in the books of Kings, 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicles.

And they say that the victor of a war writes the history. This doesn't come across like something where, you know, why would you codify in writing all of the horrible things that were done?

I mean, the northern kingdom of Israel didn't have a single good king, and the kingdom of Judah had only, what, two,

I think it was? And so this is very interesting to me, because you don't expect that in something where you think people are trying to hide something from you.

But yeah, that actually is a sign of the authenticity of the scriptures.

Exactly. That the heroes recorded within the pages of scriptures are shown warts and all, those that have warts.

Obviously, Jesus Christ didn't have any warts. I'm not talking about skin blemishes. I'm talking about sin.

But the vast majority of all of the figures and heroes in the scriptures have their sins laid bare for us.

There's only a couple. Joseph from the Old Testament, I can't recall anything that was revealed about him that was sinful.

But we know that he was a sinner, and that all men and women and children are sinners other than Christ himself.

But if you could pick up where you left off there. Sure. The other thing, and I pointed this out to my parents later on when

I was trying to witness to them, is that if you're reading Genesis, God is referred to in the plural,

Elohim, which is a plural noun. But doesn't that have some kind of similarity to a cluster of grapes?

There's a unity and a plurality simultaneously. I view it as a trinity. I think it's a clear picture of the trinity.

Oh, of course. Well, that's what I meant, really, though. That there's a plurality and a unity simultaneously there.

And it happens three times. In creation, in the fall, and then in the Tower of Babel. And we know that angels are not capable of creative powers.

That only God can do that. So it really seems that it's talking about the trinity to me.

And I know there are other perspectives that have been presented on that, but that's the one I've rested my trust in.

And especially since I can look back at the trinity in the New Testament, and there's other things, too, that you see, types of Christ, like with Melchizedek.

And so when I presented that to my parents, my mom said, well, that's your

Christian Bible. I said, I'll bet the Jewish Bible doesn't have that in it.

And so I brought out the Masoretic text, Holy Scriptures, that the rabbi had given to me.

And I showed her, it's exactly the same words. There's nothing being changed here to try and fool anybody.

And the next thing that really convicted me was the passage in Isaiah, Isaiah 52, 13 to 53, 12, which is such an incredible prophetic passage about,

I don't see how anybody can see it as it being anybody other than Jesus. I really don't. It's just, I know that some rabbis try to make it out that it's

Israel that's being spoken of, but it says he, not they. It's singular. It's referring to an individual, not a nation.

So... Now, is it true, I have heard this, is it true that in, at least in the

Orthodox synagogues, that they never read that psalm? I have heard... I mean,

I'm sorry, not the psalm. They never read Isaiah 53. Yeah, I've heard things to that effect, but I've never,

I wouldn't know, because I, apart from my bar mitzvah, I've never, well, I take that back. I've been in a

Jewish temple for the bar mitzvah of my cousin's children.

But other than that, I have not been in a temple since my bar mitzvah. And it was not a very conservative temple that they were being bar mitzvahed in.

They had a female cantor, and they had a big poster outside warning

Jewish people to avoid Christians in a certain manner. I don't remember the exact wording, but that was a little bit troubling, going in there and seeing that.

But... And before we go any further, and try not to lose your place there, but...

No, I'll be fine. When you were encountering in college these

Christians who had you join them for vigorous religious discussion and so on, did you ever, were you ever insulted by the fact that they claimed you needed something else in your life to receive eternal life?

Namely, of course, a belief in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and a trust in him, and a placement of your trust where he is your only hope for eternal life, and so on.

Was this something that you found, did you ever think, how dare you think that your way is the only way, and that I would not be included in this?

No, Chris, actually not at all. Not to my recollection did

I ever feel that way about it. I'm a kind of person who can recognize that other people have different perspectives on things, and that's what they sincerely believe, and while I can disagree with them vehemently about what they believe in, and I can have discussion and debate with them, ultimately we are all convicted based upon what our understandings are.

Of course, our conviction as Christians comes through the Holy Spirit, because that's the only way we can really actually understand

Scripture. Amen. Obviously revealing you are Reformed. Well, that's clearly presented in 1

Corinthians 2, verse 14. Yes, and well, obviously there's a difference though between recognizing that other people have different religions, and ideologies, and philosophies, and viewpoints.

There's a difference between that and when those that you've become fond of, that you're interacting with, believe that you are dead wrong.

There's where the difference is, where they believe, you know they believe, you need to repent of what you are holding on to, and abandon it and come to Christ.

And when I say that, folks, I'm not saying that he had to, nor do

I believe any Jew needs to abandon being a Jew. I don't mean that at all. A Jew will always be a

Jew. Jesus was a Jew. The vast majority of the early disciples were

Jews, and they never stopped being Jews, but they became born again, and they became followers of Christ, and they became

Christian, and I am one of those folks that I have no difficulty using the term

Christian Jew, because everybody, no matter if you're a

Jew or a Gentile, if you come to Christ, you're a Christian. I don't know how you feel about that, but there are some

Jewish believers who dislike that. They will say that they are completed

Jews, and they will never use the word convert, and things like that.

I don't hold to any particular way of describing myself. I've referred to myself as a

Christian. I've referred to myself as a completed Jew. To me, it all comes down to, are you redeemed by Jesus Christ through faith in Him and repentance?

If you have that, then the names become secondary issues. Amen. We're going to go to our first break right now, if you could remember where you want to pick up in your story when we return from our commercial break.

And by the way, folks, this is one of those very rare Iron Sharpens Iron radio broadcasts where we are not taking questions for our guest.

Perhaps later, if he cares to provide an email address, or you could even send me emails, and I can forward them to him if you want to be involved in interaction and asking questions with him later on, but they will not be a part of the live broadcast.

So, don't go away, God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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The coronavirus pandemic has rapidly changed our way of life, bringing so many uncertainties.

When will it end? Why do disasters like this happen? How do we deal with anxiety, fear, and the like?

Well, join us each Friday on the program Iron Sharpens Iron with your host, Chris Arnson, and Pastor Joe Jacobs, as they explore

God's Word for answers to this and other of life's related issues. Tune in at firstloveradio .org,

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Fridays, 1 p .m. Pacific, 4 p .m. Eastern, to hear what the Bible has to say about pandemics and how we should respond.

So don't forget to tune in tomorrow, folks, to hear Joe Jacobs give us updates on the coronavirus and also give biblical application on how we

Christians should respond to this pandemic. And by the way, Joe Jacobs is another one of these wonderful folks that I've mentioned, who is

Jewish, but came to embrace Reformed theology and is a

Reformed Baptist pastor in California. And as I said, that just so happens to be a very rare phenomenon today.

We are interviewing today someone who started out as a very avid listener to Iron Sharpens Iron radio, and he has become a guest, and that happens once in a while.

And I'm speaking of Michael Hammer from Princeton, New Jersey, who is a

Jewish believer and is also a Reformed Baptist. And if you could pick up right where you left off in your journey before we went to the break,

Michael. Okay, well, we were last discussing the prophecy of Isaiah, and I just want to, in conclusion on prophecy, mention that there are far more verses in the

Bible besides Isaiah that point to Christ as the Messiah.

This 22nd Psalm, for instance, contains prophetic words in it that I believe would also be recognized by most

Christians as being prophetic to the coming of Christ. And at this point,

I wanted to move on to one of the other points that led to my ultimate redemption, and that's the issue of evolution.

Because as I've discussed with you before, I have a love of science and have a bachelor's degree in microbiology and a master's degree in medical biology.

And you once worked for the Bayer Corporation. For 23 years for Bayer and before that, approximately 15 years for Bristol -Myers

Squibb. And so I also have worked as a chemist and have a lot of experience in that area, supporting the development of new drug products.

So with regards to evolution, in my studies, both before I became a believer and in the years since,

I've come to accept that microevolution is based on factual understanding of science.

What I mean by microevolution is an individual species can change through genetic mutations, natural selection, so that you might have a bird that has a short beak, and over time it might develop a longer beak because it favors survival of that particular species.

But I consider macroevolution the idea that all life originated from a single -cell organism as being totally unbiblical, and quite honestly, from my perspective, from a scientific perspective,

I find it to be rather unbelievable. You have to have great faith to believe that all of what we see came from an individual cell, and part of that comes from my understanding of the complexity of even a single -cell organism.

There's a man, many of your listeners may be familiar with Michael Behe, who wrote a book called

Darwin's Black Box, I believe it was called, and he brought up the concept of irreducible complexity, which basically reiterates what

I was just saying, that if you look at an individual cell, the number of things that have to come together, even in the simplest cell that we're aware of, in order for life to exist, and by life what

I mean is something that's capable of replicating itself, whereas something like a virus, like we're doing with the coronavirus, that's not life.

That is a bunch of chemicals that parasitize cells of humans to replicate itself.

It's totally incapable of replication, and so something like that obviously had to come into existence after life came into existence, or possibly at the same time.

My personal opinion is that viruses that afflict us probably came as a result of the fall.

Yes, and I just found out, I don't know if you heard my interview with Dr. Bhanu Gadi, the pharmacist on Long Island.

Yes, I listened to that. Yes, and I found out during my interview with him for the first time that a virus was not a living thing, and it's interesting how when they refer to the virus in the media, you would get the impression that they're speaking of something living, that they speak about killing it, and all that kind of thing.

Actually, you inactivate a virus, you don't really kill it. It's not living, but people tend to use anthropomorphisms when they speak about these things, and I don't really take that terribly seriously, because as a scientist,

I understand the differential, but it does cause problems for people who are not scientifically trained, because then they're going to look at that and say, oh, you're killing it, so it must be alive, and that brings to their mind that this is a living thing when it's really not.

It's basically a bunch of proteins, in most cases, surrounding an RNA nucleus, and it gets into the cell by mimicking the cell membrane surface, so that it can penetrate through it and inject the

RNA into the cell, where it then takes over completely the cell's manufacturing processes, and then what happens is that at some point, the cell says,

I've had enough, and the viruses erupt out fully formed to infect other cells, and that cell dies.

So, other things that convince me that evolution is fabled, really,

I'll use that term, is metamorphosis. Anybody who's seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly has to look at the incredible change that occurs in that creature, and it's metamorphosis.

It has to go from something that crawls around on the ground into something that has wings and a proboscis, and it flies, and how can that transformation ever occur by gradual steps in an evolutionary process?

And there are many other creatures that defy evolution. In fact, one of the DVD series that I would recommend highly to anybody who's interested in learning more about these issues with evolution is a

DVD series called Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but they go into things like how a woodpecker has a tongue that goes around the back of its brain and comes out through its mouth, and how on earth could a tongue by gradual steps ever wind up doing that, because it would choke to death long before it ever came back out of its mouth.

There's the bombardier bug, which ejects two different chemicals that mix together to form an explosive reaction, and there's many others that are given as examples in these two

DVDs. Yeah, the thing about Darwinian evolution is that it is not scientific.

I like the way Ken Ham, during his debate with Phil Nye, the so -called science guy, and Ken Ham kept referring to the creationist understanding of science as observable science.

You cannot replicate in a laboratory anything that these Darwinian evolutionists believe in when it comes to the transformation of one species to another, etc.

I mean, these are all, in fact, it's interesting, I chuckle every time I hear a liberal talk about the facts of Darwinian evolution.

They still call it the theory of evolution, folks. I've never seen the newspaper headline where they finally have proven, after all these years, that Darwin's theory of evolution is fact, but it is obviously just a theory, and a very unscientific one.

And furthermore, it doesn't even address the first living thing that would have had to come into existence in order for evolution to get a start.

If you look at the complexity of just one protein molecule, it's such that you would never expect it to form in conjunction with the multiplicity of other proteins, enzymes,

DNA, RNA, at one time, so that they could all be incorporated into one cell, and then have the ability to replicate itself on top of that.

One of the problems you're dealing with here is something called the laws of thermodynamics. True, you may have billions of years if you want to argue for that point, but the problem is that every time a chemical compound forms, the laws of thermodynamics are against it lasting long enough to be able to form in conjunction with other molecules to form life.

If you ever want to understand a little bit about this whole process of the laws of thermodynamics, particularly the second law, which is all things go to the greatest entropy and least enthalpy, which means basically that the world is falling apart, apart from God and apart from any energy that's pumped into it, which our sun provides to us.

If you want to look at yourself in a mirror and then look at a picture of yourself at the age of 25, if you're like me and you're a senior citizen, you'll see what entropy means, because we're falling apart.

One last thing about evolution, and that's the whole concept of the double helix

DNA. It's a code. It's a set of nucleotide base pairs in a specific order that, if you change even one of those base pairs in the huge length of that DNA molecule, can cause a genetic defect that could lead to death or serious medical problems.

Almost all genetic changes are mutations that are harmful. You look at it, it's a molecule that has a code embedded in it.

My understanding is that codes come from intelligent design, not from random processes.

That was another thing that I find very convincing, that evolution, as some scientists would present it, is faulty.

When we come back from our midway break, we're going into our midway break right now, which is the one that's longer than the other breaks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the have to air their own public service announcements and other things that localize

Iron Sharpens Iron to Lake City, Florida. While they do that, we air our own globally heard commercials.

Before we do that, I just want you to, when we come back from the break, bring us to the point where you were overwhelmed with the fact that Jesus Christ was and is who he says he is, and that you needed to bow the knee to him, and that you needed to repent and follow him.

As you may have heard me say before, folks, we are not taking questions during this broadcast as we normally do.

It's a very rare exception that we don't take questions, but you can feel free to write down questions and submit them to me for me to pass on to our guests.

If he would like to interact with you on your questions, that would be fine, but we are not taking questions during the broadcast today.

I would appreciate you writing down as much of the information provided by as many of our advertisers as you can, because keep in mind we cannot exist on the air without the financial support of our advertisers, and obviously the more frequently our listeners reach out to them and patronize them, obviously they're going to be more motivated to remain our advertisers, which will mean that we will more than likely remain on the air, because they are continually supporting us with their finances.

So write down that information, and please be patient with us as we take this longer break.

Don't go away. We will be right back with more of Michael Hammer and his journey from secular

Judaism to Reform Baptist. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the

First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York, and the

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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 Corham, Long Island, New York.

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

New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the holy scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

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

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

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

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

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco. Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the

Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

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

Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history.

In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the Law Journal. If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state,

I recommend that you call Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win.

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

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Hi, this is

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. As host of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com

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

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

That's liyfc .org. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

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

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 and healing.

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 Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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

Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. The coronavirus pandemic has rapidly changed our way of life, bringing so many uncertainties.

When will it end? Why do disasters like this happen? How do we deal with anxiety, fear, and the like?

Well, join us each Friday on the program Iron Sharpens Iron with your host, Chris Arnson, and Pastor Joe Jacobs as they explore

God's Word for answers to this and other of life's related issues. Tune in at firstloveradio .org.

That's firstloveradio .org. Each Friday at 1 p .m.

Pacific, 4 p .m. Eastern. That's Iron Sharpens Iron on firstloveradio .org,

Fridays, 1 p .m. Pacific, 4 p .m. Eastern, to hear what the Bible has to say about pandemics and how we should respond.

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 that he has no brains of his own.

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

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

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. This is

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

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

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

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

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 on 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.

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

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

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

And Pastor Bill Sousa joins us this coming Friday, no I'm sorry, this coming

Monday, that would be May 4th, as he returns as a guest.

And we have not yet determined the topic, but I'm sure it will be fascinating, whatever

Pastor Bill decides to speak on. That's Monday, May 4th.

And on Tuesday, May 5th, we've got Dr. Joe Moorcraft returning to Iron Trepans Iron Radio for Part 4 of our discussion on his book,

With Liberty and Justice for All, Christian Politics Made Simple. And then on Wednesday, May 6th, we've got

Dr. David C. Innes, who's discussing his book, also on politics,

Christ and the Kingdoms of Men, Foundations of Political Life. That is this

Wednesday, May 6th. And then we have my dear friend

Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, which is a congregation of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination in Deer Park, Long Island, New York. And we have yet to determine the topic for Pastor Bill.

And then I'm so excited that on Friday, May 8th, Dr. James R.

White of Alpha and Omega Ministries returns to this program as our guest. And we are going to be taking a one -day break from our weekly coronavirus updates with Joe on that Friday, so we could accommodate

Dr. White's schedule. So please mark your calendars for Friday, May 8th, 4 to 6 p .m.,

when Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries returns to Iron Trepans Iron Radio. And we have not yet determined a topic for him either.

But with so many things going on in the world, we actually wanted to wait till closer to the interview to pick a topic, because there might be things going on that would demand our attention in this crazy world that we live in.

I thought I'd also throw in a plug for the following Monday's interview.

On Monday, May 11th, Dr. Kurt Daniel returns to the program for Part 3 of our discussion of his book,

The History and Theology of Calvinism. And I'll give you a heads up, folks.

If you send in a good question, if you're one of the first six people to submit a question, a good question that's good enough to put on the air, you will get a free copy of this beautiful 900 -page hardback,

The History and Theology of Calvinism. And of course, we've got guests throughout the remainder of May that we hope that you will hear and be edified by here on Iron Trepans Iron Radio.

Before we return to our guest today, Michael Hammer, who is from Princeton, New Jersey, and who is an avid listener of Iron Trepans Iron Radio.

And he is blessing us today by giving us his story about how he went on a journey through the guidance of the

Holy Spirit from secular Judaism to Reformed Baptist theology and sovereign grace.

And before we return to that journey that Michael is guiding us through, I just have a couple of announcements, a couple of more announcements to make.

First of all, folks, if you love this show, and you don't want us to go away, you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves, we need your help.

We are in urgent need of your financial help because, mainly because, we have at least temporarily lost two of our largest advertisers because their businesses have been so negatively affected by the coronavirus hysteria going around globally.

So please help us make up for that lost income by going to irontrepansironradio .com.

Click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

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Put advertising in the subject line as long as whatever it is you are promoting is compatible with what we believe.

You don't have to believe identically with what we believe, but you need to be promoting something that's at least compatible with what we believe.

And by the way, I believe I forgot to mention, you can also, if you're donating, if you prefer snail mail, you can write out a check to ironsharpensironradio .com

and you can send it to the address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com.

Always remember folks, when you're donating, especially now during this coronavirus hysteria that has financially damaged a lot of churches because of the fact that there is a ban in many places, most places, on public gathering.

Please don't siphon money away from the regular giving that you're accustomed to to your local church where you are a member in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Please don't do that. And also don't put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Those two things are commands of God in the scripture providing for your church and your family. Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show, you don't want it to disappear, and you have been blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, and you have extra money because you've been forfeiting by necessity a lot of the recreational activities that you spent a lot of money on.

Perhaps you still have money in your account gaining interest because you're not going to sporting events anymore, or at least right now.

You're not going to concerts. You're not going to the movies. You're not going to stage performances.

You're not going to Bible conferences and then doing a lot of other things.

You're not going out for an evening of fine dining. Well, please use some of that money to help us remain on the air, and just remember ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now. Also folks, if you are not a member of a local

Bible -believing church, and you're not even prayerfully looking for one, that's a serious matter.

Please rectify that situation. I understand that there are reasons why people have delayed becoming connected and joining a local church because they've been so horribly burned in the past.

It might be really nightmarish situations that have caused them to hesitate, putting themselves at risk once again, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

But at the same time, folks, we cannot allow any experience that we've gone through, no matter how heartbreaking, we can't allow that to give us a reason to disobey

God. And it's clear in the authority of a local body of elders in a local

Bible -believing church. So please, if you need help finding a church near you, I do have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world, and I've already helped many people all over the planet earth find churches where they live that they have joined, and some have visited these congregations during vacations, and some have referred these churches to their family, friends, and loved ones who don't know of a church near them in different parts of the world that is biblically faithful.

So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and I will try to be of help to you in finding a church that is honoring to God.

We are now back with our guest today, Michael Hammer from Princeton, New Jersey. He is one of those rare folks who begins as an avid listener of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and then becomes a guest on this program to share with us his testimony, which

I am riveted to. Just out of curiosity, I forgot to ask you in the beginning of the show, how did you first discover

Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Michael? I'm not certain. How long have you been listening?

From almost the beginning, I think. Oh, 2005? Yeah. Wow. I am so delighted and thankful and grateful that you finally wrote a very long and detailed letter that blessed me beyond words, and it's so encouraging to know.

Sometimes, you know, when you do something like this, you wonder, am I really making a difference? Is what

I'm doing worth the hours of time that I'm putting into this? And should

I just throw in the towel, etc.? But then all of a sudden, God brings to your attention a listener like you,

Michael, who just finds this program such a blessing, and I am so thankful to get to know you.

And also, I'm very grateful for your generosity. You've proven to be a very valuable financial supporter of the program.

And I hope that we actually get to meet face to face. I've already met one of Michael's brothers.

I believe that's Richard, right? That's correct. Richard, who is a member now of the church where I formerly was a member before relocating to Pennsylvania, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

We just recently had Pastor Mark Rimaldi on the program, one of my former pastors, my most recent former pastor.

And Richard was not there when I was attending there before moving.

And it was great to get to know him now. So you're one of three brothers, right? Yes, I'm the oldest.

And other than Richard, is your other brother a believer in Christ?

No, and he's quite the opposite, very liberal. And when

I mean liberal, it's more leftist, really, because I think of a liberal as being somebody who believes in lots of freedom for everybody.

He's more of the left type of... Right, leftist totalitarian mindset.

I don't know if I could describe him as that. I really, he doesn't like to talk about things, but I know, for instance, where he would have voted in the last election, and it wasn't where I would go, and he doesn't like a lot of the things that I believe in.

Well, where there's life, there's hope. In fact, not too long ago, he told me he was reading through the

Bible, and I said, really? He said, yeah, but don't get your hopes up. I'm reading it to disprove it. Well, there have been many people who have come to Christ on that futile mission that they're on, to disprove the

Bible. It comes by hearing and by the Word of God. Amen. And how about your folks?

My mom passed away back in 2015. In fact, this April 26th was the fifth anniversary of her death, and my other believing brother and I tried ministering the

Word to her in her last hours and days, and she was largely non -communicative towards the end, so we don't know.

Yes, my friend Dr. Latane C. Scott, and I don't know if I'm quoting her exactly, but I loved what she said recently on this program.

She said, we do not know what is going on behind the closed eyelids of those on their deathbed who have yet to depart from the earth.

Well, my parents both knew what I believed. My dad is still alive, by the way. He's 89 years old, and I've become kind of a trustee of the estate, and I'm making sure that I take good care of him.

He's in lockdown at a retirement community in Pennsylvania right now, and I just pray that his heart will be turned towards Christ before he breathes his last.

Amen. So, we were on your journey where you were seeing more and more evidence that led you to see more and more of the validity of what the

Scriptures taught, and I believe we were last speaking about how evolution, the fallacy of Darwinian evolution, made you even more convinced of the

Bible's authenticity. So, if you want to pick up where you left off there. Right. I just wanted to briefly touch on the issue of the age of the universe, which is a point of contention, as there are some

Old Earthers who claim Christ as their Savior. You might have heard of BioLogos, which is an organization that a number of people are in that is working on explaining a possibility of an

Old Earth biblical perspective. I personally see serious problems with an Old Earth, both from a biblical and from a scientific perspective.

Many people have probably heard of Bishop Usher and his calculation that the Earth is 6 ,000 years old.

While I wouldn't necessarily adhere to that exact number, when you look at Genesis and how it presents the creation, and the

Hebrew word yom, which means day, it clearly indicates that there are six days of creation, not six billion years or actually more than that of creation.

And the other issue I just mentioned, because a lot of people probably haven't heard this before, is that the speed of light, which is by every physicist that I know of considered to be a constant, in other words it's unchanging, is 186 ,282 miles per second, a phenomenally fast speed by our standards.

But when you consider the vastness of the universe, it's very slow. But the purported age of the universe, based on Big Bang Theory, is only about 14 billion years.

But the size of the universe is approximately, based on current, and it could become larger as our telescopes reach further and further out into the universe, it's currently estimated to be 93 billion light years.

So you have a situation where you have the speed of light and the age of the universe indicating the universe should not be bigger than the time it takes for the speed of light to reach across that gulf.

And yet the universe is many times bigger in terms of light years than the actual purported age would allow for.

So this is something that science can't explain if they want to have an earth and a universe that is billions of years old.

And I just mentioned Dr. Jason Lyle, who I know that Dr. White has had on his program a number of times.

He's an excellent person to listen to about the issues with this.

And another person that I would recommend is Dr. Russell Humphreys, who wrote a book called

Starlight in Time, Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe. And that's really pretty much all

I wanted to deal with here, because these are topics that you could spend hours debating and discussing.

And I don't have that time, because we want to move on to why

I became a Calvinist and a Reformed believer. So going back to my college,

I'm starting my second year, and God in his providence puts another strong Christian as a roommate.

Well, I shouldn't say another, because what I'm going to tell you and what I've said before tells me that my first roommate wasn't what he seemed to be.

And so I met this young man. He's a little bit older than I am, and we've been friends for decades now.

We still talk to each other, even though he's moved from New Jersey up into Vermont, and we still maintain close contact as brothers in the

Lord. And while I was starting my second year of college,

I got a call from a person who was an acquaintance of my first roommate telling me that he had died in a gun cleaning accident.

And this just sent me reeling. First, he tells me he doesn't believe anymore, and now he's died.

And I would have to say, looking at his life and the times that I knew him from, I'm not sure it was an accident.

So this really hit me hard. And having that roommate there, his name was Ivar, he was instrumental in keeping me from derailing at that point in my life.

And again, in God's providence, throughout my life, things like this have, looking back, been there for me.

And I know that he loves me because of this. I've gotten jobs that I never put in a requisition, you know, that has to be interviewed for.

I got a scholarship from my master's degree that left me without any debt afterwards.

And people have been put in my life at key times that have been blessings to me beyond anything

I could have ever imagined. So now when you say you were almost derailed by this likely suicide, derailed is the key word here.

Were you at this point a convinced

Christian? Were you a born -again believer? I believe I was, but I was having those kind of doubts that people have sometimes in their lives.

And I have to confess that. I mean, it's true. I mean, when he told me he was a believer and then this happened, it was a shock to me.

It was another shock. But with the help of this new roommate, things worked through over time.

And I continued to grow in my faith and my understanding of scripture.

I continued to read through the Bible from cover to cover. And was there any moment that was more crucial or more explosive, if you will, in your journey when you finally realized,

I can't continue to play these games as far as just bantering about religious possibilities and bantering with friends about the differences of our religion and ideology and just thinking that it's fine and dandy just to maintain a position of neutrality?

Was there a point where you said, Jesus Christ, is truly my

God and my Messiah, and I must bow the knee to him and that sort of thing?

Yeah. Okay. Well, going back to that roommate that became apostate, long before that happened, on March 6th of 1972, after many, many weeks of talking to the

Navigator people and my roommate, he gave me a New American Standard Bible.

Did you hear that, Lachman Foundation, the sponsors of All Hands Up? Yeah, I knew you'd pick up on that question. And that just broke me down.

I was in the shower later that day after having dinner, and I literally just broke down.

I felt the depth of my sin, and it was uncontrollable.

I was in tears, and that was my moment that I truly believe

I was redeemed. How did you break that news to your non -believing

Jewish family? Well, that was to my—well,

I'm trying to think of the word that I would use here. Call it disgrace, even. I did not confess

Christ to them for a couple of years, and it was because I didn't know how they'd receive it.

And I was actually going to cover that in just a minute, so if you'll bear with me here. I just want to mention, too, that one of the things—you're probably familiar with Ray Comfort.

Oh, yeah. In fact, I've interviewed Ray on the program. I'm a Jewish believer, by the way. I'm sorry?

I'm pretty sure Ray Comfort came from a Jewish background. Oh, I didn't know that. But unfortunately, whenever Ray comes on, which has only been,

I believe, twice, he insists upon very short interviews. I'd love to have him on for at least an hour someday.

Yeah, and he has that thing, the good person test that he does with people that he meets on the street.

That was—you know, when you look at the Ten Commandments and you compare what you've done to basically violate those over your lifetime, and you compare that to the utter holiness and utter perfection of God the

Father and His Son, you can't stand before Him without somebody covering your sins for you.

You can't. It's an impossibility. The condemnation that you would be receiving would just burn right through your soul.

And that's the way I always felt about it, going all the way back there, not that I'm anything near perfection.

The whole idea of sinless perfection is heresy. So anyway, my roommate from my first year of college has passed away, and I have a new roommate, and he's been a bolster to my faith and kept me on the narrow path.

Time went by, and finally, between my third and fourth year of college,

I was getting together with a childhood friend, somebody

I'd known since I was seven. He was six years old, and he goes, Mike, I'm a Christian. I go, what?

He goes, yeah, I believe in Jesus. And the two of us became friends again.

I hadn't really been involved with him for a number of years. And this was one of your secular Jewish friends? No, he's not

Jewish. This guy was from an Italian family, very Catholic at one time. We started doing things together, and we started attending a

Baptist church in the area, which I didn't tell my family I was doing it, but they knew I was out, and they might have suspected something was up.

This same friend, again, he got caught up in the Cal camping heresy. Oh, yeah.

In fact, I remember reading in your bio that that's how you discovered

James White, was through a book, Dangerous Airwaves, Christ Church Defended, how a camping refuted in Christ Church Defended, which is a book that I actually urged

James to write. In fact, I'm the one that came up with the title for the book, and I also designed the artwork for the cover.

Uh -huh. I've got the book right in front of me here. It's like an old -style, great tube radio.

Yes. And halo around it. Yeah. And the panic -looking skull thing. Yeah, right.

In fact, there was a woman in Grace Reformed Baptist Church who said that she had to tear the cover off because it was terrifying her child.

Yeah. Actually, I wanted to go back and respond to something since we brought up Dr. White. Sure. One of the things that got me watching

Iron Sharpens Iron radio was the debates that Listeners. were posted on YouTube about White and Catholic theologians.

That's where I first found out about you, and that led me to finding Iron Sharpens Iron. From my emceeing the debates.

Yeah. A lot of people have discovered this show from that. Yep. That's as I recall it now.

So anyway, between my third and fourth year of college, my parents were attacking this friend of mine, this childhood friend who had a sudden profession of faith and repentance.

I assume you mean verbally attacking. Yeah. They were saying, well, you know, he was a bad person and stuff like that.

And I just couldn't sit there anymore and listen to them attacking him for his Christianity. And I just blurted out,

I believe the same as he does. And boy, that raised some eyebrows.

It was a dinner for one thing. My two brothers were sitting there and my dad and my mom.

Always great to bring stuff like that up when there are sharp utensils within reach.

And glass and hot liquid. Thankfully, nobody actually got physical over it.

My dad tried to say, well, I taught you to be a free thinker. And I replied, well, you know, you're right.

And I was a free thinker. But sooner or later, you have to come to conclusions about some things. And he just kind of went, duh.

And my mom said something to the effect, well, you're a good person. You don't need Jesus. He needs

Jesus because it's a crutch for him. And I looked at her and I said, I'm not a good person. My brother

Richard was angry at me, so angry. And he would constantly go after me and keep saying things and say, how can you believe this?

How can you, Ben, you know, what you were raised at and stuff like that. And it brought back to mind that passage in the

Bible. Be either hot or cold, but because you're a lukewarm,

I spit you from my mouth. I may be misquoting that. Well, it's very close. Yeah, and he was hot and hot against me.

And over the next few years, he kept coming back at me, kept coming back at me. I'd open the

Bible. I'd show him passage. I later got married. He'd come out and visit me. And eventually

Holy Spirit took him over. Amen. Isn't it amazing how even in a secular

Jewish home, I'm assuming it wasn't kosher. No, we weren't kosher.

And that you just said Hanukkah and things that you mildly celebrated for some tradition's sake.

Yeah. But isn't it interesting, even in an atmosphere like that, the hostility that can explode from someone in that family's faith in Christ.

I know another Jewish believer who was a male stripper.

And his family had no problem with that, his secular Jewish family. They were not kosher.

They didn't go to synagogue. They had a very secular understanding of the

Jewish holy days and observance of them. And yet when he became a Christian, they became vehemently angry and hateful towards him.

And actually sat shiva for him, mourned him like he was dead. And his mother, when he attended a funeral of a family member, his mother actually physically attacked his gentile

Christian wife right in the funeral parlor. It had to be pulled physically off of her.

Well. What do you think that is? I mean, do you think a lot of it has to do with not only

Christians have been the enemies of the Jews, the old story where every one who has called themselves

Christian throughout history is deemed as a real representative of the faith, like Hitler and other people, even though Hitler was really no...

I think it's based on the issue of Hitler, because that's one of the things for my family. But I think it's some of that.

And I also think it's an issue of traditions. It's the old saying, my father was a

Democrat. His father was a Democrat. You're going to be a Democrat. That kind of thing. And they literally will write you off if you don't follow in their footsteps.

I do want to quickly, since I brought up Hitler, I want to dispel the myth. Hitler did not even profess to be a

Christian. He hated Christianity. He thought it was impotent and weak and viewed it as just another branch of Judaism.

He was basically involved in the occult. Yeah, and pagan, Nordic, pagan religion.

Yeah, no, I actually had that on my list of things to talk about, because it's very central to why many

Jewish people do not understand the difference between true

Christians and the fake ones. Well, we have to go to our final break right now. It's going to be a lot more quick than the last breaks.

So we're going to be right back with more Michael Hammer and his journey from secular

Judaism into Reformed Baptist theology and sovereign grace.

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

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

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

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

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

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Now we are now back with our guest today who's proven to be a truly fascinating guest,

Michael Hammer from Princeton, New Jersey, who started out as an avid fan of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio going back to 2005 when we first launched and now has become a guest.

If you could, we don't have a lot of time left, we have about 12 minutes, but if you could just pick up where you wanted to pick up on your journey.

You had already reached the point where you have become a Christian by the mercy and grace of God and you've discussed your family's reaction and if you could continue.

Right. So in the interest of getting to the next important part of this, which is my faith in the reformed version of Christianity, I graduated from Colorado State.

There was a kind of peaceful detente between my family and I, apart from that one brother constantly going at me.

I held a couple of jobs in my field, including Johns Hopkins Hospital where I worked as a microbiologist for some months and then went back for graduate studies at Long Island University, and ultimately took a job in New Jersey at what became

Bristol -Myers Squibb. And then at that time, since I had my friend,

Ivar, who was my second year college roommate, not too far away, I started attending

Montville Evangelical Free Church for some time and then met during a young adult thing some young men who

I became friends with that attended a church that was a fair bit closer, Bunker Hill Lutheran Church.

Now, this is where a bit of pragmatism comes in on my part. I was not a believer in infant baptism and I did not believe in concept instantiation, which are two principles of the

Lutheran Church, but I managed to fit in there fairly well for a time and then came meeting my wife and we were married in that church and her family were what

I would call weak Catholics. They would claim to believe in God and perhaps because of their being weak

Catholics, they may be in God's presence at this time. I certainly pray and hope for that. And after being married, we purchased a home and started a family.

We homeschooled all three of our sons. I had only sons through kindergarten right through to college.

And for me, at this point in my life, there was what I would call hiatus. It's not that I was not a believer or having doubts.

In fact, my faith was very strong and I was a regular church attender, but the dailyness of life, marriage, raising children,

I found that apart from attending the functions of the church, I was really not in the

Word on my own on any regular basis for a number of years. At some time, probably around the year 2000, while attending a

Sunday school at the Lutheran Church, I had my first exposure, what

I later learned would be Tulip, given by a young man who went through one

Sunday school day at a time through each of the five. Really? In a Lutheran church?

Yes. Because they are known for having varying degrees of great hostility to the

Tulip. I would say that this church was functionally Arminian. Maybe two points would be fully in conformity with Tulip.

And they would probably protest that vigorously. So initially

I thought, what is this? Is this heretical? Is God being made the author of evil because of the presentation of God's sovereignty to the point where everything that happens is basically part of his decree?

And I spent years, probably four years, investigating this whole principle of the doctrines of grace and went from what

I would call, in quotes, an ignorant Arminianism. And I say that because really I didn't know that I was

Arminian in my theology or anything. The church basically was a very topical preaching church.

They'd never preached expository, so we never got verse -by -verse teaching.

It would just be a subject that they'd pick on sin or whatever. Now, was the person leading the study on the five points of Calvinism presenting it as an opponent of these things?

He didn't present it as an opponent. He just basically dove into the scripture and showed how it was defended from scripture itself.

Was he personally a believer in these things? I truly do believe he was a believer because I don't think that the church in itself, the elders, would have actually wanted him to be teaching this quite like this.

In fact, I got the sense that this Lutheran church, which was Orthodox for the most part, they were conservative, and I do believe that the people there, by and large, were true

Christians. Yes, I have a lot of truly regenerate brothers and sisters in Christ who are

Lutheran, and I interview quite a number of Lutheran authors and so on. So, I kind of lost my train of thought here now, but because of the way things were preached there, and that was topical, they provoked me to study further.

I think the elders deliberately avoided bringing these subjects up. I think they actually avoided it.

There was a confrontation between my wife and the wife of the man that was leading the

Sunday school, where it ended something like, your hermeneutic is different from my hermeneutic. And that got me really kind of like, what is this, and who is she talking to my wife like that?

And it had to do with the Old Reformed theological perspective. So, I started digging into this, and this went on for several years.

During that time, one of my sons, the one who's a commercial pilot, started attending Patrick Henry College online.

Lynchburg, Virginia? Yes. Actually, it's Purcell, Virginia. Yeah, I think it started in Lynchburg.

This is the one that was founded by a man who actually is not really keen on Reformed theology, but my son wound up with a

Reformed professor for his theology class. He started defending it to me, and between him and my studies,

I ultimately became convinced that Tulip was the correct understanding of God's sovereignty, and that Provenient Grace, which is a synergistic understanding versus the monergistic understanding of Tulip, was wrong.

And quite honestly, from my perspective now, Provenient Grace is based on philosophies of men, and not

Scripture. You can find it anywhere in the Bible. That's right. And if you recall Colossians 2, verse 8,

I think it is, where it warns us against placing the traditions of man above the

Word of God, that's what I see is happening with Provenient Grace. Yeah, that's the Arminian and the

Roman Catholic answer to the fact that they both believe in original sin, and they are not

Pelagian, they would be semi -Pelagian, but they don't want to convey the idea that man is pure by nature before they're becoming regenerate, and they have to come up with some kind of an answer, how they were able to summon up this faith from their corrupt hearts and minds that saved them, and obviously that's where the invention of Provenient Grace comes in.

It's like the softer grace that provokes people and gives them an ability to believe, but then it's still up to them, and then the greater grace comes when they're actually saved, after they offer that faith.

But as you said, it's a fiction, it's not in the Bible. All right, a couple more items on that, of course you have

Romans 8 .28, the Golden Chain of Redemption, and Romans 9 .15, which begins the potter, and his freedom of the potter to create a vessel either for wrath or for blessing, and that brings me back to a couple of things

I'd like to share with people. One is a video that I have given to other people that has really helped them with Calvinism and the

Doctrines of Grace. It's called Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism. Four hours and 20 minutes,

I gave this to a friend of mine who had never heard of Calvinism or the Doctrines of Grace. He was a relatively new

Christian. He watched it, took 16 pages of comparing the remonstrance to the

Reformation, and he was totally convicted of the entire thing by the end of it.

That is the best tool I've ever seen, that DVD series. Yeah, and the other one is, of course,

Dr. White's The Potter's Freedom, a Defense of Reformation book. Yes.

And I particularly appreciated Dr. White's explanation of the difference between God's will and man's will, that we have a creaturely will which is bent because of the fall and original sin, and God's will which is a perfect will and is never to be blamed for anything that happens.

Well, we are really out of time. If you have a final word in about 30 seconds that you could provide.

I would just encourage people who are not familiar with or have rejected the

Doctrines of Grace and Reformed Theology to spend some time reading about it from people who actually believe in it, not from people who are the ones that are against it, because I've seen so much misrepresentation on the part of people who are against Calvinistic doctrines.

Even across the street, I have a neighbor who's a pastor at Churches of Christ, and he started talking to me, and he's a genuinely nice and wonderful man, and he started telling me about that fifth part of the

TULIP, the Perseverance of the Saints, which I personally believe should be called the

Preservation of the Saints, and saying how that is a license to sin. He obviously does not understand, and here he is ministering to souls in a church, and he doesn't understand that.

Right. Well, Michael, it has been a joy to have you on today. I really loved every second of our interview.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, and if you have any questions for Michael, you can send them to me at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.