November 10, 2022 Show with Geoff Thomas on “In the Shadow of the Rock”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 10th day of November, 2022.

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As many of you may have recognized, we have a brand new intro to the program since we actually had to move out of the parsonage, the historic parsonage of 19th century

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Gospel minister George Norcross a year ago because my landlords there had to move themselves.

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They moved into a assisted living facility, and therefore, I have found a new place.

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I've been here almost a year, two months shy of a year, and we finally got around to having a more honest and accurate intro since we are no longer in that parsonage, an even more detailed description of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where we are broadcasting from, and I am thrilled to have on today, the first day that we have our new intro airing to start the program,

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I am thrilled to have back on the program one of my favorite guests and apparently one of the favorite guests of many people who listen regularly to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Reverend Jeff Thomas, who, beginning in 1965, served for over 50 years as pastor at Alfred Place Baptist Church of Aberystwyth, Wales, and he is the author of many books.

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Today he's going to be discussing his new autobiography, In the Shadow of the Rock, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend,

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Reverend Jeff Thomas. Well, thank you very much for that warm welcome. I look forward to this since you mentioned the possibility of coming back and speaking about this book of mine, so I hope it will be of interest and spiritual benefit to share it with all the listeners.

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Well, I'm sure it will be, especially the autobiography of a faithful Christian who served for over 50 years in one church, that is an extremely rare accomplishment, and our mutual friend who is now with the

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Lord for eternity, Walt Chantry, he was the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle for 40 years, and even that is considered a marathon, a very long time to serve in one place, but you even beat that, over 50 years of service at Alfred Place Baptist Church of Aberystwyth, Wales, and what's another fascinating fact about Alfred Place Baptist Church of Aberystwyth, Wales, is that you folks in two weeks are celebrating the 150th anniversary of this church.

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It's actually 152 years old, but the 150th anniversary celebration had to be delayed because of all the

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COVID mandates, and I am excited to hear that you'll be having that celebration two weeks from tomorrow, and you are going to be one of the speakers at this celebration, and the other speaker is who?

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Keith Underhill, who was the first missionary to go out from Aberystwyth to Kenya.

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He spent 40 years there in one church, and established about 40 to 50

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Reformed Baptist churches in Kenya. Yes, and of course, the wonderful thing about finishing six years ago was that my grandson followed me, and he's been six years and lives in the parsonage, the manse, where I lived for 50 years.

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He's lived six years there, and he has four little boys, and the church is progressing and hasn't wavered from its commitment to God's wonderful grace in Jesus Christ.

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Well, praise God. Well, if anybody wants to attend this conference, this celebration of the 150th anniversary of Alfred Place Baptist Church of Aberystwyth, Wales, you can go to the website of that historic church, alfredplacechurch .org

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.uk. alfredplacechurch .org .uk. I know that we do have listeners in Wales.

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We have listeners throughout the United Kingdom as well. In fact, you might find this interesting.

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One of my former pastors, David Campbell, who pastors now in northern

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England, he told me that he has had two visitors to the church where he pastors there in northern

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England who heard about that church from Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio. So we have listeners all over the world, and I am excited to discuss, as I mentioned, your new autobiography,

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In the Shadow of the Rock. First of all, that is a beautiful title.

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Can you tell us more details about how you came up with that specific title, In the

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Shadow of the Rock? Well, I would go with my mother to church on Sundays, sit next to her, and one of the hymns that we sang was

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Francis Ridley Havergill's, Master speak thy servant, hear us.

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And there was a phrase that always struck me. It was such a lovely phrase, where the shepherd leads the flock in the shadow of the rock.

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That's my favourite phrase in that lovely hymn, and it was a very popular hymn in the church of my childhood.

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And this name, then this phrase came to me, and it seems to, yeah, to be well liked and loved.

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Now is that also, because it's an unfamiliar hymn to me, is that hymn also in the Trinity hymnal?

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I'm not sure if it is. It's very popular. I mean,

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Francis Ridley Havergill wrote so many hymns, didn't she? But I don't know if it's so well known, because my friend in Texas, he went to Fiji and did some evangelism, and he learned that hymn there, and thought, oh, they love it in Fiji.

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So if they're not singing it in Texas, maybe they're not singing it in Carlisle, Pennsylvania either.

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Okay, well, I'm going to have to find out about that, because Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, I know that you're very familiar with that church, having preached there.

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They have songs that they very often, in fact, every week typically, they include at least one song in the church bulletin that is not in the

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Trinity hymnal, so perhaps I will recommend that hymn to them to have in the bulletin some

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Sunday. Well, tell us, how far back into your life does this autobiography begin?

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Well, really, it starts with my grandparents. The two, the grandfather on my father's side and the grandfather on my mother's side.

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They were quite significant people, and their response to the downgrade in Wales was again indicative of the overall picture.

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Wales in the 19th century had this inferiority complex.

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It wasn't going to fall behind Germany or England or Scotland in resisting the new theology that came from Germany and swamped

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Europe, and was resisted most in the north of Scotland and in Ireland.

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And also Charles Adams Spurgeon, did he not battle this? And he battled with it, of course.

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He was the great leader there in London, and J .C. Ryle was the great leader amongst the

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Anglicans against it. But my grandparents, both the grandfathers, in their different ways, were caught up in the social gospel.

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And my mother's father became a very strong Marxist, and my father's father, he never became a

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Marxist, but the idea that Christianity consisted of belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, that's what it was all about.

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That is what he gave himself to follow and believe.

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And it was quite disastrous then. The church that my father was raised in and his twin brother in South Wales, it was one of the largest congregational churches in the world.

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There were a thousand members filling it Sunday by Sunday. But the church as a whole just sunk into liberalism, and it eventually resulted in the church closing down in the 1950s.

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It couldn't survive. There was nothing to attract people. The only message was, well, do your best and try and love your neighbors as yourself, and so on.

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But on my mother's side, my grandmother's brother,

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Oliver Bound, he was converted and was influenced by the 1904 revival.

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And he went to a great preacher and sat under his ministry through his life.

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And whenever Dr. Lloyd -Jones was preaching, he followed him in the

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Welsh mining valleys and heard him and loved his ministry. And he carried a text around the town on a banner, and he started children's meetings.

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He couldn't resist speaking to people about the Lord Jesus. They would go on a bus tour down to the beach, and he saw this crowd of people and, oh, that was enough.

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While his children made sandcastles, he would stand up and he would say to them all, well now, ladies and gentlemen, what a lovely day this is.

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And you see the sea and the blue sky above us. And you know who made this?

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It was Almighty God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He made this.

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And look at its beauty. And you know, you can know him because he's come, he spoke through the prophets, but now he has spoken through his son,

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Jesus Christ. And we have in the full gospel of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John, all about his life and why it was necessary for him to become the

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Lamb of God and die upon the cross. And let me tell you about him.

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And there he would preach in the open air. And he started children's meetings in a gospel hall on Friday nights from six to seven.

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And my mother and her sister went along every Friday night.

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And sometime around 1919, 1920, my mother, 14, 15 years of age, gave her heart to the

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Lord and she was baptized. And I came under her godly influence.

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And, you know, she sang hymns every day.

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There wasn't a day I didn't hear her singing. She did her washing and vacuum cleaning and ironing and cooking.

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And she sang hymns like the one I mentioned, And I just took that for granted.

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And then one day when I was 15, my best friend Brian said to me,

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Your mother's remarkable, isn't she? And I said cautiously, yes.

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The way she sings hymns all the time.

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And I thought, his mother doesn't sing hymns. I thought every mother sang hymns just like my mother.

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And so that was the atmosphere of my home.

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My father, well, he went to church twice a Sunday.

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And he was a deacon and a treasurer of the church. And, you know, he lived according to the light that that liberal bit gave to him.

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And it wasn't until he and his mother, my mother, came to Aberystwyth and sat under my ministry for the last six, seven years of their lives.

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It is not until then that he heard the gospel being preached week after week. And he came then to know

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Jesus Christ for himself. But my mother's influence was really paramount in my life.

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And so my opening chapters are about my father and about my mother and what formed them and how they impacted me.

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It was something that my father was going to church because I think in the schools that I attended, junior school and high school, there were very few boys in my form in school whose fathers went to church.

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The decline was very evident. And the first mark of it was that men stopped going to church.

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Men. It was overwhelmingly something for women to do.

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But my father was a station master and we moved then to a little village on a hillside in a

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Welsh valley. And there was a church there which had been started in 1904 by a group of people who were saved in the revival and were overzealous in sharing their faith and telling people they'd entered into new blessing and that the people didn't like it and they had to leave.

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And they established this congregation. They were the older people, experiential, warm.

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They responded warmly to the gospel. And there was a minister for a while in that church and he preached for a response, for a decision, exhorting people to come to Christ.

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And so in 1954, in March, when I was 15 years of age, one

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Sunday night I was given assurance in the service that Jesus Christ had paid the penalty for my sins, that he was the

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Son of God and he was worth knowing and loving and serving. And I was baptized a few weeks later.

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And from that time onwards, I don't think there has been a day in which

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I doubted that Christ was the Son of God and the

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Savior of all who trusted in him. And after death, I would see him and be with him forevermore.

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Praise God. That was the beginning of grace in my life through my mother.

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My father went to a congregational church at that time and my mother went to a

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Baptist church. The lamb follows the ewe, not the lamb. And I followed her, of course, to this church.

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And there I came to know the Savior. And then within a couple of years,

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I went to university and the InterVarsity helped me enormously.

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And the books that they sold helped me enormously. And my first books that I read were

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J .I. Packer's Fundamentalism and the Word of God. And then I read J .C.

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Ryle's Holiness. And then I read Studies in the

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Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones. And that was an enormous discovery.

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Oh, what a beautiful life, the righteous life is. It's magnificent.

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There's nothing like it, that life living out the precepts of Jesus in the

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Sermon on the Mount, not overcoming evil by evil, but overcoming evil by good, loving your enemies, offering forgiveness to them, the pure in heart, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, being a peacemaker.

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Oh my, what a wonderful life it was. And so I'd been to camp, and I heard one day

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I hung around the officers, the students, and they were speaking together about the doctor.

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And the doctor says this, and they hear the doctor preach inclinately and so on.

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I was very interested because students aren't really respectful towards older ministers, but they were enormously respectful and spoke in awe of him.

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And I asked, and then I saw in the Saturday paper that he was coming to the big city, to Cardiff, to preach at the induction service of a new minister.

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So I took the train into Cardiff and I walked along Cathedral Road, and I went into the

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Memorial Hall on a Wednesday night. And there were the men in suits and the women in hats.

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And we sang Watts and Wesley and Top Lady. And Lloyd -Jones preached on being an ambassador for Christ, because the preacher,

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Ivan Evans, was going to be a pharmacist, but God laid his hands upon him and drew him into being a preacher of the gospel.

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And I was struck and impressed by why was this different?

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Why did Lloyd -Jones have this authority? Why was he so interesting? Why did 55

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Minutes fly by? What could have been in him that he had that the preachers that I listened to did not possess in any way?

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And the next years, whenever he came to South Wales, I would listen to him. Ah, what a blessing it was to have come under the influence, to have a role model as a preacher of such eminence and fascination and Holy Spirit authority and power and Bible -believing influences as Lloyd -Jones had.

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Amen. And we're going to go to our first station break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Jeff Thomas, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name at least and your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

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And don't go away. We're going to be right back with Jeff Thomas. I'm Dr.

23:29

Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

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Jeff Thomas, and he is discussing his autobiography, In the

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Shadow of the Rock. If you have a question, send it in to chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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And Jeff, we do have a listener in Wales with a question for you.

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He is someone that both you and I know, Mike Eliff, and I hope

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I'm not mispronouncing Mike's name. He says, Hi Chris and Jeff, I really enjoyed

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Jeff's book. The bookshop here sold nearly 50 copies. How do we specifically in Wales and the rest of the

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United Kingdom compare with, say, the United States? God is blessing here and there, but the church seems to be an utter irreverence.

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I try to regularly go into town with a book table to engage with people and to just be there when the

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Lord moves. We make contact with ones and twos, but people are mainly indifferent.

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Do you think the church needs to realize God is our only hope, or we are completely sunk?

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I include myself in that. How can we stir ourselves in our churches?

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What a great question. Thank you, Chris. That was

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Mike Eliff. Mike, yes. Mike and Chris, father and son.

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Now then, every minister is asking that question.

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How can we make the Lord Jesus Christ known to the people that are our neighbors and that are our colleagues that are in school with us or at university, and how can we impress them?

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The Bible is full of counsel about that, isn't it? The Bible tells us how we are to live, that we are to be poor in spirit and to mourn for our sins and to hunger after righteousness and love

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God with all our hearts and always be ready to give a reason for the hope that's in us and we to pray without ceasing.

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We are to establish gospel churches and we're to encourage then our ministers by praying for them that the

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Holy Spirit will endue them with authority and pathos and a loving concern for the people they're speaking to.

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There are no other ways. I will build my church.

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It's his impact. And although these are days of small things, they're not days of nothing at all.

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Mike's own conversion in rugby 30, 40 years ago is an indication that God's army is not short, that it cannot save.

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And the way that his children have come to confess Jesus Christ as God and Savior.

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That is, again, a source of delight and thanksgiving to almighty

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God. They are really hard days. Materialism and pleasure and relationships and drugs and pubs, non -stop television, all those things are combating, setting our minds on things above, on eternity and meeting with God and thinking seriously about the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We must just seize what opportunities we are given and going into the town and having a book table there and being ready, if people are interested, to answer and speak and give them something to read.

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Well, the Lord blessed that. And I can't think of any other ways that we are to live, love your neighbor and pray for your neighbors.

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And Mike also asked about your opinion when you compare the theological or religious climate between Wales and the

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UK and the United States. Well, you see, that's the next chapters.

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I finished in Cardiff University and I found books there on the

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Christian Union book table. Books by professors John Murray and Edward J.

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Young and Ned Stonehouse. And they all came from the same seminary in Philadelphia. Well, that must be a seminary because I was doing biblical studies from a totally liberal perspective.

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But here were people who could answer, brilliant people. Edward J. Young could speak 20 languages and he'd written a dozen books and more to come.

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And so the resistance to this movement that started in Germany and spread up to England in the 1890s and came across in the 1920s, it was less successful.

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There was more Bible resistance in the United States. And now you find like the largest seminary in the world, 5 ,000 students,

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Southern Baptist Seminary in Kentucky. I mean, there's nothing compared to that in all the rest of the world, certainly not in Europe.

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So there are gospel institutions, publishing houses, magazines, conferences, like the one

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I went to in John MacArthur's church a month ago.

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2 ,400 people were at it. Well, you know, that is immense and there are much bigger conferences than that.

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So America has retained historic

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Christianity more and cultivates it by its radio broadcasts and its publishing houses and its magazines and this wonderful series of seminaries that it has all over America.

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Well, thank you, Mike. And Mike signs off by saying, Jeff, I will see you in a week or so at the

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Reformation Conference. Yes, yes, he's going to be there and my wife and I will be there.

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Reformation and revival. Timothy Conway, the American, is speaking and we're looking forward to him and hearing

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Stuart Elliott, our fine British preacher. So I went to America and I went to Philadelphia and there

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I met Walter Chantry, of course, and other students such as Palmer Robertson and Dick Gaffey.

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We were all there at Westminster, but oh, what staff there was.

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There was John Murray teaching theology, the man most full of God I've ever met.

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There was Van Til teaching apologetics and Edward J.

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Young, the great historian and exegete of Daniel and the prophecy of Isaiah and Meredith Cline, Stonehouse, Wooley, Ed Clowney, Joe Adams, and the great contribution he has made.

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He started, his first year was my last year in 1963 -64, and oh my, they were unforgettable years.

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And I returned home. They were the years in which I was given assurance that I should become a preacher.

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It was quite a challenge to me to acknowledge, to say to young men my age,

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I'm going to become a preacher of the gospel. But talking to Ed Clowney, I knew in my heart of hearts

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I wanted to, but to articulate it. And he urged me and encouraged me so to think.

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And he was a wonderful friend. Forty years later, I was speaking at Westminster Seminary in California, where he was the president.

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And he said he wanted to see me. And he said, you know, Jeff, when he saw me, you know,

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I prayed for you every day since you graduated in 1964.

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And it gets rather tedious saying, and Lord bless Jeff Thomas. What do you want me to pray for you?

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It's a great question. And again, there are obvious answers that I would be a man of God, that I would be a successful preacher in making the word of God interesting and relevant and convicting, and that I would grow as a preacher.

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And those were the things. And that I would be a good family man with my wife and my three daughters.

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You know, those things. And, well, I came back, got married to the girl back home.

42:21

And then I worked for a year as a wages clerk for the

42:28

National Call Board. And then I was called to Aberystwyth in 1965.

42:34

And there I remained. Nobody else wanted me, I say.

42:42

But I stayed there. And my daughters loved it. My wife's only sister, they were inseparable, lived in the town.

42:52

Her husband was my closest friend, is my closest friend, I suppose, still. And there

42:59

I spent the next 50 years preaching through the

43:06

Bible. And during those 50 years, 47 men who had sat in the congregation went into the ministry.

43:17

And that really was my own little seminary.

43:24

That's where I had most success, I suppose. But I look back with regret that I didn't preach more of a gospel message.

43:43

You know, I did a Lloyd -Jones in the morning, and I did a Lloyd -Jones in the evening.

43:49

And I think I would have been better in those early years doing a

43:54

Spurgeon, that is, preaching on the great big texts that are there in Psalms, and are there in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and that are there in the

44:07

First and Second Chronicles, wonderful living gospel texts about the greatness of God and the offer of the gospel.

44:16

And instead of going through passages morning and evening, and then hitting some of the very challenging passages of Old Testament and New Testament, I would have been better to have varied it in the evening and brought fresh verses like Spurgeon did.

44:41

And I regret that. And that's what I encourage young men to think about, about evangelistic preaching and the need for moving the hearts and emotions, the affections of men to present so lovable a

45:05

Savior, and to show why they should love Him and why it's a sin not to love the

45:13

Lord Jesus Christ, and entice them and draw them and beseech them.

45:19

Here He is, and He's willing to become your Lord and Savior. You receive

45:25

Him. You entrust yourself to Him now, because He's willing to take you with all your sin.

45:32

And wherever you've been this past week, wherever you slept last night, you come, you come to Jesus Christ.

45:40

And your sins, though scarlet, will be as white as snow. I wish I'd been more evangelistic.

45:47

Now in my old age, I'm very evangelistic in all my preaching.

45:52

And when I'm on the streets and when I'm in any pulpit as I visit churches,

46:00

I seek to present a loving, merciful, sin -forgiving

46:08

Christ. Amen. And you are uniquely blessed to do that in a very powerful way.

46:16

I've been blessed to hear you on numerous occasions preach. So are you basically saying that you lament that far too much, far too high of a percentage initially of your preaching was academic in nature and perhaps addressing technical issues in the

46:36

Bible and lacked the passion of having an urgent call to repentance and faith to the lost?

46:44

Is that what you're saying as far as the way? Yeah, I'm saying that. I was given far too much emphasis on exegesis and explanation, especially on the history of redemption, insights, long passages.

47:06

And so that some of my sermons were really glorified Bible studies rather than engaging with the congregation in front of me.

47:19

And some of the preaching that is going on in Britain today and in London, not in my own church.

47:29

I have a wonderful pastor in my own church, Gerard Hemmings. He preaches to the heart and from the heart.

47:36

But much of the other preaching I hear is more aimed at the intellect and ends at the intellect.

47:48

It should be through the mind to the conscience and to the affections to cause them to break their hearts over their sin, their neglect of God and rejoice that Jesus yet will receive them and take them.

48:10

And just as they are without one plea, will receive them and become their teacher and their protector and the

48:22

Lamb of God who will take their sin away. And I want that emphasis to be there again and again.

48:29

So as a senior representative of the faith and not only of the

48:36

Christian faith and not only of Reformed theology but of the pastorate,

48:42

I'm assuming then that you are giving a critique or a loving chastisement to many within the

48:55

Reformed faith, perhaps even especially, who are in the pulpits of Reformed churches, who are perhaps in an overreaction to the dumbed -down gospel of modern evangelicalism, which is very shallow, which doesn't even challenge the listener to stretch and grow.

49:18

And perhaps in overreaction to that, there may be more of a professorial approach from the pulpit.

49:24

Now obviously, as you said before, there are times for that in Bible study and so on, as long as the deeply intellectual and academic things being taught are broken down for every listener to understand.

49:40

But I'm assuming then you're saying that Reformed preachers have to be careful not to dominate too much of their preaching with the more professorial and academic approach.

49:51

That's exactly it, yes. That's to bring the study into the pulpit, bring the seminary into the pulpit.

50:02

And yes, I probably beat myself up over that too much, and occasionally people will tell me how, you know,

50:14

I have 800 sermons now on my website, all the texts, my series on Ephesians and Romans and Genesis and Mark and Luke and so on,

50:29

Philippians, the pastoral epistles. And Sermon Audio has, again, about a thousand of my sermons.

50:37

And people will write to me and say how much they've been helped. And so I, oh, what was particular about that sermon that he mentioned?

50:47

And I will listen and I think to myself, oh, it wasn't so bad after all. I'm beating myself up too much on this.

50:55

There was a pathos. There was a longing.

51:03

There was a seeking to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.

51:12

So I wish I had more of it, and I wish that the sermons that I hear could have more of that.

51:23

And we have to go to our midway break right now. It's a little longer than the other breaks, as anybody who listens regularly knows, in the midway break, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

51:35

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize geographically their programming, including

51:45

Iron Sharpens Iron, to Lake City, Florida. And they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things.

51:53

So while they are doing that, we are simultaneously airing our globally heard commercials.

51:59

Please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the contact information as you can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more successfully and frequently respond to our advertising.

52:12

We depend on our advertisers to exist. We need the income that comes in from their sponsorship of this program.

52:19

We could never survive on donations alone. There are not nearly enough of them that come in.

52:25

So please respond to our advertisers. And if you can't pay for anything that they're offering, please at least thank them for sponsoring the show, if indeed you are grateful that there are churches, ministries, and businesses, and private practices out there who are sharing the wealth that God has blessed them with, with us at Iron Sharpens Iron, so that we can continue to exist.

52:48

If you're really grateful about that, please thank our advertisers using their contact information. And also, of course, and in your questions to Jeff Thomas, to ChrisArnson at gmail .com,

52:58

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

53:06

Don't go away. We'll be right back right after these messages. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

53:28

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.

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be served.

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

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

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

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Getting a driver's license.

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If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

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

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

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

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com This is

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

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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

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01:07:56

Before I return to Jeff Thomas and to further discuss with him his new autobiography,

01:08:04

In the Shadow of the Rock, I just have a couple more very important announcements to make. First of all, folks, if you really love this show and you don't want it to disappear, you love the fact that I interview folks like Jeff Thomas and other brilliant and gifted men of faith, both from behind the pulpit and those that have written books that have been of great benefit to the body of Christ.

01:08:29

And, of course, Jeff Thomas has done both. And you would hate for this program to go off the air.

01:08:36

Well, if that's the case, can you please help us financially? Because we are in urgent need of your financial assistance.

01:08:42

Please go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click Support, then click Click to Donate Now.

01:08:48

You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion. If you prefer snail mail, mailing in a physical check to a physical address, you can do that as well.

01:08:58

There will be a physical address that appears on your screen as well when you click Support at IronSharpensIronRadio .com

01:09:05

and you can mail checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to that address. Also, if you want to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you desire to promote is compatible with what we believe,

01:09:17

I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible because we are just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

01:09:26

So if that's the case with you, you'd like to advertise something, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:09:32

and put advertising in the subject line. Keep in mind, folks, when you are making a donation to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I never want anybody to give the church where you are a member less money in order to give

01:09:46

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a financial gift. Please don't do that. Also, if you are really struggling to survive financially and make ends meet, please wait until you are more financially stable and back on your feet before you send us a financial gift.

01:10:01

Those two things are commands of God in Scripture, providing for church and family. Providing for this radio show is obviously not a command of God.

01:10:09

But if you love the program and you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for your church and family, you have extra money in the bank collecting interest, you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and trivial matters, please share some of that money with us if you don't want the program to disappear.

01:10:28

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a

01:10:35

Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, just like the church where Jeff Thomas served for over 50 years, the

01:10:48

Alfred Place Baptist Church of Aberystwyth, Wales, well, no matter where you live on the planet

01:10:54

Earth, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of faithful churches, and I may be able to help you find a church, as I have done with many people all over the planet

01:11:03

Earth, sometimes even helping folks find churches within minutes of their own home. So if that is the case with you, you are homeless spiritually, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:11:16

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jeff Thomas.

01:11:22

We are discussing his book In the Shadow of the Rock, which is his autobiography, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:11:29

And we do have Christopher in western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

01:11:36

Love the name, Christopher. Christopher asks, I have heard other people ask this question to Chris Arnson on Iron Trump and Zion Radio, and I've also heard people who are pastors and preachers say this.

01:11:53

They say that a church is not the place for evangelizing the lost, it's for educating the saints, and the saints are to disperse and evangelize outside of the four walls of the church.

01:12:09

I happen to personally disagree with that. I obviously agree that we are to all evangelize the lost outside of the church, but I don't think that the sermons should exclusively be for discipling and educating the saints in the building.

01:12:26

What is your opinion on that? Very good, very good.

01:12:32

I do think that if it's a very limited understanding of the gospel you have, such as men are sinners,

01:12:42

Jesus came into the world as sinners, you now must believe in him. If that and only a very limited development of that in different ways, that is going to frustrate especially the young people.

01:13:02

They will say, he says the same thing every Sunday. There is nothing new or original, and there are many ways to present the gospel.

01:13:14

Those things are absolutely true, but men are ignorant and they need this wonderful teacher.

01:13:22

Men are sinners and they need to be confronted with this holy, harmless, undefiled, separate, look at the loveliness of Jesus Christ.

01:13:33

Men are weak and they can't live up to their own standards, let alone keep the law of God or live by the sermon on the mountain.

01:13:45

They need to be reminded that God doesn't say to us, well, have a go and do your best.

01:13:52

He says, love me with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself. You need to introduce then a sense of need.

01:14:02

You don't know in the congregation, they may be church members that are unconverted. We all know such people.

01:14:10

You need to bring gospel truth to bear upon the stranger who is there.

01:14:19

Even if you're speaking on prayer, or you're speaking on the duties of a family and husbands and wives and children.

01:14:29

You know how Paul, when he does that, he goes straight to the cross.

01:14:35

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. That he might present it to himself, a pure and holy, spotless congregation.

01:14:45

He brings the gospel in to deal with moral issues.

01:14:51

And a minister should be always having saving knowledge in every sermon for the stranger to grace, to hear.

01:15:01

And so, yes, if it's a very limited, every

01:15:08

Sunday night, similar report, that's not evangelistic preaching.

01:15:14

It's not wide enough or big enough or meaningful enough or fresh enough.

01:15:22

Evangelistic preaching should be all those things. Yeah, so I do believe that there is an essential need so that your friends can, your church members can bring people along and they will know that they will hear something when they are quite ignorant of what

01:15:53

Christianity and who Jesus Christ is. When their interest is no more than Star Wars.

01:16:02

And then you've got a bright and morning star to tell them about.

01:16:08

You've got somebody who says, I'm the light of the world. And you can show why he makes a wonderful claim like that.

01:16:15

So, yeah, I want evangelism on a Sunday. Amen. And Christopher, guess what?

01:16:23

You have won a free copy of In the Shadow of the Rock, an autobiography by our guest today,

01:16:30

Jeffrey Thomas. And we want to thank Heritage Books or Reformation Heritage Books, I should be more specific.

01:16:37

Reformation Heritage Books, we want to thank them for being generous enough to donate to us a limited number of copies to give to our listeners today who are submitting questions.

01:16:49

And the website, just to let you know if you want to look up not only more information about this book, but also others, heritagebooks .org,

01:16:59

heritagebooks .org. And so please, Christopher, give us your full mailing address in western

01:17:05

Suffolk County. And that will be shipped out to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:17:13

cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com. They will be shipping it out to you at no cost to you or to us.

01:17:21

We have an anonymous listener. And this anonymous listener says, Has anything in your 50 years as a pastor brought you so low that you either questioned whether you were truly born again or questioned your call to the ministry and actually contemplated stepping down and leaving?

01:17:47

I don't think so. I never got to that degree of self -disparagement and worthlessness that I felt

01:18:00

I was in the wrong vocation, in the wrong place. No, I was spared from that.

01:18:10

There were many times when

01:18:18

I felt I was too heavy. I was too long.

01:18:25

And I regretted very often that my preaching wasn't more full of life and freshness and passion.

01:18:38

What I grumbled about others, I grumbled about myself. But never to the extent of saying,

01:18:46

I should be doing something else. Yeah. No, the

01:18:52

Lord spared me from that. Now, obviously, there may be men out there in the ministry who have gone through those things.

01:19:01

In fact, I don't know, but since the listener who sent that question remained anonymous, perhaps it is he who is going through this crisis of faith.

01:19:11

Do you have any counsel for people listening that may be in that situation?

01:19:18

Yes, that is a possibility. You know, Chris, we do believe that most of the people who are standing in pulpits and preaching today are to the detriment of the spread of the kingdom of God.

01:19:38

They have not been called by God, and I say that because they are not preaching the

01:19:44

Bible. They are not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:19:50

They are preaching the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, and they are universalistic.

01:19:56

Everyone is going to be going to heaven, and God is God only of love.

01:20:03

And I'm very anxious that all such men should find another source of employment rather than occupying pulpits and confusing, and just being there, watching a church die as Christ takes the lamp away, the light away from that congregation.

01:20:31

And you can see it. You can see it. The prayer meeting has gone. Now the evening service has gone, and now there are an elderly group and no young families and no children.

01:20:45

The church is dying, and you are supervising the funeral rites of this dying body, and you should quit.

01:21:00

But others, no, there comes a time when you feel,

01:21:08

I must go and find another church. I've done what I can here, and God has been good to me, but I think it's time that I respond.

01:21:20

Some of us are very blessed in that we were loved by a congregation, and we stayed in one church all our lives.

01:21:32

Other men, excellent preachers, have had a succession of brief pastorates, and they've revived the church

01:21:41

Barnabas style. Wherever he went, he revived the church, and he was the son of encouragement and exhortation, and he could do that, and then he'd move on.

01:21:56

There are men who have those wonderful gifts, and they are especially useful for a man who has church planting gifts.

01:22:08

He can start it going. He can unite it. They know what they want, and then he can pass it on to someone whose gifts are more pastoral rather than evangelistic.

01:22:23

Yes, and for those who are listening, the irony is that there are many men who fit the description of the first category of men who don't belong in the role of a shepherd or under -shepherd, don't belong behind pulpits, and fortunately, very often, those are the men making the most money who have the largest so -called churches numerically.

01:22:53

But as far as good, honorable men out there who are perhaps truly called to the pastorate, but they're going through some kind of a crisis, they're depressed just like Charles Haddon Spurgeon who battled depression, and especially after that practical joke that was played by someone at the

01:23:17

Metropolitan Tabernacle when they yelled fire into the building, and tragically, some lost their lives.

01:23:24

I can't remember how many, but there were deaths as a result of the trampling of people fleeing from the building.

01:23:34

But Spurgeon, obviously, who went through this depression and went through so much regret and agony over the loss of those lives that happened while he was preaching, he was obviously a man truly called of God, and I'm sure one of your favorite preachers of history.

01:23:51

So, do you have a word for those men? Oh, yes, I do believe there are such men.

01:23:59

And if the only reply they get from every other minister is, hang in there, be faithful, keep preaching the word, and things will work out, that can be a counsel of despair to someone who is breaking down under the strain of hostility and rejection and a personal sense of inadequacy and illness, and it may well be the best thing that he could do would be have a break and retire from the pulpit for a while and do something else and see what other doors might be opened.

01:25:00

You've got the same Heavenly Father that I have. Talk to him about it and tell him how you are and the challenges that are overwhelming you at the present time.

01:25:15

Speak to our Father about it and try knocking on some doors and no one will say then who's got any wisdom about the pressures and needs of the pastorate that you're running away or that you're a failure, but that you are now seeking to use your gifts in other circumstances and that it would be better for you and for the congregation for you to move on.

01:25:52

By the way, Anonymous, please send in your full name and mailing address.

01:25:58

Obviously that information will not be divulged on the air since you remain anonymous, but if you do so, you have won a free copy as well of the book we are discussing,

01:26:09

Jeff Thomas' autobiography, In the Shadow of the Rock, complements of Reformation Heritage Books, and also complements of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be shipping that book out to you.

01:26:21

So please send in another email with all of your contact information.

01:26:29

We have Cindy in Findlay, Ohio, and Cindy says, and I have to enlarge the email because the font is extremely tiny, so excuse me while I do that.

01:26:48

Cindy says, Good evening, gentlemen. What a joy it is to listen to this man. Chris, as you know,

01:26:55

I have mentioned several times, this is my favorite guest on your show. It is a thrill to listen to him speak about the

01:27:01

Lord. My question is, how important is a good and solid faithful wife to a man who is interested in pursuing a call into the pastoral ministry?

01:27:19

Oh, what a wonderful question. God bless you for asking that question.

01:27:25

I have not talked about Yola. Yola was in college with me, and we were leaders of the

01:27:34

Christian Union together. I always admired her beauty, her intellect, her spirituality, her family.

01:27:47

She left her impact on the three girls God gave us, all in their fifties now.

01:27:55

One is married to a pastor, and one is an elder in, her husband is an elder in the local church, and the other is a deacon in a church plant.

01:28:08

And of the nine grandchildren I have, six of them love the

01:28:14

Lord, three are in full -time Christian service, and one is still in school, and one is a dog walker, and one is still in school, a school teacher and a dog walker, the other three.

01:28:35

And then three, they're not saved yet. But they have this wonderful example of their mothers, who have all taken after my wife, in their love of the

01:28:51

Bible, in their love of hospitality, in their high view of Christian motherhood.

01:29:02

And yes, I never had problems from the women in the church, because my wife cared for them and prayed for them, and they met in Young Wives Bible groups, and they were united in love for the gospel, and the men were content because their wives were happy in Jesus Christ.

01:29:34

And that was largely through the sweetness and happiness of my wife, who loved to be a pastor's wife in Aberystwyth.

01:29:47

Then she got Alzheimer's, and I nursed her for three years.

01:29:55

And then for the last six weeks of her life, she had to go into hospital, and of course

01:30:04

I was there every day in the last week, every night I was there. And I was with her when she gave a sigh, and left this world for a better world.

01:30:16

And I got on the phone to ten minutes away, when my three girls were in the mud, and I said, she's gone.

01:30:27

And they quickly got into the car, and they drove, and we hugged and wept, and prayed around her as she had said goodbye to us.

01:30:41

Just for a time, absent from one another for a little time, and then together with the

01:30:49

Lord from now on. And then God gave me another wife then, an old friend.

01:30:55

Born the same year, my girls said to me, we're glad you didn't marry a young woman like us.

01:31:04

So yes, married to a girl born in 1941 as my wife was, three years younger than me.

01:31:12

And so we lived together in London happily. And yeah, so God has been good in giving me two godly, beautiful wives.

01:31:25

So more specifically related to the question, and by the way, that was a beautiful and moving tribute to both of your wives.

01:31:37

If a man thinks he has a call into the ministry, and yet he is married to a woman that doesn't want to be a pastor's wife, she perhaps is a constant nag.

01:31:53

She wants him to get a more lucrative career behind him. It could be a host of things that would make her unsuitable to be the pastor's wife, even in the way that she ministers to the other women in the church.

01:32:10

Would this be a sign to that man? Obviously that's not a legitimate reason to divorce a woman.

01:32:18

So would that be a sign to that man, I should not enter into this ministry unless a miracle happens and transforms my life?

01:32:27

Well, it's virtually impossible for him to maintain a warm spirituality while all the time there is in the corner of his life this forbidding presence.

01:32:47

I cannot see how that can continue. Either the marriage will end, or he will leave the ministry and he will care for her as honorably as he can and seek by, without the word, win her by his godly conduct.

01:33:17

And that he will constantly pray that he will be wise and loving towards her.

01:33:28

But if she is showing all these signs of a coldness of heart towards what is the highest and most glorious calling, sharing with men and women the word of God, preaching to them.

01:33:46

I cannot see how a man whose wife is not sympathetic to him, how he can continue as a preacher of the gospel.

01:34:00

Well, thank you Cindy in Findlay, Ohio. Please make sure you send us your full mailing address so Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship to you a free copy of In the

01:34:11

Shadow of the Rock, an autobiography by our guest Jeffrey Thomas. That's, as I said, published by Reformation Heritage Books.

01:34:21

We thank them for their generosity in providing us these giveaway copies. Let's see here, we have one of our sponsors,

01:34:37

Royal Diadem Jewelers. You've been hearing their ads on this program.

01:34:42

We have Sterling Vanderwerker, who has not only a question, but he wants to open up his question with a fact that he believes will tickle you to hear, bless you to hear.

01:34:59

His wife's name is Bronwyn, which according to Sterling is a Welsh name.

01:35:05

Does that sound familiar to you, Bronwyn? Jeff? Yep. What was the question?

01:35:14

There is no question. His wife's name, well, first of all, there is a question, but he didn't ask it yet, or I didn't read the question yet.

01:35:23

His wife's name is Bronwyn, B -R -O -N -W -Y -N.

01:35:29

Bronwyn. Yes, and Sterling Vanderwerker, the owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, says your guest will light up if you tell him that his wife's name is

01:35:38

Bronwyn, which is a Welsh name. Yes, it is. It means white breast, Bronwyn. It means what?

01:35:45

I'm sorry? Yes. What's this breast? I didn't hear what you gave a definition for the name.

01:35:52

What is it? White breast. White breast? As brown as breast, and wing is white.

01:36:01

Yeah, for some reason, Jeff, you're breaking up. I don't know what you're doing differently in the way you're speaking.

01:36:07

Are you away from your phone or your speaker or something? Am I better now with my mouth much nearer to the phone?

01:36:19

Yes, so you're 100 % better. Did you say it was white bread? Is that what the definition of the name is?

01:36:28

Yes. Bronwyn means white breast, yes. White breast.

01:36:34

Very well known. Green means more than just white. It means blessed as well, so a blessed person, yes.

01:36:46

Okay. Well, Sterling's actual question is, how concerned should pastors be if they never see growth numerically in the congregations where they serve?

01:37:01

They may have people come and go, but the church never gets very large.

01:37:08

I, on one hand, think that people can be too consumed with numbers, and they start to dumb down and get involved in all kinds of gimmickry to draw greater numbers into their churches.

01:37:25

But at the same time, it may be a sign that they are not doing enough outward evangelism, but I'm wondering what your opinion is on numeric sizes of churches.

01:37:39

Ah, dear, that is Europe today, where there are congregations where men are very faithful, prayerful, biblical, and yet years go by and no one is converted.

01:38:04

I know of a church in Inverness where no one has joined the church for 10 years.

01:38:12

Not no one converted, but no one asked for membership for 10 years.

01:38:20

Inverness is full of gospel churches. You've got every sort of label, every sort of itch that you want scratched.

01:38:30

You can find it scratched in one of the congregations.

01:38:36

And if you have a certain denomination that you believe in and you would not dream of going anywhere else, this is a very small denomination of about 10 churches, and the only one in Inverness, and very few people belong to it.

01:38:55

So, ah, yes, you know, even in Puritan times, there were people in Cambridgeshire who preached faithfully week after week after week, and few people were converted.

01:39:17

My dear son -in -law is a pastor here in London. He will be here for 40 years next year, and he reckons that he's had one person converted every year, and they've gone on well.

01:39:35

They don't stay in the area because the cost of housing in this part of London is very expensive.

01:39:41

They move on. They get married. They can't stay. So his congregation is virtually the same size as it was 40 years ago, but he's had a very effective ministry, and the fact that he can look back and think, 40 people came to know the

01:40:01

Lord during my years there, I mean, that is a great source of thankfulness and joy.

01:40:13

I think, you know, it means we ask ourselves, am I preaching fervently enough?

01:40:20

Am I speaking to people about the Lord Jesus Christ?

01:40:26

Am I making it simple? Am I pressing on them the need to come to Jesus Christ?

01:40:34

I think you have to ask those sorts of questions if the fault is in you, but then you can say, no,

01:40:40

I'm doing what my son -in -law has done, and, yeah, he's seeing one a year coming to know the

01:40:52

Lord as their Savior and teacher and friend.

01:40:58

And there we are. Salvation is of the Lord. Amen. And, of course, you could have a church that is in an extremely liberal area where people are going to be less likely to darken the door of your church.

01:41:14

You could have a church in a very strongly Roman Catholic area or Eastern Orthodox area or Jewish area where people are not as going to be free and open -minded to visit a church like yours.

01:41:33

So there could be all kinds of reasons. Quite true. And we are going to our final break.

01:41:40

It's going to be briefer than the other breaks. If you have a question, send it in as quickly as possible because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:41:48

There are a few people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered on the air. But send in your question to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:41:57

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us a first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:42:02

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jeff Thomas right after these messages. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

01:42:13

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

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One such faithful advertiser, who really believes in what Chris Arnton is doing, is

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

01:47:39

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.

01:47:48

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.

01:47:59

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

01:48:06

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

01:48:16

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

01:48:21

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

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

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.

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Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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01:50:11

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reformed Baptist Church and also the host of the reformrookie .com

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website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

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01:51:38

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Sterling Vanderwercker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager,

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Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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And that is the company whose owner just sent in a recent question to our guest,

01:53:47

Jeff Thomas, Sterling Vanderwercker, whose wife apparently has a

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Welsh name, Bronwyn, and they are offering to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio 100 % of the profits for any sale they make of $100 or more to an

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Every penny of the profits goes to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio if you mention this program. It's royaldiadem .com,

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royaldiadem .com. Brother Jeff, we have Grady, one of the most faithful listeners in the

01:54:57

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience. Grady from Asheboro, North Carolina. Greetings, brothers. If you were advertising a new...

01:55:05

Oh, I'm sorry. If you were advising a new Christian, what five books would you recommend that they read besides the

01:55:14

Holy Scriptures? Me, to encourage you to read five, the best five books.

01:55:26

It's better than saying just one book, and of course you'd like to say 20 books, but five is a good figure.

01:55:34

You'd want the biography of Dr.

01:55:40

Martin Lloyd -Jones by Ian Murray for Contemporary History with a spotlight on one of the great leaders and most accessible and sweet men, family men.

01:55:57

When we talk together, we talk together. Although he was 40 years older than me, we talked together like two

01:56:05

Welsh fathers, heads of families talked together. He honored me in that way.

01:56:12

So the two volumes by Ian Murray of the life of Dr. Lloyd -Jones, that would be very, very important.

01:56:21

And then I would also recommend then his book that I've mentioned earlier,

01:56:31

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. And that is the best example in the 60 sermons in which he takes you through the three chapters of Matthew 5 and 6 and 7.

01:56:45

He shows you the loveliness of the Christian life and the encouragement to live that life.

01:56:56

And then thirdly, I would recommend also that you read

01:57:06

John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied.

01:57:11

The first chapter is challenging. His vocabulary, his style is very, very careful.

01:57:21

But the first half of the book is Redemption Accomplished, what Jesus did.

01:57:27

And the second half is Redemption Applied, how that applies to you.

01:57:32

And that is enormously important. So persevere through the first chapter and then you will get used to it and you will love it very much.

01:57:46

And then the fourth book then that I would recommend would be one of the great missionary biographies of James Patton, the missionary to the

01:58:05

South Sea Islands. When he went there to the one big island, there was no one who was a

01:58:10

Christian. And by the time he left, there was hardly anyone who had not professed faith in Jesus Christ.

01:58:19

He buried his wife there, married a second wife. And he has got a fragrant memory left behind him.

01:58:33

And those would be four books that would immediately come to mind as enough for you to get on with.

01:58:45

And the fifth book would be In the Shadow of the Rock by Jeff Thomas, his autobiography.

01:58:53

Thank you, Grady. CVBBS will ship out that book to you as soon as possible.

01:58:59

I want to thank you so much, Jeff, for being such a superb guest as you always are. I look forward to your quick return and your frequent return.

01:59:08

We can't let too many months elapse as they did the last time before you come back on. In fact, if you stay on the phone,

01:59:15

I will schedule another interview with you as soon as possible. I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater