April 17, 2026 Show with Phil Sessa on “The Conference on Gender Roles, Spiritual Gifts, & God & Government”

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

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

Jim Thorpe, 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 a 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, 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 Friday on the 17th day of April, 2026.

And I'm absolutely thrilled to have a returning guest today to talk about a very special and important event.

His name is Phil Sessa. He's director of Soul Fishing Ministries, host of the

Stop and Think About It podcast, and elder at Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York.

And today he's going to be addressing the upcoming annual Contending Conference in Woodhaven, New York, on gender roles, spiritual gifts, and God and country—and

God and government, I'm sorry. And welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Phil Sessa.

Hey, thanks for having me back, Brother Chris. It's always great being on with you, and we get to bump into each other from time to time.

And you're definitely a blessing to me, myself personally, and to the wider

Christian audience and wider Christian church. Amen. Well, tell us something about Soul Fishing Ministries.

So, Soul Fishing Ministries is a para -church ministry that comes underneath our local church, which is

Grace Baptist Church. And Soul Fishing Ministries is really a training ministry and a service to the local church.

So, we are a gospel -centered ministry to equip the saints to be followers of Christ and fishers of men.

So, when believers want to be trained in certain aspects of ministry, we want to come alongside the local church and help with those areas.

So, we have an acronym, which is FISHING. The F is for—the

FISHING is for equipping in evangelism. The I is for interceding to instruct people in biblical prayer.

The S is for shepherding. So, we want to equip and edify biblical families because there's a lot of confusion, it seems, with what a biblical family is to be and how a biblical family is to function.

Our H is for heralding, to train expository evangelist preachers. Our I for interpreting, to help people grasp

God's Word exegetically through hermeneutics. The N is for nurturing, to equip the saints in discipleship.

And the G is for grappling, contending, and defending the faith with expository apologetics.

So, that is sort of in a nutshell what we do. And if a local church has us come in with one of those aspects of our ministry, we want to help the local church.

So, for instance, if we did some evangelism training, then we may take that local church and some of the people that attend and go out to the community on that same day and help that church with their evangelism.

And that may take different forms. A city church, it's easier to go set up a corner.

And maybe a suburban church, we might have to go in front of a Walmart or in front of a gas station or something and sort of set up shop in a different format.

Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to explore the website of Soul Fishing Ministries and find out more about this wonderful ministry, go to soulfishingministries .org,

soulfishingministries .org. And tell us a little bit more about Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York.

I have known your fellow elder and pastor, Peter Nicotra, going back to the days before he even planted that church.

He was an elder at the North Shore Baptist Church when

I first met him and where my friend Ed Moore is pastor.

And actually, I guess it was probably in the early 90s when I met Peter, because I was working for WMC Radio at the time.

So tell us more about the theological positions held by this church and so on.

Yes. So Grace Baptist Church, we are a Reformed Baptist Church.

And so some people may think that all

Calvinistic churches are Reformed. That's not necessarily the case. So a Reformed church like ours, we follow a confession of faith.

And that would be the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. And that's what somebody like Charles Spurgeon would have ascribed to.

And I know many of us know that name. Whereas maybe a Presbyterian Reformed church would ascribe to the

Westminster. And there are other confessions of faith. And they're basically, they have the same formats.

And there's just some nuances in some of their confessions.

So like, they were seeing like paedo -baptism and baptistic -baptism between Presbyterians and Baptists.

So we ascribe to that. We use the catechisms with the Q &A format, like the

Keech's Catechism as well, and the creeds. So the

Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed. And so holding on to those historic things, to me, is such a great blessing, because I feel like I'm kind of holding hands in that respect with like a

Charles Spurgeon. Not that I'm worthy to hold hands with him, but I mean, he's our brother, if you will.

And we ascribe to the five solas of the Reformation as well. And our church is one that does exegetical preaching.

So verse by verse, through a book in the Bible, Pastor Peter, my co -elder, or his co -elder, we're co -elders together, he's preaching through the

Gospel of Luke. So he'll probably finish maybe by 2030 or something of that nature.

And I've been preaching through 1 John, and I started about two years ago. And I probably should finish 2027 and about the middle of 2027, verse by verse.

But I love it. I enjoy it. Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York, especially if you live in that area and would like to visit, or if you're traveling through that area on a trip, perhaps you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in the

Woodhaven, New York area, go to gbcny .org. Can it get simpler than that?

Gbcny .org. And please extend to Peter and his lovely wife,

Claudia Nicotra, my warm greetings in Christ. Amen.

I can do that. Oh, you know what? I should mention one other thing. One of the things that I really love about the church is that we're very evangelistic.

I thought you said you were Reformed. I'm only kidding. But that is the myth, the slander that many people will immediately have come to their minds is those people don't believe in evangelism.

And they think that because we believe God is in sovereign control over everything, that for some reason we're supposed to disobey his commands to us, to evangelize, and that we don't believe that God uses means to bring about his sovereign purposes.

Right, right. As a matter of fact, I met Peter Nicotra outside of Yankee Stadium when

Joe Olsteen was on the inside. And at that time, I had been going to an Assembly of God church.

I remember that. Yeah. So I still had soul fishing ministries, and my heart was just leaning and reading all kinds of Reformed things.

And so I went that day. And for anybody who knows

Al Yerkes, who works with Todd Friel with Reggie Martin. Oh, yeah. I know Al very well.

So Al Yerkes, actually, I could credit him with being the bridge because I heard he was doing an outreach there.

And I called the phone number, and a woman named Trish Ramos was out in Texas with her husband,

Emilio. She put me in contact with Al. He had said he never did an outreach before. I said, we train people and we go out.

And so we were like 30 people strong. And I met Pastor Peter out there that day. And sort of just like you said,

Chris, when I spoke with him and I asked him what church he's from and what does he do, and he said he's a pastor,

Grace Baptist Church. I said, you're a pastor and you're out here evangelizing? Because most of the pastors I knew, they didn't really go out and evangelize, at least not in that format,

I should say. And so I didn't realize I was stepping out of one church and stepping into that church.

That was a catalyst of a day for me.

And then when I was finally ready to just leave the Assembly of God church, and even the assistant pastor, though, was

Calvinistic at the AG church. So that was interesting. Yeah. That does happen because God is sovereign.

And so I spoke to a guy who was going to North Shore who

I had discipled when we were both in the Assemblies of God. And when we bounced back and forth between North Shore and Grace Baptist, this guy said, you need to go to Grace Baptist because you and Peter Nicosia are cut from the same cloth.

So I called him up. We spoke for about an hour and a half. We started attending back and forth between the two churches, and God made his will clear that we were supposed to be at Grace Baptist and serve alongside with Pastor Peter.

And I would say that that line, we're cut from the same cloth, is very true because we have very similar philosophies of ministry, which for me was very important.

Amen. And by the way, one of my dearest friends who is now in heaven with the

Lord, Al Stein, he was an Assemblies of God bishop, and he was pastor of the

Neighborhood Assembly of God in Belmore, Long Island, and as bishop was the overseer of all of the

Long Island congregations of the Assemblies of God. And he, a number of years before he was sadly killed in an automobile accident and ushered into the immediate presence of Christ, he had become a believer.

The doctrines of sovereign grace. And he was able to remain in leadership with the

Assembly of God, even though he was a Calvinist, and even appointed to a bishop because apparently they have a form that you have to fill out as a pastor every year affirming their doctrinal positions.

And when a question was asked in the form, do you believe in eternal security?

Al wrote in there, I believe in evidential security, meaning that if you are truly born again and secure in your salvation, it will produce evidence.

Because many five -point Arminian churches like the

Assembly of God have a misconception about what it means to be eternally secure.

And that is largely in part because of evangelical churches that believe in eternal security and also believe in cheap grace and believe that you could live like Satan unrepentantly for the entirety of your life, and you should not fear going to hell if you've gone up for an altar call or something.

And those churches like the Assembly of God rightly oppose that, but they wrongly think anyone who believes you can't lose your salvation must be in that camp.

So for some reason, the Assemblies of God authorities were satisfied with that answer from Al, so much so that they promoted him to a bishop.

And he's not the only one. I've met others, and I met other… Do you know Jim Capo?

He was the pastor of the Massapequa Church of God, and he retired from the pastoral ministry and is living in Florida now.

But he was a five -point Calvinist and a Church of God pastor from the

Cleveland, Tennessee Church of God denomination that's Pentecostal as well. Wow.

Yeah. No, but I do remember feeling that form where you have to check the box.

I mean, it was what, in 2011, I decided not to continue to renew my credentials because I just couldn't in good conscience affirm those things, those

Pentecostal distinctives. And I came to the conclusion that I just sort of believed those things, so to speak, but I never studied them.

You know, you just kind of go along with your denominational trait, you know, almost like identity politics.

You know, you're sort of being like loyal to your team no matter what they do. And so I started to study things like falling down.

I looked up every place in the Bible where people fell down and what was the context and the background and all of that.

And I came to the conclusion that all of this falling down that happens is not what we see in the

Scriptures. And so I just kept doing that with the various Pentecostal distinctives and came away and said,

I don't hold these things. I hold these other doctrines that you can't lose your salvation, that Christ's sacrifice on the cross, it was definite or particular to a certain group of people and not applied to others.

And so I just could not in good conscience stay in the assemblies anymore.

And that's when I had to just fully, just with two feet, just jump ship. And I did try to lead gracefully though.

And eventually I just told the assistant pastor, this is going to be our last Sunday. I did try to meet with the senior pastor for quite some time.

And although we were close, once my theology started getting stronger, Calvinistic theology on theology, it sort of changed the relationship.

And so then eventually we just left. But I didn't want to burn any bridges or anything.

There was no reason to do that. But then about six months after we left, then that pastor called me up and we sat down and we spoke together.

And he said, I should have done this six months ago. And I said, I agree. So anyway,

I think even when you have strong theological disagreement, you should try to lead gracefully, even making your positions known and without trying to burn the bridge and bad mouth or what have you.

There's no call for that. Because as I'm sure you know, Anthony Uvino. Oh, he's a very close friend.

Yeah, the godly Goomba, right? I love him to death.

Well, he's a Goomba anyway. I'm only kidding. So one of the things that he has taught me is that, remember, if we say we believe in the doctrines of grace, they need to be shared with grace.

And so I don't know if that was original in him. But I'm going to give him the credit for it. Knowing Anthony, probably not.

I'm only kidding. So he says, if you have an

Arminian, don't let them outgrace you by just coming in with the hammer.

And that's not graceful. So you could share the doctrines of grace. You could dig your heels in strong.

Say, I firmly believe this. I shall not be moved. I think it's biblical. But, you know,

I don't hate you if you oppose that and you hold the opposite view.

Because if God has saved you, then you're eternally secure as well, even if you don't hope for it. Amen. By the way, since you were bringing up losing salvation,

I want to announce to my listeners or remind them that on Thursday and Friday, June 25th and 26th, right here on Iron Trump and Zion Radio, I'm having another debate between Nazarene Pastor Jared K.

Henry and Reformed Baptist Pastor Jeremiah Nortier on the theme,

Can Truly Born Again Believers Lose Their Salvation? And obviously, the

Nazarene Pastor is affirming that and the Reformed Baptist Pastor is opposing that.

And that, once again, will be Thursday and Friday, June 25th and 26th, right here on Iron Trump and Zion Radio.

So make sure you mark that on your calendar. Should be another exciting debate. This will be the third between Jared K.

Henry and Jeremiah Nortier on my show. Looking forward to that.

Well, you have an event of your own that we are here to discuss, and this is an annual event, is it not?

The Contending Conference? Yes, it has become an annual event.

We tried it sort of as a pilot a few years ago, and we decided, oh, this really went well.

And so we try to re -up on it the following year. And so this is year number three.

So it's been building some traction for the glory of the Lord. And why these specific topics?

And I'll repeat them here. This year, you chose to discuss gender roles.

Nothing unusual about that going on in our world. Why would you pick that? And spiritual gifts.

I'm sorry. Everybody's always on the same page about those things. And spiritual gifts and God and government.

And so let's start with gender roles. Obviously, every single day, numerous times a day, if you're watching television, if you're looking at a computer screen, if you're listening to a radio, you are definitely going to be confronted with a lot of satanic insanity regarding gender roles.

But what specific area are you approaching this subject? Is it within the context of ecclesiology, or where are you driving your points on this issue?

Yes. So we're driving home predominantly gender roles in the church and in the home.

We would certainly mention gender roles, you know, as it relates to, you know, other atmospheres.

But we know that God gave three areas or institutions, the church, the family and the government.

And out of those three, the two discipleship arms are the family and the church.

And so I can understand to a point how the world can be confused on it.

Where I don't understand is how is the Christian family and the local church confused on this same issue?

Because we have a book that we call the scriptures, and it lays out the truth for us clear as day.

And we see that this is something that it seems to be like mud on the windshield for some people and some churches, and they can't see where they're driving.

And they're not driving correctly. They're veering all over the place. And so we want people to walk away having a clear understanding about gender roles in the family and in the church, because God's given us order in the world.

And so if we can just do things by any order that we choose, I mean, that's like King Saul, who just decided, well, you know what,

I'm going to go offer sacrifices like the priests. And Samuel wasn't okay with that.

And God wasn't okay with that, because that wasn't his role to offer sacrifices.

That was the role of the priest. And so we can't just do things the way that we so choose.

Uzzah touched the ark. He wasn't supposed to lay one finger on the ark, and God killed him.

And so I understand that many people want to be pragmatic, which means basically the ends justify the means.

So, I mean, if I threw a gospel tract on the floor and somebody picked it up and got saved, does that mean

I'm always just throwing them on the floor because that happened? Well, I mean, we don't live by pragmatics.

We live by the gospel truth. And then we keep in step practically with biblical theology concerning the church and the family and every other doctrine that the

Bible addresses. So, I just see so many people, so many churches that are so confused, and it is a hot -button topic, gender roles.

And Christians ought not to be confused about these things. And so we want to help clarify that confusion and also, in the same respect, to equip the saints to better be able to communicate and articulate the biblical worldview on these things so that they can now engage with others who do hold an unbiblical worldview on such things and be able to do it with gentleness and respect, but with biblical truth.

And as far as the gender roles issue goes, it's a highly controversial subject, divides even true brethren.

There are men of God who believe theologically nearly identically to you and I, who have different understandings in some areas of gender roles.

I was very surprised after he went home to glory with Christ that one of the most renowned and brilliant Reformed theologians who

I first encountered at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology back in the 80s or 90s,

Roger Nicole, he actually believed in the ordination of women. I couldn't believe it.

That's far more rare amongst confessionally conservative

Reformed churches and denominations, but there are even among us differences.

Even today, a very highly respected and regarded church, once pastored by one of my modern -day heroes,

John MacArthur, they believe in a female diaconate as permissible, and I believe the late

James Montgomery Boyce had female deacons, even though the PCA, of which he was a part, have not approved that, because I think he was grandfathered in from the

PC USA to the PCA. They didn't require he remove the female deacons.

How do you recognize the fact that biblically faithful men disagree with this and yet be as firm as you believe the

Scriptures require you to be? Yeah, that's a great question.

I think sometimes when we think about error and heresies, I think we need to put them sort of in different camps, so there can be a thin line between the two.

So heresy is more so somebody denies the resurrection of Christ, somebody denies the sinlessness of Jesus.

That's downright heresy. But then you have these areas, is a church then heretical for having female elders and deacons?

I think that they're being unbiblical. I think that they're being disobedient to the

Lord. I think they're an error. But I don't know if we would say, well, they're not saying

Jesus didn't rise from the dead. They're not saying that the Bible is not inspired. And so I would just say, you know, brother, sister,

I can't in good conscience attend your church because you might have a female preaching there that day.

And so I love you to death. But I mean, I couldn't go and be a part of your ministry in any way, because I think what you're doing is unbiblical.

And I'm not going to sit under a female preacher. I'm not going to be in a church with a female deacon or what have you.

So I think that the lines are drawn clear. And I mean,

I would challenge them to rethink some of those things. And I would talk with them and have a discussion with them and ask them, how do you reconcile these things?

They hear that thing. Maybe, maybe in some respect, maybe some haven't thought through it. Maybe some haven't wrestled through it in the same way that I didn't wrestle through tongues and wrestle through falling down, slaying the spirit.

I didn't wrestle through those things. And so my theological positions have changed over time.

But I had to have a wrestling match with the scriptures. And so I'm hearing from both sides.

I'm even hearing preachers over here, preachers over there, who's affirming and who's not. But ultimately,

I had to go to the scriptures, wrestle with the scriptures. What do I believe in scriptures teaches? And what

I'm looking at, you know, the areas for deacons, it's almost identical to elders and overseers.

There's really not much difference there, except the elders have to be able to teach.

But the character qualities are all the same. So I don't see a distinction in that area whatsoever.

So I don't know how they make that leap. Yeah. And to be fair, since no one from Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California is here, like my very dear friend,

Phil Johnson, who at one time was the most interviewed guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio ever.

I don't know if he still holds that title, but he may. They may not view it as an office when a female is being identified as a deacon and has a role of servanthood.

I'm not sure if it's a specifically recognized office in that case.

I know for a fact that they don't believe that women have any authority at all over men.

I know that. Right. So I believe that they may define the unique role of women as deacons differently than the men deacons who are office bearers.

Right. Yeah. Because we have elders, deacons, and then by the state, we have trustees who handle the finances.

But really, only the elders and the deacons are ultimately the biblical offices.

And we have tons of women that help that are the diakonos in the definition of being a servant in that respect.

But they don't carry such a title. But, you know, some people function in ways then they don't have titles.

But if they don't have the title of a deacon, they don't have the office of a deacon.

And all of God's people should have a heart to serve in whatever capacity and whatever gifting

God has given them. They should have a heart to serve. I know that when I sat down with Pastor Peter and he asked me to be one of the elders of the church, first he said, you know, you already have a shepherding heart.

And so somebody is already shepherding people. They're already helping people. And they're already sort of doing the kind of ministry that connects with the title, if you will.

So obviously giving somebody the title doesn't necessarily then give them the gifting to carry that out.

The gifting is already there. The heart to serve is already there. The title just recognizes that, if you will.

And I don't know if it was Muhammad Ali who said something like champions are not made in the ring. They're recognized there.

And I think that sort of that holds true with how we view ministry.

The title may recognize—and sometimes, obviously, people get that wrong.

Somebody is made an elder, and that's really not their role. But it may have seemed so for a time.

And just out of curiosity, in addition to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, do you also utilize as an official creed or confession the life and writings of Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali?

Because he said he's the greatest, and we know the Bible says Jesus is the greatest. That's right.

That's right. We have to go to our first commercial break.

And if anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. Welcome back.

Also, folks, I want to have you mark your calendars for a couple of upcoming very important interviews.

This Monday, the 20th of April, I'm having a returning guest,

Curt M. Smith, who is not only a Reformed Baptist pastor, he's also an author.

And since he wrote a wonderful biography on the 18th century evangelist

George Whitefield, he made the ideal guest to give a review of the new movie,

A Great Awakening, which tells the story of George Whitefield through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin.

That biography is called Thundering the Word, The Awakening Ministry of George Whitefield.

And so I thought it was an absolutely remarkable and wonderful movie.

So did my guest, Curt Smith.

So make sure you tune in this coming Monday to hear his review of the movie, because he does also let you know about some historical inaccuracies.

But the vast majority of the movie is just absolutely wonderful, especially because it is in no way cheesy like the vast majority of movies that have ever been produced about Christian themes are.

There's nothing cheesy about this at all. The acting is superb. Everything about it is just wonderful.

Also, coming up on Thursday, the 30th of April, Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, is returning to this program.

He is going to be paying tribute to a mutual friend of ours that went home to the

Lord for eternity very recently, Charlie Liebert, who used to host conferences for Answers in Genesis and then later founded his own ministry,

Six Day Creation. Sixdaycreation .com,

I believe, is the website. And Ken was kind enough to, when

I told him about Charlie's passing, he was kind enough to create a video paying tribute to Charlie that the

Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church played at the very beginning of the memorial service.

So Ken Ham will be on for the first hour on Thursday, April 30th.

The following hour, second hour, Pastor Jeremy Brandenburg, Charlie's pastor at Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church, will also pay tribute to our dear friend now in heaven with Christ.

But we are now back with my guest today, Phil Cessa, director of Soul Fishing Ministries, and we're talking about the upcoming annual

Contending Conference in Woodhaven, New York, on gender roles, spiritual gifts, and God and government.

Going back to the gender role issue, some of the ways that very like -minded brethren may disagree on gender roles, some of our

Reformed brethren would completely prohibit women saying anything vocally in a worship service.

They would be adamantly opposed to women reading Scripture aloud. They would be opposed to a woman giving her testimony if she's being baptized.

They would sometimes even have separate prayer areas during a prayer meeting where men are in one room and women are in another.

I could go on and on. Where do you land on some of those? Yeah, that's a great question.

So we would—so if we do a testimony sort of night, we would normally do that at like maybe a

Friday night type of service, and we may have various people give their testimony.

And so we would have a woman—we would allow her to give her testimony because she's not preaching, and she's not usurping authority over men.

So she's just giving her testimony in the same way that she might be out witnessing with us and share her testimony with someone on the street about how

God saved her. So we would allow for something like that. If we did a baptism, normally a baptism would be on an evening.

And so we would allow all the candidates to give their testimony, females included, before we baptize them so they make a public confession of the faith.

But when it comes to, you know, the preaching over men, then we would draw the line there.

I don't know if you had a third area besides—and we don't—also the prayer meeting.

So we would allow ladies to pray in a prayer meeting. Generally in a service, though, we have a pastoral prayer.

So generally those are done by the pastors or maybe some of the church, maybe a deacon, but generally by the elders only.

Well, let's see, we have—whoops, I was looking at it and it disappeared, looking for the question that came in.

We have Letitia in North Valley Stream, Long Island, New York.

And Letitia says, Is it permissible for a Christian man to read a book by a woman, because she is in essence teaching him if he learns anything from her book?

Good question. So we believe that there are women who could teach men things.

I mean, if a woman has wisdom and she says something correct about the

Word of God, I mean, there's no problem with that. It's like Priscilla and Aquila.

Priscilla, wife of Aquila, was a part of educating and discipling folks.

Right, right. And I think, was it Abigail, the wife of Mabel, was a very wise woman as well.

She actually realized that her husband was very foolish. And then when he was gone,

David took her to be one of his wives. But I think it's fine to learn, you know, to read a female author.

What I would do is I would check out the endorsements, though, of who it endorses now.

Why do that with any book? Right. Because with any book,

I mean, one of the most popular books that is considered a

Christian book, although you and I wouldn't consider it, would be Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. And that,

I mean, they have centering prayer and it's basically Christianity and, like, Hinduism, New Age Buddhism, like, mixed into the same soup.

So that's not a woman you could listen to. But let's say, like, an Ali Beth Stuckey, she has a lot of solid materials.

And she's actually, I mean, I've actually heard her on debates and she does interviews as well. She has great materials to listen to.

She's a podcaster, but she's not a pastor. So it's in the pastoral role.

So reading something that a woman wrote, you know, I don't see that as being something that's unbiblical.

When we look in Proverbs 31, I mean, that was a wise woman and she spoke wise words.

And so listen to your mother's instruction. So the godly women, you want to hear from them, right?

And matter of fact, you especially want them speaking additionally into other women's lives.

You want to encourage that highly. That's actually a command, isn't it? That the older women...

Spiritually, not only those chronologically older women, but those who are older in the faith as well.

Those who have been walking with Christ longer, that have that wisdom to share it, to impart it on those younger women in the faith.

Because there might be somebody, a 40 -year -old woman who's been walking with Christ for a long time and giving wisdom to a 60 -year -old woman who hasn't been in the faith for too long.

And so one is learning from the other. Now, I'm sure you would agree that there are men in the church that take the genuine biblical prohibitions of women in authority over men in the church and teaching men in the church to an extreme and actually add to the

Scriptures things that are not there and sometimes begin teaching things and believing things that are lunacy when it comes to...

I remember standing next to a brother at a Bible conference, and we were singing a hymn.

That's why we were standing. We were singing a hymn, and after the first word, the guy standing next to me threw his hymnal on the floor.

And during a break, I said, just out of curiosity, why'd you throw your hymnal on the floor?

The woman wrote the hymn. I said, you're kidding me. You actually...

Well, first of all, was that appropriate to throw somebody else's property on the floor?

But that kind of thinking is just...

It's dangerous, isn't it? It's dangerous. And you also have even well -intentioned brethren who believe a lot of the right things about gender roles, but they come up with unbiblical reasons for this.

Yes. I think we have to be very careful. When Paul himself gives the reason, he alludes to Genesis, that the man was created first, and it was the woman who was deceived.

He doesn't give detailed reasons why those things mean women should have no authority or teach, but he just says those are the reasons, and we shouldn't draw conclusions about women...

You know, we tend to wax eloquently about the inferiority of a woman's emotional makeup and all that kind of thing, where she's not going to be fit to shepherd because she's so emotional and all that kind of thing.

That kind of thing is not from the pages of Scripture, so don't we have to be cautious about the reasons why we have these roles?

Yes. I think that we cannot make a law where there is no law, and so we can't add things to Scripture, which when we look at the original account back in the

Garden, we saw there was an addition to Scripture, a subtraction of Scripture, and then a muddying of what

God had said. So we can't add, we can't take it away. So when God said, you can't touch it, that was an addition.

So we can't add, we can't subtract, and we can't make a law where there's no law. So the

Scripture is clear. It gives us boundary lines on what women can and can't do in the

Scriptures, and we can't then stretch that to areas that says,

I mean, a woman must then keep her mouth closed the entire time.

She can't even say hello to anybody. That's a stretch. And so those things,

I don't think, carry any kind of weight. And again, some people might have preferences, preferences are not truth necessarily, they're just preferences.

But then we have to check our preferences at the door. You can't slam down a hymnal that's written by a woman.

All right, well, what if the hymnal was bound by a man? You'd just ruin that book, and it's not your property as well.

So, I mean, it would be one thing if you respectfully said, well, this is my conviction, he closed it, he left the bathroom or whatever, and said, listen,

I just can't in good conscience do that. That's a mature way of handling it, if that was a conviction of his.

And then I would still have a discussion with him about that and say, you know, where do you get that from? And then

I think he would have to, you know, do a lot of playing Twister to make his case for that he can't even say something written by a female.

Yes. And women obviously play an enormous role in the nurturing of the children.

And, you know, we have Lois and Eunice mentioned by Paul, Timothy's grandmother and mother.

Mentioned by name in the scriptures about the important role they played in Timothy being raised up in the faith.

Yeah, I mean, imagine if you said, well, I can't listen to anything a woman said. Well, when

Jesus was raised, who were the first ones who went to the tomb? It was the women.

They were the first ones saying, he is risen. Now, if the men said, listen, we're not going to the tomb because you said so.

You know, we don't listen to women. They went and they wrote about it.

And to use one author's words, they were eyewitnessing.

They became eyewitness testimonies, but it was also embarrassing testimonies because it made the men look like disbelieving when the women were believing.

Now, that guy who threw the hymnal down, would he have thrown their words down when they said he is risen?

Well, I can't listen to that because a woman said he's risen. So, yeah, my friend,

I don't even know if you know him or not. My longtime friend, Daniel P.

Buttafuoco, attorney at law. Oh, I know. I've never gotten the privilege of meeting him.

I heard he had the old Bibles. Yes, he has. He runs the

Historical Bible Society where he puts rare Bibles and Christian books of antiquity on display at seminars that he runs for free and gives a detailed lecture on how he received the

Bible in the English language. I've seen him do this at least 10 times and it's always fantastic every time.

He is one of the brethren I know who came to embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace even though he was an elder in the assemblies of God.

It was funny because I gave him one Christmas Eve the book

Grace Unknown by R .C. Sproul. I think its new title is What is

Reform Theology or something like that. But I gave Dan that book because we were always having brotherly disputes over these things of Calvinism and Arminianism.

And he said to me, Are you kidding me? You're giving me propaganda for a

Christmas present? And he called me New Year's Day in the morning, woke me up actually.

Said, Chris, I haven't been to sleep. I read the book from cover to cover. I'm a Calvinist! But anyway, he said of one of the proofs of the authenticity of the

Bible is that the Bible itself has women being the first eyewitnesses to Jesus's resurrection.

And women were illegitimate witnesses in a courtroom. And if somebody was going to fake a document, they would not have the historical account be confirmed by women.

Yes. So, I thought that was an excellent point. Because the

Bible, unlike false religious books that are considered sacred by false religions and cults, the

Bible shows the warts of the heroes and so on.

Of course, not Jesus Christ. He didn't have any. He was perfect. But all of the apostles and disciples...

In fact, I think the only... This could have been an exaggeration, but I heard somebody say that I have a high regard for, that the only person other than Christ in the entirety of the

Scriptures where you don't see a flaw is Joseph in the Old Testament.

There's no mention of a specific sin that he committed. Right. But I was only bringing that up specifically in regard to Dan, because he's a lawyer, and I thought that he made an excellent observation about the women being the first eyewitnesses.

Yeah, that is an excellent observation. And if somebody has a view that I can't read a book,

I mean, that just doesn't coincide with that account of the fact that that was received, that they gave...

They testified to the truth. And the men were moved by their words, and they went, you know, on the wings of their words, so to speak.

So I just don't see how somebody can make leaps such as are being made when we see in the

Scriptures, the Scriptures doesn't even make those leaps. So, I think they would have to close their eyes to that portion of Scripture to kind of grab on to something that's not there.

Again, if you make a law where there is no law, you're wrong. You're putting your preference...

You know, you're putting the cart before the horse. You can't put your preferences out. You can't put your preferences out before and say, you must follow my preferences.

Well, when we come back from the midway break, we will go to Jerome's question in Jersey City, New Jersey.

If anybody else would like to join Jerome, send your email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least.

City and state of residence and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

We have Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in a tie in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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That's also the email address to send in a question to Phil Sessa. And we are discussing the upcoming contending conference at Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York.

And we have a question from Jerome in Jersey City, New Jersey. He said,

I think it's very important that you warn men not to abuse their

God -given authority into something that it was never meant to be by God.

And they become tyrants in their home and sometimes put their own spouses and children in physical danger, if not actually harming them physically, mentally, and emotionally, spiritually.

Yeah. So think about the gospel. How did

Christ love the church? He didn't abuse the church. He didn't take an authoritarian approach over the church.

He loved the church in so much that he died for the church. Look at what you see

Jesus doing as soon as they got up from the Last Supper. He's washing the feet of the church, if he will.

He assumes the role of a servant. So there is no greater example of direct scripture than how should a

Christian husband treat their family as the way you see

Christ treat the church. And so he wasn't a tyrant.

Matter of fact, Jesus constantly said concerning the way the

Jewish leaders were heavy handed in that respect. And he says, don't be like the Gentiles who aborted over them.

Now, in the home, yes, men do have authority in the home. But what if your wife has a better idea than you?

And actually it's a wiser idea than you have. You need to listen to her.

And if what she suggests is wiser than what you propose to do, then you need to say, you know,

God has given me this woman and there's a voice of wisdom and I need to hear the voice of wisdom because that's

God speaking through your wife. And your wife, like, for instance, the man might not realize that her, his wife's opinion about something important is wiser, but he should be discerning enough and not a moron to recognize that there are areas in his wife's life that she has a better grip on, that she has a deeper knowledge of, perhaps has more experience in or something that makes her opinion one to be reckoned with.

And so, you know, I have known men who are bullies in their home and they have made tragic and horrific decisions because they won't listen to their wives.

Yeah, I mean, even when you look in Proverbs, I mean, she considers a field and she buys it with the fruit of her hand.

She plants a vineyard. I mean, she's making decisions in the home. She opens up her hand to the poor.

She puts her hands to the spindle. I mean, so she's doing things there. And this is,

I love this one, her husband is known at the gate when he sits among the elders of the land and she is part of that.

How can many men do what they do if there wasn't a wife doing what she does back in the home?

So how can I go out? How can I study for sermons and then there's no need in the house.

And so women have a vital, vital role in the home and in the church.

And yes, I think there are times when men may have to say, you know what, I'm going to put my foot down on this issue and I won't move.

But men ought not to drop that shoe all the time. It can't be every day.

That needs to be with something that is well thought out, that you've spoken to other men of God about and you've heard your wife on as well.

You've considered all things. It's not a fast pull the trigger normally, kind of an issue.

And you know, but and there are those moments. And I think that they're more rare when a man says, you know what, honey, we're doing this and we're doing it this way.

So let me give you an example if I may. So my daughter, my younger daughter was doing

Irish step dancing and she was in a program up in Yonkers in New York.

And so I brought her one time and I watched her and she was doing her thing and it was great and it was adorable.

She was very young. By the way, you know why Irish step dancers aren't Pentecostal or charismatic? Why is that?

Because they don't raise their arms. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. So to so that the next time

I went, she had a male teacher instead of a female teacher and she went in this room and they closed the door and there was no way to look in to see what was going on.

And I was very uncomfortable with a man being behind a closed door with my daughter and 11 other little girls and I can't see what's going on.

So having a background in martial arts and teaching martial arts, the parents were always able to watch and look in at how we were instructing and teaching their children.

And so there was no surprises. So I spoke to the owner and asked, hey, can you please, would you kindly open the door?

And I'm sorry, let me backtrack. I knocked on the door and I asked the instructor if he would open the door and he did.

And I said, yeah, I want to see in and I'm just more comfortable. And he was good with that.

Well, the owner came along and shut the door and when

I spoke to her, she was like adamant it had to be shut. It was a distraction with the kids and I explained to her that I taught martial arts and parents looking in didn't distract the kids.

And I just, as a man, I just felt very uncomfortable and as a parent, would she open the door?

She had it open last time, so would she open it this time? And she just refused to do it.

And so my wife and I had spoken and I said, you know, we're not going to stay at this

Irish step dancing school. And so my wife wanted to keep her there and I said, not if they're going to shut the door with a little girl behind it.

We know men are sinners and who knows what could happen. And it's a six -year -old's word against a man's word, if you will.

And so I had to kind of dig my teeth in my wife and said, you know, we're resigning as of today.

Now, what happened was my wife didn't think that there would be another Irish step dancing school. Well, we found one ten minutes away from our home in Sydney Island.

And the lady was great and I could watch everything that goes on. She was a very gracious woman and my daughter started to go in there and it ended up being a blessing at the end of the day.

And through the midst of that, I spoke to Pastor Peter, I spoke to other men who had their daughters in various programs, asked them what they thought about it, and so kind of got a consensus because there's wisdom in the counsel of many, and I considered my wife's views as well, but that was a time when it ended up, again, being a blessing to the family.

And so it ended up being the right decision to make. And I'll do that all the time.

Well, this is an example of these areas of gender roles in the household where it's so important to be attached to a biblically sound church with faithful shepherds, because sometimes if the decision is of grave importance that might even have physical or emotional or mental or spiritual harm at stake, and there is a standstill where a disagreement between several people may be going nowhere, that's where you say to your spouse, well, we've got to sit with the elders and discuss this with them and see what they think.

Now, does that always perfectly rescue a situation?

No. And then a lot of it also has to do with the wisdom of the specific elders of a specific church, but we cannot live as an island unto ourselves and not involve the church when it comes to very important issues that couples are disagreeing over.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And many people, unfortunately, many

Christian families just kind of jam secular things with some biblical things and they make this soup out of it rather than let's try to keep the whole thing biblical and let's especially learn differences between sins and preferences.

And at the end of the day, we want our family to be spiritually healthy. So, you know,

God provided something for us in that scenario that we didn't know existed.

Because I would not risk putting my daughter at possible harm.

Maybe nothing would have happened. We live in a sinful world. You know,

I know that there's a lot of guys that do Irish step and there's this Riverdance thing and all of that.

I mean, I wasn't engrossed in this. I just kind of watched my daughter doing it.

But I mean, thank God that it ended up being the right decision and a blessing.

And that's what you hope happens each time. And then, if it would have been wrong, then

I would have had to admit, you know what, I made the wrong decision, and we go and do this thing here.

So, when wisdom speaks, we have to hear it though. And moving on to the spiritual gifts.

Now, there's a non -controversial area. It's even a controversial area in reformed circles because there are more and more reformed individuals and congregations that are adopting the charismatic and Pentecostal understanding of spiritual gifts.

When I first got saved in the 1980s, it was much more rare to see charismatic or Pentecostal churches that were also

Calvinistic or individuals for that matter. But because of the fact that thanks be to God, the gospel of sovereign grace is spreading, you very often have churches that are from a non -reformed background in any sense.

And you might even have a charismatic congregation or Pentecostal congregation that comes to embrace the doctrines of continuationism or continuism, non - cessationism, but they don't—I'm sorry, they may have already believed in those things of continuationism and non - cessationism, but they embraced the doctrines of sovereign grace and they don't shed those other things.

They maintain them, and so therefore you have more congregations today that are openly non - cessationist and charismatic that are also reformed.

So tell us about where you're going with this in your conference. Yeah, so we have

Pastor Jim Harrison. Oh, I know him. I've known

Jim for decades. Yes, very wise man, love his preaching, and so this is actually his topic, and I know he would handle this well, and I know he's preached through First Corinthians already, and he just has a really great way about him, how he unpacks things, but I know that there's going to be sort of a distinction made between when we think about spiritual gifts in the large sense, and then what we would call the sign gifts, which you termed as sort of the

Pentecostal charismatic giftings, and so again, what do we see in the

Scriptures, and is everything that happened in the Scriptures, is that something that's continuing on today?

So just because Peter's shadow, when people step into it, they were healed, does that mean that we are now to go out in the noonday sun and say, hey, by the way, we're going to have a healing service, it's going to be in my shadow this

Saturday at high noon. That'd be an interesting addition to the hymnal, me in my shadow.

You know, just pass through my shadow, and thou shall be healed.

I mean, we see that happen one time in Scripture. Paul came with a handkerchief, and the handkerchief touched someone else.

So does that mean we have a handkerchief anointing ministry that we begin with when we partner with Kleenex?

We have to be very mindful as to we know

God is sovereign, and so we know God did those things. But we don't build an entire doctrine on shadow healing ministry and Kleenex healing ministry.

Those were particular things that took place at a particular time, and God chose to do something that way.

And just because God chose to do something in one instance over here, one instance over there, there was a dry fleece in a wet area, and then there was a wet fleece in a dry area with Gideon.

All those things are not to be repeated. So I think one of the things that I believe

Pastor Jim will point out in a hermeneutics principle is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive.

So when something is descriptive, it just describes what happened. So Peter's shadow, people stepped into it and they were healed.

It described that that's the place. But it's not prescriptive in the sense we're not prescribed now to again go out in the noonday sun and tell people to step in our shadow.

Because then what we would do is we would go to St. Jude's hospital on a sunny day and say, hey, bring all the kids out into the shadow and we're going to shut this place down because all these kids are going to be healed today.

If they really had this gifting that they claim, they can help

St. Jude's in a tremendous way. Tunnel to the towers that built homes for people, injured heroes in the military and law enforcement, firefighters, all those people can be healed.

But they don't do that, do they? They sell, as it were, the sizzle, not the steak.

In fact, Justin Peters, who's also coming back to the show in about a week or so, to speak further on the heretic

Paul White, who is our president's so -called spiritual advisor.

Justin Peters has spoken about, and for those of you who are unaware, he is a paraplegic and has had,

I believe it's cerebral palsy, right? Is that what it is? Yes. Since birth.

And he said that every time he's been to one of these major faith healing services led by a self -proclaimed faith healer, the ushers have the really obviously visibly, palpably disabled people all gathered together, huddled together in a corner where they're not observed by the spotlight of the front rows and so on, and they're ignored.

It's the people that have inner ear problems or just total phony staged plants that fake healing and stuff.

Right. Yeah. I love listening to Justin Peters. He is incredible in that area.

And there's so much abuse with this. People are given false hopes.

Promises are spoken to them that don't come to fruition. And when someone says you're going to be healed physically, that's what separates, you know, the men from the boys, because in the

Old Testament, when the prophet said this was going to happen, it happened. And so if we applied the malpractice of the

Old Testament, there would be a lot of stonings that would take place today, wouldn't there be? We have to go to our final break, and when we come back, we'll try to squeeze in at least enough to whet the appetite of our listeners to attend your event.

We'll try to discuss a little bit about God and government, and how that's going to play into your conference.

And don't go away, folks. We are going to be right back after these messages. I'm Dr.

Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

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 631 -696 -5711

Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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I also want to remind all men in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next free biannual

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon on Thursday, October 1st, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. The keynote speaker for the very first time in October will be

David A. Harrell, who is pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Jolton, Tennessee, author of a number of books, and his keynote address will be on his book titled

Why America Hates Biblical Christianity. That's Thursday, October 1st, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. Not only is admission free and your meal free, but every man who attends will receive a heavy sack, and maybe even two heavy sacks, of free brand -new books personally selected by me and donated by generous publishers all over the

United States and United Kingdom. Everything is always free at my luncheons by the strict orders of my precious late wife,

Julie, whose brainchild these luncheons are.

She helped me launch them in the 1990s when I was still living on Long Island, and she said that I never want the pastor to feel like he is going to be experiencing some kind of ulterior motive or hidden agenda when they come to your luncheons.

I want them to never have to reach for their wallets. I have kept that strict policy in place even after my precious wife went home to glory with Christ, and now

I conduct these luncheons in loving memory of her and in tribute to her.

So I hope you can make it, if you're a man in ministry leadership, Thursday, October 1st, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.

at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. Last but not least, since we mentioned our mutual friend,

Antony Uvinio, Antony and Pastor Rich Jensen and Pastor Christopher McDowell are going to be my guests on Monday, May 4th, to discuss 30 years of God's sovereign grace at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, who are celebrating their 30th anniversary as a church on the last

Saturday of May. And I intend to be there, and I'm looking forward to it, but we are going to have them on May 4th to discuss this gift of God that He has preserved this wonderful church for 30 years and has accomplished great things for His praise, honor, and glory there.

And by the way, Brother Phil, I came up with a new nickname for Antony just as we were doing the show here.

He's not the made guy, he's the made new guy.

Well, anyway, this is a very highly controversial and touchy subject that we're now entering into.

The God and government area of the Christian life, because just like some of the other areas we've been mentioning, there is a lot of disagreement and division in the body of Christ, even in the

Reformed faith, over how we are to approach these areas. A lot of the a lot of the disagreement came to the forefront during COVID, and you had men that surprised me in their just swallowing whole the government agenda on everything involving

COVID, believing everything that the government was telling them about vaccines, shutting down the church for prolonged periods of time.

And this also brought to the surface men who either already had a very different view of the

Christian approach to God and government, but some of them may have adopted a new view, seeing the serious harm being brought by keeping people isolated out of the church and so on.

And so tell us your purposes for having the God and government sessions on your conference.

Sure, sure. I just wanted to jump back one sec, because I realized that you kind of spoke to the general issues in what you said.

Your wife gave you the idea of having these pastors. Yes. You heard that wisdom, and you've been carrying it out, and it's been a blessing to a tremendous amount of pastors, and I'm going to get to one of them.

Should come in October. You got plenty of advance notice. Yes. And there are men coming from New York, so you could get a lift if you need one.

Okay, okay. But yes, you see how that carried out in your own life and the fruit that is bearing, because obviously you're married to a godly woman, so praise the

Lord for that. And so you married up, I guess, brother.

That's definitely true. No doubt about that. She got a good catch too.

Excuse me. So yeah, this whole issue concerning God and government, it seems like there's various views that are being posited out there, and I think that when you brought up the

COVID issue, that really was a defining moment for many in the church, because you saw how did they respond to government mandates.

Now, I went at the beginning of this program to speak about jurisdictions, and there are three, right?

And so we have the family, the church, I'm sorry, the family, the church, and the government.

And God created all three of those institutions, if you will. The two of them, family and church, are the discipleship arms, but there is a role for government to play, and God created this arm for government.

And so does the scriptures give us the parameters for that.

So for instance, in the family, right, we have parental discipline upon the children.

In the church, you have church discipline upon someone who's a sinning member.

Well, the government has the jurisdiction to wield the sword to punish that which is evil and to uphold that which is good.

And each institution cannot roll and overlap into another institution, so the government does not have authority over the church.

And the church can't institute, if you will, church discipline over the government, because the government's not part of the church.

Even though there could be somebody who's in your church who's in the government. But once you start to not understand the clear lines of where the jurisdictions lay, then it becomes problematic.

So everybody has to, if you will, stay in their lane. So when you're dealing with God and government, the flagship text,

I think, is in Romans 13. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good.

But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, there it is again, an avenger who carries out

God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid

God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. And so here we see how

God gives the jurisdictions of the government, and it says it calls those in governing authorities

God's servants. Now that doesn't mean that they're even Christian, per se, but yet they have a biblical duty to abide by, nevertheless, to uphold that which is good and punish that which is evil.

And so when we resist that, we're resisting God himself. Now where the

COVID thing came in is that was the government telling the church what it can and cannot do concerning having our services, our gatherings.

Does the government have that authority to do it? It doesn't.

I think that, you know, shutting the churches down, we did not have to abide by that, and many didn't seem to not realize that that jurisdiction, they can't wield the sword in the church.

The church wields church discipline. And so I was very disappointed by certain groups that came against John MacArthur when he opened up his church again, and he dug his heels in and says, no, where do people need to go when they're fearful and panicking and not knowing what happens when people die?

Are they going to look to the government for those answers? Does the government have such answers?

No, that's the jurisdiction of the church. So why would you close the institution that deals with these crucially important things?

Because these are biblical things. And we're out of time, brother, and can you quickly give us the time and date and location of the event?

Absolutely. So Saturday, May 2nd, 10 to 3 p .m., doors open at 9 a .m.

It'll be at Grace Baptist Church in Woodhaven. That'll be 9321 92nd

Avenue. You can give a call to 646 -208 -1651, and I believe you can go on our website gbcny .org

and sign up for that. If you need to send me an email, you can do so at sfm1689 at gmail .com.

So that's sfm for Soul Fishing Ministries 1689 at gmail .com.

It's only 10 bucks, and that just covers your lunch, and the lunch is going to be incredible.

Well, we are out of time, brother, and I thank you so much for being on the show today with little notice, and I thank everybody who listened.

I hope you all have a safe and happy and joyful and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day, and I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater