April 29, 2022 Show with Gary DeMar on “Taking Off Your Tradition’s Eyeglasses” PLUS Matt Kenitzer on “Our Theology is Inescapable & Will Influence our Lives”

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

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

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

Proverbs 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, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth. We're 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 this 29th day of April 2022, the last

April episode of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for April this year.

And I'm thrilled that we have two guests that I'm eagerly looking forward to interviewing.

For the first hour, we have one of my favorite guests, and it's obvious that he is one of my audience's favorite guests,

Gary DeMar. He is going to be discussing taking off your tradition's eyeglasses to see things biblically.

And the second hour will be joined by Matt Kennitzer, who is senior pastor of St.

John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, and he's going to be addressing Our Theology is

Inescapable and Will Influence Our Lives. But first, it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Gary DeMar.

Hey, Chris, good to talk to you again. Yeah, it's always great to talk to you, brother. And Gary is the president, or yes, he is the president, of American Vision, and he has written many books, over 35 book titles, and has been a featured guest on nearly every major news media outlet.

And as I said, we are going to be addressing taking off your tradition's eyeglasses to see things biblically. And it seems that we who are reformed, and I'm not excluding reformed people of being guiltless of this either,

I have to make that clear, but we very often run into, especially if you're talking with our dear friends and brothers and sisters in the independent fundamentalist movement, who might even be accurately described on many occasions as hyper -literalists, it's fascinating how often they will accuse we who are reformed or we who do not share their dispensationalist eschatology that we spiritualize everything in the

Bible, we allegorize everything, and they're the ones that take things literally, when in reality on some of the most pivotal passages in the

Scripture, some of the most essential passages in the Scripture, it is they that are guilty of that themselves and are filtering everything that they believe and teach unconsciously perhaps through their tradition's own theological and eschatological lenses, and it is quite an amazing thing to experience having a conversation with somebody that is unconsciously doing that over and over and over again.

Would you agree with that assessment that I just made? Yeah, I think there are a couple of elements to this.

There was a Gallup poll that came out a number of years ago, and this is what this poll stated.

It says Americans revere the Bible, but by and large they don't read it, and because they don't read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.

So I think there are two aspects to this. There are those who teach some fundamental things about their particular position, and people who listen to what they have to say go along with those things without ever checking the

Bible itself to see whether or not the Bible has to say those things. What happened, of course, to the

Apostle Paul, and we say this verse all the time, those in Berea were more noble -minded than those in Thessalonica because they searched the

Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. And when you called me yesterday,

I was up in Huntsville, Alabama. I was about to go and give a talk to a number of people, and I brought this up.

Someone asked me the question, hey, when I'm talking with my dispensational friends on eschatology, how do you approach the subject with them?

And that's a very good question because oftentimes when people come out of a particular position, let's say out of dispensationalism and into a more

Reformed aspect of eschatology or if somebody changes from Arminianism to Calvinism and so forth, the question is how do you talk to somebody who was in your— you were in their camp before.

What do you do? And I said, well, you kind of take the Columbo approach. If you remember,

Detective Peter Falk played this Detective Columbo. Yes. And he was always not very pretentious at all.

In fact, people didn't take him very seriously because he had this rumpled trench coat on and he had this cigar that never seemed to be lit and he drove this old car.

And what he would do is simply ask questions. And by the way,

I said the Columbo caricature reminded me a lot of R .C. Sproul. I can't believe you said it because it was about to come out of my mouth.

Other than the rumpled clothing, his mannerisms and his approach to teaching was very much

Columbo -esque. Oh, yeah. And as soon as I said that, I mean, everybody got it. Everybody laughed.

I think there was one guy there. I found out later on he was from Spain. I saw him nodding, shaking his head with his daughter like I've never even heard of Columbo.

I don't know if he was just kidding or what. But, yeah, everybody understood the character of what was going on.

And I said, that's the approach I take. I don't go headstrong in with somebody and just hammer them with this.

I just start asking them questions. Like, where in the Bible does it say Jesus will reign on the earth for a thousand years?

Or where in the Bible does it say that the church is going to be taken up into heaven before, during, or after a seven -year period?

Or where in the Bible does it say that the temple is going to be rebuilt? So I go in there essentially with questions.

And that's the approach Jesus took on numerous occasions. He asked questions of people and got them to articulate for him what they were thinking about things.

So I think that's the first approach with this. And you find with a lot of discussions with people that they don't know the

Bible very well. Jesus deals with this in the Sermon on the Mount about you've heard it said.

There were numerous times, you've heard it said, you've heard it said, you've heard it said, or you've heard it was written, etc.

And so this particular study goes on to say this lack of Bible reading explains why Americans know so little about the

Bible, but as the basis of their faith. For example, eight in ten Americans say they are

Christians, but only four in ten know that Jesus, according to the Bible, delivered the Sermon on the

Mount. And he goes on and says fewer than half of all adults can name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the four

Gospels of the New Testament, while many do not know that Jesus had 12 disciples or that he was born in Bethlehem.

In addition, a large majority of Americans believe that the Ten Commandments are still valid rules for living today, but they have a tough time recalling exactly what those rules are.

So I think this is where we are with a lot of people. Now, you're not going to find that among some of the more popular teachers who are out there who know their

Bible, but there are a lot of people who go along with popular teachers, and as a result of that, they don't really check the

Bible for themselves to see where these things are so. And a lot of theological discussions on various points are layered.

They're built upon, well, you've got to believe this to believe that. In order to believe that, you've got to believe this. You've got to hold this.

When you put all these things together, then we come up with that doctrine. Right, and I must quickly add that the vast majority of non -Calvinist or even anti -Calvinist independent fundamentalist

Baptists know their Bible very well, but they don't always know very well what it actually means.

I could still remember engraved in my memory having a discussion with a friend.

He's still a dear friend who is an independent fundamentalist, King James -only fundamentalist

Baptist pastor, and he was trying to, in our conversation, refute the idea of definite atonement or limited atonement, as it's often called.

And he brought up John 129, and he said,

John the Baptist said when Jesus was coming toward him to be baptized,

John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.

And I said, okay, well, you've emphasized that word world, but how about if you read it this way?

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. What's the more important aspect of that sentence when you take it into biblical context?

Is it more important to rightly understand what takes away the sin means or what your definition in context of the world means when we already know that there are clear instances in the

Bible when the world does not mean every single human being that ever lived or ever will live? So it's kind of an interesting thing where I think that's an evidence where you have somebody clearly reading something through a lens that is preventing them from seeing the most powerful element of that passage or other passages.

Yeah, and of course you go on in John's Gospel, and Jesus deals with a

Samaritan woman, and you begin to see what the understanding of the word world means there, that the

Gospel isn't just meant for Jews, but it's meant for Samaritans and other people as well.

Exactly. So, yeah, you're right. And I always use this little phrase with people, you know,

Judas went out and hanged himself, go thou and do likewise, and whatever thou do, do quickly, because there is no

God, where you can string Bible verses together, lift those

Bible verses out of their context, their immediate context and broader context, and you can make the Bible say anything, because those four snippets of passages are all found in the

Bible, and yet when you string them together outside of their context, they mean something completely different.

And so the first thing is, you know, you've got to know what the Bible says, and I oftentimes, when

I speak on a difficult topic, when it's kind of a new audience,

I give them a little Bible quiz, and it kind of dampens down the kinds of charges that people make about, how can you say that?

And so, like, here's a question, Noah's Ark landed on Mount Ararat, true or false?

And most people say true. Now, these aren't doctrinal things. These things aren't going to, you know, affect your salvation at all.

It's just simply, what does the Bible say? And so most people say, well, it's true.

Well, if you actually read the text, it says in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat, Genesis chapter 8, verse 4.

And we hear today about Noah's Ark found on Mount Ararat. Well, it's the mountains of Ararat, so it's a range of mountains.

Or, who cut off Samson's hair? I remember years and years ago, I was just a little kid, and I was watching a

TV show. I think it was a Western, and the guy goes into the saloon, and he's kind of a con man, and he asks the question about who cut off Samson's hair as part of a bet.

And, of course, the typical answer is Delilah. But if you look at the text, it says then that Delilah made him, that Samson sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his hair.

So, you can go on with this type of thing. One of my favorites is complete the following.

Pride goes before blank and a haughty spirit before blank. And most people say pride goes before a fall.

Well, it's pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. So, when

I deal with people on various topics, and these are topics I know something about. I don't do this with anybody.

You've got to really know your stuff if you're going to do something like this. You just have to ask questions of them. Where in the

Bible does it say that? And on the basis of that, that's your first step.

It's amazing. I've found people I've talked to about this, and generally they said they were sitting under some famous pastor who they really support and so forth.

And all I say is, look, I'm just pointing out, asking you where it's found in the Bible. And it's amazing the kind of reaction

I get. Well, what are some of the main areas in all the decades you have been writing about certain elements of Reformed theology that would include your post -millennialism, and, of course, that would even divide you amongst other professing

Reformed Christians because it is probably, unless you know something I don't do, I think post -millennialism is today, even amongst

Reformed people, a minority view. Although it is growing and very popular, it seems to me that amillennialism is the more dominant amongst

Reformed denominations. But what are the things that strike you as being the most prominent things that people who should know better are reading the

Bible, they might even know it by heart and are able to cite many passages of it at length without even looking at an open

Bible, and yet they're reading through their traditions and presuppositions that are altering the actual belief that was intended by the authors.

And let me immediately say that I'm not claiming that I don't have traditions, and I think that the moment that somebody does, the moment a

Christian says, I don't have a tradition at all, I go by the Bible alone, I think that they are revealing that they don't really understand themselves very well.

But we all are, in some ways, importing a presupposition that is altering what the

Bible says because even amongst those who are theologically nearly identical, there are still differences.

I mean, you and I differ over baptism. You believe in infant baptism, and I believe in believer -only baptism, and we could go on and on.

But what are some of the things that are clear examples, in your opinion, that are primary areas where people are, even biblically literate people are looking through the lenses of their tradition?

Well, I think we have to also make a distinction about, you know, some differences of opinion are differences of interpretation.

I mean, if there were a passage that says infants should be baptized, this would be very easy, or a passage that says only adults should be baptized, that would be easy too.

And I think the same thing with eschatological questions like the so -called Millennium, which is built on Revelation chapter 20, and this is where I, to kind of separate myself from even my own post -millennial friends, is that I don't think

Revelation 20 is dealing with the Millennium as we understand it at all.

I just don't, it's not, pre -millennialism maintains that Jesus is going to reign on the earth for a thousand years, and yet when you read

Revelation chapter 20, Revelation chapter 20 doesn't say anything about Jesus reigning on the earth. It says nothing about rebuilding the temple, animal sacrifices taking place again, a period of kind of a utopian period.

Those elements aren't found in Revelation chapter 20. Now, you might be able to make the case, well,

Jesus is going to reign on the earth for that thousand years, but you can't make it on Revelation chapter 20.

And I don't think post -millennialists can either. Now, amillennialists probably have the better shot on Revelation chapter 20, but then the question is, is

Revelation chapter 20 even dealing with the millennial question at all? So there are different elements to all of this, but some of the more basic ones, since you know,

I deal with eschatology quite a bit, and probably the most popular one, of course, is the rapture of the church.

And you tell somebody, and I don't go up to somebody and say, well, I don't believe the rapture. I don't believe in the rapture.

That's not the way I approach things. Even Ken Gentry uses the word when he's explaining his eschatological view, but he's obviously viewing it in a different way than a dispensationalist would.

Yeah, yeah. And I think R .C. Sproul does that. In fact, the thing

I did yesterday, I think someone else had brought up to me after my talk that R .C. Sproul uses the word rapture.

I don't, because the idea, and I know in 1

Thessalonians chapter 4, Harpazo and so forth, and the Latin version of it and so forth, that you could use the word rapture there, but traditionally 1

Thessalonians chapter 4 has been used to describe what you and I would say would be the consummating or the final physical return of Jesus Christ at the end of history.

But the way that term is used, popular today, and this is another thing you have to ask somebody is, you say you believe in the rapture, what do you believe about the rapture?

And they'll say, well, that Jesus is going to come and return and take the church off the earth. And I say, no, can you give me a Bible verse that says that?

And I might go, well, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And then I say, well, where in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 does it say that Jesus is going to return, take the church off the earth, and before, during, or after a seven -year period, and the

Antichrist is then going to make a covenant with Israel for three and a half years, and then break that covenant.

And then all hell's going to break loose. There's going to be a rebuilt temple, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And many of them look at me like I'm from Mars, and like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, that's the rapture position.

And this is the thing. They've heard it said, they've heard it said about the rapture, that Jesus is going to return before all hell breaks loose.

You know, Jesus, we're going to be taken up into heaven, and we're either going to avoid the great tribulation, or we're going to avoid the first half of the seven -year period, or we're going to avoid the wrath being poured out at the end of it, or et cetera, et cetera.

And a lot of people don't know how that doctrine is built.

And so that's why I often begin with people on the rapture. I get them to try to define the term for me, and I say, how was that doctrine built?

Where did the seven years come from? And they don't have a clue. Most of them don't have a clue that there was even seven years involved in this thing.

I said, where did it come from? Now, the more astute ones would say, well, that's Daniel's 70th week. I said, well, where did that come from?

I thought, what happened to the 69 weeks? Well, they'll say, well, there's a gap between the 69th and the 70th week.

I said, where does it say that there's a gap between the 69th and the 70th week? So you just keep going on with it.

Now, you have to kind of know these things, and you've got to know the pitfalls of another position. And that's somebody who is really, really astute and really knows the dispensational system well.

Now, he and I would be debating these things and explain why there's a gap, etc.,

etc., etc. But the basic person in the pew and who's reading books on Bible prophecy, they don't know that.

They're trusting the people who are teaching them that. Here's one that a lot of people don't realize.

You hear people today that all the signs, all the signs for the return of Jesus for the rapture, the second coming basically is for the rapture, they're all in place.

You've got wars and rumors of wars. You've got Russia in prophecy. You've got Israel back in the land.

And I said, wait, wait, wait a minute. I thought you were a dispensationalist. And they said, well, I am a dispensationalist, they'll say.

I said, but apparently you don't know your dispensational system very well. I said, well, what do you mean? Well, according to dispensationalism, the rapture is an any moment event.

That is, Jesus could return at any moment. And Jesus could have returned any moment throughout church history.

It's a signless event. And it's funny, you go and you read a lot of these dispensational writers and they say it's a signless event.

And yet when they write books, they're talking about all these signs that are already there telling us that the rapture might be near.

And that's something that many, many Christians have no idea that their position is against teaching about signs.

But then you can't sell prophecy books if there are no signs that the rapture could come at any moment.

In fact, in the book of Acts, because of this imminent any moment rapture doctrine,

Jesus could have raptured his church any time during the book of Acts. And any time during the 2nd century, the 3rd century, the 4th century, the 5th century,

Israel being back in the land right now would be irrelevant concerning a sign for a dispensationalist because, again, it's a signless event.

And I had a debate with a very prominent dispensationalist, and he understood that doctrine well enough to say, well, yeah,

Israel's going to have to be booted out of the land again and be brought believing because you can't say

Israel in the land today is a sign because we're living in what's called the church age today and no prophecy is being fulfilled within the church age.

So, I mean, the whole system is very, very confused, very confusing.

And people believe these things because it's pretty exciting. It's exciting that we're living in the last days and Jesus is going to return and take you to heaven and you're going to escape all of this stuff.

And yet when you really press them on very specifics about that particular position, it falls apart immediately.

Now, you just mentioned a nameless dispensationalist, prominent dispensationalist who said that Israel has to be kicked out of the land and then brought back in believing.

Is that a rare view amongst dispensationalists? Because when I hear most, the vast majority, without question, of dispensationalists speak about the current day land in the

Middle East known as Israel, they are speaking of it as if it is the true

Israel. And that always perplexed me since it is an atheistic state, even though there are

Orthodox Jews that live there. The rulers of that nation are certainly not

Orthodox believers. But are they viewing Israel there now as the authentic article?

Well, I think they do, and this is why there is a great deal of schizophrenia. I'll give you a couple of examples.

This is from John MacArthur. I'm getting a book that's been out of print for a while back in print, and this is a particular chapter that I happened to be landed on, and it says this is what

John MacArthur wrote. And this is typical of a lot of guys. I'm not picking on John MacArthur. I have a whole bunch of these quotations from these guys.

He says, the rapture could happen at any moment. It is a signless, imminent event.

It is the next thing. No signs necessary. There are signs before the second coming, but there are no signs before the rapture.

We live in the life that at any moment, in any fraction of a moment, trumps sound, the angel calls, and we go.

This is the next event in God's plan. It's only for those who know and love Christ.

We're here to serve you and help you. Well, if that's true, then in 1947, if Israel being back on the land again is what

Tim LaHaye called a super sign, then in 1947, the rapture couldn't have taken place, and therefore it wasn't an imminent, any moment event.

And it's amazing to kind of read what these guys say.

Now, almost no one says, well, Israel has to be kicked out of the land again.

You could make the case, well, Israel's in the land, et cetera, and say, well, it's important to the period of the great tribulation, which is after the rapture.

But you can't say it's a sign now, because if it's a sign, and it happens within what they say is the church age, and the rapture is a signless event,

Israel being back in the land right now cannot be a sign of anything. This is just their position.

And go ahead. I was just going to say, so you are saying that that dispensationalist you debated has a rare view about Israel being kicked out and brought back in believing.

Yeah, because it's a very unpopular thing to say that, because talking about putting

Israel in jeopardy, because let's say that's the position, and let's say some country goes in there and bombs

Israel and throws them out of the land. Well, according to Bible prophecy, that would be irrelevant to Bible prophecy, because according to their position, that wouldn't be a sign of anything.

It would just be that they're Jews in the land, they get thrown out of the land, they get bombed out of the land, but sometime in the future,

Israel is going to be in the land, and the rapture is going to take place, but that's not necessarily a sign of anything.

That is their position. By the way, I also want to quickly add that I actually view

John MacArthur as one of my greatest living heroes of the faith, but I strongly and adamantly disagree with him on his eschatology, and I'm actually blessed to see that he surrounds himself frequently with people that disagree with him on his dispensationalism, which is much more than eschatology, but it's just good to see that, in fact, that he always maintained a very close friendship and brotherhood.

Oh yeah, that quotation just was on my screen because I'm editing this book.

Tim LaHaye, he has written 12 Reasons Why This Could Be the

Terminal Generation, and you say, well, wait a minute, how's that possible? The rapture is a signless event.

There can't be any reasons why, and Tim LaHaye even goes further than that because he takes the seven churches of the book of Revelation, Revelation chapters 2 and 3, and he sees those as seven different ages of the church age, and that the rapture will take place during the

Laodicean age, which we supposedly were now living in. And he said, well, wait a minute.

If the rapture was a signless event, and it was imminent, it could have happened any moment, that means the rapture could have taken place during any one of those so -called six church ages.

And look, this is the nature of this particular debate. People who claim, as you mentioned at the very beginning of this, interpreting the

Bible literally, when they're pressed on these types of things, it's difficult for them to hold on to their position when you press them on what they actually write.

In this particular chapter I'm working on here, I'm just quoting what they say about these things, and it's a pretty fair substantiation of that position.

But on the idea of Israel having to be booted out of the land again, that was a debate I had with somebody on a

Texas radio station a number of years ago. He actually said that. I actually have the audio of that program.

I'll have to see if I can find it and put it up on American Vision's site. We have to take a brief break right now.

If you have a question for Gary, remember he's only going to be on for another half hour, so please submit your e -mail immediately because we're already rapidly running out of time with his portion of the broadcast today.

So send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the first hour with about 25 minutes remaining is

Gary DeMar, president of American Vision, and we are discussing taking off your tradition's eyeglasses to see things biblically.

If you have a question, send it to chrisarnzen at gmail .com, and we do have a question from Robert in White Plains, New York, and Robert asks,

Do you believe that on the very last day of earthly history that the dead will be raised and caught up in the air with Christ?

I'm not talking about the secret rapture view of that happening a thousand years before the second coming.

I'm speaking of the very second coming itself in reference to the second physical coming of Christ.

I know that the verse second coming is nowhere found in the

Bible, but I'm speaking of his second physical coming, which is obvious that there are only two, in my opinion, of reading the

Bible. But as far as being caught up in the air, do you believe that will happen? There's some debate on 1

Thessalonians 4 as to whether that's... Well, I don't think it's talking about the rapture at all, but traditionally it's been the passage that deals with the second coming of Christ, that those who are alive will be caught up and that will be the end of history.

That's a passage that I'm still looking at. I have not been satisfied with anybody's particular interpretation of that passage.

I'm looking at a lot of other passages as well. I haven't gotten to them yet. I'm going through the

Bible basically verse by verse looking at passages because it's interesting that when you go through some of the creedal...

well, not so much creedal statements because there isn't a lot of Scripture attached to a lot of those creedal statements. And when you go to the confessional statements regarding eschatology, the things that you and I are discussing right now are never covered.

I remember there was a larger catechism that was...

I forget who it was written by. I think it was written by Voss.

I don't think it was Gerhardus Voss. It was another Voss. And G .I. Williamson did the editing on it.

In his editing of that, he said that he did not agree with Voss using

Matthew 24 -30 as a second coming passage.

I call it a consummating coming passage. He said that particular passage refers to events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem in A .D.

70. I think there are a lot of passages that are oftentimes used for what we call the second coming that are in reality related to events of the first century, especially that particular passage.

Anybody who is a preterist... I mean, Marcellus Kick, who wrote

Matthew 24, was the book that influenced me. All of Matthew 24, at least through verse 35, refers to events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in A .D.

70. So Matthew 24 -30 has to fit into that category. And if you go back and look at a lot of commentaries on Matthew 24, you will find that that's the case.

My belief is that all of these passages have to be looked at in terms of a better understanding of time indicators, audience relevance, the way it's used.

I'll give you another example. If you go to Revelation chapters 2 and 3, three times

Jesus threatens to come in judgment against three of those churches. Well, what coming is that?

How do you categorize that? And almost everybody I read... I think there's only one commentator

I've found who saw those things as related to the second coming. I don't know how you do that. But they all say, oh no, that refers to a judgment coming, and that language is very typical of language in the

Old Testament. If you look at Isaiah chapter 19, verse 1, it says that Jehovah comes on a cloud to Egypt and the idols tremble at his presence.

So I'm just looking at all these various passages, trying to figure out where they fit in the eschatological system.

One of the things I think the Church has not done, has not sat down and really developed a consistent eschatology covering all of the basic eschatology things.

You know, they've got the stuff at the end of history, Jesus returns at the end of history, etc., etc. But they don't really deal with much in between.

There's hardly any consensus at all. There's so much confusion over eschatology. You've got pre -trip, mid -trip, post -trip, partial rapture, pre -wrath.

You've got all -male, classic pre -male, historic pre -male, dispensational pre -male, post -millennialism, and so forth and so on.

I think it's a variable mix -up of teaching regarding eschatology.

And by the way, I found that Dr. Paige Patterson and the debate

I had with him on a Dallas, Texas radio program, KCBI, on May 15, 1991.

And here's what he said. The present state of Israel is not the final form. The present state of Israel will be lost eventually, and Israel will be run out of the land again, only to return when they accept the

Messiah as Savior. So, if one believes in a signless, imminent event, something called the rapture, this is more consistent with that, although I don't like the language with it.

I think that's very dangerous language. But again, the rapture position, which is probably the most popular one today, and the ones that most of the books that are written about today, that are all about signs and telling us, you know, money system, that they're going to put a microchip in you, and that's part of the mark of the beast, and so forth and so on.

Again, if there's an event called the rapture that's supposed to be a silent event, none of those things have anything to do with Bible prophecy.

Now, you mentioned Marcellus Kick, who wrote An Eschatology of Victory back in the 70s.

He actually wrote that book in 1948. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, and it was updated a little bit.

In fact, I've got the original version of it as well. It came out as a single volume, and I'm not even sure if there was a date on it.

It was a small hardback, red hardback with a dust jacket, and that was the first book that kind of turned me on to this.

I was in seminary at the time, and I was in seminary in the 1970s when Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth was out, and everybody was reading

The Late Great Planet Earth. I mean, the book sold, I think, 26 million copies in the 1970s.

It was deemed the most popular, best -selling nonfiction book of the 1970s.

Of course, we now know it was the best -selling probably fiction book of that time as well. But yeah,

Kick's book took all of Matthew 24 up through verse 35 as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and then he says there's a transition verse at verse 36.

So, but Kick was very influential in my kind of pilgrimage in this particular area.

But he was clearly a post -millennialist, which is not to be confused with a hyper -preterist, because I can't think of anything that lacks victory as much as hyper -preterism does.

I mean, you have sin being perpetuated through all of, into the future, possibly for eternity into the future, unless man destroys the planet

Earth. But almost every single time that you've been on, there have been people who are questioning me that you've become a hyper -preterist.

Do you want to settle that now and forever? Yeah, yeah. Again, you brought up the point.

A hyper -preterist, a full preterist, I don't like the term hyper -preterist. I think full preterist is probably a better designation.

Everything ends in A .D. 70. Well, I don't believe everything ends in A .D. 70. That's where I guess my post -millennialism kicks in, but I don't even like that term because that's dependent on Revelation chapter 20.

But I believe there's a lot left to our future, how it all comes to an end.

I don't think the Bible gives us direct specifics on how it ends. There's some debate on 2

Peter chapter 3 as to John Owen, John Lightfoot, John Brown, and others saw 2

Peter chapter 3 as not having anything to do with the full burn -up of Heaven and Earth and sometime in the future.

They actually saw that as related to events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in A .D. 70. So there's even some debate on what 2

Peter chapter 3 is all about. But I would say that's a minority position. David Chilton wrote a very, very good article on 2

Peter chapter 3 using John Owen, John Lightfoot, and others, John Brown. John Brown, banner of truth, published

John Brown's Discourses and Sayings, and that's the John Brown that took that position on 2 Peter 3.

And then there's a book called Israel and the New Covenant by Roderick Campbell.

There's a whole chapter on there on the New Heavens and the New Earth quoting all these Reformed writers and their interpretation of Isaiah chapter 65 and 66.

So again, the full preterists, that isn't even a good designation.

There's so many different varieties of full preterism today that it's hard to say what particular position of full preterism is the position of full preterism.

I guess the definition would say everything took place in A .D. 70, and at the end of it,

I think that's one of the biggest problems with full preterism. And so if you don't like post -millennialism as a label, would you like really, really, really, really, really optimistic amillennialists?

Well, I don't even like the, you know, optimism.

I just think these terms are too nebulous to explain things.

Because even the post -millennialist believes that we could be plunged into another dark age where there are centuries of false teaching dominating the earth.

It's not like a straight arrow pointing upward. Well, true. I mean, you've got the Reformation that took place.

Things looked dismal during that time. I mean, so much so that the reformers designated the papacy as the

Antichrist. And the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 17th century document, did the same thing.

I mean, things were truly bad. You had World War I, you had

World War II, you had the Holocaust, and all those types of things. And the interesting thing, during that period of time, you had prophecy writers.

Oswald J. Smith wrote a book in the 1920s, taking all the Bible passages that people use today about the end, and he maintained it was

Mussolini. And he regretted this, because when Mussolini was finally executed, along with his girlfriend, well, that thesis went out the window.

And Oswald J. Smith, in a book that I read, it's my understanding that when he went out to speak in various places, he told people if they had a copy of that book, to please bring it in, and he would buy it back from them.

I'd like to see how Lindsay, who made something of a prediction that the rapture was going to take place before 1988, do that with copies of the late

Great Planet Earth. So, at least Oswald J. Smith had a bit of integrity, but he still was dealing with last day stuff, even up until the time of his death.

So, I think this is what happens when we start labeling things.

It becomes a shortcut for dismissal with it.

Like Calvinists, he's a Calvinist. Well, I think that's kind of a horrible designation for the position.

I mean, the same thing with Arminianism. I mean, come on. You attach it to a person?

That's not a good... It was the same thing with theonomy and Christian Reconstruction, which you end up with these terms, and then people use those as shorthand in saying, oh, he's a theonomist, or he's a

Reconstructionist, or he's a post -millennialist, or he's a Calvinist, or he's an Arminian, and all that.

That kind of cuts off discussion and debate, because what you end up having to do is then sit back and say, no, no, let me explain this to you.

And you say, well, you have to explain it to me, and it's going to take that much time, and it's probably not true.

I mean, I've heard that. Well, if you have to sit down and explain this to me, it's not true.

Or I say, well, why don't you read it? Well, I'm not going to read that. I mean, that's... So I try to avoid those types of terms, because I think it cuts off, you know, debate, and it also, it just...

People have to get the impression of what a particular word means based upon what someone else says about it, and you never get very far with it.

I guess I use those terms frequently, because I love getting into arguments. Well, yeah.

I mean, what jobs would we have if we couldn't argue about things?

Christians are always in a dilemma, because there are so many different kinds of Christians, or professing

Christians, that say, I just go by the Bible, and yet they're complete heretics. So we are in a dilemma in whether to use labels or not.

But I want you to give us your final summation of what you would have our listeners most leave with today, etched in their hearts and minds, because we're running into the midway break right now.

Well, I didn't want to just deal with eschatology. You know, I deal with... In fact, I'm working on a book right now, finishing, putting the final touches on it, about the case for America's Christian heritage, which should be out in the next couple of months.

It's going to be a hard pack, a full -color book. And that's another area of something that we don't have a handle on.

A lot of Christians will say, well, there's a separation between church and state. And I say, where does it say that in the

Constitution? What does the Constitution actually say? What does the First Amendment actually say?

And I said, you will not find the phrase separation church or state in the

Constitution. Yeah, it just says that the government shall not establish a religion. Well, it's not even that.

It says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

And you say, why does it just say Congress? Well, because Congress is supposed to be the only lawmaking body we have in the

United States. The Supreme Court doesn't make law, neither does the President. And then you'll find something about the three -fifths.

You know, black people were considered three -fifths of a person. Well, if you read the Constitution, that's not what the

Constitution is saying. There's more hermeneutical principles than just the

Bible that get Christians, and people generally. This isn't just a Christian's problem.

People just don't know. They're not aware of the issues. They don't study the issues.

They don't pay attention to what the topics are. They don't pay attention to the wording of things. They listen to people on the radio like you and me.

And what you and I want to do is we want to go, look, check these things out.

Here's a place you need to go. Read the actual First Amendment to the Constitution and see what it says.

Read the whole thing, not just the thing that I just quoted. And I remember debating a fellow on America's Christian Heritage, and I always prepared a notebook beforehand so I would be prepared.

And Eddie Tobosh, Dr. Greg Bonson debated him too, but I debated him on America's Christian Heritage.

And Eddie Tobosh quoted something, and I said, wait a minute, I've got that. I've got the full quotation in my notebook that I put together.

And I, you know, paged through and said, here it is. I said, well, yeah, Edward Tobosh quoted this, but let me give you the rest of the quotation.

And I quoted it. It was one of those just great moments in my life when

I was actually prepared for something that I thought might come up. And that's the thing.

We read the Bible, as Francis Schaeffer said, we read the Bible in bits and pieces.

And we oftentimes read so many other things in bits and pieces, and we're carried away by what other people say and what other people's views are without checking these things out for ourselves.

And this is what the Apostle John talked about, you know, test the spirits. Be a

Berean. And I know we say that over and over again, but go back to Scripture and see what Scripture actually says about these things.

Well, you've proven once again that you have to be on for two hours on Iron Shepherds, on Iron Radio, because we're out of time.

Chris, I'd rather people say, boy, I wish Gary were on for another hour. I wish he would shut up.

Well, I look forward to having you back on to discuss the book that's not yet in print that you just mentioned.

And I look forward to having you back on frequently. And just to remind our listeners, your website is AmericanVision .org,

AmericanVision .org. Thank you so much, Gary, for being our guest today.

And don't take too long before you return. All right. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. God bless you, brother.

And don't go away, folks, because we do have a second guest coming on. We have a second guest that is coming on,

Matt Kennitzer of St. John's Reformed Church in Freidensburg, Pennsylvania.

He is going to be discussing, Our Theology is Inescapable and Will Influence Our Lives. And this is the longer than normal break in the show, so please be patient.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. If you're near retirement or thinking about retiring, you probably have questions.

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Before we introduce my second guest today, Matt Kennitzer, Senior Pastor of St.

John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, and our discussion on our theology is inescapable and will influence our lives.

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John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania. On our theme, our theology is inescapable and will influence our lives.

That's great to be back, Chris. Yeah, it's great to be having you back, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

And why don't you tell our listeners, for those that are unfamiliar with you and missed your previous interview, tell our listeners about St.

John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania. Yeah, so St. John's Reformed Church is up in Schuylkill County of Pennsylvania.

It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. We have a population of less than 1 ,000, and I just came over to the church about almost four years ago coming from the state of Oregon, the capital.

So it was quite a culture shock coming from that population down to this. But the church used to be in the

UCC about 2006, and they came out of the UCC on the homosexuality issue mainly.

And through the retiring of the pastor previously, they were looking for a pastor who was dedicated and strong in the doctrines of grace.

And so I came out here after an MDiv that I did my work out in Oregon, and me and my wife and two girls at that time, and she was pregnant on the drive over, and we came out here.

And God has been doing an amazing work in this church, revitalizing it, bringing the truth of the gospel to a church that was very moralistic in many ways from a lot of the baggage of the

UCC. And we are doing just some great, great work, and God is blessing and being merciful to those here and adding to our number, too, so it's been good.

And for those interested in finding out more about St. John's Reformed Church of Freidensburg, Pennsylvania, go to sjrcpa .org.

S -J -R -C, standing for St. John's Reformed Church. P -A, standing for pennsylvania .org.

S -J -R -C -P -A .org. Well, we have quite a,

I think, interesting subject at hand here. Our theology is inescapable and will influence our lives.

And let me also introduce into the discussion something that you will either agree or disagree with yourself, but I think it's inescapable to have a theology.

In other words, even people that claim they don't do. An atheist or professing atheist who may be an advocate for introducing transgenderism and homosexuality into elementary school and even kindergarten classes, they may say, oh, we are not importing theology into the classroom, it's only the annoying evangelical

Christians who want to do that. Well, they are importing theology because they are saying that the

Bible is filled with lies, even if they don't use that terminology. By declaring that transgenderism and homosexuality are not only acceptable, but worthy of celebrating, they are saying, without using the words, that God is a liar, that the

Bible is filled with lies and we should not pay any attention to it. So they are taking a theological position, and, of course, those aren't the only issues, but there is a host of other issues where people may think they are getting around from imposing their religion on others by saying that they don't have a religion or they're not using religious issues in whatever activism they're involved in.

They are clearly mistaken. Am I right on that? Yeah, I would completely agree, and I think that's the whole premise of why this issue is so important, because you're exactly right.

I think everyone is a theologian, and R .C. Sproul kind of coined that term in a way with his systematic theology book, where he kind of drives a little bit of that point.

But everyone's religious. They build and move from a religious standpoint.

Everybody has a worldview. Everybody has a theological framework that they work from.

There's no such thing as secular. There's no neutrality. So when you fundamentally understand that and understand that God has made us to be for him, and when we rebel in our sin against him and turn away from him, then there is a void that we are filling automatically, and that's driven by an ideological theological framework.

And so everybody knows that God exists, every single person, no matter who they are, no matter what they believe.

And so when we are in rebellion against God, there's something else filling in that gap.

And so as you brought up the education in our nation right now, it's very interesting.

I saw recently the Department of Education was putting out this teaching that was supposed to be for young kids in public schools, and what they termed it as was gender ideology.

And the terminology that they used as kind of a heading, they said, self -defined, disintegrated, postmodern, quote -unquote anthropology of public education.

And you can't tell me that that's not a theological statement. So we get that here.

It's being shoved in the education system. Up in Canada, when that Bill C -4 was passed, you read that statement, the preface of it and all of it, and there is theological threats running all the way through it.

As you mentioned, it's similar to where people say that the

Christian faith is full of myths and lies. They're coming from a theological framework.

So everybody knows that God exists. Everybody has beliefs about God, about what

He does, how He does them. The problem is that most of that is unbiblical.

But we're coming from that framework as human beings made in the image of God. In our rebellion, we're trying to fill a gap that only

God can fill. And so we are running from a theological framework in everything.

And even worse than professing atheists, agnostics, humanists, and secularists, claiming that they don't have a religion, or theology,

I should say, are professing believers who will view theology and doctrine as something that really gets in the way of truly enjoying the

Christian experience and even truly worshiping

God with joy and passion. And there's a common regurgitated statement, you know, doctrine divides.

Let's just forget about doctrine and lift up Jesus. In fact, while saying that,

I am reminded of a dear friend of mine, Robert Posch.

I don't know if Bob Posch is listening, but he's an old friend going back to the early 90s.

He is, or at least was at the time, an attorney for Doubleday Books and a devout

Roman Catholic with whom I had much serious disagreement, believing that he has a false gospel, et cetera.

But we maintained a close friendship and still do, in spite of the distances that have been placed between us geographically now that he's moved to Colorado.

But Bob used to have parties at his home, and the sole purpose of his parties were to invite

Catholics and Protestants over to his home so that they could eat, drink, and argue.

And that is what actually gave birth to the decade -long series of Catholic versus Protestant debates that I launched in 1996 called

The Great Debates featuring Dr. James R. White and Roman Catholic apologists who were his opponents.

And I can remember vividly sitting there overhearing a conversation that Bob was having at one of his barbecues, where a so -called evangelical was saying to Bob, I'm really getting tired of the religious nature of this barbecue and that doctrine and theology are dampening the spirit of togetherness that we could have.

Can't we just put aside doctrine and theology and just lift up Jesus? And Bob's response that I overheard was,

You see that guy sitting there? His name is Chris Arnzen. I disagree with almost everything he believes, but at least he believes in something.

You don't believe in anything. But if you could, let our listeners know what is foremost on your mind in regard to this subject that you actually yourself chose to discuss today.

Our theology is inescapable and will influence our lives. Yeah, well, to that point, and just kind of building off of what we just talked a minute ago, so now you're getting into the professing

Christian area, and when we throw out this idea that theology is just stale, it's just an academic exercise, it's just for those scholars and professors, then we are missing the whole point of what theology, what doctrine is, and ultimately where it comes from.

God has given us truth about himself. He's revealed it in content and words that we can study, and so that very doctrine, sound doctrine, biblically speaking, is healthy doctrine for our nourishment of our very souls, our very lives.

It informs us how to live. And so if we take that whole importance of theology and doctrine out, then we're missing a vital, vital important piece of our

Christian life. I mean, Jesus says, you know, praises in his high priestly prayer, sanctify them by thy truth, your word is truth.

And so if we take the truth out of that and the importance of it, the focus of it, then we're missing the root of our sanctification.

And so, you know, I hear a lot about, you know, why focus so much on doctrine, but when we understand more of what

God has said about who he is, what he does, how he does it, why he does it, all of what he's revealed in Scripture, then that's going to fuel my life to, as the

Spirit works within the regenerate heart, to have more of a hunger to live a life that's glorifying him, that's rooted in the truth.

Because if it's not rooted in the truth, then I'm just going off of my feelings, I'm just going off of my emotions, and we know those lie to us all the time.

And so, you know, theology is embedded in the very life of the believer.

In Ephesians 5, I've been stuck on this, verses 15 through 17, for a long time now, and it says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Now, how can we see that doctrine and theology is so unimportant when we come across texts like that?

And they're all over Scripture. And so, you know, God's truth is the truth that he nourishes our souls with, our minds, our hearts, our wills with, for our own good and for our own growth, and that turns back to loving him more, to having greater and deeper affections for him more.

And so when we say that doctrine divides, that doctrine is just stale, it's unimportant, we are doing a disastrous service to our

Christian life and ultimately to the glory of God. And there is obviously an element of truth in that statement, doctrine divides, because it divides those that are faithful to the

Scriptures from heretics, or those that are, at the very least, seriously in error.

And another issue that could be repeated is that everybody is importing doctrine and theology into the conversation, because even the statement doctrine divides is a doctrinal concept.

Just like those who claim they do not have a creed or confession and they only believe in the

Bible, that statement is in and of itself a confessional or creedal statement.

So these folks cannot really avoid the roadblocks or the bumps in the road that they are trying to avoid by somehow having a more pure, loving, and enjoyable faith experience by just focusing on Jesus, because the issue is then, you remove doctrine and theology, what

Jesus are you trying to exalt? There are many different kinds of Jesus that are being presented to the world in varying churches and cults and world religions, and in greeting cards, and in all kinds of places, and in Christmas and Easter specials on National Geographic Television or the

History Channel. It's interesting how you very often, if not most often, during those seasons of the year, when you see

Christmas and Easter being discussed on one of those secular television networks, you have people who are avowed atheists and agnostics talking about this, like Bart Ehrman and others.

They'll have them as the speakers, because Bart Ehrman, this may be news to our listeners, but although he is an agnostic, he does believe in a historic

Jesus. He does believe that Jesus actually lived and walked the earth, unlike some who claim to be atheists and agnostic.

But people have to really examine the things that they say and the things that they teach and declare.

I mean, it's really ridiculous at some point, isn't it? Yeah, and I mean, just that statement, you know, no creed but Jesus.

I mean, then you have to ask, well, who is Jesus, like you point out. And it's so fundamental to understand that and to,

I mean, just, we don't, it's faith. Saving faith is not a blind faith that you have no idea who anything is.

You're just kind of going along by your emotions and feelings, like it's the doctrine, the content of the doctrine has, or the content of the gospel has doctrine attached to it.

It's statements of indicative, statements of truth, and so, you know, you can't separate the two things.

And so many people are trying to nowadays, and that's just, I mean,

I get a kick out of people on Facebook who try to mock

Christianity, and by doing so they post videos of like Kenneth Copeland or Joel Osteen or people like that, and they're trying to mock

Christianity. But it's like, that's not even Christian. And so, you know, your presuppositions, your theological framework is guiding all of the things of how you discern stuff.

And to look upon the Church without understanding of what the Church really is, what it looks like, the doctrine involved in it, you're missing the whole picture.

And so we have to really come back to this and really understand this in so many practical levels because our theology will influence our life automatically.

Whether it's how we view our salvation, how we view the structure of the

Church, whether it's worship, whether it's Church government, how we view our homes, school, politics, like, it feeds everything.

You know, and so you hear, we heard a congressman not too long ago say,

God's will is of no concern to this Congress. Well, he's making a theological statement when he says that.

And so the Church needs to come back to understanding that theology is running through everything.

And so when we back off from theology, when we say it's unimportant, when we say it's divisive or whatever in kind of the mentality that we say it in, that stereotypical meaning, then, you know, we're retreating again from the societal influence that God has called us to.

We're retreating from the public square thinking that theology doesn't influence life, but it actually does in the very fabric of life.

And so we're missing it in core issues. Now, what were the compelling factors in your life and in your ministry that really engraved on your heart and mind your interest in the necessity of discussing this issue?

Well, I mean, there's a lot of practical times where it's come up.

And, you know, I was doing marriage counseling one time, and we were going through why marriage, you know, what the illustration that marriage is in driving us to the promise of God, the union of the

Christian and the triune God, and the covenant, you know, all of those aspects.

And we were building that foundation, that deeply theological foundation.

And a comment that was made to me was, I don't know if we really want to go this deep, we're really not theologians.

And I'm just thinking, like, yeah, you are. And the way that you're going into your marriage right now, you're paving a ground that's really trying to pave it on something else.

Like, you need to be rooting it in theological, deep understanding of foundational issues, marriage being so utterly important in that life that we need to connect it to our theological understanding.

And so, you know, you have practical issues like that that people don't see that are affecting their very life, and then you run into other issues within the

Church where, you know, you have that objection, the doctrine is just going to divide.

And you made the correct statement, of course it's going to divide into what is true and what is not, what is false and what is true.

And so, you know, we need clarity in our day. You know, we see so many statements of faith on Church websites that are so vague, so undetailed.

The very building of the UCC that this

Church came out of, all of the merging was based on the very premise that they didn't want to be doctrinally distinct, clear on what they believed.

They thought unity was in just this type of love that really was wishy -washy on doctrine.

It didn't really matter. And so, the burden is really that we are not seeing how this affects every area of life automatically.

And so the more that we're conscious about it, the more that we can wrestle with it, engage with it, and by God's grace, utilize what

He's given us, and trust and pray for the Spirit of God to work in the minds and hearts and lives of those who are truly in Christ so that we can regain a greater understanding of how theology is so critically important.

And it's not just a stale knowledge in your intellect mind. It'll feed your life.

It'll fuel your life. It'll affect it as God moves. So it's vitally important in many practical places that people don't see.

Yeah, I have heard my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who, as you know, is going to be speaking,

God willing, at my next Iron Trip Insider Radio Pastors Luncheon in Loisville, Pennsylvania, on September 22nd.

But I have heard him in response to this whole area of people who say that theology and doctrine are really intrusions into fully enjoying the

Christian experience. He will say, imagine saying that you love your wife with all of your heart, and when asked about details about your wife, about what color her eyes are, what are her favorite foods, what are her favorite recreational things to do are, her favorite music, what makes her laugh, what makes her cry, what are her passions.

If you just keep saying, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, how infinitely more important is to know details about God and to say that you're just lifting up Jesus and removing details about him, his nature, his work, is really ridiculous.

Because if you love him, aren't you going to want to learn as much about him as you possibly can? Right, and even endeavoring into understanding the truth of what he has revealed about himself.

You know, you take the illustration of marriage, and so if my wife is saying, you know, she likes this and she does that, and she does that a certain way or whatever, but then

I come back and say, well, she likes this instead, she does this instead, and I'm coming back with a misunderstanding of who she is, what she does, what she likes to do, how she does things, then

I don't know her. And I've not grown to know her, it doesn't show that I'm coming to understand her more.

And so, you know, by the Spirit, the Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and he teaches truth, that is one of his main jobs.

And so, you know, as he sanctifies us, he teaches us about himself.

And so we grow in alignment with his word, according to his word. Obviously that's not perfect, you know, there's all of that, but, you know, it's that illustration of do we know him, do we want to know him, is that the type of relationship that we have, where it's the intimacy, that relational aspect that is much deeper than earthly marriage, that we are striving to know the

God that saved us from ourselves and his judgment. And to take that away, or to walk perpetually in an essential misunderstanding of who he is, is so far from what he's ordained and what he's called the

Christian to do. We do have a listener who chooses to remain anonymous.

He or she says, I am remaining anonymous because I do not want to unnecessarily insult pastors and speakers who have been present at the congregation where I am a member, who have been,

I think, guilty of what I'm about to say. Although I agree with everything that you two are talking about, isn't it an equally serious danger that some men who ascend behind a pulpit use very deep theological terminology that is not a part of your average person's everyday speech without clearly explaining what they are talking about?

It seems at times that men who do this are just trying to impress their hearers by showing off their large vocabulary.

I'm not talking about dumbing down a message, but I am saying that those who speak a lot about theology and doctrine should always be clearly defining what they are saying so that your average audience member can clearly understand what they are trying to convey.

Yeah, I would agree with that, because we need to be conscious of this very issue and the necessary points of needing to understand that everything is theologically driven, but yet at the same time there is a great malnutrition, there's a great illiteracy theologically in a lot of churches, and so when you step into the pulpit,

I hope and pray that a pastor isn't coming in in a prideful way and wanting to show off their robust theological understanding and putting on a show in that prideful way.

So we ought to go into those pulpits to try to explain these great theological truths that are in Scripture, and to be conscious about the problem of theological illiteracy that's rampant all over the

Church, and the fact that everybody is running from a theological framework and most of it, unfortunately, is unbiblical today.

So being conscious of that and coming across terms like sanctification.

You know, you've come across that, now explain it. Give illustrations that can help people understand that.

Take time to give clarity to what these doctrines mean, and to bring people up to Scripture, bring people up to what

God has declared, and do so in a way that tries as much as we can. I mean, obviously we're all imperfect, and we don't read every situation perfectly, but consciously trying to explain these truths so that people can grow in them.

I try to, every time I talk about God's providence or sanctification or those terminologies like that,

I try to explain them. I try to reiterate the explanations with illustrations.

I'm trying to be conscious of not only where my church has come from, and being in the

UCC, which is totally anti -Christian, anti -gospel, but also trying to be conscious of where people are in their walk, and helping them understand it.

So that is a big issue to try to be clear, and unfortunately, hopefully, you know, unfortunately there may be pastors there who are just wanting to sound astute, scholarly, when they're missing a way to really shepherd

God's people in great truths. I mean, you know, you think of the confessions of the

Reformed Church. They are so deeply theological, but they're so pastoral.

They come from shepherds' hearts. And so we need to be that same way in explaining, because we shepherd souls.

And we have to go to our final break. And if you have a question for Pastor Matt Kinnitzer, please send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

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

Pastor Matt, we have a listener in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Susan Margaret, who says,

There is a saying that is very often misused, but I still think that it has merit repeating, and that is there are those who are so heavenly -minded that they are no earthly good.

Now, obviously, if somebody is truly heavenly -minded, theology and doctrine are going to be an essential focus of their life.

But at the same time, there are those who may be able to memorize vast portions of Scripture and speak for hours about the deep details of theology and doctrine but are doing nothing for the sake of others in the body of Christ, nor are they evangelizing the lost.

Don't we always have to keep this in balance as even is included as a warning in the

Epistle of James? Yeah, it's always a balance.

Reflecting more on the theological truth of God should drive us to activity in life.

That's what it's designed for. That's what God has ordained it to be. So if it's really just staying in our heads, and it's just staying within our little bubble of whatever we call our

Christianity, and it's not affecting our life, it's not feeding into our lives in society and influencing those, then what is our faith?

Is it without works? Is it dead? Those are the questions that we have to vitally ask now, especially in our day where there's so much emptiness.

And so we need to really see that balance. And it's hard to walk with that balance.

We're sinful, imperfect human beings who falter so much.

But that's why we need to be so conscious of just the truth that we're talking about today and how real it is, how everybody's running through a theological framework.

It's inescapable. It will influence your life. And so us as Christians, we're called to be very deliberate on how we handle these things.

We are to walk in love and truth. What does that even mean? They cannot be disconnected, and they have to be defined within the same area as each other.

And so she's absolutely right of the tendency to just be so stuck in our theology when it's really not affecting our life.

And so given the situation in our nation especially, but in the world for sure, is we need to be going out into the public square with our theology that God has entrusted us to, especially in the content of the

Gospel itself, and go into the public square with our theology influencing not only what we say but what we do.

And so this is something that the Church really needs to find a biblical balance in because we are so inept to run to imbalances often.

And I think that you mentioned the importance of love, obviously. We have to remember that when we are speaking with those that we disagree, and we can be, even myself included, raising the hand of guilt here, that on occasion

I can be mocking and unloving of those that disagree. And we have to be very careful not to do that.

I'm not saying that we are to never mock things that are outlandishly absurd and heretical and blasphemous, but we at times are too cruel to our brethren in Christ to disagree, and we have to be very cautious about that, don't we?

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's one of the reasons why this is so important in our day today is we need clarity on what the

Christian faith is. And then we need to distinguish between the line between what is essential, what is defining to the

Christian faith, and what are secondary issues that we can differ on, have great, bold debate, intense debate, but doing it lovingly.

So we need clarity today, especially. And it's the responsibility of the leaders of the

Church, the pastors of the Church, and so we need to inform our people and shepherd them in these ways.

Now we're almost out of time. I want to make sure that you announce to our listeners some upcoming important special events you're having.

Yeah, so on June 5th we're going to have—we started a biblical institute last

June, and so it's every Sunday afternoon, doors open at 3 .30, classes start at 4, it's open to anybody, it's free, come as you want.

And this June 5th we're going to have Matt Truella, the author of the Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates, he's going to be coming and speaking on interposition and what he feels are the pressing issues of today.

And so that's going to be a really great time, and we're looking forward to adding other outside speakers to come in and do kind of the same thing.

So June 5th, about 3 .30. And they can go to the website for more information and contact me if they need to.

And that website is sjrcpa .org. S -J -R -C for St.

John's Reformed Church, P -A, the abbreviation for Pennsylvania, dot org. S -J -R -C -P -A dot org.

And I also urge you to listen to the interviews that I conducted with Matt Truella and also our guest today,

Matt Kennenser, on the book that was just mentioned by Pastor Matt, the

Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. So if you go to ironsharpensironradio .com

and click on past shows podcast, you type in the search engine

Truella, that's T -R -E -W -H -E -L -L -A. That's obviously the only person

I've ever interviewed with that name. That interview will come up, and I hope that you are blessed by it.

You have about 90 seconds to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Theology matters very deeply. Theology matters, and it will affect your life. So God has given us that nourishment for the

Christian life to love him, glorify him in all of our life.

So Christ be the glory. Yeah. Imagine somebody saying that, oh, policy does not matter at all when it comes to a political office holder, an authority in our government.

It doesn't matter what their policies are, what their agenda is. Oh, it doesn't matter what you eat and drink at all.

You know, you can be a glutton and you could drink to excess.

It doesn't matter. You know, if you say those things, people will think you're insane. But when people say that about theology, oh, theology doesn't really matter, doctrine doesn't really matter.

They are obviously entering into an area of idiocy. Yep, yep, you're exactly right.

Well, I want to thank you for returning to the show. I'm looking forward to having you come back on the program, and perhaps next time we can have you on for the full two hours.

I know that there are a lot of things that you have to say that will bless our audience. And once again, just to repeat the

Web site that we just mentioned for the church where Pastor Matt Kinnitzer is the pastor, sjrcpa .org,

sjrcpa .org. I want to thank you so much, Pastor Matt, for being an excellent guest.

I want to thank everybody who listened today. I want to thank Gary DeMar for being our first guest today. And I want to thank all of you who took the time to write in questions.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. Thank you, Chris. Take care. Thank you, brother.