April 8, 2022 Show with Dr. Joe Morecraft on “An Assessment of the Church in the 20th & 21st Century”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Intro and Scriptural Theme

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 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.

Chris Arnzen Reports on the Pastor's Luncheon and Introduces Dr. Joe Moorcraft

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 8th day of April 2022.

And I am still shouting praises to the Lord Jesus Christ for the wonderful event that he enabled me to pull off yesterday, and that is the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio biannual pastor's luncheon. It was just such an enormous success with nearly 100 men there, and it was so much of a blessing to see so many of the Christian book publishers come through as they normally do and provide 100 copies of each title I selected from them.

So there were thousands of books there that the men received for free, in addition to having a wonderful lunch provided by Perry County Cafe. And Dan Buttafuoco, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, to be more formal, attorney at law and founder and president of the Historical Bible Society, was my speaker, and he just blew me away.

I have seen him do many presentations before, never have gotten bored by any of them, even though I've seen them many times. But he actually spoke with a different focus yesterday on the need, the power, and the benefit of apologetic evangelism.

And it was just such an extraordinary event. One man after another after another kept approaching me after it was over with a big beaming smile, saying how amazing they thought Dan's presentation was, and thanking me for inviting them.

And so many of them, of the men present, have already signed up for my September 22nd Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon, which, God willing, will feature Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

So if you are listening and you are a man in ministry leadership, please email me at chrisarnson at gmail .com if you would like to put on the registration list for this free event, which will once again be held at the Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in Perry County, Pennsylvania, pastored by Doran Ray.

And I have to thank again Pastor Doran Ray, not only for allowing me to use his extremely large, spacious, and beautiful facilities for free, but he also provided members of his congregation who are volunteers, waiting and bussing on tables and serving food and drink.

And it was just an extraordinary blessing. They were the ones blessing me and the men, and yet they were profusely and repeatedly thanking me for allowing them to be the venue of this event. And I will keep you updated on when the recording, the audio and video of this event was recorded, and I will hopefully have that available to the public soon.

It might even be available today, for all I know. I know the Church of the Living Christ said that they were going to post it on their YouTube page, but I will keep you all updated as I receive updates.

Thanks again to all of you who made yesterday's event possible. I'm afraid of starting to list those who helped to make it possible in fear I'm going to forget someone, so I think I better just be safe and say thank you to all of you who made the event possible.

I could never have done it without you, and you know who you are. So, praise God, he is so good. Today we have on the program someone who has been on my show so frequently. Somebody actually recommended I change the name of my program to Iron Sharpens Dr. Joseph C. Moorecraft III.

I have him on this program so frequently because I love him, and he's one of my favorite guests. He's a brilliant man who has far deeper insights than I do into all things theological, doctrinal, and historical, and he is the pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

Today we are going to be addressing an assessment of the church in the 20th and 21st century, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Joseph C. Moorecraft III.

It's always a pleasure.

Why don't you explain or describe for our listeners who have not yet heard you. Tell us something about Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia.

Well, Cumming, Georgia inherited seven years ago.

Amen. Well, I'm sure they view it as a great privilege and honor to be sitting beneath your teaching, preaching, and shepherding. And for those of you who want more information about this church, whether you live near Cumming, Georgia, or passing through there, or have friends, family, and loved ones in or near there, the website is heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

And I know that one of your elders, Tim Renshaw, operates a website. Could you tell us about that as well?

It is called comprehensivechristianity .com.

And in addition to that, I know that you have a multi-volume commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism. Tell us about that as well.

Opinion on biblical Christianity.

I just want to read Dr. Joseph A. Piper's endorsement of this. He is president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina. He's also been a guest on this program and has written a wonderful endorsement for Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio as well.

But Dr. Piper says about the eight-volume commentary on the Larger Catechism by my guest, Dr. Moorcraft, which is titled Authentic Christianity. Dr. Piper says, Every Christian who is serious about the Reformed faith and the Westminster standards should have and use this set.

It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology. And that is quite a high bit of praise from someone of the very high caliber of Dr. Joseph A. Piper, Jr.

The Church in the 20th Century and the Rise of Theological Decline

Well, today we are going to be addressing an assessment of the church in the 20th and 21st century. It's hard to believe when I think about it that we are nearly a quarter of the way through the 21st century.

I'm just amazed by that because I can remember thinking with awe that when it was New Year's Eve 1999 that we were entering into a new century, the year 2000, and it's already 2022, just three years away from being a quarter of the 21st century.

It is hard to believe.

But, well, I will sit back, relax, and listen as you begin your assessment of the church in the 20th and 21st century, obviously beginning with the 20th. What were the highlights of the church and also the very low points of the church that you care to bring up as a part of our discussion?

Yes, sir.

By the way, I still give away, whenever the timing is appropriate, Pastor Thornwell's superb book, Refuting the Authenticity of Roman Catholic Baptism. I don't know if you agree with Pastor Thornwell on that, but I sure do, obviously.

And it's something that is a very rarely believed teaching amongst Presbyterians these days. Most Presbyterians accept Roman Catholic Baptism, but I don't know where you stand.

It was of the Old South. Everybody ought to have the gospel. Everybody ought to have theology.

Wow.

You know, it's interesting, I'm fairly certain you're aware of this,.

But there seems to be a move among some men who appear to be theologically sound and confessional and Reformed who are trying to rescue the reputation of BART that's going on these days. Have you noticed that?

Yes, I have noticed that. And it has a lot to do...

Now, obviously, as a theonomist and Christian Reconstructionist, you are able to say, because there is a slander that the entire movement of theonomy is also allied with Christian Reconstructionism and theonomy because...

Oh, that the whole movement of theonomy is allied with feral vision, I mean. And because there are many... In fact, it might have even been the majority of those who launched the federal vision movement that were theonomists, but it is certainly not something that should identify the entire movement of men that would go under the umbrella of that label of theonomy.

In fact, can you pick up on the spirituality of the church that the movement known as that right after our first break? Because we have to go to our first break right now.

Sure.

And if anybody wants to join us with a question for Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Joe Moorcraft after these messages from our sponsors.

The Church of Christ Illustration and the Democratization of Christianity

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Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Joseph C. Moorcraft III, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia. He's also an author and has written an eight-volume commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism.

And we are discussing an assessment of the church in the 20th and 21st century. Our email address is chrisarns .gmail .com. If you have a question, please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Right before the break, Dr. Moorcraft, you were beginning to describe a spirituality of the church movement, I think is the way you phrased it. And if you could tell us about when this arrived on the scene historically in the 20th century.

How could it be? You're a post-millennialist.

There were some great things that happened in it.

That just reminded me of a joke that I will quickly tell. There was a ministers' conference where ministers of different denominations were speaking, and one of the ministers was in the Church of Christ, which believes that immersion in water is required for the remission of sins.

And so the men formulating the conference said to the Church of Christ minister, you cannot preach on baptism. So what we're going to do is we're going to give you a subject to preach so that we will likely be in agreement with you for the most part.

So I want you to preach on, or we want you to preach on Genesis 1 .1. So the Church of Christ minister got up to the podium when it was his turn. He said, I've been assigned to preach on Genesis 1 .1, which reads, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth, by the way, is about 80 water, which brings me to my next subject. Sorry for interrupting you, though.

Yes, sir. You might call Christianity as it came to the 20th century a democratized version.

And that's in South Carolina?

No, well, it's a different story. Because in the front, in the front of this Greek New Testament, those two days, but William Charles Robinson stood for the faith.

And by the way, you could get them through one of our sponsors, cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And you can just either type in the search engine, Robinson, and all of those authors that have that last name will come up.

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Now, can I just interrupt you and ask you, obviously, you're not an infallible prophet or anything, but do you have any idea or opinion as to what made the church at large such fertile ground to adopt such heresy at this stage from the late 19th century to the early 20th century?

It was already been brainwashed. Columbia Theological Seminary founded in Columbia, South Carolina in the 19th century.

Postmillennialism, Historical Hope, and the Limits of Eschatological Caricatures

Now, I think it'd be wise for me to interject here before we go to our midway break. There are dispensationalists and even, I would say, pessimistic amillennialists. I happen to be an amillennialist, but I'm an optimistic amillennialist, although I don't rule out being convinced of postmillennialism.

But there are, as I said, dispensationalists and pessimistic amillennialists and pessimistic historic premillennialists who will say, I don't understand this guy Moorcraft. He claims to be a postmillennialist, and we're saying right now, amen and amen and amen about the slide downward of theology in the church at large.

How can he possibly claim to be a postmillennialist? And I'm assuming that you would agree with me. It's because they don't even understand postmillennialism because they have a caricature of it. They think that folks in your theological or eschatological camp believe it's going to be just a progressively upward arrow as far as history is concerned and going into the future.

There will be no dips into the depths of depravity and tyranny as far as history goes. It's just a straight upward leaning arrow or upward directed arrow, but that's not what postmillennialists believe for the most part, is it?

In fact, we're going to have you pick up right there when we come back from our midway break, which we have to enter into now. And folks, please be patient because the midway break is longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, which airs this program, in fact, twice daily in a pre-recorded format in both morning drive and in the evening, they are required by the FCC to localize Zion Sherpa and Zion Radio geographically to Lake City, Florida, and they do so by airing their own public service announcements and other local things to keep in compliance with the FCC.

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials. So please use this time wisely, not only write down questions for Dr. Moorcraft and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, but also write down as much of the information as you can provided by as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

And when you cannot purchase their products or use their services or visit their churches or financially support their parachurch organizations, when you cannot do that, and we hope that you do do that as much as you can, but when you cannot do that, at the very least, will you please just respond to our advertisers and thank them for sponsoring Zion Sherpa and Zion Radio.

If indeed you love the show and you are grateful that there are some people and some companies and ministries and churches that value this show so much that they want to support it financially to keep it in existence.

If you're really grateful for that because you love the show, please thank our advertisers. We could not exist without them. And so thank them by using the contact information they provide and also send in your questions to Dr. Moorcraft to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We'll be right back after these messages.

Mid-Show Commercials and Sponsor Messages

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