June 28, 2024 Show with Aaron M. Brewster & Jay Miller on “Christian Responsibility in an Unchristian World”

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 in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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

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

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

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

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 28th day of June 2024.

Before I introduce my two guests and our topic for the day, I want to remind you if you are a man in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next free biannual

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon, which will be held Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. We are featuring as our guest speaker, for the very first time,

Dr. Joe Boot, who is an author, conference speaker, and apologist, in addition to being the founder and president of the

Ezra Institute. And this is a free event for men in ministry leadership, and not only is the admission free and the lunch free, but everyone who attends will receive a heavy sack of free brand new books that have been personally selected by me and donated by Christian publishers all over the

United States and United Kingdom. So if you'd like to register for this event, which, as I said, will be held on Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line.

Well, yesterday made history because it is considered by many on both sides of the political aisle to be a debate that featured the worst performance by a candidate running for president of the

United States in United States history. And although that is not the topic of our discussion today,

I believe that the theme of our conversation is not totally unrelated because this is just one area of the many areas where we who are members of the body of Christ have to be

Christians in an unchristian world have to behave in such a manner that reflects that we are indeed disciples of Christ.

And the actual theme of our program today is Christian Responsibility in an Unchristian World.

And to discuss this very important theme, we have, first of all, a returning guest,

A .M. Brewster, a certified biblical counselor, conference speaker, the president of Evermine Ministries, and the host of the

Best Podcast for Christian Dads and Moms, Truth Love Parent. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to On Interpret Zion Radio, A .M.

Brewster. Chris, it's so nice for you to say that, you know, saying it's the best podcast for Christian Dads and Moms.

I love when the host reads my bio exactly as I gave it to him.

It's great to be back, man. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you back. And joining us for the first time is

Jay Miller, pastor of Vail Valley Baptist Church in Vail, Arizona, with over a decade of experience in prison ministry while serving as a volunteer for Prison Fellowship, who is joining us today for the very first time, as I mentioned.

And if you have any questions for my guest today on the theme that I'd already mentioned,

Christian Responsibility in an Un -Christian World, send in your emails to chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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

USA. Well, I'd like to start, Aaron, by reminding our listeners, or even informing our listeners for the first time who have not already heard you on the program, let our listeners know something about Evermind Ministries and also the

Truth Loved Parent podcast. Yeah, so Evermind Ministries is a nonprofit that seeks to keep

God's truth at the center of the human experience, and each of us humans are very dynamic individuals.

For example, I am a son, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a friend, I'm a preacher. So all these things and all those different relationships prompted

Evermind Ministries to kind of create sub -ministries that will allow us to focus in on certain parts, facets of our being as we apply

God's truth to it. So Truth Loved Family was the first of those ministries created, and Truth Loved Parent is the award -winning

Christian parenting podcast with over 500 episodes now, and so that's where that was.

Then we had the year -long Celebration of God start with its podcast, the Celebration of God, and then also there's

Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship, which is where we do all of our crisis counseling and personal discipleship, and finally my

Traveling and Speaking Ministries are also part of that. So one of the things I encourage people to do, they can go to evermindministries .com,

but even better than that, they should download the Evermind app, and from there they can learn everything there is to learn about this ministry and how we can serve you, the individual, and the churches and schools.

Okay, and if you could now, Jay, give us a description of Vail Valley Baptist Church in Vail, Arizona.

Once again, I want to say thank you for having us out. Vail Valley is a small church out in Vail, Arizona, as you said, which is southeast of Tucson.

We're out in the desert, both ecologically and spiritually.

We are a community, as most of the West Coast is, that is kind of defined by apathy, a lack of interest in spiritual things.

No one wakes up wanting to be evil in the morning. They just don't care. Our church is endeavoring to change that.

We're reaching out to our community as a 1689 Baptist church that sticks to the

Bible, line by line, verse by verse, declaring the peace, truth, and hope found in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.

Great, and what would be a doctoral summary and description of the church?

We are a Reformed Baptist church that hold to the

Reformation theology. We are what

I laughingly and often call us biblical belligerents. If the Bible says it, we do it.

And if it doesn't, we don't. And that means we look a little different from the megachurches that you find out here.

But above all things, we want to be faithful. Great, and if anybody wants more details on Vail Valley Baptist Church in Vail, Arizona, go to vailvalleybaptistchurch .org.

Vail is spelt V -A -I -L. And hopefully we will remember to repeat that information at the end of the program.

Well, Pastor Jay, you are a first -time guest on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

And before we go into our major theme today with both you and Aaron, we would like you to do what all of our first -time guests do and give a summary of your salvation testimony.

And that would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. Sounds good.

I was raised in the Midwest, in Missouri, where everybody declared you were a

Christian and very few people actually acted like it. We were priesters.

Many places in the Deep South as well have that phenomenon. Phenomenal Christianity is rampant in the

Bible Belt, unfortunately. Unfortunately. We went to church on Christmas and Easter, and then as a family, later on, just stopped bothering to go at any time.

I kept reading all these new atheists that were coming out at the time, as well as the

Bible, and it occurred to me that if this is really true, lives should be fundamentally different from what

I was seeing. So I dismissed the whole thing out of hand. I considered Christianity foolishness, and if there was no impact on lives, what was the point of having it?

Joined the Army. Did some time there in Georgia. When I got out,

I came out here to Tucson, and I was working nights. I'm flipping through radio stations because it's

Sunday morning at 7 a .m., and there is nothing on worth listening to 20 years ago. I come across this guy named

Robert Furrow out of Calvary Chapel, Tucson. The first words out of his mouth were, if you agree with me on everything

I say, it means one of us aren't thinking. I know I'm thinking, so that must mean you're not thinking.

That is the first time ever in my life someone had suggested that Christianity was a faith not just of declaration and then no consequence, but one of thought and contemplation.

Still an Advent atheist. Started going to his church to prove all these foolish Christians wrong, and then started reading, and by God's good providence,

I didn't end up with Osteen or Meyer or Joseph Prince in my hand, but I was poor, and so I went to a thrift store and came across Spurgeon.

Spurgeon and Spurgeon and more Spurgeon. Not realizing I was getting the gold standard of Christian teaching for pennies on the dollar.

Started reading. Came to the in that I could not deny

Christianity was true. Gave my life to Christ and spent five or six years just buried in books.

Eventually it occurred to me that I needed to be doing more than just serving myself.

So I started teaching, or I started in the security team at church, and someone asked why we called

Easter Easter, and Theology Dork Jay has the answer, and I got pulled into Sunday school.

Start teaching there, and then one day Robert out at Calvary Chapel says, you know, we should have a prison ministry, and it was like the clouds parted and the skies opened up, and all of a sudden

I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Volunteered to help out at the prison and ended up getting paired with a group that didn't just teach scripted

Bible studies, but actually had Sunday services, and it suddenly occurred to me exactly what

I got myself into, and out of just the terror of mishandling God's word,

I went to seminary. From that point,

I spent 10 years in the prison, and I was perfectly content to spend the rest of my life as a volunteer pastor out in Arizona Corrections, until one day a friend of mine asked me if I could pulpit fill for a little church out in the middle of nowhere that I'd never even heard of called

Vail Valley Baptist. Went out there, taught, and then through just providence and providence alone ended up being the senior pastor out there.

Now, did you bring Reformed theology that you had already previously discovered to Vail Valley Baptist and assist in transforming that church theologically, or were they already believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace, a .k

.a. Reformed theology, a .k .a. Calvinism? When I first got out there, their statement of belief was a

Baptist faith and message. As the Southern Baptists have continued on with their liberal drift, which so many will say doesn't exist, but I believe is fairly evident,

I proposed that we leave the SBC, and the congregation agreed with me. If we were leaving, we needed a new statement of beliefs.

I have always taught Reformed theology, believing it to be the most accurate representation of what

Scripture teaches. So I proposed using the 1689

London Baptist Confession as our statement of faith as a promise.

It wasn't a demand that people believe everything that I believe, but a promise that anybody who walked in through those doors would always be taught what was in our statement of faith.

And I didn't think it was fair to the church or to anybody joining to misrepresent myself as anything than what

I was, which is a Reformed Baptist preacher. Now, could you go a little bit backward in time and tell us about how you came to discover the doctrines of sovereign grace?

Like I said, I ran into a thrift store and started reading

Spurgeon. From Spurgeon, he kept mentioning all these old guys that I'd never heard of before,

Jeremiah Burroughs and John Owen and all these Puritan writers. And I start reading them as well.

Well, gnawing on them slowly but surely, trying to make my way through these incredibly dense tomes of theology that were just wildly over my head.

I had always, I laughingly called myself a two -point Calvinist.

I really liked the easy stuff. You know, God calls us and he'll never lose us. But the other points of Calvinism were beyond my understanding at the time.

And it actually took going to an Armenian seminary. I went to Liberty Baptist. As I start wrestling with what they're teaching and saying, wait a minute, what you're teaching isn't lining up with what

I'm seeing in Scripture. Wrote several papers on Romans 9,

John 6, Hebrews, and ended up cementing my understanding of Reformed theology while at Liberty with Armenian professors.

Yes. And in fact, at one point there was a real heavy stream of vehement anti -Calvinism there at Liberty University.

But there was always at least a handful, to my knowledge anyway, a handful of strong Calvinists there on the faculty and so on.

So I believe they have since abandoned that vehement anti -Calvinist stance.

If I'm not mistaken, which I thank God for that development. Well, we are going to go to our first commercial break.

And when we come back, we're going to dive right into the subject at hand. Christian responsibility in an unchristian world.

And obviously giving details about the conference and how people can register for that as well.

But once again, if you have a question for my guests, please send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away.

We'll be right back. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio advertising family.

At Lindbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern to all who bear

God's image. If you live near Lindbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit LindbrookBaptist .org.

That's L -Y -N -BrookBaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not a result of words, so that no one may boast of the

Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I've been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I highly recommend this show. But today

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the Word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's Word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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Mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with A .M. Brewster and J. Miller and our discussion of the day is the same as the theme of an upcoming conference and it is the theme which just disappeared from my screen.

Christian Responsibility in an Un -Christian World. And our email address is chrisorensen at gmail .com

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. And J.

Miller, I'm assuming the theme for this conference was something that you came up with.

Why don't you tell us what compelled you to pick this specific theme? We have a bill currently going on our

November ballot called the Arizona Abortion Access Act. It will allow for the murder of the unborn up to the point of birth for any reason, mental or physical at any time.

allows anyone with a license, be that a masseuse, a dentist, an optometrist to declare that a pregnancy is now a disease and will allow the mother to kill her unborn child beyond the point of viability.

My sanctity of life sermon was actually kind of where we started, where this conference started.

I started thinking about what I wanted to say and I realized

I only have one option. With this abomination, this travesty of a bill that is coming up,

I needed to get my people out into the streets and declaring exactly what this bill will do.

They need to be following signature collectors around parking lots. They need to be talking to every person in their phone.

They need to be reaching out to every person they're connected to on social media and we need to be letting people know.

I started flipping through Scripture and I came across Ezekiel 3.

Ezekiel 3, starting in verse 18, it says, When I say to the wicked, you will surely die and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live.

That wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.

Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered yourself.

And that was the starting text for my Sanctity of Life Sunday message.

A declaration that we have a moral culpability as the church for our decades -long failure to speak up, to be more worried about being winsome than being true, about being more worried about being nice than being righteous.

That led to this idea when I started talking to Andrew of, well, let's flesh this out a little bit.

Let's spread out this idea from one tiny realm being the realm, very important realm, but a small realm of abortion to all of Christian life, and what would that look like?

Yes, that is an issue that is really, I think, one of the major problems within modern evangelicalism.

You have, on the one hand, on the opposite end of the spectrum, a problem that is, in my guess, a less frequent problem, and that is being bold and angry without the wisdom of the

Holy Spirit, without humility, where we may hurl insults and be more offensive than the gospel message itself.

The gospel is offensive enough to the unbeliever without us unnecessarily adding our own offensiveness, but the more widespread problem that I have found being a

Christian since the mid -1980s, a truly born -again evangelical

Christian, is that people are more concerned about offending others, hurting their feelings.

They're more concerned over that than they are over the never -dying souls of those whom we to those whom we proclaim the gospel.

And that even ties in with the current presidential race where you have

Christians who are passionate about their views of who they want to see in the position of the leader of the free world and sometimes in our aggressiveness and our disgust with things that the left stands for, including infanticide, including the sexual mutilation of our children in the name of the healthcare, so -called, of transgendered children, and all these things that happen.

We can lose our cool, and that would include me, and sometimes we forget that God is in control.

And we have to ever be mindful of the fact that we are to be, with certainty, righteously indignant.

We are to have righteous anger, but we have to make sure that we are not self -righteous in our way of communicating this.

But at the other end of the spectrum, the most prevalent problem is people who would either not want to bring up things like infanticide and the murder of the unborn just to keep peace with our friends, family, loved ones, and neighbors.

So, A .M. Brewster, why don't you comment on what I said?

Maybe you think I'm off base somewhere in there? No, you're 100 % right.

In fact, I was just kind of smiling to myself when Jay was sharing the theme verse for the very first message that he's going to preach at the conference, because my second message was going to end with that theme verse and with the sister verse to that verse.

Because the first of my messages is basically the idea of your responsibility in your worship.

But the second message has the idea of your responsibility in my worship.

And the concept there being that God 100 % expects us to be actively involved in the worship, which

I define as everything that we do in life. We are supposed to be intricately involved in each other, so when we are refusing to speak truth and love for the building up of that individual into the maturity of Christ, we are disobeying

God, we're hating that person, and we're not doing what's best for them. And too many people, you know, in an attempt to speak lovingly, they don't speak truth.

Either they don't speak it at all, or they speak a lie. But the reality is you can speak truth and not be loving.

We shouldn't do that. That's a sin. That's possible, though. But it's impossible to be loving if you're not going to speak the truth.

Either if you're not saying what's true, or if you're lying. That is inherently unloving.

It doesn't matter what tone of voice you use. It doesn't matter how winsome you come across. That is absolutely impossible.

The truth can be spoken without love, but you can't speak lovingly without truth. So I think you're 100 % right,

Chris. I believe that we, the church, absolutely must be speaking into each other's lives, the choices that we're making, sharpening each other, as the title of your show is, helping each other to grow in our conformity to Christ.

Amen. And by the way, I wanted to make sure our listeners know a little bit more about this conference coming up as far as the very long and impressive roster of speakers.

My very dear longtime friend Andrew Rapoport of Striving for Eternity Ministries is on the roster.

Kevin Hay, who I've had on the program, another very longtime friend who actually is a sponsor of this program.

John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Dan Kreft, I have not yet interviewed.

And Dominic Grimaldi, I've had interaction with in the past, and right off the top of my head,

I can't remember if I've interviewed Dominic yet, but I would love to do so.

Chris, I'm pretty sure you would remember if you had interviewed Dominic. Well, one of the reasons

I remember his name is because it happens to be the name of one of my former pastors,

Mark Grimaldi, and he is also a Reformed Baptist. And I remember having some communication with Dominic years ago.

And if he's listening, I hope that he will receive or accept my invitation to be on the program, even to discuss this conference coming up.

But can you tell us, Pastor Jay, why these men that are on the roster were specifically chosen?

We are a small church that is currently staffed by purely volunteers.

We are working very hard to get out of debt. I am friends with one of our elders, and a dear friend of mine,

Wayne Floyd, attends, and he was friends with Andrew. And I got a call from Andrew out of the blue one day, asking if I would like some books, if I could just cover the shipping.

And I was like, well, the shipping isn't even in our budget at this point. And we started talking about the heart of Bell Valley and what we care about and our passion to get the gospel and the good news of Scripture out to the world.

And it was suggested, well, maybe there was something else we could do.

And this was actually Andrew's idea. I am a prison pastor, and it's where I cut my teeth.

That's what I know. I spent my time in the prisons and rehabs and homeless shelters.

I've never done anything like this before in my life, and it never occurred to me that I would even attempt such a thing.

So I reached out to Andrew, and I was like, well, I love the idea of a conference.

Who do you know? Most of the guys that I know won't be out until, you know, 2045, 2055.

They're good Christian brothers, but they're going to be occupied for a few more minutes. And he started suggesting names.

Several of our lineup are Arizona pastors. Arizona is kind of in this weird space.

As the exodus from California has continued, we have become more and more bluish purple and more and more liberal.

And so there is this just profound apathy and lack of interest.

So we wanted to make sure that we had some Arizona pastors out that kind of are coming from where our audience will be coming from and understanding the challenges.

It sounds really good to say these are Christian responsibilities in a Christian world, but how do you make them listen?

What do you do when people just look at you and say, oh, that's great, I don't care? Well, there's a hundred thousand overdoses last year, tens of thousands of suicides, 30 % of Gen Z is trapped in the gender cult, but that's fine,

I don't care. It's just this profound apathy. And I know Arizona is not alone, but we wanted to make sure we had some

Arizona pastors who are kind of in that realm. And then Andrew, with his extensive podcast and all he has done,

I asked him, I was like, who are the best people that you think would be to teach?

I don't care who it is, if it's the biggest name in podcasting or Christian theology, or the wisest man that nobody's ever heard of.

We want truth. And Andrew was actually the one who suggested them. Of course, being the biggest name in Christian podcasting myself,

I wasn't available. In fact, it's amazing that Andrew shows up everywhere.

I'm always seeing his name on the roster. He's like a flyerist. He spreads through the air, he spreads through touch, he gets into everything.

Sure, he'll be thrilled with that analogy. We could use a few more pandemics like that. Amen. Well, that was a good rescue there,

Jay. We have Andrew in Dalton, Georgia.

Greetings in Christ, dear brothers. What are some practical steps to walking in holiness and demonstrating the grace of God that the

Lord has shown towards us when speaking with or simply living among lost friends and family members, while not coming across as holier than thou, as is a common charge among unbelievers?

Of course, that charge is often true, that people come across that way, but sometimes it's just a slander and it's not even true.

It's an automatic response that many people who hate the gospel just hurl at you.

Oh, you think you're better than me, don't you? But when people have accused me of that,

I have often responded with a quote from R .C.

Sproul, and R .C. Sproul was quoting somebody when he said this, but he didn't mention who he was quoting.

But the quote is, Christians are all beggars who are merely showing the other beggars where the food is.

And we have to remember that we are not innately superior to anyone, and in fact, we are the ones recognizing our own wickedness and the need of the

Savior, and if we were to keep that to ourselves, what a selfish and horrible thing that would be.

But anyway, why don't you respond to that, Jay, first, and then we'll have

A .M. Brewster respond. I would say, if we really want to demonstrate

Christian truth and that we are saved, one of the best ways to do it is to be

Christians that suffer well. C .S. Lewis said, why do Christians suffer? Because nobody can do it better.

As we come into this time of more and more open hostility to the faith, there are, it's going to be inevitable that real persecution is going to come.

I know the church has been kind of obsessed with, well, they said a mean thing to me on Twitter, oh,

I'm persecuted, or I abused this guy for a half hour and then he punched me, oh, I'm so persecuted.

Well, no, then you're just being a jerk. But persecution is coming. Real hardship is coming.

Being locked up for your faith, as the Brother in Canada was, for simply staying open during COVID, being debanked, being cut off from your social and financial ties has already started, and it's going to get worse.

Being those people who can do so, trusting in the grace and faith of God, or trusting in the grace of God and our faith that He has given us is one of the best ways

I can think of. And Aaron? Well, first I want to say, just for your listeners who don't know me or Andrew very well, that was all in good fun.

I love Andrew dearly, and I'm thankful for his invitation. I mean, his personality is viral, though.

That's a very, it's a true statement. But, you know, I love Andrew, and I know that Andrew loves me, and Jesus said that the one way that people would truly know that we are

His disciples is when we love each other. The problem, and it's not the problem with Jesus' words, it's the problem of our understanding, is that we've allowed the world, we've allowed this un -Christian world to influence our definition of love.

And it's gotten in, it's in the Church, so much so, where love is atone, or love is tolerating people, or love is simply accepting people as they are, or having to, like, even support what they're doing if we love them.

But love is really, it's a pretty simple thing. It's wanting and working toward God's best interest in the life of that person, whether they want it, whether they're deserving of it, it doesn't matter.

We are working towards God's best interest, which is going to take us back to Ephesians 4, 15, where I absolutely must speak the truth in your life.

So, it's, as we're in this world, right, there's that natural inclination to want to run from it, to want to hide, go run, spend as much time with Christians as we possibly can, because, man, out there, it's dark out there, and there is persecution out there, and it is rough out there.

There's the other extreme, where we become very hateful, where we stand on street corners, supposedly street preaching, but really, professing

Christians are just saying wicked and hateful and awful things, and they're pushing away these people.

But then there's the perfect example of Jesus Christ, who, he met these people, he interacted with them, he didn't quote -unquote just get them, no, he wanted them to get him.

He wanted them to know him, and so he spent time with them, he loved them, he met them in their need, but then he called them to follow him, he called them to change.

And I've seen it over and over again, really, every single time, that dynamic relationship where that other individual genuinely believes that you care for them, and that you're not trying to get something out of them, and they're not a project to you, they're not your enemy, but that despite your differences, you actually care for them, that overcomes, that overpowers, so, it makes them really drop their guard so often.

And the last thing I'll say about this particular point, just because, again, it's easy to get confused.

There's that old saying going around, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Unfortunately, we've taken that accurate observation, and what we've said is

I'm not allowed to tell them how much I know until I'm 100 % certain that they know how much

I care, and then months, years go down the line, and we've developed a relationship with them, but we're always questioning, is now the right time for me to show them what

I know? No, my friends, truth in love, truth comes first in love, and they go hand in hand.

And sometimes it's in that speaking of that hard truth, because faithful are the wounds of a friend.

It's speaking that hard truth where the people actually understand our love the most.

So, that was how I'd answer that particular question. We've got to truly not see these people as enemies.

We have to pity them, we have to love them, and we have to make that evident in our relationships with them. Yeah, you seem to be describing when you were referring to the negative aspect of people prolonging to an absurd degree and length of time their actual clear gospel witness to somebody because they want to make sure that that person knows that they are loved first.

And of course, there's a difference between developing a friendship with your next door neighbor and sitting next to somebody on a train or something, or meeting them in a waiting room when you maybe never see them again.

But people have taken what has become known as friendship evangelism and really twisted it and stretched it out to an extreme where the concept, and by the way,

I know that my listeners have probably heard me repeat this line many times being very critical of it, but if you'll be patient with me, it is quoted to me so often that I try to refute it whenever possible.

But that off -repeated line that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, whether he said it or not is not certain, but preach the gospel and when necessary use words.

In other words, it's really just predominantly the way we give an example of our

Christian life to others that is supposed to lead them to Christ and, you know, maybe squeeze in the gospel if you have to.

If Christ and His disciples went by that motto, they never would have been murdered.

Other than the fact, obviously, that God the Father ordained and orchestrated in His sovereignty the death of His Son on a human level, if they were just being loving and being helpful and kind and compassionate and generous, they would not have been martyred.

Am I making sense there? You are, and this makes me think about in Matthew chapter 5 where we're commanded to be lights in this world, and verse 16 says let your light shine before men, okay?

That's what we're talking about. That's what the first part of that I think that also equally bad quote is saying, you know, living the gospel, be a

Christian, right? Let your light shine before men. But here's the kicker. In such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your

Father who's in heaven, we could also say, and think more accurately, think better of your

Father who's in heaven. Now here's the thing. The world is filled with people doing decent, good things. I would even say the world is full of unbelievers even who do very

Christian looking things on the outside, and nobody is looking at that person going, praise

God. These philanthropists, Bill Gates or whatever, gives away millions of dollars or whatever.

No one's looking at that and saying, praise God. So the key is... Could you pick up where you left off there? Because it's a very important point.

We have to go to our midway break. Be patient with us, folks. 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.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put I Need a Church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to my guests

A .M. Brewster and Jay Miller, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and before the break, as you may remember, Brother Brewster, you were talking about how being very benevolent and charitable and wonderful in the way you behave and share your love and time and resources with those around you.

If it's not being done in the name of Jesus Christ, and because of His love for you, if you're not making that known to others, people are not going to be giving the praise, honor, and glory due to God for this.

If you want to pick up where you left off, sorry about that.

I had you on mute. Not a problem, man. That's the key right there. All good in this world is by God's common grace.

Human beings, we are totally depraved. There is nothing good in us. We will destroy ourselves when left to ourselves.

It's God's common grace in this world that keeps us from being as bad as we can be and allows us to be quote -unquote good in superficial ways.

There are a lot of people out there. I've known a lot of unbelievers who are sweet, wonderful people.

Of course, Romans 8 tells us it's impossible for them to please God when they're living in the flesh, so even their goodness is like filthy rags, and that's true of all of us.

Therefore, that point being made, the reality is that when people out in the world are good, very few people look at that and say, oh, that's because of God.

In fact, the world has us believing that we are evolving to higher states of nobility and that the godless mindsets are altruistic and they're good and of themselves.

In fact, a lot of people would make the argument that the only way you can be good is to stop believing in God and to stop being a religious zealot, and that's the only way you can be good.

And so therefore, the implication of Matthew 5, verse 16, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.

They have to know who your father in heaven is. They have to know about that relationship, why he's your father, what that means.

Again, this is really important because the word Christian, what does that mean anymore in our world today? So a lot of communication, a lot of conversation has to happen before they're even going to understand what it means, who my father is, what my relationship to him is, in order then to actually glorify him.

And to glorify him means to think correctly about him, to give him the praise and adoration that's due him.

And so there's also going to be requirements and conversations that need to be had in order to communicate that, so that these people in my life who

I know, when they see my good works, can then intelligently glorify my father who's in heaven.

Whether Assisi has said it or not, everyone who says, you know, share the gospel, and if necessary, use words, they're missing a powerful implication from Matthew 5, verse 16.

Okay. We have Desmond in Soddy, Daisy, Tennessee, who has a question for Pastor Jay Miller.

As a pastor, how do you give a balance in providing the truth in what you declare from the pulpit and teach at Bible studies, where there are people in your audience who may be offended because they are going through a particular season of trial according to something that you are preaching against, and they may think that you are talking about them, and they may think that you are being insensitive.

How do we seek to be sensitive without candy -coating truth? I have a really easy way of dealing with what

I'm preaching about. I preach the next verse. Paul tells us that we are to preach the whole counsel of God.

I'm on about a 40 -year pace through the New Testament, so we get to the next verse, wherever we stop.

The previous Sunday is where we start the next Sunday. That way, as people are going through, it's not

Pastor Jay or Vail Valley Baptist Church that's choosing the topic. Oh, Jay's picking on me because he knew that I did something that he doesn't like.

We just teach the whole counsel of God. I have never especially struggled with being concerned about being overly sensitive.

I tell people I'm as subtle as a cinder block. I'm not clever or wise enough or crafty enough to be one of these seeker -sensitive models.

God's Word is offensive at times. There are times that you're going to...

If you have a faithful church, there are going to be times you are walking out of that sanctuary, praising

God, jumping up and down, cheering in absolute, profound joy.

There are going to be times you limp out of there. Ugly crying, not rolling out your nose, just beat up by the truth of God's Word.

If you're not having both, you don't have a faithful pastor because the Bible does both.

The Scriptures teach both blessed are the peacemaker but also blessed are those who mourn and blessed are those who are persecuted.

It's not guarantees of comfort and ease but promises of righteousness and holiness and sanctification.

There's no guarantee that it's ever going to be easy. I simply go through the

Word and I teach it week after week, month after month, year after year, teaching whatever comes next and teaching it faithfully as I can as God intended it to be taught.

Yeah, I can remember years ago, I was a fairly new Christian at the time, but I remember during one of my pastor's sermons on Long Island, a woman bolted up out of her pew and quickly walked near a trot out of the building and I went after her just because I was totally curious what was going on.

She was obviously very upset and she happened to be a friend of my late wife who was visiting.

My wife was still living at the time and so I asked her, what's the matter?

And she said your pastor's talking about me and embarrassing me. He is talking about things that are going on in my life and how dare he share these things in public?

And I said did you ever even tell my pastor these things that you're talking about? No, but somehow he found out.

And I said, my pastor is just doing expository preaching. He's just going verse by verse, chapter by chapter and I've had that same experience especially when

I was very new in the faith where I was like, wait a minute, why is he talking about that?

And we should consider that a time for rejoicing because the

Holy Spirit may be awakening us to a problem that we need to evaluate in our lives and perhaps it's a sin that we need to repent from just like what happened, even though it wasn't a sermon but when

Nathan the prophet after David had

Uriah the Hittite murdered on the battlefield to cover up the fact that David had impregnated his wife

Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet approached him with the story that most of us know about the man who had a pet lamb that he cherished like a child and fed it at his own table and so on and a rich man who was having a guest stole the lamb butchered, killed it and served it to his guest and when

David heard this he was outraged and wanted that man brought to him so he could be executed and Nathan said, you are the man.

and so that was something that needed to be pointed out to David and even though that wasn't a sermon that could be what

God is doing with us, am I correct brothers? Aaron if you want to start

It's interesting because the the self -focus the selfishness that would allow us to get embarrassed in that moment actually believing what potentially for some people would be a ludicrous idea that this pastor knows about my hidden sins and is telling everyone about it is the flip side of the humility that we need to have where we say,

God open up my eyes and show me wondrous things from my law like I imagine that if Nathan the prophet were there talking to David that a truly

God loving individual who is thinking along those lines would have at that moment been thinking to himself, wow you know what

I've got something to learn from that I've done something that could fit that parable but David didn't catch it

David was furious at this man so that we personally obviously not to your listeners question but we personally need to have the humility to say

I have something I need to learn from this versus that pride that says how dare he suggest

I have something to learn from this anything to follow up with Jay I agree with Aaron wholeheartedly so much of scripture has become abstract stories to the people sitting in the pews they listen to the pastor preach and they say yeah yeah

I really should tell my neighbor about that particular sin how terrible it is ignoring the depravity in their own heart to be faithful Christians is to proclaim the gospel the good news that Jesus Christ came to save sinners but it's also to look to ourselves and say

I am that sinner God be merciful to me we have to set aside the justification and the rationalization and the ego and look to our own hearts honestly and say there is nothing good within me the only thing of any value that I have is

Christ and Christ alone and the only difference between the very best of us church folk and the very worst of the world is

Christ you take Christ out of me and I become the worst of them you give them

Christ and they become the best of us amen amen and we have

Alec from Greece New York how can we spread the gospel where we work without violating

God's command to us not to steal from our employers obviously this person is talking about stealing time from our employers which people can do if they are a

Christian when I say they can do it I don't mean they're supposed to be doing it I mean that sometimes a person who is a

Christian can get caught up in the moment evangelizing a friend and they wind up not doing their job and in essence steal from their employers but any suggestions since Jay spoke last why don't you start off with that Aaron when people ask me that question

I generally reply with well I'm assuming you talk about non -work related things with your fellow employees and most of those conversations are not considered inappropriate by you the other employee or by your boss in fact you may have gotten into offhanded conversations with your bosses in fact modern workplaces are definitely trying to engender relationships among the people who are working there and so on and so forth so I think we can all assume that whether you're making hamburgers on a line or you are working in cubicles there are legitimate times for you to get into conversation with the people that you work with so I think the question about stealing time we obviously have to be careful with that we have to be able to learn to you know like in any of our conversations limit that and make it appropriate and that we're obviously accomplishing what we're supposed to be accomplishing but pushing that aside

I just say that the reason we find it difficult to talk about God at work and I'm please understand

I'm preaching to me here I think that's another good way to your previous listeners request you know one of the best ways to help people not get offended is when you just share with them that this is what

God's teaching me so I'm preaching to myself when I say that the reason that God is not one of the first things that I talk about in certain scenarios is the fact that I don't love

God as much as I love the other stuff that I am talking about one might be my family it might be a sports team it might be small talk and like about the weather whatever the case may be

I love that topic more than I love the topic of Jesus Christ so I think if you have an individual who truly loves the

Lord who truly loves the person standing across from them knowing that they need to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and who is going to bring that in organically into natural conversations that happen within the workplace it's going to happen and I think it's going to happen in really beautiful ways and Jay I would say it's a matter of priority as kind of what

Aaron alluded to are you a bricklayer or are you a Christian who happens to be a bricklayer are you a doctor or are you a

Christian who happens to be given the gift to be a doctor first and foremost in all things we are

Christian we are called to preach the gospel but every word that comes out of our mouth is called to be taken captive to the knowledge of Christ all we do should reflect and glorify

God while we should take time away to preach the gospel to people there should never be a question of are we

Christian and I think that comes up a lot more than oh I'm spending too much time telling people about Jesus at work and more we get those oh isn't this hilarious we worked together for 15 years and neither of us knew we were a

Christian I would say proclaim the gospel always in all you do in word and thought and deed and also do that in a way that glorifies

God as Peter would say that you do that work for the glory of God not for the glory of men and that will reflect and will proclaim his word as well now what if you have an employer who hates

Christianity he might not actually say that but in essence people who are opposed to the biblical teachings of Christ and his gospel they do hate

Christianity whether they say that or not but your boss pulls you aside and says

I hear you've been talking about that religious junk if you're going to work for me can't do that at all on the job do we have to quit or do we just know that we have to wait until work is over and we punch that card the time clock and then we could share in our personal lives the gospel with those with whom we work or what have you is that a biblical alternative

I think there are a number of facets to consider in that question one is more of a practical standpoint there is by God's grace in our country there are laws that do protect our religious freedoms so if an individual is going to try to fire us because of those religious beliefs that we have he's going to have a pretty hard time in a court of law or an unemployment hearing being able to really justify that they're going to end up getting in a lot of trouble but that's just more of a practical observation beyond that though there are a couple different ways of looking at it on one side you have the we must obey

God rather than man of course if you're going to do that you have to be prepared like the apostles were to get drug in before the magistrates and to be beaten and to be kicked out of the city so you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences of that but I think that's an appropriate thing to do if you are doing it to God's honor and glory in a way that would please him.

The other side I think and I don't think it's inappropriate the other side is to try to build relationships outside of work when people ask questions they say you know it's a really great question and I'd love to give you some more information about that I think

I've had some life experiences that can kind of maybe speak into that what you're saying or I've learned some things that could be valuable for you how about we meet after work or sometime and grab a coffee

I wouldn't do that I don't drink coffee but you know that's what normal people do How long have you been a

Mormon? So that's one thing there but then even public school teachers

I have public school teacher friends who they will have a bible on their desk or when they have a student come up to them and ask them a question about God they have to answer it so again if you're living your life in such a way that people can see your good works and are compelled to glorify your father who's in heaven those questions are going to come up and it's not going to be you going around and necessarily putting up soap boxes to go preach all the time it's going to be people coming to you and asking you the same legitimate questions that they're asking their co -workers and when they ask their co -workers man my wife and I had a knock down drag out fight last night what do you do in situations like that and they just go ahead and get around to you your answer is going to have to do with scripture it's going to have to do with the gospel and Jesus Christ and again the boss at that point is going to have a really difficult time being able to stand by his idle threat now when you say a teacher has to answer the question of a student about the bible that he sees on your desk

I'm assuming that you mean that the teacher should say something like well after class

I'll tell you exactly what it's about I mean isn't isn't that more of a approach that's conducive with not unnecessarily being accused of proselytizing children because you're obviously talking about a secular school where the

Christian teacher is I've never taught in a public school but I've met individuals have friends who have taken various approaches to that sometimes they do have that after school thing but often times you know again in the public school system they're actually teaching about lots of different religions and so even if they don't call them that exactly yeah exactly but even the ones that they actually call

I mean they're teaching on what Muslims believe they're teaching on what you know Taoists believe so for them to say well you know

Christians believe such and such again the world hates it and you're going to get some pushback for that but it's not inappropriate and it's right in line with what you've been called to do as a teacher yeah

I remember how very disappointed I was recently um when

I saw a conversation with Dana White who is the

UFC president ultimate fighting championship and um they have a reputation that apparently he has fostered and instilled in the identity of UFC that we don't muzzle our athletes if you believe passionately in the candidacy of Donald Trump and you can speak your mind and if you're a liberal you're in favor of Joe Biden I'm not going to tell you you can't talk about that publicly but all of a sudden the fighter after the fight's over who won the fight starts praising

Jesus he got upset about it and he said you gotta leave that at home uh that really bothered me because you know you're talking about uh the man isn't evangelizing somebody as he's beating their skull into the ground it was after the fight was over and he was just like people thank their parents they thank the whole host of people they thank their spouses why not thank if you're truly a

Christian you would think he would admire somebody even if he disagreed with their faith he would admire them for giving tribute to who they believed the 100 % of the praise honor and glory was due but just an odd thing about him anyway but perhaps he will eventually change and even more importantly hopefully he'll get saved since he does obviously have some evangelical

Christians working for fighting for UFC uh we have to go to our final break and if anybody listening has a question of your own please send it to ChrisOrenson at gmail .com

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But today I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Lebel remarked that he felt

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners, and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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We're now back with my guests A .M. Brewster, a biblical counselor, and J.

Miller, a Reformed Baptist pastor in Vail, Arizona, and we are talking about Christian responsibility in an un -Christian world, and if you have a question, submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. I'd like each of you from your own roles and duties and experiences in life, first you,

Jay, as a pastor, and then Aaron as a biblical counselor, to provide for us the most frequent failures in regard to obeying this concept of being responsible

Christians in an un -Christian world that you most frequently confront and have to provide counsel for, and also perhaps even church discipline.

But if you could start, Pastor J. Miller, in your role as a pastor.

I think one of our biggest problems is our failure to see other human beings as people.

It is so easy within our lives to walk through the world and see people as set pieces, to forget just the profound suffering and pain that the world is going through right now.

You know, we look to the other side of the aisle and say, oh, that's just a bunch of libtards, or we look to the guy sitting on the street corner, well, that's just a drunk and a junkie.

So much of what we see in the world right now is pain management. People are hurting so badly, and they have no idea how to fix it.

They don't know what to do, and they're trying everything they can—drugs, alcohol, money, sex, power, porn—anything you can think of to just make that emptiness go away.

And we look at them, and we forget that it's by God's grace that we're not there.

This conference, I hope, if people take anything away from it, it's to never forget that Philippians 2 encompasses an entire life.

We are to see people as more important than ourselves. We are not the most important person in our life.

Every person we run across in the world is more important than us, because we are not our own.

We belong body, soul, and spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the redeemed, the paid for.

He is our kurios, our master, our owner, and we are his doulos, his slaves.

There is no us. As we look to those out there, we're called to be about our master's work, not our own comfort.

And I would hope as people walk away from this conference, they do so with a fire ignited in their belly to be out proclaiming the gospel of salvation and the hope that can only be found in Christ, because people need it so desperately now more than ever as this world runs from God.

They aren't getting the cultural Christianity that might lead them into a church. We've got to be out there proclaiming the gospel.

And Aaron? Actually, Chris, I have to admit, I need you to ask the question again.

As you were explaining it, somebody walked into our house, and they were announcing their entrance, and my dog started barking, and I muted myself.

Well, I was asking Jay, as a pastor, how has he most frequently witnessed the concept of being responsible

Christians in an unchristian world, how that has most often been a failure in the lives of Christians.

And now as a biblical counselor, although of course pastors should always be biblical counselors in addition to being pastors, but in your specific role as a biblical counselor, what is the most frequent examples that you confront where people are failing at being responsible

Christians in an unchristian world? Yeah. So my second message at the conference is going to be about your responsibility in my worship, or our responsibility in each other's worship.

But I'm never going to preach that message until I preach the first one, which is about our responsibility.

What is true, genuine worship to God? What does that look like? And so most of what

I'm interacting with oftentimes are parents coming to me whose children are going off the rails, and what we oftentimes find is that parents desperately wanting to influence their children, yet the truth from God's Word has been very light in their family, it's been very superficial in their family.

The parents aren't living a dynamic, worshipful relationship with Jesus Christ, and if they're not doing that, they can't influence the world.

I believe that the world is influencing the church way more than the church is influencing the world, and that's not a failure of God's Word.

His Word does not return void. That's not a failure of the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. That is a failure of us professing believers who are walking with the sinners, and we're standing with the ungodly, and we're sitting with the scorners, and we are being more influenced by them.

And so our ability to live like Christians in an unchristian world, our responsibilities have to start first and foremost with us recognizing that God is not just our

Savior, He is our King, and He has expectations for our lives. And one of the taglines for my podcast is recognizing the fact that parenting is just one way that we worship

God. Working at your job is just one way that you worship God, and when we submit all of those things to God as an act of worship, we're going to start having a lot more impactful influence in the lives of the people that God has in our lives.

Something you said reminded me of a quote. I'm not sure if it was C .S. Lewis. I think it was, but a complaint about how the world has had more influence on the church than the church has had on the world.

This person, who I think was Lewis, said, the church has permeated the world like a mouse has permeated a cat.

And it's that constant battle or tightrope walk where the church and Christians in the church are perhaps rightfully trying to be relevant.

You know, we are not imitating, or at least I don't think we should be imitating our Amish neighbors.

You know, there may be a lot to admire the Amish for, but I believe it is a religious cult.

But we're to be relevant, but at the same time, we are not to distort the gospel message and the inerrant scriptures by making them more appealing and palatable to the desires and appetites of the lost.

We're not to seek growth in our congregations by hanging sacks of goat food outside the windows of the church.

There are already going to be goats in your church unintentionally, and we shouldn't be catering to the tastes and desires and appetites of the world just for the sake of church growth and being relevant.

Amen. And so that's something that we've always got to remember. Well, I'd like each of you to summarize what you each want most to be etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

And we'll start with you, Pastor Jay. As I said, we are the redeemed.

We are the bought ones, bought and paid for, not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of the

Lamb. And that identity should impact everything we do, every thought, every action, every choice, that we belong to our

Master, and we are called to be about His work. And His work is to proclaim the gospel, to go forth to all creation, and teach all that He has taught us, the things that make people jump up and down and say, yay,

God is love, and the scary things that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth, that we should be out there proclaiming it and dedicating our lives to it, because that's the only life worth dedicating anything to.

There's nothing left of any value beyond that. And Aaron? Honestly, I can't add to that too much.

I think that was fantastic. So, I'm just going to say I think that your listeners need to do a couple things. They should definitely go to striving foreternity .org.

One of the things that they'll find there is that they'll find a number of podcasts in the Christian podcast community that could meet them in their need.

They will also learn about Andrew and his ministry, because he likes to take and make conferences happen for small churches that otherwise couldn't make them happen.

So, I think that a lot of churches out there would be really interested in getting to know him and how they can partner with him.

But if they go to strivingforeternity .org slash veil, V -A -I -L, they can learn more about this conference, and they can sign up,

Lord willing, and they can join us there at the beginning of August, and I really encourage them to do that.

And then also too, while you're thinking about it, go to evermindministries, not nevermind, but evermindministries .org,

sorry, .com, and download the Evermind app to get some more encouragement to how to worship

God in this world. And don't forget about Veil Valley Baptist Church's website for Veil Valley Baptist Church in Veil, Arizona, veilvalleybaptistchurch .org,

veilvalleybaptistchurch .org, veil is spelled V -A -I -L. Do you have a separate website for the conference coming up?

Hello, Pastor Jay, do you have a separate website for... Just our event page, but the easiest way to get to that is to go to veilvalleybaptistchurch .org,

and right on our homepage, right at the very top, click on the link to the conference, and it'll take you right there.

Alrighty. Well, I want to thank you both for doing such an exquisite job as my guest today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater