May 22, 2018 Show with Emilio Ramos on “Unpopular, the Movie”

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May 23, 2018

May 22, 2018: EMILIO RAMOS, pastor of Heritage Grace Church of Frisco, TX, founder of Red Grace Media & author of “Convert: From Adam to Christ” & “Crucified: The Soul of the Gospel”, who will address: “UNPOPULAR, THE MOVIE” & announcing the VISIT to ISRAEL with Dr. James R. White October 6-16, 2018

00:01: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:23: Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
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00:46: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon
01:05: 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.
01:14: This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 22nd day of May 2018.
01:23: I am so delighted to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Emilio Ramos, who is pastor of Heritage Grace Church in Frisco, Texas.
01:34: He's also the founder of Red Grace Media and author of Convert, From Adam to Christ and Crucified, The Soul of the
01:42: Gospel. And today we are going to be addressing Unpopular, the movie, and we're also going to be announcing a visit to Israel that Emilio Ramos is arranging with Dr.
01:54: James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries this October. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Emilio Ramos.
02:04: It's good to be with you, Chris. Praise God, the pleasure is all mine, and before we get into your personal testimony of salvation, because we try to do that every time we have a first -time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we like them for the first time that they're on to give their testimony in a summarized fashion, to hear the religious upbringing you had, if any, and the providential circumstances our sovereign
02:34: Lord used in your life to draw you to himself and save you. But before we do that, why don't you let our listeners know something about Heritage Grace Church of Frisco, Texas.
02:44: Heritage Grace is actually my second church that I planted, and I am the preaching pastor there, and I have been for the last six years.
02:55: I've actually just celebrated our six -year anniversary. It's just a small church here in North Dallas, and I'm just very grateful to be and humbled to be a part of it, to be quite frank.
03:09: And it's just a wonderful work that the Lord has done, and we're a small church, probably about a hundred people or so, and, you know, we just are dedicated to the faithful exposition of God's Word and the teaching of Reformed theology.
03:24: That's really what our church does, and we also, in our church, we have a very, we try to maintain, you know, a very strong evangelistic zeal and outreach in various ways.
03:35: And so, you know, we think that the Lord has really blessed us with life, and it's just a blessing to be there, as I said.
03:46: Well, praise God, and we'll be giving information later on how you can get a hold of Heritage Grace Church of Frisco, Texas, but I will also do that, provide you with that information now.
04:01: Heritagegrace .com is their website. Heritagegrace .com, and we'll be repeating that later if you didn't have a pen or any way to write that down.
04:12: Well, now let's hear about what Red Grace Media is all about.
04:18: I have a feeling, I have a feeling I know why you called it Red Grace, but I could be wrong. I'm thinking the
04:23: Blood of Christ, does that have something to do with it? No, actually, Red Grace actually has an abbreviation of the word
04:30: Redemptive Grace. Ah. Yeah, so Redemptive Grace Media, we just thought, why don't we just call it
04:37: Red Grace, because we like the word redemptive in there, and you know, Red Grace Media, it was a ministry that I started some time ago, and really, just really was more of a blog, and became, you know, we explored with the podcasting and different things, and we upload
04:56: YouTube videos, open -air preaching, and stuff like that, and now we've even, we've even published one of my books under Red Grace Media.
05:08: You know, you open up my book, it says a publication of Red Grace Media, and we just have a team of editors that have graciously helped me out with a writing project, and so we hope to do more of that in the future.
05:21: And then we also, you know, we also branched out into media like what you see with Unpopular, we wanted to do something on film.
05:30: So, you know, at the moment Red Grace Media is just, you know, we're not doing a whole lot in terms of daily ministry, but it is sort of an umbrella ministry for myself and others to operate under, so that's really what it is.
05:47: Great, and if anybody wants to look that up, you can go to redgracemedia .com,
05:56: redgracemedia .com. I still like my explanation for the name Red Grace. A lot of people get that.
06:04: Well, there's nothing wrong with Redemptive Grace either, because obviously that's all tied together with the blood of Christ.
06:12: Well, now let's hear something about your upbringing, the religious upbringing that you have, if any, and the circumstances that the
06:22: Lord providentially used in your life to draw you to himself and save you, and not only how you were saved by his providence, mercy, and grace, but also how you came to embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace.
06:34: Sure, sure. Well, no religious upbringing whatsoever. My mother was essentially pretty ignorant of spiritual things, and she dabbled a little bit in Jehovah Witness church attendance and stuff like that for a little while, but saw that we weren't happy on Christmas, and so she pulled out of there pretty quick.
06:58: Or your birthdays, or any other day of joy. Well, my father was not religious at all himself.
07:08: I grew up with my father drinking. I used to drink with my father, and we were just, our entire family, really devoid of God.
07:18: As a matter of fact, the day that I got saved, I wrote every family member that I could think of,
07:24: I wrote their name down on a piece of paper, and I think on both sides of the family was something like 150 people that I could remember, and not a single
07:34: Christian is what I wrote on the paper. Not one Christian. And so I was, to my knowledge at that time,
07:41: I was the only one. And so I was, you know, I grew up in Southern California, and I was immediately drawn to the wrong crowd kind of thing.
07:53: I grew up around gangs and drugs and, you know, parties and stuff like that, and violence and, you know, all those sorts of things.
08:00: And when I was 19 years old in 1996, you know, I had been doing various drugs for days at a time at this point, and just through all sorts of demonic activity, really,
08:18: I was really, really brought to the realization, I think for the first time, of my sin and my misery before God, and that I needed forgiveness and I needed salvation, and that it just,
08:31: I became acutely aware of my sin and the reality of hell.
08:37: I mean, I would joke about it and I would, you know, sensationalize it, but for the first time,
08:43: I think I finally came to the conclusion that I was headed there, and I remember just not being okay with that.
08:49: And so at that time, my stepfather was something of a backslidden
08:59: Christian, I guess I would have to say, according to him. But, you know, around that time,
09:06: I went to him because I didn't know anybody else who even had any semblance of knowledge of Christianity or the
09:13: Bible. And he and I had talked here and there, but I went to him one night and just confessing my sin and expressing my need to be saved, and God, you know, faithfully saved me the next few hours,
09:32: I think, during that conversation. And, you know, I just immediately began trying to learn how to read the
09:41: Bible, and part of that was that, because I, you know, the way that I'd grown up,
09:46: I didn't really know how to read much, so I couldn't really read my Bible.
09:52: So I'd had to really work at reading, and I dropped out of high school probably,
09:58: I think I dropped out of high school mentally around junior high, but physically dropped out of high school my sophomore year.
10:04: So I just didn't do any schooling, and so I had to really, really, sort of,
10:11: God had to renew my mind, so to speak, especially from all the drugs and everything that had happened. But God soundly saved me, and when
10:19: I was 19 years old and I actually ended up getting baptized in a Calvary Chapel, I got saved in the summer of 96, and I was baptized that summer, and that began a journey of studying the
10:33: Scripture. I can honestly say that, you know, immediately after being saved, I had a, really, an insatiable hunger for the
10:40: Word of God. And, you know, very early on, you talk about the doctrines of grace, very early on I picked up Sinners in the
10:50: Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards, and, you know, at that time I had no idea what Reformed theology was, or what
10:56: Calvinism was, or, you know, I had no concept of any of these camps or categories. I just knew that I'd read that little booklet and, you know, everything that it said was, you know, powerfully brought home to me by the
11:08: Spirit of God, and I knew that that was my religion. But I didn't know,
11:13: I didn't know until probably a few years later that, you know,
11:19: Edwards stood in a tradition that I would ultimately want to be a part of on theology.
11:25: So, but yeah, I, you know, in talking about the doctrines of grace, you know, obviously being brought up in Calvary Chapel after I got saved, you know,
11:38: Calvary Chapel is not a Calvinist denomination. Right. Can even be, can sometimes be even vehemently anti -Calvinist.
11:46: Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And so I just sort of took the pastor's word for, you know, faith value for what they told me, you know, for several years, and then
11:56: I just kept reading, and I kept, you know, I keep stumbling upon all the classic passages, like Romans 9,
12:03: Ephesians 1, John 6, you know, all these passages, and I'm thinking, like, this doesn't really square with what
12:09: I'm being taught, you know, and then it wasn't until after going through some biblical
12:19: Greek, actually, at Calvary Chapel where I was at, there was a brother there that was teaching
12:25: Greek all the way to textual criticism, and so we did that, and it was after analyzing very specific texts of scripture that I came to the conclusion that the doctrines of grace were indeed exegetically valid.
12:41: Amen. How did your friends and loved ones and brothers and sisters in Christ with Calvary Chapel react to your transition by the grace of God into Reformed Christianity?
12:53: Well, you know, obviously you kind of had a mixed reaction. I mean, there was, you know, Calvary Chapel is an interesting sort of church denomination, because there are so many
13:05: Calvinists at Calvary Chapel at any given moment. I think it's
13:11: James White who says that nobody produces more Calvinists than Calvary Chapel. And same thing with Bob Jones University.
13:20: As one friend once put it when he was asked by a former faculty member of Bob Jones University why he converted to Calvinism, because he was a student there, and he said, why did you convert to Calvinism?
13:36: And he said, because Bob Jones University teaches the Bible. And Calvary Chapel is very
13:42: Bible -centered, and God's grace takes his word, and he does what he wills with it.
13:50: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And, you know, to Calvary Chapel's credit, you know, having been been there for several years, you know, especially under Chuck Smith, I was a
14:00: Costa Mesa for several years, so Chuck Smith, he baptized me, and he was my pastor for several years.
14:07: And to his credit, you know, I regard him to be a man of God. I disagree with him on soteriology, obviously, and a lot of other things, but, you know...
14:16: Well, he is a Calvinist now. Yeah, he knows now. But if you think about what
14:21: Chuck Smith accomplished in his life, I mean, you know, every seven years he would teach the entire
14:27: Bible. And, you know, and the week that he died, you know, he died on a
14:34: Wednesday, I believe, and that Sunday prior, he preached three services.
14:40: And he did that for, you know, decades. So, you know, he's to be commended, and Calvary Chapel in many ways is to be commended.
14:48: But because of their emphasis, like you said, on the Bible, you know, because they reject liberalism, which is a good thing, and they just want to bring us back to authentic Christianity, well, it just exposes the...
15:00: it exposes the child of God to the scriptures systematically. And then what you come across with is, you know, the inevitable conclusion that the sovereignty of God is actually taught in the
15:10: Bible, exactly the way the Reformers say it is. Yeah. And by the way, I want to make sure that I make it clear.
15:16: I didn't want to sound like I was besmirching Calvary Chapel, because there's a wide range of attitudes towards Calvinism and Calvinists.
15:25: They're not all vehemently anti -Calvinist. Some are, and probably a lot of them are, but not all of them.
15:33: Some of them are very gracious. In fact, I don't know if you remember the late Peter Jeffrey, who's now in heaven for eternity, but he was a
15:44: Welsh Reformed Baptist who used to make trips to the United States.
15:49: For a while, he was doing it every year, and he became a dear friend of mine. In fact, he was with my mother alone for about a half hour on her deathbed, and he gave me such great reassurance that he believed that she was saved, because my mother was
16:02: Roman Catholic, and she had renounced all of the peculiar Roman Catholic things that were idolatrous or in contradiction to the gospel.
16:15: But Peter was invited every year to Calvary Chapels, and on occasion, those folks, in fact,
16:24: I think a couple of those pastors, became Reformed and left the
16:30: Calvary Chapel. But yeah, I do know that that is a phenomenon.
16:35: In fact, one person who was involved in the college that Calvary Chapel runs, he was dismissed when he became a
16:46: Calvinist. And when Chuck Smith asked him, how did you become a Calvinist?
16:51: He said, well, you know those books in the library that were written by Calvinists? I read them. But they are being used of the
17:04: Lord to bring the lost to Christ, and they also are one of the few groups today in the 21st century that would stand alongside many within the
17:16: Reformed community and fundamentalist community that oppose Roman Catholicism and reject ecumenical relationships with Roman Catholics.
17:26: That is, Roman Catholics who are faithful to Trent. Yeah, no, Calvary Chapel is soundly evangelical, there's no question about that.
17:34: Amen. Well, when did you realize and how did you realize that you had a call put upon your heart to actually be a pastor?
17:44: You know, honestly I think that, I guess the issue was sort of germane for me, but it was very early on.
17:50: I would venture to say probably maybe within the first year of my walk with the
17:57: Lord, because it was just the hunger for truth and the hunger for the
18:02: Word, and my desire to communicate that to people, you know, my family, my friends, co -workers, and all of that.
18:11: And then when I started realizing that there's, you know, such a thing as theology, and there's hermeneutics, and there's a proper way to interpret the
18:19: Bible, and you know, there's a necessity to interact with the original languages, and all of that, and you know,
18:26: I just, because of my hunger to do it all, so to speak, I just, I recognized that I think where God is calling me is ultimately to exposit the
18:37: Word of God, because that's kind of what I like to do in my mind. And it didn't take long before I was given opportunities to do that, so I don't know, just very early on,
18:50: I would say. Praise God. Well, by the way, I remember you mentioning in your youth, before your salvation, you were prone to hang around members of gangs and so forth.
19:04: I just, I immediately remembered when I was interviewing a former member of the
19:10: Latin Kings way back when I was doing my show from New York on WNYG and WGBB radio on Long Island, and this brother who was in the studio telling me his testimony of getting saved in prison, after leaving the
19:27: Latin Kings, and actually getting married to a Christian woman in the prison by the warden, who was a
19:33: Christian, but I remember telling him, I was sitting right next to him, and I said, you know,
19:39: I used to be in a gang myself. He says, really? His eyes bugged up, and I said, yeah, I used to be in a gang called the
19:45: Calvinist Crusaders. We used to break into Arminian churches and rewrite the words in their hymnals.
19:57: But anyway, I'm very excited about this movie, the unpopular, or unpopular, the movie.
20:05: I've seen it, it is excellent, and I think this is going to be a helpful tool for sharing the gospel with lost family, friends, and loved ones, and also for equipping
20:18: Christians on how to properly evangelize the main focal points that one should be aware of, because sometimes the
20:31: Christian faith, not only for the unbeliever, but for the new believer, it can seem like a daunting task to even try to plumb the depths of a very deep religion, but there is also, obviously, very simple and simple yet powerful truths that are contained within our faith.
20:53: Obviously, the Lord, by design, made the gospel a simple thing to comprehend, but you have it broken up in different parts, and you have different speakers addressing each of those parts, and tell us why.
21:10: This is an obvious reason why, actually, because it's something that your average unbeliever will immediately throw in your face, and rightfully, if they're not regenerate and they don't truly have a heart beating for Christ, it's a logical question.
21:27: But the issue that James White addresses, how can I trust the Bible? Tell us why you included that and how, in summary, this is addressed.
21:38: Well, I mean, you're talking about the video that's on the website in terms of how to trust the
21:45: Bible? Yes, yes. Yeah, well, we thought that's important because, you know, like you said,
21:51: I mean, frequently asked questions by unbelievers is just, you know, concerning the tenacity of Scripture, and I think that's always a point that the
22:02: Church is going to have to defend and know how to defend, and I think James White's good at it, so we thought we would ask him simple questions so that he can answer that, you know, and begin to express the superiority of Scripture, especially in comparison to anything else.
22:18: And just to really show people, like, that there are actually answers to these simple questions. You know, they're simple questions, but they're profound, because they elicit, at times, a lengthy, in -depth response.
22:29: And the response is really rich, because we can talk about manuscript evidence, we can talk about the historicity of the
22:35: Bible, we can talk about all of those things, but at the end of the day, as you know, I mean, it just boils down to the self -authenticating, you know, self -validating claims of Scripture itself, and whether or not a person, by faith, comes to experience the power of God through the
22:53: Gospel. And so, I think that I wanted to answer some of those questions, because they're so common, but at the end of the day, you know, just making it clear that it still, you know, it requires you to repent and believe, you know, because you could believe the
23:09: Bible is reliable and still go to hell. Yeah. Yeah, there are, obviously, even biblical scholars who could recite from memory without even looking at a written word, great lengthy portions of the
23:25: Bible, and they can know theology, and they may even have a mental assent to the truthfulness of it, but they could still be as damned as damned can be, as James points out in his epistle.
23:39: You can know facts and yet have a a dead, cold, rock -like heart.
23:48: Yeah, or you can be like the Pharisees who seek the Scriptures vociferously and yet fail to see
23:56: Christ. Amen. And, you know, people, you know, it's even amazing when you hear liberal scholars,
24:05: I'm not talking about your average person, who will repeat who will repeat their nonsense as best as they can remember how to repeat it, but even these people who have all kinds of degrees and they will say that the
24:23: Bible is no more reliable than ancient works of mythology, and it's not reliable and trustworthy because they will compare it to the game of telephone, where one person whispers something into another person's ear, and then by the time it goes through a line of 10 to 20 people, the last person is repeating something that's entirely different from the first person.
24:50: So they'll try to compare things like that to the inerrant Scriptures. But even, it's interesting, as you may remember,
24:58: Bart Ehrman, the former Christian who became an apostate and an agnostic, who's a textual critic, he even admitted, after kind of being backed into a corner with James White, that the manuscript evidence that we have in an overwhelming amount of historical data that proves the authenticity that what we have is very close to the first century's manuscripts of Scripture, they make other works of antiquity pale into insignificance as far as the reliability and the amount of of archaeological data and so on.
25:47: Yeah, he's quoted as saying that in terms of manuscript evidence, the
25:53: Bible has an embarrassment of riches compared to anything else in antiquity. Yes, sir.
26:00: Yeah. Well, we have to go to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Emilio Ramos, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
26:11: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
26:19: USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
26:26: And that once again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Emilio Ramos and more of a discussion on Unpopular, the movie.
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30:57: Well, welcome back. We have as our guest today for the full program, Emilio Ramos, pastor of Heritage Grace Church in Frisco, Texas, and founder of Red Grace Media, and author of Convert from Adam to Christ and Crucified the
31:13: Soul of the Gospel. And today we are addressing Unpopular the Movie. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is
31:20: ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Before I go to any listener questions,
31:28: I just wanted to ask you something. We who are Reformed, it has something to do with what we were just mentioning before the break, that you can know the
31:39: Bible. You might even be able to memorize the entire Bible from cover to cover. I don't know if anybody's actually successfully done that, but even if you had that ability, that in and of itself would not save you.
31:53: Do we not need, as dead sinners, a miracle of the
31:58: Holy Spirit to work in our hearts in order for our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts to be opened and to even understand in a saving way the
32:12: Scriptures in order for us to fall in love with them and embrace them?
32:21: Amen. Was that a question to me? Yeah, I was asking you a question because some people who, there have been actually some,
32:30: I think, some fairly outlandish statements made by leaders in the
32:36: Christian Church outside of the Reformed faith who have even dared to say, if you explain the
32:42: Bible correctly and the gospel correctly, the lost will come to Christ.
32:48: And if they don't, it's really because you've messed up in some way. Yeah, no, of course, yeah, we believe in the reality of monarchism, and so we believe that God has to give life to those who are dead in their sin, so regeneration precedes faith, and therefore we understand that salvation is all of God, not some of God, but all of God, and that man is exactly what
33:19: Scripture says that he is. He is dead in his sin, he's desperately sick, and he cannot remedy his own condition.
33:29: I mention this repeatedly in the movie Unpopular, that's something that we wanted to drive home, was the impotence of man, just man's complete, bankrupt soul, and just the idea that our popular culture today tells us is that whether they're trying to emphasize human reason, whether they're trying to emphasize human goodness, or some social justice point, or something like that, we simply cannot afford for people to be misguided and misled as to man's true condition, because without understanding your sin and your misery and your death -like state before God, then you won't see the need for the cross.
34:16: The cross is just going to be sort of a therapeutic self -help program, and it's not going to be that salvation, that foreign righteousness that you so desperately need.
34:29: So yeah, absolutely, we believe wholeheartedly in supernatural regeneration that needs to take place for people to know
34:35: Christ. And having said that, the need for regeneration for our eyes and ears and hearts and minds to truly be open to the
34:48: Scripture, we still nonetheless believe in the perpiscuity of Scripture, and we believe that those things that men need to know are simple enough to understand.
35:01: Not saying that the entire Bible is easy enough for any person to fully understand on his own without teachers, because the
35:10: Bible, the very Bible we are speaking about that is God -breathed, requires that we have teachers.
35:16: But it is, by design, as far as the salvific portions of this word, it is by design, by God's design, understandable to even the average person.
35:30: Yeah, yeah, that's right, it is. I mean, the book of Hebrews speaks of the elementary things, and that there are things that, you know, anybody can understand.
35:39: It doesn't take a genius to get the very basic, you know, gist of the gospel message in the
35:46: Bible. Children can, you know, understand the Bible. Anybody that is, you know, rationally cognitive can understand the simple message of Christianity and how to find salvation.
35:58: So we definitely believe in the perpiscuity of Scripture, but what we don't believe in is that, as perspicuous as it is, it is up to human reason or human will or volition to then, you know, sort of bring yourself up to a point where you can, on the basis of your own merit or something you've done, be right with God.
36:23: Amen. And we have one other thing that you've put in the list of very important topics on the website, on the unpopularthemovie .com
36:37: website. You have Paul Washer addressing the sin struggle. If you could give us a summary of that as well.
36:46: Well, you know, the website functions in conjunction to the film, because, you know, the hope is that people will watch the film, as thousands already have, and that if they begin to become curious about Christianity, we thought we'd better talk about some of the things that are sort of common questions that are being asked, and, you know, what if someone converts and immediately wants to know more?
37:12: Well, I think one of the sort of the most important topics to discuss is, you know, our struggle with sin, and so I thought, who better qualified, maybe, to do that than Paul Washer, you know, and really sort of go into an examination of the heart, and what does sanctification look like, and, you know, he's written some really helpful volumes on the doctrine of man, and things like that, and where he gets into some of these things about the struggle with sin, and so we thought it would be important to just to let people know that, you know, we believe in the
37:47: Reformed dictum, right, that you are simultaneously saint and sinner, justified and sinner, so just because you are forgiven, just because you have become born again, that does not mean that there will not be indwelling sin, that you will not have to put to death for the rest of your life, and we'll have to struggle with it, and we'll have to, you know, in the context of progressive sanctification, you will have to be putting your sinful deeds to death, so we just thought it was important to include that.
38:18: Yeah, it's obviously the very issue, keeping the lost from Christ, and also keeping even
38:31: Christians from living as obediently as they could by the grace of God in this life.
38:42: That is a thing that has puzzled, and has created debates even amongst the body of Christ, or the members of the body of Christ, of the fact that we are, before salvation, sinners, and in fact, totally depraved, and I'm sure you would agree that that does not mean that we are as bad as we could be, but that means that every aspect of our lives is enslaved by sin, and we cannot even please
39:12: God at all, even in our decisions or actions, while we are still in the
39:17: Yeah.
39:47: heaven, the sin that embarrasses him and brings him great remorse and sadness, the difference is that he is no longer enslaved to it.
40:00: Wouldn't that be one of the key differences, anyway? Sure. No, I think you hit it right on the head.
40:06: I think the difference is the difference between the dominion of sin versus the presence of sin, and the ongoing struggle with sin.
40:16: Dominion means that you are helpless in your sinful state, where the
40:22: Christian is no longer helpless. Now the Christian has the power through the
40:27: Spirit and the Word to combat sin in his life, or her life, and so we can, you know, it's just simple, maybe a simple illustration, coming full circle to my testimony, is shortly after I was saved,
40:42: I went back and I evangelized some of my closest friends, many of them through tears, and I remember telling one of my good friends,
40:50: I said, you know, you're such a slave to sin, I said, I bet you you can't stop cursing for two minutes, and the first thing he said was a curse word denying that he would not curse.
41:02: So I said, see, I told you, and you know, and that's such a parable of the distinction, right, whereas if I, as a
41:12: Christian, if I were to curse, not only would I have the conviction of the Spirit, I would have the power of repentance, and so that's the difference.
41:20: Amen, and wouldn't you say that another difference between the unregenerate sinning and the
41:29: Christian sinning is that if somebody is truly regenerate, when they are conscious of a sin that they've committed, it will grieve them.
41:39: Now, I'm not saying that sin never grieves the unregenerate, it does, as even in the scriptures, we hear that Judas repented, but he did not actually have a saving repentance.
41:52: There is a remorse that can come about as an unregenerate person, but it is a guarantee for the
41:59: Christian that he certainly will eventually come to grief and repentance over his sin.
42:07: Yeah, that's right. We grieve the Spirit by which we were sealed, and so we definitely, you know, when a sinner like Judas is remorseful, they are not remorseful for Christ's sake.
42:21: You know, they are remorseful for their misery, they're remorseful for their, you know, having been caught, they're remorseful for the misery that it's brought on other people, but they are not remorseful for Christ's sake, and that's the difference.
42:34: You know, as a believer, we understand that we have not just upset our environment, but that we have offended our
42:41: Father and our Savior and our Lord, so it's a big difference. Now, this is also an issue that divides the body of Christ.
42:51: Those of us who are Reformed believe in something called the perseverance and preservation of the saints.
42:59: Now, I know that there are those that profess to be Reformed that do not consistently hold to this doctrine in the way that they teach and evangelize, which brings me great sadness, but for the most part, it is an issue that historically
43:17: Calvinists have believed that if you are truly a child of God, if you are born again, born from above, if you have a new heart that has been given to you by Christ, a heart of flesh that is beating with the life of the
43:33: Holy Spirit, you will not live a life that is characterized by prolonged, unrepentant enslavement to sin.
43:46: Every Christian sins, but we get up by the grace and mercy of God and the power of the
43:52: Holy Spirit and we dust ourselves off and we press forward in the faith, unlike what many
43:59: Christians or professing Christians tell the lost when they're evangelizing them, that basically all you need to do is quote, quote, accept
44:08: Jesus into your heart, and then regardless of how you live for the rest of your lives, you don't have to worry about going to hell because you've made this confession of faith and accepted
44:21: Jesus into your heart. But the latter that I just said, that's completely unbiblical in regard to the
44:29: Christian who is perpetually carnal, the Christian who is unrepentant for his entire life and lives like Satan, this is not a true
44:40: Christian at all, is it? Yeah, no, because the gospel, or not the gospel, but the letters of John are very clear that, you know, he who has been born of God does not sin, and of course he clarifies that in chapter three, what he means by that is he does not sin ever, he just does not practice sin, and so that is a lifestyle of sin.
45:01: So that's why, you know, the Apostle Paul, you know, talks about, you know, let him who steals steal no more, and you know, and those kinds of things, because we cannot be characterized, you know, by the sphere of the flesh when we claim to be in the sphere of the
45:15: Spirit. We, you know, we can't, you know, even though, as you mentioned, you know, I think even the
45:21: Westminster Confession talks about, you know, David and how that believers can, in the season of sin, commit even grievous sin, but they will at last repent, and they will be kept from final falling, and so that's the difference.
45:40: But, you know, certainly on a practical level, and you know, obviously I experience this a lot as a pastor, but just in counseling people that, you know, that seem to have a proclivity towards one sin or another, and it just, you know, the
45:54: Hebrews 12, you know, the weight and the sin that so easily ensnares you, as he talks about, you know, and just the practical ramifications of sin in your life for a believer, just the loss of power, the loss of assurance, the loss of peace, you know, those are really powerful forces in our hearts.
46:20: Yes, and we also want to make sure that we are not giving the idea that we are guilty of teaching the false doctrine of sinless perfection or sinless perfectionism.
46:35: There are those from the camp that adheres to carnal
46:43: Christianity, cheap grace, easy believism, that would say, you people believe in sinless perfectionism.
46:51: The irony is that somebody who, in many areas, was the polar opposite of a
46:56: Reformed Christian, John Wesley, he is one that believed in that, not any
47:02: Reformed person that I am aware of from history, but if you could make the distinction of what we're talking about.
47:08: Yeah, yeah, that's right. You have to, because we're definitely not, obviously, talking about a sinless perfection.
47:15: As a matter of fact, you know, I think, you know, I would go so far as to say believers sin every day, and, you know, word, thought, or deed.
47:22: We fall short of the glory of God by virtue of our fallen condition, and even in a state of salvation, because we are yet to be glorified, you know, we are still, you know, susceptible to our sinful impulses, and desires, and false motives, and, you know, thoughts that are impure, and, you know,
47:40: I think those things could happen to everybody on a daily basis, but that is quite a different matter from, you know, living in willful, impenitent sin.
47:52: We have some listener questions that I will go to before we come to the point where I don't have time to take them all, so I'll just start with some of them.
48:02: We have Lou from Sharpsburg, Georgia, who asks, I was wondering if Emilio saw the movie
48:09: Fragments of Truth. If so, what are his thoughts? I did not.
48:15: I'm not familiar with it. Oh, that is a film that Dr. White, who is a part of your film, is a part of.
48:23: I have not yet seen it either. It has something to do with the manuscript evidence, I believe, that we were talking about before, hence the term
48:29: Fragments. So I guess that Emilio can't be helpful to you now,
48:36: Lou, but perhaps write in again after he's seen the movie. Oh, you know what's remarkable about the manuscript discussion is that I was recently at Daniel Wallace's home and found out he actually lives five minutes from my house.
48:52: Wow, you just found that out. Yeah, I just found that out. I mean,
48:57: I knew he taught here in Dallas, but a mutual friend of ours had a meeting with him at his home regarding what this particular individual wanted to do.
49:12: He wanted to accomplish some very specific things with Dr. Wallace, specifically wanting him to just make some very explicit, evangelically affirming statements about, you know, inerrancy and inspiration and the tenacity of Scripture and the manuscript evidence or what not.
49:32: And he did. He did that. And the conversation was revolving Islam. And so just for the sake of Islamic apologetics at a very high level, which means stuff that will not even be heard or said on debates or anything like that, but behind,
49:50: I guess you would say, the Ivy League level academics and stuff like that. It was really a fascinating meeting.
49:57: But yeah, we know what Daniel Wallace is doing with the manuscripts and how he's photographing them and he's digitizing all of them.
50:07: It's really remarkable. Cool. Thanks, Lou. Keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Sharpsburg, Georgia and beyond.
50:17: Let's see here. We have B .B.
50:24: in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, Do you know of any excellent
50:31: Reformed resources in the Spanish language that I can use as evangelistic tools to those of my friends and family and neighbors who are either bilingual or who solely speak
50:46: Spanish? I would send them to my friend's website, who is a pastor, missionary, soon -to -be here theologian, pursuing a
51:00: PhD. He has a website called Cristianismo Biblico, Cristianismo Biblico dot com.
51:09: And if you go on there, his name is Joseph Urban, who is getting ready actually to do seminary, pursue seminary with Dr.
51:18: Joe Beeky. Oh yeah, Dr. Beeky's a friend of mine and I've interviewed him many times. Yeah, Joe Beeky endorsed my last book,
51:27: Crucified, and I'm really excited for Joseph to go in there. But he has, what makes
51:35: Joseph's website so appealing for folks is that they, thankfully, they have videotaped everything, all sorts of teaching seminars and expository preaching.
51:49: I mean, at really, really high level. I know that Joseph himself is
51:56: Reformed Baptist, and he's got a group of churches down there that he has founded.
52:06: And really, as a matter of fact, I'm going there in November. Dr. Beeky actually was just there, and I'll be there in November preaching a conference on the
52:18: Trinity. But if they go Christianismo Biblico...
52:24: Can you spell that? Probably not. Well, if anybody emails me or you later, we could make sure we get...
52:38: Yeah, Christianismo Biblico, and what I can do, Chris, is give you the link and maybe you can put it on your notes or something.
52:45: Yeah, sure. And by the way, I am assuming that you are, because of your location, you're from a
52:51: Mexican background, but I don't know that for a fact. Am I correct? Yeah, I am. One of the reasons
52:56: I asked is that my precious late wife was from San Torce, Puerto Rico. She was born there, and her mom, obviously, was born there as well.
53:07: And although she lived most of her life here in the States, but I was just curious about that.
53:14: Because of that, I have a very big place in my heart for evangelism to the
53:22: Hispanic or Latin American community. I mean, you never know what to say during the politically correct stereo, how to phrase those things.
53:31: Well, you know what's ironic is that when I go to Mexico to do these conferences with Joseph, Joseph is an all -American boy from Ohio, and he went down there as a missionary, and in about three years, he became fluent in Spanish.
53:48: And now he preaches exegetical sermons in Spanish, and when I go down there, he has to translate for me.
53:55: Wow. I know. It's really impressive, actually.
54:01: But yeah, I actually speak conversational Spanish, but to preach and exposit in Spanish, that's another level.
54:09: Hmm. We have to go to our midway break right now, and our midway break, as those of you who listen to this program often enough know, is a longer than normal break.
54:22: We have to have a 12 minute break because Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this show also, they require that break for their own commercials and public service announcements and things.
54:36: So please take this time to write questions for our guest, Emilio Ramos, but also take this time to write down the information that is provided by our advertisers so you can properly and successfully patronize them, because that's going to help keep our advertisers keeping this program on the air through their sponsorship dollars.
55:01: And so please try to patronize our advertisers as often as you are able. But don't go away,
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01:06:24: We are discussing today the movie, unpopular, the movie, with our guest
01:06:32: Emilio Ramos, pastor of Heritage Grace Church of Frisco, Texas and founder of Red Grace Media and author of Convert from Adam to Christ and Crucified the
01:06:41: Soul of the Gospel. And we're also going to be talking about a visit to Israel that Emilio is conducting with Dr.
01:06:48: James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries this October. But before we return to our discussion, I just have a couple of important announcements tonight.
01:06:57: First of all, the Banner of Truth Ministers Conference is going to be held next week from Tuesday, May 29th through Thursday, May 31st.
01:07:08: I intend to be there, I am registered to be there, and I'm looking forward to being there in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at Elizabethtown College.
01:07:17: The speakers include Alistair Begg, Johnny Gibson, Mark Johnston, Al Mohler, David Strain and Craig Troxell.
01:07:24: If you would like to join me there at the Banner of Truth Ministers Conference, go to banneroftruth .org,
01:07:32: banneroftruth .org, click Events, and then click on U .S. Ministers Conference.
01:07:38: Make sure you click U .S. and not U .K. because they also have U .K. conferences, one of which just came to an end very recently.
01:07:47: So if you want the right information, click U .S. Ministers Conference at banneroftruth .org
01:07:53: after clicking Events. And that's on the theme, Ministers of Christ, next
01:07:59: Tuesday through Thursday, May 29th through the 31st. Please tell Banner of Truth that you heard about their events and their ministry from Chris Orensen of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.
01:08:10: Last but not least, I've heard some complaints, by the way, that I dragged this portion out a little bit too long, so I'm going to abbreviate it, but Iron Trip and Zion Radio is in urgent need of your donations.
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01:09:32: If you're not a member of a local church that believes in the scriptures and teaches the true gospel, then you have to find one to be obedient to God.
01:09:40: So do that. I can help you send me an email if you're having a hard time finding a church wherever you are in the world.
01:09:46: And please don't put your family in financial jeopardy, obviously, by giving to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Those are two commands of God, but if you're financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, please consider helping
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01:10:05: And if you want to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
01:10:12: and put advertising in the subject line, and we will help you launch an ad campaign as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with the theology we express here.
01:10:21: You don't have to believe identical with me. You just have to be promoting something compatible. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
01:10:28: Put advertising in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send a question for our guest Emilio Ramos.
01:10:34: That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And Emilio, we have a question that I forwarded to you during the break, a questioner in Slovenia, Joe in Slovenia, who says,
01:10:51: Dear Brother Chris, have your guest unpack his thoughts about the current caving in on the topic of the biblical gospel by those who are claiming that racial reconciliation, multiculturalism, same -sex attraction, normalization, etc.,
01:11:07: are all gospel issues. Should we not be courageously proclaiming the unpopular biblical gospel of reconciliation with God instead of the false yet popular gospel of social activism?
01:11:20: Blessings to you both. That is Joe in Slovenia. That's a wonderful question, and it's a question that I think that I interact with all the time.
01:11:31: Let me just say, prior to this show, I listened to one of your episodes just to try to get familiar with your show, and I clicked on the episode with Phil Johnson talking about the social gospel and racialism and all of that, which was a wonderful show, and you did a great job, and so did
01:11:51: Phil. But I wholeheartedly support and wholeheartedly agree with what
01:11:58: Phil did in that show. You know, our church at Heritage Grace, we're a very diverse church.
01:12:08: Matter of fact, we recently had a family join our church and become members of our church from Nigeria, and the brother walked in and he said,
01:12:18: I've never seen so many Reformed black guys in my life. He's like,
01:12:24: I don't even know what to do with myself. And but you know, I've even had pastors ask me, you know, what are you doing to make your church diverse, or how did you get...
01:12:36: I mean, basically they're asking me, how did you get so many black people to come to your church? And you know, the answer to that question is absolutely nothing.
01:12:45: We don't do anything to try to be diverse or anything like that. In other words, you don't use gimmicks, is what you're saying?
01:12:52: No gimmicks. There's no gimmicks. We don't try to sort of flaunt that or advertise that or make that a point of, hey, look at us.
01:13:00: It just needs to happen, you know, naturally. God is sovereign over that, and we're delighted to be diverse, but diversity has become almost like a badge of spirituality, and I think it's unfounded.
01:13:16: There's no reason to seek out diversity. I don't think we need to go on a social justice campaign of racial reconciliation.
01:13:27: I think the minute that you start going down these different avenues, you begin to sort of move the center in your church, and before you know it, you're developing programs and curriculum, and you're starting to talk a certain way, and you're starting to advance certain agendas, and before you know it, you've lost the all -important center of Christ crucified, and making
01:13:52: Christ the center of our church. You know, on our website for our church, you know, we've gone so far, and this might be the most controversial thing
01:14:03: I'll show, but we go so far as to say our church is not family integrated, and what we mean by that is that we don't have an agenda to make you a family integrated type of person.
01:14:19: Which, and strangely enough, our church service is family integrated, you know, our children stay in the service, but there's just, you know, whether it's the family, whether it's race, whether it's social justice, whether it's, you know, trying to target, you know, different classes, the minute you make something the emphasis in your church that is other than Christ and the gospel, you will become unbalanced.
01:14:48: And so I think that we need to be careful there, of course, and then of course, as far as the question goes,
01:14:56: I don't believe in any compromise whatsoever. You know, I preach on college campuses over here at Texas, and I talk to homosexuals all the time.
01:15:06: I don't know if most people really do in the church, but I'm constantly having conversations with homosexual men and women, and you know, the vast majority of those men and women, they know homosexuality is wrong.
01:15:24: Their conscience smites them. I had a young man once pull me aside and through tears was confessing to me that he knew that he was enslaved to his sin, and that he did not want to continue down this destructive path of homosexuality, and let me tell you, it is destructive.
01:15:45: And these people know that their sexual deviance is wrong.
01:15:52: They know that it's sin. They know that it's something they'll have to give an account for. So when
01:15:58: I say that it's unfounded, it's really wrongheaded to compromise at all with the
01:16:03: Gospel. It assumes that by compromise you are going to get the favoritism of the world or something like that.
01:16:12: The reality is that we sort of overlook the cultural consciousness of our society.
01:16:21: I think it's much more Christian than people actually think, because I'm at a hyper -liberal campus and even there the consensus is, you know, post -modernism.
01:16:35: But even there, people see that it's wrong, and they know that it's something that contradicts
01:16:43: God's Word, and they don't really try to hide that. They just more or less say, well,
01:16:49: I don't care. That's really what boils down to now. People are not so much trying to say, well, the
01:16:55: Bible's okay with it. More than anything, there's just a flat -out rejection of God's authority.
01:17:03: Yeah, Romans 1 tells us that all men do know that they are rebelling against him, but they suppress the truth.
01:17:11: Yes, sir. That's right. I was unaware that a lot of those, or a considerable portion of those, who are demanding a certain repentance or acknowledgement of racism from the white population, which, you know, there are people who are second or third generation immigrants whose families immigrated here long after slavery was abolished, and they are being demanded to ask forgiveness for slavery.
01:17:52: But, you know, some of these things don't make sense. But I was unaware that some of these folks were also asking for normalization of same -sex attraction.
01:18:02: That's obviously completely evil, because the Apostle Paul makes it clear that not only are the unrepentant homosexuals going to be damned, but those who give them hearty approval as well.
01:18:20: But at the same time, I don't think that, I mean, it depends on what kind of level of attention or priority you give to social activism.
01:18:30: I mean, those of us who believe in the right to life of the unborn are involved typically, or very often, in some kind of social activism.
01:18:39: I don't think that social activism in and of itself is wrong. And I also think that we can't fool ourselves into thinking that racism as a sin has disappeared from the planet.
01:18:52: But we have to preach about that from our pulpits. And one of the important aspects where these social justice warriors are getting it all wrong and are guilty of the wickedness of pride and arrogance and of racism themselves is when they say that only white people are guilty of this sin.
01:19:13: You know, that's not only sinful in and of itself and racist in and of itself, it's actually sort of insane to say that because of somebody's melodic content, they can be, or lack thereof, they are the sole bearers of the responsibility for the sin of racism.
01:19:34: It's just crazy. And it's not only crazy from a biblical point of view, but it's even crazy when you just look around you and you watch the media and you see hatred oozing out of people no matter what color their skin is for other people.
01:19:49: In fact, we were talking about earlier your Mexican background and my late wife and her mother being from Puerto Rico.
01:19:57: I have met quite a number of Hispanics, even those that profess Christ, who despise other
01:20:04: Spanish -speaking people from different Latin countries. Of course.
01:20:09: Yeah, I mean with a seething hatred. So, I mean, it's really catering to somebody's own sin when you tell them that they are off the hook for being responsible for racism just because they happen to have a darker skin color.
01:20:28: That's just crazy and dead wrong. Yeah, yeah, and you also have the issue that the
01:20:34: Apostle Paul and the Apostles, they faced all these issues. I mean,
01:20:40: FF Bruce says that the racial tensions,
01:20:46: I think he says the cleavage between Jew and Gentile is the most hostile ethnic division that has ever existed on the face of the earth.
01:20:59: And that was overcome not by having conversations about racial reconciliation, but by preaching
01:21:06: Christ crucified. So that's what I mean by, you know, I think what people are asking and the compromise that the question is asking is totally misguided and it really, it makes us sound like the world.
01:21:23: Yeah, yeah, certainly does. And it's just, the whole thing is tragic and I think one of the most tragic and despicable things that is oozing out of this controversy is when brethren in Christ are being publicly slandered for a sin, namely racism, that is a damnable sin.
01:21:46: I mean, we are not undermining the severity of the sinfulness of racism, but it's wicked to be calling people out and claiming that they are guilty of this sin, that this sin is actually something that rules their lives and enslaves them, when that's totally not true in regard to these particular people.
01:22:10: And you're murdering their reputation. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, you know,
01:22:16: I was, you know, I don't think evangelicalism has any business having a conference on Martin Luther King Jr.,
01:22:25: I mean, frankly. Yeah, I, well, I don't know if you heard during that program that I did with Phil Johnson, but a dear friend of mine who's now in heaven, a black brother in Christ and pastor,
01:22:37: Robert J. Cameron, one of the main reasons that he finally left the denomination that he was in was because a prominent church within that denomination celebrated
01:22:49: Martin Luther King Jr. Day and they were not chastised or disciplined or given any correction at all by the denomination or the presbytery.
01:23:00: And he is a black man and he left that denomination because of that, because he knows and knew that Martin Luther King Jr.,
01:23:08: although in many ways should be treated as an American hero, should not be treated as a
01:23:15: Christian hero and be celebrated by a church. Just as white, predominantly white congregations and denominations shouldn't be celebrating as a church
01:23:26: Benjamin Franklin Day or something, you know, I mean, because obviously he was not a
01:23:31: Christian either, and there are many white American heroes that were not Christian. I think that we need to guard our heart against any semblance or any form or any sort of impulse of racism in our own heart, and if our heart has any of that present,
01:23:52: I think we should be, you know, ready to renounce that and to kill that which is sinful in us, put it to death and mortify that part of the flesh.
01:24:03: But at the same time, we also should be careful that we do not overlook the power of the
01:24:12: Gospel to change the hearts of men and begin to adopt this sort of hypersensitivity to the point where we expect, almost in an over -realized eschatological way, thinking that in this world, you know, that our duty is to rid the world of racism while we're here.
01:24:35: That's a noble cause, just like ridding the world of abortion, but that is not our main point or the main purpose of our existence, neither is it our missional mandate.
01:24:50: Right, and especially the worst way you can go about trying to end racism is through racist rhetoric, because that's all that is doing is inciting and fueling and fanning the flames of racism when you yourself are behaving and speaking as a racist, and when you are denying that there is any guilt for this sin amongst you or people who look like you.
01:25:19: Yeah, just absolutely, I can't even... That's a good question. It's a good question, and it's a good topic that, you know, needs to be discussed, and I think it's something that, unfortunately, as a church moving forward, at least in the foreseeable future, we're going to have to combat this.
01:25:41: We're going to have to deal with this. This is something we're going to have to engage in the foreseeable future, because this, you know, politically, it's a super hot button.
01:25:53: Politically, it's an easy way to divide people. It's an easy way to get people charged up for your point of view, and, you know, that tends to spill over into the church conversation, and then it doesn't help that you have voices within the church, even at times
01:26:10: Calvinist Reform -type churches that continue to fuel the same sort of talking points that you tend to find on CNN or something.
01:26:19: We are going to our last break right now, and I forwarded you an email from another listener, because it was a very, very lengthy question.
01:26:30: Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I already forwarded that to you, and you can respond to it when we come back.
01:26:35: This is our final break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address, again, is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:26:45: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
01:26:53: USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
01:27:00: That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:27:06: Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with Emilio Ramos. One sure way all
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01:28:42: Or go to batterydepot .com. That's batterydepot .com. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am
01:28:55: I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,
01:29:02: I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a
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01:36:01: And Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama says there was a story that came out of your
01:36:06: Wife's Fish with Trish segment on Todd Friel's show from a few years ago.
01:36:13: Supposedly Todd called her live on the show, and when she answered her cell phone, she was in the process of sharing the gospel with a man named
01:36:20: Aaron who had just heard you preaching the gospel on the campus of the University of North Texas.
01:36:26: According to one of his own tweets, Todd asked Trish to pass him the phone so that he could share the gospel with Aaron, which was precisely what she was already doing.
01:36:37: Some listeners interpreted this as a reaction against a woman sharing the gospel with a man when there was a perfectly good man standing by who could do it without being unseemly.
01:36:49: Do you remember this incident? If so, what was Todd's motivation for taking over from Trish?
01:36:55: Obviously you can't read Todd Friel's mind, but why don't you respond to this just as a matter of general practice, what your interpretation of this is or what your response to this is?
01:37:09: Well, I don't remember this incident at all, and the person asking the question was listening to a segment while I was preaching, so I couldn't have been around.
01:37:24: The other thing, like you said, I'm not going to speak to Todd Friel's motive.
01:37:30: I mean, I think Todd Friel doesn't have any sort of impact that I know of, any imbalance when it comes to women sharing with men one -on -one the gospel or something like that.
01:37:43: I think we would agree, he and I, on the limitations of women and evangelism in terms of women open -air preaching or something like that, which
01:37:54: I do not support. But no, I don't remember this particular incident.
01:38:02: Well, sorry we couldn't help you any further than that, Ted, but thanks for listening and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and beyond.
01:38:12: I want to get back to some of the main subjects of the
01:38:19: Christian faith that you lay out in the website for Unpopular, the movie, as an aid for people who want more information about the
01:38:30: Christian faith and the gospel after seeing the movie.
01:38:36: And you have various videos and teachers. In fact, you have Ken Ham featured on this website, and I was so thrilled very recently, just about a week or two ago, to get a phenomenal endorsement from Ken Ham for Iron Trip and Zion Radio.
01:38:57: I've been waiting for years for it, actually, but this was the first time I actually had Ken's personal email address, so I think that's what expedited it after my last interview with Ken.
01:39:06: But the Bible and science are incompatible? That's what your average person would likely say to you.
01:39:15: I have heard that innumerable times. And in a person's mind, well, if science disproves
01:39:23: Christianity, Christianity must be nothing more than myth, legend, and fairy tales, just something to help people feel better about this world while they're living in it.
01:39:32: But it really has no genuine truth or importance, especially when it apparently, to them, conflicts with science.
01:39:40: But if you could talk about that for a little bit. Yeah, Ken was gracious enough to give us an interview.
01:39:48: We were actually at the ARC, at one of the opening days of the ARC, and CNN had just interviewed
01:39:55: Ken Ham, and we came in right after they did. And he was terribly busy that day, but he graciously gave us a good chunk of time to interview him.
01:40:07: They also carry my book, Convert, from Adam to Christ, at the
01:40:13: Creation Museum. So there's a little bit of connection there between Ken and I.
01:40:19: But other than that, once I explained to him what it is that we wanted to do with Unpopular and how we wanted to get it in the hands of a lot of young people in college, but then, you know, all over the world type of thing.
01:40:30: You know, I'll come back to your question here, but I just wanted to mention that, you know, recently at the
01:40:36: Shepherds Conference down in MacArthur, a couple of different missionaries came up to me, one from China and one from the
01:40:46: Ukraine. And both of them told me that they are spreading Unpopular everywhere.
01:40:52: And they're having all sorts of different testimonies. And the missionary from Ukraine says, we're spreading this to thousands of people in the
01:41:03: Ukraine. And so I was just really, really encouraged by that. Same thing with the missionary from China.
01:41:08: He says, we're finding ways, you know, if the government takes it down, we'll put it back up in a different way.
01:41:14: But we're getting it to people in Mandarin. And, you know, China is going to be exposed to this message.
01:41:20: And I was just so thrilled by that. But yeah, so once again, I mean, we interviewed
01:41:25: Ken Ham, because we thought of all the people inquiring, you know, when it comes to the Bible and science,
01:41:31: I mean, that's going to be one of the points that people constantly ask. And, you know, especially with evolution everywhere and stuff like that, and who better to do that than Ken Ham.
01:41:41: I'm a big fan of Ken Ham. I think he's really solid on that. I think that, you know,
01:41:50: Ken has been consistent throughout the years, just being uncompromised in his support of the biblical account of Genesis and young earth creationism, which that's my position.
01:42:07: I know there's a lot of good brothers that don't agree with that. But that's certainly my position.
01:42:14: And I just think Ken was the right guy to do that, and hopefully to clarify some of the common misconceptions about the
01:42:22: Bible and science. But yeah, I think that's really important. Well, the thing that's interesting is that very often, not always, but very often, when these confrontations, especially if it has to do with a public debate or something like that, between a creationist, a
01:42:44: Christian, who believes in intelligent design, etc., and a secular scientist, especially one that's an atheist or agnostic, and Darwinian, it's amazing how you will very often find the
01:42:59: Christian bringing up more actual science than the
01:43:06: Darwinian evolutionist. As Ken Ham has done even in his debate with Bill Nye, who is not really a scientist, even though he's publicly connected with science, people think he's a scientist, but he's not.
01:43:20: But Ken was bringing up observable science, and so much of secular science and Darwinian evolution is based on theory, and theory even more spectacular and fantastic than some of the miracles in the
01:43:38: Bible. I mean, you really have to have, as they have said, I'm not the first to say, this is an often repeated phrase, but you need more faith to be a
01:43:48: Darwinian evolutionist than you need to be a Christian or a biblicist. Yeah, well said.
01:43:55: Yeah, so you don't believe everything that you hear in the name of science is actually true.
01:44:03: People treat the issue of evolution, for instance, as if this is true, because it's been proven by them, by scientists.
01:44:11: And you'll even hear political pundits and TV news hosts laughing at conservative political candidates if they say that they don't believe in evolution, and they'll laugh and mock them as if this is some kind of a proven fact, like the fact that the planet
01:44:28: Earth is a sphere, rather than a flat Earth or something. In fact, they will put us all in the same basket as flat
01:44:35: Earth lunacy, and they will act as if these things like the evolution of man from pond scum has been proven, and nothing even remotely close has been proven.
01:44:47: Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's absolutely right. I deal with evolution all the time on college campuses.
01:44:53: I personally don't have a whole lot of tolerance for the debate, because I think it's silly, right? But at the end of the day, so many kids are believed, you know, they parrot all these points.
01:45:03: They don't really know them themselves. They just parrot all these Darwinian points, you know, and in the process, it's just to support ultimately their postmodern worldview.
01:45:15: But if you take postmodernism to its ultimate conclusion, then science itself is impossible, which is not something that's, you know, really friendly to their position.
01:45:25: They try to have it both ways. Right. And something that is a very important issue and a very controversial issue, even within Christendom, is the issue of church membership.
01:45:40: That's something that you actually address on a video on the unpopularthemovie .com website.
01:45:46: It's something that even divides professing believers in Christ.
01:45:52: There are a lot of professing Christians who find it more tolerable and comfortable, and some would even go to the extreme of saying it's the actual appropriate way to live, to go around, to basically live out your life without being officially attached to a local congregation, without being officially placed under the authority of elders in a local church.
01:46:25: Some would either bounce from church to church to church just to hear preaching and to be edified by it, and then will quickly escape any connection with that church, or some of those individuals won't even darken the door of a church and will have perhaps
01:46:41: Bible studies in their home or something, if even that. But why is church membership so important?
01:46:48: Well, church membership is important for several reasons, and the way that I like to talk about it with folks is simple three categories that are just absolutely prerequisites for Biblical Christianity in the context of the
01:47:02: Church. We're thinking about ecclesiology, but, you know, shepherds have to be able to identify their sheep, sheep have to be able to identify the shepherds, and sheep have to be able to identify the other sheep.
01:47:14: And so if you don't have these demarcations of identity where you can clearly identify, let's say, for a pastor,
01:47:23: I've gone to non -membership churches where the pastors have asked me, just as a, you know, as a well,
01:47:32: I can't use the word member because they don't have membership, but as one who regularly attended, I had pastors asking me, does so -and -so go to our church?
01:47:43: Well, you're the pastor, you should know who goes to your church. And, but that's what happens when you don't have membership.
01:47:49: It's impossible to enter into some, you know, formal, responsible sort of community with other people in the context of Christian worship, and I think membership is
01:48:03: God's will for the life of all of His people. You know,
01:48:09: I often say in Hebrews chapter 12, when the author of Hebrews speaks of the
01:48:15: Church of the Firstborn enrolled in heaven, I thought, well, if there's a heavenly role, then there must be an earthly role, and so we have to have church roles.
01:48:25: I mean, without church roles, you have anarchy. And so I definitely am a very strong proponent of church membership,
01:48:33: I just think it's mature and responsible Christianity. And it's commanded in Scripture that we are to be under the authority of our leaders, under the authority of the elders in the local church, and also, you know, it's condemned to forsake the assembling of the brethren, and that's more than just visiting a church.
01:48:59: I mean, you cannot conduct proper exegesis of the New Testament and come up with that conclusion.
01:49:06: Before we run out of time, I obviously want you to talk about your planned trip to Israel with Dr.
01:49:11: James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and I want you to come back many more times, but especially two more times, to discuss your two books as topics in and of themselves,
01:49:25: Convert from Adam to Christ and Crucified, the Soul of the Gospel, if you would like to come back, unless you found your stay with me so miserable you can't even think of returning to the show,
01:49:38: I don't know. But I enjoyed it, and I look forward to your return, and would like to discuss each of those books on two different shows.
01:49:47: But tell us about the visit to Israel that you're planning with Dr. James R. White. Well, first of all,
01:49:53: I accept your invitation, and thank you for that. Yeah, we are in, you know,
01:49:59: October 6th through the 16th, we're headed to Israel to tour the sites in Jerusalem and in other places, and for those of you that are interested in going, you know,
01:50:13: I wanted to invite, you know, Iron Sharpens Iron audience to come along with us.
01:50:19: If you have the availability and the means to go with us, we'd love to have you. We do have just a couple spots left over, and we're really trying to fill those spots with some like -minded brothers and sisters, and so I thought this would be a good platform to advertise
01:50:38: Israel, and I know that people on your show are also, you know, they're also fans of James White.
01:50:46: So Dr. White is going to be teaching for us, we're going to be having dinner, and then we're going to be having theology, so it's going to be, or apologetics, and we're going to have a really amazing time, just an intimate time of fellowship and Bible study, and then on top of that, we're going to get all of this amazing historical background on Israel, and I've been there a couple of times, and it's just, it's fascinating just being able to tour all of these different historical sites of the
01:51:22: Bible, and then just to open your Bible gives you just a remarkable vantage point, and when you read
01:51:29: Scripture and you're actually standing on Mount Carmel, and you're there where Elijah, you know, killed the prophets of Baal, and you're reading that passage as you're standing there, it's just a remarkable experience, or where you're standing on the sea, you're standing on the shore of Galilee, and you're overlooking the
01:51:48: Sea of Galilee, and you're reminded that Jesus did so much ministry here, and you're able to now have a real clear -cut topography of where He went, and what
01:51:59: He did, and what it looked like, and there's just really nothing like it. So if your listeners are interested, they just go to heritagegrace .com,
01:52:08: and they can go there and contact us. They can just go right on to the contact us, and they can call one of the staff members there, or one of the elders, and we will direct you to where you need to go to join us.
01:52:26: So if you guys are available, we'd love to have you. So Reformed Christians actually make trips to Israel.
01:52:33: You're breaking stereotypes. I know that James White has been to Brooklyn, New York, but has he been to Israel before?
01:52:44: He's never been to Israel before, but it's something he's always wanted to do, and so he just thought this would be the trip for him.
01:52:51: So he's a good friend, and I expect to have a really good time.
01:52:58: Great. And other than...is it just you and James speaking on this tour, or are there other speakers?
01:53:04: We have a couple other pastors that are going to be coming with us, that they will be doing various devotional teachings at the sites, and stuff like that.
01:53:14: But yeah, I think James and I will probably handle the bulk of it. Great.
01:53:20: Well, I hope that many of you take advantage, or actually many of you can't take advantage of it. Only a couple of you can, according to what you said.
01:53:27: But perhaps the next time you do this, there'll be many more, hopefully, that will join you as a result of hearing about this from Iron Trip and Zion Radio.
01:53:35: Now before we go, if you could whet the appetite of our listeners for Convert from Adam to Christ and Crucify the
01:53:43: Soul of the Gospel, which we, God willing, will cover in two more shows. Yeah, wonderful.
01:53:49: Well actually, the title is actually Convert, like a verb. So Convert from Adam to Christ is...it's
01:53:57: a book that I wrote specifically on union with Christ, and just showing how people...but
01:54:03: it has an evangelistic thrust, and so what we're saying is that the purpose of evangelism is to take people out of Adam and everything that means, and put them into Christ and everything that that means.
01:54:16: And so in the chapter, you know, we talk about what happens to a person in Adam, and how does
01:54:24: God look at people in Adam, and really to come to the realization that in God's economy,
01:54:30: He only sees two different kinds of people. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. And so, you know, to me it was helpful to write that book and to study for that, because it reminded me that evangelism is not just an isolated event where, you know, a
01:54:47: Christian's off in the corner sharing the good news with somebody. It's part of a larger picture. And that picture is that through evangelism, obviously, and through the preaching of the
01:54:57: Gospel, God is creating a new humanity in Christ. A whole new humanity for a whole new world.
01:55:03: And that, in a sense, really sort of elevates the view of evangelism and what you're actually part of.
01:55:11: You know, Paul says in 1 Corinthians that we are God's helpers and fellow workers in His field.
01:55:18: And so there's a real dignity that comes with evangelism, and so CONVERT is actually the effort to try to get us to understand what really is our role when we participate in preaching the
01:55:31: Gospel, and why is Adam in the Bible and Christ in that connection, why is that connection so crucial, so important?
01:55:42: That's what CONVERT is about. And Crucified is a bit of a different book that sort of emphasizes, you know, it's called
01:55:53: Crucified the Soul of the Gospel, because it's taken from 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul says,
01:55:58: I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified. And so to really understand what does that mean, what does it mean to make
01:56:05: Christ the center, and how central is Christ and the cross to the overall program of theology in the
01:56:16: Bible? And so I have chapters that sort of are broad -sweeping chapters that deal with just the significance and the centrality of the cross and the theology of the cross, and just how far -reaching the theology of the cross really is to our theology and to our life, practically.
01:56:36: So that's sort of what those two books are about. They're both about Christology, and so I'll have to write something on a different topic, but it's almost like, why should
01:56:46: I? Well, if anybody listening wants to get those books, CVBBS .com,
01:56:53: our sponsors, one of our sponsors, CVBBS .com, you can order them from there, and if they don't have them in stock, they will get them for you.
01:57:02: And just make sure you mention Chris Arnzen and I on SharpensIron Radio when you're ordering them. And how do our listeners view
01:57:09: Unpopular the Movie? Just go to unpopularthemovie .com,
01:57:15: and then what we like to tell people is, when you watch the movie, send it off to other people, because that's the point.
01:57:23: You know, I created this film because sort of the motivation behind it was to have a film like this that was 100 % free, and that was 100 % accessible to anyone, anywhere.
01:57:42: And that's why we want the link to go out to as many people as possible.
01:57:49: I recently had somebody share with us that, matter of fact, a lady on her deathbed watched
01:57:57: Unpopular and consequently professed
01:58:02: Christ while watching the film. We were so thrilled to hear that, because we just don't know.
01:58:10: And this is the blessing of the medium of technology and media, because it can go places where we can't.
01:58:20: And so we're hopeful that this film, for decades, years to come, so long as the
01:58:26: Lord should ordain it, will have a far -reaching effect and will reach untold multitudes with the good news of Jesus Christ.
01:58:36: And so just go to unpopularthemovie .com, and then there's additional videos beneath that film that will help to clarify things and explain things like the reliability of the
01:58:48: Bible, the struggle with sin, creation, and the
01:58:54: Bible, and things like that. Ken Ham is on there, Jason Lyle is on there, and Paul Washer, of course, is on there.
01:59:03: So, you know, take advantage of all those resources. Great, and I want our listeners also to remember that the
01:59:10: Heritage Grace Church website in Frisco, Texas is heritagegrace .com,
01:59:18: heritagegrace .com. Red Grace Media can be found at redgracemedia .com, redgracemedia .com.
01:59:25: And the Spanish literature and Spanish media website that was mentioned earlier,
01:59:31: I'm not even going to try to pronounce it, but if you want to email me,
01:59:37: I will send you the information. I have the link for that ministry. If you could hold on,
01:59:42: Emilio, I want to say a proper goodbye to you off the air, and I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater