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Pastor Jason Wallace of Christ OPC Salt Lake City on “Defending the Faith in Troubled Times”!!
Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with 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 hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity on the planet earth. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 22nd day of June 2015.
I had to get my calendar out to remember what date it was. For those of you who tuned in expecting to hear Kareem Shamsi Basha, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity by the grace and mercy of God, we had to reschedule Kareem because of a photography shoot that he had to do today.
He is a professional photographer, and we had to reschedule due to that, so we were very happy to get a last-minute confirmation from Jason Wallace that he agreed to be on our program today. Jason Wallace, who is the pastor of Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it's our great honor and privilege to have you as a guest for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Wallace.
Are you there, Pastor Wallace? Yes, for some reason, we're having troubles with Pastor Wallace. I'm not sure why. Hold on. In fact, we're going to go to a station break and try to figure this out, so don't go away.
We'll be right back after these messages. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.
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That sounds like sweet music in the hell-bound sinner's ears. Especially if you're like me and you know that you don't need Romans 3 to remind you of how wicked you are. If you would.
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Or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American.
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The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues.
Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse.
With all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in-depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.
Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. I think we may have figured out the problem. Pastor Wallace, are you there?
Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. In fact, I just have to turn up your volume a bit. And if you could, give our listeners your greetings again. Well, it's good to be with you. Yes. I apologize for this mishap, but I'm a one-man host slash engineer.
And for some reason, we had problems today that we have not had before. As I was saying, you are a pastor of the Christ Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. And you are having an upcoming Bible conference or an apologetics conference, which is absolutely free of charge, from July 1st to the 5th, featuring our mutual friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.
And if you could, let our listeners know first something about Christ Presbyterian Church and the denomination that you're in, and then follow up with a description of the.
Upcoming free apologetics conference with Dr. James R. White. Yes, I'm here, brother. That.
Was just some technical stuff here going on, that's all. Okay, no problem. Just checking.
But anyway, our 18th year here, we had the privilege... Oh, yeah. I saw that, actually. The former Mormon, I believe he is? Yes. Yeah. And honestly, he was a big fish in a little pond. At first, it was just preaching.
Yes. And for details, you can go to gospelutah .org, correct? Gospel? Correct. Is it the abbreviation of Utah or the whole word? You go to resource... Great.
GospelUtah, that's the entire word for Utah. GospelUtah .org. And this is a free conference. If anybody listening can fly out to Utah, or if you already live in Utah, or if you have friends, family, and loved ones in Utah, as I do.
In fact, I have a dear couple that I've known since childhood that now live in Salt Lake City that I've contacted about this, so I'm hoping that many of you attend, or at the very least, please pray for God's blessings upon this conference, and that many in the area who need to hear what Dr. White has to say the most, including Mormons, show up for this conference.
Now, the theme of the conference, if you could.
Give that again? Yes, Defending the Faith in Troubled Times, and I can't think of a more.
Appropriate theme for a Bible conference or an apologetics conference in this day and age in which we live. Obviously, the two major themes that are thrust into our eyes and ears nearly every single day, in fact, not even nearly every day, every day, are the issues of Islam and the issue of homosexuality.
What are some of the other pressing issues facing the church at large that need to be addressed apologetically and where Christians, even the average Christian, needs to be better prepared to defend their faith, either in the public square near where they live, in the workplace where they're employed, and during those times of day when employees are able to interact without robbing their employee of time, and even around the dinner table with the holidays coming up, the Fourth of July barbecues and so on.
What are the issues other than the two that I just mentioned that you believe are most pressing for the average Christian to know what they're saying.
And doing in defending the faith? In fact, I'm going to repeat our email address if any of you.
Listening have a question regarding defending the faith in troubled times. My email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N. We are not going to be taking any more station breaks since we basically played every commercial that we have in the beginning when we were running into technical issues, and so there we have an open field for you to email us questions.
That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. In fact, since you are speaking on the Mormon, that you did mention Mormonism, we have a listener in Copenhagen, Denmark Armin, who asks, I would assume that there needs to be some groundwork done before proclaiming the gospel to Mormons since they have a different view of God, sin, hell, heaven, grace, etc.
And that is more of a statement than a question, but I guess he wants your confirmation on that and for you to expound upon that. I've heard it said that the Mormons very often have the same vocabulary but a different dictionary, so I think that that relates to what our listener.
In Copenhagen, Denmark has to say. If you could expand on that. I want to repeat our email address.
Again, it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. If you have any questions for our guest, Jason Wallace, who's the pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, which is an Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we are discussing the need to defend the faith in troubled times, and this is in order to help promote a conference on apologetics from July 1st through the 5th at the Christ Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, which is being conducted by Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.
And even something that we've heard recently, like this horrific shooting in Charleston, North Carolina, where a number of worshipers were murdered by a madman, it seems. And you also have this breathtaking public display of humility, where forgiveness is being offered to this murder suspect.
It's just mind-boggling when we see people who have been touched literally by such a tragedy respond in such a fashion. Even in circumstances like that, we need to know how to defend the faith, because obviously the issue of why this occurred, why this individual committed these murders, how these people responded to it, these Christians in this church, how they responded to this tragedy, all of this involves apologetics in the long run, because people are going to be...
When we're sitting around the barbecue or the picnic table on 4th of July, people are going to be bringing up matters like this, and we need to give a Christian response, don't we?
Definitely.
Yeah, it seems like a total 180-degree contrast from what had been happening in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ferguson, Missouri, and other inner cities, where after the accidental death of some individuals by the police, where there was zero tolerance or forgiveness or evangelism being done, nothing but hatred really being demonstrated.
And of course, I don't mean to broad brush, but that was what the media chose to highlight. This is quite a contrast, isn't it? Now, was this in South Carolina or in North Carolina?
South Carolina.
Oh, okay. For some reason, I keep hearing North Carolina. I know that...
The guy, the shooter was from North Carolina.
Oh, okay. I see.
But he...
And once again, our email address here, if you have a question, is chrisorenson at gmail .com, chrisorenson at gmail .com. And I do have an anonymous listener with a question who wants to know, can the church be too focused on doctrine and theological differences amongst professing believers and forget about the core elements that are supposed to reflect one's faith, that being love, humility, kindness, compassion, benevolence?
And if you could follow up on that. Obviously, I believe that that can be the case, but it seems to me that the church is in desperate need of both theological grounding and love, compassion, and benevolence, don't you think?
Yeah, I mean...
I've never heard that one. That's pretty funny. And I'm a Reformed Baptist, by the way.
I understand. You found it a whole lot funnier than he did.
For anybody listening who this has gone over their head or passed them by, they don't understand it. He's referring to Noah's Ark. And obviously, during the global flood, you would have much rather have been sprinkled than immersed.
Anyway.
Yeah, there's no biblical theological... Long story short, yes, we define...
If you could define that. I know that orthodox means straight and so on, but a lot of people, whenever they hear that, they are in the realm of religion, they are immediately going to the Greek or Russian orthodox or Aetherian orthodox.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, orthodoxy is...
Obviously, a lot of this involves making mountains out of molehills or, as Jesus Christ was rebuking the Pharisees for, straining out gnats and swallowing camels. You have people who exalt things that are of comparative less importance.
And I say comparative because practice and the ordinances and teaching and so on in the church of the living God is never a totally unimportant issue. But when you compare them with some other things in the realm of the faith, both how we operate inside the church and outside the walls of the church and what we proclaim to the world, there are differences.
And of course, it is not always the easiest thing to determine what is more important, what is less vital. And some things are more obvious than others, but it isn't always an easy.
Road, is it? No, no. It is an interesting path. And of course, there is a time and a place where.
Even if you love and respect your elders and the congregation of the church where you are a member, if you have convictions like over-exclusive psalmody or strictly a cappella singing and things like that, if they become really a burden to your heart and you feel that you are violating your conscience by worshiping in a way that you believe is to be a strict biblical pattern, then there is nothing wrong with, as long as it is done in a correct, loving, and humble way, there is nothing wrong with departing that place with explanation and meeting with the elders and moving on to a different congregation that more clearly reflects what you believe.
Isn't that the case, that that is not always a bad.
Thing to do, to leave the congregation? I think that that is better than some of my advice to people. Of course, your answer to that is not, knowing a bit about where you're.
Coming from theologically and in practice, your answer is not peace at any price, which is the answer that much of modern evangelicalism has. They not only want to unite with anybody that professes the name of Christ regarding of their theology within evangelicalism, but they want to embrace our friends who are Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, they want to embrace them as brothers in Christ, and because they see a greater army defending truth against the immorality and the liberalism and the leftism that is plaguing our society, they see that we would make more of an impact if all of us who are conservative, and who believe in the Judeo-Christian morals and ethics that are in the Old and New Testaments, if we all were to get together and really focus on those issues, that would be an improvement for the church and the world.
But that is not really the answer, is it?
No, no. You know, what I mean by, I mean, James is coming, we have, you know, I'm not going to go because of your paedo-baptism beliefs. Oh, he's, we had some people, uh, we had some issues in the church.
Well, I'm not sure how he fits into the realm of Calvinism.
Then, but the issue that we face is, as I said, it's not easy because there is a fine line sometimes that we cross an error on one side or the other, but we are to be biblical ecumenists and to recognize that some differences do not affect the gospel, and we are to cooperate with such brethren when those denominational differences do not violate our consciences in regard to the gospel.
But when something is clearly a denial of the gospel, of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, that's where we have to jam on the brakes, don't we? Because some of you, or my listeners, may be puzzled as to why you said Roman Catholicism teaches damning teachings.
Now, obviously not all of them are. We share in common a view of the deity of Christ, the trinity, the necessity of Christ's death on Calvary. But people forget, I remind my Catholic friends who get mad at me when I tell them I'm not a humanist in a modern sense, the Council of Trent, which is binding as dogma with Roman Catholic Church, they still have you and I, Pastor Jason, on the anathema list, not by name, obviously, since it was declared as dogma 500 years ago or so, but but those who believe the things that are peculiar to evangelical Christianity regarding salvation, you are accursed as a result of believing those, and that still stands no matter how liberal a face the Catholic Church gives today.
Is that not true?
Definitely. I mean, here in Utah, we see the exact same thing.
We have an anonymous listener that wants to know your opinion on churches that are forming and which already exist predominantly when there is a uniting of Reformed Baptist and Presbyterian believers who form local congregations, independent, autonomous congregations that allow individuals to have their babies sprinkled in a baptismal ceremony, and also if those who believe in strict credo Baptist positions, such as the Baptist, they can refuse baptism to their children and be immersed, or wait for their children to be immersed when they can make professions of faith and repentance.
Do you agree with this model,.
Is the question. You're speaking of people from the community who might not even profess.
Or not even reflect genuine faith, but they want to have the ceremony for the baby, you mean?
Yeah, I mean, Pastor Jason, we've run out of time, and I know that your website is gospelutah .org,.
And we hope that many of our listeners will spread the word about your conference.