October 9, 2018 Show with Phil Johnson on “The Charge to Shepherds to Guard the Flock” PLUS Michael A. Gaydosh on “The Fear of the Unknown: Michael A. Gaydosh’s Recent Health Trials & an Update on His Recovery”

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, quote, 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 Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth

day of October 2018.

I had such a blessed time at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church

of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Sunday night.

I was only able to attend the final session of their conference, their

Reformation conference, with Mike Ebendroth on the theme, Why the Reformation Still

Matters.

And providentially, when I just picked a pew at random to sit in and began speaking

to my friend Joe Ignacio, who happens to be one of the sons of the woman who led me to Christ, and by the way, pray

for Joe, he is not yet a born -again believer, so he has been attending church with me every Sunday with his

own children and has been showing signs of being drawn.

But um Joe and I sat next to each other in the pew and we began

speaking to each other before the service and a man turns around and told me he recognized

my voice, said I love your show Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and it is because of your interview with Phil Johnson

a year ago that I discovered this church and joined it.

And I am so delighted to hear things like that from time to time.

I happen to hear about it by God's grace fairly often and was just glad to be

providentially sitting behind this brother and his wife and new baby to hear that

wonderful report.

But today we happen to have the aforementioned Phil Johnson back on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He is on for the first hour.

Phil Johnson is the Executive Director of John MacArthur's Media Ministry, grace to you, and during the

first hour we will discuss the charge to shepherds to guard the flock and

the second hour we are going to be joined by Mike Gaydosh, the founder of

Solid Ground Christian Books, and we're going to be discussing the fear of the unknown, Michael A.

Gaydosh's recent health trials and an update on his recovery.

We're going to be talking about his trial facing very serious life -threatening

and very delicate and complicated heart surgery that he successfully

underwent and is now recovering and we're going to get an update on his recovery and what lessons God has taught him

throughout this trial and continues to teach him.

So that will be, I'm sure, a very valuable portion of today's show during the second hour.

But it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back for the first hour, Phil Johnson.

Good to be back, thanks for having me.

And just briefly for those of our listeners who may be unfamiliar with grace to you

because we do have those who are new Christians, those who are outside of the Christian faith, we have

even folks who are Muslim and atheists and agnostics and we have

Roman Catholics and others listening to this program.

So why don't you tell our listeners about grace to you?

Grace to you is the media ministry of John MacArthur.

He is a pastor who has pastored the same church in Southern California for 50 years now.

Actually his 50th anniversary is coming up in February and he has taught

systematically, verse by verse, through the entire New Testament over the 50 year span.

He is not only a pastor, but he constantly re -preaches old

sermons and meticulously

through the entire New Testament and written a whole series of commentaries on it and all that.

The Lord has greatly used him worldwide and what we do at grace to you is take recordings

and that's the basis for everything we do.

We started out as a cassette tape ministry and we don't even produce many cassette tapes anymore.

I don't know if we do any actually, but of course we distribute mp3 files, all of John's

more than 3 ,000 sermons.

You can download as many,

all kinds of other resources there.

Bible questions and answers, the radio

and worldwide there is at

any time, day or night, when someone is somewhere is not listening to.

Praise God.

And by the way, I know somebody who still listens to John MacArthur's cassette tapes.

My friend, Reverend Buzz Taylor, who has been in the past a frequent co -host with

me.

He has been on hiatus from co -hosting.

He's working on a book on eschatology and hopes to rejoin me more frequently in the future,

but Buzz worked for a radio station and he got to keep whatever cassettes they

played years ago of John MacArthur and he's got a whole archived library

of cassettes of John.

MacArthur.

Yes, there are still a few people who do that.

I kept a lot of cassette tapes when it sort of went out of style until I realized, you know, I can

easily download any sermon onto my iPhone and listen to it any time I

want and it's actually

better.

You might find this humorous.

I.

Don't know what station this was that Buzz got some of these cassettes from, but some of them

were handwritten with a label, Do Not Air, and they had to do with

John's more overtly Calvinist.

Messages.

Yeah, well, we get some of that sometimes.

You know, and it's funny talking about the demise of cassette tapes.

I have this vivid recollection of a management retreat that we had in 1995.

The management team at Grace to You spent a weekend away from here where we were

planning and talking about the future.

In 1995, I had just gotten on the internet and started my webpage, which became the Spurgeon

Archive, and so I was brand new at the time, but I was noticing the internet

and how quickly it was going to be taking what was going to happen,

and John was at this management retreat and I made the comment sort of offhandedly, it's very possible that within 20

years we won't even be producing cassette tapes anymore.

Not realizing then, you know, how prescient that was, but John stopped the meeting at that point and he

said, don't say that.

That's the backbone of our whole ministry.

So, but now even if he listens on his cell phone, he can review the

broadcast or see preach or whatever he wants to.

Do.

You know, it's frightening when I first started in the

Christian radio industry when I was working for a Salem affiliate,

WMCA 570 AM and also WWDJ in New Jersey

that was purchased by Salem.

When I first started with Salem in 1991, when I was

editing ads or actually more importantly, when I had a client that purchased a

full -length program, whether it be a half hour, an hour, or longer, and I had to do editing on it, I was actually

using reel -to -reel on a razor.

Blade and tape.

Yeah, we did that.

We did that for years too.

I, you know, you have those little things that diagonal cut and

piece it together and we did that for years.

Yeah, well you wanted.

To discuss, oh by the way, let me quick remind my new friend that I met at Grace Bible Fellowship Church.

His name is Josh Tyson.

Josh Tyson, if you're listening, Josh, please send me your email address so I can

send you a recording of today's show afterwards so you'll be able to hear

me recount the providential meeting that we had at Grace Bible Fellowship Church.

And I also want to thank the pastor there, Josh Miller, Grace Bible Fellowship Church,

for orchestrating that event with Mike Abendroth and also the event a year

ago with all of the pastors from the Bible Fellowship Church

denomination that featured Phil Johnson.

That was a great time.

Phil, you did a masterful job as always and it was a great time.

Fellowshipping with you as well.

Yeah, it was.

Josh Miller is a great guy and a good pastor and I've known him since he was a seminary student.

In fact, he married my secretary.

Oh wow, I did not know that.

Yeah, his wife used to be my secretary.

Wow, there's my Johnny Carson imitation.

I did not know that.

I did not.

But we are talking about the charge to shepherds to guard the flock.

You just recently, or perhaps you're still in the process of preaching through a series on that

subject, what led you specifically to that subject?

Wow, you know, I don't remember what actually.

Triggered the thought in my mind, but I thought, you know, it'd be good.

I pastor a group of 400 or so

people.

It's a subject that

just concerns me as I read what's going on in the evangelical world and see what's on the internet.

I'm very troubled about the state of discernment among evangelical Christians today,

and on two fronts, really.

There are those who hate the very idea of discernment, who think there's something unspiritual or

uncharitable or unkind about any kind of polemical critique of someone

else's teaching or doctrine or whatever, and that, I think, is the predominant feeling, that we just

shouldn't do that.

We shouldn't criticize other Christians and what they teach, and as a result, nowadays, anybody can teach

anything.

They can make any claim they want, and it's supposed to be hands -off.

On the other front, though, there's a small group of people, a much smaller group of people, but they're

noisy, who seem to think that the only thing they should ever do is criticize, and

they just look for little things to criticize about and try to write people

off, and that's as undiscerning as refusing to be discerning

at all.

Anything they disagree about, and usually, I find,

people like that who are just—typically, they don't even belong to a church because they

can't find one perfect enough for them.

So, dangers on both sides, people who are too enthralled with a bad

idea of discernment and other people who resist the idea of discernment altogether because

they think there's something unkind and uncharitable—they feed each other, too, by the way.

The people who hate discernment always point to the hypercritical.

See, that's what's wrong with discernment.

That's why I don't like the idea of it.

Yeah, and those that are opposed to.

Any kind of discernment are obviously being inconsistent and illogical

and hypocritical because they are criticizing those that they feel are excessive in their criticism.

That's right.

I have a collection of tweets from people who rebuke me, saying, you should never publicly rebuke

another Christian leader, and they publicly rebuke me.

But what concerns me is that this is not a small issue in the New Testament.

I think there's maybe only one of the New Testament epistles that

doesn't be

discerning and careful.

The only one that doesn't mention that, I think, is Philemon.

And all churches in Revelation and Christ's words

to his own disciples in the Gospels themselves, and the Book of Acts models it as well.

So every book in the New Testament, really, every substantial book in the New Testament is either

for people to discern.

In the early church, and

it's interesting too, isn't it, that in the early church, and that was

even complete, every church we have a record of had some battle with false teachers

that needed to be critiqued and expelled from the church.

So if they had that big of a problem with it in the

Emberton, certainly in our day, when

thinking ideas and unbiblical notions are being peddled from the pulpits of evangelical

churches, certainly there's a need today for discerning voices and point

out why that's wrong, why it's unbiblical, and deal with the error, but

tolerate it in many congregations today.

Fear of this, I think a lot

of their preaching, you'll never hear any

doctrine realize that just to teach biblical doctrine

in and of itself is going to divide people in the congregation based on

what they tend to believe, false ideas that they've imbibed.

So people think doctrine is inherently divisive, and there's a sense in which that's true.

And in the New Testament

to the next generation,

Ephesian elders, for example, he comes on

his way back to Jerusalem after his, I think

it's at church,

meet him at a nearby port, and he gives them a final, in which he says, you're probably never

going to see me again, but keep this in mind.

And what he says is, keep a close eye on the church, on its doctrine.

And then he tells them prophetically, even from among yourselves, seek

the preeminence.

And sure enough, the Ephesian church,

and

there's so

much in the New Testament that urges us to be discerning and careful and even critical,.

False teaching that they have.

Yeah, if you could, let's start with the half or, in your opinion, much

more than half of Christendom that is

really overly ecumenical.

They're overly forgiving of serious matters.

They are more prone to gloss over or be unconcerned about

matters that are serious, even matters that have salvific importance to them.

And then after that, we could go over some of the primary ways you believe

people are becoming pharisaic, or they are becoming

discernment warriors, and they are pulling splinters out of their

brethren's eyes while they still have logs in their own.

Yeah.

Let's start with the weaker side of the discernment area first, those who are overlooking things.

And I'm talking about within the framework of conservative evangelicals.

We don't even need to waste time with the mainline liberal Protestants or liberal Catholics or.

Anything like that.

Yeah, well, it's easy to understand why people think the way they do, because, let's face it, conflict

is not pleasant for anybody.

Nobody loves a fight except somebody who's crazy.

And in fact, somebody who does love a

fight ought

not to be looking for fights all the time.

And fighting, arguing, disagreeing over doctrine, there is something in

that sense distasteful.

And let's face it, those conflicts fall in nature.

We're

if humanity weren't fallen in the first place, we wouldn't have conflicts.

So we tend to see, because conflicts are the fruit of the fall and the fruit of our sin, then

maybe it'd be best if we just avoid them altogether.

And people who think in a very shallow way think then they conclude that

they're not just

disagreeing, arguing.

And in the era in which we live, the

postmodern era, truth that's knowable.

So what we all believe is either a socially constructed thing that we all agree

with, or

what they

believe is wrong.

You're entitled to your truth, and I have my truth.

And that's how people today tend to think.

And too much of that worldly value system has crept

into the church, where there are a lot of people in the church who likewise think that there's just something

unspiritual and uncharitable and unkind about telling someone else that what they believe and what they teach

is.

And correct errors in a loving and

patient

commandment.

It's an easy thing to

do.

Paul did that, Timothy did do that, and

Titus.

So there are times when it's even fitting to have a sharp disagreement.

And people in the church generally see that as

such a just sort

of teaching style of

Jesus.

Miring followers away by

purposely teaching something that he knew would be too hard for them to,

and then he turns to his innermost disciples and says to them, you want to go too?

Go ahead.

In fact, people,.

I have heard people, I've even heard professing Calvinists say, oh, we shouldn't even teach

the doctrines of sovereign grace or Calvinism to unbelievers or new believers.

We should just preach the gospel to them and hope they get saved.

Well, the very thing that you just mentioned, Jesus is turning many in the crowds

away.

He had a habit, as you just said, to put it another way, of thinning out the herd when it

got too big, intentionally.

And the very thing that turned the crowd away was, especially when we're

talking about the area when he's talking about the Lord's Supper, it wasn't

the Lord's Supper itself, it was that those could not, no one could come to him unless it is

given to them by the Father.

That was the final straw that broke the camel's back,.

And that goes hand in hand with the doctrines of sovereign grace.

Yeah, absolutely.

That mainstream evangelicalism today is just badly out

of sync.

What it means to speak the truth in love,

we don't really seem to have a biblical

note

telling us that we need to be seeker -sensitive, we need to find out what people are looking for and give it

to them, we need to avoid any kind of offense to anyone who might hear.

And yet, the New Testament is full of statements saying that the gospel itself is offensive.

If you preach it correctly, it is going to offend people.

And Paul says at one point that, look, the Jews require a sign and the Greeks

want wisdom, but he says we preach Christ crucified, which to the Greeks, it sounds like

foolishness, and to the Jews, the Jews

want a sign, we give them a stumbling block.

The Greeks want wisdom, we give them foolishness.

He's actually saying that the gospel is the very opposite of what people are demanding to hear,

but it is also the very thing they need to hear.

And true charity tells people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

And in fact, a time would come when people wouldn't tolerate sound doctrine, but

they demand what they wanted.

That's exactly the era in which we live, and it's not a good thing.

But it is the dominant attitude among evangelicals today that if you offend somebody, you've

done.

Wrong.

Yeah, there seems to be, at its root, and this

comes to, I think, both sides, to both opposite ends of the

spectrum, those that refuse to discern and rebuke,

even in a loving and gentle way, those that disagree, and those that go overboard in

rebuking and chastising and condemning everyone that doesn't agree with them lockstep.

There seems to be a lack of discernment over what is salvific and what is

not.

You have that on both ends, where you have people who are rock -solid Christians and

even brilliant scholars on occasion, on the one hand, who seem to overlook

the very serious issues that belong within the chasm that

separates Rome from the Reformation.

For instance, I will never understand J .I. Packer, who has been used of God to lead

countless thousands of people, not only to salvation, but to deeper

theological truth, the doctrines of grace, and so on.

A man who can articulate it clearly well, who knows what he's talking about, and yet who is

passive and really indifferent, it seems, on

occasion, over the issues that separate Rome and the Reformation.

Then you have others who will condemn you as being a heretic or being

lost if you do not openly declare that Arminians are lost.

Even if you're a Calvinist yourself, they will say, well, this guy who professes to be a

believer in the doctrines of grace, he really doesn't believe them because he believes that Arminians are his brothers, and

he has even had ecumenical fellowship with Arminians, so therefore, not only do I believe that Arminians are

damned, I believe that that individual is damned as well.

There seems to be, as I said, a lack of understanding of what is salvific and what is not.

Yeah, no question about it.

In fact, I would say that was really what made the Reformation so

powerful.

You study Reformation history, you're going to find that virtually all the leading reformers

were severely flawed men.

Some of them had a tendency to fight over the wrong things, etc.

Luther had a foul mouth and a bad temper, and some of that comes through in table talk, which

is kind of unfair to Luther because recordings of things he said

at the table, that aside, it comes through

clearly that he was a pretty deeply flawed individual.

But what made the Reformation so powerful were not the men who led it,

but the fact that what they highlighted and what they agreed together on was the

gospel, the heart of the gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith, and it drew such a clear line

of demarcation between law and

gospel, Christianity and, you know, the sort of inflated religion

that Rome...

And because it was so clear and so simple that even the simple

Aurarian people could understand it and grasp

it.

And I think that line of

demarcation has been systematically and deliberately

by so many ecumenical efforts.

And he's been kind of a leader in this,

and like you, I appreciate a lot of what he's written up.

And as an Anglican, he believes in apostolic succession here.

That's the one unique thing in the

Reformation.

And they're the only denomination, as far as I know, that Rome would say,

apostolic denomination, that Rome would say, yes, they have a legitimate claim to apostolic succession.

They can trace an unbroken line of their belief.

And so, because they hang on to that as their definition of the Church, when someone like Packer, an

Anglican, looks at what he sees is a breach that he believes must

ultimately be healed,

like you or me,

the emergence

of what the Catholic Church had become.

And we don't see that, at least most have not seen that as

a breach that needs to be healed, but the emergence of a believing remnant.

Evangelicals embrace the idea

that some kind of loyalty to Christ,

we all need to get together on the same page, doctrinally, then

let's do it.

Because Jesus said the mark of the true believer is our love for one another, that's how the world will

know that we are who we say we are.

Not because of the soundness of our doctrine, so let's just throw out any concern.

We all unite around our doctrine,

and what that does is kill discernment.

That ecumenical thrust that has really sort of taken off just in the past 30 years,

a movement earlier in the 20th century that was far more liberal, but

ecumenism.

Discernment, because the idea is that sound doctrine and,

in fact, love demands that we compromise.

We have to shed some of our dearest convictions because the

heart of the gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith, is the the key thing that divides

us on that doctrine.

Yeah, we have to go to our first break right now.

If you have a question for Phil Johnson, please send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA, and

please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

Hi, Phil Johnson here.

I'm executive director of John.

MacArthur's media ministry, Grace to You, and I'm also an occasional guest on Iron Sharpen's Iron

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for the G3 conference, where I'll be joining James White, Steve Lawson, Votie Baucom, Mark

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Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you all at this very important conference from January 17th

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Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpen's Iron exhibitors booth to say hi to Chris.

For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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See you there.

Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, assistant professor of.

Systematic theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of

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I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture,

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Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them

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slash podcast.

Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in.

Our guest today for the first hour is Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to

You, the media ministry of John MacArthur, and we are discussing the charge

to shepherds to guard the flock.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail

.com, and please give us, as always, your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if

you live outside the USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And we would also remind you that the second hour of the program,

we have Mike Gadosh returning as a guest after his open heart surgery.

This is the first time Mike has been on since that very frightening, very delicate, dangerous,

and life -threatening surgery that he had, and we are going to be hearing about lessons that he learned from that

terrifying trial.

If you'd like to join us for that as well with a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail

.com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

You know, Phil, there are those that say that to err on the side of

condemning people who are actually, in reality, your true brethren in Christ is

a much safer way than ignoring errors, but when you look at the extremes

of both sides,.

Aren't they both equally dangerous?

Yeah, they are, and in fact, I would say the hypercritical

folks are potentially more dangerous, and they hate

the church they

died for, and if there were more of them, I think

I'd be raising a greater concern about them, but at the moment, I think the dominant attitude

is the former, people who just don't like the idea of discernment at all, and in fact, that attitude

has been fed by the fact that some of the noisiest,

I won't say discernment, but these people think of themselves

that they refuse to make any kind of differentiation

between a major error and a minor one.

They can't tell any difference, but Jesus said

of the Pharisees, they strain at gnats and swallow

small things, but you swallow the big things, and that's exactly the problem.

We've

had people

tell me that they don't see any ground in Scripture for making any kind of differentiation

between major issues, and if you deny any point of truth,

then it's a damnable heresy, and at which, effectively means, if you disagree with them

on any point, they're going to excommunicate you completely, and since nobody agrees with

anybody 100 of the time, always, they even see

disagreements between whether

or not

anathematize you and separate from you.

If you disagree on even the most minor point, they believe that all

isolating

themselves back to you,

you watch some

of the,

where do you go to church?

To whose teaching do you sit under and appreciate?

They'll typically have a hard time coming up with any name, and usually it's someone they've only seen, if they name anybody,

it'll only be somebody that they don't belong to church,

and they think that's the mark of spirituality.

Right.

We have an anonymous listener who says, earlier in the show,

Chris Arnzen mentioned that Jesus spoke something that was a clear Calvinist

teaching that drove many of his disciples away.

Where is that in the Scripture?

Oh, I was citing from John chapter 6, verse 65.

When Jesus said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the

Father has enabled them.

And from that time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

So I was saying that in relationship to those who are either Arminian, and even sometimes Calvinists, who

don't think that it's all that primary of a deal, who

say, oh you should never be teaching the unbeliever or the new disciple the doctrines of Calvinism.

And my response is, why?

Jesus Christ did.

And wouldn't you agree that that verse is clearly something that, it seems, uniquely taught by

Calvinists, that God has to enable people?

Yeah, that's right.

And in fact,.

You quoted, what was it, verse 65, where he says, this is why I told you.

And you go back, where did he tell him that?

He told him that in verse 40.

And while you're looking it up,.

We'll repeat our email address, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Verse 44, he says, no one can come to me unless the Father

on the last day.

Clear there.

What to do is spawned by a

single

unbeliever hears that and just gets angry.

Oh, you mean God doesn't treat everybody equally?

He's not fair?

And sparks anger, as if God treats

everybody equally, but the truth is, God doesn't owe grace to any of us.

That would nullify grace itself.

That's right.

It wouldn't be grace if he owed it to us.

It's a bad way of thinking about those key doctrinal concepts.

The truth is, though, I think multitudes begin the Christian

knowledge

that critics

out there, and particularly those that

lean to kind of a hyper -Calvinism, a view of Calvinism that nullifies human

response.

You're not even responsibly in the

hands of a mechanical kind of fate, and they turn God into

a... when, in fact, Scripture affirms

divine sovereignty and says, no, it is your response.

The problem is, you can't do that, so you have to seek God's

grace.

Calvinism, you're not a believer.

People like that generally tend to hyper -Calvinism, and they become more and more extreme.

Their arguments go things like... they'll say things like this, well, an Arminian doesn't really have the right view of the

Atonement of Christ.

He's at the heart of the Gospel, and they twist the Atonement, and that's a different

Gospelistic view, and

that logic might sound reasonable if you don't think deeply enough.

If you make any error whatsoever with

regard to the Atonement, then you're damned.

What would be a problem is if you change the nature of the Atonement, like those who deny

substitutionary Atonement, people who... and

turn it into an example for us to follow, rather than a substitution on our behalf.

The Arminian is simply guilty of being inconsistent.

Christ died in his place and in his stead.

He just hasn't thought... of all that, and let it affect...

I'm with you.

I can embrace an Arminian, an evangelical Arminian, as my brother.

Yeah, let's see, we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who I think has something

to say relevant to what you just said.

He says, Don't you think that the errors of the fundamentalists have a

lot to learn from?

They are decreasing in number, almost to the point of disappearing from the planet Earth, because

of not only their open hostility to those outside of their borders,

for not for issues that are salvific, but issues that

are even secondary and tertiary, and also the fact

that in their fight against certain peripheral issues, like

how people dress and what music is played in the church, not that those are unimportant,

but they overlook errors that are more serious that exist among them.

Yeah, that's right, Arnie.

In fact, Phil...

I've done a whole lecture on that subject, and he's exactly right.

We really ought to...

And one of the problems is people don't learn the lessons of Hispan

to the fundamentalist movement in the 20th century.

The name fundamentalism, or fundamentalist, has become a pejorative now.

Nobody wants to be labeled a fundamentalist, because it carries all kinds of baggage.

Well, not nobody, but a shrinking number.

Yeah, that's right.

But the original idea of fundamentalism was good.

What they were saying was, look, there are these certain fundamental truths, and by that, what they meant was, these are the essential

doctrines that you cannot compromise.

The fundamentals of...

You're maybe too prone to fight, too much in love with the idea of fighting, just like the hypercritics today

that I'm talking about.

So much so that when they ran out of stuff to anathematize one another over,

and this took 30 or 40 years, by the middle part of the 20th century, it's true that the

fundamentalist debate was

music style

rather than the fundamentals of the faith.

By the end of the 20th century, it got to the point where large swaths of people who self -identified

as fundamentalists, many of them, couldn't even tell you what the fundamental doctrines were

anymore, because they thought the fundamentals were things like dancing and card playing and hair

length and a list of things that you must not do if you want to be a true fundamentalist.

But they'd totally forgotten about the gospel itself.

You could go to a fundamentalist church for months and never hear the gospel proclaimed with

any kind of clarity or depth.

Right.

And so the fundamentalist movement devoured itself, because fundamentalists ran out of stuff and people to fight

with and began to fight with one another, and the whole movement fragmented so that today

it bears

sound and

very few and far but

beat together

on a large scale.

Yeah, they

have so overemphasized,.

And I'm not saying that these things aren't important.

Again, they can carry some serious weight, like what kind of music we have in the church, that's an

important issue.

But when you inflate those things to the top priority of what you preach

on and what you evangelize on, when you're really preaching to the choir, because typically a

fundamentalist preacher will be yelling at the top of his lungs to a congregation that

agrees with him on those things anyway, and they don't participate in the things that he's yelling about.

But fundamentalists have to preach to the choir, they're the only ones that have choirs anymore.

But the thing that's ironic is in their alleged

hatred for the heresies of Rome, they actually, in reality, when they are condemning

their Calvinist friends to the pit of hell for teaching the doctrines of demons, they don't even realize

how much closer they are to Rome in regard to the nature of man and his will and so on

than biblical Christianity teaches.

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right, and I know there are people who will doubt that statement because they're not

really—my encouragement to them is, read Martin Luther's book,

The Bondage of the Will.

He had a lengthy dispute with Iraq, defending the Catholic view,

and taking basically the Arminian position, arguing the same points and using some of the

same arguments that modern Arminians used.

Luther was defending the sovereignty of God, and the bondage of the will

is not able—and that prompted Luther

to such a clear understanding of the gospel, what it

is to be so fallen that you are in bondage to sin and incapable of reforming

yourself.

And that fear of.

Judgment is what ultimately—.

Amen.

Well, two hours is basically, I think, the best framework to interview you,

Phil, because we're already out of time, and it went by too fast.

Just interviewing you for an hour always leaves me disappointed because there's so much more that I wanted to have you

say and I wanted to ask.

We'll do it again.

I would love to have been on for.

Both hours today, but I already have a commitment to do a podcast with another person

starting in.

Like six minutes.

Okay, I understand, but I want to make sure our listeners know that your website of grace to you is gty .org,

gty .org.

And also, don't forget, Phil Johnson is on the roster at the upcoming G3 Conference

in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

And so, keep listening for all of the details that you need to register for that conference, but let me just

tell you now, anyway, it's g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and the conference is

January 17th through the 19th, 2019.

I'm looking forward to seeing you.

There in Georgia, Phil.

Me too.

That has quickly become my favorite conference of the year, other than the Shepherds Conference.

Of course.

I'm contractually obligated to say that.

Actually, it's true.

I love the Shepherds Conference, and it'd be hard for anyone to beat it, but the close

challenger would be G3 in Atlanta.

Love that conference.

This will be my,.

I think my third year to go there.

That's my third year as well.

Yeah.

Great conference.

Yes.

And hopefully, I'll be able to see you one day at the Shepherds Conference.

I've never been to one, so I hope to be there at some point.

Oh, great.

Yeah, we got to get you out here.

Yeah, I would love it.

Well, thanks so much, Phil, and I look forward to your return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the near future.

All right.

Thanks, Chris.

Thank you.

And don't go away, folks, because we have, as I mentioned earlier, my dear friend,

sponsor of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and the first pastor I had as a

newborn Christian in the 1980s who actually immersed me in the waters of baptism, Mike Gaydosh,

is going to be on to speak about the fear of the unknown Michael A. Gaydosh's recent health trials

and an update on his recovery.

If you have any questions for Mike Gaydosh, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back.

This is our elongated break, so please be patient with us because we needed this longer period of time in the middle

of our two segments to satisfy the requirements of Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City,

Florida, who needs to air their own public service announcements and local commercials there in Lake City, Florida to

localize Iron Trip and Iron Radio to Lake City.

So please be patient with us and use this time to not only write down information provided by our advertisers but to write

down questions for Mike Gaydosh at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages.

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James White here, co -founder of Alvin Omega Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm so delighted.

My friend Chris Arnson will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January 17th to the

19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme, A Biblical

Understanding of Missions.

Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe,

Phil Johnson, Josh Weiss, yours truly, and many more.

I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event.

For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS

Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of

God in the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth

of Holy Scripture.

I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture

and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths.

Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them

to all of God's people.

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier

Ministries.

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students Andy Woodard serves as the

pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church NYC.

They are a reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website which is www

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching,

in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit New Covenant Church NYC.

Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent.

Co -host with Chris Ironson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley

Bible Book Service.

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable

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Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because, frankly, much of what

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That means you can get to the good stuff faster.

It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and

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Their website is cvbbs .com.

Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work

in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com.

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard.

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And you can also call cvbbs .com at their toll -free number Monday through

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And keep in mind that if you order a minimum of $50 worth of

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It's not an easy word to say.

The Journalable, Psalm 119.

That is a book that is published by Reformation Heritage Books.

You'll get that absolutely free of charge if you order a minimum of $50 worth

of merchandise and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And you will also, on top of all of that, you will get free shipping on your

order of $50 or more.

And please always mention that you heard about my advertisers from Chris

Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio whenever patronizing any of my

advertisers.

We also have some upcoming events that we want you to be aware of that I will

be attending, God willing.

And the first one is coming up on November 9th and the 10th.

And that is in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

It is sponsored by our friends at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and is being held at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

I will be there with an Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth.

So I hope that you greet me during the breaks at the Quaker Town

Conference on Reform Theology.

The theme this year is the Glory of the Cross and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard

Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Nguyen.

That's November 9th and the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

For more details on registering, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org,

click on events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.

And then coming up in January, from Thursday January

17th through Saturday January 19th, 2019, the event that you've been hearing advertised,

you heard Phil Johnson and I discuss it briefly during the first hour of today's program, that's the G3

Conference held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park,

Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

And the theme is the mission of God, a biblical understanding of missions, and the roster

is just as long and as powerful and impressive as it was last year.

We have the roster featuring Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, John Piper, Stephen J.

Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M. Bayway, Tim Challies,

Phil Johnson, who we just had on the program today for the first hour.

We have Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, we have Don Curran,

we have his wife Cindy Curran, we have Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation

Bible College, the college founded by R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more.

And I would strongly urge you not only to register to attend the conference, but I would urge

that you register for an exhibitors booth just like I will be manning,

because they are expecting between four and five thousand people there.

So go to g3conference .com, and by the way G3 stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

That's g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and

make sure that you tell all the folks there that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen and Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

Last but not least, if you want Iron Trap and Zion Radio to remain on the air, you hate the thought of this

program disappearing from the airwaves, you hate the thought of our free mp3s, the guests

that I interview, the topics that we discuss, you hate the idea of that disappearing, well then please help

us remain on the air, help us remain in existence by donating to Iron Trap and Zion Radio as

much as you can and as frequently as you can by going to irontrapandzionradio .com, click support, then click, click

to donate now, and you can donate instantly with a debit or credit card, or you can

mail in a check the old -fashioned way to the snail mail address that will appear on the screen when you click support at

irontrapandzionradio .com.

Never siphon money away from your regular giving to your local church where you were a member

in order to give to Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

Never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

Those two things are commands of God providing for church and home.

Providing for my show is not a command of God, but if you love the show, you don't want it to go away, and you're

financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey the two commands I mentioned, providing for church and home,

then please donate to us as much as you can as frequently as you can.

Go to irontrapandzionradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

If you don't have a church home where you are a member, then please send me an email to

chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and I

will help you find a church home no matter where in the world you live.

I have lists of churches that are biblically faithful all over the world, and I've helped people find churches as

far away as Perth, Australia, and other parts of the world in the United States.

I've helped listeners find good churches that they have joined.

I was so delighted to hear from Josh Tyson, who I mentioned earlier, sat right in

front of me at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who heard about the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg through my interview last year with Phil Johnson, and he

joined that church as a result, and he providentially was sitting right in front of me in a random pew that I

picked to sit down in on Sunday night at their conference.

But send me that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put, I need a church home in the subject line,

and we will help you find a church as best as we can.

Also, before Mike Gadosh comes on the program, I would like to urge

you to please go to solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground

-books .com, and order as much as you can from

Solid Ground Christian Books.

Even when you're ordering from my other sponsor, CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service,

first go to solid -ground -books .com and make a long list of the books that you

want to order, and order them as well at CVBBS .com.

The reason I'm saying this is because Mike Gadosh, when he was laid up in the hospital

before and after his very serious heart surgery, he definitely

had experienced a severe dip in sales.

He is still climbing out of that financial hole that he fell into.

So please, you will not only be blessing Mike Gadosh

by helping his book ministry to remain in existence, to help him provide for his own

family, but you'll be helping Iron Sherp and Zion Radio remain on the air because Mike Gadosh is a faithful

and loyal sponsor of Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

In fact, he has increased his advertising budget

with Iron Sherp and Zion Radio more than double since when he first began advertising with us.

So please help him get out of this financial

hole that he has fallen into due to his health crisis that he is still recovering

from.

And that's solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.

And we are going to be joined by Mike Gadosh any moment now.

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail

.com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And now we are joined by my second guest today, Mike Gadosh, a very dear friend

of mine since the 1980s, my very first pastor after becoming a born -again believer in

Christ.

He has been a friend of mine, a faithful and loyal friend through thick and thin,

a mentor to me to this day, the one who immersed me in the waters of baptism.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio, my dear friend, Michael A. Gadosh.

How are you, Chris?

I am doing great.

I'm even better now that you are back on the program after a long absence, obviously due

to your health problems that you experienced.

Yes.

And in the event that there is a miracle and there is a listener of Iron Sherp and Zion Radio who's

never heard of Solid Ground Christian Books, why don't you tell our listeners about.

That before we go into your testimony today?

All right.

Solid Ground has been

serving solid books that will bless

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we've also become known by

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And that address,.

That website address is solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com.

Well, today we are discussing the theme, The Fear of the Unknown, Michael A. Gadosh's recent health trials

and an update on his recovery.

Mike, tell us when you first became aware that you had a very serious health

problem that needed an urgent remedy, meaning this very serious and

complicated open.

Heart surgery that you underwent.

Well, I've known for years, as I

was four years

ago,

it's

been watched, but

everything was fine.

The problem I knew about was

leaking and they were monitoring it for years.

We began to

have investigation going on in my

heart.

There was a lot of information from Birmingham, Alabama.

They had been monitoring my heart for

many years.

First one was something

came home from the stress test.

My wife asked me how it went and I said, well, I think I did well.

I don't know that there were any problems.

I'm not supposed to be going back until

they see me the next day.

They ask

you to come back into

the office.

Then what I did the first thing

to find out what, and they just said, well, we're

going to need to take a call.

And so I went in and spoke, we're going

to

need to

have a

catheter

to be

able to see

insurance.

When I went into this, when I was

standing was, if they found a blockage, maybe stay in

one night and I would be fine, maybe even less

than that.

And they are too serious.

And so we're going to

need to, we're

going to need to take this.

Since we had moved to a surgeon

in South, I suddenly was introduced to him

that we'd

be able to take care of.

And he gave, did a battery of testing, a

whole bunch of different

things,

echocardiogram

from the

inside,

echocardiogram.

He came

in and

spoke to me afterwards.

The problem with your valve is more,

I'll give you a closest.

Well, that night at nine o 'clock at night on Friday night, I

could have,

this can't be good news.

The problems are more

severe than

was

enlarged,

more difficult

to have all

these

things

done

surgery, but we wanted to have

it.

And we moved down

here to be closer

to where I only want

to do this surgery.

So this man was honest enough that he did not want to do the surgery himself.

He said that, yeah, because he, he told me, in fact, the very first thing,

something that he said struck my goal every night

is to, he

takes up,

follows up.

He's the only one that will follow up on

his night when he called me and want me to wait until Monday.

And he said, once again, he said, look, I

need to

send you, I

ever have to

have, or my wife ever,

I, you know, I right

away, I

just,

but the

Lord

gave me, you

know, sent

my wife

to harder things than this.

He's going to get all, this is all I needed to hear to immediately

calm me down.

And from that point on, it was determined, okay, we're going to Gainesville.

Praise God.

Well, one of the things that, um, you tell me when we've got to take a break.

Cause, uh, let's see here, you know, something,.

Why don't we take the break now anyway, so we get it out of the way and I don't have to interrupt you mid sentence.

But one thing I would like to say before the break is that it is interesting how that news

that Dr. Katz gave you of his, uh, urgent suggestion, very

serious suggestion that you use, uh, Dr. Martin, uh, that you,

uh, have him perform the surgery that isn't at the same time, more frightening perhaps because you realize the,

the, uh, impact, the seriousness of this complicated surgery, but

at the same time you're getting added with that, the comfort of knowing that the very best

is going to be the surgeon.

But we're going to have you address that when we come back.

Okay.

Very good.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is

chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA and only remain anonymous, if your question involves a personal and private.

Matter.

Hello, my name is James Renahan and I'm the president of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

The word of God says, if a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good thing.

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God bless you.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am 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, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do

than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be

vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and

love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528

-5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV

program entitled, Resting in Grace.

You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org, that's providencebaptistchurchma .org,

or even on sermonaudio .com.

Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron.

Radio.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other

documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

And besides that, they feel so good.

I'm so delighted I discovered post -Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding.

No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot.

Jeffrey Rice of Post -Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.

All his work is done by hand, from the cutting, to the pleating of corners, to the perimeter stitching.

Jeffrey uses the finest in buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors, like

the turquoise goat skin tanned in Italy used for my Nestle All in 28th edition, with a navy

blue goat skin inside liner, and the electric blue goat skin from a French tannery used to rebind a

Reformation Study Bible I used as a gift.

The silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished

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Jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications, and even emboss your logo into the leather,

making whatever he rebinds a one -of -a -kind work of art.

For more details on Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding, go to

ptlbiblerebinding .com.

That's ptlbiblerebinding .com.

Linbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in

the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service.

It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement.

It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and

together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Waldeman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can

be.

Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402.

That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit linbrookbaptist .org.

That's linbrookbaptist .org.

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself.

Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the Evidence for the Bible.

Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country.

Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100

cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10

different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history.

In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the Law Journal.

If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state, I recommend that you

call Dan.

Consultations are free.

There is no fee unless you win.

Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878.

1 -800 -669 -4878.

Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson.

At gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier

Ministries.

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC.

They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www

.ncc .nyc.

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching,

in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit New Covenant Church, NYC.

Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Cell phones, radios, PCs, laptops, tablets, baby monitors,

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Call 866 -403 -3768.

That's 866 -403 -3768.

Or go to batterydepot .com.

That's batterydepot .com.

Got to tell you, for my money, Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best.

Iron.

Criticizing Iron.

I think that's what it's called.

This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV, with Phil Johnson of Grace to You, inviting

everybody to come to the G3 conference, which has almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the

country.

And it is.

It's a.

Great conference.

I love it.

And Chris Arnzen was there last year.

He's been there, I think, every year.

It's great to see him there.

You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at.

That place, which is a highlight.

Tons of stuff going on.

Tons of great speakers.

And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear Chris Arnzen's laugh.

And that's worth the price of admission alone.

If you would like to join Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a

cavalcade of great preachers, and me, g3conference .com, g3conference

.com.

Listening to Christian radio can be a big gamble spiritually.

Even many of the major Christian networks that include excellent, biblically faithful teachers on their lineup,

sadly often also include the worst of doctrinally dangerous heretics.

If you are a lover of the doctrines of sovereign grace, you need not fear listening 24 hours a day to

firstloveradio .org.

They feature Christ -centered programming from Reformed pastors and teachers you can rely upon for theological

soundness and biblical faithfulness, such as Dr. W. R. Downing, Dr. Peter Masters,

Pastor Joe Jakowitz, Pastor Robert Gifford, Al Martin, Edward Delcor, and

more.

Firstloveradio .org also live streams my Iron Trepans Iron Radio program daily.

Please stick around on firstloveradio .org after Iron Trepans Iron Radio is over to continue

being blessed by the unwavering proclamation of the gospel of sovereign grace.

Spread the word about firstloveradio .org.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading.

The man who never reads will never be read.

He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

You need to read.

Solid Ground Christian.

Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Preachers to heart.

The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and

future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting

books for all ages.

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

That's solid -ground -books .com, and see what priceless literary gems from the past to

present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And we are back now with the founder of.

Solid Ground Christian Books, Mike Adosh, as he continues to give his testimony of the frightening

trial that he just endured, and perhaps in some ways still enduring, as he continues to recover from very

serious and complicated and dangerous open -heart surgery.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

If you have a question for Mike Adosh, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, and only remain anonymous

if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Mike, if you could pick up where you left off before the surgery, you now know that you are going to be,

of course, first and foremost, under the hands of the great

physician Jesus Christ, who will be guiding the surgeon himself through this

surgery, but also the best surgeon that your doctor could recommend,

Dr. Martin.

And if you could pick up where you left off there.

Yeah, what I soon learned was that Dr. Martin, Thomas Martin,

he is the head of the unit in

Shands Hospital.

What I learned when I went up for my appointment

with him before, I learned that he was a believer in Jesus Christ.

Wow, I think I'm learning this for the first time right now.

In fact, I started reading

the

testimony

of my father

before the surgery, and

because

of him, my son

is alive and doing well.

It's the most

difficult thing that no one else will take, that the Lord has

called him

for the actual day of the surgery.

I'm very blessed.

I can tell you

that what I went through, the

number of people who called me, the number of

people

who I had passed probably

in 20 years, I

started hearing things from people and hearing from people,

and it was almost as if through

the years, I

felt like this

was the time for them to let me know.

The morning of this

operating room, one by one introduced

themselves and told me what they would be

doing.

He said, Dr.

Martin is

one of

the

such

a genuine, humble

person.

Praise

God.

Knowing that him being

one of the top surgeons,

have him then lock arms with me, side me and pray.

Yes, I had

read on Facebook that he had prayed with you, but I did not know.

Until now that he was a Christian.

I thought that he might just be a man who knew of your faith and.

Wanted to comfort you with a

prayer.

No, actually, I was able to give him a copy.

He wrote a

wonderful book

on our weakness.

Well, make

sure he gets

on this

program to discuss his book.

Yeah, well, when he

does.

Right now, I know

that he's...

One of

the things that was

for my wife and I,

what the Lord did is he sent us to be there

the whole week I was in the hospital, both for my

wife and

for me.

A wonderful experience.

They get you up walking immediately, I

would think initially.

And anybody who's

been walking on

me since we were

sleeping,

he just released me to

do a

lot

more

work every

day.

You

know,

it

was just

a Sunday

school

time.

We need

to

realize

that we are not

anything unusual

for

us.

That in

me, you

may come

in,

even

if it's an unusual being in

a fall.

And then knowing

these

truths

on the heart

of

our merciful and faithful and sympathetic Savior.

We do

not have a high priest.

And that's putting everyone

near.

We don't

even know

what

to

pray or

how to

pray.

Focus

our

heart on

Psalm 31.

But I

was reminded of,

about

38 years ago, I was in the hospital.

And I shared that path God used

to in a couple of months.

He shared with me that I

had my gallbladder removed when I was 30.

And both of them independent, which lead me to the Rock.

And they've used it to minister to people through the years.

And they decided, you know what, maybe I could use it again.

They reminded me, praise God,

such things as that, that the Lord used.

73 would be the last verse in Psalm 73.

We read, nevertheless, I'm counsel you

will guide me

in my heart.

Amen.

Well, we don't have any time left for listener questions, but perhaps we can.

Have you back on the program at some point.

And we feel healthy enough and strong enough to be on.

I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule today, even though you are still in the midst of recovery and still

getting weakened fairly easy, or at least easier than before.

And I want to remind our listeners that you could use sales more than ever because of your time laid up in the hospital.

Go to solid -ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com, and help Mike Gadosz

recover from the setback financially that he has endured during this time of

being laid up in the hospital and recovery.

Thank you so much, my dear brother.

I am still thanking God for his delivering you from this frightening trial

and that you are still here with us, that you are still my friend and mentor.

And I look forward to many opportunities to.

Interview you and share fellowship with you in the future.

Thank you, Chris.

I love you, brother.

Thank you.

I love you, too.

Thank all your listeners.

And I want you all to always remember.

For the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

Amen.