March 17, 2025 Show with John Greer on “The True Saint Patrick of History”

Opening Remarks and St. Patrick’s Day Broadcast Theme

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors and Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions.

And now here's your host Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon. Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy St. Patrick's Day on this 17th day of March 2025.

I'm absolutely thrilled to have a first-time guest and it's hard to believe it is a first-time guest because I've known this dear brother since the 1990s. In fact, back in the 1990s, not long after the church where I was a member, Race Reform Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick was formed after a merger between Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville and First Baptist Church of Merrick, Long Island.

And not long after that, I was asked by my pastor at that time, Mike Adosh, to arrange a Bible conference with a number of different speakers. I think we had five speakers, and one of them was John Greer.

And I really enjoyed meeting him in person. And that was, as I said, back in the 90s. And even though I arranged interviews with Pastor John on WMCA Radio where I worked, I had not yet hosted my own show at that point.

So I arranged interviews with the in-house talk show on WMCA, Talk New York with Andy Anderson, which was later renamed Andy Anderson Live, and I enjoyed doing that. And Pastor John Greer is pastor of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and he is also going to be speaking in Canada and in the United States.

First, he will be at the Free Presbyterian Church of Toronto, Canada. That will be Easter weekend. And then he will be moving on from there to the Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern, Pennsylvania. And then after that, he will be preaching at Reformation Bible Church in Darlington, Pennsylvania.

So I'm going to be giving you all that information so you can make it a point to attend these events. Well, first of all, it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Eintreppan's Einradio, Pastor John Greer.

Well, Chris, thank you very much indeed. And it's my privilege to be on your show today and have this opportunity of addressing your audience. And I do pray that the Lord will be glorified in all that we say.

So thank you very much indeed.

Amen. Well, tell our listeners about the Free Presbyterian Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

The Free Presbyterian Church of Ballymena and Its Ministry

Well, the church has been located in that town for many, many years. I was preceded by the Reverend James Beggs, who retired in the year 2000, which was the year that I returned to Northern Ireland from Malvern and took up the ministry there at that time.

Twenty-four years, almost twenty-five have gone by. I now am in the role of being Minister Emeritus of that congregation, having retired from the full-time pastorate in June of 2024. So I have that link with the church.

The present minister is the Reverend Andrew Stewart, and he is faithfully preaching the word week by week. And we thank God for all that the Lord has done in that town of Ballymena in County Ant, from Northern Ireland.

And the many souls have been brought to know the Lord over the years.

Well, praise God. And what is the website of the Ballymena Free Presbyterian Church?

It is simply ballymenafpc .org. That will get it clearly.

Great, man. God willing, we will be repeating that later on. And as I always do, I'd like you to give a little bit more detail as far as the theological positions held by the Free Presbyterian Church of Ballymena and the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in general, which would also include their sister church here in North America, the Free Presbyterian Church of North America.

Tell us about this denomination.

The Birth of the Free Presbyterian Church on St. Patrick’s Day 1951

Well, the denomination was born actually on St. Patrick's Day in the year 1951 in a little village called Crossgar in Northern Ireland. And at that time, there was a very well-known preacher in Northern Ireland, the Reverend Ian Paisley, who was greatly used of God in the preaching of the word and in the winning of countless souls to the Lord Jesus Christ.

A mission or a gospel campaign was organized in the village of Crossgar for March 1951. And the people of the local mission hall who were organizing this mission were also part of the Presbyterian Church in that village, which was part of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland.

And they arranged to use their own church property for these evangelistic meetings where Ian Paisley would have been the preacher. The outcome was that the presbytery over that area banned the use of the building to those who wanted to have these gospel meetings.

And as a consequence of this, elders of that local Presbyterian Church began to have a look at their denomination and found that it was greatly involved in ecumenism and modernistic doctrine, etc., departing from the Bible, from the fundamentals of the faith.

And the outcome was that a group of men separated and formed the Free Presbyterian Church, and it was born on the 17th of March 1951.

Wow, I didn't even remember that when arranging this interview with you today.

Right. Well, those are the details of the formation of the denomination.

Praise God. And once again, the website for the congregation where Pastor John Greer is the pastor is balaminafpc .org, B-A-L-L-Y-M-E-N-A-F-P-C, or freepresbyterianchurch .org. Now I want to promote the fact that you are going to be speaking at at least three different congregations closer to where I am now, one being in Toronto, Canada, the Free Presbyterian Church of Toronto, Canada, torontofpc .ca.

And that's going to be Easter weekend. And also, after that, you are going to be speaking at the Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern, Pennsylvania, and I intend to attend that meeting. And that website is...

What is the website for the Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern?

Themalvernfpc .org, I believe.

Yeah. And then the Reformed Bible Church. You are going to be speaking in Darlington, Maryland. What would be the dates that you're going to be in Malvern and then in Darlington?

Malvern will be on Sunday, hence the 26th of April, and then the following Sunday in Darlington.

Great. And for anybody that wants to attend the Reformation Bible Church, where Pastor Greer will be speaking, reformationbiblechurch .org, reformationbiblechurch .org, and that's in Darlington, Maryland.

Well, we have a tradition here in Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor John, whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of his or her salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised and the kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them, and I would love to hear your story.

Well, thank you, and I appreciate the opportunity to give testimony. I am from Northern Ireland, as your listeners will be aware, and grew up in a Christian family. My father and mother were both converted people who knew the Lord.

Our family, in many cases, was comprised of people who were truly saved and who knew Jesus Christ. My background was, therefore, of that kind, and in our home, growing up, there was an emphasis upon the things of God, upon the Bible, upon church attendance, Sunday school, all those features that are associated with a Christian upbringing, but that did not make me a Christian.

Every man is born a sinner, and so I was brought to a consciousness of my sin early in my life as a little boy. There always was a God consciousness within my soul, an awareness of my own fallen state and sinful condition, which deeply troubled me, and I was often under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit in my boyhood years, so much so that there were occasions I would go to my own room in the home and get down on my knees and pray and ask the Lord to save me.

I had no assurance that such had taken place because it hadn't, but at the same time, the Lord was working in my heart and drawing me. That continued into my teenage years, and at the age of 15, in the year 1969, I'm now 70 years old, heading for 71.

But back then, there was a gospel campaign, an evangelistic set of meetings that came to a local village, and I attended there, and it was in the very last meeting of that series of evangelistic services that I was brought to know the Lord as my Savior at that age of 15.

There was a change, an immediate change within my heart, peace with God, the awareness that Christ alone had come to save me, coming into this world to give Himself as a ransom for sinners. As I put my trust in Him, according to Scripture, leaning upon His Word, I know that He saved me and forgave my sins.

There was that awareness, but also it was followed by a desire for more of the things of God. As a boy of 15, I began to go along with my brother and other family members to the local Free Presbyterian Church in the town of Bellarmine that we've already mentioned here on this broadcast.

The Reverend Beggs was the preacher, and we were drawn to his ministry. He was a very gifted man as a preacher, and he's founder of the Word of God, a man with a great burden for souls. We were blessed under his ministry.

I began to grow in grace under the knowledge of the Lord and got involved in the life of that congregation, teaching a Sunday school class of little boys and then feeling the call of God to ministry. I began to take part in meetings, open air services, which was and still is a very common feature of Christian life here in Northern Ireland.

We can go out into the streets and put up our PA system and preach the Word. I found myself involved in that and then eventually prepared to go into our seminary, our Bible college, which I did in 1974 at the age of 20, and began to study for gospel ministry.

And so I prepared there for four years of study, and then I was placed in charge of a congregation as a student minister in 1975, and that congregation called me to be their pastor once my studies were done.

I was ordained to the gospel ministry in December 1978. And then it was the next step in terms of the call to the United States, and that happened in the year 1983 when I moved to the Pennsylvania area of Philadelphia, the city of Philadelphia, one of the suburbs there, and began to pioneer for the Lord.

The congregation that now meets in Malvern, FPC, was born and grew over those years until the Lord took me back to Northern Ireland to pastor my home congregation of Bellarmine. So I thank the Lord for saving me and calling me to the gospel ministry.

Turner. But praise God, and I thank the Lord for that as well, because you are certainly a blessing to the body of Christ. You are one of my favorite preachers of all time, and that is not flattery, that is not hyperbole.

I always loved hearing you preach and look forward to other opportunities to hear you preach, in fact, even in Malvern, Pennsylvania, coming up in the not-so-distant future when you are visiting here.

The True St. Patrick of History: Patrick’s Early Life, Conversion, and Call

Mark. Well, we have a theme today. Providentially, as you already mentioned, your denomination, where you have served faithfully for many years, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster was founded on St. Patrick's Day, and we are having a tribute to St. Patrick's Day today, and we are going to be discussing the true St. Patrick of history.

Perhaps you could give us, as far back into history as you are familiar with Patrick, something about this great man of God that many of our listeners may not be aware of.

Yes, well, thank you for the opportunity to do that, Chris, because it is a very important thing that people are made aware of the true Patrick, as you have said. I may say this to begin with, the island of Ireland as a whole has been historically known as the land of saints and scholars due to its reputation as a place of religious instruction and learning.

From early times, Ireland was known as a country that followed a form of religion and spiritual devotion, even though much of that religious devotion was actually pagan in terms of its nature and its content.

In the times prior to Patrick's Day, the people of this island of Ireland were immersed in Druidism, a religion that involved a deep focus on the dark world of the occult, spiritism, ritualistic sacrifices to demons, etc.

In short, there was no knowledge of Christ among the inhabitants of the island of Ireland. Now today, it is still very true that this title, the land of saints and scholars, can be very misleading because Ireland, north and south, is far removed from what those words might lead some to believe.

The island of Ireland is overcome and overwhelmed by sin. It is marked even this day, which is a public holiday, supposedly in memory of St. Patrick. It's marked by drunkenness and by revelry rather than by spiritual blessings.

It's characterized to a great degree by rebellion against God instead of adherence to his word. It's darkened on one hand by false religion and on the other hand by the dominance of a secularistic spirit that has no place or no time at all for any kind of religion.

Now today, as we are aware, is the 17th of March. That is the date that is commonly known across the Western world, or maybe farther away than that even, as St. Patrick's Day. But sadly, the celebrations that took place today, which is now the evening with me here, whether in Ireland north or south, were completely contrary to a great degree to the life and message of this man whose name is given to this holiday.

What takes place on St. Patrick's Day in 99 .9 of the so-called celebrations of Patrick has no relevance at all to his life or to his ministry. Patrick was an evangelical Christian minister and missionary.

That fact is conceded to a tremendous degree by the media, by those who promote this holiday. It is unmentioned in terms of Patrick's true story. It is my privilege just to say a few things about this man because it's important that people who listen in to this program today will understand something of who Patrick actually was.

The story of Patrick has actually been mingled with myth and legend, and so sometimes it's difficult to determine what is true or what is false about him. But one thing is true, he was a real person, and under God he made a tremendous impact on the spiritual life of this island.

The details of his early days are sketchy, but we're very thankful that Patrick himself left certain manuscripts. They were originally written in Latin, but they were translated into English, and they are accepted by those who have studied them as being authentic.

Two of them are very important. Number one, his confession, and number two, his letter. Those two manuscripts really form the basis of what I say, as time permits us here today, with regard to this man Patrick.

A number of details about his upbringing are important. His father was a man called Copernicus. He was a deacon in the Christian church. He was the son of Potitus, who in turn was a gospel minister. As a family, they lived in a little village on the banks of the River Clyde in Scotland, and in that home there was a godly heritage.

The gospel had reached what we call the mainland, England, Scotland, Wales. The gospel had come there early in those centuries after the time of Jesus Christ, and so because of his godly home and his godly upbringing, Patrick was well-versed in Scripture.

But something momentous happened in his life when he was only 16 years of age. His family homestead was attacked by Irish pirates, and they came and ransacked the village. They took Patrick captive at that age.

They took him to Northern Ireland, the northeast part of the island of Ireland, and he was sold into slavery. As a slave, he had the responsibility of looking after sheep and other animals on the mountains and in the mosses that are such a familiar feature of life in Northern Ireland.

He looked after those animals, especially on a little mountain called Slemish in County Antrim near to the town of Bellamena. So where I grew up, I can look out across the valley and see this mountain very clearly and realize in my own soul that that's where Patrick worked as a young fellow at 16 years of age.

What men meant for evil in terms of capturing this boy, taking him away from his home, and selling him as a slave in the northeastern part of Ireland, God meant for good because the Lord was working out things after the counsel of his own perfect will.

That means that I must thank you, therefore, for the fact that Patrick, even though he had a Christian upbringing, the sense of a godly home, was not brought to know Christ until he was brought here to Northern Ireland as a slave.

At that stage, he was thoughtless about his need as a sinner. He did not know the Lord. In fact, he said himself in his own confession, I knew not the true God. He made the statement, I, Patrick the sinner, departed away from God and kept not his commandments.

And so he realized that he was without Christ. He knew his own sinfulness. He did not deny his guilt before a holy God. But in the same confession, he went on to say this, The Lord opened my understanding, that even though late, I might call my faults to remembrance, and that I might turn with all my heart to the Lord my God.

And so it was as a boy, 16, 17 years of age, herding sheep and cattle on that mountain called Slemish, outside the town of Bellarmina, all those centuries ago, that God opened the heart of this man whom we today commonly refer to as Saint Patrick.

Yes, he became a true saint at the time of his conversion, but in the biblical sense, he was born again. He came to know Jesus Christ, of whom he had learned as a child and as a boy growing up in his godly home.

But he came to know him and trust him as his own personal savior. A very well-known Presbyterian minister of a former generation and a historian recorded this, and I quote his words, His captivity was the means of bringing him, Patrick, the greatest blessing which can come to any man, the conversion of his soul.

He had been piously brought up, but like too many had neglected the lessons of the father's house. And so he was dead in his sins, but God suddenly awoke him, brought under conviction of sin. He cried out to the Lord, and he said this, Before I was humbled, I was like a stone in a deep mire or mud.

But he that is mighty came and lifted me up and placed me on the wall. And I believe he's thinking there about Psalm 40 very clearly, where the Psalmist David says, He took me from the fearful pit and from the miry clay, and all around he set my feet, establishing my goings.

And Patrick could say, I am greatly God's debtor, for he has granted me so much grace. And immediately Patrick was changed. He began to be very prayerful. He would arise during the nighttime, out in the midst of snow and the ice during the winter season, and commune with God in the woods and upon the hills.

And during that time, he had a great burning power within his soul as the Holy Spirit came upon him. And he knew what it was to feel his sin and come to rest in Christ. And the spiritual life that he was evidenced by his prayer, by the desire for more knowledge of the Lord, Patrick was saved.

Therefore, not by religion, not by the practices of any church, including the church of Rome, but by the grace of God. And so there's such a background as far as his childhood, his conversion is concerned, that makes wonderful reading.

And there's more I can bring as the program develops here about the calling of Patrick and all those details about the fact that he became a minister of the gospel upon this island. Amen. And we're going to go to our first commercial.

Patrick’s Call to Preach and His Gospel Mission in Ireland

Break right now, and you can continue digging into the history of Patrick when we return. The email address, if anybody listening has a question for my dear friend, Pastor John Greer, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Pastor Greer, I believe earlier on you said that you were going to be preaching at the Free Presbyterian Church of Melbourne, Pennsylvania on the 26th. That's a Saturday. Are you preaching.

On a Saturday or a Sunday? Actually, on the Sunday, but on the Saturday, there's a men's prayer meeting. That's what I was thinking about being held on Darlington and Reformation Bible Church. That prayer meeting was started way back when I was still pastoring in Melbourne.

Dr. John McKnight and I commenced that quarterly men's prayer meeting, and it continues to this day. It's on Saturday the 26th down in Darlington, and I will be preaching at that prayer session before we get down to seek the face of the Lord, and then on the Sunday, preaching in Melbourne the 27th.

Thank you for calling that to my attention.

Before I go to a listener question, one of the primary misunderstandings, confusions in regard to Patrick is that Roman Catholics claim him as their own, but isn't it true that the Roman Catholic Church did not even exist when Patrick was alive?

Patrick, Rome, Pelagius, and the Battle Over the Church in Ireland

Well, at that time, it wasn't established as it later was established in the Dark Ages, so to speak, but it was developing. What I plan to say here with regard to some of Patrick's history, I'll be able to relate some details on that issue that make it very clear, but it wasn't fully developed.

It was going forward, and it's a departure from the Bible. The bishop of Rome, the church in that city had departed. There was a gradual departure in other parts of Europe. Many people, of course, still remain true to things of God, to the Word of God, but there was departure developing, and then it came to a head in later centuries when the Roman Catholic system was fully developed, as the papers say.

Yes, and I have frequent disagreements with my Roman Catholic friends over this issue. We have a listener who is actually a former member of the Malvern Free Presbyterian Church when you were a pastor there, Ernie, and he has a question for you.

I'm looking for that question now. Let's see. While a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern, Pennsylvania years ago, I had the blessing of God to sit under the teaching ministry of John Greer.

Prior to my attending there while a New Jersey resident, I used to receive sermon cassette tapes in the mail to refresh my soul each week with Christ-centered preaching. It eventually drew me along with my wife and four daughters to make the drive each week to Pennsylvania.

What stands out in my memory the most is that the gospel of Jesus Christ and the need for sanctification in the life of a Christian was never neglected in the pulpit. It caused you to sit up in the pew with conviction and attentiveness.

God's Word read in abundance was clearly held up as authoritative and inerrant. Whatever the doctrinal subject of the sermon, holiness and the gospel were brought forth. When any passage of Scripture, be it New Testament or old, Christ Jesus was found.

John maintained a Bible-centered and Christ-proclaiming ministry unlike any that I have seen in my spiritual pilgrimage and walk. I am very thankful that the Lord used John as his instrument to bring instructive and edifying truth by the centrality of his pulpit work while on this side of the pond.

Well, that's all Ernie has to say, but quite a wonderful commendation for you and your ministry, brother.

Well, it's very nice of Ernie to make that comment that you've read out, Chris, and I want to thank him for that. Anything that was done under my ministry anywhere was by the grace of God. Any knowledge I was able to impart to the Lord's people, to see them grow in the faith and develop spiritually or become more like Christ, was because of my own convictions about these matters brought in me by the Holy Spirit.

My own eyes opened up to see that this is what the Bible teaches about the marks of a true work of grace. And so what I'm saying is that I endeavored to preach from my heart what the Lord had shown me and what the Lord had done in my own life.

And I'm glad that Ernie was blessed. I know he was. He was there in my time, the latter part of my time in Melbourne, and I do trust the Lord will bless him and his wife and family. I know, like my own family, his girls have grown up, and some of them are married, and he has grandchildren.

So may the Lord bless you, Ernie, as you tune in today.

Grace, God. Well, please continue on with the most important aspects that we should know about the life and legacy of St. Patrick.

Patrick’s Missionary Work, Theology, and Legacy

Well, thank you, Chris. At this point in what we're doing here today, I'm still really leaning with something of the history of Patrick. In my opening remarks, I covered the matter of his background growing up in a Christian home in Scotland and then coming as a slave to Northern Ireland, as it is today, to the county of Antrim, and there in the mountains and in the forests.

So long ago, the Lord dealt with Patrick and saved him and made him a new creature in Jesus Christ. Now, not long after he was converted to Christ and that work of grace was done in his heart, he managed to escape back to Scotland.

There is discussion, of course, was he from Scotland or was he not, but the evidence would point to what I said, that he was from the banks of the River Clyde, and he went back there at the age of 22.

He was six years working in Northern Ireland until he was able to escape and went back to his own home, as you would imagine, warmly welcomed by his parents and by other family members. But shortly after he returned from his time of being a slave in the northeastern part of Ireland, the Lord dealt with him during the night, one particular night, and this was the calling of Patrick to be a preacher, a minister of the gospel.

It was a call that came very dramatically during the night season, because God was preparing a man for a very, very powerful ministry that he went on to exercise on this island of Ireland. As God dealt with him that night, he had, as it were, this tremendous awareness of the voice of the Irish.

That's how he put it himself, as translated from his confession, the voice of the Irish, as if they were saying to him, we entreat the holy youth to come and walk henceforth among us. This was so vivid and so powerful that he knew that it was of God.

Knowing the scriptures, as he did, he knew that God was dealing with his heart and setting him apart to be a minister of Jesus Christ. He took this as a call from the Lord, and he returned to Ireland to the scene of his boyhood slavery days.

And yet, he didn't go back there as a slave, but as a servant of the Most High God. There was no reluctance to go, but a complete willingness. He knew that God's will was his will. Of course, that's an important principle for every child of God, that the will of God is what we should want and what we should pursue in our lives.

It wasn't a religious establishment of any kind that initiated a call to Patrick to preach the gospel. It was the Lord himself, and that's the way it still must be. There must be a call from God that reaches the heart of the man who's truly a minister of Jesus Christ and will reach the heart of the man who has been identified by God from all eternity to be a preacher like Jeremiah.

The Lord said to Jeremiah that he knew him before he was even in the womb, and that means that from all eternity, God had his eye on Jeremiah. God had his eye on Patrick, and he saved him, and he called him to preach.

And so, Patrick went back to Ireland believing and knowing that he had a distinct call from God. He's deeply concerned for the people of the island of Ireland. He began his work of evangelism. He appears to have journeyed on evangelistic tours through the whole country of Ireland.

And while it's not a huge country, it's certainly sizable in the sense of trying to travel through it, traverse it on foot, as would have been the case or best in the bag of a donkey or a horse or whatever he used.

But you will find in Ireland many places, the names of which are connected with Patrick. There's Temple Patrick. There's Lake Patrick, Sea Patrick, Crow Patrick, and of course, Down Patrick, where it is said that his grave is located.