August 3, 2018 Show with Tom Niewulis on “Not All Conservatives Are Constitutionalists”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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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.

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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.

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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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.

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This is Chris Arnton your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all happy Friday on this third day of August 2018 and I'm so delighted to have back as a returning guest today

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Tom Novolis and he is going to be speaking this time on his book

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Not All Conservatives Are Constitutionalists and Tom Novolis is president and CEO of NCDCS incorporated with over 30 years in business and organizational analysis with experience in strategic planning financial and organizational management having delivered business and technical studies and having made presentations at industry conferences in the

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United States and Europe a member of the technical advisory boards for emerging companies as well as the fortune 500 an internationally published writer a member of the

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National Association of Corporate Directors and the World Intellectual Property Organization whose studies include the

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United States Constitution the Federalist and Anti -Federalist Papers Joseph Story's commentaries

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Blackstone Locke de Tocqueville Madison's Notes and the various states ratifying conventions as well as original source writings of Samuel Adams and his contemporaries the

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Reformation with an emphasis on the Scottish Reformation Lex Rex the Puritans and Covenant the

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First Great Awakening and the sermons the founders heard preached he is the chair of constitutional economics at Thomas Jefferson Center for Constitutional Studies he's a board member of We the

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People Washington he's the author of The Tale of Two Constitutions and three other books in the works

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Depths of Tyranny as Predicted the Anti -Federalist Got It Right Liberty to Economy and Rethinking Property Rights Today he's a board member of Samuel Adams Center for Political Science and blogger at Samuel Adams returns .net

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today we are discussing his book Not All Conservatives are Constitutionalists and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio Tom Nevolas.

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Thank you delighted to be here Chris and I'm sorry if I'm butchering your last name I know that I got it correct the last time but I don't know if I was so providentially blessed this time.

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You're doing very well I'm proud of you. All right thanks and just to let our listeners know Tom unfortunately has a sore throat today and it may be affecting his patterns of speech but we ask of you that to pray that he gets through the program unscathed and can maintain his voice through the entire two -hour program today.

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Well before we go to our topic today Tom I'm going to give our email address for anybody who would like to join us on the air with a question about the

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United States Constitution and how this has any bearings upon Christianity today and our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com and please give us your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA and before we go into the topic tell our listeners something about the

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Thomas Jefferson Center for Constitutional Studies where you are chair of constitutional economics.

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Thomas Jefferson Center was established a number of years ago by Drs.

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Cleon Skousen and another gentleman whose son -in -law interestingly enough they're a little bit more broad than where some people would put some labels on them.

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It's been a very unique experience. There's a number of things that have been slowing down in that environment and most recently

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I have taken and stepped away from them since we last talked actually in that I am strictly focusing on what

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I'm doing with Samuel Adams and the radio programs the blocking and what

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I'm doing on the video as well with the Samuel Adams programs.

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Tell us about the Samuel Adams Center for Political Science. The Samuel Adams Center for Political Science has been developed to help the youth understand those foundational principles of our founders.

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It just comes simply to that to some of what you spoke of already how do they take and grasp the principles of constitutionalism which we're going to be talking about in this book in such a manner that it says okay how do we self -govern and then what does that mean into that extensibility of governing within our local state and federal government and what does it mean to develop policy and where do those policies what should be the root of the policy so when we take and we look at that our sovereign lord is over all government then how do students understand that principle those biblical principles and once again

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I use that term the transcendence of God's sovereignty into all things all aspects of life and then into that whole realm of being able to govern according to his principles.

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Great, I posted you may have even saw it I posted a meme on my

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Facebook page because I really love the quote by Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry who is most known for the quote give me liberty or give me death.

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Patrick Henry said in this meme the constitution is not a document for the government to restrain the people is it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.

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Do you agree with that quote? I do absolutely from Samuel Adams perspective

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Patrick Henry being much much younger had a good grasp on those fundamental principles

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Patrick Henry again being a believer totally understood the order of what government should be and that we as individuals and those that are in authority all submit to the living

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God therefore when we looked at constitutional government which is our government in this republic not a democracy but in the republic is that we the people are the sovereigns and that the government submits to us that being the agency submits to us because in essence we happen to be the government as being those sovereigns we just give that agency over to those whom we elect and place into office.

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A lot of people make the error of thinking and stating that the

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United States was created as a democracy but that is not correct in fact the democracy when you boil it down to its essence isn't it mob rule?

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Yes it comes down to that it comes down to mob rule and whereas even at the time of the constitution convention every state that came out of the colonies was a sovereign or country if you will that's how they were viewed.

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Right this was called our country was called these United States of America not the United States of America.

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Correct yes and it came into that shift as over time.

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Yes well could you also basically summarize exactly how a constitutional republic functions obviously even though we were founded as one we don't necessarily function as one today and probably have been drifting away from that for over a century but if you could tell us basically in summary form about that.

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Yeah and you're correct it's more than a century I think we started drifting away almost within 50 years of the constitutional convention what we've looked at in this respect is that we are independent republic so that's what the state should be and as you know and we talked about before is that our first constitution were the articles of confederation so what we have in essence is that a confederate union of independent nations there being the states each having their own constitution each being guaranteed to work within the concept of a representative republican form of government became a nation for several different purposes there were things that were seen as weaknesses within the context of the articles of confederation and when they went to fix those weaknesses we ended up with a new constitution thereby what we have now and that's bringing that together strengthening some of the areas and in the case of or in the arguments of the anti -federalist causing potential problems within that constitution that we're actually seeing happening to us in the present day especially in the judiciary now labels can be confusing you have people identifying themselves with certain labels and they don't necessarily match up what you think that those labels should mean our opinions may be formed by stereotypes or misinformation or a bygone error that has lost its meaning today but if you could if you could give us a summary of the major labels that we use today when it comes to political ideology i bring this up obviously because it is inherent to your title uh the word conservative not all conservatives are constitutionalists and obviously that means many different things to different people for instance just one example might be that you might have somebody who has moral and even uh should i say has biblically moral a code a biblically moral code of ethics they are against same -sex marriage they're against abortion and so on they would view themselves as conservative but they may unconsciously have an understanding of the strength or power of the government that actually militates against what conservatism once meant and it usually happens and you could correctly if correct me if i'm wrong is that when you have people who have conservative moral values and social views and so on when they have someone they favored elected into the white house or other places of authority they want that particular office bearer the president for instance they very often i'm not saying they always do this but uh depending upon the person or group they very often want to heap upon that person that they helped elect with more power than they should constitutionally possess and then later on they regret it when someone who is a liberal or a leftist is elected so i mean this can be confusing in regard to these labels can it be oh absolutely and i think you know so the essence of the book starts out uh with a very interesting quote from sam adams and that words do have meaning and uh what sam adams uh said here is how strangely will the tools of a tyrant uh pervert the plain meaning of words so to your point is when we start looking at all the different terms like conservative what does that mean today but uh what did it mean in the 1800s what's a liberal what's a leftist uh what are these different things we try and put things in some kind of parameters that uh functionally you know work within the context of someone's ideology or through everything that you're saying is what they where they develop their belief system from and when we looked at it and some that's what i'm trying to drive to in the book is that words have meaning and when the words have meaning where where what's their uh uh etymology where does it come from and when we take when we start looking at that from our original and founders original intent we can look back to the history and that's what i developed in the book is the history of the word conservative uh all the way back into its time in england and when did that start to become used uh here in america as a term for some political entity and those are the types of things that we've uh looked at and one of the things that we try to uh define is when you're talking about political parties or uh positioning oneself within that political environment by a term and you've got to go back and i suggest to everyone listening uh look up george washington's farewell address and in there washington as well as sam adams as well as a number of patrick henry and others would say stay away from political parties because what happens in them is cabals develop people start developing uh to your point uh oh boy i got that guy elected and guess what now i'm going to have that influence on them and we see that today with the coke brothers who have influenced with billions of dollars people said oh they were the evil of the right but now we're finding out they're they're people out for themselves they're libertarians without any moral context so when we start trying to lay on those labels but it then takes and allows us to skirt around all the different principles and within uh and become single focuses sometimes uh to again we can take the whole abortion issue and there are those that become so single focus within the christian element on uh fighting abortion that they forget that that to fight it appropriately we have to look to our lesser magistrates so what's what are the principles then and what it is about utilizing from that whole historical perspective uh how did how did john knox appeal to those lords and what he in his appellation did right there is an amazing study that can be drawn right back into our historical perspective of uh of redress that's what it comes down to and place then into what did our founders like sam adams know what did they bring from that whole reformation period into those ideas of self -governance and then using the principles of truth the biblical principles of governance develop a nation that we should have had instead of as you already indicated that started going sideways you know right in the early 1800s yes and um also to uh further distinguish some of the terms that we use uh we may have even brought this up uh in the beginning of our previous interview but uh there are many similarities it seems between and this is ironic that you have uh people describing themselves as classically liberal or classic liberals that have more in common with a lot more in common with conservatives today than they would with what we might normally think of as liberal because what we normally think of as liberal today they are typically leftists they're not really liberals because they are totalitarian in their mindset they don't want all voices to have an equal say in the public arena they they want control over everything they are the new champions of censorship they want to be the thought police and so on i mean it's really not liberalism at all it's really leftism as i said and then you have those that i think thomas soul is even considered a classical liberal if i'm not mistaken but uh if you could explain the difference between uh what typically when people say they're liberal today and a classical liberal and a conservative sure the the as you well defined already is that the the liberal today which again we're looking at how that terminology originated from england and then as across the ocean uh it didn't carry those definitions with it but what it did is it it actually did a 180 flip it was like doing the the uh magnetic pole shift if you will uh going across the atlantic ocean where the conservatives in england at the at the time and to some extent today not as much uh wanted to preserve things they wanted to preserve uh the authority of the king and totality at some point in time they then went to a split in the government we're looking at uh the king the parliament with the lords and the commons all sharing some aspects of that power whereas the liberals in england were the ones that were looking for how to better uh utilize the rights of the people how to take and go back to magna carta and uh work through what is liberty what are those property rights what are those uh ideas of a representative shared form of government so uh and how did that fit into the economics of uh adam smith at the time as all of that was developing so when we talk about again here in america when we saw that polar shift of terminology uh the liberals are quite the opposite to your point of totalitarian they want the government at all whereas uh conservatives in america are the ones that want smaller government by modern terminology and all of the different uh i call it it's almost like a litany if you will of all these different terms that we can ascribe to conservatism but the on the uh on our classical liberal is basically a way in the united states to try and define what liberals were in england back in the 1800s the late set the late 1700s 1800s where we were looking at what was economic liberty what were we looking at with property rights where are we looking at with those forms of ideas that would fit into a rule of law established under the uh constitutionalism so in many ways when they have a moral context i think that the classical liberal is much closer to constitutionalism often than uh many conservatives are even though they want to say they say we're all about the constitution yet there's times you just wonder if they look at it from its proper operational perspective and don't go back to what we started the program with they just go on single focus or reactionary which we're seeing a lot of especially in the republican congress today we just see all this reactionary effort instead of looking at what is the constitutional format to which we should be looking at slow government down act according to rule of law and develop it according to fundamental principles that takes time that takes effort and uh it's it's all it's really a lot of work and i remember the last time uh you took a bit of exception with the concept of libertarianism and i uh i mean it's hard to pinpoint uh many people including myself when it comes to a political agenda or ideology uh i consider myself a libertarian conservative work or a conservative uh libertarian whichever the way you want to look at it although i have to quickly tell people that i also am a pro -life libertarian i believe that since what i always understood libertarianism to be is that the government should be extremely limited but one of the certain duties of government is to protect the safety and life of the citizens of the nation uh where you live and i believe that unborn children are human beings that are deserving of that protection so i would be adamantly pro -life i believe that abortion is murder but i still believe i seem to be agreeing more and more with my libertarian friends who are of a more conservative or should i say a clearly christian a version of libertarianism that uh that they uh that the the right to life needs to be a primary focus in the realm of politics but if you could comment on why is it that uh you look you frown upon that phrase or even that ideology libertarian well i think it again it comes to the semantics and terminology and words have meaning the derivative libertarian or libertarianism is from libertine which uh is what happened in france where all morality all uh essence of god was removed from what happened uh within the french revolution and we had a mess uh i think because of my samuel adams uh thinking is that the the ideas of liberty have to have that rule of law have to have a clear understanding of the sovereignty of god and if we look at what are we as a nation we're constitutional republic so therefore in my thinking constitutionalism so i would call myself a constitutionalist uh in that respect and i throw in the anti -federalist bent because then what we saw is that we saw a change right away from the constitution splitting off into these parties or these labels so it all comes down i think chris to uh what we began the conversation words have meaning what are the labels that people put up to quickly describe one another instead of getting down to the principles so everything that you're describing yourself as i would offer to you that you're in fact a constitutionalist with that anti -federalist perspective and uh even more so than the libertarian and what you had to put a qualifier on is that the libertarian with a moral determinant right you could be that too so uh it comes down to what's what's acceptable in defining yourself today to allow yourself to uh function within that political environment and uh what describes you uh to your and workable with uh those other believers that you interact with so those are the challenges and the mix up in the terminology is that we end up with disparity uh in using terms that someone all of a sudden is recreating just because they're going off and saying okay i got this new word i want to use instead of taking and saying no these are the fundamentals that were given to us and if we're going to have a a solid republic that is established within the context of a rule of law that is built on a framework of a document that isn't changeable except by what article 5 or where new laws are brought in because we do treaties or we do all those different things uh now that to me better quantifies what we're about but oh geez you know i'm a libertarian conservative that uh you know i i'm really all about pro -life but then i'm not sure where my economics fall into all of that yeah i i would think uh that by definition a libertarian would be uh fiscally very conservative and believe in very limited government spending etc um yes uh i know the other thing that i have to say that i am in disagreement with libertarians that i see in the uh the limelight of the media that will be against secure borders and things like that i think that that is a suicidal libertarians because for people that love freedom and liberty so much they are putting those things at risk by letting anybody come in to the nation where you live because you are really putting the very liberties you cherish at risk i mean if we were to have a totally borderless society we could very well become under sharia law at some point in the in the future and there goes your liberties that you love so much so i mean it just seems to be insane to me to be a uh because that that i think goes under one of the limited areas where the government is required is to protect the citizens in our own uh nation and from behind our borders whereas i i'm assuming that you would agree that the conservatives that have redefined what that means and have become war hawks and have involved our nation in foreign conflicts where we really don't belong that that would be not only a violation of libertarianism but wouldn't it be a violation of what our founding fathers conceived as a right form of government in relationship to countries abroad correct you know stay out of it by going back again to washington's well address says you know stay out of all of those types of conflicts keep your noses clean of all of that i think and what you're describing with the war hawks and all of that it's very interesting so how does a neoconservative fit into that where did they come from and so that's one of the things i talk about i read a really good book i can't think of his name right now i'm not referencing it in mind uh the father of neoconservatism in the united states and and he was what we would call a conservative democrat and he got so fed up with the democrats taking and moving to that totalitarian position moving to socialism moving to the anarchy that they're all about today that he actually left the democrat party and became that neoconservative if you will and brought in those other strong ideas that were part of the democratic party for a long period of time that being very strong on uh being involved in foreign affairs you know almost at a war hawkishness and so it blended in if you will to the point where we had people making those crossovers but bringing the part portions of their ideologies with them are you talking about ronald are you talking about ronald reagan by any chance no no no no it wasn't ronald reagan uh oh he was a broadcaster for years he had a program on pbs for years uh well boy i can see his face i just can't think of his name uh off the top of where we're going to a break right now if you want to look that up but that's not essential but we are going to a break right now yeah okay yeah i want to learn more about the neocons that we hear a lot about uh uh it's funny because sometimes i hear the word neocon coming from the lips of people that other conservatives call neocons you know i'm saying i i'm seeing and hearing people that have been described as neocons disparagingly calling other people neocons but but we'll go more in depth than that after we return from this break if anybody would like to join us on the air and we do have a number of people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered but if anybody else would like to join them if you want to get in line our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com don't go away god willing we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors chris arnzen 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 forward 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 one million dollars 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 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 chris arnzen at gmail .com

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that's chris arnzen 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

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.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

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.nyc have a great day i am chris arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio here to tell you about an exciting offer from world magazine my trusted source for news from a christian perspective try world at no charge for 90 days and get a free copy of rc sproles book relationship between church and state i rely on world because i trust the reporting i gain insight from the analysis and world provides clarity to the news stories that really matter i believe you'll also find world to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a depth that's simply not found in other media outlets armed with this coverage world can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community this trial includes bi -weekly issues of world magazine on -scene reporting from world radio and the fully shareable content of world digital simply visit wmg .org

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that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio and don't forget to continue to pray for mike gadosh the founder of solid ground christian books mike as many of you who listen regularly know is scheduled to have open heart surgery it is a very serious very complicated very delicate open heart surgery that he needs to undergo and we have an update that the surgery is going to be held god willing sooner than expected according to mike gadosh today he just got a call from his surgeon's office and they had an they had an opening pop up a week earlier so he goes in for prep on thursday the 23rd of august and surgery the first thing in the morning on friday the 24th of august so please pray that our great physician jesus christ would be guiding very steadily and carefully the hands of everyone in that operating room and that mike rises up a healthier and stronger man from that hospital bed than he has been in years and even a stronger and healthier christian spiritually because of the trial he's been through so please pray for my dear friend my very first pastor is a born -again believer mike gadosh founder of solid ground christian books we are now back with our guest today tom nivolos and we are talking about his book not all conservatives or constitutionalists our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com

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and please give us your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal private matter such as perhaps you disagree with your your own spouse over political issues or you disagree with your pastor or something like that you don't you'd rather not identify yourself we can understand that but other than that please give us your first name your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside the usa and before we go to any listener questions if you could continue on the thread of neocons yes yes absolutely so i did find it uh for all those that may be receiving a book it's on page 68 it's uh ben wattenberg he's the father of the neoconservative movement a very influential individual had a program on pbs for a good number of years and he explains everything that he did in his book called fighting words a tale of how liberals created neoconservatism and he speaks right from the heart how it all came about and the fact that they became the strong influencers within the conservative movement creating such things as the compassionate conservatism and definitely believing to your point earlier in interventionalism whether it was international or domestic so when we look at where does that come from in the conservative movement we can attribute it to what the neoconservatives brought uh he was let's see he was either a member of or he was an influential partner within the american enterprise institute so that then goes to the whole idea of of which we can spend days on is talking about think tanks instead of citizens understanding their rightful place in governing we have turned over how we self -govern and what it meant from a founder's perspective to be participants in government to experts be those the experts on so -called i don't call them experts on radio and tv even though some believe they are but even the experts in academia or these think tanks and so on and so forth whereas our founders expected each and every one of us to be experts in what it meant to be self -governing individuals within a constitutional republic so that's what ben lattenberg and he was the father of neoconservatism and that's what they did they brought in a lot of these what you termed earlier leftists even some socialist ideas into the conservative movement they're globalist in many ways so what we see at uh so so let's talk about paul ryan is paul ryan a constitutional conservative or is he a neoconservative because he has such globalist influence and he has the support of those that are interventionist and want open borders or you know even though we just talked about the koch brothers being libertarians for a long period of time they termed themselves as neoconservatives so again we're looking at the semantics words usage when someone wants to define themselves as something to either get someone else to go in the direction they want to go or because they want to promote their ideology in a way that is i call it somewhat shrouded from the intents that what they may have so what are the fundamental principles of constitutionalism versus what these other terms of you know are out there that cloud the issues well if you could before we go to any of our listener questions uh give a summary of exactly the kind of conservatism that disturbs you that you have apprehensions apprehensions over to put it mildly perhaps that you believe are perhaps conservative in name but they are not truly constitutionalist tell us about this phenomenon that you were talking about specifically it goes to some of that where we have uh the outside influences of globalism we look at what are some of those economic perspectives that are taking and re -enslaving us as a nation by taking and going back to the even what the conservatives in europe wanted to go back to a form of feudalism if you will but a modern form of feudalism that's a new idea that people it's not a new idea but it's what people have been writing about on modern feudalism based on seeing once again those who have the wealth or power to take and then influence within those that are in a place of political authority that we made an assumption that they would do something and they don't do it according to what we believe the american dna and principles are so we look at economics we look at the world interventionism we look at the policy the domestic policies that you talked about earlier it makes common it's just not just common sense but it's a constitutionally correct that we're a sovereign nation we should retain that sovereignty our religious liberties should have no question within them and yet we see conservatives that fight us on every idea that is fundamental to founders intent and that's where i really start to break away and look at those that call themselves conservative what does it mean to look and what have they looked at relative to founders intent and the constitution as the founders intended it to be i've worked with a lot of different political people some people that are in congress today that when i asked them very pointedly to go through their clear understanding of how the constitution functions they look at you dumbfounded well no this is how we operate based on what the party wants or this is how we operate based on what the conservative ideas are and then when you ask them to quantify what those conservative conservative ideas are well it's all on economics well what if you know so there's the disparity and not consistency within the definition of terms i go back and i think one of the ones where i try and help people get some clarity is that uh...

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with uh... what russell kirk kind of put together uh and he was doing some work uh...

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this was back in the fifties and he he got together even with william f buckley jr and actually came up with uh...

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about ten fundamental principles of what a con what a conservative should be and within the context of those ten principles i think that if all those that call themselves conservatives would look at that even and say yes that's what i'm going to live by consistently i think we'd see a much different political uh environment and the way policy is driven the way laws are written and uh how even the judicial system would function so that that's where my burn really comes and that's what i my journey was what the heck does it mean to be a conservative what am i who am i and how does it fit into founders original intent for us to be a self -governing people within the context of this constitutional republic yeah i even have friends that are so disgusted with the state of the government in the united states today that they don't even though you might call them conservatives because of the fact that they adhere to biblical morality and believe in a limited government but they are so disgusted with the state of politics in the united states that they don't want to call themselves conservatives because they will say perhaps partially tongue there's nothing left to conserve there's a number of people that are like that i know some people that are expats because they got so fed up right i'm going well that doesn't help anything you know we're supposed to be in here to uh for the long haul and uh you know we're supposed to fight the tyrannies we're supposed to bring those suspicious christians you know i mean that's why as much as there's that you know i i look at old charles finney and i sit there and go where'd he go south uh there's several things that he said in in his uh december uh 1873 article where he talked about the the pulpit is responsible and i'm sure you're familiar with that whole article but he you know he goes wait a minute if you're going to criticize puritanism if you're going to look at that you better look at it in its whole context and so we see that even in the preaching across many many many many many churches in america is that uh you know just don't spiritualize it what does it mean for the sovereignty of god to be extensible into everything and especially and especially in america where we have that determination of self -governance is to be participants and what that means from our uh biblical perspective all right let's start taking some of our listener questions uh i rarely give people's full names but since this is a pastor that i know and i'd like to give a plug to his church because one of the key reasons that i want iron sharpens iron radio to exist is to be a friend of the local church when the local church is a biblically faithful and solid church so pastor bruce bennett has a question and he is the pastor of the word of truth church in farmingville long island new york and his website by the way is wot church .com

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wot church .com which stands for word of truth church but uh pastor bennett says to what extent did framers of the constitution want biblical morality to guide federal and state laws but the framers themselves uh and this again goes to what i think i mentioned in the last time that we're on the program is the difference between the federalist and the antifederalist it wasn't fully within the framing it was assumptive especially by those that became the federalist that pastors would do their job and as john adams and others said is that this constitution is only for a moral and virtuous people and the expectation was is that the churches would continue to produce moral and virtuous people so that we would have moral and virtuous leaders that then would be elected into government so uh the sad part is that madison's influence by uh the scottish enlightenment kind of took that directive out if you will but made it assumptive that we would have a moral and virtuous people that would be able to self -govern whereas the antifederalist uh they were so clear on it and going no i'm sorry uh human nature is what it is oh it's more than human nature man is sinful and by virtue of that uh how can we count on this constitution without the amendments in particular to be a good covenant with the people if you will without knowing that there's going to be problems from that moral perspective and that maybe churches won't do their job so we better have something that's going to be established at least at a minimum to take and guarantee some of our rights and that's therefore as you know in history how then why they pushed especially in the states conventions uh for the uh the bill of rights to be uh amended into the constitution but the founders i mean the framers themselves weren't pushing that biblical perspective there's a lot in there from a covenantal concept but as we looked at it it was assumptive that the churches would do and prepare the people to be that moral and virtuous people to carry this form of government into uh full operation well thank you pastor bruce please give us your full mailing address in farmingville long island so that we can ship you a copy of not all conservatives or constitutionalists by our guest today thomas nivolos and uh this will be shipped out to you by cvbbs .com

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carmeline valley bible book service and by the way brandon in franklinton north carolina uh i'm afraid our guest if you've been listening has taken the wind out of your sails because he already answered your question so brandon basically asked uh john adams is quoted as saying something similar to our constitution was made for a moral and religious people it is wholly inadequate to govern any to the government of any other could you ask mr duwalis to elaborate on what adams means here and does he agree with this statement does this tie into the theme of his book in any way you've really already answered all of those questions i believe okay all right well brandon if you want to ask another question send that in uh during the break we are going to our midway break right now this is the longer than normal break because grace life radio 90 .1

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fm in lake city florida requires of us a longer break uh because they air their own commercials and public service announcements so please take this time not only to write down questions for our guest thomas duwalis on the constitution but also uh please uh write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them and help keep iron sharpens iron radio on the air by doing so because we rely upon our advertisers sponsorship dollars so don't go away we'll be right back after this break with tom duwalis and our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com tired of bop store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship and how about the preaching perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from long island well there's good news wedding river baptist church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of god's word and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us

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that's batterydepot .com every day at thousands of community centers high schools middle schools juvenile institutions coffee shops and local hangouts long island youth for christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need jesus we are rural and urban and we are always about the message of jesus our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on long island new york by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following christ long island youth for christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959 we have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world help honor our history by becoming a part of our future volunteer donate pray or all of the above for details call long island youth for christ at 631 -385 -8333 that's 631 -385 -8333 or visit liyfc .org

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that's liyfc .org iron sharpens iron radio is sponsored by harvey cedars a year -round bible conference and retreat center nestled on the jersey shore harvey cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400 for generations christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at harvey cedars each year thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about god's word an additional 9 000 come annually to harvey cedars as families couples singles men women pastors seniors and missionaries 90 miles from new york city 70 miles from philly and 95 miles from wilmington and easily accessible scores of notable christian groups frequently planned conferences at harvey cedars like the navigators intervarsity christian fellowship campus crusade and the alliance of confessing evangelicals find harvey cedars on facebook or at hc bible .org

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hc bible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives 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 dot ncc dot 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 dot ncc dot nyc have a great day chris arenson 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 dollars 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

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that's chrisarnson at gmail .com thriving financial is not your typical financial services provider as a membership organization we help christians be wise with money and live generously every day and for the fourth year in a row we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the ethosphere institute a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics contact me mike gallagher financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433 again 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the thriving we know we were made for so much more than ordinary lending faith finances and generosity that's the thriving story we were made to thrive so iron sharpens iron welcomes solid rock remodeling to our family of sponsors serving south central pennsylvania solid rock remodeling is focused on discovering understanding and exceeding your expectations they deliver personalized project solutions with exceptional results solid rock remodeling offers a full range of home renovations including kitchen and bath remodeling decks porches windows and doors roof and siding and more for a clear detailed professional estimate call this trustworthy team of problem solvers who provide superior results that stand the test of time call solid rock remodeling at 717 -697 -1981 717 -697 -1981 or visit solidrockremodeling .com

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that's solidrockremodeling .com solid rock remodeling bringing new life to your home hi i'm buzz taylor frequent co -host with chris irons and 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 to everyone since 1987 the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available christian books and bibles at the best possible prices unlike other book sites they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly much of what is being printed is not worth your time 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 otherwise faith insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors their website is cvbbs .com

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browse the pages at ease shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as todd and patty work in service the church and to christ that's cumberland valley bible book service at cvbbs .com

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that's cvbbs .com let todd and patty know that you heard about them on iron sharpens iron radio and you can also call cvbbs .com

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to 4 30 p .m eastern time monday through friday at 800 -656 -0231 800 -656 -0231 and make sure you mention that you heard about them from chris arnds and an iron sharpens iron radio if you do so and you order a minimum of fifty dollars worth of merchandise you will get free of charge wayne mac's book anger and stress management god's way that's a publication of pnr publishing presbyterian and reform publishing you'll get that free of charge you'll also receive free of charge your shipping on your order of fifty dollars or more if you order at 800 -656 -0231 and mention chris arnds and of iron sharpens iron radio and you could also obviously order online 24 hours a day seven days a week 52 weeks a year at cvbbs .com

01:10:06

cvbbs .com before i return to our guest tom nivolas we just have a couple of announcements of special events the quakertown conference on reform theology is being held november 9th and the 10th at the grace bible fellowship church in quakertown pennsylvania and the speakers include david garner ray ortlund richard phillips timothy gibson and carlton wynn the theme is the glory of the cross i will be there god willing manning and iron sharpens iron exhibitors booth if you would like to register for this conference november 9th and the 10th in quakertown pennsylvania go to alliancenet .org

01:10:42

alliancenet .org then coming up in in january my favorite of all of the conferences that i have been man where i've been manning an exhibitors booth uh this will be my third year in a row i'm so excited about it the g3 conference uh in atlanta georgia more specifically it will be held at the georgia international convention center in college park georgia a suburb of atlanta this year the theme or should i say this january the theme is the mission of god a biblical understanding of missions it's going to be held from thursday january 17th through saturday january 19th there is a special spanish speaking conference on wednesday january 16th so tell your spanish speaking and bilingual friends that they may want to attend that one as well that's wednesday january 16th but the english speaking conference from the 17th through the 19th has an enormous lineup of speakers as they always do this is a phenomenal conference and probably has the longest speaking roster that i have ever seen or ever heard uh preach at a bible conference before and they are cream of the crop speakers i can assure you uh i hope that you join me there and you can uh experience some of these speakers uh some of you may be even experiencing them for the very first time uh but uh these speakers include john piper stephen lawson whose voice you just heard in the ad for new covenant church nyc our new sponsor voddie balkan conrad and bayway the pastor of kabwatha baptist church in lusaka zambia africa my favorite preacher of all uh tim challis phil johnson who is the executive director of john macarthur's ministry grace to you josh bice the founder of the g3 conference todd friel of wretched tv and wretched radio who was our guest yesterday on iron sharpens iron stephen uh stephen jay nichols who is the president of reformation bible college the college founded by r .c.

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sproul and ligonier ministries and many more are on that lineup if you would like to register go to g3 conference .com

01:13:06

g3 conference .com and you can register not only to be an attendee but you can register to have your own exhibitors booth there as i will have god willing and they're they're expecting between four and five thousand people there so i highly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth at the g3 conference that's g3 conference .com

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01:15:55

chris arnson at gmail .com and uh tom we have a number of listeners here waiting for their questions to be asked and answered we have joey in clifton new jersey and joey in clifton new jersey says i am wondering if you can comment on how in personal discussion we can rightly draw some lines in the sand in terms of which political camps are simply not consistent with biblical christianity for example although we should acknowledge the possibility of a counter example i believe we can say that the modern united states democratic party should generally not be supported by christians simply because they almost universally stand for moral principles such as abortion same -sex marriage that are contrary to scripture and the practice of faithful christianity i am wondering do you openly and clearly rule out certain parties and affiliations in the way i just stated or do you approach communication differently in your answer assume this is not simply party labeling assume that you are able to discuss the principles you stand for and why before telling them what party or affiliation may be inappropriate interesting question but you may once in a blue moon i'm not saying this would be a common thing but you may wind up having an election especially a local election but it might be even a presidential election where you have a democrat who is pro -life running against a republican who might be conservative in many ways but is pro -choice i mean those things do happen uh governor george pataki was a pro -abortionist in fact i don't know if he's changed his opinion i haven't heard that he changed his opinion but our president's attorney rudy giuliani he was infamously pro -abortion when running for mayor and while serving as mayor he was in favor of all kinds of gay rights this was prior i believe to the same -sex marriage issue coming about but uh there are a lot of people who are republicans and even would call themselves conservatives who could care less about a baby being ripped apart in its mother's womb so it's not as easy as one might think but if you could respond directly to our listener joe in clifton new jersey boy joe's so kind in the way that he posed all of that question there's times i'm so direct that you know it really gets people's uh hair on then because you're never going to have a decent conversation with them anyway so i just flat out say that demon crats are not anything that christians should be associated to so so you know i mean there's days my wife just kind of turns around and walks away because my bluntness uh will you know obviously stop the conversation because those people don't want a conversation anyway because of their beliefs being so far off in that direction but i want to continue answering that question in a moment because we had a very true example of that and uh our county's primary uh where we had a person that left the democrat party and joined the republican party for sole purpose of taking and defeating a sitting county commissioner and i'll get up to that story in a moment but one of the things that i think is apropos to all of that is a quote that i have in the book from samuel adams where he talks about the neither the wisest constitution or the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of the people whose manners are universally corrupt then he goes on to talk about that uh you know if you're going to really trust somebody and when they're talking about liberty then where are they in relative where are they relative to promoting its true virtue and then talking about power and influences how does that extend it and then he talks about uh that a man shouldn't suffer uh anybody going into an office of power who is not wise and a virtuous man and here's something very very interesting which we hear all the time and kind of goes to that point right there we must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty and using the charming sound that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of this country it is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty who if we may judge by their whole tenor of their actions means nothing else by it but their own liberty to oppress without control or restraint of laws all who are poor or weaker than themselves that that becomes very interesting and he wrote that in 1748 uh and you know just these words of wisdom and it comes to that whole point of of determining those who you're going to elect that have that moral and virtuous perspective and when you're talking about a uh how do we function within the government nothing's new when it comes to these uh contentions around morality uh virtue uh good judgment wisdom all of that which we want in those people that are going to represent us and it comes to the discussion that i have especially with christians is that you know first off don't complain if you're not involved i'd say that with anybody because well we're not going to do this but we're not going to do that or we're not even going to vote or i've heard pastors not even you know bring anything up about elections forthcoming and go vote your conscience so what's that that's where that starts so when i have a conversation with someone about uh and i never bring up where i stand politically except from a constitutional basis what are those fundamental principles and biblically where do those come into play when you understand that the whole essence of everything that we have been involved in uh from i i look again always back to sam adams because his one of his monikers being the last puritan he lived by his uh biblical perspective is that where do you look at that person and where are they in their faith journey and how do they live that faith journey out based on understanding uh that sovereignty of the living god and then when you're looking at people that are going into bureaucracy as well as into the political arena itself is asking where is it that the expectation especially from a reform point of view is that they are supposed to be looking to the sovereign over them and if they're not doing that then are they really going to be the wisest person that's going to be there and then i find it my responsibility to help educate them into at least the fundamentals and principles of founders original intent and through that i hope and always pray that i can introduce them to that true understanding that if they're going to be a political leader they have to do it as that representative of not just we the people but when they're making those types of decisions as a representative of the sovereign living god so that may be a lot of words maybe my simple answer was the one joe preferred now uh obviously uh you from your answer you don't think that a christian could be attached to the democratic party in any way shape or form or the democrat party uh but uh that doesn't mean necessarily that the republican party is always the answer because as i just said there are quite a number of republicans who might be fiscally conservative or they may be wearing the name conservative for some particular agenda but they don't care at all about the life of the unborn they don't care at all about sexual morality uh biblical morality in fact once again rudy giuliani not only was he a pro -abortionist when he was running and serving as mayor of new york city but he also marched in the gay rights parade uh he i'm assuming unknowingly when he was marching in the gay rights parade was marching right next to the nambla float the north american man love boy whatever the heck it's called the pedophile uh float uh so in fact even recently it was interesting how rudy giuliani phrased it when he was asked about some female comedians disgusting and satanic jokes about abortion it was interesting to hear rudy giuliani's response he said uh oh that's so horrible how could you joke about the massacre of all those embryos he actually used the word embryos and massacre in the same term rather than children or unborn children i'm not necessarily saying that he hasn't changed but to me that was a very that was a softened way of reacting to it if you if you ask me i agree with i'm a hundred percent with you and i usually call a good portion of those people that you're talking about repudicants because they repudiate everything that is fundamentally true and including you and i so if you got them in other conversations you even hear uh those types of uh i've had sidebar conversations with some folks that uh are within the establishment republican party if you will and when they this gets into what i talked about in the book are you locked into party thought are you conservative and why even bother with the constitution we have conservatism really who needs a constitution if you have that right no that's not what it is but but that gets to your point and that that's part of the argument is that people are functioning within all of these ideologies but then it gets to what are we doing where have we and this goes outside the book this goes into the larger context of what i do on my radio program as well as samuel adams returns the anti -federalist got it right is from that perspective is that if if we're believers why have we walked away from the public square why are we not within the context of our churches taking and raising up those leaders with all of what we have in our biblical points of view and because we have the absolute right and responsibility within this constitutional republic to participate we're not in that public square not just as political leaders but in bureaucracies as well as in education we've turned that all over to the spiritual enemy so when we talk about the rudy giuliani's when we talk about all of these other peoples in political parties no matter what their label is as a conservative democrat a you know some of the other conservative terminology for a reagan democrat or whatever they are or you know conservative conservatives wait a minute what what have we done as believers by taking and walking away from that public square and we hear many many pulpits you know not saying that the pulpit should be the public but when i read and studied those sermons from our foundation they addressed it they addressed what liberty is in jesus christ and how that transcends then into the liberties of a free people in a free nation that number one govern because of how god functions within us as a renewed man and woman and then how we're supposed to be for the good of society around us especially within the nation that we've been blessed to be born within i just have to get that becomes a greater discussion amen well i wanted to just give a little plug to a documentary that you can see online for free when it comes to abortion mafa 21 that's emma's and michael aa fs and frank a 21 mafa is a swahili word meaning uh massacre and it is a pro -life documentary and uh really revealing the origins of planned parenthood and so on how it was purely based on racism margaret sanger's desire to rid the the nation if not the world of black people primarily and other minorities uh through forced sterilization and uh abortion and uh it's a it's an eye -opening documentary it also shows how both the republican and democrat party uh had their roles in keeping infanticide uh alive in this uh country so uh it's uh it's a it's a non -partisan politically uh non -partisan documentary that shows that the guilty parties are on both sides of the aisle when it comes to the murder of the unborn absolutely yeah i think chris that's you know what you're pointing out just with that alone is what the uh i always talk about the founders were and the framers the founders being those prior to uh the constitutional convention the framers obviously being those that participated and put in the constitution of 87 together but uh with the majority of them and especially those that were the profound speakers within that that being sam adams that being patrick henry george washington and such said stay away from party spirit you know that that when we talk about you know out of ephesians that this is a spiritual warfare party spirit is part of that warfare and when people get hung up on a political party they're missing the point of where it drives to what sam adams was trying to talk about that essence of liberty and where where does that come from and how how is that maintained within a civil society and those are the types of things that the only way it can be you know going back to the earlier question about john adams quote around morality and virtue if we're not promoting that and giving the life message of how that becomes extensible from our biblical world view well boy we're there is no civil society amen we've got to go our final break right now and uh i'm asking that all of you waiting online to have your questions asked be patient but we'll get to as many as you uh as many of you as we can before we go off the air but if you want to get in line to try to squeeze in let's see if we can get your question to chris arnson at gmail .com

01:32:39

chris arnson at gmail .com don't go away god willing we'll be right back after these final messages from our sponsors 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 reformed baptist church and we hold to the london baptist confession of faith of 1689 we are in nofolk 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 apostle's 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 nofolk 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 providence baptist church ma .org

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and click support at the top of the page but most importantly keep iron sharpens iron radio in your prayers we hope that iron sharpens iron radio blesses you for many years to come charles heddon 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 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 it's 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

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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 chef exclusive catering is in south central pennsylvania chef exclusives goal is to provide a dining experience that is sure to please any palate chef damian white of chef exclusive is a graduate of the renowned johnson and wales university with a degree in culinary arts and applied science chef exclusive catering's event center is newly designed with elegance and style and is available for small office gatherings bridal showers engagement parties and rehearsal dinners critics and guests alike acknowledge chef exclusives commitment to exceeding even the highest expectations i know of their quality firsthand since chef exclusive catered by most recent iron sharpens iron radio pastor's luncheon for details call 717 -388 -3000 that's 717 -388 -3000 or visit chef exclusive .com

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that's chef exclusive .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

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.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

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.nyc have a great day hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m

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eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am .com

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we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor welcome back this is chris orange and if you just tune us in oh my guest got cut off i don't know how that happened uh hopefully he will call back uh but uh while we are waiting for him to call back i'm just going to go to uh one more uh commercial break and hopefully tom nivolos will be joining us again because there's a lot of people waiting to have their questions asked uh tom if you're listening please call back and we will get to you uh as soon as you return to the airwaves with us uh don't go away folks uh we're going to go to one final station break and hopefully uh tom nivolos will be waiting for us chris orange and 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 buttafuco 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 dollars 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 buttafuco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878 1 -800 -669 -4878 or email me for dan's contact information at chris arnzen at gmail .com

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that's chris arnzen at gmail .com welcome back and i believe that we have tom nivolos back on the phone tom we are yeah i don't know what happened but anyway the main thing is you're back we have michael in rocky mount north carolina who asks in the early 1980s i read the constitution was originally a trinitarian document that could not be agreed on i do not know the source and have been unable to find it any truth to this uh i have not read that uh it'd be interesting to see if uh he does find the source i'd like to see that the uh constitution uh came out of madison developing uh and and his studies after the maryland uh conference that was the previous year and uh as we know and now we can go back to madison's notes and yates notes uh i don't see a trinitarian uh focus in there i see it as trying to find uh the best way to bring all of uh the ideas of of governance together with the fundamentals again it goes back to the presumption though that uh when we see that break of of again political parties forming almost immediately between the federalists and the anti -federalists taking sides on how that should be interpreted and played out um i think then we can look at where it comes to the the real heart source of how we should govern uh from our biblical perspective but i've never read anything specific to that okay well uh michael you've won a free copy of not all conservatives are constitutionalists and by the way i don't know if i mentioned it to joe and clifton new jersey you also won a copy of the book so please make sure we have your mailing address both of you so that cvbbs .com

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can ship those books out to you we have casey originally from devato or deveo city in the philippines now living in canapolis north carolina and casey asks how can we make more american pastors more educated on political matters and christian worldview in order for them to train and teach their people as the pastor goes so goes the church casey that's an interesting question because we do have a divide amongst even the most conservative of churches as to how much political input our churches as an institution should have not talking about individual christians but john macarthur one of my modern day heroes has very strict ideas on uh the uh separation of political agenda and the gospel of jesus christ and uh so you have all kinds of views in between you have churches that have presidential or should i say political candidates candidating from their own pulpits and so on so what is what is your view on this that how can we make more american pastors more educated on political matters and christian worldview which i think can be a separate issue christian worldview in order for them to train and teach their people i i really appreciate that and i appreciate the a lot of the work that school did and a number of others i think there was a fantastic uh balance there i think there are the places to uh get that uh christian worldview of a point the the gospel has absolutely where okay simple answer uh maybe once a quarter a pastor could read which will never happen because a lot of those sermons are longer or a portion of one of the sermons that were preached during the founding era that would be interesting if you get someone to do that or my answer is because i i know that sense um here in northeast ohio uh takes that position that you just said and my retort is that find trusted people vetted people uh within a congregation that can be made available you don't have to preach it from the pulpit you can take and uh have that understanding and be willing to and i think that's where it goes is that okay if you want to maintain that separation wonderful and yet what you can do is have available outside the context of the pulpit but make it available so that uh the the congregants can learn can gain that understanding can get those fundamental uh perspectives through a trusted person uh within the congregation or a trusted person that they bring in uh to speak to the congregation outside of the pulpit well thank you casey give us your full mailing address in canapolis north carolina and we'll have cvbbs .com

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ship that out to you uh we ship out the copy of not all conservatives or constitutionalists we have joe in slovenia dear brother chris thanks for another great topic and guest is it the case that the reason not all conservatives or constitutionalists is due at least in part to the fact that many are not committed to accepting authoritative standards of truth outside themselves i .e

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the constitution but rather prefer to rely on their own subjective experience intuition reasoning and plain selfish pragmatism etc is it true that we can live in the same way is it true that we can i'm sorry is it true that we can in the same way explain why not all conservative christians are biblicists but rather mix scripture with pietism fundamentalism and revivalism here here i share the question with yes it does come down to that and it really comes down to uh even from the last question where's education what are the fundamentals that are being taught how are they being understood and that's why i always preface everything that i do from the point that this is all an anthology none of this stuff is my stuff this has all been written before and as proverbs 1 9 says there's nothing new under the sun so when we take a look at that we understand that uh then i really believe that uh now the answer is absolutely we need to get back to those fundamentals and the question simply is yes is the answer and uh thank you very much joe thank you also for providing an american address in georgia where your daughter lives so that cvbbs .com

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can ship all conservatives are not constitutionalists out to you uh without the overseas shipping cost thank you very much and um everybody it seems in politics claims to be some kind of a constitutionalist you have the the most left wing of political candidates or elected officials talking about uh how often they think president trump or conservatives or republicans are violating the constitution uh so you're wondering how could both sides of the aisle be so aggressively at least in their words claiming to be faithful to the constitution now could it be that the dividing line here is whether you are an originalist and whether you view the constitution as a living document and that's that's a simple correct answer uh it becomes again from an ideological perspective of what do they understand the constitution to be and then where do they take it from a historical perspective those that uh claim it to be a living constitution uh their ideology does not want what your last question said they don't want the truth they don't want that hierarchy that's there they don't want to submit to the sovereignty of god so if you can manipulate everything including and make it a living document that being the constitution and then that being the word of god then you can contrive it to be anything you want it to be if you're an originalist as you say or you go to original intent then you have to take it from that truth historical perspective uh to which you know we have to look at the word of god from his truth from his perspective and you know when we really study the history uh in in the full context then we get the understanding of what god's trying to do in space and time well uh before we run out of time i want you to have five minutes of uninterrupted time where you can speak freely and unburden your heart and mind to leave with our audience what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before this program is over i think real quick is that uh as the questions especially the last questions went true uh to the idea that we have to have that truth we have to have that clear understanding that man can contrive anything and we even see that in academia as well as in some of the pulpits that are out there so what the idea is people study learn uh find that truth search the scriptures understand first and foremost that god is sovereign over all and that means also that political leaders should be challenged to understand that they are under the sovereignty of god as well and when they understand that they come under his sovereignty that then they need to understand those fundamental biblical principles that then transcend into what is good governance so when we talk about labels whether it be a constitutionalist or conservative or whatever it's what are the true principles upon which liberty may be sustained for a civil society that looks to the sovereignty of our living god for that which he has us to execute for the purposes of his gospel here and now well we have uh bobby in hartsdale new york who asks uh can your guest be bold enough to identify by name prominent political figures that he believes are conservatives but not constitutionalists uh they're in the back of the book so right off the top of my head you know i i i i will go with paul ryan i'll go with john mccain i'll go with uh uh the head of the senate i mean they're on and on and on they go right down and they never did finish the story we don't have time to about our local election but think about even those that are in your in your local arena remember they all take an oath to the constitution of your individual state and to the federal constitution so we're not just talking about at a national level we're talking about all the way to the local level anytime someone raises their hand even into bureaucracies have to take an oath to the constitution of the state in which they may be uh participating in or at the federal level to the federal constitution so that's why many bureaucrats break that oath but that's another whole different discussion uh we have john and who asks there is even disagreement amongst pro -life christians as to whether there should be a an amendment to the constitution specifically and more clearly prohibiting the crime of infanticide i .e

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abortion what is your guest's opinion on this i talk about article five in general and there's a lot of stuff going on with that you know in my last book and seminars and all of that so my opinion is article five is very very specific it's built to be difficult for a reason and relative to abortion this may raise the hair on the back of the of the neck of the of john is that it's really a state's rights issue according to the way that the federal constitution is supposed to be in operation the supreme court was absolutely wrong and the decision they made with roe vs wade there should always be something that is determined at the state level which means you me every individual in our states must be involved to cause our states to have the right people to enact the proper laws for our civil society in a moral framework and that's how our republic is supposed to operate that the federal government should not be making these determinations so no to any constitutional amendment because in a functioning republic as we should have it should be a states rights issue you know when i first heard about that concept uh years ago uh when um ron paul was promoting that idea i was upset at first because i thought it was a softer approach to infanticide the nation's worst crime if if you will but then i i didn't even realize this at the time when i first reacted in that negative way i i had since found out that murder is a state crime it's a crime against the state and there's only uh certain a few certain um there's this only yeah there are only there are a few things that make murder a federal crime but the murder in general is a is a crime against the state is a state issue i didn't know that before that's correct so so therefore that's what a lot of people don't know that's the whole thing is we don't understand the functioning of a republic and because what happened is i say it's the hamiltonian effect has finally taken effect and that we have a the states are all globbed in to a national government so we need to take and reverse that and get back to what does it mean under the the role of a federalism within our republic we have uh let's see here we have kathy in suffolk county long island who says how can i purchase your books i googled tom nivolas online and i could not find the source of where to purchase his books anywhere uh they are on amazon uh the book patch and if you go to samueladamsreturns .com

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you can get to the books there as well great and uh also uh there are a couple of other uh websites that we have here uh the samuel adams center for political science let's not forget that their website is s -a -c -p -s .org

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s -a -c -p -s .org that's the samuel adams center for political science uh now you mentioned samueladamsreturn .com

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but we have also samuel adamsreturns .net is that a different website yes it is at samueladamsreturns .net

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is where the the radio program and the youtube uh for the radio program is all housed as well as uh i have uh blogging there uh on on that website too so we have both samueladamsreturns .com