February 12, 2025 Show with Paul Nelson & Joshua Wallnofer on “The Family of God & Recovering the Church from the Rubble of Culture”

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,

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 12th day of February 2025.

Before I introduce my two guests for today and the topic ahead of us,

I just want to make sure that you mark down on your calendars a very important program that I am airing tomorrow with my longtime friend,

Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries. We are going to be addressing for the first time on this program

Stephen Lawson, a biblical evaluation of a modern -day Christian hero to many who fell into scandalous sin and remains hidden from public scrutiny.

That's going to be the first hour of the program. And depending upon how things go, we will eventually be addressing in the second hour

Paula White, a biblical evaluation of a dangerous heretic who has the ear of the

President of the United States. So, mark that down on your calendar for tomorrow,

Thursday, February 13th, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern Time. And I'm sure it will be a time of edification as Justin Peters does an extraordinary job thoroughly researching every issue upon which he speaks publicly.

So, I am looking forward to having Justin back on the show. But today, we have a program that I'm looking forward to conducting because I happen to not only love

First Love Ministries, but am indebted to the founder,

Joe Jakowicz, and the team of First Love Ministries for live -streaming this program,

Iron Triple Zion Radio, every day on First Love Radio. But they're having a conference coming up in Baghdad, Florida, and we have two of the speakers at this conference.

We've already had a couple of the speakers on a previous broadcast, but today we have

Paul Nelson, who is an author and President of Grace Bible University, and we also have

Joshua Wallnaufer, Pastor of Klondike Church of Pensacola, Florida.

And we are going to be addressing the family of God and also recovering the church from the rubble of culture.

But first of all, let me welcome back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Paul Nelson. Hello, Paul.

It's good to be here. Thanks for having me on again. Thanks for being on. Looking forward to talking about our conference.

Amen. And also, for the very first time, I'd like to introduce to you Pastor Joshua Wallnaufer of Klondike Church of Pensacola, Florida.

It's great to have you on for the first time, brother. First, it's truly my honor. Thank you so much for being with you and Dr.

Nelson tonight. Really a wonderful opportunity. Well, Paul, let me start with you.

If you could give us a brief explanation of Grace Bible University. Grace Bible University.

It's primarily geared towards third -world countries, and there's such a dearth of doctrine, and the pastors need a lot of resources, a lot of equipment—I mean, not equipment, equipping them and teaching them sound doctrines.

So Grace Bible University came out of that, and we were teaching separate courses, and then we developed a curriculum.

And now we have a full two -year curriculum for an associate degree that we have.

I think we have 100 students in Nepal. We have right now about 35 in the

Philippines, and then we're in Nigeria and Nairobi. And so it's getting resources into their hands.

We have full courses. Every course has study guides, and sometimes we have to translate the textbooks and the study guides into different languages.

And then we go out and teach the courses as well as train men to teach the courses as well.

So it's starting to really grow and explode right now. It wasn't really such a big operation a few years back, but now it's getting bigger and bigger.

Well, how do our listeners—we do have a global audience—how do they get more information about Grace Bible University?

I guess the easiest way would be to go to the First Love website, and there's a connection there to Grace Bible University.

That's firstloveministries .org? Yes. Okay. And now,

Pastor Joshua Wallnaufer, tell us about Klondike Church of Pensacola, and also explain the very interesting name.

You got it. So we were originally named after the ice cream bar. Not quite.

No, our church actually was founded in 1907, and it's not

Klondike, Alaska. It's not from the Klondike Gold Rush or the ice cream bar. The community here—actually, it's a very small community, at least when

I came 20 years ago—and it is called the Klondike Community, and the road our church is on is

Klondike Road. And so, hence, it predates the ice cream bar, but the church adopted the name geographically.

And this joke I'm about to tell is probably predating you, because you look a lot younger than me, but is it true that Klondike Cat always catches his mouse?

Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? That was a cartoon in the 60s and 70s when

I was a little boy that I used to watch—Klondike Cat. And that was the theme. Klondike Cat always catches his mouse.

But anyway, tell us about Klondike Church in greater depth, your theological positions, and so on.

Absolutely. So I've been blessed to be pastor here for 20 years. The church, when

I came, was kind of a replant situation, but that language wasn't really being used at that era.

Flash revitalization, kind of a combination of the two. The church was—unfortunately, just to give you an idea,

I was pastor 33, and the church was founded in 1907, so that'll give you an idea of the average tenure of a pastor.

Wow. And there were many, many interims in between. Do you have any explanation?

Well, it was a hard environment to pastor here. In fact, for so many years, it was a very rural area.

And so, you know, they were only having services maybe once or twice a month for the first 20 years.

Wow. Just out of curiosity, was it ever a primitive

Baptist church? Because they're known for that sometimes, to have services once a month.

It was not. Actually, it was originally founded as Missionary Baptist Church, most interestingly, and then they changed the name to Klondike about 20 years in.

But we do have a few primitives around here in this community that do that very thing. Well, as we have a custom to do on the show, whenever we have a first -time guest, which would include you, not

Paul—Paul's been on the program before—but since you are a first -time guest, we would love for you to provide for our listeners a summary of your salvation testimony that would include the religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to Himself and saved you. We'd be honored to share that for sure.

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Not far from where I'm sitting right now.

That's only about 90 minutes, maybe two hours at the most from here. Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that is.

And, of course, that's a tough city. Still is a very tough city, very broken city. And so many of those effects were apparent in my life as well as a child.

I was very blessed to have a grandfather and grandmother who loved the Lord and a grandfather who had a heart for evangelism.

So that was a light shining in the darkness in my life, and they definitely invested in my life as a young person.

In the same way, though, my family was unfortunately very much in bondage to alcoholism, and there was a lot of drug use and things like that growing up in the immediate family, which was really hard.

I had a mother who knew the Lord and very thankful for her and bringing me to church on her own for many years.

But a lot of heartache and a lot of loss of life even of people very close to me, including an uncle, due to these things.

But by God's grace, I was invited and sent to a camp.

And it was actually kind of a unique situation. It was like a cowboy camp by a

Scottish evangelist. You may know the name since you're not too far away. His name is John Bissett.

Peter and John radioed fellowship in Baltimore, Maryland many years ago and heard the gospel of Jesus Christ there, a very clear gospel.

Any relation of David Bissett, who is an evangelist and missionary?

Yes, he is related to them. I can't recall exactly how the relation, but we've had contact before.

And by God's kindness, not only do I know that I had trusted in Christ and the saints, but also the sermon that I still recall, it was a very clear call to the ministry.

And I knew that as a very young man, not only was I trusting in Christ, but that the

Lord was calling me to pastoral work kind of all at once, which I can't really explain other than, you know, but God's kindness and his calling.

So I was converted then. And as soon as possible, the church

I was in was going through a lot of struggle. I was attending and was very hungry to grow and learn.

And in fact, we're a Reformed Baptist church at Klondike. And, you know, we're a creedal confessional church.

And those things were pretty much unheard of in that world that I was in. And on top of that,

I remember very clearly attending the adult Bible study in the church. And I had asked the

Bible study leader just a question about the war election as a young teenager.

And he told me that word ruined churches. You're not going to find it in the Bible. And, you know, don't worry about these things.

And, of course, when you tell a teenager that, they're going to plow in. And by God's grace,

I was able to start really studying the Bible in God's providence.

I loved how the Lord worked. He had me go to an Assembly of God church for about a year, which was his own seminary as a young teenager, where I had some good and had some loving people there and then also had some pretty bad towards the end of it as some of these revivalistic movements were sweeping through the country and they were trying to bring that in there.

And I knew in my spirit this was not of God. And so the Lord in his kindness at 17,

I was able to leave Baltimore. Very grateful to have that opportunity to get out of that city at that time.

It just wasn't a great situation, really. And I had a great place to be in. And he gave me the opportunity to go to Philadelphia College of the

Bible. Was there, got to meet my wife at that school.

Again, another kindness of God. And served for two years in South Jersey in pastoral work before coming down here to Pensacola, Florida.

And just in God's goodness, you know, he's given me an opportunity to not only serve as a pastor here, but really have a pretty diverse reach in our community, which has been a really beautiful thing with homeless ministries and recovery ministries and our association of churches and also teaching at a seminary over at Fermato Latino Americano in Columbia and now all throughout

Latin America. And I'm just very thankful for God's grace. It's hard to believe, come from Baltimore, come from a lot of hurt and heartache and to see his kindness to us.

Now, did you discover the doctrines of sovereign grace at Philadelphia College of the Bible? So the church

I was at, the first church I mentioned, they actually had a split over this very issue. And you may know the name

Jerry Marcelino. Oh, yeah. Auburn Avenue Bible Church. Yeah. He was actually an assistant pastor at the time when that split happened.

So I've got to talk to him and connect with him since years later as an adult and I'm very thankful for him.

But when that Sunday school teacher had told me, don't worry about it,

I had actually went and the brand new MacArthur Study Bible was out. And so I think it had just been published and I bought one of those things and was warned against it and just started digging in.

And by God's grace, was able to see his sovereignty. I did have some great professors at what was then

PCB that were in fact like four -point Calvinists. And they were, you know, while they were maybe not so confessional, they were definitely great, faithful brothers and very helpful in seeing

God's sovereign grace. Well, tell our listeners your website so that they can investigate

Klondike Church of Pensacola, Florida, if indeed they live in that area or are visiting that area or have family, friends, and loved ones in that area.

Absolutely. So our website is lovepensacola .org. LovePensacola, L -O -V -E,

Pensacola .org. Yeah, we chose that just to be a very evangelistic website and an easy open door because looking up Klondike Church, you can actually type klondikechurch .com,

but, yeah, that's a little confusing sometimes to people who are not on this end of town.

Great. Well, now, Paul, if you could give a brief description of the upcoming conference in Baghdad, Florida, where you and Joshua are going to be featured as speakers along with other speakers.

Yeah. The theme of the conference is the church, and we're going to be covering various aspects of the church.

I don't have the brochure with me in front of me, but there's going to be,

I think, six plenary messages. Then we're going to have breakout sessions.

So it's going to be pretty thorough on the various aspects of the church and its ministry and its connection to the world.

Great. And that is going to be held February 20th through the 22nd in Baghdad, Florida.

And to register, go to firstloveministries .org. Firstloveministries .org,

and when you scroll down, it's right there at the top of the page, all the details that you need on the conference and how to register and so on.

And so we hope as many of you as possible in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listening audience will attend this conference.

I love First Love Ministries and the men associated with it and know that nothing but the best in theology and doctrine and application comes from these fine folks.

That's firstloveministries .org, and you will have all of those details.

Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address. I think

I kind of shorted the promotion of the conference, but I could say a little bit more about it. That's okay, brother?

Sure. Yeah, so the actual title of the conference is called Recovering the

Identity of the Church. And so we're going to have, let's see, we have the temple of the

Lord, the people, these are the titles of some of the messages, the people of the scriptures, the family of God, the city on the hill, of recovering the church, the head of the church, and the breakouts are biblical shepherds, confessions, church membership, church and state, church -driven missions, and the enemy of the church.

And we'll have Dr. Delcor, we'll have Pastor Joe Jackowitz, I think will be the first message.

And by the way, if you could pray for him, he's having some health difficulties. Yes, sir. He may not be able to make it, but we're hoping he has, and he's told us today that he'll be able to make it.

So anyway, that's just everything in a nutshell. Just thought I'd give the subjects and the titles of the messages here.

Okay, great. Well, we are going to our first commercial break. If you have a question for either of our guests,

I'm going to allow you to ask any question on the scriptures and theology and church history and so on.

And our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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I'm Simon O'Mahoney, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune

God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of Scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

In our worship, we sing Psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

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We're now back with Paul Nelson and Pastor Joshua Wolnoffer.

By the way, have I been pronouncing your name correctly, Pastor Joshua? You got it right. Oh, great.

And by the way, Pastor Joshua warmed the cockles of my heart before the program and told me that he has been a longtime admirer of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, so that blesses me enormously, and I'm so glad to hear it, and also has benefited from the debates that I have arranged and emceed predominantly with James White of Alpha Omega Ministries, so I'm thrilled to hear that news.

But we're going to start the program with one of the themes of the conference, and this is actually going to be the theme of a message by Joshua Wolnoffer, The Family of God.

Can you explain something about the significance of that very title?

Absolutely. I think that we as a modern church have really lost some of the things that make up the heart of true

Christianity, and one of the categories that is so integral to this conference, of course, is the church as a family, and we want to address that, and we want to recover this, and I think a lot of this maybe unintentionally goes back to some of the definitions we have of a true church.

I mean, if you think, like, in the Reformation era, like Knobsburg Confession, for instance, and this has been repeated by most of the

Reformation tradition, the church is defined as anywhere there's an assembly of believers where the gospel is truly preached, the sacraments, the ordinances are purely observed.

But if you take that very literal definition at face value, you could basically walk into a church single file, stare at the back of heads, take the

Lord's Supper, observe baptism, hear sermons, walk out single file. No, absolutely nobody.

I know the Reformers can't say everything in every document, and a document like that is not entitled, it's not trying to say everything about the church, but I think that idea is often a idea that we still hold to today that is woefully short of the many blessings

God has for the local church as a family. We have so much Lone Ranger, isolationist

Christianity, all I need is me and my ESV attitude amongst many in our tribe in the

Reformed world sometimes, and the church really has been so consumeristic, we have lost the privilege of having brothers and sisters, and fathers and mothers in the church, and we're trying to build crowds unintentionally, consumers unintentionally, instead of really trying to mold people into Christ followers who are real disciples who really love one another.

So I hope that this particular talk is really going to be a wake -up call and just a call for renewal and a reminder of the preciousness of a local church that does take this idea in the

New Testament of the household of God, the family as an integral part of a healthy body.

Yes, and Pastor Nelson, the people have tragically, in not only our modern day, but it obviously goes back to the biblical era because there's a warning in the

New Testament to not forsake the assembling of the brethren, as some have been in the habit of doing.

So it's been going on for a long time, but I think it's probably even more dramatically dominant today that people have a detached relationship with the church and don't really view it as a family, do they?

You ask me? Yes. Yeah, I think there's a lot of contributing factors to that.

I think one is this technology. Everything is online. It kind of works against gathering together and assembling together.

You can just download a sermon, listen to it all by yourself, and you lose all that glorious benefit of gathering together and worshiping together.

I was going to say, the other thing about the assembling together is that people don't like to come together and worship on Sunday because you've got football going on Sunday.

The culture has so many things going on in culture. Schools have their sporting activities on Sundays too, routinely.

Yeah. Even for little children. Even the children. When I was a boy, we didn't play baseball on Sunday.

It was only on Saturday. That's how much our culture has changed since then.

So you're saying even in the secular society, Little League was not conducted on Sundays?

Yeah, there was respect towards Christianity, and that was, what, 60 years ago or so.

So things have really changed. What was the question again?

I was just saying, why, in your opinion, have many professed

Christians not treated the church as the family of God?

Yeah. The other thing is lack of commitment. There's a lot of, they come to hear a message and go home, and that's their

Christianity for the week. They act like a Christian on Sunday and go home, but your identity as a

Christian is that you are a Christian. You live your life as a Christian, and that the church is so valuable for your growth and for your maturing as a

Christian, for your understanding of truth. This is what God has ordained. He's given us the institution of the church so that we all can mature in the faith, and he's preparing us for heaven.

Like I say, there's a lot. Brother Jasper could probably come in with a lot of other reasons as well, but the society now has turned against Christianity.

Like we were just talking about, it used to be respectful of Christianity.

We may not have been a Christian nation, but we had a lot of Christian influence, and that's gone away.

The worldly philosophies have changed with the CRT and the DEI and the

LBGT, whatever. All these things have mounted against the church, and now

Christianity is almost evil and narrow -minded. So there's a lot of contributing factors in our culture.

It's one of the things I'll be talking about. How did the worldly culture get into the church?

And it has. I see people one time a week at church, and they don't want— there's so many activities going on in the church as part of the church, like the pastor studies and gives a discipleship meeting, a theology meeting on Wednesday, a prayer meeting.

You have all these different aspects, and they have no interest in it.

It's not—if the Holy Spirit really grabbed the whole of your heart, you would have this great desire to learn.

And in my particular church, I find that the women have this desire to learn what the

Bible says more than the men. You know, the men—I'm retired now, and the men go out and play golf, and they're not interested in the church.

The world is competing with Christians and their time and their efforts and who they are as Christians.

I don't know if that makes sense. Oh, yeah. In fact, that's been an element of the church for as long as I remember, even if you watch some of the old

Western movies from decades ago, the earlier part of the 20th century, and you'll very often hear the rugged, manly cowboy say something like,

I'm not much of a praying man, but— I'm not much of a church -going man, never have been, but— and that was supposed to be something that we would admire in a man.

But in fact, the true church of Jesus Christ, when it's properly and truthfully opening up and exegeting the

Word of God, there are a lot of demands upon the men of the church to be manly and masculine and so on.

But anyway, Pastor Joshua, a lot of this has been exacerbated because ever since the coronavirus mandates came down and churches began towing the line of the leftist government to shut down their churches, and people got used to that.

I still know people, some of whom are my close friends, who have shocked me because I thought that they had more biblical integrity about this, but it would shock me and say, oh,

I don't go to church anymore, I just watch worship services on TV, and I have a little

Bible study going in my house and that kind of a thing. But this is not worship or being obedient to the

Scriptures about being submissive to local elders, is it? Yeah, no.

I mean, you can't fulfill the New Testament in these kind of setups. You know, you think the

Lord's Prayer, we're praying, Our Father. The Lord's Supper is a communal gathering together.

You can't honor your elders. I mean, I think this whole idea just defies the very identity of what a

Christian is. You know, our ontology, our being as believers. When you read the

New Testament, you see us defined as brothers and sisters, beloved, dear friends.

You read Paul's letters. When you read Romans 16, you see this list of greetings or maybe the end of 3

John, where John says, you know, to greet the believers by name.

There's this kind of intimacy that's there. And I think consumerism, selfish isolationism have both just drastically impacted the way we think about churches.

I mean, you think of the language of church hopping and church swapping and this kind of stuff.

And we talk about the church like a changing gin or something like that.

Or you're, you know, I used to shop at this grocery store and now I'm going to this one. It's so consumer mentality.

What can I get out of your church? I mean, I have newer Christians sometimes who are moving to an area and may say, what can your church do for me?

And I'm always like, well, first off, it's not my church, it's his church. And, you know, there's a lot that you're asking in that question.

Let's think about what the church is because I would love to share with you that, you know, an answer to that. But they're thinking like, does your church have

Zumba? Does your church have... I don't even know what that is.

Is that one of the internet ways of watching worship? What's Zumba?

Zumba is like an athletic, it's like CrossFit for women, I think, or something of that nature.

Oh, OK. All right. So, you know, this is the kind of stuff people, these are the questions our generation is asking because we have,

I remember Eugene Peterson wrote a book years ago about how the pastors, he warned, pastors have become shopkeepers, trying to keep the students.

And we have lost, really, the integrity of the gospel and the very identity of a church being the brothers and sisters with the elder brother of the

Lord Jesus Christ being in Christ. And how you can't, you know, you can't have

Christ without his family. I mean, these are not optional. Just the disregard for the creeds of the faith, you know, whether you're quoting the

Apostle's Creed, you know, we believe in, you know, or the Nicene Creed, about one holy

Christian, one apostolic church, one holy Catholic church, or you're saying, you know, we believe in the communion of the saints.

These kind of things are impossible. While there is, yes, a spiritual communion and there's spiritual

Catholicity, the whole New Testament was written for real people living together, walking in the way of Christ, and not lone rangers who are only united spiritually.

Amen. And, Paul, would you not agree that there is probably a small number of believers out there who are really treating the brothers and sisters in Christ in their congregation like family members, which they are, and are not going to be on the ready when a brother or sister in the congregation is in crisis, needs help at midnight with something that is urgent?

You know, you could go through a whole host of things that a family, a biological family, how they would function, and, of course, those families don't function that way all the time either.

There are siblings estranged from each other and siblings estranged from parents and vice versa, and very often over insanely trivial reasons.

But we've got to really start reflecting the idea of a real family, because a spiritual family is no less real than a biological one, is it?

No, I mean, we're supposed to be members one of another, and I'm a very strong believer in church membership.

I believe that started with the primitive church in the upper realm where there were 120 names.

They're actually names of the members of that church, and part of that membership is it brings us into a closeness relationship, you know, praying for one another and being aware of our needs, helping one another, and so forth.

And that is like a family, a regular family. We are the family of God. And so I think in Romans 12, where it talks about the various parts of the body, how we all have different gifts and how they're all supposed to work together as to one body, and like you can't, if someone doesn't have a foot, you can't demean them for not having a foot because you have an arm, or they break up the body into different pieces.

We're all one body together, and we're to work in harmony together. And a lot of folks don't understand that.

They don't. Christianity is something that they do. It's not something that they are.

You know, they go to church and do a few responsibilities, but are not part of that local body and the unity of that local body.

One of the things that I see that's going against the local body is now I see churches, they go online.

So if you have a prayer request, you submit it online, and then they send it out by email to everybody, and the personal touch is lost.

You know, and the pastor's not going out to the people to talk to the people or pray with the people, and they're doing everything online.

And I think that's a huge impediment to the family life of a church.

No, let me give you a little pushback on that. Could it be beneficial for a church to do both as long, like for instance, never do something online to the neglect of the biblical pattern of, you know, face -to -face fellowship and counsel and all that and prayer meeting, but to offer something like that to the general public as a way of, as a vehicle to invite them to visit your congregation?

With the repeated statement, this is not a replacement for the church.

You cannot just rely solely on watching a talking head on a screen praying for you or preaching to you.

The Bible says that, in fact, we must obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they may do this with joy, not groaning, for this would be unhelpful for you.

If you're going to have, if you're going to be obedient to this text in Hebrews 13, 17, you've got to be under submission to local elders who keep watch over your souls.

And as far as church hopping goes, I mean, I understand when people are looking for a church, they haven't settled on finding a church that they believe meets the standards of the

Bible, but there's one thing to be earnestly looking for a scriptural church and just never wanting to submit yourselves to any group of elders.

You're just bouncing and you feel perhaps safe that you will never be under discipline that way or you don't want the burden of being committed to a specific body.

I think that's it right there, that word committed. I believe that's a pivotal word because when you're serious about a body of Christ, you join that membership and you become under the discipline of the church and also under the eldership of the church in that churches that don't have membership seem to lose that structure.

And I think it's very important to when a person joins a church that they're entering into that commitment.

So it's like marriage, it's a commitment, a lifelong commitment to somebody.

Now, how could you possibly be obedient to that Scripture that I just read without having membership?

Because... Yeah, it's not... If somebody were to challenge you, you're not obeying what the elders are teaching.

Well, they're not my elders, I'm not a member. Well, then you've got to be a member somewhere because the Bible commands you to.

I mean, go ahead, I interrupted you, Paul. Oh, in fact, you know something, Paul? We have to go to our midway break.

So we'll pick up where we left off. If anybody has any questions, send them to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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Welcome back, folks. Before I return to my discussion with Paul Nelson and Joshua Wolnoffer I have some important reminders for you.

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Christ honoring biblically faithful doctrinally solid theologically sound church like Klondike Church in Pensacola Florida well no matter where you live on the planet earth

I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches and I've helped many people in our audience all over the planet earth find biblically faithful churches sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live so that may be you too no matter where in the world you live if you are without a biblically faithful church home send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence and today we are in addition to promoting the upcoming conference we are discussing the theme of that conference and that is recovering the identity of the church and once again that conference is going to be held coming up very soon

February 20th through the 22nd at First Baptist Church of Baghdad, Florida they have a very impressive lineup of speakers many of whom

I've had on this program before some of whom I have not in fact actually only one of them as I look at this

I have not had on the program perhaps two I can't even remember if I've ever interviewed

Tom Smith before I've known him for quite a while and I've loved and enjoyed his friendship and fellowship but I don't know if I've ever interviewed

Tom but the lineup includes Dr. Edward Delcor President of Department of Christian Defense Dr.

Paul Nelson one of my guests today President of Grace Bible University my dear friend

Pastor of Christ Bible Church in Dublin, California Joe Jackowitz who is also the founder of First Love Ministries Austin Huggins Pastor of Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida which is the home of Chapel Library he's also the

Vice President of First Love Ministries Tom Smith who is now the President of First Love Ministries Joshua Wolnoffer my other guest today

Pastor of Klondike Church of Pensacola, Florida Jeff Pollard it's been a while since I've had

Jeff on the show I'd love to have him back on Pastor of Mount Zion Bible Church alongside of Austin Huggins in Pensacola, Florida which is again the home of Chapel Library and Frank Maxson I've never interviewed him

I would love to have the opportunity to do so a veteran missionary in Malawi for more details go to firstloveministries .org

firstloveministries .org and you can register for this free conference now

Paul I think you may have been in mid -sentence and you wanted to follow up on something

I was saying about those that were enslaved to their computer screens or TV sets and don't even participate physically in a local church and then we can move on to the broader picture as far as our theme today goes yeah

I think you had brought up Hebrews 13, 17 right and that text what's presupposed to that text there's a lot going on in that text and it presupposes that in the local church there is a community where there are leaders and there are acknowledged leaders and there are elected leaders and they have authority in that church and that authority is accountable to God so and it tells the members of that church to submit to them in spiritual matters so I think you can't even begin to interpret that text without this context of the community of the local church in other words there's no such thing as I think you pointed out earlier as a freelance

Christian we're to be members of a local community and be under the discipline and submit to the elders of that church and they watch for our souls so that's very important text and very vital for our understanding of the church let me go to a couple of listener questions before I move on to a topic change which is not really a change necessarily but a broadening of the topic that we are dealing with today and let's see we have an anonymous listener who wants to know yes we are to be submissive to elders of a local church but can this not be dangerous if those leaders are not biblically knowledgeable or charlatans don't we need discernment to not become slaves in a cult let's start with Joshua this time since we just heard from Paul absolutely so I think at the end of the day we have biblical commands and there's always what if in every imperative in the

New Testament God gives us commands and we can always put these things out there the listener is right you have to have discernment unfortunately there are a lot of ministers who maybe number one have not met the qualifications in the

New Testament for being an elder being a deacon servant in the church maybe are self -ordained there's a lot of that that they have not

I think there's a biblical precedent that churches plant churches and unfortunately in our country while there's exceptions to this rule many times there's a lot of churches that develop not in a biblical way so I think it's important and an imperative for every

Christian to be united to a healthy biblical local church at the same time if your eyes have been awakened and you're finding out or realizing as you're studying

God's word you're not in a healthy church you have a responsibility still so maybe for this listener it's important to say we can always fear you know schism or being led astray of course but I think just like the pastor has an imperative elders have an imperative to preach the word the sheep the flocks have an imperative to actively receive the word of God and of course if there's a problem or you're feeling like there's something unbiblical the first and only person you should be going to is in fact is those leaders to start that conversation about hey this is what you preach this is what

I'm hearing and from God's word and of course a godly person is going to listen and shepherd you a charlatan is going to lord it over you throw you out of the office tell you they don't want to hear from you right this is always a danger even in healthy churches

Jesus had a Judas right but that should not ever keep us from keeping the very clear instructions of the new testament what if they exist right we still have an imperative to follow

God and be faithful and trust that God will guide us in this and that Jesus said you know the gates of hell will not prevail against the church he is building so don't operate in fear that would be my real expectation instead have discernment be in the word be a self -seeker but also follow all the scriptures as well and Paul do you have anything to add?

yeah I mean we have clear qualifications for elders in the scriptures in Titus in 1st

Timothy and the elders are under those are very high standards but if you are a member you can look at those qualifications and see if your pastor measures up to it or at least to a large degree measures up to it we also have in church government

I'm a congregationalist so if the pastor if there's some scandalous sin or there's some error in the doctrine or so forth the church can remove that pastor from office and I've just seen a board of elders an eldership ruled church where the other elders removed a pastor for some improprieties so there are some safeguards that God has made for the church to correct that now when you said you are a congregationalist do you mean a

Reformed Baptist who has congregationalist polity or do you mean something else by that?

No, a congregational church government yes, but I mean you are a Reformed Baptist aren't you?

I am oh yeah, that's why I was trying to clarify because there are congregationalists that are not

Reformed Baptists yes I was just referring to church government not a congregational denomination right or even just another kind of evangelical one of the things

I love about Trinity Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where I am a member it's a new church plant we emphasize the congregational aspect of our polity and one of the things that I love about our weekly

Lord's Supper is that those in the in the pews that day before we partake of the supper they are warned very graciously and lovingly that if they are not a believer in Jesus Christ they must let the elements pass by and if they are not a member of a

Bible believing church and not under discipline in that church they are to let the elements pass by and only under certain circumstances if they are not a member of a church or between churches like they may be even considering joining our congregation if they have spoken with the pastor they are permitted to partake but there is a strong emphasis on a connection to the body of Christ which goes right along with our theme of the family.

Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. I was going to say,

I'm not an open community, I know this is controversial, but very simply stated,

I believe that the Lord's Supper is a church ordinance and so it should be partaken by the church members and that in the church that I passed for 20 years that was a real difficult stand to make because there's a lot of good

Christians that are in good standing with another local church that really question why you deny me the

Lord's Supper.

I believe that the Lord's is a church ordinance and so it should be partaken by the

Lord's Supper is a church ordinance and so it standing that really question why you deny me the

Lord's Supper. I believe that the

Lord's is a church ordinance partaken by the

Lord's Supper. I believe that the the early church was not reformed in the sense of they held to the 1689

Confession because they didn't exist yet. We believe that in fact they held to those doctrines.

They didn't have the label. And I think there are wonderful brothers and sisters and wonderful evangelical churches that they have different emphasis, different nuances.

It doesn't mean that they per se are, they would even be opposed to the spirit of the

Reformed Confession. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to be a part of a body.

And even if you find that you find yourself in a place that there's very weak, very weak congregation,

I think that is a vital practice for every Christian to be committed and to do their best to help that church in a healthy way.

With the understanding that, God willing, this is an evangelical church, and I don't mean politically.

I mean a truly gospel church where there are biblical leadership. They honor and respect the

Lord. They respect His table and the ordinance of baptism. They're keeping sacraments.

I think that we have a responsibility to try to support that work. And unfortunately,

I have met some saints over the years where they've been in a congregation, or they have been in congregations where there is just no other options, and the church is, in fact, apostate.

It is a part of maybe a mainline movement that has literally left the gospel, and there is not other options in their community.

I think this is where you start praying and seeking for the Lord to begin a new church plan. And you have that responsibility as well.

Some saints get up and move. They'll move from their community. But I do think there is something to praying for the

Lord to begin a biblically faithful church in that area. But I personally would not advise someone to, well,

I'm not going to go because they're just weak evangelicals, but they don't hold to all the points of the 1689 or whatever.

I would not ever tell someone, well, just forsake the assembling for that reason. We are theologically spoiled in the

USA, in most of our country, in comparison to many places around the world where there is, in fact, a desert of any kind of gospel witness in some of that unsporty window.

And the saints there would rejoice to have the most basic church that would not have many of the wonderful blessings we have today.

So I would just keep that perspective in mind. Do your best to be faithful in what you've got. And of course, if these are, in fact, not gospel churches, these are churches that saying that Ichabod has been written to the door, the

Lord has blown out the candle. Well, it's time to really seek the Lord's incarnature. Start sharing your faith, which we should be doing anyhow, and pray for the

Lord to begin to work. Many things have done that, and God has worked. Just out of curiosity, how close is

Wintergarden to Pensacola? Without knowing where Wintergarden is,

I'm assuming it's probably eight to ten hours away. So it's like another state.

Okay. And Paul, did you have something to say? I heard you chime in, I think. Perhaps not.

What was the original question? We've covered a lot. The listener Joy in Wintergarden, Florida was saying, what's the bare minimum of doctrine and theology and practice that a congregation must have before you join it if there is no

Reformed church near you? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Well, I get myself in a lot of situations where they find a church that's not—they're sound doctrinally in a lot of areas, but not what we would call

Reformed. But the pastor does feed them. And so if you have a choice whether not to go to church or go to a church that maybe is not all the way there doctrinally, but yet he can feed you spiritually from the pulpit and opening up and expositing the

Word of God, I say, by all means, go there because you're getting fed. And I'm not happy about the doctrine, but they're close enough.

They preach a sound gospel. Do they preach the gospel? And if the gospel is sound, then

I say, go and get fed at that church. They might not have many choices.

There may be only one or two churches in a small town. Right. And you never know what kind of positive influence you may be to pastors and elders of a local congregation by introducing them to the doctrines of grace, as long as you are doing so with humility, remaining submissive to the fact that that church has a certain standard, perhaps confession or constitution at least.

You can't be a troublemaker in a church, but at the same time, you can be humble and gracious in the way that you approach your elders and give them books to read and give them sermon audio recordings, and you can go on and on and on about that.

But let's switch over, and I believe this is one of the topics that Paul is preaching on, recovering the church from the rubble of culture, if you could explain that.

Well, rubble wasn't my word, but I like it. It's just culture.

I look at culture as worldliness, and there's so many different avenues that the church is being tempted to partner with the world in different things, and they think they justify it by getting a better audience, getting a better hearing for the

Word of God, and so they make compromises with the world. And so I think we have to realize that the world is not part of the church.

There is a separateness to the church. There's so many verses that tell us to not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, to come out from them and be separate from the world, love not the world, neither the things of the world, be not conformed to the world.

The Bible is full of these statements about how we're not to be conformed to this world or be any part of this world.

We are separate from the world. And I think a lot of churches don't want to come to grips with that reality, because then they're going to be labeled biggest, and they're closed -minded, and all those worldly philosophies are going to come against them.

But we're not part of this world. Christ told us that they would hate us if they truly know what we believe, and they're unbelievers, and they haven't been regenerated in the heart.

They're going to hate us. And we want to make compromises in our church, and it could be something that might be a liberty of conscience that you referred to a while ago,

Chris, that's safer like music. To me, I came up in the 60s, so rock and roll music, to me, it represents everything—the rebellion against the status quo, the drugs, the immorality, all this stuff.

That's the way I look at rock and roll, because I was raised in it, and I know other people aren't like that.

So there's some Christian liberty in that, in what certain churches allow in contemporary music.

But there's other things, like, you know, you have the woke mentality, you have the

DEI mentality, all this. The world's trying to get in and make us activists for them, as if we're going to partner with the world to fix the world's problems.

And you don't partner with an enemy of God, and that's what they want, to turn the church into being activists for worldly philosophies.

And I'm going to be dealing with different things like that, but I think the main issue is that we must understand that we're to have no part of the world.

We're completely separate from the world, and the Bible makes that crystal clear. And Joshua, I'll have you pick up from there.

I agree with what Paul said, but the complete picture, though, isn't it to be just like Jesus?

That Jesus was separate from sinners, but he was also a friend of sinners, and there are different ways in which he remained separate, and there are different ways in which he continued friendships.

Isn't that important for us, too? I think it absolutely is.

One of the things that, you know, there's low -hanging fruit in this conversation. We can obviously bring up, when we're talking about rebels, things like pronouns in the church, the alphabet mafia,

LGBTQ, TIAP, rainbow mafia. You can start talking about wokeness and worldliness, but I think at the same time, you're right, we always want to have this balance that we are convictionally clear, strong, articulate, but they still know we are

Christians by our love. And we have to, without a doubt, stand on the truth and articulate that truth, because that's the only thing that's going to save anybody or disciple our people, for that matter.

At the same time, the truth causes division. We don't have to be unnecessarily divisive.

And the church is exclusive in the gospel message.

We're not going to compromise that, but we are inclusive in our gospel call. We're going to welcome sinners as long as they're going to repent and change.

So I love what Dr. Nelson shared there. I think it's a great truth. Everything he said is right on.

When you look at the situation in front of us, what does Christ have with Eli? What does the table of the

Lord have with the table of demons? Yes, we don't want to leave people at the table of demons.

We want to see them come to the table of the Lord. So Jesus is obviously the perfect example.

I love that you point that out, Chris. That's great. Yes, and the only prohibition I am aware of about who you as a

Christian socialize with or have dinner with is having dinner with a professing

Christian who is living an unrepentant, ungodly life or is a charlatan.

Am I right on that, Paul? I don't want to be misunderstood on this, but as far as the gospel, the truth of the gospel, there's no barrier between bringing a sinner into the congregation or into the auditorium to hear the preaching.

We'd all love that. So I'm not making a distinction between our message to sinners and our love for sinners.

I mean, we're to love our enemies. My distinction is the practices and the philosophies of the world coming into the church.

That's my distinction. What kind of practices and innovations are we bringing into the church?

You know, Nadab and Abednego, they drifted from the regulatory principle, you know, of the all -sufficiency of Scripture, and they started to innovate and did their own things.

They offered incense when it was the wrong day. They offered incense together when it's only supposed to be one.

They just innovated their own things. They wanted to worship God the way they thought they should worship.

And in the end, they offered a strange fire. They took the incense -burning coals from the wrong place, and God told them to take it from the burnt -offering altar.

And God killed them for it, you know, because they were very—I think they were very aggressive on innovating the worship of God and what

God had prescribed. So I guess my point of view is the all -sufficiency of Scripture.

And when we have—we make excuses to bring in the world, like, for instance, culture—nowadays it's culture must be catered to.

We must be relevant in the culture. And what they're really doing is opening the doors for all the practices of the world, you know, coming in.

And by saying that, for instance, taking the example of the woman who's supposed to submit to her husband, which is a clear biblical principle, but they'll say, well, that culture was different back then.

The culture now is that they're equal partners, and there's no such thing as a woman's submission. So these are the things that are creeping into the church.

But what Joshua just said, you know, I love it. I make a further distinction than that, because once it comes to the gospel, the love of Christ goes out to all, definitely.

Yes, I've always had a private desire to sneak into a Roman Catholic church and hang a sign where they have the candles lit before the statues, a sign that says,

In loving memory of Nadab and Abihu. But I've thought about it.

I never will do it, so calm down, everybody. But we are not to try to lure goats into the family of God by appealing to the desires and tastes of goats.

We're not to even trick them, as it were, by offering them something that appeals to their sinful appetites and then just mixing in a message from the

Bible and mentioning Jesus when you're worshiping. Even Reformed churches can be known for doing that, and they're not really behaving like they believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, because we know that it is

God who brings the increase. It is God that draws the lost to himself.

We don't need to use artificial means and even at times wicked means to lure the lost into our midst.

But anyway, we have to go to our final break, and if you have a question, send it in before we run out of time.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

God bless you. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of the

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Buttafuoco & Associates, from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we have a question from Darlene in Bayshore, Long Island, New York.

And Darlene asks, could each of your guests give their favorite preachers, one from the past and one from the present?

And we'll start with Joshua this time. For sure.

So I think in terms of maybe favorite preachers that I just really have enjoyed reading their writing in the past.

So I read a lot of John Scott, and Dr. Scott, I think, when he wrote a book,

Between Two Worlds, that, of course, he's contemporary -ish to us. The Cross of Christ is another one.

Yeah, that is a great, great book. In fact, he wrote commentaries and notes to the

New Testament. So he's a very gifted preacher. I highly recommend pastors to read his literature.

You know, there's a few points we would disagree with him on. Of course, he was Church of England and into an annihilationist position later in his ministry, but really a very gifted preacher who could exposit the text well, bring it to the gospel.

If you want to go to older preachers, you can still read the sermons of men like George Whitefield or, of course,

Calvin. We have access to so many of his sermons. They're very warm. I love

John Christopherson. Again, you're going back 1600 years, 1700 years there, but what a powerhouse expositor back in the day.

So very grateful for the influence of those eras. In terms of reading sermons, and then in the modern era, we're just so blessed with ministries like sermonaudio .com,

having YouTube at our disposal to be able to listen to contemporary preachers.

I really cut my teeth as a new Christian listening to John MacArthur. I'm so indebted to him as a brand new baby believer, just eating daily from the cassette tapes.

I remember I had a professor who gave me a box of the cassette tapes, and I grew like wildfire listening to that stuff, just learning how to think biblically, developing a basic biblical worldview.

So I'm always grateful for him. There's so many great, solid, reformed expositors out there today.

I've really appreciated Dr. White and his work as a pastor and as an apologist.

So he's someone that makes you think. I appreciate him. I know he's a very good friend of this show. And there's just so many to mention,

Bobby Faulkham, all the people, R .C. Sproul. You can just listen to R .C.,

and he was a great teacher, but I think he's a hidden gem of a preacher, if you actually listen to his sermons.

They were maybe much better than even his lectures, to be honest, for the soul. I'll stop there.

I can keep rambling. And it's great news that R .C. Sproul is now a Reformed Baptist. But we also have to—I'll just quickly remind our listeners—we have to pray for John MacArthur, who, as he ages, continues to battle serious health problems.

And also my longtime very dear friend, Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's media ministry,

Grace to You, is home recuperating from a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy.

He has blood cancer. So please pray for him as he recovers, and pray that we hear praise reports on his restoration to health.

And, Paul, your favorite preacher or preachers from the past and present? Well, you know, from the past, of course,

I love the Puritans, and two of my favorite ones are, you know,

Thomas Manton and John Owen. And so there's a lot of great

Puritans and a lot of collections of their servants. And, of course, Charles Spurgeon.

Why haven't we forgot him? Yep. Prince of Preachers. He's awesome. So those are the past. More recently, my mentor,

Dr. Downey. I love him. He is just a fantastic preacher.

I've got to try to get him back on the program. It's been a while since he's been on. I've got to have him back on. Yeah, there you go.

And L. Martin, when I first came into the doctrines of grace, L. Martin had a tremendous influence on me.

And then, of course, all the ones that Joshua was saying are my favorites, too.

Well, I'd like you, Joshua, to give my audience a minute of summary of what you most want etched in their hearts and minds today, and then,

Paul, you could do the same thing when Joshua is finished. Okay. So, again,

I just want to say thank you for having me on. I really praise God for Joe Jackowitz, Austin Huggins, for the opportunity to be a part of this conference.

These are just wonderful men who love the church, love the spreading of the gospel around the world, and I hope that this conference will just be another opportunity to bring the

Saints together and just revive a love for the local church, revive a love for the body of Christ, faithful, long -term, again,

Eugene Peterson's little statement there, obedience in the same direction, just consistent, faithful discipleship.

And, you know, I've been a pastor 22 years, and I still believe the local church is

God's clan, and all churches have pain, thought, trouble, but we have the greatest

Lord, and there's nothing better than having a loving church family of Saints, of brothers and sisters, of fathers in the church, mothers in the church, and babies in the church, all together, just glorifying

Christ. So I really hope maybe this program will be an encouragement to people to just sink their feet down in their local church, love the people, love their leaders, be patient with one another, and may

Christ be glorified as He built this church. And, Paul, if you could give us maybe about 30 seconds, because we're rapidly running out of time.

Okay, the burden on me right now is that I know there's a lot of people that want to find a church, find a church, a good local church, a sound church with faithful pastors and leaders, and join that church once you find it.

It's imperative for your growth as a Christian. Amen. Well, folks, don't forget that the conference that my two guests are speaking at with other speakers on the theme,

Recovering the Identity of the Church, is being held February 20th through the 22nd, coming up right around the corner at First Baptist Church of Baghdad, Florida.

To register, go to FirstLoveMinistries .org, FirstLoveMinistries .org,

and all the details are right there at the top of the page. Just scroll down a little and you'll find them immediately.

I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater