Sept 2, 2026 Show with Dr. Danny Hyde on “The Presence of God” & Jim Tyson on “Finding Your Gospel Voice”

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.

The Program’s Mission and Scriptural Motto

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, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this second day of September 2026.

I'm absolutely thrilled to have a returning guest today for the first hour. His name is Dr. Daniel R. Hyde, known more affectionately as Pastor Danny. He is the author and a conference speaker and associate fellow in practical theology at Greystone Theological Institute in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and pastor of Oceanside United Reformed Church in Carlsbad, California, which is a congregation in the URCNA, the United Reformed Church of North America.

And today we are going to be addressing his book, A Christian's Pocket Guide to the Presence of God. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Danny Hyde. Thanks, Chris.

It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while. And tell our listeners something about Oceanside United Reformed Church in Carlsbad, California.

Great church. Been here for 26 years. Celebrated our 25th last year. Yeah, just love the people here. And people want to come on vacation to the North San Diego area. We literally meet on the beach. So love to have you.

Had lots of beach, many beach baptisms this summer. So it's been a great summer.

Now, when you say you literally meet on the beach, you mean you don't have a building? You actually meet on the sand there? Our building is literally on the beach.

So right overlooking the ocean, like 50 yards. Great.

Well, praise God. Well, if anybody is interested in visiting Oceanside United Reformed Church in Carlsbad, California, whether you live in that area, whether you are going to be traveling through that area, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones in that area and you want to pass on the website of this church to them, it is OceansideURC .org.

You can also go to Daniel R. Hyde's website, which is DanielRHyde .com. DanielRHyde .com. Also joining us today, a returning guest who is going to serve for the first hour as a co-host interviewing Danny Hyde with me, and then the second hour, he is going to be the primary guest.

I'm speaking of Jim Tyson, a biblical counselor, an ordained Presbyterian minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, also known as the PCA, and he's the area director of the Central Pennsylvania Christian Businessmen's Connection, known as CBMC.

And when we begin the second hour with him, we're going to be addressing finding your gospel voice, being equipped to share your faith without fear. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back as well to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Jim Tyson.

Great to be with you again, Chris. Alrighty. Well, let's begin with Danny. Just out of curiosity, I know that you have written another book, and the theme of that book sounds like it could be similar to this one, the book of which I am speaking, that was published by Reformation Heritage Books, God With Us.

How much does this new book of yours, The Presence of God, have in common with that?

God’s Presence Across the Story of Scripture

Well, it has in common that Jesus is the center of the story, but that other book you're mentioning, a great book as well, that one's on the personal work of Christ, especially on his incarnation, that God became a man.

What does that mean for us as believers? Why is it important? How is it different from views of Christ, say, for example, in Islam? But this book is a little sort of mini tour of the whole Bible. So a biblical theology starting in Genesis, ending up in Revelation, and showing us how God is present in all the twists and turns, all the peaks and valleys of his people, whether in paradise, in the fall, in the person of Jesus, in the incarnation.

So there's a little bit of overlap there, but also in the church, the Christian, and in the consummation of all things. So, yeah, I mean, my book's trying to obviously proclaim Christ in all the wonder of who he is to people who are not believers yet, or are believers looking to grow, strong believers looking to disciple, encourage others.

So hopefully it's a good book that people can pick up and learn what Christ is.

Amen. And as you know, Danny, that throughout history, in fact, throughout the history of the world, when men have craved to know the presence of God, if they are not truly among his people, they have taken directions that displeases God greatly.

You have idolatry that has been rampant throughout the history of the world because men crave the presence of God and invent ways to feel that way and to believe that they are closer to him. Even within Christendom, in the Church of Rome, in Eastern Orthodoxy, you have rampant idolatry.

You have in Rome the statuary, and in Eastern Orthodoxy you have the icons, sometimes in buildings far more ornate than even Rome's buildings. That craving for the presence of God has to be done in a way that honors God truly and is compatible with his word.

Isn't this true?

It is true. Yeah, it is true. And I try to mention in the book that the presence of God is not a place, but it's a person. It's found in Jesus, and we can experience that not by chasing a feeling, but by knowing his face.

The Old Testament language for presence is translated in the older translation as face, so God's face, which shines upon us and can be known in the face of Christ. And we can see that and hear that and experience that presence and that face of Jesus in his word and sacraments, prayer, fellowship of his people, the love of his church.

So, yeah, God wants us to search for him, to find him. And we have assurance that we can actually know where to find him. Again, it's not a place, a building, you know, but it's in the person of Jesus Christ through faith.

Yes. And you live, as you were describing at the very outset of the program, in a breathtaking, gorgeous area of our country, right on the beach, as is even indicated in the very name of your church, Oceanside United Reformed Church.

Now, Christians can enjoy knowing the presence of God walking on the beach in a beautiful place, like Carlsbad, California, or somewhere in the mountains, in the woods, in the forests, and anywhere where the beauty of God's creation is so palpably visible.

And there is a different sense, however, isn't there, when you are seeking the presence of God by enjoying his creation, and when we have the promised presence of God in the gathering of his people, and the receiving and giving of the ordinances?

Yes. And I try to mention in the outset of the book some key distinctions in theology. I try to do it in a simple way, but basically, since early times, the time of the medieval church, and the Reformation, post-Reformation, Puritan era, there's a distinction that we can make in the Bible, because God is omnipresent, he's everywhere, we can experience him, like you said, on the sand, or whether we're at the peak of a mountain, we can sense that presence, know that he's there, but there's a different sense in which God promises to be.

And so, different theologians make it lots of different ways, but in general, there's sort of a general sense of God's presence, his essence as God, but there's also a very particular gracious presence where he promises to be in a particular place, at a particular time, and that might, it could be on the beach, because wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus' name, that's where he's present.

But I like to tell my church that he's, quote unquote, more present with us in this building, 50 yards outside of the sand, than he is over there, in the sense that he promises to be near to us whenever we open the word in a congregation, in an assembly, and that assembly, like I said, could be in a cave, in a cathedral, doesn't have to be in a church building, but it's wherever God's people are gathered in his name to crack open the Bible and to receive his gifts and his grace.

So, yeah, there's a difference between his essential general presence, his omnipresence, and his sort of gracious covenant promised presence.

Christ’s Presence in the Lord’s Supper

Now, is there a special way that God's omnipresence is manifest when partaking in the Lord's Supper? We who are Reformed have historically disagreed with Rome and their understanding of transubstantiation, that the elements of the Eucharist actually become the physical body and blood of Christ, and in fact, in Rome, the host actually becomes the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ.

They worship the host, and I was raised Roman Catholic, I was an altar boy, and when we even entered into the sanctuary of a Roman Catholic church building, we were told to genuflect, which is like a half-kneel, because we were being taught that Jesus Christ was physically present on the altar of that church.

Now, as Reformed Protestants, we reject that, and we also reject the milder but still erroneous understanding of our Lutheran brethren. I can call our Lutheran brethren brethren, where I don't feel I have the liberty to do so with Roman Catholics, but how do we as Reformed Christians have this unique presence of Jesus Christ among us during the celebration of the Lord's Supper?

Wow, that's a great question. Better men than myself have said things like John Calvin said when he was trying to explain the so-called mode of Christ's presence. In other words, how exactly can he be present like he's promised at the same time he has ascended?

So how do we understand that mode of his nearness, of his presence? And he says in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that it's better to experience it than to understand it, because whereas Rome likes to use Aristotle in philosophical ways to explain that, and even Lutheran brothers and sisters in the Lutheran Book of Concord use Aristotle to try to describe the various modes of presence.

I would say the Reformed position is a much simpler position that we take Christ at his word, that he promises to be near to us when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, communion together in assembly of his people with the word being proclaimed, and we pray and we trust that the Holy Spirit makes Christ real to us, as it were, present to us.

Sometimes it's described as Christ doesn't come down, but we go up in a sense. But again, there's lots of ways to explain that. But I think the simplest way is just we want to believe by faith in Christ, just like we do for our justification, to trust in him as well in our sanctification and the various means in which he's making us more and more like him.

And communion is one of those ways. And so we can just simply believe and we can trust. And there's a mysterious way in which he's near to us. And that mystery, of course, Jesus tells us is the Holy Spirit.

So he's left his church, but not as orphans, and sent us another helper to be near to us, to apply Christ, to make him near, to bring his word to our hearts, to impress upon us his grace, to assure us that he is near in our times of trouble.

So, yeah, it's better to experience it, in my opinion, than it is to fully grasp and comprehend exactly how it is.

I'm going to give our listeners our email address, if they would like to join us with a question of your own. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson 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 and country of residence. Throughout your book, which is a brief book, I would highly recommend our listeners, especially if you are in a position of authority in your congregation where you can fill tract racks and other places in your church narthex or lobby with small-sized books, this would be an ideal book for that, to give away to the congregation, to give to visitors.

It's small enough and brief enough where people, even novices in the faith or perhaps even unbelievers visiting a church, would be more willing or likely to pick up a briefer treatment of something like this and begin reading through it.

But you go through the presence of God even in the Old Covenant that we find in the various prominent places of the Hebrew Scriptures, and then you work your way all the way up through our present day in the New Covenant.

But if you want to highlight some of those areas that you believe are most important in your book where you do explain the presence of God, how it was manifest in the Old Covenant to begin with. Sure.

Yeah, it's obviously a huge topic. I mentioned at least one Old Testament scholar thinks that God's presence is the theme of the Bible, that God has promised to be our God and we His people. And so this nearness is found all throughout.

And I was just telling this to a group of people just to encourage them, hey, my book is short, but I would encourage you the next time you read through the Bible, just have a little chart or a little notebook or whatever.

And as you're reading through it, just mark down all the times where God shows up, all the times where God promises to be somewhere. He comes to deliver. He helps. And you'll just be overwhelmed. It's so big.

So I tried to break it down into little sections of the garden, Noah, Abraham, the wilderness, the exile, the tabernacle temple. So it goes through the whole of the Bible in a very short way. It was like an early medieval theologian by the name of Gregory the Great said the Bible was shallow enough for lambs to drink and deep enough for elephants to wade.

And so the Bible is a big book and it's great and grand enough for theologians to get lost in it, but also simple enough for us. And so I try to bring that out and show God is present in the garden. He's present by his word.

He's speaking and communicating with our first parents. And even in judgment, after they've sinned and rebelled against him, he shows up and he's near to them. He's near to Noah and his family again by his word.

He's speaking and communicating. And amazingly, there's little glimpses of his presence where Adam and Eve get, Noah and his family, excuse me, get into the ark and it tells us that the Lord shut the door behind them.

It's amazing. It's amazing. All these little, you know, little, little, little kind of pictures, also those bigger ones, like the whole entire tabernacle complex and the temple are all meant to show us the presence of God, whether it's the colors of the tapestries, the designs on those tapestries.

You know, there's a there's a great curtain that walls off the outside from the inside. And there's another curtain that walls off that inner room from the most inner room, the Holy of Holies. And these have engraved or embroidered, that is, cherubim, angels, palm trees, pomegranates and so forth, all meant to picture the garden and be sort of a picture of that presence of God that was in the garden that's now has some limited access to priests.

And then even, as I mentioned, I spent a little bit of time on the exile because it's one of the most important events of the Old Testament, the Exodus and the exile, I would probably argue the two greatest events.

And the Israelites are incomplete. Their jaws have been sort of dropped to the ground in awe and wonder at the fact that they're now trudging across the desert into a foreign land. And one of the great stories is the story of the prophet Ezekiel, where when God threatens to send them into exile, he shows that to them in a very tangible way.

When the glory of God, which was a cloud or a fire like a pillar in the wilderness, that glory cloud, the fire of God, ascends, lifts up out of the Holy of Holies, from the Ark of the Covenant. And that glory of God, we're told in Ezekiel 10, goes east, follows them, just like the glory of God followed them throughout the wilderness.

In the Exodus story, God's glory followed them out into exile to Babylon and he was there with them. And he describes himself as being like a little sanctuary for them. Oh, they're outside the promised land.

They don't have the temple anymore. They have God. God is the sanctuary. He's the dwelling and the presence amongst them. So just really amazing. And one of the great little things, just as a little kind of teaser for people to grab the book, is think about the Old Testament.

When God leaves, the temple goes east into exile. When the Israelites return back into the promised land in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah and the minor prophets, ask yourself this question. Where in this part of the Old Testament, the last parts of it before the New Testament, where does that glory of God that was in Babylon, where are we told that that glory ever goes back into the Holy of Holies?

And I'll leave it at that. You have to answer that question yourself. But my little hint would be, ask that question. It might be sort of, you know, wracking your brain. And then you open your Bible to Matthew chapter two.

What does it say about the Magi? What does it say about the place where Jesus, this little child, was being cared for by his mother? So leave it at that. That's a little snippet of God's presence. But it's really amazing.

Just a wonderful story.

And you'll see how it all ties together. Amen. Well, let me go to a listener question that has come in from Rosemary in Corona, Queens, New York. And Rosemary says, you are very rightly pointing out false religions, even within Christendom, that have dealt with the issue of discovering and experiencing the presence of God in unbiblical and even anti-biblical ways, like the idolatry which exists in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

But I think we must not overlook the same kind of falsehoods that are perhaps manifest in different ways in evangelicalism, like in many of our Pentecostal and charismatic brothers and sisters' churches.

For instance, the way that they are claiming they experience the presence of God very often is determined on the level of goosebumps they receive on their arms. Yeah, I think that's a very true and fair comment-slash-question.

Do you have any comments on that, Danny? Yeah.

So everybody has their experience, and I'm no different. And every single thing that I've ever written, of course, comes out of my experience. We can't get out of our past, how we've been raised, and so forth.

So my dad was brought to the Lord Jesus Christ in the 1970s through the Jesus Movement here in Southern California, the Cabaret Chapel Movement. And later on, he walked away, fell away, came back to the Lord, and I was saved when I was a teenager in the Four Square Church.

And later on, I was a youth pastor in a Pentecostal church. And so my experience of these themes of the presence, chasing the presence, pursuing the presence of God, experiencing the presence of God. I think it was when I was in college, the Experiencing God Study Bible came out because of that famous book on experiencing God.

And so a part of what I am trying to not just trace the Bible and give you sort of a Bible study, but also throughout stopping off and saying, here's how this impacts normal life and here's where we can go off the rails, go off the straight and narrow, is on this very thing.

And so, like I said at the very beginning, I try to make the contrast between chasing a feeling and seeking a face. So the scriptures call us to seek the face, the presence of God, and not to just chase after feelings.

And there's just too many believers who are tossed to and fro by all the various winds of doctrines and movements and experiences and the next great celebrity pastor, the next great this, the next great that.

And I describe that as chasing a feeling. And there's just way too much of that in modern Christianity, especially in the U .S. Versus what does the Bible say? Seek the Lord, seek his face and his presence forevermore.

And how do we do that? Well, we do that through faith, by embracing Christ and by continually coming to know him better in and through his word, by embracing him in a tangible way in the sacraments of baptism and communion, by coming to him in prayer, giving him our needs, by experiencing his love through his people and his fellowship.

So those are the ways where he's called us and promised to be with us and near us and not to chase feelings, not to chase the next great experience. Because if you keep doing that, you're just going to be like a dog chasing its tail.

It's never going to end and you're never going to come to a moment of rest spiritually. You're always going to be restless and chasing and pursuing. We should pursue God, but we need to pursue him on his own terms.

Which he lays out for us in his word.

Amen. Well, by the way, Rosemary, my guest today, Dr. Daniel R. Hyde, is going to be speaking in Manhattan in the near future. And Corona is only somewhere between six and eight miles away.

Yeah, you can find the details of that. If you just go to my website, DanielRHyde .com, there is a little tab under the heading of Contact, and you'll see a list there of my upcoming speaking outside of my church.

And one of those is October the 4th at Christ Church, New York City. Well, that's coming up real quick.

Yeah. And we have to go to our first commercial break right now. If you also would like to submit a question to Dr. Danny Hyde, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Daniel R. Hyde, and he is discussing his new book, A Christian's Pocket Guide to the Presence of God. If you have a question, you may submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. And my co-host today, Jim Tyson, who is the area director of Christian Businessmen's Connection in Central Pennsylvania. He has a question for Dr. Hyde, and you may ask your question, brother.

Yeah. Hey, Danny. It's interesting how the Lord brings people together. We have a very parallel track. I graduated with my B .S. from Valley Forge Christian College, the Assemblies of God Bible College in the King of Russia area, and did my M .D. at Westminster in Philadelphia.

This may be a little bit nuanced, but as I'm hearing you talk about the presence of God, I'm just wondering, how do you see this interact with our union with Christ and that concept?

Yeah, it's one of those wonderful truths that I still try to wrap my head around after all these years. Being like that in-ness language, which I try to explain in my church as best I can, it's describing a vital fellowship, closeness, intimacy that we have with Jesus, and Paul describes that as being in him.

But at the same time, he's also in us. I'm preaching in Romans 8 right now, and I just preached this past Sunday on the section where it says that the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Spirit describes in three different ways, is in us.

But then he also says Christ is in us. So to say the Spirit is in us is to say Christ is. So, yeah, just understanding, again, the presence is not a feeling, an emotion, a vibe, as it's called today, but it's a close, personal, the closest, the most personal way of relating to God that we can understand as creatures.

So he brings us into union with him, near to him, close to him, in him. But at the same time, he, in us, amazingly and by the power of the Spirit, is communicating to us all of those treasures and riches and blessings and graces, goodness that he has for us.

So, you know, just like just like Professor Murray said back in the days that union with Christ was, you know, the great blessing and all the other blessings flow from it. Right. It's sort of a catch all category to describe as best humanly possible we can what it means to be joined to Jesus and for him to be in us and for us to experience him.

So just like I would say, union with Christ is that overarching blessing from which all the blessings of the gospel come to us. The presence of God or the presence of Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit is an overarching way of describing that relationship that we have with the Lord, that he's with us, near to us, but also in us, even in the valley of the shadow of death.

OK, we have a question from a fellow Californian. We have Lynette in Encinitas, California. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Right down the road. Oh, wow. Lynette says, do you have any counsel on how to comfort a brother or sister in Christ who may be experiencing what has become known as the dark night of the soul?

They may be walking with Christ as far as you can tell. They may be an obedient believer and a true believer, but they feel as if God has abandoned them and are in a state of serious depression. How can we help lift them out of that by letting them know how they can truly experience the presence of God?

Yeah, that's a big one.

It's a personal one. And what I would say is, I told this to somebody recently who asked me something similar, not exactly the same thing, but something similar. Number one, just for you to communicate in an empathetic way, your understanding, your own personal closeness, you know, perhaps to this person.

And I was telling somebody, and I would say the same thing as well to Lynette, is that how can we, how can I as a pastor talk about God's presence if I'm not present myself? And so, you know, it's not about just sort of cognitively explaining things and hoping they'll snap out of it and, you know, get some experience.

It's being present, being near, expressing, you know, love, concern, empathy. And then number two, obviously, prayer. We believe that the Lord uses prayer. It's the means by which we talk to God and we communicate to him and we express ourselves.

And I would say, you know, to a brother or sister who was in that Baruch Night of the Soul, that the Psalms are a great place for us to even read and pray aloud during those times. I just, I recently preached through Psalm 88, which is the darkest psalm.

It ends, literally, it literally ends with the word darkness. And it seems like there's no hope. But this is a prayer of a believer. This is a prayer of a person who is in relationship with the Lord. And so, you know, praying out those psalms to the Lord in those dark times, it's what saints and sinners have been doing for thousands of years.

And so you expressing your own presence with that person, encouraging, you know, you praying for them, but also encouraging them to pray. Even those low moments, those even those darkest, lowest, harshest, most oppressing psalms is a way for us to experience the nearness of God.

And I would also say, just as a pastor, as a sort of practical thing is when we feel those low points, when we feel even sort of a chronic depression, a long-term habitual sense that God has left us, abandoned us, is not near to us.

We still need to be in fellowship, hearing the word, praying, receiving, for us in Reformed tradition, receiving the Lord's Supper, so important, and to continue to persevere in those means, as they're called, the means of grace.

They're the ways through which God works and speaks and communicates and helps, their means, their instruments, their methods of his presence. And so, yeah, I mean, there's a lot more to say and it's hard to say it, you know, on a screen, but you're answering this.

I'm in Carlsbad. I encourage you to come to the Oceanside URC. We'd love to chat with you. Encourage you. I'm happy to be an encouragement. And if this dear brother is close as well, I'd love to meet up and just listen and see what the Lord can do, just to encourage.

Lots of Christians experience that. And, you know, it's hard, but it's real. And we can get comfort that even in those low points, the Lord is near. And at some point, you know, we do trust that he'll sort of break through and we will have a better sense of his presence and his nearness.

So, yeah, I would just encourage you in those ways. And, you know, if you're able to make your way from Encinitas to Carlsbad, 10 -15 minutes to come to the Oceanside URC.