Was I Wrong about the IFB? (A Bow Tie Dialogue Follow Up)

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I just think it's interesting probably for everyone to recognize the fact that of the three of us sitting here, I actually potentially would have more in common with the gentleman from your first show in the area of personal standards for living.

00:14

The old - My standards ain't - I'm just barely saved, y 'all. The old -

00:20

Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me so heavily, and I need a friendly voice with some good theology,

00:37

Calvinist if you're speaking, so I mix a manly drink, Pepsi And I hit the

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YouTube link Don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away, oh

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It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Fawcett Beards and bow ties, laughs till sunrise

01:07

It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Fawcett He's not like most

01:16

Calvinists, he's nice Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience.

01:26

And hi guys, welcome to Your Calvinist podcast. My name is Keith Fawcett, and as always, I am your

01:32

Calvinist, and I'm joined in the studio today by my good friend and fellow martial arts instructor,

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Aaron Brewster. Yeah, don't look, it's you. And I'm joined online by another good friend and a man

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I've come to love and respect. Notice I didn't say that about you, Aaron. I did notice that. And this is my friend, let's see, where's he at?

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There he is, Andrew Rapoport. Hi, Andrew, it's good to see you, my friend. Good seeing you. And I knew you guys had your karate camp going on, which is what you and Aaron are doing together.

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And I went to get changed to get dressed up a little bit better before we did this, because I know you do it on video.

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And then I realized, wait a minute, I'm wearing a superior martial arts shirt, Gracie Jiu -Jitsu.

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And so I figured, you know, the martial art that beats karate. So I just figured, you know what, I should leave this on for you guys.

02:24

Oh, well chosen, well chosen. Yeah, yeah. I didn't realize we were going to start out ugly. No. Okay.

02:31

All right. All right. I know what's up. You invited Andrew to the show. Yes, I did. I did.

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And I'm glad that he's here. You know, look, we couldn't get a superior theology one in there because we're all good

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Baptists. But, you know, at least I throw in a good superior martial art. Yes.

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And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example between the nice Calvinist and the other guys. That's right.

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Well, guys, we have a lot we're going to talk about today. And again, the reason why

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Aaron is with me is because this week he has graciously driven from all the way from his home in North Carolina to help me with our church's youth karate camp.

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We have a youth or we have a karate club here at Sovereign Grace. It's been going now for about 15 years.

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And every year we do a youth summer camp. And Aaron is a martial artist.

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He's been in the martial arts longer than me, which is pretty amazing because I've been this is my 30th year. And this is his 32nd year.

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And and so he is here with me to help me teach the class. And we are both friends with Andrew.

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In fact, it was because of Andrew that we became friends. And we thought this would be a good opportunity for the three of us to get on and talk shop, talk theology, talk maybe a little bit of martial arts here in a minute.

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But the main thing we're going to talk about today when we get into the theology portion is a few weeks ago.

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Well, I guess it's been a couple of months ago now. I did a bow tie dialogue with some brothers from the IFB. And the day after I did that video, and I kid you not, the day after I did that video,

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I had no less than five people reach out to me. Several of them IFB pastors who said, wait a minute, wait a minute.

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Those guys, they didn't represent my position. And I thought, OK, well,

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I'm sorry if you don't feel like they represented you. And this is, again, nothing against those brothers, but there are some things that they said that don't represent other independent fundamentalist

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Baptists. And so one of the things we're going to talk about, because Aaron has a background in fundamentalism, and so does

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Andrew. We're going to talk a little bit about what happened on that show, a little bit about some of those things.

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Maybe talk about some different points of view that exist within the independent fundamentalist circles.

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And so that's what we're going to get. But before we get there, I have a couple of things I got to do because it's important.

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And I want to mention it every time I get on the show. Number one, don't forget that this show is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church.

05:12

So if you are in the Jacksonville area, please come see us at Sovereign Grace Family Church. And you can learn about us at sgfcjacks .org.

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Also, we have a sponsor now. We're sponsored by Tiny Bibles. This is the smallest full

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Bible that you can get on the market and fully printed. And it's readable even though it's pretty small.

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Was that the guy who we went to lunch with? Was that what he had? No, no, no. That's a novelty.

05:38

This is an actual Bible. And if you want to go and check them out, go to tinybibles .com.

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And if you decide to buy one, use my name. One, it supports the show, lets them know that I'm sending them people.

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But it also will get you a discount. And just put the name Keith in at the checkout. And you'll get a discount when you get a

05:56

Tiny Bible. So go check that out. It's pretty cool. What we need to see is the big hulking Keith Foskey with the smallest

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Bible. Like holding it in his fingers. So really, really small compared to the big

06:09

Keith Foskey. Just saying. Well, I'm going to do something with it one day. I don't have it here at the church.

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It's at my house. And I'm doing this today because Aaron's here with me. So we're doing it from my church studio rather than my home studio.

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The next time I do it from the house, I'm actually going to show it. Holding it, right? And you holding it, it just.

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Oh, yeah. It's going to be the incredible Hulk holding. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just, it looks so much tiny in your hands than mine.

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Just, just saying. Absolutely. But, but again, guys, go check that out. If you're interested. Also, remember, if you want to reach out to me and if you want to know, or want to ask me questions or have me talk about something on a show, or if you're interested in being on my show, being interviewed, something like that, you can go directly to key

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Foskey .com and send me some information there. And since we're talking about this, I do want to ask you guys as well at this point in the show to give a short introduction for anybody who may not know you.

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I know everybody knows Andrew, but, but Aaron tell people who you are, what your website is, what you do that way.

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If people want to reach out and talk to you, especially after the show, when you're going to talk about the IFB, I'm sure people are going to want to reach out.

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That's right. So tell them a little bit about yourself. Yeah. So actually I am good friends with Andrew and I have the opportunity to be one of the speakers that travels for and speaks for striving for eternity.

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So that has been a huge honor for Andrew to invite me into that, that elite cadre of speaker like people, which he has not.

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I have not got to do that yet. It's elite. Take the dagger from out my heart.

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No, no, please. That one hurt. Yeah. Before that though, and I, I still,

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I, I have another ministry as well that I do, but that's one of the connections with me and Andrew. But to evermind ministries is the ministry that I founded and helm evermind ministries is all about keeping

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God's truth at the center of the human experience, but your human experience is multifaceted.

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You know, Keith, you're a husband, you're a father, you're a son, you're a pastor. And so, you know, when you talk, he didn't, he didn't say comedian.

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He didn't say humorist. So many things that you are to list them all off would take too long.

08:22

Humor is definitely at the top. But because of each of those slices, we didn't want the ministry to be such so that if you go to our blog or whatever, you're talking about any random thing at any given time.

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So we have sub ministries in a way that focus in. So truth love family is our ministry about parenting and marriage.

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We have a ministry called the year long celebration of God, which is all about personal and corporate discipleship.

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And then as a biblical counselor, we have a ministry called faith tree, biblical counseling and discipleship.

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And then I also travel and speak for the ministry. If you want to learn anything about it, you can go to evermindministries .com.

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And I always encourage people to download the evermind app, set up your account via the website, go there, click on the link, set up your account for free.

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And then you have access to everything our ministry has. And you can get to know more about us from the evermind app.

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Awesome. Awesome. Andrew, like I said, everybody knows you, but, but reintroduce yourself to the one person in the world who might not.

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Well, Aaron is the one person who doesn't know me now. So, you know,

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Keith, it's not really an elite group. It's that, you know, one of the things we do is try to get guys who are trying to get into ministry and get known to use what

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God's given us to be known to help them out. So that's why we're helping Aaron. You're bigger than us. Everyone knows you.

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I mean, everywhere, everywhere I go, people go. Now we're not talking about my weight. That's not nice. I would appreciate it if you on my show would at least keep those types of daggers to yourself.

09:49

I understand. It's a popularity thing. You're more popular than we are. Yeah. I mean, look, all I know is everyone goes, goes

09:56

Keith Foskey. Who's that? And then they see a video of the international, you know, interdenominational meetings goes,

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Oh, that guy. No one knows your name, but everyone knows you as that guy.

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So yeah. I'm the most famous guy in the reformed world. You really are. That's the best guy to be.

10:13

You truly changed this podcast to your Calvinist with that guy. That guy. That's right.

10:19

I like it. So my name is Andrew Rapport. I am the executive director of Striving Fraternity and the

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Christian Podcast Community. I do several podcasts myself, Andrew Rapport's Rap Report. It is the corniest of names.

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And I tried to get everyone to convince the guy who came up with the name that it was corny and everyone was like,

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I love it. So I got stuck with that name. So my Rap Report, we deal with biblical interpretations applications for the

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Christian life. It's a one hour pre -recorded show. And then I do Apologetics Live, which

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Aaron usually joins me on, which is open to anybody to come in and ask their most challenging questions, or they don't have to be the most challenging if they don't want to.

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But I tell people I can answer any question that anyone has about God and the Bible. And I do this,

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Keith, I would do this in New York. I'd get up on a box and I'd say, I can answer your hardest questions about God and the

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Bible. And I get some professing atheists come up with some really difficult question. I just look at them and go, I don't know.

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You can answer anything. I said, yeah, I think I don't know is a perfectly good answer. And they, you know, they're wagging their finger at me, their mouth open and they think about it and go,

11:27

Oh, that's right. Yeah. I didn't say it would be a satisfying answer. I just said, I can give an answer. So we do that on the show, but that's actually a fun show because as Aaron knows, there's times where people come in and they're prepared to debate.

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And I don't know, I'm having a debate that night. And those are actually more fun to do because I have to deal with people, black

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Hebrew Israelites, Orthodox rabbis, Catholics, you know, anyone comes in and they're, they're ready with challenges.

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So that makes that a lot of fun. I, I don't know. It's, I think what it is is that being raised

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Jewish, you're raised to, to sharpen your skills. And part of that is we are trained to debate, trained to not even, you don't even debate a position you don't hold to.

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So for me, it's kind of fun when people just come in and challenge me and I have no idea I'm going to be challenged. So I got to work my way through that type of discussion.

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So Apologetics Live is a lot of fun for that reason, but Striving for Eternity is a discipleship ministry. And so podcasting is just one way of what we do.

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A lot of what we do is come into churches and Keith, this is the difference with Striving for Eternity.

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Most ministries want to try to reach big audiences, big crowds. We target smaller churches.

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We have monthly donors to help us out so that we can help the, you know, this will surprise most people, but the average size church in America is 75 people.

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So when you think about all those churches that are a thousand or more, 10 ,000, that means the overwhelming majority in America are like 20, 25 people.

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You got some pastor who's bivocational, he's focused on his sermon and then he's got to get his, his family.

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And you know, he's got to focus there. He's got to get his, you know, find some way of making money. And those guys don't have the time to put together materials.

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Like we do a training people on evangelism, how to interpret the Bible, apologetics, social justice.

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You know, we got a whole slew of different things. We, our newest one is on cessationism, but we come in and train churches, leave them with some materials, give them this, the equip them so that they can, you know, be equipped to serve that community.

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And so we come in for weekends and do weekend seminars. You know, maybe we'll come down to Jacksonville one time and, you know, just saying, you know, yeah.

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He's a mega church pastor. He must, he must, because he's got a, he's got a church, you know, like a, a, a youth camp for karate.

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So, Oh, well the karate club's almost as big as the church. Well, a few months ago

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I had some guys on, and I want to say from the outset these guys were super nice as far as being willing to come on my show.

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And I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for anybody who's willing to sit down and have a conversation with me and and Tommy McMurtry was the one who put this together.

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And so Tommy, if you do see this we are responding to some of the things that were said in that video, but there's no animus here.

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There's no anger. I do want to say though, that the day after the video came out, as I said earlier,

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I had five different people who reached out to me and one even like, like you should take the video down.

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And I said, well, I won't take it down, but I will at some point put out a response. I'll say, okay, here's, here's another side to this because I want to be fair.

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I don't want to misrepresent anybody. And the one thing about being an independent fundamentalist Baptist is the independent part.

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There are at least, you know, when you say, well, this person doesn't represent the whole, well, there is a sense in which there's autonomy and there's independence.

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It's sort of like in the group I'm a part of, our church is part of the fellowship of independent reformed evangelicals.

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And we talk about the fact that the I is a very important part of that because we are all

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Calvinistic. We are all in fellowship with one another. We're all evangelical, but at the same time, each of our churches is completely autonomous.

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We are not, we are not under the authority of the others. We all function together in a fellowship.

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And as far as I know, and this is my first question to you guys, is there a governing body for the

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IFB? You're going to get it. Okay.

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I'll go first. Well, actually the, the very first thing I had, I was, as I was watching the video and I have to admit, I did not get all the way through the video.

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But one of the, the very first thing I wrote down is, is independent fundamental Baptist really its own denomination.

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I had to put that down there cause I was sitting here going, no, I was not part of the IFB growing up.

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I was part of the fundamental Baptist fellowship at the churches that I was in, but to call us that group, that subset, a, a denomination

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I think is inappropriate. I mean, even the Southern Baptist as huge as they are say we're not a denomination.

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That's convention. Exactly. Yeah. Describing. So I would say that it's a subset of the

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Baptist denomination, but who am I to say, I don't know. Okay. All right.

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So there, so there's no governing. If let's say our church, not that it would, but let's say our church wanted to become an independent fundamentalist

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Baptist church. And we wanted to, we already are, but go ahead. No, no, no, no. I know there are at least a couple of things that would probably keep us from being able to have that title.

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But if sovereign grace family church wanted to become sovereign grace, independent fundamentalist Baptist church, is that possible?

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I mean, how, who would we call to get permission? You know, who's going to stamp, who's going to, you know, sign our, our stamp, our hand on the way into the club.

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Andrew, are you the, are you the Pope of the independent fundamentalist Baptist church? Is that your job? I think

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I gave that up some years ago. No. And then I should say for the record. So I went to, I got my seminary degree from Calvary Baptist theological seminary.

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You went to school. It was back in Noah's day. So don't, you know, it was a while ago.

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So his certificate is on the Epic of Gilgamesh. Hey, I helped him chisel that out.

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What do you mean? So, you know, that was an, you know, independent fundamentalist

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Baptist and seminary, but the, the, the thing. So any IFP folks would probably be upset with is that school was not

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King James only, which most people associate with independent fundamentalist

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Baptist. So right off the bat. And that was one of the things I picked up on the show is that you don't have to be

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King James only to be independent fundamentals Baptist. Now that the question really becomes those are three independent words, right?

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What would it independent? That just means you're not part of a denomination and Baptist generally or not, though there is a

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Baptist organization that does work kind of like IFP is the Southern Baptist, right? It's a, it's kind of this loose affiliation.

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It's not really a denomination where they have oversight and they make decisions for the church the way most denominations would you pay the dues, but you can just stop paying and not a big deal type of thing.

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So there's that loose affiliation. So I would agree with Aaron. It's not a denomination, but to be independent fundamentalist

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Baptist, it really comes down to, you know, okay, you're not part of a denomination. You're Baptistic.

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What is the fundamental part? And that's really the key of it, right? I think that part of it would be like the way we

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T we'd be taught at my seminary. We're dispensational. We're fundamental. We're Baptist.

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So we wouldn't really say we're IFB, but those would be the words we use that as far as you know, we're typically

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IFB is going to be a dispensational. Typically most will be non

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Calvinist. Now I'm wording that specifically because it doesn't mean they're Pelagian. It doesn't mean they're Arminian.

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It means that they're usually against what they think Calvinism is, which usually is not what Calvinism actually is.

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But the fundamental, I mean, I don't, you know, the history of the fundamentalism goes back to four volumes set of the fundamentals, which was when modernism was coming in.

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And a bunch of Baptists were not just Baptists, actually Presbyterians and all wrote these articles known as the fundamentals.

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And, and some, I think it was an oil tycoon, ship these four volumes, like every pastor in America. And that's what really got people to say, what are the fundamentals of faith?

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Things like that Jesus is born of a virgin. He's God, you know, things like this that were being questioned when modernism came into, into Vogue.

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And so really the idea of fundamentalism is almost a militant abrasion against modernism.

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So it's, it's not letting modernism into the church hop in here real quick.

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I would say modernism. Yes. I think that has, that modernism has a large, much larger scope.

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And of course, I think a lot of Christians are rejecting lots of things that can fall into the category of modernism, but really when it comes down to it, it was theological liberalism.

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Yes. Theological liberalism said, basically, I can be a Christian and I can deny what the scriptures say.

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That was basically what was being done in theological liberalism and fundamentalism was just coming in and saying, well, no, you actually can't.

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If you deny that the Bible saying this, this, and this, you cannot legitimately call yourself a

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Christian. And that was the key thing. And that's where, that's where, you know, a lot of people are pushing back against the fundamentalist title these days.

20:53

They don't want to consider themselves fundamentalists. And I think for all the wrong reasons, and I think to a certain degree, because of some of the reasons that your previous guests said were part of being a fundamentalist are the reasons why a lot of people nowadays don't like using the term.

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The reality is that the fundamentals, as were originally published, I think we would all agree.

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I think everyone that you know, who is a born again believer would agree with the fundamentals that were originally set forth.

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I run around in some crazy circles. Not everyone, you know, but everyone, you know, who is genuinely born again.

21:39

Yeah, maybe. I mean, no, no, no, I agree. I agree. No, that's, this is the whole center circle, the whole outer circle thing.

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Like what are the, what are the, what are the true definitional things that make somebody a Christian?

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And I think that there are some things that might have fallen in those fundamentals that aren't definitional, but we'll talk about it.

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Cause I see you have a list there cause I can actually see into the future. I know what we're going to talk about in a minute. We're going to talk about your list.

22:06

I want to just there. Yeah. But but I, and I'm not arguing,

22:11

I think you're right. I think the vast majority, there may be one or two things that we could say a person could hold a different perspective on and still be a

22:19

Christian. That's kind of what you're saying. But the vast majority of the fundamentals are just that. The actual fundamentals, not the ones that people claim are fundamentals.

22:26

Yeah. It's not that, you know, we got to wear a jean skirt that goes down to our ankles every day. And that's what I'm wearing right now. I was going to say, that's what

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I thought. Cause that's what a lot of people think when they think fundamentalist, they often have a picture in their mind of a very particular type of person.

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Sometimes it has to do with exterior things like dress. I was so surprised watching your video.

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Like I sat there and I was like, I don't think I've ever met a fundamentalist who fits that category.

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And it was just, it was shocking to me because they're talking like, well, yes, obviously this is who we are.

22:58

And I'm just going, I don't even know that I've met one. It was, it was, it was very interesting. Yeah.

23:04

Yeah. I mean the, the stereotype that you have, and, and by the way, for the record, you know, Keith, I, you know,

23:09

I was one of the five that contacted you. Yes. I wasn't going to say that, but you were.

23:15

No, I, I mean, I'm trying to figure who all they were. I know it was five because I told my wife, we went to lunch at Callahan chicken, which is my favorite restaurant.

23:24

And we were at lunch the next day when one of the other people called me and I was like, that's the fifth dude who called me.

23:30

So it was by lunch, you know, which just makes me see that my, my, my range is reaching people.

23:36

Yeah. But, and that's, that's mostly what you get, right? When people are complaining, you know it because they let you know if they agree with you, they're silent.

23:44

But you know, you're bringing up a good point. What do people think of when they think of independent fundamentalist

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Baptists? They think of someone that's King James only, which for the most part that's, that's kind of going to be true for the most part.

23:57

A lot of them are that's, that's somewhat changing a little. My seminary is, is now closed, but that was what they were trying to, one of the things they wanted to do was to end that.

24:06

But a big thing that people think of with IFB is going to be the legalism.

24:12

Okay. No dancing, no TV, you know, girls wearing no MMA, no

24:17

MMA. They probably would hold to that, but I don't think that's one of the ones, but you know, and I think what this is and we see this historically in other groups as well as right.

24:29

You want to stand up against a theological liberalism that you see creeping its way in the church.

24:36

Today we would see it as this wokeism and, and people go too far over in reaction to it.

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And so I think a lot of people within IFB are there, they are liking

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IFB or they, they're, they come over to that because the things they like is this strong stand against some of the cultural things that they don't like.

25:02

And though, yes, there is going to be that strong stand. I just, with some churches wonder what's the real thing.

25:10

Because one of the things you see with a lot of IFB is, as you mentioned, Keith, it's, it's on the externals and not the internal, right?

25:17

So it's, so it's, Oh, you can't wear, you know, you have to wear dresses that go down to your ankle, right?

25:23

You, you'd have these rules. I can never find one that works with my body shape. Yeah. But the thing is, is that, well, those are called kilts.

25:32

Oh, I would wear a kilt all day. A few years ago, I did a 23 and me hoping that I would have some

25:37

Scottish to suck it by a kilt. I was 99 % British, 1 % Scandinavian. I'm the whitest dude in America.

25:45

Sorry. Yeah. Until you see me with my legs, but, but funny story, Keith, you'll get a kick out of this.

25:51

I'm, I'm in San Jose, California. We're out doing an event evangelizing.

25:58

And we got one guy who every year he comes in a kilt. He's, he's Scottish. So he's, he wears his kilt and I'm making fun of him.

26:05

Right. Because I'm like, this is long before the transgenders were a big thing, but I'm making fun of him.

26:12

And I, I'm asking, I, I'm trying to like get away to share the gospel with this, with this police officer.

26:18

And so I say to the police officer, look at the, I go, what's up with the, with your, your city here.

26:24

I mean, look at this guy, a guy wearing a dress and with a heavy Scottish accent, the officer goes, it's called the kilt.

26:31

And I have a home and the two of them got along great. I was being beaten up verbally by both of them.

26:37

And you deserve it. So culturally insensitive. But the thing is, is that you end up seeing a lot of focus on, well, we shouldn't, this is how we should dress.

26:47

This is how we should behave. And I wonder sometimes if they've lost the, this is the, why we should do this.

26:55

Why should women dress modestly? Why should we, okay. You want to say we shouldn't.

27:00

I mean, I literally had someone come in my house many years ago before I had kids or actually

27:06

I think we had young kids and he basically was questioned my salvation because I had a TV and, and that's not actually all that unpopular that you'd have

27:15

IFB folks, but at least back then they would question like you have a TV until Bob Jones homeschooling became popular.

27:23

And then that kind of changed because they would provide VHS tapes. I ain't spending 12 hours with these kids without putting them in front of something.

27:32

Oh, it was, it was, you know, I actually laughed because Bob Jones University started their homeschooling, which was all on VHS tape originally.

27:42

Then it was, you know, satellite. But all of a sudden I, it was funny because I'd have people that if I went in their home, they'd be like, you look at TV and they go,

27:51

Oh, we do homeschooling. It was like a quick excuse for it. But this is what there's an episode of friends,

28:00

Joey meets somebody. If you don't know what friends is, this is a TV show. I know you guys are independent, so. Well, he doesn't have any friends anyway.

28:08

There was an episode where Joey meets somebody and he says something about their TV and they say, well, I don't have a TV. So you don't have a

28:13

TV. But it was a fun episode. And I said, what do you put your furniture? We all get angry.

28:19

How do you put, where do you put your furniture? So, sorry. That was okay. I interrupted you. I apologize.

28:25

I did that every five minutes for joke's sake. You made, you made the point beautifully. So in,

28:31

In regard to what are the fundamentals? And if we could move on, I do want to ask that question because I'm so anxious to hear the list from Aaron.

28:44

I can see a few of them. I have a bad right eye. I learned that when I was in school.

28:53

And these are the things that are the fundamentals that you would say should be observed, should be believed, even if you're not independent fundamental

29:01

Baptist. Well, admittedly, so when I was watching the video, I was sitting there and I was like, okay, yeah, I like that.

29:06

That's on the list. That's on the list. And then there were a couple of things I'm like, is that even on the list? And so I did some research because honestly, it's been a while since I, you know,

29:14

I studied that in seminary and I have not attended the churches that, you know, they, they, they have to preach their doctrine every

29:22

Sunday. And I say that from like, you know, the people who like to hammer a certain position, like a lot of KJV only churches, like they can't breathe without saying

29:29

KJV. And he's, and you don't know, but he's given me a hard time because he came and listened to me preach one time yesterday.

29:36

And it just so happened that I brought up Martin Luther, penal substitutionary atonement justification by faith alone.

29:42

He heard all of the, of the reform talking points in one sermon. And we got a lunch afterwards.

29:48

I was like, so what did you think of the service? And I'm asking him questions and he goes, well, it was exactly what I expected. You mentioned the reformer, you mentioned the doctrines of grace.

29:56

I was like, well, it wasn't on purpose. You came on second

30:01

Corinthians five 21 day. That was my fault. I should own that. No, it was a fantastic message.

30:06

I'll go listen to it. Um, so I did, I did some research and Hey, there can be people in your comment section, people contacting me, letting me know that I'm wrong or I missed something.

30:15

But as for, from what I pull, I expect no less than five tomorrow, right away. Um, so inerrancy, inspiration, and authority of the scripture all kind of put together into one.

30:25

You have to identify that because if you don't identify that you can liberally have any liberal theology you want.

30:32

The idea of Jesus Christ, absolutely important. Part of that being the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, you know, being part of that process, then the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ.

30:46

And then, uh, the other one, which was really big at the time, because a lot of the people who are doing higher criticism of the scriptures, uh, the theologically liberal individuals were denying miracles.

30:56

And so saying the authenticity of miracles, which one of which includes the actual bodily second coming of Jesus Christ from my research and from my memory, those were the ones that really were the foundational elements of fundamentalism saying, well, no, if you don't believe these things, you are denying who

31:14

God is. You are denying the very framework of God's word. And if you're doing that, you can't just conveniently say, but somehow

31:22

I'm a Christian. I have a relationship with God, though. I'm saying that he can't be who he says he is, which is anything you would add to that list,

31:29

Andrew? Well, yeah, what I, what I was going to do actually, and now granted, this is data. This is from my notes on fundamentalism that I took in seminary in 2001.

31:38

So I know that some of the audience are going 2001. I wasn't even born then. Yeah, I get it. Thanks. We have 20 year olds listening to this.

31:47

Yes, we do. I was in seminary in 2001. If you are 20 years old or younger, please leave a comment.

31:55

I would love to know that you're there listening to three old men opine about independent fundamentalist

32:03

Baptists. There you go. I would just love to know that you exist. This is a happening Friday night.

32:08

This is the only thing they're watching on their TV. If you're, if you're, if you're being homeschooled against your will, some kids going, can you see me?

32:34

I can't see you. I'm so sorry. You're going to lose likes because of this show.

32:41

I don't want to become so unpopular. He'll invite you to speak for striving for eternity. Just please hit the thumbs down button twice before you leave.

32:51

You know, I've tried that. It doesn't actually work. I've tried hitting the, it doesn't show that I dislike it extra by hitting it twice.

32:58

You know that? That's what I know. I know how it works. And trust me, I'm doing my thing. Just, I love that Keith cracks himself up so hard.

33:06

He can't speak. That's the part that's most beautiful about it. I'm, you know, so nice.

33:14

Denominational unity, one joke at a time. That's my striving for eternity. I'm striving for one joke.

33:20

Striving for comedy. Striving for comedy. I nailed it. That's a trademark.

33:27

Anybody who uses it is going to owe me a nickel. That's it. Well, since you're a humorist, it should be striving for humor.

33:35

I'm actually defining myself more recently as a satirist. I have been,

33:40

I'm now writing for a logical creature. Yes. Yes. I have goat hooves.

33:58

On my big body. It's going to be terrible. This is like, there's so many like clips that people could take from this show.

34:09

I'm never having anybody in the studio ever again. I'm sorry. Add to the list of fundamentals.

34:15

You have your notes from seminary when you were in seminary before the flood. So fundamentalism is how we, we had it from, from class, from my study notes.

34:25

Fundamentalism is a branch of evangelicalism with a militancy and ecclesiastical separation.

34:30

Just for that. So the idea of church separation, that becomes a big thing with it. So let me get back to my notes.

34:36

Ecclesiastical separation as a crucial characteristic. Fundamentalists are religious conservatives who are willing to take a stand on issues and fight for it, which side note,

34:47

I think many, you know, post mills and would agree with that. I mean, many people would say take a stand, but this is the view of that we would have in fundamentalism, right?

34:56

In America, fundamentalists is an evangelical who is militant, militantly opposed to liberal theology or cultural changes such as secular humanism.

35:09

Fundamentalism as a movement started in 1895 in Niagara Falls Bible convention, where five fundamentals of faith were outlined.

35:18

And they were the inerrancy of scripture, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement of Christ, and the physical resurrection of the body and bodily return.

35:30

Okay. But over time, we ended up seeing others like Robert Denaley, who came up with eight.

35:36

Okay. Biblicalism, which is the inerrancy and biblical authority separation, militantism, premillennialism, lack of trust of secular education.

35:49

Yeah, I might stop you on that premillennialism stuff, but keep on going. As the reigning king of the amillennialists, we're going to have to have a talk.

35:59

Well, then you wouldn't be a good fundamentalist according to this list, right? Because I don't even like that list, though.

36:05

I don't think I'm a good anything. Well, I would argue this list. I think what you end up seeing is there is a fundamental change in fundamentalism at the

36:14

Scopes -Monkey trial. That was a major turning point, because remember, in the late 1800s, you had

36:22

Presbyterians who were called fundamentalists. But then over time, that ended up leading into more dispensationalism, premillennialism.

36:32

And really, a big thing changed when you had the Scopes -Monkey trial, where the fundamentalists were kind of embarrassed and pulled out of the school system.

36:42

And that's the lack of trust of secular education. So the whole thing of evolution kind of pulled them where they separated from everything.

36:51

Yeah, that's where the separation comes from the education. And that became a big thing with them. So the other points that I had was spirituality, evangelism, and a confidence in the power of preaching, is the eight points that many would hold to today.

37:04

But that's where the shift, I think, came about. And so I would, when I say I'm a fundamentalist,

37:09

I'm holding to the 1895 version. And I think all of us here would hold to that.

37:14

I don't believe, and I actually had to write a paper on biblical separation. Okay, the idea that churches shouldn't work with, you know, fundamentalist churches only work with other

37:24

IFB type churches, you know, we have to separate from all the error. And I remember writing a paper,

37:31

I got an A plus on the paper, but the professor actually wrote on my paper, I gave you an

37:36

A plus, but I totally disagree with your conclusion. I just cannot argue against any of your points.

37:43

So I gave you the A plus. And so, because I argued against biblical separation in a class on biblical separation, because it was required.

37:51

But I just don't see the argument for ecclesiastical separation that so many of the

37:57

IFB are known for and argue for. To be fair, okay, and I have this in my notes too, from when

38:04

I was watching it, ecclesiastical separation is actually generally considered a Baptist distinctive. So that kind of bleeds over from the

38:12

Baptist side of the independent fundamental Baptist. It wasn't necessarily always a requirement of fundamentalism, hence what you said earlier about early fundamentalists being from lots of different denominations.

38:24

Now, what's interesting from my perspective, ecclesiastical separation, I 100 % agree with in many ways.

38:31

And part of that's because of the American culture that we have and so on and so forth. We can't really go down the road of separation too far, but being a separatist, we got so good at separating from other people.

38:44

Eventually we had to separate, the only people left to separate from were ourselves. And we became so incredibly insular and we were just finding new reasons to separate from people.

38:53

And I think that's the biggest reason that people today, when they hear fundamentalist, if they have even the slightest iota of an understanding of what it is, or if they know someone who identifies that way, then they say, oh,

39:04

I don't like that. Because they were really starting to be known as separatists.

39:09

That's kind of what they were boiled down to be. They couldn't be friends with anybody. They're always alone by themselves.

39:16

And I think some of the things that were brought up before, like the KJV was put on the list of fundamentals from your previous one.

39:23

And that was one of the ones I was like, whoa, since when is that on the list? Oftentimes the KJV only churches are such that they have a hard time being friends with individuals who don't use the

39:34

King James Version. Obviously the hardline ones who say you can't even get saved if you're not saved from the King James Version, they draw a really hard and fast line.

39:41

And that's where I think it's kind of sad that the fundamentals actually, and being a fundamentalist, get rejected because of separatism, which technically isn't even one of the fundamentals.

39:51

That just comes over from some of the Baptist distinctives. And to be completely honest, it has been abused to a large degree.

39:59

Well, this leads me to a good question. And that is the question of, okay, we've got the five fundamentals.

40:07

I do think we would all affirm them as being essentials. Let's go through those real quick again.

40:12

The five fundamentals are essential. This is the 1895 fundamentals, right?

40:17

You have inerrancy of scripture, deity of Christ, virgin birth, substitutionary atonement of Christ, and the physical resurrection and future bodily return of Christ.

40:29

Yeah. The only one, and I know you guys are both going to lose your mind when

40:35

I say this. Assuming we had mine to start. And my audience is going to lose their mind too.

40:43

I'm fully aware of what I'm about to say is going to create a firestorm. Okay. Of those five fundamentals, are we saying that these things are required for somebody to be a

40:52

Christian? I would say yes, but I would say that I think someone could be a

40:59

Christian and not fully understand the inerrancy of scripture. I think that's the only one that I would say within the center circle.

41:07

I think it's essential that you don't reject scripture. This is a difficult one for me, because I think there are people who may put inerrancy of scripture on the same level as asking the question of, well, what about things like textual variation?

41:21

What about things like the King James only ism stuff? And some people would say, if you don't believe in the King James Bible, or if you don't believe in the text of receptus, then you don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture.

41:30

And so that's one of the areas. I believe God's word is true. I believe every word of it as it was given through the apostles and prophets was accurate.

41:38

And I believe that as it was in the original writings is absolutely true. I think that what we have today is an eclectic text that has to be considered in regard to the 5 ,700 manuscripts that we have in the

41:50

Greek. And of course, the variations in the Hebrew manuscripts as well, they have to be considered.

41:55

So I'm an inerrant, I am an inerrantist, absolutely. But I think that that's one of the areas where if someone wasn't necessarily an errantist in the same way

42:04

I am, I don't think I would say they weren't a Christian. I think I agree with what you're saying, but I also think, obviously you've proven the subjectivity.

42:12

We need to define our terms. What are we talking about when we say it? I think that the opposite of this though, is that a person says, no, there are errors in the

42:20

Bible. No, there are things that are wrong. Yeah, Jesus got this wrong. Either that or men messed it up.

42:26

I think that's what the fundamentalists were arguing against from the liberal theologians who were saying that, well, no, mankind has messed us up.

42:34

It's not what it should be. I think that's the key distinction on that particular point.

42:39

I point people, even in our church, I point people to the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy. I think that that describes what we mean when we say that term.

42:47

And I think that's one that most people who would define themselves as fundamentalists would be able to affirm, except for those who would be

42:53

King James only or TR. But they would even argue that they believe in inerrancy. They just believe in a tighter definition of what that would be, correct?

43:01

Sure. Yeah. I guess I'm just saying, we're talking about what makes someone a fundamentalist.

43:06

I agree with all five of those things. I would say all those things are true. Welcome to the club. So that makes me a fundamentalist, mama.

43:18

I'm going to call my mother. I'm going to call my mom. You're the guy that puts you in fundamental, just saying.

43:25

I put the F -U -N in fundamental. I also put the F -U -N in funeral. I hold to the

43:35

King James so much that I actually believe what it said in the first few editions in the preface that it will be updated and it is not something that is inspired.

43:48

So I will hold even to the preface of the King James where they expected updates to it in language.

43:55

And we actually have those because nobody that I know of uses the 1611.

44:02

None of them. They all use the, I think it's 1756. Okay. So no one uses it because they can't read the 1611 because by 1611, the

44:12

English language had not had the standard that the King James Bible actually provided that. And so the thing though is when we look at what you're saying with that, um, the whole thing with this is as we look at these fundamentals, and I'm going to go further than you,

44:29

Keith, because I think that you're coming from my background. Okay. The Jewish background, uh, inerrancy of scriptures.

44:36

I really didn't understand anything of it. I knew the scriptures were written by God, but that was the extent of it. The deity of Christ.

44:42

I knew Jesus was God, but here's the thing. I did not know the Trinity.

44:48

I didn't know about Christ or his second coming, his death, burial, resurrection.

44:54

Yes. But when I became a Christian from a Jewish background, having none of this,

45:00

I was ignorant on things like the virgin birth, like the inerrancy of scriptures, like the resurrection and bodily return to Christ.

45:11

Okay. The Trinity. I didn't understand. Now do you, so the people that say you have to believe these things to be saved,

45:18

I argue, no, you don't, but you can't understand them and be against them.

45:23

That's the difference. When the Trinity was explained to me, I said, Oh, that makes sense.

45:28

Now that explains the problem of three separate persons, all being called God, having the attributes of God, doing the works of God, the titles of God, and yet separate and distinct from one another that explains it.

45:38

So Trinity is the solution to the problem. And so I think there's a big difference when we say, well, you have to believe these things to be saved.

45:47

I think we have to allow for, like someone like me came in, coming from a Jewish background, knowing nothing of Christianity, being ignorant and someone who knows that, you know, like when, when you talk to a pastor, believes in modalism and he's a pastor and he studied it and he understands both sides.

46:02

Now I'm going to question your salvation because you're denying the Trinity and you understand them. Me as a

46:08

Jewish person being ignorant of it, I was ignorant. And that, so I just want to clarify that.

46:13

No, I think that's very useful. And that's, that's a good point. And that really addresses the issue of whether or not someone is, is rejecting a truth versus misunderstanding or not or ignorant.

46:25

Yeah. So, and if I said, it's very likely that I said something to that effect earlier on, and I would totally change that and go with Andrew's wording here.

46:34

Yeah. It's, it's the rejection that you can't be a Christian and reject these truths once you know them to be ignorant of them. Obviously, that's a really great point that you made.

46:41

I don't want to say however, following that, but I, I, maybe I can't think of a better word. There was, there was a list of, of fundamentals that your previous guests put in.

46:50

They put in the KJV only some of them said standards, like, you know, the idea of having high standards that goes back to the standards of dress, the standards of music being old fashioned actually was one of the ones that was stated, but then they put in, they suggested dispensational theology,

47:06

Calvinism. No, they were against Calvinism. Yeah. But they told me because I was a

47:14

Calvinist, at least one of them said that if I, well, no, actually they said, if I preach repentance,

47:19

I'm a heretic. Yeah. I actually remember that. Yeah. And so, but what's interesting is that as far as I know, unless the theological perspectives rejected the fundamentals, you're, you could be a dispensationalist.

47:33

You can be a millennial and be a fundamentalist. You could be a Calvinist and be a fundamentalist. And so I thought that was also a very interesting comment that they made that that was one of the fundamentals, because I was sitting there going, man, of all the fundamentals

47:44

I've known, there are so many different theological perspectives on end times and things like that, that they don't all see eye to eye and they're still all considered fundamentalists.

47:52

Well, this is where I think something that I did not know in my conversation with these men and found out later was that they had been influenced by, or at least had been a part of what was known as the new

48:07

IFB. And I don't know if you're familiar with that at all. I don't know if Andrew's familiar with that. And this was part of the thing of the people who called me the day after the show and said,

48:16

Hey, those guys were part of the new IFB. Well, I'm familiar with the new IFB only because it was connected with Steven Anderson, who was a pastor out in Arizona who made a pretty big name for himself by being very outspoken, especially when

48:32

Obama was president. I think he said some things that actually made national news regarding Obama's presidency.

48:38

And he said some things about homosexuals and he said a lot of different things that made national news.

48:44

He was also tased during a traffic stop and that made YouTube.

48:51

And he had trouble coming in the border from Canada. That made news. Is that what it was when he got tased?

48:56

He got tased coming in the border. I thought it was a state border. I think it was two different times, but he's most known for jumping on the pulpit and screaming at his own car.

49:06

Now I know how to get famous. Well, if you just get a well, get a well, put down, speak out against president.

49:18

And get tased. Yeah. And get tased. Yes. But apparently there was some connection there.

49:25

And so that is a subset of IFB. That's not a representative of the whole.

49:33

And so that was one of the things that was pointed out to me. And I said, okay, but then I don't think at least at this point,

49:40

I don't think Tommy is connected with Steven Anderson anymore. At least when I talked to him,

49:45

I didn't think that was the case. So there's a lot of, the only reason why I'm bringing this back up is

49:51

I have, I'm leading to a question of the things that the guys said that they would hold to.

49:57

And you've already addressed a couple of them. You said King James standard, old fashioned, of those things, which ones do you think were the least connected with IFB?

50:07

Because in my opinion, and this is maybe an area where we would disagree, Aaron, and that's fine. You're welcome to come on my show and be wrong.

50:16

Thank you. No, I joke. My jokes are as bad as Andrew's.

50:25

No, yours are funny. But the thing about the

50:31

King James, my experience has been when I meet people who are independent, who identify as IFB, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, typically that's the name of the church, you know, like this, you know,

50:44

Main Street Independent Baptist Church or whatever, Independent Baptist Church. Most of the people that I run into are actually

50:50

King James only. So is that not the experience that you've had? So it's not the experience I've had because, excuse me, it's not the circles in which

50:57

I've run. I've moved 22 times in my life, having turned 44 this year, along with Keith here, who actually is my twin brother.

51:05

We didn't realize until just recently we were separated at birth. He was born two months earlier than I was, but I'll let that aside. It's like the movie twins.

51:11

I'm the Danny DeVito character. What does that make me? No, you are Arnold.

51:18

You are very handsome and I am. Right. Anyway, so I'm the genetic garbage.

51:23

If you remember that movie. Wow. Wow. But Keith has grown up in the same space for a long time.

51:30

I've moved 22 times. That's, that's two. I've moved. I've moved once every two years of my life.

51:37

Yeah. I've moved once every two years. It's simple math. 44 divided by two. I'm Arnold. You know, I can't math.

51:43

Anyway. I've never lived more than 20 minutes from the place I was born. Yeah. That's impressive. I know I was born in university hospital, which is now

51:49

Shands, Jacksonville. And it's, I've never lived more than 20 minutes from the building. Yeah. Oh yeah. I went to school 20 minutes from where I was born when

51:56

I went to college. But anyway, you've never been a member of another church.

52:02

I was, I was, I've been here since I was seven when my stepmom brought me to church and I'm now the pastor of the same church

52:08

I grew up in. You need to get out. I'm very happy not getting out. I get out through the internet. This is my window to the world.

52:15

You're one of only two pastors I know who have that. You and Jim Osmond who pastor the church that they've, the only church they've ever been a member of.

52:24

Oh wow. So having moved around a lot, interacted with a lot of people, been parts of lots of ministries, lots of conferences and so on and so forth.

52:31

I cannot say that that is my experience, but I also know that my experience is not the experience of every person out there who grew up in a small community, who every church they went to was like that, so on and so forth.

52:42

So my experience is definitely not across the board, but when I was in high school, I attended First Baptist Church of Troy in Troy, Michigan.

52:50

It was pastored by Mike Harding and Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary was around there.

52:56

And so that was kind of my big introduction, stepping into that in 1992 of what fundamentalism at the time was kind of known by and attended

53:07

Bob Jones University, Bob Jones Seminary, lots of people there at the time would have called themselves fundamentalists, but there were lots of disagreement on some of these things.

53:14

And the King James version was used by the school, but was definitely not a King James only position. So that has not been my experience in the slightest.

53:23

But again, that doesn't mean that what you've experienced or what's actually true out there is not the exact opposite of what

53:29

I've experienced. This is a good opportunity to interact with the audience. So I would like the audience to leave a comment.

53:35

If you are an independent Baptist, are you also a King James onlyist? Or if you've attended independent

53:41

Baptist churches, tell me, were they King James only? And if so, were they King James only in the

53:47

TR camp, which would say the Texas Receptus is God's word, because there's differences.

53:54

There's those who believe the King James is inspired, and there are those who believe it's based on an inspired or a properly preserved manuscript called the

54:02

TR. And there are differences. The more Ruckmanite, the more Gail Ripplinger side would see the

54:07

King James as its own inspired version. So what have you, what's been your experience? Audience, I want to ask that question.

54:14

And what about you, Andrew, since you're not the audience, but you're a guest today. Do you think that what

54:20

I'm saying is reminiscent of your experience? The most of your fundamentalist guys? No, many of the fundamentalists are generally

54:30

King James only. And there's some who are only King James. So the difference there being

54:37

King James only, they'll actually try to argue that either the TR or the King James are inspired, where only

54:45

King James are basically, okay, we don't believe that this is inspired, but it's the only one we use.

54:52

And generally, I think they do that because most of the history coming out of it, they believe that people are going to have an issue if you switch translations.

55:05

And so now I will say this, there's times when I'm out on the street and evangelizing, I will use the

55:12

King James when evangelizing. And there's a purpose for doing that. The reason I'll do that on the street is because I can use the

55:19

King James and speak to anyone. The Mormons will accept the King James.

55:26

Jehovah Witnesses will accept the King James. Muslims will accept King James. King James only will accept

55:31

King James. But if I use a modern translation, most of those groups, except for Muslims, will have issue with it.

55:42

But Jehovah Witnesses, if we'll want their New World Translation, that's what they're going to use.

55:49

But if you quote from King James, they're okay with it. The irony with the Mormons is they will accept the

55:54

King James, even though they have the Joseph Smith translation. So you would think they don't even use their own original prophet's translation.

56:06

But when we look at it, one thing I just want to point out with it, I mentioned earlier, we have to recognize, we talk about fundamentalism, that it morphed over time.

56:18

There's two main divisions. You had those that were in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that were fighting against the modernism of that day, the secularism, bringing in of evolution, things like that.

56:35

And then really you have the rise of New Evangelicalism. And a lot of that, what really defined a lot of that, to be honest with you, is a response to guys like Billy Graham.

56:46

You know, Billy Graham was kind of the face of New Evangelicalism. You know, bringing

56:52

Catholics and Christians to his revivals, and then having

56:57

Catholics act as counselors. So if you say you're Catholic and you want to get saved, he would put you in with a

57:04

Catholic counselor to get you back to the Catholic church. And that was a thing that within fundamentalism, there was like a real strong push against.

57:13

So you kind of have these different divisions. You have, you know, the fundamentalism up until about 1940s, and then, you know, a kind of a change in the 40s to 60s, you know, where you really had this fight against New Evangelicalism.

57:32

And that's where you kind of have the rise, as I mentioned, of the six degrees of separation is what they'd end up having, is they'd have these different degrees of separation.

57:44

And it's, you know, this is what, how it had formed. So I just want to be clear when we say what

57:51

I think Aaron and I are trying to do, right, is to say that we're expressing the fundamentalism that I think would be held by, that could be held by us, and would be able to be held by all people that would be in IFB, right?

58:06

So if you remove that King James only aspect, some are going to say no, only, and like your guests on the previous show would have a view of fundamentalism that would kind of restrict, because a lot of it, look,

58:18

I listened to that show and you listen to, they, it's like they love the King James Bible. One of them,

58:24

I think it was the guy, I think there was one of the guys from Jersey who I think I really wanted to try to hunt down, not hunt down, but track down,

58:31

I heard what you said. Yeah, you don't hunt people down in Jersey.

58:40

We may not have guns in Jersey, but you know, we don't take lightly. No, but I wanted to have a discussion with him because it was like, he had this love for the

58:50

King James. It was like, it was almost as if he didn't get saved till he got the King James. I'm not saying that's what he said, but it, it, it seemed almost that way.

58:59

And the, I don't think that you have to believe in the King James being inspired, or even the

59:05

TR being inspired to be a fundamentalist in its broadest definition. And so what I think both

59:10

Aaron and I are saying, we're, we have a broader definition for independent fundamentals

59:16

Baptist than the folks did on, on your show, they, that were on before in the discussion, they were more focused on a specific kind of branch.

59:25

And, you know, I think we were just trying to be more representative of the whole, we would not, but Aaron and I clearly wouldn't fit in the

59:33

King James only camp. Yeah, I think that's fair. And, and, and that's what, that's what we're trying to sort of balance out what, what the show maybe some felt like it was unbalanced in a certain direction.

59:45

I do want to start to draw to a close. And I want to, I have a thought that I think we could, this would be a good place for us to wrap up on.

59:52

And this is the question of the, the preaching of repentance. Again, if you go back to the show, it was very clear that for them to, to call people to repentance of sin was to equate a works -based salvation.

01:00:08

And therefore they said, we don't use the language of calling people to repentance. Now that was one of the other things that I heard from some of the independent fundamentalists that contacted me.

01:00:18

They said, I've never heard that. I don't, I don't agree with that to tell somebody they can't, or they shouldn't repent. That's wrong.

01:00:23

That's not what we teach. So I thought this would be a good thing to address. And I, and I want to, I want to throw this out as a, as a thought and have you guys chew it up for a bit.

01:00:32

And that is the issue of what do we mean when we, when we call people to repentance?

01:00:38

Because I, I talk about in our church, I do talk about the initial act of repentance versus the daily walk of sanctification, whereby we are repenting of our, our things that we are not yet perfected in.

01:00:52

And so we call it, and this may be somewhat simplified. It is very simplified, actually.

01:00:58

We talk about big R repentance versus little R repentance, like almost like big R reform versus little R reform. Like I say,

01:01:03

I'm a little R reformed. I'm not big R reformed because big R reformed is like Presbyterian, you know, full covenant theology, that, that's,

01:01:10

I'm not that. But I'm little R, you know, like I'm, I'm a Calvinist Baptist, right? I think

01:01:15

I can be a little R reformed guy. And so when I talk about repentance, I say there's the big

01:01:21

R repentance. And that is where I recognize that I'm a sinner. I recognize that my sin makes me offensive to a holy

01:01:29

God. And I recognize there's only one solution to that dilemma.

01:01:35

And the solution is the blood of Christ, which pays the penalty for my sin and provides for me a righteousness whereby

01:01:41

I can stand before God and be counted righteous before the King of all the earth.

01:01:47

And so that is that, that's what I mean by repentance. And that would be,

01:01:54

I think, I think, I think we should all be able to affirm that, but they seem to think that calling people to repentance was wrong.

01:02:01

Have you heard that? Has that been something that you've dealt with? And what would be your response?

01:02:06

That's, that's my, my, my questions. And either one of you may go first, uh, however you want to go.

01:02:13

I hear it. I'm looking at something. Well, since you were looking at your notes, I figured I, um, yeah,

01:02:19

I was, so I had issue when I listened with the King James only specific. Uh, but I had more of an issue when they, they got to the talking of repentance and especially when they basically were saying, yeah, you'd be a heretic.

01:02:32

And I was surprised if they had that view that they would come on your show actually. Um, but the,

01:02:40

I, so I think they have a wrong view of repentance. I think that repentance is not a work.

01:02:46

In fact, in my, all my church background in IFB type churches and in seminary, repentance was a big thing.

01:02:57

In fact, one of the things we were in seminary and in my first few churches I went to a gospel track could not be used if it didn't have repentance in it.

01:03:06

If it did not tell you, you have to repent of your sin. So I think that them saying repentance is a work in my view,

01:03:14

I could be wrong, but it seemed to me listening to them is they've had such a reaction against Calvinism so much so that they're, it's, it's now changed their kind of view of things.

01:03:27

And they're, they're trying to say that, well, repentance is a work people do. So we can't talk about that.

01:03:34

Um, but there there's this issue of, okay, so yes, what is repentance? Repentance is a work

01:03:40

God does in, in us to change. Basically, he brings us to a point of recognizing our sin before a holy

01:03:49

God. So it's an act that God does upon us. Now the issue of, can we repent?

01:03:58

I'm going to answer that with a yes and no. Okay. I don't believe that when it comes to the issue of our salvation, our regeneration, we cannot repent of ourselves.

01:04:09

Uh, I know that you're, you're our Calvinist Keith. And so as a representative

01:04:15

Calvinist, you know, we, we, we all must align our Calvinism with you, right?

01:04:21

But no, let, let me try to, to answer as he beats on his chest and points for those in the, in the audio podcast.

01:04:28

Uh, so, so the thing, let, let me try to explain a way to help like for guys like them to understand

01:04:36

Calvinism in a way that I think we can all agree. And maybe is,

01:04:41

I find a lot of people find this helpful. And I, I take a step back and I start with it, the doctrine of inspiration, right?

01:04:49

So we, we, we talk about inspiration who wrote the Bible. Now we would always say, so I say, who wrote

01:04:54

Romans? People are going to say, well, Paul, but really who wrote Romans? And people go, Oh, well,

01:05:00

God did. Well, so who wrote it? Did what Paul physically wrote it? Actually not. Paul actually spoke it to people who, who wrote it down.

01:05:08

So they were Paul's words, and yet we call it God's word. And so in the doctrine of inspiration, there is a doctrine known as the doctrine of superintending that God works through the human author in such a way that the very words he chose to put down in, in writing are exactly as God intended them to be such that the, the human author gets no credit and God gets a hundred percent of the credit.

01:05:35

So the, yes, the, the, the human author, right? Yes, he did. It's his words. You see differences in style between Peter, John, Paul, Moses, James.

01:05:44

They all have a different style. They have their personality comes out in that you, you have Dr. Luke, who's going to be more technical and things you see that style in their choices of what they do.

01:05:54

And yet we don't call it their words. We call it God's word because God worked through them that the very words they chose to write were exactly as God intended it to be.

01:06:05

So they couldn't do that on their own. And yet God worked through them and people who accept the doctrine of inspiration will accept that.

01:06:12

Okay, good. You just brought up something, Keith, the doctrine of sanctification, right?

01:06:19

And so in sanctification, do we do good works? Again, we have the same dilemma.

01:06:24

Yes, we actually choose to do good works, but not because we choose to do them, but because God works through us.

01:06:30

It's, it's actually the same doctrine of superintending. Can we take credit for the good works we do?

01:06:36

No, God gets all the credit because he had to work in us. And so I would say repentance and specifically regeneration is, has the same doctrine of superintending in place.

01:06:49

And this is why I, I either get everyone upset with me. When Netflix first had me on his radio show, he asked me, he's like, so are you a

01:06:56

Calvinist? I said, well, I've been told I'm a heretic because I'm a Calvinist. And I've been told I'm a heretic because I'm not a

01:07:01

Calvinist. The only thing everyone agrees on is I'm a heretic. Yes. Sorry. I mean, that was, that was too quick of an affirmation.

01:07:09

My apologies. So, so the thing though, is that I think what we see is

01:07:14

I believe that God worked through human beings to bring them to a point of repentance so that the, if you want to say the choice of them choosing

01:07:24

God was not really their choice. It was God working through them. So they can't take credit for the choice because Philippians 1 29 says our belief was granted to us by God, just like our suffering is.

01:07:37

So if our belief is granted, we can't do that on our own. So God works through us so that yes, we chose this.

01:07:44

And yet it, it was just like Paul writing Romans. God's really the one behind the scenes working through him so that it's sort of our choice, but not completely our choice.

01:07:53

And we can't take any credit for that. God gets all of it. And so to say that repentance is a work, well, yeah, in a sense, maybe it is a work of God, not a work of man.

01:08:05

And, and I think the other thing with repentance that they would have a problem with the way they word it repentance.

01:08:12

So I make a distinction between repenting of sins and repenting of sin, plural versus singular, because when we tell people,

01:08:19

Hey, you can't be by, by good works, turn from doing bad sins, turn from your sins and now do good things.

01:08:27

And there's people that share the gospel that way. What is that? Turn from works to works. We, we turn from our, from our sin, our pride of, of trusting ourself as, as our either our good works or good nature.

01:08:41

And we turn to Christ. So in other words, we stopped trusting ourself and we trust what Christ did on that cross is the only payment of sin.

01:08:48

That's what we, what the repentance is. It's not turning from works. It is, it's a turning in our mind from trusting self to trusting

01:08:57

Christ. And so self we see in, in first John, uh, sorry, in John one, 12, 13, there's three elements of it.

01:09:05

You're turning from your genealogy. Okay. My, if your blood in my case, I thought that being

01:09:10

Jewish gave me an instant ticket to heaven. So I didn't think I needed a savior, but it's also a turning from trusting your good nature, your, your goodness or your good works.

01:09:22

And, and that's, you know, people like in the Roman Catholics, it's faith plus works. Every manmade religion, which is every religion outside of biblical

01:09:30

Christianity has an element of human works, doing some deeds to earn

01:09:36

God's righteousness. And we have to turn from trusting those things and turn to trust Christ. And so if their argument is you're telling people to turn from works to works, then yes, but that's not what non

01:09:51

IFB people are saying. That's not what you, Keith, as a Calvinist are teaching people that you have to turn from doing bad deeds to doing good deeds.

01:09:59

I've heard you share the gospel. That's not how you share the gospel, right? You're telling people they got to change their thinking, their mind of what they're trusting it.

01:10:08

And so in that sense, it's not a work the way I think that they're defining it. Sure.

01:10:15

I think that's helpful, Aaron. You got some thoughts on that? I have to admit that I am very ignorant of their position because when

01:10:25

I heard it, I was like, are they saying this? And I, I, as a biblical counselor, I think just as a very empathic person,

01:10:31

I do a pretty good job of kind to get into someone's head, understand their position, their point of view. And as I'm staying there listening to them talk,

01:10:38

I was like, I think I'm understanding kind of why they're saying this, but they're just, they're just huge red lights.

01:10:45

But would you, as a, as a clarifying question, would you say what they were arguing was kind of similar to the, you know, in the early two thousands, uh, late nineties, that, that rejection of a lot of people for Lordship salvation, they were, they were,

01:10:58

Oh, I'm sure they would be opposed to Lordship salvation. I don't remember if that came up. I'm wondering,

01:11:03

I'm sure. Yeah. And, and, and I would, I would say, yes, they would, I think they would reject it.

01:11:09

And for the same reason, yeah. So I remember having a proper view of when people talk Lordship salvation, you've again, just like Calvinism, you have to ask the question of what do you mean by that?

01:11:19

Because I know of at least three different definitions of Lordship salvation, right?

01:11:24

There's the, there's a view that MacArthur has, there's view of the Presbyterians have, and then there's the views that hate

01:11:30

MacArthur. So, yep. And so I remember in the early two thousands of seminary, when, um, when people, you know, we seminarians were sitting around, you know, talking about all of this stuff and debating, uh, there was a, there was a lot of pushback during that time.

01:11:43

And I, so I saw that as kind of being a similar as from what I understand that they were saying. Um, but I struggle,

01:11:51

I just, I completely disagree with what they were saying because, and I love to hear them explain, um, how, what they do with the fact that, you know,

01:12:00

Matthew 4, 17, from that time, Jesus began to preach and say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

01:12:06

Um, where, uh, we, we know that Jesus Christ didn't come to call the righteous, but he came to call sinners to repentance.

01:12:12

I'm really curious what they do with that. And then tell you that if you're preaching repentance, you're somehow a heretic.

01:12:19

I, I can't speak to that, but my mind is kind of like, I've got sparks going off of there going that really doesn't make sense.

01:12:26

They have to have created a brand new definition of that word, different from the one that Jesus used, but then why do that?

01:12:32

Why didn't they just use a different word? Um, but one of the ways that I've always described it, and I'm just going to super simplify this.

01:12:38

I mean, Andrew and, uh, is, is really smart and Keith is even smarter. I mean, this guy is like, he's got all this, this academic information that I just wish

01:12:47

I had remembered seminary and my, I just, I don't, but, um, since a lot of things that I do in biblical counseling,

01:12:53

I deal with a lot of young people is I try to take, you know, deep, significant biblical truth and help them to understand it in the best way that they can.

01:13:01

And one of the ways that I've explained this in the past, which doesn't work as much nowadays, because young people don't have this enjoyment.

01:13:08

Uh, we used to go to our stereos, right. And we used to turn the music up nowadays it's this and it's other stuff.

01:13:14

But when you, with that, with that dial, as you turn the music up, you're also turning it away from down.

01:13:21

You can't turn it toward volume up without turning it away from the volume down.

01:13:28

And that's exactly what repentance is. And that whole concept of the 180 degree turn moving in a different direction.

01:13:35

You're also walking away from where you were. Um, the Lord said, people, all the people who reject the Lordship salvation rejected because I see it as a prerequisite to salvation.

01:13:43

I have to stop being bad and I have to submit to God as, as, as King before I can be saved, which is very wrong understanding of Lordship salvation.

01:13:52

And if they're saying repentance or the call to repentance to turn from your sins to the savior, if they're kind of seeing that as a prerequisite to salvation,

01:14:00

I can get why that would potentially bother them. Um, but it's a, it's a simultaneously simultaneous thing.

01:14:08

You cannot turn to Christ without turning from the worship of self. We are worshipers.

01:14:13

We're worshiping God or we're worshiping self. And, uh, you can't have both. You have to stop the one to start and start the other.

01:14:20

And they happen simultaneously oftentimes. And that's an oversimplification, but I think it's helpful. And I remember specifically, he said, you know, we're not telling people to repent of sin.

01:14:29

We're telling people to repent of unbelief. And then my question was, well, is unbelief sin? Yes, it is. And it is.

01:14:35

And that's the part that's important to identify. What do we mean? You know, the first, the first thing we're repenting of is our lack of belief in Christ or lack of belief in the sufficiency of God.

01:14:45

As Andrew said, we're turning from our pride to him. Um, but at the same time, if a person was living in overt sin, like if a man's beating his wife or if a person was a practicing, uh, sadist or something, we would say, you should really stop that.

01:15:01

We wouldn't say, yeah, we have a, we have a, we have a place over here for our sadist Christians.

01:15:07

We have a place over here for wife beating Christians, sadist affirming, you know, you know, uh, they have their own flag.

01:15:15

It's just, you know, but, but with what Aaron said, it's interesting. And I would, I would be interested because, you know, the

01:15:22

Bible refers to repentance 106 times King James Bible, by the way, but 16 of those times are by Christ himself.

01:15:31

So what do they do when Christ tells people to repent? I mean,

01:15:37

John the Baptist did as well. And, you know, he wasn't corrected for it. I'd be curious. Jesus said the exact same thing that he did.

01:15:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what are the, what would they do when 16 times Christ speaks about repentance hundred and 106 times in King James, right?

01:15:52

Cause you know, just to use King James, right. But what do they do with that?

01:15:57

I wonder. Well, I do wonder. And, and, uh, that might, again, I keep going back to the commenters cause

01:16:04

I do hope people are staying engaged. Uh, if you have an answer to that, maybe you are an independent fundamentalist

01:16:10

Baptist, or maybe you go to an independent fundamentalist Baptist church and you've been told not to preach repentance, uh, how do you deal with what

01:16:16

Christ said? How do you deal with that? I do remember one thing that was said on the show. One of the guys, cause I asked a similar question and I, if I remember correctly, it was, well,

01:16:25

Christ meant something else. So it's just what you just said, Andrew, it's a redefinition of what, Oh, you've said it.

01:16:30

Okay. I was, I won't give credit again. I promise. I promise. Uh, you know,

01:16:36

I, I know you want to wrap up. I, there was one thought that's been stuck in my head. I thought it'd be really valuable to toss in here real quick.

01:16:42

Just from a personal thing. I know it's really easy to listen to a video like this and to form a lot of conclusions about who these people must be because they believe this.

01:16:51

And they're probably also these things as well. And I just think it's interesting probably for everyone to recognize the fact that of the three of us sitting here, um,

01:16:58

I actually potentially would have more in common with the gentleman from your first show in the area of personal standards, uh, for living.

01:17:06

Um, the old, the old standards, I'm just barely saved, you know, the old fashioned style without getting too specific, you know, because this is not, and I want to,

01:17:17

I want to point this out. Like I attended Keith's church and it was amazing, amazing people, an amazing, wonderful message.

01:17:24

Why do I feel a butt coming? However, when we, when we talked at lunch, you asked me about, you know, so, so what

01:17:33

I think and so on and so forth. And I said that it was, it was, you asked me, actually you asked me if it was different from what we are used to.

01:17:40

And I pointed out two things. I'll leave the second one off the table. But the first one was that the second one, but I'm curious.

01:17:47

Well, it's, it's great about my church. Everyone now is far more conservative.

01:17:54

I remember me saying that. So we, we use a piano. We have also a violinist and that's pretty much it.

01:18:00

And I've always grown up with, we have a fiddler. He went in there that Sunday, but we have a guy who plays the fiddle.

01:18:06

We call it a fiddle in all honesty. You have drums because that would be anti IFB. You can't have drums.

01:18:12

One of the first songs they played was like a high church organ. So that was actually kind of cool. That was like, I was very much used to that, but all of this to say that no, like the, the dispensational theology,

01:18:23

I'm dispensational. This guy's not, that's okay. So I actually hold to a lot of, not a lot, but many of the different, what

01:18:32

I'll say convictions or preferences and opinions that some of those other gentlemen did, but I am not going to sit here and say that that's fundamentalism.

01:18:39

So I, I, I thought that was an interesting point to make. Like I'm not sitting here completely different from all of those guys disagreeing with them.

01:18:46

No, we have a lot of things in common. Some of the things that they said are actually prerequisites to being fundamentalist. I am those things.

01:18:52

I have those things. I don't think it's part of it. I don't think it's required to be a fundamentalist. I think that was helpful.

01:18:58

That's, that's, that's a, that's a great way to draw that to an end, to say, Hey, you know what? You can agree and still not say that's what it means specifically to be

01:19:07

IP. Cause that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to be fair to all sides. And, and, and the next time you come to the church and, and, and, and you and I are the only one wearing suits, you'll know why.

01:19:20

Cause we're all at sovereign grace. We're just barely saved. One of the guys said, you look like you could be a pastor here.

01:19:31

I think I'm the only one in my church that wears a suit. Well, cause we're fundamentalists.

01:19:37

If I told you why I wear a suit and I won't on air, if I tell you why

01:19:43

I wear a suit, uh, you would all laugh. Your whole audience wants to know the answer.

01:19:49

They have to go in the comments and try to guess. I'm the only one in my church who wears a suit and it's not because I'm the preacher.

01:19:57

So let me, let me just put it, put a plug out there, if you want to know why he wears a suit, why does

01:20:03

Keith Foskey wear a suit on Sunday? Well, if you would send a donation to support your Calvinist, maybe he'll give you the answer.

01:20:12

Oh, if I put the answer at, uh, buy me a coffee, that's where my donation, the nominational gift, like it has to be like a hundred dollars.

01:20:23

You can't get it for two bucks. And it's such a sad answer. What's that?

01:20:33

A donation of over $20 gets you the answer. There you go. So then somebody is going to publish it. They'll pay 20 bucks just to send it out there.

01:20:42

Well, Andrew, I want to say thank you so much for coming on and spending some time with me. And I appreciate your friendship.

01:20:48

And, and, and I won't say this also, your generosity, not only, uh, in many ways, uh, that you say nice things about me, but you've also been generous in many other ways that people will never know.

01:20:58

So I want to say thank you for that. And, and Aaron, I appreciate our friendship and, and, and, uh, for Andrew bringing us together and getting to spend a week with you and your lovely family.

01:21:07

He does have a wonderful family and we've already got a chance to spend some time with them. So it's been really great.

01:21:13

I told Aaron, there's, there's one guy there that's got a lot of backgrounds, like you do.

01:21:20

You're going to get along really good, but he will be the lead. He will be the one you least expect has a martial arts background.

01:21:26

And he, he said, as soon as he saw you guys look like he goes, that's the guy he, his prediction, his prophecy made me start to doubt cessationism.

01:21:36

It was so spot on. He called it. He's like, there's a guy, you guys are gonna become best friends. You're right,

01:21:41

Andrew. I don't like saying it, but you were right. Well, thank you both for both the good and whatever that was.

01:21:51

I appreciate everything and love you both. And I love you audience more because you're the reason why we do this.

01:21:59

If there was nobody listening, there'd be no reason to record these shows. So I appreciate everybody out there who's listening. Don't forget to go check out

01:22:05

Andrew at Striving for Eternity Ministries. Don't forget to check out Aaron at evermindministries .com.

01:22:13

And you can reach out to both of them. And you can find me as always at KeithFoskey .com.

01:22:18

I want to thank you again for listening to your Calvinist podcast. My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

01:22:23

May God bless you. Then I hit the

01:22:46

YouTube link and I feel my troubles all melt away.

01:22:53

Oh, it's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey.

01:23:02

Beards and bow ties, laughs till sunrise.

01:23:09

It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey. He's not like most

01:23:18

Calvinists, he's nice. Your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey, striving for superior theology and denominational unity, one joke at a time.