April 4, 2023 Show with Virgil Walker on “A Tsunami Warning for the Southern Baptist Convention”

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this fourth day of April, 2023.

I'm so thrilled to have back as a returning guest my friend

Virgil Walker, who is also one of my favorite guests on this broadcast. He is an author, and he's the executive director of operations at G3 Ministries, and also the co -host, along with Daryl Bernard Harrison, of the

Just Thinking podcast. Today we're going to be promoting the 2023 G3 National Conference, but we're also going to be addressing a very controversial and important theme, a tsunami warning for the

Southern Baptist Convention. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Virgil Walker.

Hey, thanks for having me. Can you hear me all right? Oh, I hear you perfectly well, brother. Good, good.

Well, first of all, tell our listeners, there may be a very rare occasion where we have listeners who don't know about G3 Ministries, it would actually shock me if they didn't know about it.

But you never know. We do have sometimes new listeners, even listeners that are not Christians who discover this program by God's providence.

So tell us about G3 Ministries. Yeah, G3 Ministries is the ministry of Dr.

Josh Bice, really from birth out of Praise Mill Baptist Church, Praise Mill Baptist Church, and that's

P -R -A -Y, I have to tell people that because I think when they hear us say Praise Mill, they think P -R -A -I -S -E

Mill, and it's actually Ephraim Pray, P -R -A -Y, who the church is actually named after.

It was his mill that was given over. That said, a lot more info than you wanted to know.

That said, it's a ministry birthed out of that space and place. Dr. Josh Bice had the idea of doing a theology conference at our local church, and for years, starting in about 2013, was the first conference they had been planning for a year prior to that.

But 2013 would have been the first conference that actually launched there at the church.

It was packed full from the very beginning. We could fill 700 seats, and we had more than 700 people register for that particular event, and that kind of continued until 2017 when we went to the convention center where we were planning to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the

Reformation. We had about 2 ,500, 2 ,800 people show up there at that event, and it's just exploded from there.

More than 3 ,500 the following year, closer to 4 ,000, 4 ,500 the year after that.

By 2020, we were teaming at about 5 ,500, and then, of course, in 2021, the last national conference, we had more than 6 ,500 people at that conference.

We've got speakers, many of whom are guests on your show, Josh Bice, James White, Dr.

James White, Vodie Bauckham, Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson.

I mean, the names just go on and on and on, and just some fantastic speakers. This conference has transformed from a conference -based ministry that produces content to a content -producing ministry that hosts a biennial conference, and so we have a number of resources that are available to pastors, to church leaders, and the like.

You can go on to G3MIN, G -3 -M -I -N dot O -R -G, to find those free resources, things from curriculum for people who are doing homeschool to pastors and churches who are involved in different aspects of discipleship.

We have a G3 Press. We're producing fantastic books and the like from that space as well.

We have a G3 app where you can download conference information. I mean, it's just—the list goes on and on and on as the ministry continues to grow by leaps and bounds, all of this by God's grace, and we're excited about what's happening.

Our next conference will be September 21st through the 23rd here in Atlanta.

It is on the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. It's going to be a fantastic conference.

You're going to be there, of course, Chris as well, and a number of different vendors from all over.

It'll probably be one of our largest vendor spaces as well. We'll have more than 100 -plus SEMOD vendors.

We anticipate somewhere in the neighborhood of about 8 ,500 people at that event, and it's going to be a fantastic, fantastic time for us to gather together.

Yes, and as always, I am so excited about it, and folks, I am not exaggerating.

I'm not using hyperbole. Anybody who knows me personally knows that I love the

G3 conference, and I get really revved up about it and pumped up and so on, however you want to describe it.

And as always, the lineup is monumental. I have never, ever been at a conference that has such a long roster of speakers.

And not only a long roster, but every single speaker is just the highest quality that you can find in the church today.

And you've listed some of those men that will be there this time around in September.

Let me repeat some of them. Votie Baucom, Stephen Lawson, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, who

I just had on the program. I think it was yesterday I had Phil on. James White, Mike Riccardi, Justin Peters, Ken Ham, Owen Strand, James Coates, the

Canadian pastor who was arrested for refusing to shut down his worship services during the

COVID mandates that were being laid down. Scott Anuel, my guest today,

Virgil Walker, and his co -host on the Just Thinking podcast, Darrell Bernard Harrison. Scott Brown and Susan Heck.

And I've interviewed most of these folks and intend to get all of those that I have not interviewed for this conference back on the show as soon as the

Lord will allow. And please, folks, if you intend to be there at this conference, please, if you haven't already registered, use the discount code

G3ISIR. That is the Iron Trump and Zion Radio discount code,

G3ISIR, and you will get 30 % off the registration fee. That is going to obviously help you and your wallet, and it's going to help me because it will further ensure that G3 Ministries will continue this relationship that we have of advertising on Iron Trump and Zion Radio.

So please go to g3men .org, g3men .org, to register and use promo code

I -S -I -R. That's actually G3 -I -S -I -R, G3 -I -S -I -R.

And let our listeners know, especially for the sake of those who are unfamiliar with your podcast that you co -host with Darrell Bernard Harrison, let us know about Just Thinking.

Yeah, Just Thinking is, again, the brainchild of Darrell Bernard Harrison. Man, I tell you what, all these great folks who lead out in these ministries,

I just have a have a tendency to just kind of hitch my wagon alongside of. So it's a joy to be connected with Darrell.

And as we do the Just Thinking podcast, as we've been doing it a little over five and a half years and really has been phenomenal to see the impact that it's had in the body of Christ as we tackle a number of different cultural issues through the lens of a biblical worldview on that show.

And we've got an episode coming up here really soon where we'll be addressing the issue of spiritual warfare.

And so we'll be talking about that at great length, unpacking the doctrine from a biblical you know, from a biblical lens and just making sure people understand what it actually is and what it is not.

There are people calling, you know, spiritual warfare things that are not and then missing the opportunity to properly identify what it actually is and how it actually functions.

And so we'll be doing that as well. But Just Thinking, like I said, over five years, more than six million downloads of people not only just around the country, but around the world, literally.

And we've been enjoying doing that, the impact of it and seeing how God has been using it.

Great. And if anybody who wants to begin to listen to that podcast, the

Just Thinking podcast, you can go to their website, justthinking .me,

M as in Michael, E as in Edward, justthinking .me. And you'll also find out everything you need to know about that podcast.

Well, you wanted to discuss something that has a very provocative theme today, a tsunami warning for the

Southern Baptist Convention. And let me do some damage control immediately by making sure that our listeners know that neither

Virgil nor myself are trying to broad brush everyone who is involved or who is pastoring a congregation in the

Southern Baptist Convention. There are many fine folks in the Southern Baptist Convention, many fine and dedicated pastors, especially those affiliated with the founders' ministries like Dr.

Tom Askell, who is the president of that valuable organization. But at the same time, just because of the fact that there are wonderful, biblically solid people involved in any denomination, fellowship, organization, doesn't mean that we should shy away from open public criticism when there are things terribly amiss with the leadership of those kinds of organizations and denominations.

So tell us where you are coming from today. What is this warning that you wanted to declare on the program today?

No, absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity to have this conversation. I think it's important to note, as you did at the very top, that where this comes from is not just a desire to see things fall apart or to see things not go well for the

SBC, but more importantly, you issue warnings to those that you care about, those organizations, those people, the entities that you care for.

And I titled my article, all of it's based upon an article that I've written on the

G3 platform. You can go to g3men .org and go to a blog. The blog is titled

A Tsunami Warning for the SBC. And I began by explaining how in March of 2011, that there was a nine point one magnitude earthquake that had rocked

Japan there in 2011. What was interesting about that that particular earthquake was the magnitude of the tsunami that actually followed.

Those who were that were a part of that area of the world recognized that there are multiple earthquakes that happen rather often.

This particular earthquake that happened about 81 miles off of the Tohoku area off of this out in the northern

Pacific, they didn't have much time before the tsunami approached land.

And once the earthquake magnitude, like I said, nine point one massive, massive earthquake hit, it shifted the tectonic plates in the ocean, creating a some say, you know, a 130 foot wave that that actually raced toward the shore at a pace of speed of about anywhere between 300 and 500 miles per hour.

This is a damaging wave that that actually hit the coast. It would eventually take the lives of more than 20 ,000 people in that part of the world.

And so this was this was phenomenal. I thought about the impact of that a earthquake, be the wave that took place.

And in light of what's happened in the Southern Baptist Convention and how often there have been magnitude, you know, nine or more earthquakes that have happened that have rocked the

SBC at its core and thereby creating these these waves of impact that begin to take place.

And one of them that I've identified and I've used it as a tsunami warning is

Rick Warren, who recently his church, his South Church, was disfellowshipped from SBC circles, primarily because of the fact that he had, you know, he had made the decision in May of 2021 to install three women as pastors at his church.

Once he was disfellowshipped, the process of disfellowship was it took a long time.

In fact, Chris, we had actually talked about some of this on your program a while back, what the

SBC was thinking, how they were navigating this particular issue of women pastors. We were as culture was asking the question, what is a woman?

You had the SBC asking the question, what is a pastor? As a result of that,

I think that the push with regard to that by February of 2023, they rethought some of the leadership, rethought the idea of disfellowshipping

Saddleback Church and made the decision to do so. Rick Warren went would go on the

Russell Moore show and exposed the fact that he thought this was unfair, stated his reasons and rationale for why.

And we'll get into that in greater detail here in a bit, but made the decision that he is going to actually fight this decision.

And he intends to do so at the upcoming SBC convention in June.

And this will probably be something that goes to the floor of the SBC. I titled this a tsunami warning for the

SBC because I really do believe that the environment based upon the previous earthquakes within the

SBC, within SBC circles, previous earthquakes really have softened the targets, if you will, for a massive wave to overtake the

SBC and an egalitarian wave, if you will, to take over the

SBC and move them from their current position, which is a biblical one, to one that is not biblical.

Now, isn't this just a fruit of a danger that is inherent to a church or group of churches or pastors or individuals being a member or members of an enormous organization like the

Southern Baptist Convention that is multifaceted? There's a seemingly a wide spectrum of theological viewpoints and how churches function within that paradigm.

And of course, most would insist that all would be within the framework of at least adhering to the bare minimum of what the scriptures would require to identify a true church.

But it seems to me that there's an inherent danger whenever something gets so massive.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're spot on with that as it pertains to the size and the scope of the

SBC. Now, you know, in years past, they boasted somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 plus thousand churches, some 21 to 30 million members.

And while the numbers have dwindled a bit, they are still a massive entity currently boasting about 47 ,000 churches, some 14 .5

million members. One of the reasons why this subject is important and why all the subjects related to the

SBC seem to come up in news cycles is because of the size and scope of this denomination.

It is massive. It has a massive following. And as it goes, so goes a lot of what's what's known as Christian conservatism.

Right. When Trump got elected, what was blamed was evangelicalism.

And when they say evangelicalism, in large part, what they mean are

Southern Baptists. Not that Southern Baptists encompass all of quote unquote evangelicalism, but on the basis of sheer numbers and size and scope alone,

I can't think of any one denomination. In fact, there's not any one denomination that is larger, has more churches and has more people involved than does the

SBC. So one of the reasons, again, why it's important to culture what happens in and with the SBC is because of its size and scope.

You combine that with the manner in which organizations like the SBC gather.

How how do how does an organization that large find that many people affiliating with it?

Well, the way that they do so is to the point that you just made. They have to ensure that what they believe covers a wide range, a large tent and a big umbrella so that more people can say what they agree with rather than what's what's disagreed with.

And so for Southern Baptists, that document is known as the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 or some in SBC circles know it as the as the

BF and M 2000. This is a document that says, here's what we believe.

Here's how where we stand on these issues. And if we're in healthy cooperation with one another, this is what you must believe.

This is kind of like mere Christianity, if you will. It's the basics of belief that are required for someone to be a

Southern Baptist church as it pertains to this particular subject at women, pastors, women, preachers and the like.

Here's what the BF and M says about that. It says this. A New Testament church of the

Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers associated by covenant and faith and fellowship with the gospel.

Getting closer to where they talk about it, they say this. Each congregation operates under the

Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation, each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord.

Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons.

And here's the here's the key. It says this. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church.

The office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture.

And so that's that's what the BF and M, the Baptist faith and message actually says. I think the sentence is clear.

While both men and women are gifted for church service, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture.

And so if you understand the language there, you understand that the office of pastors is should be separated as for men.

Biblically speaking, that's absolutely clear in the in the passages and Timothy and Titus and the like.

And so this issue should not be in question. However, there are

Southern Baptist churches who have made a decision to ignore both scripture and this particular, you know,

BF and M, this particular statement of faith, if you will, and have ordained women in the role of pastor.

Now, is there any defense of the hierarchy of the

Southern Baptist Convention that involves a key word you mentioned there, that there are churches that are in defiance of what the

Southern Baptist Convention requires of churches? And that would be an exclusively male headship in the church, for one.

That's not the only thing. But but would that would the how do you respond to the fact that people are in the hierarchy or maybe saying, well, as you yourself said, they're there.

These churches are defiant to what we are saying is required of them. Yeah, well, there are two there are things that are happening on two levels.

One is within the autonomous churches. So within the local churches, what you're having happen is a separation of title or office of pastor and role of pastor.

They're taking language and doing again what what a lot of folks who lean liberal, folks who are progressive in their ideological framework.

What they try to do is they try to change the definitions of words so that they can get around maybe what either scripture says or what, you know, or what a statement of faith actually says.

You see this culturally with the with the language around marriage. We all know that marriage for hundreds, for thousands of years has always meant one man, one woman in covenant union for life.

That's what always has been the definition of marriage. Well, when when when we want to change, when culture decides it wants to change the definition of marriage, they insert their own language.

Well, marriage can be between two men or marriage can be between two women. And they restructure what's been typically defined in a specific way.

Well, that's the case here as well. What's being done at local church levels in an effort to get around the idea that the qualified men are able to to be in the office of pastor is they take in the word office and they said, well, there's there's there's an idea around office.

And then the separate idea that we can have is role or function. So we're allowing women to function as pastors or to be in the role of a pastor without maintaining the office of pastor.

Well, that's that's that's just you know, that's just a language mumbo jumbo for the purpose of obfuscating what's actually clear in the text.

You don't have an office without operating in a role. You don't have an office without functioning in that office.

And so those two those ideas aren't separate. But what they've done is they've separated the language at a local level so that local churches feel comfortable trying to maintain their relationship with Southern Baptist while while while diminishing the actual office and role and function of pastor.

The second thing that's happening, Chris, is at the at the SBC level where the leadership is concerned.

Last year, you had the credentials committee come back after having taken a year from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two to examine not only

Rick Warren's church. They did this primarily with Warren because he was one of the largest SBC churches in the country, but they've examined all those churches and came back.

And even though the statement that they had in the Baptist faith, the message was clear. Obviously, over the course of a year, there were those who were on the credentials committee who had a difficult time based upon the idea that I just put forth.

The role, function and office. These ideas have been separated. So you have people on the credentials committee who still seem to be a bit confused as to whether or not a woman could serve in the in the role or office of a pastor.

And so they came back in twenty twenty two. The credentials committee came back and on the floor of the convention that year in June made the statement that they needed another year in an effort to determine whether or not the language in the

Baptist faith and message actually made it clear that only men could serve in the office of pastor.

So, again, I thought that was ludicrous. I wrote about it, as did many others. There were there was kind of a back and forth about it on the floor of the convention.

This was the year that Rick Warren actually showed up on the floor of the convention and laid out his case.

He did so in a very pragmatic way. He did so in a way that really engaged the sentimental crowd.

And as a result, had had more time by which to to to maintain fellowship with the

SBC. I mean, it took from June of twenty twenty two until February of twenty twenty three for the credentials committee to come back with the proper ruling, which they should have had more than six, eight months prior, where they told

Warren that he and Saddleback Church would no longer be in and in cooperation with with SBC churches.

Well, we're going to our first commercial break. If you have a question for Virgil Walker or email addresses,

Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

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

And I could readily understand if somebody is listening who has a question and they are in the

Southern Baptist Convention and they don't want to identify themselves for one reason or another. I can understand that.

But if it's a general question, please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Virgil Walker right after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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royaldiadem .com, mentioned Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Virgil Walker and we are discussing a tsunami warning for the

Southern Baptist Convention. And before I go to any of the listener questions that have come in,

I just want you to lay out, in addition to the problem with egalitarianism wreaking havoc in the

Southern Baptist Convention, what are some of the other major issues that you and like -minded brothers in Christ have that makes them so stirred up with dismay that they are offering, just like you are, a warning to their brothers and sisters in Christ in the

Southern Baptist Convention? Yeah, I mean, as I looked at the landscape of evangelicalism and particularly the

SBC in the last few years, it's been interesting to witness what's taken place.

I go all the way back to 2018 and I know most people kind of hang their hat on what took place in 2019.

But for me, I think the issue of wokeism, the issue of social justice had simply begun to kind of give us some ideas around how it was going to unfold back in late 2017 and, of course, in 2018.

In 2018, the SBC and its organization, the

ERLC, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, had teamed up with the

Gospel Coalition to put on this event called the MLK50, so Martin Luther King's 50th anniversary.

This was the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. And so they wanted to talk about his

I Have a Dream speech, everything that surrounded civil rights, and take a closer look at it to see if it had indeed impacted culture as a whole and the church in particular.

The leaders of the event, some I named in my article were men like Charlie Dates and Eric Mason.

Eric Mason, of course, has written a book called Woke Church. Jackie Hill Perry, there's an incredible roster of speakers that were a part of this event.

Each speaker that got on the platform seemed to want to promote this woke idea that, you know,

Jim Crow was bad, which I think everyone agrees Jim Crow is bad. That the fight for civil rights, the right to just be seen or judged rather not by the the color of your skin, but by the content of character, that that was something worth fighting for.

And I think we all agree there. I think what became problematic was when what they tried to do, what many of the speakers tried to do was they tried to reproblematize or problematize issues in the during the civil rights movement and act as if or at least present as if those same issues were at play today in 2021 or that time in 2018.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Blacks, comparatively speaking, from the time of 1960s, 1965, 1968, blacks have more freedoms today than ever before.

Blacks have greater wealth, greater opportunities, greater means of getting around and doing nearly everything they want to do.

There's no comparison between today or at least that day in 2018 to the time of King and the civil rights movement.

They were fighting for voting rights. But but each speaker tried to make this this, you know, try to draw this narrative that things were not just as bad as they were, but had had even been been worse today than they were in that day.

This should have served as kind of just a tremor, a part of an earthquake, the thing that happens before the tsunami.

But it did not. Most ignored it for the most part. Very few evangelical leaders really spoke out against it.

A handful did, but the vast majority did not. By 2019, what you had was many that were advancing social justice were claiming that that there was no such thing called social justice.

There was no such thing as critical race theory. There was no such thing as as as these issues that we were seeing were shaking the

SBC at its core. 2019 shows up.

And of course, within SBC circles, you had the big issue, which which really kind of shook everyone to their core, which was the

Houston Chronicles published a six piece series, a six part series that dealt with the allegations of sexual abuse within the

Southern Baptist Convention. And now keep in mind that this Chronicle expose actually covered 20 years of history.

And what they found were 700 cases of sexual misconduct in the SBC, of which and again, keep in mind the size of the

SBC in light of the number of cases the SBC had 47000 churches and 14 .5

million members. I never want to make light of any situation of sexual misconduct.

I think all of those need to be examined at great degree to determine a what happened and be if there's anything that needs to either change or if people even need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law based upon any kind of misconduct as it pertains to male female relationships or anything alternative in those in those regards.

But what you had is the pressure of the Me Too movement combined with the pressure of the Church Too movement. Me Too was followed because of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the

Supreme Court. Church Too, as a result of this article that comes out, and there's a there's a there's as a result in 2019, you had this this kind of thing that was building this these ideas that were building.

In fact, there were leaders within the SBC, Beth Moore being one of them, who felt that women could not be safe unless more women were involved in leadership.

So her calls were for more women in roles of leadership within within the

SBC for the mere purpose of keeping those who had been been involved in any kind of sexual misconduct, that she felt that that would allow a safer space for those individuals.

And so while that sounds logical, what what what it ignores is that those issues, those allegations of sexual misconduct, you know, could be addressed by any by male or female who learns of it.

But it needs to be addressed appropriately and properly. The gender of the person does not dictate whether or not someone, you know, rightly listens to an allegation that that's that's a misnomer.

With that said, those two things were kind of ripe. The the allegations that were taking place by this expose and the leadership within the

SBC that we're trying to push forward or advance an egalitarian move. What happened at the end of 2019 was we also saw

CRT, which, again, many said that was not it was not an issue. Social justice was not an issue.

CRT comes to the floor of the convention and gets voted in and to to to be a part of the analytical tools used to assess right and wrong within the

SBC. So this is a this is a lot of, you know, a lot of drama that's actually taking place that really is shaking the foundational core of Southern Baptist.

The CRT issue, intersectionality, critical race theory, social justice, the issue of sexual misconduct and the egalitarian push, all of these things within 2000, within two years, 2018 and 2019, these conversations would be discussed over the course of the next two years.

And it wouldn't be until May of 2021 that Rick Warren decided that this was the right environment for him to push forward or advance women pastors at his church.

So all of these things were were elements that that that really shaped decision makers and decisions that that took place at Saddleback.

Yes. And even before that all rose its ugly head, Rick Warren was an open ecumenist with Roman Catholic Church, even declaring that Pope Francis is his pope.

She's Pope. Yeah. And so this would be an area of can a denomination or any kind of a fraternal organization of churches, fellowship, et cetera, can they tolerate in their midst someone like Rick Warren and churches that follow their lead, who view the gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone as something of secondary or tertiary importance so that you can openly and unashamedly say, well, even though I have my personal views of justification by faith alone,

I think that the issues that the Roman Catholic Church and us, we who are evangelicals and Bible believers, the issues that we have in common are far greater and far more numerous.

And therefore, I'm going to give my brothers and sisters in the

Church of Rome the benefit of the doubt by not using those things that they disagree with us over as a reason for disfellowship and for barring from any kind of spiritual affiliation.

That's basically what Warren must be thinking.

He hasn't become officially a Roman Catholic, but is this something to be tolerated where people are reaching that point of ecumenism?

Yeah, I don't disagree. I mean, I think the issues with Warren are numerous, but in large part, they're indicative of the problems with the church at large.

I think there's been such a lack of clarity on particular doctrines, the doctrine of justification in particular, as it relates to the

Roman Catholic Church. We're not clear on doctrine. What we've done is we have pastors of very large megachurches who've developed an incredible following, not on the basis of clarity of thought around scripture, but based on pop culture and psychology and pragmatic ideas about church growth.

I mean, Warren's appeal from a national platform has been the book that he wrote,

The Purpose Driven Life. He begins the book by saying it's not about you, but then spends the vast majority of the book, 90 percent of it, talking all about you and what you need to do to see your purpose affected, and then follows that up with a purpose driven church.

And as a result of its sales and its wide and its vast appeal, he gets on platforms like Oprah.

He's invited to presidential debates. He's opening up the inaugurations of specific presidents.

And so it's with that kind of popular appeal that folks kind of turned a blind eye to how accurate is he as it relates to scripture?

I mean, if you examined, for example, The Purpose Driven Life, what you'll notice is that the texts of scripture that he often uses are those with very kind of weak translations, very kind of narrative types of translations that aren't closely aligned to what the text actually says.

And he uses those because it advances a particular idea or narrative. It's more eisegesis, reading things into the text of scripture than it is exegesis, pulling out from scripture the truths that are actually there.

So I mean, if you go back far enough, I mean, there's a lot to be concerned with as it relates to Warren.

And while his claim, at least recently, as it relates to women, women, female pastors, his claim recently has been, you know, it wasn't that that culture influenced him.

It wasn't that, you know, that that he was moved by what's happening in the public square, but that his mind was changed, according to him, as a result of the text of scripture.

I have a difficult time believing that. And then and then definitely as he as he expressed which text of scripture he came to this idea from, it's obvious that he's either doing he's either a poor exegete, he's either poor at biblical hermeneutics, or he's advancing another idea, a cultural idea that suits him at the time.

And we have to go to our midway break. We will be right back with more of Virgil Walker after these messages.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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Before we return to Virgil Walker of G3 Ministries and the Just Thinking podcast and our discussion of a tsunami warming for the

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Not only will you be fed physically with lunch and fed spiritually by the messages provided by Dr.

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This is also free, as I said, so if you'd like to register for that, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put conference in the subject line or put conference and luncheon in the subject line and let me know how many people plan to attend either or both of those events.

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful, Christ honoring, theologically sound church like Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches and I've helped many people in our audience all over the world find churches, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

And that could be you too, if you are without a church home, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put

I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Virgil Walker.

And our theme once again is a tsunami warning for the Southern Baptist Convention, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We have a listener in West Islet, New York, Thomas, who says, what do you have to say about all of the noble, biblically faithful men who are pastors in mainline denominations that may contain even apostate churches, but they are not willing to wave the white flag and give up and surrender their buildings and their congregations to these wicked denominations.

And they want to stand and fight as if they were modern day Martin Luthers. Yeah, there's a lot to be said for those those folks and, you know, mainline churches who are taking a stand for, you know, biblical, you know, biblical fidelity.

They're wanting to stand for the sufficiency of scripture, the inerrancy of scripture. They're wanting to stand on biblical truth.

You know, I'm encouraged by that. I think I think we all should be in light of the in light of the wave that has really overtaken much of mainline, you know,

Protestantism. Most of what you see in those spaces and places has actually gone to the left.

And I think what what what follows decisions to ignore scripture are are are denominations who eventually have folks leaving them like, you know, like what you're seeing across the country.

Most of these mainline denominations, they're very few people that are actually attending the church.

It's when you have a low view of scripture, you have a low view of of Christ. You have a low view of church.

What people begin to ask the question as to why they're why they're participating in anything, why they're engaged in any kind of a religious endeavor and they go and engage in other things.

And so that's what you see. That's why I think this this conversation is important to have, because we don't want to see one of the largest denominations in the country go to the wayside like like mainline denominations, only to have a handful of people really standing for churches in particular, really standing for the truths of scripture.

So I'm assuming by what you said is that there is a place for men who are biblically faithful to stand firm, even in horrible denominations, because they have a very optimistic view of the future.

They think that they may be able to win the battle and be used of God to turn the denominations back to the biblical roots on upon which they were founded.

Is that there is a place for that? Yeah, you know, I mean, I hate to say no. You always want to see them taking the stand.

But, you know, if that's what they feel called to do, I would encourage them to do that. I don't consider myself one.

I'm at a church where we made the decision not long ago to walk away from the

Southern Baptist Convention for the for the very reason that we kind of saw the handwriting on the wall, you know, as as we watched social justice take hold,

CRT take hold. And now this egalitarian wave, amongst other things along the way, you know, we made a decision to step away because it's not our goal and mission to save a denomination.

Our goal and mission is to proclaim the gospel and to see souls come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a mainline denomination saying I'm going to stay for whatever reason for the purpose of proclaiming

Christ. I would I would hesitate to say that they would if they were making the claim that they're they're making a decision to stay for the purpose of ransoming, redeeming or seeing a leftward denomination, a progressive denomination turned back to to a more conservative view, a clear view, an orthodox view of scripture that that that rarely, if ever, happens more times than not.

Once they've gone left, they actually they have to continue in that trajectory. We have

R .J. in White Plains, New York, who says, isn't the largest problem that is inherent to the

Southern Baptist Convention that has spawned all of these kinds of problems is the gross lack of church discipline that has ever been conducted in this denomination for a very long time.

I can even think of the fact that Bill Clinton was a member of Emanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and to my knowledge, he has never been disciplined by the

Southern Baptist Convention in any way, shape or form, nor has any other very famous individual who has apostate views of the scriptures and morality.

Yeah, that's true. That very few, unfortunately, very few, even

SBC churches actually practice any form of biblical church discipline. You know, my encouragement to those churches who don't or aren't engaged in that or to people who are involved in those churches would be to have a conversation with leadership and to and to seriously talk about and consider what that would look like for your church to involve itself in proper biblical church discipline.

Those kinds of things definitely lend themselves to pragmatism, lend themselves to kind of the direction that we're seeing a big portion of the

SBC go. And we have, let's see here, we have

Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and Bebe says,

I know that you're not a prophet, but do you see a possibility that is based in reality for the

Southern Baptist Convention within our lifetime to turn around and return to its biblically faithful roots?

Yeah, I'm not a prophet nor son of a prophet, and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I really don't.

I think, you know, for the most part, and again, I think a large part of the reason why we made the decision, we being the church

I attend, Praise Mill and the elders there, made the decision to leave the Southern Baptist Convention was for that very reason.

We didn't see a road back. My hope would be that we're wrong. It's not some, you know, some excitement by which

I share these ideas and make the statements that I'm making. It's with the hope of seeing, you know, a very large denomination representative of a large number of churches and millions of people involved that they would press into Scripture and see their way into declaring

Scripture as sufficient and operating in a much more biblical framework rather than one that's pragmatic.

Well, before we go to any more listener questions, I want you to set forth things that you think would be positive steps, perhaps even necessary steps, for people who are in the

Southern Baptist Convention, whether they are pastors or seminary presidents, professors, whatever affiliation that they have with the

Southern Baptist Convention, in order to make things right. And also, a second follow -up question would be, how do we, who are not in the

Southern Baptist Convention, support or not support these folks that we are challenging to make such steps?

Yeah, I think those are great questions, and they're not easy questions. I would start by kind of going back down to the kind of the origin.

The SPC is made up of autonomous churches, local churches, you know, and they only convene, according again to their bylaws and, you know, and their constitution, they're only the

Southern Baptist Convention on the days that they convene for their meeting.

Thereafter, they're no longer a quote -unquote denomination, you know, and again, a lot of that is just based upon the way that they've set things up and organized them.

I think it begins with local church pastors. It begins with, you know, believers in those local churches who want to be faithful to the

Word of God, who are tired of listening to 25 -minute TED Talks, who want to abandon the idea of being relevant to the world, who want to stake a claim in the ground and say, you know what?

We're going to stand with the Kingdom of God and for the purpose of advancing the cause of Christ, regardless of what that costs us.

We live in a time and a culture and a society where our concern is more fixed on what others think of us than it is on what

God thinks of us. And so it begins with the individual who's at a local church who says,

I want to attend a church where folks are faithful to Scripture, where men of God are looking into the

Word of God and are providing, you know, a meal, right, food in the pulpit, you know, preaching from a standpoint of proper exposition of Scripture and understanding what the

Word of God says and what it means by what it says and holds that standard high, has a high view of Scripture, has a high view of the church, has a high view of just kind of a biblical literacy for the people of God.

I think those things are the beginning of turning things around. And again, when you think of an entity that is 47 ,000 churches in it, that's a long process.

That's not a—it won't—things won't change by inaugurating a president, right, a brand new conservative president.

That president would have to have, you know, multiple layers of conservatism wrapped in.

And I mean, this is what we saw when we witnessed the conservative resurgence. This took decades to unfold, more than a decade to unfold, to see a liberal -leaning

Southern Baptist convention right the ship to conservatism. So I think to ride it and hold it is not just top down.

More importantly, it's bottom up. Now, as the executive director of operations at G3 Ministries, are there any

Southern Baptist pastors or scholars, theologians, seminary professors who are permitted now to participate in the

G3 conferences? What I mean by that is obviously you'll allow them to attend, but are they able to preach there?

Will they ever be again as they once were on the preaching roster? Will they be joining me by manning exhibitors booths and so on?

As long as they are in agreement with you on the main principles that G3 stands for, how severe has the whole issue become in G3's relationship to the

Southern Baptist Convention and its adherence? Yeah, that's a great question,

Chris. I would say that for us, it's not a, hey, they carry that label. They're no longer a part of us.

I think for us, to be honest with you, we will have at this conference a record number of attendees, many of whom are still a part of the

Southern Baptist Convention. They stand with us from a standpoint of a high view of scripture.

They stand with us with a high view of the church and of church discipline. They stand with us as it relates to sufficiency of scripture.

Many of them stand with us with our leanings from a soteriological standpoint.

At the same time, not all do, but for the most part, there's great synergy. There's fantastic agreement on the issues that matter.

As a result, they're able to join us. We don't bar anyone from being a part of our exhibit hall so long as they link with us.

They're not holding to woke ideologies and are leaning into what we're seeing as in the way of cultural narrative.

Those kinds of things, if they're in agreement with us, they operate for the most part with a 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith and understand where we stand as it relates to a statement on social justice and the gospel.

They're linked with us. We actually have an entire G3 church network of pastors, more than 200 of them at this point that have linked with us in those ways.

Do we see eye to eye on every single jot and tittle of even in 1689? No, but for the most part, on the major issues, we have agreement.

Will there be folks at the conference who are

Southern Baptists? I would venture to say the large majority of the people that attend the conference are either

Reformed Baptist or Southern Baptist. We don't tell them, hey, you can't come.

We welcome them. They're with us, and our hope would be that what we provide in the way of information, in the way of education, in the way of encouragement would be something that would be beneficial to them as they go back to their local churches and minister to the people of God that God's given them.

We have an anonymous listener who says, I was making an effort to have the church where I am a member apply to join the

G3 network of churches, and the leadership in the church where I attend was too leery of this because they were fearing that there might be something required of them that would associate them with people who disagree with them on matters such as dispensationalism and other issues.

But isn't this just a list of like -minded churches that share the core theology and principles espoused by G3, and that there would be nothing actually required involving an action by these churches who are on this list?

Yeah, that's a great question. As I mentioned, we do adhere to a 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith, of course, with caveats. Folks, for example, they may read the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith and where there's a statement that says that the

Pope is the Antichrist. They may disagree. They may think that he is an Antichrist or may not be

Sabbatarian, for example. There's ways to kind of write in, hey, I don't agree here, but here's where we stand with that particular issue.

As it pertains to the question that was asked, as it references soteriology, or rather as it addresses eschatology, there's no eschatological stand that we have in one way or another, whether it's dispensationalism, whether it's amillennialism or the like.

And so folks can hold to those different ideas. In fact, within our executive team, we have different eschatological opinions as it relates to both those two categories.

Some of us are amillennial, others are dispensational. And so I don't see a church who has or holds to those ideas being outside of the framework of what could be considered a

G3 network church. So basically you're saying it's when you say that you insist on some kind of a commonality with confessional

Reformed Baptist churches, you're not saying that they must be that themselves? Because obviously a confessional

Reformed Baptist can be a historic premillennialist, but he can't be a dispensationalist. That's just too far of a stretch for a confessional

Reformed Baptist. Correct. You're correct. That's absolutely right. And my encouragement would be rather than making a decision kind of far off that they would dialogue with us, let us help them walk through that.

There's aspects of being a part of the G3 church network where maybe church leadership is with us, but they're bringing the church along.

They're recognizing that perhaps the church as a whole would not go where we are, but they're a part of a process of reforming that church.

And so we would even consider church leadership and say, hey, if you want to connect with us, if you think from a standpoint of resources, we would be a benefit.

Let's link arms. Let's walk together. Let's encourage one another. And as you navigate the process of walking your entire church through a process of reformation.

And if a church were to apply to be a part of the G3 network of churches,

I'm assuming this is not like joining ARPCA or joining

RBNet where there might be some kind of required involvement in meetings and things like that and dues or whatever.

I mean, is there anything that would be required like that of participants who get approved to the

G3 network of churches? Yes, there is. There's an annual fee.

It's incredibly affordable at 500 bucks to get in, but we've got churches throughout the network who see value in what we're doing and the resources that we're providing to local churches who do make monthly donations, who look at their total receipts and say, hey, a percentage of those receipts will go to the

G3 church network. Just depends upon where they are. But we wanted to make it low enough so that anyone could join up, could link up arms with us and help us as we do all that we can to provide resources, books, curricula, and all of the things that we have planned for local churches to encourage, equip them, and ensure that they have their needs from an education standpoint fulfilled in their local church.

And any requirement for attendance at meetings and things like that? We have a monthly meeting with all of our network churches.

It's usually a Zoom meeting that we do here. We talk about a number of different ideas, a number of different doctrines.

We talk about issues like church discipline, issues like preaching. We may have a particular speaker, a special speaker who joins us.

We've had Stephen Lawson, for example, join us on one to talk about the issues of expository preaching.

So every month we have a monthly meeting with all of our network churches to help encourage them and, again, educate and equip them as well.

Well, we're going to our final break. It will be more brief than the last break for sure. If you have a question for Virgil Walker and you want to get in line behind those already waiting to have their questions asked and answered, send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Try to do that as soon as possible because we are rapidly running out of time. chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least.

City and state and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Virgil Walker right after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about and defending in live public debates for most of my life.

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We have another anonymous listener who asks, Virgil, are

Pato Baptists and conservative Presbyterians permitted to be a part of the G3 network?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I would say that since the basis of the

G3 church network is that you'd have to adhere to the 1689 London Baptist confession of faith, that most

Pato Baptists would fall outside of that boundary. So they would, you know, we are definitely

Credo Baptists. Believer's baptism is the way that we would see things there.

Now, while at the same time, we don't allow Presbyterians to be a part of the

G3 church network, we're in friendly cooperation with our Baptist brothers and sisters on a number of other, in a number of other areas.

You mean our Presbyterian brothers and sisters? Our Presbyterian brothers and sisters on a number of other fronts.

Thanks for helping me correct that. Now, I'm assuming, and perhaps I'm wrong, but I have a memory,

I'm almost certain, that Dr. Joel Beakey has preached at the G3 conference, hasn't he? Would men like that be welcome or invited to preach at the conference?

Absolutely. Joel Beakey has been a part of that. John Payne has as well been a part of one of our regional conferences as well.

And so, yeah, we welcome our Presbyterian brothers to be a part of that as well. Well, before we run out of time, which can happen very quickly when you're having fun, can you please summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about this whole subject that we've been discussing?

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's incredibly important for us to go back to what Scripture has to say about these issues, recognizing that the

Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. It's Christ's Church. It's not our church.

It's not your church. It's not your pastor's church. It's Christ's Church. He's the one who shed his blood, died on a cross to redeem his bride.

And we have no authority, no ability to declare that we're going to operate

His Church outside the bounds of what Scripture actually dictates. And so I think it's incredibly important for us to get back to not simply the inerrancy of Scripture, but the sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to this subject as well.

And obviously, I'm sure you would want everybody listening to join you and me in praying for the

Southern Baptist Convention and praying for all those involved in it, that repentance where it is required takes place by the sovereign goodness of God, and also that wisdom is brought to those who are theologically and biblically faithful members of the

Southern Baptist Convention as to how they should proceed in the future as far as the lives of their congregation members and the very affiliations of their churches.

Yeah, I think it's incredibly important to just continue saying the right things, doing the right things, believing the right things, and declaring those things in those spaces and places where it matters most.

As we get closer and closer to this convention, it will be important for Church members to inform the messengers that they're sending of the standard that the

Bible holds for biblically qualified men in the role of pastor, and that they hold that, stand on that, and declare that as they near the actual convention as it comes up.

Is there any exciting news that you care to share about things that are on the horizon involving other events that are being orchestrated by G3 Ministries, and also things perhaps coming out in print by G3 Press, or things that you and Darrell Bernard Harrison and Just Thinking are participating in?

Yeah, there are a number of different things. We could take another half hour to walk through them all. I'll simply say currently we just announced our pre -conference.

We have two pre -conferences that have just been made available. We've partnered with Grace Bible Theological Seminary, GBTS, to deliver the gospel in the state, or the state in the gospel.

It is a pre -conference that will have a number of different great speakers. I will be talking about everything from theonomy to Christian nationalism.

You'll definitely want to participate in that. As well, we've partnered with the

Master's Seminary. A number of great speakers will be coming from Master's, and we'll be leading up a pre -conference speaking about the importance of being courageous in our conversation, but also courteous and careful in how we interact on particular subjects as it relates to the challenging issues of our day.

We've got both of those conferences there now. They've just been made available as of today and been promoted through G3min .org.

You can go there and sign up for those to participate in. Of course, the National Conference on the

Sovereignty of God, September 21st through the 23rd, you'll want to be a part of that.

You definitely don't want to miss that. We have a number of things that are teed up that will be coming out during the conference and a number of things we're working on behind the scenes for 2024 and 2025 that you won't want to miss.

Is there going to be a debate involved in that pre -conference event? Yeah, that's a great question.

I don't know that there'll be a debate, but there'll be a robust conversation that will be had at the one with GBTS.

So all the information is on the website. You'll want to go to G3min .org, go to our events page, and then walk through the information there and to determine which event that you'd want to participate in.

And remember, folks, if you are indeed going to be registering for the G3 National Conference, the 2023

G3 National Conference, go to G3min .org, G -3 -M -I -N .org,

and use promo code G -3 -I -S -I -R, which is the Iron Trip and Zion Radio official discount code to get you 30 % off the registration fee.

That's G -3 -I -S -I -R. I also want to repeat that all men in ministry leadership are invited to my next

Iron Trip and Zion Radio free pastor's luncheon on Thursday, April 13, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is in Perry County, Pennsylvania.

The two speakers are Banner of Truth author and pastor Dr. William Webster and one of Dr.

Webster's co -authors, Reverend David T. King, who is also a pastor.

And this is a free luncheon for all men in ministry leadership. And not only is it free, but everybody attending gets a very heavy sack of free brand -new books personally selected by me, donated by Christian publishers across the

United States and United Kingdom, including G3 Press. So send me an email if you'd like to be a part of that event to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. Then remember the three days following that, the 14th, 15th, and 16th of April, which is a

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the free Iron Trip and Zion Radio conference is being held at a different church,

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which has a very close relationship with Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries.

The theme of that event, featuring Dr. Webster and Reverend King, is the gospel removed by Rome, rescued by the reformers, and rejected by modern evangelicals.

So if you want to attend that and you want to register for that free event, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put conference in the subject line.

And if you're also attending the luncheon, include luncheon and conference in the subject line. And let me know how many people intend to join you at both or either of those events.

I want to thank you so much, Virgil, for always doing such a masterful job on this program. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

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