My Pathway to Calvinism (Part 5)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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Today is Friday, August the 7th, 2020, and if you're following along in our daily Bible reading, then today you should be reading Acts chapter 12.

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And again, I want to remind you, this is our New Testament Bible reading at Sovereign Grace Family Church.

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If you'd like a copy of this reading so that you can follow along, it's a daily Bible reading Monday through Friday.

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Take the weekends off to catch up if you miss one of the readings and it takes you all the way through the New Testament in one year.

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And you can get that daily Bible reading summary at sgfcjacks.org.

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You can also find information about our church.

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You can find information about what we believe, what we teach, and you can find a series of sermons that we have given over the last 10 years.

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We have 10 years worth of sermons on our sermon audio page with topics dealing with everything from Reformed theology all the way down to things like creation and other issues.

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I preach through whole books of the Bible.

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We have whole books of the Bible there.

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Preach through the book of Galatians, through the book of James, through the book of Acts, through the book of, well, 1 Corinthians, and all of those are available on our website to be downloaded from our sermon audio page.

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So I would encourage you, if you are interested in learning more to go to our page and sgfcjacks.org to get that information.

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Well, today on Coffee with a Calvinist, we're going to be wrapping up a five-day series, which I entitled My Pathway to Calvinism.

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I started on Monday telling how I was saved and how I started seminary because I felt like God was calling me into the ministry.

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I talked about how in the seminary that I went to, I was taught that Calvinism was bad.

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It was wrong, that it kills churches, it kills the spirit of evangelism, and I was challenged several years later by someone who challenged me to look at the doctrine of predestination and how I understood it, and that was the domino that began to knock all the other dominoes down, and eventually it led me to where I am today as a person who would identify myself as a five-point Calvinist, a person who believes thoroughly in the doctrines of grace and believes that they're biblical.

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Now, if you haven't listened to the weeks or the days prior to this day, if you haven't listened to parts one through four, then I would encourage you to do so because I broke down some scriptures.

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I showed which scriptures were very influential.

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Certainly, I didn't deal with all of them.

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I didn't talk about John 8.

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I didn't talk about John 17.

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I didn't talk about Ephesians 2 very much.

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I didn't talk about several of the passages in the Gospels.

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There was a lot that I left out.

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I mean, it's only, you know, this is a 15 to 20-minute program every day.

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I can't go into every single thing, but what I am going to be doing in the months to come, hopefully, is I'm going to be able to deal more precisely with some passages and do some a little bit more in-depth studies on this program.

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And I'm actually going to be also taking the opportunity to respond to some of the most common arguments about Calvinism and Reformed theology, and this is, again, this is Coffee with a Calvinist.

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I'm going to be focusing on the doctrines of grace on this program.

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But like I said, this week we're finishing out the five days of my pathway to Calvinism, and my hope is that next week I'm going to focus on how our church became a Reformed church.

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I want to tell that story as well and talk about the things that happened to make that happen.

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But this week has been more about how God led me to become a Calvinist.

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And so today, as I draw this week to a close, I want to talk about some of the men and some of the books that were most influential, and I want to throw this out there to you as well.

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One of the things I think I'm going to do starting next week is I think once a week I'm going to do a book review.

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Part of my job requires me to read a lot, and I do a lot of, you know, I do a lot with audiobooks because I often am traveling back and forth to meetings and to visiting people and different things.

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And so not only do I read, but I also do audiobooks.

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So I'm going to try to at least once a week either do a book recommendation or a full book review as a part of our Coffee with a Calvinist.

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So if you have a book that you are interested in having me look at and review, let me know, and I'd be happy to do that.

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And if it's a book that I've already read, all the better.

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If it's a book I haven't read, it may take me some time to get through it to be able to do it.

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But if you'd like to leave that in the comments below or send me a message, you can do that as well.

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So like I said, today I want to make this program about the books and the people that were most influential.

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And of course, as I've already said, in the days previous, it was the Bible that made me a Calvinist.

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It was Jesus primarily, and the words of the Apostle Paul.

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The New Testament, of course, I believe is thoroughly—agrees with the doctrines of grace.

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The doctrines of grace agree with the New Testament, if you will.

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I hate to say—I'm not ever going to say Jesus was a Calvinist or Paul was a Calvinist, because what it is is Calvin believed what Paul taught, Calvin believed what Jesus taught, and that's why he taught what he taught, and that's why I believe I call myself a Calvinist, because it simply means I believe what the Bible says about the doctrines of grace.

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But the people who were most influential to me is probably not going to surprise you because these are people that have influenced so many other people that it would be—I mean, these people would probably make just about anyone's list, or maybe a few outliers that you've never heard of, but there's going to be some names that you'll say, oh, yeah, everybody knows that guy.

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But I'll give you the first one right off the bat, and this person did not lead me to be a Calvinist because this person isn't a Calvinist, but one of the great influences in my ministry early on was a man by the name of Ray Comfort.

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And Ray Comfort, Way of the Master ministry—Ray, I think, is Lutheran.

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Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments.

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I believe that he's Lutheran, but I'm not certain, but I know he's not a Calvinist.

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But Ray Comfort actually introduced me to Charles Spurgeon, because if you look at Ray Comfort's Evidence Bible—I think is what they call it, the Evidence Bible—it was a study Bible, the Way of the Master put out, and it had quotes all through it from different theologians, and one of the theologians that the quotes just pop up throughout is Charles Spurgeon.

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And Charles Spurgeon was like—everything he said almost was gold.

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It was just powerful stuff, and if you're unfamiliar with Spurgeon, Spurgeon is—he was the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.

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He is considered to be the prince of preachers, one of the greatest preachers since the time of the apostles, and his sermons were written down, sent all around the world, and it was said that if you went to England at the time that he was there, you went for two reasons.

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You went to see the palace and to hear him preach.

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If you saw the queen and you saw Spurgeon, then you did—that was the reasons to go to England, or to go to London.

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And so Spurgeon—it was Ray Comfort that introduced me to Spurgeon, and I did not know Spurgeon was a Calvinist when I read—again, because I was introduced to Ray Comfort long before I even began to investigate Calvinism, long before that fateful time where my friend challenged me on my doctrine of predestination.

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Ray Comfort, I mean, he came into my purview very early on.

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The way the Master TV show, he and Kirk Cameron and the things that they did, they were so influential in helping me understand law and gospel, helped me to understand how to use the law, to share the gospel.

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I will always be indebted to Ray Comfort and his ministry.

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And I guess part of my reason for wanting to mention him first is he's not a Calvinist, but he's still a Christian.

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And just because someone's not a Calvinist doesn't mean that I'm going to say that they're not a believer.

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And I do think Ray may have some things incorrect, and I'm sure I do too.

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We have to be humble as well as be confident.

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And Ray is one of the most fearless evangelists I've ever seen, even though he would tell you he's afraid every time he steps out.

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But Ray's the type of person who's on fire for Christ.

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He is sharing the gospel everywhere he goes.

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He has gospel tracts with him every time he walks out of his home.

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He is the consummate evangelist.

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And what's amazing, and some of you may have seen this just last week, Todd White, a very notorious, faith-healing, heretical teacher, has seemed to seen the light and has repented of his false teaching because of the teaching of Ray Comfort.

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I mean, to show you how powerful God is using Ray Comfort, it seems as if God has used Ray to bring a man who seems so far gone back.

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And again, I'm not saying for certain that everything that's gone on with Todd White's legitimate, but having heard what he has said about repenting of his false teaching, and now he's reading Spurgeon, and now he's using law to point people to the gospel, and using the law to convict of sin and the gospel for salvation, I mean, it was an amazing thing to hear Todd White talk about it and to say from his, I don't think he has a pulpit, but to say from the chancel area of his church, I repent of not having preached the whole gospel, I mean, just to hear those words was encouraging.

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And so Ray Comfort had a tremendous amount of influence in him, and you could tell just by what he was saying.

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And he mentioned Spurgeon as well.

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So Charles Spurgeon, Ray Comfort was my introduction to Charles Spurgeon, and at that point I didn't know what a Calvinist was, and I didn't know Spurgeon was a Calvinist.

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But after I began to investigate Calvinism, predestination, election, all those things, I found out Spurgeon was a Calvinist.

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In fact, Spurgeon was committed to calling himself a Calvinist.

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There's a passage or a message that he did where part of the message is him explaining that he believed that Calvinism ultimately was the right understanding of the gospel.

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And I wish I had the quote right now, but I don't have it pulled up.

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But ultimately Spurgeon, when I found out Spurgeon was a Calvinist, I was already looking at Spurgeon's words, but now it was like, wow, this man who is so powerful, who has influenced so many, who has influenced even Ray Comfort, because Ray Comfort's quoting him, this man is a Calvinist.

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So Charles Spurgeon, obviously, but like I said, my gateway to Spurgeon was Ray Comfort.

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And then another person that, again, I did not know was a Calvinist was Dr.

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John MacArthur.

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Dr.

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John MacArthur is a pastor of Grace Community Church in California.

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He has a program on the radio, Grace to You.

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And when I was working at First Coast High School, which is where I was working when I was in seminary, I would listen to Dr.

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John MacArthur on the way to the school.

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I would listen to the radio and I, and this is, I mean, nowadays we all listen to podcasts and sermon audio, but back then, you know, it was, you'd hear the, you know, the starting of Grace to You.

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And that was the, that was a radio you had to be tuned in at 7.30 AM to listen to him preach.

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And you'd only get to hear half the sermon because he preached for an hour and he's only got a 20 minute radio, 25 minute radio spot.

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And so I had listened to John MacArthur for years and went, and after I began to investigate Calvinism, after I began to investigate predestination and those things, I found out John, Johnny Mack is a Calvinist.

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And that was huge because this is a guy I already loved and respected.

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I already appreciated his ministry.

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I already, I learned a lot from him about what an expository preacher should be.

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And so, so not only did I have, you know, Ray Comfort and Spurgeon, Ray Comfort pointed me to Spurgeon, I already knew Johnny Mack and there is this, this connection now knowing that he's a Calvinist.

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Now, some people would say, well, John MacArthur is not reformed.

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He's a Calvinist.

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And in the weeks to come, I'm going to talk about what that means because some people would, would say the same thing about me.

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They would say, yeah, Keith's a Calvinist, but Keith's not reformed.

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And there's what I call the big R reformed and the little R reformed.

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And there's, there's great debate within the reform community as what constitutes being truly reformed.

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And Johnny Mack is not going to make the argument that he's reformed, but he would say he holds to a Calvinistic view of salvation, that salvation is completely God's work and it's not synergistic, but it's monergistic.

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And, and Johnny Mack is a, is a, is an expositor, preaches through the text of the Bible verse by verse.

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And I've heard sermons from him back in the seventies.

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I've heard sermons from him from just a few weeks ago and he's been preaching the word of God for so long.

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And so, so, but Johnny Mack's a Calvinist.

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So, so that, that was an encouragement to me.

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And I had also heard of this guy named R.C.

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Sproul.

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Now R.C.

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Sproul, I always thought was really weird because he was on the radio too.

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You know, he had the Renewing Your Mind with R.C.

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Sproul.

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And the thing about R.C.

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Sproul was every time he was on the radio, he was using a chalkboard.

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I could hear him writing with a chalkboard on the board when he was teaching.

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And I love that because I use a board in my own teaching.

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Some people, I think, I don't know how people feel about it, but it's part of my, when I'm, when I'm preaching, I have a whiteboard just in case I want to stop and write something down for the, for the audience to see and the congregation to maybe take a note on or something.

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And and really that was R.C.

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Sproul's influence on me, always having his board handy.

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And R.C.

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Sproul's Renewing Your Mind was very influential on me.

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And there was another person out there who was not so much of an influence on me, but he was a huge influence on other people regarding Reformed theology.

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And I would I would be remiss if I didn't mention him.

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And that's John Piper.

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John Piper is, again, someone who people would say, well, he's not Reformed, but he's a Calvinist.

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And that's fine if that's how you want to identify him.

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But but as as if you watch the movie Calvinist, one of the guys said John Piper is the gateway drug for Calvinism for a lot of people.

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He's the guy who gets a lot of people to become Calvinist because he is so clear and so passionate about the sovereignty of God.

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He wasn't that for me.

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John Piper was one I learned about after I became a Calvinist because he just I guess I just never heard his radio program.

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He wasn't he wasn't as influential on me as John MacArthur or R.C.

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Sproul.

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But he was he did like one of the books that I read of John Piper's Counted Righteous in Christ.

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It's a short book, but it is a wonderful book explaining that imputation is is twofold.

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Not only is our sin imputed to Christ, but Christ's righteousness is counted to us.

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It's imputed to us, and therefore there's a double imputation.

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And it was it was that little book that that helped me to understand better that that's contentious for some people.

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Some people do not believe in double imputation and Counted Righteous in Christ was a was a helpful book.

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If you have an opportunity to read that, I would recommend it by John Piper.

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So that's just a few of the names.

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But the one name that sort of rises above all the rest, even though Ray Comfort was very important to me, Charles Spurgeon obviously is very important to me.

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And these are all contemporary, not Charles Spurgeon, but Comfort and MacArthur and Sproul and Piper.

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And you might could say Sproul, MacArthur and Piper, sort of like the Holy Trinity of most people's conversion to Calvinism.

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If they're if they're if they if they if they went from Arminianism to Calvinism, they probably went through one of those three to get them there to help them get there because they're just so influential.

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And their books are powerful, as I said, each one of them has books.

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But and I would say one of one of the books I want to do a review on soon is Chosen by God by R.C.

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Sproul, because it's a powerful book.

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But there is one one name.

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And I mentioned this person earlier in the week, one name that was sort of rises above all the rest.

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If you want to talk about people who were influential to me.

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Living people, because you could I mean, obviously, I could talk about how Luther challenged me, Calvin himself, Ulrich Zwingli, all of the reformers, and even down, you know, to Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.

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I mean, all of these men were, you know, as I was studying, as I was beginning to become a Calvinist and beginning to see Calvinism has a rich, long history through the church.

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I mean, all of these men's writings were coming up.

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But the one that, like I said, that sort of rises above the rest would be and I mentioned him in the first week or the first day this week is is Dr.

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James White.

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It was his book debating Calvinism that first even let me know there was an issue during that seminary class, you know, where they were trying to say Calvinism was evil.

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Dr.

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White, his debates, his his podcast or used to be a radio show, Nets podcast, The Dividing Line.

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I've met him on several occasions.

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He came to our church and did a Q&A several years ago.

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I've had the opportunity to sit and talk to him a few times, and I count those as precious moments.

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His books, The Potter's Freedom, The King James Only Controversy, Scripture Alone.

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I mean, he's written many books.

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He's done over 100, I think over 150 moderated debates.

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His work is has has had a tremendous effect on my life.

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And so I want to recommend something to you.

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If you're listening to this, I know I know today's going kind of long, but if you have an opportunity, if you're if you're at our church and you go to that book rack in the narthex and you turn that book rack, you're going to see books by R.C.

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Sproul.

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You're going to see books by James White.

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I'm not sure if we got any by MacArthur right now or by Piper right now.

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But but if you see books by James White or R.C.

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Sproul, those books are worth your money.

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Those books are worth your time.

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And as I said, I wish I had time to explain some of the things that those men did for me to help me understand the scripture better.

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There were many other people along the way.

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The founder's ministry, Tom Askell, I'm going to talk about him some next week when I talk about how our church became reformed.

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But I hope this week has been helpful for you.

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It's been good for me to get to kind of go down memory lane a little bit, talk about how important this subject is to me and how if you're coming to our church or if you're already at our church to know a little bit more about me and know a little bit about how passionate I am about the Bible and about these particular doctrines, because I think this is a this is a foundational to understanding who God is, understanding who we are and understanding what salvation is all about.

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So thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist this week.

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I hope this pathway to Calvinism series has been helpful to you.

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And I look forward to having you back next week when we talk about Sovereign Grace Family Church and how we became a reformed church.

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So thank you again for listening.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

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Thank you for joining in for today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

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Keep in mind, we have a new lesson available every weekday morning at 630 a.m.

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on YouTube and Facebook.

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If you enjoyed this lesson, please take a moment to respond by hitting the like button, leaving a comment and subscribing to the channel.

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On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for listening.

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May God bless you.