Session 2: Question and Answer

Kootenai Church

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00:00

All right in the last session you talked about this this session by the way is uh this q a is intended to kind of Get to know him somebody asking in a conversational way

00:08

Some questions about don and his background his wife his kids, etc Before we do that.

00:14

I want to tell a little story. Um You mentioned holding in your hand the manuscript that jonathan edwards preached sinners in the hands of an angry god trying to hold it

00:23

Trying to hold it um, so I I understand that Sentiment and I want to tell a little story connected to this before we get into this um

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This last year in march when I was at shepherd's conference, they had back in the shepherd's shop.

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There's an organization that curates a lot of spurgeon's uh documents and artifacts and they had three of these pages of manuscripts that spurgeon had when spurgeon would preach he would have

00:51

Basically people in the front row writing out his his sermons because his sermons were just on like a three by five

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Index card but little pieces of paper He would just write out a couple of words for an outline then he would mostly preach that extemporaneously

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And then somebody would write that down and transcript it and then they would give that transcript to spurgeon

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He would edit those and give them back and then they would be published and printed and sent overseas and and wired to america, etc

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So They had three of these pieces of paper which were the manuscripts that spurgeon himself had edited

01:23

So his handwriting is on there crossing outlines making little changes to it And they said these are the last three that we have left and they were two hundred dollars a piece and they come with the certification that this is actually his manuscript and There's a foundation that runs all of this and and I so I texted a picture of that to my wife and I said

01:40

You're like no believe this. This is the page the spurgeon himself edited So this is just incredible.

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You can pick these things up and look at it Spurgeon held this and spurgeon wrote on this and of course my heart was just warmed by that and uh, so didri

01:55

Emailed me or sorry. Uh, my wife called me and she said you've got to buy one of those Like 200 bucks and she said consider it your christmas gift your birthday present your anniversary present for like the next three years

02:05

However long is it just just you need to have one of those for yourself so I went ahead and bought one and uh took it to the truck and I was excited about it all day long.

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So later that afternoon. I saw phil johnson out in the courtyard of course phil we had here as a Spurgeon expert and I said oh phil.

02:21

You're not you're never going to believe this. I said over in the shepherd shop today. They had These three handwritten manuscripts that spurgeon himself edited of one of his sermons

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And I said they had three of them on display there and they were selling them and and phil said oh, yeah Those are great, aren't they?

02:37

I have a whole stack of them. I'll give you one Ha ha

02:45

Just a couple hours late tell a little spurgeon story myself I used to go to england a lot and I went to spurgeon's church the metropolitan tabernacle

02:54

Dr. Peter masters is the pastor there now been for 30 years Took me to his office and we chatted and uh, he said you might be interested in a couple things

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So we went up into the rafters And he showed me the original trowel

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That was used to put the mortar on the bricks at the metropolitan tabernacle from which the sword and trowel was taken

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And then he said do you see that couch over there? I said, yes He said that's a settee

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Okay, he said that was spurgeon's He said he used to sit in his office

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His wife suzanna would come down they'd sit on that and have lunch and they'd smooch a little bit He says we have no use for it.

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Do you want it? Do it do I what? Do you want it i'll give it to you

03:44

Uh, yeah Let me uh, check on what it would cost to ship it back to the united states.

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I don't know what i'd do with it Other than just say guess what this is and everybody would say nah couldn't be

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So I contacted a freight company. It would cost me about five grand for them to build a crate and then to Put it on a boat and ship it all the way to the united states.

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I just couldn't justify that kind of expenditure for something that had no ministry use but It would have been nice But nobody came up and offered you a free couch that spurgeon sat on All right.

04:22

Somebody offered me a free couch that hobo bill and his wife sat on All right, uh don tell us how you met your wife

04:31

Who is your wife? This is beverly This is a very spiritual story

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We met on the internet on something called match .com

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and uh We finally had a date at an outback steakhouse, which she was late for She was also late for our wedding

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And my first question to her was how often do you go to church? My second question is where do you go to church?

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And her first question to me was who do you listen to And I said macarthur and sproul she goes oh finally a real christian

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It's just that was what saved you If I had said uncle jim, what would she have said?

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But that's how we met the same thing. Everybody says That's how we met and uh, we got married in 19 2005 and uh

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That's how we met uh She's younger than I am, but then so is most of the civilized world

05:44

How many kids do you have grandkids two daughters Ashley just got well, she's had three sons

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And they live six miles away. So we're over there a lot And then my daughter michelle lives in denver and she's getting married in cancun two weeks from now

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And she said dad the average wedding in denver costs thirty thousand dollars Don't get married in denver

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She says well, we want to get married in cancun I've been saving up for this for years

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I said, all right shell i'm sending you a check for ten thousand dollars That's all you get make it go as far as you can.

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Good luck, dear Are you going to cancun? Yeah Yeah But she said

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I only spent seven thousand so you can have three thousand back I thought that's what we're going to cancun on My money

06:39

How did the lord save you Uh, I grew up in an armenian antinomian southern baptist church that may be redundant but It was a church we

06:53

I grew up in a small town in central california in the agricultural area And this was the only church that was a non baptismal regeneration church

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So we went there and it was a typical southern baptist church Every quarter they had the traveling evangelist come in and do a revival

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And then he brought with him a gospel quartet that would sing and uh

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I was five at the time And he gave an invitation But before the invitation the pastor of the church said

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At the conclusion of the service we're going to have punch and cookies in the back. So come on down for So when the preacher gave the invitation

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I went forward for punch and cookies You can see what a problem this has been my whole life

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And they took me in the back and they had me pray the sinner's prayer And they said don't ever let anybody make you doubt your salvation

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Well, god made me doubt my salvation Because I was about 30 At the time

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I was a college football coach in missouri For my vacation, I flew back to la and lived with my brother dan for a month

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And I went to grace community church every time they opened the doors I listened to both sunday morning services and the sunday night service

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I go to the college and career group Just anything I could do I listened to a macarthur tape in my van on the way in and back

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John was in matthew 7 And he preached two sermons empty words and empty hearts

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Not everyone who says to me lord lord, that's the empty words But he who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

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That's If you don't do that, you have an empty heart I realized i'm not saved None of the other side

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I had no victory over sin. I had no desire for fellowship. I had no desire for the bible All I wanted to do was be an nfl coach someday

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And whatever it took to get there, okay So on the way home driving home,

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I gave my heart to christ for real and uh

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I wrote a song that night called Uh All that matters is him. I used to sing it at grace and uh

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I gave that to them as a gift No royalties. Just take it and use it And then all of a sudden

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I developed an appetite And I couldn't get enough And there was a man named john stone who's the librarian at master's university and seminary libraries

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He had quite a collection of the puritans And I was over at his house once and I said

09:42

Could I borrow one of these he goes you can't nobody else can So I took it home and read one book and I was hooked

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Because this wasn't a modern day. It's all about me book in fact

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Years ago a newspaper reporter from the portland Whatever the portland newspaper is

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Called me She had seen a copy of one of my books at powell's used bookstore in portland

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Which is a huge used bookstore. I have big religion section And she saw one of my books there and so she called me and said

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Why do you publish these? And I says because this was when christianity was about christ

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Not about what you can get out of him. She goes my goodness. That is different A secular newspaper reporter realized that Jonathan edwards once said if you only love christ for what you can get out of him.

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You don't love christ. You love yourself And that's what I love about these books. They're all about christ

10:47

In fact When I first started editing I was doing this as my devotional. I was a college football coach, but I get up at six

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And type a puritan book just for my own devotions And I finished one And I sent a sample chapter to zondervan

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See if they were interested in publishing it They sent me back a rejection letter and said your books are too god -centered

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What year was that oh it would have been uh mid 80s Zondervan has improved since then haven't they have no idea.

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No, they haven't the answer. They said no to me That's to you guys. Wow But that's how

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I got started and uh The reason I started publishing was

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I offered This manuscript to three different publishers and they all turned me down I said nuts to him.

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I'll do it myself My best friend at the time was a banker with pnc bank in pittsburgh

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Where I was living at the time And his job was to give money away

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Gee what a coincidence then and uh He gave me a grant of five thousand dollars to publish a book of historical value he could care less about the religious part

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And so I published this book, which is jeremiah burroughs on the beatitudes

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I had asked three men for their opinion mccarthur John gershner and al martin reformed baptist guy from new jersey

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And I got three different answers McCarthy I said john should I leave the pastoral ministry to publish books?

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He goes. No You shouldn't We don't have enough good pulpiteers as it is and we don't need to lose another one just to publish books

12:34

Okay, dr. Gershner, should I leave the preaching ministry to publish the puritans?

12:41

Don kissler, how many people do you preach to on a given sunday 40 to 50? And if people read the puritans how many of them buy your books that's about a thousand

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It would be an absolute sin for you to remain in the pulpit ministry Since these are far better sermons than anything you'll ever do

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Okay And I asked al martin and he says well try it if it doesn't work.

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You can always go back So I published one book They were all sold three weeks before they were due to be in my possession

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Maybe we got something here And people wanted more and more and more And so after four years in the pulpit ministry

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I quit before I did any real damage to any of the people in the congregation and uh

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Started publishing and it took off So i've been doing this for almost 35 years.

13:38

So after you got saved did you go back to coaching football? Uh, yes for how long?

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Uh, well I coached for 22 years so that would have been until about 84 And then uh

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Then we moved to pennsylvania where I was coaching And I was getting into my late 40s and I was going around the country saving other guys jobs

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Wheaton college was the worst football program i'd ever seen Their motto was let's lose for jesus

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So And I said, uh, I got an idea. Why don't we win for jesus?

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We had a quarterback in a scrimmage who was running into the end zone. He dropped the football The head coach said why in the world would you do that?

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He's I don't know must have been god's will Whoa, this is hyper calvinism

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So, uh I wanted to be a head coach But I was never going to get the opportunity i'd save three guys jobs, but it never translated into a head job for me

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So I was doing this pulpit supply around western pennsylvania And the churches would often say to me.

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We're without a pastor. Would you be interested in candidating? I always had the same answer. I'd be most happy to talk to you.

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Here's my phone number. Give me a call Put it back on them They never did

15:03

Well, there's one church in ligonier, pennsylvania, which yes, which is where ligonier ministries came

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I preached out there and the elder said to me We're looking for a pastor. Would you be interested and I said be interested in talking to you and he called

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So I went out there and candidated and they called me And they said what do you need as a salary?

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And I said, what are you offering and they said 12 000 for the year a whole thousand a month

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Yes I said i'm gonna have to say no Because the bible says a man that doesn't provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever

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I'd be an unbeliever if I accepted that offer because I couldn't provide for my family But I have to tell you a couple anecdotes of pulpit supply around western pennsylvania

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There was a congregational church downtown beaver falls. This is joe namath's hometown

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Joe namath was a football player some of us know that And uh, so I was sent down there to uh pulpit supply

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And they were without a pastor And I said what happened to your pastor and they said well his

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Way of doing things was after he preached he went up sat down in the chair bowed his head and prayed

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And he wanted us to meditate for five minutes And about a month ago he finished preaching

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Went up sat down in his chair bowed his head and died What a way to go for a pastor

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Yeah, you preach and the next thing there's jesus. Whoop -dee -doo And I said well, how did you know he was dead?

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well, the five minutes went by and he didn't move and eight to ten minutes when I One of the deacons said we better go check on him.

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He wouldn't poke him. He fell over so anyway I thought i'd break the ice

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And I said, you know, it's a real pleasure to be here on a congregational church some of my

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Best friends were congregational preachers Jonathan edwards solomon styler jeremiah burroughs thomas goodwin

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And I named three or four And after the service the deacon came up to me and says, you know, we're looking for a pastor

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Do you think any of those men would be interested? You can't make this stuff up better than it is one day

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I got a call at the office And It was a lady with a strong texas accent

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I'll just say her name was wanda. I don't know. I don't remember her name Hello, this is wanda calling from pastor billy bob in sweetwater, texas

17:43

Yes He just read a book of yours called thoughts on family worship. Yes.

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That's one of our books Written by james w alexander Well, he liked it so much we'd like to schedule reverend alexander for our family conference this year

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Now on the back of the book There's engraving of him with the years 1798 to 1846

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So I'm pretty used to guys trying to punk me I mean i'm as much of a smart alec as anybody

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But nothing came So I said well wanda Uh james alexander's been dead for 150 years

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You ready so shall I tell the pastor he will not be available Yeah, you can tell him that That was a long answer to a short question it was actually

18:46

I answered about five questions so after uh after college or after coaching college ball

18:53

You went into pastoral ministry. Was there a time that you attended grace community church? Yes for about five years

18:58

Uh, I had actually known john. I met him when I was in college And he was doing a lot of speaking for calvin seminary

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And i'm an itinerant preacher well at the time I was a member of a bluegrass band in college,

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I played the five string banjo and We did a lot of stuff for youth for christ now. It's called campus life,

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I think And they had an outreach thing they call the burger bash Which somebody in the campus life club would host?

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an outdoor barbecue and swimming in the pool and then have a speaker and he'd get up and preach and Give an invitation

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Well, the guy would often have us come sing four bluegrass songs and then john would preach But back then he was more of a youth speaker comedian

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Um He modeled himself after a man from hume lake named ken poor um

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And now john is so sober -minded and serious and grave But that's how we met

19:59

So we've been friends for 53 years now and uh That means a lot to me.

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I don't think it means anything to john, but i'm proud of that So what years do you attend grace?

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Uh, it would have been in the early 80s Um, well for several years in the 70s

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And then I took a coaching job in missouri and uh This was a united methodist college

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Which was loosely affiliated with the united methodist church And I got my first personal taste of liberalism

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First sunday, they had a campus church So I decided i'm gonna start there and if it's no good i'll go this way and i'll broaden out till I find something

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And I walked in with a suit and a tie on carrying my new american standard bible And I noticed that I was the only one who had a bible

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That included the minister The scripture reading that day was from the old novel zorba the greek

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Of course, he couldn't have anybody turn to page 14 and read along with me The sermon that day was how the christian life was like a episode of the old black and white western wagon train

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God is the wagon master Jesus is the scout who goes before us and comes back and tells us what's out there

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And the holy spirit is the saloon girl The saloon girl was a bra

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Prostitute This isn't gonna work So the next week

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I went to the local baptist church And they did two things. I really don't like They said reach in front of you and give the person in the pew in front of you a neck rub

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Don't touch me And then it was a small congregation and then the minister said uh, mr

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Kister, would you come back to the back and let the people greet you? Oh, okay

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There's only about 30 people there And if only on a walker comes up No teeth she says

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Are you a baptist? And at that time in my life i'd had it with denominations

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All that stuff. I just says, you know, ma 'am. I'm just a christian Well, that's good, too

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If you can't be a baptist the next best thing christians to be a christian

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So where were you baptized? at grace community church Um My wife and I I realized

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I had been baptized young, but I wasn't saved And so I think I need to be baptized as an actual christian

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Well, they have a baptismal tank probably like yours here where you go down into the water And john's wearing wading boots and a frock

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And people would walk down and he'd take him Should I tell the story about the peralta?

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Yeah, I do. Yeah It wasn't this night, but it was another night. They brought in a man who was a quadriplegic

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He couldn't walk so they carried him and handed him to john And the man paralyzed from the chin down, but he had a stylus in his mouth like johnny erickson paints

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And he had a machine that could make words And so john insists

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I don't care if you're paralyzed or not You're going to give your testimony before I baptize you so he says

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What's your name? My name is bob Well, bob, i'm glad you're here.

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Are you a christian? Yes, I am john And bob, how does a person become a christian?

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I thought you already knew that john John almost dropped him.

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He was laughing And you can imagine what four thousand people did out there I mean it was a while before john recovered and uh

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The night I was baptized I went down You're barefoot and they have a wooden grate on the floor because the

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I don't know what what that stuff is Very smooth when it's wet Plaster or something like that.

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If you didn't stand on something solid you'd slip and fall that never looks good at a baptism. No So I went to the front wall and there's a microphone there and I started to give my testimony there's four five thousand people out there

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You know a little nervous I start fidgeting with my foot I got my foot stuck between Two of the boards in the front and I couldn't pry it loose

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So I just kept talking and talking I promised to give him a 10 -minute testimony Finally, I got my foot free and I said, well, that's it.

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I got him left I had people come after me up to me afterwards. That's the best baptismal testimony i've ever heard

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How did you do all that off the top of your head? Well, I can't tell him I had to my foot was stuck

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So I just had a lot to say Anyway, that's where I was baptized Gotcha.

25:32

And now you then you moved to pennsylvania took a pastorate there I moved to pennsylvania to work at geneva college as a football coach

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And from there I became a pastor after four years. How many churches have you pastored just one? Uh, I got out before I needed any real damage

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How long four years? And then I went to do the publishing full -time.

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It had to be one or the other But the church had doubled in size And the publishing was going great

25:58

And uh Is the church still uh, yeah, they're still going, uh, they have about a hundred now in attendance and uh

26:08

There was a lady that came And I always noticed the visitors because they sat in the wrong row

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The rows were named by the people who'd been sitting there a hundred years The second row was mr.

26:21

And mrs. Fisher. They were in their 90s And everybody knew that's the fisher row

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But one day some visitors came in who didn't know that was the fisher row They sat there and the fishers always came late because they were very

26:35

I don't say disabled but slow They got down to their row and saw people and mr. Fisher raised his cane and he was about to hit the guy

26:44

The one of the elders said no, it's okay, can you sit somewhere else for one day?

26:53

What year did you get into publishing? Uh 1988 was the first year and how many titles do you have in print right now?

27:01

Well with the first publisher I did over 400 soli de la gloria And then

27:06

I started over as the northampton press In 2017 and i've done 35 titles with them

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Almost 500 titles all together. So you started northampton press. Did you start solo de la gloria?

27:19

Yes So why two different companies? Well, uh in 2004 Uh, we joined forces with ligonier ministries

27:29

And moved the whole thing to florida and They had a lot of money and we didn't and then

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A year and a half later. They fired me and kept it all That was my life's work and it was gone

27:46

And so I spent a year and a half depressed and now you said i'm starting over So I started a new one.

27:52

The northampton press is named For the town in massachusetts where jonathan edwards pastored northampton, massachusetts

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And on the spine of our books is our logo, which is an artist's rendering of the church where he pastored and what it would

28:07

Have looked like so That's how so the

28:16

Currently with northampton press you run the entire thing. You do the editing. I do the editing I used to do the typing but then the arthritis would set in I can do the editing

28:27

But I have two volunteer typists One's a school teacher in singapore

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I just emailed her the pdf files and she can read the old english and she types them sends them back to me

28:40

Is microsoft word files and then I make them into book format And I do all the editing

28:46

So it always looks equally good or bad with and it can tell it was the same guy And then

28:53

I have proofreaders who go through and find mistakes and everything and Then our publisher is up in michigan and i've been using them for 34 years.

29:06

I did a local publisher the first time and they couldn't They couldn't get this stuff out in a timely fashion

29:13

So there was a man in virginia named lloyd sprinkle It was a reformed baptist pastor

29:20

Which is an interesting last name sprinkled for a baptist pastor And he'd been doing these kind of books for years sprinkled publications, but most of the ones he did were christians in the civil war and I said who you use and he told me the name of the publisher.

29:37

I've been using them ever since They have outbid even publishers in china print shops

29:44

They can beat the prices But it's four to six months on a freighter to get to me and I can get them in a week from michigan, so Like I said, they print them on acid -free paper

29:57

They sew them together instead of glue them together I have a professional artist do the covers and uh

30:06

They're all limited quantities. It's a niche market. Obviously. How long did you work for ligonier before they fired you about a year and a half?

30:13

Oh, that was fast. Yeah, and what year was that? They fired me in 2006

30:20

So with titles that are already out of print Puritan titles Is can you can you take the 400 that you did before and re -publish them?

30:29

They don't belong to me anymore They belong to joel beakey at reformation heritage up in grand rapids

30:36

Uh, he has the publishing rights and all the copyrights So, uh

30:42

He gave me back my own book And the titles by christopher love who's my favorite english puritan

30:50

Edwards is obviously my favorite american puritan and uh

30:56

But basically everything after that We're doing so. Do you have to get permission to print these titles that are?

31:03

No, there wasn't any such thing as a copyright till 1901 So anything before that is public domain

31:10

But a copyright is only good for 50 years So we're well past that stage for anything from 1900 to 1950

31:19

But the old english books There's no copyright on them It's public domain there's a

31:28

Organization called early english books online ebo They set about in the 1950s to xerox

31:36

On microfilm every book published in english before 1900 1900

31:43

And then they got bought out by xerox and then they got bought out by uh

31:49

I'm, not sure who has it now, but it's early english books online uh, dan's oldest son was a librarian for a while at a university

31:59

Was a utah state or utah And he called me

32:05

You have to have a subscription to ebo So He called me one day and says here i'll give you my username and password go in and get whatever you want

32:14

So I spent six months non -stop downloading over 4 000 puritan books onto my web on my computer and pdf files

32:23

And then I can just email that attachment to one of my typists who are very conversant with the old english

32:29

And what I do editing wise is I break a 26 page paragraph down into smaller chunks.

32:35

I don't take anything out I just make them And my motto is i'm going to give you a reason to read not a reason not to And then if it's king james english in the regular text

32:47

I update it If it's kim james english in the scripture, I leave it alone I have people who won't buy the book if it's not king james english in the scripture text there was a uh

33:02

Book seller up here in montana Choteau montana And he bought some books from me

33:09

And a week later sent them all back and said this isn't the king james english and I won't use it And I said well

33:17

Here's the problem. The sermon you're referring to was preached 19 years before there was a king james bible

33:25

He couldn't have used the king james version he said it doesn't matter I said

33:33

Are you saying there was no bible until 1611 if that's what i'm saying I have no toleration for that kind of idiocy.

33:40

I just don't Oh, yeah In fact, I used to get mail From england that would have little stickers on it

33:47

Read the bible god reads the king james version I'm pretty sure god reads the hebrew and the greek or he could say like When I was in wheaton illinois one time

34:02

I was talking to a guy and he said Talking about a book.

34:07

I said have you read this book? Yes. I wrote that book. Oh God could say the same thing.

34:13

Have you read the king james bible? No, I read the original. Thank you You started off in a church.

34:19

It was arminian baptist and Antinomian, those are the words you used to describe that. How did you that was before you were saved?

34:25

How did you come to reform convictions getting saved under macarthur's preaching did you Immediately adopt that or were you well at the time john was not a five -pointer.

34:34

Yeah Uh, he spoke at a conference I put on in pittsburgh where he came out

34:40

I hate to use that phrase because of what it means today. Yeah where he emerged And he says if you're saying are you preaching the limit atonement?

34:49

I'm saying yes I am And that was a big turning point one thing about john Is if he's convinced from scripture, yeah, that's what it means

34:58

And i've always sent john a copy of every book i've ever published just because of our friendship and uh

35:05

He reads them and uh there's a story about Not too far into his ministry where two of his top assistants who you both know

35:16

Walked in and put their resignation letters on his desk So what's this? John that sermon you preached yesterday was a roman catholic sermon what?

35:26

You had sanctification before justification And if that's what you believe we can't work for you or with you

35:33

And they pointed out to john and he said you're right. I do So, I mean he'll do that if you can show him where he's wrong.

35:39

He'll he'll amend it uh I didn't often know he is wrong. But if he is wrong, he'll he'll own up to it

35:48

So, how did you come to those theological convictions? Well when I left Grace community church was in the uh mid 70s

35:58

And I went to central missouri to work at this methodist church and uh

36:04

I was in the college and career group at the time the singles people 600 single people

36:10

Talk about a smorgasbord And uh They gave me copies of every sermon john had preached for the first 13 years

36:23

And I drove a u -haul truck and I listened to the most of them on the way to missouri And it was just one right after the other

36:29

And it was all these entire book hebrews first and corinthians. John, uh first john and uh

36:36

John would review the first 15 minutes Of what he'd done the week before and he said I don't believe they remember anything i've said and uh

36:46

Also when I got back there, I subscribed to two quote religious publications christianity today and moody monthly

36:56

And in both those magazines the first issue I got there was a half -page ad

37:02

By a guy named r .c. Sproul I didn't know it was spro on the holiness of god well, i've been reading the sermons of jonathan edwards because I did my genealogy and From my dad's line.

37:16

I come through jonathan edwards and from my mother's line. I called him from oliver cromwell So I tell you if anyone was ever predestined to love the puritans.

37:25

Here's your guy So I was reading edwards out of ancestral curiosity And uh,

37:31

I got five sermons in and I came to this conclusion I've never read this stuff before But if this is christianity, i'm not a christian

37:40

And then it was macarthur's sermons after that but uh, so I started listening to sproul tapes

37:47

And that was my first exposure to the reform faith And I listened to his nine lectures at the time on the holiness of god

37:57

And it had the same effect on me. It had on chuck colson. He just put me on my face And uh, so I was ripe for when we got out.

38:04

I got out to california and heard john I mean, it was just a matter of reeling me in like this But so far it's proven to be true.

38:15

Have you had any major theological shifts after that? Come in The last thing to follow was the baptism issue

38:24

I've been raised a baptist and uh And now i'm a pedo baptist

38:30

Well, you'll get a kick out of this I was invited to speak at a conference at a reformed baptist church camp up in upstate new york

38:39

And I decided just to have a little fun I said, sorry This weekend conference my first message is going to be on the scriptural evidence for infant baptism

38:49

Remember, there's a reformed baptist camp And one of the guys in the front row said it'll be a short talk

38:59

I can't appreciate that What is your favorite puritan author

39:06

English puritan christopher love and I wrote a book about him why He died he was beheaded by cromwell's forces at the age of 33

39:15

Your ancestors were responsible for killing a puritan. Yes But it just shows that true christians can differ politically

39:25

And still be true christians this was a political issue Christopher love believed in the presbyterian teaching at the time the divine right of kings

39:35

So they supported king charles and king james Who were ultimately beheaded? but Christopher love had written a letter and sent some cash to help

39:49

Support the king that was intercepted by cromwell's forces. He was thrown in jail and ultimately beheaded

39:56

But it's no pun intended. It's a great love story because uh, he he wrote to his wife and he says

40:04

Tomorrow is my execution day and she wrote back. No, it's not. It's your promotion day

40:11

And uh, he wrote back to her evidently had couriers going back and forth And he said

40:18

Tomorrow on the scaffold. I will not mention your name But it is not because I do not love you

40:25

It is because If I mention your name, I will lose all control of my emotions

40:30

He says but know this The last word on my lips as my head falls from my body will be to whisper your name

40:40

Now there's romance you can't find that in a hallmark movie There's nothing like that on lifetime that's romance and uh

40:52

He left his wife with three boys She was pregnant with a fourth who died two weeks later in birth but They said this was the beginning of the end for cromwell

41:06

Because he was highly regarded christopher love was highly regarded and uh I've published probably 10 or 11 of his books and it's just first rate

41:16

He died at the age of 33 and left and left probably 17 18 books I I tease him.

41:22

He only half tongue -in -cheek say God's mercy was that he did not allow the personal computer to be invented till after the puritans were gone

41:33

Yeah, can you imagine how much output there would have been if john owen had had a laptop

41:38

Yeah, or if jonathan edwards had a secretary who could type Probably not as much output they would have got busy chasing cat videos on youtube or something

41:48

Got distracted. Well These pastors were so prolific because one Everybody in their parish church was within a one square block

41:59

There were 100 churches in one square block of westminster london in 1666 one square mile in one square mile

42:07

So every block was its own parish. So if you did visitation you could do it all in one day

42:13

Secondly, they didn't have committee meetings I had one pastor friend who had a sign on his desk that said for god so loved the world.

42:21

He didn't send a committee Hmm So what does your favorite american your favorite american period says edwards jonathan edwards?

42:30

Yeah, and have you been to where he? Lived I went to where he lived They've done everything in northampton to erase the memory of the man

42:39

The only thing left is a place called the edwards church, which is not his church They tore his house down and built a catholic church on top of it

42:48

There were two tree elm trees in the yard called the edwards elms A man bought the property just so he could cut down the trees

42:55

They took the sign down that says the home of jonathan edwards. Now it says the home of calvin coolidge the president from a long time some of you guys are old enough to remember and uh, just everything they can to erase the memory of that man from from the

43:14

From their memory To me, it's still a shrine The the church that stands there now is a couple hundred years old it wasn't there when he was there

43:23

It's pastored by a lesbian and uh

43:29

The only thing still remaining there are three Round concrete steps that you can walk up to get those were there at his church.

43:36

Everything else is new and uh, it saddens me um

43:43

But they don't they don't want anything to do with it, would you say edwards is the finest theologian ever produced on american soil

43:49

That's what uh, lloyd jones said. Yeah, and I can't disagree with it um, it is interesting in 1953 yale university press

44:00

Started to reprint edwards Their first book was the freedom of the will And they gave themselves 50 years till 2003 which is the 300 year celebration of his birth

44:14

To have published everything he ever wrote Well, they lived pretty high on the hog and they ran out of money

44:20

And all the people who were funding them said now you've had 50 years. That's it so they're putting it on the internet now, but What was his name, uh perry miller was the first editor

44:36

And dr. Gerstner described him as a hard -drinking hard living atheist

44:44

And in the introduction to the freedom of the will perry miller says i'm glad we no longer live in an age where this

44:50

Hateful theology is propagated on the american people Gerstner tells the story that they were working in the reading room on sermons

45:01

And they were discussing sinners in the hands of an angry god and Perry was saying, you know from a sheer literary standpoint.

45:10

This stuff's priceless because in there edwards talks about how God is an archer

45:17

With the arrow of his wrath pointed at the sinner's heart Now, I don't know if you've ever shot a bow and arrow

45:24

I don't mean that little red rider toy thing But a full -size one six feet tall with a strong cord

45:34

Pulling that thing back is oh your hands shaking. I said just think of being the guy at the other end think

45:40

His hands shaking And edwards says the only thing that keeps god from letting that arrow fly

45:47

And being made drunk with the sinner's blood Is the sheer good pleasure of a god who is infinitely angry at him

45:56

And gerstner said to perry miller he says perry If edwards is right

46:02

That arrow was pointed at your heart I don't know how you sleep at night And his answer was sometimes

46:10

I don't I just hope to god he's wrong When we lived near pittsburgh airport

46:21

One night there was a crash plane crash Flight 721 from chicago united airlines flight was coming into pittsburgh at 10 000 feet the rear

46:34

Steering mechanism gave out the plane plunged straight down 10 000 feet and disintegrated

46:42

Killed everybody on board 119 people Well a fellow up the street from me was a local sheriff and he was part of the cleanup crew

46:52

And I saw him at the supermarket one day and I said, what was that like and he says i'm still shaking

46:59

And I said, uh must have been terrible. He goes. Yeah He says everything was body parts

47:06

He says the only intact body was a little six -year -old girl Everything else body parts strewn all over the place.

47:14

I said that had to be terrible. Oh, that wasn't the worst What was worse than that? Over by a bush.

47:19

I found a hand by itself with the fingers crossed When you go to meet god, you better have something more than your fingers crossed

47:28

So The that's what people are saying i'm not that bad and god's not that mad

47:37

Yes, he is The only thing the equivalent of god's love is his wrath

47:43

And where it says I has not seen an ear has not heard the things that god has stored up for those that love him

47:50

Same is true of his wrath You can't conceive the infinite anger of god towards sinners

47:58

In fact john 3 36 Uh those who believe in the son have life but those who do not have the son

48:06

The wrath of god abides on them right now. How do you tell a sinner that god loves him? And especially god loves you just the way you are

48:16

No, the way you are is the problem Not the solution And tell her

48:23

Practicing homosexual god loves him just the way he is glad to hear it. I have no intention of changing Well, no you you have to repent and give that up why you told me god loves me just the way

48:35

I am What You're stuck That word wrath in john 3 36 is the greek word or gay from which we get orgy which is no boundaries

48:50

No limitations If a person does not have christ And by the way, the greeks had seven words for anger and wrath

48:58

That's the hottest God's hottest wrath abides on a sinner right now.

49:06

How can you tell him god loves him? When the bible says exactly the opposite The same thing with You can have jesus as savior now and make him lord of your life later

49:20

You can't make him anything. God already made him lord. You can't do that And the bible uses the phrase savior and lord

49:30

You want to guess how many times? None Not once Do those two words come where savior is before lord?

49:41

Lord and savior 631 times gee what a coincidence

49:48

I used to have old football books before I had old religious books And uh the greatest blowout in college football history was in 1926

50:01

Where georgia tech big georgia tech? beat little cumberland college 222 to nothing

50:11

It was 56 to nothing after one quarter So I read into the history of this and there were guys on the kentucky football team

50:17

Said i'm not going up there to get slaughtered and he stayed home and a lot of the guys were just on the intramural team

50:24

We think that's a whitewash how about 631 to nothing? And how can you say to somebody

50:32

You can accept jesus as your personal savior now and make him lord of your life later when the bible never offers in that way

50:39

You have no right To offer christ in the way the bible never offers him We have to be biblical on this stuff

50:48

You think they know enough about me now? Yeah, that's good Um, you mentioned the puritan first puritan book you got was from the master seminary library in there

50:58

It was from john stones. It was the first one. I read you read. It wasn't the first one. I published What was it the first one jeremiah burroughs on the beatitudes?

51:06

Now I recently and it was a lithograph of a 19th century edition. I asked john.

51:11

What should I do? He said anything on the beatitudes or anything on suffering will sell Or pick a name that they recognize

51:20

Well burroughs is known for the rare jewel of christian content So I picked him and the sermons on the beatitudes

51:28

Well this last year I had a typist retype all 51 sermons and I edited them into modern format

51:35

I don't think they're any here because it's a 50 book and I can't sell it for 10 bucks like all the rest of them

51:40

But that's the first book I published And then the next one was a commentary on the book of jude by william.

51:47

Jenkin And then third one's the almost christian discovered And I found that On the cover, which

51:55

I just did on my little macintosh computer at the time on a program called page maker

52:00

The almost christian discovered by matthew meade down here in bowl waters Bowl letters forward by john mccarthur

52:08

And I found out people were buying it because they thought it was by john Because his name was in bigger print than matthew meets.

52:15

I don't care why they bought it as long as they read it What was your what is your favorite puritan title?

52:24

I think it's probably grace by christopher love he uh grace the truth growth in different degrees

52:32

By the way, if we sell out of a book that you want Pay for it here and i'll ship it to you for free You won't pay for any postage

52:41

And he summarizes the book this way Grace is the understanding

52:47

That christ is a better savior than you are a sinner Wow What else do you need to know

52:55

And he says, uh You could add up all the sins you've ever committed Into the hundreds of thousands or even millions

53:05

And it would be a finite number But christ is an infinite savior

53:11

And he has infinite mercy and uh

53:18

That was life -changing for me so That book is worth it just to come to that conclusion

53:23

And it's based on this the thing i'm amazed at jim is how well these puritans knew the whole bible

53:30

They weren't just new covenant guys with the new testament or the pauline epistles They'll preach a sermon out of zephaniah 2 9

53:40

Well, christopher love took this verse out of first kings 14, I believe it is It talks about someone that says the lord found in him one good thing

53:51

Toward the lord god of israel And love extrapolates from that god will find the one thing you may have ever done, right?

54:00

And categorize your life by that We will look at the last thing you ever did wrong and say that's who you are and god says no you couldn't do one right thing if Your heart wasn't right before the lord

54:13

And he goes through all these people in the hebrews hall of fame harlots liars murderers cowards

54:21

And he says but god looks at our life as a whole Not as our latest failure

54:27

And that's how he could say david who committed murder and adultery. There's a man after my own heart

54:33

In spite of the murder and adultery not because of it Mm -hmm, but the thing is that god jeremiah burroughs in one of his sermons on the old testament

54:45

Was talking about We need under the new covenant

54:53

He says god accepts the will for the deed He says under the old covenant you had to perform everything perfectly yourself

55:03

No substitutes. No sureties You either did it perfectly or damn forever You can make all the excuses you want and that won't do anything but under the new covenant

55:15

God accepts the will for the deed If you want to do good

55:21

And you are kept from it for some reason not other than just i'm not going to do it God accepts it as a completed act

55:30

And under the new covenant You don't need to make excuses for anything Because if there's an excuse to be made christ will find it and will take it to god for you

55:43

That's why I did a conference on the puritans in san francisco one time And a lady came up to me afterwards

55:50

And said why would you publish these hateful bigoted unloving people?

55:57

And I said which one of their books did you read that gave you that impression? Well, i've never read a single book of theirs

56:05

You know in academic circles we call that ignorance You're accusing them of this and you've never read a single word she goes well everybody knows it

56:16

Well, I don't know it so you can't say everybody you can say everybody but you knows it, but you can't say everybody knows it

56:24

But another lady came up afterwards and said I came here ready to argue with you

56:31

But I can't argue with the thing you said because it was all so logical So if you'd said simply what the bible says,

56:38

I just thought I don't accept the book But you didn't use the bible. You just use logic to prove the bible's points

56:44

I can't argue with anything Thank you, I don't like debating women anyway

56:51

They start crying and then the argument's over What is the best -selling puritan title that you publish?

56:57

I think it's heaven taken by storm by thomas watson It's a pretty short book

57:03

I put it on the beginners by the way on our website we have 10 three packs Basically three books for the cost of one

57:12

There's a beginner's three pack if you've never read anything like this. Here's three easy reads and uh

57:20

None of those are here, but they're on the website and you can do it that way What are those three titles? That was my next question.

57:26

Well, it's uh again heaven taken by storm Grace by christopher love

57:32

And saving faith by no the precious things of god by john angel james and Two of those books have forwards by mccarthur

57:41

John's a great lover of the puritans So, uh, the the other book

57:49

I would think is a best seller Is probably the precious things of god

57:56

Where each chapter is something that god finds precious? Precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his saints

58:04

Precious in the sight of the lord They're about 20 though. Very encouraging What how many books a year do you publish?

58:13

Well this last year we published five um The lord has brought along A very wealthy couple that says we want to see as many of these books in print as we can

58:23

So they have personally underwritten the eight of the last 12 Well, that's you know, we can probably sales aren't that great um

58:33

And since the pandemic that they've just tanked And I would think that people would be home reading books now

58:41

They're not they're watching netflix They're going to the movies. They're watching something on amazon prime or something

58:49

So sales have been poor And uh, but we did five books. We did the last three all at once Because the cost of paper has gone way up And because of the cost of fuel the freight costs to get them to me have gone way up The last book we did they charged me 978 freight to put them on a truck on a pallet and send them to orlando

59:17

What am I going to do? That's what they cost um Don't ask me what my favorite book is that's like asking you which one of your kids do you like the most?

59:28

Oh, that's easy Whichever one's standing right in front of me at the moment

59:37

Um a couple personal questions more light -hearted a little bit before we finish up. What do you do to relax?

59:43

What is your downtime? Uh I go to the movies I like a good story

59:50

I go to the movies more for the popcorn than anything else That's what I ask for for my birthday father's day and christmas every year is gift cards to the movies

01:00:00

So I haven't paid for a movie in 15 years uh And I order a large butter with a little popcorn on it and And then

01:00:10

I get a drink and I say I want more drink than ice Oh, yeah last time he gave me a large ice with two sips of drink in it.

01:00:17

I want a large drink with a little ice and uh I've walked out of more movies recently than i've finished without telling me what movies you enjoy.

01:00:28

What genre do you enjoy? Um where I like the character If i'm pulling for the character

01:00:35

If it's just a story if there's no good guys, I won't say If everybody's varying degrees of bad

01:00:42

And he's only good because he's less bad than that guy. I want one rocky one of my favorites mary poppins

01:00:54

Uh, that was 1963. It's still one of There's a couple faith -based movies.

01:01:01

I would highly recommend One is called greater Hmm and it's a true story about a guy who was a walk -on at arkansas in football

01:01:12

They said you'll never play here you can come on and be a tackling dummy but And the kid was a committed christian

01:01:20

He studied hard He lost 80 pounds of fat and put on 40 pounds of muscle

01:01:26

His senior year. He was the first team all -american guard Signed was rafted in the first round by the indianapolis colts

01:01:34

And uh went to training camp and they said we're having a party tonight after practice is now I promised my mom

01:01:40

I'd take her to church tomorrow I'm about to give away the ending. That's okay He was killed on the way home and uh at his funeral all of his players colleagues coaches came

01:01:59

And the whole movie is god is greater than that They now named the trophy they give every year to the top walk -on in division one football the brian

01:02:11

Bosworth trophy And then there's a movie called risen

01:02:19

Which is the story is here's a roman centurion who witnesses the crucifixion And he sees them take the body limp body down card it off to put in the tomb

01:02:31

Well, that's not a couple days later the story's going around he's not there anymore So his boss the roman pontiff at the time

01:02:40

Or pontius at the time says you need to debunk this theory. It's getting around all over the place

01:02:47

And he said what do you want me to do he said I want you to prove that the disciples stole the body And that he's really dead

01:02:56

So he said it's about to do that So he's as an unbeliever as there can be And he finds where the disciples are meeting and he walks in unannounced

01:03:06

And there's jesus having dinner with the disciples and his jaw drops And jesus says come on in friend.

01:03:14

Everybody's welcome And he can't talk I watched you die and jesus says what can

01:03:23

I tell you? So He starts following them around And uh again his whole job is to debunk this and he says well first of all

01:03:35

No group of disciples could have moved that stone That's too heavy a stone and it was sealed

01:03:43

These are fishermen and tax collectors. They couldn't have done that Well, he follows jesus around and He's starting to get interested

01:03:52

Well, they're in this one city Where they're sitting around eating fish and bread and I don't know if it's leftovers from the 5 000 or not, but All of a sudden there's some clamor and the townspeople are driving a leper out of the city

01:04:08

Yelling unclean unclean get out get out and you see the guy's got boils all over his face and bumps on his hands and arms and and the roman guy says to uh matthew

01:04:24

Why do you follow him and matthew says well some of us have doubted And he says then why do you stay with him?

01:04:31

All of a sudden jesus gets up from the fire grabs a fish and a piece of bread Takes it out to the man who's been run out of town

01:04:38

Hands it to him. The man looks at him in disbelief Jesus has stand up He embraces him

01:04:45

He touches him like this And walks away. Everything's gone He's been healed completely

01:04:53

And matthew says to their own that's why I love that But there's some funny stuff in there.

01:05:00

Jesus is walking. The disciples have been out fishing all night haven't caught a thing Jesus shows up on the shore and he yells out any luck

01:05:14

And he said no we've been fishing all night and he goes try the other side of the boat

01:05:20

Well, of course they're about as ticked off as can be that he would say like we're fishermen and you don't think we'd done that It's three nuts on the inside of the boat

01:05:30

They do and they almost capsized the boat the fish are jumping into the net he said I told you So there's some humor in there

01:05:39

And the one the one is called paul apostle of christ I love the ending at the ending paul is beheaded and the guy who does the beheading

01:05:51

Apologizes for what he has to do and paul says Do your job well and uh

01:06:00

When christopher love was beheaded. He handed the guy doing it a Coin and said get it right the first time.

01:06:07

Will you? Because after they'd cut a couple guys heads off the blade was dull He says i'm get it right the first time

01:06:16

And uh, so in the paul apostle of christ, he's beheaded And in the next scene

01:06:22

You see him And you assume it's heaven And here comes scores of people whose

01:06:30

Conversion they owed to paul coming to hug him and embrace him And then over the hill here comes jesus

01:06:40

Just think well done now good and faithful servant What church do you attend

01:06:46

The saint john's presbyterian church. It's a presbyterian church in america With a conservative presbyterian, it's a traditional worship service

01:06:55

We sing uh psalms and hymns and uh 40 40 or 45 minutes for the sermon which would be a short one for you

01:07:07

And uh, we have a very respectful liturgy Which I appreciate

01:07:12

Well, sometimes I tell them it's like a high school pep rally Lean to the left lean to the right stand up sit down fight fight fight

01:07:23

Fight fight what is your area of service to the body there? What do you do? Uh, they've asked me to teach sunday school from time to time

01:07:29

I preach when the pastor's sick He's got crone's disease And he can't always muster up the energy to get up there and do it and they hope

01:07:38

He's called me at 7 30 in the morning. I said I can't go. Can you fill in? Yeah, thanks

01:07:45

It's a little hard that the only time people call is if something goes wrong. Yeah, how big of a church?

01:07:50

Is it? About 180. It's a church.

01:07:56

It's no longer a church plant. We only started 13 months ago. And it became a particular church after one year.

01:08:05

And they've got enough money. We're looking to buy a building now. They're doing very well.

01:08:12

This pastor is the best combination of pastor -teacher I've ever had.

01:08:19

Obviously, I've had better preachers. I've had better pastors. But he's the best combination of the two.

01:08:26

I just love the guy to death. How old is he? I think he's 47, 50.

01:08:34

I talked to him last week and he said, I'm getting infusions. I said, for what? Iron? He says, I'm very anemic.

01:08:40

I said, I thought you were Italian. Great guy.

01:08:46

Well, that's it for tonight, folks. So you are free to leave your stuff on the tables if you want. Doors will open here tomorrow morning at 8 .30

01:08:53

and we'll have some snacks out for breakfast. So thank you for joining us and please give Don your thanks for what he's done.