Jon Moffitt Interview (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and today we have part two of an interview. And many times

I'm preaching verse -by -verse on Sunday mornings, and I say, well, we can't quite finish up today, so next week, part two.

And my wife would say, Bethlehem Bible Church is the church with the two -part sermons.

It's the sermon of two parts, always part two. Well, today we have an interview, part two, and if you haven't listened to the first interview with John Moffitt, you can go back and listen, but we'll talk about some new things today.

I'm happy and excited to have John Moffitt back on the radio show. John Moffitt of theocast .org,

welcome back to No Compromise Radio Ministries. Good to be here. Do you have a question that people write in and say, here's what we're struggling with, could you help us with this?

What's the number one question people write into Theocast and ask about? Assurance, by far.

Yeah, every, almost all comments and questions that we get are dealing with, how do

I really know that Christ lives within me? How do I know my faith is legit, real? I saw it today.

I saw someone post that in our Facebook group, questioning, you know, I don't really think

I'm saved, like, how do I know that, is probably the number one question we get.

John, maybe question two would be, where can I find a church that will teach me about assurance? Yes! That is actually the fucking question we get.

They start listening to Theocast and they're like, hey, so where can I find a church that preaches like me? Uh -huh.

Well, let's talk more about that in a little bit, about the network, but let's go back to assurance. It was

Rome that took away assurance. Of course, Bellarmine talked about that, they discussed assurance as, and proclaimed it as the sin of presumption, unless you were the

Virgin Mary, she gets a pass in everything. Apostle Paul, because of Revelation, you could have no certainty or assurance.

Think about that root word, assurance. Sure, I'm not sure when I die I go to heaven.

So they took that away, and one of the things about the Reformation, of course they rescued sola fide and the other solas, of course they rescued bondage of the will as a doctrine, but right at the top of the list there, top three, there was a recovery of assurance in the doctrine that you can know for certain that when you die, you are not going to be judged by God.

What do you think is the reason why so many people ask about assurance?

It's probably been in context where it's the fear of freedom. So there, and Paul even dealt with this, right, as he was saying that, well, if grace may abound, then let's just go and send all the more, right, so that we can just have more grace upon it.

And it's a complete misunderstanding of grace. The longer

I have the opportunity to love and counsel people, the more I realize that when people say grace,

I don't think that they have a full picture of what it means. And so people have to have something to grasp onto to say, okay, this is how

I know I'm okay with God. And I think this is why the gospel is so offensive to people, because the gospel says that your salvation depends completely on something other than yourself from the beginning to the end.

At no point can you claim at all that you were involved in your life.

It would be just as foolish as you and I to get really arrogant and prideful about how we were born, and who were we born to, and what year we were born, and what gender we were born to, as if we were in control of those things.

Everybody would laugh at you as if you were crazy, and they should, because we had nothing to do with that.

And the language that Jesus uses of new birth, it's the same picture that when you come to Christ, when you come alive,

Ephesians 2, right, you go from death to life, it has nothing to do with you.

Paul says this in Ephesians, so that you do not boast, which is a great verse.

Anytime you step back and you can think, well, this is how I know I'm safe, and if the answer has to do with you, then you have reasons to boast now.

That's not a safe place to be, because if your assurance is based upon you, then that means that your salvation is based upon you.

And whenever you fail in that area of assurance, then your salvation has failed. So this is why we talk about resting in the work of Christ.

Resting means that all of my hope, and all of my energy, and my entire life is literally in His hands.

I'm resting inside of His hands. I cannot do anything to earn my position with the

Father. And that's really hard for us, because within our fallen nature, we want to feel legitimate.

We want to feel as if we have contributed something. And this is why Paul says we walk by faith.

He doesn't say you walk by looking at your works, or you looking at the law.

And this is where even people I know, if they're listening to this, are probably yelling out, well, James says that, James says that. And James even says that, you know, our work is justified.

And going back to James, I think it's really important to understand that James first said in chapter 1 that our salvation was a gift of God's sovereign choosing.

So let's begin there. And that He does not give us our gifts based upon variance or change, meaning that He didn't look at our good works to say, okay, yes, you have confirmed that this is true.

James is dealing with people who are afraid and confused. They have started to reject the understanding of their responsibility to love one another.

And this is why he says you can't hold partiality and faith, that the two don't work. And by the way, he says that verse in chapter 2 when he starts questioning them, he always uses the word brother.

He's just trying to help them understand there's a confusion that now that you have been brought to life, your good works flow from your faith.

For those of us that claim faith, it flows from us. He's not questioning your salvation. He's questioning their confusion.

And so for those who are struggling with assurance, most of the time they probably have been in a healthy or in a diet where they've always been turned introspectively upon themselves saying, okay, if you truly say you're a

Christian, you should be doing these things. And the question always has to be how much of those do

I need to be doing in order for God to give me that assurance I'm longing for? John, if I said to you on May 12th, 1960,

I bore myself into this world, climbed out, looked around, said it's a go, even the language that we use for our birthday, you know, when were you born, right?

It's something that was done to us. It's an act of God and God alone does it. He gets the credit.

And what we're saying when it comes to assurance is that let's just start with looking to God before we start with an internal introspection, that old

Luther quote, hopefully will stick with me my whole life. If we look to ourselves, we don't know how we could be saved.

But when we look to the Lord Jesus, we don't know how we could be lost. Is there a time to look at your life and say,

I see some fruit, I see some evidences. Is it primary to do that?

Is it secondary? Is it never? When should a Christian actually take a look? And if they do take a look, what's the proper way to look and not stare, if you know what

I mean? Yeah, I think the Reformers are really helpful here, both in the

Confessions, the Reform Confessions. They say that works are a means to add to our assurance and a means to encourage our assurance, but there are not the ground or I would say the foundation that you stand upon.

Right. So there is there are times I have seen the

Holy Spirit bring acts of obedience in my own life that really, really encouraged me.

But there are also times I've seen my flesh, as Paul says, I do the things I don't want to do. And so there's this war that happens within me.

And ultimately, they can be a sweet aroma. They can be an additive to our hope.

But if you shift, this is where I think a lot of modern day preaching, even in what we call the evangelical world, some of the

Reformed -ish preachers that are out there, they shift the assurance on to the obedience, to where the ground of your assurance is your obedience.

And that's dangerous. And I don't think it's biblical. And that's where people find themselves questioning their assurance all of the time.

But if your assurance is solely based upon if God keeps his promises, then I am safe.

And his promises is that for those who have faith in Christ, in his death, work and resurrection, then

I have the gift. I've been given to it because I can't believe that I can't have this new life without it being gifted to me.

That's step one. That's the ground of our assurance. And then what we call from there's this idea that in scripture, we have a living faith, meaning that your faith is going to produce the fruits and reflection of what you have.

I mean, you say this often, right? Guilt, grace, gratitude. After we receive the grace of God from gratitude, you see these work as imperfect as they are and lacking much.

We do see them start to flow from us. And I do think that it's encouraged for us to look at the work of God in our life and say, wow, how gracious and kind it is that he is working through me, such a sinner.

So yes, I don't have a problem with us finding encouragement from our good works, but there's a difference between encouragement and the foundation, like the reason why

I'm saved. Absolutely. I think sometimes people make, as Thomas Wilcox said, a

Christ out of their works. They're wanting their works to save them, not just to prove that they're saved, but like you said, they're taking these fruits of God's work in your life and saying, you know what?

I think I've got enough fruit now in my life to confidently stand before God on judgment day.

I know I have to meet him one day. I stand before him and I offer to him these fruits because I think they're enough.

And that's where people go south when it comes to fruits and evidences. I know Theocast.

I know No Compromise Radio. We want holy living. We desire our listeners to live obedient lives, law -keeping lives, faithful lives, fruit -bearing lives.

We believe that. That's not the argument. But the argument is why, for what purpose does the law animate and other things.

But it seems like we have to incessantly say to people, because we're talking about grace so much, that law -keeping is important.

It is, but don't ever make law -keeping a savior, dear Christian. Today we're talking to John Moffitt on No Compromise Radio, kind of a blending of Theocast and No Compromise Radio.

What if we put the two names together? It'd be called No Theocast. I'm just kidding. Or Theocompromise.

Or Theocompromise. Oh, we would not want that, not at all. I think we do have some crossover.

You have just a weekly show, mine's daily, so maybe there's some differences there.

You and your partner have been doing Theocast for quite some time now. Let's talk some now,

John, about Theocast and the network that you're putting together, because many people, like that second famous question,

I think that's the second question I get as well on No Compromise Radio, where can I find a church that teaches the doctrines that you teach and the way you teach it, right?

It's good news, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, not just in content, although it is, but in delivery.

He gospeled the gospel, and therefore we want to make sure we do that.

And for you and your partner, you've got this network together. And so,

Justin, what's Justin's last name? I forgot. Purdue. I'm looking at his face on the website and I can't find his name.

Tell us about, what do you do? I mean, that's a way to influence friends and say, oh, yeah.

Tell us about, not the online classes, although those are good, not some of the free booklets that they can get, although I have that and it's good.

What's this network that you're putting together? Why are you trying to eclipse the Gospel Coalition? Yeah, I don't think so.

So one of the things that happened when we started Theocast, Theocast was very much just for our own church, and then a lot of people started listening, and then down the road,

Justin and I got connected and we kind of restarted Theocast over. And one of the things that happened is that we started getting so many questions about where's our church, like your church, like Grace Reform or Covenant Baptist is where Justin and Purdue is in Asheville, North Carolina.

And we started getting more and more of that. And then I had guys reaching out to me saying, hey, well, we need a pastor for our church, can you send us a pastor, or will you help me plant a church?

And so it just became overwhelming. The more that people found people like us, you know,

White Horse Stand, No Compromise Radio, these types of theological podcasts and radio programs that was exposing confessionally

Reformed faith where you can find rest in Christ, people wanting more of that.

And so Justin and I, you know, I have already planted three churches. Justin's planted two, and it's very complicated to do that.

And so we thought, well, what if we prayed about this and tried to find a collaborative of churches that have the same theology, 1689,

One Baptist Confession, Law of Gospel, Covenantal, you know, we see Christ in all of Scripture, we want to make sure that we're preaching assurances found by our faith and hope in Christ.

And so after a lot of prayer and time and some advice, we decided, well, let's put together a network of churches that we can, one, bring encouragement to each other so that we can plant more churches, revitalize, help more churches, and so that's how

Grace Reform Network got started. And if somebody wants to go to the website, where can they find

Grace Reform Network? Yeah, so gracereformnetwork .org. That's pretty hard to figure out.

We try to keep it pretty simple. And do churches, let's say somebody wants to find a church to attend, and they're not in leadership to join, but they want to find one that's in your network, is there some kind of search engine there for, you know, churches near me type of thing?

Soon, yeah, soon. So we are in the discovery process right now. We are gathering applications.

We have six churches that are part of the network right now, but that's about it. Those are the founding churches.

So we are taking all the applications right now, and it's been very encouraging. We've already received quite a few donations and several applications for church planting.

So yeah, we could definitely use some prayer and encouragement in that area. Theocast has kind of given us the opportunity to...

That's kind of the bullhorn for the network. One of the things that Justin and I, we're both churchmen, we love pastoring, we love preaching the gospel each and every week, and so Theocast has been great, but ultimately our aim and goal is, how do we help the local church?

How do we help the local pastor? And so Theocast kind of spreads the broad net, and then

GRN is going to hopefully be the application to that problem we're creating.

Okay, good. And when I'm on the website, I look at the requirements for joining, and I just like to read the table of contents.

So churches are going to have to line up with these to be in the group. And therefore, when people are searching for a church or want to plant a church, they know, oh, these are non -negotiables.

1689, London Baptist Confession, Creedal, Law Gospel Distinction, Covenant Theology, Confessionalism, Ordinary Means of Grace, Practice Church Membership, Plurality of Elders, Doctrine of Two Kingdoms, Romans 7,

Coming to Christ, Gender and Sexuality, Eschatology, Views on Creation, Christian Liberty and Issues of Conscience, Bible Translation, Political Views.

And so I find it very fascinating, John, that you have to be pre -trib, pre -meal to join.

Tell me more about that. No. Tell me, it says

Romans 7, and you can click on it, but what's your view of Romans 7, why do churches that want to be part of this network have to believe the same thing?

Yeah, so there are certain areas when, you know, we are so thankful for the work done by godly men 300 years ago when they wrote the 1689, but they faced things that were a little bit different than what we face today.

So we're not adding to the confession by any means whatsoever. But there has been some confusion on certain sections of scripture, which

I think counteract what the Reformers had set up. And so just for areas of clarity, just to help people understand that we do believe that Paul, when he wrote chapter 7, is speaking of himself as a

Christian and that it applies, therefore, to Christians. In other words, he's referencing his struggle with the flesh.

I mean, he says it in other areas of the New Testament where the spirit is going to be at war with his flesh, and the flesh at war with the spirit.

And so there's this duality of the Christian life that we live in, right? Saint and sinner at the same time.

And unfortunately, there has been some modern -day interpreters who do not take it that way, and I think it creates a lot of confusion in that.

Almost a perfectionism, where you can achieve so much perfection over time, and that there isn't this ongoing war that happens there.

And so just for the sake of clarity, we want people to understand that we do believe that there's this ongoing war.

The confession does mention this as well. At times, we will wrestle deeply. At times, we will wrestle with our flesh.

So you mean to tell me that Paul, the apostle in Romans 7, knowing that he was sinful and didn't obey perfectly, you mean he wasn't questioning his salvation there?

No, he was not. I love what he says, right? A wretched man that I am, who will save me from the body of death, thanks be to Christ.

Oh, amen. Talking to John Moffitt today from theocast .org.

I encourage you to go there. I listen to every show. I listen at 1 .5 speed, but that's okay.

I still listen. And I want to encourage you listeners to make sure you not just listen to the

Pactam with Pat Abendroth, but Theocast .org. That's a good question, John. Who do you listen to when you want to listen to a

Christian podcast, or as they say in Britain, podcast? Who do you listen to? Podcast, yeah.

You know, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. I actually do listen to No Compromise.

I know I'm a softie, but I do listen to the Pactam. Okay, there we go.

I do listen to the Pactam. I've always been a fan of Whitehorse Inn for many, many years.

They've always been very encouraging. But yeah, I don't listen to a lot of Christian podcasts, just to be honest.

Well, that's okay. You listed a few there. You listed them in alphabetical order. Mike comes before Pat, so that's important.

You know, it seems like we're just talking on the phone like we regularly do. John, I listened to Presbycast yesterday, and the

Presbycast guys interviewed Scott Clark and Daryl Hart about John Frame and John Frame's tri -spectivalism, and it was very interesting, and they were very blunt about Frame and some of his latitudinal views, and so I encourage you and the listeners to listen to Presbycast with Clark and Hart.

It was eye -opening. It was like, I thought I was No Compromise radio, and then you got Hart and Clark there.

That was really good. All right, what we're going to do— I do listen to Heidelkast, I will say that.

Okay, well, that's good. You know, he's got all the mini Heidelkast now for every—you know, now he's got a thousand shows because he has a thousand catechism questions, right?

Like, how does that work out? He's trying to beat me. Everything is a competition between that guy from Nebraska, Scott Clark.

Let's see, on your website, you've got some book recommendations, right?

So let's go to the Theocast for book recommendations, and okay, free e -book, by the way.

I want everybody to go to theocast .org. A good primer, faith. It says faith versus faithfulness.

Could I also—could I call it faith and faithfulness? Is that okay? Do I have to say versus? Well, yeah,

I mean, the idea of it is it's faith in Christ versus our faithfulness to Christ.

Okay, perfect. See? See, I didn't know that. Now I am corrected. So I'm going to give you kind of like a round -robin quick thing and just, you know, one or two -word response to some authors that I'm going to list.

James Montgomery Boyce. Oh, yes, Dan. Jay Gresham Machen.

Oh, very helpful. And, um, uh, yes, I can list a number of books.

Horatius Bonar. Uh, past the world. What'd you say?

Pastoral. Past the world. What's that mean? No, no, pastoral. Like a pastoral. Oh, pastoral.

I thought you said past the world. And I thought this is some new nomenclature from you young hipster pastors with the soyboy lattes.

And I have no idea what the past— You don't have to be a hipster pastor. Past the world. Past the world.

Past the world. Okay. Okay, good. What's your favorite systematic theology? Um, I definitely like to go to, uh,

Hortons, probably. Okay. What's your favorite book on preaching? Um, probably, uh, chapels is the one that probably influenced me the most.

Okay, great. Well, you have a wonderful book recommendation list at Theocast that I'd encourage people to go to for biblical theology to confessional theology.

You were even nice enough to put some, uh, Baptist stuff and some Presbyterian stuff kind of side by side.

People could pick with you. Hey, you know what? We could benefit from both, right?

Absolutely. Well, John, thanks for being on the show today and the show yesterday or the day before, whenever it played.

Appreciate you and your ministry and your friendship, uh, personally and, uh, nothing but the best. God bless you.

John Moffitt. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 15 and in the evening at six, we're right on route one 10 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.