Becoming a Calvinist BECAUSE of the John 3:16 Conference

Your Calvinist

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

On today's episode of Conversations with a Calvinist, we're coming to you live from Camp Sunlight.

00:05

I have my new friend here, Eric Gervais.

00:07

Gervais.

00:08

And he is the pastor of First Baptist Church Salt Springs.

00:12

Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now.

00:24

♪♪♪ Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:39

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

00:42

And I'm excited to talk to my new friend, Eric, today.

00:45

We just met yesterday.

00:47

Yes, sir.

00:48

And we are serving together as the speakers this week at Camp Sunlight.

00:53

I've been doing the evening sessions, and Pastor Eric's been doing the morning sessions, and we're talking about the subject of apologetics.

01:01

Yes, sir.

01:02

But that's not what we're going to be talking about on today's program, even though those messages are available on our church's website.

01:08

If you want to get the apologetics messages, you can go and hear those there.

01:11

But today on the show, we're going to be talking about a little bit of Eric's history, because he told me his story yesterday, and I found it so interesting.

01:20

I said, I've got to get the audience in on this, because you are Reformed, correct? You're a Calvinist? Yes, sir.

01:28

And I know it's not exactly the same music as Calvinist Reformed, but close enough.

01:32

You're not afraid of the labels.

01:34

Not afraid of the label.

01:35

And, but you weren't always a Calvinist.

01:38

No, sir.

01:38

Okay, so the thing that intrigued me about your story is that you became a Calvinist because of something that happened in a conference that was trying to push you the other direction.

01:51

Correct.

01:52

Now, the conference that we're talking about is the John 316 Conference.

01:57

My audience, some of them are aware of what the John 316 Conference is, but not everybody.

02:02

Can you tell them just a little bit of what that was about, who the big names were, and what their goal was? Sure, so back in 2008, there was some, started to be some pushback against this new Calvinism that was infiltrating Southern Baptist life.

02:17

And so, some of my seminary professors and others put together this conference called the John 316 Conference, which was a counterpoint to Calvinism.

02:26

People like Paige Patterson was there, Steve Lempke was there, David Allen, Dr.

02:31

David Allen was there.

02:33

I think Richard Lamb was there.

02:36

They had somebody that basically was to do a counterpoint to each of the main five points, the two of them, if you will.

02:41

Okay.

02:42

And so, yeah, so I was very interested.

02:45

Even though I had been seminary trained, I still wasn't, you know, I'm still working through a lot of theological issues.

02:52

It's all, you know, if I needed to land somewhere, I needed to, you know, get some backing as to what I believe and why I believe it, and I thought these men would be a great place to look and hear some of these things about Calvinism.

03:04

Absolutely, and I'm familiar with many of them, especially David Allen.

03:08

I mean, he's still trumpeting, right, even now, and has written books and things trying to argue against Calvinism, and I don't think I asked you this before.

03:19

I ask you now.

03:20

There's a man named Leighton Flowers, Soteriology 101.

03:25

He's actually, was he a part of that? Not at that time, no.

03:29

Okay.

03:29

He may have been present, I don't know, but he was one of the speakers.

03:32

Okay, okay, but that's the kind of, that's sort of what's going on now.

03:36

Leighton has sort of become the bulldog, you know, for what was known then as the traditionalist movement.

03:43

Now, the new name, or at least the name he goes under is the name provisionalist.

03:48

So, but that's all pretty, they're pretty much all making the same argument.

03:52

They're all on sort of the same side.

03:53

Yes, sir.

03:54

Now, Jerry Vines was there, right? Yes, sir.

03:57

Yeah, he was one of the speakers.

03:58

I think it was one of the preliminary sessions or something like that.

04:01

Vicki, if I remember correctly, he preached strictly on John 3.16.

04:04

Probably because of the John 3.16 conference.

04:06

And the argument, of course, for those who don't know why they would call it that is a lot of people think that a lot of non-Calvinists would say that John 3.16 is the silver bullet.

04:16

Sure.

04:16

Because it says whosoever will may come.

04:19

And they, obviously, you know, we might argue what that means and how that whosoever works out, but the argument from their side is if God says whosoever will, who are we to say that there's an election or a choice? So you get where they're coming from.

04:34

Absolutely.

04:34

Obviously, I don't agree.

04:36

I know you don't agree.

04:37

But that's the reason why they called it the John 3.16 conference.

04:42

So you went there not exactly certain.

04:44

Sure.

04:45

I was all over the place.

04:46

I mean, I went to seminary to hide of the church growth movement.

04:49

So I was trained on a lot of pragmatic things, and how to draw people in, get a crowd, lead them to pray the sinner's prayer.

04:59

And I was just at a time in my life, I was pastor in my first church.

05:03

I'd done everything from wild game, beast feasts to, you know, trumpetry, just anything to draw a crowd, get people in.

05:10

And maybe there's a place for some of that, but I just kept feeling empty.

05:14

I would get a lot of people to pray, receive Christ, baptize, never see him again in church.

05:21

And I just felt, this is unfulfilling.

05:22

There's something else there.

05:24

And so I was struggling with a lot of different things in terms of my training, what I was actually doing as a pastor, carrying that great burden that it was up to me to see people come to the Lord.

05:35

What could I say differently? How could I tweak this? How could I, the words I use now is trick them.

05:40

I wasn't thinking in those terms, but I realized now I was just trying to trick people into accepting Jesus.

05:45

How can I present Jesus in a more acceptable way? That was even one of my classes at seminary.

05:49

I'll never forget.

05:50

You know, Jesus is our product.

05:52

We just gotta learn how to package him correctly.

05:55

We have a consumer base.

05:56

We need to learn about our consumer base, what they like, what they dislike, and present Jesus in such a way that they will buy our product and keep coming back for our product.

06:04

That was actually taught in one of my seminary classes.

06:07

Okay, I have to stop you because I've heard people use that as a, I've never heard anybody say that that really happened.

06:19

I've heard people say they- Oh no, it happened in one of our churches.

06:21

I had several church growth classes to take, and that was actually said in a seminary class.

06:26

And I remember walking away from that, feeling a little funny.

06:28

But again, I wasn't very, like most churches, the issue is discipleship.

06:33

I was undiscipled.

06:35

I just knew I loved the Lord.

06:36

I wanted to serve him with my life.

06:38

And I knew seminary was the next step.

06:39

I went there to try, I guess, looking to be discipled.

06:43

There's a lot of assumptions our seminary makes is that you already are spiritually mature.

06:47

This is just to help you get, you know, fine tune some things.

06:50

And I was not there.

06:51

I was not ready to be a pastor.

06:53

I've asked the Lord for forgiveness many times from the first church I pastored.

06:56

Oh wow, okay.

06:58

Well, like I said, I've heard people say that.

07:01

And I do know this.

07:03

I remember a seminary class I took, and they didn't say that, but this is what the guy did say.

07:09

He said, you give me enough time with anybody, and I can lead them to Jesus.

07:14

I remember, and I thought to myself, even Jesus couldn't lead everybody.

07:18

I mean, not that he couldn't, but from an earthly perspective, most people didn't follow Christ.

07:25

Most people went away.

07:26

When he preached hard in John six, people turned and left.

07:29

It was too hard for them to accept.

07:30

Yeah, so the idea that, yeah, if you give me enough time with anybody, they'll follow Christ, I'm like, I remember thinking this guy, one, is fooling himself to say something like that.

07:40

But also, just that mindset that here's a commodity, like orange juice or toilet paper.

07:46

Sure.

07:46

As long as we find the felt need, you can get somebody to buy it.

07:50

Yes, how to package it, that they will want it.

07:52

And look, I had taken some marketing classes in college, and I was hearing all the same business model principles in presenting Jesus to get people to buy your product.

08:03

Wow.

08:06

So looking at selling Jesus as a product, I think I'm with you in the sense that that was one of the first things that I recognized, even in seminary.

08:14

This doesn't seem right, it doesn't feel right.

08:17

There was something about it that wasn't right.

08:19

And my makeup, my characteristics, and everything else, I just felt like I'm gonna be very unsuccessful in ministry because I'm not creative enough to keep trying to draw this crowd.

08:31

I remember sitting at home with my wife one night watching a pastor out of Texas.

08:37

In the background, they had a BMX dirt thing going, and while he's preaching, the guys are doing tricks.

08:42

And I'm starting to think, well, first of all, if I was in that audience, I wouldn't be listening to the pastor at all.

08:46

But I just looked over at my wife and I said, you know, if that's what it's gonna take to reach people today, I just don't think I can do it.

08:52

And the reality is I can't, but.

08:54

Yeah.

08:57

I heard many years ago, and I know you've heard this too, that if you lend someone with a party, you have to keep them with a party.

09:04

Yes.

09:05

By the way, if you hear the background, we're at camp, so don't get offended if you hear, well, that's the boys going by, and we're excited to be here.

09:13

We are very thankful to get to be a part of this.

09:16

I'm so grateful for Austin for inviting me and having us here.

09:21

What a wonderful pastor he is.

09:22

He's been on the show before, those of you who know, Pastor Austin Tucker, Grace Point Church here in, was it Summerfield? Summerfield.

09:28

Yeah, and so we're grateful to be a part of what's going on here.

09:33

And so don't let those noises bother you.

09:35

We're not letting them bother us.

09:37

So getting back to the John 3, 16 conference, because this is, you told me that it was a, again, you went in not really kind of on the fence.

09:46

Yes, sir.

09:47

And there was a particular moment where you thought this is an exegesis.

09:51

Right, right.

09:52

So and the reason I was sharing the other stuff, because it leads up to these points as to why I ended up where I am.

09:57

Okay.

09:59

Because there's a lot of things that was like disheartening in terms of ministry and struggling, because I always felt it was upon me.

10:05

What am I doing wrong? Why is my church not growing? What could I do better? So just like I went to seminary, I went to this conference with a hope of getting something solidified for me.

10:14

And so I'll go to this conference and at First Baptist Church of Woodstock, and several people there, and I went with our associational director.

10:23

We went together and spent some time together.

10:25

So I was appreciative of that.

10:27

But we go to the conference and I had already accepted some things just through studying scripture in terms of being dead in sins.

10:34

I never had a problem with that.

10:36

I mean, I may be able to talk some of the terms, but I couldn't really define all the terms.

10:40

So although I probably would say, yes, I believe in total depravity.

10:44

I mean, I always defined it, but I just, I'm dead in my sins.

10:47

I can't come to Christ on my own.

10:49

I didn't think there would be any issue with perseverance of the saints.

10:53

I'll just be honest with you.

10:54

By the end of the conference, I didn't stay.

10:56

I couldn't take it anymore, based on what I was hearing.

11:00

I thought that wasn't an issue for Southern Baptist, but these people, to me, there was such a hatred for Calvinistic theology that even the thing that the main thing that all Southern Baptist hold to the same, once saved, always saved, they were even starting to push back against that.

11:17

And I was like, okay, where are we with this? But I went to a church where, I was a member of a church where the pastor would say, if it takes a hundred steps to get to God, God would take 99.

11:28

You just gotta take that one step.

11:29

And even then I was like, I would lean over to my wife.

11:32

This isn't right.

11:34

That's still a works-based salvation.

11:36

I gotta do something to be saved.

11:38

I know the pastor, man.

11:40

And it's also to kind of get people to get out from their pew and come forward with the altar calls, as you know, that's very popular.

11:48

But I just said, you know, if it takes a hundred steps to get to God, the way I'm reading the scripture, God takes all a hundred steps, grabs you by the hand, and takes you to be with Him.

11:57

And so I'm at the conference, and the first speaker is teaching on total depravity.

12:03

It's Ephesians 2.

12:04

I think, okay, you know, you are dead and you trespass into sin.

12:07

It's a dead lot.

12:08

I'm like, okay, this is gonna be a no-brainer.

12:10

We're gonna agree on this.

12:11

Well, he then goes through his whole speech on that, his presentation on that.

12:17

And I was just floored at what he was saying.

12:19

He really wasn't dealing with the text, what it meant to be dead.

12:22

He was trying to present the argument that dead in scripture doesn't always mean dead.

12:26

And then he used a personal illustration from when he was, I'm assuming a boy or a young man in Texas.

12:32

And he came across a snake, didn't see it, almost stepped on it.

12:36

And it would have been a bad deal if he would have, because it was a ways from the hospital.

12:41

A venomous snake would have killed him out there.

12:43

But he had a shovel or something out there.

12:45

And so he killed the snake, whatever he had, he killed the snake.

12:49

But I guess through muscle contractions or whatever, the snake, after being dead, still struck towards him.

12:56

And then he made this statement.

12:59

He said, that just goes to show you that just because something is dead doesn't really mean it's dead.

13:06

And I just remember, I don't know, I don't remember what my outburst was, but at that point, I don't know if I let out a big sigh or, that's not biblical.

13:14

You know, it's something.

13:15

And a lot of people turned and looked at me and I had a gentleman, and if I had named names, people would know some of these names, but a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder behind me.

13:22

He says, are you a Calvinist? And I just said, no, I'm not.

13:25

But with preaching like this, I might become one.

13:27

Not realizing that it was preaching like that that would end up pushing me along, so to speak.

13:34

At least searching more, if any answers.

13:38

So you say you didn't stay for the whole conference.

13:40

No, I was like, I'm not even gonna, you know, these guys, I just couldn't, there was a lack of concern for biblical truth.

13:50

It was to prove the point that Calvinism is just not, and to me, not orthodox, is the impression I got.

14:02

They may not say that, but that was the impression I got.

14:04

We needed, this is evil, we need to do away with it.

14:07

That was more concern than, what does the Bible actually have to say? That was the conference where David Allen said, James White is a hyper-Calvinist.

14:15

Sure, yeah.

14:16

Yeah, and so they weren't even getting historic definitions correct, because James White is not a hyper-Calvinist.

14:23

Well, that's one of the reasons why I pushed back against it, right? You know, I always thought Calvinism, that it was a bad, you know, it's as bad as cancer.

14:30

You know, it's a C word.

14:30

You don't, you know, it's bad, you don't want nothing to do with it, stay away from it.

14:34

Calvinists were painted as not being evangelistic, and so on and so forth, until I started studying some church history, and I realized prominent evangelists were all Calvinistic.

14:43

And I honestly, I'll be honest, that was one of the things that really helped me early on, because I remember having a conversation with the guy who introduced me to Reformed Theology, and we were having a conversation on the phone, and I said, I said, I just don't know if I can't say, because I like to go do evangelism, and you talked about that some in the conference this week, about going and talking to people.

15:08

And I said, I don't know if I could say this, I want to be able to say Jesus died for you.

15:15

Right.

15:15

And we know as Calvinists, that particular phrase would be problematic regarding atonement.

15:23

Even though we may word it, we would word it differently.

15:27

But I wanted to be able to say that, and he said something to me that I will never forget.

15:31

He said, Keith, he says, I know you want to say that.

15:35

He said, but where in the Bible did you see the apostles saying that? Right.

15:39

Where is that there, quote unquote, sales pitch? Right.

15:42

And I got to thinking that really is a sales pitch.

15:44

Sure.

15:44

Jesus loves you so much, he was willing to die for you.

15:47

And that was one of the things I remember, because again, I didn't go to the John 3 16 conference, but I remember guys saying, well, I can't give up telling people Jesus died for him.

15:57

Yeah, Jesus died for them.

15:59

And so it was like, we had struck their sacred cow.

16:02

Sure.

16:03

We had struck the way that they did things.

16:06

Yes.

16:06

Just like you said earlier, there's a selling.

16:10

Well, yes, there's a lot of pride involved with that, but when you take a step back and you, first of all, I think crucial to all of this is understanding the sovereignty of God.

16:21

I think all of the doctrine theology flows out of that true understanding that God is truly sovereign over all things, in control of all things.

16:31

He's the God, as Isaiah declared, he decrees the ends from the beginnings.

16:35

And when you realize that, it's very liberating.

16:39

But when you do not submit yourself to that truth of God, you make it, you know, it's about you and what you do and what you're able to do.

16:52

And that's why we got this celebrity pastor phenomenon.

16:56

Listen to how this guy does it.

16:58

And if you do what he does, I mean, one of my textbooks in seminary was the purpose-driven church.

17:03

So everything was about purpose-driven, you gotta adopt this, you gotta have this vision statement, you got this five functions of the church and so on and so forth.

17:11

And I did all that.

17:12

I came up with these vision statements and purpose statements and through youth ministry and other stuff.

17:17

And it's just, again, spinning your wheels.

17:20

But I think that's the hardest thing for a lot of pastors to accept is that a lot of what they did in the past was for naught.

17:30

Okay? We all want to be liked, we all want to be proud, we wanna pat ourselves.

17:36

But really, when it all is said and done, God gets all the glory, all of it.

17:41

And if you can submit to that, and I think that's the issue, to realize, man, if this is true, I spent a lot of my ministry and I wasted it.

17:52

And I'll be honest with you, Keith.

17:54

I had, a few years ago, I just had a real heart-to-heart with God and I spent a good portion of my night just asking God for forgiveness because I made it about me.

18:06

I was concerned about winning arguments, I was trying to convince people to come to Christ when I'm just called to be his ambassador.

18:14

As Gordon Bacchus would say, I'm just a mailman delivering the mail.

18:19

And that's all I am.

18:21

I'm just a mailman.

18:23

And it's God who sent the letter and it's that individual who's to read the letter and respond to the one who sent the letter.

18:29

I'm just delivering the mail.

18:30

And man, there's no room for pride in that.

18:33

There's no room for my creativity, my intuitiveness.

18:39

I just, I need to know him as he has revealed himself and do my best to make him rightly known to others and then leave that to God.

18:47

And so when I actually started digging deeper, one of the things that really got me on this trajectory, and honestly, I've read very little about John and Calvin.

18:57

That's one of the things I get accused of.

18:59

Oh, you just follow a man, not God.

19:00

I said, you need to understand something.

19:02

I built a label because that's- They like John and Calvin, not Jesus Christ.

19:06

Yeah, and so I used a label so we have the starting point of where I am theologically.

19:12

But understand, John Calvin's not necessarily my hero.

19:16

Some of his commentary, some of the things I've read, I'm like, this isn't right.

19:19

You know, I have some issues.

19:22

I don't leave myself with Calvinist because I follow John Calvin.

19:28

It's just a systematic understanding, particularly with soteriology.

19:33

But I was about to preach through Romans and I had a friend of mine who was new to the doctrines of grace, as we call it now.

19:39

And he was really challenging me on this.

19:42

And particularly, some of my arguments, he kept coming back to Romans 9.

19:46

And Romans 9 just kept defeating everything I was saying.

19:48

He said, now, how are you gonna preach this when you get through it? I said, you need to understand something.

19:52

I'm called to preach God's word, whether I like it or don't like it, whether I agree with it or disagree with it.

19:58

I'm gonna preach what it says.

19:59

He says, he told me, he said, but what you're telling me is in direct opposition to this.

20:04

I said, again, I'm looking to God to preach His word, whether I agree with it or not.

20:10

He said, so you're gonna, I said, I will preach what it says.

20:13

But before I ever got to Romans 9, because I preached verse by verse, and I did that, even before I ever came to a Calvinistic view of soteriology, I've preached through books of the Bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.

20:25

That was a personal conviction because I noticed that a lot of people in church are just biblically illiterate.

20:29

They don't know what they believe.

20:31

They don't know what the Bible actually has to say.

20:33

And so I just felt convicted that I needed to do that.

20:37

It also helped in sermon prep time.

20:39

I didn't have to come up with a new idea anymore of what I was gonna preach on this coming Sunday, just the next passage.

20:44

And so I started doing that.

20:46

But for the first time, I decided no commentaries, nothing.

20:53

I'm gonna read Romans before I preach through it.

20:56

And as best I could with the mindset, I'm on a desert island, the book washes up on shore.

21:04

I read it, what I would walk away with.

21:07

And before I saw it, I just prayed this prayer.

21:09

I said, God, I know what I believe.

21:11

I know what this group believes.

21:12

I know what that group believes.

21:13

I know what I was taught to believe.

21:15

But more than anything, I want to know you as you revealed yourself and what I should believe according to your word.

21:21

And so I try my best to just try to block out any biases, any presuppositions, any thoughts I had in terms of predestination, all these other key words or whatever.

21:32

And I just read it and I just walked away saying, this is it.

21:37

I don't know how many times I've read the Bible and I missed it.

21:40

And all of a sudden, everything opened up to me.

21:43

Old Testament made sense.

21:45

Whereas before it was like, how can I preach the Old Testament? It made absolutely no sense to me.

21:48

But all of us started to fit from beginning to end.

21:52

Everything began to fit where God is sovereign over all things and he is working things out for his glory.

22:00

All of it.

22:01

And for the first time, I was relieved and released to actually evangelize.

22:07

Because it was no longer about me.

22:09

It was no longer about what I could do.

22:11

I needed to be faithful to share Christ and then trust God to do the work from there.

22:16

And it just, there was such a burden that was, you know, that was just, I was relieved.

22:22

Now, of course, I'm heartbroken.

22:24

Anybody that rejects Christ, sure.

22:27

But now I don't bear that burden that it was my fault that they rejected Christ.

22:33

Okay? And there's just so many things.

22:37

I think for me, one of the crucial things that I just finally said, okay, I give up.

22:42

I was at a pastor's conference at First Baptist Jacksonville.

22:45

I only went to one.

22:46

It was like 2010.

22:48

I'm sitting there.

22:49

I went by myself purposefully.

22:50

Usually I go with friends or whatever.

22:51

And I went by myself purposefully because I just wanted to spend some time alone with the Lord in my hotel room while I pray and other stuff.

22:58

And I remember just sitting there and I'm listening to these guys.

23:01

And some of these were the John 316 guys, Jerry Vine, others were there.

23:07

And, but then all of our breakout sessions were Calvinist.

23:09

All the books they gave us were written by Calvinists.

23:11

I'm like, they're just confusing us.

23:13

What's going on here? And in reality, that's what I was.

23:16

I was a confused Calvinist.

23:18

Most Southern Baptists, if you don't use the terms and you just talk through scripture, they're more Calvinistic than what they would want to admit.

23:26

It's just as soon as you use the word because it's been treated the way it's been treated, they back off of it.

23:31

I remember having a conversation with my grandfather.

23:34

He was a Democrat to the day he died.

23:36

And he would never want to talk politics.

23:38

But one day he actually entertained a conversation with me.

23:41

And I didn't use the words Republican or Democrat, but I just went line by line.

23:46

Welfare, homosexual marriage, abortion, so on and so forth, all the way down the line.

23:53

And he was very conservative in all his views.

23:56

And at the end of it, I said, by the way, just so you know, that is the Republican platform that you agree with.

24:02

And the Democratic platform is everything you said you're against.

24:05

To that, he responded, I don't want to talk politics.

24:08

I don't want to talk politics.

24:09

Yeah.

24:09

And you know, and I feel that way, but sometimes as soon as you throw a label, this is why people say, oh, you want to hide who you are.

24:14

No, I don't want to hide who I am.

24:16

It's just that the terms have been stolen and degregated to the point that people don't even know what it means.

24:22

Sometimes it's almost like talking to a Mormon.

24:24

You have to get them to define the terms.

24:26

They use the same terms, but they don't have the same definitions.

24:30

And so something when you use the word Calvin is they think you're not evangelistic.

24:35

You know, you're not sharing the gospel.

24:37

No, that's not what that means.

24:39

And so through all that experience, I've been very blessed.

24:46

I'm in a church that I've grown, they have grown with me.

24:50

And there was a few people there that were already exposed to the doctrines of grace, and they had challenged me from time to time with a few things that really got me asking some serious questions theologically.

25:01

I wish I could say I was properly trained to be a pastor, but I was in the church I am now, it was probably about my fourth or fifth, fourth year that I finally felt I'm finally a pastor.

25:14

I had a lot of on the job training.

25:17

And I wish we would do a better job in preparing men for ministries and ministry.

25:21

That's not just sending them off to seminary.

25:25

And I think there's probably a lot of men in the pulpit who are confused like I was for five years, I was pastor of a church in Mississippi before going to Salt Springs.

25:33

And then you take on another, so I was nine years pastoring a church.

25:35

So I had a lot to ask God for forgiveness for.

25:37

Sure.

25:38

And, you know, I don't know anybody who has it together right out of seminary.

25:43

Sure.

25:44

I did a show a few months ago with a friend of mine where we asked the question, he went to Southern.

25:50

So he went to the Blackfish School.

25:52

The irony in all this is I didn't go to Southern because man, their president's a 5.0 Calvinist.

25:57

I ain't going there.

25:58

Well, he was a member of our church and he went and now he's a pastor of a church.

26:02

And we were talking about whether or not seminary is necessary.

26:07

Sure.

26:07

And, you know, we talked that out for an hour.

26:10

If you want to listen, go back and listen to that show.

26:13

But one of the things we discussed in that was the idea that whether you go to seminary it doesn't really prepare you for the things that you're going to face.

26:23

It doesn't prepare you for the 3 a.m.

26:25

call for the person who just lost the child.

26:28

It doesn't prepare you for the marriage that's falling apart because of infidelity.

26:34

Now they can take you to classes and they can tell you how to be viewpoint neutral and how to be a moderator in a counseling situation.

26:42

It's a lot of logistical stuff.

26:44

But other stuff comes through just experience, spiritual maturity.

26:48

And loving your people.

26:50

Loving them.

26:51

Yes.

26:52

Yeah.

26:52

That, no doubt.

26:54

Seminary, necessarily we could debate that.

26:56

But I do think it's needful.

26:58

I think there's a lot of good.

27:00

There's some men who needed to be seminary trained.

27:02

Yeah.

27:02

And there's some men who weren't, who are phenomenal, you know.

27:06

Yeah, that's what we talked about.

27:07

And like I said, both of us had been to seminary.

27:10

Sure.

27:11

But the idea of what does it really do? It teaches you to study.

27:16

It teaches you to be a better student.

27:17

It teaches you to be disciplined.

27:19

There's a lot of good.

27:20

Yeah.

27:20

A lot of good.

27:21

But it doesn't, you know, I think churches make pastors.

27:24

Sure.

27:25

Absolutely.

27:26

Seminaries prepare us for what you said.

27:28

The on-the-job training.

27:29

Yeah, what you're going to do when somebody's in a wheelchair and wants to be baptized.

27:32

Yeah.

27:33

Yeah.

27:33

You know, you don't think about that.

27:34

Yeah.

27:34

You just don't think through all those kind of things.

27:37

Yeah.

27:38

So now that you're in your church and you said you've been, did you become a Calvinist at this church? Yes.

27:43

Okay.

27:44

So I know that when I became a Calvinist, it was as I was becoming a pastor.

27:52

So my first couple of years, I had to fight the battle of Reformed Theology within the congregation.

27:57

There were a few people who left.

27:59

But for the most part, the people stayed with me.

28:02

They trusted the Lord.

28:02

They trusted the Word.

28:03

And they trusted that that's what I was teaching.

28:06

So you became Calvinist at the church you're in now.

28:10

What were some of the changes that sort of happened? Or were there changes initially? Or did you just sort of...

28:18

We kind of grew together.

28:20

You know, so that was a good thing.

28:22

You know, so I think part is, some of my cultural background is a Cajun.

28:29

If the audience can't tell by the accent, I am originally from South Louisiana.

28:33

Yeah.

28:34

But now I'm in the Florida cracker world.

28:37

Oh, yes.

28:38

Very much.

28:38

Central Florida.

28:39

In the deep woods of the Ocala National Forest.

28:41

But loving every minute of it.

28:43

I love my people there.

28:44

And they love me tremendously.

28:46

I'm very thankful.

28:47

I've had other people try to say, you need to come here.

28:49

You need to come there.

28:50

I said, look, if all God did was bring me to Salt Springs so I could know Him, I'm good.

28:55

I'm good.

28:56

And I'm very thankful.

28:57

But as far as, you know, you hear about pastors who are already, you know, reformed in the theology and they have to reform a church and they fight those battles or whatever else.

29:05

I didn't have that because the people knew my heart.

29:07

They knew I cared about them.

29:09

They knew all I wanted to do was know God and make Him known to them.

29:13

And so we, from the very beginning, I said, you know, I don't have an agenda other than to make sure you know who God is.

29:21

I'm not here to use you as a stepping stone to go somewhere else.

29:24

I'll be just fine if God would keep me here, you know, for the rest of my life.

29:28

And I've been there now 13 years.

29:30

I want to stop you real quick.

29:31

You said that this morning in your message.

29:35

I'm paraphrasing, Phil.

29:36

I don't remember exactly how you said it, but just the fact that knowing God.

29:40

Yeah.

29:40

How important that is.

29:42

Absolutely.

29:42

Not just knowing about Him or knowing these things, but knowing God and how valuable that is.

29:47

It is extremely valuable.

29:49

So in the church growth movement and this, you know, like decisional regeneration, I think people mean well.

29:56

You know, I wish they would care about people.

29:58

I wish they would give me some some of the same courtesy as I try to.

30:02

I think they mean well.

30:03

I think they're misguided.

30:04

They're in error some ways.

30:06

They want to see people safe, but they see the end game as getting to heaven.

30:09

Yeah.

30:11

When you study scripture, you see that the end goal of our salvation is conformity to the image of Jesus Christ.

30:17

That's right.

30:17

That is it.

30:18

And the only way to be conformed to Him even now starting the process in our process of sanctification is you've got to know who He is.

30:25

You know, and even John declares that we will be like Him for we will see Him as He is.

30:31

We will know Him on that day in a way that we don't know Him now.

30:34

And we will be glorified, totally changed.

30:36

Looking forward to that day, that first moment of no sin.

30:40

You know, people talk about who they're going to see when they get there and this and that.

30:43

And listen, I want to see Jesus.

30:44

All of that.

30:45

Don't get me wrong.

30:46

But I tell my people all the time, I said, the one thing I'm looking for is that first moment of experiencing life with no sin.

30:53

You know, I can only and even in my imagination, my imagination is not accurate because all we know is sin.

30:59

That's right.

31:00

But we have that promise.

31:01

But yeah, it's conforming to the image of God.

31:03

And so in their mindset, as long as I get people to get to heaven, then I'm done and that's not it.

31:10

So in this church that I'm in, it was teaching truth.

31:15

And as we grow together and we do life together, we call ourselves a faith family.

31:19

And we believe that we wear that patch.

31:23

We really do.

31:24

We believe ourselves to be a family.

31:25

The good, the bad, the ugly.

31:27

We're a family.

31:29

And they realize that I did care about them.

31:31

I want the best for them.

31:32

We don't always, you know, I have people in there that always agree with me.

31:36

Theologically, that's OK.

31:38

I quit having the arguments like I used to have in the beginning.

31:41

It's just, you know, let's see what God is saying.

31:43

I trust God's word to change people's hearts.

31:46

And so let's look to the Bible, you know, and, you know, one individual who really was, you know, argumentative with me.

31:52

He, you know, I decided I'm not going to argue with this man anymore.

31:56

I just, so I'm going to get a Bible.

31:58

I just read a passage.

31:59

Oh, you're making that say.

32:00

I said, I didn't comment.

32:01

All I did was read it.

32:02

All I did is read it.

32:03

How are you making that say something? I said, I just read.

32:06

I said, if you think what I'm thinking, I believe this.

32:09

Tell me what it means.

32:11

And he just didn't want to engage anymore.

32:13

He walked away and we never argued again.

32:15

We've had several meaningful conversations since then.

32:17

And I'm thankful for that.

32:19

But we don't argue anymore because we know we're not out to prove each other right or wrong.

32:24

We just we want this journey together to know God in different places.

32:28

That's that's what I would say with those who hold to the doctrines of grace.

32:31

I wish it would be a little more gracious sometimes.

32:33

Oh, yeah.

32:34

You know, we got it.

32:35

I wasn't where I am today.

32:37

You know, I have a group of pastors I meet with.

32:39

And there was, you know, a little bit of a discussion about should we even fellowship with, you know, like the traditionalists or whatever, as they talk about us not fellowshipping with us as well.

32:49

I said, guys, hold on a minute.

32:51

You know, it would have been that long ago.

32:52

You would have if this would be if y'all want to hold this to this idea, it would have been that long ago.

32:58

You would have had nothing to do with me.

33:00

And I hope that is not the case.

33:02

I hope we don't want to walk down this path.

33:04

We are different places.

33:07

And if we believe and the sovereign work of God to bring people to salvation, we also got to trust them and the sovereign work of God and giving understanding of his word.

33:17

If people are seeing him, he's going to show them.

33:19

And so let's just give people time.

33:22

That's absolutely right.

33:24

And that's what you just said.

33:28

You know, when somebody asked me, would you think we should fellowship with people who aren't Calvinists? Well, first of all, not all Calvinists are the same.

33:36

Exactly.

33:36

You know, what about it? You know, what about a baby baptizing Calvinist? And a lot of my good friends are Presbyterians.

33:42

Sure.

33:42

And they would argue they're the more reformed, which I disagree.

33:47

I have, you know, I said, the battle podcast.

33:50

But, you know, there are within our church people who would not hold everything that I teach.

34:00

Sure.

34:00

And everything that our elders teach.

34:02

The thing that we ask of our people, and I imagine you're the same, is that, you know, if there are disagreements, that we don't sow discord among the brethren.

34:14

This is, you know, you knew coming here, what we teach.

34:17

Right.

34:17

Therefore, if you have an issue that you just can't overcome, well, that may be a point where we're going to part ways and that's OK.

34:24

But as long as you're here, we're not going to be, you know, you're not going to be, if we had to teach a Sunday school, you're not going to start teaching and we have a confession of faith.

34:34

And we hold to what that confession of faith says that the Bible teaches.

34:38

And ultimately, the Bible is the standard.

34:40

So, you know, that's all we're asking is that folks, one, give us the benefit of the doubt that we love you and that we're not trying to leave you.

34:47

Because that's we're not.

34:49

And that we, that the scripture says as elders, you know, we were to watch over your souls and you were to make it so that we don't do it miserably.

34:58

Absolutely, absolutely.

35:00

And, you know, and there are times when folks leave, but, you know, rarely is it about doctrine.

35:06

Sure.

35:07

I mean, I'm not going to ask you to name it, but I imagine if I said the last five people who left your church over how many years that's been.

35:13

Honestly, it's been just a few over doctrinal issues.

35:17

You know, people are getting older, people are dying, people moving back to, you know, in Florida, everybody's a transplant, like only 30% are Floridian.

35:27

So a lot of our...

35:28

Floridian for life.

35:31

I mean, very few.

35:32

I'm a transplant myself.

35:36

And so most of our people have left as a result of age, dying, moving to be with family, to be taken care of, that sort of thing.

35:43

So, yeah, like I said, I can go going back through history.

35:48

How many people left our church over doctrinal issues? Really, I've got to go back to that Calvinism, the Calvinism schism of 2008, when like three families left.

35:57

And, you know, for a small church, three families is a lot.

36:00

I'm not, I'm not, I'm minimizing the impact that that has.

36:03

And it still hurts, right? You don't want to see them go.

36:05

Even if they disagree, it still hurts.

36:06

You love them.

36:09

But I'll never forget the guy who sat on my couch and he said, you know, I just don't believe the whole Bible.

36:15

Yeah.

36:16

And I said, you know what? If that's true, then you're in the wrong church.

36:20

Absolutely.

36:21

I had the same, one of the people that left, a couple, the man actually came to talk to me.

36:25

That's what he did.

36:26

I just can't believe the Bible is without any errors.

36:29

And I can't believe like, I was like, then you're right.

36:31

You know, I was trying to talk him to stay.

36:32

And until he said that, I said, you know what? You're probably not a fit here.

36:37

You know, there's churches all around that don't obey.

36:40

Why do you want to stay? Yeah.

36:42

You know.

36:43

So I quit fighting his leaving.

36:44

I was like, you probably need to go.

36:46

Yeah.

36:46

Yeah.

36:47

So absolutely.

36:50

And that's the thing that I think, I hope people will understand is all of us are, as pastors, we're all in, you know, we're all in the journey of learning.

37:00

Just like you, you became a Calvinist while you'd already been pastoring for years.

37:04

And you're still growing.

37:06

Absolutely.

37:06

I just hope you don't grow into a baby bad tiger.

37:08

If you do, I'm gonna bring you back on the show and chastise you publicly.

37:12

I tried.

37:12

I just couldn't go there.

37:14

I just couldn't.

37:14

I did.

37:15

You know, with all the troubles that SBC's faced with, I'll look for a place to land, but I just, you know, we're still there.

37:21

You know, I don't know if we'll always be there, but for the time being, we still are.

37:26

You know, you mentioned earlier, one of the things we do when somebody's interested in joining our church, and it's in our constitution, one of the things I give them is a copy of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

37:35

But I say also, and I hand them a copy of the Baptist Confession of Faith 1689.

37:41

I said, just so you know, this is who we are.

37:43

I'm not saying that everybody here necessarily agrees with every chapter in this, but know this will be the dominant teaching of this church.

37:50

And so if, and I let them take it home, if they come, we have a future discussion, if you have any questions, and we start through any of those issues.

37:59

And then if they still see like, that's where they believe they need to be as a part of a faith family, we welcome them into the fellowship.

38:05

I always like what MacArthur said, and it surprised me when he said it, but it made sense.

38:10

He said, you know, our statement of faith is called what we teach, not what we believe.

38:16

And he says the reason is because not everybody here believes everything that we teach.

38:20

But when it comes to the teaching of this church, it's going to be in line with this.

38:24

And I think that's, that's honest.

38:26

Yeah.

38:27

Yeah.

38:27

Not everybody at my church is a Calvinist yet, but everybody at my church knows that's what we teach.

38:34

Yes sir.

38:34

I've never had a person come and say, hey, you didn't tell me you were Calvinist.

38:37

I'm like, dude, you ain't seen the podcast? It's literally called conversation with Calvinist.

38:41

So I think, you know, and there, and there was, there's a lot of accusations from the other side, that Calvinists are nefarious and they're sneaky, and they're trying to hide who they are.

38:51

And I get the accusation because it is hard for most people to say, I'm a Calvinist.

38:58

Because we, just like you said, people have an idea that that's the boogeyman.

39:03

Right.

39:03

And so it is somewhat difficult.

39:05

Right.

39:06

To be honest.

39:07

Absolutely.

39:07

You know, and I had a man, you know, come to my office one day, and he was wanting to leave the church.

39:11

And I finally convinced him to share with me why he said, you know, I just can't, you know, buy this thing about predestination or whatever else.

39:17

I said, okay, time out.

39:18

The Bible talks about it.

39:20

You cannot just say you don't believe in it.

39:22

To say that is to say you don't believe the Bible.

39:24

Now, you may want to define it differently than me.

39:26

Fine.

39:26

We can talk through that and have a disagreement over definitions.

39:31

We can't just say you don't believe in it.

39:32

And to which he also followed that up with, well, I also believe you can lose your salvation.

39:36

I said, well, I can say this.

39:38

At least you're consistent.

39:39

You're consistently wrong.

39:39

At least you're consistent.

39:41

That's where I was prior.

39:42

And I think that's where many Southern Baptists are.

39:44

They don't take that.

39:45

We have lost the concept of critical thinking skills.

39:47

That's right.

39:48

If people would just sit back and think through some of the things they believe, they realize this doesn't line up.

39:55

They're piecemealing theology together.

39:57

And at the end of the day, they find out that God isn't who they believe him to be.

40:00

If they ever studied the Bible, and that's what happened to me.

40:05

Everything changed when I actually started studying the Bible.

40:09

I mean, I read it, prepared sermons, taught the Bible, but I started reading the Bible with a mindset of knowing God.

40:17

If he searches scriptures to know God, he will reveal himself to no doubt.

40:22

Absolutely.

40:23

Amen.

40:24

Well, brother, I know you're tired.

40:25

I'm tired.

40:26

We got a lot more week to go, but I want to thank you for being on the show today.

40:30

I want to thank you for sitting down with me.

40:33

I want to say that I hope you, maybe one day we can do another one on a Zoom meeting and talk some more.

40:39

But I want to thank you for being faithful to these kids, faithful to your church, and faithful to the Lord.

40:45

Thank you for sitting down with me.

40:46

And thank you guys again for listening to us today.

40:50

Again, this has been Conversations with a Calvinist.

40:52

If you have a question that you'd like for me to deal with on a future episode, please send me an email at calvinispodcasts at gmail.com.

40:59

If you would like to look at older episodes or follow up on the program, you can go to calvinispodcasts.com and you can get all of the episodes that we've had, all of the different conversations, and you can share this conversation with a friend.

41:12

So I want to thank you again for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

41:15

My name is Keith Foskey.

41:16

I've been your Calvinist.

41:17

May God bless you.