Why Read the Puritans?

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00:03

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

00:19

Howdy. We really have to stop meeting like this, because I am not

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Andrew Rappaport. That's right, I am Drew Boneta. I have been helping out

00:30

Andrew Rappaport, and usually my little description thing at the bottom says

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Matter of Theology, because I am one of the hosts of Matter of Theology. But tonight, it says the

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Dead Guys Reader Society, and you're going to find out why. But before we get there, just so you know,

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Apologetics Live is a podcast ministry from Striving for Eternity, where we seek to answer your tough biblical questions, whether it be on God, the

01:04

Bible, whatever it may be. Come on in, just go to apologeticslive .com,

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click the duck, make sure your audio is set up, and also make sure your video is on.

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That's how we know that your audio is set up. And then come on in, and we will talk to you.

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But, I'm going to bring in, of course, Chris Hough, because usually when I'm here,

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Chris is here. And you have changed yours from Matter of Theology to Dead Guys Reader Society as well.

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I did, I did. It's almost like we talked about that just a minute ago.

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I know, I know. Now, in case you don't follow us, which

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I don't know why you wouldn't, but we started kind of a side podcast that's kind of in our other podcast, and it's called the

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Dead Guy Reader Society. Matter of Theology presents the Dead Guys Reader Society.

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That's right. And the whole purpose is, well, let's just get a little backstory.

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Yeah, send it. We had someone that we know in a sermon say that he loves reading the dead guys, but the dead guys don't argue with you, right?

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Whatever you get out of them is what you get out of them. They don't argue with you. And so you and I were talking after we were reading some of these dead guys going, that argues with me.

02:31

Oh, yeah. And so what we did was we came up with another side podcast and to where we give kind of a little biography, just a little biography of whoever we're looking at.

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And then we look at one of their works. And people love it.

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People seem to. Yeah, yeah. We've gotten a lot of great feedback about the Dead Guy Reader Society.

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And and I mean, any of the negative feedback that we've gotten is is just because, you know, it's people's pride.

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I mean, honestly, it's I mean, it's we the whole reason that we started doing the Dead Guy Reader Society is just that.

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Because there unfortunately are a lot of Mark Driscoll's and Dollar General Mark Driscoll's out there who will tell people that, you know, you don't need to you don't need to read the dead guys.

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You don't need to read the Puritans. All the Puritans did was create division. And that's a that's a bunch of crap.

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And and that they don't argue with you. And as we're going to show tonight very clearly, the

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Puritans show you how to and I'm going to go ahead and give one of my points away how to truly live a spirit filled spiritual life and how to battle true spiritual warfare, which spiritual warfare starts in the mind and in the heart is your mortifying sin.

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I'll stop there because I want to keep going because I know we got other stuff to get to as well. But but yeah, that's that's kind of where that started.

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And we've done four or five of the Dead Guy Reader Society. We've got some more coming, which

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I need to I need to lock this guy down, but I'll go ahead and tell the Apologetics Live listeners that Daryl Harrison is going to be coming on.

04:16

And he and I are going to be talking about Keeping the Heart by John Flavel. I've read this twice this year.

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I have it on my Kindle, but I haven't. I just haven't read it. Dude, it will really argue with you. Because every time

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I go to start it, I'm like, yeah, but I want to go back to this other one. And so I go back to another one.

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But let's real quick. Our friend Pastor Darren Stitt, by the way, I told you guys last week in prayer for Darren.

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Continue to be in prayer for Darren. He's now in Atlanta receiving treatment for his concussions. Welcome to the

04:49

A bro. Yeah, welcome to the A. Peace up, A -town down, shawty. That's how we rollin'.

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But he says, why read the Puritans? Because they have superior eschatology, of course.

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I'll give a salute and an amen to that. And in fact, if you want a good view at the

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Puritan eschatology, they held to a historical post -mill view, which if you look right above my head, this three -volume set right here,

05:20

James Durham, his commentary on Revelation, that actually presents the historical post -mill view.

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So Darren, I agree with you right there, my brother. And man, we got a lot of comments coming in today.

05:35

Brother John says, is Andrew not on today? He's not. He's not. And in fact, he was actually supposed to be riding

05:43

ATVs today. And I said, make sure you wrap yourself in bubble wrap. Oh boy. What happened last time?

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So that was no bueno. So hopefully he listened to that advice.

05:57

Melissa Bonservant for Jesus says, our church had a book from a Puritan called The Jewel of Christian Contentment.

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Yeah. Jeremiah Burroughs. It's one of the great classics that everyone must have.

06:11

Jason Cave representing the A as well. It's not Jason. A as in Ackworth or should

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I say Crackworth? Little A. Get on the wrong side of the bridge over there.

06:23

Glade Road. Glade Road. It's not called Glade Road or they're changing. No, I know. It's not

06:28

Glade Road anymore. All of y 'all not from Georgia. You're like, guys, what are you talking about? But he says, hashtag

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Puritan lives mattered. Yes. Amen. That's right. Amen. That's right.

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So, so we're going to get into why read the Puritan, not Puritans. I don't know how long this episode is going to go, but we'll just go ahead and dive right in.

06:52

Honestly, I expect Kofi to come in at least in the comments. I talked to Kofi today. Okay.

06:57

Did he say he was going to come on? We didn't talk about that. We talked about something else, but it was just good to talk to him. Well, dude, don't we got to do in the news?

07:04

Actually, I mean, I didn't prepare anything for in the news. Do you have anything in the news? You know, I do.

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I do. And this, this actually kind of pertains to what we're talking about and why read the

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Puritans. And the, in the news segment for today is, is as follows.

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Let me, let me pull it. I can pull it up very quickly here. So in, in a, a tweet sent a couple of days ago, there was a lady by the name of Natalie Winters who, who tweeted this.

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She said, quote, the federal government has already begun buying COVID -19 equipment and hiring consultants to enforce pandemic era safety protocols and quotes.

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Some of these contracts are scheduled to begin in September and October period, close quote.

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That's the end of that tweet. And so I figured we could kind of talk about that for just a second, just because that's, it is, it is a couple of things we could talk about as far as in the news.

08:11

Number one is there's that. Yeah. I, I flew to Virginia this past Saturday and flew on Delta.

08:21

Hello, Atlanta. So, but on the, on the, on the flight there and on the flight back, the flight attendants, you know, they come on and make their announcement, you know,

08:31

Hey, welcome. Our flight time is going to be X, Y, and Z. Cruising altitude is going to be X, Y, and Z. And the last thing that they said on both flights,

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I flew there in the morning, flew back that afternoon just for an event up there. And, and they, they mentioned masks and for the health, health and safety of you.

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And for all on board, if you would like to continue wearing your mask, you can. And I was like, that's interesting.

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Of course I was face diaper free, hashtag face diaper free, but we should start that hashtag, bro.

09:07

And so, so this stuff's being talked about again. And thankfully, thankfully,

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I don't, I don't think really anything's going to come of it. I don't think enough people. No, no, no.

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People aren't going to comply with it. But I mean, the thing is, it's like, you know, you know, you've, you've, thankfully you've got the

09:25

New York posts. Somebody wrote an article and it was published at the New York post. It said this COVID variant is no different than the

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COVID. From what I heard on, on, I actually did hear this on the news this morning that it's not as severe.

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Right. It's not as severe, but they're watching another variant and all this stuff. And it's like, you know, they're, they're, they're talking about this stuff to, to stoke fear.

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And, and, and for, for you and I, and I think for the majority of the listeners of apologetics live and matter of theology, they're going to look at it and go, no, heck no.

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Like I will know I'm not going to travel. I will not be forced to comply. I'm not wearing masks.

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This is stupid. But think about, I am preparing for this.

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I read, I read this quote that, that is paraphrased, but a mind, mindless

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Christianity leads to spineless Christianity. And for, for a lot of us, you know, we're not, we're, we're, we're not mindless about this and we're not going to be spineless about it and say, no, no, this is the vessel that the

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Lord has given me to steward. And based upon the facts, masks don't work.

10:39

So, so you've got that. So everybody have fun with that. But then, you know, you've also got, you know, political prisoners being taken in our country right now for, for simply moving within the confines of the constitution.

10:54

You know, Jenna Ellis, Donald Trump just flew into Atlanta within the last hour of this broadcast.

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Yeah. Melissa right here says, I think Donald Trump. Oh, well,

11:05

D says it's called the flu. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. But she says, I think Donald Trump got arrested.

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Now, I have a question about this. Maybe if anyone in the comments knows anything about law, maybe if you're a lawyer, how this stuff works, you can.

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Where's our brother Jacob, Jacob Arthur. Yeah, you can, you can talk to me or correct me on this.

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Now, from what I understand, right, you are, you're innocent until proven guilty.

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That is correct. Now, in order to be arrested, you have to have evidence presented.

11:45

Right. And that would lead to a cause of arrest.

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Correct. So now they filed charges. They filed an indictment, which is a list of charges against people for certain things, but those things have not been proven.

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Correct. So why are they having to turn themselves into a jail before there's ever even any trial?

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And if they're still innocent until proven guilty, why are they having to have themselves be detained for a period of time before posting bond in order to go to a trial?

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It's political theater. It's because it seems like it's backwards, right?

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First, you're accused. Then you do your time.

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You go to trial or you go to your arraignment. Then you go to your trial.

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Then that decides whether you're arrested or not. Yep. Yep. Yeah, man, it's crazy.

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It's crazy. And what's even crazier is the more they do this, the more popular certain individuals get.

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And people are having it, man. They're over the nonsense. And I think that's good.

13:04

I think it's a good thing. But it's definitely a – I saw that somebody had a video of – they called it

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Trump Force One. I've never heard that before. It made me laugh. Landing at Hartsfield, and I'm just like – to turn himself in to Fulton County authorities.

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And I just – I shook my head. I'm like, what a time to be alive, right? But that's what gets me.

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Why are you turning yourself in if you're not convicted of a crime? You're just – there's just an accusation. I think he was officially charged.

13:36

Yeah, but – So he has to. Yeah, but just because you're – hold on.

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Let's see what Darren says here. He says, the mere fact that we even have jails to begin with demonstrates the injustice of our justice system.

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True that. True that. True that. I think Darren's choosing violence.

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Violence, yeah. I mean, but think about our jails, right? It is injustice because you're taking all these people, you're throwing them in a dog kennel, and then now all the taxpayers have to pay for them.

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Yep. When in biblical justice, let's just say someone steals a car, right? Someone steals a car, go out joyriding, whatever, they crash it.

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That person, instead of having to go be locked away and someone else pay for them to live, that person would have to go work for the person whose car he stole until he worked off the value of the car plus 10%.

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Yep. See, at some points it does seem like if we did have theonomy, biblical law, it could help some things out.

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You know, I'm thinking we need to, I'm thinking again with the hashtag and then maybe a t -shirt, make justice biblical again.

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I like it. That's a hat. Yeah. Yeah. You know who else sought to be biblical with the law?

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Oh, who's that? Samuel Rutherford. He wrote a book called Lex Rex. The law is.

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That's right. He sure did. See, I told you, bro. I told you all this applies to the Puritans. That's right. Yeah. And the king did not like it and he threw it.

15:24

Yeah. Dude, there's some comments. Tracy Brulette. I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your last name, but she, as far as the legality of everything, it's like she put, she said, if I have a warrant,

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I have to get booked and released. And then a court date is scheduled. So good call.

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Good call there. You have to get booked first, she said. So, yeah. And then Darren, Darren said, can of worms opened.

15:50

Open it up, bro. Thanks, Darren. Thanks, Darren. Okay. So now I guess we can get into the

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Puritans now. Okay, that's fine. We've gone 15 minutes, 16 minutes.

16:02

That's good. Kind of back and forth. Okay, hold on. Darren. Darren's talking about Lex Rex. Okay.

16:09

First of all, Darren, you're supposed to be limiting your screen time per the doctor's orders. Okay. So I don't know what you're doing.

16:15

Continuing to comment on here. I'm just looking out for you. Hand the phone to your wife and tell her what to say.

16:21

I think it's him and Malachi. Oh, okay. But it says, Lex Rex is my favorite

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Puritan work, hands down. One of the most quoted sources among our founding fathers.

16:32

And that's true. That is very true. And it's important because when you're living at a time when the king thinks he is above God's law, this work came along and said, no, even the king is subject to God's law.

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He is not above God's law. And that's one of the things our founders wanted as well, which people will say that our founders were mostly deist.

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I would disagree with that because many of them were praying men, especially

17:16

George Washington. George Washington was a praying man. And if you're a deist, you have no reason to pray.

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If you think God just set everything up, put it all in motion and then left. And who are you praying to?

17:29

And for what? Right. If that's your if that's your worldview, praying does nothing. But but yeah,

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I mean, what's the guy's name? Samuel Adams would quote

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John Adams would as well. These were men of conviction.

17:49

Jason Cave says 98 percent evangelical Christians. I would agree with that. OK, now we're getting in.

17:57

Why read the Puritans? Why now? Now let me get into because you you made a statement.

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What was the point you got into earlier that you kind of gave away? Oh, reading the

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Puritan shows us how to truly live a spiritual, spiritual and spirit filled life. OK, now

18:18

I think we can sum everything up under one umbrella. And then and then when

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I say that, we can then just start picking things out. OK, pushing it out.

18:30

So why read the Puritans? First and foremost, this is going to cover everything that we're going to end up drawing out.

18:38

Because. They had what they displayed in their writing was an experiential theology, meaning it was a theology that is to be lived out.

18:55

So you had these great doctrines that were almost rediscovered in the Reformation.

19:00

Right. But then the Puritans came along and they actually wrote down and showed you how to live these things out in every aspect of life, no matter what you're dealing with.

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So their writings are very practical. They're sermonic.

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Hmm. They have. Well, many of them, many of them are sermonic.

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So you have kind of the typical format. So you would have the text, the explanation of the text.

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You would have the doctrine. Then you would have the uses. Right.

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So this is where they're getting into application. You have the uses of the text. You have objections to the uses.

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And then you have answers to the objections to the uses. Right. So what they're really doing is they're taking a text, opening it up, flushing everything out, bringing the application and then saying,

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OK, but you may say this in objection. But then we're coming back. Right. So so they're covering all the bases in their sermon.

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So when you read a lot of sermon Puritan writings that are sermonic, what you're what you're reading is

20:16

Puritan preaching. And then. Right. That's and that's important. And that's important because what do we see today with some of the guys that you and I follow?

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Right. The John MacArthur's, the Steve Lawson's. Right. Puritan preaching, the Joel Beekings. Now, you just see it in a different way.

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You see the text, the explanation. You see the the doctrine. You see the application.

20:38

Yeah. So yeah. So I think maybe. Just kind of kind of surmising that is, you know, when you read the

20:47

Puritans and then let's go back to something that we you know, that you and I heard from General Mark Driscoll is, you know, all the

20:58

Puritans do is create division. That's all they do. They just they just start. They just start division and then they start wars.

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And, you know, the first thing that we need to remember is that that when you read the Puritans, they are insanely biblical.

21:13

Yeah. I mean. What is it that Spurgeon said about Bunyan when he when you prick him, he bleeds

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Bibline. And this is true for for a whole host of the

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English Puritans, Scottish Puritans, American Puritans. It was a biblical

21:31

Scottish Puritans. OK, it would want to be called Covenanters. Yes, yes, yes.

21:36

You're absolutely right. I have that pin somewhere. That lapel pin. But I mean, every everything, all of life was centered in on and around the scriptures.

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And you said something a second ago that I also wanted to pause and highlight is they would wring the towel when it comes to scripture.

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They would they would take a passage of scripture, a verse, a sentence, a word and wring the towel of meaning.

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They would explain the meaning of the text, why it's there. And then and then you also just nailed something and you nailed something to where they were thorough in showing how the orthodoxy drawn from the scriptures drives orthopraxy and everything you think, say and do.

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Yeah, they are so good at that. Darren says, wouldn't be a Puritan discussion without some covenant or snobbery.

22:37

It's true. So but no, man, I just I just wanted to pause there for a second and and say reading the

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Puritans will help will help you think more biblically.

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Yes. Therefore, speak with biblical terms, with biblical definitions, and then act accordingly if you're following through and being obedient.

23:00

And that's important because when you read them, they are thoroughly scriptural.

23:06

Correct. So you read their works and their scripture all over the place. Yep. Yeah. I mean, even even if it's not even if it's not quoted or cited, you know that that's a biblical principle.

23:22

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a biblical principle. Yep. So every every part of their writing is biblical.

23:30

Mm hmm. Correct. But there was something, you know, there was something this got me thinking earlier today when

23:39

I was thinking about this, because last week you and I talked about Christian nationalism.

23:45

Right. When we look at the Puritans, we kind of see in looking at their story, their struggle, the things that happen, their dealings with persecution.

23:59

We see how to combat tyrannical governments.

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And all they all they were was faithful to the gospel and faithful those who are pastors, which was a good many of them faithful to doing the duty of a pastor and shepherding their flock.

24:21

Yeah. Man, why do we study church history? So we can learn from from those who went before us.

24:29

Yeah. We cannot make the same mistakes. Right. Right. So when we study the Puritans, take take.

24:35

So take what we just said a second ago. The hyper focus on being biblical.

24:40

Mm hmm. I mean, that was why they were given the name Puritans. Right. They were given the name the

24:46

Puritans. If it was given the nickname was given is kind of a jab. Mm hmm.

24:52

And the church. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and then it stuck.

24:59

And, you know, it's it's very true. But we study church history because we want to know what happened, who went before us, where is where do we trace our lineage back to?

25:10

But then how do we how do we learn from that? How do we learn from them? And I mean, gosh,

25:17

I think about the essential church documentary when the way that they the filmmakers,

25:23

Shannon and the filmmakers, they they mirrored what happened in 2020 with Grace Community Church, Grace Life Church in Canada.

25:33

And then Tim Stevens Church. I can't remember. I think it's Grace Baptist is the name of his church. But what they all what they all and the church,

25:41

Big C Church, dealt with in 2020. And they they showed that how the covenanters dealt with this and these these couple stories that I'd never heard before and how to deal with and prepare for that.

25:53

And so it's it's it's very, very important to to read church history and to study the

25:59

Puritans. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, because you mentioned

26:04

Dollar General Mark Driscoll. I did talking about the the Puritans.

26:09

They just wanted to cause division. OK, well, ask the question, why the division?

26:18

What was it right? Well, you had a church. You had James King James, who who was

26:25

Calvinistic in his soteriology, but held to Catholic worship. Right.

26:31

And the Puritans in their their desire to purify the church wanted to rid the church of any type of potpourri.

26:41

They wanted to get rid of the mass. They wanted to get rid of anything that reeked of Catholicism because they viewed it as idolatrous in another another religion.

26:54

Now, funny story. Some may view him as one of the fathers of Puritanism, but maybe a pre

27:02

Puritan. But this is John Knox. John Knox Knox is a

27:07

Puritan. Yeah. But John Knox was a there was a time where he was a slave on a

27:13

French galley ship. He was one of those under rowers and they would bring them up from time to time to do the mass.

27:19

And they would pass this picture of Mary around as they did the mass. And when it came to John Knox, it said that he took the picture and he threw it overboard.

27:29

And he said, he said, you believe your trusted Mary can save you from your sins. Let's see if she can save herself from sinking.

27:37

This is one of my favorite stories. Not Knox. And that's how Knox lived, dude.

27:43

He was bold. He was bold like. Well, what did Mary, Queen of Scots, say about John Knox's prayers?

27:50

That she feared the prayers of John Knox more than the army, all the armies of England.

27:59

Teach me. I don't. Right. I don't pray like that. Straight up. Like, I'll just. Yeah. That's right.

28:06

But, you know, just finishing my thought there, talking about why, why the division?

28:13

Because you don't allow false worship and idolatry to come into the church.

28:21

That is something worth dividing over. So it's not a bad thing that they wanted to purify the church.

28:32

Bro, don't even get me started on false unity. Don't even get.

28:40

What a great reminder, man. It's, you know, unity at the cost of truth is no unity.

28:47

It's what did what did. Oh, gosh, was it? I think it was Owen that said that unity at the expense of truth.

28:55

I'm paraphrasing is is unity that's set on fire by the flames of hell. Something to that effect.

29:01

Maybe it wasn't. Oh, and I'm going to have to look. I thought it was Luther that said something like that. Let me look real quick. I'm going to look what we're talking.

29:08

OK. Did it. No, it was

29:14

J .C. Ryle. OK. Pharisees and Sadducees. OK.

29:20

That's what he said. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of the things he said. So good point, bro.

29:27

Very, very good point. And something else about the about the Puritans and it goes right along with with.

29:34

I mean, they're they're Biblio centric. And the reason that they were Biblio centric is because they were Christo centric. That's right.

29:39

Everything centered on in and around the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes. And glorifying him, understanding that it's his church, understanding that we are his slave, understanding that we've been bought with a price.

29:52

Speaking of Samuel Rutherford is here's a fantastic quote from Rutherford.

29:58

He said this quote, put the beauty of ten thousand worlds of paradises like the Garden of Eden in one.

30:04

Put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all joys, all loveliness, all sweetness in one.

30:11

Oh, what a fair and excellent thing that would be. And yet it would be less to that fair and dearest, well -beloved

30:20

Christ, that one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes and foundations of ten thousand, ten thousand earths.

30:29

Right, just they they loved Christ and wanted to see

30:35

Christ honored and wanted to see. I mean, you think about most of the Puritan writings that we have is their based their sermons.

30:43

And when the Puritans preached, they wanted to see those in their care be conformed more and more into the image of Christ.

30:50

And what's the only way to do that? It is through the preached word magnifying and exalting the

30:56

Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, there's a comment here by Kathy.

31:02

Puritans knew how to live to glorify God. Yeah, they did, because they they loved

31:11

Christ so much and they wanted, like Chris said, to be conformed into his image.

31:19

And so they knew that they had to apply the truths of the gospel.

31:26

They had to apply Christ to every area of life. Right. It's not just on Sunday mornings.

31:31

It's not just when I'm doing my devotion time or my Bible time or anything like that. It's in every area.

31:38

So you have theologies of work. You have you have a theology of just how we enjoy things.

31:46

Right. And people will say that the Puritans, you know, they get a bad rap because I forgot who it was.

31:54

Maybe Minkin that said a Puritan is someone somewhere who thinks that someone might be having fun.

32:02

Right. So they're viewed as like these downcast people. Yeah, they were people full of joy because they loved

32:10

Christ and they lived to Christ and they wanted their life to glorify Christ.

32:15

Yeah. So when you say they were very Christ centric. Yeah. And in their writings, they present a big

32:23

God, big God. That's good. That's good. They present a big

32:28

God. And they and at the at the very top center, the crowning jewel is the loveliness of Christ.

32:36

Yep. That's what they presented. And they took everyone and they just directed their gaze up to that crowning jewel who is

32:46

Christ. And see him. Your life is to be conformed to him. Now live as such.

32:52

Right. Yeah, bro. Yeah. Yeah, man. And that's that's huge, man.

32:59

That's huge. Yeah. Darren Stead put that last comment by Darren up. Yeah, he did.

33:08

Russell Moore, Darren Stead said that Russell Moore just made a similar statement about the

33:15

Puritans today. Yeah. Yeah. He's talking about Bunyan. I'm trying to find it now, brother.

33:22

Yeah. Yeah, he did. Hang on one second.

33:28

I'll find it. We can keep talking, but I'll find it. But it's they get that.

33:40

Maybe maybe gracious here. I think the Puritans get that rap. Yeah, it's on my

33:47

Twitter feed to Darren. I think they get that rap because because they are Christ centric and because they are so, so biblical and Bible centered and in what they what they how they preached and how they lived that that flies in the face.

34:03

Of the flesh, and you've got so many, you know, mile wide, inch deep believers today because of pragmatism and the secret sensitive, the secret oriented movement as far as churches that that whenever they read the.

34:20

Oh, no, it's too hard. No, good night. That's challenging. Like he just John Flavel won't stop talking about all the ways

34:27

I need to guard my heart. And and, you know, it needs to start with a reminder that I am I am nothing and I can't read

34:33

Edwards Edwards. I mean, he compared me to a spider that's going to be thrown into a fire. And and, you know,

34:39

I just that's just not very loving. That's just that's just so downcast and it's so depressing and it's like you missing the point missing the point because you don't you don't want to get it because you love comfort too much.

34:55

Yeah, that's ultimately what it is. You're pride filled and you love being comfortable and you want to be you want to be made to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

35:03

You know, so here's here's something and I think saying that and in talking about the

35:09

Puritans in their writings. I think they do right in a very warm manner because when you because now once you understand the flow of we'll just say the

35:23

Puritan sermon. Once you understand the flow once it gets to Christ and the and the the magnification and exaltation of Christ.

35:34

Once you get there. Oh, it's glorious. Well, dude, even in even in keeping the heart right when when when when flambles going through this man, like,

35:46

I mean, there are some hard some hard truths that you read in here and you really have to stop and and take a step back.

35:53

And I mean, I'm flipping through my copy right now. I mean, you see the highlights and the notes and and I mean,

35:59

I've got ouch written right here on this page. And so,

36:06

I mean, it's just talking about, I mean, in this section, right? I'm just if you sow the spirit, you will reap everlasting life.

36:13

And so Flavel says this, he says, quote, your religious seasons are your seed times. And in the eternal world, you must you must reap the fruits of what you sow in your duties here.

36:23

If you sow to the flesh, you will reap corruption. If you sow to the spirit, you will reap everlasting life.

36:28

Answer. Answer. Seriously, these questions, are you willing to reap the fruit of vanity in the world to come?

36:37

Right. Strong stuff. But then in the next paragraph, he goes in and talks about when you reap according to the spirit, the joy that comes in this world and the next.

36:49

It's like people just they're just so downcast and so negative all the time.

36:54

It's like, well, keep reading. It's the I would venture to say that those people who say that I would genuinely ask them, have you ever heard the gospel?

37:05

Right. I mean, the actual gospel, the fact that you were, according to Ephesians to dead in your trespasses and sins, you were an enemy of the most high

37:14

God, that he is angry with your sin. And you each and every day, apart from him, that if he wanted to right now, he could let you die in your sin in Adam and you would go to hell and experience the unbridled, just wrath of God for all of eternity.

37:36

Like, I mean, do you understand that Christian professing Christian? Do you understand that apart from the salvific work of the

37:43

Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for the forgiveness of sins that you have no hope? Do you understand what

37:49

Christ endured on your behalf? That he absorbed the very wrath that you and I deserved on the cross, took the scourging that we deserve, the beating that we deserved, and then had the full unbridled, unadulterated wrath of God put on him for you.

38:11

That's the gospel, bro. You're not cast right now. Not. Yeah, right. Not not.

38:17

Oh, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And if you'll let him, he needs you.

38:24

If you'll let him, would you pray and just ask him in your heart? Would you repeat this prayer after me?

38:31

That's not the gospel. Here's what that is. That's the doctrine of demons.

38:37

That's what that is. That's the gospel of easy believism, which will damn you to an eternal hell just as much as the atheist who says there is no

38:45

God. And in fact, I would venture to say that that's worse because of the false sense of assurance that you have.

38:53

That's why we need to read the Puritans. One of the reasons. Sorry, I get a little fired up.

38:59

Well, I mean, and I think it was I think it was in the Puritan documentary that I think it was

39:06

Leland Ryken who said it. When people look at the Puritans and say that they're downcast.

39:13

Well, if you compare it to, you know, a drunkard, someone who doesn't get drunk is a buzzkill.

39:22

Right. So that's good. So what what is it? You have all of these and we can we can say them in the church, right?

39:30

They are in the church. We see them on Twitter. Hello. They want to be fleshly and live in the flesh while attributing a a

39:42

Christian title to it. Yep. And then the Puritans come along and say, no, you must live holy in every aspect of your life.

39:51

Well, that's a huge buzzkill. Well, you mean I can't act like this person over here who said the curse word all the time?

40:00

You know, I can't I can't do that. Well, Paul said a curse word. No, he didn't. Okay. But nevertheless, that's not a prescriptive text.

40:08

We have a prescriptive text that says, watch your mouth. Yeah. You know, this isn't difficult.

40:13

Okay. But Darren has a good comment here. When people have a hard time understanding

40:20

Puritans, I always tell them it's Sibbes. He follows that Puritan pattern, but with great simplicity.

40:32

Yeah. Sibbes, you know, Richard Sibbes was actually I think that this right here, the bruised read.

40:38

I think this was my first Puritan paperback. And the thing, if you want to talk about the warmness that the

40:48

Puritans can bring, Sibbes does that in the bruised read. If you yourself are feeling downcast, right, read the bruised read.

40:57

Yeah. If you feel like you can't go or having a hard time going further, going further, read the bruised read.

41:04

Because God will allow the read to bend and be bruised, but not break.

41:10

He will allow the smoking flax, right, to dwindle. He will cup his hands around it to protect it until it flames anew.

41:21

Yeah. Yeah, man. That's good. That's good. That's good, brother. Darren, thank you for bringing that up too.

41:28

While we're on the – you said the first Puritan paperback you had. My first forte,

41:35

I guess is how you say that, into the Puritans was A Body of Divinity. You and I –

41:43

I noodle – there you go. We got this in the same time.

41:50

Now, this is actually just one volume of a three -volume set. Yes, that's true. I have the other two.

41:56

Those volumes are the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. Or Lord's Prayer. Lord's Prayer. Was it Lord's Prayer or Lord's Supper?

42:02

Lord's Prayer. Yep, Lord's Prayer. That was my first introduction really to the

42:10

Puritans. I noodle around and read a little bit here and there just through emails and websites and stuff like that.

42:17

But it was when you and I got this at the Shepherds Conference in 2019 that I kind of did like Steve Lawson did.

42:25

If you listen to Steve Lawson talk about his experience with the Puritans, his first experience with the

42:30

Puritans, it was A Body of Divinity. He talks about how he just read through the Table of Contents and there was more theology in the

42:36

Table of Contents than in some of the books he got in seminary. I read the

42:44

Table of Contents and I remember going, wow. Then I read Spurgeon's memoir of Watson.

42:51

That's in the introduction of this one, this copy. It blew me away, man. Then I get to read in Watson and the way that he writes is just beautiful.

43:02

I mean, as only a diamond can cut a diamond, so only can

43:08

Scripture interpret Scripture. The Scriptures are the richest jewel that Christ has left us.

43:15

The way he talks about man's chief end and the attributes of God. If you guys have never read the

43:21

Puritans, start with Sibbes and start with Watson. Definitely, I would say do both.

43:29

KT and Jesus said, how about Puritans for dummies? I just gave it to you. Pick up a copy of A Body of Divinity.

43:36

Pick up a copy, go to Ben Erf's website or Reformation Heritage Books.

43:42

Heritage Books. Get a copy of A Body of Divinity and get a copy of the

43:47

Bruce Reed and read them together. Read them together. Let's look at some comments here.

43:53

Darren says, those three books, meaning the three volumes of Watson, I'm presuming, will better equip you than most seminary educations will.

44:02

Yes, he is 100 % correct. You know what? Let's just say this. If all you did was read the

44:08

Puritans. If you studied scripture and then read the

44:13

Puritans, you have no need for seminary. There's no need. For the most part,

44:21

I agree. No, don't even do that. You don't need to do it. You know why? They'll teach you how to preach too.

44:28

They'll teach you how to preach, but they're also teaching you how to pastor. In this book right here, this is

44:36

Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Okay, now this is a Puritan paperback, so it's a smaller abridged version of a much larger work.

44:44

I have the big one over here. That's what I'm trying to get to. Okay, yeah. The larger work is 365 letters.

44:50

These were written. A lot of them were written while he was in prison.

44:56

And all he's doing while he's in prison is he's ministering. There's the big one.

45:03

Yeah, he's ministering to his congregation. And their struggles and what's going on.

45:11

So they'll teach you how to pastor. This one right here will definitely teach you how to preach to the art of prophesying by William Perkins.

45:19

Yes, sir. So read the Puritans, study your Bible. You don't need to go to seminary.

45:24

Send it. We got this comment here. David O. says, My wife and I are discussing this over dinner, and we agree that those who despise hearing and reading the

45:35

Puritans are saturated with motivational speeches as sermons and their own self -centeredness.

45:42

David, stop what you're doing right now. And you and your wife give each other a fist bump. And that's from me. Right on.

45:47

That's awesome. Chris is a little weird. So Melissa says,

45:53

Are any of those books mentioned in audio form? Yes. Easier for me to understand. Yes.

46:00

If you have audible, keeping the heart is free. If you just have an audible account, you don't have to use a credit.

46:09

But most of them, most of them are on audible, so you can listen to them. You can listen to them there.

46:16

So there are a lot. And here's a fantastic resource, monergism .com.

46:23

You can get, you know, not all of us have a massive book budget.

46:31

I most certainly don't. You can get a lot of these Puritan works. I mean, a lot, not a little bit, a lot for free on Monergism.

46:40

You can download them to iPads, computers, phones. You could print them out and full versions.

46:49

So that's also a good idea. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Now let's go over here.

46:57

And Jason says, Just started the book piercing heaven. Prayers of the Puritans. Wow. Just wow.

47:04

The humbleness and obvious reverence with which they prayed displays

47:10

God's holiness and obvious working of the heart. Holy spirit. Amen. That's so. Yes, sir.

47:16

That's been my morning reading. D here says sermon audio has a big library of Puritan sermons.

47:23

Also, that is very true. Yes. Go to sermon audio. That's actually where I listen to a lot of stuff while I'm driving.

47:32

So, Chris, I'm going to turn it over to you. I've got to run out of the room real quick. Only if you actually run.

47:38

Okay, I will. I'm going to turn it over to you. All right, cool. Awesome. I'm by myself.

47:44

What do you guys want to talk about? Let's see. Let's look at some other reasons why, why we should be reading the

47:51

Puritans. And we kind of, we kind of already talked about it. But I want to,

47:58

I want to talk about a little bit more is the Puritans will challenge you to live.

48:07

Like what I call all sided life to where, you know, how do the scriptures apply to X, Y, and Z?

48:16

I mean, you can find Puritan works on just about anything. They set the example for us as far as what, what it looks like to go through trials.

48:26

I mean, to walk through, I mean, heavy, heavy situations and circumstances, not just how to deal with a tyrannical government, but.

48:38

First and foremost, you know, the, the, the spiritual battle that you and I face, the spiritual warfare that you and I face is, is, is huge.

48:49

And that spiritual warfare starts in our minds and in our hearts and the battle against sin.

48:57

So two of the, two of the, the, the best resources that I have read as far as the battle of sin so far has been the doctrine of repentance.

49:10

Again, Thomas Watson and the mortification of sin by John Owen. And then

49:15

I'll add the third one there, keeping the heart is huge. Keeping the heart is huge. So, but be prepared in reading those.

49:23

I mean, you're going to be convicted. It's going to be painful. It's going to hurt. And that kind of reminds me of, you know, something

49:32

I want to challenge all of us with just, just based upon conversations, conversations that I've had with pastors recently that are friends, that are dear friends.

49:45

I'm not going to mention names, but there are two in particular, two different pastors who are, one is a very close friend of mine.

49:52

Another is, he's a friend of mine, but I mean, we talk sporadically. But one of the things that they both just within the last two weeks have dealt with is when they get up and herald, when they get up and herald the word of God after, after toiling, after,

50:09

I mean, accurately, wanting to accurately handle the scriptures and laboring over the, the interpretation of the text and then the application of the text.

50:20

One of the things that they're getting pushback on is, man, that was, that was a little strong. Man, you're really intense.

50:26

Or that was a little passionate. And you just, you might, I mean, you don't need to be so, so direct with us all the time.

50:37

And that's incredibly discouraging, number one, to pastors, because it's like, man, I just, no,

50:43

I wasn't singling you out. No, I wasn't. I'm not trying to be heavy handed. And my very good friend, he and I were talking this week and he's just like, man, am

50:55

I too intense? I'm like, no, no, you're not, man.

51:00

Your desire is to be Christ -like and Christ -filled and to honor the calling and the opportunity that he's given you to under shepherd.

51:11

So I say all that to, number one, encourage pastors. Number two, admonish those who may be listening.

51:20

And number three, that when you read the Puritans, it's going to be the same way.

51:25

You're going to feel like, okay, I feel like John Owen and Watson and Lloyd -Jones and some others,

51:32

I would consider Lloyd -Jones a Puritan personally. I feel like that they have been following me around and know what's going on in my life.

51:41

Be prepared for that. And don't just get mad and throw it down because it cuts your flesh.

51:47

I mean, as a reminder, Hebrews 4 tells us that the word of God is a double -edged sword. It divides the bone, the joint, the marrow.

51:56

It fillets us open and it should. That's its purpose, to conform us more and more to the image of Christ, to equip us in mortifying the sin in our lives.

52:07

So when we read something or we hear our pastors preach a word from the word that convicts us, that challenges us, that frustrates us, that may hurt us, that pierces us, our first response needs to be to look inward and to truly go, okay, why am

52:26

I feeling this right now? So yeah, what the

52:31

Puritans do is they're helping us to be all -sided in how we think, all -sided in how we pray, all -sided in what we say, all -sided in how we live through and through.

52:42

What's up, bro? What up? So both of our kids are sick. So I don't know if you've seen

52:47

Brandy's Facebook posts. Yeah, I knew Lawson had strep. No, Rhett had strep. Oh, Rhett had strep.

52:53

But Lawson has, he might have it too. He's got a fever. Ooh. And he's been like not feeling good all day.

53:02

So it's no fun having both kids sick. No, no. So what did I miss?

53:09

No, I just talked about the Puritans help us to be all -sided. They will challenge us.

53:16

I mean, we talked about sibs and the encouragement, but then they will challenge us. I talked about the doctrine of repentance, the mortification of sin.

53:23

And then I also just kind of talked for a second about,

53:30

I've had two friends of mine. One of them is a good friend of yours too.

53:37

Pastors who I've talked to in the last two weeks that have congregants, people that the

53:42

Lord has given them to shepherd and care for, that will come back to them after a sermon or a series or a teaching or something like that.

53:50

And whether it's a sermon or a Bible study or whatever and be like, man, you're really intense. That was a little harsh. That was a little heavy.

53:56

And the reason that they're getting that pushback and the reason they're pushing back is because they're convicted.

54:03

It isn't because those men are being heavy handed. It isn't because those men are being too intense.

54:10

It isn't because those men are being targeted, you know, that, you know, because they know what's going on in people's lives, that they're up there like with a sniper rifle.

54:18

No, no, no, they're not doing that at all. They're just desiring to be faithful and they're toiling over the word. And it's, you know, the word of God is a double edged sword, you know,

54:27

Hebrews 4, 12 and 13. So, so I just talked about that and then went back to the fact that, you know, so many people throw away the

54:36

Puritan books or throw them down because they challenge them in that way. And to be challenged and convicted, it hurts.

54:42

It's not easy. Yeah, that's true. And so one of the things that I had written down when we were, you know, when

54:49

I was thinking about why read the Puritans is because they had a sense of the sinfulness of sin.

54:57

Yeah. And that's why so many wrote on it. I mean, there are multiple, multiple

55:03

Puritan writings titled The Sinfulness of Sin or something similar to that.

55:08

So Ralph Benning's The Sinfulness of Sin, which I got here.

55:13

So I have, I have them. I have a lot of my works is kind of separated. Oh, yeah. I mean, I got it back here.

55:20

I got it right here. But The Sinfulness of Sin. Right. And then

55:25

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Evil of Evils. And then you have John Owens, The Mortification of Sin, which this is a much, much shorter abridged book.

55:38

Yeah. But if you get his full set right there, he he dives in depth, not just how to put sin to death, but talks about the indwelling sin, the temptations that lead us into sin.

55:56

And then you also have Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies for Satan's Devices.

56:03

Bro, that's a great book. Now, one, I was going to pick on Kofi because Kofi did a book study through this book.

56:14

Was it last summer? I think so. I think so. Something like that. He did a book study.

56:20

And then so you would read a chapter and then you'd go to YouTube and he would do a YouTube video about the chapter.

56:28

And he went in this. I mean, as far as Puritan paperbacks go, it's a pretty thick situation.

56:33

Yep. Right. This isn't this isn't, you know, something something small. But but it's so good.

56:41

And then, of course, the doctrine of repentance. Right. Once you understand the sinfulness of your sin, you must come to repentance.

56:50

And this is a great work because it tells you what repentance is not. Mm hmm. Well, what false repentance look like?

56:59

Bro. This is a great worldly remorse versus biblical repentance. And this is a very little, very little book.

57:06

Oh, it's a little book, but it'll take you a minute to get through it. Yeah. But the Puritans had. And this is another reason why people think, oh, they're so downcast.

57:13

Remember, because they understood what sin was and the the offense that it brought to God.

57:26

Mm hmm. Understood that. And so you can't understand. The gospel message, you can't present the gospel message unless you have an understanding of why you need the gospel in the first place.

57:42

That's right. Which would be understanding sin, its transgression and its object of offense, which is

57:50

God. Correct. Correct. And then our brother,

57:55

Darren, and he's just coming in swinging tonight. He is, bro. He is. He said there are two sides to this.

58:02

Also, the Puritans both confronted and rebuked as well as comforted and strengthened. Amen, brother. Puritans will teach us to be well -rounded in our preaching.

58:10

Yes. Yep. Living preaching. Absolutely. Another good one. Christopher Love. The saints advantage by Christ's ascension and coming again from heaven.

58:21

Just started this. I have not read it yet. It's also one of those. It's not very big, but it'll take you a minute.

58:28

But it's it's it's encouragement that you get. I mean, think here's a good question, right?

58:34

It's like how how many of us have studied the doctrine of the ascension and rest in the importance of Christ ascension?

58:42

And that's that's that's what he's getting into, man. And it's incredibly, incredibly comforting and encouraging.

58:48

That's right. That's right. So let's see, Claude here.

58:54

Claude Ramsey says the Puritans had an intellectual and spiritual grasp on the major doctrines of the scriptures.

59:03

Yes, they did. You know, it's talking about their grasp. It's interesting because of how the

59:12

Puritans would go through school or go through seminary. Because what they would what they would do is your first year.

59:23

And I'm trying to bring this back from memory. So I may I may miss it in some places.

59:30

Well, this is why you're doing that. Take a second. And but think about this, too, man.

59:37

A lot of these guys, how young they went to seminary. And they weren't just old guys.

59:45

Oh, no. They were young. I mean, you think about Watson and Owen. They went to college and seminary.

59:51

I mean, before they were 20 years old. Well, before. Yeah. And that's a good point, bro.

59:57

It's like they were thinkers like they would sit and ponder and meditate and chew on these truths.

01:00:05

And man, that's something we could all benefit from. Yeah. So they would they would go to school.

01:00:12

They would learn these doctrines. And in order to graduate and move up to the next class, the next rank.

01:00:19

Right. So your freshman year, in order to move up to your sophomore year, you would have to debate a topic.

01:00:26

Now, you would be given a topic. Your opponent would be given a topic or no, they would have a topic.

01:00:32

You would be either the affirmative or your opponent would be the negative. You know, whoever that was in the switch. And then you would have to learn the arguments for that topic.

01:00:43

The next year. When you got to like your sophomore year to go to your junior year in order to graduate.

01:00:50

You would be given the debate topic, but you wouldn't be told whether you were the affirmative or the negative.

01:00:57

So you had to know both sides. The third year.

01:01:04

You would you wouldn't be given a topic. But you would say,

01:01:09

OK, you're just going to debate. Be ready. And then your final year, you would be you would have to debate, but you wouldn't just debate a student.

01:01:20

You would debate either your professor or you would debate someone who is who is in a high position of the school.

01:01:29

And you'd have to do it either in Latin, in Hebrew or in Greek. I can do it.

01:01:41

Brilliant. Yep. Yeah. So when so when Claude says intellectual grasp, like there's an example.

01:01:53

That's that's on a different level. Most people today can't even be bothered to read a five page pamphlet, let alone, you know, be able to debate in a different language.

01:02:03

Sit and read a book. Want me to read a book like I can't they can't even sing hymns because they're too wordy, dude.

01:02:10

Like, oh, you know what I'm talking about? I sure do, buddy.

01:02:16

We had someone actually say that to us, by the way, about singing songs. Well, they're just too wordy.

01:02:23

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Why does church exist again for you or for Christ?

01:02:30

Okay. Yeah, I'll wait. Go ahead. That's right. That's right.

01:02:37

So, Chris drew. Do the

01:02:45

Puritans argue with us? Absolutely.

01:02:56

One hundred and ten percent, one hundred and ten million percent. And if you don't think that the

01:03:02

Puritans and when I already I mentioned this while you were gone, I consider Martin Lloyd Jones a

01:03:08

Puritan. Like, if you don't think that that that.

01:03:14

Watson argues with you in a body of divinity or John Flavel and keeping the heart or Samuel Rutherford or Christian in complete armor that I've got back here.

01:03:24

Like if you don't think that argues with you, like it's just intellectually dishonest.

01:03:32

Like, let me go a little farther. It's stupid. Like your stupidity is showing if if you believe that that's a big problem.

01:03:46

Number two, if you say it, you are you are actively outwardly showing your stupidity.

01:03:53

And that's not me being harsh. Like, look up the definition of stupidity and you'll see.

01:03:59

Like, yeah. No, he's right. Yeah. Read Watson's The Godly Man's Picture.

01:04:06

Tell me that doesn't argue with pencil. Okay. Yeah. Tell me that doesn't argue with you.

01:04:13

But one of the things so that they had a Puritan conference, right? Yeah.

01:04:19

At John MacArthur Church, Grace Community. And what was what would you say your favorite?

01:04:29

Did you listen? Have you listened to all of them? I haven't listened to all of them. Out of the ones you've listened to, which one was your favorite?

01:04:35

Oh, gosh. I think it was

01:04:42

Beaky's first one. Is that the one? Yes, I think so.

01:04:47

Let me look it up. I'm pretty sure. That's the one that I've listened to a couple of times.

01:04:56

I think that was his first one. Yeah, it was October 5th through the 7th, 2022.

01:05:04

Hang on. It's pulling up right now. Adoption.

01:05:11

Adoption. Adoption. Yeah. It was the Puritans on the doctrine of adoption. That's been my favorite one so far.

01:05:19

I know. I think you sent me the one Jeremy Walker did on the family. Yeah.

01:05:25

Was that the one you were like? Did I send it to you? I think you did. No. Oh, I sent you a clip because I posted a clip on Twitter.

01:05:33

He's of a bunion quote that he read, which we'll get to that in a second. Okay. But. Bunion.

01:05:41

My. I would say my favorite was Jeremy Walker's The Perplexities of the

01:05:48

Puritans. And what I love about it is because he goes through his whole introduction and he says, you know, talking about the perplexity of the

01:06:00

Puritans. And he says, basically, what do we do? Really well.

01:06:07

Sinners. I've been listening to a lot of Jeremy Walker. Do it again. Do it again.

01:06:13

Basically, what do we do with the fact that the Puritans are sinners or were sinners?

01:06:20

Right. And this, I think, is why the Puritans can argue with us.

01:06:28

Because they were sinners. Yeah. They were sinners who understood the sinfulness of sin, but then also saw in the outworkings of their life.

01:06:39

Where they failed and they wrote. Yeah. They were. They were on.

01:06:45

I was just about to say that, man. They didn't whitewash anything. They didn't attempt to whitewash anything and hold themselves up as being perfect and having it all together.

01:06:52

And. And I hear people say that and it drives me nuts. Yeah. Yeah.

01:06:59

So they they realized and understood that they were sinners. And one of the things that we do today is we don't realize how sinful we are.

01:07:15

We don't know. We think, oh, I just messed up. Right. We we we don't call sin sin.

01:07:22

We just say I messed up. I just it was a mistake. It was just a little mistake.

01:07:29

Yeah. And oops. You know, I did it again. Okay. No, you you don't understand that.

01:07:36

That offends God. And yes, if you are in Christ, yes, there is that that sin is covered and the

01:07:45

Puritans would speak on that. And they would say, yes, you are covered in that sin. But it's not something to just wash over, not something to presume upon the grace of the

01:07:56

Lord about. It's something to deal with, which is why you have the mortification of sin.

01:08:01

Right. Death. So not only not only am I a sinner, that I need to know how sinful

01:08:08

I am and what my sin looks like to God. I also need to work to put it to death so that I can live holy so that God can can be look on me with delight.

01:08:22

Right. Right. Well, and how important is that? Right. I mean, we see that command in Scripture to mortify the deeds of the flesh.

01:08:28

Romans eight to put to death, right, to put to death sin. But you can't put sin to death if you don't understand what sin is and just how deep it goes and how much it infects and affects everything in your life.

01:08:43

And you can't you know, it's talked about as an enemy.

01:08:49

Right. You're going to war, speed, accuracy and violence of action. You have to have those three.

01:08:56

Hang on one second. Whoa. Chris told me to hang on.

01:09:02

You believe that? Yeah. So, I mean, speed, accuracy and violence of action.

01:09:08

You've got to have those three. But if you don't know what your target is and you don't know what you're aiming at, you're not going to you're not going to hit it.

01:09:15

You know, if you just if you're just trying to exercise some sort of remorse, that's not that that's not repentance.

01:09:22

That's not putting it to death. It's not if you're not actively, actively battling it. If you're passively sitting on your hands when it comes to the war against sin, you're losing the battle.

01:09:34

And Owen gets into that big time. So does so does so does Watson. So, yeah.

01:09:40

All right. Now it's my turn to be right back. You got it. But I'll be right back. Yeah. Well, I think this is this is actually a great time.

01:09:50

I just put him in the background right there. Yeah. It's not important anyway. It's a great time to bring up some some sponsors.

01:10:00

So let's see. Who's the first sponsor we want to bring up? Ah, here we go.

01:10:06

My pillow. Do you have trouble falling asleep at night?

01:10:13

Do you lie in bed? Thinking, I wish I had a better pillow.

01:10:19

Or did you just read a Puritan work and you were so convicted of the heart that you just couldn't sleep?

01:10:25

If that's the case, my pillow won't work for you anyway, unless you deal with those problems of the heart.

01:10:32

But for anything else, get on my pillow. They will. They will give you a good night's sleep.

01:10:40

I have. I have two. And I really like them. So there's a phone number here.

01:10:46

1 -800 -873 -0176. Although no one no one calls numbers like that anymore.

01:10:52

So just go to mypillow .com. Type in SFE for the discount code.

01:10:58

You'll get a discount. I don't know what what your discount is going to be, but you'll get one and then get on my pillow.

01:11:05

And you'll be glad. Thank me later. Thank me later. Once you get one, we'll bring Chris back.

01:11:11

What's up? Our next sponsor. Logos Bible Software.

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You know, I think I think Logos has a Puritan package. I don't. I'm not 100 % sure.

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Look, I'll look while you're while you're doing. They might. I know they've got a reformed theology package.

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I don't know if they've got one geared more towards the Puritan ultimate collection.

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There you go. 188 resources. Always pricey, though.

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But if it's only 188 resources, that's not a lot. Not compared to when you can go to Banner of Truth or Reformation Heritage and what they have.

01:11:56

That's very true. I mean, one hundred and eighty eight different resources.

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I won't say what the price is because I don't want to. I don't want to. Oh, it's definitely in the thousands for sure.

01:12:08

Yeah. I like ten thousand dollars. No, not that much. They I mean, they have programs that are that high.

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Wow. Yeah. They get just over a thousand. Yeah, that's.

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I could probably buy all 188 of those resources for less than a thousand dollars at Heritage Books dot com.

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Monarchism dot com. I mean, yeah, but if you want kind of a little more updated

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Did you get that basic pass package that I got? Of course you didn't. You know why? Because you're a second rate expositor.

01:13:10

You are a second rate expositor. I keep trying to tell you. I know. Also. Striving for Eternity has speakers that you can request.

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They do. And they speak on a lot of different topics. In fact, you know, the crazy thing is

01:13:29

Striving for Eternity actually had. They had a lecture series.

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On CRT. Before all the CRT madness.

01:13:43

Hit. They were speaking on this. A long time ago.

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I just found that out. So. They understand trends.

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They see what's coming down the pipeline. They do. Series together. They teach you about it. But also, if you want them to teach on anything else.

01:14:03

Cessationism. Okay. We need to get rid of these care. Charismatics. Or we not get rid of.

01:14:08

Correct. Sorry. Wrong word. We need to correct. These charismatic.

01:14:15

We're tired. Y 'all. They're a little out there. But you can go to. If you want to request a speaker.

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On any kind of topic. Just go to info at Striving for Eternity dot com.

01:14:27

And. Request one. It'll probably be Andrew that comes out to see you. But okay.

01:14:34

Let's. What time is it? It's 915. Yes. Hold on.

01:14:40

Let me make sure we've got some. Let's get into some of some comments real quick.

01:14:45

Yeah. Melissa says the Puritans didn't sugarcoat the gospel. That's true. They did not.

01:14:51

Unashamed. They were unashamed. Unapologetic. Truly unapologetic. Melissa also says she's so excited because Paul Washer will be speaking at her church this upcoming

01:15:01

Sunday. Don't clap. He's talking about you. That's right. Always good. Remember when you see

01:15:07

Paul Washer. Just. Don't clap. You'll meet. You'll want to. Don't do it.

01:15:14

That's right. She also says that she's praying for my family. Thank you very much. We do need a lot of prayer because we got lots going on over here.

01:15:24

But Kathy says I'm reading Stephen Charnock's. Existence of God. Take it away,

01:15:31

Chris. Yeah. So that was going to be Kathy. Thank you for.

01:15:37

For putting that you were reading that just because. Sorry.

01:15:43

I was laughing. I heard the next. Her latest comment. She said cry. Don't clap about Paul Washer. Because of.

01:15:55

I was thinking that Claude or Clyde, whatever. His comment. Claude about the

01:16:00

Puritans intellectually and spiritually understanding the gospel. If you if you truly want to get into an in -depth biblical study of who your

01:16:13

God is, read the Puritans, specifically Charnock, the existence and attributes of God.

01:16:21

Also, his work, his work on practical atheism is at the very beginning of his works.

01:16:29

Yeah. Yes. Yep. And is is phenomenal. But but the

01:16:34

Puritans knew and were known by Christ. And and they they truly set the example of what it means to love the

01:16:44

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and all your strength. And their sermons and their writings reflect that.

01:16:50

And Charnock's the existence and attributes of God does that. I still have not made it all the way through that.

01:16:56

I set myself a goal to do that this year. And I have not completed that goal yet.

01:17:02

I'm trying. Now, in terms of the attributes of God works on the attributes of God.

01:17:09

Charnock's is probably the most thorough. Yeah, it's two volumes.

01:17:16

And now. Well, so Crossway just came out with the two volume set with the two volume set.

01:17:23

I think it's a little easier to read as Crossway does. You know, things a little bit easier to read and understand.

01:17:30

And I've heard nothing but wonderful things about it. I have the banner of truth version right there.

01:17:38

Those first two volumes are the existence and attributes. So in his his completed works, the verse, the first two volumes are the attributes of God.

01:17:47

And they are the most extensive and thorough work on the attributes that you can get.

01:17:55

Yeah. So now, now, Chris, let's get into something a little different. Let's get into probably some recommended reading for people, maybe, maybe for different categories.

01:18:11

Or what people that you would recommend. Yeah, I was at a bonsai for Jesus said, I mean, she said, sounds like there's a there's so many books to read.

01:18:20

Can you narrow down some essential ones? So. Oh, gosh, man.

01:18:29

Yeah, there's a lot essential. We already mentioned

01:18:35

Watson's. They're all essential. They're all essential. Yeah, they're all essential.

01:18:42

Watson, a body of divinity, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments. Those three would be phenomenal.

01:18:50

Kathy mentioned already the existence and attributes of God, that two volume set by Charnock that you can get from Crossway. Mortification of Sin, Doctrine of Repentance, another

01:19:01

Watson book, Heaven Taken by Storm, showing the holy violence of Christian is to put forth in the pursuit after glory.

01:19:09

That's an excellent one. Those are a few to get started. I mean, there are a ton

01:19:14

Christian in complete armor. Who wrote that one? William Gernal. Thank you. It's right back there.

01:19:21

Uh. Here's here's a good idea. Here's a good idea to.

01:19:28

The M .L .J. Trust dot o .r .g. M. Mary Emerson, Mary L .J.

01:19:36

Trust dot o .r .g. You can listen to every Martin Lloyd Jones sermon he ever preached for free.

01:19:45

And I mentioned I consider Lloyd Jones a Puritan. I do, especially with for what he was dealing with in in that time and how his works have continued to influence the church today.

01:19:55

But his work on spiritual depression, his work on revival, preaching and preachers. If that's the

01:20:00

Lord's calling you to do that. So, I mean, bro, I don't I mean, where do you even go?

01:20:07

There's there's so much. I mean, I read something. Earlier today.

01:20:14

About I mean, over the last 60 years, there's been well over 800 new

01:20:22

Puritan writings that have been published from over 150 different Puritans.

01:20:30

Joel Beaky is putting out more. Yeah. Beaky is just a beast. There you go. Kofi Kofi jumped in.

01:20:36

Kofi said he would start with the glory of Christ by Owen. That's a great one, bro. It was the last thing he wrote in Christo centric and his

01:20:45

Christo centric vision will inspire you to plunge into other Puritan writers, bro. Well said,

01:20:50

Kofi. There you go. Yep. Yep. Now, what about you, man? Well, it depends on the category.

01:20:58

Right. So so I would say if you want a good look at the

01:21:03

Christian life, you have to have to every Christian has to read the

01:21:10

Pilgrim's Progress. This is absolutely one of my favorite works.

01:21:16

Just period. Plain and simple. I am encouraged by this work every time that I read it because I know

01:21:26

I'm such a failure in my life. And then I see Christian and I go. Christian was too.

01:21:33

Yeah. Now I did. Now this particular one that I have, this copy

01:21:39

I have has both parts. It's got part one and then part two, which is his wife and his children.

01:21:47

I've never read part two. Really? I haven't either read it only. I've only read part one, but I absolutely love the

01:21:57

Pilgrim's Progress. Now, in terms of, let's say, a systematic theology. Well, you've already you've already mentioned a body of divinity.

01:22:05

Correct. Body of divinity is a systematic theology. Yes, it is. And it's very easy to understand because of the way that Watson writes.

01:22:15

It's easy. It's got an easy flow. It's it's intellectual, but it's not overly exhausting.

01:22:25

Correct. When you're when you're reading it, you're not doing it. That's a good way to say it. What did he say?

01:22:30

How did that way? I'm never going to get this. No, you read it and you go, OK, I get it.

01:22:36

Yeah. And then there's this one, which is one of my favorites as well. The Marrow of Theology by William Ames.

01:22:43

Now, this was in terms of systematic theologies for the Puritans. This was the systematic theology of the day when

01:22:52

William Ames wrote it. I like it. I love the part on church discipline.

01:22:58

And he writes on church discipline. It. He actually goes into and lists.

01:23:08

The purpose for church discipline. And why you do it. Now, some some will talk about church discipline and how to do it, but they don't.

01:23:18

Some won't necessarily get into why you do it. And he gets into why.

01:23:24

And the whole purpose is so that they may bring brought back or may be brought back to Christ.

01:23:31

Restoration. And restored to the church. That is the whole goal. And it's not to be something that they're belittled about or they're made fun of.

01:23:43

No. We are we are to work with them and walk with them so that they may come back to Christ.

01:23:53

And then let's say, Chris, let's say, I don't know, you're you have an unbelieving friend somewhere.

01:24:06

Someone who's just like, maybe I don't know. You know,

01:24:11

I just I don't believe a whole thing or whatever. What you would do is you would give them this.

01:24:18

This book is called A Sure Guide to Heaven, or it used to be. It used to be. The old title is a warning.

01:24:25

I think it was called A Warning to the Unconverted. This is by Joseph Alain. A Sure Guide to Heaven.

01:24:31

And it basically lists out the gospel and and about conversion.

01:24:38

What is true conversion, the nature of conversion, the motivations for conversion, the marks of conversion.

01:24:45

This would be a really good book to have now in terms of prayer.

01:24:53

Hmm. John Bunyan's work on prayer is one of the best works on the subject you can buy.

01:25:05

And now John Bunyan wrote a lot of his works while he was in prison.

01:25:14

And how much does a man have to learn how to pray, get to learn how to pray than when in prison?

01:25:22

Yeah. Right. So the person I would probably direct you to the most would be

01:25:27

John Bunyan on prayer. But there's also now this work isn't isn't a Puritan work.

01:25:34

But it's it's teaching Puritan idea and methodology through meditation.

01:25:42

And that would be God's battlefield or God's battle plan. I know you have this book as well.

01:25:49

I don't know if you've read it. I have. Meditation is a lost, lost discipline.

01:26:00

No one does it anymore. And and the reason I think no one does it anymore is because people don't understand it.

01:26:07

Right. Right here. They hear the term meditation and they think of some kind of Eastern mysticism.

01:26:14

Right. Right. Right. They don't understand what it what it means.

01:26:20

So think about I would I would explain it almost in terms of a meal.

01:26:26

So you have the the food, the meat, the chewing and then the digestion.

01:26:34

OK, so the eating of the meal would be the would be scripture.

01:26:40

Your intake of scripture. Right. Reading of scripture. The study of scripture. The chewing portion would be the meditation.

01:26:49

Yeah. You are chewing over what you have just read. How do

01:26:55

I apply this in my life? OK. And then the digestion part is we can look at it two ways.

01:27:03

We can look at it as the prayer that flows out of that meditation for the

01:27:08

Lord to help you apply. Or we can just skip straight to the application. How you then apply in the outworkings of your meditation.

01:27:16

How do you then apply this? So you had D here says biblical meditation is a lost art.

01:27:23

You beat me to it. That's what I try to do, which is really hard to do because I'll someone will say something.

01:27:30

I'll have a thought and D will actually beat me to it in the comments. I probably should know that. But that's usually what happens.

01:27:37

I'm like, oh, she already wrote it here. She already wrote it here. Let's see.

01:27:43

Kathy says I have Matthew Henry method. Full of scripture. Yes. Matthew Henry people.

01:27:50

People usually only know Matthew Henry for his commentaries. Yeah. People don't know.

01:27:56

Matthew Henry was like studying Greek when he was four years old. I mean, this guy was ridiculous.

01:28:04

OK, let's see. Melissa says at this point,

01:28:11

I'm just jealous of Chris and Drew's libraries. Drew's got the bigger library for sure.

01:28:24

Well, you know, it used to go. It used to be used far more than it does nowadays.

01:28:30

Now, because when you add two kids that are three, one, you don't get to spend a lot.

01:28:37

Right. Right. But, man, I think, you know,

01:28:43

Kofi gave a great book to start with the glory of Christ by Owen. There's another book to start with as well.

01:28:50

By Owen communion with God. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which and you can get that in Puritan paperback form.

01:28:57

But what it walks you through. There you go. Is how to commune with each person of the

01:29:04

Trinity. How do I commune with the father? How do I commune with this? How do

01:29:09

I commune with the spirit? Yep. Yep. Speaking of meditation.

01:29:15

I mean, I talk about Watson a lot. Watson's my favorite Puritan. If you couldn't tell. He's Dustin Benj.

01:29:23

Our brother, Dustin Benj put together a small book, but it's strong of Watson talking about meditation.

01:29:31

And that was actually the first book I read in 2023. That was the first book I read this year was that one.

01:29:37

And I'd never I'd never read that before. But you are absolutely right, man. Meditation is a lost, lost thing.

01:29:44

We don't. No one does it anymore. Oh, I think we might have lost.

01:29:54

Oh, no. He's coming back. I'm back. He's back. I'm back. You're back. You're back.

01:29:59

Did you go somewhere to? No, no. It sounded like your screen froze for a second. Oh, OK.

01:30:06

Yeah. Minded. Yeah. Melissa. He said it's a it's called God's battle plan for the mind by David.

01:30:12

What's his last name? Saxton. David Saxton. S A X T O N.

01:30:18

And I think he's actually a master seminary graduate. Yes. If I remember correctly.

01:30:24

Yes. I remember. Yes. Now there's also if here's another here's a lost gem that people don't really know a lot about.

01:30:33

This is a devotional. It's by a man named Henry Scudder.

01:30:40

S .C .U. D .D .R. And it is called the Christians Daily Walk. This is a neat little book, and he just brings about things you don't really think about and then points you to Christ through those things.

01:31:00

For example, he talks about when you get up, when you're getting ready for your day and you have to put clothes on.

01:31:10

Well, think about why you have to put clothes on. Because the garden.

01:31:18

Because of Adam and Eve's sin in the garden. And he just he takes your mind to things like that.

01:31:25

Just the things you do, the mundane things you don't even think about. And he puts

01:31:30

Christ in them and says, when you do this, think upon Christ.

01:31:35

He says, when you get up in the morning, before your feet even hit the ground, right? Not you.

01:31:42

He's he's saying, I'm not telling you to go immediately into prayer, but just fix your thoughts on Christ.

01:31:50

Right. When you're in that in -between stage of sleeping and waking, where you're kind of coming into consciousness, immediately fix your thoughts upon Christ so that you begin your day before you even hit the ground.

01:32:04

Thinking upon the Lord. That's a good little gem. A lot of people I don't think know about.

01:32:11

Speaking of sibs, too, if you guys are looking for like a devotional type thing, his refreshment for the soul.

01:32:18

This is Banner did this one. And it's it's awesome. It's awesome. I read it every day.

01:32:23

And it has what they what they did with it when they put it together is they tried to keep

01:32:32

I mean, they take chunks of his works. So and try to keep them together.

01:32:39

So if I flip to today's like today's, we started talking about spiritual sleepiness.

01:32:45

But then tomorrow is how to avoid spiritual sleepiness. And then Saturday will be avoiding part two of avoiding spiritual sleepiness.

01:32:55

And so these these these works they're pulling from. It's not just, you know, one thing pulled out of context, but it's a few days.

01:33:02

Sometimes it's not always like that, but a few days where it's like you're you're you're focusing on the same topic.

01:33:08

Of course, pull from scripture, wildly encouraging, comforting and confronting as well.

01:33:14

So it's good. I would also direct people to a true

01:33:22

Christians love to the unseen Christ. Now, this is spiritual encouragement for the world weary souls.

01:33:33

I was told about this book by Dr. John Snyder himself.

01:33:38

It's true. He said that this was what the beginning of twenty twenty one.

01:33:44

I think was. Yep. He said his church had just begun a book study in this book and he encouraged me to get it.

01:33:54

And so this is basically a sermon. I think it's actually multiple sermons.

01:34:03

But it's rather refreshing. To your soul, I would recommend getting the true

01:34:09

Christians love to the unseen Christ and again. Big Christ, right?

01:34:15

Everything pointing towards the loveliness of Christ. And that's what's missing nowadays.

01:34:23

Yeah. When you see a lot of preachers or you go to a lot of church, usually in their.

01:34:31

Talk. I don't know that I'd call it a sermon.

01:34:37

They're kind of gathering. They're kind of they're meeting, you know. Let me wrap with you for a little bit.

01:34:45

It's almost as if they start with the application. But. They're starting with the application and then they're leading you into moralism.

01:34:57

These are the things you must do. Oh, wait, look, we have someone in the background. Hey. Your report.

01:35:07

I just wanted to answer John's question there. Does anyone know when Andrew's back? I'm back.

01:35:16

Yeah. I figured I'd pop in. It must it must have been God's providence.

01:35:22

We were we were sitting down trying to eat some dinner. I got back from an

01:35:28

I got back from a 50 mile ATV ride and survived this time. I was just about to say, man.

01:35:34

No hospital visits this time. All of a sudden we hear my computer start talking and it's the two of you.

01:35:40

And I was like, good. I wanted to listen and join the show before it ended. But, you know, one of the things

01:35:46

I don't know if you guys address this yet with the Puritans, but a neat reason why the

01:35:52

Puritans. Are kind of who they are. Like when they went to seminary, they were trained to debate, but not a normal type of debate.

01:36:04

Yeah, I covered that. Did you? OK. You know, because it's

01:36:11

I mean, that is they were trained to to debate and to think through even positions they don't agree with.

01:36:19

That's what's lacking nowadays. Because what you see nowadays is if you say something

01:36:25

I don't like on Facebook, I'm calling your pastor. You know, you're you're slandering the brothers.

01:36:31

You're you know, you're not saved. What was it? I'm forgetting what the new one is. You're effeminate.

01:36:38

Effeminate. Yeah. I mean, if you disagree with someone, you know, it's like you're effeminate.

01:36:44

Well, you know, we don't train people. And this is really a result of our culture.

01:36:50

This is a result of of Marxist training in our culture to get everybody in line with one way of thinking and shut down any kind of dialogue.

01:37:01

And the Puritans are, I think, so refreshing to those of us who love the

01:37:07

Lord because they are so unlike that. They can take a position they don't hold to and work it through and argue for it and then point out why they disagree with it.

01:37:21

I think this is one of the things people don't understand with John MacArthur, why people love

01:37:28

MacArthur's preaching, especially in the earlier years. He would walk through a passage of scripture explaining to you.

01:37:36

Well, well, it can't be this for this reason. It can't be this for this reason. And step by step through a passage of scripture to the point that when you get to the end.

01:37:47

You're going, well, it must be this. And at that point, MacArthur goes, well, this is what it is.

01:37:53

And you think it's really kind of deceptive, but not really. He's walking through, but what he's really doing is he's leading you through the process of interpretation.

01:38:03

That's right. And you think you came up with it, but obviously it was in his notes. So he was leading you the whole way.

01:38:10

Right. This is what the Puritans would do. The Puritans wanted to drink richly and deeply from the word of God.

01:38:19

They loved the Lord so much that they, they wanted to get every ounce they could from scripture and communicate that to their congregation.

01:38:33

You know, and one of the things that I think helps with that, and you've alluded to it and John MacArthur.

01:38:43

I know when Chris and I went out there in 2019 and we had, I don't think he mentioned it somewhere.

01:38:50

He might not have been at that dinner, but he said what he does is he asks questions.

01:38:57

How many questions can I ask of the text? And so one thing that's missing with so many preachers is the interrogative portion of sermon prep.

01:39:09

How many questions can I get out of this text so that I answer all the questions someone could ask me so that by the time you arrive, you already know all the answers and you know what the text is saying.

01:39:21

He says you have to have a curiosity. And I think that's, you know, when

01:39:27

I preach, I always say I'm teaching hermeneutics directly or indirectly. I tell people

01:39:34

I never, I never want anyone to read the Bible. I want them to engage with it.

01:39:40

I want them to think through it, not just read it. Don't just sit for your morning devotions and go, let me just read.

01:39:46

Here's the thing. I saw someone in the comments here. Kathy had said,

01:39:52

I'm reading Stephen Charnock's Attributes and Existence of God, right? That right there.

01:39:59

Do you realize, read the introduction to that. That got up on high so much.

01:40:04

But do you realize that was his thoughts, just journaling thoughts before bed?

01:40:11

I mean, I had to read the chapter on holiness for seminary, and I ended up going back and reading the whole book.

01:40:21

And it's like you just sit there and you're in awe of who God is when you read that. And then you realize, oh, that was just his journaling before bed.

01:40:30

You know, like everyone looks at Matthew Henry's commentary and go, oh, you know, this guy was brilliant.

01:40:37

Do you realize Matthew Henry's commentary that we use today was not his sermons?

01:40:43

Those were his offhanded comments after the period where in the worship service, they'd read scripture and he'd make offhanded comments.

01:40:54

Those are just his offhanded comments. You got to wonder what his sermons were like.

01:41:01

Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the things, Andrew, we talked about is just that,

01:41:06

I mean, they were, they were thinkers. They would sit and ponder and ponder and ask and chew and meditate.

01:41:13

And we talked about meditation. And I was talking about Watson, talking about meditation. That was the first book I read this year was

01:41:18

Watson's work on meditation that Dustin Bench put together. Which, by the way, you guys want a little peek behind the curtain.

01:41:25

Dustin Bench has compiled the complete works of Thomas Watson. Reformation Heritage will be publishing that next year, by the way.

01:41:35

There you go. Anyway, but yeah, man, it's just the ability, and Drew talked about it, the ability to meditate, to chew on, to think through.

01:41:42

Think deeply about the things in scripture, about the character and the nature of God, about the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Christ.

01:41:51

The admonishment and the prescribed, the prescribed commands we see in the epistles.

01:41:57

I mean, do we sit and just think about what it means to, I'm reading

01:42:04

Colossians right now every day for the month of August, right? Do I sit and truly think about what it means for the attributes of Christ?

01:42:13

When think about who is the invisible, the image of God, right? That first, that section there right before Colossians 2.

01:42:19

I mean, do we sit and ponder on those things? Like when you read, how many times as somebody who's reformed, how many times do we read

01:42:27

Ephesians chapter 2, right? When was the last time you sat and thought about that? Meditate on that, chew on that.

01:42:35

And that's one of the things that Puritans help us with. And I can't tell you how many times I've been reading the Puritans and they'll cover a passage of scripture that I just read.

01:42:43

And I'm like, I didn't think about that. You know, it's... Why is

01:42:49

Pastor Darren not here with all the comments he was making, right? Well, he's got to limit his screen time.

01:42:56

Yeah. Well, you know, I'm really surprised, Drew, you starred this comment. Yeah, I did.

01:43:02

Well, it's a, you know, funny comment. So I like to give comedians their chance.

01:43:10

Melissa says, Drew, you met John MacArthur and you're still post mill? Technically, I didn't meet him.

01:43:18

We were just in the same room together. Well, so I remember

01:43:27

I was at Shepard's conference and they had a luncheon for prospective students for the doctorate of ministry.

01:43:35

I hate to say the D -Min program, right? It just doesn't sound right when you say it fast. But the doctorate of ministry program.

01:43:42

And so we're sitting and MacArthur is going to come in and talk. And there's, you know,

01:43:48

I'm sitting at a table and there's some empty seats. And in walks MacArthur. There's no other seat.

01:43:54

So he sits down right next to me and we have lunch. Well, he didn't eat because he had eaten in his office.

01:44:01

But like, you know, I'm like, OK, that was not expected.

01:44:08

But, you know, Chris, I mentioned earlier about the video or the clip that I posted of Jeremy Walker quoting

01:44:17

John Bunyan. And I posted that kind of in reference to some of these, you know,

01:44:26

Christian nationalist guys that we were talking about last week. That think, well, because God gave me my kids.

01:44:35

Oh, gosh. They will be saved. Right. And so so Jeremy's talking about in this this talk that he gave.

01:44:43

He's talking about how someone asked him that basically that, you know, well,

01:44:49

Christians are having babies. And, you know, so so when are we going to take over the world kind of thing?

01:44:56

And he said, well. If there if your children are converted. Yeah. Right.

01:45:02

But and then he goes into this John Bunyan quote that basically says. You as a father.

01:45:11

Could be the downfall of your children. And you start thinking about that, right.

01:45:20

One that hits you because you go, oh, what am I displaying before my children?

01:45:26

How am I acting? Argue with me again. OK. Yeah. How am

01:45:33

I acting? But then what am I presuming upon the Lord? Just because God graciously gave me children, they're automatically going to be saved.

01:45:45

Yeah, I don't think so. Oh, OK. I didn't know if I cut you off there.

01:45:50

Sorry. No, no. Well, the only thing I was going to say after that is I forgot.

01:45:57

OK, well. And so it wasn't. So the thing is, is. You end up seeing a lot of people that have that view based on a proverb.

01:46:10

OK, that they take as a promise. Now, first off, when you're interpreting proverbs. Oh, yeah, this is general principles.

01:46:17

They are not promises. And so what you end up seeing is.

01:46:24

Here you have a passage, train up a child in the way he shall go. And when he is old, he will not depart.

01:46:31

And people interpret that to say, well, if I train my child in the way of the Lord, when he gets older, even if he walks away for a time, when he come, he will come back like that's a promise.

01:46:42

And it's first off a general principle, but it's not a general principle saying that if you teach your children the way of the

01:46:49

Lord, they're going to return to that in their waywardness. In the Hebrew, it's very clear that what that's teaching is you train up a child.

01:46:59

In his selfishness, in the way he will go unaided, you let you spoil them and let them get give them everything they want, you teach them in the way they'll go in their own self willfulness.

01:47:13

And they will never depart from that. That's what we see a whole generation that has been taught that way.

01:47:19

Hashtag hermeneutics matter. Yeah. Yeah. That's another one we need to make, bro.

01:47:25

Yeah. We need to make a shirt. A shirt. Well, think about this. Everyone's going to ask you what hermeneutics is.

01:47:30

So yeah. Hermeneutics. They just say the reverse is true, though. Right.

01:47:36

Is if you if you don't train your child against their selfish bent.

01:47:43

They're they're going to go that way. So as parents, we have a responsibility to teach them biblically.

01:47:50

But it's not a promise they're going to be saved or returned to the Lord. But it is a promise that if you don't do that.

01:47:58

They're going to be an entitled little spoiled brat as an adult. Yeah, brother.

01:48:03

Yeah. Well, and I think that, you know, the people that would say that the people that would hold to that and say, you know, well, the

01:48:11

Lord is definitely going to save my kids because he gave me to me, gave them to me and not my pagan neighbor.

01:48:17

Like that's someone who doesn't understand true covenantal theology. That's what's called.

01:48:23

I think I heard Joel Beakey talk about this once hyper covenantalism to where what that does in that point is that substitutes covenant, covenantalism, covenant theology with conversion.

01:48:36

And you can't you can't do that while you can commit to that. I mean, if you hold to covenant theology, you commit to that.

01:48:42

You you raise your kids in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. You you desire to live a sanctified life and to see that affect the society around you.

01:48:49

But that's not that does not replace conversion. And and to to to hold to that is someone who is wildly immature.

01:48:56

Number one is teaching errant theology. Number two and needs to read more of the Puritans. Number three, because the

01:49:02

Puritans never taught that. Yeah. And and. You need to kind of monitor how you act on social media.

01:49:15

Yeah. Yeah. Chris was on, you said, and I'm just going to make two points.

01:49:20

I'm going to bow out. But, you know, I had a guy who used to go to church with very against Calvinism, but didn't understand it.

01:49:31

And he asked, he says, yeah, how how usual? And he says, you know, what would you do if your kids don't believe if your kids grow up and don't believe in the

01:49:44

Lord? They're not converted. How could you in your Calvinism, how could you live with that?

01:49:49

I said, easy. I said, the question is, how could you live in your in your anti Calvinism?

01:49:56

Because for me, I'm going to rest on the sovereignty of God. Yeah. What are you going to rest on that?

01:50:02

You didn't do a good enough job. Right. You didn't convince them enough that you didn't talk them into it enough.

01:50:08

Right. So, yeah, I mean, that's that right there is, you know, like when

01:50:17

I share the gospel and someone walks away rejecting, I don't feel what was me.

01:50:22

I didn't do a good enough job. Right. As long as I communicate the gospel clearly, I go, Lord, it's up to you.

01:50:29

So so let me just at least end with with me because I'm going to bow out. But here's the reason I asked

01:50:35

Drew to to do this episode, folks, is I wanted you guys.

01:50:40

I want everybody listening to have a high view of God, a high view of his word. And we see that with the

01:50:46

Puritans. Why read the Puritans? Because there's something lacking in our culture today that the

01:50:53

Puritans provide. That's why through years and years and years, people continue to go back to the

01:51:02

Puritans because these men thought deeply on God and his word.

01:51:09

They weren't distracted with social media and building a platform and all the nonsense we have today. They focused on training people, teaching people, shepherding people to love our

01:51:21

Lord. Yeah. Amen. And that's what you're going to take away if you read the Puritans. My encouragement to everyone listening is, you know,

01:51:28

I'm sure even though I tuned in late, I'm sure throughout this episode you heard a lot of good books mentioned because I know we're talking about a lot.

01:51:37

There were a lot of recommendations. I'm sorry. Get some of them. I mean, there's there's really good primers to get on the

01:51:45

Puritans just to get started. They give you, you know, hey, here's here's an overview.

01:51:50

Yeah. Their language may be hard. They're thinking that you may read slowly. That's OK.

01:51:57

Do it slowly. You know, but it is so worth it. I've I have yet to find a

01:52:03

Puritan work that I've read that I have not that has not brought me closer to the

01:52:10

Lord, thinking more deeply of the Lord, being more in awe of the Lord. If you want that in your

01:52:16

Christian life, read the Puritans after your Bible. Yeah.

01:52:22

And that's, you know, that's another thing I was going to get into that I was going to that I was going to close with is that we obviously we love the

01:52:32

Puritans. We glean so much from the Puritans. They point us to Christ. They magnify

01:52:37

Christ. They exalt Christ so much. But.

01:52:44

In reading these men, we shouldn't just want to read secondhand knowledge.

01:52:51

We shouldn't just want to live reading through what they have experienced of God.

01:52:58

We should want to go and what they should do is they should drive us to the source.

01:53:04

That's right. Which is the scriptures. Yep. Because. There is something that they lack when we read them.

01:53:13

Now we can get pictures of God. We can desire God more.

01:53:21

We can desire to be closer to God. But we can't get closer to him unless we are diving into his word.

01:53:30

That's right. Right. So. So the first thing we need to do is we need to hold the scripture.

01:53:37

We need to read scripture. We need to study scripture. We need to give ourselves to God's word.

01:53:44

That's what the Puritans did. Yeah. They gave themselves to the scriptures. And you can just any one of these these volumes right here of Jono and the green ones because the orange ones are common are

01:53:57

Hebrews. These green ones right here. You can pick it up open to any page and it's saturated with nothing but scriptural reference.

01:54:05

Correct. These men had a command of the scriptures. And so.

01:54:11

If you want to be like the Puritans, then you first need to have a command of scripture.

01:54:17

And then that command of scripture is going to cause you to desire

01:54:23

Christ more. Yeah. And then your desire of Christ more is going to you're going to then want to be conformed more to the image of Christ.

01:54:35

Romans 829. Right. So there's that progression. But there is still so much practical living qualities, lessons that we can get from the

01:54:55

Puritans. And you said it yourself as well. You've read a passage of scripture and then you read something from the

01:55:04

Puritans and they hit it at a different way that you didn't see. You know, why didn't I see that?

01:55:10

Yeah. So in some ways they can work as a commentary as well. Yeah. But we should not elevate them above scripture.

01:55:18

We should always want primary to go to the primary source first before having second hand knowledge of someone else's experience.

01:55:29

There are ditches on both sides of the road. And the temptation when reading the

01:55:37

Puritans is to read the Puritans in a way that you think, you know, this is this is helping me spiritually grow.

01:55:47

And it will. But it is not a substitute for scripture. There have been times

01:55:53

I will be transparent and honest. There have been times since studying the Puritans. I've really, really been studying them since 2019.

01:56:00

Seriously. But there have been times in my life personally where I've been reading more secondhand books than scripture.

01:56:09

And I have to stop and I have to put those books down and dive into the scriptures. That's where the discipline aspect comes in.

01:56:18

You have to discipline yourself to do that. And it's not and it's not that I think you said it or Andrew said it. It's not that I'm just reading my

01:56:24

Bible just to read it. Okay. I've checked that off the list. It's like, no, I'm I'm studying God's word to further know who

01:56:30

God is and who I am in light of who he is and how I am to walk in this world.

01:56:37

You're interacting with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that that is one of the things that the scriptures that the

01:56:42

Puritans also showed us is they showed us that because they were Biblio centric, Christo centric, because they were would preach and write and live in a way that was all sided.

01:56:52

They showed us how to live in two worlds, the temporal world and how to how to structure our lives, living in holiness, seeking after holiness.

01:57:01

The I think of that Watson book, Heaven Taken by Storm, the violence necessary to live holy lives.

01:57:07

But then why do we do that to prepare for the eternal life? So so that's that's that's good, man.

01:57:15

That's that's good encouragement. Make sure you're the scripture time with the Lord in his word, interacting with the scriptures, meditating on the scriptures is primary.

01:57:26

And then we study the Puritans and from from a secondary level. And you know what that means, guys?

01:57:32

And that means that there may be things in your life you need to restructure as far as the way you spend your time, how you orient your day.

01:57:40

It's like, oh, I can I can never find the time you're going to make the time. Yeah, if you if it's very if it's important to you, you're going to you're going to find the time you're going to make the time you got to know discipline in that way.

01:57:51

Go ahead. I gave a sermon this past Sunday. And I brought forward a an objector, right?

01:58:03

An imaginary objector that says, well, I don't have time to study my

01:58:08

Bible. I don't have time to read and study my Bible. There's just too much going on. And so then

01:58:14

I ask these questions to my imaginary objector. How much TV are you watching?

01:58:20

Yeah. How much time are you spending on the phone, on the social on social media?

01:58:26

Do you know more stats of your favorite sports team than you do the attributes of God? OK, all of these things have become distractions.

01:58:36

And I told the people, I said, it's not that you don't have time. It's you have bad time management.

01:58:42

Yep. And where we give our heart to is a display of where our heart is divided.

01:58:48

Yeah. And so one of the things about the Puritans that we can see so clearly in their works is they did not have hearts that were divided.

01:58:57

They were minded. They had a focus on Christ to elevate

01:59:03

Christ and then to live to the glory of Christ. Yeah. That was their focus.

01:59:09

Yeah. And so, Chris, I think you already gave the I think you gave the gospel twice.

01:59:16

I did. I did. That's pretty crazy. But anyway, if you need to re listen to this episode to get all the book references, there were a lot.

01:59:33

Or just reach out to us individually, like reach out. I mean, I mean, you could do that, but. I'm very just Chris.

01:59:41

I'm Chris. I'm everywhere. Twitter, Instagram. I'm important. Okay. I'm important.

01:59:48

You just did. You just think I'm important. I'm important. Listen to me.

01:59:54

Who has time for that? It's like Mark Driscoll. Oh, how dare you? No. So, I mean, some people on here are friends with me on Facebook, so they know they can reach out to me anytime.

02:00:05

Yeah. Yeah. Please. And whatnot. If they references or places to start things like that.

02:00:13

But we hope that this this episode has been beneficial to you, has caused you to want to read the

02:00:20

Puritans, has kind of lit a fire under you for the Puritans. Because truth be told,

02:00:26

I was not into the Puritans until that documentary came out by Media Gratia.

02:00:34

That was a group. We didn't talk about that. We didn't.

02:00:40

Let's mention it. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, man. Yeah. You guys got it. If you haven't seen the

02:00:46

Puritan documentary, you've got to watch it. It is so good. We had the writer and director of that documentary on the matter of theology.

02:00:54

So, he was the director at the time. Yeah. He's not anymore. He's not there. Well, the director of the film.

02:01:00

No, he was the director of the film, but he was also the director for Media Gratia. But he's not there anymore.

02:01:06

Yeah, he's not. Matthew Robinson. Yeah. Good dude. And so, talking about the film was just mind blowing.

02:01:15

And I had absolutely no interest before that film in the Puritans. I did not own one

02:01:21

Puritan work. And now I have complete sets. You do. Of Puritans.

02:01:28

You do. Yeah, mine. As soon as I started reading Watson, man, but then I saw that documentary and I was like, oh my gosh.

02:01:35

Yeah. It walks through the complete history of the Puritans from where they started, why they started. If you guys have seen any of Media Gratia stuff, it is phenomenal.

02:01:45

You can pick it up. Reformation Heritage Books. Again, Reformation Heritage is everything. You can pick it up from them.

02:01:52

You can pick it up directly from Media Gratia. I believe it's streaming on whatever.

02:01:59

AGTV. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's on AGTV. It's good. Yeah. And sometimes while I'm working,

02:02:05

I'll just, because I have the AGTV app. Yeah, I do too. I'll just plop it on and just listen to it while I'm working.

02:02:11

You plop it on? I plop it on. And it keeps me, let's just say in doing

02:02:16

FedEx, it keeps me from breaking all your packages. Working on my sanctification.

02:02:22

All right. But anyway, Chris, I think we need to get out of here. I don't know.

02:02:27

It could be just getting interesting. No, this is going downhill very quickly. We had a great show talking about the

02:02:33

Puritans, and now we're taking it downhill. That's very true. Well, great show part.

02:02:39

I don't think it's going downhill. I just think it's fun. I'm just kidding. Yeah, no. What's the name of the documentary? It's just called

02:02:44

Puritan. Yeah, it's called Puritans, All of Life to the Glory of God, or Glory of Christ, I think is what it is.

02:02:53

Hang on, I'll look it up real quick. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

02:02:59

Puritans, All of Life. Yes, Puritan, All of Life to the Glory of God.

02:03:05

Yeah, there you go. 2019. Get it. Watch it. Read the

02:03:11

Puritans. Study scripture. Your life will be changed for the better. That's it.

02:03:17

And then listen to the messages that came out of the Puritan conference as well.

02:03:23

Yeah, I need to thank you for that reminder, bro. I need to do that. Yes, yes, you should.

02:03:29

I should. It'll help with my second rate expository skills. Yeah, you need to get better at that.

02:03:35

Next time you preach, let me know. I'll make sure to give some comments.

02:03:40

Okay, thanks, buddy. Thanks, Jason. Go Dawgs. That's right, a week from Saturday, right?

02:03:46

It's college football. And then, of course, come on, man. Go Braves. You see my

02:03:52

Lookouts hat right here? I do. Yeah, my parents went up to a game last week or the week before the

02:03:58

Reds organization. No, they said you want us to bring you back anything. And I said, yeah, hat. And I didn't expect them to.

02:04:06

And they did. So, yeah. All right, y 'all. We're getting out of here. Hope it's been beneficial.

02:04:12

See you next time. Don't know what this topic is going to be next week, but stay tuned. Maybe Andrew will be back and you won't have to deal with me anymore.