Wait and Hope: An Interview with Jacob Tanner

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the

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Ruled Church Podcast. I'm your co -host, Allen Nelson, pastor in Providence Baptist Church in Perryville.

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And this episode, we don't have Eddie Ragsdale with us, but I'm here with a repeat guest now,

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Pastor Jacob Tanner. Hello, brother. How are you today? Hey, doing great. Thank you again for having me on.

01:10

I appreciate it. Oh, thank you for being basically a prolific writer now. This is your second book.

01:19

That's right, second book. Second this year. This year. Yeah, this is fourth book in total,

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I think. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. A few episodes I can't remember.

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I'll try to put the link in the podcast notes. But it wasn't long ago that you were on, and we talked about the

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Tinker's Progress, and we talked about your book with John Bunyan, which was great. Recommend that one.

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Who published that one? That was Christian Focus. They're the ones out of Scotland. Yeah, that's right.

01:50

Okay. So Christian Focus published Tinker's Progress. But today we are talking about your new book with Reformation Heritage, Weight and Hope, Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering.

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So I want to commend this book to our readers or to our listeners.

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You should read it. But I want to start out, and I tell you, brother, we could spend all episode on this.

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But I would just like to, if you're willing to do this, would you just kind of walk through an introduction, just talk about some things, very personal things that you had to walk through, things that just kind of stacked up all back -to -back it seemed in the province of God.

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You have just, I mean, I'm not trying to rush you, brother, but do you have a couple minutes to summarize that so people can kind of get a little bit of context as we wade into the book?

02:46

Yeah, sure. So I kind of start the book off in the introduction by talking about definitely not all of the different trials that I've experienced in life, but kind of the catalyst for the book, right?

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So 2020 was a difficult year. And a lot of people hear me say that and they immediately think, well, he's talking about COVID.

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Not really. It was a difficult year for me because I basically was almost fired from a church, ended up walking away from the church, basically quitting.

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And it really was over Reformed theology. So there was a lot of different moving pieces that had happened, but we were at this church.

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I was serving as an assistant pastor. We loved the congregation, still do, loved the senior pastor and his family, still do.

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But as it turned out in my naive young mind, I thought that we could make it work, that we could have a

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Reformed theologian pastor come in and work together with Arminian theologians.

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And there was a lot of butting heads together, and there was just a lot of really unexpected things that happened too.

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The catalyst being one night, somebody stood up in the middle of me teaching through the book of Revelation and basically began to scream that I would no longer be allowed to be at the church, that I didn't believe in a pre -tribulational rapture, and also

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I was a Calvinist is what they were getting at. And so they just said they wanted to have a vote right then and there in our

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Wednesday night meeting to have me removed from the church. Fast forward two months, and they ended up having a secret meeting without me where they determined that I would not be able to read from certain books of the

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Bible, and I would basically have to sign off on what they believed, and then I would be allowed to stay.

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And I said, well, I'll make this really simple. If I can't read from the Bible, then I'm out.

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But although I say that, that wasn't really an easy decision to make because you're involved with all of these people.

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You have relationships with them. So I walk out, and we're going through this difficult season in wrestling.

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What do we do? It's one of the larger churches in our area, so I now have this reputation that I'm the crazy

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Calvinist guy. Where do we go? And I get involved with a couple of different places that they say, you know, don't worry.

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This was my main source of income. So they said, we'll get you preaching. We'll get you into different churches that need a pastor.

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You can kind of find your footing, figure out where the Lord is leading you. And then COVID happens, so everything shuts down, and suddenly all of the churches that I was scheduled to go to that I was basically going to be interviewing at, they all closed their doors, and they say, sorry, we're not going to be having church for the foreseeable future.

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And I'm just sitting there, I remember, in my office, just kind of scratching my head going, you know, what in the world is going on right now?

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Why is everybody just shutting down? Why are we so afraid of everything? And then just back to back, my wife's grandmother passes away.

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My grandmother passes away very suddenly. And then we find out that my dad has stage four lung cancer.

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And this is literally all within just a few weeks, but everything is just rushing so fast that it seems like, you know,

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I wake up every day anticipating the worst, that something else bad is going to happen. And where I'm at in Pennsylvania, thankfully, isn't that liberal in that not everything shut down.

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But for a while, everything did shut down. So it was even like, how do we get groceries, you know?

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So we're doing Walmart pickup orders and trying to figure out, how are we going to pay for this? Because I'm now not getting paid from anything anywhere.

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And because I wasn't fired, I quit, you know, we didn't have a source of income or anything like that.

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So it was a difficult season. And I remember one day, I always loved the Puritans, but I remember one day coming into my office and just,

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I started picking up different books by different Puritans. And I remember reading Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Brooks, John Owen, one of my favorites,

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John Bunyan, one of my favorites. And it wasn't like I was reading through the entire book at first.

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I was just reading different selections from them and going, yeah, that's helpful. That's comforting to know.

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And then I started reading through whole books. And as I was doing it, I began to take notes, just putting them into my phone, you know, just quotes that I really liked and I would put them into my phone.

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Sometimes I would share them on social media, but really I was just making a collection for myself. And then over the course of some other trials that we had over the past few years,

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I took those quotes and began to really begin to systematize them in a way like, okay, this deals with this kind of suffering.

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This deals with this sort of suffering. Maybe this will help this person. Maybe this will help this. Or, you know, this really just helps me.

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And then I would write first articles to go along with it. But those articles got longer and longer.

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And I realized I'm writing chapters at this point. And from chapters, you know, eventually ended up with the book.

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And really the reason I wrote it, though, was for our church. I was just trying to encourage our church.

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We started Christ Keystone Church in 2022. And, you know, there were immense difficulties that went along with that.

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We've walked through some really strange trials. But the Lord has been good. He's been faithful.

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And a lot of the comfort that I have received has been not only through Scripture, but through the Puritans, the

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Reformers, the church fathers. And so that's where the book comes from, from that desire to comfort people with these writings.

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Amen. Yeah, well, it's kind of like shit. I mean, even if 2020, you know, even if COVID wasn't a thing in 2020, that was still a lot.

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Yeah. For you to walk through. Did you ever see that Anchorman meme where it's like, well, that escalated.

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Yeah. Yeah, that's what it felt like. Yeah. Yeah, well, I do think it's important. Obviously, I think that you could have written this book from not having walked through those things.

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You could still write a book. We could still listen to brothers like that. But there does add a little bit of context and weight there for an author who's not just writing about suffering, but has walked through some things.

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And, of course, there'll be some people who read this book that haven't had to experience what you've experienced.

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And there'll be some people who read the book that have experienced more than you've experienced.

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I wonder, you know, I know you're going to have many different interviews, and that's great. Maybe with something unique I'd like to ask, just with our podcast and our genre and all that, but how would you say that a book like this is applicable to the rural church?

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You know, small. You're in rural Pennsylvania. I'm in rural Arkansas. Would you have anything to speak to the rural church setting?

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Yeah, so I think this uniquely spoke to our church in a couple of different ways.

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Like I was alluding to, you know, there were trials with Starting Christ Keystone. And when I talk about the church now, especially with a lot of the projects

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I'm engaged in, I think people have this expectation that we're a really large church, and we're not.

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Rural Pennsylvania, a Reformed church, you'll be considered massive if you have 50 people.

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So maybe we are massive because we have about 40 people, 40 members right now. But part of what we were walking through was

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Reformed theology in a very Anabaptist -centered community, and some other issues too.

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We were being labeled as a cult. So we planted the church. And again, without going into great detail,

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I actually talk about it a little bit in the book, we basically had a man come to us when we were about two months in and say, you know,

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I want to join the church. Seemed to have all of the qualifications of an elder. Many of us counted him as a friend in the community, and so we said, yeah, let's make this happen.

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Ended up splitting his own church to come to our church. Took over 150 people with him from the church that he was at.

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Realized that we made maybe not a good decision. He ended up then leaving the church within two months.

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Said that, you know, he wasn't sure he'd ever pastor again. And then two weeks later, started a church up down the road, and every single person that had come then left.

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So it was a difficult time because we're being labeled a cult. I'm being called a cult leader or a heretic because, again, they wouldn't say that Reformed theology is heresy.

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They would say Calvinism is – well, specifically, Calvinism is a cult. That's just the famous line.

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I don't know if that's over by you too, but that's what they do in our area. Calvinism is a cult. So they say that about me.

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Obviously, the people coming into our church are like, why does everybody hate us? And then you see this happen where we, four months into our church, experienced basically our own church split where we have all of these people start coming and then the mass exodus, all of these people leave.

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And we're left with about 30 of us trying to figure out what just happened.

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And so a lot of, like I said, this book was written not only for the perspective of somebody going through different forms of suffering but really written for our church.

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As we were walking through all of this trying to figure out, do we even keep going? Four months in and you have a church split.

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That's not good. So how do you figure these things out? And I say that kind of jokingly because it wasn't really a church split.

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None of them had become members. They weren't really committed. We weren't in a building. We kind of knew that people were going to be leaving.

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But still, this is a difficult thing to walk through. And then through the midst of it, I wasn't the only one that was dealing with sick family members.

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We had other church members dealing with that. I wasn't the only one dealing with loss. Other church members were dealing with that.

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And so I think although we're in a rural setting, a lot of our experiences are shared amongst all of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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And so this particular book I think doesn't just speak to the rural church. It speaks probably to every, hopefully,

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Lord willing, every single Christian because it tries to touch on really those main areas of suffering that we encounter in life.

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So, for example, I've alluded a lot to the idea of being persecuted for our faith or just being hated, being backstabbed.

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All of that's in there. I deal with when you're struggling with sin, temptation, assurance of salvation.

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I don't know a single Christian that hasn't experienced those sorts of battles and trials and tribulations.

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And then even things like sickness and death. All of us have lost loved ones. All of us will eventually die.

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And so this is really just trying to speak, I guess, to the normative forms of suffering that Christians experience in this life but written, again, for the church.

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So as much as maybe I would have liked to make it more academic, my goal was really to make it approachable.

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And I'm hoping that's what comes across so that you don't need a Ph .D. to read it. You don't even need a master's.

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You don't even need a bachelor's. You don't need an associate's. You can just be a regular Joe, pick up the book, and I'm praying that it blesses the people who read it and offers them some form of comfort as they walk through trial.

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Amen. At the same time, it's still well written in the sense that it's not just,

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I mean, anyone can read it, scholars and also, like you say, just whoever, teenagers.

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But one thing I was going to say about local churches or rural churches really is

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I think that sometimes in the rural church, suffering can be felt a little differently only in the sense that, like, bigger churches sometimes can walk through things, and sometimes it's only part of the church really feels it.

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But it seems like in a rural setting where when one member suffers, we all suffer, and that's true in any church.

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But sometimes it can be felt in a little bit heavier way when you only have a handful of people.

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There's definitely a uniqueness to having a smaller church body. It's actually one of the reasons why we've said that should the

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Lord bless our church and cause it to grow, should we reach 100, 150 people, then we'll plant another church.

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Because I actually love having, I don't want to even call it small, but,

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I mean, really a smaller but close -knit body. Yeah, a fellowship of a communion of saints who are actually engaged in each other's lives.

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So you're exactly right. And I think that's unique to rural churches, to small churches, but it's also such a blessing to actually walk hand -in -hand through these different issues together.

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Yeah, amen. That's right. So each chapter, and the introduction too, you conclude with some study questions.

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So basically each chapter you walk through various Puritans, and at the end of, oh, and by the way,

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I was going to say, shout out that Nehemiah Cox. Well, it didn't play a big role in the book, but Nehemiah Cox got some mention, so I really appreciate you representing the 650.

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Yeah, I had to include him somewhere. But you have, so at the end of each chapter you have study questions.

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What is your vision with the study questions? Do you think that this book lends itself to, say, small group, maybe

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Sunday school, maybe family worship? What are your thoughts with the study questions? Actually all three of those.

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That's kind of the goal. So my hope was that by writing this that, interestingly enough, let me back up, my wife actually came and she said, you know what would be really cool?

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If you would take one of your books and include study questions at the end so that the women in the church could use your study and go through the questions.

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And I was like, that actually is an interesting idea. And then as we were working on the book, as I was thinking about it and talking to Reformation Heritage Books about it, they said this would be a great book for small groups.

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This would be a great book for a Bible study, for a home Bible study. Are you interested in doing questions?

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And I was like, you know what? My wife said the same thing. Yeah, let's just do it. So I went back through the book and started including, basically from my perspective, what

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I thought would be good questions, but also the most helpful discussion questions.

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Because if you've ever led a small group Bible study, sometimes the questions that you get in books, it's like pulling teeth from people.

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It's one word answers. And so I wanted to try to avoid that a little bit so that although you're still going to have to consult

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Scripture, you're still going to have to read the book and you're going to have to have actual factual statements rather than I feel this means.

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I don't want anybody going into this going, well, I feel. No, you're going to have actual factual objective statements from Scripture to answer these questions.

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But nonetheless, it's going to, I hope and pray, help with the conversation and lead a fruitful discussion that will hopefully help people to be that iron that sharpens iron so that together the body of Christ is growing.

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And it would be absolutely awesome if it would be used for Sunday school, even a Wednesday night study, or even just at home.

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That would be amazing if people would use it that way. I'd be very, very pleased. And praise the

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Lord for it if people do. Yeah. Amen. Well, let's talk just for a minute. Maybe we jumped ahead and we should have started back with this, but it's okay.

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That's on me. But the Puritans, okay? So who are they?

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And why should we be worried about them in 2024? That is a very good question.

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So as you know, the definition of Puritan is often debated.

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A lot of people aren't quite sure. What is a Puritan? Is it a philosophy? Is it a certain brand of theology?

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Is it a certain group of people? Historically, some people even differ on the dates. You know, when were the

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Puritans around? I think probably the easiest way that I've figured out how to determine who a

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Puritan was, was did they come after the Reformation? So after the

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Protestant Reformation. And were they somehow engaged in the Anglican or the

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English church? And did they desire to see that church purge of all forms of wickedness and sinfulness?

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And along with that, although a lot of people would disagree with me here, I think that there is a philosophy behind Puritanism.

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Even though the theology will often differ from Puritan to Puritan, I think there is an overall philosophy, and that is to be overtly

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Christ -centered in everything. So much so that you're willing to endure all forms of suffering just so long as you remain faithful to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And I think that's why, for example, you have guys like Martin Lloyd -Jones in the 20th century, and people are going, he's a modern -day

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Puritan. And you go, well, historically, that doesn't make any sense. I get that, but he has that same mindset.

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And it's the same thing, I would argue, with like a Charles Spurgeon. All of these different guys. So realistically,

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I think that we could say the Puritans are those who are focused on keeping

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Christ at the center of everything. Christ or chaos, they've chosen Christ. And thus they're willing to brave whatever storm may come because they know that the joy of the

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Lord is their strength. And there's suffering that goes along with that. There's persecution that goes along with that.

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But I think that's probably the easiest way to explain it. And obviously, if you have people that are so consumed with the glory of God, they're so obsessed with keeping

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Christ center to everything, that they're willing to die for it. These are obviously people we want to listen to.

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They're people that we can learn from. They're people that we can gleam from. They're still just people. They're not better than other

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Christians. But they have a unique characteristic, a unique quality, wherein they're able to speak, it seems, to both the head and the heart at the same time.

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And so that's why somebody like Joel Beeky would say that they had experiential or experimental theology and preaching, where they're preaching to both the head and the heart.

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They're making that 18 -inch connection. And so it's not just doctrinal, but it's applicational.

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And along with that application comes a challenge, yes, but also a sweet comfort because they're keeping

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Christ at the center of everything. You know, that's good. I was going to bring that up. I think it was in the introduction you talked about the experiential preaching.

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And I think we really need a recovery of that and reform pulpits.

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Amen. So we exposit the Scriptures. Amen. And I'm grateful for the recovery of expositional preaching.

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And we both agree with this, and this is an absolute necessity. But I would just argue that expositional preaching is not merely a running commentary, but you have to move from preaching to application.

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And there's some disagreement about that, I know, in the, I would say

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Reformed Baptist, maybe the Calvinist Baptist world. But I would just argue that I think that we can learn well from the

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Puritans and the way that they took doctrine and sought to apply it in real time.

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You know, we're sitting here having this conversation. Today is August 5th. This will come out in a couple weeks.

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So by the time this has come out, maybe the dust will have settled some, but we're just sitting here talking and watching the stock market and crypto and all that, and the world just seems out of control.

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And it's a really good time for a book like this. Of course, you didn't plan this when you wrote it.

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But to be reminded of the Puritan hope and trial and suffering, you know, James talks about various trials.

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And so I like to point out that sometimes it's okay. You know, sometimes you think, well,

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I'm going through this thing. It's not that big a deal. And say, well, hey, look, look, it's okay. It's still a trial.

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And it's okay to, you don't have to be like, well, if you're really, if you're only going through a trial, if someone in your family goes through a cancer or something, well, yes, that is a trial too.

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That's a trial. But there's also other kinds of trials. And in all, and in various trials, all trials, we need the

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Puritan hope. Because the Puritan hope, like you said, brother, is the glory of God.

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It's the sovereignty of God. And you talked about Calvinism earlier, and it's like, yeah, sometimes in this community you have people, we've been out trying to do evangelism before and have people just get really mad about us about Calvinism.

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But we're not even talking about Calvinism, but they come up and they've heard, and they're like, ah, and we're like, well, hold on just a second.

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We have to have the label just because you're not going to change the label now 100 years later.

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But it's like, I like John Calvin, but I'm not after John Calvin.

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I'm after Christ. I'm after resting in the sovereign hand of a good

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God who has shown us his mercy in Christ. I'm preaching Christ to the masses, inviting all to come, you know, letting them know that whoever will call upon the name of the

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Lord, they will be saved. I'm trying to get off the top of it, but all the point there is that this is the experiential religion of the

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Puritans. Because, I would argue, this is Christianity. Yeah, what's the quote from Charles Spurgeon where he says, if you want to call it

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Calvinism, go ahead, but it's really just the gospel. That's right. And I understand the doctrines of grace are not the gospel, but what he's getting at there is that the good news of the gospel necessarily leads you to the doctrines of grace.

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And if you're going to be an expository preacher and an experiential preacher, and that's my prayer is that all pastors would be that,

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I don't see how you can avoid it. You're eventually going to be led into that. You're going to have to be forced to confront the scriptures, even if you don't like what they have to say, right?

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And, by the way, one of the really fun things that I like to do to people now is if they come up to me and they're like, you're that Calvinist preacher we heard about?

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I go, no, I'm Augustinian. And then they get really confused, and then I don't explain anything to them. Yeah. Hey, I'm Pauline, you know.

25:45

Yeah, I'm Pauline. There you go. But, yeah, no, it's good, brother. I think, and neither one of us are saying, well, obviously we're not saying the

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Puritans are perfect because, you know, as a Reformed Baptist, I think that the

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Puritans got some things wrong, some important things wrong. However, I would love to see a great recovery of Puritan, especially

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Puritan, even, I know it's a bad word nowadays, piety. But you understand what

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I'm saying. You know, the way that they sought to order their lives and their homes and their churches, and in these days we really need those kind of men that are willing to lead.

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Absolutely. And I think, too, that that idea of Puritan piety, even though that seems to be a buzzword that scares a lot of people at this point, that is exactly what the church needs.

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That's exactly what, you know, we're in the United States of America and we're going through a crazy time at this point where it's like people have lost their minds, they're crazy.

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And that's because I genuinely believe you either have Christ or chaos and they've embraced the chaos. But Puritan piety basically says,

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I'm going to live for Christ anyway. Amen. Let whatever the world's going to do, let them do what they're going to do.

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But let's trust that Christ is actively working in the church. He's actively sanctifying his people.

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He's building his church. He's saving sinners. I'll try to avoid the eschatological bent here that I'm almost going to go on.

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But I think that that hope of future glory laid up for us in Christ is one of not just the great hopes.

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It's not only the thing that we're waiting upon. It's also a present reality that helps us to keep pressing forward and say,

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I'm going to pursue holiness, even if everyone else is going to pursue the utmost wickedness, and I'm going to live categorically different than they do in every single conceivable way because I know

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Jesus Christ, the hope of glory, and I'm going to proclaim Jesus Christ, the hope of glory to them because I know he can turn my enemies into friends.

27:50

Yeah, amen. It's like you talk about Edwards in the book. Edwards is quoted.

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And, of course, he's another one of those brothers that were like, okay, formally or technically not a

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Puritan in the strictest sense, but like you said, like with Lloyd -Jones, hey, he is a

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Puritan in terms of the type of Christianity that he practiced.

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But it's one of his resolutions that says that he was resolved to live for Christ, and then it's like, what, number two, even if no one else does,

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I still will. And that's the kind of resolve that we need. And by the way, he wrote that when he was 19.

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Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's amazing to me to think about that because how many older and they should be more seasoned saints don't have that philosophy.

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They will buckle and they will bend the moment pressures seem to rise. Persecution comes and they're out of there, right?

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And we need more of that Edwards philosophy. I'm going to live for Christ no matter what. Even if this kills me,

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I'm going to live for Christ because, hey, future hope has been laid out for me in glory. Amen. So this is going to be like asking you a question probably about your kids.

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It's like, how can you pick this? But did you have a favorite chapter? Did you have a chapter that you think

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I really this was this was really, you know, maybe personally applicable more so than others?

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Or you just say, hey, no, they're all they're all good, man. So I can

29:23

I pick more than one? Yeah, I actually I like I like. Well, let me correct that. I like the content of the

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Puritans and all of them. It's really hard as a writer to say that you actually like your stuff. Yeah, because typically

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I don't. It's not. Yeah. I go back and I read and I'm like, that's awful. Why did you write it like that?

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But other people seem to like it. So that's good. Praise the Lord. I actually really liked chapter two writing that one.

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So I'll look at it from that perspective. Which ones helped me the most while writing them? Battling for assurance was a chapter that was extremely beneficial to me, even though I would argue

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I already had assurance at that point. It reminded me of when I was a teenager and I just couldn't seem to find assurance.

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I was just struggling with knowing how do I know that I'm saved? And going back to some of the writings that helped me the most when

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I was a teenager, some of which I hadn't read in a couple of years. It was just it was a blessing.

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It really it helped me to know once more that I really am redeemed by the blood of Christ, not through my own works, but through the finished work of Jesus.

30:30

That was a huge help. There was also a big help in the chapters dealing with persecution, maybe just because I feel like persecution is something that each of us is experiencing.

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It seems more and more these days. Who was the guy that wrote the book recently about living in negative world?

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I keep forgetting his name. Aaron Ren, right? So we're living in negative world where to be a

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Christian at this point in time actually makes you an enemy of the culture and of the world. Up until a few decades ago, it was sort of neutral to it.

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And before that, there was a positive reception of Christianity in our country. But now there's a negative reaction to it.

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And so we're all dealing with various forms of persecution. I've been getting letters from people from like California and different states just telling me that I need to seek mental counseling and I need to get my head out of the

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Bible because I'm too committed to it. I'm crazy. And so that's like from completely different states.

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But then we've got our own community where people are going, you know, you're a cult leader, you're nuts. How dare you hold to Calvinism?

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So those chapters really helped me. But so too did the chapters dealing with death. My dad passed away in October of 2023.

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And I was kind of finishing this book up knowing that it was going to be sooner rather than later, that the

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Lord was going to call him home. He had been my dad had been kind of alluding to the fact that he was pretty sure he was going to be done with chemo treatments and that he just didn't feel physically capable of going through them anymore.

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And so sure enough, I had hoped to actually gift the book to him before he passed away. But by God's sovereign goodness, he was taken in October.

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And so writing that in advance, I think, prepared me for the fact that, you know, my dad was going to die, but then also helped me through it.

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So like even the day that I preached this funeral sermon, I actually was thinking about a lot of the concepts that I had studied and written about in that chapter.

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And a lot of those Puritan quotes were coming into my mind. I didn't use them in the funeral sermon. It was kind of just a help and an aid to me.

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But it was a help. So just in the process of writing it, I think. And that really goes for every chapter.

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The process of writing it was incredibly beneficial and even cathartic in some ways in that it just really helped.

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It helped me. It brought comfort. And along with that comfort, if I could use the word,

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I would say it was a blessing, honestly, to be able to work through a lot of that material. Yeah, amen. So I was just saying my most recent book

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I published was on the doctrine of regeneration. And it's great. It's fine. But it's kind of like it's only really applicable if you're thinking about regeneration or when debates about regeneration come up.

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But what I love about this book that you wrote is I just see it so applicable to every season, to every

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Christian. And so from twofold, if you don't really know the

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Puritans, if you're like, well, I don't even understand. When I think Puritans, I think Salem witch trials. If that's someone listening and you don't even understand, this is a great book because it'd be a great introduction to who these guys are.

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But if you're someone, you're like, no, I'm a Puritan scholar. I have a PhD in whatever. Puritanism is still applicable.

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It's still like some of you will read and be introduced to new friends.

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Some of you will read and you'll be reacquainted with old friends. But it's so applicable because the topic of suffering and trial is so applicable to the human condition in a fallen world.

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And exactly what we need is the hope that the Puritans offered because the hope that they offered is, again, it's

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Christ. It's the scriptures. We're not exalting men, but we're looking at these men and the lives that they exemplified, what they walked through,

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Owen's loss of children and all these various things. Anyway, brother, it's a very applicable book for every season.

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What I'm saying is like, Lord willing, in 100 years, 200 years, this is still a book that you can put in people's hands and say, hey, this is still applicable because we live in a fallen world.

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Where suffering is a reality, but also in a world that there is hope.

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And you talk about that, you know, in your, you get into your eschatology there at the end and the conclusion.

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But we ought to be, look, no matter somebody's eschatology, we ought to be very optimistic about the triumph of the gospel.

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God is going to win and the church is going to be victorious because of the triumph of Christ.

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And God is going to have his elect, his bride, and the lamb who was slain is worthy to receive the full reward of his suffering, and he will.

35:43

Amen. I was really happy too. I just got to add this in. There is a line that I have tried to use in a couple of books now, and editors always took it out.

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They wouldn't let me use it. And the guys over at Reformation Heritage Books finally let me use this line, and it fit in so well in the chapter.

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I was so happy when I saw that through the editing process, through the typesetting process, that it wasn't taken out.

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And it's a line that says, for all of those who are seeking comfort, you know, as you're battling persecution, trials, tribulation, temptation, all these different things, as you're battling all of this stuff, remember that God is going to be victorious.

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You have victory in Christ. And so as an encouragement to all of those who are fighting in the army of the

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Lord, and as a warning to all of those who are fighting against Christ, remember, your arms are too short to box with God.

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And I finally got to use the line, and I was like, this is great. So I was thinking, what's my favorite chapter in the book?

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I forget what chapter that is, but that actually is a line that I was incredibly happy to finally get published because I've been trying for like a year and a half now.

36:49

Amen. Two years. Sorry, two years. Wait, wait, and hope. That's right. Puritan Wisdom for Joyful Suffering.

36:56

What a great title. Reformation Heritage Books. I assume that I already know the answer to this question, but you're going to say the best way to get it is to get on RHB?

37:06

OK, because they always have some great prices. I love Joel Beeky.

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I love Reformation Heritage Books. It's great. Really, it's an honor. I know, brother, that they published this.

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They're honestly one of my favorite publishers today. And so to be able to publish with them is an absolute blessing, an amazing opportunity.

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And I would also say the reason why you should go to Reformation Heritage Books to get this book is because you can also get a lot of books from the

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Puritans while you're there pretty cheaply. So it's worth it. And I'll tell you this. Don't be embarrassed about it, but if you say, hey,

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I'd like to get a case of these or something, you'd be willing to email Reformation Heritage.

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I've done that before, and sometimes they're able, if you're going to get a big box for a group or your church or whatever, a lot of times they're very, very reasonable to try to help you.

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They're not trying to become a huge publishing house or whatever. I mean, there really is to trying to get good resources into the hands of the church.

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Yeah, I love the work that they're doing there, and there are so many helpful books that you could get while you're there.

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If I could, just throw this out there. Joel Beeky's book on Reformed Preaching is one that I would highly recommend to listeners to pick up as well, because that's where he goes into the whole experiential, experimental theology of the

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Puritans, and it is so helpful. Get that while you pick up. Wait, no.

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Yeah, no, that's good. I might have to talk to Eddie and do a whole podcast episode on that, but I really think that's an area.

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It's so good. Like, we never want to compromise exposition at all. And man, it's like, but there's a way that I think that exposition can just be dry and just preach to the head, and it's like, well, hold on just a second.

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Let's finish. Let's push it over the top. Let's take the exposition and then say, okay, now what are you going to do with it?

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Here you are in 2024. How does this apply? So anyway, experiential preaching.

39:09

Yeah, that's one of the things that I think is just so helpful with the Puritans. I hope it comes across in the book when people read it that they can see that, and I hope it encourages people to actually pick up the full works of the

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Puritan. You know, that whole statement, make America great again. I say, let's make

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America Puritan again, right? You've heard it here first. So let's see, you're about to be 30.

39:33

That means in five years, it's 2029. So the 2032 election, I guess, you could run

39:40

Jacob Tanner for president, make America Puritan again. I'm in, I'll vote. I'll write you in.

39:46

Well, listen, brother. Look, I want to just tell, I can say this because I'm not the one being interviewed here.

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So I can say it's incredibly difficult to be a writer. It takes a lot out of you sometimes.

39:57

And I know that you're a pastor, you're a husband, you're a father. You've got some more interviews this week.

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And we're just a small podcast here in rural Arkansas. And it's really, really an honor.

40:10

I'm really appreciative. Thank you, brother, for coming on the show. And you can support and encourage Jacob by buying this book.

40:19

And then I can tell you for sure, the Tinker's Progress was great. And then what's your other two?

40:24

So I also have Why Sally Can't Preach. That was through G3. And then I have another one,

40:30

Union with Christ, the Joy of the Christian's Assurance and the Doctrines of Grace. I went for a

40:36

Puritan subtitle. I had to think of it for a second. That was through Wrath and Grace Publishing. And then, Lord willing, there is another one.

40:42

I guess I could probably talk about it. I have one coming out through Founders either this year or next year on John Knox.

40:49

Yeah, amen. That's good, brother. Amen. Well, that's good. Hey, I like Jacob Tanner, and I love

40:54

Founders too. So that's great. Are you going to Founders Conference? I would love to.

41:01

I'm not sure. So I'm going to be. Actually, we should talk about the conference we're doing. Yeah, oh, that's right.

41:07

Good point. Yeah, yeah. So that is August 31st in Longview, Texas.

41:16

And we'll both be able to be there. This will come out probably a couple weeks before that. But I've got to pull it.

41:21

Do you know the website right off the top of your head? Is it now Grace and Truth Press? I think it is. Grace and Truth Press.

41:27

Okay, I'll put it in the show notes as well. But yes, what's your topic there?

41:34

I'm doing gospel assurance. Okay, yeah. Which obviously is one of the things

41:40

I love to talk about. Yeah, amen. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I look forward to hearing you preach, brother. We haven't got to meet.

41:47

No, no. We've just done Zoom. Yeah, so that'll be great. That'll be great as well. So there goes my phone.

41:53

I guess it's about time to be done. Thank you guys for jumping in here and listening on this week's episode.

41:59

Again, thank you, Jacob, for coming on. Thank you. I appreciate it. Do you have anything else to say in closing?

42:05

No, I absolutely love the work that you're doing. I appreciate this podcast and everything that you're doing is just fantastic.

42:12

So praying for you and praying for all the listeners as well. Well, thank you. Thank you, brother. You guys, we'll see you next week.

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If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

42:26

God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.