Dead Men Walking Podcast Greg Moore, Jason Hamlin, & Greg Withrow Episode 7

Dead Men Walking

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00:00

Did you hear Trump's, did you see his meme yesterday on his page? It was like, you investigated me, now it's my turn.

00:08

But he had this smile on his face, you know, I mean, it's Trump, but it's, you know. We all know about that.

00:14

Let's put these headsets on and get a level check real quick here. I don't think I can reach, so I'll just.

00:20

Will those reach? No. Oh, you want to what? They will. They will. I thought you were sitting there, so I looked around here.

00:27

All good. We'll go out through here, out there. Cool. Should be good?

00:32

Yep. Cool. Yeah, I don't watch my body. That's a tight, when I first, when

00:39

I first got these, I said, oh, this won't be too tight, but it's a tight squeeze with three people in this little space. Right.

00:44

But, I mean, it. Until you get a different camera. Unless you moved everything, you know, big room.

00:52

Are you, test that really quick. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yeah. See, I like it right there.

00:57

Stay right up on it. If you can. It's not in my headphones for some reason. Oh, you got to shorten that guy.

01:04

Gotcha. Can you hear it? Yep. Yep. Now? Yep. Now? Good to go. Hold on. Well, this is a new experience.

01:15

That's for sure. Is it? And I'm going to have you push that up a little, get right on it.

01:21

Go ahead and eat it. I washed these. They're all clean. There's no COVID on them. Okay. So let's see.

01:28

I'm going to, so you're three. I'm going to take you up a little bit. Just give me a test. Say your name. Say whatever you want.

01:33

Greg Withrow. Okay. That's my name. That's don't wear it. Don't wear it out. Don't wear it out.

01:39

I remember saying that as a kid. Hey, I said it last week. Okay. I'm going to turn me down a little bit though.

01:45

Cause I get, I'm up on that. My, it's funny. I edited it in my sound and it's like,

01:50

Oh, there's Greg. Yeah. Okay. Here was right. There's Jason. There's Greg. I'm almost too loud.

01:56

You get excited and you start. Yeah. But my, my excitement usually with a microphone is just like, man,

02:03

I'm really excited right now. Yeah, no, it's good. And, um,

02:09

Uh, we can, I'm just doing that to get it going, but we'll start in a minute. Um, so sound good in the headphones.

02:16

Yeah. Not too loud. It's, it's pretty loud. It's pretty loud. Okay. So you are too.

02:21

So we're going to take you down about, how about now? Little, little quieter for you, Greg. Yeah. Yeah. And Jay, where are you at?

02:28

I'm good. You're good. I think so. Okay. Yeah. I'm hard of hearing. I sat behind a base cab. Oh man.

02:34

Well, so did you probably. 10 years of my life on, on the road. Yeah. My hearing is gone.

02:39

You toured in Japan and Europe and everywhere else. You was a musician on the road for what? Eight years or? 10 years. 10 years on the road.

02:45

Yeah. Yeah. We toured all over. Lost a lot of my hearing. Yeah. It was only till about the last year that I was like, maybe

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I should start wearing. Right. You know, ear plugs or something. Yeah. It was always just the, the, you know, the.

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You could feel the audience, you know, a little bit more plugs in, you know, but it was, yeah.

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I mean, probably a bad idea, but at the time, one of my, one of my best friends is on the road for 30 years.

03:11

Oh, are you serious? Who is that around here or all over the world? Okay. Steve camp. Oh yeah. Steve camp.

03:17

Yeah. Yeah. I've heard. Yeah. Maybe we should have played the, uh, name that tune with him and give him all

03:23

Steve camp, uh, right, right. I had a, I have a thing on here where you can hit a little sound and it gives you a little clip of like a

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Christian music. And we had a game with a few guests before I did it with, uh,

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Daniel and, uh, Oh, and, uh, Rocky. Okay. How they do. Rocky thought he was going to do really well.

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And he did horrible. All nineties again, or early two thousands. Yeah. Okay. Mostly nineties stuff.

03:48

I grew up with, I go back to the earliest second chapter of Axl. All right.

03:54

Yeah. Well, I got, I know some of that too. I could probably name you the whole collection of Keith green. That's what I grew up on the piano.

04:00

I can tell you where I was when he died. Yeah. Oh yeah. Wow. Man, that book, no compromise with something else.

04:05

I read that when I was like 13 or 14. Yeah. I interviewed him about six or eight months before he died.

04:11

Oh, wow. Geez. Save that for the podcast. Yeah. Really? It's awesome. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right.

04:18

So I'm going to give, we'll start here and then I'll give you a little introduction. Maybe we'll do a little banter.

04:23

We'll get into your, uh, testimony. And then let's just jump into the sovereignty of God and go from there.

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Yeah. Are you cool with just kind of, uh, going free range? Yeah. I don't really have any, um, maybe we can define what it is, you know, uh, what we believe it to be.

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And I won't let you do most of the talking on that. But, uh, you know, if you, if there's any, and I can edit all this in post.

04:50

So if there's any, um, or what was I saying? Or, you know, we'll clean it up, make you sound like a professional.

04:57

That was the deal. I didn't do that for the first three episodes, but I did it for the rest of them in the last one we did. Oh, I listened to it back.

05:03

It was like, Oh, this is, we sounded smart. Well, I, I'm exactly, you know how many people

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I'm fooling so many people. It was funny because I could recognize the wave of when

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I was saying, um, it looks the same on a, like a wave form. Okay. I go, there's an almond and you, and it's like,

05:29

I say it way too much. It just happened. I don't know why. Um, ends up just coming out. It's just a placeholder for, and I'm sure you go through that when you're speaking, you know, when you're, he's probably, he's been doing it a while.

05:41

He's probably worked all his arms out. Yeah. I've been doing it for 42 years. Well then you're, yeah, you're totally past that.

05:47

You're you're my faithful wife, uh, has informed me of all the little. Ticks nuance over the years.

05:55

Yeah, that's great. All right. Ready? Just give me a, let's just give me 20 seconds of silence here as we go through the intro.

06:03

Okay, here we go. Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between broadcasting from an undisclosed location.

06:15

Dead men walking starts. No. Well, hello everyone.

06:26

Welcome to another episode of dead men walking. I'm your host, Greg Moore, back with my cohost, Jason Hamlin.

06:31

Jason, how are you, sir? Oh, doing great. Doing great. He's going to stay up on that mic this time. So we can hear him. Let's do that.

06:38

Well, we've got a special guest in studio with us today. Uh, pastor Greg Withrow.

06:43

Am I saying that right? Is it Withrow? He is the senior pastor of the assemblies of Christians in Lambertville.

06:50

Correct. And he's also the director of the church of the church of the church of the Toledo reform. I'm sorry. He, he was the director of the Toledo reform theological conference from 1994 to 2008 and a current board member of fire, the fellowship of independent reformed evangelicals.

07:03

Greg, it's good to have you. Nice to be here. And thank you so much for stopping by. We were going to talk about, uh, today on the episode, the sovereignty of God and his providence, what that means to us, where we find it in the

07:16

Bible and all those fun things. But first, just for everyone listening, can you give us a little background on, uh, your bio, you know, how the

07:24

Lord saved you, um, maybe some journeys that you've been through and, uh, just a little background on, on the history of you for the listeners.

07:32

Sure. Uh, I came to know the Lord in 19, I think 73. I'm not one of those guys that drove a stake and wrote the date down someplace.

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Um, life was overwhelming. I wasn't worried about what month and day it was. Uh, my life, uh,

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I needed a change. Um, my, uh, I'd been married. I met my wife, my wife and I are graduates of Bedford high school.

07:57

Okay. We met in 1968 and we were 16, got married when she graduated from high school, we were both 18 years old.

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So we're celebrating this year, 50 years of marriage in November. And, uh, uh, out of high school, got married.

08:14

Um, like a lot of young men began to wonder what I had done and where my life was going, made a lot of bad choices.

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Um, enough bad choices that my wife was, I had one son born.

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She was just pregnant with the second. And she was, uh, my oldest son was two and a half,

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I think. And, uh, she was already contacting an attorney and, uh, and looking at, uh, getting a divorce to be honest with you.

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And, uh, I'm not, I never go over what kind of life I lived, uh, because to be honest with you, um, you know, if you were to say how bad was your life, well, it was worse than many, and it was a lot better than some as well.

08:56

Sure. Uh, the truth of the matter is, is we're all saved from all of our sins and all of our sins, no matter what they are grievous to God, they're in rebellion against God.

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Uh, and so I would say from, from those, um, one day, um, one of the guys that at work had given me the book, uh, late great planet earth.

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I don't even hold to that position anymore, but, um, eschatology pre -trib pre, uh, millennial type of, uh, of eschatology.

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I had never heard of anything. It had no Bible training, no Bible, but it wasn't raised at all in Scripture.

09:34

Okay. And, uh, I trusted him. He had, uh, he was the only one in, at where I worked in a two owned eye trade that I actually trusted.

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And I went home and I was reading that book and all of the, uh, eschatological issues that were presented in that book really didn't phase me.

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But the last chapter in the book was a book on, on redemption, on salvation. It was on the work of Christ.

09:59

I was home alone. And, uh, and I read that last chapter and I was acutely aware that I had offended the

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Holy God and, and I became overwhelmed with the depth of my sin.

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I remember going off into the bedroom, the TV was on, Billy Graham was preaching. And, uh,

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I went into the bedroom and I began to pray and I began to ask the Lord for forgiveness. And I was,

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I was, uh, I was weeping and right in the midst of it, all

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I hear Graham in the living room preaching out of first Corinthians six. And he says, uh, he's saying that not the effeminate, the drunkard, he lists all these people that will never inherit the kingdom of heaven and he stopped.

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And I was everything but effeminate, you know, and I defended all of those except that, and, uh,

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I, I became overwhelmed that I couldn't be saved. And I just remember like a child,

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I got crying so loud that suddenly no air came out anymore.

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It was just a silent scream and right in the silence, I heard him finish the next verse and such for some of you.

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And I knew I could be saved. I knew I could be forgiven. 40, almost 47 years later, the sense of forgiveness was, uh, it still overwhelms me that, that I could be saved.

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I, I knew several things, not knowing anything about scripture. I knew that if my wife divorced me,

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I deserved it. I lost my kids. I deserved it. She married another man and there was another man involved in their life.

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I deserved it. If he took my life, I deserved it. I knew all those things. And I just threw myself in his mercy and, and, uh, confessed things to my wife.

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I, I left nothing on the table, uh, unconfessed, laid everything out to her and then just waited to see what the

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Lord would do. And our relationship was damaged, very, very damaged.

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I mean, on my part as well as hers. And I asked the Lord to give me a deep love for her.

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I said, I don't feel that right now, but I, but I want that because I, I knew he wanted me to love her and, uh, pardon me here, but, uh,

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I, I, I began to have a love for her and wait and, uh, and my wife is, uh, she's nobody's patsy as they used to say way back in the day.

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Um, she's not the kind of woman you want to take advantage of or blindside. She's, she's bright and she's very pretty.

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My perspective perhaps, but sure by George, she's still beautiful.

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And, uh, uh, it, it took a long time before that happened. We had a lot of ups and downs.

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We would be walking through a park, holding hands and laughing and a song would come on in the background and it would remind her of who

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I was. The hand would drop and I'm thinking three years, we're up and down on this.

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I'm thinking this is never going to change, but I knew that's where I had to just stay the line, stay in it.

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Yeah. You know, I'm not in this, I'm in this for the long haul. I'm with her for as long as I've got breath.

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And one, one day, um, something clicked with her and, um, she, she came up to me and she said, uh,

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I'm, you're no longer my first husband, you're my second husband. Now, when I look at you, I don't remember you being that man anymore.

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I can't see him in you. Wow. And we, we, we started climbing that, that hill again and moving forward.

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Was she saved at that point? Yeah. Uh, I call her CJ. Her name's Carol Jean. I, CJ was saved when she was very young, when she was about eight years old.

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But like a lot of people, um, she was, uh, um, her family didn't go to church.

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They moved. She, when she was young, she could walk to church and then they moved out here and there was no place to walk.

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And so I thought your family going, you're kind of stuck. I mean, the thing that attracted me to her besides she just caught my eye.

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In high school was that when I met her and went out with her was that how morally different she was from all the other girls

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I had gone out with. And there was just something very different about her. So there wasn't a need for conversion on her part, but, but she was very ignorant to scripture because she hadn't been instructed in scripture.

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So she was more than happy to, to learn. Uh, she didn't want to learn from me at first.

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In fact, for a long time, I thought she wasn't reading at all. I was beginning to wonder whether or not she knew the

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Lord. And then one day she asked me to, to, to get her Bible and I grabbed it and it fell down and all of these pages of notes came out.

15:29

Sure. She, she wanted, it had to be hers. It couldn't be mine. Right. You know, it's kind of like your children, you know, the

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Lord doesn't have grandkids. You know, you can raise, you can raise your kids to know the Lord.

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You can have them in the church. Doesn't make them, uh, Corrie Ten Boom used to say, just because you find a mouse in a cookie jar, it doesn't make it a cookie.

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Right. You know? And so having your kids in church all their life, uh, in some ways is a, is a blessing and other ways is a curse.

15:58

Sure. Right. And so, um, you know, uh, she needed to have her own relationship with the

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Lord, just like my sons would need to have their own relationships with the Lord. So I started out, out here.

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I was actually working towards the pastoral ministry at the Temperance Free Methodist Church, which is now

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Cornerstone out here. And, uh, and, and so I was started out as a free

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Methodist, but, uh, became aware, uh, as I got closer to, they have several different ordinations in the free

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Methodist, uh, congregation that I did not believe in two very key doctrinal positions.

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Okay. And so I couldn't stay. And I had been teaching a group of about a dozen people out here, uh, in a private study, nobody from that church.

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And, um, and, and they, they asked me if I would continue teaching them. That ended up morphing into the assembly of Christians in 1978, 1978.

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Okay. I'd started here and then we moved to Toledo for about 27 years.

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And we moved back out here about 15 years ago. Okay. So, uh, so that, that's, that's where it began.

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We started out as a Baptist church, just a Baptist church. Um, kind of a different, not a fundamentalist

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Baptist church, not a KJV only Baptist church, in fact, way before all of the kind of rock and roll stuff that goes on today, we, we were,

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I was in bib overalls and we had, uh, we had a guy named John Vass doing our music. I know John. Yeah.

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We know John. We know John. Yeah. John used to travel with Bachman Turner and all these guys. I mean, John was my music.

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Okay. Okay. You know, so we were rocking the house way back, uh, in the day.

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And, uh, but there's, there can be a real false sense of worship that exists from the excitement that's generated.

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Uh, that's not grounded in the reality of the word of God. Yeah.

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Yeah. Uh, we began, we would have a communion for instance, and we'd have 140 people at the table and we would, we made it a love feast and we had a meal together and, and John played and, and we packed the place out.

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And then, uh, one day, uh, I S I was very convicted about that. And I said, uh, we're going to take communion, but we're not going to have a meal and there's, and the music is going to be traditional, uh, hymns.

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We're going to sing hymns on the board. Yeah. And, um, uh, we had 20 people show up and, and there was this instant realization of how much of what we were doing was being generated by the atmosphere, uh, that we were creating and, and not a real commitment to the word of God.

18:51

Sure. Which is a, which is a serious danger. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. And I think it permeates the Western church as well.

18:58

I, I would, I would agree with that. I really would. I would also say that I don't think the

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Holy Spirit's an emotion. Right. A lot of people say, I feel the Holy Spirit. And I think, I think you're feeling your emotions.

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Yeah, we, yeah, that's, I, I would agree with that entirely. It's not that emotions are disconnected.

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Right. But they're, but they're, it's falsely assumed that if there's emotion in a worship service, uh, uh,

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I love music. I love to sing. Uh, I'm, I'm not a singer in a band or anything else, but I love to sing and nothing can bring me to tears faster than a well constructed song, um, uh, lyrically and musically.

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And yet, uh, you know, we have people weeping on Sunday that are out committing adultery on Monday morning.

19:48

Yeah. Uh, and those same, just because you are, doesn't mean anything for sure.

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Right. And so, I mean, the Spirit is an agent of change, not feeling. Now that doesn't mean it's void of emotion.

20:04

Right. God ministers to all are the, the, the entire man. And we see those emotions throughout the

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Bible, the Psalms, right? Yeah. Ecclesiastes. I can hardly talk. I, I've, I don't think

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I've ever gotten through a full testimony of my own life without being choked up a little bit because of what

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God did. Yeah. You know, I, I, who cares about whether or not you were a former gang member or a drug addict or none of that makes your testimony any greater.

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God's a much greater savior than you are a sinner, no matter how hard you sin. Yeah. And the depth of your sin doesn't make him a greater savior.

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He just is what he is. Perfectly. Period. Yeah. You know? And so, uh, none of that matters in the, in the truest sense.

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We became reformed Baptists in 1988, late 1988, early 89. Okay. Uh, in fact, our church in, we, we started out as a congregational, uh,

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Baptist church, a little bit, half a bubble off, you know, what would be considered a

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Baptist church. And, uh, in 1984, I got hooked up with MacArthur.

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John MacArthur went to a shepherd's conference, uh, up in, uh, upstate

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New York, actually a very small group up there. And, uh, learned, I learned about, uh, multiple eldership learned about, uh, getting away from a congregational, uh, rule in the church, came back, began to teach on those things.

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In 1984, our church ceased to be in congregational. We actually took a vote because our constitution demanded it.

21:45

Okay. We took a vote to never vote again. We had a hundred percent vote to never vote again. Uh, found the men that were best suited at the time to be elders.

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Or ordained an elder's board as equipped as they could be at that time in our, in our history and move forward.

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And in 1988, I began to, I was given a book called the holiness of God by R .C.

22:08

Sproul. Yeah. Yeah. And that book totally impressed me. I was blown away by that book.

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And so then I was handed chosen by God by R .C. So I just, I just read the whole, had

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I started out with chosen by God, I might not have read it, but, but starting out with the holiness of God, like when people ask me about reformed theology,

22:28

I give them Jerry Bridges book, trusting God, which teaches on his sovereignty.

22:33

Right. Because if you can satisfy that, I think all the other ones kind of fall in line. It has to work if you want to stay true to scripture.

22:41

Absolutely. And so I started reading chosen by God through that across my office about three or four times, because I had been brought up, uh, early in the church to be told anything connected to Calvinism was a heresy or some kind.

22:57

And, and then I, I had to figure out after I S I submitted myself to what I saw in the word of God and wrestled and wrestled with it.

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How do I tell the church this? Hmm. Uh, because I will not split a church, not my own.

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I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in charge of the church. It's the Lord's church, not mine.

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So I'm not free to go in and do damage to the body in order to save my own position.

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And so I had a meeting with our elders board, which was much more mature at that time, well -studied guys by 88 and, um, uh, early 89.

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And we met, there were five of us. We met to, uh, and I, I intended to just start the meeting out and say,

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I've got something I need to tell you guys. And I was hoping they were going to say, all right, well, let's tell us about it.

23:49

So we could learn together. And instead, two of our guys had just gotten back from a shepherd's conference in California.

23:56

And one of the, uh, and, uh, two of the other guys had been reading a book by Charles Hodge together and discussing what was in there.

24:05

Both all, all of those were on reformed soteriology. Yeah. Everybody came to the meeting the same night to tell everybody else that they were, they were reformed.

24:18

Wow. Uh, and instead of having to sit around, explain everything, we ended up rejoicing and then sitting down and saying, how do we bring this to the body?

24:29

Right. How do we do this? Because you can't get up in six gun from the pulpit.

24:35

Yeah. You can't say, well, this is what it is. I listen, if I, I I've been, you know, even at that time, you know, a decade,

24:43

I'd been pastoring already. If I struggled with it as a man who studies the word of God every day to exposit

24:50

God's word, how much harder was it going to be for the congregation to turn that corner?

24:57

Now we had taught them all along that the word of God was supreme, not our constitute.

25:03

Everything else can be changed. Sure. Doctrinal statement can be changed. Everything can be changed, but the scriptures cannot.

25:09

So if we find it here, we have one obligation submit to it. Yep. And so we decided we actually did, uh, in essence, what

25:19

Jerry Bridges does is we started a class that lasted nine months on God's sovereignty. Awesome.

25:25

And the last section of that was his sovereignty over our salvation. And, uh, when we got to that, you'd already, uh, fully agreed because nobody has a problem when you show it.

25:37

He's sovereign over the weather. He's sovereign over the governments. He saw, you know, all these things. Biblically showing that as well.

25:43

Yeah. So nice sovereign over absolutely everything he set for. He's not sovereign over my choice for salvation here.

25:50

How does that work? And we, we ended up with about three months of, of answering the standard questions,

25:57

God's not willing that any should perish type stuff, which is all standard, all the same things

26:02

I asked myself. And, uh, we eventually adopted the 1689

26:08

London Baptist confession of faith and, and officially became a reformed Baptist church. In 88.

26:14

Yeah. Well, that would be 89, 89. Yeah. By the time all that transpired, we were into 1989. Were you guys in Toledo at that time or Lamberville?

26:21

We were in Toledo. And then when did you come back to Lamberville, Michigan? 2004. You said, okay.

26:28

2004. So yeah, those are the two subjects we're going to be talking about tonight. You just brought them up. Both sovereignty.

26:33

And I would say that meeting was Providence. Yeah. When you had your, uh, elders and deacons, uh, meeting and everyone kind of came on the same page by the grace of God.

26:42

Yeah. You guys were all kind of moving in the same direction. Yeah. We stared at each other for 10 minutes, uh, you know, because that's your, your, everybody's wants, well,

26:51

I came tonight and, you know, uh, two of the guys, there was two guys and two guys, they had both been talking together, but not the four of them together.

27:00

So they didn't know, and nobody knew where I was coming from, you know? So, and I thoroughly went to that meeting expecting to come home and tell my wife that, uh, you know,

27:11

I'd probably be, uh, looking for a job and, and hopefully maybe finding another pastoral position because that's where my, my heart's no place else.

27:21

And, uh, how did the church respond? Well, uh, the church, we lost one family.

27:27

Uh, and re in reality, I always say we lost one, we lost, uh, uh, one woman who took her husband and kids with her.

27:36

Okay. Um, so she, uh, the, her husband had come to me, uh, when he, when it hit home for him and said, this is the most freeing doctrine

27:46

I've ever heard in my entire life. And then the next week came to me and said, we're leaving the church.

27:51

Don't ask me why. Okay. I knew exactly where that was coming from. Okay. Everybody else stayed.

27:58

Wow. Everybody else stayed. And, uh, and, and we, we were trying to be as patient, kind understanding.

28:07

Um, in essence, when you, if you take membership at the assembly, uh, there are 12 points of doctrine you have to agree with.

28:17

Not a one of those are reformed. They're biblical. It's just the doctrine of salvation, not the mechanics of it.

28:24

Sure. Okay. So you could be, you could be a member of the assembly and not be reformed.

28:30

Right. Okay. Uh, and we're perfectly good with that. Yeah. But I'm going to preach expositorily what's in the text.

28:38

Sure. Yeah. And through that systematic, you can live with that and hopefully learn from that. That's a great thing.

28:44

Yeah. We've had charismatic members. We've had members that came out of the prior out of, uh, um,

28:50

Presbyterianism. We never made any of them make a change. If you have somebody sign on the dotted line for an entire, uh, doctrinal, uh, statement, you can only make liars out of them.

29:03

Right. No, nobody believes everything in a doctrinal statement, probably not even the pastor that's putting it forth, unless that's everything he believes and he expects everybody else to get on board.

29:13

Right. Probably hasn't even read it. No, that's, that's, that's more true than, you know,

29:19

I mean, quite frankly, you've, you guys may have, you've heard of the founders movement within the

29:24

Southern Baptist church, you know, while the founders movement is really what, uh, moved back to the reformed

29:31

Baptist roots of the Southern Baptist church. Sure. And a lot of doctrinal, uh, statements within the

29:37

SBC still have a reformed flavor to them, but they haven't looked at them in 47 years.

29:43

Right. So they don't know we go, we go back over our doctrinal positions and, and our structural positions, uh, uh, positional papers and everything else about every seven years and try to bring everything up.

29:58

If there's anything we've come to think differently of or anything we think we need to add or clarify more, uh, because otherwise those just become discarded documents you use to get started.

30:08

And then everybody that comes along just throws whatever little flavor of whatever they want into the pot.

30:13

Kind of the church culture can then overcome this. Just a big pot that everybody throws something into. Nobody knows what's in there and nobody knows how it works, you know?

30:21

And, and, uh, the guy at front's just doing his thing, whatever that might be. And nobody questions that. Or if they do, you end up with a splitter or a row of some kind.

30:29

And, you know, so if you're taking membership in the assembly, I'm going to spend about eight weeks with you, uh, private, we're going to have a class about an hour and a half, a class, sometimes two hours.

30:40

I'm going to walk you through all of our documents. What's an elder, what's a deacon, how's the church structure?

30:46

What do we think about giving our positional papers? Everything you're going to go through. We have, we have a whole book on church restoration, which is an issue on church discipline.

30:57

Sure. We consider calling that church restoration because that's the purpose of it is to restore a believer, uh, back to a right relationship with the

31:05

Lord. They have to read that. We have to understand what that means. Agree with that before you can take membership.

31:11

So you know what you're getting into. So you have a knowledgeable member coming here. You're stepping into something.

31:17

You can't step out of membership at the assembly. If you're involved in a sin, you can't commit adultery. And while it's still an unknown, uh, give up your membership and just out of the blue, uh, we're not going to allow that.

31:31

And you know that when you take membership, so it's all on the table, everything's out. Yeah. Our books are open.

31:37

Do you want to come in and look at our books? Look at our books. You want to sit in on an elder's meeting, unless we're doing something that's private, you know, you're welcome to come in and sit.

31:45

Everything always has to be on the table, out front where it can be seen. If you're hiding something or you said that, and I'm not hiding is not the same thing as keeping a confidence, right?

31:57

If you're hiding something, you need to stop whatever it is you're doing. Yeah. So, and I think that's biblical.

32:04

And unfortunately I think, uh, there's not a whole lot of, and I'm using air quotes, church goers that would put up with it.

32:12

No, no. And I don't, and I'm not trying to sound mean or condescending to the

32:17

American church, but, uh, in my experience, when I go to other churches, there's not a whole lot of discipleship and accountability and membership means you meet with the pastor, you have a slice of pizza with them.

32:28

And, uh, he said, you know, you introduce each other and you get a little background and 15 minutes later, you're a member. Um, and I'm not gonna, you know, this episode isn't to, you know, denigrate that process, but I think the biblical process is one that you're speaking of.

32:42

To where there is actual accountability. And then from the very beginning, there's sounds like there's discipleship starting right from that first meeting, not only doctrinally, but, you know,

32:54

Hey, look at if there's sin in your life or something, you need to confess it as the new Testament tells us, what is it,

33:00

John? Um, and then from there we can move forward with membership, which I think is the biblical way.

33:06

Yeah. We, we just had a couple that we're looking to take membership that we're living in a house together.

33:15

And I, before we got into it, I said, listen, here's the deal that has to change.

33:21

You cannot take membership here because we'll start a disciplinary step over the fact that you're living together.

33:28

We don't accept that here. Right. And, you know, so you, you've got a choice. You need to separate.

33:33

We need to talk about walking you through the process of getting married. You can, you, you do that.

33:38

We can talk about membership and so forth. And they ended up leaving the church. Yeah. Okay. Well, what am

33:45

I going to do? What do I want? Warm bodies in the pew or more money in the coffers?

33:50

I mean, for, to what end, you know, uh, again, there's, there can be much of a facade, uh, if, does it feel better if the church is full, right?

34:01

Of course it does. Yeah. Brainer. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's a no brainer, but it, but it's a feeling. It's not necessarily the truth.

34:07

Yeah. I think in reality, the church is much smaller than we think it is. I think so too. A friend of mine years ago, uh, when we used to do

34:15

Twitter reform conferences, uh, Don Kistler was always a part of that. And Don, I was used to be in the board of his ministry.

34:21

He, he had a ministry called Soledad Gloria. Okay. That was a republishing company of, of Puritan out of date

34:28

Puritan books. My wife loves Puritan stuff. I've got a whole bunch of them at home, believe me.

34:34

And, uh, but Don used to go to church, uh, Protestant churches and do a handout, a test on soteriology on, on the gospel.

34:43

And 80 % of the people that took that test were choosing, it was a multiple choice and they were choosing a

34:49

Roman Catholic view of salvation rather than a Protestant view and Protestant churches. Yeah.

34:55

And that's sad. Yeah. Yeah. You know, uh, it's why I'm an expository preacher.

35:01

I'm in the book of first Thessalonians right now, chapter one, verse one, all the way through, you skip nothing.

35:08

You go bypass nothing. You, you, you can't, uh, uh, you know, just pick and choose each week.

35:14

The things you want to light on that are going to make people happy. It's whatever's in the text. Yep. Nobody can say to me on a given

35:22

Sunday, you, you, you did that because you're upset with me, you did that because of what's going on in the church.

35:27

Cause I am wherever I am. Yeah. If that's the case, they're upset with the Bible, huh? Yeah. Yeah.

35:33

Yeah. And yeah, and that's probably not Thessalonians. That's probably not a four week, uh, sermon series that you can probably stay in there for a while.

35:39

Huh? I'll probably be from the beginning to end, probably close to a year. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm in,

35:46

I just entered into chapter four. Well, I'm halfway through chapter four. I'm just getting into the eschatological portion of the fourth chapter, which

35:57

I don't, I don't hold to the pre -tribulational position anymore. Neither do

36:02

I think that text does. No, I don't either. Yeah. So it's going to get, uh, we won't have any issues at the assembly, but we live stream, so I may get a few emails.

36:12

Well, it's so funny. We touched on that a few episodes ago. Just talking about, uh, post -trib, pre -trib, that kind of stuff.

36:18

Amillennialism. I'm reading a book on that right now. And the more you dig into the actual word of God and then even read some of those, the forefathers that came before us, you just realize the majority of Western Christianity is really based in a culture that's maybe 100 to 150 years old, it feels like, and it's a culture.

36:39

It's not really doctrinal. It's, um, it's, it's, I don't, I don't know if I can call it church culture, but it's this

36:46

Christianese culture and you, and you go, what's going on? And I was raised in it.

36:52

I I'm a little similar to you. I was raised in a, and I'll just touch briefly on it because I've said it before, but, um, you know, in a more legalist, it was, it was a spirit believing church, but there was a lot of legalism there.

37:04

And it was almost, you look back in the eighties and I was a kid in the eighties. You're a little older than me. So, um, you might remember it differently, but when

37:11

I look back on it, there was so much moral deism going on in the culture that I think the church pendulum swung real far into like this weird legalistic on, on a lot of churches.

37:21

I mean, I sat down when I was 13 and said, Hey, you keep playing Keith green on the piano, you're going to hell because that's

37:26

Christian rock music. And we don't, you know, and I'm just trying to play, you put this love in my heart cause I grew up playing piano and I love the groove of it, you know, uh, that syncopated feel and, and then, and then went into, um, a, a much more,

37:42

I don't know what you'd say now, charismatic. And then towards the end, got into that kind of Bethel feel that new apostolic reformation, signs and wonders,

37:51

Toronto blessing, that all kinds of that stuff. So I ran the gamut of it from the time I was seven to the time

37:56

I was 16. And then when I was 16 decided I was going to do my own thing, run from the Lord. And I really don't care what he thinks.

38:02

And he had different plans for me by the grace of God. But, um, you know, I looked back on that and there was just so many things that either weren't explained or you just did it because it was kind of the culture.

38:15

And there was really, and I was a kid that would ask questions all the time. My youth leaders and my pastors probably went home at night going, what?

38:23

And I, and I wouldn't even really get any good explanations. And I've said it before. And Jason certainly said, you tell a curious kid because I said so, or because the

38:31

Bible says so that's not a good answer. Um, but it was a blessing because I would,

38:36

I would dig into stuff even as a teenager. And those things never left me. Even when I was running from the

38:42

Lord, doing my own thing, I'm going to make my own way, um, towards the end, when I look back on it, probably some type of suicidal, didn't care if I died or not, whatever drug

38:51

I could get ahold of, whatever relationship, I mean, it was just on a highway to hell, so to speak.

38:57

And, um, and when the, and when the Lord pulled me out and saved me, uh, it was really at one of the lowest points in my life and I really started getting into.

39:07

Well, it was funny. I grew up homeschooled and we would study. I had to study Edwards and his preachings.

39:14

I had to study Matthew Henry. I had to read Pilgrim's Progress, right? Uh, we studied Spurgeon. I didn't, no one told me these guys were reformed or, you know, had a certain doctrine they were just,

39:25

Oh, well, these were just, you know, preachers or fathers in the faith and we'd touch on them and then we'd move on to other things.

39:31

And then when I looked back at it, uh, I even wrestled from, and I've told him from 24 until 31,

39:39

I didn't even want to say the C word. I thought it was heretical, right? But I kept reading the text and I kept digging into the word and I went, but where else, this is what the

39:49

Bible says, you know? Uh, and then I came out of the Calvinism closet, probably my early thirties, as I say, you know, kind of ventured out and was, uh, felt, uh, confident to say, yeah,

39:59

I'm reformed in my thinking. I don't think it's another sect. I think it's what the Bible says.

40:05

It's a shame that we, that, uh, it gets pigeonholed into Calvinism. Uh, I look at the early church fathers.

40:11

I look at the Bible. I look right up through the reformation. And, uh, I, I, I see that systematic theology is just what the

40:19

Bible preaches. And like you say, it's funny because when you talk to non -reformed people, they'll go, yeah,

40:24

God's in control. Right. Okay. Well, he's in control. Like you said, the wind, the earth time, you know, all these things sick.

40:31

But what about my salvation? Oh, no, no, no. And I, I realized that was even that even that wrestling was a contention with me and the pride in my heart.

40:38

Well, I want something, I want something to do with it. And the Lord had to keep telling me, oh, you have nothing to do with it. Your righteousness is like filthy rags.

40:45

There's not one thing that you can do that can please me. Uh, the only, the only reason you've been saved is because of the righteousness that's been imputed to you through my son who did a work on the cross.

40:55

Um, you are the chief of sinners. You know, I read John Newton and amazing grace in his life growing up and just go,

41:01

I mean, that guy was, you know, beat people at the knees and slave trader and everything else on the list goes on and on of all the horrible people that the

41:07

Lord saved. But it was one of these things to where, um, and I always say, you know, said the sinner's prayer at seven and got saved at 24, but it was one of these things where once my eyes were open to kind of put it in,

41:23

Jason and I talked about this, a definition on those things that all those things I had been wondering and, and, and saying, well, why do

41:30

I believe this when the Bible says that? And, and honestly, one of the, uh, guys that really brought me through it was

41:37

R .C. Sproul. I mean, his Ligonier ministry ministered to me so much. I read a John, uh,

41:42

MacArthur study Bible growing up. No one told me who he was. Oh, he's just a guy that wrote a study Bible. You know, it was very kind to just push it off to the side, minimize it.

41:50

If it didn't agree with a certain theology that they had. And then, well, what man, when

41:55

I want to get beat up in the word, I'll just listen to a John MacArthur sermon and, you know, and like Spurgeon said,

42:01

I want to walk away from the sermon with, uh, being upset and my spirit being wounded. If I feel good when

42:07

I walk away from a sermon, that's my flesh, man. You know, probably didn't do me any good. Something you were just talking about.

42:12

Um, uh, just whenever people talk about the Bible, there's like, I believe in the Bible and it's like, okay, what, what does that mean though?

42:20

You know, because when a charismatic says it, when a reformed guy says it means two totally different things, my

42:25

Bible, my Bible, my version of the Bible, my pillow. Right. So, so like about a year and a half ago,

42:33

I was, you know, really, you know, I was listening to Todd Wade and some of these guys in the

42:39

NAR. And, uh, I mean, I, I loved it, you know, at the time. And then all of a sudden some reformed guys started showing up on my

42:46

YouTube feed. And, uh, I realized right when they started talking eschatology that that formed and shaped my theology in a lot of ways, the way they were talking about, you know, post -mill, um, you know, and, and it,

43:02

I don't know, there was, there was a time where I was all about the left behind series, you know,

43:08

Kirk Cameron, man, he was so good in that movie. No, I always knew it was a terrible movie, but I was, I was always like, oh my gosh, this plot is amazing.

43:16

We're going to escape all of this heartache, you know, all of these, these terrible things.

43:21

And it's like, man, you, you look around and you're just like, why would God give us all these beautiful things on this earth?

43:29

You know, I, but yeah, it was my eschatology, you know, ended up shaping my theology is all

43:35

I was trying to say. Wow. I'm the exact opposite there. I would say my end times eschatology is probably my weakest.

43:42

Serious. It needs more study. Well, I almost just throw my hands up and I go, what does it matter? I'm supposed to serve the

43:47

Lord today. Right now. Right. You're a pan men, uh, pan millennial. Is that what they call it? It'll all pan out in the end, right?

43:54

Right. Well, I, I used to, I tell people, I say, I used to know everything there was to know about eschatology and now

44:00

I don't know anything. Right. That's how I feel. Yeah. Because it was, it was such a tidy package. Yeah. You know, that you walked around with and it was so, it was so dramatic.

44:09

I'm millennial isms, not exciting. No, you know, because the most exciting thing in it, geez, we wouldn't, we want to be excited about that would be the return of the

44:19

Lord. Right. You know, and we, we'd rather be excited about a hundred pound hailstones and sure. And a grand tribulation and the beast and the mark and the very

44:27

Hollywood. Right. Yeah. I knew all about that. I knew nothing about this.

44:33

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, at the assembly, we don't have an official position. You could be a mill.

44:38

You could be post mill. You could be a pre pre mill and still be a member.

44:44

I'm, I'm a mill partial preterist. Yeah. I don't believe in full preterism. Uh, you deny the return of the

44:52

Lord. You've stepped outside the bounds as a heretical position. Yep. So, I mean, even getting into First Thessalonians, I want to be having to dig through a little bit of that.

45:01

Sure. I am. I'm not as well studied there as I was in times past, because quite frankly, every day of my life is, is about practical application of the word of God.

45:13

So I live and, and you live every day with, uh, as though the

45:19

Lord was not coming in your generation at all. And as though he could come tomorrow.

45:24

Yep. And the twinkling of an eye. Yeah. And the twinkling, everyone would say in seven, in 72, the movie that came out in 72, a year before I was saved was a thief in the night.

45:34

Oh, okay. You know, with music by Randy Stonehill or not Randy Stonehill, Larry Norman. Oh, I wish we'd all been right.

45:41

And, uh, and there were two other movies that followed that into 78 and 80. I mean, we used to have rapture practice, you know, at not shaped a generation.

45:50

Yeah. I mean, we, I went so far one time of telling a guy, he was in the tool and I trade and the machine next to me all about the rapture and everything was coming and he walked away and I put my extra work clothes and a pair of boots in a pile by my machine and walked away and watched to see what he would do when he came back.

46:06

Yeah. I mean, that's just mean, but it was fun.

46:15

And he, the look in his face was well worth the time and effort. No wonder I didn't get fired at him.

46:22

Yeah. I, you know, to me it, we really need to be concentrating on the life that we live for Christ right.

46:30

More than anything else. Do I want him to return? Yeah, absolutely. I want him to return. If he came right now, while we're sitting here,

46:35

I'd be a happy man. But, yeah, but in the meantime. We're living in a community, which we 're supposed to have some influence in.

46:43

Uh, you know, I, I've, I've tried to get to know you since I've been out here, you know, and some of the others,

46:49

Craig and so forth. Why? Well, because they're there. I want to see what kind of influence is going on in this community where I live.

46:58

Yeah, I go to the same restaurant every morning, or at least I did it before the bubonic plague hit. And, and because why

47:05

I want to, I want to see the same waitresses, the guy that owns the restaurant, those regulars that come in, have an opportunity, getting to know them to talk to them about the

47:16

Lord on a regular basis. And in the past, other places I've done that at people have ended up with the church,

47:22

I've done weddings, you know, I've had an opportunity to do that one man came to know the Lord eight months before he died.

47:29

And so I was able to, Lord used me to lead him to himself.

47:34

And, and then I did his funeral. Wow. I mean, you have no idea what's going to happen.

47:39

Yeah. And concentrating, you know, blowing the dust off your Bible, because now they're talking about chips and everything else.

47:45

And we're, we're back to the flamboyant again. Sure. You know, it shouldn't be any dust on your

47:51

Bible to be worn out. Right? This one is it's brand new. Yeah. But my one at home is

47:59

I can tell you that. Yeah, the call of the gospel, I think is a lot more work and a lot less glamorous.

48:04

Yeah. Then the modern church, I think in a lot of these ministries would have you think it's one of my kind of my pet peeves, too, is

48:15

I feel like the church is kind of like Oprah with the cars, you get a ministry and you get a ministry and you get and, and look at I'm, I always try to preference this,

48:27

I don't want to sit here and sound negative. But at the same time, we have to stay true to the word and also have to be able to be watchful, not only over doctrine and theology, but be watchful over the character of God.

48:41

And when you know, when you have some of these young guys, and listen, I want young people to be involved in all kinds of stuff in the church and in theology and all that.

48:54

But there's also certain, certain standards. And you mentioned it earlier about, you know, that we're able to be deacons and elders.

49:02

And you see some of these younger guys and younger girls and, and kind of starting these ministries and being put in positions of authority.

49:11

I tell you what, I tread so lightly, I've spoke two times behind a pulpit, both times,

49:16

I didn't even want to do it. Because if you're standing in a pulpit, or you're claiming to be any type of leader or shepherd,

49:24

Oh, God help you. Not only does the word speak, and I'm not, I'm not saying that because you're a pastor sitting here and God bless you for doing what you do.

49:34

And I know that you rightly understand the word of God and who he is and all his sovereignty. And we'll get into that in a minute.

49:40

But man, you're playing with fire. If you if you just trying to make a couple bucks or make a name for yourself out of the word of God or a ministry.

49:47

And I'll tell you what, we're all going to be on our faces in front of him one day. And I definitely don't want to be accused of ever misleading or using

49:56

God's name for my own personal glory. It just it kind of makes me shudder just thinking about it.

50:01

Now. I don't know, I can't imagine how I'm gonna feel in the presence of the Lord. There seems to be more entrepreneurial spirits, you know, out here that that don't know as much about the

50:12

Bible, you know, getting this platform just because some one of their buddies was like, man, you know, the

50:19

Bible, once you once you just have a good start. Yeah, start a church. You like talking to people.

50:26

Yeah, I just reviewed a video on a mini episode of Todd Bentley, which

50:32

I've been posting about him for 12 years now, well before his Lakeland downfall and all that. I don't know if you're familiar with Todd Bentley a little bit.

50:39

Yes. And he literally said on his live video that he just posted, you know, my buddy said,

50:45

Well, you're an event, you have an evangelistic spirit, you could sell ice cream to an Eskimo, you should start this business.

50:50

And I, I just went, Oh my gosh, that's the attitude we have. Yeah, a lot of church lead, not only church leaders, but other churches, anointing people, apostolic fathers, and all these things.

51:02

And you go, to me, it's so clear, and I'm not a smart person. And I'm no more godly than anyone else.

51:08

And it's just how have how has a whole generation and a whole country, it seems, you know, 89 % of people say they believe in the

51:16

Bible 76 % of people polled say they believe in abortion. Well, that's an oxymoron. So it goes back to what you said, what is believe in the

51:23

Bible, let's define our terms, which that seems to be a conversation I have more and more before I can even get in a conversation with someone, they say a word,

51:31

I go, Okay, hold on. Yeah. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by partnership? Or just in general?

51:37

What What do you mean by Holy Spirit? What do you mean by Trinity? What do you mean? You know, because we've we've just all these

51:43

Christian he's convoluted, you know, taglines out there. I'm telling you, if there's a guy who, who, who says that he believes he belongs in the pulpit, and that he thinks people should be listening to him.

51:57

Yeah, that's the guy I could care less. Yeah, you know, again, 42 years,

52:03

I've been in the in the same pulpit. And it scares me every week.

52:09

Yeah, I'm nervous every week I spend, I spend the few minutes I have every single week sitting up front waiting to go forward, asking the

52:19

Lord to give me clarity and to keep me on focus and to, and to help me to honor his word above all things and to be willing that if I, if I should preach something that's not true to come back the next week and correct myself, you know, in front of everybody.

52:37

Because I don't nobody belongs up there. Right? You know, one of these days, you know,

52:43

I won't be there anymore. Somebody else will be there that church will be heading in maybe a little different direction here or there or whatever the case,

52:50

I'm gonna do my best to pass the senior position, the primary expositor on to someone,

52:57

I have confidence will stay true to the word. Right? That church doesn't belong to me. I'm not retiring from it.

53:03

You don't retire from ministry. I mean, maybe as I get older, I eventually do a little less or something, but I don't want to ever retire, right?

53:13

I want to be teaching or helping or counseling, but not because I think I, I should be because I can't not do it.

53:21

Right? Because the Lord won't look what he gives me no freedom in my soul to not do it. Right.

53:26

In spite of the fact that I'm afraid every time I open my mouth with his word, that I know that because I know

53:33

I can't get it right. Right. And I don't even know when I am right, for sure.

53:39

I am just trying to stay true to the best of my ability to study his word with what

53:45

I find in the text. Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. So did you have anything, Jason, look like you want to say something?

53:52

No, man, I your old testimony that that whole first part, I can relate to a lot of that.

53:58

And that's it was just Yeah, I started tearing up over here for sure. I start sweating, you know, man.

54:05

Yeah, man, it's your wife, you know, that testimony, I can totally, totally relate to that.

54:12

And yeah, just thank you so much for your heart and everything that, you know, you're sharing with us today, for sure.

54:18

And I do love the fact that it wasn't, you know, I prayed to my sugar daddy in the sky, and then my life was better.

54:24

Right? I mean, you went through some real struggle. You said, I'm gonna give my life to the Lord. And he said, Good, because I own it.

54:31

And it's not going to be necessarily fun or great or grand. And you're not going to get all the desires of your hearts, or your heart or you know, and I went through that with my now wife.

54:42

I mean, we were a strict we dated for eight years, a strain for three and every night. I mean, the

54:47

Lord told me she's going to be my wife. And I mean, she would be out doing the things she was doing running from the

54:53

Lord. And it was three years of a period where the Lord just said, No, it's just me and you.

54:58

Yeah, because I'm prepared that same woman. Yeah, that took three years to figure out that I was a different man, because she's she's not easy.

55:09

You know, and I'm really glad that's the case. Yeah, something happens to be nobody's gonna take advantage of that woman.

55:16

Right? Well, she's a Deadeye with a nine mil. Lady, you break into my house.

55:22

I'm not the one you need. I'm the diversion. Yeah, she's the living room.

55:29

I got him in my sights. But that same that same woman, and then it became a pastor's wife.

55:34

Yeah. So she had to all which is one of the hardest roles. She had to wait. And she's not traditional. There's nothing traditional about her.

55:40

She's not. She was the first woman to ever wear pants at the free Methodist church. And I you know,

55:45

I thought the roof was gonna cave in or something. Sure. You know, she's she's there's nothing traditional about her.

55:51

And when she's got something if I asked my wife, if I if I don't want to know, I just need to shut my mouth.

55:56

But if I say, was the message okay, this week, she's gonna she might say to me, it wasn't your best, right?

56:03

I mean, she's gonna lay it out. Everybody else might lie to me. She's not gonna lie to me. Yeah, you know, so she had to learn to be a pastor's wife, which means she had to learn to, to live right in the midst of all the worst that church life has to offer.

56:18

Sure, because that's where pastors live. Yeah, we get the benefit of the best, but we also get the all the worst there is.

56:26

And so did my boys. Yeah, my boys had to had to grow up. Right in the midst of all that we had to try and find ways of helping them to without giving them information about things they'd hear from their friends in the church and the youth group and everything else of giving them, you know,

56:43

I spent every Monday night, my entire boy's life out on boys night, every

56:49

Monday night was boys night. Yeah, we played basketball, we went to movies, we we visited rest homes, we did we drove around bought french fries, and and ate french fries and talk theology.

57:00

I would we would say I'd say sons, what's what are you being taught in school? What's going on in your life right now?

57:06

What's happening out there, all the way up into their adult life? Right now, to this day, my youngest son, first thing he does when he's in the room, if I'm there, he migrates to me to talk, right, you know, because they were going to get overwhelmed.

57:21

Yeah, which pks do by all of the bad stuff there was. And so you're, you're laboring upstream pastoring all the time.

57:31

You know, you're not getting sleep at night first 22 years I pastored I was bi vocational.

57:37

And I worked a full time job. I put in about 100 110 hours a week every week for 22 years.

57:44

Wow. So if I wanted to spend time with my kids, then I needed to my wife,

57:50

I needed to spend time with the boys until they went to bed, then spend time with my wife till she went to bed, then go into my study at 11 o 'clock or 12.

57:59

Work until two o 'clock. So I was quiet and everybody was gone. Yeah, five o 'clock and go to work.

58:05

Yeah. And that's what I did for 22 years. Wow. So that's, that's tough on everybody. Yeah, it's tough on me tough on her.

58:13

I mean, this whole thing, if you think you're going to get a seminary degree or Bible college degree and walk in some place and have a job of getting up and preaching some moral of the story, 20 minute little, you know, something on Sunday, and that's your job.

58:28

You have no idea what you're talking about, right? You do not belong there. Right. And if you are doing that,

58:33

I don't know if you're fulfilling your guarantee you as soon as the waves start crashing on the rocks, you're going to be gone.

58:40

Right? You are not going to endure. And endurance is what it's all about. Yeah, we're not free to bail.

58:48

Yeah, we're not free to bail out. You know, you're called by the Lord called by the Lord to go where you're told and do what you're told to do.

58:54

Amen. You know, do it or don't do it. But yeah, that's what that's the calling. Yeah. Well, let's shift gears a little bit.

58:59

Let's talk about the sovereignty of God, because that interests me a lot when you said, even when you said, you know, if you can get over that one hurdle, the sovereignty of God, and I've actually had people referred to me as,

59:10

Oh, well, I know you're really big into God's sovereignty, which is like kind of code for Yeah, I think we heard you're reformed or you believe in the solos or the doctrines of grace.

59:20

Yeah. And I went and when you said that, it just clicked to me two or three people have said that and it's like, Oh, that's the first thing that they focus on even when they say that to me is

59:29

God's sovereignty. Talk a little bit about that. Maybe. What does that what does that mean to you?

59:35

Or what does it say in the Bible about God's sovereignty? Or how do you how would you put that into words? Well, first, let me say this, if you were to talk to Christians who became

59:46

Christians in in communist bloc nations back when the Communist Party was at its peak, they automatically believed in sovereignty.

59:56

They understood entirely what it was like to be under the absolute rule and authority of someone.

01:00:04

Okay, Americans don't get that. We, this is the problem with sovereignty is particularly more of a problem in a democratic country, and especially one that has the the plethora of rights sure that we're used to and we don't want anybody telling us what we're going to do with that would include

01:00:24

God. Yeah, sovereignty, in essence, is talking about God's absolute and total rule over all of his creation.

01:00:34

Providence is is the governing mechanics of how he does that, how that plays out.

01:00:42

That's his Providence. Sovereignty is about his absolute rule. That's not a rule that's happening on the go or on the fly.

01:00:51

His his decrees are settled, and have been settled before the earth was right before time began.

01:01:01

Again, the Lord's not if you always say to somebody, do you believe that God is is omniscient?

01:01:09

Well, yeah, I believe he's on. He's all knowing, right? Yeah, he's all knowing. Then how is he?

01:01:16

How is he making a decision? If he is he waiting to see what you do?

01:01:21

Right before he makes his decision, because if there's anything he doesn't already know, then he's not omniscient.

01:01:29

Where does that omniscience go back to what goes back to Ephesians 1, four, before the creation before time was before the earth was formed.

01:01:39

Sure. You know, we were already called by him, named by him before the earth existed.

01:01:47

So sovereignty speaks of his absolute control over everything that belongs to him, which is everything.

01:01:55

Yeah. I would also note there, too, that people we, you know, we really try to frame God inside of our feeble mind or inside of this reality.

01:02:02

When we say no, we're thinking of a timeline. Well, I knew that then and I might know this later. When God sits outside of time to know is just to know.

01:02:10

It's instantaneous. There is no time he knows the past the present the future. In fact, there is no past or present future in God because he's outside of that, outside of that time that he created.

01:02:21

So I try to think that way, too, when we talk about, you know, sovereign rule or for knowledge or to know, we only really relate it to the experiences we have in this reality as as humans.

01:02:35

When, when in fact, God created time, he created space, he created matter, and all those things that go with it.

01:02:43

So when we talk about sovereignty, then we're talking about his sovereign supreme rule over all of his creation.

01:02:51

Yeah, that was really one of the and in when we talk about that, we're also saying, as, as we believe, not only over his creation, but even in the act of salvation as well to absolutely, yeah.

01:03:05

And I, I sometimes in you mentioned this, you kind of alluded to it, that that's the one that gives people the most sticking points.

01:03:12

I always say, you know, boy, I find so many of my non reformed friends become reformed as soon as there's as soon as there's a trial or tribulation,

01:03:21

God, you're in control, God, you can change us, God step in. And once again, not trying to belittle, but it's it's funny how fast we can switch gears on what we think

01:03:32

God's in control of it of if it benefits us. Yeah. And like, like I said, it was my own personal struggle.

01:03:40

The very last step was of salvation. Because for me, I realized it was just pride,

01:03:45

I wanted something to do with it. Well, I want to be the one that says yes, whether I was saying that out loud or not, it really came down to well,

01:03:52

I want to have whether it be 5050 or 99 % 1 % I didn't want there to you know,

01:03:59

I didn't want monergism I didn't I wanted me to have some say in it. And really, for me, it came down to a form of pride.

01:04:07

Yeah, you know, and then you read through Romans nine, when Paul kind of it's so funny.

01:04:14

My dad go round and round on this as well, too. He's kind of in the middle. And what's what's the guy that had the theology where it's kind of half?

01:04:22

It's it's God's sovereign choice, but then he knew he foreknew it. Oh, what's the he was in between Arminianism?

01:04:29

Yeah, he was in Yeah, middle knowledge. Who was the theologian that had that? Do you guys remember? No, no, he was like halfway in between Calvin and Arminianism.

01:04:37

Anyway, that's kind of my dad go round and round on this. And I forgot what

01:04:42

I was saying. I got all I'm trying to think of his name. See, this is where we can edit.

01:04:48

Yeah, this is where that's good. Greg gets off on one of those tangents. And then I can't think where I was going. No, it all stays in.

01:04:56

Gotcha. But no, let's maybe we let's move on to that a little bit and just talk about sovereignty over salvation as well.

01:05:05

Because I think this is one of the biggest contentions that I come up against when

01:05:10

I either try to explain it or try to wrap someone's head around it. Heck, it took me a while to wrap my head around it as well, too.

01:05:18

But what does that mean to you when if when I say to you, God has sovereignty over our salvation?

01:05:25

That means that God is the only one that controls the act of regeneration, of regenerating a dead spirit in man.

01:05:35

Sure, that that's what died in the garden, isn't it? I mean, when the Lord says you eat of the fruit of the tree, you die.

01:05:42

Did that death was was certainly physical. Over time, death began its decline upon man.

01:05:49

But what died instantaneously was their spiritual relationship with the Lord. We're not born.

01:05:56

And when people say, Well, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual. And I say, No, you're not. You're spiritually dead.

01:06:02

You know, you may be in in contact with spirits, but you're not spiritual. And God is the only one that can regenerate a dead right there.

01:06:12

They can give us spiritual life. It's john is john three, you know, it's the new birth.

01:06:18

Sure, you know, that that we experience. And when that happens, that's when we are given eyes to see and we're given ears to hear the very thing that the

01:06:30

Lord condemned Israel for you have no eyes to see your ears to hear my word as I speak it if you knew my father, you'd know me, you know, you'd hear my voice and you know, my sheep john 10

01:06:43

I you know, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. Right? You know, I don't know if you've ever seen a sheepfold film of a sheepfold where all the sheep are mixed in together.

01:06:53

And like a town outside of a town, all the shepherds come in, drop their sheep off. And there'd be one keeper of the gate and when a shepherd comes up, he has his own his own call.

01:07:04

And when he makes that call, all the sheep start separating that belong to him from the other sheep and follow him out the door.

01:07:10

None of the other sheep go that's not their shepherd, right? But that one is we hear his voice, we follow him, right?

01:07:18

I mean, I knew that without knowing that on that day in the bedroom when I came to know the

01:07:23

Lord, because I knew there was I knew there was nothing about me that should have should have come to that point on that day.

01:07:33

I the very morning I was saved, I had threatened two guys who were trying to preach the gospel to me that I was gonna whip on him if they didn't back off.

01:07:42

That evening, I was one of them. You know, what changed? I'm not smarter than the average guy.

01:07:49

I'm not more spiritual than average guy. I'm not better, not better looking than anybody, you know, on the planet.

01:07:54

What was different? Well, I didn't understand what that was. Right. When I came to understand satyriology,

01:08:00

I understood God did a work in me, he made me alive. And suddenly,

01:08:05

I understood his word. I heard it. Yeah. And I knew who I was. And I knew who he was.

01:08:12

And there was no question about that. Even before I had knowledge and years of study and everything else

01:08:18

I I knew, you know, that's his sovereignty and salvation.

01:08:24

We're not, we're not sick, in our sense, we're dead, right? And our sins and trespasses.

01:08:31

You know, you tell people you're you're in a boat, you find a body floating in the ocean, you can yell at him, scream at him, throw a life preserver to him, and they're not going to respond, right?

01:08:41

But if they suddenly burst into life, you think when you throw the life preserver down, they're gonna say,

01:08:47

No, I'm good. Right? Yeah, yeah, have a good day. Go on. Well, we opening the eyes helps us to see the reality of our predicament before him, right?

01:08:59

He's not making us choose him. There's no force involved. Right? Nothing involved in that way.

01:09:06

He just allows us to see the truth. They have eyes to see and hears to hear. And then we when we see that we go, yes, that's what

01:09:13

I want. Right? It's it's totally voluntary from that perspective. But the initiation is from God, but he has to initiate he has to he has to give us the life he has to show us his word, right?

01:09:27

You know, but the desire then is in our heart from that already.

01:09:33

We see that we want that. Yeah, I had to have that. There was no hope for me without that.

01:09:40

I knew that. Yeah. And so there's a there's that there's that distinction.

01:09:46

And people that don't have that are making I mean, that's the problem with with with altars and calling people forward and reciting verses, you know, pray this after me sort of stuff.

01:10:02

There's there's is God working in that certainly at times, but how many people do you think go forward at altars that are never converted?

01:10:13

They're never changed or never turned? What motives drive them? I don't want to lead anybody in.

01:10:19

I don't want to say pray after me for anything. Right? Let me tell you what, you don't have to have me tell you what to pray.

01:10:25

If God's broken your heart and made you aware of your sin, you're going to cry out. You know, exactly.

01:10:32

Nobody needs to tell you how to do that. Yeah. And if you're around somebody when which that happens, you'll know the difference from the time you look them in the eye and hear their voice that God has a hold of their heart.

01:10:44

Yeah, they're not reciting some prayer after somebody else. For numbers that go into a book someplace.

01:10:50

I feel like the sinner's prayer sent a lot is going to send a lot of people to hell. I do too.

01:10:56

Fortunately, we can't stop somebody from being saved. There's no question about that no matter what methodology we use.

01:11:02

We can we can cause a lot of people to believe their say that are not right. Yeah.

01:11:08

Yeah. I actually was sitting in a church service once and I heard a pastor give the altar call everyone's heads down.

01:11:14

That was another thing when I was in youth group, eyes closed, don't look around and I'm going if this is such a glorious event, why are we all got our eyes closed?

01:11:21

We can't see you know, and he said, and he said, you know, slip up your hand but even if you don't,

01:11:27

God knows you don't have to and I this was five years ago and I just went if you don't even have enough.

01:11:35

Yeah, I want to say guts. If you don't have it, you know, enough of an option to even raise your hand while everyone's eyes are closed for Christ.

01:11:42

How long are you gonna last in the world? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're gonna be persecuted and spit on and you know, all these things.

01:11:49

You know, God does not promise you a life of health and wealth and happiness. In fact, probably the exact opposite if you if you truly are regenerated and believe in him.

01:12:00

I mean, if if our church fathers and our disciples and pretty much most of history is concerned, it's going to be exactly like that.

01:12:08

I think what you said is exactly right. In these last few hundred years in this country, we've become very, very accustomed to freedoms and liberties and rights and comfort.

01:12:18

Yeah. And unfortunately, I feel as a country, we've kind of become David counting our men. Yeah. Well, let's see what we've done this church.

01:12:25

Look, let's see what the church has done. And it's well, you know, you haven't done anything. It's what it's what the Lord has done.

01:12:31

And, you know, my prayer has been in my life is Lord and we're getting a little off subject here, but we'll get back to it.

01:12:38

You know, give give me give me just enough to where me and my family are provided for don't give me too much.

01:12:46

Yeah. To where it's I'm very easily swayed to take my eyes off you. Look what I've done.

01:12:51

Look at this little kingdom I've built. Look at these fun goodies that I have. You know, and don't give me too, too.

01:12:57

Not too much to where you know, to least to where then it's a struggle. Just I want to I want mana just daily.

01:13:05

Want you to provide for me? Yeah. You know, and I'm not saying don't invest don't, you know, plan for the future.

01:13:11

Don't be financially sound. You know, there's wisdom in that. I'm just saying I look at Ecclesiastes and it just says, tomorrow's not guaranteed to anyone.

01:13:21

Don't go off and say, Oh, I'm gonna do this and do that. And I have these big plans. And I think it was very, you know, that versus is can almost be salvific to and saying, you know,

01:13:31

Proverbs, the Lord, you know, you order your step and the Lord orders your path. Or maybe I said that backwards.

01:13:37

Is it the Lord? Yeah, we plan our steps that he directs, he directs our path, you know. So for me,

01:13:44

I don't know, I just look and I say, you know, going back to the sinner's prayer. I don't know if that's going to be part of the great falling away.

01:13:53

I know, like I said, you have 89 % of people saying they are air quotes, Christians and Bible believing.

01:14:00

I just think we have a lot of people around the world and especially in this country that profess something with their mouth with either a not understanding it or truly not being converted.

01:14:10

I said, I sit down with people all the time that are attending churches. And they go, they go every week, their kids are involved in youth group.

01:14:19

I sit down and talk. I'm not I'm not talking talking reform, soteriology or eschatology or any nothing.

01:14:29

You know, we're not talking in for lapsarianism or super lips. Nothing massively.

01:14:35

I'm getting all excited over here. Like, yeah, we're not doing any of that. And and they look at talk about it.

01:14:40

Yeah, they look at me. They look at me like a deer in the headlights. Yeah, they are. They are woefully untaught.

01:14:46

And how do you listen, even if your pastor is not feeding you sufficiently from the pulpit?

01:14:56

And if you know the Lord, how do you not want to know his word?

01:15:02

Right? How is that his job? No, to teach you every week? Is that his job to make sure you know everything there is that a few weeks ago?

01:15:09

I mean, that's ridiculous. It's your job to go home, right? Your job to learn how to study your job to do that way.

01:15:16

If I'm discipling a young man, I'm teaching him how to study the Word of God so he can do that not depend upon me to do that for him.

01:15:26

Right now, my my oldest son was writing 93 page books on the gifts of the

01:15:32

Holy Spirit with Hebrew and Greek annotations when he was 11. Wow, you know, because that's where his that's where his head was.

01:15:40

That's where his heart was. That's what he wanted. And it but I spent the time with him to help him learn how to do that.

01:15:46

Right. You know, if your members, if they don't even bring Bibles, you expect them to do

01:15:53

I have a problem with scriptures being up on the screen? Absolutely not. We do our readings and we put it up in the screen.

01:16:00

But you better walk in the door of the Bible in your hands. We have Bibles in our pews. You should own a

01:16:05

Bible, you should know how to use it. That's your that's your daily food. That's your living right there.

01:16:12

You know, and and yet, how do all of our members come become so woefully ignorant of the

01:16:19

Word of God? So how many of them actually know the Lord? How can you go week after week, never touch?

01:16:24

Yeah, your Bible never bring it to church, never open it up through the week never. You're never wondering about the things of God.

01:16:31

Nothing ever crosses you. I came to know the Lord knowing nothing. And everything I thought

01:16:37

I knew I learned from watching television. I learned from watching the 10 commandments and you know,

01:16:43

I thought Moses was Charlton Heston, you know, right? That's the way it was. Everything I knew was wrong.

01:16:50

Yeah, I didn't have any right information. I had to start over. So every time

01:16:56

I turned around, and I turned around a lot, there was a new question in my head. And then I would immediately say,

01:17:01

I gotta go find it out. I gotta find it out. I gotta go dig in. I gotta go find out what that means. And if I couldn't figure it out,

01:17:07

I had friends that have been around for a long time that I could go to and say, I need some help figuring this out.

01:17:13

Show me how to do this that would take me under wing and disciple me and help me right learn how to do that.

01:17:19

You know, so we've just got to we've got a I guess I think the church is a lot in essence and reality a lot smaller.

01:17:27

Yeah, then it really appears to be right. And when I don't think we're probably all that far away in this country from from having those numbers become more apparent.

01:17:39

Yeah, I think as freedoms contract, liberties contract, maybe rights contract persecution on whatever level.

01:17:48

It's funny when I hear, you know, other pastors and, and leaders in the church that were being persecuted religious freedom and I go, geez, you don't even know what's going on in other parts of the world.

01:18:00

Yeah, I mean, we still have it so good. And I think, you know, we're in a fallen world and men have agendas and men want power and are greedy.

01:18:07

And that's been around forever. I don't care if it's Rome or, you know, the United Nations, you know, a fallen man wants power and over other people.

01:18:19

But I think it's it's just tough because if you have a shallow view or an immature view of who

01:18:28

God is, I feel so I feel so sorry for those people when these these trials and tribulations hit.

01:18:34

I've said it many times, I mean, Shadrach, Neshach and Abednego is one of my favorite stories in the

01:18:40

Bible, just because they say our God can save us, he will save us. But even if he doesn't, and I'm just always so moved by the but even if he doesn't, they're like so confident that he would save him.

01:18:51

He can save us. But even if he doesn't, it doesn't matter. Yeah, you know, it's it's Nehemiah, Sam Black to gush him into by and I forgot the other guy's name.

01:19:03

Anyway, they're, they're threatening. They're starting to build the wall, the wall starting to go up, and they're being threatened.

01:19:11

We're going to come in that wall is nothing. It can't hold our armies back. We'll come in smash it all down. We'll kill all of you all these threats going on armies outside the city wall.

01:19:20

All the people inside there. They're not soldiers. They're just everyday people that you know, while the ones are working, one of them's got a sword and a shield in case there's an attack.

01:19:31

But Nehemiah says, so we pray to our God and built the wall.

01:19:37

Yep. We continued on doing what we're doing. You know, right right now.

01:19:43

Listen, I'm a I voted for President Trump. I'm going to vote for him again in 2020. Yeah.

01:19:48

All right. I like I like what he does. Do I like the fact that he's arrogant? No, I don't do it.

01:19:54

There are things about him. I don't like absolutely. But there's a lot of things that I do. But he's, he's not in charge of this country.

01:20:02

God is right. My local, you know, Whitmer is not in charge of the state of Michigan.

01:20:08

God sits on his throne. We have no one to fear, because the Lord, he says,

01:20:13

Don't fear them. Fear me. Right. You don't fear me. Don't don't look over there at them. Fear me.

01:20:19

I'm the one you need to be afraid of. Right. You know, and in a right way in a reverent reverential way.

01:20:25

But it's it's like from from Lion, the witch in the wardrobe.

01:20:31

Yeah, where the little girl says, you know, is he safe? So no, he's not safe at all.

01:20:38

Right. But he's good. But he's good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that line always kills me. No, he's not safe.

01:20:44

But he's good. Talking about Aslan. Yeah. Yeah. He's the Lord. Yeah. He's the king. Right. You know, yeah.

01:20:50

There's a there's the Odyssey go in this. I mean, the holiness and the justice of Christ, you know, with sovereignty and providence is that ring any any belt the word theodicy

01:21:02

I just learned this word theodicy a couple weeks ago. I was like, I think this is a part of it when we were when we were talking about what we're going to talk about today.

01:21:09

But just the attributes of Christ, you know, the holiness and the justice. Yeah, I'm not totally sure how you're defining what that is at this point.

01:21:20

Yeah, I think I was just thinking along the lines of just his sovereignty, and just what that what that means as a whole, you know, from evil to, you know, his goodness to, you know, his grace, just all of it, how he, you know, gives it all to the world, you know, even through Coronavirus.

01:21:43

Ecclesiastes seven, verses 13 and 14, I believe.

01:21:49

Yeah, while you're turning there, I'll just say this. I know, I told this to you before, but I watched a two hour answer to a question that RC Sproul got about evil, evil.

01:22:01

Yeah. And it was beautiful. Good one. And it was, it was majestic and beautiful and biblical.

01:22:08

And I at the end of it, I went, I have no idea what I'm still confused. But he did it so well.

01:22:14

And I just went, you just you know, it's it's a mind mind twist when you start talking about evil, good, God, sovereign, which are things

01:22:21

I love to talk about, I'm never truly going to understand them. I think part of that is the mystery of God. But go ahead.

01:22:26

What were you going to read that? Well, 13 and 14. Chapter seven, it says, consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked, in the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider,

01:22:40

God has also set the one against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him, both is

01:22:45

Yeah, right. You know, you tell people you pull up to you're sitting at a red light, light turns green, you take off.

01:22:53

And right when you start to take off something, or, you know, inkling is he hit your brakes and a car runs through the red light and you go,

01:23:01

Wow, thank you, Lord for that. But if you didn't hesitate, and you drove through the light and the car hits you.

01:23:07

Yeah, that's the same God. Right? Nothing. Nothing changes. Yeah, he's not

01:23:13

God, because he did what you thought he should do. He's God, because he does what's always what's right to do, right, regardless of what that is.

01:23:24

And regardless of how that plays out. Ecclesiastes three, there's a time to live in a time to die.

01:23:30

You don't come into this world a second before God is ordained, you don't leave a second before there's no such thing as an early death in the in the sense of of leaving before your time.

01:23:41

Yeah, because when you do leave, that is your time. Yep. You know, that's the way it works. So God's in God's in charge of both.

01:23:49

All everything that happens in this world for a purpose that that's beyond anything that we could figure out ourselves.

01:23:58

If we could understand why God does what he does, then he wouldn't be God, he would just be a man just like we are.

01:24:05

Right? You know, it's Joseph, his brother's throwing down a well to kill him, get worried about it, drag him out, sell him to traitors, really good brothers.

01:24:15

You know, he ends up in Potiphar's house, good job, but he ends up being accused of rape. You know, falsely thrown in prison, all these things going on takes all the way

01:24:24

Genesis 50. Yeah. And and Jacob dies, the boys come expecting their brother.

01:24:31

Now knowing everything is going to probably throw him in prison. And he says, I don't stand in the place of God to make that decision.

01:24:39

But here's what I know. You meant it for evil. God intended it for good.

01:24:44

So unless I understand and know or could possibly know what the intentions of God are and what he does in every situation, every situation and how that plays out in every in every way.

01:24:57

You know, what why is it in one of my pet peeves, we won't probably have time to talk about a lot.

01:25:03

Yeah, we do. Let's do this. But I love it. Listen, when I go to prayer, the purpose of me going to prayer, first of all,

01:25:11

I acknowledge and adore God in prayer. But I bring when I bring my supplications before God.

01:25:19

The purpose of that is to lay everything at his feet, to receive and accept whatever answer he gives me on those.

01:25:27

It isn't to dictate to him what I think he should do, right? Who in the world thinks they know what should be done?

01:25:36

Yeah, God is all wise, all knowing, all powerful, and we're going to tell him in prayer what we think needs to be done in our situation, who needs to live, who needs to die, what job we need, where we need to go, we're going to dictate to him somehow, right?

01:25:52

When he knows all of that, listen, I want to take it to the one who absolutely does know the imprecatory

01:25:58

Psalms. You know what an imprecatory Psalm is? Precatory Psalms are songs where David or the psalmist is crying out the

01:26:05

Lord to destroy their enemies. Okay, destroy my enemies, right? And we say, Wow, how harsh is that destroy my enemies, but you know what the psalmist wasn't doing?

01:26:14

destroying his enemies? Right? What was he doing? He was taking all of these frustrations and everything else he was dealing with, with people that were wanting to kill him.

01:26:23

And instead of just acting on it, getting an army together and going out and try to kill them all, which he could have, which he could have done, he took it to the

01:26:30

Lord and said, Lord, you do, you know, here's what I see. Here's what I'm thinking.

01:26:35

The Lord loved the honesty of the heart of David who prayed those prayers, because he didn't go to him saying,

01:26:41

Lord, listen, I'm loving my enemy. But you know, he's not treating me very well.

01:26:47

Instead, he goes there, and he tells him how he's really thinking. I always thought David was the first bluesman.

01:26:52

You know, that's like a 17 volume album of blues right there. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's a great point.

01:26:59

Because probably the few times where David was really called out was when he did take it into his own hands.

01:27:06

Yeah, that's right. You know, whether it like I said, counting his man or Bathsheba, or a few other places when in fact in the

01:27:14

Psalms. Yeah, he's he's taking those things, you know, probably very real emotions, very real thoughts, right.

01:27:22

But laying it on the altar in prayer, and the and the and the Lord, you know, giving back his decision, when you think you can say you think you can form beautiful, kind, flowing words, and God doesn't know what's coming out of your heart.

01:27:35

Right? Yeah, I mean, you're standing in front of him and lying to his face. My, my one son, he couldn't lie to me for nothing.

01:27:44

Because his eyes were dark from side I knew every tell he ever had. Now, I could tell by the way he acted.

01:27:52

But listen, what if they stood before me, and I could actually see everything that was in their heart already?

01:27:58

Right. That's first of all, I don't want to know what's in their right that would scare me to death.

01:28:03

But God knows, it was Psalm 139. You know, my thoughts before I think

01:28:09

I'm right. You know, there's no place I can go to be away from you. Hell isn't the absence of God.

01:28:16

There's no place God isn't. You know, hell is more hell because God's presence is still there.

01:28:22

Yeah, the wrath of God. Yeah, done by his wrath. Yeah, you know, in that aspect of his attributes in his character.

01:28:30

You know, so you go to prayer, be honest with the Lord about how you feel about things. But don't expect to dictate to him.

01:28:37

Take your take your whatever it is you're in need of whatever it is you're afraid of whatever it is is going on.

01:28:42

You take that to the cross. So you have a place to leave that and trust that the one who picks that up knows what to do with it, right, and has already decided and ordained how to deal with that, and is well aware of everything and things you couldn't possibly know.

01:28:57

And in 1000 lifetimes, you couldn't know, you know, it people said, wouldn't you like to do your life over again?

01:29:03

And you get it right? I say no, because life is really more like Groundhog's Day with Bill Murray. Right. You know, if you had a chance to do it over again, you just make different mistakes, right?

01:29:12

You can't get it right. Yeah, you know, there's no such thing as you get this right and that wrong instead.

01:29:19

Yeah, you know, there's no such thing. It doesn't it doesn't the only one who gets it all rights the Lord. Absolutely.

01:29:24

The only one the only one we can trust period. And I think that's reflected even in the Lord's Prayer.

01:29:30

I mean, look at the very first few lines of adoration rightly saying this. And then the very next line is

01:29:36

I will be done. I will. He wasn't asking, you know, the very first thing he gets out of the way there's your will is going to be done.

01:29:42

Yeah, on earth as it is in heaven. Yeah, this is James. Yeah, we it's okay for us to say,

01:29:47

Oh, this next year, we're going to go to this city or that city and do this business or that business. Lord willing. Right?

01:29:53

Yeah. Yeah, we can plan. My wife and I were going to Europe this year in September for our 50th wedding anniversary.

01:30:01

Not happening now. Yeah, we we planned we've been totally geeked out over the whole thing excited waiting to go not going to happen now.

01:30:09

I have no control over that. Right? I can't do anything about what's going on in this world right now.

01:30:15

You know, yeah, even if there were 1000 conspiracies going on right now, and I could prove every one of them was it was what what can

01:30:23

I fix? Right? What would I change? Because that I like Kuiper's idea of operating working within yours.

01:30:33

Authority that God sets you in. Yeah. And you don't have any authority past that I can't go down to the neighbor church and say, well,

01:30:40

I'm a pastor, you have to listen to me. I have authority within the assembly. Right? I don't have authority anyplace else unless I'm invited.

01:30:47

Right. And it's and it's given to me in some way. I had a uncle tell me once.

01:30:53

This was the uncle I grew up with that was engineer, Darwinist, evolution, science.

01:31:00

I mean, the guy was just one of the smartest people I know. He's still an engineer, a senior engineer at Ford.

01:31:07

Lord saved him. And about two years after Lord saved, he said something to me in my early 20s.

01:31:12

And he said, you know, the Lord just wants us to take care of our little part of the kingdom.

01:31:17

That's how we affect change for the kingdom, my neighbor, my co worker, you know, people in my church, because I'm not supposed to, you know, that's my sphere of influence.

01:31:28

And everyone's and it just kind of stuck with me, it was kind of a very, I don't know, micro approach, when in fact,

01:31:38

I'd grown up in, you know, 100 ,000 people at an evangelistic, you know,

01:31:43

Billy Grant, and I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying, I thought my approach was a bunch of people in a tent or in pews in church.

01:31:50

And he said, No, it's just you, you daily live out, you know, the gospel in your little part of the kingdom and affect change with those people.

01:31:59

And I and I was convicted because I went, I don't even do that. Yeah. You know, I don't even do that.

01:32:06

Yeah, the purgants used to refer to the family as this as the littlest church. Oh, wow.

01:32:11

Yeah, I like that. You know, because within that within that realm, you know, there was the father held that position of spiritually leading the family.

01:32:21

Yeah, you know, along with his wife, they train the children that was their congregation, you know, that they were responsible for.

01:32:29

I can't take care of my two sons. I can't guarantee how they're going to grow up and what kind of people they're going to be.

01:32:36

Both of my sons are married men, and they're very good husbands. Yeah, you know, I attribute as much of that to my wife.

01:32:44

For not for you know, my wife's mantra with the kids growing up is I'm not your maid. We didn't want the boys growing up marrying somebody who was going to take care of every little thing for them.

01:32:54

Right. So she made them learn how to sew and cook and do laundry and everything else. You know, so she they could be a help in a home not a hindrance or I don't have a shirt on.

01:33:03

What do I do now? Right. You know, and so I attribute that to her, but I don't have any control over how my boys turn out.

01:33:10

But I have a responsibility to do everything within my power to raise men, right to raise them to be men, good men that can stand on their own love.

01:33:21

Those that are around them love their wives, love their children, if they have children, and so forth.

01:33:26

That's my role to do my best to help them do that not to make sure they do that. Yeah. So let me ask you this.

01:33:32

We'll finish up on sovereignty here and then move over to Providence for the last part of the podcast.

01:33:39

But what what are some of the, you know, if you get some of these objections, like, well, if God's sovereign over salvation, then he's just picking who he wants to save or that because I hear these, you know, if he's sovereign over salvation, then we're all just robots.

01:33:55

Why do we need to evangelize? Why do we need to evangelize? Or, you know, you know,

01:34:02

I don't well, those are three good ones. Let's start with those. So if you get an objection like that as a pastor, well, if he's sovereign over salvation, well, then it just seems like to me,

01:34:12

God just picked out who he wanted to save all along. And there's really no point to it. What would you say to someone who might if you're talking to them about that?

01:34:20

Now, that's not a 32nd answer. No, I'm giving you a given you whatever answer real big, whatever answer

01:34:26

I give you right now will be insufficient. Right? So let me let me make that disclaimer. I started out here.

01:34:32

But you've heard things like that. I would suspect Yeah, over your years, the same people making that same statement.

01:34:37

They they want it. They want to have all of their own choices about life.

01:34:43

Right? They they don't want to go someplace and have somebody hand them clothes and say, wear these. They want to make sure they want to pick out what they want to wear how they want to wear they want to make their own choice, especially

01:34:54

Americans we get this from more than anybody else. We make all of our own choices about everything, right?

01:35:00

Yeah, it is. But we don't want to give God that opportunity. We we don't we buy things and then we decide we're for if we're going to keep them.

01:35:07

I used to I used to make model cars one day I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore. So I put firecrackers in all of them and drove them into each other and watch them explode.

01:35:16

Now they belong to me I could do what I want with it. Romans nine. Yeah, the Potter has the power over the clay to do with it what he wants to.

01:35:24

He owns what he's made belongs to him. And I think Paul answered that objection right there when he said,

01:35:31

Can the clay look up at the Potter and say why have you made? Yeah, why'd you make me? Why'd you make me that way? That's exactly that's correct.

01:35:37

That's where I would go. I mean, the problem with some of those objections is that in order for you to give an answer that's sufficient to the question that they would walk away and say,

01:35:47

Oh, okay, they actually have to believe this word. I have to I can take them to Romans and I can walk them through that chapter, chapter nine, and and walking through those verses about, you know, listen, it says he made the choice between Isaac and are not

01:36:06

Isaac, but Jacob and Esau before they were born before they did a good or evil. Yeah, it wasn't because, you know,

01:36:13

Esau ate the red potage. And the Lord looked down through the corridors of time and then said,

01:36:19

Oh, he's gonna eat the potage. I'm not choosing him. So I said for they were born before they did good or evil. God chose the one and rejected the other.

01:36:27

Sure. One who makes us has the right to do with the clay as he pleases to make one vessel on to honor and another on to dishonor.

01:36:36

One to be to hold water one to sit on a pedestal and be beautiful.

01:36:42

It's up to him. That answer is not satisfactory, right to people who are unwilling to accept the authority of the

01:36:50

Word of God. It never will be satisfactory. Yeah. Now if I take somebody there that says they believe in the

01:36:56

Lord, and they look and I've had people do this to me. I see that.

01:37:02

I understand what you're saying. But I don't accept that. Right. There's a difference between being ignorant about the truth of it and rejecting the truth when you see it.

01:37:13

Right. And so now, am I actually talking to a believer? Now there's a distinction

01:37:19

I would make between somebody who hears that says I see what you're saying. But I'm not sure what to do with that yet.

01:37:25

Somebody wrestling with that, right? I've been there too. I but all I can do is give them the answer. I can't make them believe right answer to that.

01:37:33

The same with were robots. Sure. You know, and, and I feel sometimes people are looking for an intellectual answer to a spiritual, that's to a spiritual problem.

01:37:45

Yeah, that's right. And I think that's kind of sounds like that's what you're saying is if you if you can't, because once again, it was a for me, it was just taking that pride to absolute zero.

01:37:56

I mean, Paul says you don't get to look at God and ask him why because God said so. Yeah, that's why the truth of the matter is

01:38:03

God, we can say why did God choose some and not the others? And the truth is, why do you choose anybody? Right? And yeah, he was complete justice would be to send us all the help.

01:38:11

Absolutely. Could have all been naked in the same line together every last one of us at the white throne judgment.

01:38:16

And he would have been utterly just to choose nobody that he saved some.

01:38:22

Yeah, is a mercy. Do we understand why? No. Why do you choose me? No idea. Here's what

01:38:28

I know had nothing to do with me. Right? And everything to do with his decision. It's his choice. I had no,

01:38:34

I had nothing to do with that whatsoever. So how would you relate that to evangelism?

01:38:40

For instance, do you still feel we're called to evangelize and preach the good news and all those things?

01:38:46

Yeah, because an axe doesn't cut a tree down by itself. We're instruments that we when we go to this again, the text gives us the answer.

01:38:57

Will you accept the answer? Right. And and then the answer that is first of all,

01:39:02

God commanded us to evangelize. Yeah, this is he's going to do something. He says, let there be light.

01:39:09

And there's light, right? It becomes the sun by day, the moon by night, but there's light.

01:39:14

Here's this sun. Now we understand a great deal about all these explosions taking place on the sun and how all that light works and everything else.

01:39:24

Well, God made all of that happen with a with his voice, let there be light and there was light.

01:39:29

That's the means by which he created light was to create the sun. Right for us.

01:39:35

Well, the means by which he chooses to save some is by using us as his voice to deliver the gospel to them.

01:39:45

We are messengers of the truth. But nobody has a nobody has a chosen sign, you know, stapled on their forehead or something, right?

01:39:55

I don't know who is and who isn't. Not my job to discern that very first time I ever really, really aggressively preach the gospel to someone.

01:40:04

I was outside with two, two men, the guy on the right side of me, all

01:40:10

American boy, blonde hair, blue eyes, short, short hair, worked hard, everything, right guy on the other side of me, total and complete burnout, hair down to his waist, you know, staring out into space.

01:40:23

I'm sitting there giving the gospel to the guy with the blonde hair and the blue eyes are thinking, this guy's on another planet right now.

01:40:32

Maybe when he lands later, I'll talk to him. That guy on the right, it was a drug addict went home, flushed all of his drugs busted up all he was, he was a dealer, busted up all of his pill presses and everything else.

01:40:48

Got rid of them all came in the next day to tell me that he had given his life to Christ.

01:40:54

He's still serving the Lord today. Wow. To this day, the next day, his house was raided by the

01:41:02

DEA raided his home. And all that stuff was gone. He went and cleaned it all out and got rid of it all the day before.

01:41:09

You know, he had no idea that was coming. And the Lord said to me, listen, not your job to choose who to talk to, or to tell me who

01:41:15

I'm going to save and who I'm not. Yeah, you know, you open your mouth, but I do the work. Right, right.

01:41:21

You know, and that's Isaiah says, you know, the axe doesn't declare itself, it doesn't cut the tree down.

01:41:28

You know, there it requires that someone to hold the axe. And that's where the axe we're just instruments that God uses to deliver the message.

01:41:36

And it's so did I'm sorry, did you want to know I just said Amen. Oh, because that was a good word.

01:41:42

Yeah, because I know, right. Because I look at that. And I, and then I look at people who, who don't believe in,

01:41:51

I guess, the God's sovereignty over salvation. And they take an evangelical event.

01:42:00

Let me 90 % them. Yeah, let me start that over. It's almost like they have edit they haven't.

01:42:07

They have a part in the person's salvation. They're convinced I would never want to think that I'm convincing someone of being saved.

01:42:15

I feel like the the pressure is so on the Armenian, like, I think this is why we have an emerging church.

01:42:22

And we have fog machines. And we have, you know, rock bands during worship. And we have, you know, pastors that have, you know, all these sayings, and they're in, they're funny, and they dress a certain way, because it's all a show,

01:42:34

I, I've got to convince people of who this God is, when in fact, my theology says, my job is just to go out there and tell the truth, love one another, live the gospel, and God does it through me, but God does it.

01:42:52

Yeah, I'm not responsible for anyone's salvation. And I just look at, you know, that kind of other side of the theological aisle.

01:43:00

And I just go, well, no wonder we have all this pomp and circumstance in church, because we're relying on us to save people, it feels like, well,

01:43:10

Greg, we're supposed to put out questionnaires and say, Hey, what do you guys want to hear on Sundays, right?

01:43:16

What do you think we should do here? Because tell me what it is you want to hear. I'm glad you're telling me what to avoid, right?

01:43:25

Because I'm not I'm not going there. But even even preaching on a Sunday, it's not my job to convince everybody in the congregation to be obedient to what

01:43:37

I'm preaching hard enough for me. Having spent the week working on the message, and and preaching the message hard enough for me to hear it myself, right and make sure

01:43:47

I do it and do everything I can to try to do it much less. I think it's my job somehow to move everybody in the church to do what

01:43:54

I'm asking them to do. Yeah, that's not my job is to be faithful to the word. Now, the passion comes because I'm passionate for the word, not because I'm trying to convince them of anything, right?

01:44:06

Right. If you try to do that, you're losing battle. I think it's an absolute losing battle.

01:44:12

And you can't tell. Well, we've got a you've been to the assembly. Sure. We have a very attempt.

01:44:17

We have a small group, very small group. Some of those people have been with me for all 42 years. Well, I've watched all their kids be born and and I've done their weddings and I've watched them have kids and raise kids.

01:44:30

I've been there a long time. And and so everybody's attentive. Everybody's taking notes.

01:44:35

Everybody brings a Bible. You know, it's a well educated bunch. Not my job, though, to go to their homes, investigate whether they're living their life out the way they should find out the secret things about them.

01:44:48

I don't want them serving me. I don't want them afraid of me. If if this if the

01:44:54

Word of God itself doesn't move you to serve the God who wrote it, there's nothing

01:45:00

I've got to say and there's nothing I can do. It's going to change that. Right? Nothing. Yeah. And so that's freeing for me.

01:45:07

Because I don't I don't, I don't feel like I have some sort of a mandate to make sure that whatever

01:45:14

I preach is being done somehow. Or if it's not being done somehow, I'm a failure in the midst of all of this, you know, no, if I'm faithful to the word when

01:45:25

I get up there, that I'm doing everything God's asked me to do as a preacher, at least from that perspective.

01:45:32

No, absolutely. There's shepherding involved, and I'm responsible for that, too. But I give that everything

01:45:37

I can possibly give. Things fall through the cracks, no matter how good you are at that, no matter how much time and effort you put into it, no matter what you do.

01:45:46

You know, so none of that's my responsibility. Yeah, my responsibility is to be faithful to what

01:45:53

God called me to do. Yeah, rightly preached the Word of God. You're not anyone's guru. No, which we see a tendency towards that in Christian church now to is more faith in the pastor leader than in the

01:46:05

Word of God. And I'll tell you what, every single time you put your faith in man, they're gonna fail you.

01:46:11

I don't care who you are. Oh, yeah. But let's switch gears as we finish up here. We've been going strong for about an hour and 45.

01:46:17

This is so much fun. Flying by guys are having fun. But Oh, yeah. We're, we're here.

01:46:23

Yeah, right. Yeah, really, the only reason I don't go longer is most of our analytics say people drop off at about after an hour and a half.

01:46:32

Oh, I'd go for five hours. I don't know if my computer can upload the file that I got to put in there.

01:46:38

Three episodes. Just cut them. That's true, too. We can always just chop them up. I'm 68.

01:46:43

I go to bed at nine. I'm 39. I go to bed at nine. Yeah, I got it.

01:46:50

We have a we have a baby. We just had a newborn baby. So yeah, so you're not even getting that much sleep anyway, probably.

01:46:56

Well, no, it's actually fine. Um, you know, the only thing is, is if there's like a little noise, you're just like,

01:47:02

Oh, my gosh, you know, it's like, don't turn that knob so loud, right in the house. I'm at the age where I'm becoming like a baby.

01:47:10

I'm up. I'm up all the time. And you got to be real quiet. That's awesome.

01:47:19

Oh, man, I'm the exact opposite, though. My creative juices get flown about six, seven o 'clock. And then it's like, you know, it's hard when you got to get up early for homeschool.

01:47:27

And then, you know, I'd love to stay up till midnight, one o 'clock. That's when I'm active.

01:47:33

But anyway, let's talk about let's touch on the providence of God. You touched on it a little bit when you were talking about sovereignty.

01:47:39

And this is an area to where I really didn't even start studying or getting into till maybe three, four years ago,

01:47:46

I knew what it was kind of a surface level definition of it. Didn't really hadn't really read anything on it.

01:47:53

Just found out about two years ago that the divine providence of God is actually aligned in the

01:47:59

Declaration of Independence was put in by Sherman, who was also Calvinist and is the only founding father to sign all four documents, which is kind of fun.

01:48:09

But what does that mean? The biblical definition of providence? What does that mean to you?

01:48:14

Or how would you explain that? Well, that's that's God's governing hand over every single moving

01:48:21

Adam, and action thought of everything that goes on in the world as it is, okay, that's his is his operational control.

01:48:31

And you're saying divine providence, divine providence, extending to the number of hairs on your head and a sparrow falling to the ground.

01:48:40

Isaiah 46, to a man who he says, a man who, who does what

01:48:47

I send him to do across the country to deliver a message, you know, to the foul the air coming for a feast for dead bodies, you know, all of that is my decree.

01:48:57

You know, I do that. Sure, you know, and everything that I purpose comes to pass.

01:49:03

Isaiah 55, you know, eight through 11, or whatever it is five through eight.

01:49:09

There in 55. So that's, that's got Stonewall Jackson, man who strongly believed in providence.

01:49:18

Stonewall used to say he was as safe in the battlefield as he was on his porch at home. He was one of the few generals who actually rode in with his men into battle.

01:49:26

Most generals sat back on a hill someplace, and sent messengers in back and forth to give orders.

01:49:31

He rode with his men. Wow, he came back from one battle with seven bullet holes through his clothing. So they hit skin, but none of it had anything vital and none of it did any real damage.

01:49:41

They were trying to shoot him and couldn't shoot him right into battle because he he wasn't because he believed he was safe is because he was safe.

01:49:50

It was in the Lord's hand and he knew that Stonewall late in the war Stonewall and two of his, his officers went off into the night to get a glimpse of the army can't encampment see where it was and what it looked like.

01:50:03

And and on the way back in the dark, there was a 14 year old soldier who was on sentry duty had fallen asleep.

01:50:10

He was awakened by the horses instead of calling out for the password he stood up and fired his weapon. The ball hit

01:50:17

Stonewall on the leg, he got gangrene, he died. Wow, from being shot by his own guy. All the enemies couldn't do it.

01:50:24

You see, that's Providence. If you go into battle, and you believe there's even a single bullet that's traveling on its own doing its own thing doing landing wherever it does.

01:50:35

How do you how do you have confidence in God, if he's only in charge of the of the bullets he wants to be in charge in or chooses to be in charge in any situation, everything is under his control.

01:50:46

Every aspect of it is under control. That's Providence when you trust in his providence, you're you're saying that there's nothing that's happening in my life that God hasn't ordained for some purpose.

01:51:00

That's good for me and honoring to him, right to bring him glory to bring him glory, whatever that might be, that might include my death.

01:51:09

Yeah, or death of a loved one or the death or the death of a loved one David's David got together with Bathsheba and the first born child died.

01:51:18

Yeah, you can when you exposit that you can skip that if you want to. You can skip lots daughters having sex with them after you know

01:51:27

Sodom and Gomorrah. Those things happen in Scripture, and they created those two girls had kids that created tribes that were at odds and played a role in the history of the nation of Israel.

01:51:38

Right. All of that plays a role. When we look at the genealogies in the

01:51:43

Gospels, you know, of all the names that we see, there are hundreds of names missing from that genealogy of people will never know that did nothing in life that were good or bad, that were inserted in the midst of that to carry the line from here to here.

01:51:58

Right? No. And yet they all played a role, didn't they? Yeah. They didn't. They don't belong in the history book.

01:52:04

They didn't do anything grand. They might not have even been decent people. They may have been unbelievers, but they serve the purpose of carrying that genealogy through to the next person that's in line.

01:52:17

So everything serves that providential purpose. And that includes, he controls the weather, he controls the government.

01:52:25

Listen, if you're listening to CNN, and you think and you're worried about Nadler and all these people in Congress, you're worried about the wrong things, right?

01:52:35

You know, those those are those people are not in charge. I can go back to Watergate, and I can go back in my life a lot further than you guys can go and see all the hubbub and the fear and government's failing.

01:52:46

And we've got a gas lines in the 80 from the get the oil crisis and everything else.

01:52:53

We're all still here, right? I mean, we're worried about stuff. This nation will be here for as long as God deems it'll be here.

01:53:00

Yep. Doesn't matter how long that is, which there is a real peace in that.

01:53:06

Now, it's not nihilism. You don't go, Oh, well, God's in control. So whatever happens, happens, right?

01:53:13

We act, we're active in our faith, we're active in our community, we're maybe active in politics, or the system, you know, active in all those things.

01:53:22

But there's a real peace for me, when I understand what providence and his sovereignty is.

01:53:29

Yeah. And I think it's the peace that surpasses all understanding, as Jesus said, yeah. And I really,

01:53:35

I really hope and I'm, you know, get choked up thinking about that the Lord would even allow me to have that peace, the center that I was and still am.

01:53:44

But I wish more people could understand that and have that same type of peace because I see

01:53:52

Christians that I've known that have been Christians for a long time, like you say, in church every week, right?

01:53:57

But I don't know if necessarily the length of time that you've attended a church really has anything to do with your maturity or your sanctification, or even truly understanding who

01:54:09

God is. Because I see him tossed to and fro with every new situation. And like you said earlier, or every new trial, you know,

01:54:18

Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. Yeah, look, you go back to even just a couple 1000 years ago to Rome and the evilness that was going on there.

01:54:28

And, you know, the empires before and after that, we can create all these, these things, the diseases and famines.

01:54:37

And but this has been since the fall of Adam. Yeah, we've been dealing with this. And the only one thing that remains constant is

01:54:44

God. And when we understand that we're held in the palm of his hands, and like you said, throughout

01:54:50

Scripture, we see providence talked about in the right? hairs on your head formed in my womb called me by name.

01:54:59

I mean, there's so many examples of God's providence throughout the scriptures. We can't ignore it.

01:55:05

Right? We can't throw it out. We you know, we don't I guess you can, if you really want to, you know,

01:55:11

I saw not to get off subject, but I saw the funniest meme. And it said, you know, predestination is talked about 27 times in the

01:55:19

New Testament, says our mini must be talking about free will. But it's one of those things you can't ignore those things in the

01:55:26

Bible, if you want, it can make you uncomfortable and not talk about it. But when you fully accept it, and you go, Oh, my goodness, he can, like you said, he controls the dust mite that's floating in the air.

01:55:37

Yeah, it's under his purview. Boy, does that give me such a peace? Because at the end, yeah, it might cost my his, his plan for my life might be my death.

01:55:46

Yeah. But yeah, I'm not gonna step out in front of a bus. I'm gonna look both ways before I cross the street.

01:55:52

Sure. I'm gonna lock my doors before I go to bed at night. I'm going to check to make sure the garage is down and the doors are wisdom and discernment, right?

01:55:59

You break into my house. I'm 68 years old. I've got like 45 seconds of raw fury.

01:56:04

And then I've got to take a nap. I'm not fighting with you. I if I can't get to my weapon and shoot you,

01:56:10

I might be in big trouble. But I don't wake all night looking and listening for sounds and see who might be breaking into my house.

01:56:17

Check the garage 16 times I check it, I go to bed. Yeah, you know, and I trust that if the

01:56:23

Lord needs me to be up to take care of a situation, he'll wake me up, he'll cause me to hear the sounds

01:56:28

I need to hear. He'll put me in a position to be able to protect my wife because that's what I'll do. Or maybe she'll protect me because she's meaner than I am.

01:56:36

But one way or the other, I can't stay awake all night worrying about all of that stuff, right?

01:56:43

All the time because they're listen, there's enough stresses pastoring to keep you awake at night.

01:56:48

And those are things you're not worried about things outside, you're worried about whether or not you made a right decision, you followed up.

01:56:56

You know, I worry all the time that I've let something fall through the cracks with somebody. Sure. You know, I let somebody down someplace.

01:57:01

I wasn't there when I should have been there. I didn't do it. I should have done it and say their right thing. I mean, and I know and I know better.

01:57:08

You know, I mean, really, but nonetheless, you know, there's enough to keep me awake at night.

01:57:14

But it's not this world. Yeah, it's not the things going on in this world. I get enough of my plate as it is.

01:57:20

I worry about the things God put on my table to deal with. And that's plenty for me right now pay attention to the news once in a while to make sure the world didn't blow up and and you know, there hasn't been some major going but you know, listen,

01:57:36

I'll vote is with as much knowledge as I know how to vote. Sure. I'll do everything

01:57:42

I know how to do in this community. I'll get to know people like you, you know, because I want to be able to know that we're, we're doing our best to be the right kind of influence in this community, right in this county.

01:57:55

I want to do those things. But I also know in the end, I have I have no real influence, you know, in the truth that God hasn't given to me.

01:58:06

And that God isn't doing the credit still doesn't go to me, right? It goes to him.

01:58:12

One of these days, listen, 42 years, when he says I'll be gone from the assembly, nobody will come a day, nobody will know who

01:58:18

I was. Yep. I'll just be gone. Yeah, you know, I it's not my lasting legacy.

01:58:25

Yeah, church doesn't belong to me belongs to the Lord. Right. So you work and you do and you serve until the

01:58:31

Lord takes you. We're his instruments. Amen. That's a blessing and a privilege.

01:58:37

No, it really is. Yeah. Jason, you got anything to add to that? I can top that.

01:58:42

But before you do say that I do think if you ever go into like WWF wrestling, raw fury should be your wrestling name.

01:58:49

Oh, that'd be great. Greg raw fury. Yeah, just 45 seconds of raw fury.

01:58:56

Where is he at? Yeah, no, this is this has been great.

01:59:02

I've been really blessed by this conversation. And yeah, thank you so much. So much.

01:59:07

Yeah, absolutely. So do you have any final words for us? Before we wrap it up? We had about good two hours here.

01:59:13

Yeah, some good discussion. It's been two hours. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Right. Yeah. And I'm still still awake.

01:59:21

Let's put a pot of coffee. I keep it going, man. Not often during the conversation. Well, do you have anything?

01:59:28

For anyone listening? We get a lot of people in Ohio and Michigan that listen. So if you want towards the end of the episode here right now, maybe just give a shout out once again your church where you guys are at.

01:59:38

If anyone's interested in maybe visiting or where they can find you at online.

01:59:44

Assembly of Christians is the name of the church. It's on Westerns Road, just a little bit west of Secor.

01:59:51

So we're right in in the heart of thriving metropolis of Lambertville. Right. Services start at 1030 for now because we're not we're back to live services again this week.

02:00:04

But services start at 1030 Sunday school at nine through when we get back to that we're not back to there yet.

02:00:10

www dot assembly of Christians calm is the website you can get anything you want their assembly of Christians on Facebook.

02:00:19

That's the public Facebook site. That's where messages are live stream posted.

02:00:25

Okay, on Sunday, or they're recorded and posted in audio only on online effect.

02:00:32

I think they started posting on our website some of the videos as well. So where can people find you if they want to reach out to you?

02:00:40

Are you on online anywhere? I think I know I've seen you on Facebook. We're Facebook friends, right? Yeah, yeah,

02:00:46

I'm on Facebook. I can just get ahold of you there at Greg Withrow, Greg Withrow on Facebook. And in Lambertville, I live in Green Hills out here.

02:00:54

So and again, this is my hometown graduated in 69. My grad wife graduated in 70.

02:01:02

You know, you can get online, send me an email you can willow

02:01:08

Walker w i l o w w a l k e r 51 at gmail .com

02:01:14

if they want to email me. My phone number is on the website. It's my number. So awesome.

02:01:20

It's not the church number. So if you go right to you, if you go it costs it goes to me. I've never had a secretary.

02:01:26

I've never had anybody doing any of that work for me. I do if you if you call me, I answer.

02:01:34

Funny story if it got a moment is when we were doing TRTC, that's way to reform conferences.

02:01:41

Yeah, if you'd have been around, you'd love that we had Moller. We had Moller, MacArthur, Deaver, Duncan.

02:01:48

Yeah, we had all those guys here. Call them up and tell them to be on the podcast. Mike Horton. One day

02:01:55

I wanted to call St. Clair Ferguson. And I got his phone number in Scotland. And I'm not good at direction and time.

02:02:03

And I thought I was calling him early. But he's six hours ahead of me. I called him at two in the morning.

02:02:10

Good first impressions. Yes. He answers the phone. He goes. He was very kind.

02:02:16

And he goes, Do you know what time it is? And after I asked him to come he accepted and he came to the really

02:02:23

Yeah. And then when he got done before he hung up, he goes, Oh, by the way, you never know when I might call you sometime.

02:02:32

Oh, that's funny. And you did that from 94 to Oh, eight, right? Yeah, 94 to Oh, eight. And where were the conferences held?

02:02:39

We had them in a couple different places. But in Toledo, though, right? Yeah, in Toledo, most most every year we were at Emanuel Baptist Emanuel lettuce.

02:02:47

Okay, they're there because when we had MacArthur here, MacArthur came and did a three day shepherds conference, we had several hundred pastors come to a shepherds conference.

02:02:56

And then that was followed by a Friday Saturday General Conference with MacArthur and he had 11 of his guys here, but MacArthur, Mike Horton, Steve camp,

02:03:07

Don Kistler, and guys were here for that. So we had five days, we had, we had less than 100 members in our church.

02:03:14

And we had 650 people that we fed, and in covered all the costs and everything for for five days.

02:03:22

Wow. We used to say at the church, listen, if your kid can't crawl, bring them or use them as a doorstop. Everybody works.

02:03:27

All right. You know, that's the way it is. And but we did that for we did it for 94 to 2008.

02:03:34

Our last conference was on eschatology. And we covered all three of the major running speakers that believed in all three different positions, the major positions anyway.

02:03:45

And how'd you get involved with that? We lived here we when 89 we were the only reformed church

02:03:52

I even knew of in the entire area. And so we wanted the word to get out.

02:03:58

And we didn't want I didn't want our congregation to feel isolated. Right? You know, because you're, you begin to wonder, is there something wrong with us that we're the only ones that are doing this.

02:04:08

And so I got hooked up with with Don Kistler and john

02:04:13

Gerstner at the time, john, I don't know if you know who john Gerstner is. I was with john Gerstner when he when he had a stroke in Pittsburgh.

02:04:20

Oh, wow. And but we had we had Gerstner out and Kistler out. We just wanted to bring some theological training to Toledo and allow our members to see that there are other people, right.

02:04:32

And so we just kept going with it. And every year, it just, you know, we again, we ended up with, with Moeller and Deaver and, and Carther and everybody and their brother out here.

02:04:44

It was it was a real trip. Yeah, 89 was definitely a ways before this resurgence we've seen in the last five, eight, 10 years.

02:04:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was four. Yeah, there's probably nothing. So you weren't area you weren't waiting for the end of the world in 89 or 88, right?

02:05:01

And 89 was when they're a book that was written. That was like, Oh, yeah, nine reasons. Yeah, it didn't happen in 1988.

02:05:07

I stood up in the pulpit. And I held that little booklet up in my hands. And I said, if I see this booklet in this church,

02:05:15

I'm going to show you the door. Oh, are you serious? Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. And I threw that on the floor.

02:05:20

Yeah, I said that we are not doing this here. Yeah. And nobody brought it in. Everybody stayed away from it.

02:05:26

So that was Yeah, it's awesome. Wow. Well, Greg, it was great to have you here.

02:05:31

Pastor Greg with you. Great to have your Jason PG is what everybody calls me PG. Oh, okay.

02:05:39

I like that. I was gonna make a snarky remark about I don't know. I don't know.

02:05:44

We'll leave. Yeah, we probably later might have to edit that. But yeah,

02:05:49

PG Yeah, yeah. And Jay didn't call you Josh. I know I was like, call times and his name's

02:05:56

Jason. You know, when somebody calls you the wrong name, you think? Yeah. Are we friends?

02:06:01

Are we? Are we? You know, like, No. Have I known you since we were 16? Just 15? What was it?

02:06:06

I don't just the same. Just the same one personality with a DD. Sorry. Half the time. I don't even know there's other people in the room.

02:06:13

I get that. I call my wife Carol. Oh, dear. If I say Carol, she'll stop and look at me goes, what is that?

02:06:21

Oh, you know, because she's in trouble or what? She's CJ. She's my baby. We right. I mean, all these other names for Carol, right?

02:06:29

Yeah, he'd be something she'd sign on a check. That's we don't use those words. It's funny because my with my grandparents growing up, they would call each other mother and father.

02:06:41

Oh, I said, Why? You know, what is it? And now, as a Hey, mama, what's going on? Because the kids call her mama, right?

02:06:49

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I'm doing exactly what my grant, you know, and she'll say, Hey, daddy, just because you got small kids.

02:06:55

It's just Oh, everything's mommy and daddy. Yeah, it's you know, that's in how you say it. Because I'll say Hey, mama. Yeah, right.

02:07:01

Yeah. Gotta watch out here while you're saying she knows the difference between those mamas.

02:07:10

But you are married, though. So that's absolutely right. You know, a husband and wife are supposed to enjoy the confines of marriage.

02:07:16

I'll tell you what, when you were talking about your wife, I feel the same way. And I know you feel the same way about Mandy. I mean, the

02:07:22

Lord just blessed me with a wise, wise, wise woman. I always tell people, I'm the head of the family.

02:07:28

But guess what? The neck turns the head. She's definitely the neck of the family because she told me.

02:07:36

But it's Yeah, no, it's it's isn't it a blessing to have a woman of God as your wife?

02:07:42

And I know we all three are blessed with that. I tell people all the time. Anytime I get off on a tangent on something

02:07:48

I want to do. She just goes, All right. Yeah, that's fine. Just pray about it and ask God about it then because you're the you know, and that in that submission, there is power.

02:07:56

Because now she's saying, Okay, if we're going to go with what you want, just submit it before the

02:08:01

Lord for in every time she gets me because look at I'm not going to go to the Lord with what I want. She knows

02:08:07

I'm gonna come back and go Yeah, you're right. That was just something I wanted to do. You know, so I can't pull a fast one on her.

02:08:13

She outsmarts me with wisdom and discernment all the time. But PJ Jason, it was so great for you guys to sit down and talk to us so much wisdom that you brought to us tonight.

02:08:23

PJ really appreciate it. And guys, for those listening, feel free to check him out online and all the places he mentioned.

02:08:31

And if you want listen, if you're listening to us on Apple or Spotify or iHeart, make sure you leave us a comment.

02:08:37

Leave us five stars. It always helps on those platforms as well. So once again, thanks for listening and we will see you around.

02:08:44

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. I didn't get my podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at dead men walking podcast at gmail .com.

02:08:56

Well, we'll be editing forgot that it still records in the studio.

02:09:05

No, I'm actually getting pretty good at it. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, after you do it for a while.

02:09:11

Yeah. And then I got the programmer will just take out all the ums and sighs. Oh, that's cool. That's a I know nothing.

02:09:19

Right, right. I just kind of I just kind of got into it.